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IBM Releases Cell SDK

Posted by Zonk on from the toys-while-waiting-for-the-next-gen-consoles dept.

derek_farn writes "IBM has released an SDK running under Fedora core 4 for the Cell Broadband Engine (CBE) Processor. The software includes many gnu tools, but the underlying compiler does not appear to be gnu based. For those keen to start running programs before they get their hands on actual hardware a full system simulator is available. The minimum system requirement specification has obviously not been written by the marketing department: 'Processor - x86 or x86-64; anything under 2GHz or so will be slow to the point of being unusable.'"

3 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Source for actual chips? by mustafap · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thats great news, but as an embedded systems designer and eternal tinkerer, where will I be able to buy a handfull of these processors to experiment with? Without having to dismantle loads of games machines ;o)

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  2. What about a PPC SDK and simulator? by kuwan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As the Cell is basically a PPC processor I find it strange that the SDK is for x86 processors. Fedora Core 4 (PowerPC), also known as ppc-fc4-rpms-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm is listed as one of the files you need to download. Maybe it's just because of the large installed base of x86 machines.

    It'd be nice if IBM released a PPC SDK for Fedora, it would have the potential to run much faster than an x86 SDK and simulator.

    --
    infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
  3. GNU toolchain by lisaparratt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The software includes many gnu tools, but the underlying compiler does not appear to be gnu based.

    Is this any surprise? My understanding was the Cell's a vector process, and despite the recent upgrades to GCC, it's still fairly awful at autovectorisation.

    Can anyone clarify?