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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. Re:Is this the same Cell processor used in the PS3 by Spazntwich · · Score: 5, Funny

    No. In our insanely litigious society, a company has graciously allowed another to create and market a different processor by the same exact name.

  2. Unproductive? by RManning · · Score: 5, Funny

    My favorite quote from TFA...

    ...in addition, the ILAR license states that "You are not authorized to use the Program for productive purposes" -- so make sure that your time spent with these downloads is as unproductive as possible.

  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?