Slashdot Mirror
Released: First PC Based On Russia's Homegrown "Baikal" Processor (t-platforms.ru)
WheatGrass writes to note that the company T-Platforms has introduced the first mass production unit based upon the Russian Baikal-T1 processor, mentioned here last in 2014. The new Baikal-based workstation is called the "Meadowsweet terminal," according to T-Platform's official website; the feature list says it's running a Debian-based Linux distro. "Congratulations, Russia," Says WheatGrass.
(According to Google's translation of this Russian-language story at RG.RU Digital,
"[Y]ou can install many conventional applications, such as the LibreOffice office suite, Firefox web browser, and so on, the developers say," but the main use seems to be as a thin client.)
10 years ago you would've been pointing out how great it is that Linux works on it, but Windows never would. Now it's, "ah, your processor sucks".
I mean, if you're going to make fun of something, how about that they're putting this in a computer with a PS/2 connector (no doubt there are many that still use this, mostly because the Russian economy is a wasteland, no thanks to western sanctions).
They built it to be used in government offices and companies. There is a suspicion in those parts that western CPUs are programmed on low level to record the information and send it periodically to a central server.
It's also unclear where, or even if, you can buy the thing (having CPU from Soviet Russia, or at least Putinstan, would be cool :-). So it seems like a different version of something like the Ci20 Creator, which has been around for awhile.
The only interesting feature is that it can actually be built on fabs located in Russia. Mostly for military and highly-sensitive government customers as it's not even remotely cost-effective. On the other hand, it's also likely to NOT have NSA backdoors.
The only interesting feature is that it can actually be built on fabs located in Russia. Mostly for military and highly-sensitive government customers as it's not even remotely cost-effective. On the other hand, it's also likely to NOT have NSA backdoors.
Well, that means that Russian companies could be willing to pay a lot for them. While their own government will be snooping in they won't hand the information over the overseas competition.
It also means that US consumers might be interested too. While the Russian government might be snooping on them Russian is not likely to hand over the information to anyone who is interested in what you do in your home.
Yes, it has come to the point where enemies of my government benefits more from protecting my freedom than my government does.
Well, Putin is much, but he ain't dumb. And neither are many of the people who move things about in that country. I spent quite a bit of time dealing with people in Russia and it's like they said in Red October, the average Russian doesn't even take a dump without a plan.
Unless Vodka is involved, but let's assume such things are decided with a level head.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Shebang is under Linux management. Can have LibreOffice + FireFox + many other programs. It can act as thin client. It's compatible with some GOST standards of encryption(similar standard to ISO in EU) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... It has capability of connecting specific Russia manufactured USB devices used for encryption. It has 2 ethernet ports, 21,5' Display, 2-8 Gigs of RAM, 4 USB2.0 ports, has opportunity to connect SSD and memory cards(card reader I guess),
USB: complex interface requiring a software stack on both the host and the device.
PS/2: simple interface, reliable, a few rows of code is all that's needed to interface to the keyboard. The device in turn need very little extra code over the scanning logic.
When it comes to keyboards and mice the PS/2 interface is generally superior, the reason USB keyboards/mice are used nowadays is that USB is the standard interface.
TL;DR in almost all cases PS/2 is superior to USB for keyboard/mouse interfacing.
I don't know what the motivation for a homegrown CPU was, but if the goal was to build something secure with no foreign backdoors then using a foreign foundry defeats that.