Released: First PC Based On Russia's Homegrown "Baikal" Processor (t-platforms.ru)

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Released: First PC Based On Russia's Homegrown "Baikal" Processor (t-platforms.ru)

Posted by timothy on Friday February 26, 2016 @08:42PM from the shoot-reliably-even-in-rough-conditions dept.

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.)

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Russian? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-26 20:57 · Score: 3, Informative

It's a MIPS CPU, built by TSMC.
I assume there were some Russians involved in the design. But that's true of all major CPUs too.
1. Re:Russian? by Gravis+Zero · 2016-02-26 22:50 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Actually, I looked it up and Baikal Electronics purchased a license for the MIPS instruction set. From there, they implemented the instruction set on their own. It's not their first chip, so I assume the used their own I/O designs from other chips. It is a Russian chip. TSMC is just a foundry. Do you make a big deal about what kind of printer people use to print papers?
  
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  Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
2. Re:Russian? by slashping · 2016-02-27 02:30 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  If you give somebody a low level chip design, rather than the source code, it would be very hard for them to add a backdoor.
Low-end MIPS processor by AaronW · 2016-02-26 21:15 · Score: 4, Informative

It's basically a low-end MIPS 32-bit processor. You can basically get everything that's in the chip as off-the-shelf cores. MIPS is popular because it's quite a bit cheaper to license than ARM. I'm surprised they didn't go with a 64-bit MIPS core since it's been available for a very long time.
Once nice thing about MIPS is that it's very easy to add your own instructions to it via coprocessor 2. My employer has used COP2 to add a lot of encryption and hashing instructions to their MIPS cores. ARM does not allow you to add your own instructions. The only thing that's mildly interesting is the 10G Ethernet support, but then that will be limited by the 32-bit MIPS. I'm not sure if it's a cache-coherent core but my guess is that it's not, which adds significant overhead in my experience since every buffer must be invalidated when it's received and flushed when transmitted. In MIPS this is done by issuing CACHE instructions for every cache line used in the buffer.
Since it lacks a decent sized L2 cache the performance is going to suck.

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1. Re:Low-end MIPS processor by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-26 21:24 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  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).
2. Re:Low-end MIPS processor by Cyberax · 2016-02-26 22:04 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
3. Re:Low-end MIPS processor by Anonymous Coward · 2016-02-26 22:27 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  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.
4. Re:Low-end MIPS processor by Megol · 2016-02-26 23:32 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
First step is the hardest by Max_W · 2016-02-26 21:33 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.
1. Re:First step is the hardest by jouassou · 2016-02-26 23:44 · Score: 2
  
  Are you thinking about the Active Management Technology?
2. Re:First step is the hardest by F.Ultra · 2016-02-27 03:12 · Score: 2
  
  I think that you vastly underestimate the complexity of protecting a network for a full scale targeted attack by some one as NSA with all their resources. For one thing they would hardly use the regular network for this at all.
Speaking of Russian computers by atomlib · 2016-02-26 21:54 · Score: 2

Here is detailed review of another one— Elbrus 401-PC. It's completely in Russian but I think Google Translate can help. It includes hardware and software reviews as well as overview of developer tools and benchmarks. https://geektimes.ru/post/2703... https://geektimes.ru/post/2703... https://geektimes.ru/post/2703... https://geektimes.ru/post/2703...
This is ... not so good news by Opportunist · 2016-02-26 22:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

Yes, it's probably a dated design and all, and bluntly I don't care about the chip itself. I wonder WHY.
Why is Russia making its own chips when computer chips are cheap and plentiful? It's way cheaper to simply buy a few. Why bother rolling your own? Well, there are exactly two reason why I would make my own hardware. One, I don't trust the existing manufacturers to not include backdoors and kill switches. This is what I hope the reason for doing it is.
Two, because they may not be available anymore when the country they're made in is no longer friendly to mine. This is what I kinda fear the reason could be.
We're not going to head for war, but I could see the international climate getting frostier in the near future.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1. Re:This is ... not so good news by Opportunist · 2016-02-26 22:57 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
  
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  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
2. Re:This is ... not so good news by aliquis · 2016-02-26 23:19 · Score: 2
  
  Why is Russia making its own chips when computer chips are cheap and plentiful?
  To remain sovereign and not ruled by someone else.
  See the United states, the EU, UN, see TTIP.
  Why did the US wanted to have their own oil production? Same thing.
  I've got the impression that in my home country we can't rely on food from out own country, that may work just fine for now but not necessarily always.
Re:rofl by fisted · 2016-02-26 22:56 · Score: 2

chips from USA, chips from Russia....it's all made in Taiwan!

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native speaker here... by dimko · 2016-02-26 23:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

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),
Congratulations! by jouassou · 2016-02-26 23:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

I hope that they succeed. More competition in the CPU market is a good thing, and getting some international competitors based outside of the US/UK is also great.
1. Re:Congratulations! by F.Ultra · 2016-02-27 03:13 · Score: 2
  
  you have to start somewhere. The US didn't start the space race with Soviet by landing on the moon.
Re:I certainly hope it is.... by FilatovEV · 2016-02-27 01:22 · Score: 2

Although both products share the same name, they are produced by entirely different companies. You are certainly aware that Baikal is the name of a lake in Russia, aren't you?