I think it is pretty telling that someone who has a lot of technical expertise has the same problems that a lot of us have had with desktop Linux. The problem is real, folks.
It is a real fact that Linux needs to get better... and it is a real fact that Linux is already damn good... and it is a real fact fact that Jamie Zawinski is a whining quitter with a mouth that is bigger than his contributions. No news to see here.
What the hell did you use the 2 USB ports on the PS2 for exactly? To print things out? Oh yeah there were only like two or three printers that worked and maybe one game.
You seem to have missed the significance of Sony supplying Linux with the machine. As far as I can see, the PS3 is turning out to be a stylish, functional and inexpensive workstation, never mind game machine.
This announcement makes me wonder if Sony is positioning ps3 as a general purpose pc replacement
It is now clear that Sony is looking to make the mythical media center PC a reality. Opening the OS means Sony is likely to succeed where Microsoft has so far failed. I hope Sony pays a lot of attention to keeping the fan noise down.
Personally, I think it would be a mistake that they not include an HDD with the console, but considering the rumoured cost of the PS3, it is probably doubtful that it will include one at launch.
According to Sony the PS3 will have a 2.5 inch removable hard disk, 6 USB2 ports and gigabit ethernet. Yummy enough?
First, Flash is not a standard, and second, even if it was it would be one of the worst. Not the least of the problems is no cut and paste. Have you had to endure the frustration of a flash-based hotel site where the name of the hotel is part of the flash animation, or worse, the telephone number?
If you REALLY want to make a statement fellow/.er immediately cancel your Sys-Con subscriptions.
I tried for a period of a several years to get one of my email addresses off a Sys-Con Linux-related spam list. The url provided for unsubscription simply did not work, and I now believe that was unintentional. The Sys Con spams are now procmailed.
Perhaps it would be interesting if a version was sold that included common pattern matching algorithms (like BLAST for genomics, or maybe geometry or facial extraction from video feeds?).
The card is hackable and will come with full specs and documentation to help you hack it. Go ahead and code your own pattern matcher in Verilog or VHDL!
Is there nothing that could be added to help the home PVR market?
There are a bunch of features already in the design to support PVR/video playback applications, particularly two-way hardware YUV conversion and TV out.
That's like trying to build an open-source car. Yeah it'll work, but you don't benefit from billions of R&D investment like the other big names have
So true, and of course, Linus Torvalds never had any chance of turning his little terminal emulator into history's most important operating system, did he?
The market for this card is geeks, hackers and open source die hards.
Right. And enthusiasts in general, and people who just like to support noble causes of any description. Never mind that the card is designed to be a really _solid_ performer in terms of analog ciruitry and many other details. After all, this is a labour of love.
Most testing boards have pinouts for expansion cards. You can then manufacture whatever you need using a service like Pad2Pad (mentioned in my previous post).
This GPU will indeed have a bunch of general purpose, unallocated pinouts, which you can play with to your heart's content. Maybe as many as 100.
"I'd consider a $200 donation towards development of a Free 3D card well worth the investment."
Or, instead of donations they could make it an actual investment opportunity. Since I know I'm going to buy one of these cards when they come to market and pretty sure others will too, I'd be willing to speculate a $1000 or two.
Interesting. Why don't you join the mailing list and offer your opinion there?
The first and best plan though, is to fund the project via pre-orders: you comit to buying the card when delivered as specced. You and 2,000-5,000 enthusiasts like you. The project can then leverage those promises in order to get production financing.
If these guys play their cards right--especially if they can put out a few thousand GPU chips and get the ball rolling for others to jump on board it could revolutionise the industry and level the playing field for Linux and others on the desktop
Right on. And I think you maybe even missed the most important point: this GPU is actually a general purpose FPGA development platform with full specs that you will be able to hack on to your heart's content, perhaps for projects totally unrelated to 3D graphics.
For example, think about a sound synthesizer with... how many oscillator equivalents? How many filters? It boggles the mind. At least, it boggles my mind.
I've noticed a PDF they have on their site that has the specs. Apparently, they are using a Spartan 3 2000. The rest of their specs suggest a relatively simple GPU for the time being, so they should have no trouble fitting into the chip they chose.
The targetted OpenGL 1.3 fixed function pipeline is actually quite tight on the 3S2000, and requires compromises that will slow things down somewhat for certain filtering modes. The 3S4000 on the other hand has enough oomph to keep the pipeline running at the nominal 400 MPixel/sec rate all the time, with GPU memory bandwidth then becoming the bottleneck.
With power requirements quintupling that of a standard desktop computer, I'd probably have to use it at my local coffee shop, or only turn it on briefly to scare away song birds.
The 12 node version uses a 250 watt power supply, which runs 12 disks and 24 GB of memory too.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it is pretty telling that someone who has a lot of technical expertise has the same problems that a lot of us have had with desktop Linux. The problem is real, folks.
It is a real fact that Linux needs to get better... and it is a real fact that Linux is already damn good... and it is a real fact fact that Jamie Zawinski is a whining quitter with a mouth that is bigger than his contributions. No news to see here.
"Did you even read the article you linked? Did you notice it offers practically no details?"
To who? It spells things out prefectly clearly to me. Somebody is going to have to write some low-level code, boo hoo. I take it you don't hack much.
What the hell did you use the 2 USB ports on the PS2 for exactly? To print things out? Oh yeah there were only like two or three printers that worked and maybe one game.
You seem to have missed the significance of Sony supplying Linux with the machine. As far as I can see, the PS3 is turning out to be a stylish, functional and inexpensive workstation, never mind game machine.
Astroturf much? Do you even understand the Cell's design enough to realize what a PITA it's going to be to develop for?
It looks like fun to me.
(I presume that you astroturf much. How's the weather in Redmond?)
This announcement makes me wonder if Sony is positioning ps3 as a general purpose pc replacement
It is now clear that Sony is looking to make the mythical media center PC a reality. Opening the OS means Sony is likely to succeed where Microsoft has so far failed. I hope Sony pays a lot of attention to keeping the fan noise down.
Why not buy both?
Only if they both run Linux natively.
Personally, I think it would be a mistake that they not include an HDD with the console, but considering the rumoured cost of the PS3, it is probably doubtful that it will include one at launch.
According to Sony the PS3 will have a 2.5 inch removable hard disk, 6 USB2 ports and gigabit ethernet. Yummy enough?
"Question 3: Where the heck is AMD?"
They have the same exact supply issues as apple
How so?
Flash is a standard, just because its not ratified by an independant body doesnt mean it isnt a standard.
Excuse me, but that is exactly what it means. Have fun inventing your own version of the English language.
Flash is as bad as any other standard
First, Flash is not a standard, and second, even if it was it would be one of the worst. Not the least of the problems is no cut and paste. Have you had to endure the frustration of a flash-based hotel site where the name of the hotel is part of the flash animation, or worse, the telephone number?
The point, of course, is that there are lots of niche areas that aren't worth Macromedia's time.
The problem is not with Macromedia, the problem is relying on closed source software for basic infrastructure.
If you REALLY want to make a statement fellow /.er immediately cancel your Sys-Con subscriptions.
I tried for a period of a several years to get one of my email addresses off a Sys-Con Linux-related spam list. The url provided for unsubscription simply did not work, and I now believe that was unintentional. The Sys Con spams are now procmailed.
If you read the mail list archives, it seems unlikely they will release their verilog code.
The situation has changed now that Tech Source is out of the picture.
Perhaps it would be interesting if a version was sold that included common pattern matching algorithms (like BLAST for genomics, or maybe geometry or facial extraction from video feeds?).
The card is hackable and will come with full specs and documentation to help you hack it. Go ahead and code your own pattern matcher in Verilog or VHDL!
Is there nothing that could be added to help the home PVR market?
There are a bunch of features already in the design to support PVR/video playback applications, particularly two-way hardware YUV conversion and TV out.
That's like trying to build an open-source car. Yeah it'll work, but you don't benefit from billions of R&D investment like the other big names have
So true, and of course, Linus Torvalds never had any chance of turning his little terminal emulator into history's most important operating system, did he?
The market for this card is geeks, hackers and open source die hards.
Right. And enthusiasts in general, and people who just like to support noble causes of any description. Never mind that the card is designed to be a really _solid_ performer in terms of analog ciruitry and many other details. After all, this is a labour of love.
I am not involved with the project, but I would like to offer counterpoints.
:-)
But the project would be pleased to welcome you, and fortunate if you decided to join
Don't be sad. It means the project can now be fully free. This is a
- good
thing.Most testing boards have pinouts for expansion cards. You can then manufacture whatever you need using a service like Pad2Pad (mentioned in my previous post).
This GPU will indeed have a bunch of general purpose, unallocated pinouts, which you can play with to your heart's content. Maybe as many as 100.
"I'd consider a $200 donation towards development of a Free 3D card well worth the investment."
Or, instead of donations they could make it an actual investment opportunity. Since I know I'm going to buy one of these cards when they come to market and pretty sure others will too, I'd be willing to speculate a $1000 or two.
Interesting. Why don't you join the mailing list and offer your opinion there?
The first and best plan though, is to fund the project via pre-orders: you comit to buying the card when delivered as specced. You and 2,000-5,000 enthusiasts like you. The project can then leverage those promises in order to get production financing.
If these guys play their cards right--especially if they can put out a few thousand GPU chips and get the ball rolling for others to jump on board it could revolutionise the industry and level the playing field for Linux and others on the desktop
Right on. And I think you maybe even missed the most important point: this GPU is actually a general purpose FPGA development platform with full specs that you will be able to hack on to your heart's content, perhaps for projects totally unrelated to 3D graphics.
For example, think about a sound synthesizer with... how many oscillator equivalents? How many filters? It boggles the mind. At least, it boggles my mind.
I've noticed a PDF they have on their site that has the specs. Apparently, they are using a Spartan 3 2000. The rest of their specs suggest a relatively simple GPU for the time being, so they should have no trouble fitting into the chip they chose.
The targetted OpenGL 1.3 fixed function pipeline is actually quite tight on the 3S2000, and requires compromises that will slow things down somewhat for certain filtering modes. The 3S4000 on the other hand has enough oomph to keep the pipeline running at the nominal 400 MPixel/sec rate all the time, with GPU memory bandwidth then becoming the bottleneck.
You're quoting prices for very SMALL FPGAs. What makes you think we could fit something as complex as a GPU into a 3S200?
It won't be a 3S200, it will be a 3S2000 or 3S4000, depending on the price Xilinx manages to come up with.
Last I heard, they claimed a solid 250 GFLOP rating from the 9 core cell processor. So, a Playstation 3 should be able to beat this
Does the Playstation 3 have 24 GB of memory, 960 GB of disk and 10 GigE interconnect?
With power requirements quintupling that of a standard desktop computer, I'd probably have to use it at my local coffee shop, or only turn it on briefly to scare away song birds.
The 12 node version uses a 250 watt power supply, which runs 12 disks and 24 GB of memory too.