Well we'll see. Even in a two chip package, Silverthorne, depending on the power management and idling features, might net out a better total watts/hour of use. Remember that it will accomplish most tasks much more quickly than a geode will and will probably be able to get back into sleep/idle sooner. Anyway, XO v2 might not be ready until the follow-on you mention - which should be the Moorestown platform .
I'll just call the Myth #3 wintel cartel a red herring. I thought MYTH#1 would be your red herring.:-) Seriously, why is 1) a red herring? I think it's quite fair to point out that Intel and Microsoft don't agree about Classmate, so the vaunted Wintel attack strategy is clearly not very cohesive. A really interesting story would be the schism between INTC and MSFT over the OS in Classmate.
As for why you think I'm saying that OLPC should have used a cpu that wasn't going to be available until 2008 - well, I didn't say that. I think I clearly said that Silverthorn is going to be the logical cpu for "XO v2". What part of version 2 don't you understand? Clearly OLPC had to choose Geode for XO v1 -they didn't have any good choices. So let's not confuse that with what they decide next time.
If you think the XO is so perfect that no evolution in design or improvement in available components could provide a reason to do a version 2... well, I'm not sure Nick Negroponte believes you. He certainly would not have solicited Intel's involvement in a project to help an AMD-based design would he?
1) MYTH: MSFT and Intel constitute the evil Wintel cartel. Fact: MSFT doesn't like Intel's Classmate PC - read the Wikipedia article on it and you'll notice that there are 3 supported OS (Mandriva Linux, Metasys 2.0, Windows XP). XP is poorly suited to the Classmate and some form of Linux would likely be the OS
2) MYTH: Intel hates OLPC. Intel is PART of the OLPC project (since summer 2007) - Microsoft is NOT. (The original poster doesn't even mention this) Perhaps this would imply that next gen XO unit will be Intel-based ( see this post for more on why )
3) MYTH: AMD Geode is superior technology. FACT: It's very lightweight, low power technology that AMD bought from National Semiconductor. It's not based on current technology. Intel is developing a whole generation of much lower power, but much faster processors - due partially to the magic of 45nm- in the Silverthorn cpus. coming in 2008. What's interesting about them is not so much the technical specs, but that the process technology lets the dies be so small that Intel will be able to put thousands of processors on a single wafer allowing Intel to make them very cheap and still get good margins for them. The whole target market for these cpus is phone/handhelds/MIDs and very basic systems that need x86 instruction set with sub-one-watt power consumption (and good performance). It is exactly what XO v2 should be built on.
Nothing from Intel can match this.
Almost wrong - just not just yet, but wait until mid 2008 Read my post on this. Do you think Intel joined the project (MSFT did NOT) just to help AMD integrate the XO v2?
Geode is a dead end.
As I said on./ on Fri July 13, OLPC is a project, not a product. Just because the current XO laptop is AMD Geode-based doesn't mean the next gen OLPC product won't be based on the 2008 (less than 1 watt) Intel
Silverthorn processors which would likely be the basis of XO v2 - which will be much faster with even lower power draw.
The Classmate is what it is. If a country wants it more than the XO and used some legitimate criteria for deciding, they have the right to do so. Intel certainly looked at what buyers found attractive about the XO in designing the Classmate - OLPC should look at what customers find attractive in the Classmate for XO v2.
Back in the early 80s, I thought I had the ideal solution to plutonium waste. There was only a few tons of it on earth - let's pack it up, put it in a booster stage which would be launched from the space shuttle in near earth orbit and, after a few months of slow travel would fall into the Sun where it would totally negligible. Do it every ten years or so - no waste problem. Space shuttles at that point, seemed like a damned reliable method.
Then the Challenger disaster happened. My first thought, after the lives of the crew, was to thank god nobody implemented the solar waste proposal. I'm not sure if a few tons of plutonium distributed into a cloud by the explosion at that altitude would have wiped out life on earth as we know it, but I'm sure the consequences would not have been good.
There is an old anecdote in the industry about a hard drive manufacturer which was in dire trouble financially (this was back when there WERE actually about 10 HD companies, so it will be harder for you to guess) and went a little to far to cover it up. The company had HD inventory on the books that a shrewd auditor thought had to be bogus but the company insisted "Oh, yeah we have it. Those trucks parked out by the shipping docks are full of drives." The enterprising auditor did not believe them and decided to open up a truck, then a few boxes and found the boxes were all full of bricks. Real masonary, red bricks. At that point, the financial slide got a lot faster and slipperyer.
...by permitting user-chosen surnames. I assume the portable aviatar will not be required to use one of the Linden Family surnames as all SL users must. This has always been the goofiest aspect of SL.
Poster said: Intel demonstrated a dual socket gaming rig at IDF this week, based on their Skulltrail platform with the X38 chipset. Skultrail is a dual socket chipset (probably a Greencreek follow-on) -which means it CAN'T be a X38 which is a single socket chipset. What was seen at IDF was TWO systems - one dual socket and one single. Also... for those who think these won't come to market... The X38 is a planned commercial chipset and what everyone has been calling a V8 is basically a dual quad core DP workstation platform which has been available since last November. The Penryn gen version is just a newer version of the same thing. Eight Intel cores in one box is old news, what's new is the perf on the Penryn 45nm parts.
Based on this, over the next 5 years, AMD should be expecting anyone who reads "independent" reviews of their technology to suspect that the author may have signed an approval agreement. Since the reading public has no idea which journalists may be forced to have their content vetted by AMD, we are forced to assume that (potentially) ANY review has been whitewashed by AMD. The only way, it seems to me, for journalists to clearly show that they have definately NOT had AMD pre-review their content is for them to be overly critical to show their independence. Does AMD really want tech writers to go at all AMD product discussions with an aggressive tilt? Surely this is counter-productive to AMD...
There seems to be a conspritorial thread running though alot of these comments which seems to assume that Intel already HAS 45nm processing up and running in volume and is deliberately holding it back just to make AMD looks bad. This is ridiculous for several reasons:
1) If Intel could produce volume 45nm right now it would - better chips, cheaper to make, higher performance, higher margin on the best ones - why would they hold back? 2) Even if Intel just cared about humiliating AMD, it would do it much more thoughly if Intel could bring out the 45nm stuff BEFORE Barcelona even ships. Believe me, if Intel could do that, it would. 3) Anyone who has any idea what's going on in the industry knows Intel is putting massive effort behind getting out the 45nm technology as soon as possible. There is NO financial upside in living with older process technology any longer than you have to. (Unless you're AMD and you don't have the latest process technology and have to bring out your flagship quad core on old 65nm process)
So, in summary, 45nm stuff may well give Barcelona a run for it's money, but there's no way Intel is holding it back for dramatic effect.
The comment about the lack of a cover up was sarcasm. I would have expected someone senior to hide what happened the moment they realized what a horrible lack of preparedness this exposed. Instead, the incredible details came out, meaning that no one thought this was a grotesquely abnormal failure that should never have happened, but (I can only surmise) it was merely perceived to be unavoidable bad luck. The senior management should be fired not just because they were badly prepared, but because they don't seem to have realized they screwed up.
'Intelligent Design' is not because it does not make any scientifically provable assertions, it consists only of criticisms about Evolution motivated by a belief that religious scripture is sufficient explanation for the origin of human beings. You have every right to believe this, but why do you expect this to be taught as science in schools?"
...for not firing the networking manager. The fact that they were NOT terrified that this news would get out and were too stupid to cover it up indicates he/she and their subordinates SIMPLY DON'T KNOW THEY DID ANYTHING WRONG by not putting in a sufficently montiored switch architecture which would rapidly alert IT staff and lock out the offending node. Simply amazing. Will someone in the press publish the names of these losers so they can be blacklisted?
When some Novell MBA realizes suing Linux distros.
on
SCO Loses
·
· Score: 1
... for code infringement would net much more money than selling SuSe licenses we'll be back to square one with a company that CLEARLY does own UNIX. Novell has got access to both sources and smart people to build a case. So start worrying about a SCO-like suit against everybody that has any money in Linux (eg RedHat) from a much more credible attacker. I'm going to be sorry to see it happen. (Only half kidding here, see if this doesn't occur...)
One for the network drive One for the copy on local disk One for the clip currently in memory One for the frames currently in the processor cache One for the image being processed in processor registers right now...
... even in the simple add/remove programs option under the application pull-down. Just select all packages (not just "supported Ubuntu") and search for Codecs and you'll have the option of quickly installing codecs that let all the major file formats work with media players. Beleive me, it can get A LOT more complicated trying to get some codecs installed in Windows.
... what you're counting is available solutions, not actual different OSes. As we move to more specialized Live CDs emerge we'll shift from having only OS-ready-to-have-apps-added to apps which essentially carry their own optimized OS around with them as part of the install. By the traditional nomenclature, I expect to see 1000s of "distros" soon
The current device that the OLPC has created is neither the last nor possibly the only unit that the project might support. If you look at roadmaps, esp since Intel is 18 months ahead of AMD on manufacturing process technology, it will have much more powerful cpus than the dated old National Semi Geode technology that AMD bought - in a similar or lower power profile. Check out Silverthorne to see what's coming. Negroponte was probably right to use Geode when the the first OLPC unit was designed, but looking into the future, Intel cpus will make much more sense for this. In any case, there's no reason Intel can't create a different model for other markets, but with full embrace of OLPC by Intel, the project is actually much more viable.
Actually, did I understand you to say that AMD should only have compared processors which were available in April? I guess that means you can't compare processors which still aren't available in July either and there would be NO Barcelonas in the comparison at all.
...or do you want AMD Quad Barcelona (maybe with less or no bugs) Well, statistically, all other things being equal (which I'm sure you would not agree they are) it's much more likely that a new processor like Barcelona, which is in it's early steppings will have more errata than a processor architecture that has been shipping for a year and has gone through several steppings. Be careful of the comparisons you ask for.
Slashdot Mirror
Well we'll see. Even in a two chip package, Silverthorne, depending on the power management and idling features, might net out a better total watts/hour of use. Remember that it will accomplish most tasks much more quickly than a geode will and will probably be able to get back into sleep/idle sooner.
Anyway, XO v2 might not be ready until the follow-on you mention - which should be the Moorestown platform .
I'll just call the Myth #3 wintel cartel a red herring. I thought MYTH#1 would be your red herring. :-) Seriously, why is 1) a red herring? I think it's quite fair to point out that Intel and Microsoft don't agree about Classmate, so the vaunted Wintel attack strategy is clearly not very cohesive. A really interesting story would be the schism between INTC and MSFT over the OS in Classmate.
As for why you think I'm saying that OLPC should have used a cpu that wasn't going to be available until 2008 - well, I didn't say that.
I think I clearly said that Silverthorn is going to be the logical cpu for "XO v2". What part of version 2 don't you understand? Clearly OLPC had to choose Geode for XO v1 -they didn't have any good choices. So let's not confuse that with what they decide next time.
If you think the XO is so perfect that no evolution in design or improvement in available components could provide a reason to do a version 2... well, I'm not sure Nick Negroponte believes you. He certainly would not have solicited Intel's involvement in a project to help an AMD-based design would he?
1) MYTH: MSFT and Intel constitute the evil Wintel cartel. Fact: MSFT doesn't like Intel's Classmate PC - read the Wikipedia article on it and you'll notice that there are 3 supported OS (Mandriva Linux, Metasys 2.0, Windows XP). XP is poorly suited to the Classmate and some form of Linux would likely be the OS
2) MYTH: Intel hates OLPC. Intel is PART of the OLPC project (since summer 2007) - Microsoft is NOT. (The original poster doesn't even mention this) Perhaps this would imply that next gen XO unit will be Intel-based ( see this post for more on why )
3) MYTH: AMD Geode is superior technology. FACT: It's very lightweight, low power technology that AMD bought from National Semiconductor. It's not based on current technology. Intel is developing a whole generation of much lower power, but much faster processors - due partially to the magic of 45nm- in the Silverthorn cpus. coming in 2008. What's interesting about them is not so much the technical specs, but that the process technology lets the dies be so small that Intel will be able to put thousands of processors on a single wafer allowing Intel to make them very cheap and still get good margins for them. The whole target market for these cpus is phone/handhelds/MIDs and very basic systems that need x86 instruction set with sub-one-watt power consumption (and good performance). It is exactly what XO v2 should be built on.
Nothing from Intel can match this. Almost wrong - just not just yet, but wait until mid 2008 Read my post on this. Do you think Intel joined the project (MSFT did NOT) just to help AMD integrate the XO v2? Geode is a dead end.
As I said on ./ on Fri July 13, OLPC is a project, not a product. Just because the current XO laptop is AMD Geode-based doesn't mean the next gen OLPC product won't be based on the 2008 (less than 1 watt) Intel
Silverthorn processors which would likely be the basis of XO v2 - which will be much faster with even lower power draw.
The Classmate is what it is. If a country wants it more than the XO and used some legitimate criteria for deciding, they have the right to do so. Intel certainly looked at what buyers found attractive about the XO in designing the Classmate - OLPC should look at what customers find attractive in the Classmate for XO v2.
Back in the early 80s, I thought I had the ideal solution to plutonium waste. There was only a few tons of it on earth - let's pack it up, put it in a booster stage which would be launched from the space shuttle in near earth orbit and, after a few months of slow travel would fall into the Sun where it would totally negligible. Do it every ten years or so - no waste problem. Space shuttles at that point, seemed like a damned reliable method.
Then the Challenger disaster happened. My first thought, after the lives of the crew, was to thank god nobody implemented the solar waste proposal. I'm not sure if a few tons of plutonium distributed into a cloud by the explosion at that altitude would have wiped out life on earth as we know it, but I'm sure the consequences would not have been good.
Glad to be wrong.
There is an old anecdote in the industry about a hard drive manufacturer which was in dire trouble financially (this was back when there WERE actually about 10 HD companies, so it will be harder for you to guess) and went a little to far to cover it up.
The company had HD inventory on the books that a shrewd auditor thought had to be bogus but the company insisted "Oh, yeah we have it. Those trucks parked out by the shipping docks are full of drives." The enterprising auditor did not believe them and decided to open up a truck, then a few boxes and found the boxes were all full of bricks. Real masonary, red bricks.
At that point, the financial slide got a lot faster and slipperyer.
...by permitting user-chosen surnames. I assume the portable aviatar will not be required to use one of the Linden Family surnames as all SL users must. This has always been the goofiest aspect of SL.
Poster said: Intel demonstrated a dual socket gaming rig at IDF this week, based on their Skulltrail platform with the X38 chipset.
Skultrail is a dual socket chipset (probably a Greencreek follow-on) -which means it CAN'T be a X38 which is a single socket chipset.
What was seen at IDF was TWO systems - one dual socket and one single.
Also... for those who think these won't come to market... The X38 is a planned commercial chipset and what everyone has been calling a V8 is basically a dual quad core DP workstation platform which has been available since last November. The Penryn gen version is just a newer version of the same thing.
Eight Intel cores in one box is old news, what's new is the perf on the Penryn 45nm parts.
...just about the time Intel Terascale makes it superfluous.
Based on this, over the next 5 years, AMD should be expecting anyone who reads "independent" reviews of their technology to suspect that the author may have signed an approval agreement. Since the reading public has no idea which journalists may be forced to have their content vetted by AMD, we are forced to assume that (potentially) ANY review has been whitewashed by AMD. The only way, it seems to me, for journalists to clearly show that they have definately NOT had AMD pre-review their content is for them to be overly critical to show their independence.
Does AMD really want tech writers to go at all AMD product discussions with an aggressive tilt? Surely this is counter-productive to AMD...
There seems to be a conspritorial thread running though alot of these comments which seems to assume that Intel already HAS 45nm processing up and running in volume and is deliberately holding it back just to make AMD looks bad. This is ridiculous for several reasons:
1) If Intel could produce volume 45nm right now it would - better chips, cheaper to make, higher performance, higher margin on the best ones - why would they hold back?
2) Even if Intel just cared about humiliating AMD, it would do it much more thoughly if Intel could bring out the 45nm stuff BEFORE Barcelona even ships. Believe me, if Intel could do that, it would.
3) Anyone who has any idea what's going on in the industry knows Intel is putting massive effort behind getting out the 45nm technology as soon as possible. There is NO financial upside in living with older process technology any longer than you have to. (Unless you're AMD and you don't have the latest process technology and have to bring out your flagship quad core on old 65nm process)
So, in summary, 45nm stuff may well give Barcelona a run for it's money, but there's no way Intel is holding it back for dramatic effect.
The comment about the lack of a cover up was sarcasm. I would have expected someone senior to hide what happened the moment they realized what a horrible lack of preparedness this exposed. Instead, the incredible details came out, meaning that no one thought this was a grotesquely abnormal failure that should never have happened, but (I can only surmise) it was merely perceived to be unavoidable bad luck.
The senior management should be fired not just because they were badly prepared, but because they don't seem to have realized they screwed up.
'Intelligent Design' is not because it does not make any scientifically provable assertions, it consists only of criticisms about Evolution motivated by a belief that religious scripture is sufficient explanation for the origin of human beings. You have every right to believe this, but why do you expect this to be taught as science in schools?"
...for not firing the networking manager. The fact that they were NOT terrified that this news would get out and were too stupid to cover it up indicates he/she and their subordinates SIMPLY DON'T KNOW THEY DID ANYTHING WRONG by not putting in a sufficently montiored switch architecture which would rapidly alert IT staff and lock out the offending node.
Simply amazing. Will someone in the press publish the names of these losers so they can be blacklisted?
This is Here
... for code infringement would net much more money than selling SuSe licenses we'll be back to square one with a company that CLEARLY does own UNIX.
Novell has got access to both sources and smart people to build a case. So start worrying about a SCO-like suit against everybody that has any money in Linux (eg RedHat) from a much more credible attacker.
I'm going to be sorry to see it happen.
(Only half kidding here, see if this doesn't occur...)
One for the network drive ...
One for the copy on local disk
One for the clip currently in memory
One for the frames currently in the processor cache
One for the image being processed in processor registers right now
... even in the simple add/remove programs option under the application pull-down. Just select all packages (not just "supported Ubuntu") and search for Codecs and you'll have the option of quickly installing codecs that let all the major file formats work with media players.
Beleive me, it can get A LOT more complicated trying to get some codecs installed in Windows.
... what you're counting is available solutions, not actual different OSes. As we move to more specialized Live CDs emerge we'll shift from having only OS-ready-to-have-apps-added to apps which essentially carry their own optimized OS around with them as part of the install.
By the traditional nomenclature, I expect to see 1000s of "distros" soon
...for my PC. THAT'S what I'm waiting for. RO media is so passe.
The current device that the OLPC has created is neither the last nor possibly the only unit that the project might support. If you look at roadmaps, esp since Intel is 18 months ahead of AMD on manufacturing process technology, it will have much more powerful cpus than the dated old National Semi Geode technology that AMD bought - in a similar or lower power profile. Check out Silverthorne to see what's coming.
Negroponte was probably right to use Geode when the the first OLPC unit was designed, but looking into the future, Intel cpus will make much more sense for this.
In any case, there's no reason Intel can't create a different model for other markets, but with full embrace of OLPC by Intel, the project is actually much more viable.
Actually, did I understand you to say that AMD should only have compared processors which were available in April? I guess that means you can't compare processors which still aren't available in July either and there would be NO Barcelonas in the comparison at all.
And, of course the numbers for the AMD processor (which has not been released then or now) were just as unreal in April as they are today.
...or do you want AMD Quad Barcelona (maybe with less or no bugs)
Well, statistically, all other things being equal (which I'm sure you would not agree they are) it's much more likely that a new processor like Barcelona, which is in it's early steppings will have more errata than a processor architecture that has been shipping for a year and has gone through several steppings. Be careful of the comparisons you ask for.