I can't say that I have much sympathy for the folks who would buy that platform, but in the end I think what matters most to them is that there is not going to be anything like CyanogenMod for it, because the IPR terms of the whole platform aren't compatible with that. Users are starting to realize the value of a non-manufacturer upgrade path.
I submit that the only reason we are seeing Intel processors as being close in either speed or power efficiency to other current architectures is because of the semiconductor process difference.
Intel is using smaller transistors than the CPUs they are being compared to. Sometimes much smaller - the transistor size is a square of the feature size of course, so what might seem half the size is actually 1/4.
Intel has its own, carefully optimized fab, while the other mobile manufacturers are buying the ARM architecture as software and using independent fabs for the most part.
So, Intel's competition with ARM in mobile is like running a doped horse in a race. Were we seeing all architectures on the same feature size, differences would be more apparent.
I didn't write the summary posted on Slashdot. My summary (it's probably still in the "firehose" section) was one line. The Slashdot editor just scraped the first few paragraphs of my article. You can tell the number of people who actually read my article by the discussion of PowerVR graphics. There isn't one.
Intel's competition with ARM right now is like a doped race-horse. They are hiding the problems of their architecture by using a semiconductor process half the size of the competition. Given equal FABs, we wouldn't see Intel as competitive.
Anything that's in a Debian release has already passed by these issues. That's a lot of disparate architectures. And that's 29K separate software packages.
None of today's "RISC" processors are what John Mashey was designing when RISC was introduced.
I agree (and wrote in the article) that ARM has complicated their own architecture, and that Atom uses a RISC-like processor and instruction translation. However, backward compatibility with all of the generations of x86 still increases the complexity of Atom quite a lot.
Thumb (ARM's 16-bit instruction set) is itself an instruction translator to the 32-bit opcodes, adding fixed or default operands for many of the instructions.
The SIMD instructions used by Intel, AMD, and ARM go back to Pixar's CHAP compositing hardware in the 80's.
That means potentially including royalties, and there is no real definition of what is "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory". In general the presence of royalties discriminates against Open Source completely.
The developers are adamant that the patents claimed by Qualcom and Huawei don't apply to their code. But at the moment, those two companies are claiming their patents could apply, and are asking for RAND terms with possible royalties.
I asked Qualcom if they'd consider changing their declaration to royalty-free. I don't know anyone at Huawei.
It's not really a spacecraft until it travels in space. What you are seeing is probably a mock-up of a spacecraft.
Let's be serious, folks. Sierra Nevada did a captive carry test, in which they took their model and dragged it around on a helicopter for a while. Blue Origin might not have gotten that far. Meanwhile SpaceX fully qualified their cargo solution, has a contract to carry real cargo, and is working on the manned version. So far, exactly one of the companies mentioned has a spacecraft.
I have written cache-aware memory allocators for image processing, and invented a buffer-overrun debugger that uses the paging system to do its work. I have written bit-slice microcode and thus consider assembly-language programmers to be a bit far from the real hardware.
I do a lot of work in Ruby, too. I notice that lots of Ruby gems contain C code. Someone competent is writing that.
Language fascists aren't generally as good at programming as they think. They'd understand where interpretive languages make sense, if they were.
This argument has gone back and forth for decades. The latest credible report I have on hand is this ESA one, which documents an incident with the Galileo satellite.
I see now that the 8g phone has an internal slot, but the supposedly nicer 32g one does not have any slot.
So, let's be real, they are marketing to less sophisticated users than us, ones that are not terribly likely to put a microSDHC card in any socket.
But unsophisticated users are going to buy Apple. Right now, Apple would feel much safer to an unsophisticated user than a new phone OS on a new phone genre from a troubled manufacturer.
8 GB storage is really small. I have 32 GB of just audio on a microSDHC card in my phone.
Defile, in this case, means "make useful for longer than the two years of the carrier subsidy". Nokia doesn't want to kill sales of their next phone with this one. Just like Apple.
Except that Apple will be here two years from now. We can't be that sure about Nokia.
I still have my n900. Gee, what could have been, if they hadn't been such cowards!
About 30 years ago, I saw a fireman demonstrate that he could thrust a burning blowtorch flame into gasoline quickly, and it would gutter out without setting it aflame.
The liquid part isn't what does the burning. It's the vapor.
This is a bit confused, I'm afraid. Diesel has a flash point of 100 to 200 Farenheit depending on the type of fuel, etc. If you get it that hot, or hotter, it can accumulate enough flammable vapor to burn.
In a Diesel engine, compression heats it, and it ignites. But compression is not the only way to ignite it.
Slashdot Mirror
I think I'll engage in a technical discussion with some other of the readers.
But you're obviously so incensed by my article, so offended, and so outraged, that it would be funnier if I just ignored you and let you steam.
My article isn't wrong about RISC vs. CISC. Actually, that argument was won about 20 years ago.
And it's unfortunate that many Android chips are a mess of hardware with undisclosed interfaces. But that doesn't in any way invalidate my argument.
I can't say that I have much sympathy for the folks who would buy that platform, but in the end I think what matters most to them is that there is not going to be anything like CyanogenMod for it, because the IPR terms of the whole platform aren't compatible with that. Users are starting to realize the value of a non-manufacturer upgrade path.
Think of it: an S/360 mobile processor!
Hi Kenorland,
I submit that the only reason we are seeing Intel processors as being close in either speed or power efficiency to other current architectures is because of the semiconductor process difference.
Intel is using smaller transistors than the CPUs they are being compared to. Sometimes much smaller - the transistor size is a square of the feature size of course, so what might seem half the size is actually 1/4.
Intel has its own, carefully optimized fab, while the other mobile manufacturers are buying the ARM architecture as software and using independent fabs for the most part.
So, Intel's competition with ARM in mobile is like running a doped horse in a race. Were we seeing all architectures on the same feature size, differences would be more apparent.
I didn't write the summary posted on Slashdot. My summary (it's probably still in the "firehose" section) was one line. The Slashdot editor just scraped the first few paragraphs of my article. You can tell the number of people who actually read my article by the discussion of PowerVR graphics. There isn't one.
Intel's competition with ARM right now is like a doped race-horse. They are hiding the problems of their architecture by using a semiconductor process half the size of the competition. Given equal FABs, we wouldn't see Intel as competitive.
Wasn't that when Linus was working for Transmeta? The x86-clone manufacturer that didn't make it?
I think he's mainly complaining about things other than the instruction set.
Manufacturer announced devices != customer purchased devices.
Anything that's in a Debian release has already passed by these issues. That's a lot of disparate architectures. And that's 29K separate software packages.
None of today's "RISC" processors are what John Mashey was designing when RISC was introduced.
I agree (and wrote in the article) that ARM has complicated their own architecture, and that Atom uses a RISC-like processor and instruction translation. However, backward compatibility with all of the generations of x86 still increases the complexity of Atom quite a lot.
Thumb (ARM's 16-bit instruction set) is itself an instruction translator to the 32-bit opcodes, adding fixed or default operands for many of the instructions.
The SIMD instructions used by Intel, AMD, and ARM go back to Pixar's CHAP compositing hardware in the 80's.
None of this would have been in a Stanford MIPS.
You can encode a few words in a tweet on twitter. More if you do UTF-8 tricks.
That means potentially including royalties, and there is no real definition of what is "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory". In general the presence of royalties discriminates against Open Source completely.
I asked Qualcom if they'd consider changing their declaration to royalty-free. I don't know anyone at Huawei.
Use Codec2 for that. It just got a quality upgrade recently, so if you have tried it before, check the latest source out of git and try again.
Hm. And Greece occupies the other half, after sponsoring a military junta in 1974. Poor Cypriots for getting caught in the middle.
Let's be serious, folks. Sierra Nevada did a captive carry test, in which they took their model and dragged it around on a helicopter for a while. Blue Origin might not have gotten that far. Meanwhile SpaceX fully qualified their cargo solution, has a contract to carry real cargo, and is working on the manned version. So far, exactly one of the companies mentioned has a spacecraft.
I do a lot of work in Ruby, too. I notice that lots of Ruby gems contain C code. Someone competent is writing that.
Language fascists aren't generally as good at programming as they think. They'd understand where interpretive languages make sense, if they were.
I said unsophisticated, not microcephalic!
This argument has gone back and forth for decades. The latest credible report I have on hand is this ESA one, which documents an incident with the Galileo satellite.
But, Batman, most people don't have a utility belt to put all of this stuff in.
:-)
So, let's be real, they are marketing to less sophisticated users than us, ones that are not terribly likely to put a microSDHC card in any socket.
But unsophisticated users are going to buy Apple. Right now, Apple would feel much safer to an unsophisticated user than a new phone OS on a new phone genre from a troubled manufacturer.
Defile, in this case, means "make useful for longer than the two years of the carrier subsidy". Nokia doesn't want to kill sales of their next phone with this one. Just like Apple.
Except that Apple will be here two years from now. We can't be that sure about Nokia.
I still have my n900. Gee, what could have been, if they hadn't been such cowards!
The liquid part isn't what does the burning. It's the vapor.
In a Diesel engine, compression heats it, and it ignites. But compression is not the only way to ignite it.