The PS3 standards include Cg, COLLADA, OpenGL ES and OpenMAX. Sound familiar, linux/OSX programmer? The posted linux patches and libraries indicate to me that the Playstation will be reasonably easy to develop for. It is certainly not like other multicore designs. See this patch, for instance. The SPUs are represented as directories, with files in the dir representing functions of the SPU. (this might have little to do with the PS3, but it does serve to show the cells asymmetrical nature)
The 360's OS is a port of the original OS, which is a port of the windows kernel. ('port' doesn't fully describe it, but the heritage is there). That alone indicates that developing for the 360 might be complicated.
In the first incarnation (and SIT says this is the first of a family) the cell has only one core. In fact, it's a pretty simple core, something like a G4, but 64 bit.
Now, the rest of you, pay attention to the shiny anti terrorism plan. Feel the soft, warm, blanket of security envelope you, as your government protects you from nonexistent threats. There.... That's it. Good citizen.
I was making a joke, and slashdot doesn't allow one to moderate and post in the same discussion. I really have no idea why you were modded troll, slashdot is a great reaffirmation of the "everyone is a stupid idiot" school of thought. I keep coming back though....
The cell is capable of doing single precision floating point calculations, very, very fast. Single precision is not very useful for most "supercomputers". The cell can also do double precision calculations, about an order of magnitude slower. This is still very fast. I'm not making this up. Toshiba demoed a cell decoding 48 MPEG-2 streams, using 6 (of 8 available in the full spec) of the SPE's. Oh, that's right, you think the cell is a PowerPC. It's not. It's 8 SPE's, independent processors highly optimized for scalar operations. The PowerPC is there to keep the SPE's fed.
The linux patches have started to come in, papers on algorithms have been published, and IBM has started a services division to push the cell. All of them indicate the same thing, that the cell is very good at what it's designed for, and you can start working with it. No, the next LLL purchase probably will not be made of cells. But your next workstation might, especially if you work with 3D, video, etc. And I guarantee, it'll make whatever is on your desk now look like a 8088. (within this domain, at least)
The cell contains a PowerPC core, but that is a small part of what makes it such an interesting design. Yes, Sony is playing the hype game, but they also definitely have something to hype.
You appear to know very little about this. "horse poop"? Cornell doesn't think so. Climate change? Got a high school physics education? Go do some math.
"Honestly... if the system is so hard to use that you need to protect it from yourself through the use of multiple logins... why would it be a better choice than anything else?"
This, IMO, is why we are in the sequirty mess we're in today. A computer is not a toaster. It is, in fact, possibly the most complicated device known to man. You're going to have to enter a fucking password to be secure, OK? Get over it.
It's a very high performance chip, and certainly an advance of sorts. By mundane I meant it's just more of the same. It's 3 powerPCs running faster. I don't think the cores are going to be equal to a g5. The core in the Cell certainly isn't, although these cores are probably faster than the cell one.
A "zombie" is a computer infected with malware, that is sending spam. The person controlling it lives 5000 miles away, and quite possibly never interacts with the zombie.
In its current incarnation, the Cell is not going to go into a Mac. The PowerPC part of it is too under powered, and although it delivers amazing amounts of a certain kind of number crunching, it's not the kind usefully for a general purpose PC.
IBM has said this is the first of a family, though, and it's not hard to see those in a Mac.
Slashdot Mirror
The mind might indeed be a Turing machine, but it's a very different architecture and OS than the ones we know about.
Keep your money in Sony. Chip fab doesn't make a lot of IBM's money, IIRC. The PS3, OTOH, is a huge part of Sony's future.
The 360's OS is a port of the original OS, which is a port of the windows kernel. ('port' doesn't fully describe it, but the heritage is there). That alone indicates that developing for the 360 might be complicated.
In the first incarnation (and SIT says this is the first of a family) the cell has only one core. In fact, it's a pretty simple core, something like a G4, but 64 bit.
don't bother flaming me for the apostrophe, thanks.
I'm on Linux on PowerPC, you insensitive clod!
Now, the rest of you, pay attention to the shiny anti terrorism plan. Feel the soft, warm, blanket of security envelope you, as your government protects you from nonexistent threats. There.... That's it. Good citizen.
I was making a joke, and slashdot doesn't allow one to moderate and post in the same discussion. I really have no idea why you were modded troll, slashdot is a great reaffirmation of the "everyone is a stupid idiot" school of thought. I keep coming back though....
The linux patches have started to come in, papers on algorithms have been published, and IBM has started a services division to push the cell. All of them indicate the same thing, that the cell is very good at what it's designed for, and you can start working with it. No, the next LLL purchase probably will not be made of cells. But your next workstation might, especially if you work with 3D, video, etc. And I guarantee, it'll make whatever is on your desk now look like a 8088. (within this domain, at least)
The cell contains a PowerPC core, but that is a small part of what makes it such an interesting design. Yes, Sony is playing the hype game, but they also definitely have something to hype.
You appear to know very little about this. "horse poop"? Cornell doesn't think so. Climate change? Got a high school physics education? Go do some math.
Ghost can help. It allows you to make an image of your windows machine on CD.
Yeah, but I'm guessing you know a lot more about computers than you do about cars.
It's "volia", no "Wa-la".
This, IMO, is why we are in the sequirty mess we're in today. A computer is not a toaster. It is, in fact, possibly the most complicated device known to man. You're going to have to enter a fucking password to be secure, OK? Get over it.
You don't know shit, and he's stupid? Linux is not BSD is not Darwin. There are differences, and they are big ones, so shut the fuck up.
Welcome to /.
How about HD video, ITunes, video chat, p2p filesharing, web surfing, streaming, etc...
It's easier and cheaper to design one fast chip, and cripple half of the chips to sell to a lower market. Any company who fabs chips does this.
I agree with the sentiment, but remember that interstellar space is, almost by definition, the most boring place in the universe.
It's a very high performance chip, and certainly an advance of sorts. By mundane I meant it's just more of the same. It's 3 powerPCs running faster. I don't think the cores are going to be equal to a g5. The core in the Cell certainly isn't, although these cores are probably faster than the cell one.
A "zombie" is a computer infected with malware, that is sending spam. The person controlling it lives 5000 miles away, and quite possibly never interacts with the zombie.
1920 x 1080 (16:9 1080p), isn't too shabby.
IBM has said this is the first of a family, though, and it's not hard to see those in a Mac.