You are right. NEC also makes embedded processors based on the MIPS core, but I think before the Alchemy's there is still a third place for Motorola Coldfire in popularity. A time back I saw a chart comparing market-share of all these embedded processors, but I can't remember where.
One thing I forgot to mention is the new series of Goede processors from AMD which are the result of a buyout from National Semiconductor. Those are quite powerful x86 processors partly aimed at the embedded market. They are also very power-efficient for a x86 core. The problem is that AMD has yet to demostrate to the industry that they are taking their x86 embedded business serious again, after abandoning the Elan series.
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I still think AMD is a cool company, making cool chips, not only for the PC market.
I doubt they'll become very popular.
They Alchemy family is not that new actually. AFAIR they have been around for at least 2 or 3 years now, and have barely gotten some attention from the embedded developer world.
AMD has made inroads in the embedded processor bussiness before, with their Elan and embedded-K6 processors. Those have been moderately popular by those seeking x86 compatibility, since the Elan is a mocked-up 486 with chipset functionality and some periferals in one chip: Expensive, extremely power-hungry, slow and very modest on-chip periferals, but x86 compatible. They are mostly forgotten now.
The Alchemy on the other hand is based on a 32-bit MIPS core (remeber SGI? Guess where their chip developers went?). That makes the Alchemy more powerful, less power-hungry, cheaper and able to include some more amount of periferals on-chip, but they are not x86 compatible.
That leaves them pretty much out in the cold, because there are IMHO far more attractive alternatives of non-x86 embedded processors, like those based on the ARM family of cores, built by Samsung, Atmel, Philips, TI, Cirrus-Logic, Intel and many more, as well as the PowerPC based embedded processors from Motorola and IBM. Specially the Power-QUICC I and II families from Motorola cover an impressive price and performance range, offer modest to very high processing power, and unprecedented flexibility due to their second integrated RISC based communications processor and programmable bus controller.
Those are the two most popular embedded processor platforms around these days. If you need power-efficiency, there's no better than ARM. If you need high computing performance or high-bandwith data processing, go for PowerPC.
AMD's Alchemy is somewhere in the middle, but until now they only cover a narrow range of applications.
How do you know? You don't have the source-code, so you can't tell if it has any secret backdoors only the creator knows about!
Of course, the DoD surely has access to the source-code of the windowsXP version they might be running.
You can make those kinds of deals with Micro$oft, if you have the money and apply for the conditions as a big enterprise or governmental institution, and obey all the conditions. Then some of your engineers might have a look at the sources (previously selling their souls though) or even compile their own build of XP. Please note that nobody tells you that this is _exactly_ the same version you run at home, so if the DoD tells you "it has no backdoors", don't count on it.
Talking about beeing paranoid....;-)
But he said *REAL* paranoids... and I don't see *squat* in your reply about the constructive use of metal foil for building reverse Temptest cages (you know - where you worry about the *inbound* electromagnetic radiation rather than the outbound like us sane people..;)
Well, not exactly... sane people follow EMC rules, that means protection against (excessive) inbound _and_ outbound radiation.
I once needed to wrap a soundcard in tinfoil to avoid too much interference from nearby IDE cables, but that's another story.
How do you know it doesn't have a backdoor? How do you know your PC doesn't secretly "phone home" one day? You could never be sure about that, since you don't have the source-code to your OS! How can you call yourself a paranoid when you're using XP?
Real paranoids don't use commercial software... real paranoids write their own OS!
It's just because they're new
on
The Blues for LEDs
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· Score: 5, Insightful
It's a matter of popularity. We've seen red, green, yellow and amber colored LED's since some 30 years now, they're "passe".
Blue LED's on the other hand (as well as White and Cyan) are colors that have become possible just 10 years ago, and they where still very expensive and not really efficient. It's in the last 4 or 5 years, that techology has allowed cheap, efficient and bright blue LED's.... maybe that's why they seem to look so.... cool!
First, if you're really going to use WindowsXP, don't be so foolish to save on good AV software; think that you just spent US$200.- or so on Windows alone. (maybe you could get a refund and just use Linux:-)
Anyway, here's my list of recommendations, the same for both worlds wherever possible in the format:
Application:windows,linux
Office:OpenOffice.org-1.1,OpenOffice.org-1.1
Browser:Mozilla,Mozilla or Konqueror
Email:Mozilla,Mozilla or Kmail
Video:MPlayer,MPlayer
Audio:WinAMP,XMMS
PDF/PS converter:Ghostscript,Ghostscript
Video-Edit:(don't know),Kino or Cinelerra
Foto-edit:Gimp,Gimp
Audio-edit:CoolEdit,Audacity
Text-editor:(don't know),NEdit
Of course, windows needs a lot of extra stuff, such as Firewall, Anti-Virus software, Spy-ware removal, decent telnet/SSH clients, decent shell (CygWin+bash), etc...
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You are right. NEC also makes embedded processors based on the MIPS core, but I think before the Alchemy's there is still a third place for Motorola Coldfire in popularity. A time back I saw a chart comparing market-share of all these embedded processors, but I can't remember where.
One thing I forgot to mention is the new series of Goede processors from AMD which are the result of a buyout from National Semiconductor. Those are quite powerful x86 processors partly aimed at the embedded market. They are also very power-efficient for a x86 core. The problem is that AMD has yet to demostrate to the industry that they are taking their x86 embedded business serious again, after abandoning the Elan series.
Anyway, don't get me wrong, I still think AMD is a cool company, making cool chips, not only for the PC market.
I doubt they'll become very popular.
They Alchemy family is not that new actually. AFAIR they have been around for at least 2 or 3 years now, and have barely gotten some attention from the embedded developer world.
AMD has made inroads in the embedded processor bussiness before, with their Elan and embedded-K6 processors. Those have been moderately popular by those seeking x86 compatibility, since the Elan is a mocked-up 486 with chipset functionality and some periferals in one chip: Expensive, extremely power-hungry, slow and very modest on-chip periferals, but x86 compatible. They are mostly forgotten now.
The Alchemy on the other hand is based on a 32-bit MIPS core (remeber SGI? Guess where their chip developers went?). That makes the Alchemy more powerful, less power-hungry, cheaper and able to include some more amount of periferals on-chip, but they are not x86 compatible.
That leaves them pretty much out in the cold, because there are IMHO far more attractive alternatives of non-x86 embedded processors, like those based on the ARM family of cores, built by Samsung, Atmel, Philips, TI, Cirrus-Logic, Intel and many more, as well as the PowerPC based embedded processors from Motorola and IBM. Specially the Power-QUICC I and II families from Motorola cover an impressive price and performance range, offer modest to very high processing power, and unprecedented flexibility due to their second integrated RISC based communications processor and programmable bus controller.
Those are the two most popular embedded processor platforms around these days. If you need power-efficiency, there's no better than ARM. If you need high computing performance or high-bandwith data processing, go for PowerPC. AMD's Alchemy is somewhere in the middle, but until now they only cover a narrow range of applications.
Windows XP can be just as secure as any other OS.
;-)
How do you know? You don't have the source-code, so you can't tell if it has any secret backdoors only the creator knows about! Of course, the DoD surely has access to the source-code of the windowsXP version they might be running.
You can make those kinds of deals with Micro$oft, if you have the money and apply for the conditions as a big enterprise or governmental institution, and obey all the conditions. Then some of your engineers might have a look at the sources (previously selling their souls though) or even compile their own build of XP. Please note that nobody tells you that this is _exactly_ the same version you run at home, so if the DoD tells you "it has no backdoors", don't count on it.
Talking about beeing paranoid....
But he said *REAL* paranoids... and I don't see *squat* in your reply about the constructive use of metal foil for building reverse Temptest cages (you know - where you worry about the *inbound* electromagnetic radiation rather than the outbound like us sane people.. ;)
Well, not exactly... sane people follow EMC rules, that means protection against (excessive) inbound _and_ outbound radiation. I once needed to wrap a soundcard in tinfoil to avoid too much interference from nearby IDE cables, but that's another story.
How do you know it doesn't have a backdoor? How do you know your PC doesn't secretly "phone home" one day? You could never be sure about that, since you don't have the source-code to your OS! How can you call yourself a paranoid when you're using XP? Real paranoids don't use commercial software... real paranoids write their own OS!
It's a matter of popularity. We've seen red, green, yellow and amber colored LED's since some 30 years now, they're "passe". Blue LED's on the other hand (as well as White and Cyan) are colors that have become possible just 10 years ago, and they where still very expensive and not really efficient. It's in the last 4 or 5 years, that techology has allowed cheap, efficient and bright blue LED's.... maybe that's why they seem to look so.... cool!
Oh, btw, works great with Konqueror (KDE 3.2-beta) ;-)
Office:OpenOffice.org-1.1,OpenOffice.org-1.1
Browser:Mozilla,Mozilla or Konqueror
Email:Mozilla,Mozilla or Kmail
Video:MPlayer,MPlayer
Audio:WinAMP,XMMS
PDF/PS converter:Ghostscript,Ghostscript
Video-Edit:(don't know),Kino or Cinelerra
Foto-edit:Gimp,Gimp
Audio-edit:CoolEdit,Audacity
Text-editor:(don't know),NEdit
Of course, windows needs a lot of extra stuff, such as Firewall, Anti-Virus software, Spy-ware removal, decent telnet/SSH clients, decent shell (CygWin+bash), etc...