Stuart McLachlan
stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Fri Jan 21 18:10:47 CST 2005
How about super computing on your desktop for a couple of hundred dollars? Looks like this is what is coming from the Cell processors that Sony/Toshiba/IBM are working on. Looks like the future of computers is still rosey but may not be Intel. I do recommend you read the whole thing. The author is doing a good job of boiling it down for the less technical types. -------------------------Quote--------------------------------- The Cell architecture is essentially a general purpose PowerPC CPU with a set of 8 very high performance vector processors and a fast memory and I / O system, this is coupled with a very clever task distribution system which allows ad-hoc clusters to be set up. What is not immediately apparent is the aggressiveness of the design. The lack of cache and runtime virtual memory system is highly unusual and has not done on any modern general purpose CPU in the last 20 years. It can only be compared with the sorts of designs Seymour Cray produced. The Cell is not only going to be very fast, but because of the highly aggressive design the rest of the industry is going to have a very hard time catching up with it*. To sum up there's really only one way of saying it: This system isn't just going to rock, it's going to play German heavy metal. ---------------------End Quote-------------------------------- -- Stuart