It's REALLY heating up out there... - Squeak-dev

2 Mar 1999


      Hello Squeakers.
This mail may be off-topic here, but I can't help to imagine if
Squeak runs on it:-)
Sony announced the spec of the next generation PlayStation.
According to the announce, it is something like:
  * 300Mhz new CPU called "Emotion Engine" (developped by
    Toshiba).
    - 128 bit registers, datapath, cache, etc.  (the register can be used
      as two 64 bit registers)
    - two 64 bit integer unit, (I think 128 bit arithmetic is also possible)
      two floating vector unit, and MPEG2 decoder are integrated.
    - the integer arithmetic performace is 1/3 of 500Mhz Pentium III.
    - 6.2 GFLOPS floating arithmetic performance.
    - 32MB main memory.
    - the memory bandwidth is 3.2GB/s. (four times bigger than
      64 bit * 100Mhz bus)
  * new graphics accelerator called "Graphics Synthesizer".
    - 75 million polygons/sec max.
    - 48MB/s memory bandwidth.
  * DVD-ROM.
  * USB.
  * PC-card slot.
  * IEEE-1394.
It will be available this winter in Japan.
People will buy it for a few handred dollars, and some may want to
"create" animations, 3D models, and small programs on the machine.  If
there will be handy programming system running on it, it will be very
useful.  Squeak may be the candidate.
The possible (half joking) future works for Squeak are:
  * 64 bit object format.
  * connecting Form/Canvas object with underlying hardware.
  * implementing VM using floating vector arithmetic:-)
  * provide simple interface for the language.
  * program editing by analog controller(s).
OHSHIMA Yoshiki
                Dept. of Mathematical and Computing Sciences
                               Tokyo Institute of Technology