vaporware (was: For Serious Software Developers)

Jecel Assumpcao Jr jecel at merlintec.com
Fri Oct 19 23:45:06 UTC 2007


Alan Grimes  wrote:
> > Thanks for collecting the refs. The front page for the plurion
> > is the swiki page:
> > http://www.merlintec.com:8080/hardware/Plurion
> > It needs more google hits, so link to it! :)

It would be nice for me to actually put something useful there before it
starts getting hits....
 
> Okay,
> Nice,
> Fine.
> 
> Call me a cynical bastard but unless I can go down to the local
> mega-mart and buy one for $1,000, or even $10,000, in a usable form, it
> doesn't even exist, period.

You are right - this is 100% vaporware for now. I haven't even written
the first line of the processor implementation, yet. But getting the
design right takes a while too, and that is what I have been doing since
1999. When it is ready, you will be able to download it for free over
the internet (you will need a FPGA board and you will be able to get all
files needed to build one free as well, your you can just buy one of the
many kits on the market).
 
> It started when I started hearing hype around the Cell Broadband engine.
> For years I heard about it. Always my question was WHEN CAN I GET ONE?
> Can I use it for general purpose computing? Can I put it in one of the
> vacant 64x66 PCI slots in my machine?

You can.
 
> As of today, it is still vaporware to me because I can only get it in a
> PSX3 which I am not in the market for at present, all other solutions
> appear to be either too expensive or incompatible with my current system.

Indeed, http://www.mc.com/microsites/cell/ might be too expensive for
you. But it is a reality.
 
> OpenSparc.net is another example of a fine if not perfect architecture
> that you'll never (within the forseeable future) be able to get your
> hands on.

Why not? I am playing around with Leon3, which is a Sparc that requires
far more modest resources but OpenSparc seems pretty real to me. Again,
it probably doesn't fit your budget (just the FPGA to run this thing is
more than $2K) but for other people it is ok as is..
 
> Unless you are intent on fueling my feelings of alienation and
> disempowerment from the computing industry in general, just don't even
> mention this kind of thing. =\

We created a separate squeak-hardware list so that people who are
interested in things that aren't ready yet can hear about them without
bothering you, but somethings the discussions here go in a direction
where it makes sense to mention such projects or it would give people
the wrong impression.

-- Jecel



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