21–30 of 96 posts
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Of course it still exists. They're doing this now because they don't want to be steamrolled by the raging success that is the OpenSPARC project.
It is the execution that counts. The world could use a third mass architecture. Especially one that is not too tightly IP locked. The whole web 0.1, 1.0,2.0 came from the fact that PC clones were everywhere.
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I work in automotive software, and PowerPC CPUs (albeit from Freescale and STMicroelectronics, not IBM) are more popular than ever. It's a very common choice for powertrain ECUs.
Big in avionics for some reason too. Wasn't it the F/22 which received an upgraded PPC that was in the news a while back?
Strong feeling of deja vu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hardware_Reference_Platf...
Yeah, no.
Some more competition for Intel x86 and some widespread availability of Power machines (that don't cost a bazillion dollars) has felt like a pipe dream for years, and I'm not optimistic now...
All I see in the actual announcement[2] is marketing hype (not news) about software that already exists ("open firmware" == U-Boot, "open software" == linux) and hardware that has been licensable for years.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Power_Architecture#Licensing
[2] http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/41684.wss
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the execution that counts. The world could use a third mass architecture. Especially one that is not too tightly IP locked. The whole web 0.1, 1.0,2.0 came from the fact that PC clones were everywhere.
Its not clear if it is third or fourth now. MIPS may be third after ARM.
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There was even a version of Windows NT 4.0 for that. It was great. Then Motorola decided they had no clue what they were doing with computers, IBM gave up and shut the whole thing down.
All of the RISC chips were dying anyway. Intel was starting to build steam with the Pentium Pro and Pentium II, Wintel servers were getting cheaper and more common, Windows was becoming 'good enough' and Linux started to push the expensive traditional Linuxes off the table.
I'm not quite sure where the news is here. IBM has been licensing the architecture and cores for years (2007 is mentioned[1]). All I see in the actual announcement[2] is marketing hype (not news) about software that already exists ("open firmware" == U-Boot, "open software" == linux) and hardware that has been licensable for years. [1] http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Power_Architecture#Licensing [2] http://www-03.ibm.com…
"With its embedded Power chip business under assault from makers of ARM and x86 processors" I didn't know Power chip business still existed.
All three of the PS3/XBox360/Wii generation consoles used POWER-derived chips: very different chips, of course, but POWER all the same. The Wii U uses a POWER chip too. POWER stalled in the performance/watt category around the time of the Power Mac G5: unfortunate, since this was around the time that performance/watt was starting to be considered a real thing. That hurt the architecture's standing terribly. But it's…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of the RISC chips were dying anyway. Intel was starting to build steam with the Pentium Pro and Pentium II, Wintel servers were getting cheaper and more common, Windows was becoming 'good enough' and Linux started to push the expensive traditional Linuxes off the table.
That's really just the standard Innovator's Dilemma effect where low-cost, high-volume products often tend to eat their way up the market. Now that the semi-RISC ARM processor is attacking Intel from the low end it's having the same sort of success as x86 did over MIPS, etc.
I'm not quite sure where the news is here. IBM has been licensing the architecture and cores for years (2007 is mentioned[1]). All I see in the actual announcement[2] is marketing hype (not news) about software that already exists ("open firmware" == U-Boot, "open software" == linux) and hardware that has been licensable for years. [1] http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Power_Architecture#Licensing [2] http://www-03.ibm.com…
Reading between the lines, it sounds like a Tyan whitebox with Power8 processors, Nvidia GPUs, and Mellanox NICs running Linux. Might be good for HPC.