h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For those that do not know the Cell processor is a joint venture between Sony, IBM and Toshiba. It is supposed to be (if you believe the hype) the best thing since sliced bread.
Is it

Here's the news story...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4242447.stm

From that article:

"And while marketing speak describes the chip as a supercomputer - it remains significantly slower than the slowest computer on the list of the world's top 500 supercomputers."

On the basis of the 'Emotion Engine' -- impressive but wildly overhyped, with the PS2 architecture's use in the GScube commercial graphics device fuelling suspicions at the time that it hadn't been optimised for games -- I'd say the jury will have to be out for a lot longer.

Assuming Moore's Law, by 2006 PCs will have overtaken it -- but clock speed isn't the be all and end all anyway. How well 'multicore' chips will work in practice I have no idea whatsoever.

'On processor memory', which I take to be the cache, looks quite impressive at 2.5 mb.

I expect that, when released, the PS3 will run games a better than a PC, but will have been overtaken in terms of graphics within a year, as normally happens.

more detailed analysis of the "Cell Processor" at
http://www.theregister.com/2005/02/01/cell_analysis_part_one/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/03/cell_analysis_part_two/

>> IBM said Cell was "OS neutral" and would support multiple operating systems simultaneously but designers would not confirm if Microsoft's Windows was among those tested with the chip. <<

Thats a pretty meaningless statement as the same can be said for the i386 CPUs from Intel/AMD that are used in PCs now. They are not dependant on a particular OS to work. IBM built that facility into the PC with the very first back in 1981.

AS for supporting multiple operating systems simultaneously I assume they mean switching from one OS to another without re-booting. If that is the case then that is a matter for the motherboard manufactures, not the CPU manufacturers.

Donald

"That's a pretty meaningless statement as the same can be said for the i386 CPUs from Intel/AMD that are used in PCs now"

er... it's not as meaningless as it sounds. The Cell Processor has little software processes that look to optimize its processing ability, scavenging the resources of the local Cell first, but if they run out of steam locally they will look to find more execution resources over a local area network, or even on the other side of the world. They will go and find the resources where ever they might be. In contrast an Intel X86 will just choke when it runs out of steam. So your local Cell PC running "Winoze for Cell" could be executing processes on a server running "Linux for Cell" or a PS3 running Grand Theft Auto XIV

While the idea of Grid Computing is not new, this is to my knowledge the first time it has been implemented at processor level. Previously it was implemented by the operating system (Plan 9 http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/is an example of a "Grid" operating system).

I'm a little skeptical about how much use its going to be on a PS2. Gaming and latency being what they are you would think the time taken to get a signal out and back from another one wouldn't be that much use unless you were playing a hypothetical Civilization 4 and had just hit 'end turn' or something.

Now what would be really nice would be if that secure memory happened to fix all memory leak bugs ever, forever.

... but think of the spare processing power of all those PS3's

I've worked out how Sony plan to make the PS3 10 times faster, yeah, for every one sold to consumers, another nine are rack-mounted back at Sony HQ.

The PS3 is due to have blue-ray DVD too.

One word: *Betamaxed!*

I once brought a whole lab of Sparc machines to a halt by missing an exit condition in a loop in concurrent C - I am looking forward to having the ability to do the same to a whole world of machines

"The PS3 is due to have blue-ray DVD too. One word: *Betamaxed!* "


I don't think so, not this time - as PS games (of any sort) haven't been compatible with any other machine since they were brought out then it matters little what format the games themselves are on..., plus the backing blue-ray has already and the fact that a BR player should be able to play standard DVDs...

The simple fact its in a PS3 should be enough for the format to be reasonably successful.

And getting back on subject... From what I've read part of the idea of the cell processor is that if you need more processing power in a computer you can simply plug in a second, third or fourth processor (if your motherboard has the slots) without having to worry about whether your computer, OS or software is actually designed to handle multi-processor management. So, if you develop a piece of kit like a 'super PS3 (PS4?)' and you find the thing isn't good enough, just bolt on a second processor and it'll run much better.

Anyone else remember the transputer?

I hadn't ever heard of that until you mentioned it... looked it up in Wikipedia though... It sounds almost exactly like the new Cell chip doesn't it... Looks like the poor so-and-so's were just 20 years ahead of their time.

Ars Technica has a good two part article on this as well. With a big long discussion forum after it with lots of stuff I don;t understand being asked!

However, I wonder what a comparison to the transputer would be like? I.e. if there is any similarity in actuality?

Another British invention that was quietly ignored until the US reinvented it.

After 20 years of progress I'm sure there must be important differences, but the basic idea doesn't seem any different.