[ydl-gen] YDL on PB17

[Warren Nagourney]

I'm glad I didn't start anything!

Although I really enjoy "smooth" graphics, my reason for being  
interested in YDL is as a stepping-stone to Cell processor  
development. For me, the processor architecture is 90% of my reason  
for choosing a platform -  my interest in Macs in 1984 was due to  
their using a 68000, a CPU I greatly appreciated after doing some  
assembly language programming on it (I am an old PDP-11 assembly  
programmer and I loved its regular, elegant instruction set and the  
contrast between 68k/PPC and x86 couldn't be greater). I also loved  
the vector unit of the G4/G5 and used it to great advantage in one of  
my scientific apps (an optical ray-tracing program).

Apple's switch was a big shock - a beautiful machine (particularly  
the G5s and recent powerbooks), inside and out, received a "heart  
transplant" which was ugly through and through (it really is an  
aesthetic thing for me). I am therefore putting a lot of hope in the  
PS3/YDL marriage, though I am perhaps being a bit unrealistic. It has  
a lot going for it: the best chip makers in the business and a  
hardware platform which will probably outsell any Apple product in a  
few years since it is targeted to consumers in a very lucrative  
market (games). Initial response to the Cell (particularly from  
scientific programmers) has been very favorable. It is nice to see  
some interesting innovation in a very staid business and I am keeping  
my fingers crossed (I don't expect any significant innovation from  
Intel/Microsoft).

Sorry for the length of my diatribe.

-wn


On Oct 31, 2006, at 6:18 PM, Norberto Quintanar wrote:


> You didn't.  Derick has a way of making things way more complicated
> than they need to be.  I think PPC is the best architecture out there
> also, but I'm not going to run out and buy a game console so I can
> run YDL.  I think you get that point.  Wouldn't you prefer to have
> YDL, an after market OS, run on your current hardware out of the box?
>  Versus, you having to buy a new piece of hardware?  So you can
> "enjoy" accelerated graphics?
>
> --- Warren Nagourney <warren at phys.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>
>> Sorry, I didn't mean to precipitate a flame war. I am using YDL
>> because it supports the only interesting (to me) architecture out
>> there: PowerPC. After reading some IBM docs, I have become very
>> excited by the Cell - it seems to be ideal for some of my
>> scientific
>> apps and it is delightful that a modestly-priced game console maker
>>
>> is making a Cell system with fast graphics available to the general
>>
>> public with the support of a well-thought-of linux distribution.
>> All
>> of this might flop - it is too early to say. I am at present
>> cautiously optimistic, though (and I'm fed up with Apple and OSX,
>> thought the latter works reasonably well on my various machines).
>>
>> -wn
>>
>
>
>
>
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