[ydl-gen] YDL on PB17

[Derick Centeno]

Don't worry Warren.

Norberto and I have worked together submitting technical articles in  
the past at a website which has seen better days.
We differ in some interesting ways and sometimes well... you see the  
result.

It certainly can appear personal, however it isn't.  I believe  
Norberto is being hyper-rational in his analysis as a counter- 
reaction against his being "a YDL hack".  I can't tell yet whether  
his accusation of my doing PR (which I'm not) is because he's jealous  
or annoyed.  However, what I do isn't the point, really.  What is the  
point is that YDL is a hell of a professional product for the PowerPC  
architecture and Norberto knows it to be so.

As Apple has abandoned the field of powerful processors and settled  
for those commonly available, this will give a chance for TSS to  
demonstrate what it can do.  TSS has cut it's teeth in very  
challenging conditions, for it to find a way to remain  
technologically viable given new market conditions is not a matter of  
mere fine placement of words of PR but hard technological and  
engineering achievement!  Norberto knows that, and I know that he  
knows that.

Here's some past history regarding TSS:

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/34647.html

Here's a story about TSS effort that's more current.  I've worked  
with several supercomputing systems in the past but this is really  
interesting.  TSS (together with Sony Computer Entertainment has  
devised and are the first to roll-out a supercomputing cluster!   
Check it out:

http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/feature/20980

Should something outrageous for those disciplined and skilled enough  
to make use of it is being made available as never before by  
combining a Cell with YDL 5 -- I  certainly think so!  I've already  
called it elsewhere a Starship for the mind.  Ok, I may be over the top.
But really I don't believe by very much.  Each will have to discover  
what the PS3 with YDL 5 means for oneself.

I think those who really get it, will be quietly stunned for a long  
time.  I bet Norberto will be among them.  So will I and others.   
What will be deeply interesting is how long the open source community  
will push beyond whatever is released and make new contributions in  
new directions.  That is what, for me, makes open source completely  
more interesting than the models currently in use by Apple and  
Microsoft.  There really is nothing like the wild and unpredictable  
creativity of a planet-wide community of thinkers.

In my view, I don't think that we can yet say can occur when the PS3  
and YDL 5 is finally available.  This launch could be meaningful or  
it could be as Norberto states - a flop.

I don't think it will be a flop.

I have in mind the famous story of how Tesla developed and  
demonstrated the first model of a working robotic submarine to the US  
Navy, and they turned it down deeming it impractical.  It was  
completely misunderstood, but it wasn't a flop.

I think that the current attraction that people have for game power  
will attract people -- when people also realize that with YDL 5 they  
will have a powerful working computer with access to free software  
without further cost, people will get it.  I have no idea how fast  
that will take but it will be interesting to see what people do with  
this unprecedented flexibility.  I guess we all will find out.


On Oct 31, 2006, at 8:22 PM, Warren Nagourney 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
>