Cell Processors, PS3, and OSX???

dmosc · Joined: Jun 23, 2003 Posts: 298

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050808_165512.html

This seems to support my theory that the Cell processor would be an easy fit for OSX based MACs. Why on earth would apple get on INTEL's bandwagon when they finally have another alternative worth it's salt.

I mean, I don't want to get into a religious argument but existing processors for the mac are not up to par with the athlon and pentium.

jksuperstar · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 10:24 am Post subject:

The cell is nice in theory, and building a dedicated application, like a gaming box, is far easier than doing so for a general personal computer. The use of cells is not automatic, and there is heavy software dependence to take advantage of distributing tasks to the X number of processors. This would involve a complete shift in the paradigm of the OS (the OS *can* be built to help some applications use networked resources, but this is running on a much lower level than that). Basically, the OS would need to be rebuild from scratch, along with any compiler that applications are built with, along with nearly all applications. Not a sunday walk in the park.

Kassen · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:00 pm Post subject:

I played consoles since the Nintendo NES and one thing I learned is to completely ignore press anouncments about hardware.

The PS2 was anounced to have a "emotion engine" that would make characters faces have emotions, or perhaps it was supposed to magically cause emotions in players. after that we never heard about it anymore.

Back when it was orignially anounced the PS3 was supposed to be able to share CPU's with other PS3's over the internet which would suply it with -get this- infinite processing power.

The only things that matter is what system has the games you enjoy. The install base will determine how many new games will be developed. Consoles have their own little economy that's quite unlike anything else and as JKS correctly points out the architecture is way different too. Consoles are a highly competitive field with static hardware which encourages weird hacks and bare metal programing; you can afford to set asm loose on some graphics cpu to get a new kind of shading because it's just one cpu that everybody has and it'll be there in three years. Once you did that you can sell your shading algorithem to your coleagues. This is entirely different from the more general purpose PC market (and here I'm including MAC's in the PC term).

Sony is a especially interesting case. With the PS1 they graduyally released the instructionset to the third parties which made every generation of PS1 game look better then the last and greatly increased it's life-span.

dmosc · Joined: Jun 23, 2003 Posts: 298

Consoles are not, by any means, their own market in terms of CPUs. The xbox is popularly converted into a stand alone linux box, and besides it's ram, is quite powerful (733mhz PIII intel core).

Now the cell chip, is designed to run unix, like OSX. The R&D for the cell chip was also likely fueled from their MAC processor line. OSX would not need to be recoded much at all.

The real question here is why would Apple choose intel over a new, very nice architecture, IBM unix chip? My take is that Intel saw the Cell processor as a threat and decided to muscle them out of the MAC business. Now that macs run OSX, they can easily be shifted onto an x86 chip.

elektro80 · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:28 am Post subject:

OSX has been running in x86 since day one. This is not a new thing at all.
As for the Cell, what I have seen from posts on the net, the Cell is a promising device but it is still meant for gaming devices. Apple´s policy is still "no clones" and that I guess sure also means no OSX on Cell devices.
The whole IBM versus Intel discussion is pretty complex and who knows the switch could have been caused by Jobs not liking the shirt of one IBM rep and nothing else.

As for the IBM/Apple CPU roadmap, IBM didn´t deliver what was promised. This doesn´t mean the "PPC" platform is dull and slow. The more upmarket PPC monster chips are simply awesome, but I guess Apple has no strategy concerning building minicomputers. It would however have been fun to see Apple use the high end IBM chips. Those are really cool.

However, I wouldn´t rule out the possibility that Apple just might make a deal with Sony about OS X on the cell based Playstation device. Apple will deny whatever until they announce it like it was the greatest thing since velcro. One option is that Jobs/Apple a defines slot for the Cell OS X box in the product range and then brand and market a lowend entertainment center OS X / PS3 lifestyle device. The gamePOD?

mosc · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:05 am Post subject:

jksuperstar · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:55 am Post subject:

Yes, sony is in a very good position. But their track record has always stayed with high-priority, closed-lip standards (ATRAC in their "MP3"/MD players, specific drivers for the VAIO laptops, etc). They've been first to bat with several CD anti-copy schemes. It tends to render much of the power they offer to a limited scope. Meaning they don't offer much in terms of knowledge when it comes to "opening up" their hardware.

However, Sony might recognize they can take 1 quick (and very large) step into the PC/entertainment center market if they did make a move like this.

mosc · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 10:39 am Post subject:

Good points about Sony. Their culture is to make excellent and innovative hardware but they have often blown market opportunities by trying to be greedy.

dmosc · Joined: Jun 23, 2003 Posts: 298

yes, we're talking about a company that too an already saturated and complex flash memory market and introduced a 7th memory standard, for no apparent reason. Then, when it became too slow, you think they would learn their lesson and start supportind CF or SD? NO! Duo 2 FTW!

mosc · Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 2:34 pm Post subject:

It is possible to learn from your mistakes. Laughing

Kassen · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:31 pm Post subject:

Kassen · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:39 pm Post subject:

I had another look at your article, Dmosc, and I think I know what's going on. I think Sony is trying to pull the same trick they were pulling with the PS/2 release. The PS/2 is bundled with a realy bad and simplistic programing language (a mutated BASIC). This wasn't done because Sony thought you might like to program, this was done because it alowed them to clasify it as a general purpose computer which affected in and export taxes in some obscure way.

"being able to run a veriety of operating systems" doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it for those O.S.'s. I predict LInux will run on it on a heavily closed of abstraction layer as the alternative would be opening the protocols of the hardware which Sony won't do.