On Sat, Oct 10, 2020 at 01:37:56AM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote: > Russian Company Tapes Out 16-Core Elbrus CPU: 2.0 GHz, 16 TB of RAM in > 4-Way System > > https://www.tomshardware.com/news/russian-company-tapes-out-16-core-elbrus-cpu-20-ghz-16-tb-of-ram-in-4-way-system > > > So the anarchist crowd spec's "open source/ open hardware" designs, for what > it's worth. > > Step 1 is understanding the development models and the possibilities around > various "open"ness options. > > "Open" anything has engineering tradeoffs, as do other models, the primary > competition being "proprietary", which is mostly also "closed". > > The advantages of "open" include: > > - maintaining relevance and interest outside of the primary sponsor (e.g. > govt. and military) > > - the possibility of development of an 'ecosystem' (software, hardware, > community, startups/ companies/ industries) > > - to the extent that an ecosystem is born and develops, there grows a > "demand economy" for the hardware at issue - this becomes a symbiotic thing > where interest drives innovation drives demand which drives down costs, which > in turn drives the interest and demand > > > IF such an ecosystem is found to be a goal, certain steps foster this > pathway, such as a "Rasberry-Pi"-type dev board, then a desktop workstation > class computer, etc. Not unlike the steps IBM has taken with their Power > architecture.
One can imagine a rather cheeky "pip Intel at their own posted intention" scenario where say (using TSMC's very cool TSV tech) an enthusiast class CPU has a mix of cores, say: - 4 Elbrus cores - a couple of old (no longer in patent) x86 (ASM level) cores - or probably better yet, a POWER core - a Xilinx-style programmable core (this ought be recreated as "original IP" due to the relatively simple/repetitive nature of such cores) - if the programmable core is not exciting enough, a custom media core which say just does de/encode of MP3 and VP9 - and while you're at it, throw in say 1GiB of L3 cache to spike the fun in an almost "illicit" way :) - oh, and to rekindle the glory days of low latency keyboarding from the halcyon days of home computing, throw in an on-chip "zero latency" "keyboard controller" (really just some serial line controller - perhaps this is what PS2 connection is?) which would totally 'rock' for certain gaming genres The point being, something a bit quirky yet inspiring of possibilities, may spike interest and even passion in the enthusiast community.
