David:
Wow, a topic on which I'm fairly well informed! :)
> I was thinking again about chips - the Linux creator (Linux) was
> involved in the development of the Transmeta chip, and also the
> FORTH creator (Charles Moore) developed not one but several
> chips. What would it be like to compile Linux for the Novix chip or
> another FORTH chip? Hmmm.....
From what I understand of Transmeta and its Crusoe
processors, Linus was working *not* on the Mobile Linux OS, but
rather on the "Code Morphing" layer. This is a layer of embedded
software that connects on the inside to the heart of Crusoe (a
Very-Long Instruction Word processor) and on the outside presents
an interface that looks and feels just like whatever architecture
you want: x86, for obvious reasons, in the first release. The keen
thing is that the "outside interface" is not fixed: it's defined
softly during initialization. So today it's an x86, tomorrow it's
a PowerPC, on Monday it's ARM. Going one step further...it can be
optimized for size and power by ignoring some of the instruction
set that the hardware environment (say, a purpose-built embedded
info appliance) just never uses.
Very keen stuff. A flawed business model, though, imo, by not
staying chipless and just licensing their IP (a-la ARM and Rambus)
rather than going for broke and jockeying for designs wins at PC OEMs.
I'm not long on anyone that goes up against Intel in that processor
market. :)
> > Heya. It'd be worthwhile, I think, for one of our more board-minded
> > LEAF'rs to suggest just such an SBC which we could use as a
> > 'development target'. Not that we won't be putting it into desktop
> > x86's as well, of course, but I was told by a VP at BigIronCompany
> > yesterday that "no one can build a $100 gateway". Hmmm...
>
> How hard would it be to use a SBC in a PC (connecting through
> the ISA bus) to design a SBC LEAF then extract it, box it, and run
> it? Would be something else!
That's the one part of SBC's that gets me: writing the
flash image in the first place. I watched a WindRiver field-support
guy argue with a Tornado install for 2 hours trying to boot an SBC that
was tied to a "robust board support package". Yes, suuuuuuure it
was...
-Scott
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