On Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:15:47 -0700 Terence G Christopher <[email protected]> wrote:
> Having installed YDL on my play station 3m and then having tried and > failed to install my wireless keyboard, I have been following the > various messages that have developed over the past 6 months.It is a > great pity that the incompleteness of YDL and lack of readily > accessible documentation together with the failure of Sony to permit > the machine to be readily used and switch between operating systems > should destroy what could have been a fascinating and enriching > engineering development, It is disheartening to see discussions that > are unchanged from 30 years ago which to me show that all of the talk > about object oriented code, and clean interfaces was just that talk.I > realise that the increasing complexity of machines and programmes > greatly increases the challenges, however Many people such as myself > do not want to spend our lives fiddling trying to get commonly used > software to work on a machine. It is to me a measure of the > inadequacy of the development and support operation. This discourages > me from even attempting to use the machine. So no my play station > is merely an expensive and clumsy blue ray player. What a pity. > sincerely > Terence Christopher Hi Terrance: It may be of some interest that if you are interested in continuing to run your PS3 with YDL and sacrificing the ability to participate with Sony's current vision for the PS3 you could refer to the YDL Board at http://yellowdog-board.com/ Although I do believe that the YDL Board was focused on supporting the PS3, you may pick up some ideas with others regarding what solutions remain or exist. Some members have taken action and pursued legal action against Sony; I'm not sure that would interest you but there are other threads and topics which may. Two threads covering a variety of topics include: http://yellowdog-board.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7266 http://yellowdog-board.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=7545 I really wish that I had something more positive to report in regards to the PS3 but I can say that the YDL Board is well administered by persons well versed in the PS3 and the admins there could be useful. It is possible you may find solutions which are difficult to find elsewhere which would allow you to continue your research effort. As for the incompleteness of YDL, surely you are aware that both Terra Soft Solutions and later Fixstars were always at a disadvantage as they were (and in the case of Fixstars still remain) comparatively tiny companies with finite resources. Support for the PowerPC was always a very odd position for any company because the marketplace for everything supporting that CPU was always small; few know for instance that Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, really thought that Linux for the PowerPC was a losing proposition; his actual comment was actually much harsher. For TSS and later Fixstars to make something out of an essentially non-existent marketplace is an amazing accomplishment. Having expressed the above the discussion as I'm sure you are aware is academic. IBM announced last year in an article published by Ars Technica that they were ceasing production on the Cell and moving onwards towards utilizing what they've learned from working with the Cell by applying techniques developed for it to be implemented with hybridized multicore chips developed by Intel which have begun to hit the marketplace already. These new systems are not only multicore but a few systems developed by AMD for instance are CPU/GPU hybrids as well. I discussed the details and refered to the various articles within the YDL Board. There is another technological issue which spelled the end of PowerPC development as it has existed in the past. Fixstars formally announced that YDL 6.2 is the last version of YDL to be developed for PowerPC systems. Fixstars has moved YDL and all other products to be supporting Intel compatibles only. Although Fixstars does continue to support PowerPC systems these services are all fee based contractual services. The only free current version of YDL which exists is YDL with CUDA which only runs on Intel compatibles. Now we can swim down memory lane or move forward with the scientific and market realities such as they are. As you are already probably aware there exist hexacore hybridized CPU/GPU systems that are laptops -- the Cell never developed that far. Depending on who you listen to either an interesting age of technical development is over or moving forward. All the best... _______________________________________________ yellowdog-general mailing list - [email protected] Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try '<keywords> site:us.fixstars.com'
