Re: Intel details future Larrabee graphics chip

On a sunny day (Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:39:21 -0700) it happened John Larkin
<jjlarkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<og5m94d6nniumi8itc03c5ltf60n1sle6c@xxxxxxx>:

Using multicore properly will require undoing about 60 years of
thinking, 60 years of believing that CPUs are expensive.

John

Ah, and this all reminds me about when 'object oriented programming' was going to
change everything.
It did lead to such language disasters as C++ (and of course MS went for it),
where the compiler writers at one time did not even know how to implement things.
Now the next big thing is 'think an object for every core' LOL.
Days of future wasted.
All the little things have to communicate and deliver data at the right time to the right place.
Sounds a bit like Intel made a bigger version of Cell.
And Cell is a beast to program (for optimum speed).

Then stop thinking about optimum speed. Start thinking about a
computer system that doesn't crash, can't get viruses or trojans, is
easy to understand and use, that not even a rogue device driver can
bring down.

I already have those, they run Linux.
I give you though, that a bad behaving module can cause big problems.
Just had to reboot a couple of times to get rid of 'vloopback', wanted to interface
the Ethernet webcam with Flashplayer.
It works now: http://panteltje.com/panteltje/mcamip/#v4l_and_flash
not with the new adobe flashplayer 10 beta for Linux though....
We will almost always be one step behind I guess..


Think about how to manage a chip with 1024 CPUs. Hurry, because it
will be reality soon. We have two choices: make existing OS's
unspeakably more tangled, or start over and do something simple.

If I understood the Intel press release correctly, the API of Larabee
will be not different from a normal graphics card, that would be nice.
They create the problem, let them write the soft :-)


Speed will be a side effect, almost by accident.

One can wonder how important speed really is for the consumer PC.
Sure, HD video, and later maybe 4096xsomething pixels will take more speed.
However for normal HD already cheap chipsets provide the power.
For HD video editing the speed can probably never be high enough...
but that is not only a graphics issue.

John, I dunno where it will go, but one thing I know:
It Will Not Become Simpler :-)

There is a tendency to more and more complex structures in nature.
With us at the top perhaps, little one cell organisms at the bottom, molecules,
atoms, quarks, what not.
Self organising in a way, the best configurations make it - in time -
And what is time, we are but a dash in eternity.



John



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