Although I think this is more of a coup. Showing Apple a powerful CPU that doesn't require them to change course dramatically or become a minority customer of a chipmaker that doesn't do custom work is one thing; beating Intel on its own turf is another.
This means, of course, that several crucial MS libraries (DirectX, anyone?) will be ported to PPC. Which means, rather than Apple moving OS X to Intel, we'll see MS (begin to) port Windows to PPC! You can be sure that Gates will hold that threat over Intel's head.
Windows on PPC?
Given the choice, I would go with OSX on PPC, but on non-apple PPC hardware where the leading OS is linux, windows might make a good alternative. What am I on? Linux Rocks! FK that, I like windows and all but keep it on the x86 platform. That way when the platform dies... so will windows. If Microsoft makes a different OS for PPC then I might take a look at it.
Would it acutally be easy to add to a custom 9x0 CPU?
Xbox might not have been the smash hit MS was hoping for, but they sold millions of units per year (quite likely more than Apple sold computers). Since this presents a nice speciality market for any manufacturer, a custom CPU is very, very likely if not a certainty. Develop once, sell for years without the need to constantly pour money into it. Then take the next evolution of your server chips and develop another gaming chip from it.
As I see it (admittedly, I am no pro here), IBM is going to rake in money on their POWER architecture: Use in servers for some years thereby reclaiming most of the dev costs, then move to blades/desktops, make even more money even from a difficult customer like Apple, then move to the consoles (modification costs are going to be high, but your customers are injecting money to fund it) and maybe move to high-end embedded systems after that.
Given the choice, I would go with OSX on PPC, but on non-apple PPC hardware where the leading OS is linux, windows might make a good alternative. What am I on? Linux Rocks! FK that, I like windows and all but keep it on the x86 platform. That way when the platform dies... so will windows. If Microsoft makes a different OS for PPC then I might take a look at it.
Oi!
I think Amorph was refering to Intel chips in Mac.
and i agree with him : thanks god it did not happen. An another transition would have desesperate me.
...This is the second time in recent months that IBM has handed Intel such a setback. Earlier this year, IBM won the business to provide the processors for Apple's new G5 personal computer over Intel.
"We kept Intel out of the Apple G5 and now we've kicked them out of Xbox," said Jeff VerHeul, vice president, Engineering and Technology Services, who leads the team that won the Xbox business. "Not bad, considering one Intel executive recently called us 'trivial.' I wonder how trivial he thinks we are now."
It's funny they make such a big deal out of beating Intel for Apple's G5 business. Corporate cheerleading, of course, but I wonder if Steve thought harder about going to Intel than is generally thought. If you had asked me who IBM "beat" to get the G5 contract, I'd've answered Moto, not Intel.
Powerdoc: I actually was talking about how this deal is a step toward Windows on PPC. Just a step, but still.
Quote:
Originally posted by Towel
It's funny they make such a big deal out of beating Intel for Apple's G5 business. Corporate cheerleading, of course, but I wonder if Steve thought harder about going to Intel than is generally thought. If you had asked me who IBM "beat" to get the G5 contract, I'd've answered Moto, not Intel.
Are you kidding? Not even IBM is going to brag about the fact that they stole candy from a baby.
(Sorry, it's just too easy to poke fun at Motorola...)
Is it possible that this "custom PPC chip" could still be x86 compliant via x86 front-end decoder sitting on top of a PPC core- similar to what AMD has done with their Athlon series (x86 front-end on a monstrous RISC core)?
AIM may well be gone, but AI isn't. I think everyone can admit that the 970 was designed with Apple's input. It is true, though, that IBM is in firm control. This XBox revelation is really quite startling. One would think that any future XBox system would need backward compatibility, or else it would be eaten for lunch. There must be x86 in this equation.
One would think that any future XBox system would need backward compatibility, or else it would be eaten for lunch. There must be x86 in this equation.
There could be a x86 instruction set bolted onto the RISC core like randycat pointed out. This sounds strange though because AMD has more experience with this kind of chips.
Or, there is VirtualPC which is owned by MS. Add some select x86 instructions to the PPC, add VPC technology for the rest, and a future multicore monster should be able to emulate the 733Mhz chip inside Xbox1.
There could be a x86 instruction set bolted onto the RISC core like randycat pointed out. This sounds strange though because AMD has more experience with this kind of chips.
Or, there is VirtualPC which is owned by MS. Add some select x86 instructions to the PPC, add VPC technology for the rest, and a future multicore monster should be able to emulate the 733Mhz chip inside Xbox1.
Yes, Microsoft should emulate easily the old X86 code. Considering that the new chip will clock at 2 ghz, have a much powerful video section, it will not be a big deal.
Considering the pseudo or little endian issue, IBM should be able to put this feature again in his chip.
"IBM spokesman Scott Brooks said IBM's "family of processors" are all PowerPCs. He declined to name the architecture specifically, saying IBM had promised Microsoft it would not do so."
"He also said the statement refers to the Xbox's main processor -- not an ancillary chip."
So, this is indeed a kick to intels nuts. And IBM is really big now in the gaming console business.
"Microsoft will use the Virtual PC technology it acquired from Connectix last year to provide backward-compatibility with the current generation of Xbox games."
Although Wired does not give a source for this, it basically confirms XBox2 will retain software compatibility.
You know what I'm thinking? Microsoft pays IBM an exuberant sum of money to have IBM kill their negotiations with Sony and Nintendo, thus eliminating the competition, or at least delaying it.
Sounds like Microsoft.
I think the development of the PS3 and the Cell technology is too far along for IBM to kill it. IBM benefits from having their chip in all 3 consoles, not just one. So I doubt that they'd be persuaded to pull out of the Sony deal.
Microsoft will use the Virtual PC technology it acquired from Connectix last year to provide backward-compatibility with the current generation of Xbox games.
Is this the real reason Microsoft bought Virtual PC? Does this mean that Microsoft thinks it can run windows faster on a PowerPC chip through Virtual PC than it can on an Intel chip? And this way, MS is committed to keeping virtual pc updated. That's good news.
I think you have a key element in the equation here. If you have a 970 running at 3GHz in an XBOX would emulation of a 733MHz intel compatable chip be that difficult. Realizing of course that you have acces to both the operating system and graphics libraries, much of the apllication could be running native anyways.
I don't believe this si much of a stretch at all, lets face it Apple did it for years and got very good results. Sure the porcessor they emulated had fewer quirks but none the less 3GHz provides plenty of performance for quirk emulation. Further if the processor is usnign any sort of MultiThreading there is emulstion potential there also.
I'd be surprised if this evolution of the XBox really involves a chip that any of us currently has knowledge of. Thus there are considerable possibilities for extended features. One of the most likely is an extended Alt-Vec/Velocity Engine/Vector processor facility. Lets face it Velocity Engine is a little long in the tooth even if it still lead the industry performance wise. So don't be surprised if an extended vector unit doesn't show up sometime in the near future.
Thanks
Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by Smircle
There could be a x86 instruction set bolted onto the RISC core like randycat pointed out. This sounds strange though because AMD has more experience with this kind of chips.
Or, there is VirtualPC which is owned by MS. Add some select x86 instructions to the PPC, add VPC technology for the rest, and a future multicore monster should be able to emulate the 733Mhz chip inside Xbox1.
I think what we will see happen is that MS will closely emulate Apples transition to PPC. That is they will port much of (if not all) the operating system and the relavant graphixs libraires to PPC and have the PPC emulate the balance of the x86 instructions.
Now Apple did have an advantage in the way the original Mac OS was structured or implemented using instruction emulation. MS should be able to run many of their libraires native and have an inteliggent I86 emulator set up the library calls properly.
I don't htink it is a question of running windows faster at all. It is more a question of having the processors and processor options that we don't know about, that can handle the gaming feature of the future. I do not believe that this developemnt will lead to anymore commitment to virtual PC then MS already has.
The issue with Virtual PC is as described above, MS will port what is required for XBox to PPC as a native application / operating system. It will integrate the emulation in much the same way that Apple did, so in a sense you end up with a partial emulation instead of a fully virtualized PC. This could very well be a bad thing for Virtual PC, or maybe not. Much of the new development energy could be back ported to Virtual PC but I'm not to sure the MS has much of a desire to do so. You also have to realize that any emulation the new XBox is to have must be completely transparent - this is a device targeted at the metaly challenged you know.
Thanks
Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by uyman
Is this the real reason Microsoft bought Virtual PC? Does this mean that Microsoft thinks it can run windows faster on a PowerPC chip through Virtual PC than it can on an Intel chip? And this way, MS is committed to keeping virtual pc updated. That's good news.
I'd be surprised if this evolution of the XBox really involves a chip that any of us currently has knowledge of.
You won't be surprised then.
I really have to shake my head at the short-sightedness of everybody on this one. XBox2 is a couple of years out still, so do you really think that they are going to be stuck with something as lame as a 970? That doesn't speak well of Apple's future prospects, either, even if Apple's chips, Microsoft's chips, and Sony's chips all have nothing do with eachother aside from (presumably) the PowerPC ISA and IBM's processor technology. If IBM wants to compete with Intel they'll need to stay abreast (or ahead) of Intel's roadmap.
If (big if) Microsoft even cares about backwards compatibility (a rare thing in the console business... its only happened once before), it only takes a ~3-4x clock rate improvement to emulate an x86 on a PowerPC and the existing XBox is only a 733 MHz Celeron.
Something else that people overlook -- the XBox is not a PC. MS used commodity PC parts to build it so that they could get to market quickly, but the business model for those parts is all wrong for the console market. The PC industry is basically geared to delivering maximum functionality at fixed price point, whereas the console market is all about fixed functionality at a minimum price point. This is the big reason GC and PS2 prices are dropping whereas XBox is holding steady (or taking a larger chunk out of MS' coffers).
Comments
Originally posted by Amorph
Thank God that didn't happen.
Although I think this is more of a coup. Showing Apple a powerful CPU that doesn't require them to change course dramatically or become a minority customer of a chipmaker that doesn't do custom work is one thing; beating Intel on its own turf is another.
This means, of course, that several crucial MS libraries (DirectX, anyone?) will be ported to PPC. Which means, rather than Apple moving OS X to Intel, we'll see MS (begin to) port Windows to PPC! You can be sure that Gates will hold that threat over Intel's head.
Windows on PPC?
Given the choice, I would go with OSX on PPC, but on non-apple PPC hardware where the leading OS is linux, windows might make a good alternative. What am I on? Linux Rocks! F
Oi!
Originally posted by Stoo
Would it acutally be easy to add to a custom 9x0 CPU?
Xbox might not have been the smash hit MS was hoping for, but they sold millions of units per year (quite likely more than Apple sold computers). Since this presents a nice speciality market for any manufacturer, a custom CPU is very, very likely if not a certainty. Develop once, sell for years without the need to constantly pour money into it. Then take the next evolution of your server chips and develop another gaming chip from it.
As I see it (admittedly, I am no pro here), IBM is going to rake in money on their POWER architecture: Use in servers for some years thereby reclaiming most of the dev costs, then move to blades/desktops, make even more money even from a difficult customer like Apple, then move to the consoles (modification costs are going to be high, but your customers are injecting money to fund it) and maybe move to high-end embedded systems after that.
AIM is gone, IBM owns the architecture now.
Originally posted by \\/\\/ickes
Windows on PPC?
Given the choice, I would go with OSX on PPC, but on non-apple PPC hardware where the leading OS is linux, windows might make a good alternative. What am I on? Linux Rocks! F
Oi!
I think Amorph was refering to Intel chips in Mac.
and i agree with him : thanks god it did not happen. An another transition would have desesperate me.
Originally posted by Fran441
The internal IBM Memo:
...This is the second time in recent months that IBM has handed Intel such a setback. Earlier this year, IBM won the business to provide the processors for Apple's new G5 personal computer over Intel.
"We kept Intel out of the Apple G5 and now we've kicked them out of Xbox," said Jeff VerHeul, vice president, Engineering and Technology Services, who leads the team that won the Xbox business. "Not bad, considering one Intel executive recently called us 'trivial.' I wonder how trivial he thinks we are now."
It's funny they make such a big deal out of beating Intel for Apple's G5 business. Corporate cheerleading, of course, but I wonder if Steve thought harder about going to Intel than is generally thought. If you had asked me who IBM "beat" to get the G5 contract, I'd've answered Moto, not Intel.
Originally posted by Towel
It's funny they make such a big deal out of beating Intel for Apple's G5 business. Corporate cheerleading, of course, but I wonder if Steve thought harder about going to Intel than is generally thought. If you had asked me who IBM "beat" to get the G5 contract, I'd've answered Moto, not Intel.
Are you kidding? Not even IBM is going to brag about the fact that they stole candy from a baby.
(Sorry, it's just too easy to poke fun at Motorola...)
So it seems, For better or worse...
Originally posted by Aquatic
"AIM is gone, IBM owns the architecture now."
So it seems, For better or worse...
AIM may well be gone, but AI isn't. I think everyone can admit that the 970 was designed with Apple's input. It is true, though, that IBM is in firm control. This XBox revelation is really quite startling. One would think that any future XBox system would need backward compatibility, or else it would be eaten for lunch. There must be x86 in this equation.
Originally posted by Big Mac
One would think that any future XBox system would need backward compatibility, or else it would be eaten for lunch. There must be x86 in this equation.
There could be a x86 instruction set bolted onto the RISC core like randycat pointed out. This sounds strange though because AMD has more experience with this kind of chips.
Or, there is VirtualPC which is owned by MS. Add some select x86 instructions to the PPC, add VPC technology for the rest, and a future multicore monster should be able to emulate the 733Mhz chip inside Xbox1.
IBM 2004: Out of the Office. Instead delivering the fastest consumer chips to the same hippies and to uniskilled gamers around the world.
Time to a new logo IBM.
Originally posted by Smircle
There could be a x86 instruction set bolted onto the RISC core like randycat pointed out. This sounds strange though because AMD has more experience with this kind of chips.
Or, there is VirtualPC which is owned by MS. Add some select x86 instructions to the PPC, add VPC technology for the rest, and a future multicore monster should be able to emulate the 733Mhz chip inside Xbox1.
Yes, Microsoft should emulate easily the old X86 code. Considering that the new chip will clock at 2 ghz, have a much powerful video section, it will not be a big deal.
Considering the pseudo or little endian issue, IBM should be able to put this feature again in his chip.
Originally posted by Anders
IBM 1984: Big Buisness Brother that needed a good smackaround by some hippies in California.
IBM 2004: Out of the Office. Instead delivering the fastest consumer chips to the same hippies and to uniskilled gamers around the world.
Time to a new logo IBM.
Yeah, it's funny how that works... IBM was the enemy, now they're Apple's best friend
But I don't think they should change their logo. Their old one is fine how it is. Highly recognizable, a real mainstay in the technology industry.
Oh, and my favorite part from the Wired article:
"IBM spokesman Scott Brooks said IBM's "family of processors" are all PowerPCs. He declined to name the architecture specifically, saying IBM had promised Microsoft it would not do so."
Itanic is right...
"He also said the statement refers to the Xbox's main processor -- not an ancillary chip."
So, this is indeed a kick to intels nuts. And IBM is really big now in the gaming console business.
"Microsoft will use the Virtual PC technology it acquired from Connectix last year to provide backward-compatibility with the current generation of Xbox games."
Although Wired does not give a source for this, it basically confirms XBox2 will retain software compatibility.
Originally posted by Placebo
You know what I'm thinking? Microsoft pays IBM an exuberant sum of money to have IBM kill their negotiations with Sony and Nintendo, thus eliminating the competition, or at least delaying it.
Sounds like Microsoft.
I think the development of the PS3 and the Cell technology is too far along for IBM to kill it. IBM benefits from having their chip in all 3 consoles, not just one. So I doubt that they'd be persuaded to pull out of the Sony deal.
Microsoft will use the Virtual PC technology it acquired from Connectix last year to provide backward-compatibility with the current generation of Xbox games.
Is this the real reason Microsoft bought Virtual PC? Does this mean that Microsoft thinks it can run windows faster on a PowerPC chip through Virtual PC than it can on an Intel chip?
I don't believe this si much of a stretch at all, lets face it Apple did it for years and got very good results. Sure the porcessor they emulated had fewer quirks but none the less 3GHz provides plenty of performance for quirk emulation. Further if the processor is usnign any sort of MultiThreading there is emulstion potential there also.
I'd be surprised if this evolution of the XBox really involves a chip that any of us currently has knowledge of. Thus there are considerable possibilities for extended features. One of the most likely is an extended Alt-Vec/Velocity Engine/Vector processor facility. Lets face it Velocity Engine is a little long in the tooth even if it still lead the industry performance wise. So don't be surprised if an extended vector unit doesn't show up sometime in the near future.
Thanks
Dave
Originally posted by Smircle
There could be a x86 instruction set bolted onto the RISC core like randycat pointed out. This sounds strange though because AMD has more experience with this kind of chips.
Or, there is VirtualPC which is owned by MS. Add some select x86 instructions to the PPC, add VPC technology for the rest, and a future multicore monster should be able to emulate the 733Mhz chip inside Xbox1.
Now Apple did have an advantage in the way the original Mac OS was structured or implemented using instruction emulation. MS should be able to run many of their libraires native and have an inteliggent I86 emulator set up the library calls properly.
I don't htink it is a question of running windows faster at all. It is more a question of having the processors and processor options that we don't know about, that can handle the gaming feature of the future. I do not believe that this developemnt will lead to anymore commitment to virtual PC then MS already has.
The issue with Virtual PC is as described above, MS will port what is required for XBox to PPC as a native application / operating system. It will integrate the emulation in much the same way that Apple did, so in a sense you end up with a partial emulation instead of a fully virtualized PC. This could very well be a bad thing for Virtual PC, or maybe not. Much of the new development energy could be back ported to Virtual PC but I'm not to sure the MS has much of a desire to do so. You also have to realize that any emulation the new XBox is to have must be completely transparent - this is a device targeted at the metaly challenged you know.
Thanks
Dave
Originally posted by uyman
Is this the real reason Microsoft bought Virtual PC? Does this mean that Microsoft thinks it can run windows faster on a PowerPC chip through Virtual PC than it can on an Intel chip?
Originally posted by MacsRGood4U
Could MS also be contemplating a Mac version of Longhorn? Probably not, but wouldn't that be interesting.
No, this is reading much too much into the story. PPC is a nieche platform, for allround PC applications x86 is more than good enough.
MS had a PPC, a x86, and a Alpha-version of NT 4, and only the x86 version survived.
Originally posted by wizard69
I'd be surprised if this evolution of the XBox really involves a chip that any of us currently has knowledge of.
You won't be surprised then.
I really have to shake my head at the short-sightedness of everybody on this one. XBox2 is a couple of years out still, so do you really think that they are going to be stuck with something as lame as a 970? That doesn't speak well of Apple's future prospects, either, even if Apple's chips, Microsoft's chips, and Sony's chips all have nothing do with eachother aside from (presumably) the PowerPC ISA and IBM's processor technology. If IBM wants to compete with Intel they'll need to stay abreast (or ahead) of Intel's roadmap.
If (big if) Microsoft even cares about backwards compatibility (a rare thing in the console business... its only happened once before), it only takes a ~3-4x clock rate improvement to emulate an x86 on a PowerPC and the existing XBox is only a 733 MHz Celeron.
Something else that people overlook -- the XBox is not a PC. MS used commodity PC parts to build it so that they could get to market quickly, but the business model for those parts is all wrong for the console market. The PC industry is basically geared to delivering maximum functionality at fixed price point, whereas the console market is all about fixed functionality at a minimum price point. This is the big reason GC and PS2 prices are dropping whereas XBox is holding steady (or taking a larger chunk out of MS' coffers).