xtra info:

Hyper-Threading Technology maakt het mogelijk dat één CPU als twee processors werkt, mits de software multithreaded is, wat tot een performanceboost van 30~40% kan leiden. De 0,13micron core van Northwood en Prestonia zijn in wezen identiek, met 512KB L2 cache en kloksnelheden van 2GHz en 2,2Ghz, maar kennelijk is de in Northwood aanwezige HTT feature (nog) niet ingeschakeld.



so, running 2 kernels is no problem at all.



edit: just as in my first post. According to the current speed of development, i would not be suprised if the technolgy, or similar, will be available at low cost

I wonder why this filosophy can't be extended to the entire one chipper:



Let it run a *nix multitasking OS and, at the same time, build the complete MSX hardware (in FPGA) into it, and let the multitasking OS be able to direct I/O from keyboard/touchscreen/USB diskdrive/USB cartridgereader etc to the hardware-implemented MSX2 or MSXturboR. This way, it could in fact run any MSX application in it's own hardware-"sandbox"albeit only one at a time) while the multitasking OS keeps complete control over the system. So that a crashing MSX application (it did happen every once in a while ) cannot take the OS down. Hm, now I read my own text, I can see it smells a bit like the MSXinPC card Philips intended to produce...But it would make the one chipper as legacy-MSX compatible as possible and yet make it a modern device as well, running a multitasking OS, with a flat memory model, TCP/IP etc. And all this still leaves the posibbility open to use all hardware in an OS indepant direct mode, with or without using the old MSX2/MSXturboR core...



I do think that Linux, because of it's portability, is a good choice for an MSX OS

MSlinuX

A 'msxbox' as a part of the new msx Still I wonder how many people actually will use this new msx to run old msx software.

Jalu, you got it completly right IMO! But hey, it needs to be realized as well and such a creation would IMO be very tough to make. As far as i know, this has never been done before in such extend.



a system like this would have enough features to call it a MSX and probably would be more interesting for the commercial community because of multi threading.

Quote:

A 'msxbox' as a part of the new msx Still I wonder how many people actually will use this new msx to run old msx software.

More than you think. Maybe not in Europe, but in Japan they will. Think of it. A new computer system that can already run loads of classic games, and perhaps some popular linux software as well. Enough software available at launch is essential nowadays.

Thats a huge advantage for the revival. The already existing software! Loads of soft!



BTW: ARM currently does not have HTT in their CPUs. Even not the latest ARM11 CPU! Anyway, they cannot discuss future developments. But, HTT is not a requirement for a "combi-kernel", would only make it easier.

Just like the way old cp/m software could easily run on msxdos? Did you buy a playstation2 to play playstation1 games?



Being able to run old software is not enough. We can do that on our PC just as wel. Same goes for the Linux apps. So when can we expect the developmentkits?



and btw: no-one except Intel has htt in their cpus. And having a price of $100 as target for the new msx, I don't think the arm11 is a option. htt could only run two threads from the same kernel, I really don't see why this would make it easier to have two kernels. A better solution would be to have a kernel (yes, a microkernel ofcourse) with multiple interfaces. And that arm-powervr-graphics-thing should be used as cpu (And OK, it would be nice if they used a ARM11 core for that.)

ARM11 is currently the (according to ARM) the best CPU they offer.

Problem is.. the one chipper is a future computer, and will have future specifications. Since there is little information on WHEN the first one-chipper arrives, the final release might as well have an ARM11 or even a newer version.

I think ARM11 would be deprecated by the time. IF the production would start 2 years from now, im sure that ARM11 will be xtremely OUTdated.

IIRC people said that about the Z80 as well. If it is possible to code the chipper in ASM, the CPU does not have to be top-notch. Also, standardization allows codes to optimize their code (or compilers) much more compared to PCs. Really, we don't need a Pentium 5 10GHz CPU. Also, Nishi said his aim is not to compete with PCs. But it is clear that a part of the one-chippers functionality will overlap with that of PCs, consoles and old homecomputers

well, i would not mind if a 17 Ghz CPU will be used. We could always use an extra boost.

For the record, Hyper Threading isn't all that great. It sounds good but there are other things which are much more important. With properly programmed software you can achieve exactly the same, after all the CPU can only execute so much instructions within a certain time period, and simulating 2 processors with hardware instead of with software doesn't offer that much additional value at all. Actually it sounds pretty much like a hack to me, if I have 1 processor installed on my computer it should never report as two. Multitasking by hardware could be ok but then why offer only 2 threads, that's nothing compared to the 31 processes (not to mention threads) currently running on my computer, and I've yet got to see how much added value it offers. Looking at the benchmarks I have seen so far about HTT it only offers a little additional 'speed' in very particular cases, and at the other hand in some cases also slows down. Also I have yet to be convinced that isn't because the Windows multitasking engine isn't programmed at optimal efficiency.



Don't discard processors like ARM because they don't have that 'fabulous HTT technology' (sounds like Intel propaganda to me ^_^).



And oh, one more thing, this is getting way too offtopic ^_^.





~Grauw

ARM is ok! I have read more about it, and also found that only by certain situations it increased the speed, on the other hand, well you said it.



Anyway, i know that almost everything hardware does, can be done by software as well. But the more hardware does, the more special programs can use the CPU! That's the whole idea about it. I like CPU speed.

That's true. Hardware acceleration is often very nice. And that's one of the things why the 'new MSX' will rock, cuz it'll have programmable hardware. Now how cool is that, huh?



~Grauw