Replies to post #2772 on The Noise Is The Signal (NBOX)

[lurqer]

Besides if Itanium was doing so well, why is Intel working on a Pentium chip with 64bit extensions

Perhaps because they remember the fate of their first 32-bit microprocessor - the Intel 432.

http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/jbayko/cpu7.html

JMO

lurqer

[WinLoseOrDraw]

china is going MIPS. the MIPS instruction set is about as close to public domain as you can get. anybody who wants to is going to be able to clone it at will. it may never run windows, but it will run linux.

the vast majority of modern chips are nothing but software. you don't need to own a fab to build chips, you only need to know how to find "TSMC" in the yellow pages. you don't even need a synopsis license anymore, freeware logic simulators and synthesizers are sprouting like magic mushrooms in the NW drizzle.

i'm afraid in the long run BushtheFirst was right: a chip is a chip is a chip.

[WinLoseOrDraw]

free - or at least cheap - tools is always the first step. there is no linux without gcc. the rest follows inexorably. :)

http://geda.seul.org/