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Re: On the importance of standards

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: On the importance of standards
Date	2013-06-09 15:00 -0400
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<kp2j4a$ua8$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(6 earlier) <almarsoft.1889426296567484183@news.eternal-september.org> <7xy5akwl96.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <almarsoft.5710112334754822325@news.eternal-september.org> <7x8v2ke0lj.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <almarsoft.7049999493143330677@news.eternal-september.org>

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On 6/9/2013 10:03 AM, Steve wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:47:36 -0700, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
> wrote:
>> Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> writes:
>> > But you are right, if it wasn't for the power issue, there could
>> > potentially be little advantage past replacing the general purpose
>> > instructions with misc instructions.
>
>
>> I don't see any advantage at all from misc here. Chuck's design
> has the
>> nice feature of using almost no idle power, besides using very
> little
>> chip area. With gpu's you don't care about idle power, you care
> about
>> when they are computing as hard as they can, and that's all floating
>> point. And you don't care about chip area of the controller because
>> it's SIMD and because the individual nodes are mostly about parallel
>> arithmetic.
>
> We are talking about two different aspects here. I did mention that they
> are now using async idle design to stop future mobile chips from
> melting, so idle is important now.

Who is using "async idle design" and what is it?  I don't think it is 
async clocking or anything like that because that is a *major* departure 
from clocked design, so much so that you have to start all over and the 
big chip makers won't be doing that with mainstream products.


> On desktop cards it may not be as
> important, but the market is now a lot mobile. I am interested in the
> general purpose processing aspect, rather than pure graphical. I should
> have mentioned in my reply to Rick, that I am highly interested in
> seeing the gpu as an independent central processor (no external
> microprocessor needed), which would suit a number of applications.

Then it is no longer a GPU, is it?  If you are interested in other types 
of chips, why call them GPUs of they aren't designed for graphical 
processing?  I'm not trying to criticize, but it gets confusing to 
misuse terminology.


> AMD
> is interested in general purpose gpu processing, but what have they
> archived after all this time. The microprocessor is unneeded if the gpu
> is done right, even if they just have a misc array in one section to
> co-ordinate everything and for low powered general purpose processing.
> See my reply to Rick for answers to all your other questions.

AMD wants to leverage their investment in GPU design to use it for other 
apps and they are doing that right now.  The financial markets use GPUs 
as processors to speed their calculations.  If they can pull the lever 
on trades 1 millisecond faster than the other computers, they make more 
money, enough so that they will pay *huge* amounts for these computers.

I don't know if this is done, but I would think the SIMD aspect of GPUs 
would allow them to be used for weather calculations too.  In essence 
they are a poor man's Cray.


>> > Are there still a number of graphic orientated functions alongside
>> > SIMD, or are they all programmable functions now days?
>
>
>> Mobile gpu's do have special stuff for common graphics functions
> such as
>> video codecs. GA has made some claims for the GA144 in this area,
> but
>> nothing specific, and I just don't expect much, at least from the
>> current design.
>
> Hmm, years ago they had other graphical functions hardwired in. I
> suppose they now have gone programmable.
>
>
>> > Looking over at Mr Moore's Ether Forth pages at colorforth.com, I
> can
>> > workout that his cpu nodes are still likely less than 10k
> transistors
>
>
>> I think I saw the figure 7.5k mentioned somewhere.
>
> That was also about my recent guess based on the memory sizes, pretty
> nice, pity we did not have a full bus x18 single node design in the 70's.
>
>> done in software and communicates with the sram through i/o pins,
> which
>> is why it's so slow (around 4 mhz). It's clever but kind of
> impractical
>> IMHO. They'd be much better off with some conventional ram right
> on the
>> chip. Maybe the 32 bit chip will be better.
>
> I agree. But Mr Fox did say that it could do 100mhz/100mwords.

What would it do better with more RAM on the chip I wonder?  I haven't 
figured out just what I can use the current chip for.  What apps are 
enabled by adding some memory?


>> If you're thinking of an array processor with floating point, that's
>> been done lots of times already, such as with the Apteva chip that
> got
>> some mentions here a few months ago, and the Xeon Phi (formerly
>> Larrabee) from Intel. I think that misc nodes are more at home in
> the
>> FPGA world than the GPU world. Having an FPGA with some hard misc
> cells
>> would be interesting.

Adding an FPGA to a MISC or adding soft core MISC to an FPGA is easy. 
Do you need 700 MHz to make MISC useful?  Even the F18 doesn't do 700 
MIPS in most apps.


> But who do we want to see succeed, once they get their steam things can
> get better? I would really want to see a 32 bit version, with banks
> switching capability, for some apps, that would be great, especially if
> they could tap into mobile serial memory. I am not that interested in
> x18 unless I can get execution bus, compared to 32 bit. I am eyeing
> serial flash use for external execution on GA4 or 144, but GA4 is not a
> line product yet.

Bank switching?  Switching what?  Memory???  4 GB of memory isn't enough?

What is your app?

-- 

Rick

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On the importance of standards Joshua Litt <jalitt@gmail.com> - 2013-06-03 22:42 -0700
  Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-03 23:59 -0700
    Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-04 06:16 -0700
      Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 20:51 +1000
        Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-11 22:03 -0700
          Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-11 22:32 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-12 13:06 -0700
              Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-13 22:34 +1000
              Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-14 19:09 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-23 19:02 +1000
            Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-13 22:08 +1000
          Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-13 23:28 +1000
            Re: On the importance of standards Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-06-13 07:41 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2013-06-13 10:10 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-13 12:33 -0500
            Re: On the importance of standards "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2013-06-13 07:55 -1000
              Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-13 12:35 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-13 23:18 +0200
            Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-13 12:00 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-14 19:16 -0400
  Re: On the importance of standards Elizabeth D Rather <erather@forth.com> - 2013-06-03 21:32 -1000
    Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-04 01:33 -0700
    Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-04 01:36 -0700
      Re: On the importance of standards albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2013-06-04 10:14 +0000
      Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-04 05:51 -0700
  Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-04 05:46 -0500
    Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-06 11:13 -0700
      Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-06 16:47 -0400
      Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-06 21:29 -0500
        Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-08 04:26 +1000
  Re: On the importance of standards anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-04 12:03 +0000
  Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-04 06:00 -0700
    Re: On the importance of standards anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-04 13:20 +0000
      Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-04 06:33 -0700
        Re: On the importance of standards anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-04 13:40 +0000
          Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-04 07:42 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2013-06-04 18:02 +0200
              Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-04 09:07 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2013-06-04 19:16 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-04 14:27 -0400
                TRAVERSE-WORDLIST (was Re: On the importance of standards) Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-13 15:55 -0700
                Re: TRAVERSE-WORDLIST Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2013-06-14 13:39 +0200
                Re: TRAVERSE-WORDLIST Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-14 09:06 -0700
                Re: TRAVERSE-WORDLIST anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-17 17:05 +0000
                Re: TRAVERSE-WORDLIST Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-17 21:29 -0700
  Re: On the importance of standards stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2013-06-04 13:51 +0000
    Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-05 01:24 +0200
      Re: On the importance of standards stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2013-06-05 09:25 +0000
        Re: On the importance of standards m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl - 2013-06-05 04:31 -0700
          Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-05 05:41 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2013-06-05 21:16 +0200
              Re: On the importance of standards Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-06-05 12:41 -0700
          Re: On the importance of standards stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2013-06-05 12:53 +0000
            Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-06 04:20 +0200
              Re: On the importance of standards m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl - 2013-06-06 00:06 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-06 15:32 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2013-06-06 17:09 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-06 22:44 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards Roelf Toxopeus <rt4all@notthis.hetnet.nl> - 2013-06-07 10:16 +0200
              Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-06 21:31 -0500
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-08 00:58 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-07 22:02 -0500
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-09 00:55 +0200
                C interface (was: On the importance of standards) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-11 15:41 +0000
                Re: C interface (was: On the importance of standards) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-11 18:45 +0200
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-12 08:05 -0500
                Re: C interface anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-12 14:38 +0000
                Re: C interface Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-12 20:15 +0200
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-14 22:52 -0500
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-12 13:27 -0500
                Re: C interface anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-14 12:51 +0000
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-14 22:47 -0500
                Re: C interface anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-17 16:44 +0000
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-17 12:46 -0500
                Re: C interface anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-18 07:23 +0000
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-18 04:06 -0500
                Re: C interface m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl - 2013-06-18 03:51 -0700
                Re: C interface anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-18 16:10 +0000
                Re: C interface Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-18 13:24 -0500
          Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-05 15:35 +0000
            Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2013-06-05 17:37 +0000
              Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-06 04:28 +0200
              Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-14 15:23 +0000
                Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-15 14:33 +0200
            Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2013-06-05 21:32 +0200
              Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-14 15:05 +0000
                Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2013-06-14 21:42 +0200
                Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-17 16:53 +0000
            Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of standards) Spam@ControlQ.com - 2013-06-05 16:01 -0400
              Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of  standards) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-06-14 14:55 +0000
                Re: Foreign language interface (was: On the importance of  standards) Spam@ControlQ.com - 2013-06-14 15:28 -0400
        Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-06 04:14 +0200
    Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-06 15:25 -0500
  Re: On the importance of standards "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnotq.cpm> - 2013-06-04 17:48 -0400
    Re: On the importance of standards visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-06-04 15:06 -0700
    Re: On the importance of standards visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-06-04 15:40 -0700
    Re: On the importance of standards Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2013-06-05 07:30 +0200
    Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-08 04:33 +1000
  Re: On the importance of standards Zbiggy <zbigniew2011REMOVE@gmail.REMOVE.com> - 2013-06-05 02:09 +0000
    Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-04 19:32 -0700
      Re: On the importance of standards Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2013-06-05 00:06 -0400
    Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-04 22:50 -0400
    Re: On the importance of standards "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2013-06-04 19:02 -1000
      Re: On the importance of standards Zbiggy <zbigniew2011REMOVE@gmail.REMOVE.com> - 2013-06-05 23:16 +0000
        Re: On the importance of standards Elizabeth D Rather <erather@forth.com> - 2013-06-05 13:43 -1000
          Re: On the importance of standards "Ed" <invalid@invalid.com> - 2013-06-06 11:14 +1000
            Re: On the importance of standards Elizabeth D Rather <erather@forth.com> - 2013-06-05 15:27 -1000
              Re: On the importance of standards "Ed" <invalid@invalid.com> - 2013-06-06 15:28 +1000
  Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-05 00:03 -0700
  Re: On the importance of standards Joshua Litt <jalitt@gmail.com> - 2013-06-06 17:15 -0700
    Re: On the importance of standards "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2013-06-06 14:45 -1000
      Re: On the importance of standards Joshua Litt <jalitt@gmail.com> - 2013-06-06 19:24 -0700
        Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-06 21:38 -0500
          Re: On the importance of standards Joshua Litt <jalitt@gmail.com> - 2013-06-07 14:39 -0700
            Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-09 00:57 +1000
              Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-08 10:44 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-09 06:11 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-08 14:47 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 00:03 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-09 15:00 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-09 12:26 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-09 15:41 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-09 13:11 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-09 13:14 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 18:41 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-09 17:09 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 18:35 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-10 16:04 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-15 01:08 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 20:13 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 11:35 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-10 17:37 -0500
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 18:46 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-06-10 16:36 -0700
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-10 20:09 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-13 21:55 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-06-11 09:56 -0500
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-11 18:40 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-11 22:36 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-15 14:30 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-15 19:20 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-06-16 22:37 +0200
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-23 17:14 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-13 21:33 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-15 13:21 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-23 18:58 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2013-06-08 18:42 -0400
                Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-09 23:27 +1000
                Re: On the importance of standards "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2013-06-10 16:11 +0000
    Re: On the importance of standards Steve <nospam275@gmail.com> - 2013-06-08 05:11 +1000

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