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On Emulation and Transmeta 67

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Curious writes "The Economist this week talks about the growing use of emulation technology and Transmeta's newest patent involving hardware/software hybrid in multi-host emulation." Whatever they emulate, their employees win Harley's at conferences, so they're doing something right.
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On Emulation and Transmeta More

On Emulation and Transmeta

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  • The Economist! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward


    Hands-down, the finest mainstream, English-language dead-tree thingy in the world. But even they can't breach the Transmeta Cone of Silence.



    The Economist makes all the other "hard news" weekly magazines look like People magazine. The reason this is so is very cool, and possibly offers a business model for free software.

    Most news magazines make money based on advertising, and the ad rates are directly dependent on the magazines circulation. So there is an economic incentive for the magazine to expand its circulation, which more-or-less translates into trading hard news for fluff -- movie reviews, "News you can use," that sort of stuff.

    So how does The Economist avoid this trap?

    Simple -- The Economist is a loss-leader for the company that publishes it. They make their real money by doing analyses of political and economic trends for big companies, governments and think tanks, and they charge big dollars for these analyses. Now, someone who is going to fork over thousands and thousands of dollars for analyses of, say, the political situation in the Uzbekhistan, wants some guarantees that their analyst isn't talking out of his butt.

    By publishing The Economist, the Economist Intelligence Unit (I think that's the name), basically shows their stuff to the world. They say, "If you want to know what kind of work we do, go check out the Economist magazine." So the magazine is basically advertising for their custom analyses.

    This means that they have a really strong incentive to publish genuinely in-depth and thoughtful news coverage. If they publish garbage they will lose their reputation for quality, and they die.

    So how does this relate to free software? It's probably possible to build a software business along very similar lines. You have a firm that primarily writes custom software for clients, and establishes a reputation for quality by releasing free software.

    If someone asks, "How do I know you aren't a gang of cowboy coders who write unstable trashware?" the firm can point to its free software as proof of its ability to write solid, well-designed programs -- the source is available for inspection and proof of the firm's ability.

  • Whenever I see one of those loud-ass pieces of crappy American engineering plowing down the road, all I can think is "Why is this person wearing jewellry in their butt?"

  • Hands-down, the finest mainstream, English-language dead-tree thingy in the world. But even they can't breach the Transmeta Cone of Silence.

    --

  • Okay, I guess I missed something... who won a harley, and when, at what conference? I'm guessing Linus...

    Pity it couldn't have been a decent bike.. but at least he can sell it for a tidy profit and buy himself a nice bike.. or two.
  • Did I forget to add a to the end of that? :-P
  • Grr. I meant a *grin*, since slashdot filters out the greater/less thans.

  • What the hell Transmeta does? Sheesh. They're up to something, that's for sure... I can't wait.
  • Yeah it would! And it'd look a lot gnarlier than a Wolfpack. :)
  • A beowulf cluster of harleys would be cool.
  • Read the comment this is a reply to, it has a very good observation that shouldn't be skipped just because the subject is bland and the poster is anonymous.

  • Personally, I'd opt for a Buell, but that's just me. Meanwhile, I commute on a battered Kwack, which cost me 1/200th of a Harley.

    Gotta do something about that income...

  • Check out ttp://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05832205__& language=en

    There's a missing "h" in there, and it wasn't made a link; here's a link to the patent [ibm.com].

    But wasn't that mentioned in a Slashdot article ages ago?

  • Not selling it--I ride it to work. It's sitting out front of Transmeta right now. *grin*
  • Guess you missed a major event then, the PlayStation 2 was announced last week. /. thread about it is here [slashdot.org]

  • Sounds to me like they're trying to interlink the independent kernels together into a node to allow you to simply add computers to increase the processing power.

    Such a system would be highly redundant, scaleable, and have a geek factor of about a billion (perhaps it's most important trait!). It could also be built at incredibly low cost.


    But, more importantly - where can I buy one? :)

    Ah, another thing I can say "NT can't do that!" to the microsoftian droids at work who think if NT can't do it, it is impossible.



    --
  • Actually, for about half the price of a low end harley, I'm about to buy a Suzuki GSX1300R crotch rocket with a 1298cc engine that will toast _any_ harley as long as I remember to keep my front wheel on the ground when I hit fourth gear. You'll hear the engine for about 1s. Sorry if you're jealous but it sounds nothing like a chainsaw. =) By the time you're about to shift your "man's machine" into 4th gear, I'll be about a mile up the road.

  • Rat bastard!

    Any luck Intel will hit it with a backhoe ;)
  • these days, a good proportion of the Harley is manufactured in, dare I say it, Japan, Home of the Crotch Rocket.

    Dollar for dollar, there are many other bikes that will outperform/outhandle a hog. But, nothing says motorcycle like a hog rolling down the highway.

    Hmmm, anyone else out there old enough to remember the Indian? Too bad the company trying to bring them back was unable too.
  • Do I have to paint a picture?

    -Overpriced
    -Overweight/bloated
    -unreliable
    -crash more frequently (of course, part of this is due to the higher rate of clueless
    posers drawn to all the shiny chrome)

    Yes...it is the windoze of Motorcycles. Get a crotch rocket. Or anything that has that attribute called 'handling'
  • I am designing an emulator that emulates an emulator emulating the emulator that emulates the emulator emulating an emulated emulator, emulating EMACS, emulating VI, emulating ed, emulating a PIII running emulated MacOS, running emulated Windows 98 in emulated Win 3.1 mode, running emulated DOS, emulating a Commodore 64.
  • How weak. The guy makes a post saying the company is doing something good by giving away an expensive motorcycle to an everyday joe, and you gotta' slam HD.

    Oh well, I'm gonna' slam you. Slam.
    There.

    Wasting Bandwidth
    Caut10n
    98 FatBoy
  • Harley's are not made to enjoy the road, they are made to annoy others. Why else would they have those offensively loud tailpipes? Do the morons who ride them actually think they look and/or sound "cool"?

    Actually the factory Harley pipes (with the crossover pipe) are way too quiet, which is why most people buy aftermarket pipes right away. You don't get that 'blat blat, blat blat' sound at idle with the factory pipes.

    Seriously, loud pipes save lives. Anyone who isn't deaf who says "I didn't see any motorcycles around" if they hit a Harley, in my book has no excuse.

    Seriously though, most Harleys are quiet compared to my Chevelle... So nyea nyea to you. :-)
  • You can only hear them when your BEHIND the motorcycle

    Bullpuckey. I can hear a Harley when it is in front of a car in front of me, when it is coming up behind me, or when it is approaching from a cross street. Your car must have too much sound insulation from outside noise. That can be a bad thing.

  • I think your basic ten-dollar scientific calculator can emulate ENIAC. Except it goes faster, takes up less space, uses less power, etc.

  • Maybe the author meant "formally announced" instead of "launched."

    According to PSM:

    Sony Computer Entertainment publicly unveiled the technology [PlayStation 2] on March 2, 1999 at the PlayStation Meeting '99 in Tokyo, Japan. It was unveiled to developers and press from all around the world.
  • Can they emulate ENIAC?
  • Please refrain from using racial epithets. Now. When I lived in Hawaii, the Harley dealership gave you a bus pass when you bought a new bike. Not by coincidence. They are the Jaguar of the motorcycle world. A japanese or german bike, however, will go and go and go. And they don't just make crotch rockets. But this is about emulation, so to remain on topic...

    I'm all for it. I liked the economist article, I think it did well for a general-consumption magazine. It's funny to me that there has been no mention of this (afaik) in the US press. Pretty sad when a european magazine is our best news source for US news.

    Zagmar
  • Do I have to paint a picture?

    -Overpriced
    -Overweight/bloated
    -unreliable
    -crash more frequently (of course, part of this is due to the higher rate of clueless posers drawn to all the shiny chrome)
  • Thats pronouned 'Dew-Cawww-tee'.

    Interesting trivia David Cronenberg (Canada's finest Film Director) has been collecting Ducati bikes for over 20 years.

    I still own a 1972 350 Desmo and lovingly reshim the cam rods every summer.

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