🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <rnbn21tmlsg.fsf@nortelnetworks.com>, Chris Ebenezer
<chriseb@nortelnetworks.com> writes
>
>aa158@valleynet.on.ca writes:
>: Two current news items at EETimes:
>: 
>: "The Playstation 2's CPU, jointly developed by Toshiba and SCE, is an 
>: enhanced
>: version of the device described at ISSCC. The device has floating-point
>: performance of 6.2 Gflops..."
>: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19990302S0026
>
>I notice they say that "The core of the I/O processor is the CPU of the
>current Playstation", so i guess its a R3000 based core ? 
>
>Still, what do they mean by the term I/O processor, in this context ?
>Surely, it means that this processor also has to be used as the main
>processor for using older games ?
They'll almost certainly emulate the PSX1 in software (if a 133Mhz PC
can do it, then why not this behemoth).  They won't make the hardware
backwards compatible, esp. if this thing can churn out 75 million
triangles, because of the PSX design.  

There is no way the PSX1 architechure could handle that, so it has to be
in software, with the GPU commands remapped to the new hardware.  It'll
certainly fix the perspective warping problem that has plagued so many
PSX games.

The I/O processor probably handles the firewire interface and DVD drive.
Make it a R3000 because they are cheap, and Sony probably has a lot of
'em lying around in stock.

---
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there
are few.  -Shunryu Suzuki-

Joat Mon, joatmon@auia.demon.co.uk