🚀 go-pugleaf

In <31ad9c57.10416878@news-win.rinet.ru> minister@rinet.ru (Dmitriy
Veremeev) writes: 
>
>wally@nirvana.jsc.nasa.gov (Walter B Kulecz PhD) wrote:
>
>>In article <31ab1f2f.4414157@news-win.rinet.ru>, minister@rinet.ru
says...
>>>P5-200) and don't  bother about MMX AT ALL. Because the software
>>>support for MMX is MUCH more important than hardware implementation.
>>>Just like P5's and P6's new operands - they probably could speed up
>>>some applications, but nobody use them just not to do their code not
>>>capable of running on 486, P5 clones or something else. So even when
>>>MMX processors will be available, you won't be able to use their
>>>features - software companies shouldn't make software that wont work
>>>on 99% processors. It's a waste of money for them. And this
situation
>>>is going to continue for a couple of years. IMHO, of course.
>>>Sorry for poor English.
>>
>>I have to disagee here.  I expect the MMX to catch on and quickly
lead to a 
>>situation analogous to floating point coprocessors.  An emulator
library is 
>>written to support "old" hardware without MMX so software
auotmatically detects 
>>MMX and uses it, otherwise it calls the library code to accomplish
the same 
>>result (although slower).  
>>
>>Anyone who runs real calculations (fft's, matrix algebra, etc)
doesn't consider 
>>a machine without FP hardware (this has been true since the XT), so
people 
>>serious about multimedia won't consider machine without MMX asuming
the 
>>hardware actually delivers the improvements promised.  I expect it
will.
>>
>>Don't forget, AMD has licensed this from Intel already, Cyrix will
have to or 
>>else modify its existing extensions to be compatable.
>>
>
>And, still there are very many programs that better use FPU, but can't
>just for case of CPU w/o FPU or with incompatible one.. So the same
>will be with MMX - there will be 5-7 applications supported it -
>probably XING, maybe something like Photoshop, etc... But only a few!
>
>BYE.
>Yours, 
>LodeRunner. E-mail: minister@rinet.ru

Unfortunatetly this whole disussion may be irrelevant as TI just
introduced a new technology.  The 0.18 Micron process.  It packs an
incredible 125 million transistors on one chip, making it possible to
put several boards, video, audio, hard drive, ram, etc. on to a single
chip.  I will post the newsfeed following.

Sean C. Peters
NWE@ix.netcom.com