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A .Net CPU
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Dec 14, 2004 04:50 AM
from the punctuation-butchers dept.
from the punctuation-butchers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Windows for devices has an article about the .Net CPU. The chip is programmed with a subset of the CLR and runs the same software as the SPOT smart watches. Among other things, "[t]he computer module is implemented in the format of a 32-pin "DIP" (dual inline package) chip, allowing the module to conveniently plug into a standard 32-pin DIP socket. In addition, the ".netcpu CPU Module" integrates 4MB of nonvolatile Flash memory (interfaced via an SPI interface on the SoC). It also provides 24 general purpose digital I/O lines, which are multiplexed with other functions including 8 VTU ports, a USB port, two serial ports, and SPI and I2C interfaces." More information about the product can be found at the .netcpu company website."
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Goodbye To the SPOT Watch 87 comments
Starturtle sends along an Engadget article on the demise of the Microsoft SPOT Watch. We've discussed related devices a few times in the past; here's a picture of one. "After a long, painful, nearly anonymous ride on the wrists of a select few uber-geeks, Microsoft's finally throwing in the towel on one of its longstanding pet projects: the SPOT watch. The writing's been on the wall for some time; the applications and content available to the watches haven't been updated in ages, and indeed, the entire line of Abacus Smart Watch 2006 models — the only type being recently offered — has been discontinued and out of stock for a few months. For what it's worth, MSN Direct's program manager is quick to note that the underlying technology most certainly isn't going away."
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.Not a .NET CPU (Score:5, Informative)
It's an embedded chip which has a CLR on top of it. Nice idea, sorry that Sun thought of it earlier ( The Green Project [java.net]) - Sun seems to be consistently missing the BUS here. They came up with "Network is the computer" and now MS is selling ".NET " :)
I've seen a couple of stack based engines but by its polymorphic natureRemember ROM Basic... (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like this idea's been around for god knows how long ... So much for innovation, we seem to be going backwards here ?.
This is a plug , but I've been working on aParent
Duh ! ... It's an exe + bootstrap for JIT (Score:4, Informative)
Read this paper [64.233.167.104] about how many hoops you have to go through to get a decent interpreter for .NET. And it blatantly ignores the _Main() x86 native code that's in the .exe files.
Parent
Re:.Not a .NET CPU (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatdayamean that doesn't count? Programming the 6809 was like programming in a high level language... well, it felt like it, back when the alternative was BASIC. ;-)
ctrl-alt-del keys? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:ctrl-alt-del keys? (Score:2)
Parrot (Score:4, Informative)
Now that would be exciting.
Never will be a direct chip for Parrot (Score:5, Informative)
Parrot is not a very good design to put on a chip, for one single reason.
Too Many opcodes (1500 at my current count and growing).Morover parrot has opcodes which do very complicated things like "print_nc" which prints a FLOATVAL constant. Compared to that IL opcodes are simpler and JVM is still more simpler (CVM [southern-storm.com.au] is even simpler - which is what I'm working on now).
Parrot is too complex, period.Parent
Too many opcodes? (Score:2)
Re:Parrot (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe its just me but.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Maybe its just me but.... (Score:3, Informative)
BASIC Stamps are good for when you only want to do one, and don't want to lay out a board with crystal, peripherals, etc. Although I have a tendency to do my own boards, I can see that BASIC Stamps are good for some projects.
Security ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do we have to buy another processor ? or flash another CLR ?
Placing anything on a processor is a *pretty* stupid idea.
Re:Security ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, that's right, you had to buy another processor.
The X86 instruction set isn't somehow immune to flaws.
Parent
A copy of...? (Score:2)
these thingys aren't from Redmond...
dang it.. too late...
Blue device of death (Score:2, Funny)
A drm hardware dream.
Actually, it's an ARM7 (Score:5, Interesting)
I assume FBGA is a typo for FPGA. This thing sounds suspiciously similar to one of those standard FPGAs with a built-in ARM7 core.
It actually sounds like quite a nice little embedded system, a kind of grown-up Basic STAMP [parallax.com]. I expect that the .net VM is in ROM; on start-up the FPGA is probably bootstrapped from it. I wonder if it would be possible to replace it with a real operating system?
Re:Actually, it's an ARM7 (Score:5, Informative)
When referring to packaging, FBGA is usually Fine Ball Grid Array. I really doubt it's a typo. From the programmers point of view, the package virtually never significant.
Overall, this sounds remarkably similar to picoJava [sun.com], which, last I checked, was going nowhere, and for good reason.
Designing bytecode formats for VMs is not really the same as designing opcodes for microprocessors -- shoehorning hardware that way is painful and generally results in less elegant, more expensive designs.
OTOH, the bytecodes in question aren't really significantly worse than, say, x86, and look where that is today...
Parent
Virtual Java Virtual Machine (Score:2)
Re:Virtual Java Virtual Machine (Score:5, Informative)
This has been available for a long time with open access to the design from Sun as the picoJava [sun.com] CPU core. It was not an economically viable CPU and I think this's one of the reasons why Sun released it.
Parent
Another "Innovation" from Microsoft? (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't this exactly like the Java CPU that Sun was selling a few years back? And it was simply a close relative of the Lisp processors from the 80s.
C#, Java. .Net, J2EE. CLR, JVM. .NET CPU, Java CPU. So should we expect Microsoft to simply repeat everything that Sun did with Java? If so, wake me up when they declare they're going to release CLR under an open source license.
Re:Another "Innovation" from Microsoft? (Score:4, Funny)
*riiiiiiing* wake up call
Well, maybe not your definition of open source (no GPL or BSD license but Shared Source) but remember open != free as in beer
Parent
Boring compared to... the Brainf*ck CPU! (Score:5, Funny)
Ahnetkpuh? (Score:4, Funny)
That's funny (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's only connection with them is that Mark Phillips guy, who, when googled investigatively, appears to have founded A Dot Corporation in Apr.2k3ce and they were involved in... SPOT Watch technology and claim microsoft to be a business partner (spotcorporation.com).
So is Mark Phillips using his work with microsoft's SPOT developer team to create something to market under a different name? Both companies list only Mark Phillips as founder and, in fact, confirmed employee, although one site listed A Dot as having 24 employees.
Yeah, so that's funny...
Hardware independence? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course people see the need for hardware acceleration because interpreted or even JIT compiled bytecode languages are always going to be slower than precompiled native binaries.
Re:Hardware independence? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just a CPU for the
It is not a real CPU , from what I read. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it is a CPU for .NET CLR as much as a Gumstix is a CPU for Linux kernel. It's just a VM embedded on firmware, NOT a REAL CPU.
Btw, the JVM FPGA is a real example of a VM less execution (or more correctly , a native JVM + support libs).Re:It is not a real CPU , from what I read. (Score:2, Insightful)
I can only begin to guess what your definition of a CPU is. Anyway, it still isn't going to eat your mother or pull your cats tail. It is just a chip from a vendor you don't like. Move on.
Re:So (Score:3, Informative)
As a former DOS programmer, I can tell you that when Microsoft wants to get rid of an API, they're quite good at it. If they want to do it, win32 will be dead before the end of the decade, just like dos.
Re:So (Score:5, Insightful)
They can't just kill backwards compatibility now since it is the one big reason to stay with Windows. Most businesses are evaluating other OS now and if the change to a new Windows version requires rewriting all your programs (I know they will probably implement a compatibility layer but we know how well that worked in the past) then they might just as well rewrite them on Linux (or some other OS that 'lacks' MS Security Features (TM) ).
Parent
Re:So (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, that'll suck for anyone who's currently working with any API it replaces, but that's progress - technology moves on. Besides, the jobs won't disappear overnight, there are still openings for COBOL programmers, for example (there's even a COBOL binding for
I still don't see the big deal. One of the most frequent criticisms I hear on tech sites of Windows is the cruft that's accumulated due to always maintaining backward compatibility. Surely removing that cruft by removing the backward comp
Re:So (Score:4, Informative)
It loads ".NET Embedded" from firmware.
This is like saying an iPaq has a WindowsCE CPU.
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say that I see more
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of the products I have seen (both data collection and warehouse-type) are moving to
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if you put your troll's club down long enough to take a look at sourceforge, you would notice most of the newer open source applications for Windows are being developed in
It won't take over the Internet, but it has been well accepted and is easy to use.
I wonder though, with all this FUD, if anyone can produce real numbers showing which is in more demand in the workplace: Linux developers vs
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that there is all sorts of FUD flying around about
All that said, I seem to remember reading about how Microsoft was dropping
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:5, Insightful)
let's face it - MFC and Win32 are old and have been cobbled together, seemingly at random over the lifespan of the whole Windows family, meaning nothing feels like it's ever really been designed
One function returns a colour, another function needs a colour. Oh dear, one uses some kind of int, the other a struct (oh and another some kind of class) - lets bog down our code with lots of conversion functions - Most of the time the sensible obvious approach to a task is the wrong one.
So far in
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:4, Interesting)
.Net (WTF - extremely "ungooglable" name, BTW) is young and peppy... Wait 5-10 years for it to mature though.
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:3, Informative)
Although I agree with you that it isn't the case to troll everything that has "microsoft" into it, I think that an high income isn't the first requirement for someone that foreseek freedom of choice and information (why develop Free Software, else?).
The fact that 85% of the computer world use MS systems doesn't mean that it's the best thing to do. Still, things are (really) slowly changing. Maybe I'll live the day when the market share between MS and *nixes 'll be 50%-50%... and that would mean real compe
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't imagine .NET is going to take over the Internet, but ASP.NET is a very nice platform for writing web apps. OK they will probably run on IIS, unless you use Mono, but it is a big step up from the scripting languages approach of basically just printing out the web page.
It gives some nice abstraction to writing web pages, you don't have to worry about hand crafting every bit of HTML that is going out to the browser (although you can if you want or need to), and can deal with the concepts, objects and events.
.NET does little that is new, Java was doing much of it first, but for writing web apps it is pretty simple and powerful and has good development software. We are moving to it at work because it makes us more productive.
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Scary (saracasm) (Score:4, Interesting)
search for ".net", any job type [jobserve.com] - 1629
search for "c", any job type [jobserve.com] - 1499
search for "java", any job type [jobserve.com] - 3009
search for "c++", any job type [jobserve.com] - 2300
Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 15.6). Guess I'd better explain then that jobserve.com is a major UK-based jobs web site, catering to a large number of industries. While the jobs advertised are mainly in the UK, they also cover parts of Europe, and have a site dedicated to jobs in Australia. How's that slashcode, better?
Parent
Re:Stupid ramblings (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question is "does it run Mono?"
Parent
Re:Hmm, sounds familiar (Score:4, Informative)
* No floating point 16-bit int instead of 32 bits.
* All types (byte, short, char, int and boolean) use 2 bytes,
though byte and short arrays use 1 byte per element.
* Only one-dimensional arrays (can use the index to simulate a 2-D array.)
* Single byte ASCII strings instead of two byte Unicode
* Only a single thread available, though a timer allows for
scheduling of multiple tasks. (Plus the VP objects run independently)
* No interfaces, though sub-classing of an abstract base class is allowed.
* A subset of the core libraries is available. (Remember also that
all linked classes must be downloaded with the program and fit into
the 32kb of memory.)
* No garbage collection. All objects created will last for the
duration of the program.
Compare that to this
* 384K of SRAM, single cycle access
* 27 MHz ARM7TDMI
* FBGA chip form
* ~450,000 instructions per second
* 4MB non volatile flash
* 1.8-volt core, 3.3-volt I/O
* 32768 Hz real-time clock
* 32-pin pinout, including 24 GPIO ports multiplexed with other functions (8 VTU ports, dual serial ports, SPI, and USB port)
* SPI and I2C interfaces
and its multithreaded, too
Parent
comparing Apples and Margarine ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The guys haven't really given out WHAT the "embedded.net" runs - looks like it's about the same as what the embedded JVM runs (not the Java "chip"). It's not a ".NET" chip first off and secondly it's almost the same as those "jvm" embedded (ie 400k sdram for what I have) in features. Multi-threading is not really multi-threading either, it is a kind of co-operative environment.
It's really not the big badass ".NET" a
Re:Hmm, sounds familiar (Score:3, Informative)
Read about it and some other Java chips here [particle.kth.se].
Re:YOU BASTARD! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:jP? (Score:3, Informative)
Its been around for a while.
Enjoy,