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Technology

Elbrus gets Moscow Government backing 87

Posted by sengan from the good-news dept.
Elbrus will get government funding for the manufacture of its E2K processor from the Moscow Government. We'll be having a special look into the E2K's architecture as soon as I get a free weekend -- it's really interesting.
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Elbrus gets Moscow Government backing More

Elbrus gets Moscow Government backing

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  • Are we being lied to? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Are we being lied to? Probably. Every conflict I have lived through, the government has lied to the people in some respect. Usually we find out afterwards.

    Are there atrocities happening in Kosovo? I think it is very likely. Why? Because Milosovic has done it before in Bosnia. He should have been tried for war crimes then, but was let off in the hopes of fostering stability in the region. This turns out to have been a mistake, but probably an unforseable one.

    I also think that accounts of the conflict are likely to be more accurate these days because we have much greater access to media accounts from multiple countries, and first hand accounts from people on the ground via the internet, phone and ham radio. Do the local Serbian population have similarly unrestricted access to news sources?

    I don't think you can decide the nationality of a pice of soil on the basis of history. Otherwise we would have to revert all borders back to some historical state. But when: 1800? 1500? Should the US belong to England? Spain? Native Americans? Trying to undo history is pointless - the best we can hope to do is treat people justly today. In practice the only way to determine the nationality of a place is by the preference of the majority of the people living there.

  • Hmm. (Score:1)

    by Shiska ( 131 )
    Translation: "Moscow will be using money that it recieves from the USA to invest in E2K."
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • If Texas has over 90% of population as mexicans, can they start own war to join Texas to Mexico?

    Of course. Any state in the union has the right to succeed from the union.. of course trying to succeed requires war, a war that Texas couldn't win.

    Also it's not just the US which is in this, it's every other country besides china and russia that are in NATO. We just happen to have the most armed forces. So unless you live in Russia or China or one of those little countries, chances are your country is participating.

    Shesh, UN != US. The US is just one country out of several that are part of the UN.

    --
  • Posted by SkiFF:

    ..because in USSR hi-tech worked just for military purposes and only sometimes moved to consumer market, and now he tries to correct this situation. By the way, Moscow itself DOES NOT need IMF money, Moscow is OK thanks to Luzhkov.
    And STOP messing all of this with Balkan's war. NATO's democracy for selected is facisim and russians remember how they paid 30 billions of lifes for a hope of US, UK and others to destroy USSR with Hitler's hands. We don't want to pay again for Miloshevic and NATO crimes. Just wanna take a look at this chip...
  • Posted by SkiFF:

    Is this financial or space news or what? Don't worry, Mir will stay on orbit for at least 5 years.

    Congritulations with the 38th anniversary of the first man in space, soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
  • Posted by SkiFF:

    Go on, and don't forget to dismiss UN as it keeps it's eyes closed when NATO violates internatioanal laws. We'd better pray Russian goverment can stop nationalists and communist getting power. They seems to be ready to push the "red button", despite most of the russians don't want to get into this war. Eh...cnn.com looks like official soviet newspaper in 80th with pure propaganda, wich shows only the one side in a 'desired manner', just trust me. Did u hear russian humanitarian aid for both serbs and albanians blocked by hungarians, despite official agreement, or civilians beeing killed by prohibited bombs with no choice of nationality. Both Miloshevic and NATO are wrong, but both don't wanna accept this due to the personal weakness. So why should we become offtopic and look at each other like fanatic idiots???
  • Posted by SkiFF:

    As far as I know, Lukoil is formaly registered in a small town 200km far from Moscow....and this town looks like a village...so where're the taxes? Definitely not there :) But still, Moscow goverment owns and participates in many companies so they get direct revenues from them and most of these companies are not bankrupts after August 17. The greatest part of financial flows goes through Moscow anyway. Real consumer prices for major products have rised up to 2-3 times, lower than devaluation rate at approx. 4 times. And after all life in Moscow hasn't changed much since the last summer, bear in mind that Moscow is on the 3rd place after NY and Tokyo for the cost of living. Moscow government is finishing to repair(here it means rebuild) the highway around the city which is smth about 130 km, and other stuff spending pretty much. I don't think the city doesn't have money.
    P.S. Moscow belongs to the number of regions in RF who are sometimes called 'donors' because they give money for the regions who can't get enough taxes.
  • I suspect Russia is concidered too risky a marketplace by most long term private investors.
  • I dont know if this is what the guy was refering to, and I cant give you any reference right away. But anyways. The japaneese had during the WWII one or two HUGE death camps where they experimented with biological weapons on capured chineese and allied civilians and soldiers. After the war ended the US and Japan made some agreement in wich the US could have all the results of the Japaneese reseach in biological weaponry, in return nor Japaneese scientists who had killed thousands of people using anthrax, cholera etc, or the Japaneese government would not be held responsible.

    Dont know if this is what he meant by japaneese death camps.
  • Eh? Japanese death camps? That's a new one to me.

    This is the kind of clueless statement I've been seeing a lot on Slashdot lately. That reminds me of a friend of mine that was originally from Yemen and moved to Jordan before he came to school in the US. He occasionally berates some of us for being "stupid Americans," but when I said something to him one day about "at least you've got one thing in common with Jewish people--you don't eat pork," his reply was, "What? No, Jewish people eat pork...don't they?" I mean, he lived in *Jordan*, for Pete's sake! :^) It's like me not knowing anything about folks from Missouri or Indiana (I live in Illinois.)
  • Now we know where all the IMF money is going!

    -- adr
  • Luzhkov (Moscow major) pretty much owns the city,
    so you may concider it a private investment :-)
  • I find great that the russian gvt put some money on R&D. Today this kind of investment is only done in specific countries in the world. Let's face it, the time it gets an investor to learn where the hell is Malasia is too long, so when he knows Malasia he won't put money in Uruguay, even if there's a project there that will succed. Anyway investors usually don't understand what they are investing in anyway...
    Many countries receive money from the World Bank or similar institutions and burn it.
  • are fantasy until they actually get alife. For the last 10 years vast majority of these promises were not completed at all.

    Chip design requires 100% funding, because you can't release a chip, which is 99.99% bug free, no one in his mind will buy it. Actually no one from serious buyers (mission critical stuff) will buy it until v2.xx or something.

    Also bear in mind that current estimates on how much money is required to complete research (I don't believe they have finished it and only need fab's, that won't be a problem) tend to increase A LOT in this industry. So, they guys from Elbrus2000 project will have to beg for money again and again.

    I seriously doubt they will get them (although I wish they will).

    People from the US and other developed countries won't probably understand how it can be that top official promises to fund something, makes budget and it NEVER happens, even this official never get sacked. This is Russia's reality.

    AtW,
    http://www.investigatio.com [investigatio.com]
  • Consider that Moscow budget used to be relatively ok because of:
    1. 90% of all banks were in Moscow and paid taxes there -- now most of them bankrupt and do not pay a penny.
    2. Gazprom (gaz monopoly) accounted form 25-30% of the whole Moscow budget, now probably even higher since it earns hard currency which soared from 6.3 rubles/$ to 26 rubles/$ for just half-a-year. Gazprom is only formally registered in Moscow, all real activities are done in West Siberia, which means people do all stuff there but taxes (according to current legislation) are being paid in Moscow! New proposed law will require all companies pay taxes at the place of real business, not formal registration -- bummer, will be -40-50% of Moscow budget, unless you will find some gaz dwells on it's territory.
    3. Lukoil (biggest oil company), is struggling with low oil prices, sometimes below actual costs.
    They also only legally registered in Moscow and pay taxes there yet until above condition will be met.
    4. Devaluation of the ruble created big troubles for anyone who borrowed hard currency from foreign investors. Should I say that Moscow was #1 in these investments? This year Moscow will have to repay a lot of money, which account to at least half a budget unless restructured!

    And now you saying Moscow is ok? Are you actually living in Moscow and reading any information source except computer-oriented????

    No offence, but Moscow is by no means far from being ok.


    AtW,
    http://www.investigatio.com [investigatio.com]
  • Hahahahaha! You don't understand anything, do you? Your education a bit lacking, eh?

    Russia supports Serbs for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that Serbs use the same character set. Serbian and Croatian is the same language, except that Croatians use the Latin alphabet, and Serbians use the Cyrillic alphabet. The two can speak to each other and understand each other, but they write the same language differently. Russians stick by Serbs because there is a shared language and political heritage there. It's little different than the "special relationship" between us here in the colonies and Great Britain.

    AND, having said that, you need to understand the importance of language in Eastern Europe. In that area of the world, people kill people who fall into the category of "THEM." How do you know who's US and THEM so you don't kill the wrong people? Easy. You can see what church they walk into, or you can find out what language they speak.

    So, without realizing it, you've fallen into the same trap that has plagued Eastern Europe for hundreds of years. Don't divide the world into US and THEM, because after you do that you start thinking that OUR shit doesn't stink, and you've got to kill THEM.

    End of lesson.
  • Serbs use the cyrillic character set because of the prominence of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Kosovar Albanians are mainly Serbs who were converted to Islam when the Ottoman Turks invaded that area in 1400. The common religion is one of the main factors for Russia's opposition to NATO.

    This is a long-standing conflict that is over 500 years old. Sad that people can't forgive and forget after that long of a time. I wonder how long it will take for the world to forgive the US for all that is has done in this century?

    Notice that I said Russia's opposition to NATO, not their support for milosevich. Russia knows that he's a maniac, but they also understand the political power play that NATO is perpetrating right now. NATO control of eastern europe is a vast shift in the balance of power, and is not something that Russia likes. What happens if inter-cultural fighting happens within one of Russia's provinces? Will NATO go in there also?

    Ironic, isn't it, that the breakup of the Soviet Bloc destabilized these countries that have many cultures and nationalities in them.



  • So basically this project still has not funding.

    --bricktoad
  • Option 1: Expand the vodka market. Build a Russian worldwide monopoly of distilled liquor.
    Option 2: Invest in the Russian mafia. Option 3: Fund processor R&D. Encourage growth of a tech economy.

    Doesn't sound too hard does it? Govt funding is a way to push important technologies that might never get off the ground otherwise. How do you think the internet came about?
  • Option 1: Expand the vodka market. Build a Russian worldwide monopoly of distilled liquor.
    Option 2: Invest in the Russian mafia.
    Option 3: Fund processor R&D. Encourage growth of a tech economy.

    Doesn't sound too hard does it? Govt funding is a way to push important technologies that might never get off the ground otherwise. How do you think the internet came about?
  • Wait a second, didn't Moscow get in trouble a while ago for investing in private industry?
  • I know, I know. I was just kidding. However, all the things you list were originally not private industry :)
  • Just my two cents, but where is AMD on this one. This would be the perfect move to really break Intel's hold on the market. I would love to see an AMD E2k in my box. Just a thought...
  • 1. In today's Russia public funding for anything that is not private villas in Switzerland is good by definition.

    2. I don't know why Elbrus is not selling their chip design, but I surely know why they shouldn't be selling it. Technology denial is already an efficient geopolitical weapon whose importance will only increase in the future. "Free markets" only work when everything is tranquil in the world.
  • I believe there's a place in the world where something similar is going on. It's called Quebec. I don't see the Canadian government sending in death squads to exterminate French Candian males of military service age, though

    I think it might consider that. If French will form Quebec Liberation Army and start shooting at police and military units.

  • ... I think it was. Anyway, if we go to war with Russia, I don't we'll be hearing from the Elbrus chip for a while.

    -Begin Evan's Dumb Signature.....

  • As part of their induction into the US, the constitution of the state of Texas includes a provision which gives them the right to secede of their own volition.

    With this kind of language, agreed to by those who admitted the state of Texas, there would be no war of secession.

    Yeah, right... but in theory...

    --Corey
  • Is the chip that worthless that the only way they can get people to invest in it is to appropriate tax-payer funding through the Russian government? I don't think that computer chips are a public-works type of commodity that needs such a funding mechanism. Perhaps I'm just an old fashioned individualist with an irrational distrust of governments.
  • On a scale with Hitler? Unless you're one of the revisionists who thinks the Holocaust is a hoax, I would have to argue with your comparison. A few thousand Kosovars is hardly on a scale with millions of assorted ethnic "undesirables." Besides which, the US is apparently supporting the KLA, which has more than the term "army" in common with the IRA.

    And while we're mulling it over, why is it that only the murder of six American tourists got Rwanda back into the news, when nearly a million people have been killed in an inter-tribal war? Why all the heartache about what boils down to an old feud in Serbia, when old feuds all over the world which are costing way more lives get little or no attention? And, in point of fact, most of the Kosovars are simply being herded out of Serbia in mass deportations, not slaughtered.
    Granted, it's a horrible situation. But it's getting way more airplay than other horrors that deserve equal attention.

  • that linus is heading to russia to develop a version of linux for?
  • There are a whole host of problems with this "development." First, producing a chip is not a small money venture. IT requires long term investements, support, and lots of people. This may be a great design, but there are billions of dollars between the chip design as it stands and full scale commercial production. At the very least a hundred million or so.
    That brings up the second point. Russia is very poor, and politically troubled. The support for this program comes from Moscows mayor, who is just one of many fomer communist hacks\business moguls who run russia today. Why trust someone who is so tied up in politics. If this was such a super chip, why didn't AMD buy it, or National Semi, or intel for that matter? Perhpas nobody from Elbrus is selling. But there are certainly enought large buyers out there.
    Anyway, that pretty much sums up my concerns. I think the elbrus chip may indeed be great. But I have significant doubts, and those are only increased by the adition of funding from moscow.
  • You know what stuart? I like you...
  • Yes, the IMF money finally goes into a project (albeit a risky one) that might help Russia to build up a high-tech industry and create some good-paying jobs.

    Russia needs that. Especially considering that the IMF money is actually loans that at one point has to be paid back. Wouldn't be very good then if all the money had been spent on things that will never give a cent in return, would it?
  • Is this the same Russian money machine that can't afford to keep up its end of the ISS, and wasn't sure at one point if it would be able to get its Mir personnel home?

    Regards,

  • I find it interesting that an organization (KLA) that NATO is (nominally) supporting was organized, trained, and supported by Osama Bin-Laden, the very Saudi that the US would like to get their hands on.

    As for the "mass genocides" I have not heard anything but that word thrown around; no pictures, no places mentioned, etc. If this word is being thrown around, shouldn't it be connected to something?
  • Bingo... Congress indeed changed the laws so that once you are in, you may not leave (though how this would apply to Texas, I do not know... it probably would not, as this would be considered ex post facto).
  • so you can read it.
  • Off topic, but...

    a) Molosevic's troops are guilty of deliberate genocide. This is documented fact, by many and various agencies. They deliberately killed all the Men they could find in Bosnia, and raped their women (to make them pregnant) in an attempt to destroy their culture. They are now doing the same in Kosovo. They have razed villages. They have executed old men and women who didn't want to leave the villages that they had lived in for their entire lives.

    b) The Kosovans were quite happy staying part of Yugoslavia, UNTIL the Serbians stripped them of their rights. They weren't allowed to use their universities. They weren't allowed to use their hospitals. They were given second class status as citizens. This was in Kosova, where they made up 90% of the population. Again this is well documented, by agencies with a vested interested in not taking sides (such as the Red Cross). When the Kosovans started to demonstrate against this, they were killed. So they started fighting back. They were (and are) heavily outnumbered and out gunned.

    c) Kosova has been 90% Albanian for a long, long time.


    I think you should read up on the subject, and stop listening to Serbian propoganda, before telling other people to get a clue.

  • french Canadians want to separate from canada, but they have a dept to Canada, and they dont want to talk about it.

    They also want to share lots of things with Canada, without giving anything back..

    Similiar was in Kosovo.

    Serbian propoganda. Fact was, before the Serbians stirred them up by stripping away their rights (ie. the rights to use THEIR hospitals, THEIR universities), stripped the Kosovans of all the decent jobs, decent housing and treated them as second class citizens in their own region, they were quite happy being part of Yugoslavia. Bar a few nationalists (who were anything but popular), there was no support for independence.

    The difference with Quebec is that they are given a choice every so often to democratically see if majority wants to quit, and they always fail.

    Kosovo is a curcial part of Serb heritage, and they cant vote to give it away.

    Kosovo was an autonomous region in Yugoslavia. It was not part of Serbia. Serbia was last independent a few hundred years ago. Very few Serbians lived there. And surely the rights of the people living there, come before the rights of those who used to live there.

    Also look into the Economy there. Where is the money going to come from to restore what was destroyed? What jobs will the Kosovars have where they moved to? All countries surrounding have their economy in a bad position.

    Well frankly that's the Serbian's fault. They provoked the war in Yugoslavia, they have been doing their best to destroy Kosovar, they killed a huge number of people in Bosnia deliberately and systematically in and out of their death camps. Frankly I think they deserve more than just to have their economy destroyed

    And even assuming that Molosovich wanted to get rid of Kosovars, all that UN/NATO did was help him to speed things up.

    I think the fact that he drove them out of their villages, treated them as second-class citizens, killed them and otherwise mistreated them suggests that he did want rid of them. Of course recently such actions as rounding up and killing all the intellectuals he could find in Kosovar's capital suggest a certain speeding up of the process

    Cian

  • This isn't the first time the Serbians have massacred other races. They went round systematically killing Bosnians and Muslims in earlier phases of the civil war, and they even had concentration camps set up where they killed, raped and tortured any poor unfortunate to be there (woman, children, men). And they killed a LOT.

    In Kosova there is evidence (photographic, obtained by the BBC), that in one village they executed all the men. There is evidence that in the capital they systematically rounded up all the intelligensia and killed them. If Kosovars refuse to leave their homes (and they were the overwhelming majority in Kosovar, which was an autonomous republic of Yugoslavia, and was never part of Serbia), they are killed. Footage and evidence of Serbian attrocities are being smuggled out, it's a shame that most people and the media give the Serbian propoganda machine any credence.

    The Serbians have one lovely trick, btw. They kill all the men, and they rape the women, so that they will have Serbian children. Not a one off, either. Happens again and again. I've friends who've worked in Bosnia who've worked with women who have to deal with this. Imagine having the child of the butchers who killed your husband, and quite possibly other children.

    The Serbians (well Milosvich and his cronies) are almost entirely responsible for the entire mess. Orchestrated so that he could stay in power, and possibly also because he is clinically insane.

    Cian
  • In Kosovar, so far all we have are oral accounts from survivors, photographs and evidence from reconnasance planes, and of course the fact that the Serbians seem to commit genocide on a regular basis.

    In the former Yugoslavia, what more evidence could you possibly want? Eyewitnesses, charity workers, photographs, graves, boasts of the Serbians themselves, the large numbers who went missing in areas where there was little, or no righting.
  • They are talking about some 2 years to put the design on actual silicon,
    and promise to deliver a full workstation (including the e2k, a chipset, and
    a proprietary OS) in about 3 years, if they will receive the funding that
    they are asking for. Now this is only half the problem, since having such a
    chip is really nice, but you've got to manufacture it somewhere, if you want
    to sell computers based on that chip, and not just frame it and hang it on the
    wall. To build a facility that could produce 0.18 chips from the ground up
    costs, as you said, something like $2 billion US dollars, so obviously it's not an option.
    Although Luzhkov - or Moscow, which is the same thing - does have that kind
    of money, and even more, it's very unrealistic that he will actually pay for a chip factory...
    Presidential campaigns have a very high price tag now days.
    So Elbrus has 3 possible ways of putting e2k to mass market (IF they will eventually
    get the $40 millions from Luzhkov).
    First is to sell the license, so a foreign company will manufacture the processor.
    Since they didn't do it yet, they probably won't want to do it in 2 years, when they'll
    have a prototype.
    Second is to convert some old-tech soviet-style chip factory. This is still very costly,
    and also not likely.
    Third and last, is to make an embedded chip out of it, and that's what they're thinking
    of doing right now. This might be the best solution, because it costs less, and there's
    a growing market for powerful embedded chips, in internet appliances, smart weapons,
    and the like. The embedded market will probably expand greatly in the future, and Elbrus
    will arrive just in time for it.


  • Yeah, was that just an April Fools joke or what???
  • I hate to rain on your "politically correct" parade pal, but that was not a "good post"! It was neither relevant to the topic or objective enough to be an interesting diversion.

    Propaganda and fostering socio-cultural bias will never be of interest to people of even mild intellect.

    This is slashdot - not rec.fanatic.loony

    I give credit for a good post where it is due, but it isn't due here!

  • From what I know about the way the post-Soviet Russian government has been working, this pretty effectively lowers any chance that the E7 will get released, and if it does get released I think it will be unlikely the Ebrus sees enough profit to stay in business long enough to design a sucessor chip.

    Of course I could always be wrong

  • May be that Elbrus are not willing to cede either control or marketing issues with the potential investor. This would make it less inviting for a company such as Sun for example, who have already partnered with Elbrus on the design of their Ultra chip. Why would they fund a chip that may find a home in SGI servers.
  • Well, for one thing, the 40 million or so Elbrus is asking for won't be enough, as you said. However, the chip design already exists, so that's already a big part of the program. The investment is to get the system developed enough to get some real companies to invest in it. Plus, keep in mind that Moscow is not that poor, and neither is its mayor.
  • Well, although I'm sure I'll later stick my foot in my mouth, this time it's in yours. Jordan is an Arab country. 96% Arab and 4% Christian according to the CIA factbook (1997). I'm not noticing much Jewishness in those numbers. Try to remember that the Middle East has little in common with the Midwest (thousands of years of holy wars don't make for friendly neighbors).

    The Japanese Internment Camps were a real thing and were not a fun place to be. However, they were not concentration camps. It was racist policy and paranoia that caused them to be set up but the implicit connection by using "concetration camp" is unwarranted.

    Really folks, a little history, maybe some research, can't hurt that much, heck you're already on the web!

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