The Transmeta Conspiracy Part V 236
Floydian Slip sent us a link to Time Digital which has an amusing 20 Questions with Transmeta. It doesn't say much, but it seems to debunk a few theories. I'm hearing 'RSN' rumors now, but nothing concrete yet. I need moles in Transmeta dammit. I know you're reading, why won't you squeal?!
Foolish Journalists (Score:1)
The Transmeta web page is a plain _avocado_ screen, on my computer. I'd be willing to bet it's a plain black screen on my WYSE term.
Someone should tell Time Digital that they can configure settings for their desktop _and_ their browser.
New poll idea (Score:3)
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Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
Re:As time ticks by... (Score:4)
Just to clear things up. That is, that there isn't a single piece of Transmeta hype out there right now, though admittedly the buzz is being generated specifically due to a lack of hype.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Re:Intel's competition (Score:1)
Transmeta to build a rifle (Score:1)
This one is super accurate - say, accurate enough to fire it from California, and hit someone in the head in, say, Redmond Seattle.
The barrel is 4 yards long, calibre .303 inches. It has taken 4 years to build so far because the barrel and rifling need to be 100% perfect for this level of accuracy. This requires 4 years of hand finished rifling grooves.
Once a round has been fired, the barrel then has to be discarded, as the wear from a single bullet will be enough to alter the accuracy.
The first (and only) round is due to be fired at midnight on New Years Eve, and all being well, will successfully blow billy's brains out.
The Cops in Seattle will be able to determine the direction that the shot came from, but no-one will be able to guess just how _far_ the bullet travelled.
SteveOC [iweb.net.au]
Re:My guess is clockless logic. . . (Score:4)
There are already asynchronous chips. University of Manchester developed the Amulet2e, a ARM7 derivate, from 1993 to 1995. It is compatible to ARM-v4G instruction set.
Comparison data (I wish I could use tables):
CPU: ARM 710 -- Amulet2e fab process: 600nm -- 500nm transistor count: 570,000 -- 454,000 cache size: 8kB -- 4kB speed: 23 MIPS -- 38 MIPS
Even though the cache is only half as big it's faster.
Another one is the TITAC-2 developed in Japan. It is based on the MIPS R2000 but is not binary compatible.
Comparison for that:
CPU: TITAC-2 -- MIPS R2000 transistor count: 496,000 -- 100,000 core voltage: 3.3V -- 5V power consumption / w/o cache: 2.11W / 1.02W -- - / 2W performance / w/o cache: 54.1 MIPS / 26.5 MIPS -- - / 12 MIPS
The TITAC-2 worked with 1.5V to 6V in environment temperatures of -196C to 100C (-320F to 212F, if I calculated correctly).
Clocked chips have to be clocked slow enough for the worst case (a set of commands that take a really long time before the chip enters a stable state), that's why overclocked / overheated CPUs work fine most of the time but only sometimes crash. These async CPUs get faster when they get cooler. They always run as fast as is possible given the temparature and commands to execute.
Rumors tell that German company Hagenuk will employ the Amulet3 [man.ac.uk] in commercial products this year.
If you want to know more about micro pipelines, null convention logic and dual rail encoding, look it up in c't 17/99 (if you have that issue or want to reorder it and can read German of course ;-)
Re:Makes you wonder... (Score:2)
Perhaps it's a new platform-independant language? (Score:2)
Wouldn't it be funny if they spent so long underground developing this amazing product to change the world, and then when they finally come up to release it, they find someone's already done it?
Summary: they're loving this hype!
Re:Why does the enterprise run windows 2000? (Score:1)
Let's all be happy for that.
Re:Conspiracy??? (Score:2)
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:1)
<!-- html comment -->
all i did was use < for the < and use > for the > (id assume thats Less Than and Greater Than)
also, i posted using plain old text
(also, i will assume that despite my preview (which worked properly) that this post still will not work)
Re:Sam Gumshoe the Net Detective Finds the Truth (Score:1)
1279 Transmeta Corp
We're all in for a disapointment (Score:1)
The only way you can clarify your position without killing the pr at this point is to exceed all expectations. Since transmeta hasn't annonced anything I suspect that they don't have anything that'll really wow the geek population yet and they're waiting until they do.
What would happen if within the next hour transmeta reeals that all this time it had been working on a 3 mips processor? There would be people that would just walk away disapointed, and people that are so wrapped up in this they'd refuse to believe it excusing it as a cover story to draw attention away from their real product.
- MbM
Re:Mr Ditzel would you read this please (Score:1)
We'd love to have you, no interview required. Just fly on over tomorrow. I'll be waiting at the airport. Oh, and as a signing bonus, you'll be recieving some beachfront property in Arizona. We can't wait to have you on board.
Re:Question... (Score:2)
>writing a compiler for it...
Steve Johnson (who wrote yacc and pcc) works
there, so they probably have that one in hand.
Note: back at Bell Labs, Steve was Dave Ditzel's
boss for a while when Ditzel and Rae Maclellan
were designing the Crisp microprocessor, whose
branch-folding scheme smacks of the sort of
code-rewriting that the most interesting
Transmeta rumors feature.
Another former Labbie at Transmeta is Pat
Parseghian.
Snow Crash outbreak! (Score:1)
Hmmmm.... (Score:3)
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The funding... (Score:2)
I guess with the #3 $$$ guy on your side, funding is less of an issue. If they had to turn to investment bankers more, they would definitly have to give some details of what they are doing, and that increases the risk of something slipping out somehow.
Even so, after 4 years, it's probably getting towards the put-up-or-shutup (or shutdown) stage there.
Re:Transmeta Projects Revealed!!! (Score:1)
I can see it now... "To boldly code where no man has debugged before..."
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Re:Another lesser known Transmeta Leak (Score:1)
Oh, but then why did he (attempted to) cancel that article? :) BTW, another "sign" for something may be that another Transmeta employee just contributed support for the picojava architecture to the Cygnus binutils stuff (assembler, linker, you know).
The "can emulate a few processors and more" theory stands on strong base, IMHO :)
No Rumours (Score:3)
Who needs a marketing department..? (Score:2)
You get your cadre of engineers, programmers, or whatever kind of personnel you need to work on your project, don't say anything about what you're doing, and hire a really famous person or two (a la Linus Torvalds), and the media will create all the hype in the world for you.
Why is that, you may wonder? Because a) every other company in Silicon Valley and wherever else is/has/will make some sort of marketing campaign, more likely than not (so what makes these guys so special that they won't?) and b) there are few things people love more than rumor mills, conspiracy theories, and random speculation. If you don't say anything about your product, it makes it all the easier for the media to make up stuff (and let's face it, the media is well-known for "creating" stories out of virtually nothing when there's nothing better to report on.
I mean, think about it.. Transmeta is a perfect candidate for this kind of "media hype".
Transmeta and MAJC (Score:3)
Anyway, with regards to the speculated ability to execute binaries for x86, PowerPC etc, that's sort of similar to some of the things Sun's MAJC chip will do, which has also been in development for a long time. The MAJC chip doesn't literally execute Java byte-code but it's easier to translate to than other architectures - you still need a JVM. You can just run C/C++ binaries normally too - so yes, you can port Linux to it. However, what this means is that you don't have to support old versions and you can optimise best for each generation.
Here is a transcript of a live chat with the MAJC architecture lead designer, and they discuss some interesting things. (yes, someone does ask how easy it would be to do a Linux port ^-^)
What does Transmeta mean? (Score:3)
Like the company, the phrase is entirely vague: "Above the beyond."
Wrong. (Doesn't anyone study Latin and Greek anymore?)
trans is Latin, and means across, beyond. meta is Greek, and means with, among, beyond, after, next. (Don't ask me how it got to mean both with/among and beyond/after.) I assume the name is supposed to mean "Beyond the next"
Hypertrans or Supermeta would mean "Above the beyond", to the extent it would mean anything.
Re:Foolish Journalists using Netscape (Score:1)
Re:Another lesser known Transmeta Leak (Score:1)
Re:the "Darkman" of processors (Score:1)
In a weird twist of fate, Tansmeta may very well be the Darkman of processors, but for an entirely differnt reason! Like Darkman, Transmeta works in complete secrecy, and like Darkman, Transmeta can appear to be any processor, just like Darkman can appear to be any man.
Darkman indeed.
Not so plain old text... (Score:1)
Re:Does anyone remember...? (Score:1)
When the virtual digital circuit design was examined, it made no sense at all.
The guy had worked it up by using genetic algorithms to "breed" the bit strings representing the virtual circuit. He was only using Darwinian selection as a success criterion, and what happened was he bred a design which happened to cause the right analogue effects on that particular chip to make it resonate at the target frequency (I thought it was higher than 100Hz) and thus generate a result which was spurious at a digital level, but nevertheless correct.
There was a big piece about it in either SA or Nature about a year ago.
Re:My guess is clockless logic. . . (Score:1)
I think you're too pessimistic. IIRC, there was an asynchronous implementation of the ARM ISA called Amulet, which was just a hair away from going commercial. If they could get that close a few years ago, it's no stretch to think someone else might go all the way this year or next.
It's all becoming clear now! (Score:1)
I predict that the next revelation will be that Andover.net is a fully-owned subsidiary of Transmeta. It's all so clear now.
Now where'd I put my copy of X-Files Revealed?
Re:Another lesser known Transmeta Leak (Score:1)
From what I see he actually cancelled *another* (cancel not ) msg.
Egoine
Weird analogy... (Score:1)
Umm...what exactly does an abacus soaked in Jell-O feel like?
Ignoring the obvious (Score:1)
My assumption has always been that the name gives an obvious clue. Anyone who has ever used the UML has noted the possible value in creating an object-oriented system that implements metaobjects to a greater or lesser degree.
Any number of people are working on this, hoping it will be the next big breakthrough in computing. (I admit I am.) Damian Conway suggested at the Perl Conference that he sees it as a way to win the Larry Wall Award again next year.
"Transmeta" suggests to me they are trying to do metaobjects, probably at greater-degree level mentioned above.
QED
Re:Intel's competition / Anti-Trust (Score:2)
AMD is in a position with the Athlon to compete against the Xeon's as well. Their capable of a larger cache then the Xeon's as well as using a much better bus for multiprocessing. While Intel still uses the same 100 MHZ bus in dual and quad systems for all processor communication the EV6 bus allows for more. In the EV6 bus each of the processors have their own bus to memory and I/O. In addition each bus can be clocked at up to 400 MHZ according to current specs. It is more difficult to implement for more then 2 processors but it can easily support up to at least 32 processors while Intel has to play games with their bus to get up to just 8.
Until Intel changes their system bus significantly AMD will be able to blow them away when the proper motherboards are released. Also this bus will allow AMD to go toe to toe with Sun, IBM, SGI, and Alpha on multiprocessing should they choose to do so.
Dude, open your mind (Score:2)
Maybe some narrow types don't approve of that, but I like to think that on
Re:My guess is clockless logic. . . (Score:1)
Good links, and thank you. Cogency looked very real and very interesting to me, and I encourage others to check it out. Theseus, though...well, that's different. I couldn't decide whether it was a buzzword-filled scam a la Starbridge, or a deliberate parody. Treated as humor, I particularly liked the "Critical Review of the Notion of the Algorithm in Computer Science".
You can't spell traNSmetA without NSA. (Score:3)
Com'n guys! Untill you tell us something, wild rumors about what Transmeta really does will persist.
What's that noise? (/me looks out window) Uh oh. Black helicopters. Gotta get to the f$0n>3nq[x
Connection closed by foreign host.
Re:This post is not here yet. (Score:1)
Poll - What does Transmeta mean... (Score:1)
a) "Transmute", the ability to change one element into another. Product is a chip that can change its internal instruction set.
b) trans, meaning "beyond", and metus, meaning "fear". product is irrelevent, just a cool name.
c) a 50+ word score in scrabble
(And yes, I've studied Latin, see sig)
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Re:This post is not here yet. (Score:1)
As time ticks by... (Score:1)
I know we all love conspiricy(?) theories/secret stuff etc. but if they can deliver it could well end up being a major step forward.
Iggy
P.S Wouldn't you just love to have a job there
Re:As time ticks by... (Score:1)
Even Scarier (Score:1)
Hmmm...WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH LINUS TORVALDS?
Re:Weird analogy... (Score:1)
Umm...what exactly does an abacus soaked in Jell-O feel like?
Squishy, chunky, and much less likely to burn your fingers.
That doesn't exactly fly with the ultra-low-power-consumption rumors, but the writer gets points for style.
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QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!
Just how old is Time Digital's web-browser?! (Score:1)
Is Transmeta taunting us?
The company's web site displays no images,
no logo-just a plain gray screen with this sentence: "This web page is not here yet!" In the source code for the page (which everyone has looked at in hopes of finding buried treasure), another sentence reads, "There are no secret messages in the source code to this web page."
I haven't used a web-browser that defaults the page background to that lovely gunmetal grey, in about 3 years!
Interesting stuff.. (Score:1)
"So what could Transmeta be making to excite such unparalleled interest and talent? We read all we could find on the subject (not much) and talked to everyone we could pin down (not many), including Torvalds; David Ditzel, Transmeta's CEO; and Linley Gwennap, publisher and editorial director of Microprocessor Report. The more we pushed and probed, the more it felt as if we were playing some kind of elaborate Silicon Valley parlor game. Rather than a list of all the tortured permutations, what follows are the best answers we could muster."
"Why would Torvalds, the inventor of the world's best-known free operating system, go to work there?"
Of course, all debate about Richard Stallman, GNU, and Linux aside (just for the record, I don't really care /what/ you call the damn thing, so there's disclaimer #1), I could probably tell these people another reason why their research ran into a little "difficulty". :)
(well, unless you consider "OS" to be synonymous with "kernel" [or even "not just the kernel" as in "the kernel and a little more than the kernel" or whatever], in which case this joke doesn't apply to you.. and there's disclaimer #2)
Re:I bet they just sit on their thumbs. (Score:1)
I guess you're just waiting for them to IPO, too.
Intel's competition (Score:3)
When the Federal Trade Commission investigated Intel on antitrust charges last year, whom do you think the giant chipmaker cited to prove that it has serious competition in the microprocessor market? Transmeta.
Is it only me or does it feel like the fact that Intel when under antitrust charges has to prove it's got competition uses a company that hasn't produced anything yet (not bashing transmeta, stating a fact). This is an even worse example of competition than the one Microsoft used in court that mentioned Redhat. Even though you could argue about if RH is a threat to MS they at least have a product out on the market. Seems like Intel had a hard time finding their competition
Re:if M$ used them in claims then ask M$! (Score:3)
*Intel* cited them as a competitor.
But flames aside, I thought the same thing. (About Intel that is) Why would they cite Transmeta as a competitor if the only thing they're producing is rumor? And how could the DOJ accept that as a valid argument?
It seems like there may be more knowledge outside Transmeta than we all think...
I bet they just sit on their thumbs. (Score:1)
Why don't they have any products?
Howcome only a couple of patents?
Why no press releases?
Trust me on this, they're just too darn busy playing q3a..
The speculation created to fill information voids (Score:1)
We saw this last week as details emerged about the Handspring Visor. For months I heard that the original Palm developers were coming out with a unit that (check all that apply): was twice as fast, had a larger, high-resolution color display, longer battery life, more memory and a smaller, ultra-futuristic case that belongs on the set of the next Star Trek movie. While the new Visor is impressive, and a significant progression over the current Palm line in price, performance and expandibility, it doesn't approach the hype.
A company that employs a godfather of Linux and which reveals nothing about itself is reported to be inventing a chip that is astonishingly faster than anything else out there, capable of emulating any of the other major platform, and cheaper than all other high-end processors. Unlikely.
My guess is clockless logic. . . (Score:4)
Does anyone else find it amusing that.... (Score:2)
And is funded by an ex-microsoft founder? Thats money from MS Windows licenses that you're buying your groceries with Linus!
My predicition is they go the same way as MicroUnity and the MediaProcessor, remember that?
Re:Transmeta Projects Revealed!!! (Score:1)
Re:the chip (Score:2)
The little dribbles we're hearing about Transmeta's product sounds like it could be the same type of technology but on a larger scale. If it's so great at emulating the i386, perhaps that's because it'll have an "i386" template and rewire itself to use that when it runs 386 code? Pure speculation, of course.
Hey, wait a minute - sure I have the magazine handy! It's right here: http://www.sciam.com/1999/0899issue/0899agarwal.h
Joe
The Allen/Torvalds Conspiracy Connection (Score:1)
Yes. Or to be more blunt, product talks, bullshit walks. Even if they don't state specifically what products they're working on, they could give enough points at what markets they're after.
Here's a question for you conspiracy specialists: Why would Linus Torvalds, Super Geek, essentially work for Paul Allen, midwife to the Great Satan Microsoft? Could it be the fact that Allen is the third richest man in the world? And how do strong Linux supporters really feel about Linus that close to Allen? Wouldn't that be considered a serious conflict of interest? Or is Gates, through Allen, hedging his bets by essentially financing Linux kernel development and direction in case Windows really does fail?
Re:Why does the enterprise run windows 2000? (Score:1)
"*breep* Error, cannot comply, please rephrase your command in the form of a question"
If the Enterprise ran Win2k, they would have to fill every wall of the ship with Ram, and the holodeck would go at quarter speed :)
Re:How hard can this be? (Score:1)
Who works there anyway ?? (Score:1)
couldn't we figure out what they are up to by looking who is working there ? I mean by looking at the capabilites of these people what do we know ? Do we have an idea of the company structure, ie who many (and which) people are working in which department.
Just a guess
As I agree with you.. (Score:1)
Of course, when MS does that kind of thing, it's generally better if its vaporware than a real announcement.. Mainly because it would be more likely to simply be more unstable than the alternatives (and be "designed" to do it all and more, but never actually live up to those design specs). I hope Transmeta lives up to the hype.
Re:My guess is clockless logic. . . (Score:1)
No matter what it looks like, there isn't a
Re:Poll - What does Transmeta mean... (Score:1)
Re:What does Transmeta mean? (Score:2)
Re:My guess is clockless logic. . . (Score:1)
They tried this at philips back in about '90. Didn't work.
Roger.
Re:the chip (Score:1)
As to SA, I think the first article I read about FPGA's was in SA about 2 years ago... I'm diggin' out my paranoid bone here, but I find it odd that it made such a small splash when it came out... my first thought was "this will rock the UNIVERESE!!!" hhheeemmmm...
I'm also wondering if Transmeta has bought a little talked-about NIC card company that was listed in the Linux Journal a few months back(forgive, I don't remeber which month).
wha-hurd,
--shift8
Re:On the topic of a sense of humour... (Score:1)
The fifth line is not strictly true, because it is the Transmeta home page.
The seventh line is not true as the page is certainly there.
Is the second line the only true line?
Re:I know what transmeta does (Score:1)
I have proven that it is mathmatically impossible to turn empty soda cans into gold (using only household ingredients) but this Slashdot comment box is too small for me to type the proof here.
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Have a Sloppy day!
Re:The name of Transmeta's mail server (Score:1)
Re:No Rumours (Score:1)
Blast! I had to go and spend my last moderator point before I read this...feh. Well, just pretend it's Score: 2 (Funny), cause it should be. At the very least.
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"HORSE."
I know what transmeta does (Score:1)
That being said, I do think "I know what transmeta does" would be a great title for a sci-fi/horror flick. It just lends so much to the imagination.
And no, I will NOT answer any emails regarding the subject.
Analyse current technology (Score:1)
Re:Transmeta and MAJC (Score:1)
Deeply burried jewels (Score:5)
Subject: Re: OpenGL mini drivers?
Date: 1999/03/31
Author: Dave Taylor
I think that Sean Baggaley pitched in with Russ Williams' pet anti-OpenGL sentiments because they're both British. It's obvious. I mean, come on. Evil empire. Elitist snobs. Still bitter about the "colonials" on the other side of the "puddle." Duh.
I love the D3D vs OpenGL struggle. I love the consistently inconsistent visuals you get from playing 3D games on today's PC's. I wish Microsoft and SGI would reduce each other to charred cinders with patent infringement lawsuits.
John uses OpenGL because he can afford to. He can lose hundreds of thousands of sell-throughs and be perfectly happy. Christ, he could throw every copy of Quake 3 in a wood chipper and sell the chaff to the government for use in hideous anti-personel weapons against the Serbs, and he would still make a killing on the royalty advances. This has always been John's modus operandi, whether he was turning a monster dime or a modest dime, and we should be thankful. Others follow suit because John's products become the IHV's benchmarks, so the IHV's improve their drivers and hardware to work with John's games, and so other game developers can eventually switch over. I think this is a better system than following Microsoft's lead just because one of their over-worked engineers or megalomaniac managers decided to arbitrate a new standard.
There's an alternative. You don't see anyone hotly debating whether to use DirectDraw. You don't see video glitches on games that use software renderers. They just work. They just deliver exactly what you specified and never crash. Sure, you have to come up with innovative gameplay and/or excellent artwork, but the technique has been a solid technique for hit-making from Myst to Heroes 3.
I am quite happy for the 3D cards and API's to beat each other black and blue while the real engineers either deal with what's available or quietly work on the solution to this whole mess.
Here's a fun multiple-choice quiz. What do you suppose that long-term solution is?
- A. Waiting for Nvidia to come out with the TNT N (as N gets large).
- B. Waiting for 3DFX to come out with the Voodoo N (as N gets large).
- C. Waiting for Matrox to come out with the GN00 (as N gets large).
- D. Waiting for ATI to come out with the Rage * (as * gets goofy).
- E. Waiting for OpenGL to get caps bits.
- F. Waiting for D3D code to be easier to read.
- G. Waiting for someone really brave to come out with a general-purpose processor w/ an open architecture that is suitable for high-performance parallel processing so that we have complete control over every pixel and get a consistent, high-quality, fast, innovative graphic experience.
I leave it to you, noble reader. (but if you pick anything but G., then you have gooey fluff where your brains should be, nyah)
Re:Transmeta could be much more secretive. (Score:1)
Conspiracy theory of the day (Score:2)
Transmeta has been around for years and has not officially produced anything. They buzz/hype builds up and then dies down on a cyclical basis. Transmeta is clearly enjoying it - they could kill this type of hype easily if they wanted - but they don't. I think this is directly attributable to their sense of humor.
Maybe this is Paul Allen's way of giving back to the community. If this is the case, then the joke is - there will never be a product.
Re:if M$ used them in claims then ask M$! (Score:1)
Re:proof of M$ involvement (Score:2)
Re:This post is not here yet. (Score:1)
Basically, 'well respected' carries the connotation of at least grudging respect across the whole audience in question. I would submit that 'controversial' is a more apt description since Dvorak elicits such varying responses from people. As for me personally, I've found some columns of his fairly insightful, while others were downright moronic (and this dates well before the iBook flap) -- in my book (no pun intended) 'well respected' would indicate a consistent level of quality which I think he lacks.
Within the Linux community, Linus is 'well respected' while RMS might be described as 'controversial'. Among those familiar with Apple, Woz might be described as 'well respected' while Jobs would be 'controversial'.
I don't necessarily mean controversial in a perjorative sense -- it may well turn out that the 'controversial' person is right in the long run and the 'well respected' person just didn't make waves. It just didn't strike me that 'well respected' was accurate in describing Dvorak's perception in just about any community, because he does tend to polarize people.
Re:More conspiracy fodder (Score:1)
No, it means their mail server gets its power from a cold fusion machine (which uses a palladium coil) which was invented over a bottle of Jack Daniels.
On the topic of a sense of humour... (Score:2)
Pay careful attention to line 3.
0. <HTML>
1.
2. <!-- There are no secret messages in the source code to this web page. -->
3. <!-- There are no tyops in this web page. -->
4.
5. <TITLE>Not yet the Transmeta home page</TITLE>
6. <BODY>
7. This web page is not here yet!
8. </BODY>
9. </HTML>
Not necessarily very insightful or anything, just a tad amusing...
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- Sean
Or... (Score:2)
Unlike Bill, Paul has some pretty amazingly diverse investments and interests. Even if the mighty Microsoft were to fail he is covered in so many ways he wouldn't have to worry about falling out of the top ten richest people in the world.
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Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
Conspiracy??? (Score:3)
Why no one is talking (Score:2)
And good for them.
I'm betting that the reason the lid is on tight is simple. Money.
There is a Bonus-payout on announcement date clause that the payout goes downhill the more information that is leaked.
So:
If tounges don't wag, big money, big prizes.
If the tounges DO wag, a sliding scale to zero.
With a bouns on EACH check as a reminder that the phrase "Silence is Golden" has meaning)
Now play a new game....how much would you have to pay someone to talk
(Perhaps auto-magik
Another Stab in the Dark About Transmetas Project (Score:2)
Now, with all this talk about what transmeta is doing, although i do like the idea about Paul Allen paying them to play in a building and see what they come up with, i dont think so. So what the hell, lets thing about this now, you want a processor that can do X86 and all the other types of processers, what is one kind that could trully manage that.. A living one, one that could identify and implement instuctions relivant to each diffent type, if/when it is asked to.
Im not saying this is what there doing, im not saying that intel have a trully AI Chip, but wouldnt it be bloody neat if they did.. Bring on Judgement Day! (For all those Terminator 2 Fans out there)
I wonder who will notice the transmeta page is up first when it does come up, and if it will last long when the slashdot effect hits it
"It's only ones and zeros" (Score:3)
I'm sure we all know that ideas are some of the most valuable commodities in the world-- why else would the slashdot community care so much about privacy? But ideas don't do anything on their own until you have some hardware to prove the idea. Do you really want someone else to take your idea before you prove it empyrically?
The only project that compares in secrecy is the Manhattan Project, and that definatly changed the world. But more importantly, it changed the way we thought.
The Manhattan Project's idea was, "Atoms can be split and produce a lot of energy." What if Transmetta has another very simple yet profound idea? "It's only ones and zeros"? Maybe it's NOT ones and zeros any more. And therein lies the reason for secrecy.
There are two reasons for extreme secrecy. Either you really do have something important to hide (think Manhattan Project) or you want to drum up interest (think GeForce 256). But if you're just drumming up interest, you need to let a few crumbs slip. Transmetta's air-tight secrecy is not worth its cost of implementation if they're not actually hiding anything worthwhile.
In short, I think they're really onto something. It will probably change the way we think about Silicon, ones and zeros, and so on.
-Ted
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:2)
"There are no secret messages in the watermark of this press release."
Re:Transmeta Projects Revealed!!! (Score:2)
@#!$%$%@#$%@#!$%$%@#$%@#!$%$%@#$%@#!$%$%@#$%@#!
NO CARRIER
What transmeta is making! (Score:3)
See, you 'allegedly' pour a bunch of money, 'hire' a bunch of famous programmers, and nobody does anything. Tell nobody anything, bake at 375 degrees of buzz, and sell it to someone else for a huge, huge number.
Now, take THAT even LARGER amount of cash, all the developers (who haven't been working anyway) and start ANOTHER company that does what you want to do in the first place, but couldn't afford and didn't want to share with the venture capitol folks, while laughing at the morons who bought the original worthless company on hype.
I only hope that I will not be assassinated for revealing the secret!
Zipwow
(this would be sarcasm)
Transmeta Projects Revealed!!! (Score:5)
Re:As time ticks by... (Score:3)
Rumors from the media do not create vaporware. Saying you're going to release a product in 6 months and taking 2 years does. To take a quote right frim the article...
What's with all the tiresome secrecy?
Ditzel shrugs it off as nothing more than common sense. "We don't like the notion of vaporware. We're just trying to say, Wait and see what we have to say."
Not making anything (Score:2)
Possible clues... (Score:5)
Other possible letter rearrangements
Martian Scent
Instant Cream
Semantic Rant (sounds like a good name for a band)
Manic Rat Nest
Transient Mac
Men In Scat Art (ugh)
Re:You can't spell traNSmetA without NSA. (Score:2)
Actually, my spies tell me that Linus has been "borked" by the sinister "Man in the White Gloves" and his mutant cro-magnon henchman, "Three-finger Mickey"...
Pass it on...
Re:Mr Ditzel would you read this please (Score:5)
I would like to work for you on the basis that there is absolutely no evidence your company is currently developing anything.
Because I am very smart, I have deduced that the average daily work load per employee must be nill.
Assuming this low-stress slow-paced work environment would give me unlimited time to post to slashdot, I would be willing to spend a period of one year at your company before moving on to a future life of playing video games and eating corn nuts while living in the basement of my mothers house.
Regards
Che G.
P.S. I apologise to all posters of slashdot as I know they may not want to read this but I find getting jobs using my resume and a telephone very frustrating. I hope posting application letters to message boards will eventually land me "the Big One".
Give us a break! (Score:3)
Is Transmeta >= Hype_About_Transmeta? (Score:3)
Ghod, but it seems like I have been following this story for a long time. With all this hype it seems certain whatever Transmeta comes up with will be something of an anticlimax. But I also expect there will be lots of meat, just perhaps different meat than many hope for.
Still this long buildup of suspense seems almost calculated to create more buzz. Of course Transmeta says differently -- the article quotes Ditzel as saying "It's not a ploy! We're sort of enjoying all the speculation, but we try to ignore things and hope it goes away."
Right. I believe that. Uh huhh.
Still it is beginning to seem like there is a hard core of the faithfull who wait with bated breath, hoping for a silicon messiah to come out of Transmeta and lead us to the promised land where Wintel fades away and Open Source reigns forever. Methinks such folk should scale back their expectations a bit. After all its only ones and zeros. Tiny little switches on a hunk of silicon. I will be cool, but not immediately world-changing.
But, with any luck, My prediction is one hundred percent wrong...
Jack
Another lesser known Transmeta Leak (Score:3)
BTW, I think few people saw this: http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=4614616 79 [deja.com]
Too funny!!!!! (Score:2)
Re:Another lesser known Transmeta Leak (Score:2)
Dave's been preaching this one for years now- I know, it was one of the things he was talking about at the first CDGC mini-conference in Austin. It's the thing he kept thinking about and going on about in his log files (not that I blame him- the consistency between accel cards is pathetic; how could any game designer really like this sort of BS?)
Of course, that could be why he's working at Transmeta...