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Transmeta

Started by NuffSaid Oct 12, 2000 at 2:17 PM 7 replies 850+ views

Original Post

Oct 12, 2000 at 2:17 PM

I''ve had this question for a while and I didn''t know where else to post this. I''m sure most of us have already heard about the Transmeta Crusoe with its oh-so-advance code morph software. I have just one question. What happens if someone writes a Virus that''ll KO the CPU and wipe out the code morph software (CIH knocked out the BIOS, so I think the same should apply to this CPU)? Wouldn''t that render the CPU useless? Love to hear your thoughts.....

Graylien

Oct 13, 2000 at 2:46 PM

I haven''t read anything on the Transmeta chips since the day they were released, but I would assume that the "code-morph" part of the chip might be a bit of a misnomer. Rather than actually re-writing the microcode, it''s probably more like dynamic cache selection, the chip shuffles the way it caches data based on what it''s seen previously. This does benefit some programs.

gavco98

141

gavco98

Oct 13, 2000 at 4:52 PM

I think the decoding facility is hard coded into the chip in a special decoding pipeline or register or something, not quite sure, in which case a virus will not effect it. If a virus did remove the code then the processor will still function but will only be able to process native code. No doubt the manufacturers will issue a disk that will reinstall the decode routine

The Alchemist

105

The Alchemist

Oct 13, 2000 at 5:20 PM

i don´t know realy what are talking....

but, i friend of mine have around 4 pentium 2 chips that become unusable after a virus deleted part of the chip( or was the bios?) that could be rewriten. he could buy another one but it cost about the same price of the p2 chip...

========
There´s no ugly woman
You that didn´t drink enough
A brazilian popular belief

Graylien

Oct 13, 2000 at 11:55 PM

If you are interested in the performance of the Crusoe and can read German you might want to see this article on /. that has a few (yawn) Crusoe vs. PIII benchmarks. Guess who wins between those two.

The only interesting remark is that the Crusoe''s performance does increase after the second run...there''s the code/cache/morphing/hype/bs/gimmick thing at work.

NuffSaid

Author

NuffSaid

Oct 14, 2000 at 5:48 AM

quote:
Original post by Graylien

If you are interested in the performance of the Crusoe and can read German you might want to see this article on /. that has a few (yawn) Crusoe vs. PIII benchmarks. Guess who wins between those two.

The only interesting remark is that the Crusoe''s performance does increase after the second run...there''s the code/cache/morphing/hype/bs/gimmick thing at work.

Care to translate it for me? Or maybe someone could write a Language Morph software that dynamically translates 1 language to another

Graylien

Oct 14, 2000 at 9:47 AM

I can''t read German but I got the gist of the article by scanning it through.

Muzzafarath

Oct 14, 2000 at 10:39 AM

Use Babelfish to translate it.

NuffSaid

Author

NuffSaid

Oct 15, 2000 at 5:04 AM

Whoa, such software do exit. I'm impressed (with the software) but I'm not really that impressed with the Transmeta chip.

Thanks a lot Muzza

Edited by - NuffSaid on October 15, 2000 6:05:15 AM

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