Semi-OT: Interesting or unusual PC Compatibles?

On 30/06/07, Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote: That surprises me! They weren't that uncommon. I've used a Transmeta Sony Vaio; nice little machine. Interesting to watch it playing video: the first few frames are really slow while the code-morphing software optimises the chunk of translated code doing the playback, then it accelerates and plays at full speed. I always thought the Crusoe was a very interesting chip that was massively under-exploited. For starters, it was only emulating x86 in software, it wasn't /remotely/ x86-compatible. So, in principle, there was no reason one couldn't write code-morphing firmware for any comparable CPU: 68040 or 68060, for instance. It should have beaten a pure software emulation hollow for performance at the time, and still would beat a modern chip in terms of power efficiency, I'd think. Not much point emulating something for which there was current shipping hardware, like PowerPC, but it could have effectively resurrected a number of "obsolete" 32-bit architectures. -- Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508