Confused by Ken Kutaragi

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Microprocessors of personal computers have reached the operating frequency of 1GHz and high-powered microprocessors are embedded onto PlayStation2. Why then can't such highly capable computers interact with each other once they are connected to the Internet? The reason is neither attributed to fiber optics nor to the "Last One Mile" task of connecting high-speed lines to households. The fact that servers and personal computers have the same LSI is the greatest bottleneck that is hobbling the realization of interaction among computers. Merely connecting one personal computer to another directly by fiber optics is easy. However, if we were to connect one personal computer to ten, what would happen to the server that positions in the center of the networking? In a case where the server is also required to function as a switchboard, we must lay out legions of clusters even when we have a centralized networking topology. Furthermore, the server would collapse should we try to shape it in the form of a complete network.

I know this interview is very old but everytime I come across it, I find it equally stimulating to read. However, I still don't understand what he means when he said the biggest problem is that servers and PC have the same LSI. How is this a bad thing?

With CELL there will be no servers and clients, how will big companies 'serve' their data? Sorry, I'm not familiar with networking topography. It seems he's trying to say that even if you connect every computer in the world with fibre today, they still can't share computational resources due to the current client/server topography, but when you change this to the 'CELL' p2p topograhy, it will just all work out - why?

And is this essentially the grand vision, one supercomputer known as the internet with all the world's connected computer's processing power and accessed as a 'utility'?

And in the interview, he keeps mentioning creating a "Mecca" in Austin for research. I'm guessing Mecca is the Saudi city and has some significance for academia, anyone care to fill me in on the relevent history?

Thanks.

 

[hey69]

when somebody says Mecca, they mean" THE core center of" with it, it has nothing to do with the real Holy city in Saudi Arabia

 

[MfA]

That's the zen of Ken's writing, you are supposed to take it in as a whole to perceive it's wisdom rather than look at the details.

(While I think my above observation holds regardless hopeless optimists might say it was mistranslated and it had to say "different LSIs" ... personally I say the problem is that software is tied down to given LSIs in the first place, and no world conquering single architecture will correct that since no architecture will conquer the world.)

 

[Fafalada]

personally I say the problem is that software is tied down to given LSIs in the first place, and no world conquering single architecture will correct that since no architecture will conquer the world.

Well... attempts at LSI abstracted software architectures were not particularly successfull to date at conquering the world either.
I don't think I really agree with pinning the "problem" here at technology alone.

 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Cell's wordsize is 128bit according to the patent. How is this possible given the latest processors today are 64-bit? Or does cell have no native word size and can load 2x64bit instructions in one register or 4x32bit? I think I'm deeply confused here.

By the sounds of it, CELL has its own ISA and won't be sharing its auplets with other type of machines. This doesn't help to bridge the millions of PS3s with the millions of PCs out there. Will there be another layber above this which will allow heterogeneous resource sharing between PCs, Macs, Cells?

 

[Paul]

Will there be another layber above this which will allow heterogeneous resource sharing between PCs, Macs, Cells?

No. The entire Cell project was created for use in the Playstation 3, everything else is secondary. True Cell will be used in other products, however the main application is the Playstation 3

Cell's wordsize is 128bit according to the patent. How is this possible given the latest processors today are 64-bit?

Cell is a consumer electronics architecture, not a PC one, Sony has no plans of porting Cell to PC's.

And is this essentially the grand vision, one supercomputer known as the internet with all the world's connected computer's processing power and accessed as a 'utility'?

That's his plan, Cell eventually creates a single unit, though it does not exist at a central server. BE's reach out and grab processing power from idle or spare APU's depending on the avaliability. Whether it happens or not, we will see.

It seems he's trying to say that even if you connect every computer in the world with fibre today, they still can't share computational resources due to the current client/server topography, but when you change this to the 'CELL' p2p topograhy, it will just all work out - why?

Well current PC MPU's from Intel, AMD, are not meant to be sharing resources and connect over the internet, I'm sure they could, however it's like racing in nascar with a bike, not practical, you use a car for that. Cell is built to handle network packets called Software Cells, the entire architecture(Broadband Engine), hence the name, is built for the internet.

Distributed computing in Cell is done both locally(look at the BE) and if Kutaragi gets his way, over the internet.

And in the interview, he keeps mentioning creating a "Mecca" in Austin for research. I'm guessing Mecca is the Saudi city and has some significance for academia, anyone care to fill me in on the relevent history?

Austin was the research center STI(Sony, Toshiba, IBM) set up to create the architecture.