SGI Announces MIPS and IRIX End of Production 275
ramakant writes "Considering the recent news regarding their dismal financial situation, it should come as no surprise that SGI announced end of production for MIPS based hardware and the IRIX operating system. From the article: "SGI launched the MIPS/IRIX family of products in 1988. Since then, this technology has powered servers, workstations, and visualization systems used extensively in Manufacturing, Media, Science, Government/Defense, and Energy. After nearly two decades of leading the world in innovation and versatility, the MIPS IRIX products will end their general availability on December 29, 2006." IRIX has always been my favored OS, and I'll be sad to see it gone. Hopefully my O2 will survive for many years to come."
MIPS is going away? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:MIPS is going away? (Score:5, Informative)
PowerPC is rather nice, but it's not as clean. (but it is easier to use)
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Tom
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1 register you can use that isnt used by something
else ( ax ) ( bx was used for something, cx
was used in some "counting" instructions,
dx would have the most significant 16 bits
of a multiplication ( ax would have the lower,
now that I think of it.... dx:ax would be
the full 32 bit result ). So, ax that, 0 registers
you can use that arent used by something else.
Addressing ( "long" ). 20 bit addressing bus,
16 bit system. So, you load a register with
a 16 bit value, and wink
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ARM is patented (Score:4, Informative)
MIPS is popular because it's unpatented (except for a few less common instructions, which aren't taught in Computer Organization and Design anyway). A common term project in computer architecture courses is to design a reduced implementation of the MIPS architecture on an FPGA [wikipedia.org]; some students go beyond this and end up with Plasma [opencores.org]. The ARM architecture, on the other hand, is still patented.
The most popular ARM platform simulator nowadays seems to be VisualBoyAdvance [ngemu.com].
Re:ARM is patented (Score:4, Informative)
The ARM architecture, on the other hand, is still patented.
Those patents should all have expired by now, at least for the original architecture. Patents filed prior to June 8, 1994 have a term of 20 years from filing date or 17 years fro issue date, whichever is greater. ARM1 was in development testing in 1985 and shipped in 1986. Unless some of those patents too more than four years to be issued, they should be in the clear by now. Of course, you'll have to do a search to be completely certain, but....
The thumb instruction set, on the other hand, does have currently active patents, I believe.
A discussion of this issue can be found here [drobe.co.uk].
PowerPC is superscalar. ARM isn't. (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can figure out a way to implement LZW or RSA or MP3 or any other patented codec in a way that differs from the patent owner's patented implementation, then you are free to do so. Unfortunately, no other way exists because the claims on those methods are rawther broad.
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Sandisk claims to have an alternate method of decoding an mp3, and claims that they have located an independent expert who will testify to that effect.
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I.e. they lost.
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Yes, based on a preliminary injunction, which is apparently quite easy to get in Germany. Their evidence has not actually been presented in court.
i.e. you lose.
Re:PowerPC is superscalar. So is ARM (Score:2, Informative)
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ARM has those conditional execution bits at the beginning of every instruction. Useful, undoubtedly, but it adds another layer of complexity to teaching the thing.
Side note, one of the coolest things I remember from EECS 2xx was how many instructions weren't implemented on MIPS hardware but they had anyway, mostly via the zero register. NEG? Sure, it might exist in the assembler, but its going to get turned into a SUB instruction from R0 by the time it hits machine code. Load immediate? No, you mean a
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"Branch Never" - BRN was my favourite. It was common to all the 68XX line.
The logic was astounding! Load an address into a register then never, ever go there. The exact opposite of BRA "Branch Always".
Nowadays, a PIC microcontroller is the way to go. 16 pin DIP, 4 D/A's, a few K of EEPROM, 35 instructions total. Sweet!
SPARC? (Score:3, Funny)
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I do know that PSU *used* to teach SPARC in a standalone assembly course, but that was later combined with the org class and at that point changed to MIPS.
(BTW, an adden
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Re:SPARC? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopfully we can convince the CS dept to move their course off of MIPS so we can push these aging servers off the end of the loading dock. SPARC or x86/64 would be the alternatives here.
Re:SPARC? (Score:4, Insightful)
using the X86 to teach assembly language is like using Perl to teach object oriented programing.
No need to move off MIPS, just use an emulator.
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By contrast, MIPS is too easy. After that, everything else will be harder :)
My first assembly language was VAX. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the great thing about VAX assembler was that there was an instruction for everything. For example there was a machine instruction that performed a quicksort. The old joke was that you could write any program with a single instruction, if you could find it and figure out how to use it.
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Programming after all is a matter of mastering idioms. Good programming is often largely a matter of choosing sensible conventions and sticking with them. The thing that kills you in the system is lack of orthagonality. Broadly speaking, what I mean by this is that
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I learned x86 asm around 1994 mainly because there was nothing else for a 15 yr old with a PC, and because x86 even back then was pervasive enough.
I was trying to build a boot code virus using instructions and code taken from a BBS server.
I failed to infect my own computer.
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Re:MIPS is going away? (Score:4, Funny)
Duh. They'll emulate the 6507 in the Atari 2600 [sourceforge.net]. That way they can run it on real, modern hardware [atarimuseum.com]!
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Just about anyone can learn to program it by reading the documentation [demon.co.uk]. It's so simple, it can even replace BASIC as
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Sigh, those were the days.. I learned 650x machine code (not assembler, didn't ahve one of those) on the C64 from reading the Compute! book. I miss my C64.
I think for me it was knowing i had essentially total control of the machine. I had the Mapping The C64 book, i could learn what every byte did. A kid trying now with Linux has megabytes and megabytes to read.
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Are you saying that you actually hex edited your programs? Ouch. Now that's old school!
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Those were the days. It hurt a bit but you got an end-to-end view of these things and learned virtual machines to boot!
That was also the summer (yes I took it in the summer) I learned to watch baseball. Not much happens in base for long periods of time, so I would wrap wires. I would hear the bat, watch the replay, then go back to wrapping wires.
Damn I'm old
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Likewise....
I hand assembled 6502 code by only using the mnemonic reference in the back of the VIC-20 Programmer's Reference Guide. All this after just learning basic. I used the open architecture of the system and the well documented memory map to create a bitmapped Formula 1 car graphic that moved across the screen one pixel at a time. Lots of ROL/ROR usage. I entered the code via POKEs read fro
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300G
Boy... I miss the Apple II days. 6502 rocks.
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The 6502, for comparison, felt like some sort of masochist's apparatus!
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AFAIK, the only models of the 6502 are 6502, 6507 (fewer pins), 65C02 (fixes bugs), and 65816 (16 bit). These cores have been implemented by various processors, and are still often used in modern microcontrollers. You're probably thinking of either the 65C816, or a specific manufacturer's model number.
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Anything but Intel, it's just way too easy to find recent and cheap hardware and software that's i386.
Plus the textbooks won't have classic lines like,
"Today's machines now come standard with up to 4 megabytes of Random Access Memory, and this continues to increase every year!"
Motorola 68000? (Score:2)
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Re:MIPS is going away? (Score:5, Informative)
This announcement is about the end of MIPS as a server and workstation platform. The vast majority of CPUs are not used for server or workstations. They live in toasters, DVD players, digital cameras, microwaves, and so on. In the real world very few people ever write assembly programs that run on a server or a workstation. However in the embedded space assembly is still pretty common.
MIPS isn't dead. MIPS servers are dead. MIPS lives on in many devices.
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Re:MIPS is going away? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MIPS is going away? (Score:5, Informative)
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Itanium?
*ducks*
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We used real MIPS assembler in fourth-year compiler construction, however.
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Meanwhile, on eBay (Score:3, Insightful)
Good times for collectors.
Irix was cracker paradise (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh Gosh (Score:2, Funny)
Too bad - MIPS was pretty (Score:5, Interesting)
Alpha, MIPS, and others - where are you now? x86-2^x is pretty much all that's left for general-purpose programming these days (although Sun might have something to say about that), and that's too bad. Kind of like how you can't be a great programmer without ever having seen Lisp, you can't be a great chip designer without ever having known something that doesn't run IA32 code.
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Is your name Richard Stallman?
Seriously, none of the programmers I worked with who I thought really knew their stuff ever worked with Lisp, although I suppose many of them may have seen Lisp, so technically you may be right, even though I suspect your definition of seen is not literal.
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Re:Too bad - MIPS was pretty (Score:4, Insightful)
Put simply, different languages represent different areas in the design space of programming languages. C represents one area, C++/Java/C# another set of closely-grouped areas, Ruby another, Python another, etc. Lisp represents a very large, and to many people used to C++/Java/etc, very novel portion of the design space, as does ML and its kin. A truely great programmer, then, must not only be proficient in the usage of a specific tool that represents a specific point in the design space, but must have a perspective of the whole design space. He must be able to look at specific solutions, and realize when they are just instances of a higher-order, more generalized principle. The only way to gain that perspective is to explore the design space, and mastering Lisp is a way to explore a very large and unique part of that space.
There's a saying that "to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail". This refers to a general notion that our tools limit the ways in which we think about solving problems. Let me give you a concrete example. Lisp has a feature called multi-method dispatch, in which the target of a polymorphic call is decided by the types of more than one of the arguments. To someone who has only ever used a language with single-dispatch (ie: C++/Java/C#'s virtual methods), the very idea of using multiple-dispatch to solve a particular problem never even comes to mind. He makes due with what he has, using techniques like the "visitor pattern", and sits content thinking that this is the best he can do. Somebody who knows Lisp, on the other hand, might still have to use the visitor pattern (because his boss forces him to use Java), but he'll realize that its just a way to do double-dispatch in a single-dispatch language, and that increased understanding of the nature of the solution will help him write better code.
Re:Too bad - MIPS was pretty (Score:4, Insightful)
The embedded market was getting crowded, which is a good thing. The survival of the fittest gave us ARM instead of us being stuck with assembly codes like the PIC and x86.
FOSS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FOSS (Score:4, Insightful)
Well this is the first of the old school Unix's to fall that I can think of. AIX and Solaris will probably be last. The ones maintained by Hewlet-Compaqard will be next in line after the death of SCO derivatives.
Re:FOSS (Score:5, Interesting)
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Some good stuff from IRIX like XFS and OpenGL was shared, but IRIX may never be shared. As much as I want it to be opensourced, I dont think I'll spend more than a day on it. I'm still waiting for opensolaris' complete sources to go through, and solaris is far more usable, in our company at home and elsewhere than IRIX.
Makes me wonder. Is there a group of people from the OSS community, possibly funded by IBM or whoever, to help with the le
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See cvs.opensolaris.org [opensolaris.org]. Every bit that Sun can release has been released.
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I believe that is called Linux. SGI has already released bunches of IRIX to Linux including ccNUMA code and XFS and I'm sure other goodies as well.
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It's just Another UNIX System Vr4 variant that runs on SGI MIPS hardware. You get all the same and more in Solaris (swap MIPS for SPARC) since it had much more R&D. You also get the same and more in Linux, but without the official Sys Vr4 codebase.
Make patches available (Score:2, Interesting)
It'd be nice though.
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IRIX==Motorbike. (Score:5, Insightful)
I spent a large fraction of my most productive years sitting in front of a million dollar computer with IRIX in my face. It was pretty good - but with SGI's market share shrinking and Linux getting so mature, it makes sense for them to dump the hideous cost of maintaining an entire OS by themselves. For SGI, it's a good decision in desperate times.
We split from using SGI to off-the-shelf PC/Linux about 5 years ago - about as soon as nVidia's graphics got good enough for our needs. A PC costs about 1% of an SGI with similar horsepower...QED.
As for MIPS, the equation is the same one Apple had to face down. Performance = Horsepower per CPU / Price per CPU -- and whilst your own solution can win on horsepower, you can't beat the price of whatever is made in the largest quantities...and it's the same deal as with IRIX - when you have to cut costs, designing your own CPU isn't the smart way to go.
Sad - but inevitable.
It's a UNIX system. I know this! (Score:5, Funny)
Such a crowded graveyard, big deal. (Score:5, Informative)
The only lesson you could profit from in all this carnage is knowing when to sell your shares, when to find a good merger rather than waiting for the bankers to hold a fire sale of your patent portfolio.
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Re:Such a crowded graveyard, big deal. (Score:4, Interesting)
When left to their own devices most of the large computer companies (IBM, HP, Dell, even Intel, AMD, Cisco etc etc) do very little revolutionary or insightful things. They usually tread water with minor "improvements" until someone comes along and kicks them in the pants (see: IBM vs Apple, IBM vs DEC, Intel vs AMD etc etc) with some better technology.
If all we have left are the "big guys" where is the next revolution going to come from ?
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I guess nothing will be new. Startups, and the sucessful ones will be bought out by the big fish, or they will become a big fish themselves.
On your large computer company list IBM brought us the PC architecture, POWER, and Blue Gene. HP brought us HPUX (never used it), Itanium (with intel). Intel brought us ia32, ia64 (Itanium), and mobile processors. AMD the Opteron.
I'm getting conservative in my old age, but I much
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DEC (Intel), RCA (Thomson), GE (Thomson), Compaq (HP), Xerox (NYSE:XRX).... In fact, with the exception of DEC, all those I just listed still have their names on the outside of products....
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Just to clarify... not computer products.
If you read all the way to the bottom (Score:5, Informative)
also of importance at the bottom of the article is:
IRIX was obviously going away. (Score:3, Informative)
Even chkconfig reasonably standard in mainstream linux distros. IRIX is not worth the effort.
They can now concentrate on their core competency, which is presumably better graphics hardware than their competition.
I guess Erwin will have to start shopping for spare parts on ebay...
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Why aren't they selling x86 and Linux? (Score:2)
Re:Why aren't they selling x86 and Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
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They tried that. [computerworld.com] Didn't help.
SGI also tried making overpriced Windows desktops. [wikipedia.org] That also flopped. Nice cases, though.
Electrapaint (Score:2)
The current equivalent I have isn't quite the same - It moves differently.
No problem: COMPAT_IRIX in NetBSD/sgimips (Score:4, Interesting)
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I truly wonder who would buy this overpriced proprietary machine versus a simple PC?
1) not overpriced, a MacPro can be had for cheaper than a Dell
2) hadware has been more standardized. They've been pretty standard since they dropped NuBus. The OS is no more proprietary than Windows, hell you can even recompile the kernel.
3) Macs are PCs
not a user, eh? (Score:2)
Re:Pick an OS with staying power (Score:5, Interesting)
This is UNIX! You're supposed to be able to take your ecology with you to Linux, or Solaris, or OpenBSD, or wherever. With some pain, admittedly---but little more pain than if you're migrating from, say, RedHat to Debian.
Re:Pick an OS with staying power (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pick an OS with staying power (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is great, don't take me wrong, but in what way your intellectual investment is safe, when the entire landscape is in continuous flux? I mean, APIs are changing back and forth, kernel modules come and go across minor kernel releases, each distro has its favorite places where commands and files are placed. Not to mention the 32 to 64 bit migration which is in a terrible mess. This is not MHO, read July's Linux Journal editorial and laugh about it.
The truth is, I don't think you are not interested in any kind of intellectual investment, you are just betting on a horse because someone told you that in the end there can be only one. Well, guess what, "they" 've been saying the same since 1985, and today there is still Windows,Linux,all the BSDs,Solaris,AIX,HPUX etc etc. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and, really, it is great to have such a diverse ecology.
(Although I may have sounded harsh throughout the post, I want to stress that this is all just friendly advice -- kind regards)
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Then there is a 4096 processor machine without manky infiniband interconnect or myrinet nonsense that you can run MPI programs against.
And if you really want a big cluster machine, how about 10240 pr
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Nor do those who price themselves out of the market.
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