Back in the early PS2 we would talk about what a next generation PS2 would look like. Those whiteboard diagrams looked almost identical to what Sony and IBM came up with.
The parallels between the PS2/EE/GS and PS3/Cell/RSX are almost identical:
Execution starts on the EE/PPU
Heavy/parallel computation task is spawned off to the VUs/SPUs
Light control code runs in parallel on the EE/PPU
As graphical elements become read to be rasterized they are spawned off to the GS/RSX
In a well running PS2/PS3 engine all three major areas are running full speed in parallel. Split memory architecture lets each area of the machine run at full speed without interfering with the rest of the system.
Kutagari and IBM did a masterful job. It was an obvious choice to build off the model of the most sucessful console architecture in history and the one all console developers had intimate knowledge of, the 145 million selling PS2.
From the New York Times: Slashdot Struggles to Remain Relevant in The Social Web
Oh, feel the BURN!
One wonders when this will hit the front page, if at all.
Work is the crab grass in the lawn of life. -- Schulz