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Transmeta

Crusoe Architecture Seminar 104

Posted by Hemos from the get-the-details-on-the-chip dept.
bineronbrain wrote to us with class notes from Stanford Online's ee380 class. The guest speaker was David Ditzel, Transmeta's CEO, who goes into quite a bit of detail about the basic architecture, and teaches about how the code-morpher works and the implication it has for compiler-writers. Pretty cool stuff and you can grab the audio recording, as well as the class notes. For some reason, it's only availible in Media Player format - which means I'll never hear/see it again, of course. *sigh*
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Crusoe Architecture Seminar More

Crusoe Architecture Seminar

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  • ASF (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    All of Stanford's online courses are broadcast only in ASF, Windows Media Player format. This is because testing was done to compare Real Media and Windows Media and Windows Media was found to deliver higher quality video. Real Media's playback was choppy and the image quality was not as good for high bandwidth video such as these. As the purpose of these online video streams is to provide lectures, not just some 2 minute movie preview or new TV ad, it was decided to go with the best quality, even if that meant sacrificing some platform independence. It's very awkward to take a class and have to deal with watching lectures than are so poor in quality, you'd just as rather nto watch the lectures.

    So ASF was not chosen because of allegiance to one company over another or any other conspiracy theory. It was a pure quality of service issue. If Real Media had provided better quality, I'm sure that would have been used. But it didn't and Windows Media did.

  • There is content... if you're a student... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Stanford online students can view VIDEO (WMF) of the course, but it requires a user name / password... And seminars don't usually have class notes, per se, as they are led by a different person each week.
  • Fixed. Reload the page

  • Well, I'm a slashdot author, but I'm also a reader. Do you think I like this shit that some anonymoud cowards putting here? I don't!

    Hemos & Rob are thinking about some solutions for this issue. So please - HOLD your horses!

  • Wow (Score:2)

    by CaseyB ( 1105 )
    Is it just me, or are the guest lecturers for this EE course a better lineup than most major conferences?

    In my day, we were lucky to get some suit in to give a lame half-recruiting half-technical talk on technology we knew better than him...

  • Transmeta has been marketing to some very particular vendors, as opposed to "people off the street."

    In particular, the fact that they've been working with IBM is pretty crucial. If they sell to IBM, and sell to Diamond, and sell to a few other OEMs, it is no problem to Transmeta that they aren't pushing product at your engineering buddies.

    Transmeta will succeed or fail based on whatever product deployments come out over the next six months, and with product lead times being what they are, the engineers that will be working on those products probably are already working hard on them.

    As much as I'd like to buy a Transmeta PC mobo/CPU combination, that's really not what they're trying to sell. They're aiming at things like laptops and portable devices, and there are likely a bunch of those in the design/implementation pipeline.

  • I suppose this means I also *CHOOSE* not to drive a Porshe. Sure, I could buy one, but I don't find them economical. The same applies to a Win32 environment IMHO. It's a resource hog, it costs money, and while you get the Microsoft flash, I'm not sure I'd drive it every day..
  • Ooh, where can I get one? On Pricewatch the lowest price for one is $400.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine [nmsu.edu].
  • Well, as I assembled my current PCs from base components and never had to purchase a license for the OS software, I am not about to pay $199 or whatever it is for a full version of Window$ just to view these dopey files...

    Anyone care to mpeg-ify them?


    Your Working Boy,
  • What is being developed with the Crusoe chips? I haven't been able to find announcments for things like laptops or pdas that use them.
  • There is an implied resentment of the fact that others won't bend to your will, in that they are only providing the audio in a format that you can't use on Linux.

    I feel sympathy with the poster of the comment, because if it were something that was really vitally important to know, you would pretty much have to run Windows, and listen to it. Since this particular soundfile isn't at that level of importance, you choose not to.

    I'm not saying that I think your choice is a wrong one. Obviously not, since it is a personal choice. But the point is that it is a choice. They aren't holding a gun to your head to keep you from listening to the soundfile. It's just not in a format that is convenient for you. Sure, the "convenience" may involve $200 for a license for Windows, repartitioning, and whatnot. But it's not impossible for you to do.

    Jordan

  • Yes, but were you aware that right across the street from the Gates building is the Paul Allen Center for Integrated Systems? They've usually got some wonderful art on display in the halls, but stay away from that damn snack machine. It will eat your money every time.
  • "Stop the unwashed masses! They're stealing knowledge again!"

    No class notes, no real content on that page, and it's overloaded. Oh yeah, and isn't this the same university that made class notes by you THEIR property? Atleast we can count on their support for the DMCA.

  • And no sign of course notes, as mentioned.
  • Lucky for them Transmeta didn't feel that way...
  • seems there was a flap on here recently about course notes being property of the prof. or U. and they couldn't be posted online...

    Zorro

  • Re:Products? (Score:3)

    by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2000 @05:26AM (#1274155) Homepage
    There were some references about Qantas. The taiwanese OEM that does the Dell laptops as well as a few other well known "brands". But these folks do not have a web site and it took me more than 45 min digging with google to manage to get this info.

    It is still pretty much unknown.

    The following factors are in place:
    1. Qantas always manufactures for someone else (they do not sell themselves).
    2. None of the vendors for whom Qantas manufactures seems like a likely candidate.
    3. Crusoe itselfs is manufactured by IBM who has strong appetite to very low power apps in mobile phones, PDAs and laptops.

    So from the data in hand it looks like either one of the following:

    1. Transmeta will market them themselves after being manufactured by Qantas.
    2. They will be manufactured by IBM who makes Crusoe anyway.

    This is all hypothetical anyway...
  • I'm kind of curious whether Transmeta will gain enough popularity outside of the Slashdot/Geek circles to really compete in the processor market. Very few of my engineering friends have even heard of Transmeta or Crusoe.

    Actually, consumers don't need to "know" about Crusoe. They just go to the local computer retailer, there's the webtop, notebook, pda, whatever, and they buy it. It's the OEM's that need to know about Crusoe, and they know about it.

    -Brent
  • But we're all mighty curious on them. The programmers wanna know about the code morphing. The hardware freaks wanna know about the chip architecture. The suits wanna know what it can do for their overrated IT company. The hackers wanna know what it's got in store for them. And I, I wanna know whether it'll start competing with Palm, which I hope they won't. That's why we wanna see stories on them.
  • I seem to remember talking to a friend about Real would charge you per the number of simultaneous streams you could broadcast with their server. Can anyone give info on what Real & MS charge for their servers?
    This may just be a case of MS giving a server away to a University, whereas the University would have to pay for Real. Which would you use in this case?
  • Heh, the first thing I started wondering about, when I read about the crusoe chip was .. will it be software-upgradeable? In that case - it should be vulnerable to computer viruses. That - is definatly not a good thing.

    Anybody know if this thing is going to be software upgradeable (Something that would be both good and bad).

    Anyone?


    --
    "Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
  • First, I didn't see the "not" .. then I started wondering wtf you were posting with Score 1 .. and then I noticed the "not".

    Please, stop abusing someones name. Register as yourself, damn it.


    --
    "Rune Kristian Viken" - arcade@kvine-nospam.sdal.com - arcade@efnet
  • Really?
    Any links/description?
  • yeah, latin is a much more precise language than english, perhaps they should exclusivly use that too.
    Seriously, I concede ASF quality is high, but unfortunatly it locks out non-ms users and thats the wrong thing to do for an university, better quality or not.
  • Well, then, you seem to have gotten the point! Because this post was not a troll, it was a protest. This I read and understood. Copies of VisualBasic's EULA are meaningless trash to me. Discussion, on the other hand, is meaningful. As it happens, I don't agree with your points (mostly). Point:
    1.) I agree with. This does seem to be a problem, though I doubt there's any malicious intent on the part of the staff.
    2.) What's wrong with this article? It's informative and interesting. Learning about a new processor architecture MOST CERTAINLY is News for Nerds, whether or not it be Stuff that Matters. I agree that beta releases shouldn't necessarily be mentioned here, but they always used to be... I don't know where you get the idea /. is going downhill. You also have to realize that some people are interested in things that don't interest you. For example:
    3.) I do. I care. It matters to the people who make the site, so sure it isn't news, but it is Stuff that Matters.
    4.) I covered this already. Obviously other people's definition of Nerd is different than yours.

    Now, wasn't that much better than ranting incoherent nonsense? Now you can present your counter-counter arguments in a logical and intelligent fashion, and I will listen and consider them. Thank you.

  • It's all choices. Even if you don't have x86, practicly everyone is capable of saving up money/robbing a bank/whatever to get one. However, for instanace the robbing a bank scenario is to risky for most of us, and goes against our moral judgement. Idem with using windows.
  • Thanks for the defence, I think. No, I know perfectly well that Linux runs on the same computers as windows does (and a bunch of others), I even have a nice Linux/Windows box sitting at home right now.

    My point was just that it is a little disingenuous to complain about the file format. CmdrTaco is prefectly capable of watching the clip if he wants to badly enough (what, worst case he's out some cash for the windows license... I think he can afford it).

    I mean, wouldn't you feel the same way if someone went "What iz zis? It iz not eeen French?"
  • <i>For some reason, it's only availible in Media Player format - which means I'll never hear/see it again, of course.</i>

    Why not? If you have an x86 compatable chip you are prefectly capable of watching it. You just are choosing not to for whatever reason. Your loss.
  • Taco can almost certainly already watch this - IIRC he's got a Sony VAIO and I don't recall seeing them sold with anything other than Windows.

    The poster, however, was Hemos :) Who could pester Rob to bring his VAIO in to slashdot towers to get at the clip...

    Greg
  • It may well come off, but the objection seemed to be that people had to pay for Windows to read this data. Well, Rob appears to have a Windows license going spare so that's a non-issue.

    Greg
  • IBM just dumped their stock of WinCE subnotebooks too. Interestingly, at $200-300, the Workpad z50 is selling like hotcakes.
  • Do you need brand recognition to sell a chip? Sure, Intel spends millions co-branding advertising, but that does not keep AMD out of the market. Furthermore, Transmeta is selling chips to notebook computer and embedded system users. Do those users buy a brand of chip or a brand of computer?

    I think that like many things, geeks are the ones who will drool over Crusoe's technology, and general consumers will tune into compelling products using the technology. Your mom does not need to marvel at MPEG2 compression to enjoy here DVDs.

  • So, interview someone who has the course notes and post it. That's freedom of the press, and a way around the tight-assed policies of these money-grubbers.

    It's a shame that we have to fight against educational institutions to free information.

  • (because Mr. Taco runs Linux on it.)

    For all I know, it may *be* just that (set up for dual-boot), but not necessarily. VAIOs may not be sold without windows, but it does come off them;)

    timothy
  • "It may well come off, but the objection seemed to be that people had to pay for Windows to read this data. Well, Rob appears to have a Windows license going spare so that's a non-issue."

    Good point. On the other hand, people can / do decide not to do things that are easily possible, or to do things that are more difficult than necessary, for a variety of reasons. It seems a valid point to me if someone says "Even though I have a license, I want to remain pure of MS (or other company's) software because I object to their business practices."

    Obviously, not everyone will feel the same way about such situations. We all pick our battles, from Bill Gates to ... I dunno, professional athletes and cancer patients. Depends. I don't refuse to work on MS Word at work, though I have pointed out certain advantages of using non-propietary stuff for certain purposes.

    But on that VAIO ... well, if it has been wiped of Windows, he may just not feel the time to reinstall, twiddle with and deal with Windows generally is worth it, when Linux provides all kinds of twiddling opportunities:)

    Just thoughts,

    timothy
  • Bah.. I hadn't even thought about it but the fact is that I will be now.. The different with BIOS's is that there are millions of different types and we didn't want to write something that had to deal with every one of them. There _are_ a number of BIOS upgrade standards that have viruses written for them but big deal.. you can infect one out of six million computers that use the standard.. the most common BIOS viruses just nuke the flash because the coders couldn't be bothered figuring out a way to code infection of the BIOS. Ok.. so now we have a chip that is software upgradable in the processor.. that means every Transmeta processor (every portable device soon?) will be infectable. oh too sweet.
  • and if the processor _ever_ has a flash upgrade program released for it.. say to correct some fatal FDIV bug or something (you've gotta admit that this would be a GOOD THING.. no need to buy a new chip to fix bugs.. great) then it _will_ get disassembled and someone _will_ figure out how to write their own code to the chip.
  • oh please.. if they are allowing users to update their firmware, it will be hacked and I wont even go into the "wannabes like yourself" shit.
  • Sorry to burst your bubble, and take this as flame bait if you wish, but Media Player just sounds a WHOLE lot better. Real Audio sucks.

    I use both, I know what I am talking about.
    --
    Za's Vid
    E/.
    ************************

  • Anyone that was able to grab this before Streambox (www.streambox.com [streambox.com] pulled it from the site - supposedly new version coming soon - can capture these and convert them to other video formats.

    Can't someone who downloaded the previous version demo send it over to Hemos?
  • Question: Would it be legal if someone were to download the ASF file they put up and to convert it into MPG or Real Audio or Quicktime and put it up somewhere, while stating all the credit goes to Stanford?

    (Cause if so, I'll do it! I got a T1 and the tools, and could do it fairly quickly, if some one asks.)
  • Which just goes to show.... what morons the MPAA is!!
  • The site seems to be down rather quickly for the /. effect. Or is Stanford like some other Universities I've encountered, and very edgy about providing too much of its high-quality material to the unpaying masses of cyberspace? ;)
  • Banning them by email address won't work, cause it's way too easy to go grab a new hotmail address.
    A simple solution: Karma For Domains (tm).

    If somedomain.com is a trollhouse, ban somedomain.com accounts from posting. Permanently. No excuses.

    If you are a legitimate poster and happen to have a hotmail account, tough luck. Get a real address, or get lost.
    --

  • My personal opinion is dump ACs like you proposed, and then start giving moderators two types of points - negative and positive points. They should be expected to use all positive points, and use of negative points should be
    optional (IE - they don't HAVE to use all of them.) Then, allow moderation down into the -3 range. -3 would be completely undisplayable after it's moderated to that point - and from that point on, someone who has been moderated
    to -3 automatically has -1 to any posts they make for the next (x) days the first time they get -3, the next time it's (x) + 3, and then after that, it's permenant. They can still post, but, anything they post will be -1 BEFORE
    moderation. Then, the default threshold for display on /. should be 0, so that -1'ers don't get displayed at all.

    Ok but there at least should be some ability to actually look at posts that are at -3. I really think that dissenters should be seen even if they are stupid. Yeah I am rather suprised about this however I think that the borland/inprise spamming and most of the heavy stuff could be effectively stopped by a little banning of the ips involved.

    Just my thought on the subject. When I checked out this article, only 10 posts were at +1 or better, out of 30 something! You are right in the fact that SOMETHING has to be done!

    Censoring stuff dosn't really promote discussion. Just a thought but perhaps just branding some posts with a spam flag and having them filtered out by defeault. Add that to the preferences or the formatting of the comments and you have a workable solution.
  • Bah don't be such a troll. Torvalds Computer Science Building. Oooooh Torvalds rocks man, he's the (self proclaimed) best programmer in the world, stanford ROCKS, i'm going to stanford, I'd love to see a beowulf cluster of linus torvalds computer science buildings! The point is, SO WHAT?
  • Last I looked the Windows Media server was free. It's free in windows 2000, and i think it's downloadable for NT4.
  • I agree with you Rombuu. But additionally, I think CmdrTaco probably has enough cash to get a development team working on a Linux player which could handle those files ;)

    I mean really - there are only a couple of solutions to the "problem" here:

    - use your own astounding skill to write a Linux player.
    - pay someone else to write one.
    - pay / bribe / beg someone for a conversion.
    - install Windows.
    - forget about the movie and move on to something else.
    - bitch to the masses.

    Guess which one you see most often around here...

    Best regards,

    SEAL
  • Everyone keeps going on about the products. They'll be out soon enough.

    WIRWTKI Where can I get that shirt?

  • I bump into a chap on my way to work regular. He is a Partner or Director for a like serious size Accountancy firm. He has most definitely heard of Crusoe and for an Accountant appears quite excited.

    I think big things are going to happen for Transmeta.

  • NEC Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B03

    Gates Computer Science Building?! NEC auditorium?! Wow, talk about sellouts... :-)
  • I read on The Register about Quanta making a webpad. They make notebooks for AST amongst others.
  • thats what i was trying to say!
  • I've read all the other replies to this and I'm kinda getting the impression that Rombuu isn't aware that Linux runs on the same computers that Windows does. Maybe he assumes that all un*xes need custon/mainframe type hardware.
    I sincerely apologize to Rombuu if I am wrong!

    Anyway, I bought my computer without Windows so why should I have to pay MS loads of cash to watch a simple video clip? (this paragraph is redundant)
  • BTW, Sorry Rombuu - Sometimes I can be a bit patronising!

    Interesting point you have regarding French.
    The problem I see is that if someone was to go to the effort of writing a Linux player then the protocols would need to be reengineered and we'd be in the same stupid position as this DeCSS farce.
    A French person can get a page translated in many ways but until MS use *open* protocols I still believe we have every right to tell them to stick the Windows Media Files where the sun don't shine
  • If I am reading the signs correctly, wearable computers (modular, replacing cell-phone AND PDA AND laptop) will be big very soon... and the Transmeta processor will be VERY big in wearables (-8.

  • Personally, I don't think that banning AC posts is going to do the job. Quite a few of them have started using accounts, and now thier negative karma scores are badges of honor.

    Deleting the accounts for those who are posting crap doesn't do the job either - they will just get more accounts. Banning them by email address won't work, cause it's way too easy to go grab a new hotmail address.

    Starting new accounts at 0 doesn't work well either - then they will never be heard, and they will never get the Karma nessisary to become +1

    My personal opinion is dump ACs like you proposed, and then start giving moderators two types of points - negative and positive points. They should be expected to use all positive points, and use of negative points should be optional (IE - they don't HAVE to use all of them.) Then, allow moderation down into the -3 range. -3 would be completely undisplayable after it's moderated to that point - and from that point on, someone who has been moderated to -3 automatically has -1 to any posts they make for the next (x) days the first time they get -3, the next time it's (x) + 3, and then after that, it's permenant. They can still post, but, anything they post will be -1 BEFORE moderation. Then, the default threshold for display on /. should be 0, so that -1'ers don't get displayed at all.

    Just my thought on the subject. When I checked out this article, only 10 posts were at +1 or better, out of 30 something! You are right in the fact that SOMETHING has to be done!

  • Is it just me, or are the guest lecturers for this EE course a better lineup than most major conferences?

    Yes. Even better, afterwards the speaker, the professors, and anyone else interested go out for Chinese food, for which Stanford pays.

  • /. is a free site, free to speak your mind. I'm sure you all know how to use the threshold feature. Stop whining about the trolls and the ACs. They are always one of two things.

    1. Stupid and moderated down so you don't have to see it.
    or
    2. Funny, marked as such and you get to enjoy the work.

    So please stop whining about it. Slashdot is a free site for geeks and the like to hang out at. Remebmer the follys of government (the same holds true for /.). If they make hardcore rules to abolish troll posts, I would say that they would lose a large part of the community simply because we don't like them telling us what we can and cannot post.




    Munky_v2
    "Warning: you are logged into reality as root..."

  • About Transmetas popularity: My Girlfriend is working at a high level management office (one level beyond the CEO's office) in a^Hthe major semiconductor company in germany (read: Europe). And they _know_ transmeta and are somewhat excited about the idea, the chip, and the company. Alex.

  • Re:Notice the building name? (Score:3)

    by mangu ( 126918 ) on Tuesday February 15, 2000 @05:17AM (#1274199)
    Do you know who was this Leland Stanford Jr. that gave his name to the university? The son of Leland Stanford, of course, but who was Leland Stanford?

    Answer: U.S. senator from California, and one of the builders of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. Became stinking rich as a railroad robber-baron and built Stanford University in his farm in Palo Alto, in 1885, as a memorial to his only child who died at the age of 15.

    Whoever is or was this Gates who donated the money to build the GCSB is as completely irrelevant as the identity of this Stanford guy. The important thing is, no matter who are Stanford and Gates, their money is now being used for education, in this one particular case for a course on this "crusoe" chip.

    From the /. moderator guidelines: If you can't be deep, be funny

  • As someone who does net video, I find this particular presentation as a reason why I would much, much, rather use Real than Windoze. On a T1, my media player spent so much of its time buffering, that the entire enterprise is useless. While this is perhaps my corporate firewall getting in the way, a Real Media Surestream would have negotiated its speed down to where the video would have been watchable rather than a total loss. The Windoze seems to be using some rather chunky progressive motion jpeg to boot (viewing cnnfn with it sucessfully). Both Real and streaming Quicktime are using a spline interpolation which is a lot easier on the eyeballs.

    The current alpha of the Real Player for the Mac can do a FULL SCREEN talking head that is worthwhile at 112 kbs. Sad to say, but the only reason that Windoze streaming media is around at all is the constant "Lets all pretend that its really nice" syndrome by the Microsquish syncophants.

    In any event, (to be charitable) a lot does depend on the skill of the person doing the encoding. Understanding some of the trade-offs in how to spend your bandwidth (no matter what encoder you use) can make all the difference in the world. Web video is still not a turnkey operation in any sense of the word, if you do it right. However, in this video we do have an example of how you can produce a product that would not play in the real world to a real world commercial audiance. Contrast this with the quicktime streaming demo on the os-x server by Steve Jobs at Apple's Site [apple.com] where it is streaming quicktime to 50 imacs...

  • Stands for "Always Suffering Frustration"

    To deliver video to the real world and get paid for it (in some general sense), you have to deliver the video dependably to a random audiance connected via random methods. ASF just doesn't hack it.

  • This is true on the x86 platform, but not true on the Mac. ASF will work within Netscape under the MacOs.
  • Links to my stuff won't do you any good since it in a secure area of our server. It is a quarter ending market commentary by the fund managers in a money management firm with 30 bn under management. Would like to provide them to you, but can't.

    One thing that I recognize is that the purpose of these lectures is not for general webcasting. For the internal consumption then ASF may be adequate. For external webcasting it is a poor choice.

  • The Real freebe server delivers about 20 streams, the 2k version 60, 6k for 100, 12k for 200, 22k for 400, 40 k for 1000, 80k for 2000. The larger servers also include other wistles and bells.

    Not sure what the evil empire charges...

  • I'm kind of curious whether Transmeta will gain enough popularity outside of the Slashdot/Geek circles to really compete in the processor market. Very few of my engineering friends have even heard of Transmeta or Crusoe.

    It's kind of smart for them to be working with large schools like Stanford. If you can't get your name into the current market, market the future...

    kwsNI

  • Hemos & Rob are thinking about some solutions for this issue

    Rumour has it that they're negotiating with AOL for some high-tech proprietary access client software... ;)

    - - - -


  • Slashdot headline tomorrow:

    Australian Airline manufactures Crusoe portables

    ;)


  • You chose to use an x86 chip and Windows; he (presumably) chose something else. Please explain why this bothers you enough to make a nasty little post like that.

  • Here is some possibly interesting (though somewhat old) info on a port to Linux [techweb.com] of Microsoft's Media Player...
  • Low power consumption, VLIW, code-morphing software (= funny name for JIT compiler) don't those ring any bells?

    Transmeta is going to launch (I mean real soon now) a parallel processor that'll make Itanium bite the dust. Itanium isn't x86 compatible, while the TransProc is.

    They did what they claim : Rethought the microprocessor. And come up with a solution that's not only cheaper but also extremely flexible.

    The only other example that comes to my mind is the HUGE raw power of the G4 PPC. Simpler design than Intel Pentium II. Less transistors. Yet they didn't think it as a backwards compatible one.

    And about that BIOS erasing viruses and stuff : well I suppose there's gonna be some freaking jumper (and you don't need to update your webpad's c-m software anyway)

  • At whose computer science building?
    Gates Computer Science Building B03

    --

  • Just great. So the CEO gives a cool speech, and instead of talking to clueful undergrads, he stops at the first *Junior* College down the street.

    Come on, Transmeta, I think you can afford plane fare :)
  • Well, yeah...Real Media's been much too busy accumulating your personal information and selling it to God knows where to actually work on their code. :)
  • gee, why didn't Transmeta think of that? darn! now every system's going to be infectable! Andy, go an' git that Opie off the development team. moron.
  • aw, buck up.

    this way, I can comment on morons with names like "Bruce Perens." (and the need to do better username filtering) without bothering The Real Bruce to follow me around and write little "That's not me!" posts.

    Who would you prefer that I abused? Sorry, but "not arcade" just doesn't have a nice ring to it. :)
  • It will get disassembled, yes.
    but two problems:
    1) it's probably written in VLIW assembly. (just a learning curve, not a huge block.)
    2) ever heard of encryption? authentication? if you don't get the morons who wrote Windows DVD drivers on the job, you can easily keep wannabes like yourself away from the problem.
  • It would be as much a problem as getting a virus in your BIOS...i.e. not much. The code morphing software itself would need to be in upgradable firmware, probably copied into some fast on-chip memory on boot -- also much like a BIOS. Since you can't diddle it from an OS (unless running some kind of special upgrade program, again like a BIOS), you don't have to worry about a malicious program modifying the code morphing software to switch all the ones to zeros every 100 ns or something.
  • Unfortunately, the MPAA has recently purchased all of the footage of lectures from Stanford. They encoded it using a "special" and "proprietary" format (ASF) which you have to pay $300 US in order to buy the rights to decode it. If you try any other means of decoding, you can expect the police to bust down your door and arrest your ass... so I wouldn't try it... :)

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