China to Make $125 PCs

TechFreep writes "A Chinese computer company hopes to sell low-cost PCs to schools and government agencies, but allegations of ripped-off processor designs might slow the effort. From the article: 'Chinese-based ZhongKe Menglan Electronics Technology Co. will produce several thousand low-cost PCs to distribute to schools and local governments. The PCs, which will initially sell for $150 to $175, will run on Linux and include 256Mb of RAM, a 40 or 60GB hard drive, and a Godson-2 CPU clocked between 800Mhz and 1Ghz. If initial sales of the product are successful ZhongKe will begin mass production of the units for sale at around 125 US dollars. However, the Godson-2 CPU included in the PCs has come under scrutiny of late. BLX IC Design Corp., producer of the Godson-2, produced its first working prototype in 2005. The chip clocked at 500Mhz, and BLX at the time claimed the Godson's performance rivaled that of higher-clocked Pentium III CPUs. However, the chip's architecture has gotten attention around the industry for its similarities to the MIPS chip from MIPS Technologies Inc. According to market research group In-Stat, the Godson-2 is about 95 percent compatible with the MIPS R10000, which was introduced in 1995.'"

MIPS patents?

[tepples]

Plasma [opencores.org] implements the MIPS architecture minuses the patented parts. Could the Godson CPU be a variant of this?

Re:MIPS patents?

[pchan-]

The MIPS architecture is a popular one with people who implement their own cores. In fact, it is rather common for computer science/engineering students to implement their own using FPGAs, based on the commonly used Computer Architecture [amazon.com] by Hennessy and Patterson. The architecture is extremely simple, straightforward, and easy to implement.

I believe you can implemented a near complete MIPS R3000 core with only minor differences and avoid any patent issues (as long as you don't call it a MIPS). Some of the ops on the newer cores are still encumbered and cannot be implemented without paying money to MIPS Technologies [mips.com]. I've worked with a couple of MIPS clones, some by American companies, and there is nothing illegal about them. In fact, it would be far more surprising if the Chinese companies wasted the time creating their own architecture instead of basing it on a proven one.

Re:MIPS patents?

[Jason Earl]

One thing is certain. Microsoft can't pretend that these Linux computers are going to end up running Windows.

Re:MIPS patents?

[poopie]

One thing is certain. Microsoft can't pretend that these Linux computers are going to end up running Windows

There *IS* Windows NT 3.51 for MIPS...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT [wikipedia.org]

We had NEC MIPS servers running it way back when.

Re:

[Jason Earl]

Yes, I remember Windows NT for MIPS. That hardly means that you can buy such a beast today. Even if you could buy NT for MIPs what are the chances of it running on something that is 95% compatible?

Besides, what sort of freakshow would rather run Windows NT 3.51 on MIPs over Linux? The most sophisticated piece of software that is likely to run on such a system is notepad.exe.

Re:

[Chemicalscum]

Besides, what sort of freakshow would rather run Windows NT 3.51 on MIPs over Linux? The most sophisticated piece of software that is likely to run on such a system is notepad.exe.

There is always someone who will do it and when asked why will reply:

"bacause I can!"

Re:

[Jason Earl]

That's a good point. I've done that sort of thing myself a time or two. Not with Windows, though. I get no joy out of running Windows.

You certainly aren't going to be able to sell Windows NT 3.51 on Godson to consumers, though.

there - WAS - NT 3.1 for MIPS

[swschrad]

long gone. no RISC support for windows for quite a while. the only processors generally supported are the X86 family, Itanic, and the strongARM for mobile windows, CE, and other subsets to the best of my knowledge.

DEC ALPHA was the longest-supported RISC chip, but that support died with NT.

Re:

[nurb432]

There was also an early form of nt4 for mips, alpha and ( i think ) sparc. Not sure if it ever got sold as a product, but i had it in an msdn set ages ago.

I have a feeling they will anyway

[Moraelin]

See, when you're paid to cry wolf, you cry wolf. Lots. Invent gazillions of imaginary wolves all over the place.

The BSA is paid to cry wolf. That's what it does for a living. It's there just to paint a bleak image where poor starving software developpers like MS or Oracle or Autodesk are losing trillions to piracy. It's there to take every single 3D Studio Max copy that some chinese kid downloaded to model a ship or skin for free mod for a $30 game, and present it as $6000 stolen from the poor starving soft

Re:MIPS patents?

[PAPPP]

It's worth noting that the patent most likely to be stepped on in dealing with MIPS is US patent 4,814,976, which covers the unaligned load/store instructions lwl, lwr, swl and swr. This patent expires 2006-12-26, which won't be long now. Google for "Lexra" "MIPS" and "Patent" for details of the various spats over the patent.
Apparently some of the more recent extensions fall under other patents, but the basic archetecture will be entirely unencumbered after this one expires. And as a Computer Enginering student I can tell you as ISAs go it's far and away the easiest useful one to impliment.

Re:MIPS patents?

[qbwiz]

It's not too terrible to program an x86 in assembly (all those extra instructions can sometimes come in handy, in a way), but I'd really rather not implement an x86. The instruction decoder alone would take ages to work out.

Re:

[ajs318]

I would have thought ARM {pre-Thumb} would be about the simplest processor to implement. Basically, at its heart is a matrix of AND-OR selection logic, which allows you to do cool stuff like shifting and crementing on the way in and out. Bits within the opcode determine directly which operation to perform, the source and destination registers, any shifting, pre/post in/decrements, the order of operands {only the physically-second operand can be munged; but for non-commutive operations like subtractions

Re:MIPS patents?

[pchan-]

But you may be one of the fortunates who go to school where Hennessy is president, so you may have learned MIPS there =P

I take it you mean Stanford. I went to UCLA, but many people I've met from different schools in the US have used the same architecture book. I'm talking about computer architecture, not just assembly language. The complexity of the x86 processors is far too great to teach them to undergrads. However, in about a hundred hours of work, one lab partner and I were able to construct a working MIPS-architecture CPU (on a Xilinx FPGA) starting with nothing but gates, flipflops, and other basic elements.

Now, since you know x86 assembly, let me teach you MIPS assembly in one minute:
32 registers, r0-r31. r0 is hardcoded to zero. jal/bal (jump/branch and link) push the PC to r31. otherwise, all registers are equal.

li rD VAL ; load to register rD (destination) immediate value VAL
lw rD rS ; load word at address stored in rS (source) to
add/sub/... rD rA rB ; perform op on registers A and B, store to register D
sw rD rS ; store word at rD to address in rS

You'll be doing a lot of load/stores. The instruction after a branch statement gets executed even if the branch is called. The rest is just details (extend to half-words and bytes at your convenience). There are no index registers, no flags, no predicates, nothing. Congratulations, you are now qualified to program a MIPS processor.

Re:

[IamTheRealMike]

Hey, that's pretty cool, thanks :) One thing that did surprise me is that the instruction after a branch is always executed. What's up with that? Does that mean in practice after a branch there is always a no-op?

Re:MIPS patents?

[Jamie Lokier]

No, often you can find an instruction to put after the branch. Sparc is the same. It's called the "branch delay slot", and it's a way of reducing the pipeline flush penalty.

Re:

[Hal_Porter]

In early, in order non superscalar, Risc chips branch delay slots are natural, since the instruction following the branch has almost completed execution by the time the branch is taken.

Later chips, notable Alpha, don't do this because the number of natural branch delay slots would vary with implementation. To avoid it, you need to add logic to stall the pipeline until the branch result is known. The idea behind MIPS was to build a simple processor without this logic that could be clocked at enormous frequen

Re:

[bobintetley]

There are no index registers, no flags, no predicates, nothing.

Not that I've done any assembly for a while, but without flags how can you perform comparisons (eg: 6502 uses the zero flag for equality in comparisons) and how do you know whether a subtraction/addition operation has overflowed the register without a carry flag? What about conditional branching?

That aside, MIPS looks like a very elegant architecture (x86 is just nasty).

Re:

[david.given]

Not that I've done any assembly for a while, but without flags how can you perform comparisons (eg: 6502 uses the zero flag for equality in comparisons) and how do you know whether a subtraction/addition operation has overflowed the register without a carry flag? What about conditional branching?

No flags, no overflows. Branching is easy:

beq r2, r3, label

Branch to label if r2 == r3. There are a bunch of other branch instructions for the other conditionals, too. All incredibly elegant and easy to use; b

Re:

[AuMatar]

Many don't- UIUC teaches MIPs asm to CS students (and x86 to the comp engs). But just about every school teaches processor design on MIPs- x86 is just too difficult to design a decoder for in 1 semester.

Re:

[JohnFluxx]

We did the arm chip which I think is very very similar (it all being RISC and all). But that's not surprising since it was our professor that designed and made the arm chip in the first place :-)

Re:

[AJWM]

x86 is just too difficult to design a decoder for in 1 semester.

Nah, you just do the core of the decoder as MIPS and then implement the x86 instruction set in software (microcode). ;-)

Re:

[ThePhilips]

MIPS isn't such a common architecture to teach students anymore, imho.

You miss the point. It's not about software - it's about hardware. Even my friends electronic engineering students once implemented on FPGA core of MIPS plus few Ks of RAM.

x86 isn't so easy to implement due to variable op length and vast number of commands.

ARM, MIPS and now PowerPC is more or less standard examples of CPU designs students can try to implement by themselves during classes.

Well, you can't run M$Windows on them -

Re:

[drinkypoo]

How did this get marked troll? A quick google would tell you that caltech does indeed deal with x86. Anyway I think it makes more sense to learn on x86 instead of MIPS, which is indeed still used in many many places; MIPS may be better and easier, but that's exactly why you should learn on x86. After that, everything else is easier.

Re:

[EvilSporkMan]

The University of Michigan teaches MIPS assembly [umich.edu], though apparently we don't use it in the projects.

Walmart going away...

[mr_mischief]

If that happened, what would we do with all of those 3-acre buildings that would be sitting empty? Nobody has that many warehouse raves to throw.

So what are we upset about?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Are we upset that some defunct chip designer isn't getting their cut? Or is it that the Chinese are making cheap computers for themselves instead of for us? Or maybe it's that the Chinese aren't outsourcing their production to the West?

I don't know what's the problem here. It sounds like a great idea to put as many people on the internet as cheaply as possible because more people means more information and more information transfer. Now Wang Chung in the sticks can be just as up to date with government propaganda as Chung King in Shanghai is.

Bruce Lee unavailable for comment.

Re:

[anagama]

Now Wang Chung in the sticks...

Everybody have fun tonight,
Everybody Wang Chung tonight ...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'll ignore the racist tone of your comment (Wang Chung, Chung King, etc) - but MIPS is hardly a product of a defunct chip designer. I know, I work for them as a product engineer.

In fact, MIPS is the #1 architecture in several market segments, including:
Cable STB 76%
Satellite STB 30%
DVD Recorders 70%
Cable Modems 95%
Internet Backbone 40%
DSL 52%
WLAN 55%
VoIP 72%

See http://www.mips.com/ [mips.com] for more information on that.

-Bruce Chin

Re:

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I see your MIPS and raise you an ARM [arm.com]

Re:

[Jamie Lokier]

A practical difference between MIPS and ARM is that there are a number of MIPS clones which don't have to license anything from MIPS, provided they leave out the patented instructions. Whereas, cloning an ARM gets lots of hassle from ARM Ltd. Even just writing a software simulator for ARM is a problem(!) - this is why Qemu only emulates old ARMs.

So if someone's going to implement one of those instruction sets, it will tend to be MIPS if they're designing their own chip, and either of them if they're buyin

Re:So what are we upset about?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Assuming that you're actually serious, someone owns those designs - cheap PCs are a laudable goal, but that's no justification for ripping off a bunch of people.

Re:

[the_humeister]

The summary states that the Godson-2 chip is 95% compatible with a R10000. That doesn't mean it's a direct copy of the R10000. It could just mean they use the 95% of the instructions that the R10000 uses (the ones that aren't patented). But without further details, we can't tell at this point.

Re:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

The implication in the article and the comment I responded to was that China ripped off the design and the comment I responded to implied that that was OK. Given China's history of playing fast and loose with IP, I find the implications plausible.

Re:

[Jason Earl]

Patent issues are only likely to be problematic if the Chinese try to sell these machines in the U.S. If they are for the Chinese market there really is very little that the MIPs folks can do, even if they are using MIPs patents.

As much as I would like to be able to get my hands on an inexpensive MIPs-alike Linux box I don't think this is going to be available in my neck of the woods anytime soon.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I can imagine that maybe Chinese designers considered just making a copy, but then deciding to work around applicable IP just in case they come up with something worth exporting.

Re:

[aminorex]

I read your comments to mean that if someone is chinese, then they are guilty until proven innocent. Seems like a classic definition of racial bigotry to me.

Re:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If someone is in a Chinese company building a MIPS like chip, then any allegations of Copyright/trademark infringement are more plausible due to China's past behavior. That ain't racist.

Re:

[hey!]

but that's no justification for ripping off a bunch of people.

Actually intellecutal property "owners" don't really have a fundamental expectation of having the same monopoly on ideas in other countries that the do in their own.

China, however, is a WIPO country. If these guys are cheating with the collusion of the Chinese government, the government may be reneging on its commitments; theyh would be getting protection for their inventors without affording equal protection to foreign inventors. On the other

IP

[nurb432]

No, most of the mips concept is purely out in the open. Only a small part of the 'named' mips instruction set is copyrighted, and you dont *need* those to function well.

Mips is more of a concept then a trademark.

Re:

[hackus]

Ripping people off?

You mean ripping people off that are not even born yet by extending patents and copyrights out to 100 years for example?

As far as I am concerned, the entire patent/copyright process as defined by the USA is nothing but a big boys club specifically designed to seal markets and prevent "disruptive" technologies.

I wish the Chinese all the best.

-Hackus

Re:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I promise not to steal anybody's DRM implementation.

Re:So what are we upset about?

[Noodlenose]

I have no problem with Chinese people--but I fucking hate their country and everything it stands for.

You're of course trolling, but your lacking maturity makes this acceptable.

Nevertheless there is nothing more abstract and idiotic to say "I hate this country". What do you hate? Is its rolling hills, its rivers or panda bears? Or might it be that you have a problem with Chinas government and its struggling reformist arm?

Well, you should say so. There are millions of trolls on Slashdot, but why not aspire to be a troll with something to say?

Re:

[RAMMS+EIN]

``The Chinese are already a big enough economic threat to the rest of us;''

What makes you think that? China's economic boom is due to it being beneficial both to China and to its trade partners. After all, if it weren't beneficial to them, why would they engage in the trade?

``they certainly don't need freebies. Besides, isn't it interesting how despite their "internationally competitive" universities, "brilliant minds" and "unlimited resources," they can't even design a relatively simple CPU without ripping

Re:

[AchilleTalon]

Isn't China government itself being a monopoly and chinese company stated controlled?

I find your point a little bit ironic.

Re:

[AchilleTalon]

Should have written:

Isn't China government itself being a monopoly and chinese companies State controlled?

I find your point a little bit ironic.

Why is this so hard?

[UbuntuDupe]

I seem to recall that 200 MHz and an 8 Gig hard drive was top of the line, some time during the 90's. Such computers seemed to handle word processing, web browsing, email, etc. just fine. What would those components cost now? Not very much because of miniaturization. A $125 computer should be no big deal right?

So how's that $100 PC coming along? WHAT?? Why do you need those kinds of specs?

Re:Why is this so hard?

[grumbel]

Such computers seemed to handle word processing, web browsing, email, etc.

Not when you want to use OpenOffice and Firefox. I am not sure if they really want to, but todays applications simply require quite a bit more CPU and RAM then yesterdays applications, even for the very same jobs. So unless they also write the low-spec software, they better make sure that they have enough power to run current days applications.

Re:

[ImaLamer]

I think "word processing" is a bit advanced for people who have never used PC's before. A simple text editor would be a revolution, people are still going to type (and somehow typing turns into economic upturn). After people have exhausted their use of the plain text editor (I like "Joe [sourceforge.net]" for linux) and have move the society forward, they can get computers that support OpenOffice.

Besides, lightweight applications already exist. Even better, they are stable. Resurrect them!

Re:

[Denial93]

I spent months on a 700MHz Duron with 128(!) megs of RAM translating a 400+ pages book in OOo, occasionally switching to the Firefox window for some relaxing browsing, with WinAmp constantly running. No complaints, it ran like a charm (except when I saved to the ancient 8GB hard drive). I can see how image and sound editing wouldn't be fun on this kind of machine, and how decoding MPEG4 on it just doesn't work, but OOo and Firefox absolutely are not a problem.

This is even more true when you don't need all

Re:

[AchilleTalon]

Still using my PIII 750MHz 256MB laptop with Linux, Gnome, Firefox, Abiword, Gnumeric, Acrobat reader and few others without any problem.

Todays computers are so powerful, even OS developers are seeking at new things they can include in the OS to waste CPU and memory resources to provide eye-candies.

Re:

[ajs318]

If it comes up in metamoderation, I promise I'll M2 that "Flamebait" unfair.

Firefox and OpenOffice can trace their lineage directly back to closed-source software (Netscape Navigator and StarOffice respectively). As such, they contain many examples of lousy programming practice, simply because nobody ever thought that code would see the light of day. That's just what you get when you set more store by "on time" than you set by "right". Look at alternative browsers and office applications to see how un

Re:

[mcrbids]

I seem to recall that 200 MHz and an 8 Gig hard drive was top of the line, some time during the 90's. Such computers seemed to handle word processing, web browsing, email, etc. just fine. What would those components cost now? Not very much because of miniaturization. A $125 computer should be no big deal right?


Don't forget the concept of the minimum cost of production.

It doesn't actually cost (much) more to produce a 300 GB HDD than an 8 GB HDD. You have the same basic amount of aluminum, wire, circuit boar

Re:

[ozmanjusri]

This is why a $300 computer today blows the doors off a computer built 5 years ago for $1000

Yep, increased performance at the same cost holds true for those components which are relatively mature in design, but still suited to incremental improvement. In computers, that's hard drives, RAM, CPUs and to some extent, mainboards. Other components which are fully mature in their niche, such as maths co-processors, soundcards and to a lesser extent, VGA and LAN adaptors get embedded into other components, which

Re:

[evilviper]

I seem to recall that 200 MHz and an 8 Gig hard drive was top of the line, some time during the 90's. Such computers seemed to handle word processing, web browsing, email, etc. just fine.

Yes, they ran Netscape 3.0 and Windows 95 just fine. Similar software today, however, is much better than it used-to be, which is why almost nobody uses that old software on their new computers.

Though, you aren't extremely far off. Something like a 400MHz P2 is fast enough for things like DVD playback, and most office app

Re:

[drsquare]

Yes, they ran Netscape 3.0 and Windows 95 just fine. Similar software today, however, is much better than it used-to be, which is why almost nobody uses that old software on their new computers.

Is the software really better? Compare the system requirements for Word XP to Word 95, and tell me how much extra functionality it really has. People upgraded from Windows 95 because it crashed so often, not because the newer versions had more functionality.

Re:

[evilviper]

People upgraded from Windows 95 because it crashed so often, not because the newer versions had more functionality.

I didn't say more features, I said "much better than it used-to be", which you quoted correctly, and still doesn't seem to have registered with you.

Re:

[Tim C]

So how's that $100 PC coming along? WHAT?? Why do you need those kinds of specs?

Because without those specs, I can't use my PC for what I want to use it for. We don't all just surf, email, and fire up vi occasionally.

Re:

[Yvanhoe]

I think it costs roughly the same to produce a 200 Gigs HD than a 1 Gig one, that's why we don't see many 50$ PC "top of the line 20 years ago". You can find used computers, but you cannot find new ones with low specs.

Now imagine, you can produce 1Go disks for $20 or 100Go for $30, which one would make more sense for your business ?

Re:

[sorak]

I seem to recall that 200 MHz and an 8 Gig hard drive was top of the line, some time during the 90's. Such computers seemed to handle word processing, web browsing, email, etc. just fine. What would those components cost now? Not very much because of miniaturization. A $125 computer should be no big deal right?

Inflation doesn't just happen in economics. I had a 300Mhz k6-2 until about 4 years ago, and one thing I noticed is that, when it was brand new, it could run my favorite mp3 ripper/player, and a web

American retailers not much more

[davidwr]

I've seen several "house brand" PCs from major retailers that ran under $250 with Windows and under $150 without when on "we do this almost every week" sales. Yes I know what "loss leader" means but at these prices the Linux boxes probably wholesale for $150-$175. Large school systems and other institutions would probably pay very close to wholesale.

Re:American retailers not much more

[WuphonsReach]

Hmm, $150 is a tough price point to hit for a regular PC if you're at all picky about components.

$45 CPU (AM2 Sempron 2800+, which means upgrade capability later)
$65 M/B (GeForce 6150 w/ integrated video)
$55 2x256 or 1x512MB (or $25 256MB single-stick)
$20 DVD-ROM
$25 Case+PSU
$45 Hard drive
===
$255

More like $300 once you buy a reasonably good case w/ PSU for $50-$75. And it would be expandable to put more memory and a more powerful CPU in it down the road.

You could still probably shave $100 off that price if you go for close-out deals, really cheap motherboards, older CPUs that are only $20ea, 256MB of RAM, and a really cheap case+PSU that will probably catch fire right after the warranty expires.

(The machines I'm building for work are around $500 for parts, but those are dual-core w/ 2GB RAM.)

It doesn't really matter...

[Belial6]

It doesn't really matter how hard it is to hit the $150 price point. Fry's electronics does it all the time. They have an add in their flyer just about every week for a brand spanking new x86 PC for $150.

Re:

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

HP, Dell, Lenovo, and the like don't pay anywhere near retail price for components. Complete $250 PCs are common - with 256MB of DDR2, a Sempron 3400+, GeForce 6150 graphics, 80GB SATA drive, CD-ROM, flash card reader, and even a PCIe x16 slot.

I got a $150 eMachines PC - with a 17" monitor, 512MB of DDR, DVD/CD-RW combo drive, 80GB HDD, XP Home, and a 2.93GHz Celeron at Best Buy on Black Friday last year. It's not at all out of the question.

But see your problem

[Sycraft-fu]

Is that as you said, you are being picky about components. I take it you've little experience with really cheap Chinese goods. They are cheap in both senses of the word. The idea is bottom dollar and to hell with quality.

I've a feeling this PC will follow along those lines. I mean please note that your system has a vastly more powerful CPU (with upgrade path as you noted) a real GPU, double the memory and so on. This is not an equal comparison. Also I'm going to guess that all the components will be the mos

Re:

[WuphonsReach]

I've watched enough folks over the years go with the absolute cheapest parts they could find. Then I get to watch them struggle later on with either stability issues (if not outright parts failures) or upgrades (if the machine survives past a year or two). I've even done it myself on occasion, thinking that it's worth saving $10 now only to have it come around and bite me a year down the road. Upgrades are the main reason why I avoid cheaper / proprietary solutions from the pre-built folks. With commodi

Re:

[LaughingCoder]

Ummm, display, keyboard, mouse? Or perhaps this a machine you talk to and it talks back - in which case, speakers and microphone?

Re:

[AJWM]

You're listing close to retail, quantity-one prices on those components. They'd be closer to half that in moderate volume wholesale.

Cheap computers for all

[HatchedEggs]

I really can't complain about the sentiment of wanting to provide computers for all. Why do I get the feeling though that the only reason the government wants to give people there access is so that they can find more ways to pull mone into Chinas society. Regardess, $150 PCs isnt suh a great deal.

We've all known MIT has been working on the $100 laptop project for some time. http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]

A 500Mhx chip, etc... It might be inadequate for most programs that arent specifically made to work with it

On a lighter note

[OldManAndTheC++]

The system will come bundled with lots of open-source software, including the famous Radiant Dragon Pearl 2.0, which is known as the Perl of China, written by Won Ton, who is known as the Larry Wall of China.

Chinese attitude towards Linux

[patio11]

"We were going to pirate it, but couldn't figure out how."

That's the volume?

[WoTG]

produce several thousand low-cost PCs
They're going to have a hard time making those CPUs cost effective if they're only doing a few thousand. I'm thinking that either something was lost in translation, or the $150 price is some estimate after sales ramp, or it's all calculated in that every wishy-washy government slush fund kind of way.

Anyone care to guess what fab technology they're using?

Re:

[oliderid]

These CPUs are already used in low-cost routers.

Anyway I've read the spec. But there aren't any screen :-). So you get a pretty box for $150 and then? I guess the real price is around $200 at least.

Olivier

Re:

[mgblst]

It is probably aimed at upgrading boxes for schools, and they can keep the screens, but get a pretty reasonable machine. There seems to be a glut of old monitors at the moment, I see them going every day for £10...everybody wants new lcd screens.

Why is the processor seen as a ripped-off design?

[joeykiller]

In earlier coverage on Slashdot of this chip (see the initial announcement [slashdot.org], the follow up [slashdot.org] and the announcement of a 64-bit variant [slashdot.org]), at least in the coverage of the 32-bit Dragon version of the chip, no one blamed the chinese for ripping of anything. I even remember someone saying that the MIPS specification were free to use for anyone, as long as they paid around $20 for access to the specs. What has happened since then, and what is different in this case from, say, AMD cloning til Intel instruction set?

The principal investigator of the Godson program, Hu Weiwu, have some colorful comparions [eetimes.com] to houses and bedrooms when he tries to explain why he means that the Godson-2 processor does not infringe on any patents or intellectual properties.

Re:Why is the processor seen as a ripped-off desig

[evilviper]

no one blamed the chinese for ripping of anything.

You're kidding, right? Did you actually look through those comments? There are numerous accusations.

and what is different in this case from, say, AMD cloning til Intel instruction set?

AMD didn't just say one day "We're going to clone Intel chips". They had a contract with Intel, which allowed them to use both the instruction set, and the architecture of Intel's x86 chips. Intel did that because IBM demanded a chip with a second supplier.

AMD went to court

Re:

[joeykiller]

You're kidding, right? Did you actually look through those comments? There are numerous accusations.

I admit that I wasn't clear on what I meant -- I didn't think about the comments, but about the wording in the lead text.

China is constantly running afoul of international copyright and patent laws, and they always deny it, even when the evidence is overwhelming.

I know this, and I didn't mean to present Hu's words as evidence of anything. I just thought he used some colorful (and funny) metaphors when trying

$125 still might be too expensive

[the_humeister]

This is especially when I can get a used computer with decent specifications (Pentium III, 1 GHz, etc) for approximately $25-$50 at the local surplus store.

Re:

[Deliveranc3]

A... Reliability A machine that's likely to fail is worth less than nothing, B Hardware standardization software actually set up to work with your hardware and a community of people using the same hadware (Teh Awsome!), also while the hardware isn't super powerful it probably has a lot of the functionality we'd expect usb2.0 instead of 1, pci-E slots (Same price as AGP 1 slots but nicer, PXE for the network, wireless, NCQ just tonnes of tiny little features that actually make a computer useful nowadays.

Re:

[MarkByers]

This is especially when I can get a used computer with decent specifications (Pentium III, 1 GHz, etc) for approximately $25-$50 at the local surplus store.

Now try buying a few hundred million used computers at your local surplus store and see if you can still get the same deal. China has a lot of people and buying computers from American second hand stores isn't really a feasible business plan for a company trying to make ground in the Chinese market.

Re:

[MightyYar]

The problem is that the Pentium III would run Windows. Who runs that? This new Chinese chip will run... something better.

</sarcasm>

XBox

[kyb]

XBox: Intel Celeron 733 MHz CPU, nVidia GeForce 3MX, 64 MB of RAM, 10 GB hard disk, a DVD drive and 10/100 Ethernet.
Cost new: $125

So there's already a 125$ pc that can run linux in the mass market here for $125. The specs aren't quite as good as the chinese one, but it is quite a few years old now, and has a well known intel processor and graphics accelerator.

kyb

Re:

[RAMMS+EIN]

``it is quite a few years old now, and has a well known intel processor and graphics accelerator.''

As well as the power of Microsoft who will _not_ be pleased if you use the Xbox as a cheap Linux PC. Might be better of buying Nintendo DS or PS/2, but oh no, they are Japanese!

Re:

[evilviper]

So there's already a 125$ pc that can run linux

How do you run Linux without a keyboard or mouse? They aren't free, you realize.

A 10GB hard drive is also rather modest, and your exansion capabilities are incredibly limited, likely making it cheaper to buy a more expensive PC, if you need to add ANYTHING that isn't stock.

Re:

[AJWM]

How do you run Linux without a keyboard or mouse? They aren't free, you realize.

No, but they're cheap. I just picked up a couple of keyboards and some mice, new retail, for $3.99 ea for the keyboards, $1.49 ea for the mice (at MicroCenter). Admittedly not the best quality, but they do the job. (Replacements for my young kids' computers in my case.)

Mips.. 1995

[nurb432]

If it is similar to a 20 year old processor that pretty much implenents what is considerd standard RISC anyway, who cares?

$125 represents what?

[gelfling]

How much of the cost is the CPU? It would seem that it's not very large though every little bit helps. I'm guessing the cost of a Via C3 is pretty cheap too. And since there appears to be very little marketing cost, customization, mostly free software, little packagings and limited post sales support then $125 seems reasonable. How much of an average person's monthly income is that, anyway? And for what it's worth the Fortune 10 company I work for has cut back on 'standard' desktops to the point where anyon

Likely vs Unlikely

[kahei]

allegations of ripped-off processor designs

There are bound to be such allegations, and they're usually well founded.

might slow the effort.

Hee hee :) Now surely you jest!

10+ year old tech?

[LoudMusic]

Shouldn't there be a cutoff on old computer technology patents? With the rate of 'innovation' the old stuff isn't being used / developed anymore and some people could make use of its outrageously cheaper solutions. This is a perfect example. These people aren't going to be able to afford anything that is currently selling so let someone make out of production parts for cheap computers that these consumers can actually afford. It's obvious Intel / IBM / AMD / etc don't care about the uber cheap markets.

Re:

[nurb432]

You are new here arent you.

150.00 for that?

[night_flyer]

big deal, most corporations pay to have faster machines hauled off as they are upgraded...

If every chinese buy one...

[vhogemann]

MIPS will be the most deployed processor architeture on desktops! And Linux will be the #1 desktop operating system!

Take that Intel/AMD/Microsoft!

Microsoft-proof

[rbanffy]

Cool. Not only Windows-free. It's Windows-proof ;-)

(OK... I remember there was a Windows NT for MIPS, but I bet it won't run on these. Besides that, who wants Windows NT 3.1 again?)

Where can i order one?

[nurb432]

Since you wont be able to buy MIPS chips around here anymore, and 125$ for a 2ghz risc computer is dammned nice. Sign me up for 3.

And no, im not kidding.

Re:

[HatchedEggs]

The point wasn't that this is going to affect the 1 Laptop per child initiative.

It was that building a computer for relatively cheap (that still functions) is quite possible. I'm not very surprised that china can build $150 laptops... and the government will still make a healthy profit on it probably.

Re:

[antime]

If this is the same machine [linuxdevices.com] that was demoed earlier this year it's not a laptop.

Re:

[poopie]

shonky isn't a word ...

Umm, apparently it sorta is a word, you shonky shonk!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sho nk [urbandictionary.com]

Re:95% compatibility?

[shadow_slicer]

'Instriial espionnage' is not needed. The MIPS instruction set and architecture are standard reading for anybody in the field. They're not saying they copied the layout or instruction set, it's more like the API.

All processors have a language they understand, a sequence of bits that have an arbitrary meaning to them. And these are usually published far and wide, so that people can write compilers and operating systems and assemblers for this processor. MIPS in particular is very popular to study because the simple structure makes it possible for teachers to make creating a VHDL or Verilog implementation of a simplified MIPS instruction set into a half-semester project.
In fact I doubt their implementation is anywhere near the same caliber as the Pentium III implementation, even if they claim the same speed. What probably happened is they have access to more modern, smaller fabrication methods so they can cram more transistors into the pipeline. And even soft IP cores in FPGAs can hit 200MHz, so a well designed core could probably hit 500 MHz in an ASIC.

That being said, creating a full super-scalar CPU implementing even 95% of the MIPS 64-4 version of the instruction set in silicon is difficult. I was not familiar with this specification, but a quick search on google reveals that

The Mips R10000 is a dynamic superscalar microprocessor that implements the 64-bit Mips-4 Instruction Set Architecture. It fetches and decodes four instructions per cycle and dynamically issues them to five fully pipelined low-latency execution units. Instructions can be fetched and executed speculatively beyond branches. Instructions graduate in order upon completion. Although instructions execute out of order, the processor still provides sequential memory consistency and precise exception handling.The R10000 is designed for high performance, even in large real-world applications which have poor memory locality. With speculative execution, it calculates memory addresses and initiates cache refills early. Its hierarchical nonblocking memory system helps hide memory latency with two levels of set-associative, write-back caches.

This is a really beefy processor that was probably state of the art in its time. Of course that was over 10 years agos. Is it really so suprising China is only 10 years behind in chip design? After all aren't most of the chip fabrication facilities in east Asia? I'd imagine there would be quite a few people who after a few years decide they want to be on the other end of the process.

Re:125$ is still unaffordable

[808140]

It's far cheaper than what (the Chinese anyway) currently have to shell out for a computer system. It may not reach impoverished farmers in Guizhou province, but it will certainly increase the number of people who can afford a computer.

However, I anticipate that no one will buy it. Computers are too expensive for many Chinese to own personally, but "internet cafes" ("gaming cafe" would be a more accurate name) are plentiful and extremely cheap -- 2 or 3 yuan per hour is typical (that's about 25 - 30 cents US). PC gaming is huge in the PRC (consoles never really caught on), and that's what the vast majority of Chinese use their machines for -- that and chatting, mostly on QQ, which GAIM and friends do not support*.

The result is that most Chinese are routinely exposed to Windows, and worse, they're addicted to a wide variety of Windows-only software. While owning your own machine is certainly a nice perk, the question they will be asking themselves is, do I want to shell out 125 dollars for a machine that won't run any software I want, or do I want to suffer through not having my own machine, and buy a USB memory stick instead, and do all my computing at the local internet cafe?

My guess is that for the vast majority of Chinese, the latter will seem like a much sounder choice. A 125 dollar x86-compatible machine would be one thing, but if all it can run is Linux, the Chinese won't go for it. Linux penetration in China is virtually nil, except maybe in the government, but they're not the types that would buy 125 dollar, 500MHz desktops.

Thankfully, Chinese support is much better in Linux now than it used to be, but there are still no decent free Chinese fonts -- something that, as a Chinese speaker who uses Linux exclusively, I am very aware of. This company probably would think nothing of bundling MS's SimSun and SimHei fonts with their distribution, as they've thought nothing of using a rip off MIPS chip, but that would be copyright infringement and in my mind wrong. I personally use SimSun and SimHei, but I paid the MS tax when I bought my thinkpad with XP pre-installed (in China, no less). The $125 laptop doesn't come with a Windows license.

All in all, it looks like a bust. It's cool, though.

(*There have been a few attempts to port QQ to Linux, but Tencent adds features to the QQ protocol much too quickly to keep up. Lack of support for wanted features would make Linux seem broken, even though the real culprit is a complex, proprietary, binary protocol with built in obsolescence... but hey, they don't know that.)

Re:

[WindBourne]

Actually, it would require less than 5% to make it a viable competitor.