A new hope
There,
As an end-user I'm hopping to see very soon computers based on an serious alternative of x86 for home appliance.
I'd like to enjoy my Digital SLR, watch my movies, hear my MP3 or play some FPS games on such a computer, of course using Linux as I'm already doing all of that under x86/Linux.
I already looked at Sun computers to use as personnal "end-user" computer. Don't think the Sun computers are designed for home users, especially about the price.
Perhaps am I dreaming, but I would be ready to leave Intel world if someone is able to sell a computer for multimedia and games, easy to use and to upgrade, with open-source drivers and good commercial and open-source applications.
I'm really waiting to ear some news around all of that.
[790 byte] By [
Screen1] at [2007-11-26 6:06:04]
# 1
If you are developing software at home,
Sun has a very good systems for software developers. Check out the Sun product line on www.sun.com.
Maybe someone on this forum can recommend one.
SPARC processors have been used in Scientific Atlanta's
set box in 1997.
Check out the press release
http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1997-03/sunflash.970325.0859.html
# 2
You have stated it very well indeed.
The world around us is changing fast. The traditional PC is already being supplemented, if not entirely replaced, with other devices (Treos, blackberries, PDAs, java-enabled phones, SunRays etc.) that do interesting and useful things. Also on the home front, there will be a convergence of communications and entertainment leading to devices with mutiple capabilities such as graphics, voice recognition/synthesis, wireless, networking etc.
It is anybody's guess who will innovate and integrate these functions in a cost effective and power-consumption effective way. It is almost a given that these devices will be built from some combination of easily available free cores, standard IO and open software.
With SPARC we do know that its earlier version was used in millions of digital cameras, into MPEG chips and set-top boxes. The above is not necessarily that well-known because Sun did not put any "SPARC inside" labels on the devices. All the same, the scalability of the architecture from embedded to large scale does provide the designers with many benefits in developing and deploying on a standard, binary compatible platform.
