[HN Gopher] Interview with Robert Garner, Lead Designer of SPARC...
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       Interview with Robert Garner, Lead Designer of SPARC at Sun
       Microsystems [video]
        
       Author : hasheddan
       Score  : 71 points
       Date   : 2024-03-14 12:01 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | hasheddan wrote:
       | Detailed show notes with timestamps and links can be found here:
       | https://microarch.club/episodes/11/
        
       | chasil wrote:
       | The interesting thing that I discovered within the last year is
       | that AMD also sold a processor very similar to SPARC, the 29000
       | (AMD 29k).
       | 
       | This was a descendent of the Berkeley RISC, and it had register
       | windows in what might be a more advanced design.
       | 
       | As far as I know, it was used in the AMD K5 x86 CPU as the
       | backend behind an x86 translation layer.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000
        
         | hasheddan wrote:
         | I actually recently interviewed one of the folks (Philip
         | Freidin) who worked on the 29k.
         | 
         | Clip of Philip describing AMD 29k: https://youtu.be/I5cYxLg7Vfc
         | 
         | Full Episode: https://microarch.club/episodes/1/
         | 
         | Previous HN Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39452960
        
           | chasil wrote:
           | I'll grab that one too, thanks!
        
       | drmpeg wrote:
       | I worked on one of the first dual core processors when I was at
       | C-Cube Microsystems way back in 2000. It was an SoC with two
       | microSPARC cores. One core was a general purpose processor for
       | system functions running VxWorks and the other core was an MPEG-2
       | encoder/decoder running bare metal.
       | 
       | There was no MMU and the direct mapped data caches were not
       | coherent (data segments had to be padded to a cache line to avoid
       | the processors overwriting each others memory).
       | 
       | The chip was designed by Les Kohn of i860 fame. Here's a pic of
       | an engineering sample with a 2001 date code.
       | 
       | https://www.w6rz.net/domino.png
        
       | Pet_Ant wrote:
       | This series/podcast is fantastic. It is worth checking out if you
       | enjoyed Hannibal's old articles on Ars Technica, but don't mind a
       | more human touch to it.
       | 
       | Btw, someone should really write a spiritual sequel to "Inside
       | the Machine: An Illustrated Introduction to Microprocessors and
       | Computer Architecture"
        
         | deaddodo wrote:
         | I was saddened to find that the series numbering was in binary.
        
         | rluoy wrote:
         | Still looking forward to the second edition of "Inside the
         | Machine"...
        
       | peter_d_sherman wrote:
       | Related: Microarch Club channel on YouTube:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/@MicroarchClub/videos
        
       | throw0101d wrote:
       | > [...] _and his upcoming book on the technical history of
       | Ethernet._
       | 
       | That's something I'd be interested in (~1h45m).
       | 
       | I have both editions of O'Reilly's _Ethernet_ book:
       | 
       | * https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive...
       | 
       | * https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive...
       | 
       | Wouldn't mind an update of that either.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-14 23:02 UTC)