Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project
Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project
Posted Dec 6, 2005 21:45 UTC (Tue) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203)Parent article: Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project
You just never know with Sun do ya.
Having details of the instruction set properly documented is great. Not sure what having the Verilog files available will accomplish but it can't be a bad thing.
Open Source hardware just isn't as useful since most people lack the ability to make use of it. Copyrights made perfect sense when only a few had a printing press, now many question it. The software world instantly chaffed under closed source because almost every computer is able to compile and vast numbers of users are also capable of some level of development activity. But since few have a chip fab.... yet. :)
Will be interesting to see if there is an uptake among the embedded world, but I'd think most of them would be more interested in the 32bit SPARC.
Posted Dec 6, 2005 21:56 UTC (Tue)
by pjones (subscriber, #31722)
[Link] (2 responses)
(* IIRC, the cpu design is available without the on-core pci controller, so you do have to build your own I/O devices.)
Posted Dec 7, 2005 16:07 UTC (Wed)
by beoba (guest, #16942)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Dec 7, 2005 17:29 UTC (Wed)
by remijnj (guest, #5838)
[Link]
This article from 2001 tells the story.
Well, there are already two designs for 32-bit sparcs out in the wild -- microSPARC-IIep is mostly available*, and the ESA has their own which is available.Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project
ESA? I'm picturing European Space Agency.Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project
I think you are right.
Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project