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PS5 Refresh: Oberon Plus
- mindcrime 4y agoWho else was hoping this was about a port of Oberon[1] to the PS5? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)
- deadbunny 4y agoMy guess? Less than the number of finger I have.
- ComputerGuru 4y agoOn HN? Almost certainly more. I was wondering what PS5 could possibly mean in the context of OS dev!
- sedatk 4y agoI'm an outlier: I thought it was a re-implementation of Adobe Photoshop 5 using Oberon programming language. (Tidbit: Photoshop was first written in Pascal, the ancestor of Oberon)
- tomcam 4y agoYeah this article turned out not to be Wirthwhile
- latchkey 4y agoSemi related, I have a huge number of BC-250's [0]. Now that ETH mining is over, I'm looking for something interesting to do with them. Not looking to sell them, but that might be possible at quantity, I'd rather work with you to run something on them. They iPXE boot Ubuntu. GigE. No onboard storage, but have 16gigs of ram. Easily tuned for performance. Thoughts? [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/93980-14800-asrock-mining-rig-powered-12-playstation-5.html https://www.techspot.com/news/93980-14800-asrock-mining-rig-...
- speps 4y agoContribute to the different volunteer computing projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volunteer_computing_projects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volunteer_computing_pr...
- liminalsunset 4y agoHow well did the economics of this kind of an operation end up working out? Seems like these were a fairly recent development, so they really wouldn't have had much time, say, the 500 days cited to reach profitability. It would be interesting to see how the GPU driver side of this works. If they boot Ubuntu, what kind of GPU driver is required to run the GPU? Is it open source amdgpu compatible? In any case, these would work rather well for some kind of VPS server hosting or maybe more like dedicated server hosting, given the density/form factor. That is assuming the driver situation doesn't preclude a choice of operating system...
- latchkey 4y agoThey run standard Ubuntu 20.04 and can be upgraded to 22 or whatever else comes along. Standard AMD Ubuntu driver (21.50.2.50002, but can be upgraded as well). Heavily modified the AMD packaging to minimize it to just the necessary files because these iPXE boot (sadly, still around ~60megs). The bigger issue is that they don't have any onboard persistent storage (could be added, but the speed is limited to about 500mbit/s) and they are only gigE. Running strictly from memory, they are also prone to memory corruption. Odd, I know, but I see it at the scale we operate. Thus, they need to be treated as interruptible machines. Reboot to running is about 60s. So, quite a few limitations, but still good hardware, if we can find a good workload for them.
- eterps 4y agoUnfortunate product code name, I thought the article was about Oberon or Oberon+ https://oberon-lang.github.io https://oberon-lang.github.io
- sp332 4y agoThere are older things named Oberon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rowanG077 4y agoI wonder if it uses liquid metal.
- BaculumMeumEst 4y agoIt's interesting that they didn't do a big horse and pony show for new models of consoles these days. Historically console manufacturers would use updates like these to push a new "slim" model or whatever, but nowadays it's done without much fanfare. Perhaps they sell enough either way that there's no point in making a spectacle of it. I always like to wait for the first revision of hardware to buy in, since better thermals generally mean better longevity of the overall hardware.
- monocasa 4y agoThey update internals many times without changing the case design generally. The reason is cost reduction. Smaller dies mean more dies per wafer. Thermal reduction implies you can get away with a less beefy power supply and thermal management solution, etc.
- Sephr 4y agoYou can't make a 'slim' model as easily with these minor efficiency improvements.
- mikepurvis 4y agoIndeed, and there will absolutely be a “real” slim version, probably in the next year or so. The existing case is massive and mostly empty— so it’s really a matter of getting the thermals under control, whether via a better airflow design or by die size reduction and therefore power/heat savings at the source.
- stevezsa8 4y agoI'd agree. The Series X has atleast 2 large cavities near the intake and outflow vents. These alone must take up like 5%+ of the volume.
- mikepurvis 4y agoWell, and just the history, that literally every prior generation of PlayStation had one or more eventual size-reduced versions come out, though the time gap is clearly shrinking: PSX launch was 1994, PSone in 2000. PS2 launch was 2000, slim in 2004. PS3 launch was 2006, slim in 2009, super slim in 2012. PS4 launch was 2013, slim + pro in 2016. It's interesting to see them roll out power-reduction die shrinks on the launch chassis— presumably they'll be able to monitor telemetry on these units over time and that'll allow them to build confidence on moving into a chassis with a drastically-reduced size and weight footprint. Given that the PS5 launched in late 2020, it's not unreasonable to expect a PS5 slim for the 2023 holiday season.
- bitwize 4y agoThat's all wonderful, but useless if you are unable to buy one.
- croes 4y agoBased on location or availability?
- bdcravens 4y agoI was able to buy one from WalMart's site last month (fulfilled by a third party). They appear to still be available.
- lokedhs 4y agoIn the US perhaps. Here in Singapore they are still impossible to get unless you go through grey importers and pay the premium for it. And even then it's a coin toss whether you'll actually get it or not. Once I decided to pay the extra money, I placed and order and several weeks later it was cancelled. I have now done placed another order and got a delivery date in november.
- gambiting 4y agoThat is nothing more than a meme at this point - at least here in UK they have been in stock for months and it's not an issue to buy one whatsoever.
- bdcravens 4y agoIn the US they typically aren't available at the typical retail locations.
- throwntoday 4y agoYou can buy direct from Sony
- seattle_spring 4y ago
- awill 4y agoI expected Sony to wait until at least N5
- midislack 4y agoI didn't even realize the PS5 was out, did anybody even buy the PS4?
- detaro 4y ago"did anybody even buy the second-best selling stationary game console ever", really?
- Firmwarrior 4y agoTo be fair, it's been impossible to buy a PS5 since it came out unless you're willing to really jump through hoops for it
- Gracana 4y agoI and two of my friends bought PS5s. It took some effort, but it wasn’t too bad. We all got them within a month of deciding to buy. I don’t really disagree with what you’re saying though, you have to find an opportunity to buy and then make the right moves to get one.
- Aunche 4y agoOut of a whim, I checked the Playstation store, and they actually had the PS5 in stock. I'm paying some extra for the blu-ray edition with Horizon bundle, but it's still cheaper than scalpers.
- gambiting 4y agoThat's something that people who have no interest in buying one say - because if you did, you'd find that they have been in stock for months from various retailers and it's not an issue to buy one at all.
- Firmwarrior 4y agoah, fair enough.. I gave up on trying to buy a PS5 about six months ago when I "won" the Newegg Shuffle and bought an RTX 3080 TI at a huge markup
- Aissen 4y agoIt's crazy that amidst this cost saving, Sony is still going forward with the price increase in some markets.
- nerdawson 4y agoCost of living increases primarily affect day-to-day spending while a PS5 is a luxury purchase. If you can’t afford it at the new price, it probably wouldn’t have been a wise purchase at the original price. Sony is a business. Their costs have gone up markedly and when the hardware is already subsidised, it’s unrealistic to not expect increased costs to be passed on.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI’m actually surprised how long prices stayed put despite a mismatch between supply and demand. Any time there’s a vibrant scalping market, your prices are too low.
- ajmurmann 4y agoFor this reason I always thought Sony and Nvidia should just auction off their products initially till the auction price is barely above the floor price/planned retail price. Just let the market do its thing and take the profit instead of giving it to scalpers and inconveniencing everyone in the process
- Waterluvian 4y agoAnother alternative is that they sell them first Party (probably a non-option because storefronts would probably throw a fit). And instead of first come first serve, simply have a queue.
- ajmurmann 4y agoQueue or lottery would work. That's actually how Nike (used to?) sell limited edition sneakers. They either had a lottery or queue depending on demand or something. Leaves money on the table though and still leaves room for scalpers.
- scorpios77 4y ago
- mikewarot 4y agoAt some point soon, Fab lines are going to become long term investments, instead of being depreciated in 5 years. Wafers won't get any larger, transistors won't get any smaller, and it'll be on our hands as programmers to tweak every last ounce of performance out of things again. I know the "demo" scene folks are keeping the craft alive, and it gives me hope for the future. Of course, an array of non-cached, non-optimized but very simple and low power processors in a grid can do a lot more work than a single instruction-reordering monster trying to make a single thread go ever faster.
- throwawaylinux 4y agoThey are already. Commercial foundries operate lines that use decades old technology. GF has a .6 micron line that uses 200mm wafers for example. > Of course, an array of non-cached, non-optimized but very simple and low power processors in a grid can do a lot more work than a single instruction-reordering monster trying to make a single thread go ever faster. True if you look at theoretical best cases. Not always true on real problems, and it's not always the fault of the programmer if the problem can not be written to suit the flock of chickens processor. Limiting factors are latencies and communication overhead between various dependencies, which is the case whether you expose that to the programmer with your grid, or try to deal with in in the core with multiple execution units and reordering.
- pjmlp 4y agoIt is going to be a sad day in Electronland.