5 ms·

Interview with Robert Garner, Lead Designer of SPARC at Sun Microsystems [video]

81 points by hasheddan 3y ago

hasheddan 3y ago
Detailed show notes with timestamps and links can be found here: https://microarch.club/episodes/11/ https://microarch.club/episodes/11/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
chasil 3y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000
- hasheddan 3y ago
  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 https://youtu.be/I5cYxLg7Vfc Full Episode: https://microarch.club/episodes/1/ https://microarch.club/episodes/1/ Previous HN Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39452960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39452960
  - chasil 3y ago
    I'll grab that one too, thanks!
drmpeg 3y ago
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 https://www.w6rz.net/domino.png
Pet_Ant 3y ago
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 3y ago
  I was saddened to find that the series numbering was in binary.
- rluoy 3y ago
  Still looking forward to the second edition of "Inside the Machine"...
peter_d_sherman 3y ago
Related: Microarch Club channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MicroarchClub/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MicroarchClub/videos
throw0101d 3y ago
> […] 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/9781449362980/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive... * https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive/1565926609/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive... Wouldn't mind an update of that either.

81 points by hasheddan 3y ago

Detailed show notes with timestamps and links can be found here: https://microarch.club/episodes/11/ https://microarch.club/episodes/11/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

chasil 3y ago

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000

hasheddan 3y ago
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 https://youtu.be/I5cYxLg7Vfc Full Episode: https://microarch.club/episodes/1/ https://microarch.club/episodes/1/ Previous HN Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39452960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39452960
- chasil 3y ago
  I'll grab that one too, thanks!

drmpeg 3y ago

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 https://www.w6rz.net/domino.png

Pet_Ant 3y ago

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 3y ago
I was saddened to find that the series numbering was in binary.
rluoy 3y ago
Still looking forward to the second edition of "Inside the Machine"...

peter_d_sherman 3y ago

Related: Microarch Club channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MicroarchClub/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MicroarchClub/videos

throw0101d 3y ago

> […] 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/9781449362980/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive... * https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive/1565926609/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/ethernet-the-definitive... Wouldn't mind an update of that either.