So, I'd have to dig through some older notes I have, however, some of this information seems inaccurate based upon my own interpretation of the specs (and writing code...specifically, but not limited to, the PowerPC part). A suggestion from me is to provide sources, and also maybe an epub of this.
> The EIB is made of twelve nodes called Ramps, each one connecting one component of Cell... Having said that, instead of recurring to single bus topologies (like the Emotion Engine and its precursor did), ramps are inter-connected following the token ring topology, where data packets must cross through all neighbours until it reaches the destination (there’s no direct path).
I knew IBM was involved in the design of the Cell BE, but I had no idea some successor of IBM's token ring tech (at least the concept of it) lived on in it. I'm sure there's other hardware (probably mainframe hardware) in and before that 2006 with similar interconnects.
I remember hearing somebody talk about programming hot loops in either the the PS3 or PS2 in Excel, to get a good handle on the concurrency question by having assembler in multiple columns next to each other
I remember discussion at the time about how the PS3 was a uniquely difficult architecture to emulate. Was that true? Have those difficulties now been overcome? I see RPCS3 exists but I’ve no idea if it has done the difficult parts.
The PS3 was the only console I had in my life. I bought it specifically to play the original Demon Souls.
I see a lot of comments here saying how underwhelming it was. And that’s probably true.
But one thing always surprised me. The quality of the games for PS3 at the platform end of life were gorgeous. Developers became so good at extracting all the power from the platform (and it had some in its difficult to use way), that great things were achieved.
It was common to try to get grant money to build a cluster of PS3's when they came out. I'm betting a bunch of computer science students got a console after that.
Was the PS3 the one that was banned from some countries? And wasn't the PS2 rumored to be used a ballistic missile guidance chip for some country?
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 28.1 ms ] threadI knew IBM was involved in the design of the Cell BE, but I had no idea some successor of IBM's token ring tech (at least the concept of it) lived on in it. I'm sure there's other hardware (probably mainframe hardware) in and before that 2006 with similar interconnects.
i always found this very appealing, having a blazing fast memory under programmer control so i wonder: why don't we have that on other cpus?
Because emulators still work insanely hard to make those games work, even today.
I see a lot of comments here saying how underwhelming it was. And that’s probably true.
But one thing always surprised me. The quality of the games for PS3 at the platform end of life were gorgeous. Developers became so good at extracting all the power from the platform (and it had some in its difficult to use way), that great things were achieved.
Was the PS3 the one that was banned from some countries? And wasn't the PS2 rumored to be used a ballistic missile guidance chip for some country?
[1] And home computers, but that ended a couple decades earlier than consoles.