Re: Transmeta ;)

[Jim Jackson <nospam [at] scs.leeds.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, Al Hudson wrote:

> sheflug - http://www.sheflug.co.uk
>
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2000, Alastair Donlon wrote:
>
> > From my reading of their docs, the translation software which morphs
> > instructions on the fly will be on a Rom, which will mean that you
> > won't be able to _easily_ shift between different instruction sets.
> > It will require a FLASH upgrade.
>
> Not quite. Firstly, the morphing software only morphs x86 code, so
> currently the question is pretty academic. But, there is no reason for the
> code to be in flash ROM. The 3120 is ROM-based, because it is designed for
> an embedded system: Mobile Linux is ROM based, and talks to the morphing
> software at boot time. However, remapping is done all the time, as is
> shadowing. Your video card, for instance, has a rom in it. That ROM is
> almost certainly shadowed into main memory. With an MMU, it doesn't matter
> whether the address is different, because the RAM pages can be mapped in
> over the ROM pages.