[Gllug] Beagle Board

[Chris Bell]

On Mon 12 Jan, Peter Corlett wrote:
> 
> On 12 Jan 2009, at 11:37, Chris Bell wrote:
> [...]
> >   The ARM chips are very efficient, and are designed to not need huge
> > amounts of RAM to get things done. I am still using my 300MHz  
> > StrongARM
> > powered RiscPC every day, despite having "much faster" Intel machines
> > running.
> 
> ARM chips are very *power* efficient, which makes it a very good  
> choice for portable and power-constrained applications, but has little  
> to offer outside of that niche.

   The ARM chips were able to beat the comparable Pentium series by having a
sensible number of addressable bytes of instant storage plus a selection of
conditional commands that reduced the number of discrete steps to perform
the majority of frequently used commands. The StrongARM series had enough
internal cache to store large software packages.
   The Pentium pipeline approach required cache dump and reload cycles, and
multiple commands for simple proceedures, although some specific complex
commands were available in hardware, many of which still required a large
number of clock cycles.

> 
> Bully for you if you're happy with a 1997-vintage machine.

   It is actually older than that, but the processor, ROM set, and hard
drive have been upgraded.

-- 
Chris Bell NEW alternative address: chrisbell at chrisbell.org.uk
Microsoft sells you Windows ... Linux gives you the whole house.
www.overview.demon.co.uk

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