[erlang-questions] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_iAPX_432#Multitasking_and_interprocess_communication

[Michael Turner]

On 12/4/2009, "Michael Richter" <ttmrichter@REDACTED> wrote:

>2009/12/3 Michael Turner <leap@REDACTED>
>
>> Just about any RISC architecture would probably consume less area and
>> power per core.  ARM cores, for example, would make a lot more sense.
>> Not likely to see that from Intel, though.
>>
>
>Intel wasn't always x86-only... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale>

Which kind of proves my point: they got a line of ARM-based IP from a
lawsuit settlement with DEC, only to dump that line later, on Marvell. 
Admittedly, before that, they had their i860/960 RISC processors, even
their own workstations that used them.  But I never got the impression
they were very serious about RISC on the product side.  They didn't
have to be, really.  Intel has deep pockets, they learn a lot about
competitive threats (and new markets within them) simply by emulating
industry trends in-house.  Even if they lost money on the i860 and the
workstation they cobbled together around it, they probably learned
something very valuable: how to make money in the market for support
chips for engineering workstations.  In any market-based view of the
matter, however, anything RISCy is risky -- mainly, cannibalistic -- for
Intel.

I think Erlang is more likely to have an impact sometime soon in
massive-multicore apps IF it can become popular as some sort of
higher-level control language for specialized processor arrays, such as
the kind suggested here (in another response to the Intel announcement):

  Researchers rethink approaches to computer vision
  http://tinyurl.com/yaybfj9

Not just in the lab, either.  For apps with a (relatively) fixed process
structure, Erlang programs might, with modifications, be mapped onto
systems like the picoArray

  http://www.picochip.com/page/42/multi-core-dsp-architecture%20

Note that typical applications for picoArrays (cellular basestations) are
also conveniently adjacent to the telecom equipment where Erlang earned
its spurs industrially.

-michael turner