PlayStation3 target

James Lee jbit at jbit.net
Thu Mar 29 05:02:17 EDT 2007


I think we should evaluate the PS3 as a common target (I know you guys
are targeting mac/etc, but I mean for the future)

PS3 pros:
 * Mass produced 64bit PowerPC platform
 * Boots any OS out-of-the-box (without hacks)
 * Large install base
 * Hypervisor hardware abstraction (drivers are super easy to write)
 * Standard hardware platform (don't need a million drivers)
 * USB 2.0/SATA/blu-ray/HDMI/SD/CF/gbit ethernet... so it's pretty
modern standard interfaces generally
 * SPU processors are perfect for gold
 * Complete cell simulator available for free from IBM
 * Super fast RAM/busses/etc
 * Might be able to port open firmware easily, in which case it will
act extremly similar to a mac.
 * Jbit has alot of experience with this platform.

PS3 cons:
 * only 256MBytes of RAM (and 256MBytes of graphics RAM)
 * No hardware drawing access (yet?)
 * Slow (in-order-execution) CPU
 * Can't upgrade RAM or CPU
 * Pretty expensive at the moment
 * Hypervisor hardware abstraction (no direct access to most hardware)
 * No easy debug solution on consumer units
 * Jbit might be limited to what he can release/work on.

Let me know your thoughts on this.
I might start looking into porting open firmware or another
standardish firmware to "otherOS".

--jbit



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