Exploring the Cell Processor, TS-7200 single board computer, and anything else a computer geek might possibly be interested in...

Greetings! I love to explore computing in every respect, from its history to its future, to its current implementations in engineering to education. I've dabbled in numerous programming languages and put several of them to good use in my engineering work. I've also had some interesting ideas floating in my head that I'd like to flesh out. In particular, I've been keenly interested in exploring the Cell processor (a joint creation of Sony, Toshiba, and IBM) and the TS-7200 single-board computer (using an ARM processor). Thus, I will start my explorations on these two subjects.

The Cell processor includes what seems like a fundamentally new development in modern CPUs. A traditional processor, called the Power Processing Element (PPE), has control over eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPE). The PPE itself is a PowerPC processor, which some accounts compare to an IBM PPC970 (a.k.a. Apple G5). The SPE is a very small, very simple, but extremely fast CPU. It lacks the complicated logic to run something as complex as an operating system, but it is supposed to be incredibly fast when programmed to perform a very specific function. The eight SPEs can be programmed to run similar functions in parallel, or they can be chained together to perform a complex function in eight serial steps. I've also read that the Cell is designed to allow chaining of multiple processors to further extend the parallelism or serialism of its operation.

I'm interested in the TS-7200 single board computer for three reasons: 1) it's useful for embedded applications, 2) it uses the ARM processor, and 3) it's something new to me. One project I have in mind is to connect my GPS receiver to the TS-7200, continuously collecting the GPS messages, and saving those messages to a MySQL server running on the TS-7200.