Sony has released some details about its Playstation
3, and while in very prilimary stages, this is prime
time for architecture design. This device is looking
to be the first multicore chip on a single die
targeted to general consumers. It will not be a pure
gaming system, but rather belong in a class of
products that can be described as media hubs. They
intend it to emulate the functionality of a TiVo, Home
PC, and its previous function as a game console. It is
speculated that it will be 200x faster than a 2.5 ghz
Pentium 4. Sony is spending ~300 billion yen to
develop the processor itself. Specifications are here:
(http://nkcp.zive.net/kokoro/archives/001146.html). 

Clearly they will need a larger operating system than
just a simple loader to implement the functions of a
PC into this product.

NetBSD could quite clearly improve their time to
market drastically as well as put NetBSD on the first
generation of multicore consumer products. Needless to
say once a trend like that has been started it is
difficult to stop. The money, development force, and
publicity this would bring in would be immense should
they choose to release that they are infact using
NetBSD as the operating system.

I suggest that if possible we begin a (snail) mail
campaign to discuss the benefiets of using NetBSD for
thier project. I believe it would be most effective if
carried out professionally (nice letterhead, one
letter per person at absolute most, etc.)

Suggested features that may be attactive:
* SMP (Will still need modifications to work in the
architecture, but attractive. I am not sure of the
current state of locking in the kernel however.)
* Dual Layered threads or Kernel Assisted Native
Threads or M:N threads or whatever you choose to call
it. 
*Protection by the BSD License
*Better than average support for and by the Japanese.

Address:

Sony Computer Entertainment America
 PO Box 5888
 San Mateo, CA  94402-0888
 
Any suggestions would be helpful before starting so
that this may be coordinated in some fashion.


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com