
Transmeta Crusoe - 6177c40f
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta_Crusoe
======
PopeDotNinja
I worked on that as a QA Engineer. My favorite accomplishment was discovering
that one version of a Crusoe-powered system would irrevocably hang while
playing Tomb Raider 2 for between 15 and 45 minutes. It took an entire VLSI
team over a week to debug that one. The problem had something to do with a
voltage drop on a certain chipset.

I also enjoyed discovering that HTTPS didn’t work on Internet Explorer 5.5,
jump jets recharged at 10% the expected rate in MechWarrior 2, and a certain
modem worked on PCI slots 1 and 3 & didn’t work in PCI slots 2 and 4.

~~~
VectorLock
Thats why I was always skeptical of the Transmeta CPUs. They could 'run' the
x86 ISA as its on paper, but they'd never be able to completely match all the
nuances of the Intel CPUs to get 100% compatibility. The devils in the details
as they say.

~~~
FullyFunctional
This statement is pure FUD. There were no meaningful quality issues and the
situation is exactly the same for all alternative implementations of the same
ISA. You could make the same argument to say that AMD or even a new Intel
microarchitecture is incompatible as doesn't have the exact same runtime
behavior (eg. shifters on the P4).

The only relevant metric: does it run the applications that customers use.

The Crusoe/Efficeon issues were performance related.

~~~
dvdkhlng
Just as a single data-point: I still had an old Crusoe-based TC-1000 [1]
convertible lying around, that must be > 15 years old by now. About two years
back I gave it a new hard-disk (some PATA to flash adapter), replaced the
battery, upgraded to 768 MB RAM and installed a Devuan i386 OS on it (a Debian
derivative). Even was able to make the pen work again (that needed some
X-server source code hacks).

The computer is somewhat sluggish with huge software (like Firefox) and
especially software that does JIT-compilation, maybe due to limited size of
the "code-morphing" cache. For simple java programs the only way to make them
start up timely was to fully disable the JIT-compiler.

But other than that it's a usable x86 machine (and all other laptops I know
that are of similar age eventually failed to boot much earlier).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_TC1000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_TC1000)

------
redis_mlc
I was the last engineering employee of Novafora, which bought Transmeta.
Shortly after, both were wound down.

Intel bought all the IP in a private auction for about $200k. (I was the other
bidder, and hoped to Open Source the EDA tools.) The files were on a single
old server, so not sure if anything still exists.

I own the tapeout server (CS22 - quad-CPU Opteron with 64 GB RAM) used by both
companies, which I plan to donate to the Computer History Museum.

Transmeta only used AMD servers for some reason, I guess it was because they
felt they were in competition with Intel. Kind of like how grocery stores
don't want to use AWS because it would "pay the competition" (Amazon owns
Whole Foods.)

~~~
jl2718
How strong is the IP position around the CMS?

------
mjg59
The Crusoe was a brave effort that never really lived up to its promise. There
was plenty of hype before the release (transmeta.com was, for a long time, a
blank page with a hidden message in the source, which combined with them
employing Linus left people hugely excited about what they were actually going
to make), but what we ended up with was a low power but fairly slow x86 that
had some exciting bugs
([http://web.archive.org/web/20051202073851/http://www.cs.auc....](http://web.archive.org/web/20051202073851/http://www.cs.auc.dk/~fleury/bug_cms/)).
In the pre-JIT times, being able to run Java bytecode directly would have been
a win, but it doesn't look like that was ever an actual produce and even then
it was unclear whether you would have been able to switch between instruction
sets at runtime fast enough to support a mixed Java/x86 environment. And
before long, Intel had chips that weren't far outside the power envelope but
ran much faster.

It's a shame that the would only run signed CMS images - having a laptop you
could switch over to running a different architecture would still be a very
neat toy.

~~~
FullyFunctional
I was there from 2001 until the end (roughly).

History is written by the winners and outsiders tend to draw technology
conclusions based business outcome, which is unfortunate and lacking in
nuance.

Crusoe at the time of the release was far more power efficient than anything
Intel had to offer and was a revolution to the notebook market. Intel has
officially credited Transmeta's LongRun as the motivation for creating
SpeedStep.

Performance of Crusoe ("Fred") fell short of the expectations as the approach
assumed a faster VLIW core. CMS was very good, but couldn't compensate for the
hardware. Had Transmeta not made terrible business screw-ups, the architecture
could perhaps have had the iterations necessary the improve the technology.
The third generation ("Tokomak") would have been significantly better and
almost happened, except for ... business reasons.

IMhO, the original approach has two flaws:

1\. Software based interpretation of cold code leads to a dramatic performance
difference that can be nearly impossible to catch up to for some applications.
IOW, the difference between worst and best performance is much too big.

2\. Out-of-order execution is a much simpler and better way to deal with cache
misses. The tricks and efforts that went into the architecture to compensate
for the in-order execution were mind-boggling and were part of the reason the
core was slower than it should have been.

NVIDIA's Denver improved (fixed?) 1. by added hardware acceleration for Arm
decoding.

~~~
ethbro
Curious, would OoO execution been possible with CMS?

It's complicated enough to resolve things when you're dealing with
instructions + hardware execution units.

When that becomes x86 instructions + CMS + native instructions + hardware
execution units... it seems a daunting task to hit stability and outlier
response targets for the system as a whole.

~~~
FullyFunctional
The whole thing was already incredibly complex: getting the x86 semantics and
state right, generating perfectly scheduled P95 code that had the the most
useful speculation - while avoiding known hazards in the hardware, etc.

Using a speculative superscalar OoO would migrate part of the complexity from
software to hardware. The major concern cited is usually power, but I don't
know how much the renamer + scheduler would add relative to everything else;
the hardware already had all the rest: extensive speculation support, branch
predictors, large register file, store buffers, etc.

It's a fascinating topic and this isn't the ideal forum. However my point is
this: there are very few companies out that that tries something truly new,
and when one does and fail in the market there too much "told you so" going
around.

~~~
ethbro
> _However my point is this: there are very few companies out that that tries
> something truly new, and when one does and fail in the market there too much
> "told you so" going around._

Absolutely agreed. And from what I hear, the spirit of Transmeta ended up in a
lot of other places (either via cleanroom design of similar tech, personnel
working on similar projects, or inspiration).

People are also starting to wake up to the just how underhanded and illegal
technology companies will behave to squash their competitors, whereas I think
the 00s still had rose tinted glasses about the best technical product
winning.

------
pgtan
My home NIS server is HP T5510 thin client running on Crusoe:

    
    
       $ lscpu 
       Architecture:          i586
       CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit
       Byte Order:            Little Endian
       CPU(s):                1
       On-line CPU(s) list:   0
       Thread(s) per core:    1
       Core(s) per socket:    1
       Socket(s):             1
       Vendor ID:             GenuineTMx86
       CPU family:            5
       Model:                 4
       Model name:            Transmeta(tm) Crusoe(tm) Processor TM5700
       Stepping:              3
       CPU MHz:               798.025
       BogoMIPS:              1596.05
       
    
       t5510 ~ # longrun -p
       LongRun: enabled
       LongRun Thermal Extensions (LTX): active
       LTX setting: 75% reduction
       Current performance window: 0 to 100
       Current performance level: 0
       LongRun flags: economy

~~~
saagarjha
Cool! How long has it been running like this?

~~~
pgtan
about more than 5 years now. I bought it used on ebay for 1 Euro.

~~~
saagarjha
Do modern Linux kernels still support the architecture, or are you just
planning on running it in a configuration "that works" forever?

~~~
FullyFunctional
From the POV of software, it's an x86, not some different architecture. That's
the whole point. However, most distributions have stopped supporting x86
(32-bit) and only support AMD64 ("x64", heh).

~~~
nix23
No problem...in the future you can change to OpenBSD or NetBSD, they will
support x86 'forever'

------
dfcarney
I worked at Transmeta for a short time (about a year) after my undergrad. I
loved it. However, there was always a running joke that the stock ticker
symbol should have been “HYPE”. It was sad to see things implode the way they
did.

------
asveikau
What I remember most about Transmeta was that they employed Linus Torvalds.
This gave the name instant status and recognition among the Slashdot crowd and
similar places.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
The first Crusoe Product was a Sony Picturebook. Somewhere in Japan there’s a
prototype of that laptop with Linus’ and others signatures, including mine.
It’d be fun to try and track that down someday.

~~~
robterrell
Not in Japan, but I happen to possess a prototype Picturebook and now I'm
curious... Where did you sign it? Inside the case like the original Macintosh?
Or on the outside?

~~~
PopeDotNinja
Gosh, it's been a long time. I don't remember for sure, but I have a faint
recollection that I signed it in the O of SONY. But honestly, I don't
remember.

------
fortran77
This brings back memories! I worked for Colin Hunter at Hunter Systems which
was the company before Transmeta. It was in a similar space. Their product
recompiled DOS 8088 programs--using a similar "dynamic binary translator" as
the Crusoe--so they can run on various Unix systems (68k, MIPS) as "native
code". I worked on the thing that remapped the video screen memory to VT100
commands so you can see your Microsoft Word on a template.

In a similar space today are these folks who figured out how to built an 8-bit
CPU with only 17 TTL chips:

See:

[https://hackaday.io/project/165950-cscvon8-an-8-bit-ttl-
cpu](https://hackaday.io/project/165950-cscvon8-an-8-bit-ttl-cpu)

This could have been built back in the mid 70s, there was just nobody smart
enough to figure it out. It relies on a very simple set of instructions and
microcode to implement the instructions of a more capable CPU.

~~~
FullyFunctional
No, we were as smart (if not smarter) in the 1970's but memory was WAY more
expensive and the 64 KB the thing uses didn't even exit. Thus, all focus was
on getting the most amount of performance out of the fewest bits.

There are plenty of new TTL design like the above that conveniently doesn't
work with original constraints.

------
petermcneeley
One important piece missing from this story:
[https://www.extremetech.com/computing/250776-intel-
quietly-t...](https://www.extremetech.com/computing/250776-intel-quietly-
threatens-microsoft-qualcomm-x86-emulation)

------
samcheng
I spent my hard-earned college freelancing money on a Sony Picturebook with
this chipset. It was actually a really nice laptop! 8-ish hours of battery,
and tiny. It had WiFi via a PCMCIA card, so it was great for the couch. The
screen was really only big enough for a single terminal.

Despite the reputation for instability / bugs, it was actually rock solid
running Debian.

------
jart
See also the most impactful cpu no one's heard of:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NexGen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NexGen)

------
SomeoneFromCA
Russian Elbrus CPU appears to be a Transmeta on steroids. I am quite skeptical
of the things made by Russian Government, but this seems to be a genuinely
good device, able to emulate x64 at Core Duo speeds.

------
edw
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these babies…

~~~
erik
That actually happened.

[https://tech.slashdot.org/story/03/11/19/2156246/efficient-s...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/03/11/19/2156246/efficient-
supercomputing-with-green-destiny)

------
jeffnappi
I used a Fujitsu P2000 Lifebook in college back in ~2001, it was awesome. 6+
hours of battery life (pretty wild for that time) :)

~~~
FullyFunctional
The Lifebook I had could swap the DVD-ROM drive for an extra battery. I
_literally_ got 12 hours of battery life which at the time was incredible. It
was a much loved notebook.

~~~
jeffnappi
That's right, I can't remember if I picked up the extended battery. But I do
remember it had a modular DVD drive bay and a trackpoint style mouse.

------
hawflakes
Don't remember verifying with people I used to know that worked at Transmeta,
but I recall they originally were going to for performance but then Intel
decided to up their game. That's when they decided to push the power angle.
Can someone correct me on the specifics?

From another distant memory I remember a story from someone I knew at
Transmeta bent over backwards on the Code Morphing Software to get a soft-
modem (modem that used the CPU to do some of the work that traditionally would
be done in an asic) to work with Crusoe. Sounded like a case of saving $2 on
BOM (I'm just making up numbers) in order to get a design win.

~~~
FullyFunctional
... I will say that the original goal was performance, but power efficiency
was an [accidental] consequence and that because a focus. It had nothing to do
with Intel (other than a general strategy of going after your competitions'
weak spots).

Soft-modem story is correct.

------
Multicomp
I had a Compaq TC1000 which was powered by one of these things. Needed a
battery-powered stylus, the keyboard never really could hold up the slate /
rest of the computer.

Yet I used it nearly daily at school, since it was considered a 'study aid'
because I took notes with the included Agilix journal system that came with
Windows XP Tablet PC edition...right up until I discovered this thing called
OneNote 2003 and well, let's just say that while the TC1000s themselves are in
retirement on the shelf, Onenote is here to stay.

All thanks to that funkily-named processor Transmeta Crusoe .

------
a-dub
I remember Transmeta being the stealth startup that was super tight lipped
about what they were working on back then. The skinnable instruction set stuff
was really cool, but if I recall the only products that really made it to
market were laptops with the x86 skin, where the coolest feature of them went
largely ignored and they ended up seeing what market success they did because
they had reasonable price/power/heat properties for low cost laptops.

------
rch
I had one of these in a Sharp Actius MM10, and I could write and compile C++
in Visual Studio for most of the day, using the oversized battery. When that
time was spent sitting in a coffee shop I'd probably get 3+ people a day
asking me about it, due to the size. It was an excellent device, and probably
still ahead of its time.

------
dghughes
The Transmeta Crusoe CPU reminded me of an article I read years earlier about
powerful CPUs. The article said the upcoming Pentium would be so powerful you
wouldn't need a physical modem it would be emulated in software. That blew my
mind that hardware could be emulated inside software.

------
thom
For many years I had to resist the urge to buy an OQO, which ran on the Crusoe
(and you may remember as the handheld PC from the sci-fi series Jericho):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO)

~~~
pantalaimon
Looks like it's GPU is fairly well documented

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OdaokgXVg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OdaokgXVg)

~~~
thom
So what you're saying is I'm definitely going to have to buy one, right?

------
Theodores
"This page is not here yet." was the Transmeta homepage whilst they were in
stealth mode.

------
plerpin
I knew a wannabe geek in high school who loved to brag about bullshit for nerd
cred. My favorite lie was his boast about his dual core "transmeata crusoe"
and how he morphed one of the processors into a 3D accelerator which made a
GeForce unnecessary.

~~~
api
I love how young computer people are just like young car people. "My VTEC is
connected to my NOX and can run with super high compression, yo!"

~~~
PopeDotNinja
That would blow the welds off the intake manifold, especially if you granny
shifting instead of double clutching.

------
ridiculous_fish
Another similar CPU is Nvidia's Denver. It was intended to run both x86 and
ARM, but patents got in the way so now it's just ARM. Is there any merit to
this design?

------
close04
I miss my Compaq TC1000. Not for the performance but because it felt like I
was "using the future" between the relatively novel 2-in-1 format and the CPU.

------
MintelIE
So did they get bought out by the NSA or something? It's weird how the whole
company and everything else just disappeared.

------
dmccunney
I have a Fujitsu P2110 with the Transmeta Crusoe CPU. It was passed along by a
friend who had upgraded to a more powerful machine but didn't want it to go
into the trash. She said it was "slow slow SLOW".

Well, yes. The machine had 256MB RAM, and the Crusoe grabbed 16MB off the top
for code morphing. It came to me with WinXP SP2. XP wants 512MB RAM minimum to
think about performing. It took _8 minutes_ to boot, and longer to do anything
once up. It did a good job of emulating classic mainframe "death by thrashing"
You could get a daughter card to add 128MB RAM, but that wouldn't help in this
case. (There was another daughter card for an earlier Fujitsu model that added
256MB, but I couldn't find confirmation it worked in the P2110.)

I treated it as an experiment to see what performance I could coax out of low
end hardware without throwing money at it. I swapped in a drive from a failed
laptop, repartioned and reformatted, and set it to multi-boot. Win2K Pro SP4
actually ran, more or less, on the P2110, especially after I took everything
out of startup that could be removed. I also installed two flavors of Linux -
Ubuntu and Puppy, and FreeDOS.

Puppy was designed for low end hardware, and Puppy itself worked well enough.
Applications didn't. The speed bump was apparently the IDE4 HD. IDE4 was a
BIOS limitation, so swapping in a faster drive wouldn't assist.

Installing Ubuntu was a challenge. Xubuntu downloaded and installed, but
performance was snail slow. Posters on the Ubuntu forums said too much Gnome
had crept into Xubuntu, and Ubuntu had a steadily increasing idea of what "low
end" was. The recommended what I did - DL the Minimal CD and install from it.
That would give me a working bare bones CLI installation, and I could use apt-
get to pick and choose what else got added. Lubuntu got the nod as desktop
GUI, and worked, though it was noting I'd call speedy.

Puppy and Ubuntu were both installed on ext4 file systems, and mounted each
other's slices when they booted. I spent some time arranging things so there
was _one_ copy of large apps shared between them.

FreeDOS flew. The challenge with it was to get it to boot from grub2. I did,
but have no idea which of the fiddles I tried actually made it work.

Ubuntu provided another quirk. A new Ubuntu release came out. This one
required PXE. The P2110 didn't have it. Installation proceeded normally, but
things went to hell in a bucket when I reboted after install. Lack of PXE made
installation of the new kernel fail, and that caused a cascade failure. I had
to wipe the Ubuntu FS slice and redo from scratch, carefully stopping at the
last release that worked and staying put. A test in the installer to insure
that PXE was present before continuing and refusing to upgrade if not would
have been nice. I assumed the Ubuntu folks just never imagined someone would
try to install on a machine that lacked it.

I got surprise email from a woman in Hong Kong who also had a P2110. She got
the 256MB RAM expansion card, it worked, and she was running WinXP with
acceptable performance. I tipped my hat in respect, but had retired the P2110.
I was an experiment, the experiment was completed, and actual work got done
elsewhere.

I still have the machine, but haven't booted it in ages.

------
robk
This seems like the exact same story as Magic Leap among others.

~~~
RantyDave
No, not at all. Transmeta got a lot closer to nailing a much bigger market.
They had actual products for a start. The problem was the underlying
architecture was VLIW. Lots of people including Intel and Nvidia have tried to
make it work and have been squarely bitten in the arse.

~~~
SomeoneFromCA
Now Russians (more precisely, Russian Government) are trying to use VLIW.
Elbrus CPU seems to be an interesting device, able to emulate x86 at Core Duo
speeds.

~~~
ruslan
FYI. МЦСТ, a developer of the E2K CPUs has recently published an "Effective
Programming of Elbrus CPUs" guide which describes its ISA. The document is in
Russian.

Link:
[http://www.mcst.ru/files/5ed39a/dd0cd8/50506b/000000/elbrus_...](http://www.mcst.ru/files/5ed39a/dd0cd8/50506b/000000/elbrus_prog_2020-05-30.pdf)

