WARNING: a message from Russia with love (and enough letters) follows
Guys, as someone who's both using the technology mentioned (writing this on my Elbrus 801-PC workstation) and who's very much into the political aspects mentioned (I used to live in Kiev but not anymore) I'd like to offer some cold hard facts -- as well as some live emotions -- to anyone interested; feel free to email me at [email protected].
First, let's have a look at the tech. Elbrus is EPIC/VLIW CPU with several features interesting for both number-crunching folks and security folks.
For example, it's got APB (automatic prefetch buffer) programmable to deliver RAM contents at given patterns into L2 cache predictably, three separate stacks, and ptr128 "secure mode" with tagged memory using custom ECC algo and hardware-enforced array bound checking.
It's definitely behind the smokin' edge in terms of I/O (the most current e2kv6 got PCIe gen3 which is a major step forward from gen2.0 supported in v5 which is production level by now) and performance with many workloads -- but it's catching up pretty fast and in very modest budget; what we've got now just works for many workloads either (this 801-PC is e2kv4 implementation -- Elbrus-8C designed in 2014 and mass-produced since 2017).
Another interesting thing is that part of its performance and security relies on compiler rather than microcode; thus building software with updated lcc can boost its performance in two-digit number range, making even 800 MHz Elbrus-4C we ran in 2015 feel more like midrange c2d than the better of pIII, for example.
Those interested can have a closer look at "Elbrus platform effective programming guide" available in Russian (machine translation should be more or less digestable but more on that below) -- some of the techniques described can be useful on any architecture, and some will help OoORISC (including x86) as well.
Elbrus systems can run x86 code, including complete OS with drivers, through Lintel emulation layer. There's also a userspace implementation named RTC that can run e.g. wine in an x86 chroot.
I've heard that Transmeta was founded by a Sun guy who worked with MCST and got excited with the tech; too bad he chose to neglect giving the proper credit at least, thus I don't keep his name in my memory.
Many of former Elbrus project members were hunted by Intel as well, you basically owe them at least its SIMD.
And while at that, Phoronix Test Suite 10.8.0 builds just fine on Elbrus. :-) (I didn't even attempt running it as I'm not into benchmarks but at least know that even interpreting the results takes enough competence to do in a meaningful way)
Some more boring facts in terms of multimedia performance:
In case you don't know, this site is called Phoronix, not Moronix or Nazinix.
And the intentional (not even blind or uninformed) and racist allegations you chose to relay are total gibberish trying to paint white black and vice versa. The conventional test is s/Russian/Jew/g and looking whether you would pass with at least some colors with a resulting phrase.
The truth you can verify by getting your butt up from your chair, getting it to Rostov-on-Don or Kharkov and moving to the conflict line is that the former Ukraine -- which I still got passport of -- was taken over by US-inspired neonazi coup, and that the direct consequence of that was the typical war with Russians killing Russians (just like Arabs killing Arabs, Negroes killing Negroes, etc -- there were over hundred wars and military crimes of similar type since WWII that US is directly guilty of).
Every time the Western media claims "the innocent deaths" being the casus belli -- they only neglect to mention that those actually innocent deaths were planned and agreed upon by US officials and military head, and these are committed by their pet murderers (aye, there's no native term "false flag operation" in Russian, just a translation of the English term; I wonder why).
Go and ask the people on the ground if you're so bold. I did. (this particular maidan video filmed eight years and three days ago is gone from youtube with both newsanna and mshigorin channels, incidentally; I use to support ANNA-News frontline news agency and have translated many of their footage from Syria in English, can share the archive)
And in case you think "it's far away and will not touch me": looks like the very same trotzkist/globalist scum that drove these wars "far away" has already started to use US as the "world revolution fuel" just as those tried -- and failed -- with Russia a century ago. That BLM fraud is much resembling the "West Ukrainians are blablabla for independence" (with Biden sitting in president of ukraine's chair shortly thereafter) or "Assad must go" (with jihadi heart-rippers suddenly "waking up" from "freedom fighters") -- it's the pretext, not the cause.
You're given the privilege of doubt and of staying silent at least. Try not to trade it in for spreading lies -- you will have to answer for those, it's the way our life works, at least from my own experience. Do not moan "why all of this happens to me" if you choose to lie on: it's just your personal share of the larger flock of boomerangs then. You have been warned.
It's my best advise to you -- take it from a humble Russian Orthodox hacker who's incidentally on Ukrainian nazi's "peacemaker" blacklist. You're not bad; but you have been fooled. Find out whom you can't criticize to see who prefers you that way.
On SWIFT: your politicians and banksters are more afraid of this "lever" than we are; since we trade the real-world things you can't live (or even move far enough) without, and you try to trade lies wholesale -- one of those is "dollar is still worth anything" (is it why cryptocurrency folks try to put their dollars at least into real hardware?); we can definitely live without those, and so is China.
And regarding Russian the language: I've heard that some Westerners discover it for themselves as the language of the world where one can be one's self and not pretend to be some "politically correct" unit; where topics can be discussed deeply and honestly; where one is actually more free.
We know that "kitchen talk", we had enough of it back in the USSR (I was born in 1979 so don't remember a lot of "mature" affairs like having to discuss some topics like politics privately so one doesn't get overheard but still; and things got much worse with your gadgets basically snooping upon you, not just waiting for that "OK Googlg").
And remember: Russians do not start wars but rather end those.
2 Alexmitter: you definitely forgot the Brits. :-)
And there's a nuance: Afghani folks recall Russian soldiers, shuravi, respecting them as real warriors -- they have none for the Western "campers".
A friend of mine fought there and told me once showing the photos and the great mountains: "look, we've been fired upon from these greens -- but we loved the place nevertheless". I think this is the key: to love or to hate.
Originally posted by caligula
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First, let's have a look at the tech. Elbrus is EPIC/VLIW CPU with several features interesting for both number-crunching folks and security folks.
For example, it's got APB (automatic prefetch buffer) programmable to deliver RAM contents at given patterns into L2 cache predictably, three separate stacks, and ptr128 "secure mode" with tagged memory using custom ECC algo and hardware-enforced array bound checking.
It's definitely behind the smokin' edge in terms of I/O (the most current e2kv6 got PCIe gen3 which is a major step forward from gen2.0 supported in v5 which is production level by now) and performance with many workloads -- but it's catching up pretty fast and in very modest budget; what we've got now just works for many workloads either (this 801-PC is e2kv4 implementation -- Elbrus-8C designed in 2014 and mass-produced since 2017).
Another interesting thing is that part of its performance and security relies on compiler rather than microcode; thus building software with updated lcc can boost its performance in two-digit number range, making even 800 MHz Elbrus-4C we ran in 2015 feel more like midrange c2d than the better of pIII, for example.
Those interested can have a closer look at "Elbrus platform effective programming guide" available in Russian (machine translation should be more or less digestable but more on that below) -- some of the techniques described can be useful on any architecture, and some will help OoORISC (including x86) as well.
Elbrus systems can run x86 code, including complete OS with drivers, through Lintel emulation layer. There's also a userspace implementation named RTC that can run e.g. wine in an x86 chroot.

I've heard that Transmeta was founded by a Sun guy who worked with MCST and got excited with the tech; too bad he chose to neglect giving the proper credit at least, thus I don't keep his name in my memory.
Many of former Elbrus project members were hunted by Intel as well, you basically owe them at least its SIMD.
And while at that, Phoronix Test Suite 10.8.0 builds just fine on Elbrus. :-) (I didn't even attempt running it as I'm not into benchmarks but at least know that even interpreting the results takes enough competence to do in a meaningful way)
Some more boring facts in terms of multimedia performance:
- 4C (2014, 65nm, 700--800 MHz, 4-core, 65W, DDR3) is able to decode FullHD at 480 MHz;
- 8C (2017, 28nm, 1000--13000 MHz, 8-core, 85W, DDR3) decodes two 4K streams at 1300 MHz;
- 8CB (2018, 28nm, 1500 MHz, 8-core, 90W, DDR4) decodes that 4K stream with less than two cores;
- 16C (2021, 16nm, 2000 MHz, 16-core, ~130W, DDR4) doesn't break a sweat doing that with a single core or so.
Originally posted by caligula
View Post
And the intentional (not even blind or uninformed) and racist allegations you chose to relay are total gibberish trying to paint white black and vice versa. The conventional test is s/Russian/Jew/g and looking whether you would pass with at least some colors with a resulting phrase.
The truth you can verify by getting your butt up from your chair, getting it to Rostov-on-Don or Kharkov and moving to the conflict line is that the former Ukraine -- which I still got passport of -- was taken over by US-inspired neonazi coup, and that the direct consequence of that was the typical war with Russians killing Russians (just like Arabs killing Arabs, Negroes killing Negroes, etc -- there were over hundred wars and military crimes of similar type since WWII that US is directly guilty of).
Every time the Western media claims "the innocent deaths" being the casus belli -- they only neglect to mention that those actually innocent deaths were planned and agreed upon by US officials and military head, and these are committed by their pet murderers (aye, there's no native term "false flag operation" in Russian, just a translation of the English term; I wonder why).
Go and ask the people on the ground if you're so bold. I did. (this particular maidan video filmed eight years and three days ago is gone from youtube with both newsanna and mshigorin channels, incidentally; I use to support ANNA-News frontline news agency and have translated many of their footage from Syria in English, can share the archive)
And in case you think "it's far away and will not touch me": looks like the very same trotzkist/globalist scum that drove these wars "far away" has already started to use US as the "world revolution fuel" just as those tried -- and failed -- with Russia a century ago. That BLM fraud is much resembling the "West Ukrainians are blablabla for independence" (with Biden sitting in president of ukraine's chair shortly thereafter) or "Assad must go" (with jihadi heart-rippers suddenly "waking up" from "freedom fighters") -- it's the pretext, not the cause.
You're given the privilege of doubt and of staying silent at least. Try not to trade it in for spreading lies -- you will have to answer for those, it's the way our life works, at least from my own experience. Do not moan "why all of this happens to me" if you choose to lie on: it's just your personal share of the larger flock of boomerangs then. You have been warned.
It's my best advise to you -- take it from a humble Russian Orthodox hacker who's incidentally on Ukrainian nazi's "peacemaker" blacklist. You're not bad; but you have been fooled. Find out whom you can't criticize to see who prefers you that way.
On SWIFT: your politicians and banksters are more afraid of this "lever" than we are; since we trade the real-world things you can't live (or even move far enough) without, and you try to trade lies wholesale -- one of those is "dollar is still worth anything" (is it why cryptocurrency folks try to put their dollars at least into real hardware?); we can definitely live without those, and so is China.
And regarding Russian the language: I've heard that some Westerners discover it for themselves as the language of the world where one can be one's self and not pretend to be some "politically correct" unit; where topics can be discussed deeply and honestly; where one is actually more free.
We know that "kitchen talk", we had enough of it back in the USSR (I was born in 1979 so don't remember a lot of "mature" affairs like having to discuss some topics like politics privately so one doesn't get overheard but still; and things got much worse with your gadgets basically snooping upon you, not just waiting for that "OK Googlg").
And remember: Russians do not start wars but rather end those.
2 Alexmitter: you definitely forgot the Brits. :-)
And there's a nuance: Afghani folks recall Russian soldiers, shuravi, respecting them as real warriors -- they have none for the Western "campers".
A friend of mine fought there and told me once showing the photos and the great mountains: "look, we've been fired upon from these greens -- but we loved the place nevertheless". I think this is the key: to love or to hate.
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