:Byte.com: Transmeta: Embedded Powerhouse Or Pentium Killer?
Byte.com: Transmeta: Embedded Powerhouse Or Pentium Killer? Dec 6, 1999, 15 :57 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (5027 reads) (Other stories by Alexander Wolfe)
"If you were looking to Comdex
for the inside scoop on the
highly secretive start-up
Transmeta, you were sorely
disappointed. In fact, you were
probably misled to a large
extent. Transmeta was founded
in 1995 by Dave Ditzel, the
one-time chief architect of Sun
Microsystems' Sparc processor family. Ditze didn't make
an appearance, but Comdex did feature a keynote speech
by Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux operating
system. Torvalds also happens to be Transmeta's
best-known employee, even though he signed up well
after the start-up was formed. In terms of hardware
expertise, many members of the Texas Instruments team
that was disbanded after the company decided not to go
ahead with a Pentium-class clone were among the initial
Transmeta recruits."
"Nevertheless, Torvalds' high profile has everyone from
programmers to pundits thinking Transmeta is a
software-oriented company, rather than a fab-less chip
vendor, and that Torvalds is the driving force behind the
company's activities."
