“Was it more a question of over-exuberance on the part of
the marketers and the press, or does the potential of the new
software-based processor really deserve the hype?…“
“Gordon also has reservations about the specific technology
involved. He continues, “If you read between the lines, it’s not
quite as quick and as clever as some think it is. When you have the
ability to run different OSs it has to be an emulation technique.
Then there has to be a performance penalty. From what I understand
the headline speed is 700 MHz but emulation reduces this to
500….”
“Editor in chief of The Microprocessor Report, Keith
Diefendorff, is much far more impressed and even believes that the
hype surrounding the Transmeta chip may have been justified. He
says, “Actually I think what they’ve done is fairly impressive. If
it lives up to claims, then they’ve made a serious reduction in
power consumption.”