HP Prime use ARM 9?

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello,

Yes, GPU (at least some of them, Compute GPU) can be used this way.

However, it is more than just rewriting the OS, it is a rewrite of each grapher function that would need to happen.

Basically, Each time you enter a math expression (let us say in the 3D grapher), the system would need to transform this expression in a GPU program (compile it if you want), dispatch it for execution there (assuming that it is not too complicated), gather the returns and draw them.

HOWEVER, since the GPU is 32 or 64 binary floats only, the results will not always match the command line calculation (which is BCD). Complex functions like finance stuff or stat stuff, would need to be recreated for the GPU. You would not be able to draw/graph your user programs anymore (as they would not be translatable to GPU programs...)
Of course the GPU could be super usefull when doing large matrix operations such as a numerical matrix inversion or something like that.

Simillary, multi threading would be hard because, assuming once again that you use non "basic" equations, the whole interpreter would need to make sure that there is no inter thread issues...
For example, concider the drawing of the valid expression: sin(A:=X)
Multi thread it and you see that 2 threads might want to store in A at the same time... This is a big problem!

So, yes, it can be done. And for some apps like Photoshop, it is actually easy to implement.
For other apps, it is hard :-(


Cyrille