CPU Tree - do you want help?

[Vlask]

Im collector of graphics cards (CPU field seemed to me already full ) and as some of you might know i did few years ago nice image with almost all graphic chips i know. Its great for collectors and printed on plotter looks great. You can see project on mine site - http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/history-tree
Now back to CPU's. Got few requests about making also CPU version. I answered them that they should do it, but well noone was brave and crazy enough.
So i have this offer. Will show you how to do it, can host it if youre interested and can do middle man that will finish final image. But i'm not able to do it alone - doin graphic cards list took few years. CPU will need much more work and collectors with real good knowledge of cpu history. This is job for many people, not for single geek.
Project will have some unknowns that needs to be clarified 1st

1]For making you need VUE software - its freeware, user friendly and also with translations to various languages. You can find it here - http://vue.tufts.edu/download/index.cfm
2]Need to known starting and ending year (when 1st cpu was released) and at which year you want to end (2014?). Image can be freely modified, so no problem adding new years. Image will be horizontal from left to right, because of much longer time period. Also how wide should be years - 2 cpu fields wide or more? (keep in mind that mine picture of cards is after printing on plotter wide over 3m - for cpu i guess it will be over 6m for sure)
3]Each person involved will do one manufacturer tree (Intel, AMD, Zilog...), send it to me and i will paste it to final project. At big companies can be better split them for various people - like someone say - i will do intel till 1980 and someone else 1980-90 and so on.
4]We have to specifiy which informations will be there and how will be writed. Something like
Name (Codename+architecture)
number of cores x lowest-highest frequency
Year of release
Could be there more info like cache size, number of transistors, socket, signs for cpu type (Like [S] = server, [M] = mobile...). That depends of you and how easy/hard is to get this info. Open to suggestions.

Added as attachment small idea image how it can look. Ofc can be branched by cpu types (like server, desktop, mobile, embeeded..)

[rjluna2]

That's concept looks interesting. It would help to find the history of CPU's branches.

Yes, it would be a nightmare to expand once you started.

[debs3759]

I'm mostly just a graphics card collector these days as well. Don't have anywhere near as many interesting vintage cards as you yet! I used to collect processors (started out with x86 only, to test code I wrote, then found this site and caught the bug!). Gave up collecting for personal reasons, then when things didn't happen as planned I decided to start collecting graphics cards. I also maintain the database for www.gpuzoo.com (currently only ATI/AMD and NVidia, others will follow when I have listed everything on the wayback machine). Sites like yours are invaluable for some info on older cards

[gshv]

Something like that was already done for a period from 2004 to 2011:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/394/037/12.jpg

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/302/074/kaigai1.jpg

I don't know if there are newer versions of these roadmaps.

Gennadiy

[achtung049]

Oh, dude! I think almost every chip collector thought about this thing and I too.
It's very, very difficult task - is unlikely to someone one can cope with it. I can give you my materials and write my thoughts on this later. But in general I am willing to participate

[achtung049]

PS: your VGA-Tree is AMASING, thanks for sharing this I print it out and hang in a museum for my students.

[cedrik]

[achtung049]

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. That would finish in a reasonable time, only the description of Intel takes a few volunteers, not to mention other companies - at least one for each type of processor - desktop, mobile, server etc.
2. Need to decide how much information we will include in the description: release years, cache, frequency etc
3. Need to decide how much should be different model to include it as a separate item? Process technology, bus, frequency, microarchitecture, package? what to do with species that are not allocated in a separate category, for example, different types of packaging? it will just simple genealogy or detailed collector's handbook?
4. Which companies we include and what types of chips? MCU or BSP is CPU or not?
5. Before the start, it would be good to organize all our sources of information - cpushack, chipdb etc. Each volunteer will be looking for information on its own, or there would be some coordination?

It may be a stupid question, but they first came to my mind

[Vlask]

Ok worked on it a bit till now. This is how i imagine it. Width should be final (388cm), height will be adjusted as new trees will appear.
Hope that this will be enough, not many companies are releasing new cpu architecture twice per year.
Now something to keep it in good looks.
1)Font size is 10, Tahoma, color and background can be adjusted as you wish (keep it in company colors).
2)Font size at company name is 16, Tahoma, try include company logo with reasonable size (around 150 pixels heigh max), dont use for that PNG files with invisible background - it will look fine in program, but when you export image, youll get black instead invisible parts.
3)Each company have its own Layer, so i can copy/paste/move whole layer without doin something to other ones. You can acces layers control window by pressing CTRL+5. Dont forget that you have to open layer 1st before adding new cpus by clicking on lock icon in layer window.
4)Data format should be something like this:
[Sign for cpu type]CPU name (Codename)
number of cores x Frequency range CPU bit technology CPU architecture
Max power - Year
Info can be adjusted, but keep it mind it would be more work then. Dunno which parameters are interesting for cpu collectors (price?, nm technology?, number of transistors?). If you missing info about some of these, just skip them.
5)If theres more cpu types in same year, use vertical stacking from highend to lowend - so for example Xeon on top, under Core I7, then Core I5, Core i3, Pentium Dualcore, Mobile versions, Embeeded

Each volunteer should choose one company he likes to do (or timed zone at big ones) and do his part, when he finish it, he would send it to me, or on this forum as attachment and i will update whole image with his tree. He will be also responsible for updates of his parts suggested by users (always someone find something missing), unless he says that he wont do updates (then i will do updates). When you finish your part, you can choose another one.
Use and edit attached VUE example file for your works for same resolutions and looks from every user.
If you dont like using VUE software, you can help by sending text info about cpus in format mentioned in point 4 and i will add them to VUE. Please sort them by branches - like mobile chips separated from desktop and so on.

[Vlask]

[Vlask]

[cedrik]

i always said that we, as collectors should do somethin .. but i was thinking of an CPU Enciclopedia.. as a book ... A tree would be ok too...

[Vlask]

Ok, noone reads attachments, so for you lazy ones, heres cut part of whole image, how i think it can look. Whole image and source for vue in attachment in previous posts.
Btw. if someone interested in doin some tree, he should ofc say it to us, so 2 people wont do same job.

[achtung049]

Very nice man! Then I try to make a piece!
I will try to DEC (and successors - Compaq/HP) if there is no objection? Alpha's..mmm.. Let everyone who wants to participate will write in this topic, who wants what firm and what period.

[Vlask]

Great, we have found 1st hero....

To encourage progress a bit i started with intel, hope i will do it at last till year 2000. Also found that Intel separates military versions, so i added them too.

For project i created new subpage located here -
http://vgamuseum.info/index.php/cpu.
You can also download there last full size version for editing if you want. I put link also here - http://vgamuseum.info/images/doc/cputree.zip.

Had to add to zip file also company logos, because vue dont save them in its own file format. Sadly links to images are set to mine working directory, so if you like to have there company logos, you have to replace images in VUE so program will update paths to images.