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MIPS-Based CPU, Debian 8 Underpin Russian T-Platforms' All-In-One PC

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US | B 23 comments

Russian company T-Platforms announced that it will start selling an all-in-one PC with the (also Russian) Baikal-T1 chip, which is based on Imagination’s MIPS instruction set architecture. The system will run the latest version of Debian 8, which is one of the more popular Linux distributions out there.

The MIPS-based Baikal-T1 processor was announced last year, after the Russian government signaled that it doesn’t want to rely on American Intel and AMD chips as much. The Baikal-T1 is a dual-core 1 GHz P5600 CPU (apparently underclocked from the original 1.2 GHz frequency). According to Imagination, it has one of the highest performance/MHz and performance/Watt scores.

The Tavolga Terminal TB-T22BT, which is the name of T-Platforms’ all-in-one PC, includes a 21.5-inch IPS display with Full HD resolution, up to 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and optional storage capabilities that range from 8 to 64 GB of nonvolatile memory. Four USB 2.0 ports and one 1,000 Mbps Ethernet port are also supported.

The T-Platforms Tavolga PC is available for pre-order right now, with shipping scheduled for the second quarter of 2016. The company also plans to release a more compact PC that doesn’t come with an integrated display.

The company also announced the new SF-BT1 computer-on-module (COM) system that incorporates the Baikal-T1 SoC and targets device vendors who want to create high-performance IoT platforms, embedded control systems, industrial automation, healthcare or networking equipment.

The Baikal-T1 chip supports Imagination’s OmniShield security features, which enable applications to be isolated in their own secure domain. It also supports the prplSecurity framework, which is a collection of open source APIs that provide hardware-level security controls such as root of trust, secure boot, secure hypervisor and secure inter-VM communications.

Using these features, the prpl Foundation, started by Imagination, demonstrated three different Linux-based operating systems running in parallel on the SF-BT1 module at full performance and isolated from each other in highly secure domains.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

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  • 9 Hide
    jimmysmitty , March 3, 2016 7:33 AM
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS.
  • 9 Hide
    photonboy , March 3, 2016 8:52 AM
    But can it play...

    Minecraft?
    (seriously, can it?)
  • 8 Hide
    campbrs , March 3, 2016 9:39 AM
    Sadly it can only play tetris
  • Add your comment Display all 23 comments.
  • 0 Hide
    Quixit , March 3, 2016 10:22 AM
    Quote:
    Sadly it can only play tetris


    Why is that sad? Tetris is awesome.
  • 3 Hide
    utroz , March 3, 2016 2:02 PM
    Wouldn't a high end cell phone have more cpu and gpu power than this?
  • 0 Hide
    lorfa , March 3, 2016 2:56 PM
    "optional storage capabilities that range from 8 to 64 GB of nonvolatile memory"

    Wait, what? 64 GB hd space max? wtf?
  • 4 Hide
    LordConrad , March 3, 2016 3:59 PM
    Quote:
    Sadly it can only play tetris

    ROFL!!
  • -1 Hide
    InvalidError , March 3, 2016 3:59 PM
    Quote:
    Wait, what? 64 GB hd space max? wtf?

    Since the thing has a few USB2 ports, you can use external storage. With only a dual core 1GHz CPU, that AiO is not going to see much intensive use, so 64GB max built-in should not be much of an issue for most people and that spares the company the trouble of including provisions for an additional internal SSD/HDD.
  • 1 Hide
    memadmax , March 3, 2016 4:35 PM
    Baby steps....

    The big stuff will show up eventually...
  • 6 Hide
    Outlander_04 , March 3, 2016 9:41 PM
    Quote:
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS using another American designed kernal.


    When did the Linux Kernel become an American OS ?

    The point of course is to eliminate the possibility of HARDWARE being a security threat . The US government is very concerned about the exact same thing .
    Typically the Russians have taken the easiest , and arguably smartest , path to control computer systems end to end . Most people in offices will never need more computing power than this , and they will be far more secure than they could ever be while trying to plug NSA back doors in hardware and software on a windows X86 machine

  • -1 Hide
    jimmysmitty , March 4, 2016 7:10 AM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS using another American designed kernal.


    When did the Linux Kernel become an American OS ?

    The point of course is to eliminate the possibility of HARDWARE being a security threat . The US government is very concerned about the exact same thing .
    Typically the Russians have taken the easiest , and arguably smartest , path to control computer systems end to end . Most people in offices will never need more computing power than this , and they will be far more secure than they could ever be while trying to plug NSA back doors in hardware and software on a windows X86 machine



    Can't take a bit of a joke can you?

    Debian is the American OS, as it was created by an American.

    That said, you are correct. Linux is technically Finnish but is considered to be a Unix clone with is American.

    Still, just a bit of a joke. You know, "In Soviet Russia, joke makes you..."?

    On a side note, I work in IT and we have offices and you would be surprised how much power they would actually need. This is not enough for anything but people who do the most basic of tasks. Even a big enough Excel spreadsheet could bring this to its knees.
  • 2 Hide
    sykozis , March 4, 2016 9:03 AM
    Quote:
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS using another American designed kernal.


    Quote:
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS using another American designed kernal.


    When did the Linux Kernel become an American OS ?

    The point of course is to eliminate the possibility of HARDWARE being a security threat . The US government is very concerned about the exact same thing .
    Typically the Russians have taken the easiest , and arguably smartest , path to control computer systems end to end . Most people in offices will never need more computing power than this , and they will be far more secure than they could ever be while trying to plug NSA back doors in hardware and software on a windows X86 machine



    Can't take a bit of a joke can you?

    Debian is the American OS, as it was created by an American.

    That said, you are correct. Linux is technically Finnish but is considered to be a Unix clone with is American.

    Still, just a bit of a joke. You know, "In Soviet Russia, joke makes you..."?

    On a side note, I work in IT and we have offices and you would be surprised how much power they would actually need. This is not enough for anything but people who do the most basic of tasks. Even a big enough Excel spreadsheet could bring this to its knees.


    Except that Linux is not a Unix clone and Debian is developed by people all over the world.
  • -1 Hide
    jimmysmitty , March 4, 2016 9:44 AM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS using another American designed kernal.


    Quote:
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Gotta love Russia. Doesn't want to rely as much on American technologies so they license a CPU design from a British company that license technology from an American company then use an American designed OS using another American designed kernal.


    When did the Linux Kernel become an American OS ?

    The point of course is to eliminate the possibility of HARDWARE being a security threat . The US government is very concerned about the exact same thing .
    Typically the Russians have taken the easiest , and arguably smartest , path to control computer systems end to end . Most people in offices will never need more computing power than this , and they will be far more secure than they could ever be while trying to plug NSA back doors in hardware and software on a windows X86 machine



    Can't take a bit of a joke can you?

    Debian is the American OS, as it was created by an American.

    That said, you are correct. Linux is technically Finnish but is considered to be a Unix clone with is American.

    Still, just a bit of a joke. You know, "In Soviet Russia, joke makes you..."?

    On a side note, I work in IT and we have offices and you would be surprised how much power they would actually need. This is not enough for anything but people who do the most basic of tasks. Even a big enough Excel spreadsheet could bring this to its knees.


    Except that Linux is not a Unix clone and Debian is developed by people all over the world.


    Linux is considered Unix like, another term for a clone, in that it utilizes a lot of the same ideas and implementations.

    http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~echi/technolog/technolog.html

    It is not a Unix implementation but a clone. It is much like Lindows, which was a Linux clone of Windows that got sued into oblivion because it literally looked just like Windows XP.

    Debian may now be developed by people all over the world but was originally started by and American named Ian Murdock therefore Debian is an American created OS.
  • 1 Hide
    Outlander_04 , March 4, 2016 10:46 AM
    Perhaps you should research the origins of Linux and the open source communities contributions.

    Linux is not Unix.
    Linux is not American

    And since most office computers are used for little more than email, web browsing and feeding the printer a device like this makes perfect sense .
    And since my $200 Windows phone can open reasonable spread sheets I doubt there will be any difficulty designing a RISC chip with sufficient power to get the job done
  • 1 Hide
    jimmysmitty , March 4, 2016 11:23 AM
    Quote:
    Perhaps you should research the origins of Linux and the open source communities contributions.

    Linux is not Unix.
    Linux is not American

    And since most office computers are used for little more than email, web browsing and feeding the printer a device like this makes perfect sense .
    And since my $200 Windows phone can open reasonable spread sheets I doubt there will be any difficulty designing a RISC chip with sufficient power to get the job done


    And perhaps you should as well and should also re-read. I said you were correct since Linux was designed by a Finnish person while in Helsinki.

    Or just ignore it. Your choice.

    And you could read the link I posted or this one:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/201983/is_linux_just_another_unix_flavor.html

    Linux utilizes a lot of the same ideas as Unix but was built fro scratch and designed to be "free" instead of paid for.
  • 1 Hide
    iam2thecrowe , March 4, 2016 2:40 PM
    Quote:
    But can it play...

    Minecraft?
    (seriously, can it?)

    It can play "??????????"
  • -2 Hide
    sykozis , March 4, 2016 4:53 PM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    Perhaps you should research the origins of Linux and the open source communities contributions.

    Linux is not Unix.
    Linux is not American

    And since most office computers are used for little more than email, web browsing and feeding the printer a device like this makes perfect sense .
    And since my $200 Windows phone can open reasonable spread sheets I doubt there will be any difficulty designing a RISC chip with sufficient power to get the job done


    And perhaps you should as well and should also re-read. I said you were correct since Linux was designed by a Finnish person while in Helsinki.

    Or just ignore it. Your choice.

    And you could read the link I posted or this one:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/201983/is_linux_just_another_unix_flavor.html

    Linux utilizes a lot of the same ideas as Unix but was built fro scratch and designed to be "free" instead of paid for.


    Based on the "utilizes a lot of the same ideas as Unix"....even Windows is a Unix clone. Linux was modeled off of an OS called Minix though. That is where Linus got his inspiration, not Unix.

    That PCWorld article is a joke. The author did almost no research what so ever. If he had, he'd have known the actual origins of Linux.
  • 0 Hide
    ReservoirPenguin , March 7, 2016 3:03 AM
    Nope. Minix (was) is a teaching OS developed by Linus's arch-rival, dutch professor Tanenbaum with whom he got into many heated arguments. Minix represents everything that is anti-Linux starting with monolithic (Linux) vs micro-kernel (Minix) design. Linus stated his Unix clone project because he wanted a Unix-like OS for his 386 PC but at that time source to Minix could only be obtained with a restrictive license (modifications to Minix source had to be distributed as separate patches) That was due to the above mentioned fact that Minix was an experimental toy OS accompanying Tanenbaum's own "Dinosaur" OS textbook so it had to remain pure according to Tanenbaum's vision.

    Back on-topic, it's true that original Linux kernel and OS were designed by a finish student, yet since then Linus has become a US citizen and current Linux doesn't not resemble the version from 20 years ago. While it's technically an Open Source project the majority of kernel and system programming is done by paid engineers employed by US based companies such as RedHat.

    The Baikal workstation is supposed to be used as a thin-terminal by Russian government organizations so low performance and storage specs are acceptable.
  • 0 Hide
    aldaia , March 7, 2016 3:09 AM
    Quote:
    they license a CPU design from a British company

    True

    Quote:
    that license technology from an American company

    MIPS Technologies was sold to Imagination Technologies on February 8, 2013. The american company dosn't exist anymore.

    Quote:
    then use an American designed OS.

    Debian is composed entirely of free software, so I doubt they will ever have any issues with that.
    Not to mention that Ian Murdock (rest in peace), the founder of the Debian project, was born in Konstanz, West Germany :p 

    Disclaimer:I know he was american, and lived only a couple years in Germany, just jocking.
  • 0 Hide
    bit_user , March 7, 2016 2:33 PM
    Ha ha, the joke's on them. In spite of its venerable heritage, all the recent benchmarks of anything MIPS I've seen are noncompetitive. Way to pick an ISA, Russia.

    They shouldda gone with SPARC, which I think is royalty-free. Or, better yet, ARM. Even though it'd look like they were just copying China (which is probably the main reason they didn't).
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