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Learning from failure is a hallmark of the technology business. Nick Baker, a 37-year-old system architect at Microsoft, knows that well. A British transplant at the software giant's Silicon Valley campus, he went from failed project to failed project in his career. He worked on such dogs as Apple Computer's defunct video card business, 3DO's failed game consoles, a chip startup that screwed up a deal with Nintendo, the never successful WebTV and Microsoft's canceled Ultimate TV satellite TV recorder.
从失误中学习是技术领域的一大特色，对于这一点，37岁的微软系统工程师尼克.贝克一定深有感触。他在职业生涯中从一个失败走向另一个失败，先是在苹果公司的一个行将就木的视频卡项目中担任测试工作，又在3DO的失败的游戏主机项目上供职，这个项目也最终搞砸了该公司与任天堂的一笔买卖，然后是微软那永远不可能成功的网络电视项目和后来被取消的超级卫星电视盒。
But Baker finally has a hot seller with the Xbox 360, Microsoft's video game console launched worldwide last holiday season. The adventure on which he embarked four years ago would ultimately prove that failure is often the best teacher. His new gig would once again provide copious evidence that flexibility and understanding of detailed customer needs will beat a rigid business model every time. And so far the score is Xbox 360 one and the delayed PlayStation 3 nothing.
不过，最终贝克成就了热销的Xbox 360，微软于上一个假期启动了此款视频游戏机的销售。贝克四年前开始投入的这场冒险最终也证明了，失败常常是最好的老师，这个新玩具也再一次证明，产品的灵活度和对最终用户需求的了如指掌总是能比死板的生意模式更好，所以现在的比分情况是Xbox360得了一分，而推迟发售的PlayStation3得了个零蛋。
The Xbox 360 console is Microsoft's living room Trojan horse, purchased as a game box but capable of so much more in the realm of digital entertainment in the living room. Since the day after Microsoft terminated the Ultimate TV box, in February 2002, Baker has been working on the Xbox 360 silicon architecture team at Microsoft's campus in Mountain View, Calif. He is one of the 3DO survivors who now gets a shot at revenge against the Japanese companies that vanquished his old firm.
Xbox 360游戏机是微软安放在客厅里的一匹特洛依木马，大家把它当成游戏机买回家，但实际上它在客厅数字化娱乐上是个全能选手。从2002年2月微软终结掉超级电视盒，贝克就可始在微软加州Mountain View的Xbox360芯片设计组开工了，他也是从3DO项目中站起来走上向他们的日本对手的复仇之路的几位之一。
"It feels good," says Baker. "I can play it at home with the kids. It's family-friendly, and I don't have to play on the Nintendo anymore."
“我觉得非常棒”，贝克说“我可以在家跟孩子们一块玩（Xbox360），它非常友好，而且，我再也不用玩任天堂了”
Baker is one of the people behind the scenes who pulled together the Xbox 360 console by engineering some of the most complicated chips ever designed for a consumer entertainment device. The team labored for years and made critical decisions that enabled Microsoft to beat Sony and Nintendo to market with a new box, despite a late start with the Xbox in the previous product cycle. Their story, captured here and in a forthcoming book by the author of this article, illustrates the ups and downs in any big project.
贝克是360项目的一位幕后工作者，他们把一系列从未在消费级娱乐设备上应用的复杂设计的芯片整合起来造就了Xbox360，整个小组辛苦工作了四年，作出了无数艰难的决定，最终打败了Sony和任天堂。虽然他们刚刚才通过Xbox进入这个市场没多久（他们却跑赢了两个业内的巨腕儿）。他们的故事，如同这篇文章以及此文的作者后来编撰的一本书所描述的，将向大家揭示那些超大的工程中的起起落落。
When Baker and his pal Jeff Andrews joined games programmer Mike Abrash, in early 2002, they had clear marching orders. Their bosses-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, at the top of Microsoft; Robbie Bach, running the Xbox division; Xbox hardware chief Todd Holmdahl; Greg Gibson, for Xbox 360 system architecture; and silicon chief Larry Yang-all dictated what Microsoft needed this time around.
2002年初，贝克和他的搭档杰夫.安德鲁加入游戏设计师迈克.阿布拉斯的行列，他们听到了上头的铁命令。微软的老板们，包括顶头上司CEO史蒂夫.巴默尔，Xbox事业部的罗比.巴赫，Xbox硬件主管托德.霍姆戴尔，Xbox360的系统设计师葛雷格.吉布森，还有微软硅厂的大头儿拉里.杨无一例外地向他们传达微软的进度要求。
They couldn't be late. They had to make hardware that could become much cheaper over time and had to pack as much performance into a game console as they could without overheating the box
他们不能迟疑。他们要在时限内做出又够便宜，还要够性能的游戏主机，而且，还不能把这个盒子弄得太烫。
The group of silicon engineers started first among the 2,000 people in the Xbox division on a project that Baker had code-named Trinity. But they couldn't use that name, because someone else at Microsoft had taken it. So they named it Xenon, for the colorless and odorless gas, because it sounded cool enough. Their first order of business was to study computing architectures, from those of the best supercomputers to those of the most power-efficient portable gadgets. Although Microsoft had chosen Intel and Nvidia to make the chips for the original Xbox the first time around, the engineers now talked to a broad spectrum of semiconductor makers.
崔妮迪，起名未果！
最早的一批硬件工程师团队是在原来的Xbox事业部的2000员工的基础上组建的，贝克想把这个团队命名为崔妮迪，可是这个名儿被别的事业部占了，他们只好重新命名，重新起的名字叫做Xenon，这是一种无色无味的气体的名字，不过他们叫这个名儿只是它听起来够酷。他们的第一个任务是学习计算机架构，从最好的超级计算机到最节能的便携小玩意。虽然在Xbox时代，微软选择了Intel和Nvidia做它的芯片供货商，但是这一回，工程师们开始把眼光放到了更为广阔的半导体制造商中去。
"For us, 2002 was about understanding what the technology could do," says Greg Gibson, system designer.
“对于我们来说，2002年我们更多的是在了解当时的技术能够做什么”，系统设计师葛雷格.吉布森说。
Sony had teamed up with IBM and Toshiba to create a full-custom microprocessor from the ground up. They planned to spend $400 million developing the Cell architecture and even more fabricating the chips. Microsoft didn't have the time or the chip engineers to match the effort on that scale, but Todd Holmdahl and Larry Yang saw a chance to beat Sony. They could marshal a host of virtual resources and create a semicustom design that combined both off-the-shelf technology and their own ideas for game hardware. Microsoft would lead the integration of the hardware, own the intellectual property, set the cost-reduction schedules, and manage its vendors closely.
那会儿索尼已经和IBM、东芝联手，他们打算从头打造一款微型处理器，他们预算用4亿美元来研发并修正这个叫Cell的东西。微软没有时间也没有足够的人力去搞那么大规模的投入，不过托德和拉里看到了打败索尼的机会，他们可以集成现有的资源并通过一种半定制的设计将他们自己的主意和现成的技术结合起来。微软将会主导硬件的集成，会自己掌握相关的知识产权，制定降低成本的策略，并且直接管理工厂。
They believed that this approach would get them to market by 2005, which was when they estimated Sony would be ready with the PlayStation 3. (As it turned out, Microsoft's dreams were answered when Sony, in March, postponed the PlayStation 3 launch until November
他们相信这样的方法将使他们能在2005年将产品推出市场，一个他们估计索尼的PS3最可能发售的时间（虽然最后索尼在3月将PS3推迟到12月，让他们喜出望外）
More important, using an IP ownership strategy with the chips could dramatically cut Microsoft's costs on the original Xbox. Microsoft had lost an estimated $3.7 billion over four years, or roughly a whopping $168 per box. By cutting costs, Microsoft could erase a lot of red ink.
更重要的是，使用自有知识产权的策略可以显著的降低微软的成本，要知道过去4年，微软因此损失了37亿美元，折合到每台Xbox则是168美元之多，节约下来这笔钱，微软将可以削减掉大笔的赤字。
Balanced design Baker and Andrews quickly decided they wanted to create a balanced design, trading off power efficiency and performance. So they envisioned a multicore microprocessor, one with as many as 16 cores, or miniprocessors, on one chip. They wanted a graphics chip with 60 shaders, or parallel processors for rendering distinct features in a graphic animations.
平衡的设计
贝克和安德鲁很快就决定下来他们要选择一种平衡的设计，一种在功耗和性能之间求平衡的产物。他们设想了一种多核心的微处理器，一个芯片上16个核心，还设想了一种有60个渲染器的图形芯片，一种在绘图时并行处理不同特性的处理器。
Laura Fryer, manager of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group in Redmond, Wash., solicited feedback on the new microprocessor. She said that game developers were wary of managing multiple software threads associated with multiple cores, because the switch created a juggling task they didn't have to do on the original Xbox or the PC. But they appreciated the power efficiency and added performance they could get.
劳拉.弗莱尔，是华盛顿雷谩厩胱⒁庥么省縪x高级技术组的经理，她负责收集新处理器的客户意见。她说游戏开发者谨慎看待多核心处理器带来的多线程编程的问题，因为这种转变（从单线程到多线程）使他们得像玩杂技一样工作，这是他们以前在Xbox和PC上编程时所没有的麻烦，不过他们还是很认同新处理器带来的功耗和性能的发展) |
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发表于 2009-6-28 22:36
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难得的好文章 