[Rd] Cell or PS3 Port

[Ed Knutson]

Hello,

I am interested in optimizing some of R's vector math functions to 
utilize the SPE units of the Cell processor (commonly found in the 
Playstation 3) and I am wondering if anyone has already done any work in 
that area.  I can't find anything using the search page or Google. 
(Admittedly it is difficult to search for information on a 
one-letter-named programming language whose contributed documentation 
intrinsically refers to "cells" frequently. :)  I'm assuming it will be 
possible to compile R under a PS3 version of Linux, since it has a ppc64 
architecture and R already runs on OS X.  Are there any known caveats to 
compiling R for a distro like Ubuntu with X11 support?

I'm just going through the Cell SDK documentation at this point so it 
will be a few days before I really get into the guts of it.  Any 
information would be greatly appreciated.

-Ed