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I worked in a college, for years, and lemme tell ya, the Capitol Hill gang couldn't possibly form more committees, sub-committees, task forces than any two people in academia if left alone in a room for 15 minutes.

The truly amazing thing was to see that comparatively, glaciers absolutely rocket down mountains into the sea.

I've been gone 3 years now, I wonder how many of those old committees still count me as a member in good standing?

Vote Naked 2000

Shouldn't they be appointing a comittee that will take a few years to make up their minds?

This way they can play it for ratings value by handing it over to a bunch of university legal scholors, who will probably arrived at some informed and intelligent opinion, which than can be thrashed about on Larry King Live, handed back to the House (via the FBI) where it can languish and be debated ad nauseum, despite good thought already put into it, but because it's not Dems or Gops.

Rather than toss it to the combatants^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcandidates (Bush & Gore) who would thrash it around, get it politicized in the House and Senate (because it's an election year) then be implimented anyway after January 21, 2001.

This really is a hot topic, but I haven't heard any candidate say anything pro or con about it... Am I just missing it in the news, or is Bush in favor of it because his father (George Herbert Hoover Johnny Walker Anheuser Bush) - an old spook - likes the idea, and Gore likes it because he could read those secret emails still going back and forth between Monica and Bill?


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Exaclty [sic] . There is no rational reason for holding onto the copyrights for old software which is no longer being sold. It's simple greed and corporatism, designed to hold back geeks from things they can use in a productive manner. Personally, since it is so irrational, I see no compelling reason to play along with the little corporate games. If you don't sell it, that's no reason why I can't have it.

I beg to differ, as much as it pains me, there are estates, etc. which continue to retain the rights to works so they may not be commercially exploited by others. Personally, I loved a lot of the old C64 games and would love nothing better than to see them revived, alas, tracking down the rights to some of these from defunct companies, etc. may prove more of a hassle than recoding for new platforms.

As far as I have heard, Dan Bunten(sp?), one of the original creators of M.U.L.E. is deceased, M.U.L.E. was one of the best games ever, along with the original Impossible Mission. All the current genre' bore me into a coma. If I decided to recode these works for PSII or Window$, you can bet lawyers would come after me and I wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on. It would be my duty, beforehand to seek out and purchase these rights, no matter how old they are.

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If only Abit released plans of Hammered mobos :)

If there's anything I've learned about the mobo makers in Taiwan, its that they clearly are in the loop with AMD. No Athlon, Thunderbird or Duron comes out without the accompanying board to run on. Expect only Intel to have boards for the IA64 if/when it sees daylight.

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Hey, that's insulting to a Z80!

Maybe a 4004...

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Nous allons d'accord!

As it has been so demonstrated by 20 years of 8088 and x86 architecture, new hardware is excedingly hard to sell to the masses, considering the entrenchment of current application and tools.

Price doesn't do it.
Flashy doesn't do it.
Hype certainly doesn't do it.
Secure in the belief I won't have to re-invent many wheels will do it.


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When 64 bit processors first come out, only the big boys (read high end server vendors) are going to care right away. Sun and HP are directly competing in that space, so I bet Sun is hoping to gain an advantage over HP.

The IA64 is targeted directly at the business and personal user, don't even imagine it isn't. There is already a considerable number of 64 bit commercial systems available.

It's a bit like Al Gore claiming to practically invent the internet, to claim Intel will revolutionize something with a long overdue 64 bit processor. But, hey, maybe they can sucker people with more dancers in bunny suits, who knows...

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They see a steamroller called Itanium on the horizon

Where do you get this? The Itanium is such a frankenstein it'll be a footnote 2 years from now.

By endorsing Sledgehammer, AMD hopes (IMHO) to take some of the wind out of Itanium's sails, and make it less of an 'obvious' choice. Intel is becoming formidable as a systems house, and can challenge Sun in that role. AMD at the moment is merely a chip (including CPUs) vendor.

You probably mean SUN endorsing, not AMD, since it's AMD's baby. Intel is floundering around with PIII deliverieries, stupid exec. decisions and fudging their earnings to keep their stock from reflecting reality. AMD, starting from such a minority position, has demonstrated they can promise and deliver. IMHO Intel has slid to the ignominious position of having to Show Me, their announcements fall on deaf ears.

IA-64 is still branded one of the Winners in the 64 bit sweepstakes, and there's STILL no generally available hardware.

Cough cough. Go look at an alpha some time. Gimme a break.

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I've never used it, you want to get ahold of me, drop an email or call my cel (I won't pick up while driving, tho)

4 years ago I spent the better part of a day trying to uninstall, cripple, maim, corrupt and renoberate AIM on my desktop. Why? Because at the time it was set to pop-up and remind me how special :) AOL was and how it would be so nice if I just caved in and handed over my desktop to AOL.

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There once was a time when tech support could answer these things, but, alas, anyone in tech support who know the first thing about hardware or software wanted to make a living wage. #1 problem is tech support just doesn't pay, hence many companies throw you to the Helpdesk, which is staffed by people who can help with the most general things. I often try to blow past them for someone who really knows the stuff, a software or hardware engineer. Companies don't like to put these people on the phone, because spending $60/hr for someone to do tech support doesn't make "Good business sense" to them. Get used to it.

Be your own best friend, learn about the hardware, OS and applications and then hold out for a fatter paycheck. ;-)

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I don't lust after Intel vapor

I hold no interest in VLWI processors

They've been talking about putting out the ia64, Itanium, whatever for ages

It may never come out

If it does it will probably be some horrible thing which attempts to do all and be all and have numerous bugs and run slow

...no, I wouldn't make that mistake, not a chance.

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ntel, Microsoft and their respective products survive not because of their technical merits, but because of their deep market penetration

Boy, is that the truth. Though Intel is having a rough time of it from AMD. Say what you like about AMD, they at least deliver the processors they say they will.

Technical merits of Microsoft? Nope, can't think of any.

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Vote Naked 2000

Where have you been for the last 5 years ??? Linux on alpha is 64bit from 1995 :-)

Under the impression the Kernal was still 32 bit, although you could do a build with a 64 bit compiler...

Is it a 64 bit kernal already, on alpha? I thought Linus was working on the new 64 bit kernal this year at this year.

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Speaking of DEC... I've lusted after an alpha for years. Why fool with these lame 32bit systems?

I read something about a new 64bit kernel due out this summer (2.2?) which would be the thing to take advantage of a true workstation like an alpha.

A little background on my computers/usage: Cut teeth on OSI 800 board (yeah, 8k of ram, 6502), C64, Apple ][, Amiga 1000 & 2000, SparcIPX with Linux. I didn't buy an x86 machine until getting a Sony VAIO laptop until last year. Windows is so slow it's like punishment to use.

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How could it not fail?

When I looked into buying a NeXT I was dismayed that I would have to drive 100+ miles to see one, demonstrating a lack of a dealer network. I seem to recall Apple was having a bad time of it and most computer dealers in my neck of the woods were wary. These people had to but bread on the table and were being clobbered by the early clone shops. Three dealers in town were buying x86 mobos and parts and assembling clones to sell for far less than a Mac, this in a city with one Mac store, with a large staff, watching its sales errode.

To their credit, the Mac is still around due to the wisdom of collaboration with education. I work in a county office of education, with conferences going all the time and hear Mac this Mac that, I think the Cube will be very popular as it's asthetically pleasing, one thing Jobs crew is doing right, make a sexy looking computer.

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