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64-bit AMD Opteron workstations were available two months before the G5 Powermacs were announced. If you call the G5 Powermacs "workstations" (dual processor, PCI-X), then AMD was first. If you call G5's "desktops" (no EEC memory, no workstation-class graphics cards), then PPC was first (before the Athlon 64 three months later).

2. I want a quiet system, and that means no fans. A high-end graphics board that sucks energy and produces heat is not just a neutral "I don't need it", it's a negative "I don't WANT it".

C'mon. A new high-end computer should have PCI Express. The Radeon 9600 is last generation's mid-range graphics. It is outperformed by this generation's low-end (GeForce 6200 and Radeon X700). Only the ultra high end cards need loud fans.

I do IT Support at a nearly 99% Microsoft site, so OSS isn't used there, but at home I run http://www.watsky.net/

I have 2 sisters with old PII class computers which they just use for surfing/email/WP. They ran Win98 and at least twice a month I would have to call out and fix their systems due to spyware or them accidentally deleting things or odd DLL problems. I moved the more tech savvy sister to http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ and the "I refuse to use anything but Windows" sister to http://www.linspire.com/ about 3 months ago, and apart from some minor problems with a Lexmark printer I haven't heard a peep since from either of them and they are delighted with the computers.

At work I actually browse the net using a http://h71000.www7.hp.com/pathworks32/ link from my XP machine to an OpenVMS box and surf with http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/ips/csw b/cswb.html so I don't worry about spyware or viruses there either :)

Jonathan

http://www.justgofaster.com/

I do IT Support at a nearly 99% Microsoft site, so OSS isn't used there, but at home I run http://www.watsky.net/

I have 2 sisters with old PII class computers which they just use for surfing/email/WP. They ran Win98 and at least twice a month I would have to call out and fix their systems due to spyware or them accidentally deleting things or odd DLL problems. I moved the more tech savvy sister to http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ and the "I refuse to use anything but Windows" sister to http://www.linspire.com/ about 3 months ago, and apart from some minor problems with a Lexmark printer I haven't heard a peep since from either of them and they are delighted with the computers.

At work I actually browse the net using a http://h71000.www7.hp.com/pathworks32/ link from my XP machine to an OpenVMS box and surf with http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/ips/csw b/cswb.html so I don't worry about spyware or viruses there either :)

Jonathan

http://www.justgofaster.com/

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/tabletpc/tc1100 /

for work, and they are uber-sweet. It has a detachable keyboard, so that you can use it like a slate if you want, built in wifi/nic/modem/etc. I was originally looking for laptops, but this solution worked out better for us. No problems so far, and love the versatility of the tablet functions.

It does a fairly good job of handwriting recognition, I took notes on it in class last night. Maybe every tenth or fifteenth word there was something that I had to correct, and I was writing pretty fast in cursive. I did the translation en masse as well, so that may have affected it.

It humours me how people are unwilling to go the final step and just make a freakin slate tablet.

Compaq /HP makes one that my boss uses, actually. The handwriting recognition just isn't that good yet: if you tend to write long, technical-oriented stuff (like programming or tech docs) then you're far better off with the keyboard. It has a detachable keyboard, but frankly, if you take the keyboard off, then it's never around when you need it. You end up carrying it around all the time no matter what, and then what's the point?

One of the key to making things at nanoscale is to have fault and defect tolerance. With billions of elements in the system, you are bound to get manufacturing defects as well as many run-time defects. Even in modern DRAMs they have redundant columns of memory cells to improve the yield by swapping the defective ones with spare ones. FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Arrays) offer in-circuit reconfigurability. HP showed Teremac few years ago which had millions of defects yet it worked just "fine" by detecting the defects and reconfiguring around it.

In short there will be sources of errors and faults in these systems, but there are various ways to get around it. Also in quantum computing, you can encode your data in such a way that it is immune to noise (atleast to certain extent) and is called Quantum error correction.

But also remember that science is not just about destination but also the journey. Even if practical quantum computers are never built, we are likely to learn many interesting aspects which may be used elsewhere.

You do realize it was a joke, don't you?

But to address your point, yes, tape can be slow. However, the best tape drive money can buy right now (a title claimed by HP's Ultrium 960) is faster than most hard drives -- 160MB/sec according to the specs. It's not going to be that bad. Expensive, yes, but not slow.

Just a thought experiment: sending a terabyte of data via this tape solution would require (1,000,000 megs / 160 megs per sec) 6,250 seconds, or 104 minutes to write to tape. This assumes 2:1 compression of course, but the actual compressability is unknown.

Sending 500 terabytes in this fashion would require 866 hours (36 days) to write and that same amount to read back onto disk. 72 days sounds like a lot, but this could be shrunk down to as little as 104 minutes if you're willing to employ 500 simultaneously-operating Ultrium 960 tape drives. Expensive, yes, but this is a fun thought experiment where dollars don't matter. Let's assume you use ten drives in an array on both ends (ship the drives with the media to save buying double drives), shrinking your backup/restore times to 86.6 hours (3.6 days) each.

7.2 days plus FedEx Priority Overnight transit time of about 16 hours yields a total transfer time of 7.87 days (7 days, 20 hours, 52 minutes, 48 seconds), or about 680,400 seconds to transfer 500,000,000 megabytes. This gives us a sustained transfer rate of 734MB/sec. This is 22% better performance than the link in the article. The time could be shrunk to as little as one day (the vast majority of it FedEx transit time) if you have 500 tape drives operating all at once.

Total expenditure for such an enterprise would be 10 Ultrium 960 drives (10x$6,190 each = $61,900) and 625 tape cartridges (625x$129 each = $80,625), for a total hardware cost of $142,525. FedEx International Priority shipping costs for a box of tapes like this would be $603, bringing the grand total to $143,128.

Just for giggles, a 500-drive array would cost you $3,095,000 in drive hardware but still take only $80,625 in tapes. With shipping it's a mere $3,176,228.

I'm willing to bet the LHC network costs considerably more than that to operate. What's more, the "tape" network hardware costs need be borne only once. The only operating costs are FedEx shipping costs and replacement tapes if and when needed. It's actually a very efficient way to send huge sums of data from place to place when you think about it.

Note: I've done all this math off the cuff while doing about ten other things, so if my figures are off, don't try to have me drawn and quartered. It was a joke, and it's supposed to be mildly entertaining.

$ set pass/gen
Old password:

marboake
lumining
olverag
etreate
detiteck

Choose a password from this list, or press RETURN to get a new list
New password:

What's it like to have a new release of your server operating system that isn't slower?

Standard in the Unix world.

HP was founded in a garage. Its still around and on their web site.

Apple Computer also manaufactured their first set of computer boards in Job's garage.

Yahoo was founded in a trailer. About 10% of Stanford was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, so facilities were moved to "temporary" trailers during reconstruction (still on campus).

Google also claims to have been founded in a garage.

P.S. I was in Palo during the Apple and Yahoo foundings so can verify that. I've seen the H.P. garage, since it is a historical site. I cant verify Google's story.

I think that anyone who is considering buying a PC for Lindows would be much better served buying a Mac or Mac Mini and using OS X instead.
Or he could buy one of these fancy HP notebooks that will ship with Ubuntu. Rumors say, HP develops a special Ubuntu version, that will support the complete hardware of these notebooks, including ACPI Suspend to RAM.
Ubuntu has a security model that is similar to Mac OS X. Root cannot login; when root privileges are required, sudo will be used.

I was able to fit 32GB into one of these babies:

http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/archive/es40 /index.html

It ran very well with that much RAM. :^)

Just don't try to load Windoze on it. :^)

There are a few possible solutions you might want to look at for a big-RAM server. Now, if you really want 64GB and AMD Opteron processors than you really only have one choice, the HP Proliant DL585. That's the only Opteron solution that I know of which supports 64GB of memory.

If you can get by with a bit less memory then you have some other solutions. Tyan carries quite a number of boards with varying capabilities. The trouble here is that the Opteron processors are limited to 8GB of memory per processor, so to get 16GB you're going to be looking at a dual-processor board (quad processor for 32GB). Since the memory controller is right on the CPU with the Opteron you will actually need a second processor in the socket to use this memory.

For this reason, you might actually want to consider one of Intel's new 64-bit Xeon chips. I know that Supermicro offers some boards that can handle up to 32GB with only a single Xeon processor. Something like the X6DHE-XB seems like it might fit you're bill reasonable well. Fairly inexpensive to get you up to 16GB of memory, though going to 32GB is quite expensive. Crucial has a list of compatible memory for this board, including some 4GB modules.

Of course, if you're not limited to x86 systems then there are other solutions that would work. You could get something like an IBM Power system or Sun UltraSparc system with pretty much any amount of memory you need (or can afford).

This one or
This one
or This one

ok, some of them are end of life, but hey you'll never know... ;-)

ps:I hope you have some spare money lying around...

This one or
This one
or This one

ok, some of them are end of life, but hey you'll never know... ;-)

ps:I hope you have some spare money lying around...

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/ctoBases.asp?Prod uctLineId=431&FamilyId=1770&jumpid=re_hphqiss/Ovw_ Buy/DL585

I wouldn't say the Tablet PC has failed (I own one, and I think it's an awesome device), but if the basic forms of computing gadget for the foreseeable future are limited to desktop, notebook and PDA and we're happy with that, then we may as well stop innovating now. I sure as hell don't want to be stuck with three form factors 20 years from now...

Desktop computers, servers, laptops and phones have all started in their niche markets in the past, and I'm happy for MS to use their cash to kickstart market segments that may or may not yield results. In some cases, they might stumble on something worthwhile. A one-handed interface has benefits for in-car PCs, industrial devices, phones and related devices like touchscreens and mouse design. Long term, the aggregation of ideas from this with existing PDA and tablet technology might yield devices that appeal more to the mainstream.

Wrong again grasshopper.

It started with walmart but there are several places online that offer preinstall Linux computers, usually Lindows. Besides you can get it preinstalled from some majore OEM's.

For a short time last year one could buy nx5000 HP notebook with SuSE 9.1 pre-installed (only in the US) http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/3219 57-64295-89315-321838-f33-395654.html
Configure and buy link in the web page does not work now. I remember some press release HP announced that they would prefer to enter this (pre-installed linux) market and were testing the feasibility in the US. I think every other linux journal http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7845 had rave reviews including one at MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5831949/ but alas all has failed to deliver.
HP sponsored even a KDE summit in Germany by supplying Linux laptops. http://dot.kde.org/1094715499/

Nice , old tech but nice :

Hp is at zd 8000 and working on 9000 ...

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/generic _category.do?BV_SessionID=@@@@0035537196.111298182 8@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccegaddefmhmhflcfngcfkmdfondfgf. 0&catLevel=1&storeName=computer_store&landing=note books&category=hp_pavilion&aoid=1426

dual core and smp are like apples and oranges.

No, they are like winesap and mcintosh apples.

two cpus are two cpus.. the OS sees them and uses them as it does other resources. dual core the OS does not see, the cpu employs the two cores to execute more pipelines in parallel.

Then why is it that I am posting from a dual core workstation and top shows two distinct CPUs?

She could have been named Fiorina instead.

This kind of reminds me of that HP photo/camera commercial, where that fellow snags frames out of the air, capturing screen shots from live motion in the foreground and background with each one he grabs.

HP's now-defunct calculator division in Corvallis also did:

• HP-75 in 1982, a 26-ounce battery-powered system that could run VisiCalc
• HP-110 battery-powered PC with ROM-based DOS and Lotus 1-2-3 in 1984
• HP Integral portable Unix system in 1985
• HP-95LX PC-compatible palmtop with Lotus 1-2-3 in ROM in 1991

More info...

Well, it's a 'Merkin mag, what would you expect?

Biggest problem I had with my Z88 was battery life: Alkaline AAs were OK but expensive, NiCds were useless, and we didn't have any NiMH AAs back then. I rigged up a bundle of 8 D-Cells with a power socket, which also served to angle the Z88 for better typing, and that kept me going through marathon research sessions in the Imperial College library. The keyboard was surprisingly good: rubber, but silent and reasonably responsive, even without the optional keyclick.

What I really wanted back then was a HP: either a HP-75C, or a HP-110.

Well, it's a 'Merkin mag, what would you expect?

Biggest problem I had with my Z88 was battery life: Alkaline AAs were OK but expensive, NiCds were useless, and we didn't have any NiMH AAs back then. I rigged up a bundle of 8 D-Cells with a power socket, which also served to angle the Z88 for better typing, and that kept me going through marathon research sessions in the Imperial College library. The keyboard was surprisingly good: rubber, but silent and reasonably responsive, even without the optional keyclick.

What I really wanted back then was a HP: either a HP-75C, or a HP-110.

(although servers are still fair game)

(although servers are still fair game)

(although servers are still fair game)

We still have an old Digital AlphaServer 1000A 4/233 that we still use as a File/Print Server, so not only a creaky OS but on a dead chip ;). I still use it to surf the web with sites I don't trust and check out what I think are dodgy emails on it as it dosn't run Intel Code and ActiveX so I feel safer than doing it on one of the Wintel Boxes. Jonathan

check for a class of vulnerabilities called buffer overruns

Eerily reminiscent of VAX/VMS's "/ARRAY_BOUNDS_CHECKS=ON" option, around 1985 this was. Admittedly, this was for Pascal or somesuch.
Cool thing for gcc nonetheless. Don't forget to check Boehm's Garbage Collector for C and/or Bruce Perens' Electric Fence

By the way: Athlon-64 has 16 64-bit GPRs, not 4.

There are a lot of alternatives out there, and your inability to find/use them is not a problem which AMD and Intel are overly concerned with. For instance, here are a few of your options:

64-bit RISC:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/
http://www.pegasosppc.com/tech_specs.php
http://www.apple.com/powermac/
http://www.sun.com/servers/index.html
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/HP9000_family_ overview.html
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/index.html

64-bit CISC:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/inde x.html

Now why would Intel/AMD want to make it any easier than it already is for you to switch?

Phil

By the way: Athlon-64 has 16 64-bit GPRs, not 4.

There are a lot of alternatives out there, and your inability to find/use them is not a problem which AMD and Intel are overly concerned with. For instance, here are a few of your options:

64-bit RISC:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/
http://www.pegasosppc.com/tech_specs.php
http://www.apple.com/powermac/
http://www.sun.com/servers/index.html
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/HP9000_family_ overview.html
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/index.html

64-bit CISC:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/inde x.html

Now why would Intel/AMD want to make it any easier than it already is for you to switch?

Phil

By the way: Athlon-64 has 16 64-bit GPRs, not 4.

There are a lot of alternatives out there, and your inability to find/use them is not a problem which AMD and Intel are overly concerned with. For instance, here are a few of your options:

64-bit RISC:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/iseries/
http://www.pegasosppc.com/tech_specs.php
http://www.apple.com/powermac/
http://www.sun.com/servers/index.html
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/HP9000_family_ overview.html
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/index.html

64-bit CISC:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/
http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/inde x.html

Now why would Intel/AMD want to make it any easier than it already is for you to switch?

Phil

Here's the HP article outside the PhysORG tarpit.

I'd REALLY have to see this in action. After HP abandoned the Jornada (their own Pocket PC, one with a much better human-engineered design) for the Heath-Robinson iPaq, I've taken everything they've said about handhelds with a shovel-full of salt.

And some of us are lucky enough to have PDA phones.

Get a clue, dude- what do you do with them? everything! I read my e-mail on the bus, listen to MP3's, surf the web, check my e-mail, synch with MS Money so that I don't have to keep a check register, play tetris... the better question is why isn't there a larger market for PDA's?

You know, India has stolen a lot of US jobs. It seems that most of the call centers employ people who can't speak (or understand) English very well at all -- and yet they're perfectly willing to take a contact doing phone support for Americans! But despite that, I find I have two feelings about India:

1. I am more upset with the Americans who ship jobs overseas than I am with the Indians who just want to make a living.
2. I do not like the idea of people dying, even if they are in worldwide competition with us for jobs.

I hope this kind of terrorism is caught each and every time, in every country.

Carly had a Bachelors in medieval history but was able to become the CEO of a once impressive company because of her MBA. Not that she was any good at it but she did get a hefty severance package.

But somewhere around the time they decided these products needed numbers in the thousands, quality took a nosedive and then came the parade of garbage "consumer desktop PCs"

Nowdays, I rarely recommend anything with the HP logo on it.

Yeah, especially when those four digits are 5150

basic scientific research

law enforcement... military defense

development of open protocols like TCP/IP

providing health insurance that doesn't leave you filing for bankruptcy if you get sick

It's fine that you or your company don't like Solaris, but the fact that well over a half-million people downloaded Solaris 10 in three weeks says that it really isn't becoming extinct. It isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Even I downloaded Solaris out of curiosity to see what all the hype is about and, like almost everybody else, I was disappointed.

Download numbers are not a very clever way to defend your ideas, mein freund. It's good to see Sun releasing Solaris as "quasi-free". It only proves that Linux is really, really disturbing Sun.

In my previous post, I told you about how Solaris is ancient. Hey, you don't need my word for it.

Cheers!

Eduardo.

"FreeBSD runs none of them, so what enterprise class hardware *does* it run on?"

HP Proliant DL585
Sun Fire V40z

It doesn't run on the really big machines, but then neither does MacOS. So if I'm wrong about enterprise class hardware, then the person I was responding to is also wrong about enterprise class because the best XServe doesn't compare to the machines I've linked to.

"FreeBSD doesn't even understand NUMA, which is basically indispensable for Opteron, POWER, or any serious Intel IA64 or x86 platforms."

FreeBSD does understand NUMA with the ULE scheduler in 5.x.

I'd be shocked if MacOS X understood NUMA though, as Apple has never sold a NUMA box.

FreeBSD can run on enterprise class hardware if you feel like buying enterprise class hardware.

No, actually it can't.

This, this, this, this, this, this, even this, and of course this is enterprise class hardware. FreeBSD runs none of them, so what enterprise class hardware *does* it run on?

FreeBSD doesn't even understand NUMA, which is basically indispensable for Opteron, POWER, or any serious Intel IA64 or x86 platforms.

FreeBSD can run on enterprise class hardware if you feel like buying enterprise class hardware.

No, actually it can't.

This, this, this, this, this, this, even this, and of course this is enterprise class hardware. FreeBSD runs none of them, so what enterprise class hardware *does* it run on?

FreeBSD doesn't even understand NUMA, which is basically indispensable for Opteron, POWER, or any serious Intel IA64 or x86 platforms.

HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000

What about this ProLiant DL585 server from HP. It seems very comprable (4 Opterons, 8 or so PCI-X slots, configurable with lots of memory and storage, not to mention a similar price point). There are links to a few benchmarks on that page. Anyone have any experience with the DL585 or similar HP servers or know how they compare to these servers from Sun?

We do 3D image reconstruction - the biggest techbological advantage for us is 64-bit, but the extra memory might come in handy for volume visualization - basically when you try to create a translucent image of the voxels in a cube and be able to rotate it in real time. That can be done with textures.

Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition 32-bit supports up to 32GB, 64-bit up to 64GB..

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluat ion/sysreqs/default.mspx

We have several HP Proliant DL580's with 16GB RAM running 2003.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/platfor ms/index-dl.html

Try the HP ProLiant DL line (or similar). Grab an Opteron or EM64T box, drop in RHEL AS4 (or another 64-bit distro), and your rollin! Of course, you can always call Sun. I've got a SunFire V20z which is rockin' with FreeBSD, OTOH don't write off the UltraSPARC...

I can never seem to find _anything_ at the HP site in just 5 clicks.

So here is link to HP's ProLiant with an Intel processor that will support up to 32GB of memory.http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/ proliantml570/index.html.
Or a rack-mount box with the AMD Opteron(TM) that supports up to 16GB of memory http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/prolian tdl145/index.html.