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On the Win32 side, Ballistics was one of the first games to use DirectX 8 vertex and pixel shaders, which where introduced with the Geforce3.

Here's a Maximum PC review. It got a 7, with gorgeous graphics but not too much content. Interestingly, it only listed for $30.

How many OSs? Is 37 enough?

In the interview he said, "Most Linux and Unix systems are open source, and therefore free."

That's dangerous territory you're stepping on, boy.

What happened to the quantum electron tunneling limit? I thought they weren't planning on going past .13 microns because of uncertainty tunneling. Is that no longer a factor at these widths and with these materials? Are they adding error correcting features?

Now i see that they're talking about a 0.003 micron process. Let's hope IBM actually knows what they're doing and doesn't find out later that "Oops, Schrödinger was right after all...."

Ripped from the specs:

"The GoBook MAX exceeds military specs for drop, water resistance, dust and vibration. The GoBook MAX thrives in the most severe environments imaginable. Freezing cold. Searing heat. Pouring rain. Intrinsically safe,(Class 1, Division 2, Group D) the GoBook MAX enables operators to safely work in HazMat environments; on flightlines, near hazardous chemicals or explosive materials. With Itronix' innovative CRMA(TM) wireless communications, radios can be swapped or upgraded within each unit. Backed by a limited lifetime warranty and comprehensive services package, the Itronix GoBook MAX sets a new standard for ultra-rugged, wireless computing."

Specs
Website
MaximumPC review

The latest issue of MaximumPC has a nice write up about the Parhelia. Looks nice, but I'd still put my money on a Geforce4 Ti :)

Some of the stories on /. are about as fresh as meat sold at WalMart.

Step zero, figure out what you want to do with it. Do you want high-end sound? Gaming? Video capture? Entertainment system? Are you going to lug it around to LAN parties? This will help you trim things down.

First, go to TomsHardware.com, pick up a copy of MaximumPC, and hit other sites like ArsTechnica to read up on articles of importance to your project. You will need a rock-solid motherboard, don't get caught up in overclocking madness and other BS. If this is the first time you've built a machine you've got a lot of stuff to school yourself on without toasting a CPU or mobo. Wait until you know what you're doing. Baby steps. Check out compatibility issues, etc.

Second, don't do this to save money - you won't. Building a box isn't a way to save, it's to be assured that you'll get exactly what you want put together exactly how you want it. Also remember that you are your own warranty and that OEM equipment doesn't have the same warranty period as retail stuff in most cases. Also if you return stuff, there's usually a huge (20%+) restock fee, so make sure you're ordering what you think you're ordering. Caveat emptor.

Third, go to newegg.com or mwave.com and configure yourself up a box. Newegg will let you save your cart and whatnot, mwave is still stuck in 1997 in that regard. Anyway, poke, configure. Design your box around your specific wants and needs. Nip and tuck.

Certainly use pricewatch as a guide, but trust me - it's ALWAYS better to order your parts all from one place rather than be kept waiting for a CPU or couple of sticks of RAM to trickle in. Plus, there's less hassle if something's DOA.

Next, pick up a PC Upgrade & Repair book and a basic toolset. Read, read, read. Check your order to make damned sure that you didn't forget anything. If you're too squeamish to put the whole thing together yourself (you should put it together yourself, IMHO) you can get mwave or someone to prebuild it for your and tweak it when it comes in.

Anyway, if you decide to put it together yourself schedule a free weekend - yes, a whole weekend. Use common sense, a clean worktable without errant drinks or chips, anti-static gear, and a Zen-like ripose. Before you start tearing into your hardware READ THE MANUALS AND HOW-TOS FIRST.

Let me say that again: READ THE MANUALS AND HOW-TOS FIRST.

One more time, because since you're building it YOU are all the tech support you're ever going to get. READ THE MANUALS AND HOW-TOS FIRST. Check erratta online, grab the latest BIOS for your motherboard and drivers for your gear. All the drivers that come on your install CDs were out of date before the CDs were finished duplicating.

Having a running box and broadband handy to grab patches and do research while you construct is invaluable. So is the advice/help/EMT of a friendly geek buddy if you get stuck. Don't bug the crap out of your friend; I HATE being roped into a newbie install at 6:00PM on a Saturday night.

Anyway, make sure you have all your OS and application CDs laying around. Grab the latest ISOs of your favorite distro and make boot floppies.

There will be twists, turns, and headaches. But you'll get a sense of satisfaction and - over the years - invaluable experience with all kinds of wierd hardware and odd situations. Bask in pride as you fire up your very own custom box!

the sept. ish of max pc has a pretty interesting and informative article on the new formats and drives coming down the pike for dvd recording. I don't believe it's online at maximum pc but its on the newsstands and max pc is a pretty great mag. its their dream machine issue.

...but Promise Technology makes a network-attached storage device that uses ATA drives instead of SCSI. They also make an interesting external storage subsystem which uses ATA drives, but is SCSI-attached. I may get one of those myself and fill it full of IBM Deskstar 60GXP goodness.

I know that at least one motherboard manufacturer (Iwill) has onboard ATA RAID on some of its more recent boards (according to Maximum PC magazine's August 2001 issue, the KK266-R for Athlons with PC100/133 SDRAM, last I heard it was selling for $110). Do not know anything about usability of this device in various operating systems though. You'd think it would be implemented in hardware, so the OS just sees one disk device that represents the mirrorset, but I wouldn't swear to anything...

No, I don't work for Promise or Iwill, or any of their suppliers or business partners.

i was mildly surprised when i saw this for a couple reasons.

1. they actually were able to do it, this quickly
2. it was said that nvidia had no chance of ever being able to do something like this as it they weren't serious graphics cards.

this comes from an article several months ago on maximum pc (sorry i checked for the link but it's not to be found, but if a staff member from there reads this and they can find the link please link it) which was about a flame war that someone from nvidia and one of the guys from sgi (i might be wrong on sgi, sorry if i am and i forget the names, it's not cause i don't want to leave them out it's that i don't remember), where the guy from sgi said that nvidia was off his rocker with saying that nvidia cards could ever come near the level of performance to do something like toy story and it would be many years, tho the article is less than a year old.

well i guess the guy from sgi is eating crow now after reading what the nvidia cards are doing what they said would take years till bill gates becomes a linux lover in less than a year and right now i don't think that bill has really embraced the penguin quite yet.
it was just an interesting side note to this story.

This one is penguin-powered, too, which I think is pretty cool, since I wouldn't want to spend another $90 on an operating system for my car stereo. Please consider Ogg Vorbis though; MP3 is patent-encumbered and I'd like to see it die out.

Unfortunately, it's still gonna be spendy no matter how you do it. The parts and prices listed in the article are a little bit outdated, but the system they built cost about $1200 I think...

It would hold a helluva lot of music, though, and you'd be very popular with the Geek girls. ;-)

The proposal to enhance the ATA-spec with copy protection extensions is an enhancement of CPRM.
CPRM itself is just one of several technologies which are part of the so-called "Content Protection System Architecture" (CPSA).

[http://www.4centity.com/4centity/data/tech/cpsa /c psa081.pdf]

Enter CPSA, servants, attendants.

CPSA is an attempt to define a technological framework in order to fulfill the entertainment industry's (RIAA, MPAA etc.) demand for complete control of distribution and copies of audio/video content. The idea is to create a secure end-to-end chain from cable-station/satellite-receiver/settopbox/DVD etc. to the enduser's speaker/digital-display etc.

CPSA is supposed to include the following content protection technologies among others:

Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM)
- protected exchange of audio/video on DVD, FlashMedia, (ATA-hdds planned)
- encrypted storage of content
- protected storage of content management information (CMI)
- system renewability
- methods to prevent playback of bit-by-bit copies

developed by: 4C (IBM, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Toshiba) http://www.4centity.com

Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM)
- robust protection of DVD-Audio content on DVD-ROM media
- encrypted storage of content
- protected storage of content management information (CMI)
- system renewability
- methods to prevent playback of bit-by-bit copies

developed by: 4C (IBM, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Toshiba) http://www.4centity.com

Content Scrambling System (CSS)
- protecting DVD-Video cotent via authentication and content scrambling

developed by: DVD Copy Control Association (CCA) http://www.dvdcca.org

Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP)
- robust encryption of content passing between digital devices in the home e.g. IEEE 1394, USB
- copy control information
- authentication and key exchange
- digital encryption [sic!]
- system renewability

developed by: 5C (Hitachi, Intel, Matsuhita (MEI), Sony, Toshiba) http://www.dtcp.com

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP)
- encryption on high-bandwith interfaces to digital displays e.g. DVI

developed by: Intel http://www.digital-CP.com

4C/Verance Watermark
- technology for creating/reading watermarks (Content Management Information - CMI) in audio content

developed by: Verance Corporation http://www.4centity.com

Finally, a video watermarking scheme (to be selected by the DVD CCA)

An interesting tidbit on HDCP can be found in an article at maximumpc.com:
http://www.maximumpc.com/reprint/intel_revamps/

a quote from that article:

(...) Intel has proposed the High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection encryption spec. Using hardware on both the videocard and the monitor, HDCP will encrypt data on the PC before sending it to the display device, where it will be decrypted. The rub is that only new DVI-equipment will have the feature, which creates a slight risk of obsolescence for those who invest in DVI early on.

Intel officials have downplayed that issue. They claim that any DVI monitor will be able to display protected content, because the HDCP-equipped DVI card will simply sense that an older DVI monitor lacks HDCP features and will lower the image quality to keep the content protected. Of course, no one has accounted for consumer acceptance. Will people embrace a standard that reduces image quality on their older equipment? Intel officials say the loss won't be enough to irk people.

how about this one:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20000218S0008

"HDCP uses a 56-bit key, with individual keys distributed to the various vendors. A violated key could be tracked down and revoked over a satellite broadcast network, for example."

Apart from the documents obtained from the specification websites referenced above a search on the manufacturer's websites (Panasonic, Sony, etc.) for keywords like DTCP, CPRM etc. yields further information such as press-releases and other documents.

A couple of devices that already make use of these technologies have already been announced and/or gone into production such as:
Matsushita (Panasonic) DVD-RAM recorder DMR-E10
Panasonic D-VHS VCR PV-HD1000
Silicon Image SiI 168 PanelLink transmitter chip for DVI hardware
Silicon Image SiI 861 PanelLink controller chip for DVI hardware chip

boot: Will there be a time when Linux won't be available for free?
Torvalds: No.

boot: You say that very quickly.
Torvalds: Yes. One of the reasons I say it quickly is I've been asked the question before, and I also have made certain there is no way anybody can take the freeness away. I very strongly feel that it's a good thing, and the copyright requires it. And when somebody sends me big patches, I don't ask them to assign the copyright over to me. So right now, for example, the kernel itself has probably on the order of 50 or 100 copyright holders and the actual copyright license has always been the same. It's the GPL that requires that sources always be available. So in order to make a version of Linux that is not under that license, you have to get all those copyright holders to agree to the new license. The parts of the kernel that I own completely are significant, but they aren't enough to really make a good system. I did that consciously. I wanted to bind my own hands so that even if people don't trust me personally, they trust the fact that even if I wanted to turn commercial, I couldn't.

Check out the interview, its pre 2.2 !

Everybody loves Daikatana! Look at all these great reviews:

• Sharky sez it rawks! yeah right
• FiringSquad: "It is absolutely inferior in almost every conceivable way."
• Damage Gaming say: "I gave it a 3 out of 5, and that's generous"
• CTNews: "in the end all I got was frustration"
• GameSpot gives it a 4.6 out of 10
• DailyRadar: "Ultimate Gas Hands. Need we say more?"
• GameProWorld damns with faint praise: "It's not that bad."
• Computer Games Online gives it 1.5 stars - "amateurish epic lands with a spectacular thud"
• PC.IGN: "It's finally here. And we reviewed it. What? What else do you want us to say?"
• Honest3D - "You all know that I didn't enjoy Soldier of Fortune - well I liked it a lot more than Daikatana."
• GameCenter gives it a 3 out of 10: "Daikatana is a waste of your time and money. Go play Half-Life again instead."
• Happy Puppy: "It'll make you wish it never came out at all"
• GameZone actually seemed to kind of like it
• GameSeek really did like it! "f I had to describe this game in a word or two I would say that it is most entertaining!"
• Ingava didn't hate it all that much
• Game Revolution: "[A]lthough the game is nowhere near as good as it was promoted to be, ... it is not the worst game released this year. It is, however, stunningly outdated and mediocre."
• Maximum PC: "Four years for this?... It sucks. It sucks big-time. In fact, it sucks so bad, we have to wonder what kind of curious monstrosity the developers could have created with an eight-year product cycle.
• GameFan: "It's not as bad as you think."
• PCGamers.Net: "Final Score: 70 out of 100, and I'm disappointed. Sigh."
• GamePig: "Daikatana isn't a bad game, and was often fun to play. However, it's got several flaws that kept me from really enjoying it."

If you're at all curious about how the hell this happened, GameSpot has a great article called "Knee Deep in a Dream: The Story of Daikatana" that gives all the gorey details. They also have a complete walk-through, though the concept kinda makes me shudder...

--
Anonymous cowards are looking forward to the DVD letterboxed release of Ishtar

That was not the problem. As reported in MaximumPC and elsewhere, there was a hardware issue with GeForce, a 4X AGP card, and the IronGate chipset, which uses 2X AGP. The problem was solved by having the GeForce automatically step down to 1X rather than 2X, which was considered a problem by users.

According to the Feb 2000 issue, pages 80 and 81, in "Ask The Doctor" it is reported that running at 2x was causing system hangs, so the drivers setp the card down.

The presumption is that later boards with the KX133 chipset do not exhibit these issues.

A little while ago I found a interesting article at MaximumPC that involved the Corel/Interprise. The article explained that Corel faced the real chance of running out of money if the Interprise merger did not happen, interestingly it was considered a done deal that Interprise would agree to the merger (Corel propaganda?). Anyhow, the article said that Corel only had $29 million in cash and $19 million in losses- with the Interprise deal, Corel would of gained $198 million in cash. This could be very bad for Corel- but good or indifferent for Interprise. Here is the article.

A little while ago I found a interesting article at MaximumPC that involved the Corel/Interprise. The article explained that Corel faced the real chance of running out of money if the Interprise merger did not happen, interestingly it was considered a done deal that Interprise would agree to the merger (Corel propaganda?). Anyhow, the article said that Corel only had $29 million in cash and $19 million in losses- with the Interprise deal, Corel would of gained $198 million in cash. This could be very bad for Corel- but good or indifferent for Interprise. Here is the article.

There was a really nice article in Maximum PC, which is about building a linux box, which plays mp3s in your car. They tell you specifically what to get though, and they also put more thought into the logistics of it. It's $1500, but even without voice support, I feel its much better than this thing made by a Junior High Student - Network Admin (I've found that student network admins know nothing - they're just trying to get attention )

I *tried* to post about this before the frickin' comdex, which is when I found it back then, but it was rejected! As was my attempt to post This DIY car mp3 player about two or three weeks ago... WTF is up with that/ --DV "Linux is to BSD as Mac is to Windows"

Well I used to be a subscriber to PC Computing, but when they insisted the best video card was an S3 Virge based piece of crap compared to some Voodoo I decided they didn't know too much. They even still used the outdated ZD Benchmarks for rating video cards even though everyone on the net knew the drivers of video cards were tweaked for this task and therefore irrelevant. They repeated this error by promoting a Banshe when the TNTs were out. They never covered the K6 until years after it was out. No in depth stuff....

Then I was saved by Maximum PC, full of kick ass reviews by kick ass editors. They have also had cool white papers on technical topics. There is none higher when it comes to home computer magazines. All hail Maximum PC...


JOhn

Internet Fridge its a fridge with a built in 233 pentium and 32 megs a RAM and win 95. bet you could over clock that puppy like there is no tomorrow!! (depending on where the CPU is of course...)

"What!!!" you say?

Well look how much Macintosh's cost until recently. Historically they've been about $1000-$2000 more than a compairable PC.

Ok, look at Sun workstations. Less powerful than a PC, no 3d sound, high quality speakers, monitor, or software, and they can be 10x the price of a compairable Wintel machine.

DEC Alpha workstations, HP workstations, etc.

SGI are increadably more than Wintel machines. Now they have that new line based on Intel chips and run NT, and guess what: they are CHEAP! About 10x less than their MIPS versions.

Think I'm just full of crap? Then check out this link at Maxium PC (formally BOOT): Report Says 'Microsoft Study' was Flawed. Has better facts than my driveling.