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OK, now I feel guilty. And I've got 10 minutes before lunch.
A lot of the recent research on the Tunguska impact has come out of a university in Italy ... should be the most reliable source. Bologna university. Do they have a summary of "best evidence"? not that I can find.
"Closer to the site, windowpanes shattered, livestock were knocked off their feet and broken bones resulted when people were dashed to the ground."
"Yet, owing to the area's remoteness, only one nomad lost his life."
"Remarkably, there were only two reported human deaths." Oh, sorry, that's your link.

[SIGH] Pick a number, any number you want.

The Power PC port of WinNT wasn't for Macintoshes. It was for Motorola and IBM workstations and servers. I don't think it was possible to boot Windows NT on a Macintosh, if for no other reason than the Apple firmware didn't understand anything but the Apple partition structure.

I believe the Playstation 2 uses a 128-bit MIPS microprocessor. In fact, I know it .

Also, the Nintendo 64 uses a 64-bit MIPS microprocessor and co-processor.

So we're already a long way from 32-bit, Dorothy. It just goes to show you, it's not all that much different than Kansas after all.

The common misconception is that more bits equals better. While it can help to some extent, it really only gives you a few things depending on other architectural decisions. 1) Longer opcodes meaning more different opcodes (not necessarily an important thing; there are only so many ways you really need to add binary numbers). 2) More addressable memory space - which for consoles is a long way from the 4 gb a 32-bit processor affords you. 3) Higher native floating point arithmetic accuracy - most games probably don't need to know the significant digits beyond 32-bits of accuracy.

So there you have it. 32-bit, 64-bit, 128-bit, it's really not that big of a deal. "But, but.. the bits," you say? Well fine, don't believe me.

An excellent list of processors that have appeared in the past is at: http://www.microprocessor.sscc.ru/great/ This is a mirror of another location which no longer exists (as far as I know). The list was mirrored in 1998, so it doesn't cover more recent microprocessors, however it does a good job of covering processors from before 1998 (including a few very rarely listed processors).

The problem here is that the rock goes down and displaces water, which comes up. The potential energy of the falling rock is partially converted into kinetic energy of the water, which becomes a tsunami when it hits the surface. You are not going to get rid of this energy by fragmenting the rock. Some tsunamis appear to have been caused by mudslides, and it's hard to get any more fragmented than mud.

Alpha's actually were cheaper than the competing Workstations chips. The Alpha 21164 workstations cost a few thousand, just above high-end PC workstations and /below/ the likes of SGI's and Sun's workstations. DEC did try to commoditise the AXP, eg the 21064 based DEC Multia wasnt too expensive and aimed at the corporate desktop market.

Further, you cant really compare Alpha to SPARC, it was 32 bit! Even Sun's UltraSPARC workstations did not support userland 64bit support until Solaris 8. SGI did not have 64bit support till R10k, and even then many of their workstations (eg O2?) could not run 64bit and it took SGI a while to actually introduce 64bit ABI support in IRIX. The RS6k, well correct me if I'm wrong, but most RS6k's are 32bit PPC. HP PA-RISC was 64bit, but i've no idea what 64bit support was like in HP-UX (but then /who/ ever bought HP-UX workstations? :) )

Essentially, for a long time Alpha was the only game in town if you needed 64bit support, the only arch and, more to the point, operating systems with 64bit support (digital Unix and Linux) for quite a few years (93 to late 90s when other vendors started to get their OSes into shape).

As for speed, Alpha for a long time /demolished/ the competition on floating point. Go have a look at the SPECfp95 benchmarks. Titanic was rendered on a cluster of Alpha 21164s because Alpha was the fastest thing out there. The 21264 /really/ demolished the competition, but the 21264 was unfortunately far more expensive than the 21164 ever was.

Alpha's actually were cheaper than the competing Workstations chips. The Alpha 21164 workstations cost a few thousand, just above high-end PC workstations and /below/ the likes of SGI's and Sun's workstations. DEC did try to commoditise the AXP, eg the 21064 based DEC Multia wasnt too expensive and aimed at the corporate desktop market.

Further, you cant really compare Alpha to SPARC, it was 32 bit! Even Sun's UltraSPARC workstations did not support userland 64bit support until Solaris 8. SGI did not have 64bit support till R10k, and even then many of their workstations (eg O2?) could not run 64bit and it took SGI a while to actually introduce 64bit ABI support in IRIX. The RS6k, well correct me if I'm wrong, but most RS6k's are 32bit PPC. HP PA-RISC was 64bit, but i've no idea what 64bit support was like in HP-UX (but then /who/ ever bought HP-UX workstations? :) )

Essentially, for a long time Alpha was the only game in town if you needed 64bit support, the only arch and, more to the point, operating systems with 64bit support (digital Unix and Linux) for quite a few years (93 to late 90s when other vendors started to get their OSes into shape).

As for speed, Alpha for a long time /demolished/ the competition on floating point. Go have a look at the SPECfp95 benchmarks. Titanic was rendered on a cluster of Alpha 21164s because Alpha was the fastest thing out there. The 21264 /really/ demolished the competition, but the 21264 was unfortunately far more expensive than the 21164 ever was.

you're right mostly. The GP registers were 32bits; but the FP units
were 64 bits.

Frodo Baggins, the smallest elf, was just executed!

Unfortunately, the article was incorrect then. Frodo is a hobbit. Furthermore, he is far from the smallest hobbit.

However, he was executed. By two elves. By way of trampling.

Does that mean we can assume that ELF binaries run on Hobbits?

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I think 21264B is the beefed up version with 0.18 Micron. You should look at the specs: here, while 21264 is here. You can then compare it side by side.

OK.
NTFS sucks. Based on... benchmarks? research? security? anything?

The problem with Winnt, the files don't have ownership so anybody with any type of an account can modify them.

Like I already said, NT has file-level permissions, so that isn't true. And, not to reference the API you seem to hate, but here is proof that you can take ownership of objects (files and directories) in NT.

All OSes should have a command shell of some type, the more advanced the better, then later:If the actual OS is 5 megs, it'll be more useful then something that is 650 megs. So, advanced as possible, but also as small as possible... how does that work? One or the other, just like I tell marketing.

I like GUIs but they should never be integrated with the OS...

OK, but that's your opinion. Mac users would probably beg to differ, since they love that integration, and hate the CL. Nobody can really prove that GUI/OS integration is bad. It's really just an opinion.
(I should be able to boot directly to the command shell and be able to start the GUI as needed.)

You can, in Win2K. Ouch.

I don't like the WIN32 api, anything but that. If it was more like an advanced QT api, it would be great.

OK, so in what ways is the QT API better than WIN32? You don't say in your post, so should I assume you don't know? Is it the mysterious "Miscellaneous" classes that add all the value?

OSes must also have seperate configuration files for individual programs. No stupid registry where an accidental crash can lead to all of your configuration being destroyed instead of a few.

Although MS has provided the registry, it is developers that store information there. They could just as easily use .cfg files or .ini files or whatever. I agree that the registry causes problems, but it's not meant to be accessed manually, only programatically, and if more "Power Users" took that advice, it wouldn't crash so much. Also, you are free to use whatever config system you want in anything you write for Windows.

The OS should be limited to controlling basic physical[...]That is it.

Once again, says you. What makes an OS differs from person to person. The DOJ said IE is a part of Windows, where as most don't think a window manager is a part of LINUX. It all depends on where you draw the line. The NT microkernel contained on the NT rescue disk fits on a floppy, and contains enough OS to manipulate the filesystem. Most wouldn't call this a full OS, although some might. You need facts to back up why you think your opinions are true. Also, a filesystem and an OS are two different things. Keep that in mind.

If it does more then this, it is inflated with unnecessary features that slow the computer and boot time down.

Since when is boot time the only measure of a system's functionality. Ever watch an HP3000 or '9000 boot up? Takes ages. No-one calls them bloated, they know the machine is just doing its job, and live with the boot time.

Anyway, come with more facts in hand, and we can really talk.