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Another Transmeta Patent
Arrgh
sent us a link to a new Transmeta Patent
filed for what they describe as "Method and apparatus for correcting
errors in computer systems". That doesn't help much. Now
back to trying to figure out why connecting my cable to my
VCR makes my whole stereo humm. Why can't audio/video be as easy
as Linu- oh, wait...
Sounds like you have a ground loop. The same thing happened to me when I connected both my computer and cable tv to my stereo. Both were grounded (3-prong plug), thus the common ground in each of the connected components forms a loop through the stereo. You can get a ground isolator to fix the problem from Radio Shaft, or someplace similar.
I had a similar ground loop with my stereo equipment. Most of my equipment has 2-wire plugs, and so doesn't connect to the power-line ground. However, my TV (an Amiga 1084S monitor) has a 3-prong plug. This, plus the ground from the cable-TV, creates a loop and makes everything hum. Since I couldn't find a 75-75 ohm transformer, I just connected a 75-300 and 300-75 in series (these are available at any consumer-electronics store).
This fixed it for me.
Why not try plugging the VCR and the stereo into the same outlet? That cures a goodly percentage of ground loops hums.
;)
Oh - and if you've got a dimmable light on the same circut as the VCR, you might want to try moving it. Dimmers make grounds really ugly.
Failing all that, buy a better VCR!
I think that something inside the amp is not shielded properly, and the signal is leaking from one input to another. The Y-cable is just connecting all three things together. It doesn't know/care what's an input and what's an output. Could be that the Y-cable is doing a 2-input 1-output instead of 1-input 2-output - that'd make the computer speakers be speakers for the VCR (input 1) and the computer (input 2).
Wit? What Wit?
A pair of diodes?
Here is mine:
Security certification of a black box running some kind of OS (Linux?)
A box running an OS is deemed insecure if connected to an ethernet link.
Now, suppose you you have _two_ boxes (CPU's?) running in parallel: one which is connected to the net (A), and another one which is not (B). Suppose (B) is secure. With Transmeta's patent technology it might be possible to garantee that (A) is always in sync with (B), and thereby secure as well...
Now i know this scheme has many flaws, but get the idea.
It's late 'round here. I'm rambling. Sorry.
Here's my prediction for what they're developing: Bupkis. Face it, they've been at this for years now. And they have *NO PRODUCTS* to show for it. My guess is that the hi-tech market has passed and grown beyond whatever it was that Transmeta was originally going to sell and they're now basically a research lab. If it weren't for Paul (I became a billionaire by being pals with Bill Gates) Allen, they'd have been out of business already.
BTW,I happen to have met Bedicheck, Klaiber, and Keppel. They're all really smart and really nice.
Don't put a pair of diodes on a low-voltage signal line. Diodes consume power and will cause signal loss. Instead use a bipolar transistor which is connected to a power source so you won't have any signal loss, but functions as a diode in that it only lets the signal go one way. (voltage supplied to emitter, signal input to base, output from collector. Make sure the input voltage is greater than your maximum signal voltage or you'll get clipping. The other wire of the pair in the audio cable is of course the common ground - or should be; if it's not then you need to ground it and add some capacitors.)
Lift your VCR, is it heavy?? Most likely not. The reason??? It doesn't have a transformer in it. So what?? To make VCRs cheap for the masses they have been designed with cheap circuts that replace the transformer. I can't remember what it is called, but is does a sloppy job and make a 60Hz humm that most people will not notice unless you plug it into your nice expensive hifi system. The only solution is to get a VCR with a transformer in it, good luck!!
The grounding lug on an amplifier is usually there to improve radio reception, not to remove ground loops. In fact, if you have a "ground loop" problem it means that there is already a ground path between components (through the shield on audio and video cables). Adding an extra path might divert some of the current, but it won't address the fundamental cause of the problem.
If you have a huge network of interconnecting ground wires, your grounding problems are *not* gone, since any magnetic fields passing through these loops will induce currents in the wires, and these currents lead to potential differences which get amplified as audible hum (or sometimes a dark line on a TV, moving slowly down the screen). You are only allowed *one* path between the ground points of any two pieces of equipment. No loops. Hence the name.
You face a similar problem when laying out a circuit board for a high-current audio amplifier (which I just did today) - you are only allowed to define one point on the board as "true" ground, and you have to run separate traces from this point to each device terminal that needs a ground connection. If you don't follow this 'star ground' layout, the currents caused by one device will affect the voltage seen by other components, causing distortion or oscillation.
Once optically-isolated digital audio becomes standard, these problems will go away (wishful thinking...).
That wasn't Transmeta. That was Interval Research.
I'm posting this anonymously least TM decide to come after me for patent violation... but I have worked on a software Pentium model, and that is pretty much how we tested it. i.e. you run the application on a normal pentium and on the software model. After every instruction we would compare all of the CPU registers from the two. Since it was a software model we also knew any memory that was written to/read from and we would also check those for consistantly. During the design of emulator there were some instructions we didn't implement, so when the emulator hit them, we would copy the results from the Pentium after executing it and continue on. Sounds exactly like this patent.
:)
It seems like one of the few possible ways to test a CPU design, so I assume everyone making chip clones has followed a similar path in the past. This hardly seems like a "unobvious" approach. I doubt there are any published papers describing this because it is so obvious.
I best not say more...
This patent is hilarious, it should not have
been granted in the first place.
It seems that in the US, you really can patent
breathing, as well as the concept of thought.
Monster Cable worked really well for me, it isolated the ground loop. It was expensive, but it was worth it, the sound quality is much improved and they have a lifetime warranty to boot. Circuit City has 'em.
I'm also going to theorise that Transmeta's PC will be capable of true self-diagnistics and limited self-maintenance. But why would anyone bother? The only answer I can think of is they are going to drive their machine at close to the maximum speed the chips'll handle, where faults are more likely to occur.
Why would they want to have a seriously overclocked and overcooked computer? Because that gives them added differential from other computer manufacturers.
No, dimmers just simply feed a lot of trashy, pulse_width_modulated, square-wave interference signal back into the power line, where it then finds its way into any audio-frequency amplification circuits nearby, whether they are fed from the same power line or are just simply picking up that trashy EM that's radiated into the air from the dimmer and its power line.
ugh!
Part one of the patent reads:
1. Do the same job twice at the same time (and note that the patent doesn't specify that the same job must be done in two different ways);
2. check periodically that the job is proceeding the same;
3. If it isn't, then something's wrong.
You're really trying to tell me that this is an original idea, and there isn't a scrap of prior art out there? Patents protect original thinking, do they?
Nothing in this patent is new.
All of it is implemented in products already sold
or widely used and known.
The US patent registration is a joke.
The problem is that ground where the cable is conected outside your house is slightly different than the ground at your plug. This can be due to leakage from lrage transformers near the cable ground outside. I had the same problem. See if you can find a ground loop isolator for the cable line.
Netscape pulled the same stunt on me too, but on freshmeat.
Seems related to netscape 4.6, some bug they didn't get.
That's right, the best way is usually to disconnect the earth in all but one of the pieces of equipment, but make sure you keep them connected together (so they are still all earthed, but only at one point- it's because they're connected at more than one point that you're getting mains frequency feeback).
[...] each program will be roughly separated in a set of modules (libraries/classes), with for each module, several implementations running in parallel with also self-consistency checks for most of the code. [...]
It seems that one of my prophecies was fullfiled, see the text of the abstract of the patent:
Abstract:
A computer implemented process for detecting errors in computer systems including the steps of executing sequences of instructions of a software program on each of a reference system and a test system, detecting and recording state of the reference system and the test system at comparable points in the execution of the program,
Isn't is funny?
Almost certainly a ground loop. However, most consumer gear uses unbalanced interconnect cables and it can be quite a pain to figure out which combination of components need to be lifted.
In a previous life, I installed and debugged expensive commercial audio systems. In recording studios, churches, etc. a quiet system is critical, so you use balanced (differential) interconnects between devices - floating the shield on one end. This prevents ground currents from flowing, and actually increases the effectiveness of the electrostatic shielding.
If the gear is unbalanced, a good trick is to lift the ground pin on anything with a 3-wire plug. Then, using a "star" pattern, hard-wire the chassis of all units to a serious ground point with individual runs of #10-awg stranded wire. Crimp a lug on the chassis end and fasten using a reasonably-sized screw and star-washer.
Ideally, you want a so-called "technical" ground point which home-runs back to building cold-water entrance _independently_ of any power wiring. You may have to argue this point with the electrical inspector in some areas, but it's important.
Volumes have been written on proper grounding techniques but, like good software, a lot remains Voodoo and endless experimentation .
May you attain minimal levels of hum & noise.
Neural nets in hardware is OLD news. Lots of companies sell hardware with warying number of "neurons" and connections.
You're wrong:
RMS = GOD
Linus = Jesus
Bill = Devil
Doesn't make more sense???
Perhaps transmeta plans to dominate the world? Whats next, neural nets in hardware?
To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion. . .
- drom
Is your cable grounded? Is the sound a 60 Hz hum?
A surge protector will not ensure a good ground connection. The ground connection is ensured by making sure that the electrical outlets being used: 1) have a 3-pin configuration 2) have a ground wire connected to the center ground pin 3) the ground wire must be connected to ground, usually at the fuse/circuit breaker box.
Plugging a surge protector into an ungrounded connection will not solve the problem.
My guess is that the problem is actually caused by a ground loop from the cable connection. Try just connecting the center conductor of the cable to the VCR without screwing the connector on. The signal to the VCR should be fine, and if there is no hum, you have a starting point.
Good luck.
Anyone notice the date of filing on the patent? It's Feb. 28, 1997. 1997. This is not new technology. Imagine what these guys have come up since then. Another of their patents (US5832205: Memory controller for a microprocessor for detecting a failure of speculation on the physical nature of a component being addressed) was filed for in Aug. 1996. I'm now wondering how long most of these companies have had these technologies before they file for patent, or publicise in a press release.
... the third prong is there for a reason: it protects the user against potential should some sort of power supply failure (i.e. - mains wiring touching the chassis, etc.) occur.
Ground loops (and its attendent hum) are caused by the signal in question finding more than one path; usually through the mains ground or chassis (equipment in a metal rack, etc.) and the audio cable (signal path).
Two safe ways to alleviate this are:
1. Do as the previous poster suggests by breaking the signal ground on the audio cable. Signal will then travel through the mains ground.
2. If #1 doesn't fix the problem, do a 'star' ground arrangement: use a heavy cable (>10 AWG) to connect all equipment chassis to one central ground point. Break all signal grounds and ideally lift any mains ground - signal will have only one route (through the star ground) and any residual potential will be swamped by the star ground.
Simply lifting mains grounds as your 'pro audio' friend suggests achieves the desired result but is exceptionally dangerous and is too often employed by unwary studio 'techs'. I've seen a few injuries result from doing this in the 20+ years I've been working in recording studios. Play it safe and do it the right way!
~AC
So if Intel or Microsoft patents something, it's bad, but if Transmeta patents something, it's good?
"But Transmeta employs Linus and lets him work on the kernel!"
So Transmeta is good because it sponsors good work? Well, billgates donated 5 BILLION dollars to charity recently, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna pucker up and kiss his whip-scarred ass.
And I realize that SW patents != HW patents. And I recognize that companies may need to protect their interests... but: "Method and apparatus for correcting errors in computer systems"?
-No Name Specified
heh... I lived in a really old apartment house once. Someone had actually installed some 3-prong outlets but they weren't grounded properly. Funny thing, one day I started hearing voices in my room, and there was no one there, and the neighbors weren't home either. I thought I was going crazy until I realized that audio signals from someone's radio were intermittently migrating up the electrical ground and becoming audible on the speaker of my clock radio (even with the radio turned off). Weird.
The ground-loop solutions above -might- work, but you really outta wait for a Microsoft VCR or DVD Player. It won't make that 60 Hz hum, however it will have selectable tunes that it can hum, the ability to change the display color, and a nifty little assistant (who will actually get in the way rather than helping you set the clock). You will also have to replace all of your other AV gear for any level of compatibility, but look on the bright side, it'll look nice sitting next to that Microsoft cordless phone.
Audio is exactly as easy as Linux - at least it is for me, because I'm doing my audio with Linux... I can ssh to my stereo... :)
/me sings:
The speaker's connected to the amplifier
The amplifier's connected to the sound card
The sound card's connected to the 4*4x CD-ROM drive...
Hmm. Okay. I won't quit my day job.
ObTransmeta: This post has no tyops.
Wow... Sounds official. :-)
:-)
:-)
This almost makes Commander Taco seem psychic via the way he just happened to "mention" his VCR and stereo.
Okay, let's look over this, shall we?
Dependancy on high-bandwidth connections would not be likely; ISDN is too expensive, Cable Modems are not widely implemented yet, ADSL is even less-spread; And do you even know the cost of a T1, much less a T3? Transmeta would have to wait a LONG time. How long would their capital hold out under such circumstances? Even with the likes of Paul Allen filling their budget, the timescale that would call high-bandwidth connection for appliances would be a long time coming.
Also, Appliances do not require much in the way of instruction, being specialized as appliances are. This would also rule out emulation, as emulation allows a computer to support other platforms. (It's funny to think of a television emulating a fridge, although it would be a cool thing to have...
--
The Penguin Producer
Several good comments to read have been made.
At headquarters (not where I work) all the labs have a 2 inch my half copper bar running all the way around the lab. Battery cables (8 gauge or better (smaller)) is connected from that to every workstation. This assues a common ground and helps to avoid problems. As someone else mentioned, you can duplicate the same thing yourself)
Ground fault interupters (which in the US are required in bathrooms and kitchens. often called GFCI) do not protect look at the ground wire, if any current goes through the ground wire the GFCI should trip. I suspect that if you pluged the bad equipment into a GFCI it would trip.
Grounding is complex, electrical engineers can take senior level courses on grounds. Don't think that you will learn all you need to konw about them here.
Make sure all your grounds are tied togather, doing the best you can to be sure of the connection. Beware that wires can induce current into your ground (transformer work on this principal) just by running close to it.
If you leave the mains ground connected to your equipment, make sure your ground and the mains ground are tied togather. Don't trust a water pipe, use a real ground. Make sure if you try this that the connections on the mains ground is good everywhere.
If you have two different stakes in the ground, you can make a battery, which is short circuted when you connect the two togather. There are other problems, but in generally it isn't a bad thing to have two ground stakes.
That looks exactly on target to me. a great way to test emulation firmware or a just in time translator.
Well this completely fits with the previou patents and the theories spring from them that Transmeta is producing chips with a completely new instruction set, but will also emulate other hardware.
I also have an audio problem.
Here's my setup. I have a "Y" off the out on my computer, so I can hook it up to both my computer speakers and my amp. My VCR is also hooked up to the amp, and when the amp is off, and the VCR is on, I can hear the VCR through the computer speakers.
Any thoughts? I'm pretty sure it's related to the "Y" cable, except I can't think of another way of cheaply doing what I'm doing.
jamus
It is indeed.
The cable company has another ground potential than your electricity company.
Try a voltmeter between ground on cabel TV (outer conductor) and earth in your electricity outlet.
It will surely give you a reading.
There exists filter that is put on the cable between your VCR and cable TV connector in the wall.
I place to try to find such a device might be Radio Shack.
Good Luck.
Transmeta is NOT developing new computers! I predict that transmeta is developing "high tech appliances" like TV/VCR/Media/Stero/HomeAutomation systems. I guess they will be heavily dependant on a high bandwidth connection (thus they are not in a hurry they will take thier time and get it right, and be ready to OWN the market when broad bandwidth comes to home users).
It fits to me, all the high tech chip designers, OS guys, Media gurus. But, my prediction is the end users won't even see the OS, and the will not be marketed as "computers," but "high tech media appliances" insted.
I tried to tell Malda, but he won't listen.
Along with SP2 of MS VCR 2000 will come some new technology dubbed ALE (Appliance Linking and Embedding), which will let you embed an Audio CD object (among many other ALE-enabled appliances) into your VCR 2000 and control it from the VCR 2000's front panel. And viceversa: you'll be able to control your VCR 2000 from any ALE-enabled appliance in your home. So if you want to go to your fridge to get a pint and suddenly remember you have to start recording the Packers game that is going to start now, you can just embed a VCR 2000 object into your MS Refrigerator and start recording.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Never mind. Got rid of the BEos Central Section on the sidebar and my problems have disappeared. Looks like bad html is coming across and causing the Box to be much wider than usual cramping the space of the normal headlines. I think I'll just talk to myself now :) Thank you....
Brian Seppanen
Minister of Information and Propaganda
Area 54 The Secret Government Disco Labs Provo
Isolation transformers work wonders. They exist for cable in many forms. You can go from the coax to 300 ohm through those little impedance transformers flat and back again. No more direct connection or ground loop! They also add just another barrier from lightning hits.
The slashdot way of finding an electrical problem in house wiring might involve a voltmeter. In a grounded electrical plug, there are three terminals: hot, neutral, and ground. The hot is what you think it is, neutral is the middle phase of the 220 volts at the breaker box, and ground is the official safe, grounded into the earth, return for leakage from appliances, etc. The neutral is hooked to the ground at one point and nowhere else, usually at the breaker box. If neutral is tied to ground anywhere else, interesting things may happen, like getting shocked by touching the stove, AC hum in stereo, fire, etc.
Another thing to check for is loose wiring. Loose connections happen over the years and tend to get warm and melt things. Not too cool if you don't like fire. Realize that if you check and fix things yourself that electricity is energy. Energy has lots of potential, like inducing seizure like dances, fire, death, etc. If you don't know what you are doing, you might learn the hard way and your family will have always known that it would do you in. They warned you.
Yes, I have heard great things about the Clock Wizard, that helps you install a licenced copy of Time 12.00. Of course, it is leased, and will require you to install an upgrade of Time at a later date.
The VCR-X feature you can get at Shortcircuit City. Only VCRs with MS-VCR-X can play MS-VCR-X movies. No rental fees or late charges! Just hook up your VCR-X up to the phone line right to Mr. Gatus home network of intrigue. Plug into MS-VCR-X today!
The problem is called ground loop. Basically the ground of your cable system and the ground of the electrical circuit you are on are at different levels.. this results in a slight voltage potential at the audio inputs of the reciever, since household current in the us is 60hz, the sound you here is a 60hz hum. The different grounds are the cable which is earth ground (you should see a wire going into the dirt attached to a cable splitter somewhere), and the electric co's own ground). One way to eliminate this hum is to cut the ground of the cable and just have the inside copper make contact. However don't blame me if something blows up =). The second way is to find a 75-75 ohm transformer.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
But, note. No ground prong. Typically, in that sort of layout, the strings and most of the metal stuff in the guitar are connected to ground to reduce stray hum from lamps, fans, nearby transformers, &c, but since the amp wasn't grounded, it hummed something fierce if I got near anything electric. The director's solution: "Stand far away from electrical things."
But worse than that, somewhere inside the amp there was a leak from the power rail to the signal ground so if I stood on the ground, I got shocked by the amplifier. The director's solution: "Sit on this wooden stool."
And then there was a concert where they put a microphone directly in front of the amp, and I got lots of pretty blue arcs when I accidentally bumped the grounded mic chassis with the tuning heads on the guitar. The director's solution: "Yeah, so?"
The moral of the story: Don't go cutting ground lines unless you really, really, really know what you're doing. The results can be painful, injurious, deadly, or any combination of all 3.
However, that doesn't mean the VBI (vertical blanking interval) would be inaudible; just that it would be low in level and have strange tonal characteristics atypical of 60 cycle sine-wave hum due to EMI/ground loop troubles.
Because of impedance mis-matches between the audio and video lines, there would probably be some severe issues with signal amplitude, too.
But now I'm curious to try it, just to see what NTSC sounds like. Buggardly Slashdot!
Rob was eaten by a bear.
What they're talking about is realizing that they've taken the wrong branch in a set of code (INTERPRETED MICROCODE!), (probably) generating some kind of exception, and replaying the code back for the correct branch(es).
;o)
If my pet theory is right that TM's processor will be a virtual machine, they might have just gotten a big patent edge with the whole branch-prediction side of pipelined/fetchahead execution of microcode tokens.
I don't really know crap about processor design outside of Tannenbaum's example CPU in one of my school textbooks, but it's a theory.
--- The reclining dragon deeply fears the blue pool's clarity.
It's really hard to look at the top of one's head in the mirror, but the last I checked, I wasn't balding. Maybe if I moved my awkwardly long hair to one side.
Why is it that they must always take me for some puttering old fool?
the amazing bc
just another guy doing IT
webnaut, music junkie, holes-in-head
sounds like I've been patented by Transmeta again... may as well just hand them over brain, spinal cord, arms and fingers and get it over with. Sounds like they are trying to patent the average troubleshooting IS guy. *grin*
the amazing bc
just another guy doing IT
webnaut, music junkie, holes-in-head
So... I have a hunch that CT plugged it in wrong, and the post was a sort of inside joke.
Then again, maybe not.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
-Possum Lodge Motto
I've always lived in pre-1940 houses and
rarely have grounded outlets
maybe this could be turned into a poll question
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
That's actually a fairly accurate description of the chip in question--at least AFAIK. The most promising feature of this chip may be the ability to emulate various architectures at speeds comparable to hard-wired versions of the same. John Dvorak of PC Magazine has this to say about Transmeta's "Neon" chip. From the article it's not really clear if the chip is also low-power, but there's no doubt that Transmeta's working on the low-power angle as well. Since the rumors state that the chip will operate using microcode as a basis, I'm assuming it'll be almost completely programmable--though it's beyond me as to whether or not the chip will be directly programmable by users. If it is, it'll be a fun toy. :)
And just for a little levity here, you can find more non-information on the Transmeta home page. View the source for some nonexistent hidden messages.
-W-
-W-
Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'
Just from the abstract, it looks like a generalization of the idea of regression testing. My (shoot from the hip) guess is that the needed this to check the logic of their new processor in simulation, to verify that each iteration of the design result in a functional system, and if it didn't to pinpoint the place where it started going wrong.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
There are ~$10 RCA to RCA audio ground-loop isolators available from the er... crack shack ;-)
:). They're basically audio-isolation transformers in the middle of an RCA patch cable.
Seriously... they work wonders (all my components are isolated this way, long story
These will kill 90%+ of the 60/50Hz hum present in audio equiment "chains" of devices... (ex: LaserDisc player to VCR to TV...).
-Phyxis
About that stereo problem you mentioned, it sounds like the common effect known as the 60 cycle hum. The US electrical system runs on a 60 Hertz cycle (iirc) and that cycle is sometimes picked up by stereo equipment and broadcast thru the speakers. Theatres usually have a problem with this. The easiest solution for you would be to make sure that your stereo is grounded by using a good surge protector. Most surge protectors now come with a grounded indicator light that should help you debug this problem and they are a good idea for any major electrical equipment you'd like to have around for a while. :-)
--
"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us."
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
"Rob is on leave from Transmeta Corp." it says on his homepage.
Inventor(s):
Klaiber; Alex , Menlo Park, CA
Bedichek; Robert , Palo Alto, CA
Keppel; David , Palo Alto, CA
"The PPCArch simulators are based on a type of simulator originally developed for the Motorola M88K RISC microprocessor by Robert Bedichek for Tektronix [Bedichek, R. Some efficient architecture simulation techniques. In Proceedings of USENIX, Winter 1990.]. Bedichek developed a style of threaded code simulator that used a unique C language and assembly-code macro function to emulate each instruction in the 88100. He was able to decode an instruction once and use the decoded form many times, depending on locality of code reference and size of simulated nstruction cache. He was also able to simulate the 88K virtual machine sufficiently to boot Unix on the simulator. The performance of this simulator was also very impressive: an average of 130,000 instructions per second when hosted on a 2.5MIPS 68020 Tektronix workstation."
--Communications of the ACM, June 1994 v37 n6 p64(6)
An overview of Motorola's PowerPC simulator family. (The Making of the PowerPC) (Cover Story) William Anderson.
I know this has nothing to do with the subject. But there are a couple reasons why your VCR might be interfereing with your stereo.
One is that your VCR emitts alot of background "noise," to solve this you could either buy audio cable with more shielding or move the stereo unit away from the VCR.
Another reason may be if it is a 60 Hz it might be your audio cable grounding (one of the hot wires are touching ground), and that would require new audio cable.
Let us all try to help Rob with his vcr/stereo troubles...
010110000010110101010100011110010111000001100101
From Claim 1:
a reference system different than the test system;
Have a look through the Background of the Invention and Summary of the Invention for a more verbose description of differences between what's been patented and prior-art. USPTO has full-text available.
--The more you know, the less you know.
Actually, the easiest way would be to head down to Radio Shack and buy a ground loop isolator. I got mine for my car computer and it cost me $10. Since then, all the buzzing went away and the music sounds great!
-Riskable
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"
I got the impression this was hardware-level... I.E. compare a reference chip (such as a P3) with a test chip (theirs for example)...
Some of the phrasing is interesting though... They talk about "selectable comparable points". That would indicate that the execution of code/code being executed is not identical on both systems, but is intended to have the same *result* on both systems.
-JF
BrainPower - "Jobs for Smart People"
http://www.brainpower.com
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
Ok thanks for the answer.
What's the question agains????
;)
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
lol
and for the few who still don't get it, the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42!
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Don't you mean ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha.
"They pointed to the clause in the ticket contract that said the entities whose lifespans had originated in any of the Plural zones were advised not to travel in hyperspace and did so at thier own risk"
For more information please refer to the message on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountians in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn, third out from the sun Zarss in Galactic Sector QQ7 ActiveJ Gamma.
p.s. If you don't get it, you need to read more books.
Although this has nothing to do with Transmeta...
/. way *grin*.
First thing to do is make sure that your house's wiring is good. This could be a symptom of a more serious problem (like having no ground connection in your house) that could result in nasty stuff like electrocution or a fire. You could get an electrician to check everything, but that wouldn't be the
Somewhere around your house, you may find a metal stake driven into the ground with a wire attached, or an attachment to a cold water pipe. Make sure all the connections are good. If the house is old, you may want to test each ground circuit individually to make sure it's connected to the (actual) ground. Really old houses use two-prong plugs instead of three-prong, because one of the two prongs does double-duty as ground. (To figure out which is ground, stick something metal in it--no pain means ground *grin*).
If everything above is good, try grounding the outside shielding of your cable by attaching it in some manner to your electrical system's ground. Don't just remove or disconnect the outer shielding--it acts as a capacitor, and doing so will alter the signal-carrying abilities of your cable.
Why can't audio/video be as easy as Linu- oh, wait...
Linux may be many things, but my experience has been that "easy" is not one of them.
Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
research.ibm.com/vliw if i recall correctly, transmetas working and has patents on VLIW.
A ground loop happens, as you say, when there is more than one path to ground. What you miss is the fact that if you lift one of those paths, there is still a path to ground. Granted... I wouldn't want 15A to ground through a thin RCA cable, but in a live audio situation (what I do), I usually have on the order of 24 XLR cables (a snake) running from my mixer. There's a lot of shield (ground) on that snake. I'm not too worried about lifting the ground on my FOH gear if it fixes the hum. Of course, getting all power from a common distro is a better solution, and leaves everything grounded through the 'proper' channels.
ttyl
srw
Run a small wire from each component to that nice little ground lug on the amplifier... It's there for a reason... remove the ground loop by making everything's case to each other (I.E. a screw on the VCR to the amp, to the cd player, to the Mp3 player, to the PIII-9904mhz 689Meg ram and 9000X dvd-rom player, and to the automatic toilet flusher... Voila all grouning problems gone :-)
Gawd, everyone posted something really wrong on this subject -- Learn your electronics people!
ahah, the emulation, that's what I knew I was lacking. I beleve that's where I read it, regardless, a cheap CPU that can emulate others, run low power, and programmable (see my re-flash analogy) would be a blessing. Pile Linux on top (Linus, Transmeta, Linux, connection perhaps?) and I'm sure it'll knock the existing semiconductor industry on it's cache. ;) Of course, it could also employ fun new techniques, like Gallium Arsenide fabrication, copper, Sperical fabrication... or maybe it's a quantum-processing "coffee cup". Then again, it could just be another new-fangled refrigerator decoration.
I disagree and hold myself in contempt, what blashphemy!
Long long ago, I beleve this time last year. I had heard, in Wired magazine, or was it PC Computing.. One of those magazines geeks love so much. I had heard that Transmeta was working on a new CPU, if I recall the article correctly, it was x86, RISC (I think), low power, and was.. programmable.. I'm not sure that has rammafications to "downloading" a new CPU, like re-flashing your BIOS. I think however, it was meant that it's not programmable in the sense of a typical CPU.. but soft-wired, where the whole architechture can be burnt like junctions are blown for an EPROM. But, it'd be cool. I heard that it was named Neon. But then again, who really knows what Transmeta's up to. Correct me if I'm wrong
I disagree and hold myself in contempt, what blashphemy!
> Don't you mean ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
I didn't have my Guide handy, so I tried to use the first half and not the second -- because we've already got a chip named the 'Alpha'...
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
Sounds like a way to test hardware emulators. You rack up your Pentium II (running Linux) next to your Transmeta ZZ-Plural (running Linux), plug this thing into both of them and wait for a mismatch. The auto-replay stuff mentioned near the end sounds like a means to determine if the error was transient (bit rot) in either machine, by re-running recent history. If the mismatch occurs again, I'd imagine you log it for the engineers to look at and start up a different test run.
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
Go out and grab an APC SurgeArrest Personal (PER-7T).
As well as having Ground Fault checking, it CONDITIONS the line, which seems to get rid of most hum. (It works for my church's sound system anyway. It even gets rid of the hum from the outdoor flourescent sign attached to the sound system electrical panel)
The Keeper
The patent itself doesn't really say much. Judging by the first (primary) claim listed on the patent summary site, it still needs a program-specific "control mechanism" in order to find errors. Sounds like a rehash of error detection/ameobic variability programs we've seen before.
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It's not a charity he founded. It's a charity organisation ihs father founded.
Stuff like that pisses me off, cause you obviously know NOTHING solid and are just spreading crap hoping that noone here will notice cause everyone here knows
Linus==GOD
Bill==Devil.
Like hell, Linus is arrogant and ignorant compared to gates. Running around yelling windows sucks, and yet claims to never use windows.