I think the idea that Virginia is the "Internet Capital" is way biased by the fact that there's this company called America Online that is based in Vienna, VA--by far the largest user base of Internet users from a single ISP on the 'Net.
There's only one thing though: AOL wouldn't have made it big if it weren't for companies based in Silicon Valley called 3Com, Cisco Systems and Netscape. Remember, Cisco provides the vast majority of the router hardware for Internet connections, and without Netscape, the Internet revolution would have taken a big longer to get going.
If you know how to properly implement server clustering, you can run quite large web sites with Linux that uses the 2.2.x kernel.
Fortunately, high-end server hardware are coming down in price, and a small "wall" of Dell PowerEdge servers running S.u.S.E. or Red Hat Linux with server clustering can even handle the front-end access to eBay. The nice thing is that by using a whole roomful of smaller servers, you can have server mirroring and other advantages of running many servers in parallel, so if one server goes down, shut down offending unit, replace with identical unit, and have the clustering software run an automatic rebuild process so we don't skip a beat! (^_^)
John C. Dvorak is notorious for making provocative statements for many years. I've been reading his columns in PC Magazine and PC Computing magazine, plus his columns on ZD News Network for years, and believe me, he stirs up controversy frequently. I think he was the one who denounced the Apple iBook--boy, did it start a riot and then some!
From what I've read about the PlayStation 2 platform, it appears that Sony is attempting technologies that is just as complex as nVidia is doing with GeForce 256, but they're trying to do it with 0.18-micron etching process!
This makes the manufacturing complexity on the same level as Intel's new "Coppermine" Pentium III CPU's and the Athlon 0.18-micron versions; Intel has run into serious production problems with getting decent yields, while we don't know how fast AMD will get their 0.18-micron Athlon CPU's into production.
This complexity of the "Emotion Engine"--not to mention the support of Rambus memory--will mean that I will not expect PlayStation 2 to ship until at least February 2000 in Japan and very likely November 2000 in the USA.
This is where Nintendo's "Dolphin" project may have an advantage. Unlike Sony's project, the Dolphin machine will try to use as much available technology as possible, including the very smart decision to incorporate a PowerPC processor and the use of a DVD-ROM drive from Matsushita Electric. The only thing that Dolphin needs developed is the ArtX graphics processor, which I believe is almost done. I will not be surprised if Nintendo can have the machine shown in prototype form at Winter CES in January 2000 and have the machine shipping worldwide by the fall Tokyo Game Show in September 2000.
Looking at the specifications of the SunRay terminal, I think the unit will primarily be used on systems that doesn't require complicated user interaction, things such as Point of Sale (POS) terminals.
Unfortunately, today's desktop requirements are MUCH more sophisticated than that! They need quality word processing and spreadsheet functions, not to mention surprisingly sophisticated e-mail front ends. If you try to run such apps for the SunRay, you'd better hope you have a powerful AND fast server and also everyone is connected on 100BaseT Ethernet cabling.
Given that Larry Ellison of Oracle has even soured on the concepts behind SunRay, I don't think it'll be a big success outside of the POS terminal niche market.
What hastened the death of the "old online world" was the fact that from 1990 to 1995, the pieces for easy Internet access from home started to come together.
In that period, we started to see Winsock applications (remember Trumpet Winsock for Windows 3.1x?), which gave Windows machines the ability to access the 'Net. A similar thing was also happening on the Macintosh side, also.
But two things REALLY kicked off the arrival of home access to the 'Net: the first was the arrival of a graphical World Wide Web browser, the second was the arrival of Windows 95 with its easy-to-configure Dial-Up Networking with full SLIP/PPP protocol support.
Once Internet access because far easier to do, the days of the proprietary online services and local BBS systems were pretty much over. The only reason why America Online has survived is through sheer willpower and their decision to have close links to the 'Net.
** Let's also not forget where USB was a year and a half ago, pre iMac. There was Intel pushing it like a bulldozer, and yet there were hardly any peripherals. Along comes the iMac, and peripherals start flying out of the woodwork (even if they are in bad-rip-off-turquiose). **
Remember, USB connector ports started showing up on motherboards as far back as 1996!! It wasn't until Windows 98 arrived in June 1998 that we finally got true Plug and Play support for USB, which really kicked off the market for USB peripherals. People forget this was more important in getting USB more popular than the iMac, which shipped a few months after Windows 98 shipped.
But USB didn't take off until mid 1998
on
Is firewire dying?
·
· Score: 1
The thing that held back support for USB was the fact that until June 1998, no operating system really supported USB devices in true "plug and play" mode.
It wasn't until Windows 98 shipped in June 1998 and the iMac shipped in August 1998 that there was major software support for USB devices. Since then, there has been many USB devices shipping, primarily keyboards, mouse pointers, scanners, digital cameras, and a few other items. USB is now very important: even Linus Torvalds said that the Version 2.4.x kernel for Linux will sport USB device support.
I had known for some time that Prodigy Classic was to be discontinued, but its ending truly is something that will be mourned by long-time online users like me. (sniff)
I still remember getting Prodigy in October 1989 (the San Francisco Bay Area was one of the first release sites). For me, it was truly a revolution--I was able talk with people sometimes thousands of miles away, exchanging ideas. Prodigy--despite what a lot of people think--was a major breakthrough in online communications, because it was all menu-driven and easy to use.
What is interesting is that Prodigy's concepts probably influenced the development of America Online (I'm sure people here remember the first versions for the Macintosh and the Geoworks for PC circa 1990). And it may have played a role in developing the World Wide Web--I can hazard a guess that one Marc Andressen (of Mosaic/Netscape fame) may have looked at the basic tenants of Prodigy when he developed the Mosaic browser for the World Wide Web while at the University of Illinois.
Yes, we all know Prodigy's limitations, but its influence on getting home computer users online is immense. In fact, I'd say even more so than The Source or CompuServe, since before 1989 CompuServe was a text-based online service, almost as hard to use as text-based Internet access in those days.
A true pioneer is gone. But then, we've come a LONG, LONG way for the online experience since 1989.
I think Unisys trying to enforce the patent on the.GIF format is a classic case of "closing the barn door AFTER the horse has left."
The majority of web pages I see on the Web are mostly using JPEG graphics files, with more and more pages using the new Portable Network Graphics (.PNG) format. There's a good reason for this:.GIF files tend to download slower than JPEG and PNG files, even on xDSL, cable modem and T1/T3 'Net connections.
I believe that the current versions of Netscape Communicator (4.61) and Internet Explorer (5.0) has.PNG support built in anyway. I'm not sure if the current release of Opera supports.PNG files, though.
The only concern I would have with reports like this is that it gives the Federal Government all the incentive it wants to start taxing Internet access in a BIG way so it can fund computers for economically-depressed areas. I don't think that would be a good idea, because that would instantly kill off the Internet (imagine having to pay 2 to 3 cents per minute access charges in addition to your $15-$20 per month ISP access rate).
A better incentive is for tax breaks for any company that is involved with creating Internet access for economically-depressed areas.
By the way, one of the big problems of Internet access in rural areas, namely the lack of high-speed access (and the costs involved in overcoming that) will be cured when the Teledesic system of satellites becomes operational in 2003. That way, you can get 1 Mbps access via satellite anywhere in the world, including places that it'll be unlikely you'll get a cable modem, xDSL or T-1/T-3 line set up.
Given that the "Coppermine" PIII will have 256K CPU-speed cache, I expect performance to be a bit higher than the current "Katmai" core PIII's. That plus PC133 SDRAM/Rambus RDRAM support will result in quite a bit higher performance.
It'll be VERY interesting to see how long before VIA, SiS or Acer Labs delivers the Athlon motherboard chipsets that will support PC133 SDRAM, Rambus RDRAM, ATA66 and AGP 4X. I expect the first motherboards with these new chipsets to be available by late this year or early 2000.
An Athlon system with PC133/RDRAM, ATA66 and AGP 4X will be lightning-fast, that's to be sure!
I think you folks are not realizing this fact: the Intel 440BX chipset is a VERY old design by 1999 standards. After all, we saw it first way back in April 1998 on the original Intel SE440BX motherboard, which is a LONG time ago given the pace motherboard technology advances?
You are forgetting that Intel is about to release the new "Vancouver" (VC820) motherboard with the i820 "Camino" chipset. The VC820 motherboard will sport things such as support for the "Coppermine" PIII CPU (with 256 KB of CPU-speed L2 cache), AGP 4X support, the final elimination of ISA slots and most importantly, support for both PC133 and Rambus RDRAM DIMM's.
The latest I've heard is that the VC820 motherboard will be released on September 23, 1999; this means by Christmas, most high-end systems will be using this motherboard or equivalents from other motherboard manufacturers.
It was obvious from the start that the Intel i740 chipset was no match for the chipsets from nVidia (TNT, TNT2, Ultra TNT2), Matrox (G200, G400 and G400 MAX), S3 (Savage4 and Savage4 Extreme), and ATI (Rage Pro and Rage 128).
The newest of the non-Intel graphics chipsets I mentioned can do AGP 4X, 32-bit graphics acceleration, and so on. Given that type of competition, no wonder Intel threw in the towel.
After reading several reviews of the AMD Athlon 600/650 MHz CPU, AMD has cured the problem of the poor FPU unit that plagued the K6 series and then some! (^_^)
The new pipelined FPU which can process THREE MMX, 3DNow!, and FP instructions per CPU cycle will make the Athlon THE CPU of choice for anyone who has to run any program that requires serious FPU performance, things like high-end games, CAD programs, photo-editing programs and illustration programs.
In short, AMD has left Intel in the dust with the Athlon's awesome FPU unit. When AMD starts to produce Athlon variants with full-speed L2 cache with 1, 2, 4 and 8 MB of cache RAM, very likely PC133 and RDRAM support, and SMP support, it'll make even the Pentium III variants based on the "Coppermine" technology obselete.
I am SO glad that so many people positively responded to the mention of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Yes, the troupe was heavily influenced by the The Goon Show and Ernie Kovacs (plus a number of shows I don't remember offhand), but what did result is (IMHO) the most effective display of comedy on television I've EVER seen. I really think that that the Python troupe had to be extremely intelligent in order to parody everything British, just like the fact the more you think about it, the more you know that the original contributors to MAD magazine had to be quite intelligent to effectively parody everything American from the middle 1950's on.
The Python genius showed right from the start with one of the earliest "sketches," the famous "Killer Joke." The version we saw on TV was unbelievably funny and SO much more intelligently-developed than any American comedy of its day--let alone today! The first time I saw it in 1975, I nearly fell off my chair laughing out very loud! (^_^)
One thing in all this arguement about SDMI versus MP3 has missed is this: SDMI data compression will most likely benefit from knowledge of how to do better digital compression of high-fidelity audio gained in the years since MP3 was released.
In short, it's very possible that SDMI-encoded files will offer superior sound quality AND will require less disk storage than MP3 files. That plus the fact every record company is behind the technology means that SDMI will make fairly substantial inroads in the online music market, whether we like it or not.
If Lucasfilm's policy of no advance sales except for the day of showing only for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is true, I think I will have to avoid the movie theatres for the three weeks after May 19, 1999.:-/
I can just see the nightmare traffic jams at all the major theatre multiplexes in this period. Not to mention $120 million in box office receipts by the end of May 23, 1999.
You might want to check out www.zdnet.com/zdnn/ right now.
There is a long article there about rumors that Microsoft is right now porting Microsoft Office to Linux. If the rumors are true, then you might as well kiss StarOffice and WordPerfect goodbye, since much of the corporate documents created nowadays are in MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint format.
The more frightening possibility is that Microsoft might be seriously considering turning their ActiveX and DirectX technologies into Open Source programming code; that has considerable implications since it could slow the acceptance of Java and could allow games under Linux to take advantage of the current gaming hardware out there easily.
I've heard of "co-opting the revolution," but this is ridiculous.
I'm still supporting Intel for this reason: AMD's floating point unit (FPU) in their K6-2 and K6-III CPU's still suck like a vacuum cleaner.:-(
Remember, the K6 series CPU's process one FPU instruction per clock cycle, unlike the Intel CPU's, which can process multiple FPU instructions per clock cycle. That's the reason why in most modern games (Quake II, Incoming, Unreal, etc.) the Celeron 333 to 400 MHz CPU's are more than fast enough to run these games well. AMD needs to correct this problem with the K7 CPU--if the K7 can process multiple FPU instructions per clock cycle, THEN AMD has eliminated the last bottleneck that has hampered acceptance of their CPU's for high-end applications.
Slashdot Mirror
It's lawsuits like that make people even like the legal profession even LESS. :-/
I think this case will be tossed out as a frivious lawsuit. Those lawyers need to heed the words of William Shatner and "get a life."
I think the idea that Virginia is the "Internet Capital" is way biased by the fact that there's this company called America Online that is based in Vienna, VA--by far the largest user base of Internet users from a single ISP on the 'Net.
There's only one thing though: AOL wouldn't have made it big if it weren't for companies based in Silicon Valley called 3Com, Cisco Systems and Netscape. Remember, Cisco provides the vast majority of the router hardware for Internet connections, and without Netscape, the Internet revolution would have taken a big longer to get going.
If you know how to properly implement server clustering, you can run quite large web sites with Linux that uses the 2.2.x kernel.
Fortunately, high-end server hardware are coming down in price, and a small "wall" of Dell PowerEdge servers running S.u.S.E. or Red Hat Linux with server clustering can even handle the front-end access to eBay. The nice thing is that by using a whole roomful of smaller servers, you can have server mirroring and other advantages of running many servers in parallel, so if one server goes down, shut down offending unit, replace with identical unit, and have the clustering software run an automatic rebuild process so we don't skip a beat! (^_^)
Folks,
John C. Dvorak is notorious for making provocative statements for many years. I've been reading his columns in PC Magazine and PC Computing magazine, plus his columns on ZD News Network for years, and believe me, he stirs up controversy frequently. I think he was the one who denounced the Apple iBook--boy, did it start a riot and then some!
From what I've read about the PlayStation 2 platform, it appears that Sony is attempting technologies that is just as complex as nVidia is doing with GeForce 256, but they're trying to do it with 0.18-micron etching process!
This makes the manufacturing complexity on the same level as Intel's new "Coppermine" Pentium III CPU's and the Athlon 0.18-micron versions; Intel has run into serious production problems with getting decent yields, while we don't know how fast AMD will get their 0.18-micron Athlon CPU's into production.
This complexity of the "Emotion Engine"--not to mention the support of Rambus memory--will mean that I will not expect PlayStation 2 to ship until at least February 2000 in Japan and very likely November 2000 in the USA.
This is where Nintendo's "Dolphin" project may have an advantage. Unlike Sony's project, the Dolphin machine will try to use as much available technology as possible, including the very smart decision to incorporate a PowerPC processor and the use of a DVD-ROM drive from Matsushita Electric. The only thing that Dolphin needs developed is the ArtX graphics processor, which I believe is almost done. I will not be surprised if Nintendo can have the machine shown in prototype form at Winter CES in January 2000 and have the machine shipping worldwide by the fall Tokyo Game Show in September 2000.
Looking at the specifications of the SunRay terminal, I think the unit will primarily be used on systems that doesn't require complicated user interaction, things such as Point of Sale (POS) terminals.
Unfortunately, today's desktop requirements are MUCH more sophisticated than that! They need quality word processing and spreadsheet functions, not to mention surprisingly sophisticated e-mail front ends. If you try to run such apps for the SunRay, you'd better hope you have a powerful AND fast server and also everyone is connected on 100BaseT Ethernet cabling.
Given that Larry Ellison of Oracle has even soured on the concepts behind SunRay, I don't think it'll be a big success outside of the POS terminal niche market.
What hastened the death of the "old online world" was the fact that from 1990 to 1995, the pieces for easy Internet access from home started to come together.
In that period, we started to see Winsock applications (remember Trumpet Winsock for Windows 3.1x?), which gave Windows machines the ability to access the 'Net. A similar thing was also happening on the Macintosh side, also.
But two things REALLY kicked off the arrival of home access to the 'Net: the first was the arrival of a graphical World Wide Web browser, the second was the arrival of Windows 95 with its easy-to-configure Dial-Up Networking with full SLIP/PPP protocol support.
Once Internet access because far easier to do, the days of the proprietary online services and local BBS systems were pretty much over. The only reason why America Online has survived is through sheer willpower and their decision to have close links to the 'Net.
Leeke wrote:
** Let's also not forget where USB was a year and a half ago, pre iMac. There was Intel pushing it like a bulldozer, and yet there were hardly any peripherals. Along comes the iMac, and peripherals start flying out of the woodwork (even if they are in bad-rip-off-turquiose). **
Remember, USB connector ports started showing up on motherboards as far back as 1996!! It wasn't until Windows 98 arrived in June 1998 that we finally got true Plug and Play support for USB, which really kicked off the market for USB peripherals. People forget this was more important in getting USB more popular than the iMac, which shipped a few months after Windows 98 shipped.
The thing that held back support for USB was the fact that until June 1998, no operating system really supported USB devices in true "plug and play" mode.
It wasn't until Windows 98 shipped in June 1998 and the iMac shipped in August 1998 that there was major software support for USB devices. Since then, there has been many USB devices shipping, primarily keyboards, mouse pointers, scanners, digital cameras, and a few other items. USB is now very important: even Linus Torvalds said that the Version 2.4.x kernel for Linux will sport USB device support.
I had known for some time that Prodigy Classic was to be discontinued, but its ending truly is something that will be mourned by long-time online users like me. (sniff)
I still remember getting Prodigy in October 1989 (the San Francisco Bay Area was one of the first release sites). For me, it was truly a revolution--I was able talk with people sometimes thousands of miles away, exchanging ideas. Prodigy--despite what a lot of people think--was a major breakthrough in online communications, because it was all menu-driven and easy to use.
What is interesting is that Prodigy's concepts probably influenced the development of America Online (I'm sure people here remember the first versions for the Macintosh and the Geoworks for PC circa 1990). And it may have played a role in developing the World Wide Web--I can hazard a guess that one Marc Andressen (of Mosaic/Netscape fame) may have looked at the basic tenants of Prodigy when he developed the Mosaic browser for the World Wide Web while at the University of Illinois.
Yes, we all know Prodigy's limitations, but its influence on getting home computer users online is immense. In fact, I'd say even more so than The Source or CompuServe, since before 1989 CompuServe was a text-based online service, almost as hard to use as text-based Internet access in those days.
A true pioneer is gone. But then, we've come a LONG, LONG way for the online experience since 1989.
I think Unisys trying to enforce the patent on the .GIF format is a classic case of "closing the barn door AFTER the horse has left."
.GIF files tend to download slower than JPEG and PNG files, even on xDSL, cable modem and T1/T3 'Net connections.
.PNG support built in anyway. I'm not sure if the current release of Opera supports .PNG files, though.
The majority of web pages I see on the Web are mostly using JPEG graphics files, with more and more pages using the new Portable Network Graphics (.PNG) format. There's a good reason for this:
I believe that the current versions of Netscape Communicator (4.61) and Internet Explorer (5.0) has
The only concern I would have with reports like this is that it gives the Federal Government all the incentive it wants to start taxing Internet access in a BIG way so it can fund computers for economically-depressed areas. I don't think that would be a good idea, because that would instantly kill off the Internet (imagine having to pay 2 to 3 cents per minute access charges in addition to your $15-$20 per month ISP access rate).
A better incentive is for tax breaks for any company that is involved with creating Internet access for economically-depressed areas.
By the way, one of the big problems of Internet access in rural areas, namely the lack of high-speed access (and the costs involved in overcoming that) will be cured when the Teledesic system of satellites becomes operational in 2003. That way, you can get 1 Mbps access via satellite anywhere in the world, including places that it'll be unlikely you'll get a cable modem, xDSL or T-1/T-3 line set up.
Given that the "Coppermine" PIII will have 256K CPU-speed cache, I expect performance to be a bit higher than the current "Katmai" core PIII's. That plus PC133 SDRAM/Rambus RDRAM support will result in quite a bit higher performance.
It'll be VERY interesting to see how long before VIA, SiS or Acer Labs delivers the Athlon motherboard chipsets that will support PC133 SDRAM, Rambus RDRAM, ATA66 and AGP 4X. I expect the first motherboards with these new chipsets to be available by late this year or early 2000.
An Athlon system with PC133/RDRAM, ATA66 and AGP 4X will be lightning-fast, that's to be sure!
I think you folks are not realizing this fact: the Intel 440BX chipset is a VERY old design by 1999 standards. After all, we saw it first way back in April 1998 on the original Intel SE440BX motherboard, which is a LONG time ago given the pace motherboard technology advances?
You are forgetting that Intel is about to release the new "Vancouver" (VC820) motherboard with the i820 "Camino" chipset. The VC820 motherboard will sport things such as support for the "Coppermine" PIII CPU (with 256 KB of CPU-speed L2 cache), AGP 4X support, the final elimination of ISA slots and most importantly, support for both PC133 and Rambus RDRAM DIMM's.
The latest I've heard is that the VC820 motherboard will be released on September 23, 1999; this means by Christmas, most high-end systems will be using this motherboard or equivalents from other motherboard manufacturers.
It was obvious from the start that the Intel i740 chipset was no match for the chipsets from nVidia (TNT, TNT2, Ultra TNT2), Matrox (G200, G400 and G400 MAX), S3 (Savage4 and Savage4 Extreme), and ATI (Rage Pro and Rage 128).
The newest of the non-Intel graphics chipsets I mentioned can do AGP 4X, 32-bit graphics acceleration, and so on. Given that type of competition, no wonder Intel threw in the towel.
Unfortunately, how many programs out there RUN under the Alpha CPU at a reasonable price?
For x86-compatible CPU's, the Athlon wins hands down, especially once the CPU starts supporting larger L2 caches and gets PC133/RDRAM support.
After reading several reviews of the AMD Athlon 600/650 MHz CPU, AMD has cured the problem of the poor FPU unit that plagued the K6 series and then some! (^_^)
The new pipelined FPU which can process THREE MMX, 3DNow!, and FP instructions per CPU cycle will make the Athlon THE CPU of choice for anyone who has to run any program that requires serious FPU performance, things like high-end games, CAD programs, photo-editing programs and illustration programs.
In short, AMD has left Intel in the dust with the Athlon's awesome FPU unit. When AMD starts to produce Athlon variants with full-speed L2 cache with 1, 2, 4 and 8 MB of cache RAM, very likely PC133 and RDRAM support, and SMP support, it'll make even the Pentium III variants based on the "Coppermine" technology obselete.
I am SO glad that so many people positively responded to the mention of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Yes, the troupe was heavily influenced by the The Goon Show and Ernie Kovacs (plus a number of shows I don't remember offhand), but what did result is (IMHO) the most effective display of comedy on television I've EVER seen. I really think that that the Python troupe had to be extremely intelligent in order to parody everything British, just like the fact the more you think about it, the more you know that the original contributors to MAD magazine had to be quite intelligent to effectively parody everything American from the middle 1950's on.
The Python genius showed right from the start with one of the earliest "sketches," the famous "Killer Joke." The version we saw on TV was unbelievably funny and SO much more intelligently-developed than any American comedy of its day--let alone today! The first time I saw it in 1975, I nearly fell off my chair laughing out very loud! (^_^)
I think I just found the right chair for people with slow Internet connections! ;-)
They can quietly nap away while waiting for a big download of file(s) to finish.
One thing in all this arguement about SDMI versus MP3 has missed is this: SDMI data compression will most likely benefit from knowledge of how to do better digital compression of high-fidelity audio gained in the years since MP3 was released.
In short, it's very possible that SDMI-encoded files will offer superior sound quality AND will require less disk storage than MP3 files. That plus the fact every record company is behind the technology means that SDMI will make fairly substantial inroads in the online music market, whether we like it or not.
I just can't figure out what "Algore" is up to nowadays.
At the rate he's going, he's going to be literally laughed out of the election with those increasingly clueless remarks.
Whatever it is, I nearly fell out of my chair when I read the article. (^_^)
Folks,
:-/
If Lucasfilm's policy of no advance sales except for the day of showing only for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is true, I think I will have to avoid the movie theatres for the three weeks after May 19, 1999.
I can just see the nightmare traffic jams at all the major theatre multiplexes in this period. Not to mention $120 million in box office receipts by the end of May 23, 1999.
Rob,
You might want to check out www.zdnet.com/zdnn/ right now.
There is a long article there about rumors that Microsoft is right now porting Microsoft Office to Linux. If the rumors are true, then you might as well kiss StarOffice and WordPerfect goodbye, since much of the corporate documents created nowadays are in MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint format.
The more frightening possibility is that Microsoft might be seriously considering turning their ActiveX and DirectX technologies into Open Source programming code; that has considerable implications since it could slow the acceptance of Java and could allow games under Linux to take advantage of the current gaming hardware out there easily.
I've heard of "co-opting the revolution," but this is ridiculous.
Rob,
:-(
I think you better check your connections on the server to the 'Net. The response is still a bit on the slow side.
Is the server connected to the 'Net with a T-1 or T-3 line?
I'm still supporting Intel for this reason: AMD's floating point unit (FPU) in their K6-2 and K6-III CPU's still suck like a vacuum cleaner. :-(
Remember, the K6 series CPU's process one FPU instruction per clock cycle, unlike the Intel CPU's, which can process multiple FPU instructions per clock cycle. That's the reason why in most modern games (Quake II, Incoming, Unreal, etc.) the Celeron 333 to 400 MHz CPU's are more than fast enough to run these games well. AMD needs to correct this problem with the K7 CPU--if the K7 can process multiple FPU instructions per clock cycle, THEN AMD has eliminated the last bottleneck that has hampered acceptance of their CPU's for high-end applications.