Re:PS2 as a sound server?
on
PS2 As PC
·
· Score: 1
I am nearly finished with just such a project. I have a small pc that mounts a samba share containing 40GB of mp3s. Unfortunately, the machine runs win2k so I can use the tv-out function of an old nvidia RIVA-128 card. The soundblaster live has an extra card you can get that gives you toslink. I hooked that up to my amp and control it all with a wireless mouse and keyboard. It works, but I have to spray paint the case still (black to match the stereo equip). Realjukebox2 plays the music (version 2 is required to play over network share).
I am most excited, however, about the new nvidia chipset mobos with the onboard DolbyDigital encoders and graphics. I hope I can find one with builtin tv-out. If not, my next tv should have a vga port for 640x480 (the Mitsu Platinum Series).
I can't agree more with your statement. Ever since I read the first write-up on the Geforce3, I've been waiting for someone to bring the memory crossbar to the mobo. I know anandtech had a nice bit on the ServerworksHE or whatever, but that's a server/Highend workstation board. This is the first modestly priced board with these features.
What questions I have remaining concern i/o and busses. Sure, the HyperTransport is fast between north and south... but how many PCI busses does the south bridge handle? How about PCI-X or 64bit/66Mhz PCI? Firewire? IrDA? I also wonder if interleaving wouldn't have been better than the "neat" feature allowing different types/amounts of memory on each bus.
I am impressed by the feature list and eagerly await the first test drives by Tomshardware and others. This could get interesting.
The nice thing, as I understand it, is that these new LCDs are completely digital and don't need ColorSync adjustments. Thus you get true color representation on screen that hopefully matches the output of your chosen printer.
Monopolies are not outlawed in the United States. Where did you here that garbage? In fact, Congress has enshrined one institution in America as safe from any anti-trust litigation:
Major League Baseball
Don't believe me? Look it up. I couldn't make anything that stupid up.
PS. I am an avid sports fan, but protection for MLB is really stupid. The NBA, NHL and NFL have managed quite well without protection. Heck, the NFL got tagged in the anti-trust suit by the USFL for a whole 3 dollars and they survived!
This won't be running on your pc unless you plan on running the 64bit OS on an Itanium on your desktop soon. This only applies to the 64bit version of Whistler. Don't worry about it on your x86 boxen, OK?
Besides, why would you want that crappy IBM DOS MBR setup on a newly defined hardware platform? This new GUID bs complies with the specs for Intel's Open Firmware (or whatever they call it).
Everybody take a deep breath... Microsoft isn't out to get you this time. Return to work, nothing to see here.
No need to get all uptight!
Of course with built-in NT services you cannot make a Mac share on a FATxx partition. The advantage of keeping resource forks integral to the file is that it is more easily recoverable should (now this never happens) NT and/or your Mac fileshare program takes a crap.
You should take a deep breath and relax. Apply some of your ample free time to fruitful pursuits instead of flaming well-meaning posters. Either that, or go back to class!
I agree. In fact, my first boss here once told me, "If your pager's on... your working."
Where I work, there are two of us with the same job function. Both of us are always on call with primary response alternating by week. We get paid 1 hr for every 6 on call on days that we are normally scheduled to work (Mon-Fri) and 1 every 4 hrs on days we are not scheculed to work (weekends and holidays). That's 2hrs a day weekdays and 6 hrs on weekends. If you get called in, that's 4 hrs regular pay plus time worked in OT.
Now, this is just how we have it set up. IANAL, but I have always known my rights in California. The IWC requires employers to post the IWC's regulations in a place frequented by employees. Your state may by the same. Check out the info on their posted notices. In California, I don't believe the IWC has any regulations for on-call. I could be wrong though. The poster above had it right; contact a contract lawyer or get a paralegal to investigate whether there is any laws in your state. If there isn't and your employer really is amenable, contact other employees of similar companies and see what their compensation is. That is something HR should have been doing already.
I think the point was that there may be a problem accessing the console at the OK prompt. As long as the firmware contains the Open Firmware entries to identify itself you should be able to assign the console to any card. An example...
If the card has Open firmware descriptors, you'll see:
ok show-displays
a)/pci@1f,0/SUNW,m64B@13
b)/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
q) NO SELECTION
Enter Selection, q to quit:
You can then set the output devices by:
ok setenv output-device/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
output-device =/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
This will put the banner and ok prompt on the display you choose. This probably will not work if no forth information is present on the card.
Last 2 cents: All PCI cards should contain forth descriptors as it is part of the PCI standard, but x86 vendors generally choose not to and only include x86 binary BIOS data.
There's more to computers than the processor. One of the main problems with PC's is the i/o bottleneck. You must look at the memory bandwidth, 64 bit / 66Mhz PCI is probably included as well. Not to mention the ability to control most Unix boxen from the serial port from power-on. Now, I know nothing about this particular box so I won't argue about the merits of purchasing it...
I also have Cambridge Soundworks speakers. I bought a Technics (I know, low end) amp with DTS and optical inputs. My wife wasn't so sure about this whole surround business, so I bought the best CSW center speaker and two cheap rear surround speakers. I kept my Yamaha speakers up front for now. The kicker is that my wife loves the sound now (especially on the Sting DTS CD). With CSW, I can take my cheap-o rear speakers back and pay the difference for the dipole model. That means I can slowly -- without freaking the wife out-- upgrade my system to meet my ultimate goal. For those out there who want to appease their better halves, this is a nice way to get what you want without months of lobbying, explaining, begging or whatever your normal method of getting-your-way might be.
Unix systems crash. Don't try and make Unix sound like a product created by [insert your god here]. Kernels are supposed to panic when they don't know what to do, to maintain the integrity of data. If you haven't seen a Unix box crash, you're not doing anything really interesting on your box. Give it to charity.
Does everyone remember way, way back three years ago when a new browser was coming out every six months? They were never stable until we started using the next beta version (and then I still believe they sucked). We have come a long way in a couple years to expect a stable browser.
This is not a case of someone posting sensitive information like names of employees, phone numbers, etc. This is what a reporter would do to expose the company for purposely shifting blame for problems with their service to the end-user. In my experience, this is the norm.
<RANT>PacBell constantly assumes that my Windows98 is the problem and that I should reboot, lather, rinse and repeat until it works again. However, I don't have Windows. My Sun box has been rebooted once in 15 months (it's on a UPS). It has never been the problem! They are told to assume you are a moron even when proved otherwise. [Once, a senior tech at pacbell told me that without DNS setup "their way" I wouldn't be able to ping the router's IP address!] Thank God my Covad connection is only a week away.</RANT>
You can disable the sound if it's not up to your standards. The drivers for what OS? Linux? I love linux but I haven't seen much in the way of great driver support for AGP, USB, and FireWire on any harware platform.
Actually, the kernel is usually referred to as 5.7 whereas Solaris is the whole collection of programs that accompanies the kernel and it is at 2.7 (7). It's like Linux, the kernel is 2.2.x right now, but RedHat is 6.2.
According to the article, it's not a problem with the DIMMS; it's an E-cache problem on the cpu module. The article states that it affects 400Mhz 4/8MB cache modules (ie. Sun Part number 501-5762).
When I had to use Novell, NDS was its saving grace. NDS is just fucking beautiful! Now, MS pitches ActiveDirectory for Win2k (but if it catches on, other OSes are screwed). Directory services are going to become VERY IMPORTANT to corporate customers. IBM can release NDS to the masses for free (beer and speech) and stave off MS for a while.
Before someone mentions LDAP: sorry, I'm not sold on it yet and NDS is simply more mature.
I am so tired of CDE it hurts... I've been using KDE and Gnnome on Solaris for over a year now. Xinerama makes the difference though. I have two monitors and until Xinerama there wasn't a palatable choice for a window manager.
I know this was a test of limited scope, but other than a home web server, who runs a "real" server on one processor and an IDE drive? I would be much more interested in a test using a plain adaptec 2940UW with a fast disk (10k rpm) and at least two processors. Solaris is not aimed at uniprocessor/IDE machines. That hardware setup should be reserved for a test of workstation benchmarks. A test of "real" servers should include more than one client and much higher loads than the machines were subjected to. After all, can you consider it a "real server" if there's only one client doing read/writes?
Warning: I am a Sun employee. I try to keep my biases in check, but I am only human.
Hmm... Xanadu was before my time. I do recall that SRI had an implementation of windowing, hyperlinks and a mouse (that's the invention that's most remembered) in 1969.
I saw this yesterday on./ and discussed it with my office neighbor. There are significant advantages here. 1. Like a Sun box, console output could be directed to serial. This is important when you are running a box as a server and want to debug the boot process. (Hey, can we get a diag-mode too?) 2. My neighbor sells pcs that are specifically designed to broadcast audio/video over the net using linux. They are very much appliances, as they just need to be plugged in and a few questions answered (IP info). This BIOS could allow him to tailor the boot environment to the specific hardware he has included. 3. Security: I believe you could require a password/login in order to boot a linuxBIOS machine. This could make my laptop worthless to a thief who doesn't have an NVRAM burner.
There are other things we came up with, but I've only got a few minutes.
Outraged at subsidizing California? Get a real target. Here's some info:
San Jose (Silicon Valley) exports more goods than New York city or any other metropolitan area in US. California pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. I believe Kentucky and Viginia were the leaders in the "receiving more than they give" department.
Slashdot Mirror
I am nearly finished with just such a project. I have a small pc that mounts a samba share containing 40GB of mp3s. Unfortunately, the machine runs win2k so I can use the tv-out function of an old nvidia RIVA-128 card. The soundblaster live has an extra card you can get that gives you toslink. I hooked that up to my amp and control it all with a wireless mouse and keyboard. It works, but I have to spray paint the case still (black to match the stereo equip). Realjukebox2 plays the music (version 2 is required to play over network share).
I am most excited, however, about the new nvidia chipset mobos with the onboard DolbyDigital encoders and graphics. I hope I can find one with builtin tv-out. If not, my next tv should have a vga port for 640x480 (the Mitsu Platinum Series).
_damnit_
I can't agree more with your statement. Ever since I read the first write-up on the Geforce3, I've been waiting for someone to bring the memory crossbar to the mobo. I know anandtech had a nice bit on the ServerworksHE or whatever, but that's a server/Highend workstation board. This is the first modestly priced board with these features.
What questions I have remaining concern i/o and busses. Sure, the HyperTransport is fast between north and south... but how many PCI busses does the south bridge handle? How about PCI-X or 64bit/66Mhz PCI? Firewire? IrDA? I also wonder if interleaving wouldn't have been better than the "neat" feature allowing different types/amounts of memory on each bus.
I am impressed by the feature list and eagerly await the first test drives by Tomshardware and others. This could get interesting.
_damnit_
The nice thing, as I understand it, is that these new LCDs are completely digital and don't need ColorSync adjustments. Thus you get true color representation on screen that hopefully matches the output of your chosen printer.
_damnit_
Monopolies are not outlawed in the United States. Where did you here that garbage? In fact, Congress has enshrined one institution in America as safe from any anti-trust litigation:
Major League Baseball
Don't believe me? Look it up. I couldn't make anything that stupid up.
PS. I am an avid sports fan, but protection for MLB is really stupid. The NBA, NHL and NFL have managed quite well without protection. Heck, the NFL got tagged in the anti-trust suit by the USFL for a whole 3 dollars and they survived!
_damnit_
This won't be running on your pc unless you plan on running the 64bit OS on an Itanium on your desktop soon. This only applies to the 64bit version of Whistler. Don't worry about it on your x86 boxen, OK?
Besides, why would you want that crappy IBM DOS MBR setup on a newly defined hardware platform? This new GUID bs complies with the specs for Intel's Open Firmware (or whatever they call it).
Everybody take a deep breath... Microsoft isn't out to get you this time. Return to work, nothing to see here.
_damnit_
No need to get all uptight!
Of course with built-in NT services you cannot make a Mac share on a FATxx partition. The advantage of keeping resource forks integral to the file is that it is more easily recoverable should (now this never happens) NT and/or your Mac fileshare program takes a crap.
You should take a deep breath and relax. Apply some of your ample free time to fruitful pursuits instead of flaming well-meaning posters. Either that, or go back to class!
_damnit_
I agree. In fact, my first boss here once told me, "If your pager's on... your working."
Where I work, there are two of us with the same job function. Both of us are always on call with primary response alternating by week. We get paid 1 hr for every 6 on call on days that we are normally scheduled to work (Mon-Fri) and 1 every 4 hrs on days we are not scheculed to work (weekends and holidays). That's 2hrs a day weekdays and 6 hrs on weekends. If you get called in, that's 4 hrs regular pay plus time worked in OT.
Now, this is just how we have it set up. IANAL, but I have always known my rights in California. The IWC requires employers to post the IWC's regulations in a place frequented by employees. Your state may by the same. Check out the info on their posted notices. In California, I don't believe the IWC has any regulations for on-call. I could be wrong though. The poster above had it right; contact a contract lawyer or get a paralegal to investigate whether there is any laws in your state. If there isn't and your employer really is amenable, contact other employees of similar companies and see what their compensation is. That is something HR should have been doing already.
Best of Luck
_damnit_
I think the point was that there may be a problem accessing the console at the OK prompt. As long as the firmware contains the Open Firmware entries to identify itself you should be able to assign the console to any card. An example... /pci@1f,0/SUNW,m64B@13
/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
/pci@1f,0/pci@5/SUNW,Expert3D@1
If the card has Open firmware descriptors, you'll see:
ok show-displays
a)
b)
q) NO SELECTION
Enter Selection, q to quit:
You can then set the output devices by:
ok setenv output-device
output-device =
This will put the banner and ok prompt on the display you choose. This probably will not work if no forth information is present on the card.
Last 2 cents: All PCI cards should contain forth descriptors as it is part of the PCI standard, but x86 vendors generally choose not to and only include x86 binary BIOS data.
_damnit_
There's more to computers than the processor. One of the main problems with PC's is the i/o bottleneck. You must look at the memory bandwidth, 64 bit / 66Mhz PCI is probably included as well. Not to mention the ability to control most Unix boxen from the serial port from power-on. Now, I know nothing about this particular box so I won't argue about the merits of purchasing it...
_damnit_
I also have Cambridge Soundworks speakers. I bought a Technics (I know, low end) amp with DTS and optical inputs. My wife wasn't so sure about this whole surround business, so I bought the best CSW center speaker and two cheap rear surround speakers. I kept my Yamaha speakers up front for now. The kicker is that my wife loves the sound now (especially on the Sting DTS CD). With CSW, I can take my cheap-o rear speakers back and pay the difference for the dipole model. That means I can slowly -- without freaking the wife out-- upgrade my system to meet my ultimate goal. For those out there who want to appease their better halves, this is a nice way to get what you want without months of lobbying, explaining, begging or whatever your normal method of getting-your-way might be.
_damnit_
Unix systems crash. Don't try and make Unix sound like a product created by [insert your god here]. Kernels are supposed to panic when they don't know what to do, to maintain the integrity of data. If you haven't seen a Unix box crash, you're not doing anything really interesting on your box. Give it to charity.
_damnit_
Does everyone remember way, way back three years ago when a new browser was coming out every six months? They were never stable until we started using the next beta version (and then I still believe they sucked). We have come a long way in a couple years to expect a stable browser.
_damnit_
Hate to nit-pick, but if you're going to correct someone, at least give them the good info.
Scott McNealy is Chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems. The president (and COO) is Ed Zander.
_damnit_
This is not a case of someone posting sensitive information like names of employees, phone numbers, etc. This is what a reporter would do to expose the company for purposely shifting blame for problems with their service to the end-user. In my experience, this is the norm.
<RANT>PacBell constantly assumes that my Windows98 is the problem and that I should reboot, lather, rinse and repeat until it works again. However, I don't have Windows. My Sun box has been rebooted once in 15 months (it's on a UPS). It has never been the problem! They are told to assume you are a moron even when proved otherwise. [Once, a senior tech at pacbell told me that without DNS setup "their way" I wouldn't be able to ping the router's IP address!] Thank God my Covad connection is only a week away.</RANT>
_damnit_
You can disable the sound if it's not up to your standards. The drivers for what OS? Linux? I love linux but I haven't seen much in the way of great driver support for AGP, USB, and FireWire on any harware platform.
_damnit_
Actually, the kernel is usually referred to as 5.7 whereas Solaris is the whole collection of programs that accompanies the kernel and it is at 2.7 (7). It's like Linux, the kernel is 2.2.x right now, but RedHat is 6.2.
_damnit_
According to the article, it's not a problem with the DIMMS; it's an E-cache problem on the cpu module. The article states that it affects 400Mhz 4/8MB cache modules (ie. Sun Part number 501-5762).
Of course, other than that I have no comment.
_damnit_
When I had to use Novell, NDS was its saving grace. NDS is just fucking beautiful! Now, MS pitches ActiveDirectory for Win2k (but if it catches on, other OSes are screwed). Directory services are going to become VERY IMPORTANT to corporate customers. IBM can release NDS to the masses for free (beer and speech) and stave off MS for a while.
Before someone mentions LDAP: sorry, I'm not sold on it yet and NDS is simply more mature.
_damnit_
I am so tired of CDE it hurts... I've been using KDE and Gnnome on Solaris for over a year now. Xinerama makes the difference though. I have two monitors and until Xinerama there wasn't a palatable choice for a window manager.
_damnit_
I know this was a test of limited scope, but other than a home web server, who runs a "real" server on one processor and an IDE drive? I would be much more interested in a test using a plain adaptec 2940UW with a fast disk (10k rpm) and at least two processors.
Solaris is not aimed at uniprocessor/IDE machines. That hardware setup should be reserved for a test of workstation benchmarks. A test of "real" servers should include more than one client and much higher loads than the machines were subjected to. After all, can you consider it a "real server" if there's only one client doing read/writes?
Warning: I am a Sun employee. I try to keep my biases in check, but I am only human.
_damnit_
Also in regards to Englebart, you may surf to:
http://www.csl.sri.com/history/augment.shtml
or
http://www.bootstrap.org/library.htm
No hyperlink included in post to protect me from BT.
_damnit_
Hmm... Xanadu was before my time. I do recall that SRI had an implementation of windowing, hyperlinks and a mouse (that's the invention that's most remembered) in 1969.
_damnit_
I saw this yesterday on ./ and discussed it with my office neighbor. There are significant advantages here.
1. Like a Sun box, console output could be directed to serial. This is important when you are running a box as a server and want to debug the boot process. (Hey, can we get a diag-mode too?)
2. My neighbor sells pcs that are specifically designed to broadcast audio/video over the net using linux. They are very much appliances, as they just need to be plugged in and a few questions answered (IP info). This BIOS could allow him to tailor the boot environment to the specific hardware he has included.
3. Security: I believe you could require a password/login in order to boot a linuxBIOS machine. This could make my laptop worthless to a thief who doesn't have an NVRAM burner.
There are other things we came up with, but I've only got a few minutes.
_damnit_
Yes, most big liners have satellite access. The last trip I took (carribbean -- Tortola is beautiful) had net access for $.40 a minute.
_damnit_
Outraged at subsidizing California? Get a real target. Here's some info:
San Jose (Silicon Valley) exports more goods than New York city or any other metropolitan area in US. California pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. I believe Kentucky and Viginia were the leaders in the "receiving more than they give" department.
_damnit_