Superior at what? At flashy scrolling graphics demos?
well, yes, that at least. but I recall my A500 with 64 colours at 640x512 and 8 bit stereo sound when my friends were using 286's with cga/ega video cards and the PC speaker. the difference was huge. Games were a big part of it (I was in my early teens after all) and games on the amiga just looked and sounded better at least until VGA and sound blasters became a thing. Even then, PC's were held back with DOS and Windows 3.1.
ISTR the mid 90's taking my amiga into school so we could play alien breed, chaos engine and the like.
Did you ever try to add a hard disk to an Amiga?
yes, I did. iirc, I had a 52MB scsi hd and 2meg of ram in a greater valley products HD enclosure. One of these I think: https://www.bigbookofamigahard...
I also had a 120meg internal 2.5" hd in my A1200 which also had a blizzard 50mhz 68030/68881 cpu/fpu upgrade board in the trap door.
both worked fairly well. there were some games that due to copy protection only ran off floppies until you got a pirate version that stopped caring, but by and large, I didn't regret that purchase (that I badgered my parents to make for me...)
The reason people bought IBM PCs was because they ran Lotus 123. They didn't care whether they had a genlock add-on or not.
yes, totally. software availability was a major issue, but that's almost more of a political issue in a sense. the hardware was very cable of running all sorts of productivity software as evidence by the home-grown productivity market
I can't believe that the iPhone is finally getting a pencil ! And... wait for it... SD cards! Woo Hoooo ! This is 20 year old tech. Do you think it will have Graffiti input?
what makes you think they're supporting SD cards? it just said 512G of onboard flash, not removable..
But.... enjoy your vendor lock-in Apple fans. I'm sure you will tell yourselves the sound is fabulous.
Why are people so insecure about apple products? they knowingly don't try to appeal to everyone with their products, and clearly this product doesn't appeal to you. that's fine, don't buy it, but you don't have to try and make other people feel bad or stupid for thinking it's an interesting option. they have different priorities than you and that's fine, isn't it?
I'm fairly inside the apple ecosystem with a MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad and appletv[1]. I don't own a HomePod and I'm probably not going to because I'd rather spend the money elsewhere, and I'd only have limited use for it. Also, it is locked-in, no doubt about it. I have a Spotify account and not an Apple Music one and afaik, Siri doesn't integrate with Spotify. I also have much better hifi kit available to me.
but for all that, I can see that this would appeal to some people and I imagine it sounds better than people expect. it won't provide an accurate rendition of Techmaster P.E.B's album "It came from Outer Bass pt 2" by plumbing the depths of sub-woofery, but that's okay because frankly, my dual 8" M&K subwoofer won't either. I would guess that it'll out perform an amazon echo and several mini-systems at similar prices though. if you have an Apple Music account, I bet it probably works well.
So while I don't think it's for me, I don't feel the need to tell people that they're wrong to want one of these. why do you?
[1] I also own a gaming pc, a server, nas, pi and an echo...
tell me about it. I've been bitching on the forums about this for years now. they even promised it would be with us this year but so far, no dice. Ideally I'd like more than a/64 too...
and I use modem mode and my own pfsense router, so I'm not beholden to their kit either...
My UK Vodafone contract already had EU roaming included in it when I went to Germany recently, so I knew that I could keep roaming turned on as I intended to use google maps and the like while I was away. However to get to Europe we took the ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. on that ferry trip, my phone picked up the Telenor maritime cell signal from the ferry, which counts as "rest of world" at £6 per meg! I wasn't even using the phone. it had just been checking email etc while I was asleep. Woke to an £18 extra bill for that...
From my point of view, it's a few things 1) They make genuinely nice bits of kit. whatever you think of the internals, repairability, OS etc. the hardware itself is generally thought of as attractive, good quality, great screens, the best trackpads in the business, nice use of aluminium for a lovely chassis that seems to last for ages. their stuff is slim, and for all that geeks complain, people like things that are slim and light. also people like using nice equipment, and apple stuff is nice. I tend to be in the camp of thinking that it's not that apple make expensive hardware, it's that they don't make cheap hardware, if you can appreciate the difference? though the prices on the 2016 MacBook Pro did make me blink a bit;) 2) macOS is pretty good. although it's a fairly normal (though I feel attractive) take on a WIMP interface, it's unix (TM) underneath and you can pull up a terminal window and mess about with sed and awk if you like. OS updates tend to work well and have usually not resulted in an older machine running like a dog (not always, but usually). most applications are usually fairly self contained and are installed by dragging their icon onto your directory structure somewhere, and deleted by simply dragging it to the trash. 3) iOS hardware is damn good. Their CPU's are very fast and efficient, the handsets feel premium. They pioneered not letting carriers mess about with the OS and when a new OS comes out, you either get access to it immediately, or your device is obsolete. no waiting for your carrier or vendor to produce a firmware update for you. 4) iOS software looks nice, and generally is smooth and nice. I think that (and this applies to apple in many different areas), if you're happy to work as apple expects you to work, then things go pretty well. and lots of people are happy to work that way. If you prefer to do your own thing, and make products work around you, then apple is going to be frustrating. 5) iOS has a great security model. not claiming it's perfect, but it's pretty good. default strong crypto, an easy to use fingerprint sensor on all their current devices. permissions to phone data sources (locations, contacts, photo's mic, etc) is determined on a per-app basis during use (not at install) and you can say no, and you can change your mind. If your password is decent then it's very difficult to get data out of an iOS device. 6) macOS has a fairly decent security model. very few listening processes, standard users have no access to system directories, sudo for admin priv's, requiring registered developers ID's for software before allowing for install (in default config), etc. I'm not one to say that the Mac has no malware, but almost all Mac malware is what I'd call a trojan, rather than a virus. Mostly it has to trick the user into giving it root so it can be evil, rather than just infecting you without your say so. This may not last for ever, but at the moment that's generally true. 7) "it just works". okay, so that's not always the case. Apple devices have their foibles like windows does, but mac's work as expected often enough for it to become a cliche. They've got enough applications in enough sectors to please most people. Microsoft office support, Apple's own numbers, and pages are surprisingly good. 8) Apple are fairly open that they sell hardware, and that the software exists to sell hardware. This means that they're not trying to advertise to you, or monetise your every action. They seem to have a good stance on defending privacy and having the balls to tell government's to go away when they feel it's appropriate. They're doing what seems to be their best to design hardware that they can't break into, even against the wishes of some big interests. 9) as they sell the hardware and the software, everything tends to integrate well together. The Apple Store is a nice place to be, usually busy, but I don't think the staff don't earn commission so there's little pressure to buy. 10) like with many OS's, there's an ecosystem. You don't
> The fact that *everyone* is caught up in the net [unless you are an MP or member of the judiciary, etc]
as I understand it, their data is still recorded, it's just that the security services (or one of 40+ other agencies which have the right to access that data[1]) have to get a warrant signed by the Home Secretary, and approved by the Prime Minister to access it. of course, I don't know who actually has to ask for that warrant? if the police turn up to an ISP and ask for the data of Helen Jones, does the ISP know that she is the MP for Warrington North and then ask the police to produce a warrant. I the police want the data of an MPs spouse, partner or child living at the same address, perhaps with a different surname, then how is that worked out? I'm betting it's not been worked out yet...
After the Jacqui Smith affair, I might imagine that various investigative journalists might well be rather interested in the browsing patterns of MP's and ministers..
David
[1] including such critical security functions as as the food standards agency, the Welsh ambulance trust, the gambling commission etc...
I think an interesting parallel is the BBC TV series Red Dwarf. It was originally was made on a shoestring budget where you could see the 100W light bulb in the back of the model ship in shots. later, after the show had been well received and the budget had gone up considerably, they went back and "remastered" the first three seasons. They cleaned up the footage nicely, but then they also went and CGI'd it, edited some of the dialogue and generally messed about with it.
the reaction to this version was generally pretty negative and fans weren't happy with the changes made. Now if you go and buy the show on DVD, it's the original version you'll find. The remastered is pretty hard to find. The BBC took in board the criticism and gave the fans (you know, the ones paying) what they wanted, which was the original show they fell in love with.
I think this conclusion is a bit hard to reach. the comment about "demoting" the mac is no indication whatsoever about the future of OSX. the comment was made entirely in the context of cloud computing and where the "truth" is stored. not saying that apple won't perhaps phase out OSX, just that this keynote was no evidence of it.
I personally don't think they will remove it. I can see them bringing the two OS's closer together in look and feel, but I think they will remain distinct for sometime to come at least.
yeah, I've heard this thing several times over the last year. all these "innovators" talking about how the next generation of "digital natives" will need to work on their ipads while posting everything on facebook and twitter, but I just don't get it. Why? I don't think the average work environment is so short of people as to be that desperate.
In fact, my place is in the middle of cutting costs by 40%, so why would they then bend over backwards massively changing internal policy and introducing risk to attract inexperienced, self entitled oiks who by their own admission, want to spend most of the day on facebook rather than actually doing any work?
Thing is, the company is the one paying the bills, and taking the risks. Where is the business advantage to most businesses to do this? I admit that some more specialised industries that regularly take high skilled graduates may want to do this, but for most industries, i don't see what they'll get out of it?
so with this tiny form factor, is there any way to install this inside a unibody macbook pro? I'd love to go SSD but want to keep a spinning drive for decent storage capacity, and don't want to lose my dvd drive.
I'd really like to see Plex hacked onto this device myself. Not all that keen on the boxee interface,but the Plex and XBMC interfaces are much nicer, esp with the skins available.
Of course, with plex's recent announcement of a partnership with LG, maybe we'll see a dedicated box from LG too?
david
well, racing game designers often go and remeasure the various test tracks, and run the stats of their modelled cars through the manufacturer, why not the same with FPS's? doesn't have to be in a warzone, but these weapons are available to be photographed, measured, tested and modelled.
I'd like to be able to run a secure VM with a level of assurance that it can't be interfered with from the host upon which it's running. this task may well be impossible, but there's certainly call for it. the classic example being running a corporate VM for access to work, on a member of staff's own computer. the company would not trust that computer, but would want to be able to trust the image. They would want to know that any malware on the host could not affect the VM.
I'm askin if any of the modern technology we're supposed to be seeing on modern computers, like trusted computing, various hardware level hypervisors etcetc can facilitate this. I fully accept that the answer may well be no.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Superior at what? At flashy scrolling graphics demos?
well, yes, that at least. but I recall my A500 with 64 colours at 640x512 and 8 bit stereo sound when my friends were using 286's with cga/ega video cards and the PC speaker. the difference was huge. Games were a big part of it (I was in my early teens after all) and games on the amiga just looked and sounded better at least until VGA and sound blasters became a thing. Even then, PC's were held back with DOS and Windows 3.1.
ISTR the mid 90's taking my amiga into school so we could play alien breed, chaos engine and the like.
Did you ever try to add a hard disk to an Amiga?
yes, I did. iirc, I had a 52MB scsi hd and 2meg of ram in a greater valley products HD enclosure. One of these I think: https://www.bigbookofamigahard...
I also had a 120meg internal 2.5" hd in my A1200 which also had a blizzard 50mhz 68030/68881 cpu/fpu upgrade board in the trap door.
both worked fairly well. there were some games that due to copy protection only ran off floppies until you got a pirate version that stopped caring, but by and large, I didn't regret that purchase (that I badgered my parents to make for me...)
The reason people bought IBM PCs was because they ran Lotus 123. They didn't care whether they had a genlock add-on or not.
yes, totally. software availability was a major issue, but that's almost more of a political issue in a sense. the hardware was very cable of running all sorts of productivity software as evidence by the home-grown productivity market
as you ask.. the ex CEO of Ted Baker apparently..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus...
what are you talking about?
I can't believe that the iPhone is finally getting a pencil ! And... wait for it... SD cards! Woo Hoooo !
This is 20 year old tech.
Do you think it will have Graffiti input?
what makes you think they're supporting SD cards? it just said 512G of onboard flash, not removable..
> keeping a running CYA log of poor leadership decisions and whom to attribute them to when the shit hit the fan.
abso-bloody-lutely!
I just wanted to thank you for that rant which resonated pretty strongly...
But.... enjoy your vendor lock-in Apple fans. I'm sure you will tell yourselves the sound is fabulous.
Why are people so insecure about apple products? they knowingly don't try to appeal to everyone with their products, and clearly this product doesn't appeal to you. that's fine, don't buy it, but you don't have to try and make other people feel bad or stupid for thinking it's an interesting option. they have different priorities than you and that's fine, isn't it?
I'm fairly inside the apple ecosystem with a MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad and appletv[1]. I don't own a HomePod and I'm probably not going to because I'd rather spend the money elsewhere, and I'd only have limited use for it. Also, it is locked-in, no doubt about it. I have a Spotify account and not an Apple Music one and afaik, Siri doesn't integrate with Spotify. I also have much better hifi kit available to me.
but for all that, I can see that this would appeal to some people and I imagine it sounds better than people expect. it won't provide an accurate rendition of Techmaster P.E.B's album "It came from Outer Bass pt 2" by plumbing the depths of sub-woofery, but that's okay because frankly, my dual 8" M&K subwoofer won't either. I would guess that it'll out perform an amazon echo and several mini-systems at similar prices though. if you have an Apple Music account, I bet it probably works well.
So while I don't think it's for me, I don't feel the need to tell people that they're wrong to want one of these. why do you?
[1] I also own a gaming pc, a server, nas, pi and an echo...
tell me about it. I've been bitching on the forums about this for years now. they even promised it would be with us this year but so far, no dice. Ideally I'd like more than a /64 too...
and I use modem mode and my own pfsense router, so I'm not beholden to their kit either...
My UK Vodafone contract already had EU roaming included in it when I went to Germany recently, so I knew that I could keep roaming turned on as I intended to use google maps and the like while I was away. However to get to Europe we took the ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. on that ferry trip, my phone picked up the Telenor maritime cell signal from the ferry, which counts as "rest of world" at £6 per meg! I wasn't even using the phone. it had just been checking email etc while I was asleep. Woke to an £18 extra bill for that...
so be careful on the seas people...
From my point of view, it's a few things ;)
1) They make genuinely nice bits of kit. whatever you think of the internals, repairability, OS etc. the hardware itself is generally thought of as attractive, good quality, great screens, the best trackpads in the business, nice use of aluminium for a lovely chassis that seems to last for ages. their stuff is slim, and for all that geeks complain, people like things that are slim and light. also people like using nice equipment, and apple stuff is nice. I tend to be in the camp of thinking that it's not that apple make expensive hardware, it's that they don't make cheap hardware, if you can appreciate the difference? though the prices on the 2016 MacBook Pro did make me blink a bit
2) macOS is pretty good. although it's a fairly normal (though I feel attractive) take on a WIMP interface, it's unix (TM) underneath and you can pull up a terminal window and mess about with sed and awk if you like. OS updates tend to work well and have usually not resulted in an older machine running like a dog (not always, but usually). most applications are usually fairly self contained and are installed by dragging their icon onto your directory structure somewhere, and deleted by simply dragging it to the trash.
3) iOS hardware is damn good. Their CPU's are very fast and efficient, the handsets feel premium. They pioneered not letting carriers mess about with the OS and when a new OS comes out, you either get access to it immediately, or your device is obsolete. no waiting for your carrier or vendor to produce a firmware update for you.
4) iOS software looks nice, and generally is smooth and nice. I think that (and this applies to apple in many different areas), if you're happy to work as apple expects you to work, then things go pretty well. and lots of people are happy to work that way. If you prefer to do your own thing, and make products work around you, then apple is going to be frustrating.
5) iOS has a great security model. not claiming it's perfect, but it's pretty good. default strong crypto, an easy to use fingerprint sensor on all their current devices. permissions to phone data sources (locations, contacts, photo's mic, etc) is determined on a per-app basis during use (not at install) and you can say no, and you can change your mind. If your password is decent then it's very difficult to get data out of an iOS device.
6) macOS has a fairly decent security model. very few listening processes, standard users have no access to system directories, sudo for admin priv's, requiring registered developers ID's for software before allowing for install (in default config), etc. I'm not one to say that the Mac has no malware, but almost all Mac malware is what I'd call a trojan, rather than a virus. Mostly it has to trick the user into giving it root so it can be evil, rather than just infecting you without your say so. This may not last for ever, but at the moment that's generally true.
7) "it just works". okay, so that's not always the case. Apple devices have their foibles like windows does, but mac's work as expected often enough for it to become a cliche. They've got enough applications in enough sectors to please most people. Microsoft office support, Apple's own numbers, and pages are surprisingly good.
8) Apple are fairly open that they sell hardware, and that the software exists to sell hardware. This means that they're not trying to advertise to you, or monetise your every action. They seem to have a good stance on defending privacy and having the balls to tell government's to go away when they feel it's appropriate. They're doing what seems to be their best to design hardware that they can't break into, even against the wishes of some big interests.
9) as they sell the hardware and the software, everything tends to integrate well together. The Apple Store is a nice place to be, usually busy, but I don't think the staff don't earn commission so there's little pressure to buy.
10) like with many OS's, there's an ecosystem. You don't
Is that the human rights charter that we mostly wrote in the first place?
> The fact that *everyone* is caught up in the net [unless you are an MP or member of the judiciary, etc]
as I understand it, their data is still recorded, it's just that the security services (or one of 40+ other agencies which have the right to access that data[1]) have to get a warrant signed by the Home Secretary, and approved by the Prime Minister to access it. of course, I don't know who actually has to ask for that warrant? if the police turn up to an ISP and ask for the data of Helen Jones, does the ISP know that she is the MP for Warrington North and then ask the police to produce a warrant. I the police want the data of an MPs spouse, partner or child living at the same address, perhaps with a different surname, then how is that worked out? I'm betting it's not been worked out yet...
After the Jacqui Smith affair, I might imagine that various investigative journalists might well be rather interested in the browsing patterns of MP's and ministers..
David
[1] including such critical security functions as as the food standards agency, the Welsh ambulance trust, the gambling commission etc...
or EECellnet?
you're a bit out of date, Filevault 2 (introduced with Lion) encrypts the entire drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
David
HFS+
I think an interesting parallel is the BBC TV series Red Dwarf. It was originally was made on a shoestring budget where you could see the 100W light bulb in the back of the model ship in shots. later, after the show had been well received and the budget had gone up considerably, they went back and "remastered" the first three seasons. They cleaned up the footage nicely, but then they also went and CGI'd it, edited some of the dialogue and generally messed about with it.
the reaction to this version was generally pretty negative and fans weren't happy with the changes made. Now if you go and buy the show on DVD, it's the original version you'll find. The remastered is pretty hard to find. The BBC took in board the criticism and gave the fans (you know, the ones paying) what they wanted, which was the original show they fell in love with.
david
> Grow the fuck up kid
he's talking about pirating zork... if he was 14 when he played it, he'll be about 45 by now.. I imagine he has by now...
> As well of alot of free mac software.
why would free mac software be driven away?
I think this conclusion is a bit hard to reach. the comment about "demoting" the mac is no indication whatsoever about the future of OSX. the comment was made entirely in the context of cloud computing and where the "truth" is stored. not saying that apple won't perhaps phase out OSX, just that this keynote was no evidence of it.
I personally don't think they will remove it. I can see them bringing the two OS's closer together in look and feel, but I think they will remain distinct for sometime to come at least.
yeah, I've heard this thing several times over the last year. all these "innovators" talking about how the next generation of "digital natives" will need to work on their ipads while posting everything on facebook and twitter, but I just don't get it. Why? I don't think the average work environment is so short of people as to be that desperate.
In fact, my place is in the middle of cutting costs by 40%, so why would they then bend over backwards massively changing internal policy and introducing risk to attract inexperienced, self entitled oiks who by their own admission, want to spend most of the day on facebook rather than actually doing any work?
Thing is, the company is the one paying the bills, and taking the risks. Where is the business advantage to most businesses to do this? I admit that some more specialised industries that regularly take high skilled graduates may want to do this, but for most industries, i don't see what they'll get out of it?
dave
so with this tiny form factor, is there any way to install this inside a unibody macbook pro? I'd love to go SSD but want to keep a spinning drive for decent storage capacity, and don't want to lose my dvd drive.
come on OWC, make it happen! :)
dave
I'd really like to see Plex hacked onto this device myself. Not all that keen on the boxee interface,but the Plex and XBMC interfaces are much nicer, esp with the skins available. Of course, with plex's recent announcement of a partnership with LG, maybe we'll see a dedicated box from LG too? david
well, racing game designers often go and remeasure the various test tracks, and run the stats of their modelled cars through the manufacturer, why not the same with FPS's? doesn't have to be in a warzone, but these weapons are available to be photographed, measured, tested and modelled.
dave
I was thinking a windows build with appropriate apps and VPN access...
*if* it can be secured...
dave
I'd like to be able to run a secure VM with a level of assurance that it can't be interfered with from the host upon which it's running. this task may well be impossible, but there's certainly call for it. the classic example being running a corporate VM for access to work, on a member of staff's own computer. the company would not trust that computer, but would want to be able to trust the image. They would want to know that any malware on the host could not affect the VM.
I'm askin if any of the modern technology we're supposed to be seeing on modern computers, like trusted computing, various hardware level hypervisors etcetc can facilitate this. I fully accept that the answer may well be no. :)
dave
What about securing a VM from the host? so you can run secure corporate VM images on an untrusted host. now that would interest me...
Dave