The 21264 won't ever see 1.6GHz, or even 1GHz. The now shipping 21264A (EV6.7) and upcoming 21264B (EV6.8) will see those numbers, though. The EV6.8 will be 0.18u with copper interconnects, and should arrive before the end of the year. Of couse, the EV6 was supposed to have scaled to 1GHz by last year, and we're just now at 733MHz. Now that Compaq has finally settled most of the confusion caused by the DEC buyout, things should get back on track very quickly.
And to those who think the Alpha is a dead architecture, you've got another thing coming. Sure, its more expensive than an Athlon system, but it's not meant to compete in that market. Plus, no PC can offer the sheer memory throughput or clustering capabilities that are offered by VMS and Tru64 Unix on Alpha (and no, beowulf doesn't even come close).
Come on, Jon, people have been saying that the Corporations rule the world for years now. Of course corporations are out to screw us every way they can, that's what they've always done - its called "business" and the goal is to get as much money as possible from consumers, no matter what it takes. Of course, one of the most efficient ways to do this is to buy politians so that legislation favorable to the corporation will be passed. It has gone on as long as there have been organized governments.
Netscape and Microsoft can't agree on how HTML is to be displayed, and HTML was supposed to be the great equalizing formatting language way back when.
HTML is not supposed to look the same on every browser. That was not ever its intended goal. A lot of people have tried to turn HTML into a page description language like PostScript or.pdf with various tricks (tables for page layout, Flash, etc). The whole point of HTML is that the author gives various pieces of the text different attributes and the user (and his browser) determines how to display that information.
Not only that, but in the eyes of the RIAA, even making copies of CDs using "approved" devices such as compented "Audio" CD recorders, using "Audio" CD-Rs, is also illegal. They just "promise" not to prosecute you if you are using these "approved" methods:
As long as the copying is done for noncommercial use, the AHRA gives consumers immunity from suit for all analog music copying, and for digital music copying with AHRA covered devices. It is important to note that the AHRA does not say that such copying is lawful; it simply provides an immunity from suit.
Blocking ads, cookies, etc..
on
The Eroded Self
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· Score: 2
The Proxomitron is a personal web proxy that is super configurable and can block out most banner ads, cookies, pop-up windows, and tons more... this is a great way to foil most tracking networks with minimal effort, and its more extensible than most ad-blocking software and techniques.
The real question is this: If the same money were spent on, say, Athlon nodes connected with channel bonded fast ethernet (or even myrinet); could you get even more performance? I figure that you could build a cluster of stripped down Athlon-700's on channel bonded ether for around $2k per node including switches, etc. That would allow up to 7500 nodes (though I imagine that network bandwidth/latency would kill your performance at that scale). Hmmm...
But would you get any kind of support for that? You can bet they got a hefty service contract with on-site Field Engineers rolled into that price. And you can't get anywhere close to the throughput these machines are getting in a $2k Athlon.
--
rob's reality distortion field
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Quad G4 Boards
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· Score: 1
I want a couple CPUs dedicated to running OpenGL screensavers in my root window or something.
Why don't you just get a decent video card, rob? GLGears runs great in my root window on a Celeron 500 with an ancient millineum II 4MB card.
Actually, there are several printers on the market now that either connect directly to a digital camera or else accept standard media (memory sticks and those little Flash RAM cards), so you really don't need the computer at all, unless you want to edit the pictures (but this is usually not done to film photos, so I would count it as "extra").
Again, it really depends on your needs, but most people will find digital to be more expensive. If you are just viewing the pics on your computer and emailing them or putting them on webpages, you can cut out both the printer, etc. and the higher resolution cameras - 640x480 should be more than enough.
Film is still the way to go for even the moderately serious photographer. Even if you only take 1 roll of photos per week, you'll end up paying more for digital when you factor in the cost of the camera, printer, ink, paper, etc... Plus the resolution is not even close. Buy a good 35mm SLR and a film scanner if you want both quality prints and a digital archive. Buy a cheap-o digital if you're only publishing on the web. And if you are only publishing on the web, you don't need those 3 mega-pixel cameras - no one wants to download a.jpg bigger than 640x480 except in the most extreme circumstances.
Just because the technology is newer doesn't mean its better:) --
Just because the "people in charge" share your views does not mean the are not idiotic and contrived. In fact, the "people in charge" are notorious for being idiotic and contrived.
Just because most people can't access it right now doesn't make it impractical - and you haven't proven that most people can't access it. You say if you want information from the LOC that you could request it from your local library - but most libraries are already on-line. Wouldn't it be easier to just hop on a public terminal at the library rather than wait for the physical material to be transported to you?
As to the "most people can't access it" argument - how long do you think it would take to get all of this information digitized? If they start now, by the time they are done a lot more people will be able to access it. If you wait until then to start, it will only take that much longer.
Finally as to your question "what possible reason would you (other than for pleasure reading) want to read books not on copyright."(sic) There are lots of books that are out of copyright with useful information. There is more to the LOC than "computer book(s)." --
You'll never see this kind of legislation in the US. It's simple - the laws are supposed to protect corporations, not citizens. You think the spam laws are being proposed for your benefit? Think again - the network providers hate spam because it clogs up their bandwidth without providing them any revenue; it has nothing to do with the end user. If there was a way to spam people directly for no cost to the spammer without using any bandwidth, you'd never see any action to stop it. Since telemarketers are paying for their attempts to annoy you, the phone companies don't bitch and you don't see any (substantial) action against them - it's the same for the junk you get in your postal mail - those guys pay the post office to deliver the shit, so you won't see any action against that, either (except from enviromentalists).
In fact, the only time I can think of the government doing something to stop this kind of unsolicited advertising for the consumer's benefit was the anti-fax-spam law, but at that time (and even today) most of the fax machines were owned by (you guessed it) corporations.
If you want something "true to the Unix way of doing things" then you want one of the [free|net|open] BSDs. BSD is frightenly similar to Digital Unix - though that may not be suprising considering that DEC Unix is the only major commercial Unix that is still based on BSD as opposed to SysV. --
The Alpha 21264 (aka EV6) pretty much beats the crap out of everything else. It's widely known that the Alpha is far and away the best platform for intensive mathematics.
FWIW, an EV6 (or any alpha, for that matter) can do both a FADD and FMUL in one cycle; a 1GHz Alpha therefore gets 2 GFLOP/s (assuming no cache misses, of course). A lot of the optimizations from generation to generation are for improving branch prediction, cache service, etc, which helps get the real-world numbers closer to the theoretical. --
of partiular note is the Memory Channel 2 interconnect they are using which gives throughput of 2GB/sec with an amazing latency of less than 2 microseconds. --
The machine will be built out of 4-CPU nodes based on the ES40. The OS will be a customized version of Tru64 5.0, which has VMS-style clustering. This will make the entire cluster appear as 1 machine, i.e. the OS only has to be installed one time. The CPUs will be the new 21364, aka EV7.
Why don't you ask a patent attorney instead of a bunch of know-it-all nerds (myself included) who are going to give you thirty different answers all followed by "IANAL".
If you're lucky the lawyer will be nice enough to give you an authoritative answer and not bill you $450.
Slashdot Mirror
The 21264 won't ever see 1.6GHz, or even 1GHz. The now shipping 21264A (EV6.7) and upcoming 21264B (EV6.8) will see those numbers, though. The EV6.8 will be 0.18u with copper interconnects, and should arrive before the end of the year. Of couse, the EV6 was supposed to have scaled to 1GHz by last year, and we're just now at 733MHz. Now that Compaq has finally settled most of the confusion caused by the DEC buyout, things should get back on track very quickly.
And to those who think the Alpha is a dead architecture, you've got another thing coming. Sure, its more expensive than an Athlon system, but it's not meant to compete in that market. Plus, no PC can offer the sheer memory throughput or clustering capabilities that are offered by VMS and Tru64 Unix on Alpha (and no, beowulf doesn't even come close).
--
I'd be impressed if you can get both a cd drive and a hard disk into a DIN-sized package. But it would be sweet...
--
Come on, Jon, people have been saying that the Corporations rule the world for years now. Of course corporations are out to screw us every way they can, that's what they've always done - its called "business" and the goal is to get as much money as possible from consumers, no matter what it takes. Of course, one of the most efficient ways to do this is to buy politians so that legislation favorable to the corporation will be passed. It has gone on as long as there have been organized governments.
--
HTML is not supposed to look the same on every browser. That was not ever its intended goal. A lot of people have tried to turn HTML into a page description language like PostScript or
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no its not... 42 = 7 x 3 x 2. thats three primes.
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yes, I know that's not what he meant :)
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OK, better :)
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Linux was not the first "free and open source" kernel. How, then, is its "free and open source" nature "earth shattering"???
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- Kerbango
- Lansonic
- iRad
The Lansonic device is almost the same as the audiotron, the other two are more standalone radio-type things.--
--
The Proxomitron is a personal web proxy that is super configurable and can block out most banner ads, cookies, pop-up windows, and tons more... this is a great way to foil most tracking networks with minimal effort, and its more extensible than most ad-blocking software and techniques.
--
But would you get any kind of support for that? You can bet they got a hefty service contract with on-site Field Engineers rolled into that price. And you can't get anywhere close to the throughput these machines are getting in a $2k Athlon.
--
Why don't you just get a decent video card, rob? GLGears runs great in my root window on a Celeron 500 with an ancient millineum II 4MB card.
moderate down for dissin' rob
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Actually, there are several printers on the market now that either connect directly to a digital camera or else accept standard media (memory sticks and those little Flash RAM cards), so you really don't need the computer at all, unless you want to edit the pictures (but this is usually not done to film photos, so I would count it as "extra").
Again, it really depends on your needs, but most people will find digital to be more expensive. If you are just viewing the pics on your computer and emailing them or putting them on webpages, you can cut out both the printer, etc. and the higher resolution cameras - 640x480 should be more than enough.
--
Film is still the way to go for even the moderately serious photographer. Even if you only take 1 roll of photos per week, you'll end up paying more for digital when you factor in the cost of the camera, printer, ink, paper, etc... Plus the resolution is not even close. Buy a good 35mm SLR and a film scanner if you want both quality prints and a digital archive. Buy a cheap-o digital if you're only publishing on the web. And if you are only publishing on the web, you don't need those 3 mega-pixel cameras - no one wants to download a .jpg bigger than 640x480 except in the most extreme circumstances.
:)
Just because the technology is newer doesn't mean its better
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What are you smoking, rob? I guess that memory I have of watching the US (tennis) Open on HDTV was just a hallucination.
It is a reality, you've got the money; turn off your reality-distortion field and go buy one.
Please moderate down for defiance of the infallible Malda.
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Just because the "people in charge" share your views does not mean the are not idiotic and contrived. In fact, the "people in charge" are notorious for being idiotic and contrived.
Just because most people can't access it right now doesn't make it impractical - and you haven't proven that most people can't access it. You say if you want information from the LOC that you could request it from your local library - but most libraries are already on-line. Wouldn't it be easier to just hop on a public terminal at the library rather than wait for the physical material to be transported to you?
As to the "most people can't access it" argument - how long do you think it would take to get all of this information digitized? If they start now, by the time they are done a lot more people will be able to access it. If you wait until then to start, it will only take that much longer.
Finally as to your question "what possible reason would you (other than for pleasure reading) want to read books not on copyright."(sic) There are lots of books that are out of copyright with useful information. There is more to the LOC than "computer book(s)."
--
In fact, the only time I can think of the government doing something to stop this kind of unsolicited advertising for the consumer's benefit was the anti-fax-spam law, but at that time (and even today) most of the fax machines were owned by (you guessed it) corporations.
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August 5, 1999. Same frikkin story. Thanks, guys.
YAWN
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If you want something "true to the Unix way of doing things" then you want one of the [free|net|open] BSDs. BSD is frightenly similar to Digital Unix - though that may not be suprising considering that DEC Unix is the only major commercial Unix that is still based on BSD as opposed to SysV.
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The cluster is made of a variant of the ES40, which is a 4 CPU box.
:)
The Interconnect is Memory Channel 2; 2GB/s with less than 2 microseconds latency.
So yes, this is a "real" supercomputer.
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http://www.swox.com/gmp/gmp-speed.html
The Alpha 21264 (aka EV6) pretty much beats the crap out of everything else. It's widely known that the Alpha is far and away the best platform for intensive mathematics.
FWIW, an EV6 (or any alpha, for that matter) can do both a FADD and FMUL in one cycle; a 1GHz Alpha therefore gets 2 GFLOP/s (assuming no cache misses, of course). A lot of the optimizations from generation to generation are for improving branch prediction, cache service, etc, which helps get the real-world numbers closer to the theoretical.
--
of partiular note is the Memory Channel 2 interconnect they are using which gives throughput of 2GB/sec with an amazing latency of less than 2 microseconds.
--
The machine will be built out of 4-CPU nodes based on the ES40. The OS will be a customized version of Tru64 5.0, which has VMS-style clustering. This will make the entire cluster appear as 1 machine, i.e. the OS only has to be installed one time. The CPUs will be the new 21364, aka EV7.
--
Why don't you ask a patent attorney instead of a bunch of know-it-all nerds (myself included) who are going to give you thirty different answers all followed by "IANAL".
If you're lucky the lawyer will be nice enough to give you an authoritative answer and not bill you $450.
--