I used to do i960 support for Intel and heard an interesting rumor while I worked there.
Apparently, the i960Cx processors were released around the same time as the 386 and one of the engineers there had access to the Windows source code. He ported Windows to the i960 and showed performance 2x-4x that of the 386.
Management got word of this and quickly ordered the project canceled and all source code deleted. Intel was in the business of selling x86 processors to consumers. i960 was to be embedded-only.
The card connectors are keyed to only fit in slots they're compatible with (for width & voltage). I have a 64 bit PCI video card for my AIX box and it fits in 32 bit slots too.
I believe that 66/33 MHz operation is negotiated by the chipset. If you plug a 33 MHz card in a 66 MHz bus, the bus operates at 33 MHz. I could be wrong though, it's been a while since I did PCI hardware support...
When you get out into 'the real world' you'll have to choose the company you want to work for. Do you have other interests? Econ, Geology, Stats? You can always apply for a job in another field you're interested in. There's always software to be written for other fields... You can also apply to be a research assistant to professors.
Also remember that the coding you do out here is usually much more complex than the projects you get in CS class. Implementing a three-tier image management database system is much more complex and challenging than writing a tic-tac-toe program (ah, yes. CSci 3317).
If you get into software architecture, you can spend lots of more time drawing pictures and designing systems than coding.
How about UI design and usability? Definitely a field I wish was paid more attention to.
What is your emphasis? OS? Networking? Databases? Microprocessor Design? Finding a niche you like always helps.
Did you take any internships while in school? I found that they really helped my career direction (in figuring out what I did NOT want to do). Plus internships give you lots of practical experience that isn't available in school.
I remember the first John Madden on Genesis. When your opponent was going to kick a field goal, you could keep going offsides for a couple of minutes, and then his kicker would always miss... But sometimes the game would crash instead!
Maybe M$ should put extra large fans on the demo units. You can still cool with hot air, you just need more of it:)
OS support should be fine, since it runs standard IA32 instructions natively.
One thing I noticed is that this sounds similar to NUMA. I wonder if we're going to start seeing patent infringements coming out of the woodwork...
I remember reading about TEMPEST standards from the government. The documents were (mostly) declassified recently and have standards for wiring sensitive (RED) data connections in different environments-- all the way to battlefield conditions.
Plus, you have some CYA protection here since it's a predefined standard!
IPv6 has more features than just an expanded address space. I've heard that address spoofing should be impossible with v6. It also has some routing enhancements to make the large address space more routable...
ARIN(the people that assign IPs in North America has more info)
1.2 Million dollars is the baseline system with 1 processor and 5GB memory. After you add the maximum 640 processors, parallel sysplex, a couple of TB of DASD I'm sure you could get over 10 mil. Any 390 admins around here? How much is the StorageTEK silo to back it up:)
Of course you're looking at the suprime icon of reliability. Why do you think that banks rely on them for all their processing? A bank can't afford downtime or lost data...
It's a good thing they're only expecting it to last a year. There are some pretty large problems associated with using Commerial Off The Shelf parts. Commercial ICs aren't hardened against radiation. They will fail much faster because they aren't designed to be bombarded by cosmic radiation. They're bringing standard laptops into space now, but they don't last too long before they fail.
This means that the web server runs in Ring Zero. Yea. Now script kiddies can get instant root access and modify our kernels. Heh.. they could zombie your box, overwrite your vmlinuz and disable the ttys. Keep your boot disks handy and up-to-date!
I'm curious how people are going to use Tux. They said something about forwarding requests to other web servers. Does this mean that it is intelligent to know that *.jsp (*.pl, whatever) needs to be forwarded to the application server?
Looks like this performance would benefit web sites that have lots of static content, but won't help those of us who do very dynamic sites. I could see, however, a high volume site using Tux for/index.html even if they had lots of dynamic content...
Yeah, that is one nice thing about Java. You get the "sandbox". All OS calls can be wrapped with a call to the SecurityManager. If you haven't given the applet permission (through a dialog, or certificate, etc), they can't do things like dial a number, or write to flash, etc.
But there still is some risk if there is a hole in the VM (A call that doesn't check the SecurityManager for instance) or if people just start clicking "Yes" on every security dialog that comes up:)
Their diagram shows the receivers synchronizing themselves with the GPS signal. When the military made the high-res GPS availiable to everyone, I seem to remeber them saying that they had "effective countermeasures" they could use during wartime to scramble an enemy's use of GPS...
Umm... Notice that they said "Metal 4" and "Metal 5". That means if you want to use a 45 degree interconnect, you via up to the diagonal layers. It isn't on the same layer as the other wires so it doesn't cut across them.
I'm surprised it took this long for someone to get this done. I remember designers where I worked spending long hours trying to reroute cells to reduce parasitics on long wires.
The latest version (7.1) of IBM ContentManager has an extension for MS Office (ODMA it's called). Instead of saving your files onto a filesystem, they get stored right in content manager. You can index some attributes and search for them later.
Check it out:
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/data/cm/cmgr/about_c m.html
New document management capabilities further expand the ease of managing and working with electronic office documents in IBM Content Manager. With version control you can create multiple versions of documents and objects, including multiple versions of specific document annotations. ODMA support allows you to store and access these electronic documents easily from ODMA V2.0-compliant Windows desktop applications.
Is there a standard benchmark out there? It would be interesting to compare the speed of the OO databases vs. traditional databases because you know that IBM and Oracle have spend years tuning their databases for speed and reliability.
On the topic of reliability, what about advanced DB features such as replication? Can I have ADSM log into the database and do a hot backup?
Of course then you have the age old issue of a company saying "We run DB2. Period." Then choosing an OO DB is a moot point...
Exactly! Faster than Deep Blue at what? Graphics? Most likely considering the pitiful performance of the GXT130P (which IBM is shipping with most of their RS/6000s these days). Did anyone actually see the GUI that deep blue used? Wasn't exactly BattleChess... and I doubt they will be including the chess processors in PS3:)
Hmmm... maybe we need a new benchmark here... ChessMarks.
At the school I went to (U of MN), there was both CompSci and CompE. But under each were different empasises. My degree was in CompE with an empasis in microprocessor design, yet lo and behold I'm doing software architecture.
If you're interested in programming, I'd go into CompSci with an empasis in Software Engineering-- I find that what most programmers lack most is structure design (UML, ERD, etc). Almost anyone can code. Putting structure behind it and making it maintainable is what is important.
However, if you are interested in embedded programming (cell phones, PDAs, game consoles, ATMs, etc), you'd want CompE, since you're more likely to have to deal with the native hardware and lower-level tasks such as I/O and interrupt handling.
Most importantly, make sure you get an internship. I worked for Intel Customer Support for 6 months and I think I learned more there than in a year of class. I also worked 6 months in an IC design shop and learned that I didn't want to do hardware design! Especially analog:)
Yeah, we used one of these for our senior project in college. We had a remote data collection unit that sampled voltage off a ADC. The microcontroller grabbed the ADC data and used the ming to transmit the data back to the PC.
Worked great.
Slightly off topic, but sort of on... I highly recommend anyone doing GUI development read Jakob's book, "Usability Engineering". It provides a great quantitative framework for evaluating the usability of an application and helps you avoid the common pitfalls in GUI design. I know we all like to say "RTFM", but the reality is that nobody does.:)
Lately in the press, there have been some stories about the future portables being repacements for your desktop computer. This may be true for joe web surfer, and bob technogeek, but anyone who has used their palmtop for web surfing, or (ick) their cell phone for psudeo-sufing realizes the prime weaknesses of handhelds: 1) There just isn't enough real-estate. 320x480 just will never cut it for web surfing. 2) Handheld input leaves something to be desired. Sure you can write your script characters, or type on your simulated keyboard in WinCE, but it will never be as convienient as typing on a real keyboard. Yes, I know 3rd parties make full keyboards and that voice recognition is on it's way, but would you feel comfortable in public folding out your big keyboard or saying, "double-u, double-u, double-u dot moviephone dot com"?... I'll wait for the direct Internet access link to my brain. (... not saying that I don't love my WinCE device, just that I wouldn't consider surfing with it...)
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I used to do i960 support for Intel and heard an interesting rumor while I worked there.
Apparently, the i960Cx processors were released around the same time as the 386 and one of the engineers there had access to the Windows source code. He ported Windows to the i960 and showed performance 2x-4x that of the 386.
Management got word of this and quickly ordered the project canceled and all source code deleted. Intel was in the business of selling x86 processors to consumers. i960 was to be embedded-only.
Hmm.. Last I checked, my IBM Power3-II/450 had EIGHT megabytes of L2 cache...
Of course, I think they're clocking in at about $5k each...
Remember that the world's fastest supercomputer runs AIX.
What exactly about AIX do you think is lame?
The PCI standard specifies all 4 arrangements:
32-bit/33MHz
32-bit/66MHz
64-bit/33MHz
64-bit/66MHz
Plus 3.3v/5v operation.
The card connectors are keyed to only fit in slots they're compatible with (for width & voltage). I have a 64 bit PCI video card for my AIX box and it fits in 32 bit slots too.
I believe that 66/33 MHz operation is negotiated by the chipset. If you plug a 33 MHz card in a 66 MHz bus, the bus operates at 33 MHz. I could be wrong though, it's been a while since I did PCI hardware support...
When you get out into 'the real world' you'll have to choose the company you want to work for. Do you have other interests? Econ, Geology, Stats? You can always apply for a job in another field you're interested in. There's always software to be written for other fields... You can also apply to be a research assistant to professors.
Also remember that the coding you do out here is usually much more complex than the projects you get in CS class. Implementing a three-tier image management database system is much more complex and challenging than writing a tic-tac-toe program (ah, yes. CSci 3317).
If you get into software architecture, you can spend lots of more time drawing pictures and designing systems than coding.
How about UI design and usability? Definitely a field I wish was paid more attention to.
What is your emphasis? OS? Networking? Databases? Microprocessor Design? Finding a niche you like always helps.
Did you take any internships while in school? I found that they really helped my career direction (in figuring out what I did NOT want to do). Plus internships give you lots of practical experience that isn't available in school.
I remember the first John Madden on Genesis. When your opponent was going to kick a field goal, you could keep going offsides for a couple of minutes, and then his kicker would always miss... But sometimes the game would crash instead! :)
Maybe M$ should put extra large fans on the demo units. You can still cool with hot air, you just need more of it
OS support should be fine, since it runs standard IA32 instructions natively.
One thing I noticed is that this sounds similar to NUMA. I wonder if we're going to start seeing patent infringements coming out of the woodwork...
I remember reading about TEMPEST standards from the government. The documents were (mostly) declassified recently and have standards for wiring sensitive (RED) data connections in different environments-- all the way to battlefield conditions.
t m
...
Plus, you have some CYA protection here since it's a predefined standard!
http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm/tempest.html
http://www.fas.org/irp/program/security/tempest.h
... but I still like the chain link fence idea with guard dogs
ARIN(the people that assign IPs in North America has more info)
Of course you're looking at the suprime icon of reliability. Why do you think that banks rely on them for all their processing? A bank can't afford downtime or lost data...
It's a good thing they're only expecting it to last a year. There are some pretty large problems associated with using Commerial Off The Shelf parts. Commercial ICs aren't hardened against radiation. They will fail much faster because they aren't designed to be bombarded by cosmic radiation. They're bringing standard laptops into space now, but they don't last too long before they fail.
I'm curious how people are going to use Tux. They said something about forwarding requests to other web servers. Does this mean that it is intelligent to know that *.jsp (*.pl, whatever) needs to be forwarded to the application server?
Looks like this performance would benefit web sites that have lots of static content, but won't help those of us who do very dynamic sites. I could see, however, a high volume site using Tux for /index.html even if they had lots of dynamic content...
It does decrypt. It just does it for you so you don't have to worry about it (i.e. it is "transparent").
But there still is some risk if there is a hole in the VM (A call that doesn't check the SecurityManager for instance) or if people just start clicking "Yes" on every security dialog that comes up :)
Their diagram shows the receivers synchronizing themselves with the GPS signal. When the military made the high-res GPS availiable to everyone, I seem to remeber them saying that they had "effective countermeasures" they could use during wartime to scramble an enemy's use of GPS...
I'm surprised it took this long for someone to get this done. I remember designers where I worked spending long hours trying to reroute cells to reduce parasitics on long wires.
"Your driving past this sign signifies your acceptance of the license agreement."
Check it out:
http://www-4.ibm.com/software/data/cm/cmgr/about_
On the topic of reliability, what about advanced DB features such as replication? Can I have ADSM log into the database and do a hot backup?
Of course then you have the age old issue of a company saying "We run DB2. Period." Then choosing an OO DB is a moot point...
Exactly! Faster than Deep Blue at what? Graphics? Most likely considering the pitiful performance of the GXT130P (which IBM is shipping with most of their RS/6000s these days). Did anyone actually see the GUI that deep blue used? Wasn't exactly BattleChess. .. and I doubt they will be including the chess processors in PS3 :)
Hmmm... maybe we need a new benchmark here... ChessMarks.
At the school I went to (U of MN), there was both CompSci and CompE. But under each were different empasises. My degree was in CompE with an empasis in microprocessor design, yet lo and behold I'm doing software architecture. If you're interested in programming, I'd go into CompSci with an empasis in Software Engineering-- I find that what most programmers lack most is structure design (UML, ERD, etc). Almost anyone can code. Putting structure behind it and making it maintainable is what is important. However, if you are interested in embedded programming (cell phones, PDAs, game consoles, ATMs, etc), you'd want CompE, since you're more likely to have to deal with the native hardware and lower-level tasks such as I/O and interrupt handling. Most importantly, make sure you get an internship. I worked for Intel Customer Support for 6 months and I think I learned more there than in a year of class. I also worked 6 months in an IC design shop and learned that I didn't want to do hardware design! Especially analog :)
Yeah, we used one of these for our senior project in college. We had a remote data collection unit that sampled voltage off a ADC. The microcontroller grabbed the ADC data and used the ming to transmit the data back to the PC. Worked great.
Slightly off topic, but sort of on... I highly recommend anyone doing GUI development read Jakob's book, "Usability Engineering". It provides a great quantitative framework for evaluating the usability of an application and helps you avoid the common pitfalls in GUI design. I know we all like to say "RTFM", but the reality is that nobody does. :)
Anyone here have a big place in Minneapolis? We could have our own bash and contribute the proceeds to EFF.
Lately in the press, there have been some stories about the future portables being repacements for your desktop computer. This may be true for joe web surfer, and bob technogeek, but anyone who has used their palmtop for web surfing, or (ick) their cell phone for psudeo-sufing realizes the prime weaknesses of handhelds: 1) There just isn't enough real-estate. 320x480 just will never cut it for web surfing. 2) Handheld input leaves something to be desired. Sure you can write your script characters, or type on your simulated keyboard in WinCE, but it will never be as convienient as typing on a real keyboard. Yes, I know 3rd parties make full keyboards and that voice recognition is on it's way, but would you feel comfortable in public folding out your big keyboard or saying, "double-u, double-u, double-u dot moviephone dot com"? ... I'll wait for the direct Internet access link to my brain. (... not saying that I don't love my WinCE device, just that I wouldn't consider surfing with it...)