First off, it was pretty obvious that MS were going to use existing code on the original XBOX, if only because it was to all intents and puropses a PC. So at the time MS had the choice between using a Win 9X codebase, a CE codebase or NT/2000 codebase.
Windows 9X compatibility wasn't a requirement so could be ignored, CE was optimised for lower power CPUs and had been a less than a stellar success in the Dreamcast, whilst the NT/2000 codebase was optimised for higher end processors x86/PPC/MIPS/Alpha. It would seem that the choice was obvious. I dare say that MS stripped it down so that it's just the kernel of 2000 with thin wrappers of DirectX on top of the drivers together with a the minimum requirements of Win32 to keep DirectX and OpenGL running.
If we jump ahead to now, it seems obvious that MS would carry on using the same platform - just this time using the PPC branch of 2000, build new drivers and probably add more Win32 stuff to support the XNA architecture. If anything it seems unthinkable that they would use anything but an NT kernel.
I would be more interested to know if Win360 (I know this is Slashdot and Microsoft is only interesting when it's monopolising the cure for cancer etc - but just allow me to wonder a moment!) supports.NET or Avalon.
Lots of MEPs hanging from lamposts (just so you know, Glenys Kinnock is my MEP liar of choice) sounds like just the ticket to help these self-serving morons remember they represent the people and not business interests...
In my opinion, for it to be chess, it would have to have two kings otherwise no one could win. Therefore 2x2 chess would start with checkmate and is absurd.
You are so right, NASA really do deserve all the credit for singlehandedly recovering the scientific data from this probe - go NASA.
Edit: Oops, after actually reading the article I now realise that JPL simply helped ESA pull together the signals from various telescopes all over the globe...but still woot for NASA and it's fighting Spirit - your lack of any failure ever shows how the USA is simply superior.
Yes, so long as it is the same game GTA3 would have been equally successful.....is there actually any evidence that "object-oriented development methodologies" create better games?
Setting a lower bar of entry into a given artistic field doesn't mean the quality of the art gets better.
I am a fan id especially of Carmacks undoubted technical mastery of the first person consumer level graphics engines. That however doesn't change the fact that I was bored senseless by the poor gameplay of Doom 3.
I am a fan of Valves ability to provide the best original first person shooter, that however doesn't change the fact that I was blown away by a great deal of Half Life 2 - the gameplay simply left Doom 3 in the dust.
So you see, you can prefer one companies engine and another companies game...blind bias isn't necessary and just because you have 250 games doesn't stop you from being biased.
On of the main reasons that P4s have deep pipelines is to compensate for the fact that memory speeds have not generally risen anywhere near as much as the chips ability to consume the memory bandwidth. This problem doesn't go away with your multiple 3.8Ghz 386's - if anything the problem is compounded (much as it will be when there are two P4 cores sharing the same memory bandwidth as a single P4) so your 386 will sit there spinning it's little 386 wheels everytime it needs some data or cocks up a branch prediction.
Yes if you ignore the fact that both cores need memory bandwidth and depending on what they are doing they'll need to share the I/O bandwidth and all manner of other limited resources.
2004 MN4 is not a civilisation destroyer (unless it hit Hollywood), so human life could continue around the world even if it did hit.
Something more substantial however, such as a 10km chunk of rock would spell the end for civilisation as we know it.
Either way, I would imagine the time until impact would be the key variable in anyones thinking, twenty plus years and I wouldn't be suprised if a suitably motivated, combined world effort couldn't come up with a method to deflect even a large object.
As an aside, judging by what I see in the world today, it looks like a lot of people have already given up on planning for the future anyway!
Clock for clock, the final P3 (the Pentium III S) would smoke the original P4 (Willamete) no questions asked. So it's quite possible dual P3/500s could have beaten a 1.5Ghz P4 on many benchmarks.
The CPU-Z shots very strongly suggest it's running in windows. But just maybe it's a VM on Linux, or Wine or some other reason to mention Linux on slashdot!
It's a shame the pi calc shot is done when it's running at 5.4Ghz instead of the arbitrary 6Ghz...
If Intel hadn't decided to kill P4 in favour of PM then we may have had to do it sooner rather than later!
It would be amazing to have to use LN2...but then again since I first stuck my finger on top of my 68000 and realising it was a lot hotter than my 6502 i'm constantly amazed how hot these things are getting.
How is the "size a space shuttle 'has' to be" "obvious"? The size of the Space Shuttle was dictated by it's cargo bay which was in turn dictated by the Department of Defence.
The Russians could have decided to go with an orbital vehicle which was bigger or smaller than the Shuttle, however they decided to go almost exactly the same vehicle so that was the only way in which the size of the Buran was "obvious".
It not only looks like the Shuttle it's dimensions are very similar:
Shuttle Length: 37.25M Wingspan: 23.80M Payload Bay Length: 18.29M Payload Bay Diameter: 4.57M Wing sweep: 45 degrees
Buran Length: 36.37M Wingspan: 23.92M Payload Bay Length: 18.55M Payload Bay Diameter: 4.65M Wing sweep: 45 degrees
The differences are very small or non-existant, especially in wingspan, wing sweep - and the larger difference in length is most likely due to the Shuttle's engines.
From just looking at the two, it is clear that the Buran is externally a copy of the Shuttle, however that seems to be where the similarities end. It does make sense for the Russians to have done this as firstly they wanted to appear to have parity with the US so why not make the parity clear in the vehicles appearence. The Russians also knew that the US had spent a lot of time proving the external shape of the Shuttle worked.
What the Russians maybe didn't know was how much of a compromise the Shuttle actually was and therefor they expended a lot of resources just copying the NASA's mistakes - although from what I have read the Buran would have been a lot cheaper to operate and more efficient due to the absence of the Shuttles main engines.
Shadowing is just the start, taken to it's logical conclusion patents are going to be filed covering every aspect of a game - from it's graphics through to it's gameplay and UI.
In the end an independent developer is going to be unable to work without spending more money on lawyers and licenses than on creating the game itself. The horror...the horror...
"Optimised for IE" and WMV/WMA only content are both down to content providers. The internet is built on standards and if content providers choose proprietary extensions or formats then it's based on commercial decisions and consumers can as usual vote with our money.
No one needs to optimise their site for IE (except for in the IE4 days of early DHTML) in these days of reasonable HTML4 conformance, just as no content provider needs to select WMA/WMV over MP3 or MPEG4/XVid etc - but they as publishers still have choice just as do we the consumers.
Of course if you compete with IE or WMP with your own proprietary formats then you'll cry blue murder, but it's not for the consumer - it's for shareholders.
Personally I can do without IE or WMP so long as I can FTP down a copy of Firefox and then download an open source media player...but I don't want IE or WMP taken away just to allow other proprietary software to get in and start poping up requests for me to "Register for the Pro version".
"When 98% of PCs have WMP, there is no need for streaming or downloadable media to use any other format except WM. So in a short time they won't."
MP3/Ogg/DivX/XVid are doing a roaring trade, to the point that I have no WMA nor WMV. Now that hardware manufacturers are adding WMA to portable music players and WMV to DVD players it may change, but this isn't down to media player being bundled, it's down to the content providers - they can still opt to use cross platform standards.
"As survey afer survey has shown, most users just run what's in the box"
Media Player has been bundled since Windows 3.1 and Quicktime and RealPlayer came into existence and thrived even after this "anti-competitive bundling", but perhaps that's because they were once superior! Regardless, that isn't a monopoly, no one is forced to use IE or WMP, the choice of what to use is there.
I use Winamp for my music - an effective competitor to WMP for music. I use Quicktime for viewing film previews - an effective competitor to WMP for film clips. I use Firefox for my daily browsing - an effective competitor to IE.
So even with bundled apps, these competitors thrive on even my MS friendly box. How will removing Windows Media Player improve my lot as a consumer? It won't, the best you can hope for is that it will help Real sell some units of their terrible player to an OEM or two.
"This isn't a big novelty; ten years ago PCs came with varied software, not MS everything." - now almost ever PC is connected to the Internet so varied software is just a mouse click away.
Funnily enough I have Firefox AND IE. Funnily enough I have Quicktime AND Media Player.
What do you know, I have choice. In this case I choose to use Firefox and Media Player most of the time. The decision of your organisation to use Exchange and Outlook is nothing to do with this case, you still have complete choice over which email client to choose as does your organisation.
Seems like the EU is imposing choice on me which I don't want. Whats next? Do AOL complain about Messenger, Adobe complain about MS Paint, Ultraedit compain about Notepad. I want my modern OS to browse the web and play media files out of the box, and given there is nothing stopping me installing different browsers or media players I do not see any issue.
As far as Microsoft not playing fair - who cares, if everything Microsoft write is as bad as many claim, then Microsoft are doomed anyway. People will not use this terrible, bloated, insecure software regardless of any predatory and monopolising tactics Microsoft use. They'll use the far more secure Linux with the far more functional RealOne player.
Yup, and as a consumer in the EU, I want an OS I pay for to have the ability to browse the internet and play music and video files out of the box, but also integrated so that other apps can show internet content and play media without having more unwanted apps installed.
The last thing I want is Real player popping up messages that I don't want after I checked every "Don't pop up messages at all?" box available. Neither do I want Quicktime offering me the chance to upgrade to Pro every time I open it - where is the "I never want to upgrade to Pro" option?
Slashdot Mirror
IE 360 derived from the MacOS X IE - at least it'll have less spyware in the short term!
First off, it was pretty obvious that MS were going to use existing code on the original XBOX, if only because it was to all intents and puropses a PC. So at the time MS had the choice between using a Win 9X codebase, a CE codebase or NT/2000 codebase.
.NET or Avalon.
Windows 9X compatibility wasn't a requirement so could be ignored, CE was optimised for lower power CPUs and had been a less than a stellar success in the Dreamcast, whilst the NT/2000 codebase was optimised for higher end processors x86/PPC/MIPS/Alpha. It would seem that the choice was obvious. I dare say that MS stripped it down so that it's just the kernel of 2000 with thin wrappers of DirectX on top of the drivers together with a the minimum requirements of Win32 to keep DirectX and OpenGL running.
If we jump ahead to now, it seems obvious that MS would carry on using the same platform - just this time using the PPC branch of 2000, build new drivers and probably add more Win32 stuff to support the XNA architecture. If anything it seems unthinkable that they would use anything but an NT kernel.
I would be more interested to know if Win360 (I know this is Slashdot and Microsoft is only interesting when it's monopolising the cure for cancer etc - but just allow me to wonder a moment!) supports
Viva la revolution!
Lots of MEPs hanging from lamposts (just so you know, Glenys Kinnock is my MEP liar of choice) sounds like just the ticket to help these self-serving morons remember they represent the people and not business interests...
In my opinion, for it to be chess, it would have to have two kings otherwise no one could win. Therefore 2x2 chess would start with checkmate and is absurd.
You are so right, NASA really do deserve all the credit for singlehandedly recovering the scientific data from this probe - go NASA.
Edit: Oops, after actually reading the article I now realise that JPL simply helped ESA pull together the signals from various telescopes all over the globe...but still woot for NASA and it's fighting Spirit - your lack of any failure ever shows how the USA is simply superior.
Yes, so long as it is the same game GTA3 would have been equally successful.....is there actually any evidence that "object-oriented development methodologies" create better games?
Setting a lower bar of entry into a given artistic field doesn't mean the quality of the art gets better.
I am a fan id especially of Carmacks undoubted technical mastery of the first person consumer level graphics engines. That however doesn't change the fact that I was bored senseless by the poor gameplay of Doom 3.
I am a fan of Valves ability to provide the best original first person shooter, that however doesn't change the fact that I was blown away by a great deal of Half Life 2 - the gameplay simply left Doom 3 in the dust.
So you see, you can prefer one companies engine and another companies game...blind bias isn't necessary and just because you have 250 games doesn't stop you from being biased.
Nice bit of patronising that.
On of the main reasons that P4s have deep pipelines is to compensate for the fact that memory speeds have not generally risen anywhere near as much as the chips ability to consume the memory bandwidth. This problem doesn't go away with your multiple 3.8Ghz 386's - if anything the problem is compounded (much as it will be when there are two P4 cores sharing the same memory bandwidth as a single P4) so your 386 will sit there spinning it's little 386 wheels everytime it needs some data or cocks up a branch prediction.
Yes if you ignore the fact that both cores need memory bandwidth and depending on what they are doing they'll need to share the I/O bandwidth and all manner of other limited resources.
Pentium M is based on a P3 - so you could say that the P4 was just a dead end Intel took to win the Mhz/Ghz wars...it worked but at what cost.
I'm sure some posts wouldn't exist if the poster understood sarcasm.
2004 MN4 is not a civilisation destroyer (unless it hit Hollywood), so human life could continue around the world even if it did hit.
Something more substantial however, such as a 10km chunk of rock would spell the end for civilisation as we know it.
Either way, I would imagine the time until impact would be the key variable in anyones thinking, twenty plus years and I wouldn't be suprised if a suitably motivated, combined world effort couldn't come up with a method to deflect even a large object.
As an aside, judging by what I see in the world today, it looks like a lot of people have already given up on planning for the future anyway!
Clock for clock, the final P3 (the Pentium III S) would smoke the original P4 (Willamete) no questions asked. So it's quite possible dual P3/500s could have beaten a 1.5Ghz P4 on many benchmarks.
The CPU-Z shots very strongly suggest it's running in windows. But just maybe it's a VM on Linux, or Wine or some other reason to mention Linux on slashdot!
It's a shame the pi calc shot is done when it's running at 5.4Ghz instead of the arbitrary 6Ghz...
If Intel hadn't decided to kill P4 in favour of PM then we may have had to do it sooner rather than later!
It would be amazing to have to use LN2...but then again since I first stuck my finger on top of my 68000 and realising it was a lot hotter than my 6502 i'm constantly amazed how hot these things are getting.
How is the "size a space shuttle 'has' to be" "obvious"? The size of the Space Shuttle was dictated by it's cargo bay which was in turn dictated by the Department of Defence.
The Russians could have decided to go with an orbital vehicle which was bigger or smaller than the Shuttle, however they decided to go almost exactly the same vehicle so that was the only way in which the size of the Buran was "obvious".
Sadly Buran only flew into space once:
t ml
http://k26.com/buran/Info/1st_Flight/the_flight.h
It not only looks like the Shuttle it's dimensions are very similar:
Shuttle
Length: 37.25M
Wingspan: 23.80M
Payload Bay Length: 18.29M
Payload Bay Diameter: 4.57M
Wing sweep: 45 degrees
Buran
Length: 36.37M
Wingspan: 23.92M
Payload Bay Length: 18.55M
Payload Bay Diameter: 4.65M
Wing sweep: 45 degrees
The differences are very small or non-existant, especially in wingspan, wing sweep - and the larger difference in length is most likely due to the Shuttle's engines.
From just looking at the two, it is clear that the Buran is externally a copy of the Shuttle, however that seems to be where the similarities end. It does make sense for the Russians to have done this as firstly they wanted to appear to have parity with the US so why not make the parity clear in the vehicles appearence. The Russians also knew that the US had spent a lot of time proving the external shape of the Shuttle worked.
What the Russians maybe didn't know was how much of a compromise the Shuttle actually was and therefor they expended a lot of resources just copying the NASA's mistakes - although from what I have read the Buran would have been a lot cheaper to operate and more efficient due to the absence of the Shuttles main engines.
Shadowing is just the start, taken to it's logical conclusion patents are going to be filed covering every aspect of a game - from it's graphics through to it's gameplay and UI.
In the end an independent developer is going to be unable to work without spending more money on lawyers and licenses than on creating the game itself. The horror...the horror...
Imagine all the Stephen Hawking sounding phone spam...the horror! The horror!
"Optimised for IE" and WMV/WMA only content are both down to content providers. The internet is built on standards and if content providers choose proprietary extensions or formats then it's based on commercial decisions and consumers can as usual vote with our money.
No one needs to optimise their site for IE (except for in the IE4 days of early DHTML) in these days of reasonable HTML4 conformance, just as no content provider needs to select WMA/WMV over MP3 or MPEG4/XVid etc - but they as publishers still have choice just as do we the consumers.
Of course if you compete with IE or WMP with your own proprietary formats then you'll cry blue murder, but it's not for the consumer - it's for shareholders.
Personally I can do without IE or WMP so long as I can FTP down a copy of Firefox and then download an open source media player...but I don't want IE or WMP taken away just to allow other proprietary software to get in and start poping up requests for me to "Register for the Pro version".
"When 98% of PCs have WMP, there is no need for streaming or downloadable media to use any other format except WM. So in a short time they won't."
MP3/Ogg/DivX/XVid are doing a roaring trade, to the point that I have no WMA nor WMV. Now that hardware manufacturers are adding WMA to portable music players and WMV to DVD players it may change, but this isn't down to media player being bundled, it's down to the content providers - they can still opt to use cross platform standards.
"As survey afer survey has shown, most users just run what's in the box"
Media Player has been bundled since Windows 3.1 and Quicktime and RealPlayer came into existence and thrived even after this "anti-competitive bundling", but perhaps that's because they were once superior! Regardless, that isn't a monopoly, no one is forced to use IE or WMP, the choice of what to use is there.
--
I use Winamp for my music - an effective competitor to WMP for music.
I use Quicktime for viewing film previews - an effective competitor to WMP for film clips.
I use Firefox for my daily browsing - an effective competitor to IE.
So even with bundled apps, these competitors thrive on even my MS friendly box. How will removing Windows Media Player improve my lot as a consumer? It won't, the best you can hope for is that it will help Real sell some units of their terrible player to an OEM or two.
"This isn't a big novelty; ten years ago PCs came with varied software, not MS everything." - now almost ever PC is connected to the Internet so varied software is just a mouse click away.
Funnily enough I have Firefox AND IE.
Funnily enough I have Quicktime AND Media Player.
What do you know, I have choice. In this case I choose to use Firefox and Media Player most of the time. The decision of your organisation to use Exchange and Outlook is nothing to do with this case, you still have complete choice over which email client to choose as does your organisation.
Seems like the EU is imposing choice on me which I don't want. Whats next? Do AOL complain about Messenger, Adobe complain about MS Paint, Ultraedit compain about Notepad. I want my modern OS to browse the web and play media files out of the box, and given there is nothing stopping me installing different browsers or media players I do not see any issue.
As far as Microsoft not playing fair - who cares, if everything Microsoft write is as bad as many claim, then Microsoft are doomed anyway. People will not use this terrible, bloated, insecure software regardless of any predatory and monopolising tactics Microsoft use. They'll use the far more secure Linux with the far more functional RealOne player.
Yup, and as a consumer in the EU, I want an OS I pay for to have the ability to browse the internet and play music and video files out of the box, but also integrated so that other apps can show internet content and play media without having more unwanted apps installed.
The last thing I want is Real player popping up messages that I don't want after I checked every "Don't pop up messages at all?" box available. Neither do I want Quicktime offering me the chance to upgrade to Pro every time I open it - where is the "I never want to upgrade to Pro" option?