Curious... is this a standard jet direct interface listening on port 9100? If so, then if you install and use lprng on linux, it should work just fine.
I know we use lprng to print from Solaris to all our HP and Xerox printers where I work, and it works like a charm.
What post are you reading? I never said that they did claim hardware failure as a copout. I said (and I quote): "Hardware failure" is always an easy excuse to give to people. This would imply that it's a possibility, and that it was my opinion that they could use that excuse.. not that they did.
What I would like to point out if nothing else is that Sun UE10000 and high-availability is an oxymoron. The very public eBay site proves that.
No, one site having issues doesn't "prove" anything, other then an E10k can go down. At the same time, neither does our track record of the E10k being stable (once the initial issues with software were worked out) prove that they're rock solid.
I didn't say that it was what happened, just that it might be possible.
It's possible that management made that decision themselves too. Choices are: Let public know we made a huge mistake in allowing this software implementation (or hiring these people, etc) and look really bad, or blame hardware (and perhaps deal with bad admins quietly) and fix what was wrong in the meantime. I'm not saying that happened, just that it's not impossible.
BTW, with Sun contracts, I'd bet you could get sun to replace parts, even if there was no guarantee it was bad (or even if you know it's not). Of course they'd probably catch on after a few times. I know when we call, they don't ask questions, they just do it. Of course, we never call in anything unless we know it's bad...
I'm also not saying that Sun hardware (or the company) is perfect, nothing is. But IME Sun hardware is much more robust then PC hardware. At least Sun is now admitting that there is a problem and that they're working on it.
Show me a PC that still costs that and has:
1. Built in ability to boot off the net or _any_ other device you want, and can be set to default to that.
2. Serial console ability out of the box.
3. Massive online support center (sunsolve) from the vendor.
4. If hardware is made for the system, it _will_ work, period (I've run into plenty of PC hardware that doesn't play nice on some mobos or in combination with some other cards).
Sun hardware is expensive, and support is costly, but you damn well get what you pay for. We can get Sun here within an hour for critical issues, and the next day at the latest for non-critical. How's your local vendor and/or manufacturer on similar issues with PC hardware? I've had PC stuff fail and it takes forever to get replacements (unless the store's open, they have it in stock, and will let you return it). It's usually faster to just buy a new part.
BTW to your #3: Which OS is native for PCs? DOS? Windows? Linux? Personally I prefer Linux, but PCs weren't designed for any specific OS. Sun hardware was. Linux runs nicely on it though.:)
Oh yeah, can you run 64 bit on that PC? Didn't think so.
Funny, my company has one.. and it's pretty damn solid. There were issues when it was new, due to the same things the person you responded to said: our people were using an older solaris (2.5.1) and custom software. Once the kinks were worked out it was found to be rock solid. Makes one hell of a spam mail generator too (got paged when oncall one night because someone's script got into an infinite loop and was sending 1000's of mails every second to his account, load on the machine went over 200, but it still did it's job and didn't crash).
BTW, if the admins at eBay simply did something wrong or made a mistake, do you think they'd admit it publicly? "Hardware failure" is always an easy excuse to give to people.
If you go back and read the article, you'll see that this isn't a system RAM issue at all... it's the CPU Cache:
The problem involves an external memory cache on Sun's UltraSPARC II microprocessor module.
The article later mentions that it seems confined to 400MHz CPUs with 4 or 8MB cache.
want MORE taxes, and I want gas prices to go UP, and I'm serious. I'd love to be able to go through West Philly without it being the warzone that a poverty-stricken urban area naturally becomes, or to be able to breath slightly cleaner air because people realized that they can walk or bike to most locations.
If you actually believe that paying more for gas, and especially more in taxes will somehow magically fix that problem... can you please let us know what color the sky on your planet is? Please?
Many of those "poverty-stricken urban areas" are created because people become dependant on social programs, don't get an education to improve themselves, and don't end up with a better job.
Enlightened?! You call that enlightened? I call it avarice and selfishness... especially if you are in a 40% tax bracket. Oh no honey, those liberal bastards are insisting we give money to the hungry, no new yacht this month.
Bite me! I hear this argument so much... Liberals want everyone to think that if you don't want to hand over 1/2 the money you worked your ass off for, that you don't care about people. It's not selfish to want to be able to afford to live decently using money that you've worked for, instead of having that money wasted on goverment programs that don't work!
I propose that the tax system be changed to a 15% flat tax.. and all you liberals who believe in these systems so much can donate all the money you earn to feel better, and to keep those programs going.
When my father worked for Ma Bell back in the 70's and 80's, he worked on the phone system in the local welfare offices once. He overheard what they did, and said that they were actively calling people in other states, trying to get them to move to California. They were basically recruiting more people for the welfare rolls, telling them how much more money they could get here. Why?!? The only reason to do that is to get as many people on the roll as you can to justify your own job. I have no problem with helping people, but there's a huge difference between help and paying people forever when they're not doing anything to get off the government's books.
Personally I think those guys at top9 are just morons. I tried everyone of the "red padlock" sites (on the top9 lock in list) that are supposed to completely lock you in... and got out of every one by simply holding the back button down to get a history list.
most average joe users dont give a damn what os they use most average joe users dont even realize that theyre using a microsoft product when they load windows
That's true, most average joe users also are shocked when they ask me questions about programs crashing, Blue Screens on their box or how often they should reboot and learn that my Linux and Solaris boxes often run many programs at once and do so for months at a time.
Most people that seem to be so against the trial seem to have never used anything but windows, and don't realize what a POS windows is. There's no way MS could've gained their market share without illegal tatics with the crap they call an OS. If there were real competition out there, they would've lost on technical merit ages ago.
"Average Joe user" has become so accustomed to regular reboots and crashes that they think it's normal. People don't seem to realize that crashes should be the exception, not the rule.
Please correct me if I am mistaken, but the article posted on www.shameonnike.com clearly states that his own server(s) were also compromised in the attack.
Yeah I got that from it too. I also note he says "We reboot three-four times each day depending upon how many new domains we are registering for clients..." What they hell is he using for DNS that he needs to reboot just to have it recognize new entries? If it's a *nix box, and that's his level of knowledge, maybe nike should sue him.
Have you even played the Thief or System Shock games? Both are much more immersive games then anything id has ever offered.
Sure, if I want to play some fast paced FPS with friends, I play Q3A... but if I want a very well made game with a nice balance of action, puzzles, plot, etc... I'll take a game like Thief or System Shock 2 any day.
2 - I think that Microsoft did indeed help the industry. They provided a low-cost common platform for people to develop applications for.
Actually, MS is not responsible for PCs being cheap. That was do to IBM using off the shelf technology that could be cloned... thereby creating competition which drove prices down.
MS OSes have been going up in costs over the years, not down.
Re:I speak for myself when I say...
on
Athlons Sold Out
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· Score: 1
AMD's 99% compatibility doesn't cut it.
As one who's run AMDs from K5s, K6s, etc to my current Athlon, I can say that I've Never had a single compatibility problem with an AMD processor. I'm talking about running them with OSes from Dos, Win3.x, Win9x, NT, Linux, and even W2k (W2k on the Athlon).
I also know many people who have run the entire line too.. and none have had issues. The only ones that were ever proven that I know of were from the very earliest AMD processors (and there was that one problem with the very first run of K6s too if I'm not mistaken).
You've bought the Intel marketing hook, line and sinker. Those problems are a thing of the past.
the unit tracks what shows you like (through thumbs up and down buttons on your remote) and then tapes other shows it "thinks" you might be interested in while you are away
Actually, I have a Tivo and that feature is pretty cool. Sometimes it records really bizarre stuff that doesn't make sense, but sometimes it catches a movie or show that I end up enjoying.
Also, if you'd bother to read their privacy policy you'd see that won't use this info without your consent.
The scariest thing to me is that I suddenly seem to have a subscription for a year to Soap Opera Digest Magazine. I sure as hell don't watch soap operas, and can only guess that I got it after signing up for the Tivo service since they started to arrive shortly thereafter.
Personally I think the Tivo (and the Replay) are great ideas and well worth the price. Actually I need to get myself a 30 hour one now.. 14 just doesn't cut it when you try to save up shows like the X-Files to watch in one sitting.:)
What you experienced is completely normal when you don't follow normal procedure.
Normal for windows perhaps, but do the same with a recent Linux distro (at least RH)... and kudzu will pop up saying that the network card detected has changed, what would you like to do? Select "configure" and you're done.... and it works, period.
Because Cheapbytes is basically burning the same CD you can do yourself if you download the distro... MS is getting paid for it's OS from the OEM... which you pay the OEM for.
There's a big difference, in one case you're paying for nothing other then the CD media. In the other, you're (indirectly) paying MS for the OS itself.
The most infuriating thing is that I got NO error messages or even hints of problems from Windows to the effect that my network card was misconfigured. It all came up clean. I just had no networking.
How often have you actually gotten an error message in windows that was actually useful?!?
What peeves me is that most error messages in windows (unless you have one of MS' development suites like VC++ that might allow you to debug a program) are useless. I often get errors from programs (like I just did a few minutes ago with media player) that have a button for "more info" on the error. Click that and it repeats the exact same error message again, word for word with a little hex number in brackets at the end for good measure. Yeah, that was more helpful...
Personally I hope that the DOJ sucks it up and smacks MS hard. I'm so tired of people writing newspapers about how the big bad DOJ is going after poor Bill and his friends who have made computers possible for the masses. MS had nothing to do with the cost of PCs being as low as they are.. cloning is responsible for that. And if MS hadn't squashed any and all competition in the past, we'd likely have much more choice now, and better systems to boot. [pun not intended]
No offense, but did this person even try looking before asking this question (about the CD/mp3 player)? I mean, it took me less then 5 seconds to look at Mp3.com's hardware page to find the very first item (at least when I just checked) is such a device. And they've had several posted over the last few months that are in developtment.
That's just one site too.. there must be other sites with mp3 hardware reviews/previews out there. Plus a search on deja of mp3 & cd & audio & player had about 2300 hits, many of which have URLs to companies with such products in the works.
I think a better/. article on this subject would've been one that points out the players shown in mp3.com's list exist are are being designed.
You did not have hard drives back then, they were to expensive!
Ah yes, playing StarFlight lo those many years ago on a dual-floppy 8088 machine.
What a pain their save-game system was though. You had to make a playing copy of the disks, and another copy each time you wanted to save some point in the game. The worst was if you didn't exit properly you lost the game. Not just the work you did since starting, but the whole game! One time someone flipped the power while I was out of the room almost made we want to kill the whole family!
Those were the days eh?:)
I also remember getting my first hard drive. A 20Meg behemoth (had to lose a floppy to fit it though:( ). I remember thinking, "20Meg! I'll never be able to fill that thing!" My how times have changed.
Its the way the scheduling of that daemon is performed that is interesting.
MS has recognised that low priority I/O intensive tasks like disk scanners often impact system performance heavily, becuase the task scheduler see's the task as a low resource task, becuase it is consuming only small amounts of CPU, Even though it may be generating a large load on the disk system.
It might be interesting, but it's not innovative either. I don't personally know about the schedulers in other *nix OSes, but Solaris already does this (and I would assume that at least the other commercial *nixes do too). It gives processes different priorities depending on CPU and IO needs. In fact, you can tune it to suit your needs... even on a live kernel (i.e. no reboot necessary).
Re:Had to love the chick in the leather outfit...
on
X-Files FPS Episode
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· Score: 1
While I agree that this episode wasn't as good as many others, I enjoyed it for the most part. The reason I think I enjoyed it, is because I saw it as one of the group they make each year where they aren't really serious and just poke fun at themselves. Kind of like the 'he said, she said'-ish episode with the pizza boy vampire where they told the story from each point of view... although they pulled that one off much more then this one.
I mean, the line where she asked what kind of guy get's his ya-ya's off on a game like that and Muldar just smiled a huge smile while pointing at himself... that was classic.
Now that's lasting value. Not a cutting edge system any more by any means, but it's quite something to still be using a system that old for a production server...
Exactly. We still use quite a few SS5s and 20s (for those not needing any fast graphics) where I work. Sure they take a lot longer to boot, and logins are slow, but they do the job running the Same OS as the U2s, U60s, and U80s we use for higher-end work. Try taking a measly low-end 486 or 386 from 5-6 years ago and running the same version of NT on it for people to use with the same disk and memory that they used with win 3.1 or whatever back then.
Well you would need 10,000 Ultra Sparcs to get any decent performance. Long live the Alpha EV6.7
"However, from what I can tell, they have mostly hit their design targets, and for the SPEC95 benchmarks, a 600MHz US-3 (the initial clock speed) will be about the same as a 700 MHz Alpha 21264A (EV67)."
Considering how fast the 21264s are, that's one hell of an improvement from the current USparc chips. I for one can't wait. I admit though that Alphas will probably still lead a little, it's too bad they've not yet gained as widespread an acceptance as Sun, HP and x86 CPUs have.
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Curious... is this a standard jet direct interface listening on port 9100? If so, then if you install and use lprng on linux, it should work just fine.
I know we use lprng to print from Solaris to all our HP and Xerox printers where I work, and it works like a charm.
now that you have climbed down... What?!?
What post are you reading? I never said that they did claim hardware failure as a copout. I said (and I quote): "Hardware failure" is always an easy excuse to give to people. This would imply that it's a possibility, and that it was my opinion that they could use that excuse.. not that they did.
What I would like to point out if nothing else is that Sun UE10000 and high-availability is an oxymoron. The very public eBay site proves that.
No, one site having issues doesn't "prove" anything, other then an E10k can go down. At the same time, neither does our track record of the E10k being stable (once the initial issues with software were worked out) prove that they're rock solid.
I didn't say that it was what happened, just that it might be possible.
It's possible that management made that decision themselves too. Choices are: Let public know we made a huge mistake in allowing this software implementation (or hiring these people, etc) and look really bad, or blame hardware (and perhaps deal with bad admins quietly) and fix what was wrong in the meantime. I'm not saying that happened, just that it's not impossible.
BTW, with Sun contracts, I'd bet you could get sun to replace parts, even if there was no guarantee it was bad (or even if you know it's not). Of course they'd probably catch on after a few times. I know when we call, they don't ask questions, they just do it. Of course, we never call in anything unless we know it's bad...
I'm also not saying that Sun hardware (or the company) is perfect, nothing is. But IME Sun hardware is much more robust then PC hardware. At least Sun is now admitting that there is a problem and that they're working on it.
Show me a PC that still costs that and has:
:)
1. Built in ability to boot off the net or _any_ other device you want, and can be set to default to that.
2. Serial console ability out of the box.
3. Massive online support center (sunsolve) from the vendor.
4. If hardware is made for the system, it _will_ work, period (I've run into plenty of PC hardware that doesn't play nice on some mobos or in combination with some other cards).
Sun hardware is expensive, and support is costly, but you damn well get what you pay for. We can get Sun here within an hour for critical issues, and the next day at the latest for non-critical. How's your local vendor and/or manufacturer on similar issues with PC hardware? I've had PC stuff fail and it takes forever to get replacements (unless the store's open, they have it in stock, and will let you return it). It's usually faster to just buy a new part.
BTW to your #3: Which OS is native for PCs? DOS? Windows? Linux? Personally I prefer Linux, but PCs weren't designed for any specific OS. Sun hardware was. Linux runs nicely on it though.
Oh yeah, can you run 64 bit on that PC? Didn't think so.
Get a UE10000 and watch it act like a yo-yo!
Funny, my company has one.. and it's pretty damn solid. There were issues when it was new, due to the same things the person you responded to said: our people were using an older solaris (2.5.1) and custom software. Once the kinks were worked out it was found to be rock solid. Makes one hell of a spam mail generator too (got paged when oncall one night because someone's script got into an infinite loop and was sending 1000's of mails every second to his account, load on the machine went over 200, but it still did it's job and didn't crash).
BTW, if the admins at eBay simply did something wrong or made a mistake, do you think they'd admit it publicly? "Hardware failure" is always an easy excuse to give to people.
If you go back and read the article, you'll see that this isn't a system RAM issue at all... it's the CPU Cache:
The problem involves an external memory cache on Sun's UltraSPARC II microprocessor module.
The article later mentions that it seems confined to 400MHz CPUs with 4 or 8MB cache.
want MORE taxes, and I want gas prices to go UP, and I'm serious. I'd love to be able to go through West Philly without it being the warzone that a poverty-stricken urban area naturally becomes, or to be able to breath slightly cleaner air because people realized that they can walk or bike to most locations.
If you actually believe that paying more for gas, and especially more in taxes will somehow magically fix that problem... can you please let us know what color the sky on your planet is? Please?
Many of those "poverty-stricken urban areas" are created because people become dependant on social programs, don't get an education to improve themselves, and don't end up with a better job.
Enlightened?! You call that enlightened? I call it avarice and selfishness... especially if you are in a 40% tax bracket. Oh no honey, those liberal bastards are insisting we give money to the hungry, no new yacht this month.
Bite me! I hear this argument so much... Liberals want everyone to think that if you don't want to hand over 1/2 the money you worked your ass off for, that you don't care about people. It's not selfish to want to be able to afford to live decently using money that you've worked for, instead of having that money wasted on goverment programs that don't work!
I propose that the tax system be changed to a 15% flat tax.. and all you liberals who believe in these systems so much can donate all the money you earn to feel better, and to keep those programs going.
When my father worked for Ma Bell back in the 70's and 80's, he worked on the phone system in the local welfare offices once. He overheard what they did, and said that they were actively calling people in other states, trying to get them to move to California. They were basically recruiting more people for the welfare rolls, telling them how much more money they could get here. Why?!? The only reason to do that is to get as many people on the roll as you can to justify your own job. I have no problem with helping people, but there's a huge difference between help and paying people forever when they're not doing anything to get off the government's books.
Personally I think those guys at top9 are just morons. I tried everyone of the "red padlock" sites (on the top9 lock in list) that are supposed to completely lock you in... and got out of every one by simply holding the back button down to get a history list.
most average joe users dont give a damn what os they use most average joe users dont even realize that theyre using a microsoft product when they load windows
That's true, most average joe users also are shocked when they ask me questions about programs crashing, Blue Screens on their box or how often they should reboot and learn that my Linux and Solaris boxes often run many programs at once and do so for months at a time.
Most people that seem to be so against the trial seem to have never used anything but windows, and don't realize what a POS windows is. There's no way MS could've gained their market share without illegal tatics with the crap they call an OS. If there were real competition out there, they would've lost on technical merit ages ago.
"Average Joe user" has become so accustomed to regular reboots and crashes that they think it's normal. People don't seem to realize that crashes should be the exception, not the rule.
Please correct me if I am mistaken, but the article posted on www.shameonnike.com clearly states that his own server(s) were also compromised in the attack.
Yeah I got that from it too. I also note he says "We reboot three-four times each day depending upon how many new domains we are registering for clients..." What they hell is he using for DNS that he needs to reboot just to have it recognize new entries? If it's a *nix box, and that's his level of knowledge, maybe nike should sue him.
Have you even played the Thief or System Shock games? Both are much more immersive games then anything id has ever offered.
Sure, if I want to play some fast paced FPS with friends, I play Q3A... but if I want a very well made game with a nice balance of action, puzzles, plot, etc... I'll take a game like Thief or System Shock 2 any day.
2 - I think that Microsoft did indeed help the industry. They provided a low-cost common platform for people to develop applications for.
Actually, MS is not responsible for PCs being cheap. That was do to IBM using off the shelf technology that could be cloned... thereby creating competition which drove prices down.
MS OSes have been going up in costs over the years, not down.
AMD's 99% compatibility doesn't cut it.
As one who's run AMDs from K5s, K6s, etc to my current Athlon, I can say that I've Never had a single compatibility problem with an AMD processor. I'm talking about running them with OSes from Dos, Win3.x, Win9x, NT, Linux, and even W2k (W2k on the Athlon).
I also know many people who have run the entire line too.. and none have had issues. The only ones that were ever proven that I know of were from the very earliest AMD processors (and there was that one problem with the very first run of K6s too if I'm not mistaken).
You've bought the Intel marketing hook, line and sinker. Those problems are a thing of the past.
the unit tracks what shows you like (through thumbs up and down buttons on your remote) and then tapes other shows it "thinks" you might be interested in while you are away
:)
Actually, I have a Tivo and that feature is pretty cool. Sometimes it records really bizarre stuff that doesn't make sense, but sometimes it catches a movie or show that I end up enjoying.
Also, if you'd bother to read their privacy policy you'd see that won't use this info without your consent.
The scariest thing to me is that I suddenly seem to have a subscription for a year to Soap Opera Digest Magazine. I sure as hell don't watch soap operas, and can only guess that I got it after signing up for the Tivo service since they started to arrive shortly thereafter.
Personally I think the Tivo (and the Replay) are great ideas and well worth the price. Actually I need to get myself a 30 hour one now.. 14 just doesn't cut it when you try to save up shows like the X-Files to watch in one sitting.
What you experienced is completely normal when you don't follow normal procedure.
Normal for windows perhaps, but do the same with a recent Linux distro (at least RH)... and kudzu will pop up saying that the network card detected has changed, what would you like to do? Select "configure" and you're done.... and it works, period.
Because Cheapbytes is basically burning the same CD you can do yourself if you download the distro... MS is getting paid for it's OS from the OEM... which you pay the OEM for.
There's a big difference, in one case you're paying for nothing other then the CD media. In the other, you're (indirectly) paying MS for the OS itself.
The most infuriating thing is that I got NO error messages or even hints of problems from Windows to the effect that my network card was misconfigured. It all came up clean. I just had no networking.
How often have you actually gotten an error message in windows that was actually useful?!?
What peeves me is that most error messages in windows (unless you have one of MS' development suites like VC++ that might allow you to debug a program) are useless. I often get errors from programs (like I just did a few minutes ago with media player) that have a button for "more info" on the error. Click that and it repeats the exact same error message again, word for word with a little hex number in brackets at the end for good measure. Yeah, that was more helpful...
Personally I hope that the DOJ sucks it up and smacks MS hard. I'm so tired of people writing newspapers about how the big bad DOJ is going after poor Bill and his friends who have made computers possible for the masses. MS had nothing to do with the cost of PCs being as low as they are.. cloning is responsible for that. And if MS hadn't squashed any and all competition in the past, we'd likely have much more choice now, and better systems to boot. [pun not intended]
No offense, but did this person even try looking before asking this question (about the CD/mp3 player)? I mean, it took me less then 5 seconds to look at Mp3.com's hardware page to find the very first item (at least when I just checked) is such a device. And they've had several posted over the last few months that are in developtment.
/. article on this subject would've been one that points out the players shown in mp3.com's list exist are are being designed.
That's just one site too.. there must be other sites with mp3 hardware reviews/previews out there. Plus a search on deja of
mp3 & cd & audio & player
had about 2300 hits, many of which have URLs to companies with such products in the works.
I think a better
You did not have hard drives back then, they were to expensive!
:)
:( ). I remember thinking, "20Meg! I'll never be able to fill that thing!" My how times have changed.
Ah yes, playing StarFlight lo those many years ago on a dual-floppy 8088 machine.
What a pain their save-game system was though. You had to make a playing copy of the disks, and another copy each time you wanted to save some point in the game. The worst was if you didn't exit properly you lost the game. Not just the work you did since starting, but the whole game! One time someone flipped the power while I was out of the room almost made we want to kill the whole family!
Those were the days eh?
I also remember getting my first hard drive. A 20Meg behemoth (had to lose a floppy to fit it though
Its the way the scheduling of that daemon is performed that is interesting.
MS has recognised that low priority I/O intensive tasks like disk scanners often impact system performance heavily, becuase the task scheduler see's the task as a low resource task, becuase it is consuming only small amounts of CPU, Even though it may be generating a large load on the disk system.
It might be interesting, but it's not innovative either. I don't personally know about the schedulers in other *nix OSes, but Solaris already does this (and I would assume that at least the other commercial *nixes do too). It gives processes different priorities depending on CPU and IO needs. In fact, you can tune it to suit your needs... even on a live kernel (i.e. no reboot necessary).
While I agree that this episode wasn't as good as many others, I enjoyed it for the most part. The reason I think I enjoyed it, is because I saw it as one of the group they make each year where they aren't really serious and just poke fun at themselves. Kind of like the 'he said, she said'-ish episode with the pizza boy vampire where they told the story from each point of view... although they pulled that one off much more then this one.
I mean, the line where she asked what kind of guy get's his ya-ya's off on a game like that and Muldar just smiled a huge smile while pointing at himself... that was classic.
BTW, yes the DoD convention ep was a better one.
Ya know, if they just had a no-plot TV show that paraded babes about for 30 minutes, I'm sure it'd be a big hit.
:)
That's been done.. it's called Baywatch.
Oops.. did I say that out loud?!?
Now that's lasting value. Not a cutting edge system any more by any means, but it's quite something to still be using a system that old for a production server ...
Exactly. We still use quite a few SS5s and 20s (for those not needing any fast graphics) where I work. Sure they take a lot longer to boot, and logins are slow, but they do the job running the Same OS as the U2s, U60s, and U80s we use for higher-end work. Try taking a measly low-end 486 or 386 from 5-6 years ago and running the same version of NT on it for people to use with the same disk and memory that they used with win 3.1 or whatever back then.
Well you would need 10,000 Ultra Sparcs to get any decent performance. Long live the Alpha EV6.7
"However, from what I can tell, they have mostly hit their design targets, and for the SPEC95 benchmarks, a 600MHz US-3 (the initial clock speed) will be about the same as a 700 MHz Alpha 21264A (EV67)."
Considering how fast the 21264s are, that's one hell of an improvement from the current USparc chips. I for one can't wait. I admit though that Alphas will probably still lead a little, it's too bad they've not yet gained as widespread an acceptance as Sun, HP and x86 CPUs have.