I actually heard about this several years ago when It was still Taos. Its really quite impressive in that the software will run on any CPU as long as its running the right OS.
This is a major benefit. It means that there will be none of this annoying lock in like we've got with the x86 series. They can just build a new machine with a new processor and the same programs will still run.
When I had an Amiga, I wasn't remotely impressed with the OS. I assumed that everone had proper multitasking and couldn't imagine using a WIMP based machine without it.
The reason I bought one was the hardware.
So all we need is a $400 machine that has video in, out, independent monitor out, and D connectors for the joysticks, as well as a DVD drive, a CD rewriter and USB connectors. It also needs an underpowered CPU with all the load taken by the most sophisticated graphics chip ever created. It needs Amiga style screens (Sorry, I seem to keep going on about this as though its the ONLY thing that was any good about it). It needs to be able to make a machine that costs twice as much and appears (on paper) to be 4 times faster look like an electric pram. It needs to be the forerunner of a totally new desktop industry (Like the Amiga was the forerunner of Desktop Video)
1. Multitasking Desktop OS (in 1985 this was unheard of, although Most Amiga owners just assumed that all OS's had Preemptive multi tasking)
2. 4096 colour pallette. (Once again impressive in '85) as well as custom hardware such as the blitter chip - A much more sophisticted one than the simple rectangle movement chips in a lot of SVGA cards too. This could take 3 sources and AND and OR them together.
3. Stereo Sound. Not the best sound available at the time, but certainly very impressive. 2 8-bit channels per speaker allowed a crude 14 bit sound format.
4. Small fast efficient Os. This would work on a 512K machine with no swap space, and still have room for applications
5. Stable. Ironically, This was down to the absence of memory protection. If your program crashes it brings down the whole system.
6. Screens. Something that no other Os has done as well, although the multiple consoles on Linux gives a similar feel. Essentially each application had its own screen at its own resolution and colour depth. This is available on other operating systems now, but it was part of the whole look and fell of the OS.
7. Cost. This was priced competitively against consoles. The small amount extra was considered worth it for the added benefit of having word processors, and paint programs. (Not to mention pirate games)
I'll let others go into the disadvantages. I'm too much of a fanatic to seriously believe that there were any. (It's all lies from the un-Amigaly who will go to silicon Hell)
Point taken. Although breadth first searches are trivial to parallelise, so perhaps solving chess could be a task for a distributed network. Of course the amount of data here would be too large to send back.
Assuming that all my opinions are wrong, and censorship is good, then it would be irresponsible for a company that makes censorship software to allow children to access a site that could help them circumvent it.
I never had difficulties writing x86 asm, did YOU have It gives all the power of RISC and the nice things of CISC ?
Ever tried a 68000? Much nicer. More registers, more flexibility, obviously designed with 32 bits in mind. Friends tell me that the Arm is nice to use as well.
it's clearly not a 'pile of crap' and compares very well with new architectures.
I agree. It's managed to stay relatively modern remarkable well. I think it would have been abandoned years ago if people didn't want 386 compatibility.
Most of the design improvements in modern CPU's (e.g pipelining, VLIW) have been around for decades, and were frequently used in transistorised computers. It should have been obvious at the time that microchips were going the same way.
Of course this is slashdot, so maybe I'll get moderated to -1 AGAIN for saying x86 is good.
Once again, I agree. I don't see how your opinion that the processor thats used in about 90% of computers is good is "Flamebait" of all things. Blame the moderators.
I'd like to know how many/. readers are using alternative platforms ?
True, very few, and Slashdot is probably a stronghold of non-Intel CPU's. But thats because Intel is cheap.
If x86 is sooooo bad, don't wait and buy a fucking pink IMAC and stop BSing about something you don't know.
I have been considering this. I'll wait for Kernel 2.4 and MacOS X though.
Where are the 1.0 GHz G3 ?? G4 ?? Come on this is RISC ! I was told it was better and faster !!
I remember writing a Rubiks cube solver as an AI project. The earlier versions essentially used a breadth first search, which meant that I quickly filled up my 8 Megs, and after about 10 moves I'd caused the 1 gig supercomputer that I had access to some serious thrashing. If I was writing a breadth first search for something that was more comlicated such as chess, then I should think that it would be a cinch to fill up a mere 18 exabytes
We currently have HA linux, and embedded Linux. We also have Real Time Linux, but I think the improvements in that will probably merge again. This doesn't matter though does it. Anything good in one will make it to the other. The GPL enforces the possibility of meging as well as forking.
How much work would be involved in writing a proprietry Linux compatible kernel? Would it just need to be able to run ELF's, or is there more to it than that?
From the article: A 64-bit processor can map thousands of terabytes, (1.84e7) effectively eliminating the 'memory limit' barrier.
"Eliminating the memory barrier"? Um, yep. All I can say is "Surely nobody wants more than 640K"
I just find it hard to believe that there is a maximum amount of memory that people will want, although I do wonder what people will be able to fill that much RAM with.
They got quotes from a strategy analyst and a business development manager. What made them think that these people knew anything about security? Surely even the pointiest haired manager is going to ask someone either with direct involvement with security before listening to this.
Leadership is a useful skill, and I agree that you need some technical competence, although that is no reason not to hire a specialist and accept that they know more about a specific area than you.
Marketing on the other hand is useful. If your product is good you still need it, if only because of all the immoral people who ARE marketing their bad products. Who actually buys your software, and how do they find your company? I couldn't find any of your companies on Yahoo, which is probably where I'd look first if I wanted to buy some cryptograpy software. What good is a superior product if nobody knows it exists?
1. Pillarbox (Black bars at left and right) 2. Cropping (Eliminates the top and bottom portion of the screen. Some shows are made so that they still look good like this) 3. Stretching (Normally with more extreme stretching at the sides of the screen so that a circle in the centre will still be circular)
I've always thought it would be a good idea to put the toolbars, taskbars, and titlebars at the side of the screen rather than the top and bottom.
If you try using something like StarOffice in KDE at a low resolution, there's hardly any space left for typing.
A 16:9 aspect ratio should give plenty of space at the side for a descriptive taskbar and leave a fair bit of useable space in the remaining traditionallly sized chunk of screen.
By putting some creative effort into selecting a list of URL's. I believe that the telephone directory is protected by copyright. I'm pretty certain most dictionaries are. Has anyone ever challenged the copyright rules when applied to a list of data?
As far as I understand it (According to this site), in Latin it was a only mass noun. You couldn't have A single virus in much the same way that you can't have a water, so there wasn't a plural.
Admittedly, all my knowledge here is second hand, because I never did latin.
According to this site the correct plural is "viruses". The full reasoning behind it is also there.
Although I really don't see why the previous poster has such a problem with it. I mean, correcting someone once is all well and good, but shouting about it again and again with no references or reasons is just pathetic. Its like he learned it once and is just desperate to show us all how clever he is.
I agree about diversity. Diversity is normally a good thing. Nature proves this. This is why penguins are so different from Hippos.
Although as far as claims to fame goes, I would have thought that the first ever Linux virus would be a big enough claim to fame. Look at the fame of the Mellisa virus as the first email virus.
Its not actually breaching copyright, but giving others the ability to breach copyright. After this is decrypted, anyone can use that list. As far as I know, this is not illegal, but Mattel thinks it should be. Still, copyright violation would be a lot easier to get to stick in a foreign court than the DMCA.
Of course, if it wasn't decrypted, anyone could just copy the entire package, but big corporations don't think like that.
Well, I thought Close Encounters was quite a good piece of SF. And I really don't want to sound like I'm crucifying ET because despite how negative my comments sound I did enjoy it.
Still, it has been a few years since I saw it, so what did I miss in ET? Is it really Science fiction? (I know it's a subjective term). Why did he have this telepathic link with Elliot? How can he levitate? The whole point of the film seems to have been about a child's friendship, and how that overcomes humanity's natural fear of things that they don't understand. This is all well and good, but it still makes it a soppy flick (in my opinion). It's aimed at kids and ET's powers are magical not scientific, so it's a fantasy. Actual science fiction themes were limited. Unless I missed something important, ET might as well have been a baby dragon or a goblin for all that mattered to the story.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually heard about this several years ago when It was still Taos. Its really quite impressive in that the software will run on any CPU as long as its running the right OS.
This is a major benefit. It means that there will be none of this annoying lock in like we've got with the x86 series. They can just build a new machine with a new processor and the same programs will still run.
Hey... Just 'cos you had 4 times as many colours on screen, a faster CPU, and better sound doesn't mean it was better.
Well, maybe it does but I'm biased.
When I had an Amiga, I wasn't remotely impressed with the OS. I assumed that everone had proper multitasking and couldn't imagine using a WIMP based machine without it.
The reason I bought one was the hardware.
So all we need is a $400 machine that has video in, out, independent monitor out, and D connectors for the joysticks, as well as a DVD drive, a CD rewriter and USB connectors.
It also needs an underpowered CPU with all the load taken by the most sophisticated graphics chip ever created.
It needs Amiga style screens (Sorry, I seem to keep going on about this as though its the ONLY thing that was any good about it). It needs to be able to make a machine that costs twice as much and appears (on paper) to be 4 times faster look like an electric pram.
It needs to be the forerunner of a totally new desktop industry (Like the Amiga was the forerunner of Desktop Video)
1. Multitasking Desktop OS (in 1985 this was unheard of, although Most Amiga owners just assumed that all OS's had Preemptive multi tasking)
2. 4096 colour pallette. (Once again impressive in '85) as well as custom hardware such as the blitter chip - A much more sophisticted one than the simple rectangle movement chips in a lot of SVGA cards too. This could take 3 sources and AND and OR them together.
3. Stereo Sound. Not the best sound available at the time, but certainly very impressive. 2 8-bit channels per speaker allowed a crude 14 bit sound format.
4. Small fast efficient Os. This would work on a 512K machine with no swap space, and still have room for applications
5. Stable. Ironically, This was down to the absence of memory protection. If your program crashes it brings down the whole system.
6. Screens. Something that no other Os has done as well, although the multiple consoles on Linux gives a similar feel. Essentially each application had its own screen at its own resolution and colour depth. This is available on other operating systems now, but it was part of the whole look and fell of the OS.
7. Cost. This was priced competitively against consoles. The small amount extra was considered worth it for the added benefit of having word processors, and paint programs. (Not to mention pirate games)
I'll let others go into the disadvantages. I'm too much of a fanatic to seriously believe that there were any. (It's all lies from the un-Amigaly who will go to silicon Hell)
Point taken. Although breadth first searches are trivial to parallelise, so perhaps solving chess could be a task for a distributed network. Of course the amount of data here would be too large to send back.
Assuming that all my opinions are wrong, and censorship is good, then it would be irresponsible for a company that makes censorship software to allow children to access a site that could help them circumvent it.
I never had difficulties writing x86 asm, did YOU have It gives all the power of RISC and the nice things of CISC ?
/. readers are using alternative platforms ?
Ever tried a 68000? Much nicer. More registers, more flexibility, obviously designed with 32 bits in mind. Friends tell me that the Arm is nice to use as well.
it's clearly not a 'pile of crap' and compares very well with new architectures.
I agree. It's managed to stay relatively modern remarkable well. I think it would have been abandoned years ago if people didn't want 386 compatibility.
Most of the design improvements in modern CPU's (e.g pipelining, VLIW) have been around for decades, and were frequently used in transistorised computers. It should have been obvious at the time that microchips were going the same way.
Of course this is slashdot, so maybe I'll get moderated to -1 AGAIN for saying x86 is good.
Once again, I agree. I don't see how your opinion that the processor thats used in about 90% of computers is good is "Flamebait" of all things.
Blame the moderators.
I'd like to know how many
True, very few, and Slashdot is probably a stronghold of non-Intel CPU's. But thats because Intel is cheap.
If x86 is sooooo bad, don't wait and buy a fucking pink IMAC and stop BSing about something you don't know.
I have been considering this. I'll wait for Kernel 2.4 and MacOS X though.
Where are the 1.0 GHz G3 ?? G4 ?? Come on this is RISC ! I was told it was better and faster !!
Where's the 1 Gigaflops Pentium?
I remember writing a Rubiks cube solver as an AI project. The earlier versions essentially used a breadth first search, which meant that I quickly filled up my 8 Megs, and after about 10 moves I'd caused the 1 gig supercomputer that I had access to some serious thrashing. If I was writing a breadth first search for something that was more comlicated such as chess, then I should think that it would be a cinch to fill up a mere 18 exabytes
We currently have HA linux, and embedded Linux. We also have Real Time Linux, but I think the improvements in that will probably merge again. This doesn't matter though does it. Anything good in one will make it to the other. The GPL enforces the possibility of meging as well as forking.
Posted this under the wrong article. How can I be so stupid!
I'll blame it all on open source.
How much work would be involved in writing a proprietry Linux compatible kernel? Would it just need to be able to run ELF's, or is there more to it than that?
From the article: A 64-bit processor can map thousands of terabytes, (1.84e7) effectively eliminating the 'memory limit' barrier.
"Eliminating the memory barrier"? Um, yep. All I can say is "Surely nobody wants more than 640K"
I just find it hard to believe that there is a maximum amount of memory that people will want, although I do wonder what people will be able to fill that much RAM with.
They got quotes from a strategy analyst and a business development manager. What made them think that these people knew anything about security? Surely even the pointiest haired manager is going to ask someone either with direct involvement with security before listening to this.
Leadership is a useful skill, and I agree that you need some technical competence, although that is no reason not to hire a specialist and accept that they know more about a specific area than you.
Marketing on the other hand is useful. If your product is good you still need it, if only because of all the immoral people who ARE marketing their bad products. Who actually buys your software, and how do they find your company? I couldn't find any of your companies on Yahoo, which is probably where I'd look first if I wanted to buy some cryptograpy software. What good is a superior product if nobody knows it exists?
He wrote a lot of it after he died.
I suppose this means it could be argued that they're different people, but that would be too pedantic an argument even for me.
I think most of it is available. The trouble is 6 CD's is quite a large download.
There's normally a choice on the TV set between
1. Pillarbox (Black bars at left and right)
2. Cropping (Eliminates the top and bottom portion of the screen. Some shows are made so that they still look good like this)
3. Stretching (Normally with more extreme stretching at the sides of the screen so that a circle in the centre will still be circular)
I've always thought it would be a good idea to put the toolbars, taskbars, and titlebars at the side of the screen rather than the top and bottom.
If you try using something like StarOffice in KDE at a low resolution, there's hardly any space left for typing.
A 16:9 aspect ratio should give plenty of space at the side for a descriptive taskbar and leave a fair bit of useable space in the remaining traditionallly sized chunk of screen.
How can you copyright a URL list?
By putting some creative effort into selecting a list of URL's. I believe that the telephone directory is protected by copyright. I'm pretty certain most dictionaries are. Has anyone ever challenged the copyright rules when applied to a list of data?
As far as I understand it (According to this site), in Latin it was a only mass noun. You couldn't have A single virus in much the same way that you can't have a water, so there wasn't a plural.
Admittedly, all my knowledge here is second hand, because I never did latin.
According to this site the correct plural is "viruses". The full reasoning behind it is also there.
Although I really don't see why the previous poster has such a problem with it. I mean, correcting someone once is all well and good, but shouting about it again and again with no references or reasons is just pathetic. Its like he learned it once and is just desperate to show us all how clever he is.
I agree about diversity. Diversity is normally a good thing. Nature proves this. This is why penguins are so different from Hippos.
Although as far as claims to fame goes, I would have thought that the first ever Linux virus would be a big enough claim to fame. Look at the fame of the Mellisa virus as the first email virus.
The Hot Grits virus wil only affect unsecured pants. Keep 'em done up and don't let other people into your pants, and you should be okay.
Its not actually breaching copyright, but giving others the ability to breach copyright. After this is decrypted, anyone can use that list. As far as I know, this is not illegal, but Mattel thinks it should be. Still, copyright violation would be a lot easier to get to stick in a foreign court than the DMCA.
Of course, if it wasn't decrypted, anyone could just copy the entire package, but big corporations don't think like that.
Well, I thought Close Encounters was quite a good piece of SF. And I really don't want to sound like I'm crucifying ET because despite how negative my comments sound I did enjoy it.
Still, it has been a few years since I saw it, so what did I miss in ET?
Is it really Science fiction? (I know it's a subjective term). Why did he have this telepathic link with Elliot? How can he levitate? The whole point of the film seems to have been about a child's friendship, and how that overcomes humanity's natural fear of things that they don't understand. This is all well and good, but it still makes it a soppy flick (in my opinion). It's aimed at kids and ET's powers are magical not scientific, so it's a fantasy. Actual science fiction themes were limited. Unless I missed something important, ET might as well have been a baby dragon or a goblin for all that mattered to the story.