The first paragraph of section 1.1 of the MPC601
specifications begins, "The 601 is the first implementation
of the PowerPC family of RISC microprocessors. The 601 implements
the 32-bit portion of the PowerPC architecture, which provides 32-bit effective addresses, integer data types of 8, 16, and 32 bits, and floating-point data types of 32 and 64 bits."
The only significant things that are 64-bit about the 601
are the floating point registers and the data bus. Not only
do these not justify calling it a 64-bit chip, but the
sizes of these in x86 chips are 80-bit and 64-bit, respectively (assuming at least a Pentium when it comes to data bus width), and the person to whom I responded (rightly) called x86 32-bit.
In any case, the 601 has absolutely no bearing on the performance of modern Macs.
If the price that Apple charged the cloners for
the OS was so low that Apple was unable to
make money doing so, they should have raised
it. If, after raising the price to such a level,
the cloners were still interested, then Apple makes money, the cloners make money, and everyone's happy. If not, then people either buy Apple Macs (i.e. no different from the current situation), or they buy an OS-less CHRP box and buy MacOS off the shelf (at whatever price Apple can put it there profitably); once again, Apple makes a profit, the customer gets what he wants, and everyone's happy.
However, that's irrelevant to my point, which was that licensing MacOS to third parties wouldn't cause driver headaches when run on Apple's own hardware, and thus it doesn't deprive Apple of the ability to continue selling a mostly hassle-free out-of-box experience to those who are willing and able to pay a premium for it.
If the main attraction of Apple's software is
that it works well with Apple's hardware, then
what stops them from offering a hardware/software
combination with the same level of quality as they do now, while also licensing the OS for use
on other hardware? If you want the "Apple experience", you buy a Mac.
If you're interested in the OS, but are either unwilling or unable
to pay a premium for a Mac, then you can buy
the OS for use on a cheaper machine. You still
get many of the benefits of the OS, but may lose
a good deal of the out-of-box experience. In the absence of such a choice, that person would likely have just bought a Windows PC. How does that help Apple?
So, may I ask where one might find a "586" without a floating-point unit (flawed or otherwise) or trademarkable name?
Intel started using on-chip floating point units with the 486, and no numbered Intel chip is remotely similar to the Pentium in terms of its inner workings (in particular, it was the first superscalar x86 chip).
All PowerPC chips ever used by Apple have been 32-bit (and no, having Altivec does not make it a 128-bit chip, nor does it make the general purpose registers any larger than 32 bits).
64-bit registers only help a few types of applications in terms of raw number crunching; their main benefit is a larger address space.
Who said anything about running MacOS X on this? The article is about running Classic MacOS apps on Linux, and the parent post was about running AmigaOS 4. OS4 won't run on an iMac...
Besides, even on a purely hardware level, comparing the iMac to the AmigaOneG3SE is silly. The iMac is a hyper-integrated computer, rather than an interoperable component. You can add your choice of video, SCSI, monitor, etc. to the AmigaOneG3SE. You can't do the same with the iMac. And considering the awful monitor that the old iMac comes with, that's quite a problem. Oh, and don't forget the extra 100 MHz on the Amiga board's CPU.
In other words, if you're looking for the cheapest G3 system you can get your hands on, then an old iMac is probably more suitable than the AmigaOneG3SE. Well, no shit. That doesn't mean that the Amiga board is a horribly bad deal, any more than Apple's non-iMac desktop systems are.
Metered internet connections generally measure both incoming and outgoing bandwidth... and if your connection isn't metered, then it's just averaged among all the users. The total receive bandwidth used *does* factor into the price you pay.
Why is it greedy to ask the person who wants to
receive calls via a more expensive connection
not be subsidized by either the caller or the
phone company (i.e. all the phone company's customers)? Do you think that ISPs are
greedy when they charge you to receive packets,
as well?
Maybe this will make some people consider using a simpler, freer license the next time they're looking for something to use on their free software. Unless, of course, they think that partitioning free software into incompatible license domains is a *good* thing... Thanks a lot, RMS.
Personally, I'd hate for my own code to be rendered useless because it's tied to a piece of software that can't interoperate with some other piece of software I (or anyone else) want to use due to licensing issues.
I *like* case sensitivity in the filesystem, so I'm sorry, but I won't be "fixing" that any time soon.
Yes, those who actually make use of the source code directly would have to "[rag] through reams of C", but those people aren't the only ones that benefit from the source, as the fixes are usually made available to the public.
Yes, I meant "willing to use". The cost of Windows is irrelevent; I *just don't like it*.
Yes, x86 is the architecture on which the games were intended to run, but the architecture is only a small part of the platform, and Linux is *not* the platform they were originally designed for. So why the amusement?
I'm hardly a Linux zealot; quite frankly, I think Linux sucks. However, I think Windows sucks more, and when a particular bit of suckiness in Linux is excessively annoying, I can fix it. And when exactly did I "take a rip at windows"? All I said was that it's not perfect (no software is), that I dislike it (and thus don't wish to run it; stating my opinion can hardly be considered "taking a rip"), and that I can't fix it when it annoys me (simple fact, and a response to your inquiry as to who cares about the source). I'm not just talking about stability, BTW. Also, I never said that access to source code is an inaliable right. I only suggested it as a factor when deciding what to purchase.
The "opinion" that you expressed was that paying for WineX simply because it's cheaper than Windows is stupid. Well, no shit. I was pointing out *other* reasons why one *might* want to go with WineX instead. You repsonded with hostility and attacked strawmen (since when does having source code mean that you have to "rag your way through reams of c to get the bastard running"?). *That* is why I called (and still call) you a troll. $DEITY knows why I'm still feeding you.
As for my definition of "reasonable", I simply mean a platform that I'm willing to use. It was intended to be taken in the context of someone who wants to run the games on Linux. If you don't, then what the hell is the point of arguing over the merits of WineX?
And "deeper, more detailed games"? Sure, in theory, but in practice it seems to be used mostly on deeper, more detailed graphics. While that's nice if no tradeoff is involved, I'll take a game with good gameplay, possibly mediocre graphics, and Linux compatibility over something really flashy that I'd have to install a new OS to play, much less an OS that I have no desire to run. YMOV, but that doesn't mean you have to scream "Why don't you just run Windows" whenever a means of increasing the number of games in the latter category is mentioned in a public forum.
What does the age of a game have to do with anything? Most of the games I enjoy are "aging", as they're the ones that have stood out over time as having worthwhile gameplay. And given that they're "aging", a 30% performance hit is irrelevant when playing on a system that is more than 30% faster than the original intended targets. And if all you want out of a game is to "bump up the resolution another notch and turn on a few more detail options," then go ahead and play the latest boring FPS on Windows. They're all alike anyway, so if I should want to play one I'll just play one that's native to Linux.
And as for "who gives a fuck" about source code, I do, and so does anyone who wants to and has the ability to modify, fix, or enhance any aspect of the product. How are you supposed to enjoy playing the game if the OS it runs on has a bug, misfeature, or ather annoyance that the vendor refuses to fix? Or are you going to claim that Windows 98 is perfect in every way?
Besides, for a lot of us games are not everything. If the games won't run on a reasonable platform, I won't play the games. If there's a product that makes some of those games run on a reasonable platform, then how is that not useful to those people? If you're not one of the people to whom it is useful, then don't subscribe or use it, and quit trolling.
Let's see... in one case, you're sending $60/year to a company that is developing a useful product that helps (even if only a little) decrease Microsoft's compatibility lock-in. You're also giving money to a company that makes source code available, and has released some of it back to the original open source project (and has plans to contribute the rest if enough people subscribe). In the other case, you pay money to Microsoft itself, helping them further solidify their monopoly, with no source code or any hope of receiving it in the future. Doesn't seem like a tough choice to me...
What are you doing posting to Slashdot? Your time would be *much* better spent cleaning up my apartment for me. Go on, get to work!
Seriously, though, do you not realize that these people are doing what they want to do because, perhaps, *that's what they want to do*? You're not paying them; you have absolutely no right to tell them what is or is not the best use of their time. If they don't *like* Linux, and want to create something better in a way that is fundamentally incompatible with Linux's design, then what the hell is wrong with that? Why should they drop what they want to do because something they're not interested in needs a couple more drivers? Why do you expect them to care, much less work for free to remedy that?
They probably could prove it beyond a reasonable
doubt, since the margin of error was probably
insignificant compared to the amount in excess of
the limit. However, they don't need to. He isn't
being charged with the crime of speeding. He is
simply being held to the terms of a contract he
signed, which is a civil matter and does not
require proof "beyond a reasonable doubt", just that there be more evidence in the rental company's favor than in the renter's.
The
only "disturbing development" is that people
seem to think they can sign things and then use the claim that they didn't read them as a way to get out of it.
By your logic, government should censor newspapers as well. After all,
should parents have to expose their children to an article about goatse.cx
just in order for them to read the "non-offensive" articles? And what about
people on the street? Should they not be able to speak freely just so
parents can get some warm fuzzy feeling that their children won't overhear
anything "dirty" whenever they go outside? After all, the only possible
alternative would be to force them to wear earplugs all the time, right?
Yes, the goatse.cx image is unappealing. Yes, most people would rather not
see it. So why would broadcasters choose to put such things on the air?
They certainly don't want to lose viewers. On the other hand, the sort of
things quoted in the FCC's document are things which, while some people find
them to be offensive, have some sort of value to enough people that the
stations are willing to broadcast it. I find it hard to believe that
anything which has a wide enough appeal to be broadcast over the air would
be so "psychologically damaging" as to warrant its forced removal by the
government. Even in the case of goatse.cx, what real harm would it do other
than possibly inducing nausea for a little while?
Besides, there are lots of other things that a parent might not want an
impressionable child to hear. Fundamentalist religious groups don't want
their children hearing anything than might make them question the religion.
Some people might want their children to be "protected" from idiots
promoting racism. Personally, I feel ill whenever the media glamorizes
oppressive government actions such as the drug war, civil asset forfeiture,
etc. Should all of this be banned as well? If you banned everything that
someone found offensive, you'd soon end up with nothing *but* Sesame Street
on the TV, and probably not even that.
While broadcast media is indeed transmitted without the receiver's consent, it most certainly is not decoded into something viewable or listenable without such consent. Who's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to listen to Howard Stern? It's every bit as voluntary as going to the FCC's web site and viewing the referenced document.
It is *not* illegal in the US to promote racial hatred. What is illegal is to actively discriminate based on a variety of factors (including race) in certain situations (notably in the workplace, by the government, or by any business considered a public accomidation). Even the extremely weak argument for the selling of WW2 artifacts being illegal due to the former sort of law completely goes away if you only have the second.
Are you saying that you've never heard of commercial grade SDSL? It was affected by this as well. Furthermore, there's no theoretical reason why the exact same thing could not happen to a provider of any other sort of internet connection.
Seeing as I can't imagine anyone buying a PC just to play emulated playstation games, the person would have a PC even if the emulator weren't there, and if the PC version of GameA is better or cheaper, that person is *still* likely to buy the PC version. The emulator is only relevant if there is no PC version, in which case the person would probably wouldn't have bought the game at all if there were no emulator. The only way I can see Sony being adversely affected by emulators is if they have a large stock of playstations already produced and thus would lose even *more* money if those units sat in a warehouse rather than being sold.
Billboards are passive; they do not take up any
of your time if you don't choose to look at them.
TV and web ads are the price you pay for the content
you view; you can choose to watch PBS instead (or even read a book, imagine that!) or go to a website that doesn't have banners (or doesn't use the web at all). Plus, all of these methods of advertising are fully paid for by the advertisers.
Spam, on the other hand, is an active form
of advertisement that does not come bundled with
any service you choose to receive. It, like telemarketing, is equivalent to someone standing on your doorstop, shouting his or her message, and pounding on the door (or ringing the doorbell) whenever you're not out there listening. That is harrassment, which is *not* free speech. Furthermore, in the case of spam, the spammer does not pay most of the costs of sending the spam, and as such spam is also theft. In cases such as this, there was also damage done to machines which the spammer hijacked to send the message; this is vandalism.
So, please explain to us why harrassment, theft, and vandalism should be legal.
Slashdot Mirror
The first paragraph of section 1.1 of the MPC601 specifications begins, "The 601 is the first implementation of the PowerPC family of RISC microprocessors. The 601 implements the 32-bit portion of the PowerPC architecture, which provides 32-bit effective addresses, integer data types of 8, 16, and 32 bits, and floating-point data types of 32 and 64 bits."
The only significant things that are 64-bit about the 601 are the floating point registers and the data bus. Not only do these not justify calling it a 64-bit chip, but the sizes of these in x86 chips are 80-bit and 64-bit, respectively (assuming at least a Pentium when it comes to data bus width), and the person to whom I responded (rightly) called x86 32-bit.
In any case, the 601 has absolutely no bearing on the performance of modern Macs.
However, that's irrelevant to my point, which was that licensing MacOS to third parties wouldn't cause driver headaches when run on Apple's own hardware, and thus it doesn't deprive Apple of the ability to continue selling a mostly hassle-free out-of-box experience to those who are willing and able to pay a premium for it.
If the main attraction of Apple's software is that it works well with Apple's hardware, then what stops them from offering a hardware/software combination with the same level of quality as they do now, while also licensing the OS for use on other hardware? If you want the "Apple experience", you buy a Mac. If you're interested in the OS, but are either unwilling or unable to pay a premium for a Mac, then you can buy the OS for use on a cheaper machine. You still get many of the benefits of the OS, but may lose a good deal of the out-of-box experience. In the absence of such a choice, that person would likely have just bought a Windows PC. How does that help Apple?
without a floating-point unit (flawed or otherwise) or
trademarkable name?
Intel started using on-chip
floating point units with the 486, and no numbered
Intel chip is remotely similar to the Pentium in
terms of its inner workings (in particular, it was the first superscalar x86 chip).
You are correct about the Pentium Pro, however.
been 32-bit (and no, having Altivec does not make it a 128-bit chip, nor does it make the general purpose registers any larger than 32 bits).
applications in terms of raw number crunching;
their main benefit is a larger address space.
Besides, even on a purely hardware level, comparing the iMac to the AmigaOneG3SE is silly. The iMac is a hyper-integrated computer, rather than an interoperable component. You can add your choice of video, SCSI, monitor, etc. to the AmigaOneG3SE. You can't do the same with the iMac. And considering the awful monitor that the old iMac comes with, that's quite a problem. Oh, and don't forget the extra 100 MHz on the Amiga board's CPU.
In other words, if you're looking for the cheapest G3 system you can get your hands on, then an old iMac is probably more suitable than the AmigaOneG3SE. Well, no shit. That doesn't mean that the Amiga board is a horribly bad deal, any more than Apple's non-iMac desktop systems are.
Metered internet connections generally measure both incoming and outgoing bandwidth... and if your connection isn't metered, then it's just averaged among all the users. The total receive bandwidth used *does* factor into the price you pay.
Or a Miller Lite booth at a beer convention, for that matter...
Why is it greedy to ask the person who wants to receive calls via a more expensive connection not be subsidized by either the caller or the phone company (i.e. all the phone company's customers)? Do you think that ISPs are greedy when they charge you to receive packets, as well?
Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH". He'd just say it.
Personally, I'd hate for my own code to be rendered useless because it's tied to a piece of software that can't interoperate with some other piece of software I (or anyone else) want to use due to licensing issues.
Yes, those who actually make use of the source code directly would have to "[rag] through reams of C", but those people aren't the only ones that benefit from the source, as the fixes are usually made available to the public.
Yes, I meant "willing to use". The cost of Windows is irrelevent; I *just don't like it*.
Yes, x86 is the architecture on which the games were intended to run, but the architecture is only a small part of the platform, and Linux is *not* the platform they were originally designed for. So why the amusement?
The "opinion" that you expressed was that paying for WineX simply because it's cheaper than Windows is stupid. Well, no shit. I was pointing out *other* reasons why one *might* want to go with WineX instead. You repsonded with hostility and attacked strawmen (since when does having source code mean that you have to "rag your way through reams of c to get the bastard running"?). *That* is why I called (and still call) you a troll. $DEITY knows why I'm still feeding you.
As for my definition of "reasonable", I simply mean a platform that I'm willing to use. It was intended to be taken in the context of someone who wants to run the games on Linux. If you don't, then what the hell is the point of arguing over the merits of WineX?
And "deeper, more detailed games"? Sure, in theory, but in practice it seems to be used mostly on deeper, more detailed graphics. While that's nice if no tradeoff is involved, I'll take a game with good gameplay, possibly mediocre graphics, and Linux compatibility over something really flashy that I'd have to install a new OS to play, much less an OS that I have no desire to run. YMOV, but that doesn't mean you have to scream "Why don't you just run Windows" whenever a means of increasing the number of games in the latter category is mentioned in a public forum.
And as for "who gives a fuck" about source code, I do, and so does anyone who wants to and has the ability to modify, fix, or enhance any aspect of the product. How are you supposed to enjoy playing the game if the OS it runs on has a bug, misfeature, or ather annoyance that the vendor refuses to fix? Or are you going to claim that Windows 98 is perfect in every way?
Besides, for a lot of us games are not everything. If the games won't run on a reasonable platform, I won't play the games. If there's a product that makes some of those games run on a reasonable platform, then how is that not useful to those people? If you're not one of the people to whom it is useful, then don't subscribe or use it, and quit trolling.
Let's see... in one case, you're sending $60/year to a company that is developing a useful product that helps (even if only a little) decrease Microsoft's compatibility lock-in. You're also giving money to a company that makes source code available, and has released some of it back to the original open source project (and has plans to contribute the rest if enough people subscribe). In the other case, you pay money to Microsoft itself, helping them further solidify their monopoly, with no source code or any hope of receiving it in the future. Doesn't seem like a tough choice to me...
Seriously, though, do you not realize that these people are doing what they want to do because, perhaps, *that's what they want to do*? You're not paying them; you have absolutely no right to tell them what is or is not the best use of their time. If they don't *like* Linux, and want to create something better in a way that is fundamentally incompatible with Linux's design, then what the hell is wrong with that? Why should they drop what they want to do because something they're not interested in needs a couple more drivers? Why do you expect them to care, much less work for free to remedy that?
And it did it by treating the Alpha as a 32-bit
CPU. Hardly a stunning achievement.
The only "disturbing development" is that people seem to think they can sign things and then use the claim that they didn't read them as a way to get out of it.
Yes, the goatse.cx image is unappealing. Yes, most people would rather not see it. So why would broadcasters choose to put such things on the air? They certainly don't want to lose viewers. On the other hand, the sort of things quoted in the FCC's document are things which, while some people find them to be offensive, have some sort of value to enough people that the stations are willing to broadcast it. I find it hard to believe that anything which has a wide enough appeal to be broadcast over the air would be so "psychologically damaging" as to warrant its forced removal by the government. Even in the case of goatse.cx, what real harm would it do other than possibly inducing nausea for a little while?
Besides, there are lots of other things that a parent might not want an impressionable child to hear. Fundamentalist religious groups don't want their children hearing anything than might make them question the religion. Some people might want their children to be "protected" from idiots promoting racism. Personally, I feel ill whenever the media glamorizes oppressive government actions such as the drug war, civil asset forfeiture, etc. Should all of this be banned as well? If you banned everything that someone found offensive, you'd soon end up with nothing *but* Sesame Street on the TV, and probably not even that.
While broadcast media is indeed transmitted without the receiver's consent, it most certainly is not decoded into something viewable or listenable without such consent. Who's holding a gun to your head and forcing you to listen to Howard Stern? It's every bit as voluntary as going to the FCC's web site and viewing the referenced document.
It is *not* illegal in the US to promote racial hatred. What is illegal is to actively discriminate based on a variety of factors (including race) in certain situations (notably in the workplace, by the government, or by any business considered a public accomidation). Even the extremely weak argument for the selling of WW2 artifacts being illegal due to the former sort of law completely goes away if you only have the second.
Are you saying that you've never heard of commercial grade SDSL? It was affected by this as well. Furthermore, there's no theoretical reason why the exact same thing could not happen to a provider of any other sort of internet connection.
Seeing as I can't imagine anyone buying a PC just to play emulated playstation games, the person would have a PC even if the emulator weren't there, and if the PC version of GameA is better or cheaper, that person is *still* likely to buy the PC version. The emulator is only relevant if there is no PC version, in which case the person would probably wouldn't have bought the game at all if there were no emulator. The only way I can see Sony being adversely affected by emulators is if they have a large stock of playstations already produced and thus would lose even *more* money if those units sat in a warehouse rather than being sold.
Spam, on the other hand, is an active form of advertisement that does not come bundled with any service you choose to receive. It, like telemarketing, is equivalent to someone standing on your doorstop, shouting his or her message, and pounding on the door (or ringing the doorbell) whenever you're not out there listening. That is harrassment, which is *not* free speech. Furthermore, in the case of spam, the spammer does not pay most of the costs of sending the spam, and as such spam is also theft. In cases such as this, there was also damage done to machines which the spammer hijacked to send the message; this is vandalism.
So, please explain to us why harrassment, theft, and vandalism should be legal.
Fear my low SlashID! (bidding starts at $500)
You're ID isn't that low, you know...