Gateway is a struggling PC manufacturer. Why can't a few tech companies with deeper pockets spend money for this quest? I admire what they're doing, hopefully people buy a Cow next time they're buying a pre-built box so their $$ isn't spent without a return.
Only bonus I can think of is that government work isn't seasonal like the tech sector has been the past few years. Paid less, but there's a certain value in job security especially if you're starting or already have a family.
while the PS2's architecture is totally different.
My bad, you didn't say "unique" but to me it was inferred.
the fact that you don't already know this says to me that you are unqualified to argue about this
I quoted the specs back to you because you seemed to claim that I wasn't familiar with the internals of the XBox and the PS2. I am. All I wanted to "retort" was the fact that the XBox and PS2 are both computers. They both have generic CPU's that instruct dedicated hardware, much like the box under my desk. The line behind embedded system and PC vanished many years ago.
I have taken much humor in the fact that that the sole argument for your Xbox==TV-PC claim is that Intel and NVidia are major players in the XBox as well as the Dell/Compaq market. That, sir, is an argument without merit, but I have appreciated the distraction.
I feel I'm qualified to comment on this, and I find it rather funny that you have to attack me on this one. System architecture has always interested me since it helps me in my day job as well.
XBox: P3 with 1/2 the normal cache, laptop BGA package. GPU is a base Geforce 3 with some GF4 features mainly the extra shaders. Custom DirectX API to support the hardware since ATI/NVIDIA/MSFT are still fighting about what the 'standard' should be. The GPU's texture buffer shares system memory through the northbridge chipset designed by NVidia. NV also designed the I/O (MCP) ASIC which contains the real-time DD encoding, sound, and ethernet portions. 64MB DDR DRAM. 8 or 6 GB Hard drive from Maxtor or Western Digital used for saved games, custom audio, and swap space. 2-5x CAV DVD drive.
Playstation 2: 128-bit RISC-like CPU apparently designed by Sony running at almost 300 MHz. 32 MB RDRAM. Math coprocessor with vector units capable of 6.2 GFLOPS. Graphics are a custom synthesizer running at almost 150 MHz, with 4MB of Embedded DRAM for textures. Sound is also seperate, having 2 MB. The IOP is the PS1 processor running at 37 MHz, 2MB of embedded memory. It controls the IEEE 1394 and USB ports, as well the controllers and Memory Cards. Disc is a 24x CD-ROM/4x DVD-ROM.
Commentary: If the PS1 CPU can run the I/O, it must be a generic CPU! *gasp*
Also, you use the term "Architecture" pretty freely. At the highest level, both consoles have a main CPU, a GPU, Memory/cache, and I/O. Just because the XBox uses technology that mostly already exists (much like PS2's IOP) doesn't make it a PC. The PS2 isn't unique, it's just wired differently. Please don't confuse yourself.
I wasn't referring to cost, I was referring to popularity. Don't get me wrong, I have a Linux partition at home and do all of my hardware simulations on Linux boxen at work, so I do use Linux. It has its good/bad points.
But hey, if you'd like to talk cost... Linux is Free, Windows isn't. Why is Windows still more popular by such a *huge* margin? Your argument doesn't work.
Sony had their PS2 marketing machine firing on all 8 cylinders for at least 8-12 months for their successful release (wasn't it mired with product shortages and hardware failures?). That's why the DC sales were winding down, everyone was expecting the world from the makers of the Playstation 1.
the fact that the Xbox is basically a PC ina Box Again, what makes the XBox a PC? Can you word process on it? Can you install an IRC client? Can you crack RC5 keys? How is the XBox a general purpose PC?
Did you just refer to Microsoft as the underdog? Considering PS2 has a huge console market presence with past success and a 12 months under their belt, and the XBox is barely 6 months old... yes, the XBox is an underdog in the Console Industry.
Sound/Visuals: I happen to use the SVideo AV Pack, with the optical cable running to a DD/DTS receiver. Guess I'm in a small minority.
Size/Weight: Yes, it's big. Yes it's heavy. But my entertainment center hasn't bitched at me yet. Good thing there's 10 foot cords on the controllers so I don't have to move the box out whenever I wish to enjoy a game.
DVD: Don't most people own real DVD players anyway? From what I've read on newsgroups, you get what you pay for when playing DD movies on the PS2 considering it cuts out a few times a movie (Saving Private Ryan is one example I can remember). Also, how enjoyable is it using a corded gamepad to control video playback? I thought that kind of a thing went out in the early 1970's when IR and RF was invented *cough*. XBox made me pony up $30 for the DVD playback. I'm guessing you $bought$ a DVD remote for your PS2, unless they were free.
Little things: Yes, the controller is bigger than a PS2's controller. It's actually nice to use. It fits my hand well, much like Microsoft's Explorer mouse lets me rest my entire hand on it. PS2's controller is smaller, but don't confuse small with ergonomic. My hands would always hurt after a marathon PS1 session with the dual shock controller. The shoulder buttons weren't at a nice angle.
Xbox is the same price as the PS2, and comes with ethernet and a hard drive. I'd say you get more for your money.
Halo's good, so is DoA3, as is Rallisport Challenge, a couple of NASCAR games, and EA's entire sports lineup. There's plenty of good games. I think you mean good "proprietary" games like the ones Sony pays developers to only make for the PS2.
Reported Crashes? Those were isolated demo boxes in small, cramped spaces. Have any crashed since? If you can't back up your statements, you're just spreading FUD.
Microsoft has $38 Billion dollars sitting in the bank. How's that for reserves? Nintendo is probably the only "little guy" in this fight. Sony is the largest consumer electronics company in the world, and Microsoft is a dominant player in the software industry.
Why won't Sony fail? If you can succeed, you can fail. Enron was flying high a year ago. So was Andersen. They went down for other reasons, but it illustrates that a company that's on top stays there.
What makes my XBox a TV-PC? My PC has a processor, dynamic storage, a graphics processor, and static storage. Last I checked the PS2 was only missing the static storage, but that was being worked on as well.
I'm seriously looking for an answer here. What makes an XBox a PC while a PS2 is a console?
Let's see... PS2 came out in a virtual next-gen void. DC was winding down, publishers wanted to go with the known commodity, Playstation's follow-on. So, PS2 started selling with major problems, but the desire for a box was so great that they were the de facto "buy" recommendation.
XBox started with PS2 having 1 year lead and another top console, the Gamecube, a week away from launch.
Consoles are crowded now. It's been proven over and over that the XBox has superior visuals and audio (if only for the fact that it's 18 months newer than the PS2) but it's in a fight for growth with the Gamecube against the PS2. A huge head-start is never easy to compete with, but it isn't a reason to write off the underdog.
If you were to replace "Playstation 2" with "Windows", and replace "XBox" with "Linux", this thread would have 1200 comments all stating how just because Windows sells more doesn't mean it's better. But, when MS is the underdog,/. tastes blood in the water and moves in for the kill. Let's be objective!
(I like to think of myself as objective, but I do own an XBox and 6 games, so I may be biased)
Eventually people have to chill out about the gov't conspiracies. If they wanted to spy on you, they'd need a lot more compute resources and a lot more analysts. They don't have either.
It's easy to come on/. and complain about how the patent system sucks. If you want to have a real effect in changing how the 'system' works, maybe you'd like a career there?
This place might be fine for a 2nd run or budget theatre, but if I'm in there attempting to get my $8 worth... the super-bright LCDs in my face would get old.
the GF3 uses vectors for calculations. An Athlon using the x86 CISC requires more overhead per instruction.
Athlon: add ax,bx; % where ax and bx are 32-bit scalars
GF3: add reg0, reg1; % where reg0 and reg1 are vectors of scalars
If you wanted to do the same work of the GF3 on an Athlon, you'd need 32 (or however deep the vector registers are) successive instructions.
Once you ditch the instruction overhead for doing an operation on X number of successive scalars, the processor spends more time doing the math and the FLOPS goes up. Take a look at the AltiVec unit in the G4, or CRAY vector supercomputers.
At work we use Perforce as our revision control system for verilog ASIC designs. It requires you to explicitly "check out" a file to edit it, and if you attempt to check out a file while someone else has it out, it warns you. It's got a great setup system that allows you to add certain directories to your "view" (like, I'm only concerned with the verilog from the ASIC(s) I work with, and not any of the others) without seperating everything out into different projects. It's got auto-merge abilities, as well as warnings at check-in if there's conflicts with lines. You're not allowed to check in a file that hasn't been properly merged, either manually or automatically.
Perforce has a daemon that is run, and it's got clients for Windows and all the Unix clones, free and non-free.
Now, perforce itself isn't free, but some things are just worth the money.
Re:Not as small, but much more capable...
on
Smallest RC Cars?
·
· Score: 2
Indeed. We race 1:10 scale AWD touring cars up in Brooklyn Park, MN, and thought that getting Micro RS4's would be sweet for some basement and driveway racing. They're very solid cars on lots of surfaces, but with their acceleration and distinct lack of weight it's like you're trying to turn a buggy on clay... there's some power sliding going on.;)
There's many great things the Internet can do, but (IMHO) finding a date isn't one of them... especially if you're searching on hotornot.com.:P
Finding "The One" was an activity I enjoyed doing offline.
Re:Not as small, but much more capable...
on
Smallest RC Cars?
·
· Score: 2
they've got a little too much acceleration to be used in the office. We've raced them on outside basketball courts, with custom 6 cell AA NiMH 1600 MAh packs for them, and the standard motor is just burning when the pack starts dumping.:) We use Hitec HS-81MG servos, the metal gears are almost a requirement.
If you want an office racer, go with the 2 wheel drive Kyosho Mini-Z
This was in a wired article (brief mention) or something like that from at least the end of last year. It's not new, but it's not exactly talked about a ton, either.
actually, the Xbox's GPU is a faster GF3 (250 MHz) but with a 2nd vertex shader like the GF4. It's not low-end by any means. Read the gamespot writup here.
Guess that sums up the technological advances of our age.. an "old company dream" such as this can't be more than 6-8 years old, can it?
As the tech train keeps accelerating, the time delta between the introduction of a technology to public adoption (not just geek adoption) will get smaller and smaller.
Slashdot Mirror
Gateway is a struggling PC manufacturer. Why can't a few tech companies with deeper pockets spend money for this quest? I admire what they're doing, hopefully people buy a Cow next time they're buying a pre-built box so their $$ isn't spent without a return.
Only bonus I can think of is that government work isn't seasonal like the tech sector has been the past few years. Paid less, but there's a certain value in job security especially if you're starting or already have a family.
My bad, you didn't say "unique" but to me it was inferred.
the fact that you don't already know this says to me that you are unqualified to argue about this
I quoted the specs back to you because you seemed to claim that I wasn't familiar with the internals of the XBox and the PS2. I am. All I wanted to "retort" was the fact that the XBox and PS2 are both computers. They both have generic CPU's that instruct dedicated hardware, much like the box under my desk. The line behind embedded system and PC vanished many years ago.
I have taken much humor in the fact that that the sole argument for your Xbox==TV-PC claim is that Intel and NVidia are major players in the XBox as well as the Dell/Compaq market. That, sir, is an argument without merit, but I have appreciated the distraction.
I feel I'm qualified to comment on this, and I find it rather funny that you have to attack me on this one. System architecture has always interested me since it helps me in my day job as well.
XBox: P3 with 1/2 the normal cache, laptop BGA package. GPU is a base Geforce 3 with some GF4 features mainly the extra shaders. Custom DirectX API to support the hardware since ATI/NVIDIA/MSFT are still fighting about what the 'standard' should be. The GPU's texture buffer shares system memory through the northbridge chipset designed by NVidia. NV also designed the I/O (MCP) ASIC which contains the real-time DD encoding, sound, and ethernet portions. 64MB DDR DRAM. 8 or 6 GB Hard drive from Maxtor or Western Digital used for saved games, custom audio, and swap space. 2-5x CAV DVD drive.
Playstation 2: 128-bit RISC-like CPU apparently designed by Sony running at almost 300 MHz. 32 MB RDRAM. Math coprocessor with vector units capable of 6.2 GFLOPS. Graphics are a custom synthesizer running at almost 150 MHz, with 4MB of Embedded DRAM for textures. Sound is also seperate, having 2 MB. The IOP is the PS1 processor running at 37 MHz, 2MB of embedded memory. It controls the IEEE 1394 and USB ports, as well the controllers and Memory Cards. Disc is a 24x CD-ROM/4x DVD-ROM.
Commentary: If the PS1 CPU can run the I/O, it must be a generic CPU! *gasp*
Also, you use the term "Architecture" pretty freely. At the highest level, both consoles have a main CPU, a GPU, Memory/cache, and I/O. Just because the XBox uses technology that mostly already exists (much like PS2's IOP) doesn't make it a PC. The PS2 isn't unique, it's just wired differently. Please don't confuse yourself.
Try and buy the GPU that nvidia put in the xbox. I'm betting you can't, since it's a 80% geforce3 and 20% geforce4.
Does that qualify as "special" and "unique"? The chipset isn't the same as the PC's nforce either. Doesn't that make it special?
I wasn't referring to cost, I was referring to popularity. Don't get me wrong, I have a Linux partition at home and do all of my hardware simulations on Linux boxen at work, so I do use Linux. It has its good/bad points.
But hey, if you'd like to talk cost... Linux is Free, Windows isn't. Why is Windows still more popular by such a *huge* margin? Your argument doesn't work.
the fact that the Xbox is basically a PC ina Box
Again, what makes the XBox a PC? Can you word process on it? Can you install an IRC client? Can you crack RC5 keys? How is the XBox a general purpose PC?
Did you just refer to Microsoft as the underdog?
Considering PS2 has a huge console market presence with past success and a 12 months under their belt, and the XBox is barely 6 months old... yes, the XBox is an underdog in the Console Industry.
Sound/Visuals: I happen to use the SVideo AV Pack, with the optical cable running to a DD/DTS receiver. Guess I'm in a small minority.
Size/Weight: Yes, it's big. Yes it's heavy. But my entertainment center hasn't bitched at me yet. Good thing there's 10 foot cords on the controllers so I don't have to move the box out whenever I wish to enjoy a game.
DVD: Don't most people own real DVD players anyway? From what I've read on newsgroups, you get what you pay for when playing DD movies on the PS2 considering it cuts out a few times a movie (Saving Private Ryan is one example I can remember). Also, how enjoyable is it using a corded gamepad to control video playback? I thought that kind of a thing went out in the early 1970's when IR and RF was invented *cough*. XBox made me pony up $30 for the DVD playback. I'm guessing you $bought$ a DVD remote for your PS2, unless they were free.
Little things: Yes, the controller is bigger than a PS2's controller. It's actually nice to use. It fits my hand well, much like Microsoft's Explorer mouse lets me rest my entire hand on it. PS2's controller is smaller, but don't confuse small with ergonomic. My hands would always hurt after a marathon PS1 session with the dual shock controller. The shoulder buttons weren't at a nice angle.
Xbox is the same price as the PS2, and comes with ethernet and a hard drive. I'd say you get more for your money.
Halo's good, so is DoA3, as is Rallisport Challenge, a couple of NASCAR games, and EA's entire sports lineup. There's plenty of good games. I think you mean good "proprietary" games like the ones Sony pays developers to only make for the PS2.
Reported Crashes? Those were isolated demo boxes in small, cramped spaces. Have any crashed since? If you can't back up your statements, you're just spreading FUD.
Microsoft has $38 Billion dollars sitting in the bank. How's that for reserves? Nintendo is probably the only "little guy" in this fight. Sony is the largest consumer electronics company in the world, and Microsoft is a dominant player in the software industry.
Why won't Sony fail? If you can succeed, you can fail. Enron was flying high a year ago. So was Andersen. They went down for other reasons, but it illustrates that a company that's on top stays there.
What makes my XBox a TV-PC? My PC has a processor, dynamic storage, a graphics processor, and static storage. Last I checked the PS2 was only missing the static storage, but that was being worked on as well.
I'm seriously looking for an answer here. What makes an XBox a PC while a PS2 is a console?
Let's see... PS2 came out in a virtual next-gen void. DC was winding down, publishers wanted to go with the known commodity, Playstation's follow-on. So, PS2 started selling with major problems, but the desire for a box was so great that they were the de facto "buy" recommendation.
/. tastes blood in the water and moves in for the kill. Let's be objective!
XBox started with PS2 having 1 year lead and another top console, the Gamecube, a week away from launch.
Consoles are crowded now. It's been proven over and over that the XBox has superior visuals and audio (if only for the fact that it's 18 months newer than the PS2) but it's in a fight for growth with the Gamecube against the PS2. A huge head-start is never easy to compete with, but it isn't a reason to write off the underdog.
If you were to replace "Playstation 2" with "Windows", and replace "XBox" with "Linux", this thread would have 1200 comments all stating how just because Windows sells more doesn't mean it's better. But, when MS is the underdog,
(I like to think of myself as objective, but I do own an XBox and 6 games, so I may be biased)
We've gotten some open source apps compiled for the newer Cray boxes, but I'm not sure if Apache was one of them. Can anyone from Mendota comment?
:P
But yeah, the Cray boxes we use are used for simulations, not webhosting.
Last I checked it was a Solaris box, before that an SGI box.
Prolly not considering that I just uninstalled the b3d crap from WinXP.
Eventually people have to chill out about the gov't conspiracies. If they wanted to spy on you, they'd need a lot more compute resources and a lot more analysts. They don't have either.
It's easy to come on /. and complain about how the patent system sucks. If you want to have a real effect in changing how the 'system' works, maybe you'd like a career there?
This place might be fine for a 2nd run or budget theatre, but if I'm in there attempting to get my $8 worth... the super-bright LCDs in my face would get old.
the GF3 uses vectors for calculations. An Athlon using the x86 CISC requires more overhead per instruction.
Athlon:
add ax,bx; % where ax and bx are 32-bit scalars
GF3:
add reg0, reg1; % where reg0 and reg1 are vectors of scalars
If you wanted to do the same work of the GF3 on an Athlon, you'd need 32 (or however deep the vector registers are) successive instructions.
Once you ditch the instruction overhead for doing an operation on X number of successive scalars, the processor spends more time doing the math and the FLOPS goes up. Take a look at the AltiVec unit in the G4, or CRAY vector supercomputers.
Perforce has a daemon that is run, and it's got clients for Windows and all the Unix clones, free and non-free.
Now, perforce itself isn't free, but some things are just worth the money.
Indeed. We race 1:10 scale AWD touring cars up in Brooklyn Park, MN, and thought that getting Micro RS4's would be sweet for some basement and driveway racing. They're very solid cars on lots of surfaces, but with their acceleration and distinct lack of weight it's like you're trying to turn a buggy on clay... there's some power sliding going on. ;)
There's many great things the Internet can do, but (IMHO) finding a date isn't one of them... especially if you're searching on hotornot.com. :P
Finding "The One" was an activity I enjoyed doing offline.
they've got a little too much acceleration to be used in the office. We've raced them on outside basketball courts, with custom 6 cell AA NiMH 1600 MAh packs for them, and the standard motor is just burning when the pack starts dumping. :) We use Hitec HS-81MG servos, the metal gears are almost a requirement.
If you want an office racer, go with the 2 wheel drive Kyosho Mini-Z
This was in a wired article (brief mention) or something like that from at least the end of last year. It's not new, but it's not exactly talked about a ton, either.
actually, the Xbox's GPU is a faster GF3 (250 MHz) but with a 2nd vertex shader like the GF4. It's not low-end by any means. Read the gamespot writup here.
Guess that sums up the technological advances of our age.. an "old company dream" such as this can't be more than 6-8 years old, can it?
As the tech train keeps accelerating, the time delta between the introduction of a technology to public adoption (not just geek adoption) will get smaller and smaller.
I'm hoping we get some matter/anti-matter couplers in stock so we we can put some nacelles on the back of the shuttle.
yeee-haw!
Sorry, been watching TiVo'd eps of Enterprise the last few days.