The Zilog had a much larger instruction set and many of the shared instructions executed in fewer CPU cycles.
Well, "much larger" is a bit of an exaggeration, although there's no doubt they added a bunch of useful instructions. What really rocked were the extra registers. They really came in handy.
The 8-bit processor that really gets no respect is the Motorola 6809. Lots of registers, and the instructions set was orthogonal with respect to them. It was great, but not really widely used for some odd reason.
It's worth pointing out that Zilog came out with a Z8000, which was a 16 bit version of the Z80, but it was a massive failure. The other competitor, of course, was the 68000 (which Apple chose). The rest of the industry (read: IBM) picked the 8086. I don't think the Z8000 was ever really in the running. I don't know much about it, so I'm not sure why.
Trivia: I actually saw an early prototype of an IBM PC that used a 68000 microprocessor. Really! We were contracted to port some products to it (our shop had a bunch of 68000 products), but the contract never came through for obvious reasons.
Well, I was limiting myself to microprocessors, but if you want to refer to general purpose computers, it was probably the IBM 360 that really brought computers into mass production as general purpose devices.
In fact, here's Zilog's page on the Z80 still in production after 25 years! How many other computer technologies do you know that are still available after 25 years? Pretty remarkable.
Talk about a company milking something for all its worth!:)
The 4004 was certainly a significant milestone, but I think the 8080 launched in 1974 was truly the "Model T" of the computer industry. That was the chip that was general enough to really run everything. It was the basis for all the microcomputers and the CP/M operating system.
In fact, I believe Zilog Z80s (an 8080 clone with some extra instructions -- around 1977?) are still being manufactured as controllers in various products.
Is this capitalistic market itself imposing power relationships on me that aren't to my interest?
I think that question is where people like you and RMS go wrong. You make the assumption that people don't factor that in, and you are wrong. It's not phrased that way, but it's basically the same question as "does the licensing agreement provide the benefits compared to the cost, and compared to other solutions?"
What is also very telling is your use of "foremost" with respect to this question. I understand that to RMS and perhaps you this is a foremost question, but it is NOT the foremost question to most people, and it shouldn't be. Here's the foremost question: What is the best solution to my problem that maximizes benefit versus cost? The fact that a product might have "freedom" as a benefit is valuable in some cases, and worthless is others.
Personally, I use Linux as a server for one of my web sites. It made sense, because of the relatively low cost and availability of software. On the other hand, I am typing this on a Win2K system using pretty much all proprietary software, like Exceed, Office, etc. I use them because they are the best software for my needs, and the cost to me is well worth the benefit. The fact that I don't have source code for Exceed or Office is totally irrelevent to me.
I guess my point is that if you and the OSS community are waiting for the masses to "wake up" to the advantages of "freedom", you will have a long wait. On the other hand, if the OSS community produces software that is at least equivalent to the proprietary solutions, then they will get somewhere.
So far, we see OSS playing catch-up in almost all software categories, except a notable few. Is this just a question of time, or is it intrinsic to OSS? I don't know for sure, but it's entirely possible that it's intrinsic to OSS. Usually the way an OSS project happens is that some programmers sees a proprietary program that they like, and decide to implement a "poor man's" version of it. People add to it, until it becomes relatively usable. In other words, innovation generally takes place in the proprietary sector. So far, this has been the story of almost every OSS project. It will be interesting to see if it continues.
I see some posts from people who are basically asking, "What's the big deal? They're just doing what they need to survive."
The fuss is that for the last few years ESR et al has been CathedralBazaaring (if you'll pardon my verbization) this idea that Open Source software actually makes MORE economic sense than closed source software, because you get the benefits of the "community". Source Forge has basically rejected this idea, and said "screw this ivory tower theory, it's not working and we need to make money".
I'm not ready to declare the experiments a total failure. I believe Stronghold does pretty well with their commercial version of Apache (not sure though), and IBM is certainly putting a lot of effort toward open source. Of course, IBM is hoping to sell hardware, so it's not quite the same.
In fact, ESR has been pretty quiet lately. Considering he was a board member of VA, has he put out any opinions on this move to closed source? Has he resigned from the board?
I thought RMS doesn't use a GUI at all? Isn't he a strictly command-line only guy?
If so, shouldn't one of the prerequesites to being on the board of a GUI desktop initiative that you actually use the freaking product? Why would he think that he's the right person for this job?
Oddly enough, Dark Side of the Moon is one of their LPs that I like the least. (Go figure, eh?)
What's also oddly enough is that I didn't think DSotM was all that great the first time I heard it. I was like, "Yeah, that was okay, but I'm not seeing what all the hype was about". It was one of those albums that the more I played it, the more it all started fitting together and growing on me. In fact, I think I put in on the shelf for a few years before I pulled it off again.
Not a bad choice, but I think the title is really held by the first chord of ``Hard Day's Night''.
A solid choice, but that first chord on Time on DSotM never fails to send chills up and down my spine. Sitting back, eyes closed with your headphones, the subtle ticking of the clock, followed by the cacophonous ringing of the alarm bells -- fading into that huge, perfect, dramatic chord. I should also mention that that intro has the best dramatic drumming in R&R history.
I'm not sure how Pink Floyd compressed a philosophical study of life, death and the nature of time into one guitar chord, but they did it.:)
Can you tell I'm a fan of that album?:)
It's amazing to me how good that album is, from the guitar work to the drumming to the tape effects to the amazing Roger Waters lyrics.
"Then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run -- you missed the starting gun."
"Far away, across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees, to hear the softly spoken magic spells"
"So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again." (has there ever been a better mental image of futility?)
"The paper holds their folded faces to the floor, and every day the paper boy brings more."
The thing about DSotM is not that the philosophy is hugely deep or original, but it's the poetic representation that is so awesome. Everything just comes together so well.
Well, all except the song "Money". Maybe it's just been overplayed, but it never seem to fit all that well.:)
Sorry to go on and on, but I've been listening to Pink Floyd a lot lately. Heh.
The biggest problem is that it would require mandatory registration, which the paranoids would never go for (what if I lose my card? To get a replacement, I would have to identify myself).
There are also other problems: everthing would have to have a card reader, suddenly making all your stereo equipment obsolete. You can't sell your music media like you can with CDs. You can't mail-order music.
The biggest problem, though, is who wants to carry around a freaking key? If I leave it at home when I go to work, I can't listen. If my wife wants to listen to music while I'm at work, we have to buy two different copies? I don't think that's going to fly.
They're fixing something that's not broken. At the risk of sounding paranoid, when an extremist like Ashcraft expands the powers of federal prosecutors to "fix" a problem that doesn't exist, I get suspicious.
The problem does exist. I mentioned this in another post, but how long did we struggle with mob lawyers? And the mob was an entirely different scale problem. Does anyone doubt that if we caught bin Laden, he would find a sympathetic attorney to represent him where he could feed new plans to his cells? I don't, and I don't think we need to wait for it to happen. Do we really want to be in the situation knowing his lawyers is coordinating terrorist attacks, but unable to do anything about it? I know I would feel like a total jack-ass having our system used against us like that.
On balance, this just doesn't seem like that big a modification to current law.
Do you really need to hear George Bush publicly say, "I'm abolishing the fourth amendment" before you believe that it's been ignored, tread upon, and fully abolished?
Call me when it's in danger of being abolished. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the "slippery slope". This is such a minor modification to current law, but with important and very practical application to our current situation. If it gets abused in some way, then we'll change it and fix it.
I believe the second amendment is open to interpretation, and I am hugely pro-gun. I don't want to see howitzers on the rooftops of my neighborhood. That's an exaggeration to make the point, but I think we can be a little flexible and recognize when very practical problems need a resolution, like terrorists using lawyers to plan their next attack. If we ever caught bin Laden and put him in jail, does anyone doubt that is exactly what would happen?
I think we need to keep sight of what problem is trying to be solved.
Once upon a time, the Constitution was worth a whole lot more than just 6000 lives.
No one is talking about throwing the constitution out the window. No, not even Bush et al. But sometimes you have to live in the real world, not this ivory tower world where the police have no surveillance powers at all and must catch all criminals in the act with a full video record.
The law is about balancing the ivory tower with practical needs. And in a time of war when the enemy is actively seeking nuclear weapons, the scales need to tip more toward immedate needs.
The constitution is not worth a damn if our freedom and liberty is taken away by external enemies. Personally, I like my freedom and liberty.
Wait, the Kernel uses GCC extensions? I thought the Kernel was written in real C, not that bastard GCC version. I've never look at Kernel code, so I'm not sure. Is this really true?
If it's true, I think that's a huge mistake. The Kernel should not be at the mercy of one compiler.
Honestly, they have managed to catch lawyers that were active conspirators before WITHOUT just walking all over privilege. Why are these methods suddenly unavailable?
Because the mob doesn't fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers, send Anthrax (allegedly) and try to obtain nuclear weapons.
Honestly, I think we need to cut the government a little slack and remember that 9/11 really happened.
Terrorists don't hire lawyers and chat about their actions beforehand.
That's correct. But they can also call "Joe Terrorist" his "lawyer" and plan more terrorist activity from his jail cell.
If we have good intelligence that some "lawyer" is actually a conduit in order to plan more terrorist activity, I think it's reasonable not to be idiots and let them do it.
This is an EXTREMELY limited provision. It appears to be intended to be used when there is a good possibility of the client-attorney privelege being abused to create more terrorism.
Put it this way: If Osama bin Laden wanted to talk to someone he claimed was his "lawyer", yet we had good intelligence that this "lawyer" was actually a head of a terrorist cell, then it might be a good idea to not allow lives to be endangered in that way.
Re:On correct use of apostrophes
on
God's Debris
·
· Score: 3, Troll
You are correct -- most people get it wrong, including you. For a proper name, you add "'s" as in "Scott Adams's God's Debris".
Actually, if you want to hurt Microsoft, buy the box, but don't buy any games. They are selling the box below cost, but hoping to make it up on games.:)
And, FWIW, RMS is not a control freak: he's a fanatic. Control freaks do not come up with things like the GPL, something designed to reduce central control.
I disagree -- I think he's both (fanatic/control freak). The GPL is not designed to reduce central control, but to transfer control. Normally I would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about who he wants to transfer control to, but look at his modus operandi. He would say that he wants to give power to the "people" (the rallying cry of all fanatics). But his actions speak otherwise: from the "GNU/Linux" nonsense to the sniping at KDE to this latest insanity.
I don't have any links off-hand, but I've read many accounts of people who have worked with RMS and came away hating the man because he would couldn't stand to let go of control.
Slashdot Mirror
The Zilog had a much larger instruction set and many of the shared instructions executed in fewer CPU cycles.
Well, "much larger" is a bit of an exaggeration, although there's no doubt they added a bunch of useful instructions. What really rocked were the extra registers. They really came in handy.
The 8-bit processor that really gets no respect is the Motorola 6809. Lots of registers, and the instructions set was orthogonal with respect to them. It was great, but not really widely used for some odd reason.
Not much has changed, has it? :)
It's worth pointing out that Zilog came out with a Z8000, which was a 16 bit version of the Z80, but it was a massive failure. The other competitor, of course, was the 68000 (which Apple chose). The rest of the industry (read: IBM) picked the 8086. I don't think the Z8000 was ever really in the running. I don't know much about it, so I'm not sure why.
Trivia: I actually saw an early prototype of an IBM PC that used a 68000 microprocessor. Really! We were contracted to port some products to it (our shop had a bunch of 68000 products), but the contract never came through for obvious reasons.
Well, I was limiting myself to microprocessors, but if you want to refer to general purpose computers, it was probably the IBM 360 that really brought computers into mass production as general purpose devices.
And then stolen by Apple.
In fact, here's Zilog's page on the Z80 still in production after 25 years! How many other computer technologies do you know that are still available after 25 years? Pretty remarkable.
Talk about a company milking something for all its worth! :)
The 4004 was certainly a significant milestone, but I think the 8080 launched in 1974 was truly the "Model T" of the computer industry. That was the chip that was general enough to really run everything. It was the basis for all the microcomputers and the CP/M operating system.
In fact, I believe Zilog Z80s (an 8080 clone with some extra instructions -- around 1977?) are still being manufactured as controllers in various products.
Is this capitalistic market itself imposing power relationships on me that aren't to my interest?
I think that question is where people like you and RMS go wrong. You make the assumption that people don't factor that in, and you are wrong. It's not phrased that way, but it's basically the same question as "does the licensing agreement provide the benefits compared to the cost, and compared to other solutions?"
What is also very telling is your use of "foremost" with respect to this question. I understand that to RMS and perhaps you this is a foremost question, but it is NOT the foremost question to most people, and it shouldn't be. Here's the foremost question: What is the best solution to my problem that maximizes benefit versus cost? The fact that a product might have "freedom" as a benefit is valuable in some cases, and worthless is others.
Personally, I use Linux as a server for one of my web sites. It made sense, because of the relatively low cost and availability of software. On the other hand, I am typing this on a Win2K system using pretty much all proprietary software, like Exceed, Office, etc. I use them because they are the best software for my needs, and the cost to me is well worth the benefit. The fact that I don't have source code for Exceed or Office is totally irrelevent to me.
I guess my point is that if you and the OSS community are waiting for the masses to "wake up" to the advantages of "freedom", you will have a long wait. On the other hand, if the OSS community produces software that is at least equivalent to the proprietary solutions, then they will get somewhere.
So far, we see OSS playing catch-up in almost all software categories, except a notable few. Is this just a question of time, or is it intrinsic to OSS? I don't know for sure, but it's entirely possible that it's intrinsic to OSS. Usually the way an OSS project happens is that some programmers sees a proprietary program that they like, and decide to implement a "poor man's" version of it. People add to it, until it becomes relatively usable. In other words, innovation generally takes place in the proprietary sector. So far, this has been the story of almost every OSS project. It will be interesting to see if it continues.
I see some posts from people who are basically asking, "What's the big deal? They're just doing what they need to survive."
The fuss is that for the last few years ESR et al has been CathedralBazaaring (if you'll pardon my verbization) this idea that Open Source software actually makes MORE economic sense than closed source software, because you get the benefits of the "community". Source Forge has basically rejected this idea, and said "screw this ivory tower theory, it's not working and we need to make money".
I'm not ready to declare the experiments a total failure. I believe Stronghold does pretty well with their commercial version of Apache (not sure though), and IBM is certainly putting a lot of effort toward open source. Of course, IBM is hoping to sell hardware, so it's not quite the same.
In fact, ESR has been pretty quiet lately. Considering he was a board member of VA, has he put out any opinions on this move to closed source? Has he resigned from the board?
Here here. If history teaches us anything, it's that force works and appeasement does not.
I thought RMS doesn't use a GUI at all? Isn't he a strictly command-line only guy?
If so, shouldn't one of the prerequesites to being on the board of a GUI desktop initiative that you actually use the freaking product? Why would he think that he's the right person for this job?
Oddly enough, Dark Side of the Moon is one of their LPs that I like the least. (Go figure, eh?)
What's also oddly enough is that I didn't think DSotM was all that great the first time I heard it. I was like, "Yeah, that was okay, but I'm not seeing what all the hype was about". It was one of those albums that the more I played it, the more it all started fitting together and growing on me. In fact, I think I put in on the shelf for a few years before I pulled it off again.
Not a bad choice, but I think the title is really held by the first chord of ``Hard Day's Night''.
A solid choice, but that first chord on Time on DSotM never fails to send chills up and down my spine. Sitting back, eyes closed with your headphones, the subtle ticking of the clock, followed by the cacophonous ringing of the alarm bells -- fading into that huge, perfect, dramatic chord. I should also mention that that intro has the best dramatic drumming in R&R history.
I'm not sure how Pink Floyd compressed a philosophical study of life, death and the nature of time into one guitar chord, but they did it. :)
Can you tell I'm a fan of that album? :)
It's amazing to me how good that album is, from the guitar work to the drumming to the tape effects to the amazing Roger Waters lyrics.
"Then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run -- you missed the starting gun."
"Far away, across the field, the tolling of the iron bell, calls the faithful to their knees, to hear the softly spoken magic spells"
"So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again." (has there ever been a better mental image of futility?)
"The paper holds their folded faces to the floor, and every day the paper boy brings more."
The thing about DSotM is not that the philosophy is hugely deep or original, but it's the poetic representation that is so awesome. Everything just comes together so well.
Well, all except the song "Money". Maybe it's just been overplayed, but it never seem to fit all that well. :)
Sorry to go on and on, but I've been listening to Pink Floyd a lot lately. Heh.
The biggest problem is that it would require mandatory registration, which the paranoids would never go for (what if I lose my card? To get a replacement, I would have to identify myself).
There are also other problems: everthing would have to have a card reader, suddenly making all your stereo equipment obsolete. You can't sell your music media like you can with CDs. You can't mail-order music.
The biggest problem, though, is who wants to carry around a freaking key? If I leave it at home when I go to work, I can't listen. If my wife wants to listen to music while I'm at work, we have to buy two different copies? I don't think that's going to fly.
They're fixing something that's not broken. At the risk of sounding paranoid, when an extremist like Ashcraft expands the powers of federal prosecutors to "fix" a problem that doesn't exist, I get suspicious.
The problem does exist. I mentioned this in another post, but how long did we struggle with mob lawyers? And the mob was an entirely different scale problem. Does anyone doubt that if we caught bin Laden, he would find a sympathetic attorney to represent him where he could feed new plans to his cells? I don't, and I don't think we need to wait for it to happen. Do we really want to be in the situation knowing his lawyers is coordinating terrorist attacks, but unable to do anything about it? I know I would feel like a total jack-ass having our system used against us like that.
On balance, this just doesn't seem like that big a modification to current law.
Do you really need to hear George Bush publicly say, "I'm abolishing the fourth amendment" before you believe that it's been ignored, tread upon, and fully abolished?
Call me when it's in danger of being abolished. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the "slippery slope". This is such a minor modification to current law, but with important and very practical application to our current situation. If it gets abused in some way, then we'll change it and fix it.
I believe the second amendment is open to interpretation, and I am hugely pro-gun. I don't want to see howitzers on the rooftops of my neighborhood. That's an exaggeration to make the point, but I think we can be a little flexible and recognize when very practical problems need a resolution, like terrorists using lawyers to plan their next attack. If we ever caught bin Laden and put him in jail, does anyone doubt that is exactly what would happen?
I think we need to keep sight of what problem is trying to be solved.
Once upon a time, the Constitution was worth a whole lot more than just 6000 lives.
No one is talking about throwing the constitution out the window. No, not even Bush et al. But sometimes you have to live in the real world, not this ivory tower world where the police have no surveillance powers at all and must catch all criminals in the act with a full video record.
The law is about balancing the ivory tower with practical needs. And in a time of war when the enemy is actively seeking nuclear weapons, the scales need to tip more toward immedate needs.
The constitution is not worth a damn if our freedom and liberty is taken away by external enemies. Personally, I like my freedom and liberty.
Wait, the Kernel uses GCC extensions? I thought the Kernel was written in real C, not that bastard GCC version. I've never look at Kernel code, so I'm not sure. Is this really true?
If it's true, I think that's a huge mistake. The Kernel should not be at the mercy of one compiler.
But they didn't need this rule to beat them!
Granted. But how long did it take to beat them?
Honestly, they have managed to catch lawyers that were active conspirators before WITHOUT just walking all over privilege. Why are these methods suddenly unavailable?
Because the mob doesn't fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers, send Anthrax (allegedly) and try to obtain nuclear weapons.
Honestly, I think we need to cut the government a little slack and remember that 9/11 really happened.
Having any police department at all is "down the slippery slope" toward jack-booted thug totalitarianism.
Slippery slope arguments are no arguments at all. All law enforcement is balancing reasonable rights of the accused.
And those checks work really well for mob lawyers, don't they?
Terrorists don't hire lawyers and chat about their actions beforehand.
That's correct. But they can also call "Joe Terrorist" his "lawyer" and plan more terrorist activity from his jail cell.
If we have good intelligence that some "lawyer" is actually a conduit in order to plan more terrorist activity, I think it's reasonable not to be idiots and let them do it.
This is an EXTREMELY limited provision. It appears to be intended to be used when there is a good possibility of the client-attorney privelege being abused to create more terrorism.
Put it this way: If Osama bin Laden wanted to talk to someone he claimed was his "lawyer", yet we had good intelligence that this "lawyer" was actually a head of a terrorist cell, then it might be a good idea to not allow lives to be endangered in that way.
You are correct -- most people get it wrong, including you. For a proper name, you add "'s" as in "Scott Adams's God's Debris".
I'm too lazy to find a link to prove it to you.
Actually, if you want to hurt Microsoft, buy the box, but don't buy any games. They are selling the box below cost, but hoping to make it up on games. :)
And, FWIW, RMS is not a control freak: he's a fanatic. Control freaks do not come up with things like the GPL, something designed to reduce central control.
I disagree -- I think he's both (fanatic/control freak). The GPL is not designed to reduce central control, but to transfer control. Normally I would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about who he wants to transfer control to, but look at his modus operandi. He would say that he wants to give power to the "people" (the rallying cry of all fanatics). But his actions speak otherwise: from the "GNU/Linux" nonsense to the sniping at KDE to this latest insanity.
I don't have any links off-hand, but I've read many accounts of people who have worked with RMS and came away hating the man because he would couldn't stand to let go of control.