There's something else to keep in mind: if the Transmeta chip alone could instantly quadruple the speed of desktop machines while slashing the price in half, it would not make sense for Transmeta to keep everything secret. To maximize profits, they would instead be seeking investors so the technology could get out to market as quickly as possible.
What sounds much more reasonable is that they're trying to clean out all the old instruction sets and create a massively scaleable and flexible computing platform. To do so would clear the path for future developments for years to come. It's a very solid business plan IMHO. Basically the same goal as RISC technology, but this time the engineers have direct contact with people who have extraordinary modern OS design experience and vision such as Linus, the Amiga team, and until recently the QNX people. They cannot help but produce something dazzling to geeks and end users alike.
In this case, RCA and composite are the same thing. The signal is called composite because it carries both the luminescence and chroma signals (I believe that's what they're called) in the same wire. The connectors are generally either RCA types (the same as standard audio patch cables on any home stereo) or BNC (like 10base2 ethernet). I am not aware of any video capture cards that don't accept composite signals. Heck, even my digital camera puts out a composite signal. I could use it as a camcorder!
S-video is very different. The connectors have four pins and you won't find S-video connections on most stock VCR's and monitors. Unless you are producing a movie, s-video connectivity probably should not be an important factor.
That parallel port controller box sounds interesting... I also wonder how that would work.
Thank you, Bruce. I hope that I'm speaking for most when I say that your contributions are very helpful in sorting out the issues surrounding OSS.
Sun's strategy is rather confusing IMHO. I attended JavaOne 98 and I believe I remember McNealy or one of the top executives saying that Sun has come to the realization that they are really a software company that also happens to sell hardware for running their software. To go truly open-source would be a radical shift, don't you think? At least with SCSL they can still make money.
However, as ESR recently pointed out, software companies may be suffering the illusion that they are manufacturing companies when really they ought to be making their money as services and consulting companies. Do you believe that if Sun were to shift to true open-source, that their revenue would actually increase? They already provide top-dollar support services. Their OS probably has the best reputation of all for enterprise-class tasks. They are probably making a good sum from the Java training programs. If they took a leap of faith, it's possible that a lot of people would see Sun as the right solution provider for big tasks.
That is a very interesting conclusion. Some of the most successful kings of the past came to the same conclusion--that the best governments are ruled by a single person who has a genuine interest in the prosperity of the people. But they also realized that there was no way they could guarantee that their successors would have their same values. The problem was worsened by the fact that the trust bestowed by the people on the first king was often transferred to the successor, making it much easier for a corrupt dictator to take advantage of his/her position.
Our current situation in the United States and other nations, with a constitution, checks and balances, and other forms of regulation keeps any one person from destroying the prosperity we have earned. However, it can only last as long as we have a sufficiently benevolent leadership. The leadership in our country is a sample of our people, so if there comes a time when the people would consistently choose war, crime, murder, etc., our government will similarly fail.
That's not entirely related to this topic, but I think it's an interesting subject and maybe one or two people would like to comment on it.
I still have a copy of TC++ 2.0 on my hard drive. I haven't used it in a while, but if I ever want to code up a quick-and-dirty DOS utility, there is no better way IMHO.
Actually that's probably the easy part. The strike would be coordinated in 'Net-time, and if not enough geeks have joined in within a 2 minute window, the strike would be cancelled.
Not that any of this makes any sense to me. So-called geeks are generally praised, not ridiculed. Yes there are those who are jealous of them, but how is "exercising rights" going to change that? It would be nice to have greater political representation so that Internet taxes and mass censorship would be abolished. However, I'm not convinced we would make any real progress in that area either--we generally agree mass censorship is foolish but my own opinion is that censorship must be available in public libraries to protect the children. Many would disagree.
1) Switch to the passive voice. No gender needed. English teacher will fry you for using passive voice. b) Use "they/them/their". Everyone will understand. English teacher will fry you for using technically incorrect grammar. iii) Use "he/him/his". Technically correct and non-gender-specific. English teacher may fry you for being sexist. IV) Use "he/she" alternately. English teacher will think you're making an attempt at option 3 but falling short. If teacher didn't fry you for being sexist when you used option 3, will fry you now. "She" is guaranteed to be gender-specific. five) Buy the advice of the author of a grammar book I studied. "She" is the non-gender-specific pronoun because it also contains the word "he". Will fry if your English teacher disagrees. (I disagree.) IIIIII) Use no pronouns. That's what I did for most of this post, e.g. "teacher" in place of "he". Doesn't always work. Must revert to other option.
This post CAN be related to the topic we're supposed to be talking about. The point is there's no perfect solution and in English grammar as in software licensing we must find the best solution for our own situation. Also, this problem in English has existed for a very long time, and likewise there's a good chance the open source vs. commercial fight will continue to be fought.
I think most regular/.'ers feel the pressure you hinted at... I know I do. I try to say things that really matter, and that I really know something about, but I often look back and realize I came up short on my goal. So as we all gain more experience with this form of journalism, and as/. matures, this forum will only get better. We will learn to express our ideas with more clarity and we will learn to express better ideas.
(BTW don't even think of removing the AC's. A gag period is a nice idea, but don't actually gag them--make it so people who have been registered for less than 6 weeks get an automatic score of 0 instead of 1.)
Here is my number one reason why Java is the right way to go for server apps. Unless you use OS hooks and kludges and the like, there is no equivalent in C/C++. (Perl is a different ballgame, and here I'm making the assumption that top speed is critical.)
void doSomethingButForgiveStupidProgrammer() { try { saySomethingNifty(); } catch (Throwable t) { // Tell programmer to be more careful... } }
Do you see how great that code is? If the programmer accidentally references a null pointer, runs out of memory, or even deletes a class file by accident, there is still an elegant way to recover. Of course this is oversimplified, but now that I have written a server app in Java I can't imagine how the same stability could ever be achieved with C/C++. When I add new code and it generates a NullPointerException, a very minimal disruption of service occurs. I've even found ways to recover from infinite loops.
Well, considering this is the first time a post of mine has achieved a score of 5 and I got a vote of confidence from "displague", I think I'll put some effort into the idea. Of course I will try to make the best possible use of work that's already been done by doing a search on freshmeat. Even if a graphical map doesn't turn out to improve the horizontally-scaled development model, at least it would be possible for alpha testers and general users to get a view of the project as a whole and its parts.
Can anyone point me in the direction of some open source software that might fulfill part of this need?
It would be interesting to find out just how much the open source community has contributed to Mozilla. A/. poll would be good, I think... ask "how involved are you in the Mozilla project?"
I, like so many others, downloaded via CVS the whole seamonkey tree and tried to find my way through it. It was just so massive! For a week I did a "cvs update" every day and I noticed so many files were in motion that I couldn't tell what wasn't being worked on.
This may sound naive, but I think the primary reason Mozilla hasn't received much attention from open source developers is because there isn't a simple, graphical "map" that shows the progress of each section of code. I hope you can understand what I have in mind--it would look very similar to a real map but would be colored according to how much work needs to be done in each area. The areas would be zoomable to the point where if a developer wants to fix a specific bug, he just zooms in to the specific function.
I'm a developer who has precious little time yet has a lot of interest in seeing Mozilla completed under the current licensing model. Would you folks think this idea is worth the effort?
This reminds me of back in the BBS days when I was modeming to the chat lines. I decided to try applying an ELIZA engine to a chat room. Written in BASIC, whenever I hit Ctrl-E it would look at the last line written by a chat user and write its own semi-intelligent response to it. Emphasis on "semi". The biggest oversight was that it WROTE EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Most of you probably know that older BASIC's didn't support lowercase letters very well. Needless to say, Eliza got flamed for every word she said.
Maybe I should write an Eliza that automatically posts to slashdot. Actually, for all we know some of those AC's may be Eliza or her relatives! Think about it:
Friendly, intelligent user: We should stop bickering about whether open source is right or not and just write code. Eliza disguised as Anonymous Coward: Open source doesn't make any sense. Windows CE already drives my car for me. I think I'll write a letter to ESR and say Linux stinks.
Remind you of any recent conversations?;-)
[I apologize for being so offtopic. Moderate me down as needed.:) ]
If teenagers can be restricted from seeing a movie on the basis of the words spoken there, why are they not restricted from going to junior high school? As I recall, the continuous stream of profanities and imagery to which I was subjected caused me to learn a lot more during my formative years about atypical sexual behavior than reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.
I did not have any money when I was in junior high so I did not see very many movies. My eye-opening experiences occured between classes. Kids who had discovered something potent would shout in the halls and talk about other kids they thought were homosexual, bisexual, or radical in some other way. I did not want to hear it but the phrases slipped into my head. While watching a movie with profanity can be detrimental, I'd have to imagine that three straight years of near-subliminal suggestions are much more harmful.
Thankfully I made it through without being affected by it all, but I know that not everyone in my graduating class was as fortunate. Shouldn't parents be trying to do something about junior high profanity rather than bickering over movie ratings?
That's just a thought that's consistent with my personal experience. Feel free to tear it apart.;-)
Assuming the entire chip operates synchronously (meaning every circuit depends entirely on the clock), you would be correct. But I've always had the notion that asynchronous circuit design, even with its major pitfalls, has the potential to work slightly faster than synchronous circuits. If AMD has been able to harness asynchronous circuits at extremely high speed then it would make perfect sense that the processor would operate faster internally. The external bus speed, however, would remain unchanged.
Putting the name itself aside for a moment, I would like to know why I would want to buy a Pentium rather than an AMD processor that ranks as high or higher on the benchmarks and costs half as much. Are there compatibility issues? This is very important as I'm almost ready to start building a small powerhouse "from scratch"...
Actually it would appear that some kinds of beepers/cell phones do transmit in some way. Not too long ago I noticed my Linux box would make an audible series of pulses through the speakers every once in a while. Than I noticed the pulses always came just before a co-worker got "beeped". Then I noticed the effect only happened when he was in the office. Obviously his pager was replying to the signal it was receiving.
I also think it is sickening, but it is a reality of software and Internet engineering. Whenever someone comes up with a nice innovative idea and is able to produce it, someone else out there is going to see how it ought to be better.
Actually one of the central focuses (foci?:) ) of slashdot is a great example: Windows vs. (!Windows). Windows has brought more computing to the masses but does not fully serve the needs of multiple users. It's progressing, but *nix and others are coming from exactly the opposite direction. So either way you look at it, we have one OS that has some great technology but is lacking major components. Many (most?) on/. assert that it is our right and duty to complain.
Thank you for the link to this project. I had not heard of it before. I have not studied it in detail yet but OpenDX looks remarkably like a peek into the future of computing. Kind of like seeing a Web browser in 1985.
What gets me about this product is the slogan. If the designers put any faith in the statement "The Evolution of the Computer Ends with Z", they are in for a surprise.
One of the main tech support facilities for Packard Bell/NEC is exactly one mile from my house, and a great number of my friends who are now hardware technicians have told me over the years that no one should EVER buy a PB.
I don't have experience with more recent models, but my family had a Packard Bell 286 that's now chugging away faithfully in my grandparents' house. It never got upgraded because, well, it was impossible to upgrade. 3 of the 4 expansion slots were filled when we bought it.
I'm one of those who sometimes makes long trips and the slow onset of static has always been a problem. But now I have a CD changer in my car and the radio, even without the static, is more like a long stream of pure commercials. Besides, wouldn't a CD changer--or, eventually, an MP3 player--be less expensive than a satellite receiver, give the driver much more control, and have fewer hiccups?
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction The self does not exist
The following is the translation of this sig for those of you who, like me, are struggling to find the deeper meaning of Java. Don't try this at home.
public interface Thought { }
public class Consciousness { private Thought think() { return think(); }
public Thought getSelf() { return think(); } }
Re:Calculate yourself, you don't need XXX ops/sec
on
A $1000 Supercomputer?
·
· Score: 1
The subject of the Commodore 64 came up on another thread. Well, if anyone wants a picture of what 1,666,667 ops/sec is, that's a C-128 running C-64 programs at double speed. Something like an overclocked C-64. 300 baud modems... those were the dayzzzz...
/. already went through this one in a previous article. Summary: yes, it may be able to perform all those additions, but to compare a mass of reduced-speed logic gates to a real supercomputer is outrageous.
I live not too far away from Star Bridge Systems. If there really were major developments, I would read about them in local newspapers more than once a year.
Slashdot Mirror
There's something else to keep in mind: if the Transmeta chip alone could instantly quadruple the speed of desktop machines while slashing the price in half, it would not make sense for Transmeta to keep everything secret. To maximize profits, they would instead be seeking investors so the technology could get out to market as quickly as possible.
What sounds much more reasonable is that they're trying to clean out all the old instruction sets and create a massively scaleable and flexible computing platform. To do so would clear the path for future developments for years to come. It's a very solid business plan IMHO. Basically the same goal as RISC technology, but this time the engineers have direct contact with people who have extraordinary modern OS design experience and vision such as Linus, the Amiga team, and until recently the QNX people. They cannot help but produce something dazzling to geeks and end users alike.
In this case, RCA and composite are the same thing. The signal is called composite because it carries both the luminescence and chroma signals (I believe that's what they're called) in the same wire. The connectors are generally either RCA types (the same as standard audio patch cables on any home stereo) or BNC (like 10base2 ethernet). I am not aware of any video capture cards that don't accept composite signals. Heck, even my digital camera puts out a composite signal. I could use it as a camcorder!
S-video is very different. The connectors have four pins and you won't find S-video connections on most stock VCR's and monitors. Unless you are producing a movie, s-video connectivity probably should not be an important factor.
That parallel port controller box sounds interesting... I also wonder how that would work.
Thank you, Bruce. I hope that I'm speaking for most when I say that your contributions are very helpful in sorting out the issues surrounding OSS.
:)
Sun's strategy is rather confusing IMHO. I attended JavaOne 98 and I believe I remember McNealy or one of the top executives saying that Sun has come to the realization that they are really a software company that also happens to sell hardware for running their software. To go truly open-source would be a radical shift, don't you think? At least with SCSL they can still make money.
However, as ESR recently pointed out, software companies may be suffering the illusion that they are manufacturing companies when really they ought to be making their money as services and consulting companies. Do you believe that if Sun were to shift to true open-source, that their revenue would actually increase? They already provide top-dollar support services. Their OS probably has the best reputation of all for enterprise-class tasks. They are probably making a good sum from the Java training programs. If they took a leap of faith, it's possible that a lot of people would see Sun as the right solution provider for big tasks.
Have I fallen off my rocker?
That is a very interesting conclusion. Some of the most successful kings of the past came to the same conclusion--that the best governments are ruled by a single person who has a genuine interest in the prosperity of the people. But they also realized that there was no way they could guarantee that their successors would have their same values. The problem was worsened by the fact that the trust bestowed by the people on the first king was often transferred to the successor, making it much easier for a corrupt dictator to take advantage of his/her position.
Our current situation in the United States and other nations, with a constitution, checks and balances, and other forms of regulation keeps any one person from destroying the prosperity we have earned. However, it can only last as long as we have a sufficiently benevolent leadership. The leadership in our country is a sample of our people, so if there comes a time when the people would consistently choose war, crime, murder, etc., our government will similarly fail.
That's not entirely related to this topic, but I think it's an interesting subject and maybe one or two people would like to comment on it.
I still have a copy of TC++ 2.0 on my hard drive. I haven't used it in a while, but if I ever want to code up a quick-and-dirty DOS utility, there is no better way IMHO.
Actually that's probably the easy part. The strike would be coordinated in 'Net-time, and if not enough geeks have joined in within a 2 minute window, the strike would be cancelled.
Not that any of this makes any sense to me. So-called geeks are generally praised, not ridiculed. Yes there are those who are jealous of them, but how is "exercising rights" going to change that? It would be nice to have greater political representation so that Internet taxes and mass censorship would be abolished. However, I'm not convinced we would make any real progress in that area either--we generally agree mass censorship is foolish but my own opinion is that censorship must be available in public libraries to protect the children. Many would disagree.
You have the following choices in most cases:
1) Switch to the passive voice. No gender needed. English teacher will fry you for using passive voice.
b) Use "they/them/their". Everyone will understand. English teacher will fry you for using technically incorrect grammar.
iii) Use "he/him/his". Technically correct and non-gender-specific. English teacher may fry you for being sexist.
IV) Use "he/she" alternately. English teacher will think you're making an attempt at option 3 but falling short. If teacher didn't fry you for being sexist when you used option 3, will fry you now. "She" is guaranteed to be gender-specific.
five) Buy the advice of the author of a grammar book I studied. "She" is the non-gender-specific pronoun because it also contains the word "he". Will fry if your English teacher disagrees. (I disagree.)
IIIIII) Use no pronouns. That's what I did for most of this post, e.g. "teacher" in place of "he". Doesn't always work. Must revert to other option.
This post CAN be related to the topic we're supposed to be talking about. The point is there's no perfect solution and in English grammar as in software licensing we must find the best solution for our own situation. Also, this problem in English has existed for a very long time, and likewise there's a good chance the open source vs. commercial fight will continue to be fought.
I think most regular /.'ers feel the pressure you hinted at... I know I do. I try to say things that really matter, and that I really know something about, but I often look back and realize I came up short on my goal. So as we all gain more experience with this form of journalism, and as /. matures, this forum will only get better. We will learn to express our ideas with more clarity and we will learn to express better ideas.
(BTW don't even think of removing the AC's. A gag period is a nice idea, but don't actually gag them--make it so people who have been registered for less than 6 weeks get an automatic score of 0 instead of 1.)
Here is my number one reason why Java is the right way to go for server apps. Unless you use OS hooks and kludges and the like, there is no equivalent in C/C++. (Perl is a different ballgame, and here I'm making the assumption that top speed is critical.)
// Tell programmer to be more careful...
String stringToPrint;
void saySomethingNifty() {
httpWriter.println(stringToPrint);
}
void doSomethingButForgiveStupidProgrammer() {
try {
saySomethingNifty();
} catch (Throwable t) {
}
}
Do you see how great that code is? If the programmer accidentally references a null pointer, runs out of memory, or even deletes a class file by accident, there is still an elegant way to recover. Of course this is oversimplified, but now that I have written a server app in Java I can't imagine how the same stability could ever be achieved with C/C++. When I add new code and it generates a NullPointerException, a very minimal disruption of service occurs. I've even found ways to recover from infinite loops.
Could it be that Rob is getting to like Jar-Jar? Mee-sa hopin' not. ;)
Well, considering this is the first time a post of mine has achieved a score of 5 and I got a vote of confidence from "displague", I think I'll put some effort into the idea. Of course I will try to make the best possible use of work that's already been done by doing a search on freshmeat. Even if a graphical map doesn't turn out to improve the horizontally-scaled development model, at least it would be possible for alpha testers and general users to get a view of the project as a whole and its parts.
Can anyone point me in the direction of some open source software that might fulfill part of this need?
Actually, part of the reason I read /. is because sensationalism gets discovered, flamed, stomped, squashed, massacred, and moderated out.
It would be interesting to find out just how much the open source community has contributed to Mozilla. A /. poll would be good, I think... ask "how involved are you in the Mozilla project?"
I, like so many others, downloaded via CVS the whole seamonkey tree and tried to find my way through it. It was just so massive! For a week I did a "cvs update" every day and I noticed so many files were in motion that I couldn't tell what wasn't being worked on.
This may sound naive, but I think the primary reason Mozilla hasn't received much attention from open source developers is because there isn't a simple, graphical "map" that shows the progress of each section of code. I hope you can understand what I have in mind--it would look very similar to a real map but would be colored according to how much work needs to be done in each area. The areas would be zoomable to the point where if a developer wants to fix a specific bug, he just zooms in to the specific function.
I'm a developer who has precious little time yet has a lot of interest in seeing Mozilla completed under the current licensing model. Would you folks think this idea is worth the effort?
This reminds me of back in the BBS days when I was modeming to the chat lines. I decided to try applying an ELIZA engine to a chat room. Written in BASIC, whenever I hit Ctrl-E it would look at the last line written by a chat user and write its own semi-intelligent response to it. Emphasis on "semi". The biggest oversight was that it WROTE EVERYTHING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Most of you probably know that older BASIC's didn't support lowercase letters very well. Needless to say, Eliza got flamed for every word she said.
;-)
:) ]
Maybe I should write an Eliza that automatically posts to slashdot. Actually, for all we know some of those AC's may be Eliza or her relatives! Think about it:
Friendly, intelligent user: We should stop bickering about whether open source is right or not and just write code.
Eliza disguised as Anonymous Coward: Open source doesn't make any sense. Windows CE already drives my car for me. I think I'll write a letter to ESR and say Linux stinks.
Remind you of any recent conversations?
[I apologize for being so offtopic. Moderate me down as needed.
If teenagers can be restricted from seeing a movie on the basis of the words spoken there, why are they not restricted from going to junior high school? As I recall, the continuous stream of profanities and imagery to which I was subjected caused me to learn a lot more during my formative years about atypical sexual behavior than reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.
;-)
I did not have any money when I was in junior high so I did not see very many movies. My eye-opening experiences occured between classes. Kids who had discovered something potent would shout in the halls and talk about other kids they thought were homosexual, bisexual, or radical in some other way. I did not want to hear it but the phrases slipped into my head. While watching a movie with profanity can be detrimental, I'd have to imagine that three straight years of near-subliminal suggestions are much more harmful.
Thankfully I made it through without being affected by it all, but I know that not everyone in my graduating class was as fortunate. Shouldn't parents be trying to do something about junior high profanity rather than bickering over movie ratings?
That's just a thought that's consistent with my personal experience. Feel free to tear it apart.
Assuming the entire chip operates synchronously (meaning every circuit depends entirely on the clock), you would be correct. But I've always had the notion that asynchronous circuit design, even with its major pitfalls, has the potential to work slightly faster than synchronous circuits. If AMD has been able to harness asynchronous circuits at extremely high speed then it would make perfect sense that the processor would operate faster internally. The external bus speed, however, would remain unchanged.
Putting the name itself aside for a moment, I would like to know why I would want to buy a Pentium rather than an AMD processor that ranks as high or higher on the benchmarks and costs half as much. Are there compatibility issues? This is very important as I'm almost ready to start building a small powerhouse "from scratch"...
Actually it would appear that some kinds of beepers/cell phones do transmit in some way. Not too long ago I noticed my Linux box would make an audible series of pulses through the speakers every once in a while. Than I noticed the pulses always came just before a co-worker got "beeped". Then I noticed the effect only happened when he was in the office. Obviously his pager was replying to the signal it was receiving.
I also think it is sickening, but it is a reality of software and Internet engineering. Whenever someone comes up with a nice innovative idea and is able to produce it, someone else out there is going to see how it ought to be better.
:) ) of slashdot is a great example: Windows vs. (!Windows). Windows has brought more computing to the masses but does not fully serve the needs of multiple users. It's progressing, but *nix and others are coming from exactly the opposite direction. So either way you look at it, we have one OS that has some great technology but is lacking major components. Many (most?) on /. assert that it is our right and duty to complain.
Actually one of the central focuses (foci?
Thank you for the link to this project. I had not heard of it before. I have not studied it in detail yet but OpenDX looks remarkably like a peek into the future of computing. Kind of like seeing a Web browser in 1985.
What gets me about this product is the slogan. If the designers put any faith in the statement "The Evolution of the Computer Ends with Z", they are in for a surprise.
One of the main tech support facilities for Packard Bell/NEC is exactly one mile from my house, and a great number of my friends who are now hardware technicians have told me over the years that no one should EVER buy a PB.
I don't have experience with more recent models, but my family had a Packard Bell 286 that's now chugging away faithfully in my grandparents' house. It never got upgraded because, well, it was impossible to upgrade. 3 of the 4 expansion slots were filled when we bought it.
I'm one of those who sometimes makes long trips and the slow onset of static has always been a problem. But now I have a CD changer in my car and the radio, even without the static, is more like a long stream of pure commercials. Besides, wouldn't a CD changer--or, eventually, an MP3 player--be less expensive than a satellite receiver, give the driver much more control, and have fewer hiccups?
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
The self does not exist
The following is the translation of this sig for those of you who, like me, are struggling to find the deeper meaning of Java. Don't try this at home.
public interface Thought {
}
public class Consciousness {
private Thought think() {
return think();
}
public Thought getSelf() {
return think();
}
}
The subject of the Commodore 64 came up on another thread. Well, if anyone wants a picture of what 1,666,667 ops/sec is, that's a C-128 running C-64 programs at double speed. Something like an overclocked C-64. 300 baud modems... those were the dayzzzz...
I live not too far away from Star Bridge Systems. If there really were major developments, I would read about them in local newspapers more than once a year.