Not really. Why do you think Commodore could sell their C64s for just $200? Answer: Because they were able to get the 65XXs and 85XXs for FREE. That gave them a competitive advantage over atari, apple, et cetera who were forced to pay full price. It's a key reason why the C64 sold 30 million units: because it was cheaper than the others.
>>>The 6502 was the successor the the 6501, both of which came from MOSTEK. Commodore may have had cpus contracted out, but the 6500 came nearly a decade before commodore hit the bigtime.
Stop spreading incorrect information. - The 6501 was developed by Motorola engineers. - Motorola didn't want to sell it, so the engineers created a spinoff company: MOS. - MOS became Commodore Semiconductor in 1976 (not 86 as you incorrectly implied).
>>>The government pretty sternly told Wikileaks not to release any of them, and why.
"You'll find out that Hillary stole credit card numbers from visiting politicians! And that the CIA is spying on your website history! We can't have that." - government.
Oh wait. That's not what you meant. (shrug) Well frankly, Hillary and friends are a MUCH bigger threat to my safety than Bin Laden since Hillary and friends can royally screw my life. I'd sooner know what my politicians are doing, even if it meant laden escaped. The true enemies work only 200 miles away from me, and they scare me a whole lot more than some tent-dude on the other side of the world.
The difference is that we were at War and different rules apply (wartime law). At present we are still at Peace, so peacetime law (i.e. the constitution) applies in all things. the fact you are so blind as to believe you can trust the president (or congress) makes me wonder if you slept through history class.
Maybe you ought to watch the movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" so you can get a reminder. The best part is when the German judge admits he loved Hitler, but also that was a fool to trust him, and should have refused to cooperate (i.e. refuse to send people to death or sterilization).
And no I don't give a damn about godwin. Hitler was not an anomaly. There have been several hundred Hitlers throughout history - Napoleon, Pol pot, Mao, Stalin, Genghis Khan, and on and on. You can NOT trust leaders.
>>>The same Executive Order that gives people the authority to classify things
I cannot lay my hand on any part of the US Constitution which gives the Executive power to declare what documents shall be made "invisible" within the government. On the contrary if such a power exists (which seems doubtful), that power lies with the Congress, since they are the ones entrusted with all the other important powers of government (power of the purse, power to tax, power to issue letters of marque, power to form treaties, power to make war,...).
Either that, or the States (amendment 10). NOT the executive. No man should be entrusted with the power to classify documents such that no one else can see them. What a convenient way to hide one's sins (think watergate).
>>>Wikileaks appears to have played a large part in stirring the uprisings...So back to that death count...
The Declaration of Independence killed about 1 million British citizens, due to the uprising it stirred. Maybe you believe Thomas Jefferson should not have written it, and the US still be a bunch of British colonies? Maybe Thomas Jefferson is as "evil" as Assange for all the trouble he stirred-up?
(I disagree - I think they are of like character. They both believed the people deserve to know.)
>>>it would be better when national security is at risk that [Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama] grow up and realize they are endangering lives, and lots of them, by their wanton approach.
Fixed that for you. Killing moms and dads in Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't solve problems. It only creates new enemies (the pissed-off children who vow revenge).
>>>here in America, we've had it going in more or less working order for several hundred years,
Nothing to brag about really. Rome had a democracy (the Senate) for 500 years, and yet still succumbed to a tyrant (Julius Caesar and his offspring).
The UK democracy (Parliament) is about 200 years older than the american democracy. As for Assange, he serves the original purpose envisioned by the First amendment "freedom of press" clause. The citizens use the power of speech and writing to keep the spotlight on corrupt politicians, in order to keep them from becoming like the 1770s parliament we rebelled against.
TV Guide is instant on over-the-air television. Mainly because the data is immediately available from the box's memory. Anything past 3 hours takes a little longer to fill-in, since those are only sent every 5 seconds. Past 1 day, the data is only sent every 30 seconds.
As for channel changing, I've noticed some boxes are slow as snails, while others are instant and display the picture almost as fast as analog. It all depends on the manufacturer.
Why is it Microsoft Word 97 fits into my 8 megabyte 386 laptop, and has 99% of the same functions as modern Word, plus is quick and responsive. Why can't they bring that level of efficiency for today's Word 2010?
Because they aren't trying. Because they don't care. Because it's easier for management to tell users, "Go buy a new computer with 8x more RAM," than to pay programmers to make the code more efficient/responsive.
>>>I don't like GNOME 3, but at least it's better than Unity.
For a split second I thought that last word was "Ugly".:-o As for configuration, I don't know how to change to alternative desktops like Gnome or LXDE, and I bet most users don't either. I like the simplicity of just popping-in the disc and running the OS (like how Puppy works).
>>>the goal is clearly to show what can be done with underpowered machines, so using a more powerful machine would somewhat defeat the point.
You mean like if I bought a 45hp Lupo to prove my point that... um... not sure? I guess that I can get to work with only 1/6 gallon of fuel. (just joking)
I like to write word processing documents on my C64 just to prove that "yes these old computers did actual work". I guess this is guy is trying to do the same thing.
>>>using a popular machine for its day
Hardly "popular". Apple IIe sold what? 500,000 units? Both Atari and Commodore and even the ugly green monochrome IBM PC outsold it.
A division of Commodore Semiconductor Group in Norristown, PA since 1975.
>>>Western Design Center.
A licensee of Commodore Semiconductor, who owned the 6502 IP. The arrangement was similar to how AMD licensed the 8088 and 80286 from intel. i.e. Second sourced.
>>>16-bit 65000...is that like, 3000 less than the Motorola 68000? Did Apple get a discount?
Funny, but your joke is actually truthful. 6500 processors originated at Motorola as a cheap alternative to the 6800 ($25 versus $300), but when Motorola tried to kill the project, the engineers spun-off their own company. In fact before today's "everything intel" or everything x86 world, multiple lines of CPUs existed:
Commodore's 6502/8502 series (used in 90% of the 8 bit computers/game consoles) Zilog's Z80 series Motorola and Intel
The Commodore and Zilog lines never went higher than 16 bit, while Motorola's lines stopped at 32 bit (68060 and PowerPC). Only Intel and various spinoffs still survive since the early 1970s.
I'd sooner have an Apple IIgs stack however (with its 16 bit 65000). Same ease-of-use as the original 8 bit computer, but operates about six times faster, and has a Mac-style OS.
>>>BD-ROM is the spinny disk format for Movies. it's not for software.
With the exception of the millions of Software discs sold for ~50 million playstation owners. But that's such a tiny, small, insignificant market, so I can see why you ignored it.
Revisionist history? I thought Apple was very, very anti-USB and pro-firewire? Heck the first iPod didn't even interface to USB (and therefore couldn't talk to anything but macs). That's how anti-USB apple was initially.
>>>I'm pretty sure that H.264 is todays most common high definition video format, not BluRay
But Bluray IS h.264 format. The nice thing about bluray is that it won't get erased, like a file downloaded from iTunes can be. Bluray is a convenient backup method.
Also buying a Bluray doesn't impact my ~150 GB download cap.
I went to college during the "transition" period (pre- Web Mosaic and post-mosaic). When I arrived everyone used TVs, VCRs, and antennas. If you wanted to use a computer, you went to the computer lab.
When I left TVs still existed, but antennas were replaced with direct cable hookups, and Computer Labs were somewhat empty, because students now had direct internet to their dorm PCs.
As an adult I still have a TV (with antenna), but it sees less and less usage because of hulu.com and Syfy.com having direct video access to my favorite shows. I disconnected my Cable several years ago.
Anon. Coward writes: >>>ATSC? what a pile of garbage, and MPEG-2?! COME ON! At least the EU got h.264 from the start
h.264 aka MPEG4 didn't exist when ATSC was finalized in 1996 and broadcasts started in 97. They used the best codec available at the time of development.
Could have been worse. The Japanese version of HDTV was developed in the early 80s and isn't digital at all. It's an analog format called MUSE which occupies 3 channels to send one single program. - The US could have easily been stuck with that same format, if the FCC had followed Reagan's directive to copy it.
As for the other issues, "overscan" was developed because everyone was still using CRTs in the 90s. The mid-90s engineers had no idea that flat screen LCDs would be able to display a viewable picture. (Back then most lcds were crap.) And 1080i is based off the original japanese standard.
YOU are tricky. You (and others) have made the assumption that everyone who dislikes Obama is a "birther". I know a lot of people who think Obama was born in Hawaii, and yet still don't like his policies, because they consider them anti-free choice (i.e. anti-liberty).
As for me I had no idea is Obama was born in Hawaii or not. Hillary and Bill Clinton SAID he was a foreign national, but ultimately I decided it didn't matter if the Clintons were telling the truth or not. I was more interested in his policies and whether or not he would make a good president. (And ultimately I decided he's like Bush part 2 - just more of the same Big Government and Pro-war philosophy.)
>>>If populations never willingly go into a war, then why do we ever go into wars?
Same reason Obama drug us into Libya (or Bush into Iraq). Because he can. And damn what the people think (most are against the war). Of course the real power to enter war is supposed to be with the People, as represented by their representatives in Congress. Unfortunately Congress is about as powerless today, as the Roman Senate was under the caesars. The Republic has fallen. The emperor has risen. (And I don't just mean this one example - the Executive has been ignoring congress a lot lately.)
>>>But most (not all) of your examples have nothing to do with facebook.
Disagree. Facebook reveals: - party affiliation (i.e. communist) - race (asian) - porn habit - sexting photos - you're a Japanese comic book collector - posting "My boyfriend is a college guy" when you're only 16 or 17.
Only in Europe could 2 women voluntarily have sex with a single man, enjoy themselves, and then a week later say, "I was raped," and the police take her seriously. I thought Europe was more progressive than backwards USA, what with nude television and beaches and such, but I guess not.
Anybody with any intelligence (i.e. not you) realizes this was a FRAME job, because woman #1 learned about woman #2, got jealous, and they both decided to "get even" with the man. It's a classic case of buyer's remorse.
In the US this case would be laughed out of court.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>Assigning the 6502 to Commodore is a misnomer.
Not really.
Why do you think Commodore could sell their C64s for just $200?
Answer: Because they were able to get the 65XXs and 85XXs for FREE. That gave them a competitive advantage over atari, apple, et cetera who were forced to pay full price. It's a key reason why the C64 sold 30 million units: because it was cheaper than the others.
>>>The 6502 was the successor the the 6501, both of which came from MOSTEK. Commodore may have had cpus contracted out, but the 6500 came nearly a decade before commodore hit the bigtime.
Stop spreading incorrect information.
- The 6501 was developed by Motorola engineers.
- Motorola didn't want to sell it, so the engineers created a spinoff company: MOS.
- MOS became Commodore Semiconductor in 1976 (not 86 as you incorrectly implied).
>>>The government pretty sternly told Wikileaks not to release any of them, and why.
"You'll find out that Hillary stole credit card numbers from visiting politicians! And that the CIA is spying on your website history! We can't have that." - government.
Oh wait. That's not what you meant. (shrug) Well frankly, Hillary and friends are a MUCH bigger threat to my safety than Bin Laden since Hillary and friends can royally screw my life. I'd sooner know what my politicians are doing, even if it meant laden escaped. The true enemies work only 200 miles away from me, and they scare me a whole lot more than some tent-dude on the other side of the world.
>>>Secrets won World War II for the Allies.
The difference is that we were at War and different rules apply (wartime law). At present we are still at Peace, so peacetime law (i.e. the constitution) applies in all things. the fact you are so blind as to believe you can trust the president (or congress) makes me wonder if you slept through history class.
Maybe you ought to watch the movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" so you can get a reminder. The best part is when the German judge admits he loved Hitler, but also that was a fool to trust him, and should have refused to cooperate (i.e. refuse to send people to death or sterilization).
And no I don't give a damn about godwin. Hitler was not an anomaly. There have been several hundred Hitlers throughout history - Napoleon, Pol pot, Mao, Stalin, Genghis Khan, and on and on. You can NOT trust leaders.
You are fool to believe you can.
>>>The same Executive Order that gives people the authority to classify things
I cannot lay my hand on any part of the US Constitution which gives the Executive power to declare what documents shall be made "invisible" within the government. On the contrary if such a power exists (which seems doubtful), that power lies with the Congress, since they are the ones entrusted with all the other important powers of government (power of the purse, power to tax, power to issue letters of marque, power to form treaties, power to make war, ...).
Either that, or the States (amendment 10). NOT the executive. No man should be entrusted with the power to classify documents such that no one else can see them. What a convenient way to hide one's sins (think watergate).
>>>Wikileaks appears to have played a large part in stirring the uprisings...So back to that death count...
The Declaration of Independence killed about 1 million British citizens, due to the uprising it stirred. Maybe you believe Thomas Jefferson should not have written it, and the US still be a bunch of British colonies? Maybe Thomas Jefferson is as "evil" as Assange for all the trouble he stirred-up?
(I disagree - I think they are of like character. They both believed the people deserve to know.)
>>>it would be better when national security is at risk that [Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama] grow up and realize they are endangering lives, and lots of them, by their wanton approach.
Fixed that for you.
Killing moms and dads in Iraq/Afghanistan doesn't solve problems.
It only creates new enemies (the pissed-off children who vow revenge).
>>>here in America, we've had it going in more or less working order for several hundred years,
Nothing to brag about really. Rome had a democracy (the Senate) for 500 years, and yet still succumbed to a tyrant (Julius Caesar and his offspring).
The UK democracy (Parliament) is about 200 years older than the american democracy. As for Assange, he serves the original purpose envisioned by the First amendment "freedom of press" clause. The citizens use the power of speech and writing to keep the spotlight on corrupt politicians, in order to keep them from becoming like the 1770s parliament we rebelled against.
TV Guide is instant on over-the-air television. Mainly because the data is immediately available from the box's memory. Anything past 3 hours takes a little longer to fill-in, since those are only sent every 5 seconds. Past 1 day, the data is only sent every 30 seconds.
As for channel changing, I've noticed some boxes are slow as snails, while others are instant and display the picture almost as fast as analog. It all depends on the manufacturer.
I'm not buying those excuses.
Why is it Microsoft Word 97 fits into my 8 megabyte 386 laptop, and has 99% of the same functions as modern Word, plus is quick and responsive. Why can't they bring that level of efficiency for today's Word 2010?
Because they aren't trying.
Because they don't care.
Because it's easier for management to tell users, "Go buy a new computer with 8x more RAM," than to pay programmers to make the code more efficient/responsive.
>>>I don't like GNOME 3, but at least it's better than Unity.
For a split second I thought that last word was "Ugly". :-o As for configuration, I don't know how to change to alternative desktops like Gnome or LXDE, and I bet most users don't either. I like the simplicity of just popping-in the disc and running the OS (like how Puppy works).
>>>the goal is clearly to show what can be done with underpowered machines, so using a more powerful machine would somewhat defeat the point.
You mean like if I bought a 45hp Lupo to prove my point that... um... not sure? I guess that I can get to work with only 1/6 gallon of fuel. (just joking)
I like to write word processing documents on my C64 just to prove that "yes these old computers did actual work". I guess this is guy is trying to do the same thing.
>>>using a popular machine for its day
Hardly "popular". Apple IIe sold what? 500,000 units? Both Atari and Commodore and even the ugly green monochrome IBM PC outsold it.
>>>MOS Tech
A division of Commodore Semiconductor Group in Norristown, PA since 1975.
>>>Western Design Center.
A licensee of Commodore Semiconductor, who owned the 6502 IP. The arrangement was similar to how AMD licensed the 8088 and 80286 from intel. i.e. Second sourced.
>>>16-bit 65000...is that like, 3000 less than the Motorola 68000? Did Apple get a discount?
Funny, but your joke is actually truthful. 6500 processors originated at Motorola as a cheap alternative to the 6800 ($25 versus $300), but when Motorola tried to kill the project, the engineers spun-off their own company. In fact before today's "everything intel" or everything x86 world, multiple lines of CPUs existed:
Commodore's 6502/8502 series (used in 90% of the 8 bit computers/game consoles)
Zilog's Z80 series
Motorola
and Intel
The Commodore and Zilog lines never went higher than 16 bit, while Motorola's lines stopped at 32 bit (68060 and PowerPC). Only Intel and various spinoffs still survive since the early 1970s.
Apple II == 6502 CPU from Commodore Semiconductor
I'd sooner have an Apple IIgs stack however (with its 16 bit 65000). Same ease-of-use as the original 8 bit computer, but operates about six times faster, and has a Mac-style OS.
>>>BD-ROM is the spinny disk format for Movies. it's not for software.
With the exception of the millions of Software discs sold for ~50 million playstation owners. But that's such a tiny, small, insignificant market, so I can see why you ignored it.
Revisionist history? I thought Apple was very, very anti-USB and pro-firewire? Heck the first iPod didn't even interface to USB (and therefore couldn't talk to anything but macs). That's how anti-USB apple was initially.
>>>I'm pretty sure that H.264 is todays most common high definition video format, not BluRay
But Bluray IS h.264 format.
The nice thing about bluray is that it won't get erased, like a file downloaded from iTunes can be. Bluray is a convenient backup method.
Also buying a Bluray doesn't impact my ~150 GB download cap.
>>>We pretty much ALL had tv's in college
I went to college during the "transition" period (pre- Web Mosaic and post-mosaic). When I arrived everyone used TVs, VCRs, and antennas. If you wanted to use a computer, you went to the computer lab.
When I left TVs still existed, but antennas were replaced with direct cable hookups, and Computer Labs were somewhat empty, because students now had direct internet to their dorm PCs.
As an adult I still have a TV (with antenna), but it sees less and less usage because of hulu.com and Syfy.com having direct video access to my favorite shows. I disconnected my Cable several years ago.
Anon. Coward writes:
>>>ATSC? what a pile of garbage, and MPEG-2?! COME ON! At least the EU got h.264 from the start
h.264 aka MPEG4 didn't exist when ATSC was finalized in 1996 and broadcasts started in 97. They used the best codec available at the time of development.
Could have been worse. The Japanese version of HDTV was developed in the early 80s and isn't digital at all. It's an analog format called MUSE which occupies 3 channels to send one single program. - The US could have easily been stuck with that same format, if the FCC had followed Reagan's directive to copy it.
As for the other issues, "overscan" was developed because everyone was still using CRTs in the 90s. The mid-90s engineers had no idea that flat screen LCDs would be able to display a viewable picture. (Back then most lcds were crap.) And 1080i is based off the original japanese standard.
>>>if Rush got something wrong two weeks ago, he'll gleefully just reprogram them all today to believe he never said what he said)
The same is true of Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, and Liberal Radio/television. (Oh no! I attacked your favorite source of news. Sorry about that.)
>>>Fox news is tricky...
YOU are tricky. You (and others) have made the assumption that everyone who dislikes Obama is a "birther". I know a lot of people who think Obama was born in Hawaii, and yet still don't like his policies, because they consider them anti-free choice (i.e. anti-liberty).
As for me I had no idea is Obama was born in Hawaii or not. Hillary and Bill Clinton SAID he was a foreign national, but ultimately I decided it didn't matter if the Clintons were telling the truth or not. I was more interested in his policies and whether or not he would make a good president. (And ultimately I decided he's like Bush part 2 - just more of the same Big Government and Pro-war philosophy.)
>>>If populations never willingly go into a war, then why do we ever go into wars?
Same reason Obama drug us into Libya (or Bush into Iraq).
Because he can.
And damn what the people think (most are against the war). Of course the real power to enter war is supposed to be with the People, as represented by their representatives in Congress. Unfortunately Congress is about as powerless today, as the Roman Senate was under the caesars. The Republic has fallen. The emperor has risen. (And I don't just mean this one example - the Executive has been ignoring congress a lot lately.)
>>>But most (not all) of your examples have nothing to do with facebook.
Disagree. Facebook reveals:
- party affiliation (i.e. communist)
- race (asian)
- porn habit
- sexting photos
- you're a Japanese comic book collector
- posting "My boyfriend is a college guy" when you're only 16 or 17.
>>>alleged rapist
Only in Europe could 2 women voluntarily have sex with a single man, enjoy themselves, and then a week later say, "I was raped," and the police take her seriously. I thought Europe was more progressive than backwards USA, what with nude television and beaches and such, but I guess not.
Anybody with any intelligence (i.e. not you) realizes this was a FRAME job, because woman #1 learned about woman #2, got jealous, and they both decided to "get even" with the man. It's a classic case of buyer's remorse.
In the US this case would be laughed out of court.