The PPC 970 is great news for Apple, but it is still a bone thrown to them while the x86 PC is feasting on the meat of the Intel and AMD processors.
As Nethack would say, "Ugh! This meat is tainted!"
The 970 is fundamentally a 64-bit processor, and its performance must be evaluated in that context. The fact that the 970 will pull off amazing speed in the 32-bit arena only shows how well-designed this processor is.
Keep in mind, the Hammer is only shipping at 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 GHz - the same speeds the 970 is targeted at. And the 970 has the advantage of an ISA that was designed from the beginning to do 32 and 64 bit addressing, versus one that's a 64-bit extension of a 32-bit extension of a 16-bit micro with full compatibility to an 8-bit redesign of a 4-bit processor.
You're completely wrong. The maximum speed of the FSB and whether it supports DDR (or QDR) is determined by the processor, not by the chipset. For the G4e, the maximum known speed at which MaxBus can operate is 167MHz - precisely what Apple uses.
They can't make the FSB DDR or QDR without appropriate support from the processor, and that's exactly what they haven't been getting from Moto.
Unfortunately, the vector performance of the G4e has been consistently bottlenecked by Apple's lackluster motherboard and chipset designs--specifically the anemic frontside bus and memory subsystems that Apple has saddled the PowerMac line with.
This implies that the decision of how much bus bandwidth to give the G4e was up to Apple - which it was not. Motorola designed the processor (for Cisco, depending on who you believe), and Apple made do with the anemic MaxBus at 133mhz that they got from Motorola.
Apple'd be putting DDR400 on the G4 right now if they could. None of this (well, except the decision to go Moto) was their fault.
Oh, thanks! I'm constantly amazed at how many people actually understand my sig. It's not something I would expect, but I guess the concentration of sci-fi geeks on/. makes it understandable.
Who is to say that 2 + 2 = 4 is not itself a deception?
Stupid answer: me, because I didn't dobut mathematics and now have a $ADVANCED_WEAPONRY of my own pointed at your head.
Non-stupid answer: those numbers are really just symbols - it doesn't matter what you call them so long as it's the same every time. If your mode of thought is totally lacking in consistency, then, well, I'm not sure how you manage to operate a computer.
Now, this flatly contradicts what this week's Time Magazine claimed - namely, that the first hour of the new movie was all plot and little action, and only in the second hour does it begin to heat up.
Oh, yeah, like the absolutely horrible 7th season TNG episode where Picard would rather let an entire species die than break the prime directive? Where he insists Worf be dressed up to look like a local rather than contaminate a populace that will be dead in a week? Where the only person with enough balls to save the people involved is branded as a reckless and morally suspect individual?
Yeah, that's what the Prime Directive gets us. Thank god that DS9 was on by that time. I like to watch something with a dose of moral sanity every once in a while.
Really? You liked "The Breach"? I found it to be a poorly-concieved and poorly-executed mishmash of really poorly-acted rock climbing scenes (Oh No! We're Trying To Evacuate These People! The Ground Must Start Shaking!) combined with a poor rehash of a really good TNG episode (the one where the Romulan refuses to be treated with Worf's blood).
Hey, at least the TNG envy was toned down ever so slightly from a few weeks ago, where we had the characters cracking wise about needing a psychiatrist on a starship if they ever had families on-board. Or the one where we had the "Reed Alert".
Yeah - actually the recent episode which had a first contact story in the Andromeda universe wasn't horrible. It was bad on several counts (I can't believe what they're doing to Beka) but there was an engagin premise behind it.
I've seen other shows that have decided to take a "bold new direction". Most notable was Earth: Final Conflict, which after its second season changed the feel of the show quite a bit. The result was a disaster, more or less.
Andromeda went through the same thing about halfway through the second season, with the departure of Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The remainder of the second season was still able to use the rest of his scripts, but the third season has unequivocally sucked.
I read that OSF started soliciting input in 1989. Quoth the Unix Hater's Handbook, Chapter 7:
A stated design goal of Motif was to give the X Window System the window management capabilities of HP's circa-1988 window manager and the visual elegance of Microsoft Windows. We kid you not.
I think the other big source for Motif / CDE was OS/2, which had a big impact on later Windows versions too. Of course, Windows 95 blatantly ripped off the NeXTStep 3D look and feel.
The problem with making Linux not just a clone of Windows is that it's always (from the X perspective) been a clone of Windows. Motif was designed to offer the functionality of the HP VUE system and the visual elegance of Windows 3.1. I kid you not. Motif still remains as the single biggest influence on Linux desktops today. QT 1.x offered just two styles - Windows and Motif, Motif being a clone of Windows. GTK was always a blatant Motif clone. Other styles changed the look, but the feel is still identical. That's not to say there aren't some good things about QT and GTK, but you must respect the fact that these toolkits are nothing but Windows clones at heart from a feel perspective. In fact, the only two semi-popular toolkits which did not clone Windows, Xaw and Xview, are relegated to legacy status and the coffin, respectively.
Or perhaps a help option that says, "Software Doesn't Do What You Want? Try These:"
Oh, sure. Let's legitimize the brokenness and fragmentation of the current Linux software base. Rather, how 'bout we offer an option which says "Software doesn't do what you want? Click here to ask the developer to cooperate with the five other software projects developing this functionality and come up with a single working project!"
Distro installers should have a "I have never used Linux before, but I have been using Windows for 5 years" option. This will offer extra help in the form of, "If you are looking for this, you will now use this instead."
<hand-waving>You will use OpenOffice. These aren't the droids you're looking for.</hand-waving>
Of course, Linux can't be easy to use on its own merits, so we have to provide extra help, right? If you need to add documentation to address such an issue, why not spend a little time and come up with the solution which doesn't require the extensive hand-holding? Of course, maybe you were simply referring to a conversion chart - but that doesn't sound like an installer option to me.
Of course, an easy-to-use desktop will be so foreign to most Linux users that they'll need extra help too. "Where's the button for portage?"
Make sure "regular" users *only* need the first CD. In the case of a 3 CD distro like Mandrake, make the additional CDs required only for developers and/or international users.
A distro of this nature should only take one CD for all the binaries, including the developer tools - that is, if you only provide one package per piece of functionality. If there's a second disc it should be source and possibly language translations.
I'm not talking about your "Welcome," because most of these people are illiterate or too lazy to read them
Calling your users lazy and illiterate, huh? You'll go far in the business world. I sure would love to be a customer of yours.
Sarcasm aside, maybe most people don't f'ing CARE about the documentation. Maybe they're using the computer to gasp do real work - y'know, the kind that keeps the electricity running and food on your table? Of course, they are lazy and illiterate. I forgot.
I don't know if one exists yet, but we need yet-another new standard Linux portal. One that can be branded with Mandrake, RedHat, etc, but has software reviews, HOWTOs, special tips, best applications in each category, downloads, news, a forum, etc. And when you click to download a file, it is either a.RPM or.DEB, in which case it is already figured out for you (Mandrake-branded site will default to.RPM, etc).
No. What we need is a unified standard for double-clickable software installation from third party packages. And people wonder why there's not more commercial development on Linux.
Oh, shove it, politely speaking. I think there are very few Mac users who are drooling over this patent application, because most people know that most patent applications go nowhere useful. Some employee of Apple filled this out and got his $500 bonus, and whether or not they ever end up using it is irrelevant to him and to Apple.
Dear Lord! How can you even read on that screen, let alone type?
I think somewhere a line has to be drawn. That line is crossed when you have to use a magnifying glass to read your laptop's screen and a microscope to find your cell phone when you misplace it.
People come in asking when new iPods with color screens and video players are supposed to ship, and we have to say "nothing has been announced." One guy even tried to say that we HAD announced a 970 version of the iPod, and wanted to know when he could pick it up.
Wow. I wonder what the power consumption is on a PowerPC 970-based iPod. I do hope you told him that what he was asking for was pure technobabble.
... did you read what I said? You can't put it in the public domain - at least the Berne convention is vague enough that you might not be able to. Software which has a notice like that is held copyright by the author under a liberal license.
Slashdot Mirror
As Nethack would say, "Ugh! This meat is tainted!"
The 970 is fundamentally a 64-bit processor, and its performance must be evaluated in that context. The fact that the 970 will pull off amazing speed in the 32-bit arena only shows how well-designed this processor is.
Keep in mind, the Hammer is only shipping at 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 GHz - the same speeds the 970 is targeted at. And the 970 has the advantage of an ISA that was designed from the beginning to do 32 and 64 bit addressing, versus one that's a 64-bit extension of a 32-bit extension of a 16-bit micro with full compatibility to an 8-bit redesign of a 4-bit processor.
They can't make the FSB DDR or QDR without appropriate support from the processor, and that's exactly what they haven't been getting from Moto.
This implies that the decision of how much bus bandwidth to give the G4e was up to Apple - which it was not. Motorola designed the processor (for Cisco, depending on who you believe), and Apple made do with the anemic MaxBus at 133mhz that they got from Motorola.
Apple'd be putting DDR400 on the G4 right now if they could. None of this (well, except the decision to go Moto) was their fault.
But the amber monitors were always so much better, if you could get one.
It's not Haliburton that I'm worried about winning in Iraq; it's the Derrida-inspired construcivist educators.
Oh, thanks! I'm constantly amazed at how many people actually understand my sig. It's not something I would expect, but I guess the concentration of sci-fi geeks on /. makes it understandable.
And reading Slashdot stories about reviews counts as seeing it cold release how?
Stupid answer: me, because I didn't dobut mathematics and now have a $ADVANCED_WEAPONRY of my own pointed at your head.
Non-stupid answer: those numbers are really just symbols - it doesn't matter what you call them so long as it's the same every time. If your mode of thought is totally lacking in consistency, then, well, I'm not sure how you manage to operate a computer.
Who do you believe? I'll wait and see myself.
Yeah, that's what the Prime Directive gets us. Thank god that DS9 was on by that time. I like to watch something with a dose of moral sanity every once in a while.
Hey, at least the TNG envy was toned down ever so slightly from a few weeks ago, where we had the characters cracking wise about needing a psychiatrist on a starship if they ever had families on-board. Or the one where we had the "Reed Alert".
Mr. Pickard!!!!
Really? Have we been watching the same show? I thought it was a "our morality is always wrong" show. Sort of like TNG and Voyager, for that matter.
Yeah - actually the recent episode which had a first contact story in the Andromeda universe wasn't horrible. It was bad on several counts (I can't believe what they're doing to Beka) but there was an engagin premise behind it.
Andromeda went through the same thing about halfway through the second season, with the departure of Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The remainder of the second season was still able to use the rest of his scripts, but the third season has unequivocally sucked.
A stated design goal of Motif was to give the X Window System the window management capabilities of HP's circa-1988 window manager and the visual elegance of Microsoft Windows. We kid you not.
I think the other big source for Motif / CDE was OS/2, which had a big impact on later Windows versions too. Of course, Windows 95 blatantly ripped off the NeXTStep 3D look and feel.
The problem with making Linux not just a clone of Windows is that it's always (from the X perspective) been a clone of Windows. Motif was designed to offer the functionality of the HP VUE system and the visual elegance of Windows 3.1. I kid you not. Motif still remains as the single biggest influence on Linux desktops today. QT 1.x offered just two styles - Windows and Motif, Motif being a clone of Windows. GTK was always a blatant Motif clone. Other styles changed the look, but the feel is still identical. That's not to say there aren't some good things about QT and GTK, but you must respect the fact that these toolkits are nothing but Windows clones at heart from a feel perspective. In fact, the only two semi-popular toolkits which did not clone Windows, Xaw and Xview, are relegated to legacy status and the coffin, respectively.
Or perhaps a help option that says, "Software Doesn't Do What You Want? Try These:"
Oh, sure. Let's legitimize the brokenness and fragmentation of the current Linux software base. Rather, how 'bout we offer an option which says "Software doesn't do what you want? Click here to ask the developer to cooperate with the five other software projects developing this functionality and come up with a single working project!"
Distro installers should have a "I have never used Linux before, but I have been using Windows for 5 years" option. This will offer extra help in the form of, "If you are looking for this, you will now use this instead."
<hand-waving>You will use OpenOffice. These aren't the droids you're looking for.</hand-waving>
Of course, Linux can't be easy to use on its own merits, so we have to provide extra help, right? If you need to add documentation to address such an issue, why not spend a little time and come up with the solution which doesn't require the extensive hand-holding? Of course, maybe you were simply referring to a conversion chart - but that doesn't sound like an installer option to me.
Of course, an easy-to-use desktop will be so foreign to most Linux users that they'll need extra help too. "Where's the button for portage?"
Make sure "regular" users *only* need the first CD. In the case of a 3 CD distro like Mandrake, make the additional CDs required only for developers and/or international users.
A distro of this nature should only take one CD for all the binaries, including the developer tools - that is, if you only provide one package per piece of functionality. If there's a second disc it should be source and possibly language translations.
I'm not talking about your "Welcome," because most of these people are illiterate or too lazy to read them
Calling your users lazy and illiterate, huh? You'll go far in the business world. I sure would love to be a customer of yours.
Sarcasm aside, maybe most people don't f'ing CARE about the documentation. Maybe they're using the computer to gasp do real work - y'know, the kind that keeps the electricity running and food on your table? Of course, they are lazy and illiterate. I forgot.
I don't know if one exists yet, but we need yet-another new standard Linux portal. One that can be branded with Mandrake, RedHat, etc, but has software reviews, HOWTOs, special tips, best applications in each category, downloads, news, a forum, etc. And when you click to download a file, it is either a .RPM or .DEB, in which case it is already figured out for you (Mandrake-branded site will default to .RPM, etc).
No. What we need is a unified standard for double-clickable software installation from third party packages. And people wonder why there's not more commercial development on Linux.
Have you tried Aurora Linux? They've been releasing an updated RH-based distro for both SPARC 32-bit and 64-bit for some time now.
That post shouldn't be allowed for people who are drinking carbonated beverages. /me snorts more coke out his nose
Oh, shove it, politely speaking. I think there are very few Mac users who are drooling over this patent application, because most people know that most patent applications go nowhere useful. Some employee of Apple filled this out and got his $500 bonus, and whether or not they ever end up using it is irrelevant to him and to Apple.
Next time you make an analogy to undermine a Star Trek reference, make sure it's not a Trek reference itself.
I think somewhere a line has to be drawn. That line is crossed when you have to use a magnifying glass to read your laptop's screen and a microscope to find your cell phone when you misplace it.
It's unfortunate that IBM didn't play smart like Sun and by the copyrights to whatever UNIX was in their OS way back when.
Wow. I wonder what the power consumption is on a PowerPC 970-based iPod. I do hope you told him that what he was asking for was pure technobabble.
... did you read what I said? You can't put it in the public domain - at least the Berne convention is vague enough that you might not be able to. Software which has a notice like that is held copyright by the author under a liberal license.