Doubt it. There were a handful of decent games provided on cartridge from Imagic and some games that took advantage of PCjr specific video or sound, like Kings Quest and MS Flight Simulator. That level of interest does not indicate an entire industry was hoodwinked.
Spinaker's educational games for pre-schoolers were terrible and they deserved to go out of business on their own merits.;-0
I don't remember hearing about low yield problems. Sony took delivery of quite a few chips...
No, to be quite blunt a big part of the problem was a lack of vision. Without a roadmap nobody was going to use to product. IBM stumbled when it did not backup the roadmap with real dollars to fund the new chips and programming tools.
Disclaimer: I used to teach Cell programming classes for people who were looking to do HPC on the blades.
Cell failed. But the reasons behind the failure are more interesting.
The obvious answer is that it was hard to program. On a single chip you had the PowerPC processor and 8 SPUs. Communication was through mailboxes for small messages and DMA transfers for larger messages. To get the most out of a chip you had to juggle all 9 processor elements at the same time, try to vectorize all of your ops, and keep the memory moving while you were doing computation. That is the recipe for success for most architectures - keeping everything as utilized as possible. But it is also hard to do on most architectures, and the embedded nature of Cell made it that much more difficult.
There were better software tools in the works for people who didn't want to drop down to the SPU intrinsic level to program. There were better chips in the works too; more SPUs, stronger PowerPC cores, and better communications with main memory. Those things did not come to fruition because IBM was looking to cut expenses to keep profits high (instead of boosting revenue). The Cell project was killed when a new VP known for cost cutting came in. We finally had a good Cell blade to sell (QS22 - two chips, 32GB RAM, fully pipelined double precision, etc.) and that lasted four months before the project got whacked. And we lost a lot of good people as a result. (That VP, Bob Moffat, was part of the Galleon insider trading scandal.)
So yes, Cell failed. But not necessarily for the obvious reasons. IBM has been on a great cost cutting binge the past few years - it lets them meet their earnings per share targets. But it causes collateral damage.
(Free)DOS can still be relevant ...
on
FreeDOS 1.1 Released
·
· Score: 5, Informative
DOS and FreeDOS are still relevant in some niche areas:
- Turn-key and embedded hardware often use DOS - Retro-computing: Some of us like dragging out our old hardware to play with it - Learning to code closer to the metal; DOS gives you enough services to get you going, while giving you a feel for embedded programming
FreeDOS runs on almost everything from an original IBM PC (1981) to a virtual machine under VMWare and VirtualBox. People (hobbyists) are continuing to work on the utilities to keep it refreshed. For example, in the last year there was a new set of TCP/IP programs added, a utility for sharing folders with a VMWare host, and a new web browser based on Dillo.
It's not for everyone, but if you are curious check it out - it's pretty painless to run in a VM. (Or you can drag out your XT or Pentium 90 for the full effect.)
There are plenty of online communities devoted to restoring and operating vintage machines. The formats vary - the top two that I know of are Vintage-computer.com and the ClassicCmp mailing list.
Every once in a while I read something that I just can't believe, and I have to run to Wikipedia to do some background reading. Synchrotron radiation was one of those things for me...
A year ago I decided to limit my speed to 60, and to start trying to anticipate traffic up ahead earlier and being more gingerly on the brakes. The theory was that fuel spent accellerating is wasted if you wind up wasting it on braking.
The same car (94 Saturn) started getting about 10% better gas mileage with the same commuting pattern. This was pretty consistent in both the summer and winter months.
Just a data point.. even my 'wetware' brain that is imprecise and subject to urges and impulses was able to make a measurable difference.
The toolchain and a simulator are freely available and run on Fedora Core 5 systems. Take a look for yourself.
Beautiful old beasts, but beware the SCSI errors..
on
Scanjet Music
·
· Score: 1
Wonderful old scanners.. I paid $700 for mine way back when. I'm still using it eight years later, on a Linux machine because HP won't update the drivers to work on newer Windoze operating systems.
However, they have some nasty problems. Mine keeps causing errors on the SCSI bus, which is very hard to recover from. Apparently even with the cheap supplied ISA SCSI card (Sym53416?) and HP cabling, it still throws a lot of errors. Under Windows the errors were handled pretty transparently. Fedora Core 2 throws a hissy fit.. you need to reboot the system because just simply rescanning the SCSI bus or unloading/reloading the module won't clean it up.
Normal people have seen the currently listed BlueGene/L, which is number 4 on the Top 500 list now. The currently listed machine is smaller (4096 compute nodes in four racks) and slightly slower than the final production version is supposed to be.
It's also been on local TV news, and in some of the newspapers.
You can understand that if there is something bigger floating around, we're not exactly allowing photographers in.:-)
He is saying that people have run out of the easy optimizations. That it is more important now to concentrate on the performance of the whole package, not just the core.
To that end people providing their own macro designs will allow Power to extend in ways IBM isn't planning on. Need better I/O handling? Somebody might sell it to you. Need a cache controller that handles a high number of outstanding cache requests because your software isn't cache friendly? Somebody might have that too. Need to find these people with these designs? They'll all be talking to each other as part of PowerPC consortium...
This opens up avenues for more creative uses that compliement the basic core, and helps bring down design time. Before you might have not even contemplated a custom chip based on a PowerPC design. In a few years, you might be able to glue a few building blocks together to get it.
I've never done something like this before. I rarely write letters to politicians, and I don't make donations to political parties. But as I get older I realize that if I don't start putting my money where my mouth is, I may not be heard.
I think it's a great application of data collection and data mining. They are collecting a load of data, some of it automated, some of it gathered by humans, integrating it, and using it to drive their supply chain. Isn't this a good use of IT?
The article is in the wrong category and is misleading, as numerous other people have pointed out.
Why not resubmit with a different category and talk about the novel aspects, like taking what the delivery guys observe about other items on the shelf and the clientelle, and how that gets fed all the way up to marketing plans? That's the real jewel of the article...
To make it to the Top 500 Supercomputer list, you have to post more than theoretical performace. Sorry, the story is interesting but you need hard benchmark numbers from both machines to make a fair judgement.
On a supercomputer, communications overhead between the nodes is a big deal. Fast processors that can't be adequately fed don't cut it.
Ten years ago I had a 486DX/2 running at 66Mhz with 16MB of RAM, 400MB HD, and a 14.4 modem. My 17" IBM running 1280x1024 in 256 colors was the envy of my friends.
Rather than being dissapointed by what didn't happen, here is what I'm pleased about that did happen, that I didn't expect.
- T1 download speeds into my house. My cable modem does 1.5Mbits down and 256Kbits up. That never occurred to me.
- Back then my machine could play back video from CD. Now I can do it in real-time off the Internet.
- Back then my computer chirped. Bill Clinton's voice coming from the White House web page in 1996 was scratchy. Now my entire music collection is on it.
- I can make my own CDs. Data, music or both.
- My machine serves as a digital darkroom.
- My machine lets me communicate with other people through email. (More of a social change than a technological change - back then I had email, but nobody to write to!) IM, IRC, etc. are also common now.
- Home networking.
- A powerful version of Unix in my house, free, with a lot of great applications. (Including MYSQL, which I'm toying with now.)
- Wireless capability so I can work where I want to, not where the computer is.
Don't force a discusssion of the penal code - that is rediculously open ended.
If you are caught speeding, you pay a fine. The fine usually grows with the speed. Usually 5 or 10mph in a high speed zone is tolerated for free. In practice this is *very* flexible. That's hardly a two-tone view of the world.
Nobody has the right to do something stupid when it endangers another person. If there is an accident, I want as many facts as possible. People shouldn't be able to hide behind a lack of information for getting away with stupid things.
Not all accidents are stupidity caused. But for those that are, it would be nice if people would be accountable for a change. Instead of just hiding.
How the fuck is asking people to be responsible and *not* hide from everything related to totalitarianism?
If I'm doing something dumb, I usually don't want to broadcast it. And by converse, if I don't want to broadcast something, it's a good indicator that I'm doing something dumb.
We're not talking about freeing our country from the King or a right-wing cabal. We're talking about driving a potentially dangerous weapon down the street.
Trying to remain anonymous about your ability to use common sense when driving a vehicle is a gross misuse of anonymity. Most traffic laws do make sense. Most posted speed limits are there for a reason. Ever notice that speeding tickets are usually graduated fines? There's a reason for that - think about it.
If you want to speed recklessly, do it on a private road that you build. If you want to drive with the rest of us, then follow the *COMMUNAL* rules.
I'm tired of people who think it's their god given right to do stupid shit, and then COMPLAIN when they get caught. If you don't like the rule and you choose to break it, THEN FSCKING STAND UP when you do it.
Some times you need to be anonymous. Like calling the police on the local politician, other-throwing your unjust government, etc. Those are life and death issues. Not seatbelt violations.
Grow up....
I'm not a SHEEP because I live in society. I made an informed choice. The typical attitude of 'You agreed so you must be a bleeting sheep' is bullshit. I agreed because it makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Doubt it. There were a handful of decent games provided on cartridge from Imagic and some games that took advantage of PCjr specific video or sound, like Kings Quest and MS Flight Simulator. That level of interest does not indicate an entire industry was hoodwinked.
Spinaker's educational games for pre-schoolers were terrible and they deserved to go out of business on their own merits. ;-0
Mike
Regards, Mike (yes, the one that owns the page referenced in the summary) ...
No, that is only what they were guaranteed ...
I don't remember hearing about low yield problems. Sony took delivery of quite a few chips ...
No, to be quite blunt a big part of the problem was a lack of vision. Without a roadmap nobody was going to use to product. IBM stumbled when it did not backup the roadmap with real dollars to fund the new chips and programming tools.
Disclaimer: I used to teach Cell programming classes for people who were looking to do HPC on the blades.
Cell failed. But the reasons behind the failure are more interesting.
The obvious answer is that it was hard to program. On a single chip you had the PowerPC processor and 8 SPUs. Communication was through mailboxes for small messages and DMA transfers for larger messages. To get the most out of a chip you had to juggle all 9 processor elements at the same time, try to vectorize all of your ops, and keep the memory moving while you were doing computation. That is the recipe for success for most architectures - keeping everything as utilized as possible. But it is also hard to do on most architectures, and the embedded nature of Cell made it that much more difficult.
There were better software tools in the works for people who didn't want to drop down to the SPU intrinsic level to program. There were better chips in the works too; more SPUs, stronger PowerPC cores, and better communications with main memory. Those things did not come to fruition because IBM was looking to cut expenses to keep profits high (instead of boosting revenue). The Cell project was killed when a new VP known for cost cutting came in. We finally had a good Cell blade to sell (QS22 - two chips, 32GB RAM, fully pipelined double precision, etc.) and that lasted four months before the project got whacked. And we lost a lot of good people as a result. (That VP, Bob Moffat, was part of the Galleon insider trading scandal.)
So yes, Cell failed. But not necessarily for the obvious reasons. IBM has been on a great cost cutting binge the past few years - it lets them meet their earnings per share targets. But it causes collateral damage.
DOS and FreeDOS are still relevant in some niche areas:
- Turn-key and embedded hardware often use DOS
- Retro-computing: Some of us like dragging out our old hardware to play with it
- Learning to code closer to the metal; DOS gives you enough services to get you going, while giving you a feel for embedded programming
FreeDOS runs on almost everything from an original IBM PC (1981) to a virtual machine under VMWare and VirtualBox. People (hobbyists) are continuing to work on the utilities to keep it refreshed. For example, in the last year there was a new set of TCP/IP programs added, a utility for sharing folders with a VMWare host, and a new web browser based on Dillo.
It's not for everyone, but if you are curious check it out - it's pretty painless to run in a VM. (Or you can drag out your XT or Pentium 90 for the full effect.)
There are plenty of online communities devoted to restoring and operating vintage machines. The formats vary - the top two that I know of are Vintage-computer.com and the ClassicCmp mailing list.
Mike
Every once in a while I read something that I just can't believe, and I have to run to Wikipedia to do some background reading. Synchrotron radiation was one of those things for me ...
It makes my day job seem trivial.
Some of us old guys like getting milked ..
How else do you explain cable TV and marriage?
It's just another case of corruption on an 8088 ;-)
(If you know Trixter, then you know what I'm talking about ... http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption )
A year ago I decided to limit my speed to 60, and to start trying to anticipate traffic up ahead earlier and being more gingerly on the brakes. The theory was that fuel spent accellerating is wasted if you wind up wasting it on braking.
.. even my 'wetware' brain that is imprecise and subject to urges and impulses was able to make a measurable difference.
The same car (94 Saturn) started getting about 10% better gas mileage with the same commuting pattern. This was pretty consistent in both the summer and winter months.
Just a data point
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/cell/
The toolchain and a simulator are freely available and run on Fedora Core 5 systems. Take a look for yourself.
Wonderful old scanners .. I paid $700 for mine way back when. I'm still using it eight years later, on a Linux machine because HP won't update the drivers to work on newer Windoze operating systems.
.. you need to reboot the system because just simply rescanning the SCSI bus or unloading/reloading the module won't clean it up.
However, they have some nasty problems. Mine keeps causing errors on the SCSI bus, which is very hard to recover from. Apparently even with the cheap supplied ISA SCSI card (Sym53416?) and HP cabling, it still throws a lot of errors. Under Windows the errors were handled pretty transparently. Fedora Core 2 throws a hissy fit
Normal people have seen the currently listed BlueGene/L, which is number 4 on the Top 500 list now. The currently listed machine is smaller (4096 compute nodes in four racks) and slightly slower than the final production version is supposed to be.
:-)
It's also been on local TV news, and in some of the newspapers.
You can understand that if there is something bigger floating around, we're not exactly allowing photographers in.
You missed the point.
...
He is saying that people have run out of the easy optimizations. That it is more important now to concentrate on the performance of the whole package, not just the core.
To that end people providing their own macro designs will allow Power to extend in ways IBM isn't planning on. Need better I/O handling? Somebody might sell it to you. Need a cache controller that handles a high number of outstanding cache requests because your software isn't cache friendly? Somebody might have that too. Need to find these people with these designs? They'll all be talking to each other as part of PowerPC consortium
This opens up avenues for more creative uses that compliement the basic core, and helps bring down design time. Before you might have not even contemplated a custom chip based on a PowerPC design. In a few years, you might be able to glue a few building blocks together to get it.
I did. The ACLU web site accepts donations.
I've never done something like this before. I rarely write letters to politicians, and I don't make donations to political parties. But as I get older I realize that if I don't start putting my money where my mouth is, I may not be heard.
Take back your country.
I think it's a great application of data collection and data mining. They are collecting a load of data, some of it automated, some of it gathered by humans, integrating it, and using it to drive their supply chain. Isn't this a good use of IT?
...
The article is in the wrong category and is misleading, as numerous other people have pointed out.
Why not resubmit with a different category and talk about the novel aspects, like taking what the delivery guys observe about other items on the shelf and the clientelle, and how that gets fed all the way up to marketing plans? That's the real jewel of the article
And a great/informed reply too ...
To make it to the Top 500 Supercomputer list, you have to post more than theoretical performace. Sorry, the story is interesting but you need hard benchmark numbers from both machines to make a fair judgement.
On a supercomputer, communications overhead between the nodes is a big deal. Fast processors that can't be adequately fed don't cut it.
Yeah, the last time IBM organized anything that was near grass-roots was ..
TEAM OS/2 !!!
I don't.
Thank you for a funny reply. Nobody else will probably see it, but you have brought joy to the world.
... I thought W was acting kind of weird lately.
...)
Now I have to go delete those files
(head like a hole! head like a hole! I'd rather die
Ten years ago I had a 486DX/2 running at 66Mhz with 16MB of RAM, 400MB HD, and a 14.4 modem. My 17" IBM running 1280x1024 in 256 colors was the envy of my friends.
...
Rather than being dissapointed by what didn't happen, here is what I'm pleased about that did happen, that I didn't expect.
- T1 download speeds into my house. My cable modem does 1.5Mbits down and 256Kbits up. That never occurred to me.
- Back then my machine could play back video from CD. Now I can do it in real-time off the Internet.
- Back then my computer chirped. Bill Clinton's voice coming from the White House web page in 1996 was scratchy. Now my entire music collection is on it.
- I can make my own CDs. Data, music or both.
- My machine serves as a digital darkroom.
- My machine lets me communicate with other people through email. (More of a social change than a technological change - back then I had email, but nobody to write to!) IM, IRC, etc. are also common now.
- Home networking.
- A powerful version of Unix in my house, free, with a lot of great applications. (Including MYSQL, which I'm toying with now.)
- Wireless capability so I can work where I want to, not where the computer is.
We've come a long way in 10 years
Don't force a discusssion of the penal code - that is rediculously open ended.
If you are caught speeding, you pay a fine. The fine usually grows with the speed. Usually 5 or 10mph in a high speed zone is tolerated for free. In practice this is *very* flexible. That's hardly a two-tone view of the world.
Nobody has the right to do something stupid when it endangers another person. If there is an accident, I want as many facts as possible. People shouldn't be able to hide behind a lack of information for getting away with stupid things.
Not all accidents are stupidity caused. But for those that are, it would be nice if people would be accountable for a change. Instead of just hiding.
How the fuck is asking people to be responsible and *not* hide from everything related to totalitarianism?
The privacy freaks are nuts.
....
If I'm doing something dumb, I usually don't want to broadcast it. And by converse, if I don't want to broadcast something, it's a good indicator that I'm doing something dumb.
We're not talking about freeing our country from the King or a right-wing cabal. We're talking about driving a potentially dangerous weapon down the street.
Trying to remain anonymous about your ability to use common sense when driving a vehicle is a gross misuse of anonymity. Most traffic laws do make sense. Most posted speed limits are there for a reason. Ever notice that speeding tickets are usually graduated fines? There's a reason for that - think about it.
If you want to speed recklessly, do it on a private road that you build. If you want to drive with the rest of us, then follow the *COMMUNAL* rules.
I'm tired of people who think it's their god given right to do stupid shit, and then COMPLAIN when they get caught. If you don't like the rule and you choose to break it, THEN FSCKING STAND UP when you do it.
Some times you need to be anonymous. Like calling the police on the local politician, other-throwing your unjust government, etc. Those are life and death issues. Not seatbelt violations.
Grow up
I'm not a SHEEP because I live in society. I made an informed choice. The typical attitude of 'You agreed so you must be a bleeting sheep' is bullshit. I agreed because it makes sense.