I remember seeing such a mega-vending machine at the train station in Zurich in CH an awfull long time ago, back in 1978 or 1980. I was facinated with this 2-dim elevator system to deliver your goods.
Who should have guessed that it would only take about 20 years for this kind of technology to reach USA?
Whats next on/. technology news? Cell phones that can send text messages?
> However, VHS will be around for a long time to > come, until recording to DVD (or whatever) > becomes as easy as recording to tape is now.
Recordable DVD for the living room is already reality. With prices starting to go below 1000 EUR, they will likely be big sellers by next year. E.g. Philips 980 DVD+RW is now at 800 EUR from
Wave energy plants like the Islay construction are scarce and difficult because they can only be buildt at special locations. You need a ocean front location to get powerful waves but you steep cliff of rock to support the special air turbine construction. AFAIK In Europe the only resonable good locations are on some coast parts in Norway, Scotland and at Portugal.
Currently wave energy are more experimental than an effecient energy source.
> According to the article, the plant produces 500 kilowatts.
500 kilowatts is peanuts for energy production. Nowadays a run-of-the-mill windmill is well above 1 Megawatt, the top performer is something like 2.5 MW for a windmill meant for off-shore placement.
For windpower (and probably also for wave power) you must count in that they dependent on wind conditions, i.e. it is only a percentage of the time that it will produce full power. I have seen figures estimating 3300 hours per year of good wind conditions for a land based location.
A coast or off-shore location will most often give the best wind conditions.
Offshore placement of windmills probably is the most efficient renewable energy source for the near future (10 years). At that time solar energy panels might be costs effective for large scale usage.
> --- most importantly --- 200dpi resolution (overall 3840x2400 pixels)
Yes, this screen is awesome. I saw at Cebit in Hannover, DE this spring. Even small font stood crystal clear.
While the world+dog just talk about more and more inches when they talk about monitors, IBM has made a breakthrough in the right direction - increasing pixel density from lacklustre appx. 100 to astonishing 200 ppi (pixel per inch). I have been waiting for years for something like to happen in the monitor business.
Great stuff, a pity that the 8400 USD price tag put it slighty outside reach.;-)
> Microsoft now must make the determination what to do and when
It must begin to dawn on Microsoft that adding a green meadow background and passport control to Windows is not enough reason to get many people to upgrade their Windows.
Hence it needs to launch Win 64 bit soon to create a need for upgrading. As Intel do not push Itanic 64 bit more than so-so, AMD might be the company that bring 64 bit to widespread use - and Microsoft needs that. But AMD also needs acceptance from Microsoft, without them it would be VERY difficult to sell the virtues of the special 64 bit part of Hammer.
If you want the full (hi)story about Intel, AMD and lots of other companies in the PC processor and how the PC chip market became what it is today go read the book: Inside Intel by Tim Jackson.
You will realise how much this Intel vs. AMD has been a personal fight between Andy Grove and Jerry Sanders. Great story.
See e.g.: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/045227643 8/
The best monitor I saw at Cebit was the IBM hi-res LCD display MD22292A1 with 3840*2400 pixel. With just 22" (56cm) diagonal it has 200dpi. Despite the miniature pixel size even text in small font was very clear.
Great to see that someone finally cares about quality (small pixel size) rather than quantity (big and bulky screen).
Shame about the price, they ask about 12000 EUR.
See e.g.: http://www-6.ibm.com/jp/oemj/lcd/md2229.html
Yes, Sharp's Zaurus with its hidden keyboard and resonable screen size is a good PDA. Clearly the best offer if you want to go the Linux way.
At Cebit Sony also displayed its PDAs. Not just the 760 model that recently went on sale but also the comming model NR70 with the ultra-hi-res display 320*480 pixels, keyboard and a with/without build-in camera.
I do not care much about the camera thing, but having a hi-res display gives more posibilities to PDAs. I want a PDA to also be used as an e-book, a street map and a way to look up reference info - hi-res displays helps that.
For things like this Pale pilots 160*160 display is just too little.
You can see the NR70 at one domes at Sonys Cebit stand or look here e.g.:
> I know you meant this as a joke in the sense > of assembly language being so much more > difficult than obfuscated C
Yeah, it sounds funny, but on the serious side seeing some of my colleagues unreadable C code, I sometime wish they would have written straight assembler in stead of attempting to get some weird optimisation through a strange C constructs.
> It's different because they haven't signed
> exclusive deals and used marketing to force
> other competitors out of the fray.
Well this is exactly what has been happening behind the scene. Throughout most of the 1990ties Intel have been able to heavy hand PC industry. With 90% control of PC processor market and having the lion share of the chipset market.
Technology wise Intel is very strong and has over the decades made lots of investment to crank up computer power. They made a lot of important early inventions like first DRAM, first microprocessor, first EPROM... first FDIV bug (he-hø! OK lets leave out the last one).
All that said Intel has also been a rootless marketing machine, which has spared no means to crush or block competitors in the market. In earlier times Intel on several occasions asked the court to block a competitor from releasing a chip by claiming patent violations or similar. They knew they would not be able to win the case, but by blocking the competitor they would be able to keep a certain market segment for themselves for another half year or so = big money.
By mid 1990ties Intel had managed to introduce its Intel Inside to such an extend that people only knew one component of their PC: the Pentium chip. They had the fastest processors and completely controller the top and mid market where all the money was, leaving AMD and Cyrix to fight in the "value for money" market where only pennies could be gained. Because they had a virtual processor monopoly, they could easily force the market to take their chipsets as well.
When AMD introduced the Athlon processor AMD had real difficulties getting the Taiwan producers to make motherboard for the Athlon. ASUS shipped their first Athlon motherboards in white boxes, they were afraid to show Intel that they supported AMD.
Around the same time Intel was setting up the deal with RAMBUS the future of RAM technology. Had
it been for the tremendous success of Athlon Intel would have been able to force-feed you with RAMBUS chips. We have all lots to thank AMD for.
If you want to learn how Intel got to the position where they are today, I will advice you to read "Inside Intel" by Tim Jackson. You will then see how much this Intel AMD battle has been a personal battle between Andy Grove and Jerry Sanders. A great read.
> the Clié's crisp, gorgeous screen with twice
> the resolution of any Palm (320x320 vs.
> 160x160)!
You are very right, I also hold this as major advantage, I'd say it's even 4 times better than Pale Pilots resolution.;-)
The 160x160 resolution is just to little to view any resonable amount of text.
In the past Palm data sheets always avoided to talk about the screen size (and processor), only the memory size is listed. Only in some document for developers they would list the lacklustre screen size.
On the plus Palm has always been good in battery longevity, a point which other handhelds like Ipaq cannot claim. Stating the weight of an Ipaq ought to include the weight of the recharger.;-) I do not know yet about the Sony devices.
For a good comparison on handhelds, check out the German paper magazine C't edition 25 from 2001.
Slashdot Mirror
> If you like those old IDEs, try this, you will
> never notice a difference.
Try Free Pascal to get a 32 bit look alike of BP7. The IDE is complete recreation of BP7 IDE.
http://www.freepascal.org/
I remember seeing such a mega-vending machine at the train station in Zurich in CH an awfull long time ago, back in 1978 or 1980. I was facinated with this 2-dim elevator system to deliver your goods.
/. technology news? Cell phones that can send text messages?
Who should have guessed that it would only take about 20 years for this kind of technology to reach USA?
Whats next on
> However, VHS will be around for a long time to
> come, until recording to DVD (or whatever)
> becomes as easy as recording to tape is now.
Recordable DVD for the living room is already reality. With prices starting to go below 1000 EUR, they will likely be big sellers by next year. E.g. Philips 980 DVD+RW is now at 800 EUR from
Wave energy plants like the Islay construction are scarce and difficult because they can only be buildt at special locations. You need a ocean front location to get powerful waves but you steep cliff of rock to support the special air turbine construction. AFAIK In Europe the only resonable good locations are on some coast parts in Norway, Scotland and at Portugal.
Currently wave energy are more experimental than an effecient energy source.
> According to the article, the plant produces 500 kilowatts.
500 kilowatts is peanuts for energy production. Nowadays a run-of-the-mill windmill is well above 1 Megawatt, the top performer is something like 2.5 MW for a windmill meant for off-shore placement.
For windpower (and probably also for wave power) you must count in that they dependent on wind conditions, i.e. it is only a percentage of the time that it will produce full power. I have seen figures estimating 3300 hours per year of good wind conditions for a land based location.
A coast or off-shore location will most often give the best wind conditions.
Offshore placement of windmills probably is the most efficient renewable energy source for the near future (10 years). At that time solar energy panels might be costs effective for large scale usage.
> my plan for world domination will be one step closer
...
;-)
Sorry, but you seem to be too late. According to the article in the Herald newspaper:
... Denmark is now the world leader
Obey the leader
> --- most importantly --- 200dpi resolution (overall 3840x2400 pixels)
;-)
Yes, this screen is awesome. I saw at Cebit in Hannover, DE this spring. Even small font stood crystal clear.
While the world+dog just talk about more and more inches when they talk about monitors, IBM has made a breakthrough in the right direction - increasing pixel density from lacklustre appx. 100 to astonishing 200 ppi (pixel per inch). I have been waiting for years for something like to happen in the monitor business.
Great stuff, a pity that the 8400 USD price tag put it slighty outside reach.
> Microsoft now must make the determination what to do and when
It must begin to dawn on Microsoft that adding a green meadow background and passport control to Windows is not enough reason to get many people to upgrade their Windows.
Hence it needs to launch Win 64 bit soon to create a need for upgrading. As Intel do not push Itanic 64 bit more than so-so, AMD might be the company that bring 64 bit to widespread use - and Microsoft needs that. But AMD also needs acceptance from Microsoft, without them it would be VERY difficult to sell the virtues of the special 64 bit part of Hammer.
If you want the full (hi)story about Intel, AMD and lots of other companies in the PC processor and how the PC chip market became what it is today go read the book: Inside Intel by Tim Jackson.
3 8/
You will realise how much this Intel vs. AMD has been a personal fight between Andy Grove and Jerry Sanders. Great story.
See e.g.:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/04522764
The best monitor I saw at Cebit was the IBM hi-res LCD display MD22292A1 with 3840*2400 pixel. With just 22" (56cm) diagonal it has 200dpi. Despite the miniature pixel size even text in small font was very clear.
Great to see that someone finally cares about quality (small pixel size) rather than quantity (big and bulky screen).
Shame about the price, they ask about 12000 EUR.
See e.g.: http://www-6.ibm.com/jp/oemj/lcd/md2229.html
Yes, Sharp's Zaurus with its hidden keyboard and resonable screen size is a good PDA. Clearly the best offer if you want to go the Linux way.
At Cebit Sony also displayed its PDAs. Not just the 760 model that recently went on sale but also the comming model NR70 with the ultra-hi-res display 320*480 pixels, keyboard and a with/without build-in camera.
I do not care much about the camera thing, but having a hi-res display gives more posibilities to PDAs. I want a PDA to also be used as an e-book, a street map and a way to look up reference info - hi-res displays helps that.
For things like this Pale pilots 160*160 display is just too little.
You can see the NR70 at one domes at Sonys Cebit stand or look here e.g.:
> I know you meant this as a joke in the sense
> of assembly language being so much more
> difficult than obfuscated C
Yeah, it sounds funny, but on the serious side seeing some of my colleagues unreadable C code, I sometime wish they would have written straight assembler in stead of attempting to get some weird optimisation through a strange C constructs.
> We expect to release the source code
> around mid April 2002
Will we also get a translation in assembler to help clarify the soure code?
> When has SPARC ever been a commodity item?
There is a Sparc chip in my Brother 1070 PS laser printer. I guess you can call that one a commodity.
- RIF
> It's different because they haven't signed
> exclusive deals and used marketing to force
> other competitors out of the fray.
Well this is exactly what has been happening behind the scene. Throughout most of the 1990ties Intel have been able to heavy hand PC industry. With 90% control of PC processor market and having the lion share of the chipset market.
Technology wise Intel is very strong and has over the decades made lots of investment to crank up computer power. They made a lot of important early inventions like first DRAM, first microprocessor, first EPROM... first FDIV bug (he-hø! OK lets leave out the last one).
All that said Intel has also been a rootless marketing machine, which has spared no means to crush or block competitors in the market. In earlier times Intel on several occasions asked the court to block a competitor from releasing a chip by claiming patent violations or similar. They knew they would not be able to win the case, but by blocking the competitor they would be able to keep a certain market segment for themselves for another half year or so = big money.
By mid 1990ties Intel had managed to introduce its Intel Inside to such an extend that people only knew one component of their PC: the Pentium chip. They had the fastest processors and completely controller the top and mid market where all the money was, leaving AMD and Cyrix to fight in the "value for money" market where only pennies could be gained. Because they had a virtual processor monopoly, they could easily force the market to take their chipsets as well.
When AMD introduced the Athlon processor AMD had real difficulties getting the Taiwan producers to make motherboard for the Athlon. ASUS shipped their first Athlon motherboards in white boxes, they were afraid to show Intel that they supported AMD.
Around the same time Intel was setting up the deal with RAMBUS the future of RAM technology. Had
it been for the tremendous success of Athlon Intel would have been able to force-feed you with RAMBUS chips. We have all lots to thank AMD for.
If you want to learn how Intel got to the position where they are today, I will advice you to read "Inside Intel" by Tim Jackson. You will then see how much this Intel AMD battle has been a personal battle between Andy Grove and Jerry Sanders. A great read.
See e.g.
- RIF
> A good way to quickly develop an application
;-)
> is first programming it in VB, and then port
> it to C++ part by part.
Or you could do the sensible thing - use Delphi to do both the prototyping and application programming.
> Also, you can do really weird things with
> objects and interfaces
Used in the intended way objects and interfaces are actual far more useful than they are weird.
> the Clié's crisp, gorgeous screen with twice
;-)
;-) I do not know yet about the Sony devices.
> the resolution of any Palm (320x320 vs.
> 160x160)!
You are very right, I also hold this as major advantage, I'd say it's even 4 times better than Pale Pilots resolution.
The 160x160 resolution is just to little to view any resonable amount of text.
In the past Palm data sheets always avoided to talk about the screen size (and processor), only the memory size is listed. Only in some document for developers they would list the lacklustre screen size.
On the plus Palm has always been good in battery longevity, a point which other handhelds like Ipaq cannot claim. Stating the weight of an Ipaq ought to include the weight of the recharger.
For a good comparison on handhelds, check out the German paper magazine C't edition 25 from 2001.
- RIF
I agree that the UI should default to use year indication in its default date format - without it is a mess when searching old articles.
Preferable using a universal understandable date format, which do not leaves you wonder if month or date are written first.
yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm, e.g. 2001/11/07 19:25
or
dd month yyyy hh:mm, e.g. November 7 2001 19:25
As for many others Alta vista used to be my favorite search engine but now I most often use Google.
But Google seems to lack * (star) wilcard search, i.e. you have write the words exact.
E.g. searching for "Kylix specifications" you do not know if they call it "spec", "specs" or "specification".
At Altavista I can write "Kylix spec*" and get result on all combinations. AFAIK there is not a way to do the same on Google.
- RIF