It's definitely sexier than my G4 rig... and it's pretty sexy.
Just grabbed an HP-9000 712/60 "Gecko" workstation for $25 from a flea market. 64MB/2GB - about to install NeXTSTEP on it. We'll see how it goes. Less sexy tho...
Quicktime and iTunesHelper are both loaded at computer startup and happily sit in the background, guzzling memory (iTunesHelper is 3 MB, for example). Does this crap really need to run when I'm not using it?
Good point. As far as performance goes, this hasn't been an issue for Mac users given the robust UNIX underpinnings of OS X, upon which iTunes runs in the Mac world.
If 3MB is charring your behind, I'd recommend getting off it and grabbing another few sticks of RAM. It's almost free.
At this point, I'm going to stick with buying used and ripping the stuff into Windows Media Player. The interface is better, it doesn't automatically suck memory when I'm not using it, and the visualization runs at more than 3fps.
I saw one _just_now_ outside, in DC
on
Fireball Over Wales
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· Score: 2, Funny
I just went outside to bring some food back to eat at my desk as I work here, programming in Washington DC. As I was making the 3 block walk to my normal lunch spot, I saw a glare out of the corner of my eye and looked up and indeed a bright fireball was almost directly overhead - this was not 1 hr ago!!
I did not make out a tale due to the sheer brightness of the fireball but after some time I was able to determine that it is slowly headed west, having approached DC from the Atlantic, presumably. A co-worker claims she saw it just crawling over the horizon this morning at about 7am. It is far, far brighter than the full moon, I can tell you with certainty.
I find the new Mac mouse to be worse. It looks nicer but the button action is bizarre. The mouse that came with my fairly recently purchased Amiga 1200 (not the original A1200 mouse when C= sold it, nor really oldschool, larger Amiga mouse) feels about as cheap as it gets.
The Ensoniq DOC (Digital Osciallator Chip) used in the GS, coupled to 64K of audio RAM, was the father of the Forte audio processor in the GUS (Gravis UltraSound) which was so popular back in the PC demo scene. I have framed my old, red GUS and having it hanging on a wall in my computer room.:-)
Crystal Quest. Gaming at its most simple and purest form. Great stuff. It was available for many platforms other than the Mac as well. Here's some links...
I am approaching the end of Aaron's previous book, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X, and can say that throughout, it's as though he is sitting there beside you, casually instructing you as you move through the work. An excellent introduction to Cocoa, it has given me a fairly solid graps of the concepts that make up Cocoa development (which began in the late 80's with NeXT) and I have made some real strides on my own, veering from the courework in the book. Goes far beyond some of Apple's cryptic guides I've encountered.
Oh...and do yourself a FAVOR and download Cocoa Browser before you even lay down a single line of Objective-C. The ONLY way to access the frameworks references.
NeXTSTEP had a SHELF up in the Workspace Manager (Finer here) window's top bar where you park files in the meantime. How about bringing that back for OS X?
blakespot
Re:Perspective - my 25MHz NeXTstation
on
G5 Benchmark Roundup
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· Score: 2, Informative
I have a NeXTStation 33MHz. I use it frequently. There are aspects of its desktop operations that do not feel any slower than my Dual G4 800 Mac running OS X on my GeForce 3. It's an incredible piece of hardware.
Shortly after I got the news that Apple acquired NeXT and were going to use NEXTSTEP (OpenStep) as the basis for the future of the Mac's OS, I began my prep to switch to Mac and jumped on board the first day that the B&W G3 was made available, January '99. I've never looked back. I will be moving up to a G5 within the next year. (I've got a few Macs actually.)
It's worth noting that NextStep's complete object integration across all apps was cited as a major inspiration for Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal for the World Wide Web. In fact, I even have a running copy of that first version of TBL's code, called (surprisingly) "WWW".
To clarify: The WWW was created on a NeXT cube. The first HTTP browser was developed by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT.
Well it looks like Apple is in the position they were in when the first PowerPC's came out (486/Pentium era). Or better really. This machine (2GHz dual G5) smokes the dual Xeon 3GHz in a number of demonstrated apps and benchmarks. 2-3x faster in some apps. And that audio demo (emagic) where the Mac started scrolling fullscren video while doing audio - amazing. Still blakespot
x86 still is cheaper, if you're cheaper you can get a higher spec for the same money as buying a Mac.
But then you can't run OS X. OS X is the beauty of the Mac - it was worth running OS X on Mac hardware last week, even though for less $$ you cna get a PC capable of more calculations/second in general. But next week you can run OS X and run it on hardware that makes the fastest PC's its bitch. Oh and with the most cutting edge assortment of technologies wrapped up in the mix, to boot. Yea it's more expensive. That's just cost of admission, friend.
You'll never see a Mac with the sort of bleeding-edge features found on "enthusiast" x86 mobos.
What are you talking about? Macs were the first machines to push FireWire hard. True, Macs have recently lagged in the speed of their internal ATA interface--but at least with FireWire you've got the fastest external drive interface (in practice it outpaces USB 2.0) and now there's FW800 integrated. And how about integrating not just a slot for a wireless ethernet card but having the cases wired with antennas? And Bluetooth - how many PC's have that built in now as well??
Sounds to me like Apple is leading the way in many areas of the motherboard featureset, as they always have. (How many PC's in the 80's and early 90's came standard with SCSI on-board??) And it seems that the areas where there is a current lack of performance vs. PC (internal HD bus, system bus speed) are about to get taken care of--bigtime. Some rumors are indicating that Serial ATA _will_ be part of these new 970-based Macs, as well and have you seen the bus speeds that are expected for these Macs???
I can't find an area that would foster PC envy in any owner of one of these forthcoming 970 Macs. Not a one.
Yeah, and my 50Mhz 486 feels just as fast as my dual Athlon 2200+. The difference is, the 486 has butt-ugly Windows 3.1 graphics, and the Athlon has (relativly) nice WinXP graphics.
Are you comparing NEXTSTEP to Win 3.1 and then moving on to compare Mac OS X to Windows XP?? Granted - the comparisons are very similar in nature, but pays insult to both NeXT and Apple.
Another point to add to backup Arn's MacRumors post is that current suppliers are reporting deminished supplies of PowerMac G4's with resupply dates ranging from late June to early July. Inventories sitting empty. This would not happen unless _something_ were about to take place - even if it were to be just a simple G4 speedbump.
But I believe "G4" is not the name of the processor that will be in the replacement machines...
I am now 31. I remember '84 when I got my Apple//c like yesterday. Great year. I was 12. Let me tell you this - I will be getting on eBay and getting my kid his/her very own Apple IIe/c to use to mess around with.
None of this photo-realistic BS that kids today are met with right out of the gate. How about gaining some appreciation for where we are by seeing where we've been. Let the kid learn 6502 asm for a bit, after BASIC.
Well, perhaps Lucas will bust onto the scene and spruce up this remake with a remake of their remake, but instead the children will be replaced entirely with CG characters and he will add random lameness throughout, revealing to the world that his blood is saturated with high counts of a new bioentity called "Suckichlorians."
If Apple went x86 it would be running on an x86 sitting in an Apple machine using OpenFirmware, not PC BIOS. It would not be a "PC" in the DOS/Windows compatible sense of the word. It would be an Apple workstation using an x86 chip, far better engineered than current PC's that are supporting decades of legacy technology.
That said, the PPC seems to have a pretty bright future and I'm all for sticking with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Good stuff, if I do say so myself. (I did the carving...)
blakespot
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68040 @ 33MHz
128MB RAM
2GB HD
12x SCSI CD-ROM drive
NeXTSTEP Developer v3.3
It's definitely sexier than my G4 rig
Just grabbed an HP-9000 712/60 "Gecko" workstation for $25 from a flea market. 64MB/2GB - about to install NeXTSTEP on it. We'll see how it goes. Less sexy tho...
blakespot
Good point. As far as performance goes, this hasn't been an issue for Mac users given the robust UNIX underpinnings of OS X, upon which iTunes runs in the Mac world.
If 3MB is charring your behind, I'd recommend getting off it and grabbing another few sticks of RAM. It's almost free.
At this point, I'm going to stick with buying used and ripping the stuff into Windows Media Player. The interface is better, it doesn't automatically suck memory when I'm not using it, and the visualization runs at more than 3fps.
Maybe it's time for a whole system upgrade, friend. Let me suggest that you vist http://www.apple.com/hardware/...
blakespot
I did not make out a tale due to the sheer brightness of the fireball but after some time I was able to determine that it is slowly headed west, having approached DC from the Atlantic, presumably. A co-worker claims she saw it just crawling over the horizon this morning at about 7am. It is far, far brighter than the full moon, I can tell you with certainty.
What is going on with all these fireballs?
blakespot
Dazzle Draw
blakespot
I find the new Mac mouse to be worse. It looks nicer but the button action is bizarre. The mouse that came with my fairly recently purchased Amiga 1200 (not the original A1200 mouse when C= sold it, nor really oldschool, larger Amiga mouse) feels about as cheap as it gets.
blakespot
Link to my not-quite-ready-yet site - maybe 7 days premature but whatever, it's been a long day at the office.
Cheers.
blakespot
blakespot
And here's my GS:
juicy inside pic
outside pic
blakespot
blakespot
- B&W Mac title screen
- Screenshot (Apple IIgs version)
- Screenshot (PalmOS version - color)
- Screenshot (PalmOS version - B&W)
- Screenshot (GameBoy version)
- Pic of floppy ("Green, Inc.")
- Box it came in (Apple IIgs version)
- Game promo pamphlet (Apple IIgs version)
- Patrick Buckland photo (author)
- Amiga screenshot of Diamond Thief, a Crystal Quest clone
blakespot
Oh...and do yourself a FAVOR and download Cocoa Browser before you even lay down a single line of Objective-C. The ONLY way to access the frameworks references.
blakespot
blakespot
Have a look at it:
System with 21" monitor
Internals (see that little ribbon cable)
Sporty shot...
Shortly after I got the news that Apple acquired NeXT and were going to use NEXTSTEP (OpenStep) as the basis for the future of the Mac's OS, I began my prep to switch to Mac and jumped on board the first day that the B&W G3 was made available, January '99. I've never looked back. I will be moving up to a G5 within the next year. (I've got a few Macs actually.)
It's worth noting that NextStep's complete object integration across all apps was cited as a major inspiration for Tim Berners-Lee's original proposal for the World Wide Web. In fact, I even have a running copy of that first version of TBL's code, called (surprisingly) "WWW".
To clarify: The WWW was created on a NeXT cube. The first HTTP browser was developed by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT.
blakespot
Well it looks like Apple is in the position they were in when the first PowerPC's came out (486/Pentium era). Or better really. This machine (2GHz dual G5) smokes the dual Xeon 3GHz in a number of demonstrated apps and benchmarks. 2-3x faster in some apps. And that audio demo (emagic) where the Mac started scrolling fullscren video while doing audio - amazing. Still blakespot
League of Extraordinary OS X Application Providers?
blakespot
But then you can't run OS X. OS X is the beauty of the Mac - it was worth running OS X on Mac hardware last week, even though for less $$ you cna get a PC capable of more calculations/second in general. But next week you can run OS X and run it on hardware that makes the fastest PC's its bitch. Oh and with the most cutting edge assortment of technologies wrapped up in the mix, to boot. Yea it's more expensive. That's just cost of admission, friend.
It's going to be one hell of a ride.
blakespot
What are you talking about? Macs were the first machines to push FireWire hard. True, Macs have recently lagged in the speed of their internal ATA interface--but at least with FireWire you've got the fastest external drive interface (in practice it outpaces USB 2.0) and now there's FW800 integrated. And how about integrating not just a slot for a wireless ethernet card but having the cases wired with antennas? And Bluetooth - how many PC's have that built in now as well??
Sounds to me like Apple is leading the way in many areas of the motherboard featureset, as they always have. (How many PC's in the 80's and early 90's came standard with SCSI on-board??) And it seems that the areas where there is a current lack of performance vs. PC (internal HD bus, system bus speed) are about to get taken care of--bigtime. Some rumors are indicating that Serial ATA _will_ be part of these new 970-based Macs, as well and have you seen the bus speeds that are expected for these Macs???
I can't find an area that would foster PC envy in any owner of one of these forthcoming 970 Macs. Not a one.
blakespot
Are you comparing NEXTSTEP to Win 3.1 and then moving on to compare Mac OS X to Windows XP?? Granted - the comparisons are very similar in nature, but pays insult to both NeXT and Apple.
blakespot
My wife is with you 100% on that, I'm afraid...
That being said, Time Bandit is a great game.
Indeed it is. One of the very best. Good memories of it back on my old Atari 520ST.
blakespot
For just navigating thru menus and windows and general GUI stuff my 33MHz 68040-based NeXTStation Turbo Color slab feels about the same speed as my dual G4 800 Mac!
Don't knock the '040!
blakespot
But I believe "G4" is not the name of the processor that will be in the replacement machines...
blakespot
None of this photo-realistic BS that kids today are met with right out of the gate. How about gaining some appreciation for where we are by seeing where we've been. Let the kid learn 6502 asm for a bit, after BASIC.
I am not kidding.
blakespot
blakespot
That said, the PPC seems to have a pretty bright future and I'm all for sticking with it.
blakespot