It isn't just a run-of-the-mill CPU and motherboard. It's a reference motherboard, meaning that people who design motherboards will use it as a leap-off point for their own Crusoe-based motherboard designs. It comes with, and I quote:
schematics, design guides, processor specifications, and everything else needed to jump-start new product design efforts
I think that (once again) the editors and the original poster didn't completely comprehend the article (or didn't bother to read it all the way through). This motherboard/CPU combination is of 0% interest to the average guy who builds his own systems, because he doesn't design motherboards for a living. It doesn't even have an AGP slot, and while somebody designing a new motherboard with this one as the basis will undoubtedly have little trouble adding one to his or her design, the guy building a new PC from "scratch" doesn't know how and so would have no interest (you can't get the new GeForceFxSuperGreatAwesome 5 in a PCI card).
I'll say it again, once more: people who just want to take this motherboard and CPU and use them to replace their existing stuff (or build a new system around them) aren't the target audience for this product.
Except that you would have almost every PC game ever made as your games library. You could play Doom, or you could play Doom III (assuming that Capuccino PCs will have enough horsepower to run that game when it comes out).
All that would be needed is a way to hook it up to a TV (but still leave it capable of being connected to a monitor and run at resolutions higher than 640x480), and include a console-style controller that uses a USB port.
I actually saw a Saturday Night Live sketch about this very same thing.
Kelsea Grammer (plays Frasier on the show Frasier) was the professor, Phil Hartman was Ned Land (or whatever his name was), and I forget who played Captain Nemo.
The professor spent the entire sketch trying to explain that a league is a measure of DISTANCE, not depth. Therefore, the 20,000 leagues was referring to the distance they had travelled, not how far beneath the surface they were. But no one listened, and it was quite hilarious. Phil Hartman does (or did, anyway) a very good job of playing an idiotic Ned Land:)
Re:Cute, but impractical
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Yes, what few roundabouts we have over here go counter-clockwise, since we drive on the right side of the road. But like I said, there aren't that many. The whole time I have been driving, I have seen 2, and one was in another state.
Re:Cute, but impractical
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239 MPG Car
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Strange... I've always thought that the Mustang handles just fine. Maybe it's an England/America thing, or possibly a year thing (the ones I drove are older... late 1960s, early 1970s).
Oh well. To each his own, and all that...
On the subject of roundabouts: what exactly is the point? Always seemed kind of silly to me, and made me glad there aren't too many of them in my corner of the world (Phoenix, Arizona, USA).
Re:Cute, but impractical
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I admit to having owned nothing but American cars (Ford cars, to be specific), but I've driven a lot of Japanese vehicles as well, and the handling for a decent vehicle from either is about the same.
I don't know about the freeways and highways (you guys call 'em motorways, right?) in England, but over here they're designed with high speeds in mind. Indeed, the designers know that most Americans go WAAAY over the speed limit (90+ in a 75mph zone, etc.), and take that into account. On more dangerous highways (windy, twisting ones that go over mountains and such), the speed limit is usually set lower than, say, an area that is flat as far as you can see. Only idiots drive 90mph on a winding mountain highway.
Additionally, we know that you can't drive a large SUV the same way you would drive a Ferrari (at least, the ones who survive driving an SUV for more than a week do). The fact of the matter is, though, that Americans have more cars and trucks than SUVs, and those handle just fine.
What American cars have you driven? While GMC Suburbans handle like the big hulking beasts that they are, I think that cars like the Mustang, Camaro, etc., handle rather well (of those cars, I've only driven the Mustang, but I've been out with friends who've had Camaros, etc.). Americans like cars that are low enough to the ground to handle decently (unless the vehicle in question is an SUV, in which case the more ground clearance the better), but not so low that we feel like our ass is going to drag along the ground.
And even with a fast, sporty car, we like 'em big (well, bigger than the Brits, anyway). Cars like Mustangs, Trans-Ams (not so popular anymore, but they were enormously popular for a while after Smoky & The Bandit came out), etc.
That might be what it as measured at now, but what we define the "official" mass of the gram by has changed since the metric system was first conceived. That isn't to say that the mass of the gram has changed, just that as our instruments have improved, we've come up with new, more accurate ways to define just how much mass is in one gram.
Re:Cute, but impractical
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239 MPG Car
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the US hasn't really got any kind of crash safety testing for cars that I can see
We do. I'm only somewhat certain of government crash safety testing, but the auto insurance companies do their own crash safety testing, partly to help determine where to set the insurance premiums on a particular type of vehicle. They make their findings public, so if a certain vehicle is abhorrently unsafe, word of it usually gets around quickly.
I say that I am only somewhat certain of government crash safety testing because I know that while there are safety standards and regulations, I'm not sure exactly HOW the government goes about enforcing the regulations.
And lastly, in my experience foreigners have a lopsided view of auto safety situation in the US. For example, a while back certain types of Ford vehicles had faulty ignition switches that could start a fire (even when the ignition was off). Word spread fairly quickly, and IIRC Ford issued a recall (cue appropriate scene from Fight Club). Same with the Firestone Tire fiasco. Because major vehicle problems are usually widely televised by local news programs, almost all of which have a consumer alert/protection/whatever segment alerting people to scams and faulty products, the problems usually get fixed fairly quickly.
Re:Cute, but impractical
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239 MPG Car
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I would like to know exactly what American cars you are talking about. I often hear Brits talking about "big" American cars like the Ford Escort, but those and all things similar are usually laughed off the road here in the United States.
So yeah, it's unlikely that a Ford Escort, Ford Tempo, Geo Metro, et al would pass saftey inspections, because even here in the states we consider them small and (in terms of collision survival) unsafe (at least compared to "normal sized" American vehicles).
I also find it extremely amusing that you Brits talk about "unsafe" American cars while you drive around in dinky little underpowered deathboxes.
Re:Cute, but impractical
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Like I said, there is also the "image" that comes with driving a vehicle that only has a 4 cylinder engine. In the US, something with a small engine gets thrown in the "economy car" class. Economy cars are only bought when you can't afford anything else.
Also, when we use the term economy car, we don't really mean fuel economy. It is expected that an economy car will get good gas mileage, but the "economy" part is usually in reference to the fact that economy cars are cheap (and small and flimsy).
Yes, that's the whole point. Most vehicles in the US give out simply because their owners do not take good care of them. Faulty electrical systems aren't much of a factor because the electrical systems in American cars tend to be of higher quality than in cars made by British companies (you can thank the fact that oh-so-many UK car companies use Lucas Electric for their electrical systems for being the reason English cars have a reputation for bad electrical systems).
Most car breakdowns are caused by engine electrics
That is why we Americans laugh at your silly European cars. In the US, aside from a dead battery and alternator problems, an engine failure's cause is usually anything BUT the electrical system. Dead fuel injector, broken belts, stupid idiot who didn't change the oil for 2 weeks after the "Check oil" light came on, etc., but an electrical failure isn't that common.
Re:Cute, but impractical
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239 MPG Car
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Yes, but this car has a VERY SMALL ENGINE. My Ford Tempo accelerates VERY slowly compared to most of the other cars on the road here in the US, because over here SMALL CAR = SMALL ENGINE. You might not mind a vehicle with only a 3 cylinder engine, but such a vehicle is unheard of here. I get laughed at for having a 1.9 liter 4 cylinder engine. Most Americans won't even think about buying a car with less than a V6 if they can afford it.
As the car in the article: want to know how they got the incredible gas mileage? They used a small engine and what amounts to little more than a shell of a vehicle. Even then its average speed was on 46mph. Over here, 45mph is the limit for most streets, but on the freeway the speed limit is either 55mph or 65mph. On the highway the speed limit ranges from 55mph to 75mph.
And remember, those are just official speed limits. Most Americans view them as being more of a suggestion than anything else. I often go 55mph on city streets and 65+ mph on the freeway, and that is in a dinky little Ford Tempo.
When it comes to getting hit, larger cars are usually safer because they tend to be of sturdier construction and are less likely to get tossed around in a collision. Your claims that getting hit at 30mph are false. I had a friend who was sideswiped at 50mph, and he lived. Granted, his balls swelled up to the size of grapefruits and both legs were broken, but he lived.
As for the turbo charged "Jap" cars, keep your rice burner. Only idiots who are more interested in cars that look fast rather than actually be fast drive them. Not to say that all Japanese cars suck, though. In fact, many Americans prefer Japanese vehicles. But not rice burners. People in the US will do anything to avoid being labelled a riceboy.
European cars: hahaha is the reaction an American gets when he tells his friends he wants to buy a European car (unless said car is made by Porsche, Ferrari, et al). There is even a joke: "Yeah, that'll happen as soon as hell freezes over and England produces a car with a decent electrical system."
As unfortunate as it is, in the US a vehicle's fuel efficiency is secondary. Most Americans consider things like the cost of auto insurance, loan payments, and upkeep on the vehicle before they even begin to worry about gas mileage. Never mind that many also consider the image that comes along with whatever type of car they are buying (as well as the general oppinion on the vehicle itself).
Re:Cost not MPG is what people use.
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Yes, in America. Not *every* day, but often enough.
BTW, we buy gasoline by the gallon. I cannot tell you exactly how many MPG my car gets, but I do know that its gas mileage is *excellent*. I can go for a week on ~$10 of gas.
Yes, the merger of Sun and Apple would be killer...
so killer that the company would be DEAD!;)
Well, at least, the Sun part of the company would be dead: SPARC - dead Solaris - dead StarOffice - maybe we'd finally see the OS X port Java - Apple-ized, which means it would only run on OS X, defeating the whole point of Java in the first place All of Sun's cool networking stuff - since Apple can hardly even push their own networking stuff (the rackmount machines and OS X), DEAD
No, I don't think a merger between the two is a good idea. It would suck to see Sun merge with (or be bought by) Apple.
You missed the point. If you want to get a job that requires you to know Solaris, why get only 1/2 to 3/4 of the necessary knowledge by running it on x86 hardware? You can get cheap Sun systems on eBay and learn all the stuff you'll need to know.
I hope that you mean you upgraded from Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 8.
Otherwise, if you wanted to use the obsolete 2.x naming scheme, instead of Solaris 8 you'd call it Solaris 2.8. Solaris 2.6 was before Sun adopted the current naming scheme.
Unfortunately for you, high stock value does not equal profitability (just ask any ex-dotcom employee), nor does low stock value equal unprofitability. Right now just about everybody's stock value is in the toilet.
And Sun does make a nice chunk of change. Not on Microsoft levels, but they do well enough.
No, the original poster was right. It's more strange versioning from Sun.
Sun stopped the 2.x naming convention around Solaris 2.6, and promptly made a huge leap in version numbers (courtesy of of the Sun Microsystems Marketing Department).
So what would have been Solaris 2.7 was named Solaris 7, what would have been Solaris 2.8 was named Solaris 8, what would have been Solaris 2.9 was became Solaris 9, etc.
Additionally, Solaris contains SunOS 5.x., which is why you'll never hear Sun call Solaris an operating system; they always refer to it as an operating environment. Thusly, if Richard Stallman worked at Sun, we'd probably have to call it Solaris/SunOS;) (the environment is Solaris, the kernel is SunOS).
As someone who uses StarOffice all the time, I can safely assure you that it is easy to use and install. What's more, it has probably the best at reading and writing MS Word files aside from MS Word itself. Toss in the fact that it runs on several platforms (Windows, Linux, Solaris, probably others), and you've got a damn nice alternative to MS Word/Office.
Last I heard, it was still free for Solaris users.
*Sigh* That's the point. It isn't a problem, it isn't hard, and it isn't a big deal. Weenies who troll on and on about how everything in Linux requires you "to edit some obscure text file" and that "everything is designed for programmers, not the users" are just that: weenies and trolls.
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I think that (once again) the editors and the original poster didn't completely comprehend the article (or didn't bother to read it all the way through). This motherboard/CPU combination is of 0% interest to the average guy who builds his own systems, because he doesn't design motherboards for a living. It doesn't even have an AGP slot, and while somebody designing a new motherboard with this one as the basis will undoubtedly have little trouble adding one to his or her design, the guy building a new PC from "scratch" doesn't know how and so would have no interest (you can't get the new GeForceFxSuperGreatAwesome 5 in a PCI card).
I'll say it again, once more: people who just want to take this motherboard and CPU and use them to replace their existing stuff (or build a new system around them) aren't the target audience for this product.
Except that you would have almost every PC game ever made as your games library. You could play Doom, or you could play Doom III (assuming that Capuccino PCs will have enough horsepower to run that game when it comes out).
All that would be needed is a way to hook it up to a TV (but still leave it capable of being connected to a monitor and run at resolutions higher than 640x480), and include a console-style controller that uses a USB port.
I actually saw a Saturday Night Live sketch about this very same thing.
:)
Kelsea Grammer (plays Frasier on the show Frasier) was the professor, Phil Hartman was Ned Land (or whatever his name was), and I forget who played Captain Nemo.
The professor spent the entire sketch trying to explain that a league is a measure of DISTANCE, not depth. Therefore, the 20,000 leagues was referring to the distance they had travelled, not how far beneath the surface they were. But no one listened, and it was quite hilarious. Phil Hartman does (or did, anyway) a very good job of playing an idiotic Ned Land
Yes, what few roundabouts we have over here go counter-clockwise, since we drive on the right side of the road. But like I said, there aren't that many. The whole time I have been driving, I have seen 2, and one was in another state.
Strange... I've always thought that the Mustang handles just fine. Maybe it's an England/America thing, or possibly a year thing (the ones I drove are older... late 1960s, early 1970s).
Oh well. To each his own, and all that...
On the subject of roundabouts: what exactly is the point? Always seemed kind of silly to me, and made me glad there aren't too many of them in my corner of the world (Phoenix, Arizona, USA).
I admit to having owned nothing but American cars (Ford cars, to be specific), but I've driven a lot of Japanese vehicles as well, and the handling for a decent vehicle from either is about the same.
I don't know about the freeways and highways (you guys call 'em motorways, right?) in England, but over here they're designed with high speeds in mind. Indeed, the designers know that most Americans go WAAAY over the speed limit (90+ in a 75mph zone, etc.), and take that into account. On more dangerous highways (windy, twisting ones that go over mountains and such), the speed limit is usually set lower than, say, an area that is flat as far as you can see. Only idiots drive 90mph on a winding mountain highway.
Additionally, we know that you can't drive a large SUV the same way you would drive a Ferrari (at least, the ones who survive driving an SUV for more than a week do). The fact of the matter is, though, that Americans have more cars and trucks than SUVs, and those handle just fine.
What American cars have you driven? While GMC Suburbans handle like the big hulking beasts that they are, I think that cars like the Mustang, Camaro, etc., handle rather well (of those cars, I've only driven the Mustang, but I've been out with friends who've had Camaros, etc.). Americans like cars that are low enough to the ground to handle decently (unless the vehicle in question is an SUV, in which case the more ground clearance the better), but not so low that we feel like our ass is going to drag along the ground.
And even with a fast, sporty car, we like 'em big (well, bigger than the Brits, anyway). Cars like Mustangs, Trans-Ams (not so popular anymore, but they were enormously popular for a while after Smoky & The Bandit came out), etc.
That might be what it as measured at now, but what we define the "official" mass of the gram by has changed since the metric system was first conceived. That isn't to say that the mass of the gram has changed, just that as our instruments have improved, we've come up with new, more accurate ways to define just how much mass is in one gram.
the US hasn't really got any kind of crash safety testing for cars that I can see
We do. I'm only somewhat certain of government crash safety testing, but the auto insurance companies do their own crash safety testing, partly to help determine where to set the insurance premiums on a particular type of vehicle. They make their findings public, so if a certain vehicle is abhorrently unsafe, word of it usually gets around quickly.
I say that I am only somewhat certain of government crash safety testing because I know that while there are safety standards and regulations, I'm not sure exactly HOW the government goes about enforcing the regulations.
And lastly, in my experience foreigners have a lopsided view of auto safety situation in the US. For example, a while back certain types of Ford vehicles had faulty ignition switches that could start a fire (even when the ignition was off). Word spread fairly quickly, and IIRC Ford issued a recall (cue appropriate scene from Fight Club). Same with the Firestone Tire fiasco. Because major vehicle problems are usually widely televised by local news programs, almost all of which have a consumer alert/protection/whatever segment alerting people to scams and faulty products, the problems usually get fixed fairly quickly.
I would like to know exactly what American cars you are talking about. I often hear Brits talking about "big" American cars like the Ford Escort, but those and all things similar are usually laughed off the road here in the United States.
So yeah, it's unlikely that a Ford Escort, Ford Tempo, Geo Metro, et al would pass saftey inspections, because even here in the states we consider them small and (in terms of collision survival) unsafe (at least compared to "normal sized" American vehicles).
I also find it extremely amusing that you Brits talk about "unsafe" American cars while you drive around in dinky little underpowered deathboxes.
Like I said, there is also the "image" that comes with driving a vehicle that only has a 4 cylinder engine. In the US, something with a small engine gets thrown in the "economy car" class. Economy cars are only bought when you can't afford anything else.
Also, when we use the term economy car, we don't really mean fuel economy. It is expected that an economy car will get good gas mileage, but the "economy" part is usually in reference to the fact that economy cars are cheap (and small and flimsy).
Yes, that's the whole point. Most vehicles in the US give out simply because their owners do not take good care of them. Faulty electrical systems aren't much of a factor because the electrical systems in American cars tend to be of higher quality than in cars made by British companies (you can thank the fact that oh-so-many UK car companies use Lucas Electric for their electrical systems for being the reason English cars have a reputation for bad electrical systems).
Most car breakdowns are caused by engine electrics
That is why we Americans laugh at your silly European cars. In the US, aside from a dead battery and alternator problems, an engine failure's cause is usually anything BUT the electrical system. Dead fuel injector, broken belts, stupid idiot who didn't change the oil for 2 weeks after the "Check oil" light came on, etc., but an electrical failure isn't that common.
Yes, but this car has a VERY SMALL ENGINE. My Ford Tempo accelerates VERY slowly compared to most of the other cars on the road here in the US, because over here SMALL CAR = SMALL ENGINE. You might not mind a vehicle with only a 3 cylinder engine, but such a vehicle is unheard of here. I get laughed at for having a 1.9 liter 4 cylinder engine. Most Americans won't even think about buying a car with less than a V6 if they can afford it.
As the car in the article: want to know how they got the incredible gas mileage? They used a small engine and what amounts to little more than a shell of a vehicle. Even then its average speed was on 46mph. Over here, 45mph is the limit for most streets, but on the freeway the speed limit is either 55mph or 65mph. On the highway the speed limit ranges from 55mph to 75mph.
And remember, those are just official speed limits. Most Americans view them as being more of a suggestion than anything else. I often go 55mph on city streets and 65+ mph on the freeway, and that is in a dinky little Ford Tempo.
When it comes to getting hit, larger cars are usually safer because they tend to be of sturdier construction and are less likely to get tossed around in a collision. Your claims that getting hit at 30mph are false. I had a friend who was sideswiped at 50mph, and he lived. Granted, his balls swelled up to the size of grapefruits and both legs were broken, but he lived.
As for the turbo charged "Jap" cars, keep your rice burner. Only idiots who are more interested in cars that look fast rather than actually be fast drive them. Not to say that all Japanese cars suck, though. In fact, many Americans prefer Japanese vehicles. But not rice burners. People in the US will do anything to avoid being labelled a riceboy.
European cars: hahaha is the reaction an American gets when he tells his friends he wants to buy a European car (unless said car is made by Porsche, Ferrari, et al). There is even a joke: "Yeah, that'll happen as soon as hell freezes over and England produces a car with a decent electrical system."
As unfortunate as it is, in the US a vehicle's fuel efficiency is secondary. Most Americans consider things like the cost of auto insurance, loan payments, and upkeep on the vehicle before they even begin to worry about gas mileage. Never mind that many also consider the image that comes along with whatever type of car they are buying (as well as the general oppinion on the vehicle itself).
Yes, in America. Not *every* day, but often enough.
BTW, we buy gasoline by the gallon. I cannot tell you exactly how many MPG my car gets, but I do know that its gas mileage is *excellent*. I can go for a week on ~$10 of gas.
Yes, the merger of Sun and Apple would be killer...
;)
so killer that the company would be DEAD!
Well, at least, the Sun part of the company would be dead:
SPARC - dead
Solaris - dead
StarOffice - maybe we'd finally see the OS X port
Java - Apple-ized, which means it would only run on OS X, defeating the whole point of Java in the first place
All of Sun's cool networking stuff - since Apple can hardly even push their own networking stuff (the rackmount machines and OS X), DEAD
No, I don't think a merger between the two is a good idea. It would suck to see Sun merge with (or be bought by) Apple.
In the US, debit cards are all over the place. No credit check required, almost all banks offer them, etc.
My bank offers free debit card service (none of this 3-5% crap), free checking accounts, etc., all for free.
You missed the point. If you want to get a job that requires you to know Solaris, why get only 1/2 to 3/4 of the necessary knowledge by running it on x86 hardware? You can get cheap Sun systems on eBay and learn all the stuff you'll need to know.
I hope that you mean you upgraded from Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 8.
Otherwise, if you wanted to use the obsolete 2.x naming scheme, instead of Solaris 8 you'd call it Solaris 2.8. Solaris 2.6 was before Sun adopted the current naming scheme.
Unfortunately for you, high stock value does not equal profitability (just ask any ex-dotcom employee), nor does low stock value equal unprofitability. Right now just about everybody's stock value is in the toilet.
And Sun does make a nice chunk of change. Not on Microsoft levels, but they do well enough.
Who knows what SGI will do?
;)
Judging by how they've behaved over the last few years, I don't even think SGI knows what they're going to do next
What OS were you running on that Dual Pentium III 1.4? That can have a big influence.
No, the original poster was right. It's more strange versioning from Sun.
;) (the environment is Solaris, the kernel is SunOS).
Sun stopped the 2.x naming convention around Solaris 2.6, and promptly made a huge leap in version numbers (courtesy of of the Sun Microsystems Marketing Department).
So what would have been Solaris 2.7 was named Solaris 7, what would have been Solaris 2.8 was named Solaris 8, what would have been Solaris 2.9 was became Solaris 9, etc.
Additionally, Solaris contains SunOS 5.x., which is why you'll never hear Sun call Solaris an operating system; they always refer to it as an operating environment. Thusly, if Richard Stallman worked at Sun, we'd probably have to call it Solaris/SunOS
As someone who uses StarOffice all the time, I can safely assure you that it is easy to use and install. What's more, it has probably the best at reading and writing MS Word files aside from MS Word itself. Toss in the fact that it runs on several platforms (Windows, Linux, Solaris, probably others), and you've got a damn nice alternative to MS Word/Office.
Last I heard, it was still free for Solaris users.
*Sigh* That's the point. It isn't a problem, it isn't hard, and it isn't a big deal. Weenies who troll on and on about how everything in Linux requires you "to edit some obscure text file" and that "everything is designed for programmers, not the users" are just that: weenies and trolls.
OF COURSE THEY'RE JOKING.
You'd think the "+5, Funny" would give it away...