Great, now all we need is a full port to MacOS X. The Mac mini is small, silent, and good looking - it's almost a perfect HTPC platform, only lacking on the software side. I'm currently using it with MPlayer, iTunes, an ATI remote, but a real media frontend would make it much more grandma friendly.
Is anyone else here using a mini as a HTPC? What does your setup look like?
TV Tuner. I know you can get a USB tuner, but that kind of defeats the whole form factor thing.
I'm not complaining though - this is going to be one really sweet DVD/DivX/MP3 player machine. I picked up a Remote Wonder control today, and now I can comfortably select and play movies from the couch.
If Apple were to release a version of the mini with 6-channel sound, a TV tuner, PVR software, and a good looking remote Windows Media Center wouldn't stand a chance. It would be the iPod of the living room.
I am getting the 1.42Ghz with 80GB HD. It'll have the bare minimum 256MB of RAM and the regular combo drive but if push comes to shove I'll get an external Firewire DVD writer and might even open the case myself and add some RAM. Who knows. It'll all depend on how well it performs for me.
Unless you're planning on running one application at a time, you will want to get at least 512 MB. MacOS X is slow as molasses with 256 MB, and it's a shame that Apple still sells computers with that little memory. As Anandtech points out the machine swaps quite a bit with 256 MB, and the 2.5" HD is rather slow.
Since 99% of all the music in people's mp3 collections is either ripped from CD or downloaded off the net, who cares which store it's connected to? Online music stores are nifty and all, but I seriously doubt that they are driving hardware sales.
What I find is a bunch of files named something like "battlestar.galactica.1x04.WS.(X)SVCD.torrent." What the hell is that? What's "Fanta?"
battlestar.galactica - obviously the series name 1x04 - season 1, episode 04 WS - widescreen (X)SVCD - eXtended Super Video CD, a high bitrate SVCD, which is a 480x480 MPEG2 format Fanta - the pirate group who released the file
For viewing on your DVD player go with one of the VCD formats, and for viewing on your PC a HDTV or PDTV Xvid version is probably best.
> 1) Implement a 6502 processor. There is a free core or two floating around, which she likely used. Still not exactly trivial, though.
No, she did her own core, which is both smaller and faster than the free cores out there.
> 2) Reverse-engineer and implement the DRAM circuitry. The design does not use DRAM, but you still need to emulate certain portions of the hardware for timing reasons. When DRAM refreshes, the processor has to snooze.
The NTSC unit is SRAM based. The C64 uses transparent DRAM refresh during the VIC's half of every cycle. The PAL unit will use SDRAM.
> 3) Reverse-engineer and implement the SID sound chip. Fairly major headache.
MAJOR headache.
> 4) Reverse-engineer and implement the video circuitry. Major headache. This system even had hardware sprites.
Yes, it took her years, and there are still timing glitches. It's amazingly compatible though.
5) Reverse-engineer and implement the different hardware ports.
I believe this was fairly easy though.
> 6) Include a bridge that would allow a PC keyboard to emulate a C64 keyboard.
IIrc that's a small state machine and a matrix, nothing too hairy.
> 7) Emulate a cassette drive and load it with warez.
That was done in software by Adrian Gonzalez. The NY Times article concentrated on Jeri herself, so I guess it's forgivable that they didn't mention that there was a software team as well (Adrian and Robin Harbron were the main programmers, plus me and Mark Seelye helped patch games).
> 8) Implement the analog bits of the video and sound circuitry. Maybe somebody else did this.
Nope, all Jeri.
Those people doubting her hardware skills really shouldn't talk without checking facts, and if you think that designing things in VHDL is as simple as programming in C you need a clue. No, make that two. And for the record, it's designed with a mix of VHDL and schematic capture.
Apparently pretty good. Robin (the lead programmer) hasn't worn out his batteries yet:) It would be easy to drill a hole and solder a connector for a wall wart though.
> Mind you, the Apple IIc+, Apple IIGS, and Macintosh were introduced during > that timeframe at higher clock rates, but still, for 17 years, they sold a machine > at the same speed. What the hell happened to Moore's Law?
Moore's Law doesn't talk about clock speeds, it talks about complexity (or logic density). In the Apple II line you can observe it when it comes to RAM and ROM size:
Apple I: 8 + 1 + 0.25 kB Apple II: 4 + 12 kB (max 64 + 12) Apple II+: 48 + 12 kB (max 64 + 12) Apple IIe: 64 + 16 kB Apple IIc: 128 + 16 kB
> Heh, as interesting as this is to me, and really - it is - shouldn't the idea be - make better games, get more male and female gamers?
Exactly. The problem here is that games are produced by young men, for young men. Women in those games are portrayed as either sex objects or helpless victims. And yes, there are exceptions, some brilliant, but that's what they are: exceptions.
And it's pretty arrogant to think that men alone can produce games that are universally "fun". As long as the games industry is dominated by males, the gaming public will remain dominated by males.
The point here is to make games, and the games industry, appeal to more than 50% of the population - not to give male geeks a higher chance of getting a date.
There is something clueful in actually knowing how to install a WinXP system, getting all the drivers you need to work, installing the software that you want, and then configuring it all. Most people prefer having someone else do that for them (i.e. buy a computer with a preinstalled OS).
Set recvdelay = 5 in the config file (cgterm.cfg or ~/.cgtermrc) and you'll get 250 characters per second, which is pretty close to what you get on a 2400 baud modem. Though most C64 BBS:s online are already connected over a 2400 baud connection, so there's no need for a delay on the client:)
A new design is nice and all, but what are they doing to combat the link networks that artificially inflate their own pagerank scores? For some searches you just get pages and pages of hits from "directory" sites that you've never heard of (that no one in their right mind would ever be interested in using) serving you banners and popups.
As there's no measurable difference between AGP 2x, 4x, and 8x, why is everyone getting excited? I know PCI-X is going to be great for high end SCSI cards and the like, but as far as I know graphics cards aren't bandwidth limited.
Slashdot Mirror
Great, now all we need is a full port to MacOS X. The Mac mini is small, silent, and good looking - it's almost a perfect HTPC platform, only lacking on the software side. I'm currently using it with MPlayer, iTunes, an ATI remote, but a real media frontend would make it much more grandma friendly.
Is anyone else here using a mini as a HTPC? What does your setup look like?
What do you need the PCI slot for?
TV Tuner. I know you can get a USB tuner, but that kind of defeats the whole form factor thing.
I'm not complaining though - this is going to be one really sweet DVD/DivX/MP3 player machine. I picked up a Remote Wonder control today, and now I can comfortably select and play movies from the couch.
If Apple were to release a version of the mini with 6-channel sound, a TV tuner, PVR software, and a good looking remote Windows Media Center wouldn't stand a chance. It would be the iPod of the living room.
I am getting the 1.42Ghz with 80GB HD. It'll have the bare minimum 256MB of RAM and the regular combo drive but if push comes to shove I'll get an external Firewire DVD writer and might even open the case myself and add some RAM. Who knows. It'll all depend on how well it performs for me.
Unless you're planning on running one application at a time, you will want to get at least 512 MB. MacOS X is slow as molasses with 256 MB, and it's a shame that Apple still sells computers with that little memory. As Anandtech points out the machine swaps quite a bit with 256 MB, and the 2.5" HD is rather slow.
Since 99% of all the music in people's mp3 collections is either ripped from CD or downloaded off the net, who cares which store it's connected to? Online music stores are nifty and all, but I seriously doubt that they are driving hardware sales.
What I find is a bunch of files named something like "battlestar.galactica.1x04.WS.(X)SVCD.torrent." What the hell is that? What's "Fanta?"
battlestar.galactica - obviously the series name
1x04 - season 1, episode 04
WS - widescreen
(X)SVCD - eXtended Super Video CD, a high bitrate SVCD, which is a 480x480 MPEG2 format
Fanta - the pirate group who released the file
For viewing on your DVD player go with one of the VCD formats, and for viewing on your PC a HDTV or PDTV Xvid version is probably best.
The new combined slushie and burger coming to a McDoodoo near you soon!
> 1) Implement a 6502 processor. There is a free core or two floating around, which she likely used. Still not exactly trivial, though.
No, she did her own core, which is both smaller and faster than the free cores out there.
> 2) Reverse-engineer and implement the DRAM circuitry. The design does not use DRAM, but you still need to emulate certain portions of the hardware for timing reasons. When DRAM refreshes, the processor has to snooze.
The NTSC unit is SRAM based. The C64 uses transparent DRAM refresh during the VIC's half of every cycle. The PAL unit will use SDRAM.
> 3) Reverse-engineer and implement the SID sound chip. Fairly major headache.
MAJOR headache.
> 4) Reverse-engineer and implement the video circuitry. Major headache. This system even had hardware sprites.
Yes, it took her years, and there are still timing glitches. It's amazingly compatible though.
5) Reverse-engineer and implement the different hardware ports.
I believe this was fairly easy though.
> 6) Include a bridge that would allow a PC keyboard to emulate a C64 keyboard.
IIrc that's a small state machine and a matrix, nothing too hairy.
> 7) Emulate a cassette drive and load it with warez.
That was done in software by Adrian Gonzalez. The NY Times article concentrated on Jeri herself, so I guess it's forgivable that they didn't mention that there was a software team as well (Adrian and Robin Harbron were the main programmers, plus me and Mark Seelye helped patch games).
> 8) Implement the analog bits of the video and sound circuitry. Maybe somebody else did this.
Nope, all Jeri.
Those people doubting her hardware skills really shouldn't talk without checking facts, and if you think that designing things in VHDL is as simple as programming in C you need a clue. No, make that two. And for the record, it's designed with a mix of VHDL and schematic capture.
Apparently pretty good. Robin (the lead programmer) hasn't worn out his batteries yet :) It would be easy to drill a hole and solder a connector for a wall wart though.
Yes, Jeri included solder pads for a PS/2 and an IEC connector. If you have a keyboard plugged in you can escape to the basic prompt.
His facts are backed way, way better than any of the stuff you get in the usual campaign propaganda dominating the media before elections...
> I would think the facts would have to be independently researched, verified
Yes.
> and agreed upon by most people
No.
> Mind you, the Apple IIc+, Apple IIGS, and Macintosh were introduced during
> that timeframe at higher clock rates, but still, for 17 years, they sold a machine
> at the same speed. What the hell happened to Moore's Law?
Moore's Law doesn't talk about clock speeds, it talks about complexity (or logic density). In the Apple II line you can observe it when it comes to RAM and ROM size:
Apple I: 8 + 1 + 0.25 kB
Apple II: 4 + 12 kB (max 64 + 12)
Apple II+: 48 + 12 kB (max 64 + 12)
Apple IIe: 64 + 16 kB
Apple IIc: 128 + 16 kB
> Heh, as interesting as this is to me, and really - it is - shouldn't the idea be - make better games, get more male and female gamers?
Exactly. The problem here is that games are produced by young men, for young men. Women in those games are portrayed as either sex objects or helpless victims. And yes, there are exceptions, some brilliant, but that's what they are: exceptions.
And it's pretty arrogant to think that men alone can produce games that are universally "fun". As long as the games industry is dominated by males, the gaming public will remain dominated by males.
The point here is to make games, and the games industry, appeal to more than 50% of the population - not to give male geeks a higher chance of getting a date.
Have you tried just going out and meeting people?
http://c64upgra.de/c-one/
ATX form factor, IDE, CF, SDRAM, 20 MHz 65816, hires graphics, multichannel SID sound.
There is something clueful in actually knowing how to install a WinXP system, getting all the drivers you need to work, installing the software that you want, and then configuring it all. Most people prefer having someone else do that for them (i.e. buy a computer with a preinstalled OS).
The phantom device is probably your hard disk, it's easily as loud as the CPU or PSU fan. And here's my affordable solution:
:P But so far the HD doesn't feel exceptionally hot and it hasn't been complaining.
Ghetto HD silencer
A bit too affordable maybe
For my graphics card I used a Zalman ZM80A-HP, a passive heatsink with no fan at all. Works like a charm on my 9700.
Set recvdelay = 5 in the config file (cgterm.cfg or ~/.cgtermrc) and you'll get 250 characters per second, which is pretty close to what you get on a 2400 baud modem. Though most C64 BBS:s online are already connected over a 2400 baud connection, so there's no need for a delay on the client :)
Thanks, just curious.
Does Apple's webkit use the same konqueror base as Safari? Cause that browser sure feels a lot more like Gecko...
Hey thanks, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Now we just need lots of people to report spam sites!
A new design is nice and all, but what are they doing to combat the link networks that artificially inflate their own pagerank scores? For some searches you just get pages and pages of hits from "directory" sites that you've never heard of (that no one in their right mind would ever be interested in using) serving you banners and popups.
Now that's newbie friendly.
That was fixed in a recent driver update. Go grab the latest Catalyst.
As there's no measurable difference between AGP 2x, 4x, and 8x, why is everyone getting excited? I know PCI-X is going to be great for high end SCSI cards and the like, but as far as I know graphics cards aren't bandwidth limited.