I would say to start out with one of those "ruggedized laptops".....
of course, if you REALLY wanted a desktop, you would need to use one of those flexible, waterproof keyboards (they're about $40). then you'll need to seal up the case to prevent water buildup. this is the trickiest part. It shouldn't be too hard to seal the thing in a tupperware container with a hole for exhaust and the cables to feed out of. I would reccomend putting a filter and a high powered fan over the hole to promote ventilation of clean air. of course, you'll have to keep the hole in a dry place. It is quite tricky
Don't worry about self destruct: If the OSX box is in close proximity to a microsoft server, the explosion from the microsoft server after it spontaneously combusts (tends to happen on microsoft servers) should engulf the OSX box too (unless apple uses some sort of fire-retardant on their imacs:) )
Quite frankly, dpkg isn't all that bad. It has MAJOR issues; no dobut about that, but has many great concepts which can't be found anywhere else (correct me if i'm wrong. they're still good ideas, though!)
The dependency and dependency resolution system- dpkg has the most advanced dependency system known to unix. No dobut to that... To solve these dependencies, dpkg goes to it's list of package locations (complete with http and ftp locations, cdroms, etc.. if necessary) and grabs the required packages from the net (the user is prompted on this, of course)
--Easy upgrades. No other system allows me to bring my system up to date in less time (note: debian isn't updated often, so this is generally unappreciated) $apt-get update $apt-get upgrade (hit y to confirm) All from the command prompt.
I'm not sure what else there is that makes it good. But RPM certainly doesn't have these features.
What it lacks: It's buggy as hell - it's easier then signing up for aol to nuke your system this way (in other words, it happens quite often by accident)
No good front-ends - There is no good program to browse available packages, install them, enter configuration information (more on that in a sec) and remove them. You should enter the package you want to install. a wizard is displayed, it grabs the package from a mirror or local source, solves dependecies, installs it and any dependent packages, configures it, and exits.
Configuration - dpkg has a system that allows the package to prompt for a few options before it is installed. this is a good thing, but the packages usually don't ask enough. users need full customization (nothing nitpicky. big stuff... so you dont have do manually edit configuration files by hand.
Available packages - this is where dpkg falls flat on it's face. 95% of unix packages are rpms. that never helps. a unified packaging system needs to be put into place
ebook only you say?
this will be great news for the ink and paper business!
$10 for the ebook. $5 for a ream of paper. $30 for an ink cartridge (do you actually think the average consumer is smart enough to invest in a laser printer?)
The net became popular for all the wrong reasons. As jon puts it, AOL shameless peddles it's goods and sex. AOL also markets it's servies twoard WinME using adolecents.
The problem here is that the populace views the internet as a way to buy books, talk to friends, send e-mails, and of course... view porn. This is not what the internet was created for. The internet was created as a means of communication and sharing of information. In this aspect, it has succeeded. E-mail is quickly replacing faxes for information transmission; universities publish their studies on the net; news sites keep people informed of the latest happenings, etc, ad infinitium.
Despite it's successes, these resources are generally untapped. The average Joe InternetUser will never view any content outside of aol's proprietary network, and will most likey end up buying an encyclopedia with 3 clicks of the mouse.
The internet will not revolutionize shopping. People have been able to order goods through the mail (and later by phone) from establishments such as sears for over 75 years. Nothing revolutionary here. The net does, however provide a medium to provide more information about the products sold through these means.
Now, for a small rant on html. html should have died years ago. all html was intended for was as a means to format text and link documents to one another. innocent enough, this was what the original intent of the net was anyway... share information. Then e-commerce developed, perl was invented, etc. A more interactive medium should have taken over. Rebol is a great example of one such format, as it improves functionality tenfold, while keeping bandwidth at a minimum.
Take this as a lesson. Small groups of people working out of the goodness of their heart make the net a better place. Big corporations do not.
Quite a few people here aren't really clued in on the facts. First, the $3900 price tag is for an evaluation model. Intel and AMD do the same thing to vendors... nothing new. And, yes, there have been many $4000 PPC motherboards around.
Second, if you read the PR on MAI's site, you can see that they plan to release the boards for SIGNIFIGANTLY less then $3900. The bigger flipside to this is that they also plan to produce (or license to produce) PCI cards and embedded g4 devices from $300-$600 with SMP capabiliy. (cool.. i can dual boot now.) similar cards sell now for $2000+
Third, nobody seems to mention this chipset's ability to use PC hardware. I suppose this would be pretty easy to accomplish, but it's still a cool feature. The only limitation here would be driver support (not a HUGE issue. i dobut many people will be playing quake on this anytime soon. the first boards would sell to developers).
Fifth, as a small sidenote, microcode solutions (http://www.microcode-solutions.com) plans to relesae a suite of ppc emulation products this spring. They plan on offering a hardware board, as well as a software based product. Of course, many are skeptical and believe it is vaporware. They currently offer a ppc amiga based macos emulator. (there are tons of amiga ppc motherboards out there. there are still a disturbing number of amiga users (shame gateway cut off their funding, right when they were about to make a comeback.)
Finally, the chipset itself sells for $20. This is comprable to what chipset vendors such as VIA charge for their hardware. I would expect to see other companies support this sometime.
Another issue is legality. It's perfectly legal to run LinuxPPC and beos. NOT macos. Sure, OS9 doens't need a hardware rom to run, but it is written specifically in the EULA that macos may ONLY RUN ON APPLE HARDWARE (yeah... it's in caps in the EULA... lawyers really abuse their shift keys!). Another project, MOL (mac-on-linux) which hopes to produce a mac compatibility layer (what wine is to windows, mol is to macos). Supposedly, it works well.
First, there are a few limitations to this that should be discussed.
CPU The cpu needs room to breathe. Athlons and p4s output lots of heat. The heatsink cannot be obstructed... Period! An obstructed cpu is an accessability pain, as well.
Drive bays 1 internal 3.5 bay and 1external 3.5 and 1 5.25 would be plenty. Very few users have 2 hard drives (most geeks do, but this is geared twoards end users. If they do, they can sacrifice their floppy drive, and possibly buy a usb fdd). Adding an extra internal bay wastes precious space... Of course, there could be exceptions made to the specification for some cases with more bays. Anyhow, firewire drives are getting dirt-cheap nowindays...
Now, for my suggestions
45 degree expansion slots. Probably my most radical argument. It's pretty self explanitory: PCI and AGP slots are on a 45 degree angle, thus reducing the amount of space needed. This is assuming that the motherboard has 3ish slots to begin with. It's not as efficent for pcs with only 1 or 2 slots.
"Unspecified hole" On the rear ports template, place a rectanglar "hole" there, where the motherboard maker can place any extraneous ports it wants (s-video, extra usb or firewire ports, video capture, scsi.. etc).
Rear template The rear template needs more connectors then a regular pc. This is becasue these compact pcs will have few expansion cards in them. This is where ATX really falls on its face. The ports it should have are
4 usb
2 firewire
2 ps/2
1 ethernet/modem (hole big enough to fit either/or)
2 serial/video
1 parallel (legacy, my friend, legacy)
4 sound (for s/pdif or rear channel)
Game port?? This seems rather extraneous with the rise of USB joysticks. Perhaps a bracket should be provided instead. Any die-hard gamers will have a dedicated sound card, anyway...
CPU at the BOTTOM of the board Place all the cool-running components at the top of the case, under the drive cage and PSU, and put the cpu and the connectors at the bottom. Sheesh. Didn't the ATX people think of this... It's also a shorter fall when your heatsink falls off. Possibly put the IDE connectors at the bottom too??
ATX power supply It ain't broke, it seems to work fine, the units aren't horifficly big, either. An idea would be to have super-compact units accept d/c power with an external a/c adapter...
Non-conductive motherboard mount points. It's quite annoying when you're installing a motherboard, and it requires washers at the mount points, in order to function. This adds about $0.25 to the manufacturing process.
Drive rails. Every case should have these. Sure, it's a luxury... but, it's a nice one. So are thumbscrews, and removable motherboard trays, etc...
All in all, we have a case that is signifigantly smaller then normal ATX cases, yet not too small to loose it's functionality... I got a bit carried away, and it looks like some of my specifications would possibly add size.... oh bother! Did i forget something?
Why not just use two or three 300 watt power supplies? A top quality 400 watt PSU is can be found for about $40-$60. Just get 2 for $80. Much cheaper than an 800w power supply (which doesnt even exist!)
I forget what pins... but if you short two of the pins on the ATX motherboard connector, it powers up. In theory all you would need to do is make sure the drives all power up at roughly the SAME time. This could be easily accomplished with a few bits of wire and a doorbell:). Or, you could use an AT power supply, which doesn't need a motherboard in order to operate. Im not sure if the BIOS will recognize a drive that is already powered up, though?
Some older bioses used to be able to init the hard drives at a timed delay. This was due to the fact that the hard drive wouldnt spin up fast enough to be recognized. This is no longer a problem, and has been omitted from all modern bioses.
Finally, the timed spinup idea isn't really a good idea. If several hard drives spin down, and then all resume at the same time, it would overload the power supply, causing damage to the PSU, and most likely other (expensive) components along with it.
Long and short: Use 2+ power supplies, attach both of them to a doorbell (or case button, but those are usually too small to attach two pieces of wire), and they will both power up synchronously.
When you go down 200mhz to a still-respectable 800mhz, the price plumets down to $40ish... from a decent vendor. Then you get potential. You can build a $250 countertop pc. Which is exactly what I did...
Add $50ish for the suprisingly nice ECS motherboard (for $50, it's a GREAT deal. it's nice on quality and features. i would gladly pay twice that price for the same board) and $10 for a heatsink (amd-approved, of course).
Add another $50 for a Geforce2MX. The MX isn't a horrible card, it is sufficent for running most games...
Add (whatever) for RAM... it's SOOO cheap now. I just dug up 256mb from my closet full-o-parts. You can get that for about $30 from crucial
Add about $30 for an AMD approved psu (i can't stress the approval more. it really makes a diffrence!)
Then i added a keyboard and mouse (i got a refurbished wireless keyboard and mouse for $25. most people can find a cheapo keyboard and mouse that is more than sufficent).
I used a hard drive from an existing pc. It's fine for my purposes.
Volia! For about $250, i have a NICE countertop pc, which is hooked to the hi-fi as a jukebox(hey, that's what it was advertised as when it was purchased... oh 20 years ago:) ).
Now, granted, I used some parts i already had, which isn't fair to the price factor. Take those off, and you go up to about $400 (case+ram+hdd). There are many people who can't afford a pc due to the astounding prices. To dell and friends, i say poo!
This says a lot about the beuracocracy behind dell and all the big pc makers. Once must wonder the profit margin dell is enjoying (remember their little deal with intel... surely they are sold chips at dirt cheap prices)?
Aren't we a planet (along with a handful of others) orbiting a star (in our case, the Sun??
Okay okay.... we're A planet, I suppose some may say that since we are an ACTUAL planet, "planet-like doesn't really apply here. What about pluto? Most would say it's definitely not a planet, but pretty darn close, making it "planet-like".
We could add another picture to the list by launching a giant mirror into space, so we can look back upon ourselves through it...
Quite frankly, measuring the speed of the drive in RPMs is absolutely absurd, especially with a drive of this size. Even though it has less rpms, it doesn't mean a horrible data loss. Let's see...
The microdrive is really small. A rotation for it is a lot less than a rotation for a 3.5 drive.
Because the drive is signifigantly bigger (capacitywise and not dimensionwise as in my 3.2gb 5.25in quantum bigfoot hard drive which weighs about 12 pounds), the sectores are packed more tightly together. The head needs to travel say.... 3 microns (just a random number that divides easily) to read 30megs of data on the 320mb drive. the drive takes 1 second (a gross exxagurated) to travel and write 3 microns at the specified rpm. Since the 1gb drive, which is about 3x as big(capacity) and thus 3x as dense, it needs to travel only 1 micron to read 30mb. Say the rpm speed is 1/3 as much as the 340mb drive. It takes 1 second to travel 1 micron. Thus they are the same. Of course, these numbers are all made up, but the theory is still valid.
There's a lot more to speed then rpm. For all I care, with a lot of time, a screwdriver, some gears, and a large gas-powered engine, you could make the drive go at 600,000 rpms. Granted, it wouldn't work, but it would be still rotating at 600000 rpms. (Note to any crazy overclockers: Don't try this, it won't work and is probably very dangerous)
The microdrive really has nothing to compare itself to. See the comment above on the size of the drive. Besides, CF, SD or SM doesn't rotate. (unless........ never mind (see comment above regarding gasolene engine)
Sometime in Jan-Feb 2002, DishNetwork will be releasing it's new set-top box, the DishPVR 701. It will be a TiVo like unit with webtv functionality built-in. It will have HD outputs (it's key selling bullets) as well as ethernet connectivity, a 120 gb hard drive, possibly have USB ports, AND will be linux-powered.
I would suppose the boxes with the built in satelitte recievers would have the best quality. There is a ton of conversion involved here. The built-in box has no conversion involved.
Non-intergrated/2 boxes
MPEG2 Satelitte Stream -> VBR Decoded to FBR -> downconverted to analog output -> cable to pvr, signal loss, interference, etc -> MPEG2 Vbr Conversion -> MPEG2 Decoding -> Out to TV
Intergrated box
MPEG2 Satelitte Stream -> VBR already encoded, data alreay MPEG2 compressed, saved directly to disk, video remains unedited and uncompressed. -> Downconversion to analog -> Out to TV
Rumor has it that next month, EchoStar (parent company of DishNetwork) will release a HD PVR. Of course, that would require a huge drive, but there is also news that Dish ordered a slew of 120gb drives from a large storage sompany. So, more room for plain-ol broadcasts, which dont take up nearly as much room. The box has been dubbed the DishPVR 721. Oh yeah, it runs linux.
More news and stuff on the Echostar Knowledge Base. There's lots of stuff on the AVSFORUM dish network board with other info.
The sad part of this is that many hardware manufactures foolishly bundle their products with cryptographic software, which remains illegal to export to many countries (and with good reason). The cryptographic software in question is typically of extreme trival nature. Take my sound card for example, why the *&$% should I not be able to download drivers for it in some of these contries? It's completely absurd.
The sad part of this is that many of these hardware companies place the cryptographic export limit on all of their drivers, simply because they are afraid of legal action from Uncle Sam.
You CAN export the hardware.... it just won't do anything with the manufacturer's official drivers.
Thankfully, kernel.org has instructions for removing these bits of code from the Linux kernel, making it legal to use anywhere there is a computer that can run it.
I find this feature particularly strange... Perhaps this was a "forgotten feature" in the DVD pack. After all, based upon reputation, Microsoft should be close allies with the MPAA and RIAA. But, i'm not complaining. Only if the xbox supported progressive scan dvd playing, I would be a happy man... (seems strange that it doesnt. It's more then capable of such a feat).
Of course, i havent owned a console since the Sega Genesis... That system was technically impressive, but alas, not many good games were made for it, and i've never brought a console since. I'm highly considering buying the dreamcast... what a steal for $50!!!!! Of course, that's 50 bucks i could be spending on a geforce3, an xbox, a gamecube, a dual processor motherboard, a car, the ability to press the 'submit comment' button... Wait i can press the............
It certainly seems strange that cygwin is getting so much publicity recently. Anyhow. It certainly seems like a great way for running linux software on win32...
Microsoft includes a similar (but far inferior) package with Windows 2000 that (hypocrtically) uses GPLed software...
Cygwin is basically the same concept as WINE (windows on unix) and Executor (macos 7ish(68k) on win32 and unix). Isn't it much easier to write this sort of thing for an open source operating system:).
An intresting concept would be if I could play my Loki ports on win32.... i get the best of both worlds, and don't have to deal with WINE...
At first, it focuses mostly on strangely colored and oddly shaped cdrs, but at the bottom it has some VERY useful information, including a little utility called cdrid, which identifies WHO REALLY makes the cdr disk. It turns out many differently branded disks are actually made by the same company.
The article also points out that cdrs with a darker dye in them work better. I tend to agree from experience. Typically, I buy Sony CDRS from staples... they're pretty cheap and work good. I also found that the sony ones work fine in most car cd players, while cheap ones don't work at all.
(By the way.... a Plextor 24x burner is only about $150 now... i find that burning cds at lower speeds doesn't improve compatibility, execpt for with cheap disks; but my burner only works up to 8x, so i dont know how faster ones fare). But beware: make sure your drive supports BuRN proof or something similar. There is nothing more aggrivating then having to burn a cd twice because of a buffer underrun.
This comes at a very bad time. The.us extention should have been available since the beginning. Extentionless domains (.com;.org;.net) should be classified as "worldwide sites", example: www.amazon.com should lead to Amazon's worldwide site, or a portal page that leads to Amazon's localized sites (amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, etc..). Instead, amazon.com leads to amazon's USA homepage. This is clearly wrong and a problem. The.com extention should be intended for non-localized sites, not the american site (are we too good for our own extention)?
This also leads to another problem. Smaller sites don't want to have to manage two extentions (for the sake of costs and fragmentation). A few poltically-correct people will start typing in.com.us, instead of.com, leading to a 404 or the inevitable: the site of some domain stockpiler out to cheat a few innocent individuals out of their money.
Here's a scenaraio:
Small US based business with a website, does no international business. Clearly, Company X shouldn't have to buy a.com domain, because they are strictly a US company (just like most foreign companies do). The webmaster makes the politically-correct decision to purchase a.com.us domain.
Once the site has been up and popularized, a potential customer hears about the site; oxygenrx. He types oxygenrx.com into his browser... 404:not found. The potential customer releases a string of obcenities, then proceeds to a competitor's site. The opposite of this is true as well.
The obvious solution to this problem would be to buy a.com domain. But, the webmaster shouldn't have to: oxygenrx isn't a worldwide corporation.
Another way to put this into perspective is with the naming of a company.
For example, there is a company: Brooklyn Cheese House inc. From the name, you can tell it is strictly a small local business. One day, the managment changes it's name to Cheese House International. But, it's not an international business: it's still a small retail store in Brooklyn. Surely this will confuse customers (probably those who choose to patronize a local business over a large one). Same concept with the domains: a proper name prevents confusion and improves business.
Of course, this can't all be credited to the lateness in the availability of.us domains. It mixes in politics, the stupidity of the average Joe AOL-user. Another solution could be simply removing locale specific extentions... AHHHHHH!
Perhaps this is one of the more important details buried in the fine print. Note that this doesnt seem to include servers, pocket pcs, and set top boxes. Something tells me that this is seriously flawed.
Q. "Personal Computer" means any computer configured so that its primary purpose is for use by one person at a time, that uses a video display and keyboard (whether or not that video display and keyboard is included) and that contains an Intel x86 compatible (or successor) microprocessor. Servers, television set top boxes, handheld computers, game consoles, telephones, pagers, and personal digital assistants are examples of products that are not Personal Computers within the meaning of this definition.
Emaculation.com Is one of the most popular mac-emulation sites on the net and has useful information on setting up Mac emulators (currently, there is no ppc software-based mac emulator:-( )
Its plain and simple. Look at how professionally IE handles bugs. It redirects the user to a page which leads them into believing the browser isnt to blame.
Mozilla on the other hand takes all the flak for itself and blames itself for other's problems.
Slashdot Mirror
I would say to start out with one of those "ruggedized laptops".....
of course, if you REALLY wanted a desktop, you would need to use one of those flexible, waterproof keyboards (they're about $40).
then you'll need to seal up the case to prevent water buildup. this is the trickiest part. It shouldn't be too hard to seal the thing in a tupperware container with a hole for exhaust and the cables to feed out of. I would reccomend putting a filter and a high powered fan over the hole to promote ventilation of clean air. of course, you'll have to keep the hole in a dry place. It is quite tricky
Don't worry about self destruct: :) )
If the OSX box is in close proximity to a microsoft server, the explosion from the microsoft server after it spontaneously combusts (tends to happen on microsoft servers) should engulf the OSX box too
(unless apple uses some sort of fire-retardant on their imacs
pun: somehow, this sounds like flamebate
Quite frankly, dpkg isn't all that bad. It has MAJOR issues; no dobut about that, but has many great concepts which can't be found anywhere else (correct me if i'm wrong. they're still good ideas, though!)
The dependency and dependency resolution system- dpkg has the most advanced dependency system known to unix. No dobut to that... To solve these dependencies, dpkg goes to it's list of package locations (complete with http and ftp locations, cdroms, etc.. if necessary) and grabs the required packages from the net (the user is prompted on this, of course)
--Easy upgrades. No other system allows me to bring my system up to date in less time (note: debian isn't updated often, so this is generally unappreciated)
$apt-get update
$apt-get upgrade
(hit y to confirm)
All from the command prompt.
I'm not sure what else there is that makes it good. But RPM certainly doesn't have these features.
What it lacks:
It's buggy as hell - it's easier then signing up for aol to nuke your system this way (in other words, it happens quite often by accident)
No good front-ends - There is no good program to browse available packages, install them, enter configuration information (more on that in a sec) and remove them. You should enter the package you want to install. a wizard is displayed, it grabs the package from a mirror or local source, solves dependecies, installs it and any dependent packages, configures it, and exits.
Configuration - dpkg has a system that allows the package to prompt for a few options before it is installed. this is a good thing, but the packages usually don't ask enough. users need full customization (nothing nitpicky. big stuff... so you dont have do manually edit configuration files by hand.
Available packages - this is where dpkg falls flat on it's face. 95% of unix packages are rpms. that never helps. a unified packaging system needs to be put into place
i dunno what i forgot?
ebook only you say?
this will be great news for the ink and paper business!
$10 for the ebook. $5 for a ream of paper. $30 for an ink cartridge (do you actually think the average consumer is smart enough to invest in a laser printer?)
This is the sad truth.
The net became popular for all the wrong reasons. As jon puts it, AOL shameless peddles it's goods and sex. AOL also markets it's servies twoard WinME using adolecents.
The problem here is that the populace views the internet as a way to buy books, talk to friends, send e-mails, and of course... view porn. This is not what the internet was created for. The internet was created as a means of communication and sharing of information. In this aspect, it has succeeded. E-mail is quickly replacing faxes for information transmission; universities publish their studies on the net; news sites keep people informed of the latest happenings, etc, ad infinitium.
Despite it's successes, these resources are generally untapped. The average Joe InternetUser will never view any content outside of aol's proprietary network, and will most likey end up buying an encyclopedia with 3 clicks of the mouse.
The internet will not revolutionize shopping. People have been able to order goods through the mail (and later by phone) from establishments such as sears for over 75 years. Nothing revolutionary here. The net does, however provide a medium to provide more information about the products sold through these means.
Now, for a small rant on html. html should have died years ago. all html was intended for was as a means to format text and link documents to one another. innocent enough, this was what the original intent of the net was anyway... share information. Then e-commerce developed, perl was invented, etc. A more interactive medium should have taken over. Rebol is a great example of one such format, as it improves functionality tenfold, while keeping bandwidth at a minimum.
Take this as a lesson. Small groups of people working out of the goodness of their heart make the net a better place. Big corporations do not.
Well said jon... it's the sad truth
the part about "apple-labeled machine"
that's why they don't sell apple-clones anymore. OS 8 or 8.6 were the first to include that clause
Quite a few people here aren't really clued in on the facts. First, the $3900 price tag is for an evaluation model. Intel and AMD do the same thing to vendors... nothing new. And, yes, there have been many $4000 PPC motherboards around.
Second, if you read the PR on MAI's site, you can see that they plan to release the boards for SIGNIFIGANTLY less then $3900. The bigger flipside to this is that they also plan to produce (or license to produce) PCI cards and embedded g4 devices from $300-$600 with SMP capabiliy. (cool.. i can dual boot now.) similar cards sell now for $2000+
Third, nobody seems to mention this chipset's ability to use PC hardware. I suppose this would be pretty easy to accomplish, but it's still a cool feature. The only limitation here would be driver support (not a HUGE issue. i dobut many people will be playing quake on this anytime soon. the first boards would sell to developers).
Fifth, as a small sidenote, microcode solutions (http://www.microcode-solutions.com) plans to relesae a suite of ppc emulation products this spring. They plan on offering a hardware board, as well as a software based product. Of course, many are skeptical and believe it is vaporware. They currently offer a ppc amiga based macos emulator. (there are tons of amiga ppc motherboards out there. there are still a disturbing number of amiga users (shame gateway cut off their funding, right when they were about to make a comeback.)
Finally, the chipset itself sells for $20. This is comprable to what chipset vendors such as VIA charge for their hardware. I would expect to see other companies support this sometime.
Another issue is legality. It's perfectly legal to run LinuxPPC and beos. NOT macos. Sure, OS9 doens't need a hardware rom to run, but it is written specifically in the EULA that macos may ONLY RUN ON APPLE HARDWARE (yeah... it's in caps in the EULA... lawyers really abuse their shift keys!). Another project, MOL (mac-on-linux) which hopes to produce a mac compatibility layer (what wine is to windows, mol is to macos). Supposedly, it works well.
First, there are a few limitations to this that should be discussed.
CPU The cpu needs room to breathe. Athlons and p4s output lots of heat. The heatsink cannot be obstructed... Period! An obstructed cpu is an accessability pain, as well.
Drive bays 1 internal 3.5 bay and 1external 3.5 and 1 5.25 would be plenty. Very few users have 2 hard drives (most geeks do, but this is geared twoards end users. If they do, they can sacrifice their floppy drive, and possibly buy a usb fdd). Adding an extra internal bay wastes precious space... Of course, there could be exceptions made to the specification for some cases with more bays. Anyhow, firewire drives are getting dirt-cheap nowindays...
Now, for my suggestions
45 degree expansion slots. Probably my most radical argument. It's pretty self explanitory: PCI and AGP slots are on a 45 degree angle, thus reducing the amount of space needed. This is assuming that the motherboard has 3ish slots to begin with. It's not as efficent for pcs with only 1 or 2 slots.
"Unspecified hole" On the rear ports template, place a rectanglar "hole" there, where the motherboard maker can place any extraneous ports it wants (s-video, extra usb or firewire ports, video capture, scsi.. etc).
Rear template The rear template needs more connectors then a regular pc. This is becasue these compact pcs will have few expansion cards in them. This is where ATX really falls on its face. The ports it should have are
4 usb
2 firewire
2 ps/2
1 ethernet/modem (hole big enough to fit either/or)
2 serial/video
1 parallel (legacy, my friend, legacy)
4 sound (for s/pdif or rear channel)
Game port?? This seems rather extraneous with the rise of USB joysticks. Perhaps a bracket should be provided instead. Any die-hard gamers will have a dedicated sound card, anyway...
CPU at the BOTTOM of the board Place all the cool-running components at the top of the case, under the drive cage and PSU, and put the cpu and the connectors at the bottom. Sheesh. Didn't the ATX people think of this... It's also a shorter fall when your heatsink falls off. Possibly put the IDE connectors at the bottom too??
ATX power supply It ain't broke, it seems to work fine, the units aren't horifficly big, either. An idea would be to have super-compact units accept d/c power with an external a/c adapter...
Non-conductive motherboard mount points. It's quite annoying when you're installing a motherboard, and it requires washers at the mount points, in order to function. This adds about $0.25 to the manufacturing process.
Drive rails. Every case should have these. Sure, it's a luxury... but, it's a nice one. So are thumbscrews, and removable motherboard trays, etc...
All in all, we have a case that is signifigantly smaller then normal ATX cases, yet not too small to loose it's functionality... I got a bit carried away, and it looks like some of my specifications would possibly add size.... oh bother! Did i forget something?
the new mtvML markup language. Written specificly for the new line of pcs.
Yo, buy this PC!
You will be hip
It is da bomb!
Why not just use two or three 300 watt power supplies? A top quality 400 watt PSU is can be found for about $40-$60. Just get 2 for $80. Much cheaper than an 800w power supply (which doesnt even exist!)
:). Or, you could use an AT power supply, which doesn't need a motherboard in order to operate. Im not sure if the BIOS will recognize a drive that is already powered up, though?
I forget what pins... but if you short two of the pins on the ATX motherboard connector, it powers up. In theory all you would need to do is make sure the drives all power up at roughly the SAME time. This could be easily accomplished with a few bits of wire and a doorbell
Some older bioses used to be able to init the hard drives at a timed delay. This was due to the fact that the hard drive wouldnt spin up fast enough to be recognized. This is no longer a problem, and has been omitted from all modern bioses.
Finally, the timed spinup idea isn't really a good idea. If several hard drives spin down, and then all resume at the same time, it would overload the power supply, causing damage to the PSU, and most likely other (expensive) components along with it.
Long and short: Use 2+ power supplies, attach both of them to a doorbell (or case button, but those are usually too small to attach two pieces of wire), and they will both power up synchronously.
When you go down 200mhz to a still-respectable 800mhz, the price plumets down to $40ish... from a decent vendor. Then you get potential. You can build a $250 countertop pc. Which is exactly what I did...
:) ).
Add $50ish for the suprisingly nice ECS motherboard (for $50, it's a GREAT deal. it's nice on quality and features. i would gladly pay twice that price for the same board) and $10 for a heatsink (amd-approved, of course).
Add another $50 for a Geforce2MX. The MX isn't a horrible card, it is sufficent for running most games...
Add (whatever) for RAM... it's SOOO cheap now. I just dug up 256mb from my closet full-o-parts. You can get that for about $30 from crucial
Add about $30 for an AMD approved psu (i can't stress the approval more. it really makes a diffrence!)
Then i added a keyboard and mouse (i got a refurbished wireless keyboard and mouse for $25. most people can find a cheapo keyboard and mouse that is more than sufficent).
I used a hard drive from an existing pc. It's fine for my purposes.
Volia! For about $250, i have a NICE countertop pc, which is hooked to the hi-fi as a jukebox(hey, that's what it was advertised as when it was purchased... oh 20 years ago
Now, granted, I used some parts i already had, which isn't fair to the price factor. Take those off, and you go up to about $400 (case+ram+hdd). There are many people who can't afford a pc due to the astounding prices. To dell and friends, i say poo!
This says a lot about the beuracocracy behind dell and all the big pc makers. Once must wonder the profit margin dell is enjoying (remember their little deal with intel... surely they are sold chips at dirt cheap prices)?
Aren't we a planet (along with a handful of others) orbiting a star (in our case, the Sun??
Okay okay.... we're A planet, I suppose some may say that since we are an ACTUAL planet, "planet-like doesn't really apply here. What about pluto? Most would say it's definitely not a planet, but pretty darn close, making it "planet-like".
We could add another picture to the list by launching a giant mirror into space, so we can look back upon ourselves through it...
Quite frankly, measuring the speed of the drive in RPMs is absolutely absurd, especially with a drive of this size. Even though it has less rpms, it doesn't mean a horrible data loss. Let's see...
The microdrive is really small. A rotation for it is a lot less than a rotation for a 3.5 drive.
Because the drive is signifigantly bigger (capacitywise and not dimensionwise as in my 3.2gb 5.25in quantum bigfoot hard drive which weighs about 12 pounds), the sectores are packed more tightly together. The head needs to travel say.... 3 microns (just a random number that divides easily) to read 30megs of data on the 320mb drive. the drive takes 1 second (a gross exxagurated) to travel and write 3 microns at the specified rpm. Since the 1gb drive, which is about 3x as big(capacity) and thus 3x as dense, it needs to travel only 1 micron to read 30mb. Say the rpm speed is 1/3 as much as the 340mb drive. It takes 1 second to travel 1 micron. Thus they are the same. Of course, these numbers are all made up, but the theory is still valid.
There's a lot more to speed then rpm. For all I care, with a lot of time, a screwdriver, some gears, and a large gas-powered engine, you could make the drive go at 600,000 rpms. Granted, it wouldn't work, but it would be still rotating at 600000 rpms. (Note to any crazy overclockers: Don't try this, it won't work and is probably very dangerous)
The microdrive really has nothing to compare itself to. See the comment above on the size of the drive. Besides, CF, SD or SM doesn't rotate. (unless........ never mind (see comment above regarding gasolene engine)
Sometime in Jan-Feb 2002, DishNetwork will be releasing it's new set-top box, the DishPVR 701. It will be a TiVo like unit with webtv functionality built-in. It will have HD outputs (it's key selling bullets) as well as ethernet connectivity, a 120 gb hard drive, possibly have USB ports, AND will be linux-powered.
Preorders being taken
I would suppose the boxes with the built in satelitte recievers would have the best quality. There is a ton of conversion involved here. The built-in box has no conversion involved.
Non-intergrated/2 boxes MPEG2 Satelitte Stream -> VBR Decoded to FBR -> downconverted to analog output -> cable to pvr, signal loss, interference, etc -> MPEG2 Vbr Conversion -> MPEG2 Decoding -> Out to TV
Intergrated box MPEG2 Satelitte Stream -> VBR already encoded, data alreay MPEG2 compressed, saved directly to disk, video remains unedited and uncompressed. -> Downconversion to analog -> Out to TV
Rumor has it that next month, EchoStar (parent company of DishNetwork) will release a HD PVR. Of course, that would require a huge drive, but there is also news that Dish ordered a slew of 120gb drives from a large storage sompany. So, more room for plain-ol broadcasts, which dont take up nearly as much room. The box has been dubbed the DishPVR 721. Oh yeah, it runs linux.
More news and stuff on the Echostar Knowledge Base. There's lots of stuff on the AVSFORUM dish network board with other info.
Since this is a new house, why don't you just get a REALLY BIG fridge.
Ironically, several overclockers I know have taken this approach... I forget how they solved the humidity problem, though...
The sad part of this is that many hardware manufactures foolishly bundle their products with cryptographic software, which remains illegal to export to many countries (and with good reason). The cryptographic software in question is typically of extreme trival nature. Take my sound card for example, why the *&$% should I not be able to download drivers for it in some of these contries? It's completely absurd.
The sad part of this is that many of these hardware companies place the cryptographic export limit on all of their drivers, simply because they are afraid of legal action from Uncle Sam.
You CAN export the hardware.... it just won't do anything with the manufacturer's official drivers.
Thankfully, kernel.org has instructions for removing these bits of code from the Linux kernel, making it legal to use anywhere there is a computer that can run it.
I find this feature particularly strange... Perhaps this was a "forgotten feature" in the DVD pack. After all, based upon reputation, Microsoft should be close allies with the MPAA and RIAA. But, i'm not complaining. Only if the xbox supported progressive scan dvd playing, I would be a happy man... (seems strange that it doesnt. It's more then capable of such a feat).
Of course, i havent owned a console since the Sega Genesis... That system was technically impressive, but alas, not many good games were made for it, and i've never brought a console since. I'm highly considering buying the dreamcast... what a steal for $50!!!!! Of course, that's 50 bucks i could be spending on a geforce3, an xbox, a gamecube, a dual processor motherboard, a car, the ability to press the 'submit comment' button... Wait i can press the............
It certainly seems strange that cygwin is getting so much publicity recently. Anyhow. It certainly seems like a great way for running linux software on win32...
:).
Microsoft includes a similar (but far inferior) package with Windows 2000 that (hypocrtically) uses GPLed software...
Cygwin is basically the same concept as WINE (windows on unix) and Executor (macos 7ish(68k) on win32 and unix). Isn't it much easier to write this sort of thing for an open source operating system
An intresting concept would be if I could play my Loki ports on win32.... i get the best of both worlds, and don't have to deal with WINE...
Dan's data has an article which explains CDR quality very nicely
At first, it focuses mostly on strangely colored and oddly shaped cdrs, but at the bottom it has some VERY useful information, including a little utility called cdrid, which identifies WHO REALLY makes the cdr disk. It turns out many differently branded disks are actually made by the same company.
The article also points out that cdrs with a darker dye in them work better. I tend to agree from experience. Typically, I buy Sony CDRS from staples... they're pretty cheap and work good. I also found that the sony ones work fine in most car cd players, while cheap ones don't work at all.
(By the way.... a Plextor 24x burner is only about $150 now... i find that burning cds at lower speeds doesn't improve compatibility, execpt for with cheap disks; but my burner only works up to 8x, so i dont know how faster ones fare). But beware: make sure your drive supports BuRN proof or something similar. There is nothing more aggrivating then having to burn a cd twice because of a buffer underrun.
This comes at a very bad time. The .us extention should have been available since the beginning. Extentionless domains (.com; .org; .net) should be classified as "worldwide sites", example: www.amazon.com should lead to Amazon's worldwide site, or a portal page that leads to Amazon's localized sites (amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, etc..). Instead, amazon.com leads to amazon's USA homepage. This is clearly wrong and a problem. The .com extention should be intended for non-localized sites, not the american site (are we too good for our own extention)?
.com.us, instead of .com, leading to a 404 or the inevitable: the site of some domain stockpiler out to cheat a few innocent individuals out of their money.
.com domain, because they are strictly a US company (just like most foreign companies do). The webmaster makes the politically-correct decision to purchase a .com.us domain.
.com domain. But, the webmaster shouldn't have to: oxygenrx isn't a worldwide corporation.
.us domains. It mixes in politics, the stupidity of the average Joe AOL-user. Another solution could be simply removing locale specific extentions... AHHHHHH!
This also leads to another problem. Smaller sites don't want to have to manage two extentions (for the sake of costs and fragmentation). A few poltically-correct people will start typing in
Here's a scenaraio:
Small US based business with a website, does no international business. Clearly, Company X shouldn't have to buy a
Once the site has been up and popularized, a potential customer hears about the site; oxygenrx. He types oxygenrx.com into his browser... 404:not found. The potential customer releases a string of obcenities, then proceeds to a competitor's site. The opposite of this is true as well.
The obvious solution to this problem would be to buy a
Another way to put this into perspective is with the naming of a company.
For example, there is a company: Brooklyn Cheese House inc. From the name, you can tell it is strictly a small local business. One day, the managment changes it's name to Cheese House International. But, it's not an international business: it's still a small retail store in Brooklyn. Surely this will confuse customers (probably those who choose to patronize a local business over a large one). Same concept with the domains: a proper name prevents confusion and improves business.
Of course, this can't all be credited to the lateness in the availability of
Speaking of small demos, there is an execellent, high quality 11 minute 64 kb pc demo called the product. (sorry, windows only, DX 8 required).
Perhaps this is one of the more important details buried in the fine print. Note that this doesnt seem to include servers, pocket pcs, and set top boxes. Something tells me that this is seriously flawed.
Q. "Personal Computer" means any computer configured so that its primary purpose is for use by one person at a time, that uses a video display and keyboard (whether or not that video display and keyboard is included) and that contains an Intel x86 compatible (or successor) microprocessor. Servers, television set top boxes, handheld computers, game consoles, telephones, pagers, and personal digital assistants are examples of products that are not Personal Computers within the meaning of this definition.
Emaculation.com Is one of the most popular mac-emulation sites on the net and has useful information on setting up Mac emulators (currently, there is no ppc software-based mac emulator :-( )
Its plain and simple. Look at how professionally IE handles bugs. It redirects the user to a page which leads them into believing the browser isnt to blame.
Mozilla on the other hand takes all the flak for itself and blames itself for other's problems.
Duh!