In 1995 I bought a Psion Series 3 organizer.. Back then, 16 years ago, it was state-of-the-art. Despite modern advances, I'm still using it occasionally today, mostly as a small database and pocket-typewriter, even though it runs at 7MHz with 2MB ot storage/RAM. The reason is simple - you really don't need GHz of compute horsepower and billions of bytes of storage/memory when you're only working with text. I like this ethos in our media-saturated world, but Slashdot does seem to be railing against it, with pageviews gobbling up hundreds of K of bandwidth for what is essentially a few K of entropy. I guess what I'm trying to say is "Don't be ashamed of keeping it simple guys. "
If you're really that bothered, maybe go for a phone that does phone calls, texting and some light web browsing with very little scope for crapware to get on board?
Actually it was only 672 bytes - the 1024 byte memory had to include the screen memory also, much like shared video memory today - could take up to 768 of the 1024 bytes for a full 32x24 screen! (the chess game only used an 11-line screen for the board etc)
On a practical note, since this was an 'invention' in 1993, wouldn't the patent expire next year anyway (20 year patent life?) In that case, won't somebody like IBM just tie this up in the courts and give the lawyers something to chew on until it runs out anyway?
Wondering if a big state-of-the-art chip-fab like AMD getting into ARM processors might make sub-45nm ARM processors a possibility? AFAIK, only X86 chips are made like this just now. Could lead to fantastic performance-per-Watt chips coming off the line.
BeagleBone doesn't even come with any video-out connector as standard so probably not the best solution in this instance. More likely Beagleboard or Pandaboard for higher $.
Chinese New Year celebrations likely delaying Raspberry Pi ETA by a week or 2 I guess, but not long now....
I'm more inclined to say that this implicit assumption of 'infinite growth' is more part of the problem than anything else. Endless growth is the paradigm of the cancer cell, and not a good model for civilization.
Rather than making solar-powered phones, Nokia have pretty much solved the problem already by making simple high-efficiency phones like the 1280, which can run for 2 weeks between charges.
Don't fix it. XP is a perfectly reliable platform. I can understand Microsoft wanting to shift more units, but no need for change-for-the-sake-of-it really. Or maybe I'm just an old codger:)
Granted. However, the idea of: 1) using (presumably renewable) electricity to generate hydrogen instead of directly using that electricity in an electric vehicle, and then 2) converting that hydrogen to fertilizer instead of powering a hydrogen-cell vehicle, then 3) using farmland/water/solar to grow biofuel crops instead of food, trees or grazing land and finally 4) dropping the EROEI of the crops even further in the process of converting them into the final fuel is so convoluted, inefficient, wasteful and messed up that it hurts my head.
Not really - every flat-screen TV made in the last couple of years has HDMI in, and every recent flat-screen monitor has DVI-D (basically HDMI). You have to think ahead, HDMI is the future and we're talking about a device that isn't even in production yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Brains Work Best At Age of 39.
(Lawn. Off.)
Just go to Amazon.com instead. Problem solved!
In 1995 I bought a Psion Series 3 organizer.. Back then, 16 years ago, it was state-of-the-art. Despite modern advances, I'm still using it occasionally today, mostly as a small database and pocket-typewriter, even though it runs at 7MHz with 2MB ot storage/RAM. The reason is simple - you really don't need GHz of compute horsepower and billions of bytes of storage/memory when you're only working with text. I like this ethos in our media-saturated world, but Slashdot does seem to be railing against it, with pageviews gobbling up hundreds of K of bandwidth for what is essentially a few K of entropy.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "Don't be ashamed of keeping it simple guys. "
It's Alan Turing spinning in his grave.
If you're really that bothered, maybe go for a phone that does phone calls, texting and some light web browsing with very little scope for crapware to get on board?
Actually it was only 672 bytes - the 1024 byte memory had to include the screen memory also, much like shared video memory today - could take up to 768 of the 1024 bytes for a full 32x24 screen! (the chess game only used an 11-line screen for the board etc)
And it's even considered by some to be the greatest program ever written.
Personally I like Pir by Autechre, it appeals to the math/electronics geek in me I think.
In the West we could all do with eating a bit further down the food chain really - Red meat is known to linked to bowel cancers.
Mind you, I'm Scottish, so can't really preach about good diet really :)
Chess in 672 bytes
On a practical note, since this was an 'invention' in 1993, wouldn't the patent expire next year anyway (20 year patent life?) In that case, won't somebody like IBM just tie this up in the courts and give the lawyers something to chew on until it runs out anyway?
Wondering if a big state-of-the-art chip-fab like AMD getting into ARM processors might make sub-45nm ARM processors a possibility? AFAIK, only X86 chips are made like this just now. Could lead to fantastic performance-per-Watt chips coming off the line.
BeagleBone doesn't even come with any video-out connector as standard so probably not the best solution in this instance. More likely Beagleboard or Pandaboard for higher $.
Chinese New Year celebrations likely delaying Raspberry Pi ETA by a week or 2 I guess, but not long now....
I remember watching the interview with John Pilger some time ago, Assagne is certainly a compelling speaker.
And people complain that the Raspberry Pi (which is not even out the door yet) doesn't support VGA... sheesh.
I'm more inclined to say that this implicit assumption of 'infinite growth' is more part of the problem than anything else. Endless growth is the paradigm of the cancer cell, and not a good model for civilization.
Rather than making solar-powered phones, Nokia have pretty much solved the problem already by making simple high-efficiency phones like the 1280, which can run for 2 weeks between charges.
Don't fix it. XP is a perfectly reliable platform. I can understand Microsoft wanting to shift more units, but no need for change-for-the-sake-of-it really. Or maybe I'm just an old codger :)
A more interesting benchmark for me at the moment is performance per $, which is where Raspberry Pi is going to have a big impact soon I think.
Don't expect any replies from the German readership.
Granted. However, the idea of:
1) using (presumably renewable) electricity to generate hydrogen instead of directly using that electricity in an electric vehicle, and then
2) converting that hydrogen to fertilizer instead of powering a hydrogen-cell vehicle, then
3) using farmland/water/solar to grow biofuel crops instead of food, trees or grazing land and finally
4) dropping the EROEI of the crops even further in the process of converting them into the final fuel
is so convoluted, inefficient, wasteful and messed up that it hurts my head.
Also, the Haber-Bosch process does not consume natural gas, it consumes hydrogen...
Was going to mod, but have to reply to this.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process:
By far the major source of the hydrogen required for the Haber-Bosch process is methane from natural gas.
Just to be pedantic, 4K is between 4 and 6 times the pixel count of 1080p, depending on the definition of '4K' being used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_resolution
Nothing for you to be concerned about at all - it's going to be hard enough time getting hold of one of these for Christmas already I think.
Posting because this piece of code deserves eternal Kudos:
1K ZX Chess
Full chess game implemented in 672 bytes.
Not really - every flat-screen TV made in the last couple of years has HDMI in, and every recent flat-screen monitor has DVI-D (basically HDMI). You have to think ahead, HDMI is the future and we're talking about a device that isn't even in production yet.