Would they have to recall them? I know that if I were putting out a console system with a modem in it I'd use a flashable ROM. Why not? You can just have it download updates when users connect to the gaming service.
You'll still need a boot ROM. Apple used to put quite a bit of the Mac OS in ROM (back when the OS was very small), and until the iMac there was still some OS code in there. Starting with the iMac, all OS dependent code began getting moved off the ROM, but since the OS still wants it, it was moved to a file on the HD and loaded into RAM from there.
The iBook will be the first machine to be released based on Apple's universal logicboard architecture (the G4 is based on it as well, but not the low-end model, and remember the high-end models aren't shipping for a couple months), which moves all OS code out of ROM. But you still need a boot ROM. The boot ROM in the G4/iMac II/iBook essentially serves the same function as the BIOS in a PC, except that Open Firmware is something nice that the PC doesn't have. (OF is not proprietary BTW, I believe Sun uses it as well.)
There are no announced plans for OS X on Intel, but there are rumors.
But why does Apple needs to be on Intel? Companies replace computers every few years anyway, so there's no reason not to get Macs. Plus everything is from one source. Companies might like that. You have one source to call about everything from the OS to the hardware; nobody can put the blame on anyone else.
Welcome to the world of the average personal computer user. The person who never upgrades, not even RAM. PCI? What's that mean? The person who isn't going to _ever_ fill up a 10GB hard drive with their Word files and recipe database. The person who doesn't do anything that an iMac can't do in under a second. The person who doesn't do anything that an iMac can't do in under a second. Multitasking? Many of them don't even understand how to use more than one program at once. They don't know what a Zip drive is, and don't know why they'd want one.
This is the target market for the iMac. This is also the majority of users. They don't want to have to know anything about their computers, and it's easier for them to buy a new computer every 3 years that for them to learn about them to the extent they can upgrade. It's not that they're dumb. It's that they don't care. They want to use their computer like a toaster.
Upgradability is not something these people are ever likely to care about, and it makes the initial purchase price of the computer higher. Which is something they will care about.
Airport follows a variant of the 802.11 wireless ethernet standard. There have been implementations of this on the PC and the Mac for years, but Airport is the fastest, and it's MUCH cheaper than any other implementation.
Sure, Macs are in use in some offices. But overall the Mac isn't taken very seriously. Mac OS X and the combination of new iMacs and G4 servers are the products Apple is going to use to push into the business market for real. Buying a $15K package with 10 iMacs and a G4 server all pre-configured would be great for a business. You just plug things together, turn on the server, and boot the iMacs over the network. Instant LAN that costs almost nothing to maintain.
What people forget (even people who are responsible for computer purchases in companies) is that initial purchase price is a tiny fraction of the cost of a computer. This cost has gone way up since the days of mainframes and dumb terminals, since now every computer's software can fail. But a bunch of iMacs booting off a Mac OS X Server machine can bring it to an all-time low.
USB 2.0 could conceivably push IEEE 1394 into a niche
That "niche" being the entire consumer electronics industry and anyone who wants to use those devices with a computer (read: everyone with a computer).
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Please, please try to get informed before posting
on
Is firewire dying?
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· Score: 1
You do need to pay money to Apple because Apple owns some of the patents involved in Firewire. As for Sony's "different connector", there are two standard connectors for Firewire; a six pin and a four pin. Both have 4 data pins. The remaining two pins in the six pin carry power.
The Firewire logo and name can be licensed from Apple separately.
You do have to pay Apple because Apple owns some of the patents involved. The Firewire name and logo have to be licensed from Apple separately. This is a mistake. Apple should allow free use of the logo and name to help build recognition for the standard.
Every single one of the connectors mentioned was not proprietary! That was the idea! There is not a single proprietary connector on any current Mac model, though some of the consumer models do have proprietary slots.
Jeez. I've never seen people with sarcasm recognition skills this bad any place but Slashdot.
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Re:How to replace and support ALL interfaces
on
Is firewire dying?
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· Score: 1
What happens if you need to stream video in while downloading off Ethernet? You'd have to keep reprogramming the chip and you'd take a speed hit, wouldn't you?
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Re:Firewire is much more advanced than USB
on
Is firewire dying?
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· Score: 1
You don't get it. Just pass the cost on to the consumer and it costs you nothing! How many people are going to not buy a CD player because it costs $0.25 too much?
Besides which, Firewire is the only solution for your hypothetical CD player. USB doesn't do peer-to-peer, so you'll need a computer around if you want that CD player to talk to anything else.
How much more are they going to have to pay Intel for chipsets with USB-2.0 so Intel can recoup development costs? Let's be serious here. This story is Intel FUD. There are already millions of computers and consumer electronics devices out there with Firewire. There are none with USB-2.0, and USB-2.0 is totally worthless to the consumer electronics industry. There are nearly 30 Firewire devices shipping today, and many, many more have been announced. We're seeing with Firewire a rampup of of almost exactly the same proportions we saw with original USB last year.
Sure, USB-2.0 ports might end up on computers. Right next to the Firewire ports.
It's impossible that Sony will. USB needs a computer on the bus, and Sony wants you to be able to hook that camcorder with Firewire up to that TV with Firewire and that recordable DVD with Firewire. Firewire is the future of consumer electronics, and it'll be really nice to be able to hook all this stuff up to your computer as well.
Firewire licensing is $0.25 per _device_ not per port, and Apple doesn't even get all of that (it's divided among all the companies involved in Firewire development).
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Re:May be dying on the Intel side of things...
on
Is firewire dying?
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· Score: 2
Intel is trying kill Firewire because it doesn't require a computer on the bus. That scares the hell out of them. It's the same reason USB 2.0 won't ever replace Firewire: it's useless to the (very large and powerful) consumer electronics industry.
They have something shipping. It's an external PCI-based "PowerBox" that you load up with their CPU cards. I've heard of these guys before. The seem to do some crazy hardware hacking.
This rumors has either proved incorrect or upgrade makers have found a way around it. The folks at Mac OS Rumors say they've seen a B&W boot and run with a G4 card in it.
Slashdot Mirror
Would they have to recall them? I know that if I were putting out a console system with a modem in it I'd use a flashable ROM. Why not? You can just have it download updates when users connect to the gaming service.
--
You'll still need a boot ROM. Apple used to put quite a bit of the Mac OS in ROM (back when the OS was very small), and until the iMac there was still some OS code in there. Starting with the iMac, all OS dependent code began getting moved off the ROM, but since the OS still wants it, it was moved to a file on the HD and loaded into RAM from there.
The iBook will be the first machine to be released based on Apple's universal logicboard architecture (the G4 is based on it as well, but not the low-end model, and remember the high-end models aren't shipping for a couple months), which moves all OS code out of ROM. But you still need a boot ROM. The boot ROM in the G4/iMac II/iBook essentially serves the same function as the BIOS in a PC, except that Open Firmware is something nice that the PC doesn't have. (OF is not proprietary BTW, I believe Sun uses it as well.)
--
There are no announced plans for OS X on Intel, but there are rumors.
But why does Apple needs to be on Intel? Companies replace computers every few years anyway, so there's no reason not to get Macs. Plus everything is from one source. Companies might like that. You have one source to call about everything from the OS to the hardware; nobody can put the blame on anyone else.
--
Welcome to the world of the average personal computer user. The person who never upgrades, not even RAM. PCI? What's that mean? The person who isn't going to _ever_ fill up a 10GB hard drive with their Word files and recipe database. The person who doesn't do anything that an iMac can't do in under a second. The person who doesn't do anything that an iMac can't do in under a second. Multitasking? Many of them don't even understand how to use more than one program at once. They don't know what a Zip drive is, and don't know why they'd want one.
This is the target market for the iMac. This is also the majority of users. They don't want to have to know anything about their computers, and it's easier for them to buy a new computer every 3 years that for them to learn about them to the extent they can upgrade. It's not that they're dumb. It's that they don't care. They want to use their computer like a toaster.
Upgradability is not something these people are ever likely to care about, and it makes the initial purchase price of the computer higher. Which is something they will care about.
--
Airport follows a variant of the 802.11 wireless ethernet standard. There have been implementations of this on the PC and the Mac for years, but Airport is the fastest, and it's MUCH cheaper than any other implementation.
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I'd guess the stripped down version would be without DVD, Firewire, and Rage 128. You don't need those on a business machine.
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Sure, Macs are in use in some offices. But overall the Mac isn't taken very seriously. Mac OS X and the combination of new iMacs and G4 servers are the products Apple is going to use to push into the business market for real. Buying a $15K package with 10 iMacs and a G4 server all pre-configured would be great for a business. You just plug things together, turn on the server, and boot the iMacs over the network. Instant LAN that costs almost nothing to maintain.
What people forget (even people who are responsible for computer purchases in companies) is that initial purchase price is a tiny fraction of the cost of a computer. This cost has gone way up since the days of mainframes and dumb terminals, since now every computer's software can fail. But a bunch of iMacs booting off a Mac OS X Server machine can bring it to an all-time low.
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Any machine with an Airport card can act as a base station if it's plugged into the network, even another iBook. So, yes, you'll be able to do this.
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I'm waiting for a case covered with flatscreens. Change the look every day :-)
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Thousands? I guess >7,000,000 is just seven thousand thousand ;-)
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USB 2.0 could conceivably push IEEE 1394 into a niche
That "niche" being the entire consumer electronics industry and anyone who wants to use those devices with a computer (read: everyone with a computer).
--
You do need to pay money to Apple because Apple owns some of the patents involved in Firewire. As for Sony's "different connector", there are two standard connectors for Firewire; a six pin and a four pin. Both have 4 data pins. The remaining two pins in the six pin carry power.
The Firewire logo and name can be licensed from Apple separately.
--
You do have to pay Apple because Apple owns some of the patents involved. The Firewire name and logo have to be licensed from Apple separately. This is a mistake. Apple should allow free use of the logo and name to help build recognition for the standard.
--
Every single one of the connectors mentioned was not proprietary! That was the idea! There is not a single proprietary connector on any current Mac model, though some of the consumer models do have proprietary slots.
Jeez. I've never seen people with sarcasm recognition skills this bad any place but Slashdot.
--
What happens if you need to stream video in while downloading off Ethernet? You'd have to keep reprogramming the chip and you'd take a speed hit, wouldn't you?
--
You don't get it. Just pass the cost on to the consumer and it costs you nothing! How many people are going to not buy a CD player because it costs $0.25 too much?
Besides which, Firewire is the only solution for your hypothetical CD player. USB doesn't do peer-to-peer, so you'll need a computer around if you want that CD player to talk to anything else.
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Oh no! $0.25/device! We'll go bankrupt!
How much more are they going to have to pay Intel for chipsets with USB-2.0 so Intel can recoup development costs? Let's be serious here. This story is Intel FUD. There are already millions of computers and consumer electronics devices out there with Firewire. There are none with USB-2.0, and USB-2.0 is totally worthless to the consumer electronics industry. There are nearly 30 Firewire devices shipping today, and many, many more have been announced. We're seeing with Firewire a rampup of of almost exactly the same proportions we saw with original USB last year.
Sure, USB-2.0 ports might end up on computers. Right next to the Firewire ports.
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That should NOT be a score zero.
And BTW, the Firewire licensing fee is now $0.25/device, rather than $1/port as it used to be.
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It's impossible that Sony will. USB needs a computer on the bus, and Sony wants you to be able to hook that camcorder with Firewire up to that TV with Firewire and that recordable DVD with Firewire. Firewire is the future of consumer electronics, and it'll be really nice to be able to hook all this stuff up to your computer as well.
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Please update your information.
Firewire licensing is $0.25 per _device_ not per port, and Apple doesn't even get all of that (it's divided among all the companies involved in Firewire development).
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Intel is trying kill Firewire because it doesn't require a computer on the bus. That scares the hell out of them. It's the same reason USB 2.0 won't ever replace Firewire: it's useless to the (very large and powerful) consumer electronics industry.
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They use G3s. I'm sure they'll switch to G4 now that it's out, but they've had MP products for Macs for quite some time, and they're G3 based.
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They have something shipping. It's an external PCI-based "PowerBox" that you load up with their CPU cards. I've heard of these guys before. The seem to do some crazy hardware hacking.
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Why do I bet you wouldn't see this if this were from any other company?
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This rumors has either proved incorrect or upgrade makers have found a way around it. The folks at Mac OS Rumors say they've seen a B&W boot and run with a G4 card in it.
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