I remember feeling a bit cheated to read of John's death and the loss ten days later of the G&D. That's 31 years ago.
Another memory was watching Warren Beatty in "Dick Tracy" - the nightime scenes by the docks looked just Like one of John Allen's simulated nightime shots of Port City (well at least the color and mood).
Wonder how many of the young'uns on Slashdot would know how to pronounce Gorre & Daphetid.
I can only assume that this is only going to be limited to SPARC...
Probably applicable to the G5 as well (and Alpha, PA-RISC, MIPS), which like the SPARC has pretty much the same architecture for 32 bits and 64 bits.
The Itanic has an IA-32 subsystem hanging on it - performance is really poor compared to the main 64 bit core. The Opteron has more registers available in 64 bit mode than 32 bit mode and should show some performance improvements just for that reason.
As has been said mucho times - 64 bit processors really shine when you have lots of memory to work with. Having said that, one advantage of 64 bits is being able to memory map a large file and can result in better performance even with much less than 4 GB of memory - witness the MySQL tests.
Re:going off topic - Monitor for HP 9000 715/100XC
on
Sun Sparc 5 Nostalgia
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· Score: 1
The Sun monitors should work - they typically run 1280x1024@76Hz. Dunno about the video pin-outs
The 9000/700 series were nice machines - HP-UX was very stable, and of course CDE is essentially a slightly updated VUE.
Microsoft made a Z-80 card for the Apple ][+ way back in the day for CPM apps
A little bit of history - that card was originally designed by Seattle Computer Products - who later wrote Q/86/MS-DOS. SCP ended up getting shafted by MS both times.
64bit, up to 8gigs of ram, 160GB SATA, 1Ghz frontside bus.
A couple of differences:
Sun uses ECC memory, Apple doesn't
Solaris has supported 64 bit for 5 years
The scuttlebutt on comp.arch is that the Va Tech Mac cluster is pretty much useless for the biggest problems due to the lack of ECC memory. The new Apple G5 servers do have ECC.
OTOH, it would be really nice if the SB1500 supported SATA. By the way, the processor to memory bus is 4.2 GB/sec and the separate I/O bus (Jbus) is capable of about 4 GB/sec.
The memory limit on the SB1500 is 16 GB of RAM achieved by stuffing the 4 DIMM slots with 4 GB modules. Crucial sells modules that look like they will work for a measly $6999 each. Crucial does sell 2 GB modules that will work in the V240 and should work in the SB1500 (PC2100 - 168 pin DIMM's, ECC, registered and CL=2.5) - these modules were listing for $899 ea this last week.
The 4 GB RAM limit is for memory that Sun currently supports (and sells) - i.e., if the box is under warranty and the ram flakes out, Sun is obligated to fix it. If you use 3rd party RAM (e.g. Crucial), then it is up to you to deal with problems with RAM.
The low end Sun boxes do have some feature not available on x86 PC's (I'm old enough and curmudgeonly enough to remember when PC meant Personal Computer and didn't imply an x86 box). Even the low end Sun's have open boot firmware, which is nicer than most PC bios's. Solaris/Sparc has had the no execute from stack feature for several years now. You do have an option of a Unix style keyboard (i.e. key next to the 'A' key).
This is the second time I've read the Jem report and the second time wondering if Jem has any clue.
US high alert for one week during Israel-Arab war,
For those Slashdotters too young to remember, this was going on about the same time as the Saturday Massacre - where Nixon ordered Eliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox. The anti-Nixon folks were having a field day (I was at UC Bezerkeley at the time).
There was another side of the story that didn't come out till much later. The Israelis had readied their nuclear armed missiles for launch, the Soviets were threatening Israel with retaliation in case Israel launched and the US was basically threatening the Soviets with retaliation.
After hearing about what went on during the 1973 war, it is too bad that someone from the Pentagon didn't walk over to the US Supreme Court and persuaded the Justices to tell Cox to lay low until things quited down - as this was the closest we got to nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis.
The warplan devised in the 20's for the defeat of Japan...
From what I've read, the US Navy was working on plan Orange shortly after 1900 - with the then recent acquisition of the Philipines and Guam, the Navy figured that the US and Japan would come to blows sooner or later.
When Theodore Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet on an around the world cruise (1907-08), the US Government was carefully watching Japan's reaction - at that time they were not interested in fighting a war with the Japanese.
The US made use of decrypted messages in the early 1920's to get the Japanese to accept a smaller limit for capital ships. The unfortunate part was that the cryptographer was kicked out of his job in 1929 and no effort was made to keep him from talking about what he did - and when that came out, the Japanese were furious.
It's an attack pure and simple you shitheaded talking-head slut.
The headline was misleading because it implied that the US was planning an attack - the reality was that Brit Intelligence thought that the US may have been planning an attack/invasion as opposed to having the actual invasion plans.
He does have a point about companies needing a return on investment - wasn't there a recent Slashdot article on how corporate users of free software were/were not giving back to the community?
Lyons does fall into the trap of assuming the economics of tangible goods apply to intangible goods.
Community WLANs, VoIP, Open Source projects....aren't these things all technologically and socially proven by now?
Open source projects - yes.
VoIP - Ummm, somebody has to pay for the IP infrastructure.
Community WLAN's - possible in a tight knit community, only takes a couple of contrarians to disrupt a large scale WLAN.
Please note that open source projects involve creation of information while the other two are about how information is transferred. Also remember that open source colloboration pretty much started on Usenet where the consumers were paying their own way (through phone bills and access charges).
When I went to work at HP I was amazed to find the default shell of HPUX to be Ksh (Korn), sort of a Children of the Korn Environment?
FWIW, the Korn shell was available before BASH and came with most commercial unices from about 1990 on. Korn's intent was to have a shell that was useful for programming as the original Bourne shell and was as nice for interactive use as the C shell.
BASH is common on Linux as the source code for KSH was not widely available until relatively recently. The other problem is that most unices come with an old version of ksh (1988).
All joking aside, and with all due respect to you, cmd.exe is an utter and complete clumsy piece of shit. And it has been in every incarnation since command.com on DOS.
To put things in perspective, the *-DOS 1.x could be fit in 16 to 20 kB of RAM which included both COMMAND.COM and a couple of kB for the FAT. Not surprising that it didn't do much. OTOH, M$ was kinda slow updating the utilities, e.g. EDLIN didn't go away until DOS 5.0 (Tim Patterson was planning to have a successor ready sometime in 1981).
There was a package to put UNIX shell like functionality on the Z-80 - but it took up 32 kB of RAM (out of 64 kB available).
Ex 2: KOffice. I've never used it, but it's absolutely essential that OS X has a free naitive-running office package. Unless the OO.org aqua port gets back up, this package will likely be KOffice.
One of the best thing about KOffice is that it isn't a straight M$-Office clone - KOffice does things a bit differently. One of the chief advantages of OS X is that it isn't a clone of M$-Windoze (where Windoze may be considered a poor attempt at cloning Mac OS).
For those of you with Unix backgrounds, it's somewhat like the firmware in PA-RISC workstations that normally bootstraps HP-UX.
Sounds more like the Open Boot interface found on Sun Workstations with the exception of the DRM (Open boot is pretty open). I have heard stories about having to go through hoops to load Linux on a PA-RISC box, whereas Sun has a couple of pages on their website on how to set up a Sparc box to dual boot Solaris and Linux. Part of the reason for HP's DRM is to keep people from loading MPE onto HP 9000-series hardware.
What will be even more interesting to see is what steps AMD takes with regards to EFI.
In fact, for the first ten years of its life, when it had no clear monopoly in the OS market (Apple was still a force to be reckoned with) that was one of the main ingredients of M$ success.
The future of the PC-DOS platform was pretty much up in the air before Lotus 1-2-3 and for a while many people the only purpose for DOS was to get 1-2-3 up and running. It wasn't until the late 80's that M$'s revenues caught up with Lotus.
In the early 80's DRI was also a force to be reckoned with and the arrogance to go along with it. If Zilog had their act in gear and got the Z-800 out in late '79, Q/86/PC/MS-DOS would have been a footnote.
Mechanical (hydraulic) transmissions have roughly the same efficiency as electric transmissions and were actually quite comon in Europe. Electric transmissions made use of the DC series motor having the highest torque at zero speed and with the Lemp contorl on the generator could provide a continuously variable transmission.
The big disadvantages of a mechanical transmission is that you need room for the driveshaft and that the wheels need to be kept to the same diameter.
From what I heard, the 860 was actually a moderately successful chip, the problem was that it encouraged people to move away from the x86 ISA and thus got shitcanned by Andy Groves (who wanted to lock in people to the x86).
Though many designs like trains don't have battery packs (yet)
Alco-GE-IR made a few tri-power locomotives in the 1925-30 era (tri-power meant battery, diesel or straigh-electric). The Central Electric Railfan's Association republished some of Westinghouse's literature on railway electrification and there were a couple of pages on gas electic buses.
Within the last couple of years, one company announced a diesel hybrid switching locomotive - the diesel's function was to keep the batteries charged. A diesel-electric/battery hybrid locomotive could make for a great commuter rail loco for pretty mmuch the same reason why a series hybrid would work for a bus - there's a lot of stop and go.
How about something even more radical: fix the wheel and put the springs into the tire.
Sounds like a variation of the quill drive used on electric locomotives - the axle was inside the quill, the motor shaft was either the quil or geared to the quill and the quill was connected to the axle via springs. This technology was common about 1900.
What they're doing isn't exactly new, IIRC LeTorneau was using a similar idea for their construction equipment. Electric drives for buses have been around for decades (ca 1920).
There is an important advantage, the "whispering wheels" allow for the elimination of the axle which then allows for a lower floor. The low floor is especially important when dealing with disabled riders (I'm including people who need walking aids as "disabled"). As an example, most "heavy" rapid transit systems have floor level platforms that allow for riders to walk on or off the trains - and wheelchairs can roll on/off as well.
I was about to post that fact - but you beat me to it.;-)
Considering (IIRC) that he used to work for Time-Warner, I really question his objectivity in copyright cases. It might be interesting to investigate his financial records to see if there is a conflict of interest.
Other than the unfortunate fact that he is a Federal judge, he's someone that would be best ignored.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember feeling a bit cheated to read of John's death and the loss ten days later of the G&D. That's 31 years ago.
Another memory was watching Warren Beatty in "Dick Tracy" - the nightime scenes by the docks looked just Like one of John Allen's simulated nightime shots of Port City (well at least the color and mood).
Wonder how many of the young'uns on Slashdot would know how to pronounce Gorre & Daphetid.
Probably applicable to the G5 as well (and Alpha, PA-RISC, MIPS), which like the SPARC has pretty much the same architecture for 32 bits and 64 bits.
The Itanic has an IA-32 subsystem hanging on it - performance is really poor compared to the main 64 bit core. The Opteron has more registers available in 64 bit mode than 32 bit mode and should show some performance improvements just for that reason.
As has been said mucho times - 64 bit processors really shine when you have lots of memory to work with. Having said that, one advantage of 64 bits is being able to memory map a large file and can result in better performance even with much less than 4 GB of memory - witness the MySQL tests.
The 9000/700 series were nice machines - HP-UX was very stable, and of course CDE is essentially a slightly updated VUE.
Try a decade earlier - the first color TV's came out in the 50's and the last B&W prime-time programs were in the 1965-66 season.
A little bit of history - that card was originally designed by Seattle Computer Products - who later wrote Q/86/MS-DOS. SCP ended up getting shafted by MS both times.
64bit, up to 8gigs of ram, 160GB SATA, 1Ghz frontside bus.
A couple of differences:
Sun uses ECC memory, Apple doesn't
Solaris has supported 64 bit for 5 years
The scuttlebutt on comp.arch is that the Va Tech Mac cluster is pretty much useless for the biggest problems due to the lack of ECC memory. The new Apple G5 servers do have ECC.
OTOH, it would be really nice if the SB1500 supported SATA. By the way, the processor to memory bus is 4.2 GB/sec and the separate I/O bus (Jbus) is capable of about 4 GB/sec.
The memory limit on the SB1500 is 16 GB of RAM achieved by stuffing the 4 DIMM slots with 4 GB modules. Crucial sells modules that look like they will work for a measly $6999 each. Crucial does sell 2 GB modules that will work in the V240 and should work in the SB1500 (PC2100 - 168 pin DIMM's, ECC, registered and CL=2.5) - these modules were listing for $899 ea this last week.
The 4 GB RAM limit is for memory that Sun currently supports (and sells) - i.e., if the box is under warranty and the ram flakes out, Sun is obligated to fix it. If you use 3rd party RAM (e.g. Crucial), then it is up to you to deal with problems with RAM.
The low end Sun boxes do have some feature not available on x86 PC's (I'm old enough and curmudgeonly enough to remember when PC meant Personal Computer and didn't imply an x86 box). Even the low end Sun's have open boot firmware, which is nicer than most PC bios's. Solaris/Sparc has had the no execute from stack feature for several years now. You do have an option of a Unix style keyboard (i.e. key next to the 'A' key).
This is the second time I've read the Jem report and the second time wondering if Jem has any clue.
For those Slashdotters too young to remember, this was going on about the same time as the Saturday Massacre - where Nixon ordered Eliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox. The anti-Nixon folks were having a field day (I was at UC Bezerkeley at the time).
There was another side of the story that didn't come out till much later. The Israelis had readied their nuclear armed missiles for launch, the Soviets were threatening Israel with retaliation in case Israel launched and the US was basically threatening the Soviets with retaliation.
After hearing about what went on during the 1973 war, it is too bad that someone from the Pentagon didn't walk over to the US Supreme Court and persuaded the Justices to tell Cox to lay low until things quited down - as this was the closest we got to nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis.
From what I've read, the US Navy was working on plan Orange shortly after 1900 - with the then recent acquisition of the Philipines and Guam, the Navy figured that the US and Japan would come to blows sooner or later.
When Theodore Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet on an around the world cruise (1907-08), the US Government was carefully watching Japan's reaction - at that time they were not interested in fighting a war with the Japanese.
The US made use of decrypted messages in the early 1920's to get the Japanese to accept a smaller limit for capital ships. The unfortunate part was that the cryptographer was kicked out of his job in 1929 and no effort was made to keep him from talking about what he did - and when that came out, the Japanese were furious.
The headline was misleading because it implied that the US was planning an attack - the reality was that Brit Intelligence thought that the US may have been planning an attack/invasion as opposed to having the actual invasion plans.
He does have a point about companies needing a return on investment - wasn't there a recent Slashdot article on how corporate users of free software were/were not giving back to the community?
Lyons does fall into the trap of assuming the economics of tangible goods apply to intangible goods.
Open source projects - yes.
VoIP - Ummm, somebody has to pay for the IP infrastructure.
Community WLAN's - possible in a tight knit community, only takes a couple of contrarians to disrupt a large scale WLAN.
Please note that open source projects involve creation of information while the other two are about how information is transferred. Also remember that open source colloboration pretty much started on Usenet where the consumers were paying their own way (through phone bills and access charges).
FWIW, the Korn shell was available before BASH and came with most commercial unices from about 1990 on. Korn's intent was to have a shell that was useful for programming as the original Bourne shell and was as nice for interactive use as the C shell.
BASH is common on Linux as the source code for KSH was not widely available until relatively recently. The other problem is that most unices come with an old version of ksh (1988).
To put things in perspective, the *-DOS 1.x could be fit in 16 to 20 kB of RAM which included both COMMAND.COM and a couple of kB for the FAT. Not surprising that it didn't do much. OTOH, M$ was kinda slow updating the utilities, e.g. EDLIN didn't go away until DOS 5.0 (Tim Patterson was planning to have a successor ready sometime in 1981).
There was a package to put UNIX shell like functionality on the Z-80 - but it took up 32 kB of RAM (out of 64 kB available).
Think Sun might be smart enough to put Open Firmware on their soon to be released Opteron boxes? One can only hope...
One of the best thing about KOffice is that it isn't a straight M$-Office clone - KOffice does things a bit differently. One of the chief advantages of OS X is that it isn't a clone of M$-Windoze (where Windoze may be considered a poor attempt at cloning Mac OS).
For those of you with Unix backgrounds, it's somewhat like the firmware in PA-RISC workstations that normally bootstraps HP-UX.
Sounds more like the Open Boot interface found on Sun Workstations with the exception of the DRM (Open boot is pretty open). I have heard stories about having to go through hoops to load Linux on a PA-RISC box, whereas Sun has a couple of pages on their website on how to set up a Sparc box to dual boot Solaris and Linux. Part of the reason for HP's DRM is to keep people from loading MPE onto HP 9000-series hardware.
What will be even more interesting to see is what steps AMD takes with regards to EFI.
The future of the PC-DOS platform was pretty much up in the air before Lotus 1-2-3 and for a while many people the only purpose for DOS was to get 1-2-3 up and running. It wasn't until the late 80's that M$'s revenues caught up with Lotus.
In the early 80's DRI was also a force to be reckoned with and the arrogance to go along with it. If Zilog had their act in gear and got the Z-800 out in late '79, Q/86/PC/MS-DOS would have been a footnote.
Mechanical (hydraulic) transmissions have roughly the same efficiency as electric transmissions and were actually quite comon in Europe. Electric transmissions made use of the DC series motor having the highest torque at zero speed and with the Lemp contorl on the generator could provide a continuously variable transmission.
The big disadvantages of a mechanical transmission is that you need room for the driveshaft and that the wheels need to be kept to the same diameter.
From what I heard, the 860 was actually a moderately successful chip, the problem was that it encouraged people to move away from the x86 ISA and thus got shitcanned by Andy Groves (who wanted to lock in people to the x86).
The Itanic is more like the iAPX-432.
Alco-GE-IR made a few tri-power locomotives in the 1925-30 era (tri-power meant battery, diesel or straigh-electric). The Central Electric Railfan's Association republished some of Westinghouse's literature on railway electrification and there were a couple of pages on gas electic buses.
Within the last couple of years, one company announced a diesel hybrid switching locomotive - the diesel's function was to keep the batteries charged. A diesel-electric/battery hybrid locomotive could make for a great commuter rail loco for pretty mmuch the same reason why a series hybrid would work for a bus - there's a lot of stop and go.
Sounds like a variation of the quill drive used on electric locomotives - the axle was inside the quill, the motor shaft was either the quil or geared to the quill and the quill was connected to the axle via springs. This technology was common about 1900.
My thoughts exactly.
What they're doing isn't exactly new, IIRC LeTorneau was using a similar idea for their construction equipment. Electric drives for buses have been around for decades (ca 1920).
There is an important advantage, the "whispering wheels" allow for the elimination of the axle which then allows for a lower floor. The low floor is especially important when dealing with disabled riders (I'm including people who need walking aids as "disabled"). As an example, most "heavy" rapid transit systems have floor level platforms that allow for riders to walk on or off the trains - and wheelchairs can roll on/off as well.
If Apple has any brains they would be busy porting their multimedia software to run on a full 64-bit version of OS X.
Another application that could always use more performance is finite element analysis - but that's more of niche than video editing.
Considering (IIRC) that he used to work for Time-Warner, I really question his objectivity in copyright cases. It might be interesting to investigate his financial records to see if there is a conflict of interest.
Other than the unfortunate fact that he is a Federal judge, he's someone that would be best ignored.