I presume they're talking about the Emotion Engine [tm] and not the PSX2 graphics coprocessor. (Hey, why doesn't it get a silly/cool name too?) Anyway, the EE was designed by Ken Kutaragi at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, IIRC. And I thought I remembered reading that Sony and Toshiba were building a new fab in Japan to crank out EE chips, which would make the EE a totally Japanese-made product. So I'm not sure where the export restrictions come in, unless the manufacturing situation has changed... --
Or maybe even...well, nothing really sarcastic for Time-Warner.
Product placement in WB 'toons, perhaps? Imagine: Brain plots his next scheme to take over the world with his G3 tower while Pinky plays Q3Test on his iMac! --
A basic MPEG-2 encoder card can currently be had for around $2000. Word is that more affordable (sub-$500) MPEG-2 encoder cards are on their way and should be out be the end of the year. I'm having no luck finding references on this, but Philips has a new low-cost single-chip encoder (the SAA6750H) that's supposed to find its way onto these cards. These chips weigh in at about US$40 (in lots of 100,000) so that may give a good idea of the cost of the final product. --
There's supposedly a version of the S320 II that uses SDRAM instead of SGRAM, though I've never seen it for sale. In any case, my SGRAM version runs fine with the standard nVidia drivers, so no worries there. It's a great card; the only nitpick I have is that it didn't come with any bundled games...:) --
According to 3dfx's own press release, this case revolves around a breach of license, specifically "the use and modification of...3dfx source code to operate with non-3dfx acceleration technology."
I'm pretty sure the WINE developers haven't seen the Windows source code, but they seem to have done all right. The point being that original source code is not necessary to write your own version of an API.
So does 3dfx have any proof that Creative abused their access to the Glide code? Or are they just slinging FUD? It seems to me that if 3dfx is going to haul Creative into court, they're gonna need more than accusations... unless they're trying to outdo M$ for Most Inept Performance in a Courtroom.;) --
The S320 II doesn't have onboard MPEG hardware AFAIK. (Although the Leadtek website seems to suggest it does... odd.) It does come with some sweet DVD software though (CyberLink PowerDVD)-- on my Celery/400 box it plays fullscreen at 1280x1024 flawlessly... --
Last time I checked (this has been a couple of years):
ABC was scrambled most of the time
CBS was scrambled on some channels but not on others
NBC was scrambled often
Fox was never scrambled
I got to watch Babylon 5 a week ahead of everyone else:)
I wish I still had a C-band dish. It was always fun to find all the weird stuff out there. (Anyone ever watch Dr. Gene Scott? Heh.) --
BunnyPeople[tm] must die
on
Cool PC Cases
·
· Score: 2
Grr. I'm trying to look at these concept designs, and I find myself downloading an 1800x1200 [!] jpeg, of which about 400x512 is an actual PC, and the rest is a hot pink BunnyPerson[tm].
or are we just up against the basic truth that people like the SNES9X group simply don't live under the same set of laws as huge corporations with lawyers such as MS?
Bingo. Although, to be fair, emulation of ROM-cartridge-based systems is a bit more of a gray area than something like PSX emulation, since you have to make a copy to use the emulator.
whatever happened to SNES9X, anyway? the way i understood it from the earlier/. story they got some letter from nintendo saying they were illegal, and they immediately ceased to exist.
The ISP hosting www.snes9x.com got a nastygram from Nintendo and shut the site down. AFAIK, Jeremy Koot (the guy behind SNES9X) hasn't been threatened with any legal action. The SNES9X project is still around and looking for a new home (see Zophar's Domain for the latest news).
Overall, I'd say this ruling is a Good Thing[tm] for emulation... but it may not make a difference until a company with deep pockets gets sued by Sony/Nintendo/whoever. --
At the risk of sounding Clintonesque... that depends on how you define "network", doesn't it?
I'd guess less than 5% of web sites and newsgroups carry this stuff. But the bandwidth consumed by it is another story altogether. I have no clue how much bandwidth is used by Anarcho-Porn[TM] content, but I guarantee it's far out of proportion to the number of sites/groups carrying it.
It would be interesting if we could shut down all the porn sites on the Web for a day and see how much faster the net runs...:)
Ironic that we've bought millions (billions?) of dollars in computing power for NSA, but SETI has to borrow our spare cycles...:P
This is pretty creepy. What the heck is NSA doing with all that power, anyway? Is there really that much encrypted signal traffic out there? Or are they just passing the time watching free HBO that they've descrambled with their Crays? --
The NSA probably would have considered Deep Crack (the EFF's key buster) a keen and useful computer -- twenty years ago.
Just curious -- is there any actual justification behind this statement? I keep hearing people say things like this, and I wonder: does NSA really have more computing power than the rest of the world combined, or is this just another urban legend? --
Not sure how you can equate these. Paramount's been churnin' out the Trek as fast as they can, while Lucas has released nothing truly new since Jedi. It's been a longer (and more agonizing) wait for TPM. I just hope it doesn't suck...
In any case, I've got my ticket, I'll be experiencing TPM in less than two hours, and I'm seriously psyched. =^) --
In my (very limited, workstation-only) experience with NT, I've found that it either a) runs beautifully or b) crashes like crazy. My '95 box at home is the same way. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground of any kind. And since so much of what makes Windows tick is undocumented to the point of being unconfigurable (Looked at your Registry lately? What the hell are all those cryptic hex values?), when your box becomes unstable, your only recourse is to reinstall and pray. --
A modchip won't do the job, but there do exist MPEG-1 decoder boxes that hang off the PSX serial port. I've seen a couple of places online that sell 'em. They're kinda pricey though.
If you have a DVD player it might be able to play VCDs. (I think most can, but some choke on CD-Rs.) --
Interesting story, crappy article. I am amazed that any one would allow that to go out with their name on it.
No kidding. I liked this part:
Once introduced as a pure gaming platform, the PlayStation now includes computing components such as DVD drives and Internet access.
Now the implication here is clearly that I can upgrade my current PSX with DVD and a modem. In reality, I'd need to buy a PSX2 (not out until at least next year) to get this functionality.
Nice to see a journalist who doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story, though.;)
(ps: anyone know what kind of cpu AIBO uses? I can't find any mention of it on the Sony site)
It would certainly make porting games easier... but it would only encourage the use of DirectX instead of open standards. And do we really want to promote Direct3D? *shudder*
Slashdot Mirror
I presume they're talking about the Emotion Engine [tm] and not the PSX2 graphics coprocessor. (Hey, why doesn't it get a silly/cool name too?) Anyway, the EE was designed by Ken Kutaragi at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, IIRC. And I thought I remembered reading that Sony and Toshiba were building a new fab in Japan to crank out EE chips, which would make the EE a totally Japanese-made product. So I'm not sure where the export restrictions come in, unless the manufacturing situation has changed...
--
Product placement in WB 'toons, perhaps? Imagine: Brain plots his next scheme to take over the world with his G3 tower while Pinky plays Q3Test on his iMac!
--
That's about the only thing this goon's posted that isn't a lie.
You can't make stuff like this up...
(insert your own "Linux port/Beowulf cluster/etc" joke here)
--
A basic MPEG-2 encoder card can currently be had for around $2000. Word is that more affordable (sub-$500) MPEG-2 encoder cards are on their way and should be out be the end of the year. I'm having no luck finding references on this, but Philips has a new low-cost single-chip encoder (the SAA6750H) that's supposed to find its way onto these cards. These chips weigh in at about US$40 (in lots of 100,000) so that may give a good idea of the cost of the final product.
--
There's supposedly a version of the S320 II that uses SDRAM instead of SGRAM, though I've never seen it for sale. In any case, my SGRAM version runs fine with the standard nVidia drivers, so no worries there. It's a great card; the only nitpick I have is that it didn't come with any bundled games... :)
--
I'm pretty sure the WINE developers haven't seen the Windows source code, but they seem to have done all right. The point being that original source code is not necessary to write your own version of an API.
So does 3dfx have any proof that Creative abused their access to the Glide code? Or are they just slinging FUD? It seems to me that if 3dfx is going to haul Creative into court, they're gonna need more than accusations... unless they're trying to outdo M$ for Most Inept Performance in a Courtroom. ;)
--
The S320 II doesn't have onboard MPEG hardware AFAIK. (Although the Leadtek website seems to suggest it does... odd.) It does come with some sweet DVD software though (CyberLink PowerDVD)-- on my Celery/400 box it plays fullscreen at 1280x1024 flawlessly...
--
AFAIK you can still subscribe to premium channels via satellite just like with cable. I seem to recall that satellite is more expensive though :P
--
- ABC was scrambled most of the time
- CBS was scrambled on some channels but not on others
- NBC was scrambled often
- Fox was never scrambled
- I got to watch Babylon 5 a week ahead of everyone else
:)
I wish I still had a C-band dish. It was always fun to find all the weird stuff out there.(Anyone ever watch Dr. Gene Scott? Heh.)
--
Dammit, I'm bitter now.
--
And of course this comes out right after I bought a shiny new Socket-370 mobo... :P
--
Like this?
--
Bingo. Although, to be fair, emulation of ROM-cartridge-based systems is a bit more of a gray area than something like PSX emulation, since you have to make a copy to use the emulator.
whatever happened to SNES9X, anyway? the way i understood it from the earlier /. story they got some letter from nintendo saying they were illegal, and they immediately ceased to exist.
The ISP hosting www.snes9x.com got a nastygram from Nintendo and shut the site down. AFAIK, Jeremy Koot (the guy behind SNES9X) hasn't been threatened with any legal action. The SNES9X project is still around and looking for a new home (see Zophar's Domain for the latest news).
Overall, I'd say this ruling is a Good Thing[tm] for emulation... but it may not make a difference until a company with deep pockets gets sued by Sony/Nintendo/whoever.
--
Better: serve special pre-censored pages to *.gov.au...
You can't block what you can't see, right?
--
At the risk of sounding Clintonesque... that depends on how you define "network", doesn't it?
:)
I'd guess less than 5% of web sites and newsgroups carry this stuff. But the bandwidth consumed by it is another story altogether. I have no clue how much bandwidth is used by Anarcho-Porn[TM] content, but I guarantee it's far out of proportion to the number of sites/groups carrying it.
It would be interesting if we could shut down all the porn sites on the Web for a day and see how much faster the net runs...
--
Can't we Slashdotters talk about anything without bringing gun control into it?
I mean, what's next? Comparing the Aussie parliament to Hitler?
(oops...)
--
Ironic that we've bought millions (billions?) of dollars in computing power for NSA, but SETI has to borrow our spare cycles... :P
This is pretty creepy. What the heck is NSA doing with all that power, anyway? Is there really that much encrypted signal traffic out there? Or are they just passing the time watching free HBO that they've descrambled with their Crays?
--
Just curious -- is there any actual justification behind this statement? I keep hearing people say things like this, and I wonder: does NSA really have more computing power than the rest of the world combined, or is this just another urban legend?
--
Honestly: would you rather be running Linux 2.2.x on a $2,000 Pentium III or K7, or Linux 7.9.x on a $10,000 386?
--
Star Trek movies released since 1977: 9
Star Wars movies released since 1977: 4
Not sure how you can equate these. Paramount's been churnin' out the Trek as fast as they can, while Lucas has released nothing truly new since Jedi. It's been a longer (and more agonizing) wait for TPM. I just hope it doesn't suck...
In any case, I've got my ticket, I'll be experiencing TPM in less than two hours, and I'm seriously psyched. =^)
--
In my (very limited, workstation-only) experience with NT, I've found that it either a) runs beautifully or b) crashes like crazy. My '95 box at home is the same way. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground of any kind. And since so much of what makes Windows tick is undocumented to the point of being unconfigurable (Looked at your Registry lately? What the hell are all those cryptic hex values?), when your box becomes unstable, your only recourse is to reinstall and pray.
--
If you have a DVD player it might be able to play VCDs. (I think most can, but some choke on CD-Rs.)
--
Get a clue. Your ethnicity should not affect your right not to be driven from your home at gunpoint.
--
No kidding. I liked this part:
Once introduced as a pure gaming platform, the PlayStation now includes computing components such as DVD drives and Internet access.
Now the implication here is clearly that I can upgrade my current PSX with DVD and a modem. In reality, I'd need to buy a PSX2 (not out until at least next year) to get this functionality.
Nice to see a journalist who doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story, though. ;)
(ps: anyone know what kind of cpu AIBO uses? I can't find any mention of it on the Sony site)
It would certainly make porting games easier... but it would only encourage the use of DirectX instead of open standards. And do we really want to promote Direct3D? *shudder*