> FLIST was just a combo of Xedit with REXX and its own macros.
Hmm, maybe it started out that way, but I don't think that's what it was I was using in '86. Xedit kinda sucked, I thought, but REXX was awesome - I taught myself the basics in an afternoon simply from the help files on the mainframe! Very cool stuff.
Nope. PCI-X is a much older technology, and very different from the new serial connector technology called PCI Express (abbreviated PCI-E). Macs _have_ had 64-bit 66mHz PCI for quite some time, though that's still nowhere near as sophisticated as PCI-E.
PCI-Express, however, will be replacing both AGP _and_ PCI slots, so all your peripherals will be using the same technology, albeit in different form factors (16x connector for AGP replacement, 1x or 4x connectors for most everything else). I believe it's 250MB/s (each direction?) per 'x' of connector length in PCI-E, so this will be a substantial improvement in bandwidth on PCI-E systems.
You'll be seeing 2.5gHz G5s first (perhaps next week, according to the rumour sites). The 3gHz machines aren't expected until end of summer, or thereabouts.
I'd be _very_ interested in playing with a generic PPC970FX board (www.970eval.com) with Linux, though, if it became affordable.
I'm _really_ hoping the new machines at end of summer come with PCI-E, so we can all get on with the task of migration at the same time as major processor upgrades.
Oh yeah, doin' the REXX on the VM system at UMR in 1986, woo! The school sucked, but that was fun.
I'd kill for FLIST & REXX nowadays. FLIST was the best file manager _EVAR_. For awhile, some UK company was working on FLIST for OS/2 (back in my OS/2 days), but they never seemed to get that off the ground. Too bad - running OS/2 v2 in textmode with Tshell, that would've been the PERFECT companion app.
Am I the only one around who really wouldn't mind a modern multitasking textmode OS every now and then? Maybe a text-mode version of Menuet, all asm, all the time. Runs off a floppy. Could be fun.
True, but I was more referring to the fact that Java would not be the best thing for such a platform. Assembly IS still the fastest & least-resource gobbling language available. I'd encourage anyone who's curious to check out http://menuetos.org to see what's possible. Heck, I've even seen a book at Amazon.com on object-oriented assembly language programming! Assembly is far from dead or obsolete.
Actually, I believe that was no meteorite, but, rather, the Sasquatch's spaceship returning to pick them up. I heard they got tired of slumming it on Earth.
> Not shape -- A billiard ball orbiting the sun is not a planet, despite its spherical shape.
True, but then again, that's a billiard ball. I would hope you could tell the difference.
Howzabout it must meet all of the following:
1) Orbits the sun 2) Spheroidal shape 3) How it formed (should be fairly obvious if it was formed via an acretion disc or if it's a fragment of something)
And of course, this being Slashdot, this list _must_ continue thusly:
Okay, both are spheroids. Both have atmospheres. Both orbit our sun. Both even have satellites of their own. The only reasons one COULD say that they're not are that they're small, and they're way far out there. Both of those 'arguments' are pretty pathetic, IMO.
In short, there are more reasons for them to BE classes as planets than for them NOT to be.
On a related note, 'Sedna' is a really good name for an HMO, but a really _horrible_ name for a planet! *booo* Hell, even 'Planet 10' is a better name than Sedna!
In a straight burn situation, true, they'll be pretty much identical (theoretically), but that's not the only situation - in reading files from a disc, you'll start to notice differences. And you'll probably notice differences if you're using packet writing, too.
That sounds like a very bad implementation of firewire on the iPod mini, which is quite surprising, being an Apple product. Was this on a Windows box? Perhaps a bad implementation of FireWire on the Windows box, if so. *shrug* _Every_ bench I've seen on FireWire vs USB has shown dramatic differences in favour of FireWire over USB2.
From the admittedly small amount of research I've done, it seems with DVD discs, Verbatim is among the best thought-of brands. Certainly a far cry from their CD-R efforts. I've not had much luck _finding_ Verbatims, yet, though, locally. I thought for sure they'd be easy to get at CompUSA or Office Depot, and suchlike, but so far, no go.:(
The "4x" generic house brand at Fry's is not so great - it only registers as 2.4x in my burner. *sigh*
You should find the thing much faster when used with FireWire than with USB2. Even plain ole FireWire a (400Mbps) is much faster than USB2 (at 480Mbps) due to latency type issues. I'd _love_ to have an external Firewire b (800Mbps), Firewire a (400), USB 2, USB 1.1 drive cage to maximum portability/compatability.
My NEC drive isn't the best 8x on the market, but I'm _amazed_ at how quiet it is. It also doesn't heat up the discs at all, unlike most every other burner I've ever used. It'd be great for a HTPC project. I think the price has dipped even lower than the $110 I paid for it (from newegg.com).
About a month or so after you give up on waiting for it and get a single-layer burner drive.
Please to note: double-layer burners will almost certainly burn to single-layer media, so it'll really just be a matter of waiting for the media to catch up to the drives, just like the current situation with 8x drives/media. It's not something you should really worry about, IMO.
You got a _USB2_ drive? Yeah, you should've regretted your purchase right away. Shoulda gone FireWire!:)
I just spent $110 for a black NEC 8x dual format burner, and I don't regret it a bit. If you think finding 8x media is hard (and lemme tell ya, no-name brand 4x media often only works at 2.4x!), you just wait till you try to find decent dual-layer media, and for a decent price. Here's a tip: don't hold your breath, unless you look good in blue.
Well, certainly movie DVDs are that way - I'd imagine they'll get around to the double-sided burnable variety soon enough, but having to turn over a disc to use the other side went out of favour back in the old days of 5.25" floppies. I don't think anyone would want to pay the extra money needed to get a drive that'll burn/read both sides without flipping a disc.
Better than that would be a multilayer drive using a blue laser - that'll get you north of 20Gig, and plans are afoot for such drives. Yay.
Much less efficient, for one, and not quite the same as AltiVec, or VelocityEngine, or whatever non-brand name you want to use for AltiVec. There's a _reason_ AltiVec machines do so much better at some computing tasks than the x86 crowd.
The thing is, I don't know who owns the AltiVec IP - Motorola, maybe? And I don't know if it's something they (or whomever) licenses or not. One would think AMD, at least, would be openminded enough to check it out, if so. An Athlon 64/FX/Opteron with AltiVec would be a real _beast_. I mean that in a good way, of course.
I wouldn't buy a 940 board for an FX system - 940 will be the thing to get for Opterons, if you want multi-proc, and/or registered memory to get LOTS of memory, for a DB machine or something. It's good to have a choice, as long as both choices are going to be around for awhile. Really, you'll want to target your platform (CPU & mobo choices) to what you want to do with your system.
I guess it's good this socket switch is happening at the same time as the switch to PCI-E, so you can get all this stuff outta the way at once.
Personally, there's no way I'd get a 939 board withOUT PCI-E at the same time - you're just going to have to ditch that soon enough, as well.
Really, I'm more interested in the PPC 970FX & 980, anyway. C'mon - 24.5 Watts for a 2gHz 970FX?! That's pretty amazing. I don't know if the 980 will have an on-die memory controller, but here's hoping.
As for other upcoming CPUs, the Intel Dothan also sounds very promising, as does the possibility of a multi-core version of the Dothan. I just wish Intel would wake up and make the Pentium-Ms for desktop platsforms. I also think the 2Meg L2 of the Dothan is overkill, and makes the chip more expensive than it needs to be. A 1Meg L2 is plenty for Dothan, and would reduce the die size considerably, and thus the cost. Intel's being a little strange on that front, though the Celeron-M is a good move.
I'm still curious as to why Intel and AMD haven't added AltiVec to their x86 processors.:(
Slashdot Mirror
> "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" -Steven Wright
:)
Everywhere.
> FLIST was just a combo of Xedit with REXX and its own macros.
Hmm, maybe it started out that way, but I don't think that's what it was I was using in '86. Xedit kinda sucked, I thought, but REXX was awesome - I taught myself the basics in an afternoon simply from the help files on the mainframe! Very cool stuff.
See, here's where it helps to read the entire post you're replying to before asking questions. Please to note:
> though, if it became affordable.
The eval board isn't, as you note, affordable. Neither are PowerMacs, though they are 'more' affordable.
Nope. PCI-X is a much older technology, and very different from the new serial connector technology called PCI Express (abbreviated PCI-E). Macs _have_ had 64-bit 66mHz PCI for quite some time, though that's still nowhere near as sophisticated as PCI-E.
PCI-Express, however, will be replacing both AGP _and_ PCI slots, so all your peripherals will be using the same technology, albeit in different form factors (16x connector for AGP replacement, 1x or 4x connectors for most everything else). I believe it's 250MB/s (each direction?) per 'x' of connector length in PCI-E, so this will be a substantial improvement in bandwidth on PCI-E systems.
You'll be seeing 2.5gHz G5s first (perhaps next week, according to the rumour sites). The 3gHz machines aren't expected until end of summer, or thereabouts.
I'd be _very_ interested in playing with a generic PPC970FX board (www.970eval.com) with Linux, though, if it became affordable.
I'm _really_ hoping the new machines at end of summer come with PCI-E, so we can all get on with the task of migration at the same time as major processor upgrades.
I don't care HOW many mouse buttons you have - I can always shake a stick at them.
Oh yeah, doin' the REXX on the VM system at UMR in 1986, woo! The school sucked, but that was fun.
I'd kill for FLIST & REXX nowadays. FLIST was the best file manager _EVAR_. For awhile, some UK company was working on FLIST for OS/2 (back in my OS/2 days), but they never seemed to get that off the ground. Too bad - running OS/2 v2 in textmode with Tshell, that would've been the PERFECT companion app.
Am I the only one around who really wouldn't mind a modern multitasking textmode OS every now and then? Maybe a text-mode version of Menuet, all asm, all the time. Runs off a floppy. Could be fun.
"And after that, we shall merge the commandline and the GUI!"
True, but I was more referring to the fact that Java would not be the best thing for such a platform. Assembly IS still the fastest & least-resource gobbling language available. I'd encourage anyone who's curious to check out http://menuetos.org to see what's possible. Heck, I've even seen a book at Amazon.com on object-oriented assembly language programming! Assembly is far from dead or obsolete.
You should see the computers they use on the Shuttle, though. Not exactly state of the art in anything except radiation hardening.
Actually, I believe that was no meteorite, but, rather, the Sasquatch's spaceship returning to pick them up. I heard they got tired of slumming it on Earth.
Yeah, that's what they get for having their biggest hero be William Shatner. *gag*
> Not shape -- A billiard ball orbiting the sun is not a planet, despite its spherical shape.
...
True, but then again, that's a billiard ball. I would hope you could tell the difference.
Howzabout it must meet all of the following:
1) Orbits the sun
2) Spheroidal shape
3) How it formed (should be fairly obvious if it was formed via an acretion disc or if it's a fragment of something)
And of course, this being Slashdot, this list _must_ continue thusly:
4)
5) Profit!
Okay, both are spheroids. Both have atmospheres. Both orbit our sun. Both even have satellites of their own. The only reasons one COULD say that they're not are that they're small, and they're way far out there. Both of those 'arguments' are pretty pathetic, IMO.
In short, there are more reasons for them to BE classes as planets than for them NOT to be.
On a related note, 'Sedna' is a really good name for an HMO, but a really _horrible_ name for a planet! *booo* Hell, even 'Planet 10' is a better name than Sedna!
In a straight burn situation, true, they'll be pretty much identical (theoretically), but that's not the only situation - in reading files from a disc, you'll start to notice differences. And you'll probably notice differences if you're using packet writing, too.
That sounds like a very bad implementation of firewire on the iPod mini, which is quite surprising, being an Apple product. Was this on a Windows box? Perhaps a bad implementation of FireWire on the Windows box, if so. *shrug* _Every_ bench I've seen on FireWire vs USB has shown dramatic differences in favour of FireWire over USB2.
From the admittedly small amount of research I've done, it seems with DVD discs, Verbatim is among the best thought-of brands. Certainly a far cry from their CD-R efforts. I've not had much luck _finding_ Verbatims, yet, though, locally. I thought for sure they'd be easy to get at CompUSA or Office Depot, and suchlike, but so far, no go. :(
The "4x" generic house brand at Fry's is not so great - it only registers as 2.4x in my burner. *sigh*
You should find the thing much faster when used with FireWire than with USB2. Even plain ole FireWire a (400Mbps) is much faster than USB2 (at 480Mbps) due to latency type issues. I'd _love_ to have an external Firewire b (800Mbps), Firewire a (400), USB 2, USB 1.1 drive cage to maximum portability/compatability.
My NEC drive isn't the best 8x on the market, but I'm _amazed_ at how quiet it is. It also doesn't heat up the discs at all, unlike most every other burner I've ever used. It'd be great for a HTPC project. I think the price has dipped even lower than the $110 I paid for it (from newegg.com).
> When will dual layer media be available?
About a month or so after you give up on waiting for it and get a single-layer burner drive.
Please to note: double-layer burners will almost certainly burn to single-layer media, so it'll really just be a matter of waiting for the media to catch up to the drives, just like the current situation with 8x drives/media. It's not something you should really worry about, IMO.
You got a _USB2_ drive? Yeah, you should've regretted your purchase right away. Shoulda gone FireWire! :)
I just spent $110 for a black NEC 8x dual format burner, and I don't regret it a bit. If you think finding 8x media is hard (and lemme tell ya, no-name brand 4x media often only works at 2.4x!), you just wait till you try to find decent dual-layer media, and for a decent price. Here's a tip: don't hold your breath, unless you look good in blue.
Well, certainly movie DVDs are that way - I'd imagine they'll get around to the double-sided burnable variety soon enough, but having to turn over a disc to use the other side went out of favour back in the old days of 5.25" floppies. I don't think anyone would want to pay the extra money needed to get a drive that'll burn/read both sides without flipping a disc.
Better than that would be a multilayer drive using a blue laser - that'll get you north of 20Gig, and plans are afoot for such drives. Yay.
What, you mean, like with robot arms moving the pieces and stuff? Yeah, that'd be cool. :)
fdisk, too. :)
Much less efficient, for one, and not quite the same as AltiVec, or VelocityEngine, or whatever non-brand name you want to use for AltiVec. There's a _reason_ AltiVec machines do so much better at some computing tasks than the x86 crowd.
The thing is, I don't know who owns the AltiVec IP - Motorola, maybe? And I don't know if it's something they (or whomever) licenses or not. One would think AMD, at least, would be openminded enough to check it out, if so. An Athlon 64/FX/Opteron with AltiVec would be a real _beast_. I mean that in a good way, of course.
I wouldn't buy a 940 board for an FX system - 940 will be the thing to get for Opterons, if you want multi-proc, and/or registered memory to get LOTS of memory, for a DB machine or something. It's good to have a choice, as long as both choices are going to be around for awhile. Really, you'll want to target your platform (CPU & mobo choices) to what you want to do with your system.
:(
I guess it's good this socket switch is happening at the same time as the switch to PCI-E, so you can get all this stuff outta the way at once.
Personally, there's no way I'd get a 939 board withOUT PCI-E at the same time - you're just going to have to ditch that soon enough, as well.
Really, I'm more interested in the PPC 970FX & 980, anyway. C'mon - 24.5 Watts for a 2gHz 970FX?! That's pretty amazing. I don't know if the 980 will have an on-die memory controller, but here's hoping.
As for other upcoming CPUs, the Intel Dothan also sounds very promising, as does the possibility of a multi-core version of the Dothan. I just wish Intel would wake up and make the Pentium-Ms for desktop platsforms. I also think the 2Meg L2 of the Dothan is overkill, and makes the chip more expensive than it needs to be. A 1Meg L2 is plenty for Dothan, and would reduce the die size considerably, and thus the cost. Intel's being a little strange on that front, though the Celeron-M is a good move.
I'm still curious as to why Intel and AMD haven't added AltiVec to their x86 processors.