A nice dose of reality to counter the dire warnings from people that, in all honesty, should know the five points and why there's no reason to be worried about AI.
I did programs on front panel switches a few times on an old IBM System/7. 16 bits (although used IBM notation which was inverted and backwards) and, if I remember correctly, 1k switches (ROM - or "ROS" as IBM called it) and 8k RAM. Execution speed was 500 kHz.
There was an assembler, which produced values in standard notation (and have to be inverted and reversed on the front panel switches for the IBM standard notation). The 1K was basically a bootloader to load the ram from cassette recorder storage - these were IBM owned machines (used for manufacturing test).
NOT fun times. System/7 machines were cranky (which was why they were replaced by the Series/1) although fairly easy to add IO - it was in a seven foot tall, 19" rack.
Did I mention I once programmed using two wires I shorted together at different lengths of time to gets ones and zeros and had to read back the data on an oscilloscope? It was for a one bit computer and we considered ourselves lucky to have it, as zeros had only be invented a year or two before.
More seriously, while not very fast, a trackball and screen doesn't seem that unreasonable - especially from the perspective that I would expect Sakurai san to spend more time on the game design so to minimize the time entering/reentering/editing the code through debugging. Maybe that's why it turned out to be such a great game.
I know several people who have the equipment to build motherboards at home (in garages and basements). I agree that it's not common and consists of surplus equipment they were able to get cheap and would not be as efficient as a properly equipped manufacturer, but they're out there and they can do the high BGA counts of processor sockets with a high degree of success.
Manufacturing the PCBs isn't the problem; see my other post.
To make a competitive system, the real issue is, is the ability to convince Intel or AMD (or any other processor manufacturer) as well as BIOS/EFI vendors (if you're not going to write your own) that you are serious enough with enough resources to be successful in designing a system and maintain their IP.
Probably the most difficulty somebody who wants to design/build motherboards will have is showing these companies that they have sufficient security systems and protocols in place that the processor and support chip manufacturers (if they're different) can provide you with the datasheets and other documents necessary to design systems without them becoming public knowledge (ie available to their competitors).
Next on the bill is showing that you have the financial resources to make a serious go of it as they will have to provide you a ton of support (the processor manufacturers have to have at least one person dedicated to you full time if you are going to be successful).
Filling out bubble cards for an IBM 1160 - ca. 1977. Program printouts came back two days later.
Teacher was a drunk the administration couldn't fire, most kids used the class to a) socialize or b) make pictures out of different letters. I remember a particularly impressive Corvette logo.
My proudest achievement was figuring out how to program multiplication/division as repeated addition/subtraction. All by myself, just using the manual.
There's two paths they can go down: 1. Accept that there is a sizable chunk of the user base (most probably application developers) that will continue to use Windows 7 (maybe 8.1) and remove the update blocks on these OSes. They'll get some bitching from people who felt they should have done that right from the start, but it will be short lived and life will go on with the reluctant acknowledgement that Microsoft actually listened to their customers and developer community.
2. Get into a legal and software battle with Zeffy, trying to sue him into oblivion for violating the license agreement as well as putting in "patches" to nullify the stop-update blocks. The development community will endlessly complain that builds, on older hardware because they want to do development on OSes that spy on them and provide a window into their product development, will take longer with libraries that are not fully reflective of the latest (graphic) hardware which means they'll start looking for other platforms to develop for. The bitching will be continuous with may development houses looking towards greener pastures for development programs and Microsoft's share in the marketplace will continue to decline.
In this space, you're not going to see any Kaby Lakes or massive amounts of memory or even impressive video/audio so listing the hardware doesn't mean much.
What I'm most interested in is what will be the application infrastructure is (ie a useable version Office) as well as document distribution for classes (Google Classroom has developed into a pretty slick tool). Another question would be what Microsoft will do for a browser on the device as Edge doesn't work all that great and pages don't display the same as they do on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.
So, what will make Microsoft's offering special/compelling against ChromeOS?
In the previous/. posting, I noted my disbelief when I said that Microsoft would have to seriously change it's operating model and asked about them trying to compete against Google, which doesn't monetize the platform.
Well, if there's a "pro" version of the Windows 10 Cloud OS, then I don't think Microsoft understands what they have to do to be successful in this space.
Are the Chromebooks you are purchasing replacing older Windows machines? That's why MS is probably competing in this space, because they have to. If they don't they lose ground that was theirs.
What's the price difference between the Chromebooks you are looking at and a core i3 laptop with 8 gb DDR, and a non-SSD drive from Dell/HP?
How big a consideration is lack of MS Office in your decision to go Chromebook?
No, they are not replacing older Windows machines. New company, new requirement.
It's hard to find an apples to apples comparison between devices, but if I look at list prices on the manufacturers' websites for i3 processored systems with 4GByte of DDR and 32GByte/64GByte (EMMc) SSD, Windows 10 devices command a 40% premium over Chromebooks.
The ability to access/create Office documents is important but the update issue and if I were to go with a Windows platform, I have to make sure my customers don't get pop ups asking to sign up/pay for Office and anti-virus (without me paying as a way to eliminate the pop ups) although the real dealbreaker is the time/effort Windows systems need for updates compared to Chromebooks.
Where can I see a link for an online copy of Office that won't nag me to pay? When I look at the Office website, I keep getting pointed to Office 365 which is free only for the first month.
I would be interested in seeing what they have that is free and would not hassle my customers asking them to get a subscription.
Slashdot Mirror
A nice dose of reality to counter the dire warnings from people that, in all honesty, should know the five points and why there's no reason to be worried about AI.
This ain't the Forbin Project.
I did programs on front panel switches a few times on an old IBM System/7. 16 bits (although used IBM notation which was inverted and backwards) and, if I remember correctly, 1k switches (ROM - or "ROS" as IBM called it) and 8k RAM. Execution speed was 500 kHz.
There was an assembler, which produced values in standard notation (and have to be inverted and reversed on the front panel switches for the IBM standard notation). The 1K was basically a bootloader to load the ram from cassette recorder storage - these were IBM owned machines (used for manufacturing test).
NOT fun times. System/7 machines were cranky (which was why they were replaced by the Series/1) although fairly easy to add IO - it was in a seven foot tall, 19" rack.
Did I mention I once programmed using two wires I shorted together at different lengths of time to gets ones and zeros and had to read back the data on an oscilloscope? It was for a one bit computer and we considered ourselves lucky to have it, as zeros had only be invented a year or two before.
More seriously, while not very fast, a trackball and screen doesn't seem that unreasonable - especially from the perspective that I would expect Sakurai san to spend more time on the game design so to minimize the time entering/reentering/editing the code through debugging. Maybe that's why it turned out to be such a great game.
Nice to see somebody got what I was trying to say.
I'm about a quarter of the way through the book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Interesting in the same way as Worlds in Collision (Velikovsky): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Maybe history isn't what we think it is.
Maybe technology is going too far.
When the revolution comes, we'll know where all the very wealthy will be.
I know several people who have the equipment to build motherboards at home (in garages and basements). I agree that it's not common and consists of surplus equipment they were able to get cheap and would not be as efficient as a properly equipped manufacturer, but they're out there and they can do the high BGA counts of processor sockets with a high degree of success.
Manufacturing the PCBs isn't the problem; see my other post.
To make a competitive system, the real issue is, is the ability to convince Intel or AMD (or any other processor manufacturer) as well as BIOS/EFI vendors (if you're not going to write your own) that you are serious enough with enough resources to be successful in designing a system and maintain their IP.
Probably the most difficulty somebody who wants to design/build motherboards will have is showing these companies that they have sufficient security systems and protocols in place that the processor and support chip manufacturers (if they're different) can provide you with the datasheets and other documents necessary to design systems without them becoming public knowledge (ie available to their competitors).
Next on the bill is showing that you have the financial resources to make a serious go of it as they will have to provide you a ton of support (the processor manufacturers have to have at least one person dedicated to you full time if you are going to be successful).
Filling out bubble cards for an IBM 1160 - ca. 1977. Program printouts came back two days later.
Teacher was a drunk the administration couldn't fire, most kids used the class to a) socialize or b) make pictures out of different letters. I remember a particularly impressive Corvette logo.
My proudest achievement was figuring out how to program multiplication/division as repeated addition/subtraction. All by myself, just using the manual.
There's two paths they can go down:
1. Accept that there is a sizable chunk of the user base (most probably application developers) that will continue to use Windows 7 (maybe 8.1) and remove the update blocks on these OSes. They'll get some bitching from people who felt they should have done that right from the start, but it will be short lived and life will go on with the reluctant acknowledgement that Microsoft actually listened to their customers and developer community.
2. Get into a legal and software battle with Zeffy, trying to sue him into oblivion for violating the license agreement as well as putting in "patches" to nullify the stop-update blocks. The development community will endlessly complain that builds, on older hardware because they want to do development on OSes that spy on them and provide a window into their product development, will take longer with libraries that are not fully reflective of the latest (graphic) hardware which means they'll start looking for other platforms to develop for. The bitching will be continuous with may development houses looking towards greener pastures for development programs and Microsoft's share in the marketplace will continue to decline.
I'm betting the Microsoft will take option 2.
Just not in a positive way - just for all the reasons you've mentioned and more.
In this space, you're not going to see any Kaby Lakes or massive amounts of memory or even impressive video/audio so listing the hardware doesn't mean much.
What I'm most interested in is what will be the application infrastructure is (ie a useable version Office) as well as document distribution for classes (Google Classroom has developed into a pretty slick tool). Another question would be what Microsoft will do for a browser on the device as Edge doesn't work all that great and pages don't display the same as they do on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.
So, what will make Microsoft's offering special/compelling against ChromeOS?
In the previous /. posting, I noted my disbelief when I said that Microsoft would have to seriously change it's operating model and asked about them trying to compete against Google, which doesn't monetize the platform.
Well, if there's a "pro" version of the Windows 10 Cloud OS, then I don't think Microsoft understands what they have to do to be successful in this space.
Thank you for the reference.
Would this be of note if Toyota, Ford or VW issued a recal for this?
Parts from subcontractors are often not up to snuff - the problem is noted, a recall is issued and that's it.
This is only news because it's on a Tesla - I'm not a Musk fanboi but let's get a little perspective on the matter.
Does Mr. Nadella know you use that type of language?
But can you play without being harassed to pay?
I've got an outlook.com account as well. If anything, the level of harassment/distraction goes up when you try to use it.
Metropolis with the Queen soundtrack.
God, I hope they never make Ringworld into a movie - too much for two hours.
Mini-series at least, three years with the third (horrible) book basically forgotten.
Same with Rendezvous with Rama.
If so, then how about:
- Battlestar Galactica
- The Expanse
- Star Trek (TOS, maybe NG, nothing else)
- Orphan Black
Surprised this isn't more popular.
Are the Chromebooks you are purchasing replacing older Windows machines? That's why MS is probably competing in this space, because they have to. If they don't they lose ground that was theirs.
What's the price difference between the Chromebooks you are looking at and a core i3 laptop with 8 gb DDR, and a non-SSD drive from Dell/HP?
How big a consideration is lack of MS Office in your decision to go Chromebook?
No, they are not replacing older Windows machines. New company, new requirement.
It's hard to find an apples to apples comparison between devices, but if I look at list prices on the manufacturers' websites for i3 processored systems with 4GByte of DDR and 32GByte/64GByte (EMMc) SSD, Windows 10 devices command a 40% premium over Chromebooks.
The ability to access/create Office documents is important but the update issue and if I were to go with a Windows platform, I have to make sure my customers don't get pop ups asking to sign up/pay for Office and anti-virus (without me paying as a way to eliminate the pop ups) although the real dealbreaker is the time/effort Windows systems need for updates compared to Chromebooks.
Where can I see a link for an online copy of Office that won't nag me to pay? When I look at the Office website, I keep getting pointed to Office 365 which is free only for the first month.
I would be interested in seeing what they have that is free and would not hassle my customers asking them to get a subscription.
They also cost - https://products.office.com/en...