That's only if you were to have bought it after July 17th (the witching hour). Buy it before then (and before the announcement at MacWorld), you don't qualify and it's full price. The month before that, to most of us looking to get a Mac, we hadn't heard of *the equivalent* of a 11.x release of OSX coming out. One would assume that a release coming out in a month or so, one would "be taken care of" through upgrade pricing at least. With this strategy it's either feast ($20) or famine ($130)... I would have been happy paying half price ($65), which could have been offered to those others who already had OSX licenses.
Excuse me for not attending WWDC (or MacWorld)... I've got other things to do with my time than attend conferences.
It's the combination of two things. First, not following normal industry conventions of having consistency of what a dot release version update means (as opposed to going to something like OSX v 11.xx, which would by it's name tell me that it's a major change and maybe something to wait for). And secondly not following conventions that most software vendors have of not forcing a user to pay full price on a package after they've just purchased a full version from you the month before (no matter what the release change is). The combination of both of these is what makes us feel "gyped"...
And though by them not emphasizing that it was a major release (fooling those of us who bought it in the interim where we otherwise might have waited), they would have everything to gain by offering at least an upgrade price for users like myself who bought it recently (if not all OS X users). That way, we aren't holding off on our purchases, now or in the future, paying them more money than if we'd just waited for the new package, and we're happy to boot.
The way they've done it, they might force some of us to pay full price twice, there will be just as many of us not buying it at all, and many in the future who will be more sensitive before they buy something to make sure that nothing new is coming out soon that might make what they are considering buying relatively worthless.
And most of us aren't happy customers from this experience either, and as I noted especially those that are "on the fence" they are trying to get to migrate to Apple's platform who aren't as familiar with WWDC or MacWorld conferences, etc. Apple will have less sales numbers to post too (even though revenue per sale might be higher), which doesn't help them with investors either who are looking for *numbers* of users moving to Apple's latest OS/systems, if they truely want to be seen competitive with Microsoft.
I think that they kind of "snuck" this *major* upgrade on us after the fact. Especially to us "switchers". I'm not very happy that less than a month after I bought a G4 powerbook that I'm told that now to have an up-to-date supported OS I need to shell out full price for a new version. Even on major release updates, most other software vendors have a grace period of when you buy the previous release (a 1-3 months) that you get a low-cost or free upgrade to get the new one. That's good business practice. If you did publicize a new major release coming shortly (which Apple didn't do enough of earlier IMHO), you'd give those who just bought the older release a grace period to get the newer release, otherwise your sales will plummet before the next release with everyone waiting for it rather than buying the shortlived previous release. I'd accept a decent upgrade price as I would expect for other OS's/packages.
Had Apple said earlier that 10.2 was going to be a major release change (that was considered a major release change as opposed to 10.0 to 10.1), or announced it as OS 11 (which doesn't go well with their OSX abbreviation as then it would need to change to OSXI), then I might have held off for another month to get my laptop. I was uninformed and paid the price. That doesn't make me happy.
I was told by Apple support when asking about this that I should have known that something like this would be announced at MacWorld (as I guess the Mac faithful are used to hearing), and that had I known past history of MacWorld announcements, I would have waited. Well, if this practice gets well known, then watch system sales drop even more next year before MacWorld as people wait for announcements then too. I don't think Jobs wants to have to stand up and say that they're last month sales are dropping heavily then will he?
I just got a 4 port Belkin switchbox that is nice since it allows one to switch between systems expecting PS/2 and USB keyboard/mouse connections as well as audio connections. That way my PC's and G4 are switchable without having to switch them to USB or try to hook the Mac up through a USB/PS2 adaptor.
There are two slight drawbacks (that I haven't tried yet to see whether I can fix it yet). First is that the Belking box expects to use the scroll lock key as the hot switch key, which brings up a signoff prompt on the G4, which one has to cancel when going back and forth. I've also found that one might need to switch back and forth twice for the mouse to be useable on the Mac if it has gone in it's powered down cycle. Other than that, it works nicely.
One thing that I'd like see happen that I really think would make things viable in this sense is to get a more "deluxe" version of the disk/network card to be 802.11b wireless instead of just straight twisted pair ethernet connection. I hate the prospect of having to string an ugly wire from my living room to my study just to connect in an extra hub off of my wireless gateway, since all of my three direct ports on it are already tied up. It seems to defeat the whole purpose of having a wireless hub. I suppose if I'd started with a LinkSys hub, I could of used it's bridging features to have an extra LinkSys access point bridged to it in the living room, which would allow the direct connection into it. But alas, I'd have to throw out my old SMC Barricade and replace with Linksys. I suppose I could get a USB wireless network adaptor to connect to the PS2's USB port, but: a) it's not clear how well suited PS2's Linux device support for USB is to allow appropriate bandwidth, etc. for an extra network card to be attached. b) you tie up your USB ports with bandwidth you might want to use for other things. c) if you ever get next gen PS2 games that will try to make use of the network capabilities of the expansion card, they most likely will try to go through the provided network connection, not a USB one (which would therefore relegate it to just native Linux usage, not game usage).
Anyone else have other suggestions? I suppose I could try calling SMC to see if and when they might have some way to upgrade my Barricade in the future with new code to support bridging.
Oh well, it still sounds like fun, and I guess temporarily I can live with a lot of extra wirez.
The main reason for it not being up to its armpits in games isn't technical (albeit there are issues there), it is the law of supply and demand. Game developers simply get more bang for their buck on Winx or game platforms where there's more demand.
Your reasons:
1) multitasking - Yes, Unix/Linux systems are designed as general purpose multi-tasking systems, but with the right engineering, can be made to work in parallel with a single-tasking game system. Probably not on a PS2, but perhaps on a PS3 with additional processor that could run Linux in the background, it could be simply a matter of switching resources to the processor with the game loaded on it. Thus the game is not impacted, and the user has access to Linux and the net with a button press. However some server-based daemons, etc. could run on the Linux processor to enhance certain games that for MUD's, etc. that could be left running all of the time, even when the user is playing another game locally.
2) X - as noted, X itself isn't designed as a windowing system for playing games, but those who on Suns have played Aviator (way before comparable flight sims were available on PC's) or Doom, know that one can build ways of directly talking to the display hardware and bypass the windowing system to achieve performance. The processor handling the PS/2 game could either swap itself onto the display hardware or punch a hole in the windowing system to display a game window as if it is displaying under X.
3. If Linux is running in the background after initial boot, and PS2 games can be loaded while it is resident, there should be little or no impact.
I'm not speaking with intimate knowledge of what's going on at Sony there. But I could certainly see with the PS3 that Linux could be the real nice glue that allows compatibility with older PS and PS2 games, and allows it to move to becoming more of an internet appliance/server that I and many others want that will also run Linux apps, etc. It would be great to have the options for a monster to tell me "You've got mail from xxx" before I kill it if there's something I'm waiting to be sent to me.
The nice thing about it being on a PS2 is that Sony can have it's future game environment well integrated with Linux if it is developing it themselves, whereas with an XBox, MS won't be giving it much thought and even if it were to be running, likely wouldn't be as well integrated.
Actually the term "Solaris" for Sun's OS came out from an internally held contest shortly after the SunSoft spinoff subsidiary was formed earlier which was chartered to move the installed base off of the older BSD-based SunOS to the newer System V-based SunOS.
Additionally, SunSoft was supposed to be less tied to Sun hardware and more platform independent and ported to PC's, etc. Therefore they didn't just want a new version # for SunOS, which they thought might be more associated with older Sun hardware setups and confusing to newer customers (System V folks, PC folks, etc.) they were trying to attract. They wanted a new marketing name to be more associated with the System V OS that was coming out then. I'm guessing that Apple has had much the same reasons to name their new OS "OS X" rather than "MacOS 10". However, most still wanted to have the name show a "Sun" influence of some sort, which influenced the submitted entries.
A lot of us in our entries, including myself, came up with "Solaris" as our suggestions (and I have to admit I was influenced in my thoughts by the movie as well). Bill Larson who then was SunSoft's VP of marketing, probably should be credited of leading the charge to making the name shift to "Solaris".
Also, Solaris was viewed more as an "environment" than just an OS which "SunOS" implied, and therefore a superset of what was traditionally put in SunOS. However, shortly afterwards they did things like unbundle things like C, etc. too, who some weren't too happy about.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not worried that they're keeping logs.
:)
Have a supply of Milk of Magnesia or the like on hand at work to make it harder to keep them then!
That's only if you were to have bought it after July 17th (the witching hour). Buy it before then (and before the announcement at MacWorld), you don't qualify and it's full price. The month before that, to most of us looking to get a Mac, we hadn't heard of *the equivalent* of a 11.x release of OSX coming out. One would assume that a release coming out in a month or so, one would "be taken care of" through upgrade pricing at least. With this strategy it's either feast ($20) or famine ($130)... I would have been happy paying half price ($65), which could have been offered to those others who already had OSX licenses.
Excuse me for not attending WWDC (or MacWorld)... I've got other things to do with my time than attend conferences.
It's the combination of two things. First, not following normal industry conventions of having consistency of what a dot release version update means (as opposed to going to something like OSX v 11.xx, which would by it's name tell me that it's a major change and maybe something to wait for). And secondly not following conventions that most software vendors have of not forcing a user to pay full price on a package after they've just purchased a full version from you the month before (no matter what the release change is). The combination of both of these is what makes us feel "gyped"...
And though by them not emphasizing that it was a major release (fooling those of us who bought it in the interim where we otherwise might have waited), they would have everything to gain by offering at least an upgrade price for users like myself who bought it recently (if not all OS X users). That way, we aren't holding off on our purchases, now or in the future, paying them more money than if we'd just waited for the new package, and we're happy to boot.
The way they've done it, they might force some of us to pay full price twice, there will be just as many of us not buying it at all, and many in the future who will be more sensitive before they buy something to make sure that nothing new is coming out soon that might make what they are considering buying relatively worthless.
And most of us aren't happy customers from this experience either, and as I noted especially those that are "on the fence" they are trying to get to migrate to Apple's platform who aren't as familiar with WWDC or MacWorld conferences, etc. Apple will have less sales numbers to post too (even though revenue per sale might be higher), which doesn't help them with investors either who are looking for *numbers* of users moving to Apple's latest OS/systems, if they truely want to be seen competitive with Microsoft.
I think that they kind of "snuck" this *major* upgrade on us after the fact. Especially to us "switchers". I'm not very happy that less than a month after I bought a G4 powerbook that I'm told that now to have an up-to-date supported OS I need to shell out full price for a new version. Even on major release updates, most other software vendors have a grace period of when you buy the previous release (a 1-3 months) that you get a low-cost or free upgrade to get the new one. That's good business practice. If you did publicize a new major release coming shortly (which Apple didn't do enough of earlier IMHO), you'd give those who just bought the older release a grace period to get the newer release, otherwise your sales will plummet before the next release with everyone waiting for it rather than buying the shortlived previous release. I'd accept a decent upgrade price as I would expect for other OS's/packages.
Had Apple said earlier that 10.2 was going to be a major release change (that was considered a major release change as opposed to 10.0 to 10.1), or announced it as OS 11 (which doesn't go well with their OSX abbreviation as then it would need to change to OSXI), then I might have held off for another month to get my laptop. I was uninformed and paid the price. That doesn't make me happy.
I was told by Apple support when asking about this that I should have known that something like this would be announced at MacWorld (as I guess the Mac faithful are used to hearing), and that had I known past history of MacWorld announcements, I would have waited. Well, if this practice gets well known, then watch system sales drop even more next year before MacWorld as people wait for announcements then too. I don't think Jobs wants to have to stand up and say that they're last month sales are dropping heavily then will he?
I just got a 4 port Belkin switchbox that is nice since it allows one to switch between systems expecting PS/2 and USB keyboard/mouse connections as well as audio connections. That way my PC's and G4 are switchable without having to switch them to USB or try to hook the Mac up through a USB/PS2 adaptor.
There are two slight drawbacks (that I haven't tried yet to see whether I can fix it yet). First is that the Belking box expects to use the scroll lock key as the hot switch key, which brings up a signoff prompt on the G4, which one has to cancel when going back and forth. I've also found that one might need to switch back and forth twice for the mouse to be useable on the Mac if it has gone in it's powered down cycle. Other than that, it works nicely.
One thing that I'd like see happen that I really think would make things viable in this sense is to get a more "deluxe" version of the disk/network card to be 802.11b wireless instead of just straight twisted pair ethernet connection. I hate the prospect of having to string an ugly wire from my living room to my study just to connect in an extra hub off of my wireless gateway, since all of my three direct ports on it are already tied up. It seems to defeat the whole purpose of having a wireless hub. I suppose if I'd started with a LinkSys hub, I could of used it's bridging features to have an extra LinkSys access point bridged to it in the living room, which would allow the direct connection into it. But alas, I'd have to throw out my old SMC Barricade and replace with Linksys. I suppose I could get a USB wireless network adaptor to connect to the PS2's USB port, but:
a) it's not clear how well suited PS2's Linux device support for USB is to allow appropriate bandwidth, etc. for an extra network card to be attached.
b) you tie up your USB ports with bandwidth you might want to use for other things.
c) if you ever get next gen PS2 games that will try to make use of the network capabilities of the expansion card, they most likely will try to go through the provided network connection, not a USB one (which would therefore relegate it to just native Linux usage, not game usage).
Anyone else have other suggestions? I suppose I could try calling SMC to see if and when they might have some way to upgrade my Barricade in the future with new code to support bridging.
Oh well, it still sounds like fun, and I guess temporarily I can live with a lot of extra wirez.
The main reason for it not being up to its armpits in games isn't technical (albeit there are issues there), it is the law of supply and demand. Game developers simply get more bang for their buck on Winx or game platforms where there's more demand.
Your reasons:
1) multitasking - Yes, Unix/Linux systems are designed as general purpose multi-tasking systems, but with the right engineering, can be made to work in parallel with a single-tasking game system. Probably not on a PS2, but perhaps on a PS3 with additional processor that could run Linux in the background, it could be simply a matter of switching resources to the processor with the game loaded on it. Thus the game is not impacted, and the user has access to Linux and the net with a button press. However some server-based daemons, etc. could run on the Linux processor to enhance certain games that for MUD's, etc. that could be left running all of the time, even when the user is playing another game locally.
2) X - as noted, X itself isn't designed as a windowing system for playing games, but those who on Suns have played Aviator (way before comparable flight sims were available on PC's) or Doom, know that one can build ways of directly talking to the display hardware and bypass the windowing system to achieve performance. The processor handling the PS/2 game could either swap itself onto the display hardware or punch a hole in the windowing system to display a game window as if it is displaying under X.
3. If Linux is running in the background after initial boot, and PS2 games can be loaded while it is resident, there should be little or no impact.
I'm not speaking with intimate knowledge of what's going on at Sony there. But I could certainly see with the PS3 that Linux could be the real nice glue that allows compatibility with older PS and PS2 games, and allows it to move to becoming more of an internet appliance/server that I and many others want that will also run Linux apps, etc. It would be great to have the options for a monster to tell me "You've got mail from xxx" before I kill it if there's something I'm waiting to be sent to me.
The nice thing about it being on a PS2 is that Sony can have it's future game environment well integrated with Linux if it is developing it themselves, whereas with an XBox, MS won't be giving it much thought and even if it were to be running, likely wouldn't be as well integrated.
Actually the term "Solaris" for Sun's OS came out from an internally held contest shortly after the SunSoft spinoff subsidiary was formed earlier which was chartered to move the installed base off of the older BSD-based SunOS to the newer System V-based SunOS.
Additionally, SunSoft was supposed to be less tied to Sun hardware and more platform independent and ported to PC's, etc. Therefore they didn't just want a new version # for SunOS, which they thought might be more associated with older Sun hardware setups and confusing to newer customers (System V folks, PC folks, etc.) they were trying to attract. They wanted a new marketing name to be more associated with the System V OS that was coming out then. I'm guessing that Apple has had much the same reasons to name their new OS "OS X" rather than "MacOS 10". However, most still wanted to have the name show a "Sun" influence of some sort, which influenced the submitted entries.
A lot of us in our entries, including myself, came up with "Solaris" as our suggestions (and I have to admit I was influenced in my thoughts by the movie as well). Bill Larson who then was SunSoft's VP of marketing, probably should be credited of leading the charge to making the name shift to "Solaris".
Also, Solaris was viewed more as an "environment" than just an OS which "SunOS" implied, and therefore a superset of what was traditionally put in SunOS. However, shortly afterwards they did things like unbundle things like C, etc. too, who some weren't too happy about.