If I'm looking for something for a very specific purpose, and there's a particular feature I want ot be really sure is going to work how I want, then I won't buy without being able to download the manual beforehand. I recently bought a Pioneer AV amp, and wanted to be clear on whether it *really* had 3 digital ins, or 1 and 1 you could switch from optical to electrical, for example.
Other things only get the manuals read when I'm either really bored or really stuck. I've never read the manual for my original ipod (it was a mac-only CD, and I didn't have a mac, from memory, so I couldn't even if I wanted to).
It's worth pointing out that I do suffer from a case of 'I wish I'd known it could do that' every few months as a result.
My VW Golf has a wierd hidden feature that I don't think you'd ever be able to find without reading the manual - you can change the period of the intermittent wipe, but there's not explicit control for it. You turn it on, wait, then off, then back on again. The length of the wait becomes the delay between wipes. It's kind of clever when you know about it, but it's pretty poor UI that you would never guess it. Then again, the Mercedes-style wall-o-buttons isn't so great either.
Hehe. Just spent a week in a rental Saab 95, and at the end of the week I was still scrabbling around the steering column before I rememebered.
Apparently though, it *is* an anti theft device. At least on older Saabs, that's some kind of physical lock for the transmission. This was a shiny new one, and it seemed just like any other ignition key (aside from it's location) to me. I guess die-hard Saab people like to feel the lineage.
Anyone doing serious hosting doesn't actually buy a physical T1 though. You get space in an already connected cohost centre (telehouse, amsix, 111 8th etc) and buy transit over a piece of cat5. That's more like $100/Mbit/month, even from a decent peer like Level3 or AboveNet. Less, if you are talking serious bandwidth (>50Mbit), or crappier transit.
That said, I do agree that the word 'unlimited' makes me reach for my revolver, as Herr Goering may have said if he had a website.
Nice idea, but it kind of assumes that 'good' (*) music always goes around in bunches of 10-15 songs, and that the record company expertly pick them. I would like a copy of 'Washing Machine' by Mr Fingers/Fingers Inc. It's not in print any more, it was released as a single only (AFAIK). Which is the CD with that song and 11 others that I like on it?
"...doing EVERYTHING my sendmail config does in a few hours"
Including the UUCP stuff, and all the other wierd legacy junk in there? or do you just want standard domain aliasing and redirection?
(to be honest, I haven't looked in a sendmail.cf in some time, but I still get the occassional bad dream about it. I use qmail these days [which apparently automatically makes me a zealot of some sort], but the nuts & bolts part of sendmail could be replaced by several more modern candidates - Courier, postfix, qmail... )
IIRC, I saw a full Z80 system with video out that could be done with 5 chips
Yes - the Sinclair ZX81 (or Timex-Sinclair 1000 depending on where you live). Built in 1980/81, with 4 chips (5 if you had a wacky 2 512-byte SRAMs version). I think it was a fairly early example of using logic arrays to reduce the chip count too... The chips are Z80A, ROM, RAM and ULA (everything else). Of course, it depends on your definition of 'full'.
Nice utopian vision, but at what stage do you contribute to the production costs of the show when using p2p/irc/usenet to get it?
When the network goes away, there is no show because there is no money. Substitute cable station for network if you like - it's a different (if you're lucky) large company that doesn't care what you want.
Assuming you already have a mail account that you want to access, then don't bother signing up to anything. There are many UK ISPs that offer "0845" access - these numbers are charged at local rate from anywhere in the country (don't forget that we still are charged for local calls in general), and make their money from revenue-sharing with the telcos, so you don't pay a bill to the ISP. You should be able to pick up a CD/Installer/Signup-Screen for one of these pretty easily.
Drop me a line if you need help - my employer offers such a service (usually through resellers, but anyway).
Now, I could not find the speed of the CDRW/DVD on the Mac anywhere.
It didn't take long to find this page with all the apple specs, including:
"10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet connector (RJ-45)"
"SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW); writes DVD-R discs at 2x speed, reads DVDs at 6x speed, writes CD-R discs at 8x speed, writes CD-RW discs at 4x speed, reads CDs at 24x speed "
and
"Your Power Mac G4 comes with 90 days of telephone support and a one-year limited warranty. Purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan to extend your service and support to three full years."
I still wouldn't pay that much for either system. I would be interested in the SparcClassic-sized box though. My current PC project is putting one of these mobos into one of these Sun 411 cases. As soon as I can figure out a sensible PSU for it, anyway. A G4 cube board in the same case would be very nice.
Try not being a twitchy Slashdot reader - I look in about once a day, and unless I'm really unlucky, the/. effect has moved on by the time I get to the articles. I mean really, it's not actually time-sensitive news, is it?
it's really great when they tell you it while holding an ibook:)
Because that makes them look like they're saying it with an inexpensive laptop in their hands? I don't get it.
OS X isn't BSD, as the entire OS X userbase seems to pop up and say whenever the BSD-is-dead thread starts up again. It's a microkernel with a BSD-like API over the top (or something like that).
"and it has a library-based graphics API, just like BeOS. "
actually Windows has several library-based graphics APIs, which are apparently released or updated or superceded roughly every three months. Or so it seems from trying to keep up with what MS consider current in the world of Multimedia or Game application development.
"why don't you just use Windows?" - I'm wouldn't consider myself a BeOS zealot (I am/was a registered developer, but I haven't run the OS in at least a year), but why should they? The same argument applies to Linux or *BSD for most people - good hardware support etc... why don't we all just stop burying our heads and use Windows?
It's a noisy son-of-a-bitch compared to real xterms though, isn't it? Things like the NCD/HP/Wyse/Tektronix terminals, IBM Netstations, even my flash-booting VIA C3 PC are all quieter than the DC, if not completely silent (my C3 whispers a bit, and the HP xterm I have rumbles wierdly). Not mention the 800x600 maximum resolution.
Or is it just my DC that's that noisy?
I'm not just dismissing it out of hand - I have the BBA, keyboard etc, and did actually try it. It wasn't much fun though.
I do agree about the 'open source community', and I'll mention that next time the whole OS community gets together for it's strategy meeting.
an 800Mhz processor would get the job done, use the Cyrix as it runs cool enough that you don't need a fan.
While I agree with the Shuttle as a fine choice for this type of application, please don't mislead people by implying that an 800Mhz C3 is anything like an 800Mhz anything else...
Never before has that old 'Mhz are not all there is' meant so much. I have an 800Mhz C3 and it is slooooow. Benchmarks show the FPU perfomance as about the same as a K6-2/450.
I like it, because it runs totally silently, and it does have enough oomph to run FreeBSD, X and an MP3 player from flash, but it is NOT similar to other 800Mhz processors.
Incidentally, another possiblity that a friend has tried is underclocking Tualatin Celerons. Apparently, his 1.2Ghz Cel running at 800Mhz will also run fanless, and I bet he gets better performance out of it too.
Yep - I'm working on something similar, using Win2k on an nForce Duron PC, with Direct3d to make a nice frontend, talking to my FreeBSD fileserver over samba. For the moment, Winamp and an IR keyboard are the UI, until I get the time to finish my code.
I'm not that happy with any of the TV-out VGA cards I've seen so far though. My PS2 and Dreamcast can do solid clear 800x600 on my TV - why can't any PC hardware?
You're unbelievably incorrect. Start out with the bold statement - good. I'll try to be less incorrect.
You like to play games with poor 3d performance?
I like to play Age Of Empires and Command & Conquer, or Warcraft III (I don't actually, but I know plenty who do). Games which don't need good 3d performance.
No, STBs are not a big enough market in themselves (although VIA seem to do OK with chipsets and CPUs aimed at the embedded market), but they would certainly benefit. Just like Apple before them, I think that OEMs would be happy to be able to say 'Nvidia graphics onboard' (or ATI Radeon) for cheap, simply because people may have heard of those - it is perceived value. Since Dell's base spec for a 900UKP PC is still using a Rage128, it might even be a step above the 'typical computer'.
The last part confused me a bit, because I've been playing SoF2 alright on an original GeForce 256 DDR until recently. Maybe I just have lower standards... *shrug* Is 1024x768 really an absolute minimum for FPS these days?
My point was that set-top boxes are in the ordinary joe blow category, not me. Why assume that 3d is only useful for games, or that all people who play games are necessarily Gamers with a capital G?
I spend the odd afternoon happily shooting my friends and co-workers in Q3A, UT, C&C or whatever, but I'm not about to go out and buy a $300 graphics card to do it. I might be missing out on FSAA, snazzy filtering and lots of other things, but I haven't missed them yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Only if you consider "musical taste" to be directly proportional to obscurity, which is pretty weak.
If I'm looking for something for a very specific purpose, and there's a particular feature I want ot be really sure is going to work how I want, then I won't buy without being able to download the manual beforehand. I recently bought a Pioneer AV amp, and wanted to be clear on whether it *really* had 3 digital ins, or 1 and 1 you could switch from optical to electrical, for example.
Other things only get the manuals read when I'm either really bored or really stuck. I've never read the manual for my original ipod (it was a mac-only CD, and I didn't have a mac, from memory, so I couldn't even if I wanted to).
It's worth pointing out that I do suffer from a case of 'I wish I'd known it could do that' every few months as a result.
My VW Golf has a wierd hidden feature that I don't think you'd ever be able to find without reading the manual - you can change the period of the intermittent wipe, but there's not explicit control for it. You turn it on, wait, then off, then back on again. The length of the wait becomes the delay between wipes. It's kind of clever when you know about it, but it's pretty poor UI that you would never guess it. Then again, the Mercedes-style wall-o-buttons isn't so great either.
Hehe. Just spent a week in a rental Saab 95, and at the end of the week I was still scrabbling around the steering column before I rememebered.
Apparently though, it *is* an anti theft device. At least on older Saabs, that's some kind of physical lock for the transmission. This was a shiny new one, and it seemed just like any other ignition key (aside from it's location) to me. I guess die-hard Saab people like to feel the lineage.
A t1 line is still over $700 per month
Anyone doing serious hosting doesn't actually buy a physical T1 though. You get space in an already connected cohost centre (telehouse, amsix, 111 8th etc) and buy transit over a piece of cat5. That's more like $100/Mbit/month, even from a decent peer like Level3 or AboveNet. Less, if you are talking serious bandwidth (>50Mbit), or crappier transit.
That said, I do agree that the word 'unlimited' makes me reach for my revolver, as Herr Goering may have said if he had a website.
Nice idea, but it kind of assumes that 'good' (*) music always goes around in bunches of 10-15 songs, and that the record company expertly pick them. I would like a copy of 'Washing Machine' by Mr Fingers/Fingers Inc. It's not in print any more, it was released as a single only (AFAIK). Which is the CD with that song and 11 others that I like on it?
(* for a particular value of 'good')
Don't stop at cars. Both Hyundai and Daewoo make warships. At one stage they had an e-commerce site where you could put APCs in your shopping basket.
"...doing EVERYTHING my sendmail config does in a few hours"
Including the UUCP stuff, and all the other wierd legacy junk in there? or do you just want standard domain aliasing and redirection?
(to be honest, I haven't looked in a sendmail.cf in some time, but I still get the occassional bad dream about it. I use qmail these days [which apparently automatically makes me a zealot of some sort], but the nuts & bolts part of sendmail could be replaced by several more modern candidates - Courier, postfix, qmail... )
Someone I work with did the same with their Samsung A300. Worked fine after be dropped in the toilet.
My own A300 got a smack and had it's main screen cracked, unfortunately (although the battery life sucks ass - don't get one).
I'm going to pay $200 for a system that was designed by 1 person???
It worked OK for the Apple II, amongst many early home micros...
IIRC, I saw a full Z80 system with video out that could be done with 5 chips
Yes - the Sinclair ZX81 (or Timex-Sinclair 1000 depending on where you live). Built in 1980/81, with 4 chips (5 if you had a wacky 2 512-byte SRAMs version). I think it was a fairly early example of using logic arrays to reduce the chip count too... The chips are Z80A, ROM, RAM and ULA (everything else). Of course, it depends on your definition of 'full'.
Do you mean: Q80520 - How Microsoft Ensures Virus-Free Software?
It's not compilation, but the CD-mastering. (this used to be in the MS KB, but it seems to have gone).
sweet. know I know that at least the firmware on my old 5Gb ipod knows about the remote.
Nice utopian vision, but at what stage do you contribute to the production costs of the show when using p2p/irc/usenet to get it?
When the network goes away, there is no show because there is no money. Substitute cable station for network if you like - it's a different (if you're lucky) large company that doesn't care what you want.
Assuming you already have a mail account that you want to access, then don't bother signing up to anything. There are many UK ISPs that offer "0845" access - these numbers are charged at local rate from anywhere in the country (don't forget that we still are charged for local calls in general), and make their money from revenue-sharing with the telcos, so you don't pay a bill to the ISP. You should be able to pick up a CD/Installer/Signup-Screen for one of these pretty easily.
Drop me a line if you need help - my employer offers such a service (usually through resellers, but anyway).
Now, I could not find the speed of the CDRW/DVD on the Mac anywhere.
It didn't take long to find this page with all the apple specs, including:
"10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet connector (RJ-45)"
"SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW); writes DVD-R discs at 2x speed, reads DVDs at 6x speed, writes CD-R discs at 8x speed, writes CD-RW discs at 4x speed, reads CDs at 24x speed "
and
"Your Power Mac G4 comes with 90 days of telephone support and a one-year limited warranty. Purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan to extend your service and support to three full years."
I still wouldn't pay that much for either system. I would be interested in the SparcClassic-sized box though. My current PC project is putting one of these mobos into one of these Sun 411 cases. As soon as I can figure out a sensible PSU for it, anyway. A G4 cube board in the same case would be very nice.
Try not being a twitchy Slashdot reader - I look in about once a day, and unless I'm really unlucky, the /. effect has moved on by the time I get to the articles. I mean really, it's not actually time-sensitive news, is it?
Huh, so yours doesn't have a fan? Maybe that's a change in the european DC... odd.
And you keep the hair-shirt business running too, which is good for them.
:) )
(even the slashdot user called 'be-fan' is advocating Linux over Windows, rather than Be? It really is dead, isn't it?
it's really great when they tell you it while holding an ibook:)
Because that makes them look like they're saying it with an inexpensive laptop in their hands? I don't get it.
OS X isn't BSD, as the entire OS X userbase seems to pop up and say whenever the BSD-is-dead thread starts up again. It's a microkernel with a BSD-like API over the top (or something like that).
"and it has a library-based graphics API, just like BeOS. "
actually Windows has several library-based graphics APIs, which are apparently released or updated or superceded roughly every three months. Or so it seems from trying to keep up with what MS consider current in the world of Multimedia or Game application development.
"why don't you just use Windows?" - I'm wouldn't consider myself a BeOS zealot (I am/was a registered developer, but I haven't run the OS in at least a year), but why should they? The same argument applies to Linux or *BSD for most people - good hardware support etc... why don't we all just stop burying our heads and use Windows?
It's a noisy son-of-a-bitch compared to real xterms though, isn't it? Things like the NCD/HP/Wyse/Tektronix terminals, IBM Netstations, even my flash-booting VIA C3 PC are all quieter than the DC, if not completely silent (my C3 whispers a bit, and the HP xterm I have rumbles wierdly). Not mention the 800x600 maximum resolution.
Or is it just my DC that's that noisy?
I'm not just dismissing it out of hand - I have the BBA, keyboard etc, and did actually try it. It wasn't much fun though.
I do agree about the 'open source community', and I'll mention that next time the whole OS community gets together for it's strategy meeting.
an 800Mhz processor would get the job done, use the Cyrix as it runs cool enough that you don't need a fan.
While I agree with the Shuttle as a fine choice for this type of application, please don't mislead people by implying that an 800Mhz C3 is anything like an 800Mhz anything else...
Never before has that old 'Mhz are not all there is' meant so much. I have an 800Mhz C3 and it is slooooow. Benchmarks show the FPU perfomance as about the same as a K6-2/450.
I like it, because it runs totally silently, and it does have enough oomph to run FreeBSD, X and an MP3 player from flash, but it is NOT similar to other 800Mhz processors.
Incidentally, another possiblity that a friend has tried is underclocking Tualatin Celerons. Apparently, his 1.2Ghz Cel running at 800Mhz will also run fanless, and I bet he gets better performance out of it too.
Yep - I'm working on something similar, using Win2k on an nForce Duron PC, with Direct3d to make a nice frontend, talking to my FreeBSD fileserver over samba. For the moment, Winamp and an IR keyboard are the UI, until I get the time to finish my code.
I'm not that happy with any of the TV-out VGA cards I've seen so far though. My PS2 and Dreamcast can do solid clear 800x600 on my TV - why can't any PC hardware?
You're unbelievably incorrect.
Start out with the bold statement - good. I'll try to be less incorrect.
You like to play games with poor 3d performance?
I like to play Age Of Empires and Command & Conquer, or Warcraft III (I don't actually, but I know plenty who do). Games which don't need good 3d performance.
No, STBs are not a big enough market in themselves (although VIA seem to do OK with chipsets and CPUs aimed at the embedded market), but they would certainly benefit. Just like Apple before them, I think that OEMs would be happy to be able to say 'Nvidia graphics onboard' (or ATI Radeon) for cheap, simply because people may have heard of those - it is perceived value. Since Dell's base spec for a 900UKP PC is still using a Rage128, it might even be a step above the 'typical computer'.
The last part confused me a bit, because I've been playing SoF2 alright on an original GeForce 256 DDR until recently. Maybe I just have lower standards... *shrug* Is 1024x768 really an absolute minimum for FPS these days?
My point was that set-top boxes are in the ordinary joe blow category, not me. Why assume that 3d is only useful for games, or that all people who play games are necessarily Gamers with a capital G?
I spend the odd afternoon happily shooting my friends and co-workers in Q3A, UT, C&C or whatever, but I'm not about to go out and buy a $300 graphics card to do it. I might be missing out on FSAA, snazzy filtering and lots of other things, but I haven't missed them yet.