I dont really see a problem with this being a repackaged Wine. Provided that the company comply with the licensing terms, and that any changes to the source are given back to the community. More heads working on the wine project can only be a beneficial wherever they come from.
However, if they are going to be all take take take and no giving back to the community then I do see a problem with it.
On one hand the guy says, that its Microsofts mission that Longhorn not break existing apps? And yet in the same report is asking the developers to start thinking about building for the new longhorn framework. So what is it? Make your apps work for longhorn or make longhorn work with existing apps? A little bit of contradiction there.
Anyhow;
While its good that Microsoft are encouraging open source developers to build for their OS, dont you think its a bit lame that they are so against open source software? They need to make their minds up. And if they are going to encourage it how about supplying the tools and documentation to the community in order to enable good interoperability with other programs and operating systems?
Its in Microsoft best interests that software works with Longhorn if it is to be a success. Having said that you can bet your bottom dollar that "certain applications" Office perhaps ? will offer a reduced experience on longhorn requiring you to purchase a newer longhorn version. I dont think its unwise to be cynical about this given the pages of the history books.
Longhorn is a way off now, there are going to be several new generations of OSX and Linux between now and when it is released. A lot can happen in this time frame. If the linux take-up continues at the pace it is at the moment Longhorn is going to have to take interoperability more seriously whether Microsoft or Open Source developers like it or not.
bash-2.05b#./pizza_party Can't locate Getopt/Mixed.pm in @INC (@INC contains:/etc/perl/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.3/i686-linux/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.3/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.2/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.3/i686-linux/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.3/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.2/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.3/i686-linux/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.3/usr/local/lib/site_perl/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.2/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0.) at./pizza_party line 14. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at./pizza_party line 14.
One of the nice things about ReactOS is that they are working with the wine project. System level libraries etc have already been written so it makes sense to use them. This is a great bonus because it means the two projects can feed of each other and that cant be a bad thing.
Wine is a tall order admittedly but it just gets better and better. There is plenty of mileage to go before it really approaches the same level of compatibility as real windows. You can run most of the usual business apps MSOffice etc. But by the time Longhorn comes out backward compatibilty will be maimed hugely by the DRM/Palladium nonsense.
IMHO, The person to blame is the one that made the desicsion that the solution was an appropriate one. Surely when the systems were set up there would have been a specification document stating these systems should be secuure and stable and suitable for use in a situation where lives are at stake.
Yes Microsft are to blame for not making their OS reliable and secure enough to use in a critical environment. But it is not exactly a secret that its full of holes and has a reputation for being unstable.
Yes the sysadmin is to blame for not ensuring the systems are patched and up to date.
But the real idiot is the one who made the decision to use the system in such a critical environment. It just seems insane to me that anyone would use an operating system with knwon issues in a situation where peoples lives are at stake.
Im thinking, what with the architecture switch for XBox, I cant help but wonder if they are planning on enabling longhorn for these next generation chips. With specifications like these I can imagine a new Longhorn enabled (god forbid) PC being a substantial financial outlay.
Having said that, it is about time current yet dated PC architecture was ditched. As much as I avoid microsoft like the plague I cant help but think i'd have a miniscule amount of respect for them for making an architecture switch. From what i hear anyway Longhorn with its DRM palladium nastiness is probably going to loose a great deal of legacy compatibility anyway so now would be as good a time as any to do this? I dont see how they can retain much legacy without leaving the OS full of holes.This doesnt neccesarrily mean longhorn is going to be any good though!
Thankfully I dont really give a toss about Longhorn anyway. I mean in the UK 27 of our coastguards services computer networks were put out of service due to the Sasser worm. That meant they had to rely on paper maps and slower more traditional means than normal. Whoever was dumb enough to use such a known insecure OS in such a critical environment I'll never know. The moment someone dies because of a fuck up like this lets hope its accounted for. People have got a couple more years of security hell from redmond to put up with, im not sure that when longhorn finally comes out people are really going to be dumb enough to lock themselves into another insecure, high cost hardware/software upgrade cycle. I think there is going to be a lot of change in the next few years, whatever happens though lets hope that its for the good of mankind and not some corporation bent on world domination.
Microsoft make some awesome products until they are in a monopoly position.
So how come they are having so much trouble with the X-Box then? If what you are saying is true, then as they are struggling with Xbox at the moment (and not holding the monopoly), surely there should be lots of great games. Instead we see mainly PC ports and a few average multi-plaform console ports.With the noticable acception of Halo and the other launch titles.
Since they are not in a monopoly in the console market (thank god) your comments would suggest that their games should be excellent. As this article suggests though, this isnt the case( why else would they be making promises?). Any how as the old saying goes. If at first you dont succeed, try, try again.
When they go after a market they make the best products, that is until they've got it locked, at which point it doesn't matter and they slack off:
Just imagine, what that statement means for the future if Microsoft manage to get a hold of the console market? I personally think I'll lose interest in the whole idea of console gaming if this happens. Console gaming should be a hotbed of innovation. The last thing we want is anyone slacking off.
Its strange isnt it, how people complain when an app is "too" similar or a "clone" of a proprietary application, but when something is different they complain that its not like application "X" therefore application "X" is better.
This is twaddle. Gimp 2 is a huge improvement on the previous version. Not having had a great deal of use of Photoshop, I am used to Gimp's way of doing things, in all likelihood I could find just as many annoyances with Photoshop as this guy does with Gimp.
I'd really like to buy a keyboard that doesnt have flippin' "windows" keys on. I've stumbled accross one with "Tux" keys but it was quite expensive. This would be nice, but i've gotten used to having a wireless keyboard now, this would be an additional requirement too. Illuminated keys arent really a neccesity but would be nice.
This kind of thing might be really handy for someone who works on computer controlled stage lighting, but I cant think of many other uses.
I would love to have an HDTV so I could see more detail in the films I watch.
Are HD DVD films available in the US yet?
nick...
Re:Why do we need HDTV anyways?
on
CableCARDs and HDTV
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
We dont have HDTV in the UK, but our digital services are now really very good. (quite low compression on most channels less artifacts). From what I've seen of cable in the US, (comcast) you seem to have a mixture of digital and analog going into the same box. And on a number of the digital channels you can definitely see the tell-tale mpeg artifacts. Over here our cable co's switched completely from analog to digital (all the cable channels are digital, and i think the same can be said for satellite now) We still have 5 analog terrestrial channels ; supplemented by terrestrial digital which requires a set top box (picture quality is also very good)
However having great picture quality is not a huge incentive for many people to pay the cost for the hardware. Sure from a geeky perspective its great to have sexy hardware etc. But at the end of the day it doesnt make the tv programmes any better. TV in the UK has really gone down hill over the past few years, there is rarely anything worth watching on TV anymore.
The main reason I would buy a HDTV if we had them available over here. Would be for playing video games, and watching HD-DVD's if and when they are available. I simply cant imagine the incentive to watch crap like Eastenders or Coronation Street in HDTV, Higher resolution is not going to make these programs any better.
I'd much prefer to get a space saving tv like an LCD or Plasma to be honest. CRT's should have been consigned to the scrap heap years ago.
With that much computer power at their disposal they could do some cool things - maybe some sort of distributive computing thingie or big database of some kind.
What about building a really big search engine? To build a really big search engine, your going to need some serious distributed computing, and a big database! Hey wait a minute thats what they are doing!
What would be more interesting, is not porting the framework to linux. That doesnt make a lot of sense since there is darwin. Of course stuff like cocoa might be useful for open source developers wanting to write applications for different platforms. However other frameworks existing for the open source *nixes. And besides I suspect there is a lot of dependancies with aqua and what else.
What would be far more interesting would be if they were to port the whole kaboodle to x86 hardware. They had a bash with rhapsody. Apple have got themselves some respect in the past few years despite some dodgy *iPod* battery practices from time to time. With long wait for longhorn, and microsoft getting such bad practices. It could be a good time to think about this, the main problem of course being cross architecture. If someone were to solve the cross architecture binary incompatibility issue it would surely put quite a large spannner in the works.
I think that was a really good letter, and raised the important issues at hand. Again to re-iterate, the BBC is a public funded organisation (although some might question this) it is important that it isnt seen to be hindering accessibility for everyone. Anyone who owns a TV in the UK is forced to pay for a TV license which is intended to pay for the BBC services. This is in addition to any monthly fees paid for choice cable or satellite channels.
I wrote a similar complaint to the BBC a while back regarding a video stream that I simply couldnt play without hacking the URL out of the source HTML (under linux). The BBC have a duty to ensure that everyone is able to view its content.
I love gentoo, I tried different distro's over the past few years, SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat etc. I tried Gentoo a couple of years ago, and have been running as my main desktop machine ever since. Its so easy to update and maintain and I like the ability to tweak for my hardware specifically.
Sometimes there can be a few weeks of wait for certain packages to get into the portage tree, but generally speaking when they arrive, they work without any problems. Gentoo also seems to have got more and more stable over the time that I've been using it.
However, I would be rather reluctant to use Gentoo on a production server. My thoughts may be unfounded but I'd feel a lot "Safer" using RedHat or other well known distro. If i need to phone up a co-lo to get them to fix an issue, id rather know that the staff are using a tried and tested system. In addition to this building from source can be a time consuming process, that which my boss (if i had one) would probably rather have me avoid.
This is not to say in any way that Gentoo is not up to the job, I'm sure it is in fact. If Gentoo are thinking of taking the next step Distro-Wise, Their Enterprise distro needs to be "Binary" oriented (or at least defaulting to binary installs) and the install process needs to be point and click-ified. This really is a pretty damn easy thing to do, The ease of building an entire system from a few command lines could ensure updates can be provided at the drop of a hat.
I enjoy my gentoo, and being able to build from source etc. But there is no-reason why Gentoo can't build and enterprise level binary oriented distro from the same base.
The problem with "all" wordprocessors and their level of success is, quite frankly that they are not MS Office (or rather percieved as) anything less is automatically assumed to be inferior. In addition to this the problems interchanging fileformats between different companies wordprocessors will leave bosses wishing they'd "just gone with MS Office".
I happen to think that despite Open Offices speed and slightly clunky interface in terms of compatibility it does a sterling job considering the enormity of the task ahead of them.
So how to beat down the Redmond beast ? Well, at least if there is more diversirty in the wordprocessor market place and the alternatives can talk each others language, or maybe even a standardised fileformat. Might it make Microsoft be seen as the one who's having problems reading files that everyone else can use without problem? Well that could take some time. Id like to support anyone who produces decent Office products , (free or otherwise) for the Linux platform. In spite of the stiff opposition the Linux desktop is a relatively new target, and as its popularity increases we have the opportunity to decide who makes the jewels in our crown.
Thats bollocks. I mean, how far back does that go ? Remember MB Games Simon ? damn it, that was the whole principle of that game! (pressing colours in a timed sequence)...
In anycase if its related to computers, the Amiga which required "Double Click" to launch programs from Icons had a preferences requester to allow you to change the time period used to detect a double click. Damn if there is a case for prior art then this is so unfair. Anyone else care to comment on the undoubted instances of prior art in this situation ?
Oh sure there are good emulators, no doubt about that but they aint quite perfect. That maybe more down to the fact that there was an analog element to the sound. The C64 had capacitors which were used for sound filters, this is pretty hard to recreate authentically through emulation. Addtionally no two C64's sounded identical, although I can categorically say that the original brown C64's sounded generically considerably better than the 2nd generation cream colored C64's which had an updated SID and possible different filters which let to a harsher sound lacking in the bottom (bass) end. In a selfless gratuitous way the SID chip was kinda like the Moog of the microcomputer world. You can get close... but no cigar without the real thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I dont really see a problem with this being a repackaged Wine. Provided that the company comply with the licensing terms, and that any changes to the source are given back to the community. More heads working on the wine project can only be a beneficial wherever they come from.
However, if they are going to be all take take take and no giving back to the community then I do see a problem with it.
Nick...
Seems to work in epsxe playstation emulator! I've just been watching lara crofts ass in glorious 3D.
...
nick
On one hand the guy says, that its Microsofts mission that Longhorn not break existing apps? And yet in the same report is asking the developers to start thinking about building for the new longhorn framework. So what is it? Make your apps work for longhorn or make longhorn work with existing apps? A little bit of contradiction there.
;
...
Anyhow
While its good that Microsoft are encouraging open source developers to build for their OS, dont you think its a bit lame that they are so against open source software? They need to make their minds up. And if they are going to encourage it how about supplying the tools and documentation to the community in order to enable good interoperability with other programs and operating systems?
Its in Microsoft best interests that software works with Longhorn if it is to be a success. Having said that you can bet your bottom dollar that "certain applications" Office perhaps ? will offer a reduced experience on longhorn requiring you to purchase a newer longhorn version. I dont think its unwise to be cynical about this given the pages of the history books.
Longhorn is a way off now, there are going to be several new generations of OSX and Linux between now and when it is released. A lot can happen in this time frame. If the linux take-up continues at the pace it is at the moment Longhorn is going to have to take interoperability more seriously whether Microsoft or Open Source developers like it or not.
nick
Microsoft's technology evangelist Robert Scoble said in his blog and interview that while he is a user of Firefox...
Thats some Microsoft Evangelist !
nick...
bash-2.05b# ./pizza_party /etc/perl /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.3/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.3 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.2 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.3/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.3 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.2 /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.3/i686-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.3 /usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.2 /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0 .) at ./pizza_party line 14. ./pizza_party line 14.
Can't locate Getopt/Mixed.pm in @INC (@INC contains:
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at
Thats really good news...
...
Lets watch them burn in the pits of despair
nick
One of the nice things about ReactOS is that they are working with the wine project. System level libraries etc have already been written so it makes sense to use them. This is a great bonus because it means the two projects can feed of each other and that cant be a bad thing.
...
Wine is a tall order admittedly but it just gets better and better. There is plenty of mileage to go before it really approaches the same level of compatibility as real windows. You can run most of the usual business apps MSOffice etc. But by the time Longhorn comes out backward compatibilty will be maimed hugely by the DRM/Palladium nonsense.
nick
In real life people dont have perfect skin. Surely we are really after the look of imperfect skin.
...
nick
IMHO, The person to blame is the one that made the desicsion that the solution was an appropriate one. Surely when the systems were set up there would have been a specification document stating these systems should be secuure and stable and suitable for use in a situation where lives are at stake.
Yes Microsft are to blame for not making their OS reliable and secure enough to use in a critical environment. But it is not exactly a secret that its full of holes and has a reputation for being unstable.
Yes the sysadmin is to blame for not ensuring the systems are patched and up to date.
But the real idiot is the one who made the decision to use the system in such a critical environment. It just seems insane to me that anyone would use an operating system with knwon issues in a situation where peoples lives are at stake.
nick
Im thinking, what with the architecture switch for XBox, I cant help but wonder if they are planning on enabling longhorn for these next generation chips. With specifications like these I can imagine a new Longhorn enabled (god forbid) PC being a substantial financial outlay.
...
Having said that, it is about time current yet dated PC architecture was ditched. As much as I avoid microsoft like the plague I cant help but think i'd have a miniscule amount of respect for them for making an architecture switch. From what i hear anyway Longhorn with its DRM palladium nastiness is probably going to loose a great deal of legacy compatibility anyway so now would be as good a time as any to do this? I dont see how they can retain much legacy without leaving the OS full of holes.This doesnt neccesarrily mean longhorn is going to be any good though!
Thankfully I dont really give a toss about Longhorn anyway. I mean in the UK 27 of our coastguards services computer networks were put out of service due to the Sasser worm. That meant they had to rely on paper maps and slower more traditional means than normal. Whoever was dumb enough to use such a known insecure OS in such a critical environment I'll never know. The moment someone dies because of a fuck up like this lets hope its accounted for. People have got a couple more years of security hell from redmond to put up with, im not sure that when longhorn finally comes out people are really going to be dumb enough to lock themselves into another insecure, high cost hardware/software upgrade cycle. I think there is going to be a lot of change in the next few years, whatever happens though lets hope that its for the good of mankind and not some corporation bent on world domination.
nick
mine too!
Microsoft make some awesome products until they are in a monopoly position.
:
...
So how come they are having so much trouble with the X-Box then? If what you are saying is true, then as they are struggling with Xbox at the moment (and not holding the monopoly), surely there should be lots of great games. Instead we see mainly PC ports and a few average multi-plaform console ports.With the noticable acception of Halo and the other launch titles.
Since they are not in a monopoly in the console market (thank god) your comments would suggest that their games should be excellent. As this article suggests though, this isnt the case( why else would they be making promises?). Any how as the old saying goes. If at first you dont succeed, try, try again.
When they go after a market they make the best products, that is until they've got it locked, at which point it doesn't matter and they slack off
Just imagine, what that statement means for the future if Microsoft manage to get a hold of the console market? I personally think I'll lose interest in the whole idea of console gaming if this happens. Console gaming should be a hotbed of innovation. The last thing we want is anyone slacking off.
nick
Its strange isnt it, how people complain when an app is "too" similar or a "clone" of a proprietary application, but when something is different they complain that its not like application "X" therefore application "X" is better.
This is twaddle. Gimp 2 is a huge improvement on the previous version. Not having had a great deal of use of Photoshop, I am used to Gimp's way of doing things, in all likelihood I could find just as many annoyances with Photoshop as this guy does with Gimp.
Nick
I'd really like to buy a keyboard that doesnt have flippin' "windows" keys on. I've stumbled accross one with "Tux" keys but it was quite expensive. This would be nice, but i've gotten used to having a wireless keyboard now, this would be an additional requirement too. Illuminated keys arent really a neccesity but would be nice.
...
This kind of thing might be really handy for someone who works on computer controlled stage lighting, but I cant think of many other uses.
nick
I would love to have an HDTV so I could see more detail in the films I watch.
...
Are HD DVD films available in the US yet?
nick
We dont have HDTV in the UK, but our digital services are now really very good. (quite low compression on most channels less artifacts). From what I've seen of cable in the US, (comcast) you seem to have a mixture of digital and analog going into the same box. And on a number of the digital channels you can definitely see the tell-tale mpeg artifacts. Over here our cable co's switched completely from analog to digital (all the cable channels are digital, and i think the same can be said for satellite now) We still have 5 analog terrestrial channels ; supplemented by terrestrial digital which requires a set top box (picture quality is also very good)
However having great picture quality is not a huge incentive for many people to pay the cost for the hardware. Sure from a geeky perspective its great to have sexy hardware etc. But at the end of the day it doesnt make the tv programmes any better. TV in the UK has really gone down hill over the past few years, there is rarely anything worth watching on TV anymore.
The main reason I would buy a HDTV if we had them available over here. Would be for playing video games, and watching HD-DVD's if and when they are available. I simply cant imagine the incentive to watch crap like Eastenders or Coronation Street in HDTV, Higher resolution is not going to make these programs any better.
I'd much prefer to get a space saving tv like an LCD or Plasma to be honest. CRT's should have been consigned to the scrap heap years ago.
nick.
With that much computer power at their disposal they could do some cool things - maybe some sort of distributive computing thingie or big database of some kind.
What about building a really big search engine?
To build a really big search engine, your going to need some serious distributed computing, and a big database! Hey wait a minute thats what they are doing!
What would be more interesting, is not porting the framework to linux. That doesnt make a lot of sense since there is darwin. Of course stuff like cocoa might be useful for open source developers wanting to write applications for different platforms. However other frameworks existing for the open source *nixes. And besides I suspect there is a lot of dependancies with aqua and what else.
...
What would be far more interesting would be if they were to port the whole kaboodle to x86 hardware. They had a bash with rhapsody. Apple have got themselves some respect in the past few years despite some dodgy *iPod* battery practices from time to time. With long wait for longhorn, and microsoft getting such bad practices. It could be a good time to think about this, the main problem of course being cross architecture. If someone were to solve the cross architecture binary incompatibility issue it would surely put quite a large spannner in the works.
nick
I'd certainly like to see a series 60 port!
So if anyone cleverer than me fancies a bash, i'd sure like to hear about it.
nick...
Microsoft cannot vouch for the validity or quality of download packages offered by third parties not sanctioned by Microsoft."
I think that this comment from microsoft highlights one reason why open source is a much more trustworthy method than closed.
nick...
I think that was a really good letter, and raised the important issues at hand. Again to re-iterate, the BBC is a public funded organisation (although some might question this) it is important that it isnt seen to be hindering accessibility for everyone. Anyone who owns a TV in the UK is forced to pay for a TV license which is intended to pay for the BBC services. This is in addition to any monthly fees paid for choice cable or satellite channels.
...
I wrote a similar complaint to the BBC a while back regarding a video stream that I simply couldnt play without hacking the URL out of the source HTML (under linux). The BBC have a duty to ensure that everyone is able to view its content.
Nick
I love gentoo, I tried different distro's over the past few years, SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat etc.
...
I tried Gentoo a couple of years ago, and have been running as my main desktop machine ever since. Its so easy to update and maintain and I like the ability to tweak for my hardware specifically.
Sometimes there can be a few weeks of wait for certain packages to get into the portage tree, but generally speaking when they arrive, they work without any problems. Gentoo also seems to have got more and more stable over the time that I've been using it.
However, I would be rather reluctant to use Gentoo on a production server. My thoughts may be unfounded but I'd feel a lot "Safer" using RedHat or other well known distro. If i need to phone up a co-lo to get them to fix an issue, id rather know that the staff are using a tried and tested system. In addition to this building from source can be a time consuming process, that which my boss (if i had one) would probably rather have me avoid.
This is not to say in any way that Gentoo is not up to the job, I'm sure it is in fact. If Gentoo are thinking of taking the next step Distro-Wise, Their Enterprise distro needs to be "Binary" oriented (or at least defaulting to binary installs) and the install process needs to be point and click-ified. This really is a pretty damn easy thing to do, The ease of building an entire system from a few command lines could ensure updates can be provided at the drop of a hat.
I enjoy my gentoo, and being able to build from source etc. But there is no-reason why Gentoo can't build and enterprise level binary oriented distro from the same base.
nick
The problem with "all" wordprocessors and their level of success is, quite frankly that they are not MS Office (or rather percieved as) anything less is automatically assumed to be inferior. In addition to this the problems interchanging fileformats between different companies wordprocessors will leave bosses wishing they'd "just gone with MS Office".
I happen to think that despite Open Offices speed and slightly clunky interface in terms of compatibility it does a sterling job considering the enormity of the task ahead of them.
So how to beat down the Redmond beast ? Well, at least if there is more diversirty in the wordprocessor market place and the alternatives can talk each others language, or maybe even a standardised fileformat. Might it make Microsoft be seen as the one who's having problems reading files that everyone else can use without problem? Well that could take some time. Id like to support anyone who produces decent Office products , (free or otherwise) for the Linux platform. In spite of the stiff opposition the Linux desktop is a relatively new target, and as its popularity increases we have the opportunity to decide who makes the jewels in our crown.
Nick
Thats bollocks. I mean, how far back does that go ?
..
Remember MB Games Simon ? damn it, that was the whole principle of that game! (pressing colours in a timed sequence)...
In anycase if its related to computers, the Amiga which required "Double Click" to launch programs from Icons had a preferences requester to allow you to change the time period used to detect a double click. Damn if there is a case for prior art then this is so unfair. Anyone else care to comment on the undoubted instances of prior art in this situation ?
Nick
Oh sure there are good emulators, no doubt about that but they aint quite perfect. That maybe more down to the fact that there was an analog element to the sound. ... but no cigar without the real thing.
...
The C64 had capacitors which were used for sound filters, this is pretty hard to recreate authentically through emulation. Addtionally no two C64's sounded identical, although I can categorically say that the original brown C64's sounded generically considerably better than the 2nd generation cream colored C64's which had an updated SID and possible different filters which let to a harsher sound lacking in the bottom (bass) end. In a selfless gratuitous way the SID chip was kinda like the Moog of the microcomputer world. You can get close
Nick