And of course there is one true way(tm) of doing everything. Computing obviously reached its peak during the mid 80s and we should never ever do anything different because, you know, it'd upset the Unix geeks and you know how bad they can be when upset.
You say that but the only reason people like me like the "oss way" is that it's just that, open. If Larry decides to take a dive off the sanity train I can stick with the current copy of Perl. I have the right to use the code and furthermore distribute it.
If MSFT takes [...:-)] a dive off the sanity train you're fucked. What, you gonna distribute older copies of Monad [say a version you liked] to your clients? I don't fucking think so.
That and yes, bash and the other shells have worked fine for decades. I can embed perl/python/etc scripts directly into a shell script for greater flexibility. Since perl has an 'exec' function I can even send it code or other data directly.
The MSFT way is just "different" but not because they want to do something that is fundamentally better. Just because it leverages their vertical market strategies in a push-pull positive influential manner!
Show me how, for instance, ASP or their other SSI incompatible technologies are fundaementally better than PHP or CGI via Perl.
Show me how their variations on the HTML standards are "better".
Show me how their take on the C and C++ languages is "better".
It's simple economics. If you can isolate your customers from your competition you rule them all. That's all that drives this level of "innovation". I mean if it was really about the technology then where is Monad for Linux? I mean is Monad actually integral to the Windows operating system? Similarly where is Office for Linux?
So people bitch "oh but there isn't $SERVICE in Linux" but I'd still point out the bulk majority of Office applications is just userspace crap. No reason why it can't work in other OSes.
If OpenOffice can run on a dozen platforms and it isn't written by the supposedly "best" people in the world [best being Microsoft] then clearly MSFT is missing something.
My problem is how blatantly incompatible they do everything.
Like I can use BSD or Linux or MacOS and for the most part the shell is compatible [they all have their own takes on shell].
Then you move to Windows and nothing is similar. They purposefully [for instance] use the wrong direction on the slashes to make things incompatible. That's the level of stupidity they stoop to.
There is no reason why they couldn't embed C# support [or generically.NET] within bash or tcsh or whatever. That way you could still use the familiar but then extend into.NET crap if you wanted to.
Of course for MSFT the big differentiating "feature" they have is that they're not inter-compatible with others. I mean look at how they implemented IE.
Yeah, my point though is the result is not aggregate it's binary. So either you get "yes this is fake" [say above 80% probability] or it isn't [below 80%].
I don't know what the threshold for this test is but it's likely not around 50%.
Sometimes I question how far we can go before we litterally have nothing to write about anymore.
I'm sure if you gave developers from 1980 a tenth of the computing power we have today they would have come up with some pretty f'ing amazing games. I mean look what resulted when the 486 became popular. 3D shooters like Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, OMF2029, etc, etc.
Now it's all "ooh alien experiment gone wrong, escape the island with this rocket launcher!".
Also why aren't they trying to do "more with less".
As many many many many many many people have said before. All the shiny graphics in the world won't make a horrible game bearable. Given that the average game costs $50-70 or so and is really only playable for a short amount of time before getting really boring... is it worth it anyways?
Look at the amount of people still playing NES games from the early 80s. I know NES gamers who play games made before their own birth for crying out loud.
You know what extra technology could be useful for? How about more logic in the games. We're still in the world of "you can't interact with this object" on systems with hundreds of megabits of ram, billions of instructions per second of power and the best we can do is Phong shaded 3 layered textured environments?
So how about instead of putting 500$ worth of gear in a 400$ box why not build a cheaper box that was designed to actually make development less of hassle and more of a pleasure.
AMD processors limit the number of coherent HT links not the number of cores.
So yes, 8P dual core would net you 16 cores and it does in fact work. Obviously your BIOS has to recognize it and have space to store the cpu structures of 16 cores.
Keep in mind as far as memory controllers are concerned there is only one per processor not per core. IIRC it's attached to the first core [logical id 0] whereas the second core has a "dummy" memory controller [writes to the registers are ignored].
It's the wrong technology mostly because of the protocol.
Cell phones also use the ~2Ghz range and are also vulnerable to the same los problems [hint: this is why GSM has a sub-Ghz band].
If wifi was a bit more co-operative it could be shared properly.
That said, yeah, there also just isn't enough bandwidth on 802.11[abg] to share with 100s of users. It would be different if it provided Gbit wireless then sharing would be less problematic..
I can also see public wifi systems getting exploited or DoS'ed. There are enough jerks out there that they would ruin it for everyone.
Fibre to the door would be cool. So would plain ol Ethernet:-)
Valid points. Though I'd like to point out that the Athlon64s can all idle at 1Ghz when not in use.
So the real reason for not getting a higher end 939 is simply cost. If what you have already works great.
Keep in mind my 4800+ remark was for the peeps whining about future gaming. If all you need is a workstation than even a 3400+ [2.2Ghz 1MB L2 939] is more than enough for the forseeable future. Though, come on, everyone wants a 4800+:-)
These comments come up whenever anyone releases a new chip...
How is this any different than Socket 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Super 7, etc...
The world won't come to an end.
The trick as I said [and you ignored] is buy what you need now. Don't buy the cheap shit and hope to upgrade. So save up a grand or two and buy a decent box that will live a while.
If you're planning on buying the cheapest 939 now and save up for a faster on then you're wasting a lot of money.
Well just FYI, you can play most of the latest fancy games on 754-pin Semprons so long as you have plenty'o'ram and a decent GPU.
Besides, do you need to play the latest and greatest FPS-clone at 1600x1200x75fps to have a good time? People like you, will never be happy. So long as you keep buying AMD parts though I'm happy.:-)
I'm telling you straight up, if you're this worried go get yourself the following.
1. FX-60 processor 2. 2GiB of the fastest lowest latency memory you can find [4x512MiB at CL2 will do @PC3200] 3. A GeForce 7800GT 4. Good ventilation
That should be quite capable of playing games for the next half decade at least.
Tom
Tom
Re:Yes, I do remember that. It was different.
on
Viiv Falls Flat
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
One word: WinModem.
I'm not kiddin. Back in the day it was nothing for your cpu to be raped from a WinModem driver that was poorly optimized [or scheduled for P5 at the time].
So having MMX to do the DSP work for the modem could make your downloads faster if only by allowing you to connect at higher speeds and still have CPU left over to run your TCP stack.
Re-using cores is not a bad idea hint: K7 => K8, the newer parts are still K8. You can easily trace back the latest K8 parts to the K7 roots and if you look closely enough there are a few similarities to K6.
The trick is to have a decent design "in theory" [e.g. the K7] and then improve the process [e.g. 250nm => 180nm => 130nm => 90nm => 65nm], improve the implementation [e.g. rev E2 through E6 and now rev F] and finally add to the design itself.
Intel will do well to re-use the P6 design again. Netburst was a horrible failure in that respect.
First off, the only way DDR2 will suck is if they never hit 800Mhz speeds. Since there is a lot of pressure on this I'm sure the memory manufacturers will keep at it.
Second, PCI-E replaces AGP [which was around for a long time]. PCI-E is the new standard for a lot of high bandwidth parts including things like network controllers. So while I can imagine in 5 years time we will start hearing about a new bus coming out, PCI-E will still be around. Christ we still have PCI on motherboards and that was introduced in the early 90s [I recall 486 boards with ISA/VLB/PCI slots!!!].
Third, don't be a fool. Buy what you *need* not what you think will be patchable.
If you really need two cores with a decent cache get a 4400+, 4800+ or FX-60. Those parts are pretty darn fast. I mean I know people who STILL use P3-MP setups running at 550Mhz today... I'm sure a dual-core 2.2Ghz part will be fast enough to compile or run desktop apps for years to come.
Just buying AM2 because "it's new" is stupid, unless that is, you're a developer who wants to support all new platforms.
The trick though is to figure out what you actually need in terms of computing power and topology and buy to that. Otherwise, you'll just waste your money buying stuff you can't use wishing you had something else.
Comparing ENGINEERING SAMPLES of Conroe to RETAIL SAMPLES of Opteron is a bit misleading. You don't suppose AMD has newer parts of their sleeves as well?
I'm sure my 2P 285 setup is faster than the Intel 80486... Just a wild guess.
And even though MCW sports a better pipe [than Netburst] and more cache [than Opteron] it still has an FSB. That makes 2P and beyond still an AMD favourite.
I mean it's really hard to describe the speed of a box where both processors have access to their own memory. Coupled with a NUMA aware OS like Linux and you can really get some speed going.
I fell into this trap when I learned by new 915G ASUS board wouldn't handle an i820 smithfield core.
Intel may use 775 for everything nowadays (except for Core Solo/Duo btw) but the required chipset changes. To be safe on the Intel camp today you need >=i945 northbridge. But that didn't help all the 915G users like me back in the day.
Might be safe to point out that unlike Intel at least AMD has multiple vendors of chipsets. So while AMD is going through transitions (hint: So will Intel be when they realize that an FSB for memory is a dumb idea) you're not stuck on one vendor for getting the requisit parts.
Hate to say it, but for the average desktop user (developer included) a 4800+ processor should be more than enough juice to last quite a long time. I mean at what point do you "really need" more than 2.4Ghz of dual-core goodness to write a Java applet or C program or whatever...
So really, if you went out and got a decked out FX-60 or 4800+ based box today, it would still be useful 5 years from now....
But if you really must be on the bleeding edge, yeah, I'd hold off for AM2 instead of buying 939.
No, Intel is releasing a dual-dual-core not a quad-core. It's going to be two separate dies on one chip.
Intel still hasn't figured out the whole "let's go MP" part yet either. While they are doing things like L2 sharing to speed up proccesses in the same dual-core part (which is a mixed blessing though) they are still using the single-FSB to do MP.
Where the family is coming from? They're greedy. Plain and simple. Justice would be the family of the long since dead artists which inspired Miro, suing the Miro family.
It wasn't as if they scanned a work of art and verbatim posted it on the site. It was actually an original work of art using the style Miro was famous for. So for all intents and purposes of copyright law Google is in the clear. They pulled it down probably because they realized it's not worth the cost of a fight. So pulling it was probably there way of getting the family to shut the fuck up.
I honestly think the staff at Google probably thought they were doing them an honour and having a good time at it. Google likes showing off creative people from time to time and things like this are good all around. It's artsy, pays respect and dresses up the site.
Furthermore, don't you think "Miro Style" is not just an extension of pre-existing styles?
This is how society works. One generation building on the work of the past.
That said, Google is not in the art business, nor is that their permanent logo. It should be viewed as an event of limited importance at best. If it truly was an homage then they should just say thanks and go on their fucking way.
Instead they're "fancy" artists [or in this case the family of] who think they invented art all by their lonesome.
Slashdot Mirror
And of course there is one true way(tm) of doing everything. Computing obviously reached its peak during the mid 80s and we should never ever do anything different because, you know, it'd upset the Unix geeks and you know how bad they can be when upset.
:-)] a dive off the sanity train you're fucked. What, you gonna distribute older copies of Monad [say a version you liked] to your clients? I don't fucking think so.
You say that but the only reason people like me like the "oss way" is that it's just that, open. If Larry decides to take a dive off the sanity train I can stick with the current copy of Perl. I have the right to use the code and furthermore distribute it.
If MSFT takes [...
That and yes, bash and the other shells have worked fine for decades. I can embed perl/python/etc scripts directly into a shell script for greater flexibility. Since perl has an 'exec' function I can even send it code or other data directly.
The MSFT way is just "different" but not because they want to do something that is fundamentally better. Just because it leverages their vertical market strategies in a push-pull positive influential manner!
Show me how, for instance, ASP or their other SSI incompatible technologies are fundaementally better than PHP or CGI via Perl.
Show me how their variations on the HTML standards are "better".
Show me how their take on the C and C++ languages is "better".
It's simple economics. If you can isolate your customers from your competition you rule them all. That's all that drives this level of "innovation". I mean if it was really about the technology then where is Monad for Linux? I mean is Monad actually integral to the Windows operating system? Similarly where is Office for Linux?
So people bitch "oh but there isn't $SERVICE in Linux" but I'd still point out the bulk majority of Office applications is just userspace crap. No reason why it can't work in other OSes.
If OpenOffice can run on a dozen platforms and it isn't written by the supposedly "best" people in the world [best being Microsoft] then clearly MSFT is missing something.
Tom
My problem is how blatantly incompatible they do everything.
.NET] within bash or tcsh or whatever. That way you could still use the familiar but then extend into .NET crap if you wanted to.
Like I can use BSD or Linux or MacOS and for the most part the shell is compatible [they all have their own takes on shell].
Then you move to Windows and nothing is similar. They purposefully [for instance] use the wrong direction on the slashes to make things incompatible. That's the level of stupidity they stoop to.
There is no reason why they couldn't embed C# support [or generically
Of course for MSFT the big differentiating "feature" they have is that they're not inter-compatible with others. I mean look at how they implemented IE.
Tom
-1, flamebait.
Bash is extensible. You can easily embedded perl or other scripting languages in it. So if you don't like it's language you can mix and match.
I'm certain tcsh, ksh and the others have similar functionality.
Tom
Yeah, my point though is the result is not aggregate it's binary. So either you get "yes this is fake" [say above 80% probability] or it isn't [below 80%].
I don't know what the threshold for this test is but it's likely not around 50%.
Tom
Exactly.
It's just yet another "not standard compliant" tool.
Why wouldn't they just extend bash to have C# scripting? like how you can embed perl or python inside shell scripts why can't you embed C#?
Oh I know, because Microsoft really just doesn't get it.
Tom
Not so. The Miller-Rabin algorithm will randomly allow 25% of all composites through.
The trick to reading the results is when it says "definitely fake" it's fake. Otherwise you ignore the result as either "not-fake" or inconclusive.
Tom
Sometimes I question how far we can go before we litterally have nothing to write about anymore.
I'm sure if you gave developers from 1980 a tenth of the computing power we have today they would have come up with some pretty f'ing amazing games. I mean look what resulted when the 486 became popular. 3D shooters like Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, OMF2029, etc, etc.
Now it's all "ooh alien experiment gone wrong, escape the island with this rocket launcher!".
Boo
Tom
Bingo.
... is it worth it anyways?
Also why aren't they trying to do "more with less".
As many many many many many many people have said before. All the shiny graphics in the world won't make a horrible game bearable. Given that the average game costs $50-70 or so and is really only playable for a short amount of time before getting really boring
Look at the amount of people still playing NES games from the early 80s. I know NES gamers who play games made before their own birth for crying out loud.
You know what extra technology could be useful for? How about more logic in the games. We're still in the world of "you can't interact with this object" on systems with hundreds of megabits of ram, billions of instructions per second of power and the best we can do is Phong shaded 3 layered textured environments?
So how about instead of putting 500$ worth of gear in a 400$ box why not build a cheaper box that was designed to actually make development less of hassle and more of a pleasure.
Tom
*cough* *cough*.
AMD processors limit the number of coherent HT links not the number of cores.
So yes, 8P dual core would net you 16 cores and it does in fact work. Obviously your BIOS has to recognize it and have space to store the cpu structures of 16 cores.
Keep in mind as far as memory controllers are concerned there is only one per processor not per core. IIRC it's attached to the first core [logical id 0] whereas the second core has a "dummy" memory controller [writes to the registers are ignored].
Tom
It's the wrong technology mostly because of the protocol.
:-)
Cell phones also use the ~2Ghz range and are also vulnerable to the same los problems [hint: this is why GSM has a sub-Ghz band].
If wifi was a bit more co-operative it could be shared properly.
That said, yeah, there also just isn't enough bandwidth on 802.11[abg] to share with 100s of users. It would be different if it provided Gbit wireless then sharing would be less problematic..
I can also see public wifi systems getting exploited or DoS'ed. There are enough jerks out there that they would ruin it for everyone.
Fibre to the door would be cool. So would plain ol Ethernet
Tom
Tom
Valid points. Though I'd like to point out that the Athlon64s can all idle at 1Ghz when not in use.
:-)
So the real reason for not getting a higher end 939 is simply cost. If what you have already works great.
Keep in mind my 4800+ remark was for the peeps whining about future gaming. If all you need is a workstation than even a 3400+ [2.2Ghz 1MB L2 939] is more than enough for the forseeable future. Though, come on, everyone wants a 4800+
Tom
Socket A most certainly did not have dual channel memory.
Socket A didn't even have a memory controller. The Northbridge may have but the FSB was still a single pipe.
Athlon-MP systems [at least dual] had their own pipes to the northbridge.
This is why Intel has their 800Mhz FSB. The northbridge is dual-channel [or interleaved] and it feeds the cpu as fast as possible.
Tom
These comments come up whenever anyone releases a new chip...
How is this any different than Socket 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Super 7, etc...
The world won't come to an end.
The trick as I said [and you ignored] is buy what you need now. Don't buy the cheap shit and hope to upgrade. So save up a grand or two and buy a decent box that will live a while.
If you're planning on buying the cheapest 939 now and save up for a faster on then you're wasting a lot of money.
Tom
So long story short you're gullible.
:-)
Oh ok.
Well just FYI, you can play most of the latest fancy games on 754-pin Semprons so long as you have plenty'o'ram and a decent GPU.
Besides, do you need to play the latest and greatest FPS-clone at 1600x1200x75fps to have a good time? People like you, will never be happy. So long as you keep buying AMD parts though I'm happy.
I'm telling you straight up, if you're this worried go get yourself the following.
1. FX-60 processor
2. 2GiB of the fastest lowest latency memory you can find [4x512MiB at CL2 will do @PC3200]
3. A GeForce 7800GT
4. Good ventilation
That should be quite capable of playing games for the next half decade at least.
Tom
Tom
One word: WinModem.
I'm not kiddin. Back in the day it was nothing for your cpu to be raped from a WinModem driver that was poorly optimized [or scheduled for P5 at the time].
So having MMX to do the DSP work for the modem could make your downloads faster if only by allowing you to connect at higher speeds and still have CPU left over to run your TCP stack.
Tom
Re-using cores is not a bad idea hint: K7 => K8, the newer parts are still K8. You can easily trace back the latest K8 parts to the K7 roots and if you look closely enough there are a few similarities to K6.
The trick is to have a decent design "in theory" [e.g. the K7] and then improve the process [e.g. 250nm => 180nm => 130nm => 90nm => 65nm], improve the implementation [e.g. rev E2 through E6 and now rev F] and finally add to the design itself.
Intel will do well to re-use the P6 design again. Netburst was a horrible failure in that respect.
Tom
I don't get this argument.
First off, the only way DDR2 will suck is if they never hit 800Mhz speeds. Since there is a lot of pressure on this I'm sure the memory manufacturers will keep at it.
Second, PCI-E replaces AGP [which was around for a long time]. PCI-E is the new standard for a lot of high bandwidth parts including things like network controllers. So while I can imagine in 5 years time we will start hearing about a new bus coming out, PCI-E will still be around. Christ we still have PCI on motherboards and that was introduced in the early 90s [I recall 486 boards with ISA/VLB/PCI slots!!!].
Third, don't be a fool. Buy what you *need* not what you think will be patchable.
If you really need two cores with a decent cache get a 4400+, 4800+ or FX-60. Those parts are pretty darn fast. I mean I know people who STILL use P3-MP setups running at 550Mhz today... I'm sure a dual-core 2.2Ghz part will be fast enough to compile or run desktop apps for years to come.
Just buying AM2 because "it's new" is stupid, unless that is, you're a developer who wants to support all new platforms.
The trick though is to figure out what you actually need in terms of computing power and topology and buy to that. Otherwise, you'll just waste your money buying stuff you can't use wishing you had something else.
Tom
Comparing ENGINEERING SAMPLES of Conroe to RETAIL SAMPLES of Opteron is a bit misleading. You don't suppose AMD has newer parts of their sleeves as well?
... Just a wild guess.
I'm sure my 2P 285 setup is faster than the Intel 80486
And even though MCW sports a better pipe [than Netburst] and more cache [than Opteron] it still has an FSB. That makes 2P and beyond still an AMD favourite.
I mean it's really hard to describe the speed of a box where both processors have access to their own memory. Coupled with a NUMA aware OS like Linux and you can really get some speed going.
Tom
The latency issue gets masked when you start talking DDR2-667 and DDR2-800. Anything less and you're right DDR1 is a winner.
The trick to realize is the DDR1 spec can't [cheaply] clock over the 400 mark without resorting to people just over clocking their memory.
That and DDR2 parts are expected to be cheaper to produce in volume quantities.
Tom
I fell into this trap when I learned by new 915G ASUS board wouldn't handle an i820 smithfield core.
Intel may use 775 for everything nowadays (except for Core Solo/Duo btw) but the required chipset changes. To be safe on the Intel camp today you need >=i945 northbridge. But that didn't help all the 915G users like me back in the day.
Might be safe to point out that unlike Intel at least AMD has multiple vendors of chipsets. So while AMD is going through transitions (hint: So will Intel be when they realize that an FSB for memory is a dumb idea) you're not stuck on one vendor for getting the requisit parts.
Tom
Hate to say it, but for the average desktop user (developer included) a 4800+ processor should be more than enough juice to last quite a long time. I mean at what point do you "really need" more than 2.4Ghz of dual-core goodness to write a Java applet or C program or whatever...
...
So really, if you went out and got a decked out FX-60 or 4800+ based box today, it would still be useful 5 years from now.
But if you really must be on the bleeding edge, yeah, I'd hold off for AM2 instead of buying 939.
Tom
No, Intel is releasing a dual-dual-core not a quad-core. It's going to be two separate dies on one chip.
Intel still hasn't figured out the whole "let's go MP" part yet either. While they are doing things like L2 sharing to speed up proccesses in the same dual-core part (which is a mixed blessing though) they are still using the single-FSB to do MP.
Tom
Long story short.
1. You don't have to upgrade
2. PCIe better than AGP
3. DDR2 [will be] better than DDR1
4. See point #1.
Tom
Where the family is coming from? They're greedy. Plain and simple. Justice would be the family of the long since dead artists which inspired Miro, suing the Miro family.
It wasn't as if they scanned a work of art and verbatim posted it on the site. It was actually an original work of art using the style Miro was famous for. So for all intents and purposes of copyright law Google is in the clear. They pulled it down probably because they realized it's not worth the cost of a fight. So pulling it was probably there way of getting the family to shut the fuck up.
I honestly think the staff at Google probably thought they were doing them an honour and having a good time at it. Google likes showing off creative people from time to time and things like this are good all around. It's artsy, pays respect and dresses up the site.
Tom
You can't copyright a style.
Furthermore, don't you think "Miro Style" is not just an extension of pre-existing styles?
This is how society works. One generation building on the work of the past.
That said, Google is not in the art business, nor is that their permanent logo. It should be viewed as an event of limited importance at best. If it truly was an homage then they should just say thanks and go on their fucking way.
Instead they're "fancy" artists [or in this case the family of] who think they invented art all by their lonesome.
Tom