The whole point of broadband is to be able to consume tons of data quickly.
Hmm. That's the leech mentality, alright, but that's not why I use broadband. For me, the value of having the always on connection far outweighs the high speed.
I would be very unhappy to be hit with a hard transfer limit, but I would be absolutely delighted to have the option of a lower-cost class of service that had a lower maximum transfer rate.
but the new ARM devices are going to have apps that are running slower than they should be do to the m68k -> arm translation
This is misleading, because the reality is that most applications will run considerably faster on ARM, even with the emulation.. The emulated 68k environment (called PACE) is coded in pure ARM assembly, and all system calls (calls into the OS itself) execute as native ARM code. Most applications use OS services heavily, and thus will run much much faster.
In situations where the application itself implements a CPU-intensive algorithm, the emulation may slow down the execution. In many cases it's still fast enough! These situations are extremely rare, but that's what armlets are for -- small chunks of native ARM code used to boost performance of CPU-intensive routines.
they are targetting a handheld unit with a 66mhz arm proccessor
Absolutely untrue. The OS is completely agnostic to CPU speed, and processors are commonly available in speeds from 40MHz to 1GHz. Spec for hardware that ships on devices is COMPLETELY up to the licensee (e.g. Palm, Sony et. al.) but can be expected to be in the 200MHz ball park.
Hell, as a matter of fact, most of our programmers are being outsourced to off-shore programming farms for a fraction of the cost.
Anyone who's interested on why this is happening should read Decline & Fall of the American Programmer by Ed Yourdon. This book is nearly ten years old and predicted exactly this situation.
This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the software industry.
No, it has nothing to do with grounding. Static protection is in the connector, on all the data lines.
It's _easy_ to build in static protection. It's done by making each data line run _very_ close to a parallel ground trace, so that any dangerous potential will simply arc to ground.
Sometimes this is done on the board, and sometimes it's inside the IC.
Dollars to donuts these fried motherboards (notice how they're all Dells?) didn't bother protecting the serial ports.
All they'll have to do is have a grounding connector pin placed slightly ahead of the data and power pins on the connector. Hot swap drives do this today, why can't handhelds?
Actually, Palm handhelds _do_ have static protection in the device connector. Pop your Palm V open and see for yourself.
Many (cheap-ass) motherboards _do not_ have static protection in the serial ports. Notice that when the motherboards supposedly get fried, no one's Palm device stops working?
Nevermind the silly wars over sound quality. I'm encoding my CDs to.ogg files becaues of the amazing technical features that ogg provides.
Ever try encoding live music with MP3? Ever try to cut it into separate tracks? Notice that big ugly gap of silence between each track? That SUCKS!
Well ogg/vorbis supports edits with a resolution of 1 sample, so you can seamlessly join tracks together. With MP3, you either put up with the sucky gap, or make ONE HUGE FILE for the entire recording.
What's that you say? You have a 4-channel surround sound recording? You have a 5.1 stream you ripped out of a DVD? Too bad the designers of the MP3 file format didn't think about that. The vorbis file format supports 256 channels.
What does running Linux on Palm hardware (or any PDA-type device) get you?
What does it enable?
Are you planning to port emacs? Apache?
The beauty of the Palm OS is that it's absolutely minimal. Everything you need, nothing you don't. And that's why Palm software gives you fast access to the info you need, and the batteries last forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm. That's the leech mentality, alright, but that's not why I use broadband. For me, the value of having the always on connection far outweighs the high speed.
I would be very unhappy to be hit with a hard transfer limit, but I would be absolutely delighted to have the option of a lower-cost class of service that had a lower maximum transfer rate.
This is misleading, because the reality is that most applications will run considerably faster on ARM, even with the emulation.. The emulated 68k environment (called PACE) is coded in pure ARM assembly, and all system calls (calls into the OS itself) execute as native ARM code. Most applications use OS services heavily, and thus will run much much faster.
In situations where the application itself implements a CPU-intensive algorithm, the emulation may slow down the execution. In many cases it's still fast enough! These situations are extremely rare, but that's what armlets are for -- small chunks of native ARM code used to boost performance of CPU-intensive routines.
they are targetting a handheld unit with a 66mhz arm proccessor
Absolutely untrue. The OS is completely agnostic to CPU speed, and processors are commonly available in speeds from 40MHz to 1GHz. Spec for hardware that ships on devices is COMPLETELY up to the licensee (e.g. Palm, Sony et. al.) but can be expected to be in the 200MHz ball park.
Anyone who's interested on why this is happening should read Decline & Fall of the American Programmer by Ed Yourdon. This book is nearly ten years old and predicted exactly this situation.
This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the software industry.
Editing with 1-sample resolution, for example. This allows you to cut your live music into tracks without that silly gap introduced by mp3.
Support for 256 channels, channel coupling, etc, are also extremely important for streaming applications.
At the end of the day, more than 80% of handhelds sold run Palm OS.
If want a handful of Slashdot nerds to use your software, you write it for some iPaq running Linux.
If you want a few gadget freaks to use your software, you write it for Wince/Pocket PC.
If you want your aunt and your grandma and the whole rest of the world to use your software, you write it for Palm OS.
In the handheld market, MS is nothing but fancy marketing. This is why hardware companies license Palm OS.
It's certainly easy for Americans to criticize nuclear power when they live in the country that has all the coal.
It's _easy_ to build in static protection. It's done by making each data line run _very_ close to a parallel ground trace, so that any dangerous potential will simply arc to ground.
Sometimes this is done on the board, and sometimes it's inside the IC.
Dollars to donuts these fried motherboards (notice how they're all Dells?) didn't bother protecting the serial ports.
Actually, Palm handhelds _do_ have static protection in the device connector. Pop your Palm V open and see for yourself.
Many (cheap-ass) motherboards _do not_ have static protection in the serial ports. Notice that when the motherboards supposedly get fried, no one's Palm device stops working?
Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams
by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister
Lotsa good don't-do-this stories about pointy-haired bosses.
Ever try encoding live music with MP3? Ever try to cut it into separate tracks? Notice that big ugly gap of silence between each track? That SUCKS!
Well ogg/vorbis supports edits with a resolution of 1 sample, so you can seamlessly join tracks together. With MP3, you either put up with the sucky gap, or make ONE HUGE FILE for the entire recording.
What's that you say? You have a 4-channel surround sound recording? You have a 5.1 stream you ripped out of a DVD? Too bad the designers of the MP3 file format didn't think about that. The vorbis file format supports 256 channels.
1. Edits at a resolution of 1 sample. This is why your live recordings SUCK if you cut them into multiple MP3 files.
2. A file format that supports lots of channels. (So you want to stream that 5.1 audio you encoded from your DVD sountrack, eh?)
Download the free ogeLib Palm OS library at www.loshwomp.com.
What does it enable?
Are you planning to port emacs? Apache?
The beauty of the Palm OS is that it's absolutely minimal. Everything you need, nothing you don't. And that's why Palm software gives you fast access to the info you need, and the batteries last forever.