Is it me, or is Intel really trying to make things awkward with the Pentium IV? I can understand IA64 chips requiring a new case - they are meant for high end server applications anyway - but for a processor which is consumer/workstation level to require new cases and power supplies...
Of course it isn't that hard a requirement, it is just that these new cases will cost a lot initially because they will be an unusual shape. It might also take a while for the non-beige cases to appear as well.
Standards are good. AT, ATX, MicroATX etc. I am sure that this will be ATX+, or ATX2, or something.
It is also a bad reflection on the Pentium 4's power consumption - and Intel want to put this baby in laptops by the end of next year!
Reposted: Slashdot cannot handle...<$... in a posting apparently...
One point is that the Dragonball in the Palm has got the built-in display components (can drive a colour LCD screen at up to 640x512 I think), although PalmOS and the hardware only use a 160x160 screen.
Palm know that their tech is behind the times. This is their answer. Of course we might see iPaqs that win at 400MHz in mobile mode, and 1GHz in external power supply mode, and the processor will cost about $20 in bulk, even at 1GHz (the die is really small, you can fit 40 into the space of a single PIII).
The XScale does not have a built-in LCD display driver. This would mean a separate chip would be required to drive the display, or added onto the XScale core, which is an option. This would take time.
Palm are going to use a standard ARM or StrongARM processor for now. Palms are not about speed, but usability. A cheap (less than $5) 72MHz ARM would be 20x faster than the current chip, and you can buy them with embedded display components. This sounds the most likely option for Palm to take (at the low-end). At the high-end you might get 110MHz StrongARMs, or even 233MHz StrongARMs.
One point is that the Dragonball in the Palm has got the built-in display components (can drive a colour LCD screen at up to 640x512 I think), although PalmOS and the hardware only use a 160x160 screen.
Palm know that their tech is behind the times. This is their answer. Of course we might see iPaqs that win at 400MHz in mobile mode, and 1GHz in external power supply mode, and the processor will cost about $20 in bulk, even at 1GHz (the die is really small, you can fit 40 into the space of a single PIII).
The XScale does not have a built-in LCD display driver. This would mean a separate chip would be required to drive the display, or added onto the XScale core, which is an option. This would take time.
Palm are going to use a standard ARM or StrongARM processor for now. Palms are not about speed, but usability. A cheap (
Hmmm, the market for XScale processors will be bigger than the market for Intel x86 processors within 3 years apparently. Intel can fit >20 XScale processors into the same die space as a Pentium III. They can sell XScale processors en-mass for $20 each (i.e., $400 - $600 dollars revenue for the same die space as a $200 PIII).
Yes, annotation and highlighting, and bookmarking without using tonnes of paperclips or "Post-it Index" tabs.
e-Books will be great, especially at >150dpi on a device around 6.5" by 5" (1024x768). Colour isn't important though, greyscale is fine for books. For textbooks though, I can see the advantage of colour.
But there is still nothing like the feel of a proper book...
I see that people have now provided some links to rough specs. 240x160 pixel screen, in bitmap mode (32k colours) requires 75k of memory, which a 36MHz (my guess at the speed) ARM processor would have no difficulty in updating for a Doom style game, with better graphics than the original doom. Quake is out of the question unless the system has good 3D capabilities - it appears it has some capabilities though, so maybe Quake might appear, especially if the processor is faster...
The sound system is dobly surround compliant, and appears to be able to play up to 32 channels simultaneously. Not bad.
The system retains the character mode graphics of the Gameboy, for compatibility as it will still play Gameboy games (is there a Z80 in the machine then, or is it software emulation on the ARM?) but able to show 511 colours at the same time (sounds like 256 colours for the character blocks, and 255 colours for the sprites).
4 controller buttons, A, B, L and R. Horizontal aspect, as opposed to vertical, which is about time! This does limit the system when it comes to Quake style games though, as strafing, looking up and down, crouching, etc would be hard to do quickly as there aren't enough keys. The display is just over 100dpi, which should guarantee crisp high quality graphics.
The system can be connected directly to the Dolphin console when it comes out - this could mean that downloadable games could become popular, or DVDs full of games at least. This would be great for all those older Gameboy games that are only 256k to 1Mbyte in size, as tonnes could be written on a 32Mb flash memory cartridge. Nintendo had better watch out for this.
I can't wait for the machine, although I will probably hold off a while before buying at, so the price will drop from the initial high (probably $200) price it will start at. Those colour screens are expensive. What this machine needs is a GSM mobile phone addon - the high quality screen would be great for WAP, it is bigger than a Palm screen and has colour... If only the screen was touch sensitive, it could make quite a nice PDA:-)
Duh. The portable playstation requires a wall socket power supply to run - it is basically a small playstation that is more luggable, that is it. The gameboy advance will easily beat it in the portable games market, as it can be played without having to be within 2 meters of a power supply. Also, have you seen the size of a CD recently - the gameboy advance will use cartridges as they are much more compact (hopefully like the Atari Lynx cartridges, which were tiny).
The GBA uses an ARM processor, I don't know the speed. Those screenshots are beautiful. I see this being very popular, even if it is a little expensive when it comes out. Imagine when the coders really get to grips with the system, they will produce amazing games. This system is probably as powerful as a Playstation, maybe moreso.
Of course hardly any details are known about the actual hardware config of the machine. Resolution is better then the Gameboy, which is good, and there are tonnes of colours. Sound is an unknown, and the speed of the processor is as well. Average size of the cartridges is unknown... Does anyone know or have a lonk to the detailed specs?
I wouldn't call "a dozen" that high for a 5 year old system, would you? And have you played on the gameboy advance? Do you know what a gameboy actually is? Nintendo have typically been a high quality software company, and they aim for good quality software that is playable and fun, if a little childish. The PSOne can't compete, its a different market.
That should be a 3 instruction co-processor, called the copper. And one of the instructions, skip I think, was very rarely used. I was generally used to perform palette changes per scanline, making lovely graduated backgrounds which made the Amiga appear to have many many more colours than it really had. Lionheart was a game with an 8 colour foreground, and an 8 colour background, yet using this graphics co-processor it looked absolutely lovely.
Anyway, there is an argument for reasonable optimisation of code - using good data structures and algorithms for example. On the other hand, as you point out, too much optimisation spoils the broth, you end up with hard to read code because of these optimisations, which is bad, and bug hunting becomes more difficult. When you can assume that processors will be 2x as fast when the game you have just started writing is finally released, if you get it running decently on current hardware, then it will scream on the new hardware.
And the most popular paint program was DPaint, and that was written in C. It was slow as a dog in some operations though, so some optimisation was in order! Of course, optimisation was a necessity in the 8 and 16 bit days, either for space (erk, only has 64k/512k) or speed. But there is nothing wrong with well-written assembly, as long as it works - it just takes longer to develop, so it is usually only used in graphics/audio drivers themselves, as opposed to the games/apps themselves.
Yes, they come with a certificate hand signed by the designers, and it is presented in a beautiful 22 carat gold edged package, with the item number on the back. This beautiful objet'd'art will set you back a mere months wages, and will look most beautiful when offset with an ATI Radeon or Geforce 2 DDR. Be sure to present it on an Intel approved Display Rack, Order Number: i820-NoDIMM, and to protect it even further from thieves and the like, please cover with a beige box.
Unlike other 'pretenders', this is the real thing, and to prove it, you can purchase other pieces of art in the Intel Art Range, including the wondrous 256Mb RIMM, and the beautiful Itanium - purchases guaranteed to make your new PentiumIII glow in a different, rosy glow!
Yeah, I would really use Windows 2000 here, with the expensive support contracts, tendancy for users to save their files unsafely on the local machines, etc. Linux, or FreeBSD even, will allow the sysadmin to tightly control what can be done on each machine, and all the users will save automatically to a backed-up server all the time, without knowing it. Add on the cost for a few Win2000 Servers, and licenses for Windows Terminal Servers, and more, and you could be doubling the cost, for no appreciable reason.
Each machine will be stripped down, FreeBSD is great for this, and I am surprised that no-one has mentioned it! Install only what you need, and it runs great on 32Mb. Try out the different window managers on the users, although Window Maker should be good enough - make sure that the WordPerfect icon is on the right hand side! Lawyers use WordPerfect, so use WordPerfect Office, the only real cost to the system, and still cheaper than 2,500 user license for Office 2000.
I assume most machines are different in configuration in some way, so the disk image system isn't going to work too well, unless you can easily classify machines into large groups with the same config. Tie down the security, obviously, and make sure that printing will work fine, and you should be set.
Make sure that there are some decent fonts on the systems. Most Unixes still don't know what a font is barely, so Freetype or xfstt are a necessity.
Also install some desktop games! Sokoban and Mahjong would be good (more intellectual), as opposed to Solitaire and Minesweeper (for middle managers):-)
In the UK, we have Sky Digital TV. This system also comes with digital radio stations, 10 free for the basic TV subscription package, and the ther 30+ for another £5.99 per month. Typically, the Heavy Metal radio station is not one of the 10 channels.
This is all without adverts, and if you turn the TV on while you are listening to the music, you can find out the song title, artist and more. All in all a very good system. We also have all of the standard radio stations on the satellite in addition (BBC 1 to 5, Virgin, etc), and 8 Music TV stations (MTV, MTV2, MTV Extra, MTV Base, VH1, VH1 Classics, The Box, UKPlay).
So we are not short of music in the UK. And Sky Digital is the best television package you can buy in the world (probably due to having all the best American TV shows available on it) and with the interactive stuff and other fun stuff it outshines the rather weak OnDigital terrestrial digital TV system in England.
"...To that end, the company is working to refine its technique, so as to fly stealthily beneath the radar of firewalls and intrusion detection systems. "It's a goal we have," says Muniz. "Someday I'd like to get the system to the point where we don't set off anybody's alarms."
So they want to hack through all the Firewalls on the Internet, and they are publically saying that? Is it 911? "Hi, we have found people who are trying to crack their way into systems around the world..."
I agree with the other poster, these people are basically script kiddies. I hope they don't map the UK internet topology, that information is the property of the companies that set it up, and would be covered by the Data Protection Act 1998. Possibly.
And I don't get how this information would help them do what their aim is?
DVD-RW drives can cost up to $3000 each. DVD-RAM drives are cheaper, yes.
Anyway, write 100Gb worth of data using the DVD-RAM with 2.6Gb DVDs: $400 + 40*$20 = $1200.
Write 100Gb worth of data using CD-DD: $200 + 80*$4 = $520. Less than half the cost. Even if the DVD-RAM media cost only $10 each it would still be more expensive. Still damned useful for backing up *huge* datasets though.
And I hope that someone comes out with a CD-DD normal CD Player. Coupled with those 99minute CD's that somebody else mentioned, that would be 3 hours of CD quality music on a CD. I am worried about the copying restrictions though, but they will be worked around anyway. Of course, these new CD Players could be playing 5.1channel music at 24-bit quality for an hour using CD-DD. Bye bye DVD-Audio...
This was a product asking to be developed for 10 years really - the CD came out in the early 80's, and the CD-ROM was the late 80's, but still held the same amount of data as the audio CD. So in 20 years, the capacity has not increased at all for data-CDs - I find that amazing.
DVD-RAM/RW etc are too expensive. You are talking up to $3000 per player, for 5Gb of storage. If these Double Density CD-ROMs/RW/RW can be made and sold for only a little more than normal CDs, and the Players and Recorders are not that much more expensive, and they license the technology to other CD-ROM/R/RW manufacturers for a reasonable amount, then this product could see some large market dominance. What would you have? A 1.3Gb CD2RW that costs $4 and a $200 CD2RW drive, or a $20 2.6Gb DVD-RW/RAM and a $500 - $3000 DVD-RW/RAM drive? What will the end consumer end up getting in their consumer PCs?
Looking at disc media capacities, we have 650Mb CDs, 2.6Gb, 4.7Gb and 5.2Gb DVDs (and 9.4Gb DVDs coming out next year. That leaves room for the 1.3Gb CD-DD quite nicely. It might not be downwardly compatable, but neither is the DVD (with CD, or even DVD-ROM), so they are on a level playing field, but the price is in CD-DDs advantage.
Of course, I would like to see a more open standard for CD-DD and later on CD-HD (High Density 2.6Gb CDs). It would have more mass market appeal.
One thing that struck me was having this on those 7cm Mini-CDs, as used in the latest Sony mavica. Instead of 150Mb of storage, you would have 300Mb of storage. Not bad. I am waiting for an MP3 player that can use these 7cm CDs:-)
To recap: DVD writable products are too expensive, this is cheaper, and so it might have a lower capacity, it isn't significantly lower, and the total cost of ownership for this product (after wring 100Gb of data say) would be vastly lower than for DVD writable products. But the product will only succeed if Sony license the technology for reasonable rates, otherwise you run the risk of incompatable CD-DD formats...
Giving the source code away is fine, if they have paid for it. Just don't allow the end people to redistribute the software you sell them, i.e., don't put a clause in the license that allows them to pass on the code, like the GPL allows. So you will be selling a product still, but the product will include the source, APIs and docs. You don't have to give them away to everybody you know. Even the GPL only states that you have to provide the source code to the person who has the binary, if they don't have the source.
Giving the code away is a good move in many aspect, it is good for marketing, and it is going with the current bandwagon. If your product is not that hard to replicate though, then it isn't worth much anyway - there is nothing terribly unique about it. Patents can be used to resolve certain IP issues - and they should be used if the IP is new, original and non-obvious. Of course, being a software only solution, you can only get the patent in America, which limits the power of the patent. You could give a free license for all free software, to avoid being badmouthed about it, but software patents are not desirable, as you point out.
Make the product a solution. Corporate entities buy solutions - basically products that solve one particular thing very well. The support for a solution will be there, and you can make money from selling the product as a solution. Many companies will also like the fact that they get the source, not the majority of companies, as it will mean nothing to them, but some. These companies will like the power to amend small things in the codebase to meet their needs.
Otherwise, you are hitting the nail on the head. What incentive is their to write easy, good quality software when you are trying to make money from support? Luckily most computer users aren't that clued up, and will need support whatever the software or hardware(Moving the Mouse for Dummies! etc).
It just depends on the target audience for the product, which you haven't specified, so it makes it hard to assess your chances. I wish you luck.
I have never seen a Palm Pilot advert, but the one you describe sounds quite good.
The keyboards on the Psions are strangely usable, the best Handheld keyboard that there is. The screens are also touch sensitive, there just isn't a handwriting recognition system on them yet. They are faster than graffiti.
Symbian is going to be using EPOC as its core OS, with a custom UI, maybe using the Palm UI, the EPOC UI, or one deidicated to the task. The Ericsson R380 mobile phone (320x100ish phone length screen) will be one of the first Symbian phones, with built in PDA. Bluetooth probably won't make it into this phone. In the future Palm might even be using EPOC as their underlying OS, with the good Palm desktop (palmtop?) on top of it. I think I recall Palm saying that they would be moving to an ARM based product line in the future, as the Dragonball processor wasn't good enough.
EPOC also has full document embedding, a la COM or KParts or whatever, but on a 36MHz CPU that you can carry around in your pocket. Not bad, in my opinion. With ARM cpus available at 233MHz now, the usability and features of the handheld devices that utilise ARM processors can only go up - see the Samsung Yopy.
And the killer is, the ARM processors are beautiful to program. What more could you ask for? Colour? Psion 7 and NetBook have that. Apps? All built-in and well-designed. Synchronisation? Amongst the best on the market. Style? Don't you want a Palmtop with a leather case? And the Psion 5 range is quite mature, and doesn't suffer from DRAM problems:-). The next range of Psion products should be excellent.
Don't underestimate other contenders though. Tao are looking hot with their technology (Sony, Motorola and Amiga are licensees). QNX have a great product, if they can finalise it. In the end, the OS won't matter though, only the apps. I see VP applications (Virtual Processor, similar to Java, but better, see Tao for more information) as the way forward.
Other CPUs? Low power x86 (National Semiconductor Geode, Transmeta). SH3 and SH4 from Hitachi. MIPs. Motorola Coldfire. This is the fun end of computing, unlike the terminally dull x86 PC!
This explains why Palm made even higher profits - they are using less than excellent components for their devices. Hopefully the Sony Palm device will have some decent design and quality behind it, and decent components. The memory stick slot looks like a useful thing as well, shame it is proprietary - I would prefer the Secure Digital card that the Palm will be using later this year - that is not proprietary.
Still, they will allocate the bad memory as used, and all will be fine (as long as the bad memory is under 100K, nobody will mind much). Great advert for the storage capabilities of the devices though - it took 5 months to find the bug, because it took that long to even get near that area in memory.
Still, although the Palm devices are quite nice and all that, I would buy a Psion 5mx, which is a darned nicer bit of equipment, or the Psion Revo, which is about the size of a Palm, but has a much larger screen and a full keyboard. I wonder why Psion has not really made it in America - I think they need better marketing. EPOC is the best palm-top OS, it beats PalmOS and Windows CE (PocketPC) by a mile.
I might consider a 320x240 colour palm though, or the Yopy product if it ever gets finished.
Anyway, I have no money, so what does it matter?:-)
AMD has disclosed specifications to the major OS vendors and Microsoft
So Microsoft are not a major OS vendor then?
I agree about Intel. I do not see one reason for anyone to buy Intel at the moment. RDRAM is bad, motherboards and chipsets are still dodgy. The PII can barely keep up with the AMD Duron, nevermind the Athlon in many tasks (although it is fine at a lot of others, that fineness comes at an extortionate price). AMD are calling all of the shots at the moment, they have a good product range at all but the high-end server market now.
The Pentium 4 will be an interesting proposition, but when it comes out late this year, there will be faster Athlons anyway. AMD are cheaper and offer damned good performance for your money. All that is required is a better chipset (KT133 isn't the best), SMP, and the Sledgehammer, which should be a great high-end chip.
I agree. What open source person wants to write some Air Traffic Control software for nothing, something that if done correctly would cost £100,000,000+?
The problem is that many companies aren't actually doing proper plans and specifications, and hence their software fails. This isn't Microsoft, Oracle, etc, who probably have some of the best quality control systems out there, but rather the newer companies, or the companies that haven't kept up.
Look at the specification for Gnumeric:
Excel, but prettier and easier
Great, isn't it?;-)
Still, I wouldn't trust Open Source to produce any kind of Mission Critical System, that was 100% error free, guaranteed 99.999999% uptime or whatever. Maybe 99.99% uptime though. You have to consider what a mission critical system is though: Nuclear Power Station Controlling Software, Life Support Machines Controlling Software, ABS, etc. In those situations, you would pay a company a lot of money to make something that worked. If they decided that a stripped down Linux with some custom software was enough, then great.
Most companies just like the feel good factor that paying for software gives them I think. They think they are getting more;-)
I think I have lost the point of what my post was going to say. My brain feels like the Windows registry on my home computer two days ago - completely hosed because I quit IE.
Okay, your point is taken. In critical systems, it is obvious that higher levels of software validation will occur than in non-critical systems.
However, look at the UK. Closed source systems to run the NHS - failed, poor software. Closed source systems to upgrade Air Traffic Control - failed, poor software. 999 Emergency management software - dumped, poor software, and many other examples. I am not saying that some 15 year old Linux hacker would have done better, but Closed Source systems which should have been better designed have quite often failed.
it will never be developed to a formal specification using tried and tested Software Engeering principles
Can you back this assertion up? I see no reason why Open Source software cannot be developed in a good proven way? Sure, some software will not be, but that software will not be used in critical systems. A lot of Open Source software originates from the academic community, e.g., Exim was written at Cambridge University, and these programmers will have used good software engineering techniques to write their code.
I don't know of many big Open Source projects that have just been hacked out from the start now, there has always been a lot of planning going on, and surely less bugs means more security?
Commercial software (i.e. closed source) benefits from not being developed in a chaotic way and can be more secure.
I bet a lot of the closed source software that is developed is not developed in a less chaotic manner than the Open Source way? If you call distribution of programmers "chaotic" then yes, but I believe that you can have more chaos when all the programmers are in the same room and some are doing things they don't want to really be doing, than when all the programmers are spread out around the world (and never see each other even!) but have the desire to write the software.
The use of formal methods for specification and verification does achieve secure systems
Formal specification and verification is all very good, but it takes so long that it isn't used in any commercial companies, except in some kind of loose analogy. Commercial Companies want to get their software out of the door quickly, this does not lead to good secure quality software. Open Source can take its time, witness the Linux 2.4 kernel - getting it right before it is released. OTOH, Gnome 1.0 was a mistake, they tried to compete with KDE before the software was ready.
Tools such as rational rose can be all very good when used correctly, but all to often the designers do not have the time to get familiar with the tools they use, so they underutilise the software in such a way it takes them twice as long to do something that could have been expressed on a sheet of paper.
So you can see how Open Source works, and it looks chaotic, distributed, and messy, but the code isn't, the people have an interest in the code beyond making a fast buck, and this means that bugs and security flaws will be detected, and fixed, and the software will end up being of a high quality, when it finally gets released. Most commercial companies do not have the luxuries known as time, dedicated programmers, etc. They have money to throw at a problem.
Open source software can be trusted more than closed source software when it comes to security, for all the reasons that you all know (quicker bugfixes, code open to scrutiny, etc). Closed source software can have hidden APIs, bad implementations and bugs, and the release cycle is slow.
OpenBSD is interesting, as they do audits on software to get rid of the security holes. They can only do this because the source code is available.
Of course, software like Sendmail, various ftpds, POP3 daemons etc, all mess up the security aspect of an OS. The OS can be as secure as it can possible be whilst still being usable and useful, but if the software being run on it is vulnerable, then backdoors into the system will be found. Having the source code available allows the cracker to find better access methods than having to guess and feel their way into a system.
You just have to remember that there will never be perfect security, and plan accordingly.
It isn't powered by a MIPS processor, that is the PSX. Dreamcast is powered by a SH4 from Hitachi, still a very nice processor.
Now the price of the Dreamcast is coming down (£159.99 + 2 games, in the UK), and you can get some games for only £9.99 (in the UK), the Dreamcast is looking more and more attractive. I cannot wait for the stupid PSX 2 with all of its problems, and I don't want an XBOX, and the Dolphin has been put back.
Now you can develop for it without paying $50,000 for a development kit (and people moaned about the $99 Amiga dev kit!), this looks like it could be the console for people wanting to program games. Pretty much like the Amiga, ST and C64 were in their days their success was initially built upon home-brew software development.
It has to happen - If embedded devices can have 64Mb of RAM now, then in around 10 years time they will have 4Gig of memory, and an embeddable low power 64-bit chip will be required (Mumff, MIPS).
ARM64 would not need 64-bit instructions though:-), 32 will still do, but 40 - 48 bit instructions are the most likely, allowing for vast amounts of registers etc. Of course, there is a lot of life in the old ARM yet, the latest is the ARM10, with SIMD instructions IIRC.
I would be happy if somebody came along and made a high performance version of the ARM. No messing around with low-power jubbins, just the ARM ISA implemented like an Alpha.
It can be done, and the ARM ISA is absolutely wonderful, the best ISA ever in my opinion. The Intel StrongARM might be reaching 600MHz this year, and still only be gobblin' up 1/2 a Watt of power, but what could a 60W 1GHz StrongARM do?
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Is it me, or is Intel really trying to make things awkward with the Pentium IV? I can understand IA64 chips requiring a new case - they are meant for high end server applications anyway - but for a processor which is consumer/workstation level to require new cases and power supplies...
Of course it isn't that hard a requirement, it is just that these new cases will cost a lot initially because they will be an unusual shape. It might also take a while for the non-beige cases to appear as well.
Standards are good. AT, ATX, MicroATX etc. I am sure that this will be ATX+, or ATX2, or something.
It is also a bad reflection on the Pentium 4's power consumption - and Intel want to put this baby in laptops by the end of next year!
One point is that the Dragonball in the Palm has got the built-in display components (can drive a colour LCD screen at up to 640x512 I think), although PalmOS and the hardware only use a 160x160 screen.
Palm know that their tech is behind the times. This is their answer. Of course we might see iPaqs that win at 400MHz in mobile mode, and 1GHz in external power supply mode, and the processor will cost about $20 in bulk, even at 1GHz (the die is really small, you can fit 40 into the space of a single PIII).
The XScale does not have a built-in LCD display driver. This would mean a separate chip would be required to drive the display, or added onto the XScale core, which is an option. This would take time.
Palm are going to use a standard ARM or StrongARM processor for now. Palms are not about speed, but usability. A cheap (less than $5) 72MHz ARM would be 20x faster than the current chip, and you can buy them with embedded display components. This sounds the most likely option for Palm to take (at the low-end). At the high-end you might get 110MHz StrongARMs, or even 233MHz StrongARMs.
Palm know that their tech is behind the times. This is their answer. Of course we might see iPaqs that win at 400MHz in mobile mode, and 1GHz in external power supply mode, and the processor will cost about $20 in bulk, even at 1GHz (the die is really small, you can fit 40 into the space of a single PIII).
The XScale does not have a built-in LCD display driver. This would mean a separate chip would be required to drive the display, or added onto the XScale core, which is an option. This would take time.
Palm are going to use a standard ARM or StrongARM processor for now. Palms are not about speed, but usability. A cheap (
Makes plenty of sense to me.
e-Books will be great, especially at >150dpi on a device around 6.5" by 5" (1024x768). Colour isn't important though, greyscale is fine for books. For textbooks though, I can see the advantage of colour.
But there is still nothing like the feel of a proper book...
The sound system is dobly surround compliant, and appears to be able to play up to 32 channels simultaneously. Not bad.
The system retains the character mode graphics of the Gameboy, for compatibility as it will still play Gameboy games (is there a Z80 in the machine then, or is it software emulation on the ARM?) but able to show 511 colours at the same time (sounds like 256 colours for the character blocks, and 255 colours for the sprites).
4 controller buttons, A, B, L and R. Horizontal aspect, as opposed to vertical, which is about time! This does limit the system when it comes to Quake style games though, as strafing, looking up and down, crouching, etc would be hard to do quickly as there aren't enough keys. The display is just over 100dpi, which should guarantee crisp high quality graphics.
The system can be connected directly to the Dolphin console when it comes out - this could mean that downloadable games could become popular, or DVDs full of games at least. This would be great for all those older Gameboy games that are only 256k to 1Mbyte in size, as tonnes could be written on a 32Mb flash memory cartridge. Nintendo had better watch out for this.
I can't wait for the machine, although I will probably hold off a while before buying at, so the price will drop from the initial high (probably $200) price it will start at. Those colour screens are expensive. What this machine needs is a GSM mobile phone addon - the high quality screen would be great for WAP, it is bigger than a Palm screen and has colour... If only the screen was touch sensitive, it could make quite a nice PDA :-)
The GBA uses an ARM processor, I don't know the speed. Those screenshots are beautiful. I see this being very popular, even if it is a little expensive when it comes out. Imagine when the coders really get to grips with the system, they will produce amazing games. This system is probably as powerful as a Playstation, maybe moreso.
Of course hardly any details are known about the actual hardware config of the machine. Resolution is better then the Gameboy, which is good, and there are tonnes of colours. Sound is an unknown, and the speed of the processor is as well. Average size of the cartridges is unknown... Does anyone know or have a lonk to the detailed specs?
I wouldn't call "a dozen" that high for a 5 year old system, would you? And have you played on the gameboy advance? Do you know what a gameboy actually is? Nintendo have typically been a high quality software company, and they aim for good quality software that is playable and fun, if a little childish. The PSOne can't compete, its a different market.
Anyway, there is an argument for reasonable optimisation of code - using good data structures and algorithms for example. On the other hand, as you point out, too much optimisation spoils the broth, you end up with hard to read code because of these optimisations, which is bad, and bug hunting becomes more difficult. When you can assume that processors will be 2x as fast when the game you have just started writing is finally released, if you get it running decently on current hardware, then it will scream on the new hardware.
And the most popular paint program was DPaint, and that was written in C. It was slow as a dog in some operations though, so some optimisation was in order! Of course, optimisation was a necessity in the 8 and 16 bit days, either for space (erk, only has 64k/512k) or speed. But there is nothing wrong with well-written assembly, as long as it works - it just takes longer to develop, so it is usually only used in graphics/audio drivers themselves, as opposed to the games/apps themselves.
Unlike other 'pretenders', this is the real thing, and to prove it, you can purchase other pieces of art in the Intel Art Range, including the wondrous 256Mb RIMM, and the beautiful Itanium - purchases guaranteed to make your new PentiumIII glow in a different, rosy glow!
$300 * 2500 = $750,000
Yeah, I would really use Windows 2000 here, with the expensive support contracts, tendancy for users to save their files unsafely on the local machines, etc. Linux, or FreeBSD even, will allow the sysadmin to tightly control what can be done on each machine, and all the users will save automatically to a backed-up server all the time, without knowing it. Add on the cost for a few Win2000 Servers, and licenses for Windows Terminal Servers, and more, and you could be doubling the cost, for no appreciable reason.
Each machine will be stripped down, FreeBSD is great for this, and I am surprised that no-one has mentioned it! Install only what you need, and it runs great on 32Mb. Try out the different window managers on the users, although Window Maker should be good enough - make sure that the WordPerfect icon is on the right hand side! Lawyers use WordPerfect, so use WordPerfect Office, the only real cost to the system, and still cheaper than 2,500 user license for Office 2000.
I assume most machines are different in configuration in some way, so the disk image system isn't going to work too well, unless you can easily classify machines into large groups with the same config. Tie down the security, obviously, and make sure that printing will work fine, and you should be set.
Make sure that there are some decent fonts on the systems. Most Unixes still don't know what a font is barely, so Freetype or xfstt are a necessity.
Also install some desktop games! Sokoban and Mahjong would be good (more intellectual), as opposed to Solitaire and Minesweeper (for middle managers) :-)
This is all without adverts, and if you turn the TV on while you are listening to the music, you can find out the song title, artist and more. All in all a very good system. We also have all of the standard radio stations on the satellite in addition (BBC 1 to 5, Virgin, etc), and 8 Music TV stations (MTV, MTV2, MTV Extra, MTV Base, VH1, VH1 Classics, The Box, UKPlay).
So we are not short of music in the UK. And Sky Digital is the best television package you can buy in the world (probably due to having all the best American TV shows available on it) and with the interactive stuff and other fun stuff it outshines the rather weak OnDigital terrestrial digital TV system in England.
I agree with the other poster, these people are basically script kiddies. I hope they don't map the UK internet topology, that information is the property of the companies that set it up, and would be covered by the Data Protection Act 1998. Possibly.
And I don't get how this information would help them do what their aim is?
Anyway, write 100Gb worth of data using the DVD-RAM with 2.6Gb DVDs: $400 + 40*$20 = $1200.
Write 100Gb worth of data using CD-DD: $200 + 80*$4 = $520. Less than half the cost. Even if the DVD-RAM media cost only $10 each it would still be more expensive. Still damned useful for backing up *huge* datasets though.
And I hope that someone comes out with a CD-DD normal CD Player. Coupled with those 99minute CD's that somebody else mentioned, that would be 3 hours of CD quality music on a CD. I am worried about the copying restrictions though, but they will be worked around anyway. Of course, these new CD Players could be playing 5.1channel music at 24-bit quality for an hour using CD-DD. Bye bye DVD-Audio...
DVD-RAM/RW etc are too expensive. You are talking up to $3000 per player, for 5Gb of storage. If these Double Density CD-ROMs/RW/RW can be made and sold for only a little more than normal CDs, and the Players and Recorders are not that much more expensive, and they license the technology to other CD-ROM/R/RW manufacturers for a reasonable amount, then this product could see some large market dominance. What would you have? A 1.3Gb CD2RW that costs $4 and a $200 CD2RW drive, or a $20 2.6Gb DVD-RW/RAM and a $500 - $3000 DVD-RW/RAM drive? What will the end consumer end up getting in their consumer PCs?
Looking at disc media capacities, we have 650Mb CDs, 2.6Gb, 4.7Gb and 5.2Gb DVDs (and 9.4Gb DVDs coming out next year. That leaves room for the 1.3Gb CD-DD quite nicely. It might not be downwardly compatable, but neither is the DVD (with CD, or even DVD-ROM), so they are on a level playing field, but the price is in CD-DDs advantage.
Of course, I would like to see a more open standard for CD-DD and later on CD-HD (High Density 2.6Gb CDs). It would have more mass market appeal.
One thing that struck me was having this on those 7cm Mini-CDs, as used in the latest Sony mavica. Instead of 150Mb of storage, you would have 300Mb of storage. Not bad. I am waiting for an MP3 player that can use these 7cm CDs :-)
To recap: DVD writable products are too expensive, this is cheaper, and so it might have a lower capacity, it isn't significantly lower, and the total cost of ownership for this product (after wring 100Gb of data say) would be vastly lower than for DVD writable products. But the product will only succeed if Sony license the technology for reasonable rates, otherwise you run the risk of incompatable CD-DD formats...
Giving the code away is a good move in many aspect, it is good for marketing, and it is going with the current bandwagon. If your product is not that hard to replicate though, then it isn't worth much anyway - there is nothing terribly unique about it. Patents can be used to resolve certain IP issues - and they should be used if the IP is new, original and non-obvious. Of course, being a software only solution, you can only get the patent in America, which limits the power of the patent. You could give a free license for all free software, to avoid being badmouthed about it, but software patents are not desirable, as you point out.
Make the product a solution. Corporate entities buy solutions - basically products that solve one particular thing very well. The support for a solution will be there, and you can make money from selling the product as a solution. Many companies will also like the fact that they get the source, not the majority of companies, as it will mean nothing to them, but some. These companies will like the power to amend small things in the codebase to meet their needs.
Otherwise, you are hitting the nail on the head. What incentive is their to write easy, good quality software when you are trying to make money from support? Luckily most computer users aren't that clued up, and will need support whatever the software or hardware(Moving the Mouse for Dummies! etc).
It just depends on the target audience for the product, which you haven't specified, so it makes it hard to assess your chances. I wish you luck.
The keyboards on the Psions are strangely usable, the best Handheld keyboard that there is. The screens are also touch sensitive, there just isn't a handwriting recognition system on them yet. They are faster than graffiti.
Symbian is going to be using EPOC as its core OS, with a custom UI, maybe using the Palm UI, the EPOC UI, or one deidicated to the task. The Ericsson R380 mobile phone (320x100ish phone length screen) will be one of the first Symbian phones, with built in PDA. Bluetooth probably won't make it into this phone. In the future Palm might even be using EPOC as their underlying OS, with the good Palm desktop (palmtop?) on top of it. I think I recall Palm saying that they would be moving to an ARM based product line in the future, as the Dragonball processor wasn't good enough.
EPOC also has full document embedding, a la COM or KParts or whatever, but on a 36MHz CPU that you can carry around in your pocket. Not bad, in my opinion. With ARM cpus available at 233MHz now, the usability and features of the handheld devices that utilise ARM processors can only go up - see the Samsung Yopy.
And the killer is, the ARM processors are beautiful to program. What more could you ask for? Colour? Psion 7 and NetBook have that. Apps? All built-in and well-designed. Synchronisation? Amongst the best on the market. Style? Don't you want a Palmtop with a leather case? And the Psion 5 range is quite mature, and doesn't suffer from DRAM problems :-). The next range of Psion products should be excellent.
Don't underestimate other contenders though. Tao are looking hot with their technology (Sony, Motorola and Amiga are licensees). QNX have a great product, if they can finalise it. In the end, the OS won't matter though, only the apps. I see VP applications (Virtual Processor, similar to Java, but better, see Tao for more information) as the way forward.
Other CPUs? Low power x86 (National Semiconductor Geode, Transmeta). SH3 and SH4 from Hitachi. MIPs. Motorola Coldfire. This is the fun end of computing, unlike the terminally dull x86 PC!
Still, they will allocate the bad memory as used, and all will be fine (as long as the bad memory is under 100K, nobody will mind much). Great advert for the storage capabilities of the devices though - it took 5 months to find the bug, because it took that long to even get near that area in memory.
Still, although the Palm devices are quite nice and all that, I would buy a Psion 5mx, which is a darned nicer bit of equipment, or the Psion Revo, which is about the size of a Palm, but has a much larger screen and a full keyboard. I wonder why Psion has not really made it in America - I think they need better marketing. EPOC is the best palm-top OS, it beats PalmOS and Windows CE (PocketPC) by a mile.
I might consider a 320x240 colour palm though, or the Yopy product if it ever gets finished.
Anyway, I have no money, so what does it matter? :-)
So Microsoft are not a major OS vendor then?
I agree about Intel. I do not see one reason for anyone to buy Intel at the moment. RDRAM is bad, motherboards and chipsets are still dodgy. The PII can barely keep up with the AMD Duron, nevermind the Athlon in many tasks (although it is fine at a lot of others, that fineness comes at an extortionate price). AMD are calling all of the shots at the moment, they have a good product range at all but the high-end server market now.
The Pentium 4 will be an interesting proposition, but when it comes out late this year, there will be faster Athlons anyway. AMD are cheaper and offer damned good performance for your money. All that is required is a better chipset (KT133 isn't the best), SMP, and the Sledgehammer, which should be a great high-end chip.
The problem is that many companies aren't actually doing proper plans and specifications, and hence their software fails. This isn't Microsoft, Oracle, etc, who probably have some of the best quality control systems out there, but rather the newer companies, or the companies that haven't kept up.
Look at the specification for Gnumeric:
Excel, but prettier and easier
Great, isn't it? ;-)
Still, I wouldn't trust Open Source to produce any kind of Mission Critical System, that was 100% error free, guaranteed 99.999999% uptime or whatever. Maybe 99.99% uptime though. You have to consider what a mission critical system is though: Nuclear Power Station Controlling Software, Life Support Machines Controlling Software, ABS, etc. In those situations, you would pay a company a lot of money to make something that worked. If they decided that a stripped down Linux with some custom software was enough, then great.
Most companies just like the feel good factor that paying for software gives them I think. They think they are getting more ;-)
I think I have lost the point of what my post was going to say. My brain feels like the Windows registry on my home computer two days ago - completely hosed because I quit IE.
However, look at the UK. Closed source systems to run the NHS - failed, poor software. Closed source systems to upgrade Air Traffic Control - failed, poor software. 999 Emergency management software - dumped, poor software, and many other examples. I am not saying that some 15 year old Linux hacker would have done better, but Closed Source systems which should have been better designed have quite often failed.
I don't know of many big Open Source projects that have just been hacked out from the start now, there has always been a lot of planning going on, and surely less bugs means more security?
I bet a lot of the closed source software that is developed is not developed in a less chaotic manner than the Open Source way? If you call distribution of programmers "chaotic" then yes, but I believe that you can have more chaos when all the programmers are in the same room and some are doing things they don't want to really be doing, than when all the programmers are spread out around the world (and never see each other even!) but have the desire to write the software. Formal specification and verification is all very good, but it takes so long that it isn't used in any commercial companies, except in some kind of loose analogy. Commercial Companies want to get their software out of the door quickly, this does not lead to good secure quality software. Open Source can take its time, witness the Linux 2.4 kernel - getting it right before it is released. OTOH, Gnome 1.0 was a mistake, they tried to compete with KDE before the software was ready.Tools such as rational rose can be all very good when used correctly, but all to often the designers do not have the time to get familiar with the tools they use, so they underutilise the software in such a way it takes them twice as long to do something that could have been expressed on a sheet of paper.
So you can see how Open Source works, and it looks chaotic, distributed, and messy, but the code isn't, the people have an interest in the code beyond making a fast buck, and this means that bugs and security flaws will be detected, and fixed, and the software will end up being of a high quality, when it finally gets released. Most commercial companies do not have the luxuries known as time, dedicated programmers, etc. They have money to throw at a problem.
Open source software can be trusted more than closed source software when it comes to security, for all the reasons that you all know (quicker bugfixes, code open to scrutiny, etc). Closed source software can have hidden APIs, bad implementations and bugs, and the release cycle is slow.
OpenBSD is interesting, as they do audits on software to get rid of the security holes. They can only do this because the source code is available.
Of course, software like Sendmail, various ftpds, POP3 daemons etc, all mess up the security aspect of an OS. The OS can be as secure as it can possible be whilst still being usable and useful, but if the software being run on it is vulnerable, then backdoors into the system will be found. Having the source code available allows the cracker to find better access methods than having to guess and feel their way into a system.
You just have to remember that there will never be perfect security, and plan accordingly.
Now the price of the Dreamcast is coming down (£159.99 + 2 games, in the UK), and you can get some games for only £9.99 (in the UK), the Dreamcast is looking more and more attractive. I cannot wait for the stupid PSX 2 with all of its problems, and I don't want an XBOX, and the Dolphin has been put back.
Now you can develop for it without paying $50,000 for a development kit (and people moaned about the $99 Amiga dev kit!), this looks like it could be the console for people wanting to program games. Pretty much like the Amiga, ST and C64 were in their days their success was initially built upon home-brew software development.
It has to happen - If embedded devices can have 64Mb of RAM now, then in around 10 years time they will have 4Gig of memory, and an embeddable low power 64-bit chip will be required (Mumff, MIPS).
ARM64 would not need 64-bit instructions though :-), 32 will still do, but 40 - 48 bit instructions are the most likely, allowing for vast amounts of registers etc. Of course, there is a lot of life in the old ARM yet, the latest is the ARM10, with SIMD instructions IIRC.
It can be done, and the ARM ISA is absolutely wonderful, the best ISA ever in my opinion. The Intel StrongARM might be reaching 600MHz this year, and still only be gobblin' up 1/2 a Watt of power, but what could a 60W 1GHz StrongARM do?