Re:A common system should be established
on
A Matter Of Trust?
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· Score: 1
I don't think so... It's too much of a pain, and if delay is incurred, then it's a problem. I can already go down the street to the store and buy whatever I want, so adding more delay only increases the problems that I have with e-commerce. There's an easier solution: if some e-commerce site rips me off, I reverse the charges. Easy.
Distributed computing, terminals and the like...
on
The End of Unix?
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· Score: 1
A lot of people seem to think that in the future, everyone will have a terminal connected to some big iron running somewhere else through the internet. I don'r know about most people, but I, for one, will never give up my desktop PC. I want that CPU right there, next to my monitor, where I can look inside and see the pretty fans going round and round. I want to be able to go to the local grey-market computer parts store and pick up whatever I want and drop it in.
I don't believe that the days where any kind of terminal will be useful for what I do (mostly games at home, I try to keep the work at work) are close at hand. We've been there, and we didn't like it. That's why we're where we are now. You know the tendancy. More processors in the PC (CPU, video, HDD controller, sound (on a side note, I understand that the EMU10-1K that's in the Live! has some pretty serious punch)) instead of offloading everything onto the CPU. There's a reason we don't like WinModems. Why would this not apply on a grander scale? Everyone gets thier own PC, instead of offloading everything onto the big machine behind the windows.
I rip em and encode em, and serve em from my linux box. They use, oh, $50 worth of HDD space. That's what one month of high-speed internet access would cost me (and that I would have to have in order to stream decent-quality MP3s). I don't have to worry about internet congestion, MP3.com downtime, ISP downtime, or anything else. Easy. Innovative. High-tech. Plus, as an added bonus, I can copy all of em to my car and play em there too (I do, there's 570 songs on the MP3 player in my car). I kinda doubt that my cell modem can stream any kind of MP3.
AFAIK, there's 2 types of SCSI cables: normal (50-pin) and Wide (68-pin). I know that 50-pin has been around a long time, my Pro Audio Spectrum 16 had a 50-pin SCSI connector on it (my first SCSI controller, I was 14) and even the semi-new U2W drives are using the same 68-pin cable. That's 2 in more than 8 years, which is (if I count right) the same as IDE. I don't know about Ultra160, but I think it could be a while before I need that, my UW drive is running along just fine.
I've owned several HDDs in my life. 4 were/are WD, that I can remember: 1) A 320mb monster (at the time). After several years, developed a few bad sectors. 2) A 1.2gb drive. This one is currently playing MP3s in the back of my 3000GT (which, for those that know, isn't exactly a smooth ride) with absolutely no bad sectors and no complaints. 3) 2 8.4gb drives. Both happily running, one in a Linux server and one in a (mostly) gaming system. 4) 1 10.4gb drive, in a gaming system, no problems.
I'd say I've been very satisfied with my WD experience, but then I've only been dissatisfied with a HDD once (a Fujitsu POS). I've owned Quantum drives and Seagate drives, and had no complaints about either. I used to work as a tech for a (once) very large (one of the top 3) PC manufacturer. This company used WD, Maxtor, Connor, Seagate, and Fujitsu drives in the systems. The Maxtors were notoriously crappy, as were many of the Connors.
The HDD that I love the most, and have been the most impressed with, and would buy again the most readily, is DEFINATELY my IBM Deskstar 9.1gb UW drive. It's a DNES drive (for those that know), and I absolutely love it. You IDE-lovers out there just try to rip and encode (rip directly to MP3) a CD from an IDE CD-ROM to an IDE HDD in AudioCatalyst without moving the CPU-Usage bar a SINGLE NOTCH! I do it all the time from my SCSI CD-ROM to my IBM. I can do anything I want while I'm doing it. On the IDE system I used once, I couldn't rip straight to MP3 (the meter stayed pegged and the "Possible Speed-Related Problems" counter was somewhere in the hundreds when I stopped it halfway through the first song) and I couldn't touch the system while it was ripping to a.WAV file. That's the difference that SCSI makes to me, not the theoretical transfer rates of the busses.
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I don't think so... It's too much of a pain, and if delay is incurred, then it's a problem. I can already go down the street to the store and buy whatever I want, so adding more delay only increases the problems that I have with e-commerce. There's an easier solution: if some e-commerce site rips me off, I reverse the charges. Easy.
A lot of people seem to think that in the future, everyone will have a terminal connected to some big iron running somewhere else through the internet. I don'r know about most people, but I, for one, will never give up my desktop PC. I want that CPU right there, next to my monitor, where I can look inside and see the pretty fans going round and round. I want to be able to go to the local grey-market computer parts store and pick up whatever I want and drop it in.
I don't believe that the days where any kind of terminal will be useful for what I do (mostly games at home, I try to keep the work at work) are close at hand. We've been there, and we didn't like it. That's why we're where we are now. You know the tendancy. More processors in the PC (CPU, video, HDD controller, sound (on a side note, I understand that the EMU10-1K that's in the Live! has some pretty serious punch)) instead of offloading everything onto the CPU. There's a reason we don't like WinModems. Why would this not apply on a grander scale? Everyone gets thier own PC, instead of offloading everything onto the big machine behind the windows.
Give me my PC(s) or give me death!
-Wow. I posted.
-godefroi
I rip em and encode em, and serve em from my linux box. They use, oh, $50 worth of HDD space. That's what one month of high-speed internet access would cost me (and that I would have to have in order to stream decent-quality MP3s). I don't have to worry about internet congestion, MP3.com downtime, ISP downtime, or anything else. Easy. Innovative. High-tech. Plus, as an added bonus, I can copy all of em to my car and play em there too (I do, there's 570 songs on the MP3 player in my car). I kinda doubt that my cell modem can stream any kind of MP3.
AFAIK, there's 2 types of SCSI cables: normal (50-pin) and Wide (68-pin). I know that 50-pin has been around a long time, my Pro Audio Spectrum 16 had a 50-pin SCSI connector on it (my first SCSI controller, I was 14) and even the semi-new U2W drives are using the same 68-pin cable. That's 2 in more than 8 years, which is (if I count right) the same as IDE. I don't know about Ultra160, but I think it could be a while before I need that, my UW drive is running along just fine.
I've owned several HDDs in my life. 4 were/are WD, that I can remember:
.WAV file. That's the difference that SCSI makes to me, not the theoretical transfer rates of the busses.
1) A 320mb monster (at the time). After several years, developed a few bad sectors.
2) A 1.2gb drive. This one is currently playing MP3s in the back of my 3000GT (which, for those that know, isn't exactly a smooth ride) with absolutely no bad sectors and no complaints.
3) 2 8.4gb drives. Both happily running, one in a Linux server and one in a (mostly) gaming system.
4) 1 10.4gb drive, in a gaming system, no problems.
I'd say I've been very satisfied with my WD experience, but then I've only been dissatisfied with a HDD once (a Fujitsu POS). I've owned Quantum drives and Seagate drives, and had no complaints about either. I used to work as a tech for a (once) very large (one of the top 3) PC manufacturer. This company used WD, Maxtor, Connor, Seagate, and Fujitsu drives in the systems. The Maxtors were notoriously crappy, as were many of the Connors.
The HDD that I love the most, and have been the most impressed with, and would buy again the most readily, is DEFINATELY my IBM Deskstar 9.1gb UW drive. It's a DNES drive (for those that know), and I absolutely love it. You IDE-lovers out there just try to rip and encode (rip directly to MP3) a CD from an IDE CD-ROM to an IDE HDD in AudioCatalyst without moving the CPU-Usage bar a SINGLE NOTCH! I do it all the time from my SCSI CD-ROM to my IBM. I can do anything I want while I'm doing it. On the IDE system I used once, I couldn't rip straight to MP3 (the meter stayed pegged and the "Possible Speed-Related Problems" counter was somewhere in the hundreds when I stopped it halfway through the first song) and I couldn't touch the system while it was ripping to a
"I just want to click on a clearly marketed button called "Do" or "Start" or whatever."
You are M$'s dream customer.
One word: UPS.