Although I'm sure there are a few other obstacles, I think the biggest one is that MS has a proprietary (and IIRC, encrypted) file system on that HD, and according to the HardOCP article, the HDs can't be switched out for an off the shelf one. Also, i don't see how you could reformat that thing, as it certainly won't accept a boot floppy with a copy of fdisk on it.
You're missing out on a few components here. Add in some ram and a dvd drive (with hardware decoder). That should add $50 - $125 (depending on how much ram) on to that $350. Of course, costs could be cut nicely by buying a lower clocked processor, or maybe a duron.
The reason it's so smooth is that all XBox games are fps-locked at either 30 or 60 fps. This results in a very smooth and consistant image, as opposed to the occasional jumpiness you see when you go between 30 and 60 fps (your mileage may vary). You can test this out by pulling your favourite Quake3 engine game and typing in the "com_maxfps " command into your console.
When I made the switch from dial-up to cable, the choice was an easy one. The only reluctancy i had was having to wait around for the guy to show up and drop off the modem (i chose a free self-install, but for some reason, you can't pick a modem up yourself). The reason was, I use the net enough that I had unlimited access ($20 CDN/month), and a 2nd phone line ($22 CDN/month). Add this up, and you get $42 CDN per month. A full $2.05 more than Rogers (major Canadian cable/media company) charges for their @Home service. That's enough for a medium coke and fries once a month from your fast food place of choice. Since then, my service has been down a total of 3 times, only once for more than an hour (which was because some hick cut some fibre). Obviously there are many people who shouldn't get broadband, but they probably shouldn't have bought it in the first place.
I'd be interested to see a poll regarding public opinion on the safety of hydrogen as a power source. Although it is quite safe (except under certain extreme conditions), I imagine a large number of the general (uneducated) public would feel that it is far too risky to be using hydrogen in everyday devices like cell phone batteries.
I can understand a no bags policy, but barring people from entering COMDEX (fricken tech show for pete's sake) with laptops is just stupid. I note (IIRC) it doesn't say anything about PDAs, but still, wtf were they thinking? A better idea would be to have people turn it on quickly at the door (although this might slow things down a lot).
I too have been using Win2k (SP2) at home for quite a while, and I find that it's excellent. My games run as fast if not faster than on 98SE, and I haven't had to reboot in months (not counting switching to *nix).
I happen to like this quote (from the CNN article): "Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, decided to bundle an unprecedented number of applications, such as a Web browser, an e-mail program, an instant messenger and a digital photo editor." Since when is this a)news, and b)a good thing(tm)? MS has had web browsers and email programs from the first release of 95, digital photo editors since 98SE, and MSN Messenger has been available for free d/l for at least 2 years. From most (informed) articles, XP (home and pro) is loaded with more applications than ever, 80-90% of which can't be removed. I see this as a serious mistake by MS in terms of selling XP Pro as an OS for serious business use. Any sensible IT manager isn't going to want all that bloat-ware on each and every machine. I know i wouldn't.
I'd love to use one of these things as a small file server and router/firewall on my network. All it would require is putting in a second NIC in the PCI slot, and installation of a decent distro, maybe FreeBSD, and you've got a perfect fileserver/router solution for a home network, where there isn't much room for a dedicated networking equipment room.
Really, when are these things ever going to be put to use. IMHO, there are two major issues that will prevent these being used in any kind of circuitboard. First, the issue of crosstalk. At the molecular level, especially with the "self-assemblage," there's no way that major crosstalk could be avoided. Secondly, what happens when one of these things breaks down? Obviously it's not going to be easy to fix, and the whole circuit board would need replacing. Don't get me wrong, this is quite cool, but it's always good to keep one foot on the ground when you're reaching for the sky.
I'd like to see heatsink manufacturers get together with mobo peeps, and have a nice long talk about mounting HSFs. IMHO, there are two major issues that need to be ironed out. First, a better and easier way to secure heatsinks is needed. The current clip system is pretty annoying, as you have to either make a huge dent in your thumb pushing the thing down, or use a screwdriver, which a careful person can get right 95%+ of the time, but there's always that fraction of the time when something distracts you, and you end up punching a hole through your m/b. I've seen nice systems in a few m/b's for a 4 screw mount system, which i imagine would work well, but it needs to be standardised. Second, m/b manufacturers need to try and make more room around the socket for larger HSFs. Obviously this is rather hard, as they want to try and squese more and more circuitry into a smaller area, but I think many people would be a lot happier if big capacitors weren't crowded around the socket.
If you check out some hardware/overclocking/modding sites, you'll see that often it's not about how much real world performance you get, it's about how much you can crank out of your system in terms of the oh-so-inaccurate mhz/ghz numbers. Also, of course you're not going to notice a difference of 133mhz boost, esp. when staying in the same cpu class.
My point was, that most gamers i know, like to hold the pad in the air. I'm a firm believer in the tried and true mouse+keyboard solution, but that thing [the controller part] doesn't look like it's very easy to use with it just lying down on a table.
I think a better question would be, can it be held for (semi-)long periods of time without strain on your arms? I know that on the rare occasions when i play consoles (or with a gamepad on my PC), i don't rest the controller on my lap, i like to hold it in the air. Judging by my keyboard, I dont' think that thing would be good or hold in air for very long, although i suppose you would put it on your lap periodically to type (something else i find rather uncomfortable).
I don't know much about the game it's for, but the way i see it, wouldn't the good ol' tried and true FPS keyboard/mouse combo work better? It might avoid embarrasment, laughing, and suggestions that the designer(s) of that monstrosity[sic?] were on crack too.
FYI: "Freezing" someone's account does not mean that they take the money. What it does mean is that the government fines any financial instituiton that transfers, deposits, withdraws (pretty much anyone that does anything with the money) anything from that account.
Perhaps a good approach for the general/. public would be to think of it as a large network. Right now, there is one large managed switch at the center, with 100s of thousands (probably millions) of computers connecting to that switch. Now, what's the best way of implementing redundancy at a separate location?
Actually, something like this might really help/. I'm not familiar with their database setup, but clearing out users that haven't logged in in x amount of time (there must be thousands) might save quite a bit of space, and possibly some cpu cycles.
Yes, those things do beg for this kind of horsepower, but the problem is that cpus like these (although not MP) are being marketed at the average user, how doesn't know better. Microsoft, in turn, is seeing this, and adds more and more useless, cycle-eating functions to Word, and perpetuates the cycle.
Take a look at MS Word from 4 or 5 years ago. It ran perfectly well with all the formatting options, spell checker, inline clip art -- all on a P100 or even less. Now what do we have? Everything above, but with bloat like the Paperclip, menus that go 5 layers deep for commands that nobody wants or needs, functions that are duplicated in 3 different places, and a GUI that gobbles up as much RAM as my system throws at it, and doesn't let go.
Although i don't know how they would implement this, I imagine that even the most basic firewalls (ZoneAlarm for Windows, or firewalls in most Distros for *nix) would stop the RIAA. Unless, of course, dubya's cronies want to put backdoors into those as well...
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Although I'm sure there are a few other obstacles, I think the biggest one is that MS has a proprietary (and IIRC, encrypted) file system on that HD, and according to the HardOCP article, the HDs can't be switched out for an off the shelf one. Also, i don't see how you could reformat that thing, as it certainly won't accept a boot floppy with a copy of fdisk on it.
You're missing out on a few components here. Add in some ram and a dvd drive (with hardware decoder). That should add $50 - $125 (depending on how much ram) on to that $350. Of course, costs could be cut nicely by buying a lower clocked processor, or maybe a duron.
The reason it's so smooth is that all XBox games are fps-locked at either 30 or 60 fps. This results in a very smooth and consistant image, as opposed to the occasional jumpiness you see when you go between 30 and 60 fps (your mileage may vary). You can test this out by pulling your favourite Quake3 engine game and typing in the "com_maxfps " command into your console.
When I made the switch from dial-up to cable, the choice was an easy one. The only reluctancy i had was having to wait around for the guy to show up and drop off the modem (i chose a free self-install, but for some reason, you can't pick a modem up yourself). The reason was, I use the net enough that I had unlimited access ($20 CDN/month), and a 2nd phone line ($22 CDN/month). Add this up, and you get $42 CDN per month. A full $2.05 more than Rogers (major Canadian cable/media company) charges for their @Home service. That's enough for a medium coke and fries once a month from your fast food place of choice. Since then, my service has been down a total of 3 times, only once for more than an hour (which was because some hick cut some fibre). Obviously there are many people who shouldn't get broadband, but they probably shouldn't have bought it in the first place.
I'd be interested to see a poll regarding public opinion on the safety of hydrogen as a power source. Although it is quite safe (except under certain extreme conditions), I imagine a large number of the general (uneducated) public would feel that it is far too risky to be using hydrogen in everyday devices like cell phone batteries.
Seems like you can d/l a lot of P2P porn, and get credit for it :P
I can understand a no bags policy, but barring people from entering COMDEX (fricken tech show for pete's sake) with laptops is just stupid. I note (IIRC) it doesn't say anything about PDAs, but still, wtf were they thinking? A better idea would be to have people turn it on quickly at the door (although this might slow things down a lot).
I too have been using Win2k (SP2) at home for quite a while, and I find that it's excellent. My games run as fast if not faster than on 98SE, and I haven't had to reboot in months (not counting switching to *nix).
I happen to like this quote (from the CNN article): "Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, decided to bundle an unprecedented number of applications, such as a Web browser, an e-mail program, an instant messenger and a digital photo editor." Since when is this a)news, and b)a good thing(tm)? MS has had web browsers and email programs from the first release of 95, digital photo editors since 98SE, and MSN Messenger has been available for free d/l for at least 2 years. From most (informed) articles, XP (home and pro) is loaded with more applications than ever, 80-90% of which can't be removed. I see this as a serious mistake by MS in terms of selling XP Pro as an OS for serious business use. Any sensible IT manager isn't going to want all that bloat-ware on each and every machine. I know i wouldn't.
I'd love to use one of these things as a small file server and router/firewall on my network. All it would require is putting in a second NIC in the PCI slot, and installation of a decent distro, maybe FreeBSD, and you've got a perfect fileserver/router solution for a home network, where there isn't much room for a dedicated networking equipment room.
from SimCity2000. I based my entire city's power grid on 4 of these things. Then the microwave beam missed, and blew up two of the other power plants.
Really, when are these things ever going to be put to use. IMHO, there are two major issues that will prevent these being used in any kind of circuitboard. First, the issue of crosstalk. At the molecular level, especially with the "self-assemblage," there's no way that major crosstalk could be avoided. Secondly, what happens when one of these things breaks down? Obviously it's not going to be easy to fix, and the whole circuit board would need replacing. Don't get me wrong, this is quite cool, but it's always good to keep one foot on the ground when you're reaching for the sky.
I'd like to see heatsink manufacturers get together with mobo peeps, and have a nice long talk about mounting HSFs. IMHO, there are two major issues that need to be ironed out. First, a better and easier way to secure heatsinks is needed. The current clip system is pretty annoying, as you have to either make a huge dent in your thumb pushing the thing down, or use a screwdriver, which a careful person can get right 95%+ of the time, but there's always that fraction of the time when something distracts you, and you end up punching a hole through your m/b. I've seen nice systems in a few m/b's for a 4 screw mount system, which i imagine would work well, but it needs to be standardised. Second, m/b manufacturers need to try and make more room around the socket for larger HSFs. Obviously this is rather hard, as they want to try and squese more and more circuitry into a smaller area, but I think many people would be a lot happier if big capacitors weren't crowded around the socket.
If you check out some hardware/overclocking/modding sites, you'll see that often it's not about how much real world performance you get, it's about how much you can crank out of your system in terms of the oh-so-inaccurate mhz/ghz numbers. Also, of course you're not going to notice a difference of 133mhz boost, esp. when staying in the same cpu class.
My point was, that most gamers i know, like to hold the pad in the air. I'm a firm believer in the tried and true mouse+keyboard solution, but that thing [the controller part] doesn't look like it's very easy to use with it just lying down on a table.
I think a better question would be, can it be held for (semi-)long periods of time without strain on your arms? I know that on the rare occasions when i play consoles (or with a gamepad on my PC), i don't rest the controller on my lap, i like to hold it in the air. Judging by my keyboard, I dont' think that thing would be good or hold in air for very long, although i suppose you would put it on your lap periodically to type (something else i find rather uncomfortable).
I don't know much about the game it's for, but the way i see it, wouldn't the good ol' tried and true FPS keyboard/mouse combo work better? It might avoid embarrasment, laughing, and suggestions that the designer(s) of that monstrosity[sic?] were on crack too.
FYI: "Freezing" someone's account does not mean that they take the money. What it does mean is that the government fines any financial instituiton that transfers, deposits, withdraws (pretty much anyone that does anything with the money) anything from that account.
Perhaps a good approach for the general /. public would be to think of it as a large network. Right now, there is one large managed switch at the center, with 100s of thousands (probably millions) of computers connecting to that switch. Now, what's the best way of implementing redundancy at a separate location?
To clarify: the "good thing" is the RIAA backing down.
Although it is definitely a good thing[tm], I would have loved to see if they could get past even the most basic firewall.
Actually, something like this might really help /. I'm not familiar with their database setup, but clearing out users that haven't logged in in x amount of time (there must be thousands) might save quite a bit of space, and possibly some cpu cycles.
Yes, those things do beg for this kind of horsepower, but the problem is that cpus like these (although not MP) are being marketed at the average user, how doesn't know better. Microsoft, in turn, is seeing this, and adds more and more useless, cycle-eating functions to Word, and perpetuates the cycle.
Take a look at MS Word from 4 or 5 years ago. It ran perfectly well with all the formatting options, spell checker, inline clip art -- all on a P100 or even less. Now what do we have? Everything above, but with bloat like the Paperclip, menus that go 5 layers deep for commands that nobody wants or needs, functions that are duplicated in 3 different places, and a GUI that gobbles up as much RAM as my system throws at it, and doesn't let go.
Although i don't know how they would implement this, I imagine that even the most basic firewalls (ZoneAlarm for Windows, or firewalls in most Distros for *nix) would stop the RIAA. Unless, of course, dubya's cronies want to put backdoors into those as well...