I have accepted DVD, and with it, I have accepted CSS. Forget about the fact that I can remove CSS very simply now, when I picked up on DVD I knew the video was encrypted.
Why?
DVD video quality is leaps and bounds better than VHS. The media doesn't degrade. On a dual-layer, single-sided disc, there's room for multiple audio tracks, special features, or just twice as much feature video. The video doesn't degrade when you watch it. You can store it in the case and it takes up half as much space as a VHS, and only a fraction of that inside a CD case. DVD players can also double as CD players without any extra hardware.
Plus, it's the same price for all these features as a VHS (VHS prices have since dropped due to their sudden deatrth in popularity).
You starting to get the picture?
Now, let's go over what iTunes Music Store offers. First off, to use iTunes Music Store, you have to own a computer, and have a copy of iTunes. So let's make this very clear:
Today, with iTunes installed, you can rip any CD in excelent quality with no DRM in a matter of minutes. So, the same amount of work to prepare to download iTMS tracks can give you a system that even a retard could use to digitize their music.
So what do you get if you go the iTMS route? Little to no price difference if you actually want the full album, and individual tracks with a reasonable but not outstanding price. Forgetting the DRM, you have a few other problems with iTMS tracks:
* 128k ACC is quite a step down from CD quality (~160-192k CBR mp3 quality), and you get no other options. Your best copy of the music is sub-par.
* With iTMS tracks, you have to make your own backups or risk losing your entire library...with the ripped CD, you already have a backup in the CD itself.
So, no major price benefit, no major feature benefit, except that you can have it NOW, and you can have all the little pieces you want.
To be honest, I don't find this to be a benefit. I think per-track pricing is stupid, because most of the artists worth listening to know how to make a good album. It also doesn't help that you pay the same for a three-minute Green Day track as you do for an 8-minute Metallica romp.
Is to start with less power. But that doesn't mean you have to give up performance.
Winchester A64 cores as high as 3500+ have peak power usage 35w, and use 1/3 that when running Cool 'n Quiet. Pentium M cores also have low peak power usage and power management, but the price of entry is quite a bit higher.
This is in contrast to super high-end chips like the Athlon 65 FX and the P4 EE, which can use 90w or more at peak.
Be aware of how much a power hog your video card is. You can still play games on a quiet system, but you need to buy balanced performance. Keep in mind that the highest performance chips usually use older processes (.13 micron currently), and push 100w peak (!), while midrange chips usually push the process barrier and end up lower-power (for example, the GeForce 6600 series, or the Radeon x700 series). These cards typically peak at 50w or less, and idle at around 20-25w, not bad at all for their performance.
I've combined the above elements in an Antec Sonata case with only the stock 120mm exhaust fan, plus a Zalman 7000A for the CPU. The video card fan is audible, just a bit, but you can make that go away if it bothers you (there are lots of good third-party video coolers out there).
It's not THE FASTEST setup, but it's certainly no slouch. The best thing is, it doesn't cost that much, because you don't pay the premium of top-end performance parts or exotic cooling. It's affordable quiet performance computing.
Oh, a few side notes: carpeted floors and desks you can slide the machine under are really required for completely silent aircooling. If you have a hardwood floor, you're probably going to have to live with some minimum noise level.
Also, overclocking and mdding your case with thousands of fan holes does not mix with budget quiet computing. Then, you're talking watercooling.
Agreed, Apple's timing was impeccable for their own gain.
Intel had already shipped motherboard chipsets with USB ports as early as 1995, and Microsoft had already released Win95 OSR 2.5 with USB support by late 1997.
The writing was already on the wall. Microsoft was going to release Win98, and all the USB out there plus all the new computers sold would have support. Steve timed the release of the iMac to take advantge of that concentrated market push.
The iMac had little to do with the adoption of USB, it just rode the wave as a high-profile surfer for 15 minutes.
It's true, I've been abusing this poisionous substance for years, watching as it gave me astounding enegy to perform tasks, but simultaneously made my body grow old and tortured. I cannot live a minute, let alone a day, without it; I would go insane with need and possibly die from the withdrawl symptoms.
Oxygen has been running my life - I have no life other than Oxygen. The constant need to be fulfilled has left other aspects of my life langusing on the backburner. I have ruined my relationships with my family and friends, just to get another fresh breath of air.
I obviously have a serious addiction here, and I would like to find a road to recovery. I have been reading the 12-step pamphlets on "Lactic Acid Fermentation" as an alternative lifestyle. Although it may mean a reduction in lifespan, I am convinced that the quality of life improvement would be immense, and well worth the sacrifice on my part.
Now, before I die from asphyxiation, maybe I should look into this internet thing *gasp*?
Yes, wrist strength is essential for eliminating RSI. You see this similar concept time and tiem again - for example, strengthening your abs and lower back muscles can eliminate back pain if your spine isn't too far gone.
Combine it with proper posture (just stop doing the things that hurt, and keep doing the things that don't hurt), and you've got pain-free computing. I've been using computers and mice for ten years, and the first 5 I got pain in my wrists. Then I figured out how to strengthen my wrists and set up my desk to be more ergonomic.
My secret to strengthing the wrists? I yo-yo. I really get into it, and don't use cheap lightweight plastic toys, so your shoulder and wrist really get a workout. Of course, you could always opt for the simpler wrist crunchers, but I find the yo to be more fun:D
I feel better today after 10 years of computing than I did after 5 years of computing.
1. Digital cell phones use much lower power than analog cell phones, even at peak power. The study was simulating analog headsets, so this problem is already reduced by more modern technology.
2. Rat's skulls are considerably thinner than human skulls. You would think this would make a significant difference in the effect, as PSD falls with the square of the distance (cellphone antenna is omnidirectional).
The military has been doing this sort of concept for years, except with electromagnetic radiation.
The technique is called Specific Emitter Identification (SEI), and it's used to create a unique fingerprint of the signal characteristics of every known radar platform in the world.
And I'm not just talking about a fingerprint by model...we're talking a unique fingerprint for every individual radar in existence, all available in a managed database.
Of course, the enemy has no expectation of privacy if they broadcast radar waves, and honestly, neither do home users who connect to the open net.
If you want to fake out the SEI database, you either never transmit, EVER, or you tune or replace the radar. If you want to fake out this system, you don't connect to the net...or you tune or replace the processor. It's much like dodging cookies and such: it's perfectly possible to avoid being tracked by them, but it's on your shoulders to do so.
The numbers for the Athlon 64 Winchester core are quite impressive...but this is because they havn't cranked up the voltage to produce anything faster than a 3500+ core yet.
But take this, for example:
3200+ Winchester. 30w full-load (2.0GHz) 10w Idle. 3w Idle with Cool N' Quiet enabled (thanks to half core speed and even lower voltage) ~10w moderate load (Cool N' Quiet clocking the processor at 1GHz most of the time, 2GHz when performance demands it).
I have one, and this sucker barely tops 100F at full load (stock Antec Sonata with Zalman 7000A throttled down to %50). I have also seen no issues with the dynamic clock speed, only one of the games I've tried was affected (UT 2003).
I imagine the notebook versions are even better, as they come with more than two levels of power management. The Pentium M has some serious competition when it comes to low power usage.
I use ada on a daily basis, and I've only got one problem with it:
-- say you declared yourself an array and -- procedure with the same name...
type Array_Type is array (SIZE) of Integer; Something : Array_Type;
procedure Something ( Input : Integer );
-- And now you try to tell me what this does, -- because it could be a call to procedure -- Something, or indexing into array Something:
Something (I);
Sure, there's not a compiler in hell that would let you get away with this, but that's not the point. The point is, any language that uses parenthesis to fill the role of both procedure argument bounds AND array index brackets is retarded.
If you are tying to interpret code you've inherited, you are left at the mercy of the creator in determining if Something(I) is a procedure or an array, especially if the type itself is buried somewhere. If they don't name things specifically to convention, the usage is unclear.
Now THAT is retarded.
But that's really the only problem I have with ada. The rest of the language is quite nice.
Where's the surprise in this? They havn't pulled any amazing numbers out of their hat, 55w is roughly %70 more power than a single core Winchester. The other %30 is probably accounted for by a new more efficient core revision. The.09 micron Athlon 64 Winchester parts already sip power AT FULL LOAD (27w for 3000, 30w for 3200+, ~33w for 3500+).
The design spec for the Winchester core says 63w TDP, but that's just so designers can eventually drop in a 2.4-2.6GHz+ Winchester core. These higher frequencies will most likely require higher voltage, and thus have substantially higher power consumption than the 3000-3500 Winchesters.
Or perhaps you could just, say, drop in a 2.2GHz dual core. So many wonderful options...
When your laptop has the battery installed, it's running just like a destop PC connected to a UPS. The battery is constantly charging, and the PC is feeding directly off the battery.
That way, if you disconnect the power cord, the power to the PC is uninterrupted. There is really no cheaper or easier way to implement such a feature.
So, you want your battery to last? Take it out when it's just sitting there on your desk. Otherwise, suffer the consequences.
Your laptop may offer the same feature as a UPS, but it's not designed for the same duration as a UPS...those lead-acid batteries have a much better discharge lifetimes than lithium ion.
Your observation is missing a key point, and that is:
Compared to the car industry, we're barely at the end of the 1920s.
Think back to the real start of the computer industry boom in the 80s - you can have any color PC you want, as long as it's IBM-Compatible. This was the equivilant of the Model T - affordable, plentiful, pain in the ass to use, but serviceable and VERY upgradable.
So, now think of the car industry at the end of the 1920s...the industry was saturated, and like any industry moving into the replacement phase, it was just starting to show well-defined lines of separation between market segments. Some people look to replace their current car for the same thing, while others look to upgrade.
Still, nobody was quite sure what they were doing, and creating steady demand for ANY market segment was still an iffy task. This is why by the 1920s and 30s, most independent manufacturers merged into one of the few giants still around today...and those giants carefully maintained market segments within their subsidiaries. The same thing is starting to happen with the PC industry, although it hasn't gotten through the thick skulls of CEOs quite yet.
So, what happened to make people so willing to research cars? Well, the stabilized market segments and feature sets made it a little easier for everyone to follow the trends and understand the basics. Also, the high price, long potential service life and the necessity of ownership makes them a decision worth researching heavily...just like say, a home purchase.
Computers, unfortunately, have NONE of the above going for them. The market segments have never quite stabilized, and manufacturers are hawking a new whiz-bang solition looking for a problem every month. PCs today aren't expensive enough for people to give them much critical research, especially considering their lifetime of use is much shorter than a good car. Also, computer ownership today is not at all a requirement to do business.
Until at least a couple of these factors change, people just aren't going to care enough to research PC purchases, and thus most will live with their Model T and try to upgrade it on their own when they discover that it doesn't come with headlights.
Set up internal bluetooth in the Xbox itself and pair each controller to the specific Xbox
Time and time again, everyone always misses this.
ROUTED PROTOCOLS SUCK for controllers, especially low-bandwidth ones like Bluetooth.
* If you add in the complexity and overhead of Bluetooth combined with the anemic connection speed, you get noticeable controller lag.
* If you increase the thoroughput to speed up the handling of packets and thus reduce the noticeable lag, you get either less range or more power consumption, and a higher price.
The wavebird solution works because it is simple. No overhead, no routing, just a different swath of frequency for each controller.
I'm thinking the optional wire connector would be the best solution to your problem.
That gives you two 32-bit words, for a maximum word size of 64-bits per fetch.
Now, the HY5DU283222AF-33 gives us a maximum speed of 300MHz (DDR600). Assuming Apple runs to maximum spec, this gives you a maximum thoroughput of 4.8GB/s.
This is better than the original 9200SE spec of DDR166(333) (no surprise, it's couple years old)
So, it's sort of a mixed bag. You get a part that lies halfway between the original spec 9200SE and a real 9200 in terms of memory performance, which may explain why it actually keeps up with a 5200 Ultra. It will actually be capable of playing older games respectably, or newer games at low settings.
But the 32MB frame buffer will still hold the platform back. For example, CNET's tests show the Mini scoring a paltry 60fps in Quake 3, 1024x768, default settings. The sad thing is, this is about the same performance level as a TNT2 Ultra, and this is a game DESIGNED for 32MB graphics cards.
Any game designed for 64MB cards or up (ie: made in the last two years), the mini is going to choke on unless you cut the texture settings way down.
Windows applications receive a similar effect. Even though you close them, the libraries and components required for the application remain resident until that memory is needed for something else. All good operating systems cache like this.
What, have you never noticed on Windows and Linux that applications tend to load faster after you've loaded them, closed them, then loaded them again in the same session?
* Matrox realizes that 3D is the future, and that just adding piddly "freeD" features to their cards ain't gonna cut it. Throws their hat into the ring with the G200.
* Matrox also realizes that they will need to innovate in the 3D realm if they want to stay alive. Releases the G400 with dualbus (one of the first memory interface innovations), dualhead, and environmental bumpmapping support. G400MAX is expensive, but is the fastest gaming card in the world.
* Matrox sticks their head up their ass for a couple years, and shows up with the G450.
Hardcore Matrox fans: "Woah, die-shrunk G400 core at 300MHz with 128-bit DDR166? sweet!"
Matrox Execs: "Woah, die-shrunk G400 core at 125MHz with 64-bit DDR166? sweet!"
And thus it began. While Matrox was refusing to support their gaming market and let the features trickle down to the business users (like Nvidia and ATI did), they were missing out on advances like T&L, crossbar memory controllers, hidden surface removal, and memory compression techniques.
Thus, when they decided to release their last gaming card, it suddenly occurred to them how far behind they had fallen...and that they couldn't hope to make up such a distance in one short jump. The incredibly high memory bandwidth of the Parhelia was made absolutely pathetic by the memory subsystem still stuck in the 1990s.
Matrox is done for as a graphics card maker. Integrated graphics today provide nearly the same clarity as Matrox products, and DVI will make their only remaining selling point redundant. They'll fall back to their niche products and scrape by.
It's probably not an incompatibility...it's most likely the pitiful memory bandwidth of most post-G400 Matrox cards.
The G450 and G550 have a 64-bit memory bus, with DDR or *gasp* SDR memory clocked at a pethetically slow speed. The memory controller is also tired and old (no improvements since the G400 DualBus).
The one thing this series struggles with, besides the obvious gaming shortcomings, is the inability to play large video streams. You show a fullscreen video on a G450 up above 1024x768 in 32-bit, and the thing will drop frames. That's pathetic.
The application you mentioned does scrolling text, in addition to video overlay, which only taxes the scarce bandwidth even more.
In addition, note that the DDR on a G4 doesn't do anything. The G4 is constricted by a 64-bit 166MHz FSB. This is why most G4 PowerMacs had HUGE external caches (1-2MB), to mask the effects of this anorexic interface.
I don't expect the performance of this system to be particularly impressive with a paltry 512K L2 cache.
No no, most DoD contractors have many small closed areas within a particular building, with the rest of the space being open and unclassified.
To be a DoD contractor, however, they cannot allow video cameras or tape recorders into ANY part of the building, open or closed. Cell phones are typically allowed, as well as pagers/blackberries.
As for closed areas, it all depends on the contracts being worked within. For example, in the closed area in which I work, employees can bring in cell phones, but they must be turned off. Contractors and visitors must leave theirs at the door. Other more stringent closed areas don't even allow employees to carry cell phones in.
The new 970FX (.09nm) got Apple up from 2GHz to 2.5GHz...but the power consumption is actually more, as they require similar voltage.
What Apple doesn't advertise is, at speeds between 1.5 and 2.0 GHz, power consumption has been greatly reduced due to a much lower voltage. Desktop 970FX users already get these benefits through dynamic voltage and frequency at idle or low load, just like the Athlon64.
It's still gonna suck up the juice, though, compared to the lower speed Pentium M or G4.
Lead is a heavy metal, poisonous to humans. Copper and Aluminum, on the other hand, are perfectly ok lighter metals (like iron, zinc, etc.). Your body requires trace amounts of each to function properly.
You're lucky your blood uses hemoglobin instead of copper-based hemocyanin (oxygen carrier in invertibrates), or you'd be ingesting more copper than iron.
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I have accepted DVD, and with it, I have accepted CSS. Forget about the fact that I can remove CSS very simply now, when I picked up on DVD I knew the video was encrypted.
Why?
DVD video quality is leaps and bounds better than VHS. The media doesn't degrade. On a dual-layer, single-sided disc, there's room for multiple audio tracks, special features, or just twice as much feature video. The video doesn't degrade when you watch it. You can store it in the case and it takes up half as much space as a VHS, and only a fraction of that inside a CD case. DVD players can also double as CD players without any extra hardware.
Plus, it's the same price for all these features as a VHS (VHS prices have since dropped due to their sudden deatrth in popularity).
You starting to get the picture?
Now, let's go over what iTunes Music Store offers. First off, to use iTunes Music Store, you have to own a computer, and have a copy of iTunes. So let's make this very clear:
Today, with iTunes installed, you can rip any CD in excelent quality with no DRM in a matter of minutes. So, the same amount of work to prepare to download iTMS tracks can give you a system that even a retard could use to digitize their music.
So what do you get if you go the iTMS route? Little to no price difference if you actually want the full album, and individual tracks with a reasonable but not outstanding price. Forgetting the DRM, you have a few other problems with iTMS tracks:
* 128k ACC is quite a step down from CD quality (~160-192k CBR mp3 quality), and you get no other options. Your best copy of the music is sub-par.
* With iTMS tracks, you have to make your own backups or risk losing your entire library...with the ripped CD, you already have a backup in the CD itself.
So, no major price benefit, no major feature benefit, except that you can have it NOW, and you can have all the little pieces you want.
To be honest, I don't find this to be a benefit. I think per-track pricing is stupid, because most of the artists worth listening to know how to make a good album. It also doesn't help that you pay the same for a three-minute Green Day track as you do for an 8-minute Metallica romp.
Is to start with less power. But that doesn't mean you have to give up performance.
Winchester A64 cores as high as 3500+ have peak power usage 35w, and use 1/3 that when running Cool 'n Quiet. Pentium M cores also have low peak power usage and power management, but the price of entry is quite a bit higher.
This is in contrast to super high-end chips like the Athlon 65 FX and the P4 EE, which can use 90w or more at peak.
Be aware of how much a power hog your video card is. You can still play games on a quiet system, but you need to buy balanced performance. Keep in mind that the highest performance chips usually use older processes (.13 micron currently), and push 100w peak (!), while midrange chips usually push the process barrier and end up lower-power (for example, the GeForce 6600 series, or the Radeon x700 series). These cards typically peak at 50w or less, and idle at around 20-25w, not bad at all for their performance.
I've combined the above elements in an Antec Sonata case with only the stock 120mm exhaust fan, plus a Zalman 7000A for the CPU. The video card fan is audible, just a bit, but you can make that go away if it bothers you (there are lots of good third-party video coolers out there).
It's not THE FASTEST setup, but it's certainly no slouch. The best thing is, it doesn't cost that much, because you don't pay the premium of top-end performance parts or exotic cooling. It's affordable quiet performance computing.
Oh, a few side notes: carpeted floors and desks you can slide the machine under are really required for completely silent aircooling. If you have a hardwood floor, you're probably going to have to live with some minimum noise level.
Also, overclocking and mdding your case with thousands of fan holes does not mix with budget quiet computing. Then, you're talking watercooling.
Agreed, Apple's timing was impeccable for their own gain.
Intel had already shipped motherboard chipsets with USB ports as early as 1995, and Microsoft had already released Win95 OSR 2.5 with USB support by late 1997.
The writing was already on the wall. Microsoft was going to release Win98, and all the USB out there plus all the new computers sold would have support. Steve timed the release of the iMac to take advantge of that concentrated market push.
The iMac had little to do with the adoption of USB, it just rode the wave as a high-profile surfer for 15 minutes.
Hello......
My name is Default Luser......
And I'm an Oxyholic.
It's true, I've been abusing this poisionous substance for years, watching as it gave me astounding enegy to perform tasks, but simultaneously made my body grow old and tortured. I cannot live a minute, let alone a day, without it; I would go insane with need and possibly die from the withdrawl symptoms.
Oxygen has been running my life - I have no life other than Oxygen. The constant need to be fulfilled has left other aspects of my life langusing on the backburner. I have ruined my relationships with my family and friends, just to get another fresh breath of air.
I obviously have a serious addiction here, and I would like to find a road to recovery. I have been reading the 12-step pamphlets on "Lactic Acid Fermentation" as an alternative lifestyle. Although it may mean a reduction in lifespan, I am convinced that the quality of life improvement would be immense, and well worth the sacrifice on my part.
Now, before I die from asphyxiation, maybe I should look into this internet thing *gasp*?
Yes, wrist strength is essential for eliminating RSI. You see this similar concept time and tiem again - for example, strengthening your abs and lower back muscles can eliminate back pain if your spine isn't too far gone.
:D
Combine it with proper posture (just stop doing the things that hurt, and keep doing the things that don't hurt), and you've got pain-free computing. I've been using computers and mice for ten years, and the first 5 I got pain in my wrists. Then I figured out how to strengthen my wrists and set up my desk to be more ergonomic.
My secret to strengthing the wrists? I yo-yo. I really get into it, and don't use cheap lightweight plastic toys, so your shoulder and wrist really get a workout. Of course, you could always opt for the simpler wrist crunchers, but I find the yo to be more fun
I feel better today after 10 years of computing than I did after 5 years of computing.
1. Digital cell phones use much lower power than analog cell phones, even at peak power. The study was simulating analog headsets, so this problem is already reduced by more modern technology.
2. Rat's skulls are considerably thinner than human skulls. You would think this would make a significant difference in the effect, as PSD falls with the square of the distance (cellphone antenna is omnidirectional).
Just my thoughts on "the truth".
The military has been doing this sort of concept for years, except with electromagnetic radiation.
The technique is called Specific Emitter Identification (SEI), and it's used to create a unique fingerprint of the signal characteristics of every known radar platform in the world.
And I'm not just talking about a fingerprint by model...we're talking a unique fingerprint for every individual radar in existence, all available in a managed database.
Of course, the enemy has no expectation of privacy if they broadcast radar waves, and honestly, neither do home users who connect to the open net.
If you want to fake out the SEI database, you either never transmit, EVER, or you tune or replace the radar. If you want to fake out this system, you don't connect to the net...or you tune or replace the processor. It's much like dodging cookies and such: it's perfectly possible to avoid being tracked by them, but it's on your shoulders to do so.
You'd be surprised. I certainly was.
The numbers for the Athlon 64 Winchester core are quite impressive...but this is because they havn't cranked up the voltage to produce anything faster than a 3500+ core yet.
But take this, for example:
3200+ Winchester.
30w full-load (2.0GHz)
10w Idle.
3w Idle with Cool N' Quiet enabled (thanks to half core speed and even lower voltage)
~10w moderate load (Cool N' Quiet clocking the processor at 1GHz most of the time, 2GHz when performance demands it).
I have one, and this sucker barely tops 100F at full load (stock Antec Sonata with Zalman 7000A throttled down to %50). I have also seen no issues with the dynamic clock speed, only one of the games I've tried was affected (UT 2003).
I imagine the notebook versions are even better, as they come with more than two levels of power management. The Pentium M has some serious competition when it comes to low power usage.
Agreed. Intel isn't going to move the market unless they start manufacturing a board designed to FIT THAT CASE.
Did Intel suddenly forget they're also the #1 supplier of motherboards for Intel-based PCs?
Most OEMs use Intel boards. Until Intel takes the magic leap of providing a board that makes this design feasable, it's all just smoke and mirrors.
Hesh is gone? What a sad event.
No more Heshopolis...I mean, Sparkopolis, then?
Long Live The Chair!
I use ada on a daily basis, and I've only got one problem with it:
-- say you declared yourself an array and
-- procedure with the same name...
type Array_Type is array (SIZE) of Integer;
Something : Array_Type;
procedure Something ( Input : Integer );
-- And now you try to tell me what this does,
-- because it could be a call to procedure
-- Something, or indexing into array Something:
Something (I);
Sure, there's not a compiler in hell that would let you get away with this, but that's not the point. The point is, any language that uses
parenthesis to fill the role of both procedure argument bounds AND array index brackets is retarded.
If you are tying to interpret code you've inherited, you are left at the mercy of the creator in determining if Something(I) is a procedure or an array, especially if the type itself is buried somewhere. If they don't name things specifically to convention, the usage is unclear.
Now THAT is retarded.
But that's really the only problem I have with ada. The rest of the language is quite nice.
Where's the surprise in this? They havn't pulled any amazing numbers out of their hat, 55w is roughly %70 more power than a single core Winchester. The other %30 is probably accounted for by a new more efficient core revision. The .09 micron Athlon 64 Winchester parts already sip power AT FULL LOAD (27w for 3000, 30w for 3200+, ~33w for 3500+).
The design spec for the Winchester core says 63w TDP, but that's just so designers can eventually drop in a 2.4-2.6GHz+ Winchester core. These higher frequencies will most likely require higher voltage, and thus have substantially higher power consumption than the 3000-3500 Winchesters.
Or perhaps you could just, say, drop in a 2.2GHz dual core. So many wonderful options...
The reason for that is obvious:
When your laptop has the battery installed, it's running just like a destop PC connected to a UPS. The battery is constantly charging, and the PC is feeding directly off the battery.
That way, if you disconnect the power cord, the power to the PC is uninterrupted. There is really no cheaper or easier way to implement such a feature.
So, you want your battery to last? Take it out when it's just sitting there on your desk. Otherwise, suffer the consequences.
Your laptop may offer the same feature as a UPS, but it's not designed for the same duration as a UPS...those lead-acid batteries have a much better discharge lifetimes than lithium ion.
Your observation is missing a key point, and that is:
Compared to the car industry, we're barely at the end of the 1920s.
Think back to the real start of the computer industry boom in the 80s - you can have any color PC you want, as long as it's IBM-Compatible. This was the equivilant of the Model T - affordable, plentiful, pain in the ass to use, but serviceable and VERY upgradable.
So, now think of the car industry at the end of the 1920s...the industry was saturated, and like any industry moving into the replacement phase, it was just starting to show well-defined lines of separation between market segments. Some people look to replace their current car for the same thing, while others look to upgrade.
Still, nobody was quite sure what they were doing, and creating steady demand for ANY market segment was still an iffy task. This is why by the 1920s and 30s, most independent manufacturers merged into one of the few giants still around today...and those giants carefully maintained market segments within their subsidiaries. The same thing is starting to happen with the PC industry, although it hasn't gotten through the thick skulls of CEOs quite yet.
So, what happened to make people so willing to research cars? Well, the stabilized market segments and feature sets made it a little easier for everyone to follow the trends and understand the basics. Also, the high price, long potential service life and the necessity of ownership makes them a decision worth researching heavily...just like say, a home purchase.
Computers, unfortunately, have NONE of the above going for them. The market segments have never quite stabilized, and manufacturers are hawking a new whiz-bang solition looking for a problem every month. PCs today aren't expensive enough for people to give them much critical research, especially considering their lifetime of use is much shorter than a good car. Also, computer ownership today is not at all a requirement to do business.
Until at least a couple of these factors change, people just aren't going to care enough to research PC purchases, and thus most will live with their Model T and try to upgrade it on their own when they discover that it doesn't come with headlights.
Set up internal bluetooth in the Xbox itself and pair each controller to the specific Xbox
Time and time again, everyone always misses this.
ROUTED PROTOCOLS SUCK for controllers, especially low-bandwidth ones like Bluetooth.
* If you add in the complexity and overhead of Bluetooth combined with the anemic connection speed, you get noticeable controller lag.
* If you increase the thoroughput to speed up the handling of packets and thus reduce the noticeable lag, you get either less range or more power consumption, and a higher price.
The wavebird solution works because it is simple. No overhead, no routing, just a different swath of frequency for each controller.
I'm thinking the optional wire connector would be the best solution to your problem.
There are two Hynix HY5DU283222AF-33 128Mb DRAM chips onboard the mini, (16MB).
These are 4M x 32 parts, according to Hynix's webpage
That gives you two 32-bit words, for a maximum word size of 64-bits per fetch.
Now, the HY5DU283222AF-33 gives us a maximum speed of 300MHz (DDR600). Assuming Apple runs to maximum spec, this gives you a maximum thoroughput of 4.8GB/s.
This is better than the original 9200SE spec of DDR166(333) (no surprise, it's couple years old)
So, it's sort of a mixed bag. You get a part that lies halfway between the original spec 9200SE and a real 9200 in terms of memory performance, which may explain why it actually keeps up with a 5200 Ultra. It will actually be capable of playing older games respectably, or newer games at low settings.
But the 32MB frame buffer will still hold the platform back. For example, CNET's tests show the Mini scoring a paltry 60fps in Quake 3, 1024x768, default settings. The sad thing is, this is about the same performance level as a TNT2 Ultra, and this is a game DESIGNED for 32MB graphics cards.
Any game designed for 64MB cards or up (ie: made in the last two years), the mini is going to choke on unless you cut the texture settings way down.
I hpe this is settled.
You underestimate the real limitations of the video hardware onboard the Mac Mini.
The "9200" onboard has been proven to be a "9200SE", which has a pitiful 64-bit memory interface. The two memory chips are 32-bit wide paired.
Assuming they are running to to ATI reference spec (DDR166), that paltry 32MB dedicated video memory has a peak bandwidth of 2.6GB/s.
Some comparisons for reference:
Peak bandwidth of AGP 8x: 2.1GB/s
TNT2 Ultra (A six year-old card): 2.8GB/s
A REAL Radeon 8500/9200(not this SE crap): 8.8GB/s
The Xbox unified memory bandwidth: 6.4GB/s
I'm sorry, but the 9200SE has NOTHING on the Xbox, let alone a real modern graphics engine, solely because the cheap memory interface holds it back.
I guess as long as you run with 16-bit color and low-quality textures, you might get something near XBox performance.
Windows applications receive a similar effect. Even though you close them, the libraries and components required for the application remain resident until that memory is needed for something else. All good operating systems cache like this.
What, have you never noticed on Windows and Linux that applications tend to load faster after you've loaded them, closed them, then loaded them again in the same session?
Okay, this is what happened to Matrox:
* Matrox realizes that 3D is the future, and that just adding piddly "freeD" features to their cards ain't gonna cut it. Throws their hat into the ring with the G200.
* Matrox also realizes that they will need to innovate in the 3D realm if they want to stay alive. Releases the G400 with dualbus (one of the first memory interface innovations), dualhead, and environmental bumpmapping support. G400MAX is expensive, but is the fastest gaming card in the world.
* Matrox sticks their head up their ass for a couple years, and shows up with the G450.
Hardcore Matrox fans: "Woah, die-shrunk G400 core at 300MHz with 128-bit DDR166? sweet!"
Matrox Execs: "Woah, die-shrunk G400 core at 125MHz with 64-bit DDR166? sweet!"
And thus it began. While Matrox was refusing to support their gaming market and let the features trickle down to the business users (like Nvidia and ATI did), they were missing out on advances like T&L, crossbar memory controllers, hidden surface removal, and memory compression techniques.
Thus, when they decided to release their last gaming card, it suddenly occurred to them how far behind they had fallen...and that they couldn't hope to make up such a distance in one short jump. The incredibly high memory bandwidth of the Parhelia was made absolutely pathetic by the memory subsystem still stuck in the 1990s.
Matrox is done for as a graphics card maker. Integrated graphics today provide nearly the same clarity as Matrox products, and DVI will make their only remaining selling point redundant. They'll fall back to their niche products and scrape by.
It's probably not an incompatibility...it's most likely the pitiful memory bandwidth of most post-G400 Matrox cards.
The G450 and G550 have a 64-bit memory bus, with DDR or *gasp* SDR memory clocked at a pethetically slow speed. The memory controller is also tired and old (no improvements since the G400 DualBus).
The one thing this series struggles with, besides the obvious gaming shortcomings, is the inability to play large video streams. You show a fullscreen video on a G450 up above 1024x768 in 32-bit, and the thing will drop frames. That's pathetic.
The application you mentioned does scrolling text, in addition to video overlay, which only taxes the scarce bandwidth even more.
In addition, note that the DDR on a G4 doesn't do anything. The G4 is constricted by a 64-bit 166MHz FSB. This is why most G4 PowerMacs had HUGE external caches (1-2MB), to mask the effects of this anorexic interface.
I don't expect the performance of this system to be particularly impressive with a paltry 512K L2 cache.
No no, most DoD contractors have many small closed areas within a particular building, with the rest of the space being open and unclassified.
To be a DoD contractor, however, they cannot allow video cameras or tape recorders into ANY part of the building, open or closed. Cell phones are typically allowed, as well as pagers/blackberries.
As for closed areas, it all depends on the contracts being worked within. For example, in the closed area in which I work, employees can bring in cell phones, but they must be turned off. Contractors and visitors must leave theirs at the door. Other more stringent closed areas don't even allow employees to carry cell phones in.
The new 970FX (.09nm) got Apple up from 2GHz to 2.5GHz...but the power consumption is actually more, as they require similar voltage.
What Apple doesn't advertise is, at speeds between 1.5 and 2.0 GHz, power consumption has been greatly reduced due to a much lower voltage. Desktop 970FX users already get these benefits through dynamic voltage and frequency at idle or low load, just like the Athlon64.
It's still gonna suck up the juice, though, compared to the lower speed Pentium M or G4.
What a great reference to a Vonnegut classic ("The Sirens of Titan," for those who don't know).
I just read it recently, one of his best works.
Lead is a heavy metal, poisonous to humans. Copper and Aluminum, on the other hand, are perfectly ok lighter metals (like iron, zinc, etc.). Your body requires trace amounts of each to function properly.
You're lucky your blood uses hemoglobin instead of copper-based hemocyanin (oxygen carrier in invertibrates), or you'd be ingesting more copper than iron.