I wouldn't exactly say it's any kind of leap in UI development.
Lots and lots of people used Windows 3.1 for a long time. If it was unusable, people wouldn't have used it. Back then, it wasn't quite a monopoly yet, although that's about the time when they started using shadey business practices to force manufacturers to put Windows on PC's that ship, and nothing else.
I guess if you have satellite TV this is true. Unless you use Satellite, there's not many options as far as HDTV sources.
Any digital cable I've seen doesn't do HDTV, maybe some do but I've not seen any. The only thing available to me that's HDTV is my Xbox and a dish if I got one.
I think this is a cool little box and I really want one. It will let you play anything HDTV on a computer screen. This has a lot of value. And $300 is cheap IMO considering what it does.
When I purchase one I'll use it to play the Xbox on my spare 21" monitor.
So in other words, they will be ridiculously expensive.
Perhaps though it will help bring down the price of the conventional LCD screen. Although prices on LCD screens have come down a hell of a lot, they are still very much more expensive then a CRT.
I'd be happy with a 20" normal LCD screen for under $550.
Not exactly the same thing here. You actually OWN the Xbox. You could drop it off a cliff if you wanted to, and nobody could stop you.
Modifying your own equipment is your right. We don't lease the Xbox, we own them. So, we can change them as we please.
It's perfectly legal to mod and xbox. What isn't legal is then proceeding to download games from Usenet and play them. It is legal however to run Linux on the Xbox.
Cable on the other hand, is different. You don't own the signal coming in from the wire. You lease access to it.
When the xbox came out, there was already much faster Intel chips out there. And, the PS2 architecture is not designed for high clock speeds. They are both computers, but they are different in architecture. The Xbox is a 32-bit CPU with a 128-bit GPU, but clocked much higher. The PS2 is a 64-bit CPU with a 128-bit GPU, but is clocked much slower. It all evens out in the end.
When the Xbox hit the market, the Geforce 4 was already just being released, the Pentium 4 was in full swing, and 512MB of ram was commonplace. If you think that the xbox represented the best of technology at the time, you're wrong.
As the end-user, it doesn't matter how much the Xbox costs to make. It doesn't matter how much the PS2 costs to make. What matters is how much we pay for it.
So what if MS decides to not make an Xbox2? They have already said they will, and they have no plans to abandon the Xbox1, but who cares? What matters is that there's a lot of Xbox's out there, and there's a lot of games for it too. There's a lot of fun games!
Your whole arguement is that the Xbox: 1) Is based on x86, and this is "bad", 2) The xbox isn't profitable right now.
I ask again, what does this have to do with the end-user like you or I? The bottom line is that these are both very ncie game systems, and the PS2 isn't any better at games then the Xbox.
You have no basis for your arguement. You are an anti-MS zealot that can't debate this with a clear head. All I said was "PS2 isn't a better game system" and I never said that the Xbox WAS better.
If you want to keep going on and on about "Profits" and whether the xbox is newer technologies, be my guest.
The question was: WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE PS2 IS A BETTER GAME SYSTEM. You have given me nothing that proves this besides vague numbers and stories about profitability. As an end-user, these things mean nothing to me.
What matters to me is graphics quality, sound quality, functionality, and games. All of which the xbox meets the PS2 head-on. Sometimes the PS2 has a better title, sometimes the Xbox does.
The xbox has a hard disk, and with a mod chip you can put a 137GB drive in the thing, and run all your games off the hard disk. You can also play tons of great homebrew stuff off the hard disk. Or CD-RW, or DVD-R. Built-in 100Mbit Ethernet makes things easy too.
Xbox Live is pretty cool too, with the headset thingy and in-game messages from other players that might not be in your game.
Why do I play games on a game console? Because I want to have fun playing games, not because I want to use a "profitable" product or because it "Would have been better if it came out 2 years later."
You know what? I don't care to argue with you anymore.
Yea me too. Obviously you need applications support or it's no use.
Hopefully games adopt the new 64-bit stuff quickly, as these will show better the type of performance gains that can be had. Video Editing type software will most likely also gain a significant advantage while rendering.
For general purpose software, like Office, we're not likely to see much in terms of performance gains. I mean, OfficeXP runs great on a 400Mhz Pentium II.
> What, you mean the Xeons they will be competing against?
Well, no. Opterons will be the only ones that will support over two processors. I would think that the price of an Opteron will be competitive with a high end Xeon, while offering much better performance, but who knows.
I mean the Athlon64. If you look at their roadmap, they are replacing all of their 32-bit CPU's with the new 64-bit CPU core. This means that the Athlon64 will have to compete with the Pentium 4, too. This is good, since it will force the prices down.
Why do you have to be such a prick about this? We can't discuss this without saying crap like "No, of course not, you don't know what a DSP is."?
It doesn't matter what MS wasted on money releasing the xbox. It doesn't matter if the PS2 uses a DSP. And it certainly doesn't matter that the x86 archetecture was extended.
I've seen the PS2 close up. And I've seen the Xbox close up. Everything I've seen, all the games I've played, prove to me that the XBox performs at least as well as the PS2 in all disciplines. It not, better. It doesn't matter that the PS2 can do things "more effeciently." The xbox makes up for it with the brute force of a 733Mhz CPU and a 250Mhz GPU.
People think it's fun and popular to bash anything made by Microsoft. Hey, I'm no fan of their Monopoly either; but the Xbox isn't a bad product.
Nowhere have I said that the PS2 is a bad game system.
And again, the PS2 isn't cheaper then the Xbox.
In the end, with my modded Xbox, I have a lot of fun playing all 1600+ MAME games (not including clones), hundreds of Super Nintento games, Genesis games, NES games, TB16 games, and soon PS1 games. Not to mention any type of Media, MP3, Videos, DivX, whatever, that you have with the Xbox Media Player.
All this off of a nice menu with everything running off the Hard Disk. When your PS2 can do this, I'll buy one.
> Yeah, the PC is a general purpose system that can also play games which often needs also 20 years of backwards compatibility.
In case you haven't noticed, the PC has evolved quite nicely in the last 20 years. Components have been replaced with faster ones. There's some great 3D accelerators out there. Storage systems have been replaced by new ones. Memory is quite a bit quicker. The list goes on.
Backwards compatibility in the x86 archetecture doesn't loan itself to poor performance, in case you haven't noticed this as well. Sure, there's basic binary compatibility, but this doesn't mean my AthlonXP 2200+ runs like an XT.
> If it weren't better (and about 150$ cheaper/unit) why should have Sony developed it? You really think a 20 year old architecture that has been extended numerous times is the optimal gaming platform?
I don't know where you live, perhaps Zimbabwe or somehting, but around here the PS2 and the XBOX are the same price.
Your only arguement is that since the x86 architecture has been around for a long time that it's not good for "games." Sorry to inform you of this, but one of the strongest influences in PC design is games.
And to shake you up a little more, you do realize that Sony has a version of Linux for the PS2 right? What does that mean? Does that mean that the PS2 (gasp) is basically a PC with a different type of CPU? Indeed it does. It has a CPU, RAM, Video chip, sound chip, etc.
Based on your same arguement, you could say that the PS2 isn't an "optimal" gaming system either, because of it's compatibility with the old Playstation one?
Curious though, what makes a computer better for "games" anyways? In my opinion, it's whatever can push out the best graphics and sound. The Xbox does both very well.
The first link is a very short non descriptive article with no information about the machine, video board, etc. Except "sample board sample chipset beta drivers."
The second link contains no benchmarks for Athlon64 and Operon chips.
From what I've seen, on benchmark sites such as:
http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/26/018/
The new CPU core has a lot of potential. It's not going to be twice as fast. It's not going to change the world. But, I think it's going to be a great CPU for a great many purposes. I can't wait to own one. Unfortunately I'll have to wait until I can afford one. (And find a new profession..)
I purchased an AthlonXP 2200+ last year, so it probably won't be until next year when I start getting the urge to upgrade.
Nothing hints to this? What about this very same slashdot article? They are giving the Athlon64's the "PR" ratings of Barton-core AthlonXP's at a much lower clock speed. This seems to be an indication of a pretty good speed increase in just running 32-bit software.
When running 64-bit software, it will depend on how heavily the software utilizes the extra data width. What type of application. And so forth.
It all depends on your perspective. Perhaps in your case, addressing 20GB of RAM is important to you. For me, 4GB is more then enough for any application I've used besides large database applications.
For me, a 20% speed increase out of the box before 64-bit software comes into play is quite acceptable. IMO, as long as the Athlon64 remains competitive with the Pentium 4 in terms of performance, then I'll love buying and using AMD chips now and in the future.
Besides, can you see of any other way the mass-market of computer users is going to be able to get their hands on 64-bit computers? I'm more excited about higher performance desktops then the high end server market.
The so-called "very low end server" market makes up 90% of all x86 servers sold. Most x86 based data centers, albiet Linux or Windows, use single or dual-processor servers in load-balanced clusters. Most of these servers run Pentium 3 processors.
These servers handle most of the workload, while a small few "high end x86" servers can handle database things. Sometimes, the database sits on non-x86 platforms.
The AthlonMP is a higher-performance alternative to the dual-Pentium 3 server/workstation, and can even perform well against a dual-xeon box.
It's hard to know where AMD is trying to position this processor, but it seems to me that the new processor core is positioned to compete with Intel on all fronts. Perhaps the processor will perform so well and be so much cheaper then the Itanium that it will bring very-high performance computing to places that could normally not afford it. We don't know; we'll have to wait and see.
Ohh, very cool. I was still under the impression that Athlon64's would be single-processor systems. In that case, I can't wait for a Dual Processor, 64-bit workstation!
As for price, they will have to be cheap to stay competitive with Intel's 32-bit offerings. The new 64-bit core of the Opteron/Athlon64 will replace the entire line of AMD's processors, so there will be cheap Athlon64's in time.
I just hope that the AMD chips aren't used solely as "Fast 32-bit" processors; I would hope that Microsoft and other software developers keep to the promise to have 64-bit versions of windows and other packages. Once again Microsoft will be developing Windows for multiple platforms; it used to be x84, MIPS, PPC, and Alpha. Now it will be x86, x86-64, Itanium.
Of course, Linux already has x86-64 support, but for mainstream acceptance we need everything to support it, even Windows. (ie- let's not turn this into a Linux vs Windows fight.)
Yea, the space elevator looks like a really cool thing, and from what I've read, it's a viable technology. Unfortunately, the big hurdle is the ground station which must be much taller then anything man-kind has ever built.
The "second shuttle" idea is okay IMO, but it currently takes them months of planning and checking before launching a shuttle into space.
I'd recommend any of these folks posting on Slashdot about this topic to go see the really cool IMAX film on the International Space Station. Then, they'd know why they use Space Shuttles for the bulk of transporting materials.
I couldn't disagree with you more on everything you said.
You say the Xbox's architechure is "braindead" yet it's based on the same tried and true game platform that is the PC. They were able to bring some of the best PC hardware at the time (High clocked P3, GeForce 3-type GPU, etc) into a game system that in my opinion does very well as a console game system.
Just because the PSX architecture is based on a different set of technologies, does not make it any more "good" of a game system then anything else.
I like the fact that the xbox has a hard disk, it allows games to release patches (via xbox live,) store cache so less reading from the slower DVD drive, near-unlimited save game space, etc. You can even use it to put your music CD's on - and many games support playing from your personal music library over the game's soundtrack.
I also like how the Xbox DVD drive is quite a bit more quiet then the PS2 counterpart. I also enjoy being able to plug in four controllers without an extension pack.
Last but not least, you can buy a $50 mod chip and put a 120GB drive in the Xbox. My xbox has over 60 games, MAME, tons of emulators, Linux. All on the hard disk.
I'm not saying the PS2 is a poor system. I like the controllers on the Playstations, and I think the game system is solid. I just don't buy into the fact that it's a better game system because it's built by proprietary parts.
I don't think this is true. The Opteron will be replacing AMD's current Multi-processor offering (Which is the Athlon MP) and the Athlon will replace the uni-processor offerings (Athlon XP.)
There will probably be some "High End" Opteron chips with large cache, but overall the chips will most likely be priced for market share.
I do agree with the part about the main competitor being Itanium, but not price-wise. Ultimately I believe that Itanium will offer better performance, but at the price of compatibility and cost.
Well, I hope you aren't saying that I am bitching and moaning; I simply said I am hoping for more Linux games.
Unless you can somehow rally the worlds' computer game players together and boycott games unless they become available on Linux, this is *not* the way to go about it.
Saying "If you want Linux games, stop buying Windows ones" is way too simplistic. There's no way to get everyone together and all do the same thing. Thus, we must look elsewhere to motivate the game publishers to produce games for our platform of choice.
Not to mention that the number of people that want more games published for Linux is considerably smaller then the "I don't care, I run Windows anyways" people.
I don't have the answer, but a boycott certainly isn't the answer.
You could say "All we have to do to stop violent shootings is to stop producing bullets." Unfortunately, you cannot simply stop people from producing bullets. So, you must find other means of stopping violent shootings.
The simple answer is not always the simple solution.
Indeed. Same is true with the Brooklyn Bridge (the concrete piles that go to the bottom of the water) and the Golden Gate Bridge.
It might seem hard to believe now a days, but back when they were first creating these types of structures a lot of people died. And some bodies were unrecoverable in some of these structures.
If a decaying body would have lead to the instability of a structure, it would have been removed in some way or another.
Want games in Linux? Then stop buying games for Windows. It's that simple people.
In the meantime, I'm playing Tuxracer all day?
The only game that's currently available on Linux that's "new" is UT2003. Yea, it runs very well and I enjoy it, but it's just one game. If I want to play Battlefield, I have to use Windows.
Yea but that's for use with Rambus memory. Rambus memory is clocked a lot higher then DDR, but it's performance gains (not much) don't justify the extra cost.
Yea, I run Gentoo on a lot of machines. I like it a lot.
The package system in Gentoo is ridiculously easy to maintain. You'll never get left behind because your glibc is out dated and it's too hard to upgrade. You'll always have the newest stuff (if you want it) and everything is compiled to fit your system and your specifications exactly.
Not everyone will like how Gentoo compiles everything from sources. I hope that somewhere down the road people start adapting the same package system to their binary-based distributions. It's really great!
You also do have the option of creating your own binary packages, to use on other machines. This is good for stuff that takes a long time to compile (KDE, X, Gnome, etc) and it's good for installing Gentoo on slower machines.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows95 has a start button. Woo.
.lnk files.
And
I wouldn't exactly say it's any kind of leap in UI development.
Lots and lots of people used Windows 3.1 for a long time. If it was unusable, people wouldn't have used it. Back then, it wasn't quite a monopoly yet, although that's about the time when they started using shadey business practices to force manufacturers to put Windows on PC's that ship, and nothing else.
I guess if you have satellite TV this is true. Unless you use Satellite, there's not many options as far as HDTV sources.
Any digital cable I've seen doesn't do HDTV, maybe some do but I've not seen any. The only thing available to me that's HDTV is my Xbox and a dish if I got one.
I think this is a cool little box and I really want one. It will let you play anything HDTV on a computer screen. This has a lot of value. And $300 is cheap IMO considering what it does.
When I purchase one I'll use it to play the Xbox on my spare 21" monitor.
So in other words, they will be ridiculously expensive.
Perhaps though it will help bring down the price of the conventional LCD screen. Although prices on LCD screens have come down a hell of a lot, they are still very much more expensive then a CRT.
I'd be happy with a 20" normal LCD screen for under $550.
> X-Box modders watch out as well.
Not exactly the same thing here. You actually OWN the Xbox. You could drop it off a cliff if you wanted to, and nobody could stop you.
Modifying your own equipment is your right. We don't lease the Xbox, we own them. So, we can change them as we please.
It's perfectly legal to mod and xbox. What isn't legal is then proceeding to download games from Usenet and play them. It is legal however to run Linux on the Xbox.
Cable on the other hand, is different. You don't own the signal coming in from the wire. You lease access to it.
11 men died making the golden gate bridge. The safety net saved the lives of 19 men during the building of the bridge however.
h tm l#WorkersandNames
g ed eaths.htm
http://www.goldengatebridge.org/research/facts.
Brooklyn Bridge was worse, with 20-40 deaths.
http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/bbridge/bbrid
When the xbox came out, there was already much faster Intel chips out there. And, the PS2 architecture is not designed for high clock speeds. They are both computers, but they are different in architecture. The Xbox is a 32-bit CPU with a 128-bit GPU, but clocked much higher. The PS2 is a 64-bit CPU with a 128-bit GPU, but is clocked much slower. It all evens out in the end.
When the Xbox hit the market, the Geforce 4 was already just being released, the Pentium 4 was in full swing, and 512MB of ram was commonplace. If you think that the xbox represented the best of technology at the time, you're wrong.
As the end-user, it doesn't matter how much the Xbox costs to make. It doesn't matter how much the PS2 costs to make. What matters is how much we pay for it.
So what if MS decides to not make an Xbox2? They have already said they will, and they have no plans to abandon the Xbox1, but who cares? What matters is that there's a lot of Xbox's out there, and there's a lot of games for it too. There's a lot of fun games!
Your whole arguement is that the Xbox: 1) Is based on x86, and this is "bad", 2) The xbox isn't profitable right now.
I ask again, what does this have to do with the end-user like you or I? The bottom line is that these are both very ncie game systems, and the PS2 isn't any better at games then the Xbox.
You have no basis for your arguement. You are an anti-MS zealot that can't debate this with a clear head. All I said was "PS2 isn't a better game system" and I never said that the Xbox WAS better.
If you want to keep going on and on about "Profits" and whether the xbox is newer technologies, be my guest.
The question was: WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE PS2 IS A BETTER GAME SYSTEM. You have given me nothing that proves this besides vague numbers and stories about profitability. As an end-user, these things mean nothing to me.
What matters to me is graphics quality, sound quality, functionality, and games. All of which the xbox meets the PS2 head-on. Sometimes the PS2 has a better title, sometimes the Xbox does.
The xbox has a hard disk, and with a mod chip you can put a 137GB drive in the thing, and run all your games off the hard disk. You can also play tons of great homebrew stuff off the hard disk. Or CD-RW, or DVD-R. Built-in 100Mbit Ethernet makes things easy too.
Xbox Live is pretty cool too, with the headset thingy and in-game messages from other players that might not be in your game.
Why do I play games on a game console? Because I want to have fun playing games, not because I want to use a "profitable" product or because it "Would have been better if it came out 2 years later."
You know what? I don't care to argue with you anymore.
Yea me too. Obviously you need applications support or it's no use.
Hopefully games adopt the new 64-bit stuff quickly, as these will show better the type of performance gains that can be had. Video Editing type software will most likely also gain a significant advantage while rendering.
For general purpose software, like Office, we're not likely to see much in terms of performance gains. I mean, OfficeXP runs great on a 400Mhz Pentium II.
> What, you mean the Xeons they will be competing against?
Well, no. Opterons will be the only ones that will support over two processors. I would think that the price of an Opteron will be competitive with a high end Xeon, while offering much better performance, but who knows.
I mean the Athlon64. If you look at their roadmap, they are replacing all of their 32-bit CPU's with the new 64-bit CPU core. This means that the Athlon64 will have to compete with the Pentium 4, too. This is good, since it will force the prices down.
Why do you have to be such a prick about this? We can't discuss this without saying crap like "No, of course not, you don't know what a DSP is."?
It doesn't matter what MS wasted on money releasing the xbox. It doesn't matter if the PS2 uses a DSP. And it certainly doesn't matter that the x86 archetecture was extended.
I've seen the PS2 close up. And I've seen the Xbox close up. Everything I've seen, all the games I've played, prove to me that the XBox performs at least as well as the PS2 in all disciplines. It not, better. It doesn't matter that the PS2 can do things "more effeciently." The xbox makes up for it with the brute force of a 733Mhz CPU and a 250Mhz GPU.
People think it's fun and popular to bash anything made by Microsoft. Hey, I'm no fan of their Monopoly either; but the Xbox isn't a bad product.
Nowhere have I said that the PS2 is a bad game system.
And again, the PS2 isn't cheaper then the Xbox.
In the end, with my modded Xbox, I have a lot of fun playing all 1600+ MAME games (not including clones), hundreds of Super Nintento games, Genesis games, NES games, TB16 games, and soon PS1 games. Not to mention any type of Media, MP3, Videos, DivX, whatever, that you have with the Xbox Media Player.
All this off of a nice menu with everything running off the Hard Disk. When your PS2 can do this, I'll buy one.
> Yeah, the PC is a general purpose system that can also play games which often needs also 20 years of backwards compatibility.
In case you haven't noticed, the PC has evolved quite nicely in the last 20 years. Components have been replaced with faster ones. There's some great 3D accelerators out there. Storage systems have been replaced by new ones. Memory is quite a bit quicker. The list goes on.
Backwards compatibility in the x86 archetecture doesn't loan itself to poor performance, in case you haven't noticed this as well. Sure, there's basic binary compatibility, but this doesn't mean my AthlonXP 2200+ runs like an XT.
> If it weren't better (and about 150$ cheaper/unit) why should have Sony developed it? You really think a 20 year old architecture that has been extended numerous times is the optimal gaming platform?
I don't know where you live, perhaps Zimbabwe or somehting, but around here the PS2 and the XBOX are the same price.
Your only arguement is that since the x86 architecture has been around for a long time that it's not good for "games." Sorry to inform you of this, but one of the strongest influences in PC design is games.
And to shake you up a little more, you do realize that Sony has a version of Linux for the PS2 right? What does that mean? Does that mean that the PS2 (gasp) is basically a PC with a different type of CPU? Indeed it does. It has a CPU, RAM, Video chip, sound chip, etc.
Based on your same arguement, you could say that the PS2 isn't an "optimal" gaming system either, because of it's compatibility with the old Playstation one?
Curious though, what makes a computer better for "games" anyways? In my opinion, it's whatever can push out the best graphics and sound. The Xbox does both very well.
The first link is a very short non descriptive article with no information about the machine, video board, etc. Except "sample board sample chipset beta drivers."
The second link contains no benchmarks for Athlon64 and Operon chips.
From what I've seen, on benchmark sites such as:
http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/26/018/
The new CPU core has a lot of potential. It's not going to be twice as fast. It's not going to change the world. But, I think it's going to be a great CPU for a great many purposes. I can't wait to own one. Unfortunately I'll have to wait until I can afford one. (And find a new profession..)
I purchased an AthlonXP 2200+ last year, so it probably won't be until next year when I start getting the urge to upgrade.
I don't care if my computer is silent or not. I want more performance, more speed.
Can I see this evidence you speak of that says that there won't be much speedups on x86-64 chips?
Nothing hints to this? What about this very same slashdot article? They are giving the Athlon64's the "PR" ratings of Barton-core AthlonXP's at a much lower clock speed. This seems to be an indication of a pretty good speed increase in just running 32-bit software.
When running 64-bit software, it will depend on how heavily the software utilizes the extra data width. What type of application. And so forth.
It all depends on your perspective. Perhaps in your case, addressing 20GB of RAM is important to you. For me, 4GB is more then enough for any application I've used besides large database applications.
For me, a 20% speed increase out of the box before 64-bit software comes into play is quite acceptable. IMO, as long as the Athlon64 remains competitive with the Pentium 4 in terms of performance, then I'll love buying and using AMD chips now and in the future.
Besides, can you see of any other way the mass-market of computer users is going to be able to get their hands on 64-bit computers? I'm more excited about higher performance desktops then the high end server market.
The so-called "very low end server" market makes up 90% of all x86 servers sold. Most x86 based data centers, albiet Linux or Windows, use single or dual-processor servers in load-balanced clusters. Most of these servers run Pentium 3 processors.
These servers handle most of the workload, while a small few "high end x86" servers can handle database things. Sometimes, the database sits on non-x86 platforms.
The AthlonMP is a higher-performance alternative to the dual-Pentium 3 server/workstation, and can even perform well against a dual-xeon box.
It's hard to know where AMD is trying to position this processor, but it seems to me that the new processor core is positioned to compete with Intel on all fronts. Perhaps the processor will perform so well and be so much cheaper then the Itanium that it will bring very-high performance computing to places that could normally not afford it. We don't know; we'll have to wait and see.
Ohh, very cool. I was still under the impression that Athlon64's would be single-processor systems. In that case, I can't wait for a Dual Processor, 64-bit workstation!
As for price, they will have to be cheap to stay competitive with Intel's 32-bit offerings. The new 64-bit core of the Opteron/Athlon64 will replace the entire line of AMD's processors, so there will be cheap Athlon64's in time.
I just hope that the AMD chips aren't used solely as "Fast 32-bit" processors; I would hope that Microsoft and other software developers keep to the promise to have 64-bit versions of windows and other packages. Once again Microsoft will be developing Windows for multiple platforms; it used to be x84, MIPS, PPC, and Alpha. Now it will be x86, x86-64, Itanium.
Of course, Linux already has x86-64 support, but for mainstream acceptance we need everything to support it, even Windows. (ie- let's not turn this into a Linux vs Windows fight.)
Yea, the space elevator looks like a really cool thing, and from what I've read, it's a viable technology. Unfortunately, the big hurdle is the ground station which must be much taller then anything man-kind has ever built.
The "second shuttle" idea is okay IMO, but it currently takes them months of planning and checking before launching a shuttle into space.
I'd recommend any of these folks posting on Slashdot about this topic to go see the really cool IMAX film on the International Space Station. Then, they'd know why they use Space Shuttles for the bulk of transporting materials.
I couldn't disagree with you more on everything you said.
You say the Xbox's architechure is "braindead" yet it's based on the same tried and true game platform that is the PC. They were able to bring some of the best PC hardware at the time (High clocked P3, GeForce 3-type GPU, etc) into a game system that in my opinion does very well as a console game system.
Just because the PSX architecture is based on a different set of technologies, does not make it any more "good" of a game system then anything else.
I like the fact that the xbox has a hard disk, it allows games to release patches (via xbox live,) store cache so less reading from the slower DVD drive, near-unlimited save game space, etc. You can even use it to put your music CD's on - and many games support playing from your personal music library over the game's soundtrack.
I also like how the Xbox DVD drive is quite a bit more quiet then the PS2 counterpart. I also enjoy being able to plug in four controllers without an extension pack.
Last but not least, you can buy a $50 mod chip and put a 120GB drive in the Xbox. My xbox has over 60 games, MAME, tons of emulators, Linux. All on the hard disk.
I'm not saying the PS2 is a poor system. I like the controllers on the Playstations, and I think the game system is solid. I just don't buy into the fact that it's a better game system because it's built by proprietary parts.
I don't think this is true. The Opteron will be replacing AMD's current Multi-processor offering (Which is the Athlon MP) and the Athlon will replace the uni-processor offerings (Athlon XP.)
There will probably be some "High End" Opteron chips with large cache, but overall the chips will most likely be priced for market share.
I do agree with the part about the main competitor being Itanium, but not price-wise. Ultimately I believe that Itanium will offer better performance, but at the price of compatibility and cost.
I can't wait to have a 64-bit workstation!
What about Intel? This is an article about one of AMD's products.
When Intel releases something new, it will be posted. There's been countless posts about Itanium, and any number of other Intel stuff.
Get a grip.
Well, I hope you aren't saying that I am bitching and moaning; I simply said I am hoping for more Linux games.
Unless you can somehow rally the worlds' computer game players together and boycott games unless they become available on Linux, this is *not* the way to go about it.
Saying "If you want Linux games, stop buying Windows ones" is way too simplistic. There's no way to get everyone together and all do the same thing. Thus, we must look elsewhere to motivate the game publishers to produce games for our platform of choice.
Not to mention that the number of people that want more games published for Linux is considerably smaller then the "I don't care, I run Windows anyways" people.
I don't have the answer, but a boycott certainly isn't the answer.
You could say "All we have to do to stop violent shootings is to stop producing bullets." Unfortunately, you cannot simply stop people from producing bullets. So, you must find other means of stopping violent shootings.
The simple answer is not always the simple solution.
Indeed. Same is true with the Brooklyn Bridge (the concrete piles that go to the bottom of the water) and the Golden Gate Bridge.
It might seem hard to believe now a days, but back when they were first creating these types of structures a lot of people died. And some bodies were unrecoverable in some of these structures.
If a decaying body would have lead to the instability of a structure, it would have been removed in some way or another.
Want games in Linux? Then stop buying games for Windows. It's that simple people.
In the meantime, I'm playing Tuxracer all day?
The only game that's currently available on Linux that's "new" is UT2003. Yea, it runs very well and I enjoy it, but it's just one game. If I want to play Battlefield, I have to use Windows.
It's not that plain and simple.
Yea but it's about $115 for a 512MB stick of the fastest DDR (PC3700) memory available. And you can get a 1GB stick of PC3200 for $240.
Yea but that's for use with Rambus memory. Rambus memory is clocked a lot higher then DDR, but it's performance gains (not much) don't justify the extra cost.
Yea, I run Gentoo on a lot of machines. I like it a lot.
The package system in Gentoo is ridiculously easy to maintain. You'll never get left behind because your glibc is out dated and it's too hard to upgrade. You'll always have the newest stuff (if you want it) and everything is compiled to fit your system and your specifications exactly.
Not everyone will like how Gentoo compiles everything from sources. I hope that somewhere down the road people start adapting the same package system to their binary-based distributions. It's really great!
You also do have the option of creating your own binary packages, to use on other machines. This is good for stuff that takes a long time to compile (KDE, X, Gnome, etc) and it's good for installing Gentoo on slower machines.