They are trying to name everything after Ronald Reagan, as they want us to forget about the (R ) "dick" Nixon. I guess the Republicans see naming everything after Ronald Reagan as free advertising for the Republican party at taxpayer expense.
Tom Delay: "Hey, it worked for 3Com park -- and it can work for Ronald "Deficit" Reagan. I want to make it work for the Republican party."
This fits with the idea the Republican have laid bare their willingness to use the government as a tool of the Rich and The Corporations (AKA the rich): the republican constituency in is just the upper 2% of incomes.
I think some of us remember the programs that came on floppy disks, would install on a machine and then they wrote to to disk, so you could never use them to install again. Some programs that ran off the floppy even just over-wrote themselfs to lock them to the computer/user the first time they ran.
I read somewhare:
Those who don't know history are doomed to reapeat it.
Those who know history are doomed to know it is being repeated.
NIH: Not invented here.
The Bios is just about the only part of the PC that Intel still has to license from elsewhere. This means money out of Intel's pocket, and one less avenue from which to exert control over the industry.
DRM or DRR: Digital Rights "Management" -- should really be called Digital Rights Removal. This is a quote from the article:
Because it gives a new level of control over the hardware, it's also of interest to digital rights management and security designers.
This "EFI" will need a partition on your drive...
Also, as this is Slashdot, why didn't we here about LinuxBIOS? It is not an Intel industry-domination wet dream, and it works today.
I would buy one, as the tech is a dream come ture, (text input anywhare, full speed) but who wants to be a crash tester for all the "dotNET" crap. And what about all the big brother backdoors that come with all new MS software?
People often don't mention the effect that processor pipeline length (and effective branch prediction rate) has on performance.
Let us assume that the PowerPC 970 (AKA GPUL) will have a 10-stage pipe (AFAIK). "Average code" is 20% branch instructions, and a good branch prediction unit can give 90% correct predictions. So this leads us to need a pipeline flush every 45 instructions (on average). We then need to add the pipeline length to this number to get the number of cycles that the chip needs to be fully ready for the 46th instruction.
So: PPC970 = 56
G4 = 53
P3 = 56
P4 = 66
On the first run of a piece of code the branch prediction unit will only get a 50% prediction rate (i believe). This prediction rate would also be the case if the cpu was running complex code that had random branching. The string of instructions before a pipeline flush would then be 10 instructions.
In this case the numbers look a little different and the g4/p3/PPC970 camp looks really good: PPC970 = 20
G4 = 17
P3 = 20
P4 = 30
So to run this code at the same speed, the P4 would have to run 50% faster then the P3/PPC970 and 75% faster then the G4. Remember, when you are doing serious multi-tasking, the branch prediction unit will not get a 90% prediction rate as its resources will be split between several different applications.
The longer x86-64 is delayed, the less useful x86 compatibility becomes.
Most people are running MS OS's and, if MS pushes dot-net successfuly then all new dot-net programs will work on Itainium/Opteron (IA64/x86-64) out of the box. Part of dot-net is packaging software as byte-code (like java) and compiling it at run-time (like java) or install-time (like gentoo).
This will make the fact that x86-64 lets old x86 run at full speed a non-issue, as "dot-Net" programs will be native binaries.
Legacy software support, and the need for it, is a major key to why I belive(ed) that x86-64 will be (or could have been) successful.
AMD is trying to push the ability of hammer systems to be programed as NUMA or SMP systems. They call this abliity SUMO (Sufficiently Uniform Memory Organization).
A Slide from an AMD ppt:
Multiprocessing with AMD Opteron
Non Uniform Memory Architectures (NUMA)
Brings dramatic scalable advantages
Software management is difficult
Symmetric Multi Processing (SMP)
Topology brings dramatically simplified software model
Memory system doesn't scale as processors are added
Sufficiently Uniform Memory Organization (SUMO)
Does both:
Software view of memory is SMP
Physical address space is flat and fully coherent
Latency difference between local and remote memory in an 8P system is comparable to the difference between a DRAM page hit and DRAM page conflict
We have an animation/AI/machine vision program that runs dog slow on the P4. More specifically it runs at 35 "fps" (AI and rendered frames) on the P4 (xenon) 1.8ghz, 41 fps on the P3 (T) 1.2 ghz, and 51 fps on the Athlon (mp) 1.53 ghz.
All systems were dual with one gb of memory (rd, sd, ddr, respectivly).We tested with MS and Intel compilers (these #'s are the best for each cpu).
Well, A question that was brought up in Portable Ogg Players? comments should now have an answer. That question is, how much ram will the decoder take? This is a sub-question of: Will oggs play on portibles based off the on the Cirrus 7209 or 7309 CPUs? (These CPUs are in the NomadII and the rio600)
I must agree with you regarding "campaign contributions" and MS's control of "our" goverment. A quote from a good artile in fortune this spring.
And Microsoft and its employees gave a whopping 4.6 million to federal candidates and parties, Republican and Democrat alike, in the 2000 election--more money than any other company but AT&T and more than double that of its biggest rival, AOL Time Warner...
No, As the PowerPC uses a shared-but topology; dual is easy compared to quad. This is like the P3. The dual CPU is not much more complicated then a single cpu system, as they can "hear" each others memory requests. I believe that, a quad system would need 2 buses and some kind of coherency system.
I have been checking the IBM website, hoping for a ViaVoice update. Voice dictation is the most important app for me and many others. This is disappointing news.
I would think with staroffice/openoffice now out, it would be a good time for IBM to release an update to this desktop-productivity product (ViaVoice). Any offices that convert to openoffice/staroffice will need to have a dictation product for its disabled employees (guaranteed sales).
My first post on/. ever!
If you use the nforce chipset from Nvidia you can install ONE driver from Nvidia for all parts (Sound, Video, IDE, 10/100 NIC, USB, PCI, etc.). They make drivers for Win95/98/Me, Win2000/XP, and Linux. As everything is intergrated, managment and assembly should be EZ.
I would go Micro-ATX for cost. Poking aroung newegg gives you a CDr&cable, 1.3ghz Duron&HSF, 512mb of ram, a case, 30gb 7200rpm HD, and a floppy for only $530. Note: The nforce needs 2 DIMMs for optimal performance.
Slashdot Mirror
They are trying to name everything after Ronald Reagan, as they want us to forget about the (R ) "dick" Nixon. I guess the Republicans see naming everything after Ronald Reagan as free advertising for the Republican party at taxpayer expense.
Tom Delay: "Hey, it worked for 3Com park -- and it can work for Ronald "Deficit" Reagan. I want to make it work for the Republican party."
This fits with the idea the Republican have laid bare their willingness to use the government as a tool of the Rich and The Corporations (AKA the rich): the republican constituency in is just the upper 2% of incomes.
I read somewhare:
Those who don't know history are doomed to reapeat it.
Those who know history are doomed to know it is being repeated.
DRR: Digital Rights Removeal.
DRM or DRR: Digital Rights "Management" -- should really be called Digital Rights Removal. This is a quote from the article:
This "EFI" will need a partition on your drive... Also, as this is Slashdot, why didn't we here about LinuxBIOS ? It is not an Intel industry-domination wet dream, and it works today.I would buy one, as the tech is a dream come ture, (text input anywhare, full speed) but who wants to be a crash tester for all the "dotNET" crap. And what about all the big brother backdoors that come with all new MS software?
People often don't mention the effect that processor pipeline length (and effective branch prediction rate) has on performance.
Let us assume that the PowerPC 970 (AKA GPUL) will have a 10-stage pipe (AFAIK). "Average code" is 20% branch instructions, and a good branch prediction unit can give 90% correct predictions. So this leads us to need a pipeline flush every 45 instructions (on average). We then need to add the pipeline length to this number to get the number of cycles that the chip needs to be fully ready for the 46th instruction.
So:
PPC970 = 56
G4 = 53
P3 = 56
P4 = 66
On the first run of a piece of code the branch prediction unit will only get a 50% prediction rate (i believe). This prediction rate would also be the case if the cpu was running complex code that had random branching. The string of instructions before a pipeline flush would then be 10 instructions.
In this case the numbers look a little different and the g4/p3/PPC970 camp looks really good:
PPC970 = 20
G4 = 17
P3 = 20
P4 = 30
So to run this code at the same speed, the P4 would have to run 50% faster then the P3/PPC970 and 75% faster then the G4. Remember, when you are doing serious multi-tasking, the branch prediction unit will not get a 90% prediction rate as its resources will be split between several different applications.
The longer x86-64 is delayed, the less useful x86 compatibility becomes.
Most people are running MS OS's and, if MS pushes dot-net successfuly then all new dot-net programs will work on Itainium/Opteron (IA64/x86-64) out of the box. Part of dot-net is packaging software as byte-code (like java) and compiling it at run-time (like java) or install-time (like gentoo).
This will make the fact that x86-64 lets old x86 run at full speed a non-issue, as "dot-Net" programs will be native binaries. Legacy software support, and the need for it, is a major key to why I belive(ed) that x86-64 will be (or could have been) successful.
A Slide from an AMD ppt:
Multiprocessing with AMD Opteron
Multiprocessor support inherent in design (not an add on)
We have an animation/AI/machine vision program that runs dog slow on the P4. More specifically it runs at 35 "fps" (AI and rendered frames) on the P4 (xenon) 1.8ghz, 41 fps on the P3 (T) 1.2 ghz, and 51 fps on the Athlon (mp) 1.53 ghz.
All systems were dual with one gb of memory (rd, sd, ddr, respectivly).We tested with MS and Intel compilers (these #'s are the best for each cpu).
Well, A question that was brought up in Portable Ogg Players? comments should now have an answer.
That question is, how much ram will the decoder take? This is a sub-question of: Will oggs play on portibles based off the on the Cirrus 7209 or 7309 CPUs? (These CPUs are in the NomadII and the rio600)
I must agree with you regarding "campaign contributions" and MS's control of "our" goverment. A quote from a good artile in fortune this spring.
And Microsoft and its employees gave a whopping 4.6 million to federal candidates and parties, Republican and Democrat alike, in the 2000 election--more money than any other company but AT&T and more than double that of its biggest rival, AOL Time Warner...
No, As the PowerPC uses a shared-but topology; dual is easy compared to quad. This is like the P3. The dual CPU is not much more complicated then a single cpu system, as they can "hear" each others memory requests. I believe that, a quad system would need 2 buses and some kind of coherency system.
I have been checking the IBM website, hoping for a ViaVoice update. Voice dictation is the most important app for me and many others. This is disappointing news.
I would think with staroffice/openoffice now out, it would be a good time for IBM to release an update to this desktop-productivity product (ViaVoice). Any offices that convert to openoffice/staroffice will need to have a dictation product for its disabled employees (guaranteed sales).
My first post on /. ever!
If you use the nforce chipset from Nvidia you can install ONE driver from Nvidia for all parts (Sound, Video, IDE, 10/100 NIC, USB, PCI, etc.). They make drivers for Win95/98/Me, Win2000/XP, and Linux. As everything is intergrated, managment and assembly should be EZ.
I would go Micro-ATX for cost. Poking aroung newegg gives you a CDr&cable, 1.3ghz Duron&HSF, 512mb of ram, a case, 30gb 7200rpm HD, and a floppy for only $530. Note: The nforce needs 2 DIMMs for optimal performance.