Disclaimer: I'm not a Mac owner, but I'm hoping to purchase one *real soon now*.
Last weekend I was playing with a friend's brand spanking new PowerBook, and I was trying to copy a music CD. Now the OS X UI is in general astoundingly simple, but it was not simple to copy RAW CD audio from one disc to another, the best I could do was create a CD-ROM full of *.aiff files, OR I could convert all the music to Mp3 with iTunes and then burn those to a music CD, with an accompanying loss in quality. These seems to be another case of Apple not making it simple to copy full quality digital audio. I'm sure it can be done, but it seems to require a bit of contortion.
At any rate, if anyone knows how to do this, I'd be very interested.
The PowerPC instruction set is a subset of the POWER one meaning POWER ostensibily has more instructions besides the ones PowerPC has.
Sorry, not true. The POWER4 *is* the PowerPC instruction set (with 64-bit registers). In fact the PowerPC instruction set does not include Altivec used in Motorola G4 processors, so actually the POWER4 chip has *fewer* instructions than the current Apple PowerPC processors.
That said, yes the POWER4s performance does come from the fact that it has multiple FP pipelines. Actually the real performance comes from the massive memory bandwidth. However, that will be scaled down for a consumer-level processor for cost reasons, the 8 way superscaler architecture is a lot more likely to remain intact.
Apple doesn't make the Gf4 Titanium, nor does it make its Superdrive, etc... They just put them in their box on their motherboard (using someone else's processor).
If Apple does not include functionality to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX, then it will hurt them.
This doesn't sound like the usual troll, so I'm assuming you just really don't know what you are talking about. Apple's Classic environment (mentioned in the article) is provides exactly the functionality you seem to think is lacking in Mac OS X. It gives you the ability to run almost all OS 7/8/9 apps.
The reason Apple is dropping Mac OS 9 is no different from what Microsoft and other OS makers have done for years. Try installing Windows 3.1 on your latest snazzy desktop. Probably not going to find native drivers for that Gf4 Ti, or that DVD burner, etc... Apple doesn't care to write drivers to support their new hardware in an old operating system.
This isn't new, this isn't suprising, and this isn't going to hurt Apple.
Interestingly enough, I everyone's favorite company, Microsoft, purchased the company who owns the patents for HDCD, Pacific Microsonics. So now if you purchse an HDCD disc or HDCD capable equipment, some royalty is going to MS.
With a cpu built-in memory controlelr of this sort (especially if they allow tolerences for faster rated memory within the existing class) could lower the latency down to say 6 cycles.
Not to be argumentative, but this IS slashdot.
I'd like to see these "serious articles" about memeory and clock latency that say that moving a memory controller from off chip to on chip will reduce latency from 70 cycles to 6.
The latency for retrieving data from main memory is an effect of current memory technology, data can only be fetched so fast from DRAM based memory. DRAM uses a capacative effect to store data and it is relatively slow especially compared to the ever faster modern processors. This is the reason for using physically more complex SRAM which stores data in much faster transistor based latches. SRAM is used for cache in modern computers.
The memory controller, which is primarily comprised of some addressing logic as well as analog stages to interface with the memory bus, must be physically positioned in between the processor and the DRAM based memory banks. Whether it is on the same piece of silicon as the CPU or on a seperate chip has only a very small effect on the latency of the CPU making requests to main memory. The reasons for positioning the controller on the die are mostly economic, and it may by a very tiny speed advantage. The IBM POWER4 processor integerates the Main memory and L3 Cache controller on the processor.
At 60fps each frame lasts for 16.7 ms At 120fps each frame lasts for 8.3 ms
Human response time is on the order of 100 to 200 ms
Therefore at best (best case scenario for improvment: fast human and longest delay to screen update) The response time improvement goes from 116.7ms to 108.3 ms, a mere 7% improvement.
I'm not arguing against your point. Clearly there is a difference, however the improvement is very small. It's not like it doubles your response time like some people may mistakenly believe.
The IA-64 is an entirely new architecture, it has no support for IA-32 instructions. IA-32 architectures would have to be emulated to run on the IA-64. There may be some plan to packing an IA-64 architecture processor with another core that runs IA-32 natively, but I am not aware of any such design. To say that IA-64 maintains all of the crap of IA-32 is simply not true.
It is also not true that no one has produced a commercially successful VLIW machine, the processor in the PlayStation 2 is an example.
Have you actually looked at the IA-64 architecture? It is astounding. Complex certainly, but astounding. Predication registers are very impressive, but require ISA support, something that will never be processor in AMD's legacy extension architecture.
In deciding between IA-64 and AMD Hammer, the IA-64 wins. Even AMD knows that the Hammer is simply a transition product. They are hoping to steal the market from Intel by producing a "64-bit" chip sooner that Intel.
The POWER4 instruction set is *identical* to a PowerPC instruction set. It is lacking only the Altivec "multimedia" extensions of the Motorola G4. However, if IBM were to produce a scaled down version suitable for desktop processors, it would seem possible to add the extensions to its instruction set. That said, the POWER4 is a fantastic processor mostly because of its huge memory and cache bandwidth, huge interprocessor communication bus, and flat memory model. It is intended to support large-scale multiprocessing. It would be necessary to scale down the cache and memory to make the processor affordable enough for a desktop machine. Doing so would kill much of the performance advantages of the POWER4 (okay it still has kick ass branch prediction, rivaled only by the Alpha).
At any rate, I don't think the POWER4 is really appropriate for a desktop architecture. It would require pretty significant modifications to make it suitable for a desktop processor (ie, cheap enough). Not that IBM couldn't do it, but it wouldn't be a POWER4 anymore. Not to mention that it might be hard for IBMs sales division to explain why processors of the same name appear in $2k desktops and $500k servers.
After saying all that, I really want to see someone produce a dual CPU on a single chip, and I want my next Mac to have one:-) or maybe 2. I think IBM is the one to do it.
Playing current games at 120fps isn't any gain over 60fps. It's the next generation of games that will push these cards to perform at 60fps and last generations cards will start to show their age.
-Spyky
Re:I'm still holding off on my excitement
on
ATI R300 and R250V
·
· Score: 2
Speaking of Macs. I really hope to see these new cards in the updated desktops expected mid-August. The low end of the line currently carries a 7500 and the higher end Gf4MX or Titanium.
Apple needs to keep up with the high end graphics cards if they want to keep attracting gamers (and games) to their platform.
For those who don't know, because its very unclear from the article, Suse was the first (or at least before Mandrake) linux distro to announce Hammer support.
shouting "You with the undocumented line of code! Hands off the KB or I shoot!" ... This world of perfection exists only in the minds of the pencil pushers at NIST
I am currently working with some public code released by NIST. Very humourosly every line of code is commented. So at least they aren't hypocrites:-)
I just answer that he really did die, because afterwards he comes back as Gandalf the White, not Gandalf the Grey. His character as Gandalf the Gray dies.
BMW et al. can make running the stereo and other non-essential features as interesting as they want, so long as they don't mix them up with essential functions
In the case of the BMW iDrive system, all driving functions (lights/turn signals, gear shift, parking brake, steering) are centered around the steering wheel and dash cluster. All non-essential features (AC, stereo, phone, etc.) are controlled with the iDrive controller near the armrest.
Unfortunately you are adding two more layers of "case" material by making a tri-fold laptop. It will add another several mm to the thickness of the folded laptop. In addition to that you are adding another hinge, which are prone to breaking on current laptops.
Its a nice idea, but I'm going to keep waiting for the PC on a single sheet of plastic that I can just roll-up and go:-)
Actually yes it is easy to tell from the crash if the occupants were wearing their seatbelt.
In reality that has no bearing on what goes on in court, which is who is going to make the insurance company pay lawsuit damages. In the state I live, the fact that a driver was not wearing a seatbelt is not admissable evidence or I wouldn't be in the lawsuit that I'm in. (See response to above). So, ultimately it does go right back to the government.
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: I'm not a Mac owner, but I'm hoping to purchase one *real soon now*.
Last weekend I was playing with a friend's brand spanking new PowerBook, and I was trying to copy a music CD. Now the OS X UI is in general astoundingly simple, but it was not simple to copy RAW CD audio from one disc to another, the best I could do was create a CD-ROM full of *.aiff files, OR I could convert all the music to Mp3 with iTunes and then burn those to a music CD, with an accompanying loss in quality. These seems to be another case of Apple not making it simple to copy full quality digital audio. I'm sure it can be done, but it seems to require a bit of contortion.
At any rate, if anyone knows how to do this, I'd be very interested.
-Spyky
The PowerPC instruction set is a subset of the POWER one meaning POWER ostensibily has more instructions besides the ones PowerPC has.
Sorry, not true. The POWER4 *is* the PowerPC instruction set (with 64-bit registers). In fact the PowerPC instruction set does not include Altivec used in Motorola G4 processors, so actually the POWER4 chip has *fewer* instructions than the current Apple PowerPC processors.
That said, yes the POWER4s performance does come from the fact that it has multiple FP pipelines. Actually the real performance comes from the massive memory bandwidth. However, that will be scaled down for a consumer-level processor for cost reasons, the 8 way superscaler architecture is a lot more likely to remain intact.
-Spyky
Actually Cologne is the English spelling of the German city Köln. So it already has a K :-)
-Spyky
Apple doesn't make the Gf4 Titanium, nor does it make its Superdrive, etc... They just put them in their box on their motherboard (using someone else's processor).
-Spyky
If Apple does not include functionality to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX, then it will hurt them.
This doesn't sound like the usual troll, so I'm assuming you just really don't know what you are talking about. Apple's Classic environment (mentioned in the article) is provides exactly the functionality you seem to think is lacking in Mac OS X. It gives you the ability to run almost all OS 7/8/9 apps.
The reason Apple is dropping Mac OS 9 is no different from what Microsoft and other OS makers have done for years. Try installing Windows 3.1 on your latest snazzy desktop. Probably not going to find native drivers for that Gf4 Ti, or that DVD burner, etc... Apple doesn't care to write drivers to support their new hardware in an old operating system.
This isn't new, this isn't suprising, and this isn't going to hurt Apple.
Spyky
oops, screwed up that link.
:-)
www.bmwusa.com
Not that you couldn't figure it out anyway
Honestly, what on the web is broken these days with Mozilla/NS7? Because I just don't run into these pages.
www.bmwusa.com
I just wrote them a lengthy letter asking them to consider supporting browsers other than IE. I suggest other people do the same
-Spyky
Interestingly enough, I everyone's favorite company, Microsoft, purchased the company who owns the patents for HDCD, Pacific Microsonics. So now if you purchse an HDCD disc or HDCD capable equipment, some royalty is going to MS.
Check out Microsoft HDCD
-Spyky
With a cpu built-in memory controlelr of this sort (especially if they allow tolerences for faster rated memory within the existing class) could lower the latency down to say 6 cycles.
Not to be argumentative, but this IS slashdot.
I'd like to see these "serious articles" about memeory and clock latency that say that moving a memory controller from off chip to on chip will reduce latency from 70 cycles to 6.
The latency for retrieving data from main memory is an effect of current memory technology, data can only be fetched so fast from DRAM based memory. DRAM uses a capacative effect to store data and it is relatively slow especially compared to the ever faster modern processors. This is the reason for using physically more complex SRAM which stores data in much faster transistor based latches. SRAM is used for cache in modern computers.
The memory controller, which is primarily comprised of some addressing logic as well as analog stages to interface with the memory bus, must be physically positioned in between the processor and the DRAM based memory banks. Whether it is on the same piece of silicon as the CPU or on a seperate chip has only a very small effect on the latency of the CPU making requests to main memory. The reasons for positioning the controller on the die are mostly economic, and it may by a very tiny speed advantage. The IBM POWER4 processor integerates the Main memory and L3 Cache controller on the processor.
I realize I called you on your lack of references, so I should probably provide some. Unfortunately I don't know of any good web links, but I recommend reading some books on Computer Architecture and/or Computer Organization:
The Modern Computer Architecture: A common textbook in Computer Architecture/Organization classes
I can envision having a spelling check to find such, but then you could be filtering out legitamate bad spellers, such as me.
Okay, but then if 5% of the words are mispelled you can mark it as a bad speller, if 75% are, then its a spam. Adjust numbers appropriately.
-Spyky
Not to be contentious, but this is Slashdot ;-)
At 60fps each frame lasts for 16.7 ms
At 120fps each frame lasts for 8.3 ms
Human response time is on the order of 100 to 200 ms
Therefore at best (best case scenario for improvment: fast human and longest delay to screen update) The response time improvement goes from 116.7ms to 108.3 ms, a mere 7% improvement.
I'm not arguing against your point. Clearly there is a difference, however the improvement is very small. It's not like it doubles your response time like some people may mistakenly believe.
-Spyky
The IA-64 is an entirely new architecture, it has no support for IA-32 instructions. IA-32 architectures would have to be emulated to run on the IA-64. There may be some plan to packing an IA-64 architecture processor with another core that runs IA-32 natively, but I am not aware of any such design. To say that IA-64 maintains all of the crap of IA-32 is simply not true.
It is also not true that no one has produced a commercially successful VLIW machine, the processor in the PlayStation 2 is an example.
Have you actually looked at the IA-64 architecture? It is astounding. Complex certainly, but astounding. Predication registers are very impressive, but require ISA support, something that will never be processor in AMD's legacy extension architecture.
In deciding between IA-64 and AMD Hammer, the IA-64 wins. Even AMD knows that the Hammer is simply a transition product. They are hoping to steal the market from Intel by producing a "64-bit" chip sooner that Intel.
-Spyky
The POWER4 instruction set is *identical* to a PowerPC instruction set. It is lacking only the Altivec "multimedia" extensions of the Motorola G4. However, if IBM were to produce a scaled down version suitable for desktop processors, it would seem possible to add the extensions to its instruction set. That said, the POWER4 is a fantastic processor mostly because of its huge memory and cache bandwidth, huge interprocessor communication bus, and flat memory model. It is intended to support large-scale multiprocessing. It would be necessary to scale down the cache and memory to make the processor affordable enough for a desktop machine. Doing so would kill much of the performance advantages of the POWER4 (okay it still has kick ass branch prediction, rivaled only by the Alpha).
:-) or maybe 2. I think IBM is the one to do it.
At any rate, I don't think the POWER4 is really appropriate for a desktop architecture. It would require pretty significant modifications to make it suitable for a desktop processor (ie, cheap enough). Not that IBM couldn't do it, but it wouldn't be a POWER4 anymore. Not to mention that it might be hard for IBMs sales division to explain why processors of the same name appear in $2k desktops and $500k servers.
After saying all that, I really want to see someone produce a dual CPU on a single chip, and I want my next Mac to have one
-Spyky
Okay, I'll bite.
Playing current games at 120fps isn't any gain over 60fps. It's the next generation of games that will push these cards to perform at 60fps and last generations cards will start to show their age.
-Spyky
Speaking of Macs. I really hope to see these new cards in the updated desktops expected mid-August. The low end of the line currently carries a 7500 and the higher end Gf4MX or Titanium.
Apple needs to keep up with the high end graphics cards if they want to keep attracting gamers (and games) to their platform.
-Spyky
For those who don't know, because its very unclear from the article, Suse was the first (or at least before Mandrake) linux distro to announce Hammer support.
Check it out here
-Spyky
shouting "You with the undocumented line of code! Hands off the KB or I shoot!"
:-)
...
This world of perfection exists only in the minds of the pencil pushers at NIST
I am currently working with some public code released by NIST. Very humourosly every line of code is commented. So at least they aren't hypocrites
Spyky
I just answer that he really did die, because afterwards he comes back as Gandalf the White, not Gandalf the Grey. His character as Gandalf the Gray dies.
Spyky
BMW et al. can make running the stereo and other non-essential features as interesting as they want, so long as they don't mix them up with essential functions
In the case of the BMW iDrive system, all driving functions (lights/turn signals, gear shift, parking brake, steering) are centered around the steering wheel and dash cluster. All non-essential features (AC, stereo, phone, etc.) are controlled with the iDrive controller near the armrest.
-Spyky
So, the parent was modded +1 Funny because it's funny that anyone would think a Slashdot Editor actually corrects submissions, right?
Anyone... anyone
-Spyky
Unfortunately you are adding two more layers of "case" material by making a tri-fold laptop. It will add another several mm to the thickness of the folded laptop. In addition to that you are adding another hinge, which are prone to breaking on current laptops.
:-)
Its a nice idea, but I'm going to keep waiting for the PC on a single sheet of plastic that I can just roll-up and go
-Spyky
and they're not incredibly overpriced (except for the Cinema Display)
Show me a cheaper 22" widescreen display. Its expensive, not overpriced. Big difference.
-Spyky
That's funny, Apple seems to think its only 5GB.
-Spyky
Well *someone* has to pay those poor starving lawyers :-)
Spyky
Actually yes it is easy to tell from the crash if the occupants were wearing their seatbelt.
In reality that has no bearing on what goes on in court, which is who is going to make the insurance company pay lawsuit damages. In the state I live, the fact that a driver was not wearing a seatbelt is not admissable evidence or I wouldn't be in the lawsuit that I'm in. (See response to above). So, ultimately it does go right back to the government.
Spyky