Re:... a win98 edit.com clone for linux?
on
JOE Hits 3.0
·
· Score: 1
Very broad-minded of you. Good.
Mutt may be wonderful, but for one of my prime daily applications, I'm not about to go back to a text-mode application for anyone or anything. I live and work in 2004, not 1974.
I'm not saying it doesn't work; I'm sure it does and has advantages for you. But for most of the world, computing now means a GUI and standard controls.
On Windows, there's an option to use Microsoft Word as the text editor component in the Outlook email program. It's horrible; calling in one huge bloated app into another just to edit a field. It's not the way to do it. Having a simple common edit control is far more reasonable.
Now, you may feel that your way is perfectly reasonable, but hardcore Unixites are vastly outnumbered by the GUI-using masses.
The question is, do you ever want to convert them or not?
If not, fine, stick with vi.
If you do, though, then you have to learn to do some things their way.
Mac OS X has learned this lesson and it's now far and away the biggest commercial Unix on the planet. It's even converting droves of free xNix users to Apple, just for its elegance and usability.
It's not an idle foible or a passing fad.
... a win98 edit.com clone for linux?
on
JOE Hits 3.0
·
· Score: 5, Informative
That is the question, all right.
A typical Emacs user rates the virtues of their editor as power, extensibility and flexibility.
Those are Unix-type virtues. Over in the GUI desktop world, they don't count for much. What people want is simplicity and discoverability. Multiple ways to do things, ways that are similar between different programs. No macros, no customisation, no syntax highlighting, no language-specific optimisations, because they're not programmers and they're not programming. Thus they don't want or need a programmers' editor. They want a users' editor.
The MS-DOS 5+ editor is a model of these virtues for a text-mode app. It's CUA-compliant, the Wordstar standard for the 1990s and onwards, it can be driven from the keyboard or mouse, as you prefer, using standard commands, and is as close to a Windows (or indeed MacOS) app as you can get in an 80x25 console.
It's good.
And I know of no free xNix product anything like it.
An experienced 2/3-wheeler-riding lunatic writes..
on
Real 'Akira' Motorcycle
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I actually do ride motorcycles, including a sidecar outfit -- the most evil-handling form of vehicle mankind has so far invented -- a triked superbike (ZZR1100: incredibly fast in a straight line, terrifying in corners) and even a recumbent bicycle (Linear LWB) in city traffic.
From this, and from reading reports of earlier home-made customs in the style of Kaneda's bizarre feet-forward bike, I believe that thing is going to handle like an utter, utter pig. Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow.
Jon Elliot, AES developer:
http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html
Ben Jemmett, desktop developer:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/
My own GEM revision history:
http://members.aol.com/liamproven/reference/tos_hi st.htm (Contains links to active GEM developments on the Atari)
Aranym ("Atari Running on ANY Machine"):
http://aranym.sourceforge.net/ (The most sophisticated free ST emulator around. Comes with free GEM- compatible OS Afros (Aranym FRee OS) and instructions on how to install the free multitasking GEM extension MINT).
Just because you haven't found a need doesn't mean there ISN'T a need.
I've been using a PDA many times daily since a few days after I bought my first one - a Psion Organizer II LZ64 - in 1989. Since then, I've had a Psion Series 3, 3a, 5, 5mx. In between those I've owned or used a Newton MessagePad, Newton 2100, Palm III and iPaq, and evaluated and reviewed HP 95LX, 100LX, OmniGo 700, Nokia Communicator 9000 and others. None comes close to the power and flexibility of a Psion, and still today, nothing does.
They are indispensable business and personal tools to me.
Back in '98 or so AOL and Netscape launched a dial-up ISP in Britain, under the name NetscapeOnline. The UK homepage is still there but it's now a generic Netscape homepage.
It was cheap and you got a free CD of Netscape client software with a simple setup wizard, which was preferable to Microsoft's Windows-based one. This is back in the days of the abominable IE4, bear in mind.
But ultimately it died when FRIACO launched - toll-free Internet access. In Britain and most of Europe, we pay for all local calls too (tho' long-distance is cheap). When toll-free Internet access was launched, it killed off most of the cheap/free ISPs.
[1] It's a more secure browser than IE, it has tab support and it's free. [2] The email client is solid, easy and has spam filtering. [3] It's still a well-known brand name. [4] If you have an AOL account, it has AOL email support which is WAY better than AOL's built-in email program.
Re:Professional racing *PREVENTS* bike-innovation!
on
Sports Technology?
·
· Score: 1
Sorry, but that's just plain flat-out WRONG in every single aspect.
I ride recumbents and I ride uprights. For offroading, an upright MTB is better, and my commuter bike is a folding upright. It folds faster and smaller to something more portable than any 'bent.
But for road riding, hill riding, country riding, city riding, anything involving distance or speed, recumbents are better, faster, easier, comfier, safer and more fun.
Yes, you can't stand on the pedals. That's what gears are for. Two weeks ago I climbed a 864' hill in ¾ mile with no problem. I've gone up mountains before now, no problem. Doesn't matter if it's a short, steep slope or ten miles of steady climb. You don't need to honk.
And the 'bent will make the upright look like the pathetic historical toy it is on the downside of that hill. I've had an upright up to 55mph downhill and it was unstable as hell - truly scary. I've had my cheap, unfaired folding 'bent over 76mph downhill and it was solid, well planted and felt safe. With a racing machine, I could have added 5-10mph to that, no problem - and I am not an athlete.
Braking is better, because of the stability and low centre of gravity. You are not going to flip one of these things forward over its front wheel.
You can't honk. You can press back against the seat, though, and get just as much leverage that way - MORE than your body weight.
Honking is fast up hills, but a well-set-up bent is a good, competent hill-climber. On a racing ascent, it might be slightly slower. But at all other times you have a major advantage.
Uprights are a speciality tool for speciality rôles. For general cycling, road or track, recumbents have been the way to go for a century, and only tradition and obsolete sports rules have held them back.
But the author is George R. R. Martin, not "R R Martin". He is the author of Dying of the Light, the Armageddon Rag, Fevre Dream and many more fine novels, and editor of the "Wild Cards" series.
More on the quality of writing, the number of books in the series and ETAs of the remaining ones, things like that, is more helpful than naming characters.
The series is "A Song of Ice and Fire". Book 1 is A Game of Thrones (1998). Book 2, A Clash of Kings (1999). Book 3, A Storm of Swords (2001). Book 4 will be A Feast for Crows (est. 2004). Book 5 will be A Dance with Dragons.
Also, as these are epic novels of around a thousand pages each, some or all of them have been crudely split into two parts for publication in the ultra-conservative US market - as tragically happened with Peter F Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy and Dan Simmons' "Hyperion Cantos". So, in America only, there are six books so far, not three. A Storm of Swords, for example, becomes "Part 1: Steel and Snow" and "Part 2: Blood and Gold".
Spelling and grammar should be checked before submission and publication. It's "whose", not "who's". The Tolkien dwarf is Gimli, not Ghimli.
Yeah, there was considerable confusion over what was going to happen to Amiga at one point. As far as I can tell, it's boiled down to this:
AmigaDos itself has been updated, gained loads of device drivers and had a lot of 3rd-party extras bundled in to make it a more vialbe 21st Century system. The current version is 3.9 and that is likely to be the last one; There's an official port to PowerPC by Hyperion Systems; this will be called AmigaOS 4, and look & work like "classic" AmigaDOS, be source-compatible and binary-compatible via emulation; There'a a third-party system, also source- and binary-compatible, based on reverse engineering AmigaDOS 3.1; the internal structure is quite different, though, and the Amiga compatibility resides in an emulation subsystem. This is called MorphOS, and is today more advanced than AmigaOS 4 Amiga Corp is more interested in AmigaDE, an advanced, VM-based system built upon Tao Systems Intent. This will run on various other systems, including AmigaOS 4, and include classic compatibility via emulation; QNX was once going to be the basis, but that's been abandoned; however, QNX came out of this with a GUI, Photon, improved beyond all recognition, and a reasonable set of multimedia capabilities; Last but not least, there's AROS, whose new site at SourceForge was updated today. It's another reverse-engineering-and-rewrite job but aims to run on Intel. It's getting there but slowly.
You can already get inexpensive PowerPC home computers. The Pegasos is shipping now and the Amiga One is nearly ready - weeks away from shipping, if Eyetech is to be believed.
Almost everything in the statement was incorrect. Those posts which aren't pro-war jingoism tend to miss this.
I could point to all the errors individually - GSM is the world standard; America is the only significant nation to use CDMA; GSM works in America and is the fastest-growing standard there; it isn't French; lots of American companies make and sell GSM kit; and so on and so on.
But it's been done already, by noted industry commentator Guy Kewney. Go read and learn. He has responded in an open letter directly to congressman Issa.
A tiny aside, but I've been wondering for a decade now...
In 1992, Tanya Donelly from the Throwing Muses formed her own band, Belly. In 1993, they released an album, Star, the first single from which was "Feed the Tree", a great, catchy song which made the UK Top 40.
Now, that's a line straight from your novels The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring.
I'm merely curious, but I'd like to know: is there any connection? Did you know about this, or did they ask you? Indeed, have you heard the record?
A mindless SFX extravaganza with none of the original's wit, subtlety, irony, cleverness, in-jokes, immaculate period references and panache.
I was going to say, a fine opportunity wasted, but I don't think it was. The League was too sophisticated for the type of audience attracted to a movie derived from a comic in the West. They mainly want mindless violent-action crap, such as Dardevil appears to be.
Ignore the movie. Alan Moore's stuff is too good for movies; this looks to be a travesty even more egregious than the appalling From Hell. Read the book, instead. It's pure, inspired brilliance, with breathtakingly intricate Kev O'Neill artwork to match.
Interesting piece, but I'm afraid it's not a review. It's a piece of Amiga evangelism in the wrong place.
We don't need to be told about AmigaOS. We don't need to be told about AmigaOS apps, or about how good or bad they are, or anything about Amiga itself.
There's about 5 pages of irrelevant stuff in there.
This is meant to be a review of an emulation package.
There are, as I understand it, two emulators.
Identify them. What are the differences? What do they do? Why use them instead of UAE or Fellow?
Start with one. Explain what it is and how it works. Explain how it's installed and used. Comment on how well it works. Criticize its failings, don't just praise its strengths.
Then take the 2nd. Do exactly the same.
Now, compare the two. Explain the differences. Take 1#. Point out where #1 is better than #2, then where #1 is worse than #2. Now take #2 and do the same.
Now, comment on the overall package. Compare it to any competitors: UAE, Fellow, AiaB, AmigaForever. Compare it to a real modern Amiga.
What's in the box? What manuals? What's the help like? What's the support like?
Specify its EXACT hardware requirements. Explain an optimal config, a minimal one, and the difference it makes.
Explain its cost and where to get it.
Summarise, in ten words each, its pros, its cons, and an overall verdict. Award it points out of ten for performance, ease of use, features, functionality, compatibility, value for money and overall.
*That* is a review.
This piece, however enjoyable, isn't.
But thanks for it! I enjoyed it. It just didn't tell me what I needed to know: do I want it? Is it worth buying?
They take old machines, reformat them and send them to schools in southern Africa. They've shipped over 4,500 machines so far, of which I've provided about a dozen.
Don't crush 'em, destroy 'em, leave 'em to moulder in boxes or fool around with Beowulf: do something worthwhile.
Fair point. Bin the serial and parallel ports and give it a couple of PC Card slots. Hell, use PC Card Ethernet and modem and you don't need those onboard either...
Compatibility with BeOS? Why? BeOS is alive and well and going its own way, but it's still a marginal system; what good would being a clone of it be?
AmigaOS compatibility is much more interesting. And given that there's alreagy an open-source effort at recreating AmigaOS out there, AROS (at www.aros.org), I think there'd be more future in the AROS and AtheOS teams co-operating. AmigaOS has a massive amount of support and software, but not much future: Amiga Corp is going over to a version of Tao's Elate (www.tao.co.uk.) A lot of Amiga fans would be keen to have a free AmigaOS for the PC, I'd think...
Come/on./ No way Linux is an appropriate OS for a PDA. This thing isn't a laptop, it's an organizer. The only OS that makes any sense on the thing is Symbian's EPOC. I'd buy it tomorrow if they offered that. Smaller, faster, more stable, better apps... No contest.
> to the new Amiga (which is to become a mix
> between Java and the Crusoe).
Kinda sortof.
The new Amiga is essentially a consumer version of an OS called Elate (or intent) by a UK company called Tao Systems: www.tao.co.uk.
Taos code is written, or compiled, for a nonexistent Virtual Processor (VP). As a program is loaded from disk into memory, the VP code is translated into the native code of the processor.
This means the *whole OS* is binary-compatible across different processor architectures: device drivers, kernel, the lot, the same binary runs on x86, ARM, MIPS, MC680x0, PowerPC, whatever.
It's the closest thing to total cross-platform compatibility there's ever been. Next to it, Java, a high-level interpreted (or JITed) language for apps, or Crusoe, which dynamically emulates just one processor, look pretty tame.
I bought it new within the last six months from Amazon.co.uk. It cost me about £6.
It's good stuff, though. A second edition covering the open-source revival of the original hacker culture would be well worthwhile; there's a whole new generation of hackers out there who would enjoy this stuff.
Oh, and by the way: all you first-post children are truly contemptibly pathetic, you do realise that, don't you? Don't shit where you eat, you miserable little vandals.
Slashdot Mirror
Very broad-minded of you. Good.
Mutt may be wonderful, but for one of my prime daily applications, I'm not about to go back to a text-mode application for anyone or anything. I live and work in 2004, not 1974.
I'm not saying it doesn't work; I'm sure it does and has advantages for you. But for most of the world, computing now means a GUI and standard controls.
On Windows, there's an option to use Microsoft Word as the text editor component in the Outlook email program. It's horrible; calling in one huge bloated app into another just to edit a field. It's not the way to do it. Having a simple common edit control is far more reasonable.
Now, you may feel that your way is perfectly reasonable, but hardcore Unixites are vastly outnumbered by the GUI-using masses.
The question is, do you ever want to convert them or not?
If not, fine, stick with vi.
If you do, though, then you have to learn to do some things their way.
Mac OS X has learned this lesson and it's now far and away the biggest commercial Unix on the planet. It's even converting droves of free xNix users to Apple, just for its elegance and usability.
It's not an idle foible or a passing fad.
That is the question, all right.
A typical Emacs user rates the virtues of their editor as power, extensibility and flexibility.
Those are Unix-type virtues. Over in the GUI desktop world, they don't count for much. What people want is simplicity and discoverability. Multiple ways to do things, ways that are similar between different programs. No macros, no customisation, no syntax highlighting, no language-specific optimisations, because they're not programmers and they're not programming. Thus they don't want or need a programmers' editor. They want a users' editor.
The MS-DOS 5+ editor is a model of these virtues for a text-mode app. It's CUA-compliant, the Wordstar standard for the 1990s and onwards, it can be driven from the keyboard or mouse, as you prefer, using standard commands, and is as close to a Windows (or indeed MacOS) app as you can get in an 80x25 console.
It's good.
And I know of no free xNix product anything like it.
Well said. And by the way, hi Andy!
I actually do ride motorcycles, including a sidecar outfit -- the most evil-handling form of vehicle mankind has so far invented -- a triked superbike (ZZR1100: incredibly fast in a straight line, terrifying in corners) and even a recumbent bicycle (Linear LWB) in city traffic.
From this, and from reading reports of earlier home-made customs in the style of Kaneda's bizarre feet-forward bike, I believe that thing is going to handle like an utter, utter pig. Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow.
Despite this, I want one desperately, right now.
There's a Google cache of the text of the page here:
J :m embers.aol.com/nickjc67/gem.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF- 8
( Anyone interested in GEM should certainly join this.)
i st.htm
http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:Pq0ZnZAS5qA
For more info on GEM, try...
FreeGEM home:
http://www.deltasoft.com/
For other sites, see its Links page:
http://www.deltasoft.com/links.htm
FreeGEM development mailing list:
http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev
Shane Coughlan's OpenGEM distro
http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/
Jon Elliot, AES developer:
http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html
Ben Jemmett, desktop developer:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/
My own GEM revision history:
http://members.aol.com/liamproven/reference/tos_h
(Contains links to active GEM developments on the Atari)
Aranym ("Atari Running on ANY Machine"):
http://aranym.sourceforge.net/
(The most sophisticated free ST emulator around. Comes with free GEM-
compatible OS Afros (Aranym FRee OS) and instructions on how to install
the free multitasking GEM extension MINT).
Of course, being professional, they'd know how to use an apostrophe correctly and would write "in its new..."
Just because you haven't found a need doesn't mean there ISN'T a need.
I've been using a PDA many times daily since a few days after I bought my first one - a Psion Organizer II LZ64 - in 1989. Since then, I've had a Psion Series 3, 3a, 5, 5mx. In between those I've owned or used a Newton MessagePad, Newton 2100, Palm III and iPaq, and evaluated and reviewed HP 95LX, 100LX, OmniGo 700, Nokia Communicator 9000 and others. None comes close to the power and flexibility of a Psion, and still today, nothing does.
They are indispensable business and personal tools to me.
If you can't see the use, it's YOU.
Back in '98 or so AOL and Netscape launched a dial-up ISP in Britain, under the name NetscapeOnline. The UK homepage is still there but it's now a generic Netscape homepage.
It was cheap and you got a free CD of Netscape client software with a simple setup wizard, which was preferable to Microsoft's Windows-based one. This is back in the days of the abominable IE4, bear in mind.
But ultimately it died when FRIACO launched - toll-free Internet access. In Britain and most of Europe, we pay for all local calls too (tho' long-distance is cheap). When toll-free Internet access was launched, it killed off most of the cheap/free ISPs.
[1] It's a more secure browser than IE, it has tab support and it's free.
[2] The email client is solid, easy and has spam filtering.
[3] It's still a well-known brand name.
[4] If you have an AOL account, it has AOL email support which is WAY better than AOL's built-in email program.
Sorry, but that's just plain flat-out WRONG in every single aspect.
I ride recumbents and I ride uprights. For offroading, an upright MTB is better, and my commuter bike is a folding upright. It folds faster and smaller to something more portable than any 'bent.
But for road riding, hill riding, country riding, city riding, anything involving distance or speed, recumbents are better, faster, easier, comfier, safer and more fun.
Yes, you can't stand on the pedals. That's what gears are for. Two weeks ago I climbed a 864' hill in ¾ mile with no problem. I've gone up mountains before now, no problem. Doesn't matter if it's a short, steep slope or ten miles of steady climb. You don't need to honk.
And the 'bent will make the upright look like the pathetic historical toy it is on the downside of that hill. I've had an upright up to 55mph downhill and it was unstable as hell - truly scary. I've had my cheap, unfaired folding 'bent over 76mph downhill and it was solid, well planted and felt safe. With a racing machine, I could have added 5-10mph to that, no problem - and I am not an athlete.
Braking is better, because of the stability and low centre of gravity. You are not going to flip one of these things forward over its front wheel.
You can't honk. You can press back against the seat, though, and get just as much leverage that way - MORE than your body weight.
Honking is fast up hills, but a well-set-up bent is a good, competent hill-climber. On a racing ascent, it might be slightly slower. But at all other times you have a major advantage.
Uprights are a speciality tool for speciality rôles. For general cycling, road or track, recumbents have been the way to go for a century, and only tradition and obsolete sports rules have held them back.
Not too bad for a /. fiction review.
But the author is George R. R. Martin, not "R R Martin". He is the author of Dying of the Light, the Armageddon Rag, Fevre Dream and many more fine novels, and editor of the "Wild Cards" series.
More on the quality of writing, the number of books in the series and ETAs of the remaining ones, things like that, is more helpful than naming characters.
The series is "A Song of Ice and Fire".
Book 1 is A Game of Thrones (1998).
Book 2, A Clash of Kings (1999).
Book 3, A Storm of Swords (2001).
Book 4 will be A Feast for Crows (est. 2004).
Book 5 will be A Dance with Dragons.
Also, as these are epic novels of around a thousand pages each, some or all of them have been crudely split into two parts for publication in the ultra-conservative US market - as tragically happened with Peter F Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy and Dan Simmons' "Hyperion Cantos". So, in America only, there are six books so far, not three. A Storm of Swords, for example, becomes "Part 1: Steel and Snow" and "Part 2: Blood and Gold".
Spelling and grammar should be checked before submission and publication. It's "whose", not "who's". The Tolkien dwarf is Gimli, not Ghimli.
Allowable for a first try, but needs more work.
A P3 is faster than a P4 for a given clock speed at everything - as ani fule kno. And that's before bringing Athlons into the comparison...
Yeah, there was considerable confusion over what was going to happen to Amiga at one point. As far as I can tell, it's boiled down to this:
AmigaDos itself has been updated, gained loads of device drivers and had a lot of 3rd-party extras bundled in to make it a more vialbe 21st Century system. The current version is 3.9 and that is likely to be the last one;
There's an official port to PowerPC by Hyperion Systems; this will be called AmigaOS 4, and look & work like "classic" AmigaDOS, be source-compatible and binary-compatible via emulation;
There'a a third-party system, also source- and binary-compatible, based on reverse engineering AmigaDOS 3.1; the internal structure is quite different, though, and the Amiga compatibility resides in an emulation subsystem. This is called MorphOS, and is today more advanced than AmigaOS 4
Amiga Corp is more interested in AmigaDE, an advanced, VM-based system built upon Tao Systems Intent. This will run on various other systems, including AmigaOS 4, and include classic compatibility via emulation;
QNX was once going to be the basis, but that's been abandoned; however, QNX came out of this with a GUI, Photon, improved beyond all recognition, and a reasonable set of multimedia capabilities;
Last but not least, there's AROS, whose new site at SourceForge was updated today. It's another reverse-engineering-and-rewrite job but aims to run on Intel. It's getting there but slowly.
True enough, but it does seem to be getting closer... Meantime, Pegasos machines ship with a choice of Linux or MorphOS.
You can already get inexpensive PowerPC home computers. The Pegasos is shipping now and the Amiga One is nearly ready - weeks away from shipping, if Eyetech is to be believed.
Almost everything in the statement was incorrect. Those posts which aren't pro-war jingoism tend to miss this.
I could point to all the errors individually - GSM is the world standard; America is the only significant nation to use CDMA; GSM works in America and is the fastest-growing standard there; it isn't French; lots of American companies make and sell GSM kit; and so on and so on.
But it's been done already, by noted industry commentator Guy Kewney. Go read and learn. He has responded in an open letter directly to congressman Issa.
A tiny aside, but I've been wondering for a decade now...
In 1992, Tanya Donelly from the Throwing Muses formed her own band, Belly. In 1993, they released an album, Star, the first single from which was "Feed the Tree", a great, catchy song which made the UK Top 40.
Now, that's a line straight from your novels The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring.
I'm merely curious, but I'd like to know: is there any connection? Did you know about this, or did they ask you? Indeed, have you heard the record?
A mindless SFX extravaganza with none of the original's wit, subtlety, irony, cleverness, in-jokes, immaculate period references and panache.
I was going to say, a fine opportunity wasted, but I don't think it was. The League was too sophisticated for the type of audience attracted to a movie derived from a comic in the West. They mainly want mindless violent-action crap, such as Dardevil appears to be.
Ignore the movie. Alan Moore's stuff is too good for movies; this looks to be a travesty even more egregious than the appalling From Hell. Read the book, instead. It's pure, inspired brilliance, with breathtakingly intricate Kev O'Neill artwork to match.
Interesting piece, but I'm afraid it's not a review. It's a piece of Amiga evangelism in the wrong place.
We don't need to be told about AmigaOS. We don't need to be told about AmigaOS apps, or about how good or bad they are, or anything about Amiga itself.
There's about 5 pages of irrelevant stuff in there.
This is meant to be a review of an emulation package.
There are, as I understand it, two emulators.
Identify them. What are the differences? What do they do? Why use them instead of UAE or Fellow?
Start with one. Explain what it is and how it works. Explain how it's installed and used. Comment on how well it works. Criticize its failings, don't just praise its strengths.
Then take the 2nd. Do exactly the same.
Now, compare the two. Explain the differences. Take 1#. Point out where #1 is better than #2, then where #1 is worse than #2. Now take #2 and do the same.
Now, comment on the overall package. Compare it to any competitors: UAE, Fellow, AiaB, AmigaForever. Compare it to a real modern Amiga.
What's in the box? What manuals? What's the help like? What's the support like?
Specify its EXACT hardware requirements. Explain an optimal config, a minimal one, and the difference it makes.
Explain its cost and where to get it.
Summarise, in ten words each, its pros, its cons, and an overall verdict. Award it points out of ten for performance, ease of use, features, functionality, compatibility, value for money and overall.
*That* is a review.
This piece, however enjoyable, isn't.
But thanks for it! I enjoyed it. It just didn't tell me what I needed to know: do I want it? Is it worth buying?
--
Liam P.
[echoed on OSnews]
They take old machines, reformat them and send them to schools in southern Africa. They've shipped over 4,500 machines so far, of which I've provided about a dozen.
Don't crush 'em, destroy 'em, leave 'em to moulder in boxes or fool around with Beowulf: do something worthwhile.
-- Liam P.
Fair point. Bin the serial and parallel ports and give it a couple of PC Card slots. Hell, use PC Card Ethernet and modem and you don't need those onboard either...
Compatibility with BeOS? Why? BeOS is alive and well and going its own way, but it's still a marginal system; what good would being a clone of it be?
AmigaOS compatibility is much more interesting. And given that there's alreagy an open-source effort at recreating AmigaOS out there, AROS (at www.aros.org), I think there'd be more future in the AROS and AtheOS teams co-operating. AmigaOS has a massive amount of support and software, but not much future: Amiga Corp is going over to a version of Tao's Elate (www.tao.co.uk.) A lot of Amiga fans would be keen to have a free AmigaOS for the PC, I'd think...
Come /on./ No way Linux is an appropriate OS for a PDA. This thing isn't a laptop, it's an organizer. The only OS that makes any sense on the thing is Symbian's EPOC. I'd buy it tomorrow if they offered that. Smaller, faster, more stable, better apps... No contest.
> to the new Amiga (which is to become a mix
> between Java and the Crusoe).
Kinda sortof.
The new Amiga is essentially a consumer version of an OS called Elate (or intent) by a UK company called Tao Systems: www.tao.co.uk.
Taos code is written, or compiled, for a nonexistent Virtual Processor (VP). As a program is loaded from disk into memory, the VP code is translated into the native code of the processor.
This means the *whole OS* is binary-compatible across different processor architectures: device drivers, kernel, the lot, the same binary runs on x86, ARM, MIPS, MC680x0, PowerPC, whatever.
It's the closest thing to total cross-platform compatibility there's ever been. Next to it, Java, a high-level interpreted (or JITed) language for apps, or Crusoe, which dynamically emulates just one processor, look pretty tame.
Go read about it. It's amazing stuff.
I bought it new within the last six months from Amazon.co.uk. It cost me about £6.
It's good stuff, though. A second edition covering the open-source revival of the original hacker culture would be well worthwhile; there's a whole new generation of hackers out there who would enjoy this stuff.
Oh, and by the way: all you first-post children are truly contemptibly pathetic, you do realise that, don't you? Don't shit where you eat, you miserable little vandals.