Stand by for a bunch of/.ers, pretending to be representitive of the average consumer, posting as anonymous coward to tell us all how many tracks they pirated versus bought in the last week, and how this proves the stats are wrong.
The switch to intel means that a games developer can maintain a common c++ codebase and optimise the same bits for all platforms. Data formats will no longer need endian switches that porting or careful cross-platform development tend to introduce. The small remaining headache is the DirectX OpenGL issue. But that's still significantly less effort. The ease of porting to mac and larger installed user base should offset any worries about the hard-core users using some sort of WINE-style layer translation layer. Exciting times ahead.
Believe it or not the average mac user is not some slashdot geek type.
The average mac user will not upgrade the stock RAM. This usually results in thrashing when the average user runs word and safari at once. Painful. All the more painful with a slower HD. The average user will also not touch the energy settings. Disk access makes a big difference on these machines (speaking also from experience of upgrading HD and RAM in my pb).
Looking again at the first chart on http://www.macintouch.com/perfpack/comparison.html you can see that the imac is not pulling its weight in CPU-intensive tasks either. Factor in also the fact that the emac is half the price and you have a serious case for buying the emac.
Adding RAM can make a big difference in macland. 1gig of RAM on a dual 1.8G5 and doom stutters significantly less often. Not perfect, but significantly better.
If it hasn't been fixed, the eMac may still give better bang for buck. If this matters to you then hold off buying until you see an accurate performance comparison.
OK I should have said less heat flux. Apologies for the confusion.
Two processors, each producing, say, 100W of heat are somewhat easier to cool than a dual core producing, say, 150W, because you can position them a good distance apart. x86 cores run very hot, so you don't have to be a thermodynamics expert to realise that if you move them closer together you're gonna have problems sinking the heat.
Thanks to all the pedants who replied, and replied to the replies. One could argue that my 8MHz Macintosh Plus can do any floating point operations you want - it'd just take a little while since the thing doesn't have an FPU. Indeed if you like your twiddle factors (known as wank factors round here after (W_n)^k) Of course I was referring to the SIMD and simultaneous-issue capability of PPC.
Put simply, dual core means that both CPUs are on the same piece of silicon. They can share a unified cache, access it faster, and resolve deadlocks & invalidates etc much faster. A dual core processor will also run cooler than two single cores, and the reduced number of external interconnects means that the whole thing can be clocked faster.
Since you are using up to twice the wafer size, you need to have a high yield rate of you're going to keep costs down: Yield decreases in proportion to wafer area.
It's worth reading up on System On Chip design - see how you can put the graphics controller, DSP, and USB controller on the same wafer. Furber's ARM SoC book is slightly dated but nevertheless a good read.
Relative to the latest AMD etc depends on the code you're running. PowerPC has a lot of registers, can do much more complicated floating point arithmetic, and has a fused multiply-add instruction (good for FFTs) but in pure integer throughput the latest AMD etc will probably triumph.
There is no escaping the fact that Finale, though rock solid, has always been, and will continue to be, bloatware and a lesson in bad interface design. Anybody serious about using notation software has switched, or should switch, to Sibelius.
Finale suffered from: -slow redraws (Sibelius was originally lightning fast on the Acorn) -crap redraws (display artifacts left behind when dragging. None of this in Sibelius) -legacy nested dialogs that had to fit on the screen of an SE -crap auto-layout and spacing (Sibelius does this seamlessly in the background without having to be told to do it) -music takes ages to notate -no FlexiTime -no automatic placing of dynamics etc (hard to get continuity of spacing) -generally frustrating and confusing to use
That's why I stopped buying the updates with Finale 2002. However, if they have seriously addressed these issues and offered a complete rewrite, rather than just a further-bloating of the legacy codebase, I might reconsider my judgement. Past experience says not to hold your breath though.
Finale really does suck. OK, it may have 1001 features, but its interface is totally backwards and far too slow:
Why have limited editing in page view? Why do I have to "enter" a bar (measure) before editing? Why do I have to manually "update layout" to make the bars reflow? Why does it have leave pixel artifacts everywhere until I manually force a redraw? How many dialogs deep is it possible to take the user (clue: more than 3)?
Sibelius (www.sibelius.com) lets you concentrate on the music, taking care of the appearance and layout for you. Sibelius also has flexitime, so you don't have to enter MIDI like a robot.
Sibelius offers a discount to Finale users, and even supports their file format. Finale people, you *really* should consider switching.
1. Apple never promised "on the go" playlists for 2.0 iPods. To be honest they're not that great; there is only one "on the go" playlist, and it gets reset when you dock the pod.
2. Apple couldn't provide the funcionality even if they wanted to. The OS development for the 2.0 iPods was contracted out. It'd make no business sense for Apple to contract out an update/rewrite. People forget that in a capitalist economy, the firm in the marketplace must make a profit to survive.
The 2.0 iPod is a completely different piece of hardware, running a re-written OS that was developed in-house, and would not be compatible with the 2.0 hardware. Just because it looks similar and has the same generic name doesn't mean that the guts are the same.
This is indeed true, as in P3 vs. P4 comparisons. However the G4 has always had more pipeline stages, so it can be clocked faster, more than enough to offset the the G3 being faster at equivalent clock frequency.
Until the G3 has an AltiVec unit, Apple will not be ditching Motorola completely.
The next PB will probably use moto's G4+. Apple's reluctance to put the same chip in both its "consumer" and "pro" laptops will mean that the iBook wont get Altivec for a while.
The click may be gone, but if you have a CD that has track markers in the middle of songs or movements (Abbado's CSO Mahler 7 anybody?) there is still an annoying little gap between the tracks.
The Berlin rail system has been completely restored. The system was overhauled while the tube continued to degrade. I look forward to the day when our London Underground is as well-funded. Berlin's U- and S- Bahn is in better condition than the tube, having been in far worse shape a little over 10 years ago!
Weight is indeed force due to gravity. Both the ISS and its inhabitants must have weight in order to remain in orbit! What you are describing is zero net relative acceleration.
Slashdot Mirror
Stand by for a bunch of /.ers, pretending to be representitive of the average consumer, posting as anonymous coward to tell us all how many tracks they pirated versus bought in the last week, and how this proves the stats are wrong.
The switch to intel means that a games developer can maintain a common c++ codebase and optimise the same bits for all platforms. Data formats will no longer need endian switches that porting or careful cross-platform development tend to introduce. The small remaining headache is the DirectX OpenGL issue. But that's still significantly less effort. The ease of porting to mac and larger installed user base should offset any worries about the hard-core users using some sort of WINE-style layer translation layer. Exciting times ahead.
Believe it or not the average mac user is not some slashdot geek type.
l you can see that the imac is not pulling its weight in CPU-intensive tasks either. Factor in also the fact that the emac is half the price and you have a serious case for buying the emac.
The average mac user will not upgrade the stock RAM. This usually results in thrashing when the average user runs word and safari at once. Painful. All the more painful with a slower HD. The average user will also not touch the energy settings. Disk access makes a big difference on these machines (speaking also from experience of upgrading HD and RAM in my pb).
Looking again at the first chart on http://www.macintouch.com/perfpack/comparison.htm
Adding RAM can make a big difference in macland. 1gig of RAM on a dual 1.8G5 and doom stutters significantly less often. Not perfect, but significantly better.
Until today, the eMac G4 could outperform the iMac G5 due to some low level issues, see http://www.macintouch.com/perfpack/comparison.html .
If it hasn't been fixed, the eMac may still give better bang for buck. If this matters to you then hold off buying until you see an accurate performance comparison.
OK I should have said less heat flux. Apologies for the confusion.
Two processors, each producing, say, 100W of heat are somewhat easier to cool than a dual core producing, say, 150W, because you can position them a good distance apart.
x86 cores run very hot, so you don't have to be a thermodynamics expert to realise that if you move them closer together you're gonna have problems sinking the heat.
Thanks to all the pedants who replied, and replied to the replies. One could argue that my 8MHz Macintosh Plus can do any floating point operations you want - it'd just take a little while since the thing doesn't have an FPU. Indeed if you like your twiddle factors (known as wank factors round here after (W_n)^k) Of course I was referring to the SIMD and simultaneous-issue capability of PPC.
Put simply, dual core means that both CPUs are on the same piece of silicon. They can share a unified cache, access it faster, and resolve deadlocks & invalidates etc much faster.
A dual core processor will also run cooler than two single cores, and the reduced number of external interconnects means that the whole thing can be clocked faster.
Since you are using up to twice the wafer size, you need to have a high yield rate of you're going to keep costs down: Yield decreases in proportion to wafer area.
It's worth reading up on System On Chip design - see how you can put the graphics controller, DSP, and USB controller on the same wafer. Furber's ARM SoC book is slightly dated but nevertheless a good read.
Relative to the latest AMD etc depends on the code you're running. PowerPC has a lot of registers, can do much more complicated floating point arithmetic, and has a fused multiply-add instruction (good for FFTs) but in pure integer throughput the latest AMD etc will probably triumph.
"If this was a macintosh or PC, moving around these full-colour images would take until next week for the windows to repaint"
It would seem that nothing has changed.
Obligatory link to the RoundRects anecdote:
c in tosh&story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Ma
There is no escaping the fact that Finale, though rock solid, has always been, and will continue to be, bloatware and a lesson in bad interface design. Anybody serious about using notation software has switched, or should switch, to Sibelius.
Finale suffered from:
-slow redraws (Sibelius was originally lightning fast on the Acorn)
-crap redraws (display artifacts left behind when dragging. None of this in Sibelius)
-legacy nested dialogs that had to fit on the screen of an SE
-crap auto-layout and spacing (Sibelius does this seamlessly in the background without having to be told to do it)
-music takes ages to notate
-no FlexiTime
-no automatic placing of dynamics etc (hard to get continuity of spacing)
-generally frustrating and confusing to use
That's why I stopped buying the updates with Finale 2002. However, if they have seriously addressed these issues and offered a complete rewrite, rather than just a further-bloating of the legacy codebase, I might reconsider my judgement. Past experience says not to hold your breath though.
Needless to say, they had the G4 iBooks ready to go, but held off announcing them until my 15" AlBook had arrived.
Finale really does suck. OK, it may have 1001 features, but its interface is totally backwards and far too slow:
Why have limited editing in page view?
Why do I have to "enter" a bar (measure) before editing?
Why do I have to manually "update layout" to make the bars reflow?
Why does it have leave pixel artifacts everywhere until I manually force a redraw?
How many dialogs deep is it possible to take the user (clue: more than 3)?
Sibelius (www.sibelius.com) lets you concentrate on the music, taking care of the appearance and layout for you. Sibelius also has flexitime, so you don't have to enter MIDI like a robot.
Sibelius offers a discount to Finale users, and even supports their file format. Finale people, you *really* should consider switching.
1. Apple never promised "on the go" playlists for 2.0 iPods. To be honest they're not that great; there is only one "on the go" playlist, and it gets reset when you dock the pod.
2. Apple couldn't provide the funcionality even if they wanted to. The OS development for the 2.0 iPods was contracted out. It'd make no business sense for Apple to contract out an update/rewrite. People forget that in a capitalist economy, the firm in the marketplace must make a profit to survive.
The 2.0 iPod is a completely different piece of hardware, running a re-written OS that was developed in-house, and would not be compatible with the 2.0 hardware. Just because it looks similar and has the same generic name doesn't mean that the guts are the same.
This is indeed true, as in P3 vs. P4 comparisons. However the G4 has always had more pipeline stages, so it can be clocked faster, more than enough to offset the the G3 being faster at equivalent clock frequency.
Until the G3 has an AltiVec unit, Apple will not be ditching Motorola completely.
The next PB will probably use moto's G4+. Apple's reluctance to put the same chip in both its "consumer" and "pro" laptops will mean that the iBook wont get Altivec for a while.
The click may be gone, but if you have a CD that has track markers in the middle of songs or movements (Abbado's CSO Mahler 7 anybody?) there is still an annoying little gap between the tracks.
Everybody knows that when macs forget the time they should reset to 1904, not 1970!
oops that should have read http://newted.dyndns.org/gallery/natw/
Newtons /in/ a picture frame:
The
See also Newtons around the world.
The Berlin rail system has been completely restored. The system was overhauled while the tube continued to degrade. I look forward to the day when our London Underground is as well-funded. Berlin's U- and S- Bahn is in better condition than the tube, having been in far worse shape a little over 10 years ago!
Weight is indeed force due to gravity. Both the ISS and its inhabitants must have weight in order to remain in orbit! What you are describing is zero net relative acceleration.
NeXT ran on intel/68k. BeOS ran on intel/PPC. There wasn't a 68k BeBox.