Where exactly does it say that someone other than IBM and Motorola can manufacture that chip? An alliance typically doesn't imply that a member can take the fruits of the alliance and give them to a third party. Licensing rights as you put it does not necessarily imply free either. I would just like to see the details.
Apple owns enough of the PPC rights to simply license Intel to produce chips for them.
ROTFLMAO... you have got to be kidding! Granted, Intel may make a special chip for Apple with similar features, but it sure as hell will not be a PPC. IBM owns the POWER architecture and a truckload of patents to go along with it. If there is one thing IBM knows, it is patents and they would NEVER allow themselves to get into a postion where a partner could take their design and let someone else produce it. Must be that Movable Reality Distortion Field I have been hearing about. Now if Intel wants to pay IBM a handsome royalty for every PPC chip they produce, that is a different argument altogether.
The most complex? Not even close. The disc drive is way more complex. The hard drive has a mini motherboard of its own, complete with processor, flash memory, dram (or ROM), high speed data channel, motor controller, etc. Oh, and did I mention the there are spinning discs in there with read/write heads moving a few nanometers above the surface?
So, I love these predictions where everything in the world remains constant except what they are extrapolating. The author suggests that we will have robots that can do all these wonderful things for us, but we still have fast food restaurants? Give me a break. If an all-in-wonder robot can be had for $10k, why would you get in your transport device and spend money on a crap-ass fast food meal when this 'miracle' robot could whip you up a 12 course meal at home? Hell, it would even do the dishes to boot. Not to mention that an economy with 50% unemployment is no longer an economy... it is anarchy. This article is laughable.
"ATA disks are cheaper to manufacture than SCSI or Fibre Channel drives for several reasons. The main reason is that ATA disks are tested in batches, whereas SCSI and Fibre Channel drives are tested individually. "
What a pile of horse crap. ATA drives are cheaper because:
ELECTRONICS.The electronics are a LOT cheaper. The amount of custom logic to support the performance requirements and features of SCSI make the ASICs much more expensive. ($20-$30+)
SUPPORT. The main reason SCSI/FCAL drives are so expensive is the hand-holding that the big OEMs require when integrating drives into their boxes. "I had a hard error. Fly someone out here tomorrow". Yes, if you buy a drive at Fry's, you don't get this level of support. SCSI manufacturers could care less about drives bought individually through distribution. That is the dumping ground for drives they couldn't sell to an OEM. Many of the big OEMs ship ten of thousands of drives a month. That is who these drives are being made for. There are entire teams devoted to each big OEM customer.
CUSTOM FEATURES. This goes hand-in-hand with support. Each of the big OEMs requires custom code and electronics features. There are multiple developers per customer to make this happen.
QUALITY. In order to keep desktop drives cheap, the manufacturing yields must be very high (90%+). This isn't done through creating superior components. It is done by shipping any component that isn't dead into the field. Crappy parts shipped = high failure rates. Don't believe MTBF numbers, they are a crock.
Now, that said, there is a move towards using desktop drives in low-end server apps. The main reason is obviously cost. Many OEMs would like to drive this into the middle and high-end ranges as well. The OEMs are under the misconception that they can get a desktop drive and that it will be supported like the server drives, have equivalent performance and reliability. Given the extremely low margins on desktop drives, this isn't going to happen. Is there any reason that desktop drives can't be made more reliable and feature rich? Of course not. But it is going to cost you...
And yes, I have a clue. I work in server-class HDD development.
Anybody from one of these companies want to chime in on whether these are for real? I doubt very much that they are.
Re:Here is a link to and copy of the actual reg
on
Cable TV A La Carte?
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· Score: 1
One small problem with this... my cable company doesn't offer individual premium channels. You want HBO, you get 6 HBOs. Skinemax? As long as 5 will do. Under this scenario, getting HBO could be considered a 'tier' and is therefore exempt since, "A cable operator may, however, require the subscription to one or more tiers of cable programming services as a condition of access to one or more tiers of cable programming services." Pretty slick to take one channel's worth of programming, spread it across six and give the middle finger to the FCC and the consumer... bastards.
Slashdot Mirror
Where exactly does it say that someone other than IBM and Motorola can manufacture that chip? An alliance typically doesn't imply that a member can take the fruits of the alliance and give them to a third party. Licensing rights as you put it does not necessarily imply free either. I would just like to see the details.
Apple owns enough of the PPC rights to simply license Intel to produce chips for them. ... you have got to be kidding! Granted, Intel may make a special chip for Apple with similar features, but it sure as hell will not be a PPC. IBM owns the POWER architecture and a truckload of patents to go along with it. If there is one thing IBM knows, it is patents and they would NEVER allow themselves to get into a postion where a partner could take their design and let someone else produce it. Must be that Movable Reality Distortion Field I have been hearing about. Now if Intel wants to pay IBM a handsome royalty for every PPC chip they produce, that is a different argument altogether.
ROTFLMAO
The most complex? Not even close. The disc drive is way more complex. The hard drive has a mini motherboard of its own, complete with processor, flash memory, dram (or ROM), high speed data channel, motor controller, etc. Oh, and did I mention the there are spinning discs in there with read/write heads moving a few nanometers above the surface?
So, I love these predictions where everything in the world remains constant except what they are extrapolating. The author suggests that we will have robots that can do all these wonderful things for us, but we still have fast food restaurants? Give me a break. If an all-in-wonder robot can be had for $10k, why would you get in your transport device and spend money on a crap-ass fast food meal when this 'miracle' robot could whip you up a 12 course meal at home? Hell, it would even do the dishes to boot. Not to mention that an economy with 50% unemployment is no longer an economy ... it is anarchy. This article is laughable.
"ATA disks are cheaper to manufacture than SCSI or Fibre Channel drives for several reasons. The main reason is that ATA disks are tested in batches, whereas SCSI and Fibre Channel drives are tested individually. "
What a pile of horse crap. ATA drives are cheaper because:
- ELECTRONICS.The electronics are a LOT cheaper. The amount of custom logic to support the performance requirements and features of SCSI make the ASICs much more expensive. ($20-$30+)
- SUPPORT. The main reason SCSI/FCAL drives are so expensive is the hand-holding that the big OEMs require when integrating drives into their boxes. "I had a hard error. Fly someone out here tomorrow". Yes, if you buy a drive at Fry's, you don't get this level of support. SCSI manufacturers could care less about drives bought individually through distribution. That is the dumping ground for drives they couldn't sell to an OEM. Many of the big OEMs ship ten of thousands of drives a month. That is who these drives are being made for. There are entire teams devoted to each big OEM customer.
- CUSTOM FEATURES. This goes hand-in-hand with support. Each of the big OEMs requires custom code and electronics features. There are multiple developers per customer to make this happen.
- QUALITY. In order to keep desktop drives cheap, the manufacturing yields must be very high (90%+). This isn't done through creating superior components. It is done by shipping any component that isn't dead into the field. Crappy parts shipped = high failure rates. Don't believe MTBF numbers, they are a crock.
Now, that said, there is a move towards using desktop drives in low-end server apps. The main reason is obviously cost. Many OEMs would like to drive this into the middle and high-end ranges as well. The OEMs are under the misconception that they can get a desktop drive and that it will be supported like the server drives, have equivalent performance and reliability. Given the extremely low margins on desktop drives, this isn't going to happen. Is there any reason that desktop drives can't be made more reliable and feature rich? Of course not. But it is going to cost youAnd yes, I have a clue. I work in server-class HDD development.
Am I the only one that noticed some outrageous quoted starting salaries for some of these employers?
... and on the low side:
Employer/Starting Pay/Most common entry job
Intuit/$103,500/Software Engineer
AutoDesk/$100,000/Software Engineer
Intel/$79,249/Software Engineer
Cisco/$75,000/Software Engineer
Qualcomm/$67,000/Engineer
IBM/$66,400/Software Engineer
Adobe/$63,000/Software Engineer
FTNC/$34,000/Systems Engineering
SFC/$29,000/Programmer Analyst
Anybody from one of these companies want to chime in on whether these are for real? I doubt very much that they are.
One small problem with this ... my cable company doesn't offer individual premium channels. You want HBO, you get 6 HBOs. Skinemax? As long as 5 will do. Under this scenario, getting HBO could be considered a 'tier' and is therefore exempt since, "A cable operator may, however, require the subscription to one or more tiers of cable programming services as a condition of access to one or more tiers of cable programming services." Pretty slick to take one channel's worth of programming, spread it across six and give the middle finger to the FCC and the consumer ... bastards.