Whoa, there. Windows 95, although it had the concept of threads, wasn't a true multitasking OS. On the UI front, Win95 finally came up to the level of the Mac. On the technical front? OK, so it was better than the Mac, as it understood the concept of threads (it had to, as it was built around the Win32 API developed for WinNT), but it was still DOS-based, and was about as stable as Mac OS. In 1984, technically it was roughly equal to 1.04, but on the UI it was like a REALLY bad Windows 95 (maybe Chicago 58?). OS X is technically like any BSD (as it is), and blows Windows away. On the UI, in the "ooh, look, fancy shapes" department, it's better than XP because it uses them carefully, but less sparingly, and in the general feel department, it's the same quality (this is biased because I have more Windows experience - someone who has more Mac experience would think otherwise).
Ah, but it seems like my parents WANTED to learn the new thing, or I would have turned it back myself. I just added an account on the box switched to classic mode (however, I kept the new start menu). I don't use it anymore, but the account's still there.
Actually, it didn't work yet. If it did, I'd be able to go to Google, type in "litigious bastards", hit I'm Feeling Lucky, and get redirected to http://www.sco.com. Unfortunately, it goes to a blog that made a reference to Metallica being litigious bastards a year ago, and now that blog is mentioning that they're getting/.ed by being #1 on google searches for "litigious bastards", when us/.ers are really looking for SCO to be #1.
Do it with a bit of organized crime. Get a BUNCH of people from various countries in, then get the spec, and send the specs into international waters, then write the driver from there, and upload it to the least restrictive country possible. Why use many people? Simple - it's so that they can't trace it to anyone person. The part about international waters is so that you wouldn't get in nearly as much trouble. Now, you might have to run a profitable front for this to happen (enough to buy the SD protocol spec several times over, and buy a seaworthy boat and satellite transmission equipment, so your front might have to have it's own front), but it would work very well in the end. There is also reverse-engineering the protocol, which would actually fall under reverse-engineering for interoperability, which is legal under the DMCA. However, your driver would have to be closed-source to be safe, and coated in DRM.
Of course, most people aren't like you, and have trouble adapting when their ICONS get out of order, or when the strange new XP start menu occurs. My parents had to relearn about 1/3 of what they knew on Windows 98 to use Windows XP somewhat effectively. The reason we have to emulate Windows is because EVERYONE HAS EXPERIENCE. I'm still more familiar with the IE-"enhanced" Windows 9x/ME/2k shell than KDE, or fluxbox, even though I rarely use my last working Windows box.
"Sick of crashes and worms?" Rough - need to work Blaster in there somewhere, as that was publicized enough for everyone and their brother to hear about it.
BTW, if your tax rate is 6.75% at the store where you purchase it, assuming you send and get the mail-in rebate, it'll be $1554.98 - tax is more than the rebate! Dealtime put my tax at 6.00%, but sales tax where I live is 7.00%.
Of course, is it really a 3000+? Best Buy is claiming that it's a 3000+, and it's 2.0GHz with 1MB L2 cache. The only Mobile Athlon 64 that has those specs is the 32 00+.
Also, eMachines now has the 6805 (and the DVD burning 6807) on their site (although not the T6000, their desktop A64), and they say the same thing. However, they're listing a $100 mail-in rebate, making it $1400 (Best Buy is selling it for $50 more than eMachines is), and they also say that Circuit City and CompUSA carry it (CC is also $50 higher than eM says, and CU doesn't claim to have ANY eM products).
Does anyone know where you could buy the 6805 for $1500 before rebate, or is it really $1550 before rebate, and eM's site is wrong?
BTW, there may be Linux compatibility issues with the 6-in-1 media card reader, as it does read Secure Digital. I don't know if having an empty SD reader on a system can cause Linux issues, but I know a filled one (AKA a Sandisk Cruzer flash drive) kernel panics Linux.
AMD's estimate for systems built around the Mobile Athlon 64 is 3 hours. 7.5 pounds isn't beefy to me - my current laptop is a Hell Inspiron 1100, and tips the scales at some obscene number like 7.98 or something - why don't they just call it eight pounds? It's not that big unless subnotebooks are your thing - if you want to compare to a Dell, the 8600 is the most similar in size. There's also a category for these laptops - desktop replacement. If you want to see a mobile workstation (that most likely performs worse than the Sun Blade 1500), go here: http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobil e/sparcle/
For $2995, here's what you get:
440MHz UltraSparc IIe 256MB PC133 ECC SDRAM (up to 1.0GB) 20GB ATA-66 HDD 24x CD-ROM 14.1" XGA Sun PGX24 equivalent
My advice? Get the eMachines for $1500 less, and blow the SPARCLE away. I mean, look at it:
Mobile Athlon 64 3?00+ (Best Buy says 3000+, but the Mobile 3000 is 1.8GHz, and they say 2.0GHz, which would be 3200+) 512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM (up to 2.0GB) 60GB (my guess is ATA-100) 8x24x24x24x DVD/CD-RW
The ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 chip is the same as the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro, except AFAIK the standard 9600 can have on-chip DDR. What defines a Pro is 128MB or more DDR, and what defines a non-Pro is less than 128MB. Technically, when Voodoo advertises their box as having a 9600 Pro, they lie... (actually, when they were deciding what to do, they didn't have the info from ATI about what a 9600 Pro actually was - ATI told nobody until people started reviewing the m:855, and AnandTech said that it was OK, because Voodoo didn't know at the time)
It's a refurbished Asus SK8N, and it can take up to EIGHT gigabytes of ECC up to PC2700. I'll give you that it doesn't have gigabit ethernet, anything other than 33/32 PCI (for PCI - it has an AGP 8x slot), and most likely can't take those big iron graphics cards.
It's confusing dealing with AMD Mobile CPUs, especially when the info a site posts is just plain wrong. It seems the Mobile 64 3000+ is a 1.8GHz CPU with 1MiB L2. I'd rather have the faster CPU, and less cache, as clockspeed is what really hits an AMD64 hard, not cache, and the cache takes power, as, unlike the Pentium M, it can't disable any of the cache to save power.
IIRC, Voodoo said their CPU was a 1.8/1024, but Best Buy said that the eM CPU was a 2.0/1024. That begs the question: Is the eMachines really a 3200+? Someone needs to buy one, and try it out.
OK, well, I looked at the back. It's an ordinary ATX (Mini-ATX, five slots instead of seven) case, and therefore board, so buy an ATX case, grab the board and PSU (VERY important, as it's a custom PSU), and throw it in. Voila, no more fugliness. BTW, I'd rather just throw in either a P4 board with PowerLeap Pentium M to Pentium 4 adaptor (they'll release it yet), or a Socket 754 board.
RTFA. It has one CPU socket, and I've heard a maximum of 2.0GB RAM. Also, I'm not having any problems with less gigahertz - keep in mind, I'm pushing the Pentium M, which has a very high IPC as compared to the P4. I'm saying that a rig that performs like a P4 1.8 and costs $5K is a total ripoff. Sure, it has a great video card, but I'd like to take a Blade 1500 Light, and take an Athlon 64 3000+ (which is used for two reasons: "I'm cheap, but my dick is still longer than yours", and it's a cheap way of having a CPU that can handle 64-bit apps when they become available) with a Radeon 9800 Pro, 512MB of whatever the best RAM for that system is, a nice fast HDD (maybe SATA, just to make it unfair), a Plextor DVD +/- RW, etc., etc., and find out how much it costs, and if the US3i is blown out of the water (if a 3000+ can kill a P4EE, and a P4EE, by nature, can kill a P41.8, it's kinda obvious), and do the same on video card (3d rendering tests, maybe?).
Although Pentium M laptop prices are taking a nosedive (my next laptop will be either a Pentium M or an Athlon 64 - yes, I know, both ends of the spectrum, but the A64 I'm looking at is only $1550), my guess is that most laptops sold there would be Celerons, as energy use isn't as much of a concern (they've got oil), but price is. Also, did you read that Saudi geeks work with Israelis, as both Hebrew and Arabic are right-to-left languages, and development for one greatly benefits the other?
Thanks for reminding me. Is XPs DPI setting freeform, or does it only provide a couple of steps (for example, Small Fonts, Normal, and Large Fonts)? If so, that feature has been around since Windows 95, come to think of it.
Especially when you consider that many programs are dependent on the default point size of something being, say, 10 point, and can't scale images, creating major havoc unless you use default settings. Opera can scale the images (and will actually listen to YOUR text size setting), but then it gets fuzzy, because the author didn't intend for the image to be blown up like that. Also, I wouldn't have a problem with that low of a res, considering it is better in both directions from what I normally run (1024x768 - although that's changing to 1280x1024). BTW, having used laptops with 15" 1400x1050 screens (and Mobility Radeon 7000s, and PIII-Ms, etc.), I must say that I prefer a lower resolution screen.
Also, I normally use 768 pixels vertically. Right now I'm running this CRT at 1280x1024x16bx60Hz (I think - can't easily set the refresh rate on Damn Small Linux).
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Whoa, there. Windows 95, although it had the concept of threads, wasn't a true multitasking OS. On the UI front, Win95 finally came up to the level of the Mac. On the technical front? OK, so it was better than the Mac, as it understood the concept of threads (it had to, as it was built around the Win32 API developed for WinNT), but it was still DOS-based, and was about as stable as Mac OS. In 1984, technically it was roughly equal to 1.04, but on the UI it was like a REALLY bad Windows 95 (maybe Chicago 58?). OS X is technically like any BSD (as it is), and blows Windows away. On the UI, in the "ooh, look, fancy shapes" department, it's better than XP because it uses them carefully, but less sparingly, and in the general feel department, it's the same quality (this is biased because I have more Windows experience - someone who has more Mac experience would think otherwise).
Ah, but it seems like my parents WANTED to learn the new thing, or I would have turned it back myself. I just added an account on the box switched to classic mode (however, I kept the new start menu). I don't use it anymore, but the account's still there.
Actually, it didn't work yet. If it did, I'd be able to go to Google, type in "litigious bastards", hit I'm Feeling Lucky, and get redirected to http://www.sco.com. Unfortunately, it goes to a blog that made a reference to Metallica being litigious bastards a year ago, and now that blog is mentioning that they're getting /.ed by being #1 on google searches for "litigious bastards", when us /.ers are really looking for SCO to be #1.
Do it with a bit of organized crime. Get a BUNCH of people from various countries in, then get the spec, and send the specs into international waters, then write the driver from there, and upload it to the least restrictive country possible. Why use many people? Simple - it's so that they can't trace it to anyone person. The part about international waters is so that you wouldn't get in nearly as much trouble. Now, you might have to run a profitable front for this to happen (enough to buy the SD protocol spec several times over, and buy a seaworthy boat and satellite transmission equipment, so your front might have to have it's own front), but it would work very well in the end. There is also reverse-engineering the protocol, which would actually fall under reverse-engineering for interoperability, which is legal under the DMCA. However, your driver would have to be closed-source to be safe, and coated in DRM.
Of course, most people aren't like you, and have trouble adapting when their ICONS get out of order, or when the strange new XP start menu occurs. My parents had to relearn about 1/3 of what they knew on Windows 98 to use Windows XP somewhat effectively. The reason we have to emulate Windows is because EVERYONE HAS EXPERIENCE. I'm still more familiar with the IE-"enhanced" Windows 9x/ME/2k shell than KDE, or fluxbox, even though I rarely use my last working Windows box.
"Sick of crashes and worms?" Rough - need to work Blaster in there somewhere, as that was publicized enough for everyone and their brother to hear about it.
Fixed it. Haven't taken any classes on C++ yet...
BTW, if your tax rate is 6.75% at the store where you purchase it, assuming you send and get the mail-in rebate, it'll be $1554.98 - tax is more than the rebate! Dealtime put my tax at 6.00%, but sales tax where I live is 7.00%.
Of course, is it really a 3000+? Best Buy is claiming that it's a 3000+, and it's 2.0GHz with 1MB L2 cache. The only Mobile Athlon 64 that has those specs is the 3 2 00+.
Also, eMachines now has the 6805 (and the DVD burning 6807) on their site (although not the T6000, their desktop A64), and they say the same thing. However, they're listing a $100 mail-in rebate, making it $1400 (Best Buy is selling it for $50 more than eMachines is), and they also say that Circuit City and CompUSA carry it (CC is also $50 higher than eM says, and CU doesn't claim to have ANY eM products).
Does anyone know where you could buy the 6805 for $1500 before rebate, or is it really $1550 before rebate, and eM's site is wrong?
BTW, there may be Linux compatibility issues with the 6-in-1 media card reader, as it does read Secure Digital. I don't know if having an empty SD reader on a system can cause Linux issues, but I know a filled one (AKA a Sandisk Cruzer flash drive) kernel panics Linux.
Also, it has a 15.4" 1280x800 (WUXGA?) display.
AMD's estimate for systems built around the Mobile Athlon 64 is 3 hours. 7.5 pounds isn't beefy to me - my current laptop is a Hell Inspiron 1100, and tips the scales at some obscene number like 7.98 or something - why don't they just call it eight pounds? It's not that big unless subnotebooks are your thing - if you want to compare to a Dell, the 8600 is the most similar in size. There's also a category for these laptops - desktop replacement. If you want to see a mobile workstation (that most likely performs worse than the Sun Blade 1500), go here: http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobil e/sparcle/
For $2995, here's what you get:
440MHz UltraSparc IIe
256MB PC133 ECC SDRAM (up to 1.0GB)
20GB ATA-66 HDD
24x CD-ROM
14.1" XGA
Sun PGX24 equivalent
My advice? Get the eMachines for $1500 less, and blow the SPARCLE away. I mean, look at it:
Mobile Athlon 64 3?00+ (Best Buy says 3000+, but the Mobile 3000 is 1.8GHz, and they say 2.0GHz, which would be 3200+)
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM (up to 2.0GB)
60GB (my guess is ATA-100)
8x24x24x24x DVD/CD-RW
Go look at any random Socket 754 board on Newegg, and tell me how much RAM per socket is supported. Hint: 2 slots, 2GB RAM. 3 slots, 3GB RAM
Also, any random new laptop will have 2 slots for RAM, as there's not room for three.
The ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 chip is the same as the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro, except AFAIK the standard 9600 can have on-chip DDR. What defines a Pro is 128MB or more DDR, and what defines a non-Pro is less than 128MB. Technically, when Voodoo advertises their box as having a 9600 Pro, they lie... (actually, when they were deciding what to do, they didn't have the info from ATI about what a 9600 Pro actually was - ATI told nobody until people started reviewing the m:855, and AnandTech said that it was OK, because Voodoo didn't know at the time)
I am defining the contents of the variable SCO as the text litigious bastards.
OK, so 4GB. However, let's look at a random Athlon 64 FX/Opteron 1xx board.
e sc ription=13-131-465R&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?d
It's a refurbished Asus SK8N, and it can take up to EIGHT gigabytes of ECC up to PC2700. I'll give you that it doesn't have gigabit ethernet, anything other than 33/32 PCI (for PCI - it has an AGP 8x slot), and most likely can't take those big iron graphics cards.
And I quote from Best Buy:
"Mobile AMD Athlon(TM) 64 processor 3000+* with 64-bit platform for improved multitasking performance"
"*3000+ processor operates at 2.0GHz"
"Cache Memory: 1MB integrated on die Level 2" (slightly reformatted to display better)
And now, AMDs Mobile AMD Athlon 64 product line list (heavily reformatted):
Mobile AMD Athlon(TM) 64 Processor
Model Number - Frequency - L2 Cache
3200+ - 2.0 GHz - 1 MB
3000+ - 1.8 GHz - 1 MB
2800+ - 1.6 GHz - 1 MB
Update:
It's confusing dealing with AMD Mobile CPUs, especially when the info a site posts is just plain wrong. It seems the Mobile 64 3000+ is a 1.8GHz CPU with 1MiB L2. I'd rather have the faster CPU, and less cache, as clockspeed is what really hits an AMD64 hard, not cache, and the cache takes power, as, unlike the Pentium M, it can't disable any of the cache to save power.
IIRC, Voodoo said their CPU was a 1.8/1024, but Best Buy said that the eM CPU was a 2.0/1024. That begs the question: Is the eMachines really a 3200+? Someone needs to buy one, and try it out.
OK, well, I looked at the back. It's an ordinary ATX (Mini-ATX, five slots instead of seven) case, and therefore board, so buy an ATX case, grab the board and PSU (VERY important, as it's a custom PSU), and throw it in. Voila, no more fugliness. BTW, I'd rather just throw in either a P4 board with PowerLeap Pentium M to Pentium 4 adaptor (they'll release it yet), or a Socket 754 board.
RTFA. It has one CPU socket, and I've heard a maximum of 2.0GB RAM. Also, I'm not having any problems with less gigahertz - keep in mind, I'm pushing the Pentium M, which has a very high IPC as compared to the P4. I'm saying that a rig that performs like a P4 1.8 and costs $5K is a total ripoff. Sure, it has a great video card, but I'd like to take a Blade 1500 Light, and take an Athlon 64 3000+ (which is used for two reasons: "I'm cheap, but my dick is still longer than yours", and it's a cheap way of having a CPU that can handle 64-bit apps when they become available) with a Radeon 9800 Pro, 512MB of whatever the best RAM for that system is, a nice fast HDD (maybe SATA, just to make it unfair), a Plextor DVD +/- RW, etc., etc., and find out how much it costs, and if the US3i is blown out of the water (if a 3000+ can kill a P4EE, and a P4EE, by nature, can kill a P41.8, it's kinda obvious), and do the same on video card (3d rendering tests, maybe?).
Although Pentium M laptop prices are taking a nosedive (my next laptop will be either a Pentium M or an Athlon 64 - yes, I know, both ends of the spectrum, but the A64 I'm looking at is only $1550), my guess is that most laptops sold there would be Celerons, as energy use isn't as much of a concern (they've got oil), but price is. Also, did you read that Saudi geeks work with Israelis, as both Hebrew and Arabic are right-to-left languages, and development for one greatly benefits the other?
They said it's really easy to get around the porn filters, so my guess is that they look at the same porn we do.
RTFA, the Saudi government doesn't.
BTW, where's any proof that those really work? I mean, has the FDA done any studies on it? Didn't think so.
Thanks for reminding me. Is XPs DPI setting freeform, or does it only provide a couple of steps (for example, Small Fonts, Normal, and Large Fonts)? If so, that feature has been around since Windows 95, come to think of it.
Especially when you consider that many programs are dependent on the default point size of something being, say, 10 point, and can't scale images, creating major havoc unless you use default settings. Opera can scale the images (and will actually listen to YOUR text size setting), but then it gets fuzzy, because the author didn't intend for the image to be blown up like that. Also, I wouldn't have a problem with that low of a res, considering it is better in both directions from what I normally run (1024x768 - although that's changing to 1280x1024). BTW, having used laptops with 15" 1400x1050 screens (and Mobility Radeon 7000s, and PIII-Ms, etc.), I must say that I prefer a lower resolution screen.
Also, I normally use 768 pixels vertically. Right now I'm running this CRT at 1280x1024x16bx60Hz (I think - can't easily set the refresh rate on Damn Small Linux).