Re:Do they or do they not have the source legally?
on
Zeta Goes Gold
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Unfortunately, this means their OS is closed source, and completely useless to anyone interested in retaining the right to freely use their computer.
Huh? A person who DECIDES to use this operating system and who can BACK OUT by using some other operating system, is somehow deprived of the free use of their computer?
The decision to use this OS falls under a users freedom to use what they want on their computer. Ever thought that not everyone wants what you want and for some people the use of this OS might actually fit within the freedoms which they wish to exercise?
You sound like a broken record.
I'm a BSD user BTW. I also like and use OS X. I have the freedom to remove OS X from my Macs and install OpenBSD if I want. My free choice at the moment has me using OS X on my Macs and OpenBSD on my i386's and sparc64's. Mac OS X is not removing my freedom to not use it.
No, the CPU/DSP used in a iRiver is pretty generic (not too generic, but generic enough to be able to support many formats)
Okay, that's interesting. Thanks. Most of my CD collection I converted to LAME 256 CBR years ago. I was considering re-doing it all in Ogg, but I probably won't bother. The LAME mp3's sound fantastic anyway.
Sometimes I think Slashdot really needs an "Astroturfing" moderation flag. This thread of discussion makes me feel like I am in the Truman Show.
Yes. I've owned an iRiver H340 for about 8 or 9 months now and to say it plays videos is like saying I'm an olympic marathon champion because I prefer to walk to the local shops.
The video playback of the H300's is TERRIBLE. I didn't buy it for that and it did not have that feature at the time of my purchase, but I would not be going around touting it as a feature. It is crap. A complete waste of time. The H300's are however excellent mp3/ogg/wma players.
I wish they would forget about silly features like that and add a decent equalizer. The options for compensating for headphones with too much trebble or too much bass are practically useless and should be fixed.
If I'm the first, that only leaves the question of who's #2?
My name, is number two.
No seriously, I must be #2 then. My iRiver H340 plays oggs just fine. Only problem being that the batteries supposedly don't last as long as when playing mp3's. I guess this may be due to the H340 having mp3 decoding done in a dedicated chip whereas ogg being decoded in a more generic CPU?
Well, considering that Big Steve stated that they will be shipping towers with IBM PPCs in them for at least the next two years, a lot can happen in that timeframe.
Yes, I hope IBM pulls a great big magical rabbit out of their hat. For me, the fact that Apple are committed to dropping the PPC at this stage, is depressing.
I realise that they probably want to remove their vulnerability of having to rely on the competitive placement of a 3rd party, but damn I like the PPC. I was going to take the plunge into PPC assembler, but now my motivation has gone.
I'd feel better if Apple were going to make both PPC and Intel machines for the long term, but I don't see why they would be willing to support two architectures and expect Apple devs to do the same. Bugger it to hell.
However, I still find it hard to believe that a HTTP, FTP, or whatever server would be fast enough to go through an encoded and compressed (albeit not encrypted*) 2.6 GiB file and add fingerprints to it.
They could be pre-computed differences, which would be very fast come prime time.
*) Another point, in fact. Why don't they just add encryption to it, based on the login/password of the ADC user?
That would be good. With a seperate decryptor which also adds fingerprints based on that unique key and decryption time.
Of course, this is all just chit chat at/. and as you've said, time will tell.
I entirely see your point of view, I just hope that you're wrong, because fingerprinting for me reeks too much of copy protection, DRM, software activation and other stupid means of alleged piracy prevention.
We'll see what the future brings.:-)
Yes, regardless of who's right or wrong, I hope Apple makes it out of this stronger than ever and the users benefit. And if someone really did leak it, I hope to God they don't get caught. Isn't there now a jail term for such things? Very very scarey and very very backward.
You seem very confident BTW. Do you have inside knowledge? Could we argue some more until I squeeze it out of you? ; )
I was feeling so good about Apple. Just bought a new Mac mini, then Tiger, have a wad of cash on stand-by waiting for a Powerbook with fast access to fast memory, convinced my girlfriend that she will have a much more pleasant time with an Apple notebook for what she does and that we'll each get Powerbooks... now everything seems all so ominous.
Er, yes, it would. But we weren't talking about that, were we?
I was speaking hypothetically about OS X running on generic x86's through whatever means. There are plenty of smart folks out there.
This is pre-release software. You can spread it around all you like, it won't make thosuands of people suddenyl install it. The amount of people interested in the latest and greatest unofficial, illegal and unfinished software is small.
Small compared with the official OS X install base? Yeah sure. But if OS X for generic x86 becomes available I am confident that it would be installed on thousands of machines and a LOT of people will be talking about the experience. Just the talk alone could be very damaging. The Apple Newton (I owned an MP130) was given to press way too early and nobody ever got over the initial reaction it received from journalists. My MP130 was fantastic, very accurate and sufficiently fast. The 2000 was even faster. But it was killed by Apple releasing it too soon. It was pulled from production because people were not buying this fantastic device which they'd been told time and time again was crap. Talk alone can be make or break.
I would be pretty pissed as well if someone were to not only steal my design, but also insult its qualities.
Yes, but don't forget those inferior "copies" were being used by a similarly small minority, yet Apple cared.
It just seems to me that Apple potentially have a massive amount to lose here and this could be a vulnerable next year or two for them. I would expect them to have it locked down to specific hardware they control, but suddenly a top secret gem which people have desired and speculated about, has been shown to be true and is no longer locked up in an Apple controlled building.
With something important, I always go with the "what do we have to gain and what do we have to lose if we do X? And what do we have to gain and what do we have to lose if we don't do X?". A huge OS, developed for 5 years on a completely different architecture, complete with cross platform developer tools, which now appears to be THE future of Apple... versus individual watermarking of maybe 100,000 copies? Something which could be automated.
I know you are working from past experience with Apple, but this just seems too massive to take any chances. I would be doing everything I could to make sure that I keep control and keep it confined. I hope Apple do, because I their stuff.
I also understand that IBM is to make a significantly improved proposal to Apple about PPC supply and development within two weeks.
Where have you heard this? I actually very much like the PPC architecture and don't mind if they are not the fastest CPU's around. But it seems with the keynote and the sending of lots of P4's to developers, that the horse has bolted.
I was really longing for either a G5 Powerbook or a dual-core G4 Powerbook with full speed DDR memory interface. Maybe the dual-core G4 will materialize, but since PPC is going to be dropped I would rather hold off any purchases. In the interim I might just buy a cheap PC notebook to get me by. The thought of IBM coming to the party would be nice, but what chance do they have now? What could they show, other than words at this stage?
as far as the huge masses of people out there go, it won't run on their non-Apple hardware. There is therefore no notable added threat.
An already patched install DVD, doing the rounds on bittorrent I imagine would piss them off.
I believe the major threat would be people talking about how buggy or slow aspects of it are ( made worse by use with machines that are not even optimal for the software). Apple want to limit the circulation of this to a select group of developers for a reason and I don't see why such a huge stepping stone in their history won't be watermarked. Especially given how huge this is for them and how small the distribution of the software will be.
I assume worst-case because worst-case would typically be considered by a large company like Apple. Hell they've had Mac OS X86 going for five years afterall.
Remember Apple doing the smack down on OSS GUI themes which looked like Apple GUI's? Aqua and the technical drawing theme? What do you think would be more popular, OS X on old World Mac's? Or OS X on current x86's? This is not some badly done look of Apple or OS X on some slow old irrelevent computers, this could be OS X on machines which may run faster than Apple's current G5 flagships.
*IF* (I'm not assuming, but they should cater for worst-case) OS X can be installed on generic x86 through whatever means (eg pre hacked ISO installer), I would see that as a huge issue.
While the server versions have a serial number, the client versions have *no* protection against piracy whatsoever. They never did, and there's no reason to believe they will now.
No reason, except for the fact that this is the biggest news in Apple history for as long as I can remember (I started with Apple II's) and that this change interests a LOT of people as far as piracy goes. People with an extreme interest, x86 hardware, no patience to wait a year and little desire to purchase Mac hardware when they already have a decent PC.
Not for now, anyway. The second OS X becomes a serious threat to windows, it's something Microsoft certainly will consider.
Actually, I think it would go something like this...
Apple: Microsoft, we are going to build Intel based machines and move our resources to OS X for Intel (which has been running for the past 5 years), all our apps will get ported and we will get dev kits out NOW to all our biggest Apple developers. However our OS X will be limited to use with the Intel hardware WE build. You will support this effort of course with Office for the Intel Mac won't you? It would be unfortunate if we had to release OS X for the generic x86 market wouldn't it?
In other words, "DON'T FUCK WITH US!" Apple is holding a big fucking gun to Microsofts head and I like it.
With OS X on one side of MS and Linux on the other, they are going to have one hell of a war on their hands if Apple decides to get evil with them.
I like it well also however they just added kernel ppp.
Kernel ppp has been in OpenBSD for a while. What was recently added was kernel PPPoE.
I prefer FreeBSD and PF over OpenBSD because of ports and desktop refinement (my server boxes usually have everything installed on them).
Ahh, right. When I think PF, I think dedicated firewall and forget that you could be wanting PF to filter the single machine it's being run on.
I quite like OpenBSD ports and use OpenBSD as a desktop. But I would not argue against desktop refinement of FreeBSD over OpenBSD, simply because I usually just use FreeBSD at the CLI so wouldn't know how they compare.
FreeBSD is looking exciting with all this talk of dual-cores, etc. The 5.x series seems to be maturing at just the right time.
I like the FBSD better as a DSL router because of PF and kernel ppp support.
I'm curious why people would use FreeBSD as a router with PF? Why not OpenBSD? OpenBSD now also has pppoe in kernel, BTW.
On a related note, I found recently that my Netgear DG632 ADSL MODEM/router would perform flawless half-bridge mode when in MODEM mode. This allows me to use PPPoA with an MTU of 1500 and still have my OpenBSD firewall see my external IP and all traffic directed to it. Allowing me to avoid PPPoE and avoid MTU issues behind the firewall.
PS, I also use FreeBSD on my internal workstation, so I'm not trying to start any war here. I just see OpenBSD as a great fit as a DSL firewall/router. I'm sure FreeBSD would be a great fit too, but if you're using it for PF, then why not go with the platform it was built on?
You thought correctly. The Pentium II was just a Pentium Pro with the L2 cache removed from the core, and placed on seperate chips on the same processor module to save costs.
Just to be annoying, couldn't we also say that the L2 in the Pentium Pro was also removed from the core because it actually consisted of 2 seperate wafers sitting side by side with interlinks?
Some of the neat tricks like wrapping binary i386 drivers so they can be used under Linux can also be applied to Mac Os X.
Thats a neat trick if nobody will cooperate with you, but if OS X had to resort to that for some drivers, then I would consider that a disgusting cludge.
Now that Apple has announced that it is moved to Intel, who is going to buy a G5 now? I am sure as hell not.
I am really shocked. I have been waiting for the next Powerbook, in the hope that it would be that dual core G4 with the real full-speed DDR RAM interface, before I buy.
Now I might just spring for a high end Thinkpad.
Why not AMD64 Apple? Why!? If I could have an AMD64 Powerbook, I'd be there, but if not, I'll be looking at the highest performing notebook I can get my hands on regardless of whether it is Apple or not. Does Apple know something about Intel that we don't? Are Intel about to bring the hammer (sorry) down on AMD with some new killer CPU?
Fuck it, maybe I should just get myself a nice dual Opteron with a truck load of fast RAM with FreeBSD and shh to it from any shitty old notebook with iBurst wireless net access (for the kind of stuff I do). I was really hoping the next Powerbook would have decent RAM speed to allow me to do what I do, but this is just depressing news. I want an Apple notebook with fast RAM god damn it and I liked PowerPC.
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise for me. The software in my line of work is x86 dominated and I was really considering both a Thinkpad and Powerbook. Maybe I can have just one system. I'm off to do some soul searching.
and dialup speeds top out at 17,700baud on a good day.
Don't forget folks, baud and bps are not always interchangeable. In the old days when a single electrical change accounted for the communication of a single bit, you could use baud and bps interchangably. But in these modern times where a single electrical change can represent a communication of more than one bit, they are seperate.
I remember an older (and presumably smaller) Zalman heatsink that was so heavy that it had a tendency to pull CPU mounts off motherboards if it was mounted sideways (e.g in a tower case like most of us have).
About ten years ago, I remember a DEC Alpha server at work grinding to a halt because one of it's CPU's had popped out of its socket and fallen to the bottom of the case. From memory the DEC technician said this was due to that CPU building up excessive heat. Somehow that supposedly made it push out of its socket.
I prefer the thought that that particular Alpha CPU was protesting against its role in making Windows NT 3.51 go really really fast.
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Unfortunately, this means their OS is closed source, and completely useless to anyone interested in retaining the right to freely use their computer.
Huh? A person who DECIDES to use this operating system and who can BACK OUT by using some other operating system, is somehow deprived of the free use of their computer?
The decision to use this OS falls under a users freedom to use what they want on their computer. Ever thought that not everyone wants what you want and for some people the use of this OS might actually fit within the freedoms which they wish to exercise?
You sound like a broken record.
I'm a BSD user BTW. I also like and use OS X. I have the freedom to remove OS X from my Macs and install OpenBSD if I want. My free choice at the moment has me using OS X on my Macs and OpenBSD on my i386's and sparc64's. Mac OS X is not removing my freedom to not use it.
No, the CPU/DSP used in a iRiver is pretty generic (not too generic, but generic enough to be able to support many formats)
Okay, that's interesting. Thanks. Most of my CD collection I converted to LAME 256 CBR years ago. I was considering re-doing it all in Ogg, but I probably won't bother. The LAME mp3's sound fantastic anyway.
Sometimes I think Slashdot really needs an "Astroturfing" moderation flag. This thread of discussion makes me feel like I am in the Truman Show.
Yes. I've owned an iRiver H340 for about 8 or 9 months now and to say it plays videos is like saying I'm an olympic marathon champion because I prefer to walk to the local shops.
The video playback of the H300's is TERRIBLE. I didn't buy it for that and it did not have that feature at the time of my purchase, but I would not be going around touting it as a feature. It is crap. A complete waste of time. The H300's are however excellent mp3/ogg/wma players.
I wish they would forget about silly features like that and add a decent equalizer. The options for compensating for headphones with too much trebble or too much bass are practically useless and should be fixed.
If I'm the first, that only leaves the question of who's #2?
My name, is number two.
No seriously, I must be #2 then. My iRiver H340 plays oggs just fine. Only problem being that the batteries supposedly don't last as long as when playing mp3's. I guess this may be due to the H340 having mp3 decoding done in a dedicated chip whereas ogg being decoded in a more generic CPU?
Well, considering that Big Steve stated that they will be shipping towers with IBM PPCs in them for at least the next two years, a lot can happen in that timeframe.
Yes, I hope IBM pulls a great big magical rabbit out of their hat. For me, the fact that Apple are committed to dropping the PPC at this stage, is depressing.
I realise that they probably want to remove their vulnerability of having to rely on the competitive placement of a 3rd party, but damn I like the PPC. I was going to take the plunge into PPC assembler, but now my motivation has gone.
I'd feel better if Apple were going to make both PPC and Intel machines for the long term, but I don't see why they would be willing to support two architectures and expect Apple devs to do the same. Bugger it to hell.
However, I still find it hard to believe that a HTTP, FTP, or whatever server would be fast enough to go through an encoded and compressed (albeit not encrypted*) 2.6 GiB file and add fingerprints to it.
/. and as you've said, time will tell.
They could be pre-computed differences, which would be very fast come prime time.
*) Another point, in fact. Why don't they just add encryption to it, based on the login/password of the ADC user?
That would be good. With a seperate decryptor which also adds fingerprints based on that unique key and decryption time.
Of course, this is all just chit chat at
Milk me, honey
Ouch. She breaks my heart.
The physical pain dulls the emotional pain? Very sad to see young people hurt themselves.
I entirely see your point of view, I just hope that you're wrong, because fingerprinting for me reeks too much of copy protection, DRM, software activation and other stupid means of alleged piracy prevention.
:-)
We'll see what the future brings.
Yes, regardless of who's right or wrong, I hope Apple makes it out of this stronger than ever and the users benefit. And if someone really did leak it, I hope to God they don't get caught. Isn't there now a jail term for such things? Very very scarey and very very backward.
You seem very confident BTW. Do you have inside knowledge? Could we argue some more until I squeeze it out of you? ; )
I was feeling so good about Apple. Just bought a new Mac mini, then Tiger, have a wad of cash on stand-by waiting for a Powerbook with fast access to fast memory, convinced my girlfriend that she will have a much more pleasant time with an Apple notebook for what she does and that we'll each get Powerbooks... now everything seems all so ominous.
Er, yes, it would. But we weren't talking about that, were we?
... versus individual watermarking of maybe 100,000 copies? Something which could be automated.
I was speaking hypothetically about OS X running on generic x86's through whatever means. There are plenty of smart folks out there.
This is pre-release software. You can spread it around all you like, it won't make thosuands of people suddenyl install it. The amount of people interested in the latest and greatest unofficial, illegal and unfinished software is small.
Small compared with the official OS X install base? Yeah sure. But if OS X for generic x86 becomes available I am confident that it would be installed on thousands of machines and a LOT of people will be talking about the experience. Just the talk alone could be very damaging. The Apple Newton (I owned an MP130) was given to press way too early and nobody ever got over the initial reaction it received from journalists. My MP130 was fantastic, very accurate and sufficiently fast. The 2000 was even faster. But it was killed by Apple releasing it too soon. It was pulled from production because people were not buying this fantastic device which they'd been told time and time again was crap. Talk alone can be make or break.
I would be pretty pissed as well if someone were to not only steal my design, but also insult its qualities.
Yes, but don't forget those inferior "copies" were being used by a similarly small minority, yet Apple cared.
It just seems to me that Apple potentially have a massive amount to lose here and this could be a vulnerable next year or two for them. I would expect them to have it locked down to specific hardware they control, but suddenly a top secret gem which people have desired and speculated about, has been shown to be true and is no longer locked up in an Apple controlled building.
With something important, I always go with the "what do we have to gain and what do we have to lose if we do X? And what do we have to gain and what do we have to lose if we don't do X?". A huge OS, developed for 5 years on a completely different architecture, complete with cross platform developer tools, which now appears to be THE future of Apple
I know you are working from past experience with Apple, but this just seems too massive to take any chances. I would be doing everything I could to make sure that I keep control and keep it confined. I hope Apple do, because I their stuff.
I also understand that IBM is to make a significantly improved proposal to Apple about PPC supply and development within two weeks.
Where have you heard this? I actually very much like the PPC architecture and don't mind if they are not the fastest CPU's around. But it seems with the keynote and the sending of lots of P4's to developers, that the horse has bolted.
I was really longing for either a G5 Powerbook or a dual-core G4 Powerbook with full speed DDR memory interface. Maybe the dual-core G4 will materialize, but since PPC is going to be dropped I would rather hold off any purchases. In the interim I might just buy a cheap PC notebook to get me by. The thought of IBM coming to the party would be nice, but what chance do they have now? What could they show, other than words at this stage?
as far as the huge masses of people out there go, it won't run on their non-Apple hardware. There is therefore no notable added threat.
An already patched install DVD, doing the rounds on bittorrent I imagine would piss them off.
I believe the major threat would be people talking about how buggy or slow aspects of it are ( made worse by use with machines that are not even optimal for the software). Apple want to limit the circulation of this to a select group of developers for a reason and I don't see why such a huge stepping stone in their history won't be watermarked. Especially given how huge this is for them and how small the distribution of the software will be.
I assume worst-case because worst-case would typically be considered by a large company like Apple. Hell they've had Mac OS X86 going for five years afterall.
Remember Apple doing the smack down on OSS GUI themes which looked like Apple GUI's? Aqua and the technical drawing theme? What do you think would be more popular, OS X on old World Mac's? Or OS X on current x86's? This is not some badly done look of Apple or OS X on some slow old irrelevent computers, this could be OS X on machines which may run faster than Apple's current G5 flagships.
*IF* (I'm not assuming, but they should cater for worst-case) OS X can be installed on generic x86 through whatever means (eg pre hacked ISO installer), I would see that as a huge issue.
While the server versions have a serial number, the client versions have *no* protection against piracy whatsoever. They never did, and there's no reason to believe they will now.
No reason, except for the fact that this is the biggest news in Apple history for as long as I can remember (I started with Apple II's) and that this change interests a LOT of people as far as piracy goes. People with an extreme interest, x86 hardware, no patience to wait a year and little desire to purchase Mac hardware when they already have a decent PC.
No reason?!
Not for now, anyway. The second OS X becomes a serious threat to windows, it's something Microsoft certainly will consider.
Actually, I think it would go something like this...
Apple: Microsoft, we are going to build Intel based machines and move our resources to OS X for Intel (which has been running for the past 5 years), all our apps will get ported and we will get dev kits out NOW to all our biggest Apple developers. However our OS X will be limited to use with the Intel hardware WE build. You will support this effort of course with Office for the Intel Mac won't you? It would be unfortunate if we had to release OS X for the generic x86 market wouldn't it?
In other words, "DON'T FUCK WITH US!" Apple is holding a big fucking gun to Microsofts head and I like it.
With OS X on one side of MS and Linux on the other, they are going to have one hell of a war on their hands if Apple decides to get evil with them.
I like it well also however they just added kernel ppp.
Kernel ppp has been in OpenBSD for a while. What was recently added was kernel PPPoE.
I prefer FreeBSD and PF over OpenBSD because of ports and desktop refinement (my server boxes usually have everything installed on them).
Ahh, right. When I think PF, I think dedicated firewall and forget that you could be wanting PF to filter the single machine it's being run on.
I quite like OpenBSD ports and use OpenBSD as a desktop. But I would not argue against desktop refinement of FreeBSD over OpenBSD, simply because I usually just use FreeBSD at the CLI so wouldn't know how they compare.
FreeBSD is looking exciting with all this talk of dual-cores, etc. The 5.x series seems to be maturing at just the right time.
I like the FBSD better as a DSL router because of PF and kernel ppp support.
I'm curious why people would use FreeBSD as a router with PF? Why not OpenBSD? OpenBSD now also has pppoe in kernel, BTW.
On a related note, I found recently that my Netgear DG632 ADSL MODEM/router would perform flawless half-bridge mode when in MODEM mode. This allows me to use PPPoA with an MTU of 1500 and still have my OpenBSD firewall see my external IP and all traffic directed to it. Allowing me to avoid PPPoE and avoid MTU issues behind the firewall.
PS, I also use FreeBSD on my internal workstation, so I'm not trying to start any war here. I just see OpenBSD as a great fit as a DSL firewall/router. I'm sure FreeBSD would be a great fit too, but if you're using it for PF, then why not go with the platform it was built on?
You thought correctly. The Pentium II was just a Pentium Pro with the L2 cache removed from the core, and placed on seperate chips on the same processor module to save costs.
Just to be annoying, couldn't we also say that the L2 in the Pentium Pro was also removed from the core because it actually consisted of 2 seperate wafers sitting side by side with interlinks?
Sorry. ; )
I know what you mean though. Seperate packages.
How does Apple switching to x86 make PearPC emulate a PowerPC on x86 any faster?
It doesn't. PearPC is obviously completely beside the point in this.
Some of the neat tricks like wrapping binary i386 drivers so they can be used under Linux can also be applied to Mac Os X.
Thats a neat trick if nobody will cooperate with you, but if OS X had to resort to that for some drivers, then I would consider that a disgusting cludge.
PearPC was never meant to be an "OS X emulator" but a PowerPC emulator.
Read his message again. He didn't say it was an "OS X emulator" and I did not feel he even implied that.
His saying, "PearPC will run a lot faster now since it does not have to translate binary code", I took as being PowerPC binary code.
done WAAAY back with the Pentium II and may have partially been implemented on the original Pentium
I thought that started with the Pentium Pro?
I see all of this as good news and welcome our new Intel overlords.
I would rather be welcoming our new AMD overlords.
Now that Apple has announced that it is moved to Intel, who is going to buy a G5 now? I am sure as hell not.
I am really shocked. I have been waiting for the next Powerbook, in the hope that it would be that dual core G4 with the real full-speed DDR RAM interface, before I buy.
Now I might just spring for a high end Thinkpad.
Why not AMD64 Apple? Why!? If I could have an AMD64 Powerbook, I'd be there, but if not, I'll be looking at the highest performing notebook I can get my hands on regardless of whether it is Apple or not. Does Apple know something about Intel that we don't? Are Intel about to bring the hammer (sorry) down on AMD with some new killer CPU?
Fuck it, maybe I should just get myself a nice dual Opteron with a truck load of fast RAM with FreeBSD and shh to it from any shitty old notebook with iBurst wireless net access (for the kind of stuff I do). I was really hoping the next Powerbook would have decent RAM speed to allow me to do what I do, but this is just depressing news. I want an Apple notebook with fast RAM god damn it and I liked PowerPC.
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise for me. The software in my line of work is x86 dominated and I was really considering both a Thinkpad and Powerbook. Maybe I can have just one system. I'm off to do some soul searching.
The server performance of the Apple platform is, however, catastrophic.
Keeping in mind that "platform" here is regarding the combination of Apple's G5 with Apple's OS X.
I doubt a G5 running Linux would have catastrophic performance for server tasks. Although I would prefer an Opteron.
and dialup speeds top out at 17,700baud on a good day.
Don't forget folks, baud and bps are not always interchangeable. In the old days when a single electrical change accounted for the communication of a single bit, you could use baud and bps interchangably. But in these modern times where a single electrical change can represent a communication of more than one bit, they are seperate.
56k MODEM's are still 2400 baud for example.
I remember an older (and presumably smaller) Zalman heatsink that was so heavy that it had a tendency to pull CPU mounts off motherboards if it was mounted sideways (e.g in a tower case like most of us have).
About ten years ago, I remember a DEC Alpha server at work grinding to a halt because one of it's CPU's had popped out of its socket and fallen to the bottom of the case. From memory the DEC technician said this was due to that CPU building up excessive heat. Somehow that supposedly made it push out of its socket.
I prefer the thought that that particular Alpha CPU was protesting against its role in making Windows NT 3.51 go really really fast.