Well, officially it wasn't making that much of a profit..
Officially, it was killed because it didn't fit Apple's business goals at the time; They wanted to streamling their product line to get back to profitability.
However, we all know the real reason it was killed: It was "Steved" because it was one of Gil Amelio's projects, like CyberDog an Opendoc. Steve has a ego on him, we all know that, and his ego dictates that everything good has to come from him -- the Newton didn't, so it was axed.
* These chips are basically fucked by design, and getting this driver * to work on every motherboard design that uses this screwed chip seems * bloody well impossible. However, we're still trying.
Remember: Walmart, Dell, IBM, Gateway, et al, make up for low prices in volume. These guys are going to be a smaller outfit so prices can't be slashed as much;
But back to your original point, I think the people who by this won't buy it for performance but for that it's a "Linux Supported" machine.. maybe the small size will be a factor too, but I think the fact that it's from a Linux Company will be the major draw.
Floating point? Yes, much slower (owing to half-speed FPU and Cyrix's regretable design).
But what else? I have a machine next to me that has a Via C3-866; In WinStones and Sysmarks it easily paces my Celery 850; Though in Q3A, the Via is laughable in comparison.
No, the Via C3 is not a gamers machine, but in basic use it's adequate for Joe user (and it uses less than a quarter of the power of your PII-400!)
Too many people now-a-days will start a blog/journal/diary/whatever and expect it to instantly become popular. They may write about everything and nothing, about politics and sex and drugs, but they never get really well-read.
Why? Because unless people know who you are, they generally don't care.
Let's pick on Livejournal for a second. It is flirting with 1 million user accounts right now (inluding mine), but how many do I read? Maybe I read about 4; There are thousands of.com blogs too; how many do I read? 1. Slashdot and K5 have journals too, but I only read 1 of those,too.
It should be no suprise that the journals/blogs/etc I read are those of people I feel I have an aquaiantance with, albeit at a distance. I read 'Taco's journal because I know what he did. I read Brad's livejournal because I know what he did; Same with Rusty, jwz and a few others.
But anyone else I don't care about. Why? Because they haven't *done* anything I care about. You may like to write, but don't expect people to read just because you do it. See title.
And I'm not alone; I started a popular internet thing that people use a lot. Suddenly I find names I don't know commenting in my LJ and showing up in my "friends" list, even on my Zoo page here. It's not because they like what I write just for the sake of it, but because they have a point of reference to relate to me on.
That's what it comes down too -- if we can't relate to you, we don't care.
In the olden days of PDAs, we didn't have Flash RAM. Instead, we used so-called SRAM, which was just charge coupled RAM that has to be constantmy charged, like the RAM in your computer. This was great because you could write to the card assumably infinite number of times -- the downside was that it was super-expensive.
I realize that SRAM woudln't be viable with cards of modern styles because of the requirement of a battery to power all the memory, but what about a combination system? Partial blocks are SRAM with a tiny (read embedded Zinc Air or supercapacitor) battery supply, where the data storageblocks are Flash.
I'm not an EE, so I may be not understanding the way allocation tables are stored on a card, but is something like this viable?
While not and answer to your question, I feel this incident exposes a major problem with the way many MTAs are architected.
I cannot send mail to AOL users. Why? Because I'm in their spam filter. Why? Because of Kleez. AS you may know, it extracts address from your IE cache and sends mail using one of those addresses it find. Well, mine was used a bunch of times to send the virus to AOLers.
AOLs mail server didn't bother to read the headers -- instead, it does wqhat no server should do, trust the "From:" header. Had their MTA parsed the "Received By" logs, it would find that it wasn't sent by me. Instead, whoever wrote it took the easy way out and decided to always believe the From: header and as such I'm now unable to send mail to AOL.
Not to be cynical, but serving (nearly) static pages shouldn't be a huge load by any standard. Even with dynamic (fully dynamic) pages, 250,000 isn't a huge number.
As an example, I run a pretty popular site that pumps out about 250,000 as well, all CGI-created and database fed pages. This is being served by two 1ghz web heads and a 1ghz db server. Granted that those three machine run at 100% load during peak hours, it's still not a huge deal (this is because I haven't finished the local caching mechanism yet). Did I mention that the two webservers also toss 1 million images a day too?
Of course, I don't wan to belittle the article that much -- If anything, it shows the preformance gains one gets when you use efficient hardware (I have no doubt that their 550 mhz Ultrasparc II has nearly the same horsepower as a 1 ghz x86) and efficient caching (caching data in RAM and serving from there, avoiding disk access penalties, is a huge performance increase).
Can I get it in chrome with a resonator tip? If I had a, say 9 inch tip, how much extra horsepower would I get?
I already have 12 stickers on my case, and I know each one is good for 2-3 HP increase and I've cut down the rubber feet by half to make it sit lower (better cornering!) which probably adds another 20 horsepower.
My case spoiler is on backorder. I'm disapointed, but I just got told my platic case bodykit just shipped today.
Are you refering to OS X not running on pre-G3 machines? Consider:
So OS X comes out in middle 2000 and can't run on anything but G3 machines. But Apple hasn't sold a machine (excepting the PB 2400) that wasn't G3 based since November 1997. Then Mac OS 10 comes by in March 2001 and dooms all Macs more than 3 years old to obsolecene.
Seems unfair, huh?
Let's compare that to Windows, even Windows ME relased in middle 2000. It won't run on anything older than a 150mHz Pentium, the speed of machine speed that de rigeur 3 years prior.
What's good for the goose, my friend...
(unless you're refering to the CHRP and PReP issues, which are a whole other kettle of fish... or the GeoPort... or HDI video connector...ad infinatum)
Not directly, but possibly with some changes or additions.
First off, cars have a lot more resistence pulling on them. Not just air resistance like the plane, but also rolling resistance, cornering resistance (vector changes loose engery quicker than consitant travel, IIRC), not to mention that a car will probably be carrying a lot more weight (e.g. frame, 4 people, bag of Cheetos, etc)
The biggest killer, though, is changes in velocity; this is one of the things that killed Gasoline turbine powered cars (I mean, purely turbine powered, mind you). This can be overcome however by using a "turbocharging" capacitor of sort that provides a monetary burst when accelerating that later slowly gets charged back up during driving (think Toyota Prius).
And, of course, obligatory trolling: In SOVIET RUSSIA... Solar powered Aircraft break YOU.
Linus himself had something to say on the very subject in a recording of an interview I have, I think from Cebit 2001:
"They had to learn Windows to do their job, but they don't want to learn anything new... they know that Windows crashes, but they don't care because they just think that the machine is evil.
"They install Linux and they sit at the computer and they think 'well, what do I do now?' And if you're that kind of person, you'll be disappointed. It's not about enjoying the operating system, it's about what you do with it."
(I've put the whole interview up if you wanna hear the rest.)
Nor have they, the "big boys", come up with any new scheme that actually *works*.
I have a good example: I run a pretty popular site that is supported by popup ads (boo! hiss!). But I get to see that stats of those ads. Of the ten thousand or so a day that are shown, an average of 5 are clicked a day. Not five thousand. just five.
5. Out of 10,000. And I'm willing to wager that those clicks were accidental. You'd think that the avertisers would realise that this is not very equitorial.
Contrast that to the text ads that I have (a popup ad is show to you once every 24 hours, but text ads are shown every time), where people buy them by the click (in lots of 50 clicks or so). These ads bought by the click as opposed to the popups which are bough by the impression, but thetext ads get an average of 20 clicks a day per text ad.
In the end it works out that the text ads, which cost ten bucks, are doing many times the business that the popups, which concievably cost the advertisers many thousands of dollars, are doing.
But wait, popup ads were popularized by Google a while ago and when they came out all the big advertising companies said there was no way that they would work. But they do, so whom do you trust?
Of course, far be it from me to complain if clueless companies want to throw money at me to buy popups that don't work. I won't tell.
I have 4 machines with Rackshack, and I've been mostly happy with them.. except for one of the machines being buggy and having the refuse to believe me until they checked and found the IDE cable not seated properly.
They give you tonnes of bandwidth (400GB per machine), too. Roughly 150kbps (a T1 basically).
They do load balancing? No way, I was told they didn't, because I could really use it!
Slashdot Mirror
Is not.
You know what I mean; it wasn't Steve's baby, therefore it had to go.
Ack! Ack! Ack! The Extended IDE controller I use in this very machine is based on that very chip! "CompUSA Brand" indeed!
Well, officially it wasn't making that much of a profit..
Officially, it was killed because it didn't fit Apple's business goals at the time; They wanted to streamling their product line to get back to profitability.
However, we all know the real reason it was killed: It was "Steved" because it was one of Gil Amelio's projects, like CyberDog an Opendoc. Steve has a ego on him, we all know that, and his ego dictates that everything good has to come from him -- the Newton didn't, so it was axed.
Quoeth the driver:
* These chips are basically fucked by design, and getting this driver
* to work on every motherboard design that uses this screwed chip seems
* bloody well impossible. However, we're still trying.
Remember: Walmart, Dell, IBM, Gateway, et al, make up for low prices in volume. These guys are going to be a smaller outfit so prices can't be slashed as much;
But back to your original point, I think the people who by this won't buy it for performance but for that it's a "Linux Supported" machine.. maybe the small size will be a factor too, but I think the fact that it's from a Linux Company will be the major draw.
Slower at what?
Floating point? Yes, much slower (owing to half-speed FPU and Cyrix's regretable design).
But what else? I have a machine next to me that has a Via C3-866; In WinStones and Sysmarks it easily paces my Celery 850; Though in Q3A, the Via is laughable in comparison.
No, the Via C3 is not a gamers machine, but in basic use it's adequate for Joe user (and it uses less than a quarter of the power of your PII-400!)
Huh? I was talking about MATH.
Please. Pay attention or go away.
Fifteen dollars a CD.. what a magical fanatsy world you live in.
See title;
.com blogs too; how many do I read? 1. Slashdot and K5 have journals too, but I only read 1 of those,too.
Too many people now-a-days will start a blog/journal/diary/whatever and expect it to instantly become popular. They may write about everything and nothing, about politics and sex and drugs, but they never get really well-read.
Why? Because unless people know who you are, they generally don't care.
Let's pick on Livejournal for a second. It is flirting with 1 million user accounts right now (inluding mine), but how many do I read? Maybe I read about 4; There are thousands of
It should be no suprise that the journals/blogs/etc I read are those of people I feel I have an aquaiantance with, albeit at a distance. I read 'Taco's journal because I know what he did. I read Brad's livejournal because I know what he did; Same with Rusty, jwz and a few others.
But anyone else I don't care about. Why? Because they haven't *done* anything I care about. You may like to write, but don't expect people to read just because you do it. See title.
And I'm not alone; I started a popular internet thing that people use a lot. Suddenly I find names I don't know commenting in my LJ and showing up in my "friends" list, even on my Zoo page here. It's not because they like what I write just for the sake of it, but because they have a point of reference to relate to me on.
That's what it comes down too -- if we can't relate to you, we don't care.
Well, by "olden days", I was meaning expansion cards, not internal storage :)
:)
I'm gazing whistfully at my Newton 1MB SRAM PCMCIA card across my desk
In the olden days of PDAs, we didn't have Flash RAM. Instead, we used so-called SRAM, which was just charge coupled RAM that has to be constantmy charged, like the RAM in your computer. This was great because you could write to the card assumably infinite number of times -- the downside was that it was super-expensive.
I realize that SRAM woudln't be viable with cards of modern styles because of the requirement of a battery to power all the memory, but what about a combination system? Partial blocks are SRAM with a tiny (read embedded Zinc Air or supercapacitor) battery supply, where the data storageblocks are Flash.
I'm not an EE, so I may be not understanding the way allocation tables are stored on a card, but is something like this viable?
...If they took the Cyrix tact they would have called in the XP 8200+.
Hey, I have one of those, stop making fun of me!
While not and answer to your question, I feel this incident exposes a major problem with the way many MTAs are architected.
I cannot send mail to AOL users. Why? Because I'm in their spam filter. Why? Because of Kleez. AS you may know, it extracts address from your IE cache and sends mail using one of those addresses it find. Well, mine was used a bunch of times to send the virus to AOLers.
AOLs mail server didn't bother to read the headers -- instead, it does wqhat no server should do, trust the "From:" header. Had their MTA parsed the "Received By" logs, it would find that it wasn't sent by me. Instead, whoever wrote it took the easy way out and decided to always believe the From: header and as such I'm now unable to send mail to AOL.
Not like I mind.
...and faster servers, bigger pipes, raid arrays...
:)
It's amazing how slow something can become when you don't plan on it getting popular
Sorry, it's not pr0n. Strict policy against showing boobies.
Not to be cynical, but serving (nearly) static pages shouldn't be a huge load by any standard. Even with dynamic (fully dynamic) pages, 250,000 isn't a huge number.
As an example, I run a pretty popular site that pumps out about 250,000 as well, all CGI-created and database fed pages. This is being served by two 1ghz web heads and a 1ghz db server. Granted that those three machine run at 100% load during peak hours, it's still not a huge deal (this is because I haven't finished the local caching mechanism yet). Did I mention that the two webservers also toss 1 million images a day too?
Of course, I don't wan to belittle the article that much -- If anything, it shows the preformance gains one gets when you use efficient hardware (I have no doubt that their 550 mhz Ultrasparc II has nearly the same horsepower as a 1 ghz x86) and efficient caching (caching data in RAM and serving from there, avoiding disk access penalties, is a huge performance increase).
Obligatory Tolkien (consider yourself warned):
Can I get it in chrome with a resonator tip? If I had a, say 9 inch tip, how much extra horsepower would I get?
I already have 12 stickers on my case, and I know each one is good for 2-3 HP increase and I've cut down the rubber feet by half to make it sit lower (better cornering!) which probably adds another 20 horsepower.
My case spoiler is on backorder. I'm disapointed, but I just got told my platic case bodykit just shipped today.
Are you refering to OS X not running on pre-G3 machines? Consider:
So OS X comes out in middle 2000 and can't run on anything but G3 machines. But Apple hasn't sold a machine (excepting the PB 2400) that wasn't G3 based since November 1997. Then Mac OS 10 comes by in March 2001 and dooms all Macs more than 3 years old to obsolecene.
Seems unfair, huh?
Let's compare that to Windows, even Windows ME relased in middle 2000. It won't run on anything older than a 150mHz Pentium, the speed of machine speed that de rigeur 3 years prior.
What's good for the goose, my friend...
(unless you're refering to the CHRP and PReP issues, which are a whole other kettle of fish... or the GeoPort... or HDI video connector...ad infinatum)
Not directly, but possibly with some changes or additions.
First off, cars have a lot more resistence pulling on them. Not just air resistance like the plane, but also rolling resistance, cornering resistance (vector changes loose engery quicker than consitant travel, IIRC), not to mention that a car will probably be carrying a lot more weight (e.g. frame, 4 people, bag of Cheetos, etc)
The biggest killer, though, is changes in velocity; this is one of the things that killed Gasoline turbine powered cars (I mean, purely turbine powered, mind you). This can be overcome however by using a "turbocharging" capacitor of sort that provides a monetary burst when accelerating that later slowly gets charged back up during driving (think Toyota Prius).
And, of course, obligatory trolling: In SOVIET RUSSIA... Solar powered Aircraft break YOU.
Did you stop to consider that maybe I didn't do the encoding?
Linus himself had something to say on the very subject in a recording of an interview I have, I think from Cebit 2001:
(I've put the whole interview up if you wanna hear the rest.)
Nor have they, the "big boys", come up with any new scheme that actually *works*.
I have a good example: I run a pretty popular site that is supported by popup ads (boo! hiss!). But I get to see that stats of those ads. Of the ten thousand or so a day that are shown, an average of 5 are clicked a day. Not five thousand. just five.
5. Out of 10,000. And I'm willing to wager that those clicks were accidental. You'd think that the avertisers would realise that this is not very equitorial.
Contrast that to the text ads that I have (a popup ad is show to you once every 24 hours, but text ads are shown every time), where people buy them by the click (in lots of 50 clicks or so). These ads bought by the click as opposed to the popups which are bough by the impression, but thetext ads get an average of 20 clicks a day per text ad.
In the end it works out that the text ads, which cost ten bucks, are doing many times the business that the popups, which concievably cost the advertisers many thousands of dollars, are doing.
But wait, popup ads were popularized by Google a while ago and when they came out all the big advertising companies said there was no way that they would work. But they do, so whom do you trust?
Of course, far be it from me to complain if clueless companies want to throw money at me to buy popups that don't work. I won't tell.
I have 4 machines with Rackshack, and I've been mostly happy with them.. except for one of the machines being buggy and having the refuse to believe me until they checked and found the IDE cable not seated properly.
They give you tonnes of bandwidth (400GB per machine), too. Roughly 150kbps (a T1 basically).
They do load balancing? No way, I was told they didn't, because I could really use it!