I remember years ago that it was difficult to get spare parts from IBM for PC-XT machines. You could go to the Ham Radio Swapmeets and there would be people selling stripped XT cases for a good price, because they were associated with a company that needed spare parts, and it was cheaper for them to buy IBM XT boxes and strip them for the parts they needed. It seemed nuts at the time, but, then, if you were servicing IBM equipment at the time the money was good servicing the machines.
I wouldn't say the average for Apple II's would be 64K of memory. Since 64K is the max possible, let's put the average at, say, 48K. Maybe less. Some of us still remember what a row of 8 16Kx1 DRAM chips used to cost....
My first home computer was a TRS-80 model 1. I bought a TI SR-56 programmable calculator because that was all I could afford back in 1977. My first programming courses in High School were on Teletype ASR-33's with dial up 300 baud modems to an HP Mini timesharing system.
'Back in the day' I went to tours on 'Family day' (I'm an IBM brat) and got the infamous 'Snoopy' poster in ASCII art, and got to actually see and touch 'real' computers like Model 360's. But that was, oh, about 1970, when the only computer I owned was a plastic DIGI-Comp 1. Back then I wanted to own my own oscilloscope. Wanting a computer was later, when I read a construction article about one made using transistors for flipflops and a telephone dial as the input device (yes, just a discrete-parts binary 'adder' but we thought of them as 'computers' back then)
So you have 1200 identical machines. There's one NIC vendor, and 1200 NICs. There's one motherboard vendor, and 1200 MBs. You keep a stock of a half dozen of each component on hand.
This isn't a situation where you're going to hold a concert and have everybody bring in a random clone box for the cluster to get a discount on the admission price, ya know....
Ummm, when you have a question about Linux, you open up the kernal source tree.
Well, the same is true with Apple's OS, at least on the level these machines should be running at. Please don't tell me they're wasting process time running a GUI on all those headless boxes...
Also, they thought the PR value was worth more than fast shipping to individual pre-orderers.
If you ordered a G5 box and it didn't arrive yet, at least there's a place you can log onto to see a picture of the one you were originally going to get.
The 286 processor was designed with multiprocessing in mind. There were proprietary '286 boxes out there that DID multitasking and took advantage of the 286 extensions. Protected mode is NOT a 386 innovation, it's a '286 thing. The thing that the 286 lacks that the 386 has is 'virtual 86 mode' which translates 'more better old 8086 so you can run multiple instances of the same old 8086 code.'
Microsoft didn't do a lot with the 286, and the clone marketers just called it 'a better, faster 8088 with a wider address bus' and everybody continued to run DOS on their 286's. That's not Intel's fault.
Re:this is a (supposed) underdog competition
on
Is Prescott 64-bit?
·
· Score: 1
Nobody remembers the DX4-120, because everybody was getting into the Pentium about then. There is a whole class of second-source abominations that you fail to mention that put a bad, bad sheen on non-Intel parts in that era. All those Cyrix '486' parts that plugged into a 386 socket... and later, all the AMD '586' parts that plugged into a 486 socket. It all looked, and in some ways still looks, like a sad but stupid story of a dog addicted to tailpipe fumes.
And the 64 bit world can only get better with actual, real emphasis, i.e. the 'credentials' that for some reason x86 architectures push.
Why, my Sparc Ultra 1's, which are 64 bit, and which I bought at auction about a month ago for $12.50 each, have a growing body of apps 'fixed' to run on them, with NetBSD/Sparc64. Of course, 64 bits on Sun hardware is very, very 20th century.
Well, NetBSD on my Mac SE/30 is cool, and all. But X11 is kinda limited on a one bit 512x342 screen. And it's really slow. It's a great machine for GNU Chess, though. And Lynx rulez.
there are currently music CDs out there that use a form of DRM to prohibit copying. that violates my fair use right to make a backup copy.
Yeah, sure. And books 'violate your right' to make exact copies of the book, which is your 'fair use right', by binding them in tight glue-and-thread bindings. Damned those bookbinders! Repressing us all!
Translation of above: Get Real. Nobody guarantees you the 'right' to make copies of a work. Publishers can make it as hard as it amuses them to make it for you to make copies. They can't prosecute you for making 'fair use' copies, but whatever they want to throw in the way of you making said copies is their right to do.
you can't post as 'anonymous coward' and make copyright claims. In fact, without a clear line of connection, NONE of our comments in these discussion threads can be copyrighted.
It's one of the paradoxes of the Internet. Everybody wants to be anonymous, but everybody wants to make their mark, just the same.
There was an era when every boy's fantasy was to be a riverboat captain. There was an era when every boy's fantasy was to be a railroad engineer. There was a time when every boy wanted to be a telegraph operator. There was a time when every boy's fantasy was to be a sysadmin.
Well, it really wasn't a fantasy for 'every boy' but those were all 'nerd' aspirations from the past. There's still something of an aura to being a sysadmin, but it's fading. As the 'glamour' of a new communications technology (those were ALL new communications technologies in their heyday, mind you...) fades the fantasy fades.
It's probably time to stop pretending the guy whose job is to make sure the toner cartridges are changed on time and that that big room of cubes up on fourth floor all have reliable connectivity.... it's time for that guy to put away his superman cape.
Does your KIM-1 have the standard 256 bytes of RAM or did you upgrade it to 2K?
I don't have a KIM-1, I have a SYM-1. And (if I recall) the memory chips plugs in it in 2K blocks. I think mine has all 8K of sockets populated. I could be wrong on these details.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the translation: "If you can't afford a Jaguar, we don't want you in our club anyway."
But cheap souped up Chevy's own the road.
I remember years ago that it was difficult to get spare parts from IBM for PC-XT machines. You could go to the Ham Radio Swapmeets and there would be people selling stripped XT cases for a good price, because they were associated with a company that needed spare parts, and it was cheaper for them to buy IBM XT boxes and strip them for the parts they needed. It seemed nuts at the time, but, then, if you were servicing IBM equipment at the time the money was good servicing the machines.
All it took was Apple's deep, deep discount for the marketing hoopla this represents for them.
This is gonna be a bullet point in every Apple advertisement for quite some time. It's damned cheap publicity.
It 'screams' Apple Marketing, though. Hardly very geek.
(but then, nothing wrong with that, I guess)
I wouldn't say the average for Apple II's would be 64K of memory. Since 64K is the max possible, let's put the average at, say, 48K. Maybe less. Some of us still remember what a row of 8 16Kx1 DRAM chips used to cost....
Marx used in a 'present tense' context?
How quaint.
'back in the day' refers to Internet time.
My first home computer was a TRS-80 model 1. I bought a TI SR-56 programmable calculator because that was all I could afford back in 1977. My first programming courses in High School were on Teletype ASR-33's with dial up 300 baud modems to an HP Mini timesharing system.
'Back in the day' I went to tours on 'Family day' (I'm an IBM brat) and got the infamous 'Snoopy' poster in ASCII art, and got to actually see and touch 'real' computers like Model 360's. But that was, oh, about 1970, when the only computer I owned was a plastic DIGI-Comp 1. Back then I wanted to own my own oscilloscope. Wanting a computer was later, when I read a construction article about one made using transistors for flipflops and a telephone dial as the input device (yes, just a discrete-parts binary 'adder' but we thought of them as 'computers' back then)
So you have 1200 identical machines. There's one NIC vendor, and 1200 NICs. There's one motherboard vendor, and 1200 MBs. You keep a stock of a half dozen of each component on hand.
This isn't a situation where you're going to hold a concert and have everybody bring in a random clone box for the cluster to get a discount on the admission price, ya know....
Ummm, when you have a question about Linux, you open up the kernal source tree.
Well, the same is true with Apple's OS, at least on the level these machines should be running at. Please don't tell me they're wasting process time running a GUI on all those headless boxes...
Also, they thought the PR value was worth more than fast shipping to individual pre-orderers.
If you ordered a G5 box and it didn't arrive yet, at least there's a place you can log onto to see a picture of the one you were originally going to get.
typo in above. 'the 286 was designed with multitasking in mind'
The 286 processor was designed with multiprocessing in mind. There were proprietary '286 boxes out there that DID multitasking and took advantage of the 286 extensions. Protected mode is NOT a 386 innovation, it's a '286 thing. The thing that the 286 lacks that the 386 has is 'virtual 86 mode' which translates 'more better old 8086 so you can run multiple instances of the same old 8086 code.'
Microsoft didn't do a lot with the 286, and the clone marketers just called it 'a better, faster 8088 with a wider address bus' and everybody continued to run DOS on their 286's. That's not Intel's fault.
Nobody remembers the DX4-120, because everybody was getting into the Pentium about then. There is a whole class of second-source abominations that you fail to mention that put a bad, bad sheen on non-Intel parts in that era. All those Cyrix '486' parts that plugged into a 386 socket... and later, all the AMD '586' parts that plugged into a 486 socket. It all looked, and in some ways still looks, like a sad but stupid story of a dog addicted to tailpipe fumes.
Just my observations.
Well, Alpha is cheap, truly 64 bit, and here and supported by free software too.
It used to have Windows....
Kinda like when Al Shugart quit Shugart & Assoc. and started Seagate, eh? And those pesky Palm engineers who started Handspring....
Is this going to be another Celeron 300 thing?
(everybody bought Celeron 300's, and overclocked them, instead of buying expensive Pentium II's, back in the day)
And the 64 bit world can only get better with actual, real emphasis, i.e. the 'credentials' that for some reason x86 architectures push.
Why, my Sparc Ultra 1's, which are 64 bit, and which I bought at auction about a month ago for $12.50 each, have a growing body of apps 'fixed' to run on them, with NetBSD/Sparc64. Of course, 64 bits on Sun hardware is very, very 20th century.
Well, NetBSD on my Mac SE/30 is cool, and all. But X11 is kinda limited on a one bit 512x342 screen. And it's really slow. It's a great machine for GNU Chess, though. And Lynx rulez.
there are currently music CDs out there that use a form of DRM to prohibit copying. that violates my fair use right to make a backup copy.
Yeah, sure. And books 'violate your right' to make exact copies of the book, which is your 'fair use right', by binding them in tight glue-and-thread bindings. Damned those bookbinders! Repressing us all!
Translation of above: Get Real. Nobody guarantees you the 'right' to make copies of a work. Publishers can make it as hard as it amuses them to make it for you to make copies. They can't prosecute you for making 'fair use' copies, but whatever they want to throw in the way of you making said copies is their right to do.
you can't post as 'anonymous coward' and make copyright claims. In fact, without a clear line of connection, NONE of our comments in these discussion threads can be copyrighted.
It's one of the paradoxes of the Internet. Everybody wants to be anonymous, but everybody wants to make their mark, just the same.
There was an era when every boy's fantasy was to be a riverboat captain. There was an era when every boy's fantasy was to be a railroad engineer. There was a time when every boy wanted to be a telegraph operator. There was a time when every boy's fantasy was to be a sysadmin.
Well, it really wasn't a fantasy for 'every boy' but those were all 'nerd' aspirations from the past. There's still something of an aura to being a sysadmin, but it's fading. As the 'glamour' of a new communications technology (those were ALL new communications technologies in their heyday, mind you...) fades the fantasy fades.
It's probably time to stop pretending the guy whose job is to make sure the toner cartridges are changed on time and that that big room of cubes up on fourth floor all have reliable connectivity.... it's time for that guy to put away his superman cape.
There are plenty of other 19th century utopian idealogues to read, if you're going to muddle around with Marx.
Please don't stop with him. There are plenty of others. Read Henry George, look up the Roycrofters. Enjoy it all. For entertainment value only.
Naw. All you need today to be a 'hardware expert' is a phillips screwdriver.
All you need to be a 'computer technician' is the above and way too much self-confidence.
Hell, even here on Slashdot probably less than 1% of the people have ever soldered or wire-wrapped anything.
Is Dreemworks the 'Cheap Mexican Equivalent'??
I can't help it. I automatically think of that Simpsons 'Spielbergo' reference every time Mister Uppity's name is mentioned.
Does your KIM-1 have the standard 256 bytes of RAM or did you upgrade it to 2K?
I don't have a KIM-1, I have a SYM-1. And (if I recall) the memory chips plugs in it in 2K blocks. I think mine has all 8K of sockets populated. I could be wrong on these details.