Yeah, me neither, but apparently 5-7-5-7-7 is. I'd ask someone, but it's the middle of the night and I'm the only one at the office. Technically, that's not a haiku anymore, that's just a tanrenga.:-)
TBH, they don't actually need to up the memory beyond 512MB for that kind of version.
If they went that route, though, they would have to support something similar to ReadyBoost in Vista (i.e., you put in an 8GB MemoryStick and congratulations, your system can act like it's got 8.5GB of memory now). While this does make it cheaper (both to produce and for endusers to add memory to), I'm not entirely sure I like it as a solution.
But yeah... they wouldn't be able to keep up with demand for it if they repositioned it as a home PC for "people who are afraid of PCs" (or people who want to avoid MS as much as possible), rather than "ZOMG EXPENSIVE CONSOLE THAT EVERYONE MUST HAVE ONE OF BECAUSE IT'S SO COOL". I mean, I could use a second computer...:-D
Besides, if MS thinks it's worthwhile to get people developing games at home for XBLA (...at like $90/year), Sony should be more than willing to say "You know, since we're already trying to one-up MS by making our online component free... we might as well snag this idea as well, and make it free, and see what people come up with. Maybe we'll get some good titles out of people that way."
...well, remember the "hook to your TV" era of home computers?
As soon as the 80GB model comes out, push through a firmware update that includes, oh, I dunno, something along the lines of BASIC w/built-in 3D graphics commands, and let people upload their software for free to a special section of the online store.
I mean, $600 for a game console is insane (I'm still waiting for the price to come down and/or fewer bills) but $600 for a computer which you can develop homebrew games on, share 'em with the world, and, OH YEAH IT PLAYS GAMES TOO... see, that's a little more reasonable (especially if you already have the nice TV to hook it up to).
Then again, I was always a fan of the TI-99/4A, so I wouldn't mind seeing things head back in that direction again.
God... I have a 10MB hard drive (it's part of an IBM XT, which I got from my maternal grandfather) that, to the best of my knowledge, still works. Though that whole system's been sitting out in the garage for a couple of years now, so I don't know how reliable it is anymore.
Generally I don't worry about replacing the hard drives in a system - when a system becomes too old or otherwise nonfunctional, every functional hard drive (and even marginal ones, if I have a Linux boot disk - dd is great) gets migrated over to the new system if possible.
This is why I've had to actually buy an ATA controller card - the current system has three HDs and two DVD+/-RW drives in it, all ATA. (It's also about five years old - older Athlon OCed to be about a 2200+, 1.25GB RAM, Win2K, etc.)
I'm so not looking forward to the next new system I get - it'll eventually be dealing with something on the order of 8-10 SATA drives, I imagine...
I have to work on our drive-thru all the time (it's money, at least - the job blows, but it's money), and half the time I'm not even at the register when I take someone's order.
On average I can get up to 8 items memorized at a time before I get back to the register; typically the first six I've managed to "visually compile" (when I talk to myself, which I do on occasion, I see phantom text in my FOV - ain't synesthesia wonderful, ha ha), and the last two are still in auditory storage.
Needless to say, I think I forgot what my point is.:->
Step 1. Look at the ENTIRE Windows source. I'd suggest making sure that you can do this legally.
Step 2. Whenever possible, optimize code by hand. Whenever bugs are blatant, fix that code.
Step 3. Make sure the whole thing compiles correctly when finished.
Step 4. Burn the fixed source to DVDs.
Step 5. Mail the DVDs to Microsoft, along with a bill for the hundreds (or thousands) of hours spent fixing their code. Charge $60/hour.
When you start getting to equipment like this, though, areal density just doesn't cut it anymore - you're probably stacking hundreds (if not thousands) of "platters" for this.
Bits per cubic centimeter is a perfectly good measurement for things like this (it works for current HDs as well, but even a 300GB HD right now only has a density of 2.07 * 10^10 b/cc [heh, "only"]).
BTW, I was hoping this was referring to IBM's current R&D project that was in SciAm around the beginning of last year (nanodrives) - which will probably lead up to areal densities of 10 Tb/sq.in. (100x what the parent's link is capable of) and volume densities of 5 Pb/cu.in. or so... which would make a 1 exabyte device take up roughly half the size of your current minitower system's case (a box 8" x 16" x 13" would hold it, but not any sort of cooling equipment or power supply)....and now that I've rambled on and on, I should probably point out that this kind of setup is still 10-15 years away and will probably run around $50,000 anyway at that point. (First site to get one of these: Google, so they can do full-out archives of every site. I predict government nastiness against them not long afterwards.:->)
Slashdot Mirror
That said:
Would mod parent up /
But system is insufficient /
Can't mod "Haiku"
TBH, they don't actually need to up the memory beyond 512MB for that kind of version.
If they went that route, though, they would have to support something similar to ReadyBoost in Vista (i.e., you put in an 8GB MemoryStick and congratulations, your system can act like it's got 8.5GB of memory now). While this does make it cheaper (both to produce and for endusers to add memory to), I'm not entirely sure I like it as a solution.
But yeah... they wouldn't be able to keep up with demand for it if they repositioned it as a home PC for "people who are afraid of PCs" (or people who want to avoid MS as much as possible), rather than "ZOMG EXPENSIVE CONSOLE THAT EVERYONE MUST HAVE ONE OF BECAUSE IT'S SO COOL". I mean, I could use a second computer... :-D
Besides, if MS thinks it's worthwhile to get people developing games at home for XBLA (...at like $90/year), Sony should be more than willing to say "You know, since we're already trying to one-up MS by making our online component free... we might as well snag this idea as well, and make it free, and see what people come up with. Maybe we'll get some good titles out of people that way."
...well, remember the "hook to your TV" era of home computers? As soon as the 80GB model comes out, push through a firmware update that includes, oh, I dunno, something along the lines of BASIC w/built-in 3D graphics commands, and let people upload their software for free to a special section of the online store. I mean, $600 for a game console is insane (I'm still waiting for the price to come down and/or fewer bills) but $600 for a computer which you can develop homebrew games on, share 'em with the world, and, OH YEAH IT PLAYS GAMES TOO... see, that's a little more reasonable (especially if you already have the nice TV to hook it up to). Then again, I was always a fan of the TI-99/4A, so I wouldn't mind seeing things head back in that direction again.
God... I have a 10MB hard drive (it's part of an IBM XT, which I got from my maternal grandfather) that, to the best of my knowledge, still works. Though that whole system's been sitting out in the garage for a couple of years now, so I don't know how reliable it is anymore. Generally I don't worry about replacing the hard drives in a system - when a system becomes too old or otherwise nonfunctional, every functional hard drive (and even marginal ones, if I have a Linux boot disk - dd is great) gets migrated over to the new system if possible. This is why I've had to actually buy an ATA controller card - the current system has three HDs and two DVD+/-RW drives in it, all ATA. (It's also about five years old - older Athlon OCed to be about a 2200+, 1.25GB RAM, Win2K, etc.) I'm so not looking forward to the next new system I get - it'll eventually be dealing with something on the order of 8-10 SATA drives, I imagine...
I have to work on our drive-thru all the time (it's money, at least - the job blows, but it's money), and half the time I'm not even at the register when I take someone's order. On average I can get up to 8 items memorized at a time before I get back to the register; typically the first six I've managed to "visually compile" (when I talk to myself, which I do on occasion, I see phantom text in my FOV - ain't synesthesia wonderful, ha ha), and the last two are still in auditory storage. Needless to say, I think I forgot what my point is. :->
Step 1. Look at the ENTIRE Windows source. I'd suggest making sure that you can do this legally. Step 2. Whenever possible, optimize code by hand. Whenever bugs are blatant, fix that code. Step 3. Make sure the whole thing compiles correctly when finished. Step 4. Burn the fixed source to DVDs. Step 5. Mail the DVDs to Microsoft, along with a bill for the hundreds (or thousands) of hours spent fixing their code. Charge $60/hour.
When you start getting to equipment like this, though, areal density just doesn't cut it anymore - you're probably stacking hundreds (if not thousands) of "platters" for this.
...and now that I've rambled on and on, I should probably point out that this kind of setup is still 10-15 years away and will probably run around $50,000 anyway at that point. (First site to get one of these: Google, so they can do full-out archives of every site. I predict government nastiness against them not long afterwards. :->)
Bits per cubic centimeter is a perfectly good measurement for things like this (it works for current HDs as well, but even a 300GB HD right now only has a density of 2.07 * 10^10 b/cc [heh, "only"]).
BTW, I was hoping this was referring to IBM's current R&D project that was in SciAm around the beginning of last year (nanodrives) - which will probably lead up to areal densities of 10 Tb/sq.in. (100x what the parent's link is capable of) and volume densities of 5 Pb/cu.in. or so... which would make a 1 exabyte device take up roughly half the size of your current minitower system's case (a box 8" x 16" x 13" would hold it, but not any sort of cooling equipment or power supply).