At last Intel saw the light and introduced the missing link in their offerings. They made the same mistake as DEC: a radical switch to the Alpha RISC chip from its heavy VAX CISC processors.
Intel's shortcommings in the IA32 to IA64 switch were the following:
It took them too long to provide a decently performing implemenation of their highly advertised IA64. Itanium 2 became a contender only in the last 2 years. Prices are still too high.
They didn't provide a smooth upgrade path. All x86 apps would need to be recompiled in order to take advantage of the radically different features (EPIC) of the Itanium. Raw x86 code runs very slow on Itanium, compared to p4 and xeon.
Their compilers are still not so mature to allow code to fully utilize the Itania.
it turns out that the Itanium 2 is good for compute intensive mono-threaded code. That is a good match for supercomputing types of apps usually running in batch mode. A server however, needs to handle 1000s of interrupts and context switches / sec. Itanium loses all the nice EPIC/pipelining benefits when confronted with server types of multi-tasking/multi-threaded workloads.
Although the current Itanium 2 is good for multiprocessor types of apps, Intel never came up with a decent high-speed interconnect, nor it designed/proposed any efficient cache coherence protocol for larger SMPs.
In the meantime, AMD took the evolutionary path and provided the 64-bit capability from desktops, to middle tier servers and higher end machines. They implemented an architecture that directly executes the IA32 but that was extended to the much needed now 64-bits. The performance / price ratio are much better than that of Itanium's and compilers were much easier to come about since the x86 ISA is a well known one.
There is no surprise that AMD made the right strategic move to provide the needed missing link in the evolution of the popular (but crappy) x86 ISA to the 64-bit arena. There is no surprise either that heavy weights such as IBM, Dell, SUN and even HP -- who pretty much designed Itanium -- put some of their eggs in their AMD busket.
And there is no surprise that Intel realized after the fact that it should had provided the missing step and it is now playing catch up.
Isn't unbridled competion good? The pervasiveness of Intel forced the AMD and the RISC designers to do their best to improve their own designs which now in turn are forcing Intel to improve its own?
The same story with UNIX/Linux and MS windows.
People need decent alternatives to chose from. Forced monolithic single-vendor solutions are bad for everyone.
Wait, my government went against a bussiness interest for the sake of the people?
They did a good thing?
I take back some of the bad things I have said about them. Now if only they could continue this trend... think about it... RIAA ruled unconstitutional, M$ seperated into many different companies, forced to develop OSS...
d00d!@ Rexx is the coolest thing ever! Write all your code in big REXX like you were a CONSULTANT at a BANK in 1988!!!
Man, I can't believe someone's still kicking poor old REXX around. REXX, the crazy computer lingo that won't die -- a deadly scripting language in the horrible tradition of DOS batch programs and JCL. Gar! It's REXX!
Back in the day, when OS/2 fanatics would get all uppity-puppity about how great OS/2 was, their SECOND most deadly comeback (after "You can format two diskettes at once! One in drive a:, and one in drive b:! Try THAT on a Mac/DOS/Windows/Whatever!!!") was that OS/2 had REXX. It was the ne plus ultra of PC-level scripting languages. It would stop a conversation cold.
I think the Amiga also had REXX, which, like, that's the kinda thing that Amiga folks still get all teary-eyed over. "I miss the Amiga! It had great VIDEO! and it had REXX!! Waaaaaah!"
Hey, so, can you still buy a computer with TWO floppy drives? I wonder. That'd be kind of cool to find one. It's kinda sad to think of all the computing manpower in the late 80s that went into making it possible to format two diskettes at once, and now nobody even HAS two floppies. Like, as if Project Apollo had been achieved, and then the moon fell out of the sky or something. Who cares! Why bother?
Oh, yeah, but anyhow: back to REXX. IBM has this great REXX site, chock full of links to other REXX sites and REXX programs. There were wack developer tools in the early 90s, like Watcom's VX-REXX, a VISUAL REXX. Of course, there's a link from this site. And IBM has, of course, a couple of crazy-ass updated versions of REXX, like for example Object-REXX (no shit!). The coolest one I can see is the new NetREXX, which compiles REXX to Java, which can be, in turn, compiled into Java bytecode for running in a browser.
Greetings from Taxachusetts, the Land of Ted the Lifeguard!
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has an entity called the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. The DOR puts the IRS to shame.
File your taxes late with the IRS, they hit you with interest and penalties. So be it. They are the IRS, they are above the law.
File your taxes late with the Mass DOR, they hit you with interest and penalties. And then they hit you AGAIN. Yes indeedy, folks: it's DOUBLE-DIPPING DAZE FOR THE TAXING AUTHORITIES!!!
Bottom line: a little-knownstate law allows the taxing authorities to DOUBLE your base tax, interest, and penalties.
Be warned: DO NOT BECOME REMISS IN PAYING YOUR FAIRSHARE(tm) in MASSACHUSETTS LEST YOU END UP PAYING IT TWICE.
This is fact, not troll or flamebait. But it does help to explain why the Commonwealth is a pro-welfare-parasite, anti-working-taxpayer zone. Could it be that the lack of Republican representation hereabouts has something to do with this?
So, now M$ has claimed that their Media player is an intregral part of windows and windows would be "substandard" without it?
Interesting argument, much akin to the argument they used about IE.
Now, let's ask a hypothetical question. If this were about automobiles, and the question was about whether or not the manufacturer could force a person to use ONLY the built-in radio what would be the argument?
"Well, judge, if we had to remove the radio, we would also have to remove all the stuff it uses, like the wiring, the alternator and the battery, so the car wouldn't run. So, you see, the radio is an integral part of the car and forcing us to remove it and letting people use someone else's radio would cripple the car."
Absurd? Well, that's exactly what they said about their browser and are now saying about the media player.
"YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE PRODUCT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL OR USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND."
THAT is in the licensing agreement of Windows. Just for fun and to create a lot of headaches, go to your nearest retailer and tell them to take $200.00 off of the price of a computer you want and to delete windows from the hard drive because you do not agree with the terms of the license. They will jump up and down and say lots of funny things. They will tell you that "we cannot do that". Tell them that they are bound by the license agreement the same as you. Then after they are finished throwing their pop-eyed double-barrelled hissy fit, tell them that you decided that you can spend your $2K elsewhere and that they just lost a sale! It's fun, try it sometime.
You make a valid point about file format standards, the software industry does need to make use of file formats that are not tied to a particular operating system, making open file formats that can be viewed, played, read & written to, by any OSs applications is a must, companys like Microsoft is definatly not going to start doing this without a fight...
I hope the EU puts the squeeze on Microsoft since the USDOJ did not have the spine and/or gumption to do it...
It's up to you to make the world safe for commercial software, now that the Bush administration has sold out the software industry to mindless libertarian ideology.
I heard that Google is using 4-byte ints for DOCids and they have been running out of indexing space since they are pretty close to 2^32 pages already. Is that true?
Most all the modern distros have comprehensive tools for checking the filesystems and analysis of the machine's hardware (including cool stuff like tweaking the hard drives/etc).
Random case studies WRT normal Linux operations vs. normal MS-Windows operations in the case of 'marginal' hardware situations:
Case 1: Gateways' shiped with the 'dreaded' Quantum SCSI disk drives:
We bought a couple of Gateway workstations that Gateway shipped with Quantum 9gig W/F SCSI disk drives (avoid these like the plague). With one machine, we tossed the pre-installed MS-Windows (95?) and installed RedHat Linux (5.2 or maybe 6.1). The other machine got MS-Windows NT 4.0 installed. After about 1 month, the machine with Linux installed reported disk I/O errors (and crashes). The machine would recover (fsck after hard reset in a couple of cases) -- the disk had not totally farmed, just started to lose it. We got a replacement disk (IBM) from Gateway and did a disk-to-disk transfer (dump | restore, partition by partition) and used a boot floppy to re-boot and install lilo. This was some years ago. The 'NT box reported no problems until after about 6-7 months of use. Then crashed and refused to reboot. Disk was close to complete death. We suspect that the disk in the 'NT box was probably starting to go at the same time as the disk in the Linux box, but MS-Windows NT failed to notice *minor* disk I/O errors.
Case 2: Token MS-Windows box goes off line and gets converted to a take-home Linux machine:
We had a Gateway G6-200 (PPro 200mhz) machine that was the lab's 'token' MS-Windows box (NT 4.0). For various reasons (including lack of serious use), we took it off line. Later we needed a take-home box, so we *tried* to install Linux on it. The install kept crashing. No apparent reason way. Finally, we swapped out the RAM SIMMs, and presto, Linux installed properly. I guess the RAM had developed some bad bits, and MS-Windows NT failed to notice...
*Maybe* 'NT is notorious about not noticing hardware failures. Maybe Linux is really very sensitive to "minor" hardware problems (slowly developing failures).
After watching that special I have more respect and admiration for the people at JPL. Alot of creativity and problem solving went into this project and I'm really happy for all of them.
First off, I applaud NASA for their hard work and diligent efforts as of late. At a time when our country is enduring a very difficult ongoing war in the Middle East our government shows its true diversity by pursuing other important avenues such as space exploration. People can and will mock NASA, saying that these types of missions are a "waste of money" but it's easy to ridicule when your on the outside looking in. I for one, believe these types of missions are extremely crucial to our country. Maybe not so for their specific agenda per se, but because they provide a stepping stone of information and feedback that will fuel future, more elaborate and more fruitful missions. NASA has undergone massive scrutiny and has been under the magnifying glass of the world-wide community and from America's own citizens since last years Columbia tragedy. Ridicule if you must but be grateful that you live in a country where you are allowed to do so. Setting down a complex piece of equipment that sends back informative data from 194 million miles away is no easy feat. I wish them luck with the rovers being able to send back all the data that they were sent there to collect and I thank NASA for proving that it could be done. I'm proud that a portion of my tax money goes to funding NASA. I look forward to the challenging missions they will undergo in the future and the insightful information and answers they will produce.
who grew up on Bradbury, Asimov, and Heinlein. Gee whiz, let's go to Mars!!! Let's boldly go forth into the cold vacuum - it's "Man's" destiny to explore... No matter that it takes too long to get anywhere and that the slightest little glitch is likely to be fatal. Details, details... It's not their money they're wasting on cool gadgets and gizmos - it's ours !!! If it crashes or quits working after a couple weeks - oh well... Better luck and more money the next time! The public has deep pockets...
Yep, that's him. Justice Holmes was wounded three times in the Civil War, including Peninsular. He was pretty proud of his service although most historians believed he lived a life of "survivor's guilt" after not re-upping when his first term of service expired. He did get his wish to be buried at Arlington, not far from another famous Harvard colleague: John F. Kennedy. He remains one of the greatest jurists in American History. Man, we could use more like him today.
"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing." - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
It's sad to see an old gamer quit the hobby. Maybe someday you'll have more free time and some interesting game will catch your eye. Until then, good luck and have fun with whatever you do!
If you have been following GNU Gaming Zone progress recently it is maturing rapidly, just give those dirty GNU hippies a few more years they'll be on par with Microsoft's services.
I remember from the early days of microcomputers, when real programmers used toggle switches and keyboards were outrageously expensive, there was a one-handed ASCII keyboard. It was a sphere with four finger buttons and eight thumb buttons. One was supposed to play a chord with the fingers, giving eight bits, and then press one of the thumb buttons, giving three more. It was attractive to a lot of people because the small number of moving parts made it cheap. You might be able to find one used. It would take a lot of training to use, and it might be very hard to get any amount of speed, but it's worth investigating.
There was a commercially-produced keyboard of this form, known as the MicroWriter. It was - probably still is - quite popular among blind/disabled/special-needs users, though that was not its primary market.
First incarnation was a hand-sized device with 6 keys (only the thumb had to move) with about 8K of RAM and an 1802 processor. It was intended for use as a portable word-processor. The same mechanics and case were used as an auxiliary keyboard for the BBC Micro (using a resistor network on the switches, fed to an analogue input port on the micro).
Handykey, in New York, used to make a device that was both a keyboard and mouse. I got mine about 3 years ago, it had DOS drivers and they apparently came out with Windows and PS/2 drivers later. Plugs into the serial port for data, the keyboard port for power (only drew 9 mA or so.) It's chord based, most characters are two fingers, with the modifiers on the thumb; it had a velcro strap to wrap around the back of your hand to hold it in place.
There used to be a FAQ about such keyboards; look at any of the RSI resources. Also look at the pages about the "Behemoth" nee' "Winnebiko" project, they used the one of the "bat" keyboard sticks.
You might also look at some of the one-handed layouts for conventional typewriters that Dvorak came up with, along with the more well known layout. It depends on what you're trying to do...
I think, this is crazy. At least keep XFree86 4.4 rc2 which was under the previous licence. So Mandrake would be the only distro without 4.4 ? Moreover, is that licence really non-free ? I read some discussions and interpretations were not that clear.
Slashdot Mirror
Intel's shortcommings in the IA32 to IA64 switch were the following:
In the meantime, AMD took the evolutionary path and provided the 64-bit capability from desktops, to middle tier servers and higher end machines. They implemented an architecture that directly executes the IA32 but that was extended to the much needed now 64-bits. The performance / price ratio are much better than that of Itanium's and compilers were much easier to come about since the x86 ISA is a well known one.
There is no surprise that AMD made the right strategic move to provide the needed missing link in the evolution of the popular (but crappy) x86 ISA to the 64-bit arena. There is no surprise either that heavy weights such as IBM, Dell, SUN and even HP -- who pretty much designed Itanium -- put some of their eggs in their AMD busket.
And there is no surprise that Intel realized after the fact that it should had provided the missing step and it is now playing catch up.
Isn't unbridled competion good? The pervasiveness of Intel forced the AMD and the RISC designers to do their best to improve their own designs which now in turn are forcing Intel to improve its own?
The same story with UNIX/Linux and MS windows.
People need decent alternatives to chose from. Forced monolithic single-vendor solutions are bad for everyone.
Ring ring ring who's there?
opted out, why a call this evening?
Mexico, you have phone too
Wait, my government went against a bussiness interest for the sake of the people?
They did a good thing?
I take back some of the bad things I have said about them. Now if only they could continue this trend... think about it... RIAA ruled unconstitutional, M$ seperated into many different companies, forced to develop OSS...
Abort the mission.
Well, logic demands an answer!
d00d!@ Rexx is the coolest thing ever! Write all your code in big REXX like you were a CONSULTANT at a BANK in 1988!!!
Man, I can't believe someone's still kicking poor old REXX around. REXX, the crazy computer lingo that won't die -- a deadly scripting language in the horrible tradition of DOS batch programs and JCL. Gar! It's REXX!
Back in the day, when OS/2 fanatics would get all uppity-puppity about how great OS/2 was, their SECOND most deadly comeback (after "You can format two diskettes at once! One in drive a:, and one in drive b:! Try THAT on a Mac/DOS/Windows/Whatever!!!") was that OS/2 had REXX. It was the ne plus ultra of PC-level scripting languages. It would stop a conversation cold.
I think the Amiga also had REXX, which, like, that's the kinda thing that Amiga folks still get all teary-eyed over. "I miss the Amiga! It had great VIDEO! and it had REXX!! Waaaaaah!"
Hey, so, can you still buy a computer with TWO floppy drives? I wonder. That'd be kind of cool to find one. It's kinda sad to think of all the computing manpower in the late 80s that went into making it possible to format two diskettes at once, and now nobody even HAS two floppies. Like, as if Project Apollo had been achieved, and then the moon fell out of the sky or something. Who cares! Why bother?
Oh, yeah, but anyhow: back to REXX. IBM has this great REXX site, chock full of links to other REXX sites and REXX programs. There were wack developer tools in the early 90s, like Watcom's VX-REXX, a VISUAL REXX. Of course, there's a link from this site. And IBM has, of course, a couple of crazy-ass updated versions of REXX, like for example Object-REXX (no shit!). The coolest one I can see is the new NetREXX, which compiles REXX to Java, which can be, in turn, compiled into Java bytecode for running in a browser.
Yay for REXX! REXX everywhere! REXX REXX REXX!
Land of Liberals, Loons, and DOUBLE TAXATION
Greetings from Taxachusetts, the Land of Ted the Lifeguard!
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has an entity called the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. The DOR puts the IRS to shame.
File your taxes late with the IRS, they hit you with interest and penalties. So be it. They are the IRS, they are above the law.
File your taxes late with the Mass DOR, they hit you with interest and penalties. And then they hit you AGAIN. Yes indeedy, folks: it's DOUBLE-DIPPING DAZE FOR THE TAXING AUTHORITIES!!!
Bottom line: a little-knownstate law allows the taxing authorities to DOUBLE your base tax, interest, and penalties.
Be warned: DO NOT BECOME REMISS IN PAYING YOUR FAIRSHARE(tm) in MASSACHUSETTS LEST YOU END UP PAYING IT TWICE.
This is fact, not troll or flamebait. But it does help to explain why the Commonwealth is a pro-welfare-parasite, anti-working-taxpayer zone.
Could it be that the lack of Republican representation hereabouts has something to do with this?
This isn't anything new. Most states interface with the Federal IRS to compare notes. Most sources of income submit that data to the tax people.
So, now M$ has claimed that their Media player is an intregral part of windows and windows would be "substandard" without it?
Interesting argument, much akin to the argument they used about IE.
Now, let's ask a hypothetical question. If this were about automobiles, and the question was about whether or not the manufacturer could force a person to use ONLY the built-in radio what would be the argument?
"Well, judge, if we had to remove the radio, we would also have to remove all the stuff it uses, like the wiring, the alternator and the battery, so the car wouldn't run. So, you see, the radio is an integral part of the car and forcing us to remove it and letting people use someone else's radio would cripple the car."
Absurd? Well, that's exactly what they said about their browser and are now saying about the media player.
"YOU AGREE TO BE
BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY
INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE
PRODUCT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL
OR USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR
PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND."
THAT is in the licensing agreement of Windows. Just for fun and to create a lot of headaches, go to your nearest retailer and tell them to take $200.00 off of the price of a computer you want and to delete windows from the hard drive because you do not agree with the terms of the license. They will jump up and down and say lots of funny things. They will tell you that "we cannot do that". Tell them that they are bound by the license agreement the same as you. Then after they are finished throwing their pop-eyed double-barrelled hissy fit, tell them that you decided that you can spend your $2K elsewhere and that they just lost a sale! It's fun, try it sometime.
You make a valid point about file format standards, the software industry does need to make use of file formats that are not tied to a particular operating system, making open file formats that can be viewed, played, read & written to, by any OSs applications is a must, companys like Microsoft is definatly not going to start doing this without a fight...
I hope the EU puts the squeeze on Microsoft since the USDOJ did not have the spine and/or gumption to do it...
It's up to you to make the world safe for commercial software, now that the Bush administration has sold out the software industry to mindless libertarian ideology.
I heard that Google is using 4-byte ints for DOCids and they have been running out of indexing space since they are pretty close to 2^32 pages already. Is that true?
Most all the modern distros have comprehensive tools for checking the filesystems and analysis of the machine's hardware (including cool stuff like tweaking the hard drives/etc).
Random case studies WRT normal Linux operations vs. normal MS-Windows operations in the case of 'marginal' hardware situations:
Case 1: Gateways' shiped with the 'dreaded' Quantum SCSI disk drives:
We bought a couple of Gateway workstations that Gateway shipped with Quantum 9gig W/F SCSI disk drives (avoid these like the plague). With one machine, we tossed the pre-installed MS-Windows (95?) and installed RedHat Linux (5.2 or maybe 6.1). The other machine got MS-Windows NT 4.0 installed. After about 1 month, the machine with Linux installed reported disk I/O errors (and crashes). The machine would recover (fsck after hard reset in a couple of cases) -- the disk had not totally farmed, just started to lose it. We got a replacement disk (IBM) from Gateway and did a disk-to-disk transfer (dump | restore, partition by partition) and used a boot floppy to re-boot and install lilo. This was some years ago. The 'NT box reported no problems until after about 6-7 months of use. Then crashed and refused to reboot. Disk was close to complete death. We suspect that the disk in the 'NT box was probably starting to go at the same time as the disk in the Linux box, but MS-Windows NT failed to notice *minor* disk I/O errors.
Case 2: Token MS-Windows box goes off line and gets converted to a take-home Linux machine:
We had a Gateway G6-200 (PPro 200mhz) machine that was the lab's 'token' MS-Windows box (NT 4.0). For various reasons (including lack of serious use), we took it off line. Later we needed a take-home box, so we *tried* to install Linux on it. The install kept crashing. No apparent reason way. Finally, we swapped out the RAM SIMMs, and presto, Linux installed properly. I guess the RAM had developed some bad bits, and MS-Windows NT failed to notice...
*Maybe* 'NT is notorious about not noticing hardware failures. Maybe Linux is really very sensitive to "minor" hardware problems (slowly developing failures).
After watching that special I have more respect and admiration for the people at JPL. Alot of creativity and problem solving went into this project and I'm really happy for all of them.
First off, I applaud NASA for their hard work and diligent efforts as of late. At a time when our country is enduring a very difficult ongoing war in the Middle East our government shows its true diversity by pursuing other important avenues such as space exploration. People can and will mock NASA, saying that these types of missions are a "waste of money" but it's easy to ridicule when your on the outside looking in. I for one, believe these types of missions are extremely crucial to our country. Maybe not so for their specific agenda per se, but because they provide a stepping stone of information and feedback that will fuel future, more elaborate and more fruitful missions. NASA has undergone massive scrutiny and has been under the magnifying glass of the world-wide community and from America's own citizens since last years Columbia tragedy. Ridicule if you must but be grateful that you live in a country where you are allowed to do so. Setting down a complex piece of equipment that sends back informative data from 194 million miles away is no easy feat. I wish them luck with the rovers being able to send back all the data that they were sent there to collect and I thank NASA for proving that it could be done. I'm proud that a portion of my tax money goes to funding NASA. I look forward to the challenging missions they will undergo in the future and the insightful information and answers they will produce.
Look to the skies.
When asked about the heat issue, Bush assured reporters we'd be going at night.
who grew up on Bradbury, Asimov, and Heinlein. Gee whiz, let's go to Mars!!! Let's boldly go forth into the cold vacuum - it's "Man's" destiny to explore... No matter that it takes too long to get anywhere and that the slightest little glitch is likely to be fatal. Details, details... It's not their money they're wasting on cool gadgets and gizmos - it's ours !!! If it crashes or quits working after a couple weeks - oh well... Better luck and more money the next time! The public has deep pockets...
Yep, that's him. Justice Holmes was wounded three times in the Civil War, including Peninsular. He was pretty proud of his service although most historians believed he lived a life of "survivor's guilt" after not re-upping when his first term of service expired. He did get his wish to be buried at Arlington, not far from another famous Harvard colleague: John F. Kennedy. He remains one of the greatest jurists in American History. Man, we could use more like him today.
"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing."
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
It's sad to see an old gamer quit the hobby. Maybe someday you'll have more free time and some interesting game will catch your eye. Until then, good luck and have fun with whatever you do!
If you have been following GNU Gaming Zone progress recently it is maturing rapidly, just give those dirty GNU hippies a few more years they'll be on par with Microsoft's services.
I remember from the early days of microcomputers, when real programmers used toggle switches and keyboards were outrageously expensive, there was a one-handed ASCII keyboard. It was a sphere with four finger buttons and eight thumb buttons. One was supposed to play a chord with the fingers, giving eight bits, and then press one of the thumb buttons, giving three more. It was attractive to a lot of people because the small number of moving parts made it cheap. You might be able to find one used. It would take a lot of training to use, and it might be very hard to get any amount of speed, but it's worth investigating.
There was a commercially-produced keyboard of this form, known as the MicroWriter. It was - probably still is - quite popular among blind/disabled/special-needs users, though that was not its primary market.
First incarnation was a hand-sized device with 6 keys (only the thumb had to move) with about 8K of RAM and an 1802 processor. It was intended for use as a portable word-processor. The same mechanics and case were used as an auxiliary keyboard for the BBC Micro (using a resistor network on the switches, fed to an analogue input port on the micro).
Handykey, in New York, used to make a device that was both a keyboard and mouse. I got mine about 3 years ago, it had DOS drivers and they apparently came out with Windows and PS/2 drivers later. Plugs into the serial port for data, the keyboard port for power (only drew 9 mA or so.) It's chord based, most characters are two fingers, with the modifiers on the thumb; it had a velcro strap to wrap around the back of your hand to hold it in place.
There used to be a FAQ about such keyboards; look at any of the RSI resources. Also look at the pages about the "Behemoth" nee' "Winnebiko" project, they used the one of the "bat" keyboard sticks.
You might also look at some of the one-handed layouts for conventional typewriters that Dvorak came up with, along with the more well known layout. It depends on what you're trying to do...
You could get a feel for the number from
http://counter.li.org/reports/machines.php
I think, this is crazy. At least keep XFree86 4.4 rc2 which was under the previous licence.
So Mandrake would be the only distro without 4.4 ?
Moreover, is that licence really non-free ? I read some discussions and interpretations were not that clear.