At less than an eighth of the price of a Sun workstation, you can purchase a dual 2.5GHz G5, which lacks many of the amenities of Sun Blades such as ECC RAM and 10,000RPM FC-AL hard drives....
It also lacks the 'workstation' software that people buy Sun desktop boxes for.
Can you run Schematic capture/routing software on that Xserve? Can you run simulations of FPGAs? Is there any engineering software to speak of at all for the box?
I noticed above you said:...in virtually all of them (scientific computing, medical computing, multimedia/3D modelling/video production) the AltiVec unit on the G5 will be...
Not sure about Doom3, but I was running five copies of XDoom v.1 simulatneously on an X desktop on Linux with the 1.2 kernel, in 1995. All those X Windows running recorded Doom sessions out of sync with each other was pretty dazzling at the time.
This was on a 486 with 16 megs of RAM. Back when friends would struggle to get a single session of Doom running on a Microsoft OS on similar hardware. I think the key is 'Unix', or rather, not-Microsoft. The XDoom of the time for SGI was damn cool, too.
You can probably do special stuff when installing a current release of Solaris, if you want to be mired down in CDE. The default Solaris desktop these days, is Gnome.
These days my main desktop is a Sun Ultra 60 (2 x 450MHz UltraSPARC-II). Sure, it may not be as fast as your souped up PC, but for normal tasks it isn't too shabby either. It is also rock solid, doesn't really have "issues or quirks," and I'm quite happy with it.
That's true, as far as you go. But there are many different 'dekstop systems' you can select that don't have 'issues or quirks' as long as you stay with the base system, don't pile on a lot of extra hardware addins and crap, etc.
I have a Slackware system that runs on a cheap (I paid about fourty cents for it at auction) Dell Optiplex with PIII processor. It doesn't have 'quirks or issues' to speak of.
Please, mind you, don't interpret this as me talking up Dell crap incomparison to an Ultra 60, of course. I'd trade even (or four Dells for the Sun) anyday for a nice U60. I'm just trying to make the point that so long as you don't drag in a lot of drivers and shit for third party stuff, you can do pretty well with a lot of 'single vendor' desktop arrangements.
The trouble comes in when you start plugging in third party video hardware, shitty ethernet cards with third party drivers, etc. Or when you buy a clone case and start screwing down 'performance' boards in it from hotdog hardware site reviews, etc.
True, but at least the last time I checked, there was a StrongARM ATX footprint motherboard you could use. Links to it (used?) to be on the NetBSD website. It was from a company called Chalice if I remember right.
It was bloodly expensive, but it was targeted as a low-volume 'reference' platform. Probably there are some in labs being used to do all sorts of useful development, tho.
IE hasn't seen any significant technical improvements in years.
There have been TONS of significant technical improvements in IE. Mostly in the form of third party plug-ins, like the Google Toolbar, spyware and anti-popup plug-ins, etc. There are eBay bidding/sniping/watching tools that wrap around the IE core.
The fact that the improvements haven't come directly from Microsoft is immaterial. They provided a somewhat open architecture and a number of smart third parties have taken advantage of it.
That's a somewhat ridiculous assertion. There is plenty of unsupported software that exists. Abandonware comes to mind. And there is always support available at some price. Hell, there's support available for my Intel MDS 800 Development system (the 1975-era hardware that Gary Kildahl developed CP/M on). It only has an 8080 processor, and 8" floppy drives. I found a website recently that commercially supports it.
I know of big popular Unix sites that provide less power than that box to account holders. You should issue accounts. (yeah, I know, bad idea on a firewall)
That machine firewalling a PowerBook 520c is actually somewhat humorous.
Awhile back when I was 'checking out the Mac world' on some old Beige G3 systems, I used Internet Explorer. It was, in my opinion, the best browser choice available for OS 9.1. The Mozilla port was a bigger resource pig, and the alternative I found was CyberDog. Which was cool in it's time, but no longer.
The Netscape really sucked.
There was a period of time in which the Mac Port of IE was Microsoft's best web browser product.
You're going to SSH into a brand new Xbox with no keyboard and mouse attached, to install Linux on it? How will you SSH into it before it has Linux installed?
I have PIII 550 boxes I paid less than a dollar for at auction (in >50 quantities). A far better deal than some Xbox.
we're talking literally hundreds of pounds saved, especially in large and feature-full vehicles.
Hmmm, so the big fat bloatmobiles in particular will benefit from somewhat of a savings in wiring weight. Hmmm. Now they can make the chassis a foot or two wider.
There is now a huge, established market of people who have confidence in buying stuff on eBay using PayPal. They are NOT enthusiastic about entering their credit card info onto a bunch of random wobbly 'shopping cart' web pages strewn across the Internet.
I and many other people think twice about entering CC info on web pages, https or not. 'Buy' buttons that transfer to good old PayPal are a no-brainer.
Why would I care if games I buy now for the console I already have will play on the console I may buy in two or three years? Games generally 'play out' and besides: I'm not that hard on my gear and will likely still have the old console three years from now.
'Perpetual backwards compatability' is for Microsoft fans.
Guess what? There are tons of people who run modern software on what you term 'old piece of shit' computers. Let's get over the bullshit 'my daddy bought me a P4 for graduation' snobbery. There are entire OSS projects dedicated to running modern software on older hardware.
It's cool and a fun pursuit. I just spent a bundle on an old 8080 based system and am about to start restoring it. Sorry. It's more interesting to me than case modding something I bought off the shelf.
Someone who doesn't have them is probably doing something wrong.
That 'someone' could simply be somebody who doesn't think like an accountant.
And lord knows we shouldn't allow anyone to do business unless they think like an accountant.
There's a certain rage one sees surface in somebody who has jumped through the hoops, in fact someone who spent a lot of time learning to jump through the hoops, when that somebody discovers that others do prefectly well without ever having to jump through those hoops.
I have no doubt that it is advantageous to you as a vendor, but I utterly fail to see the advantage to me as a buyer
Well, as long as you're happy to pay Full Retail or a 'Substancial' Discount on only new merchandise from the kind of big companies that can afford a merchant account with a Credit Card company, you'll do fine.
The rest of us thrive in a flea-market world. Your kind really isn't needed here, so stick with what suits you.
In other words, since those 600 Macs will have been paid for, further use of them will be free. Even though there were obviously 600 paid employees sitting in front of them.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a whole NetBSD port to that motherboard and apparently a near relative Intel makes:
NetBSD/cats
Links to the hardware through that page.
When most people think 'Sun Workstation' they aren't thinking 'run some benchmarks.'
At less than an eighth of the price of a Sun workstation, you can purchase a dual 2.5GHz G5, which lacks many of the amenities of Sun Blades such as ECC RAM and 10,000RPM FC-AL hard drives....
...in virtually all of them (scientific computing, medical computing, multimedia/3D modelling/video production) the AltiVec unit on the G5 will be...
It also lacks the 'workstation' software that people buy Sun desktop boxes for.
Can you run Schematic capture/routing software on that Xserve? Can you run simulations of FPGAs? Is there any engineering software to speak of at all for the box?
I noticed above you said:
Keyword: Will. When?
Not sure about Doom3, but I was running five copies of XDoom v.1 simulatneously on an X desktop on Linux with the 1.2 kernel, in 1995. All those X Windows running recorded Doom sessions out of sync with each other was pretty dazzling at the time.
This was on a 486 with 16 megs of RAM. Back when friends would struggle to get a single session of Doom running on a Microsoft OS on similar hardware. I think the key is 'Unix', or rather, not-Microsoft. The XDoom of the time for SGI was damn cool, too.
You can probably do special stuff when installing a current release of Solaris, if you want to be mired down in CDE. The default Solaris desktop these days, is Gnome.
These days my main desktop is a Sun Ultra 60 (2 x 450MHz UltraSPARC-II). Sure, it may not be as fast as your souped up PC, but for normal tasks it isn't too shabby either. It is also rock solid, doesn't really have "issues or quirks," and I'm quite happy with it.
That's true, as far as you go. But there are many different 'dekstop systems' you can select that don't have 'issues or quirks' as long as you stay with the base system, don't pile on a lot of extra hardware addins and crap, etc.
I have a Slackware system that runs on a cheap (I paid about fourty cents for it at auction) Dell Optiplex with PIII processor. It doesn't have 'quirks or issues' to speak of.
Please, mind you, don't interpret this as me talking up Dell crap incomparison to an Ultra 60, of course. I'd trade even (or four Dells for the Sun) anyday for a nice U60. I'm just trying to make the point that so long as you don't drag in a lot of drivers and shit for third party stuff, you can do pretty well with a lot of 'single vendor' desktop arrangements.
The trouble comes in when you start plugging in third party video hardware, shitty ethernet cards with third party drivers, etc. Or when you buy a clone case and start screwing down 'performance' boards in it from hotdog hardware site reviews, etc.
True, but at least the last time I checked, there was a StrongARM ATX footprint motherboard you could use. Links to it (used?) to be on the NetBSD website. It was from a company called Chalice if I remember right.
It was bloodly expensive, but it was targeted as a low-volume 'reference' platform. Probably there are some in labs being used to do all sorts of useful development, tho.
Has Sun learned from the demise of SGI workstations that relying on one processor architecture is harmful?
Hopefully what Sun learned from the demise of SGI is to never, ever, sell a line of hardware targeted to run Windows NT.
Which really isn't that valuable a lesson, cuz it's so obvious.
That's cool and all, but what if your kid brother is running his Dreamcast in promiscuous mode and snaps up your info in that telnet session?
(just fooling)
I was running OS 9.1 on a Beige G3 with 384MB of RAM. I was actually surprised at how poorly anything but IE ran.
What did Apple fans do before OS X?
(actually, what they did was move around on a WWW with a hell of a lot less bloat and crap, i.e. plain old HTML, for which CyberDog, etc. was fine)
IE hasn't seen any significant technical improvements in years.
There have been TONS of significant technical improvements in IE. Mostly in the form of third party plug-ins, like the Google Toolbar, spyware and anti-popup plug-ins, etc. There are eBay bidding/sniping/watching tools that wrap around the IE core.
The fact that the improvements haven't come directly from Microsoft is immaterial. They provided a somewhat open architecture and a number of smart third parties have taken advantage of it.
That's a somewhat ridiculous assertion. There is plenty of unsupported software that exists. Abandonware comes to mind. And there is always support available at some price. Hell, there's support available for my Intel MDS 800 Development system (the 1975-era hardware that Gary Kildahl developed CP/M on). It only has an 8080 processor, and 8" floppy drives. I found a website recently that commercially supports it.
I know of big popular Unix sites that provide less power than that box to account holders. You should issue accounts. (yeah, I know, bad idea on a firewall)
That machine firewalling a PowerBook 520c is actually somewhat humorous.
Awhile back when I was 'checking out the Mac world' on some old Beige G3 systems, I used Internet Explorer. It was, in my opinion, the best browser choice available for OS 9.1. The Mozilla port was a bigger resource pig, and the alternative I found was CyberDog. Which was cool in it's time, but no longer.
The Netscape really sucked.
There was a period of time in which the Mac Port of IE was Microsoft's best web browser product.
You have a Firewall running on an 800 MHz machine with 128M of RAM and a 40G hard drive?
That's an application for an old 486 machine with 16 MB of RAM and a 120 MB drive running Slackware.
Or is it firewalling a whole corporation?
You're going to SSH into a brand new Xbox with no keyboard and mouse attached, to install Linux on it? How will you SSH into it before it has Linux installed?
I have PIII 550 boxes I paid less than a dollar for at auction (in >50 quantities). A far better deal than some Xbox.
we're talking literally hundreds of pounds saved, especially in large and feature-full vehicles.
Hmmm, so the big fat bloatmobiles in particular will benefit from somewhat of a savings in wiring weight. Hmmm. Now they can make the chassis a foot or two wider.
There is now a huge, established market of people who have confidence in buying stuff on eBay using PayPal. They are NOT enthusiastic about entering their credit card info onto a bunch of random wobbly 'shopping cart' web pages strewn across the Internet.
I and many other people think twice about entering CC info on web pages, https or not. 'Buy' buttons that transfer to good old PayPal are a no-brainer.
Why would I care if games I buy now for the console I already have will play on the console I may buy in two or three years? Games generally 'play out' and besides: I'm not that hard on my gear and will likely still have the old console three years from now.
'Perpetual backwards compatability' is for Microsoft fans.
Guess what? There are tons of people who run modern software on what you term 'old piece of shit' computers. Let's get over the bullshit 'my daddy bought me a P4 for graduation' snobbery. There are entire OSS projects dedicated to running modern software on older hardware.
It's cool and a fun pursuit. I just spent a bundle on an old 8080 based system and am about to start restoring it. Sorry. It's more interesting to me than case modding something I bought off the shelf.
Someone who doesn't have them is probably doing something wrong.
That 'someone' could simply be somebody who doesn't think like an accountant.
And lord knows we shouldn't allow anyone to do business unless they think like an accountant.
There's a certain rage one sees surface in somebody who has jumped through the hoops, in fact someone who spent a lot of time learning to jump through the hoops, when that somebody discovers that others do prefectly well without ever having to jump through those hoops.
I have no doubt that it is advantageous to you as a vendor, but I utterly fail to see the advantage to me as a buyer
Well, as long as you're happy to pay Full Retail or a 'Substancial' Discount on only new merchandise from the kind of big companies that can afford a merchant account with a Credit Card company, you'll do fine.
The rest of us thrive in a flea-market world. Your kind really isn't needed here, so stick with what suits you.
In other words, since those 600 Macs will have been paid for, further use of them will be free. Even though there were obviously 600 paid employees sitting in front of them.
Hmmm.
i'd be VERY surprised if some local or another wasn't involved in pitching this through.
You're probably right. Some local outfit has lobbied for a government granted monopoly.
You stated that like it was some kind of good thing.
Is the ship's office manager called the Starofficer? (does he work in his spare time on Oo.org?)