I spent part of the weekend playing on my brother's pre-bought PS2. After the novelty wore off, we are rather disappointed in the system. The things we noticed were:
1) Graphics are not as good as Dreamcast.
2) Only two controller ports (WHY?!).
3) Very expensive.
4) No remote control for DVD (WHY?!).
We also concluded that the only reason the PS2 plays PSX titles is so that you can keep convincing yourself that your PS2 is better than your PSX.
Of course, the Dreamcast next to the PS2 is so much better (except for the controller of course)... and the $20 Dreamcast keyboard lends itself well to Quake3. No word on whether Unreal on the PS2 will support a $50 USB keyboard.
Athlon motherboards are notorious for not booting with cheap keyboards. Later revisions of the Asus boards fix this (it's even listed in the release notes) but others, like FIC, still don't work. It's ironic that one of the most-neglected components is one of the biggest reliability factors -- once the system is up and running, cheap keyboard or not, it just doesn't quit. It's just getting the BIOS screen to show up...
In the hardcopy catalog, Vol. X, Issue 4A, page 76, the PINE D'Music MP3 CD/Player, $299.99. http://www.tigerdirect.com/.
Plays CDs and CD-R's with MP3s on them. Equalizer, anti-shock (though I doubt playing MP3 CD-Rs could have any kind of anti-shock), and a built-in battery charger if you use rechargeables. Fairly ugly-looking, but it's portable and the best part is that there's NO FRIGGIN' DOWNLOADING. Has a digital display, a simple dsp equalizer, and bass boost.
Good if you don't use SMP
on
Which BSD?
·
· Score: 1
All of the BSD's are great operating systems. One major limitation for large systems is the utter lack of SMP support in threads. None of the BSD kernels I know of support kernel-level threads, and you need them for effective SMP. This essentially means that your second CPU is going to do nothing unless your program actually forks (or you start different copies of your program and give them an affinity to processor 1 and 2). Unfortunately, this still won't address load-balancing, which kernel threads with SMP will do. Doing these things defeats much of the good things about threaded programming and SMP, but that's BSD for you. The kernels are great and stable but just do not seem to address threads at all.
So if you expect to utilize your dual-processor machine, you should consider Solaris x86, Unixware, or Linux, instead of the *BSD's.
They're right. My cable modem is extremely fast. There is DSL available to practically anyone who doesn't live in the sticks, ISDN is readily available (but QOS is questionable), and there are tens of independent providers for DSL (but all of the consumer-level and most of the business-level DSL services still use Bell Atlantic's facilities).
The one major drawback to being so connected is that underground service line cuts seem to be a major problem in the region. The diggers keep the utility-locator services so busy that the locators can't seem to keep up... in most of western Fairfax county there is an ongoing major replacement of underground electrical transmission lines. That work has obliterated the cable system in some neighborhoods. My cable modem works fine on the downlink, but the uplink is suffering from a couple of local digging accidents that cut the line past my house. It still works, but it's really dogging it on the uploads. I noticed that the locator service did not mark the location of any of the cable-TV lines in the neighborhood, so it looks like they're going to bill the power company for the repair.
The unit is modular enough to replace with just about any kind of network-access device. One of the chief reasons of modularizing the unit was to allow cable and DSL providers to offer a Dreamcast access unit for their service. This unit would definitely be an ethernet interface.
Therefore, I don't see how this eliminates a LAN-based solution. I actually expect the cable modem and DSL modules to be ethernet interfaces. The modems are only reachable via ethernet, anyway -- for example, my cable modem sits on the network. It doesn't connect directly with anything. Surely the Dreamcast cable/DSL access packages will replace the 56k modem with an ethernet interface.
You didn't expect the cable/DSL modems to actually plug directly into the Dreamcast, did you? Have you seen the power and thermal requirements of those devices?
Ahh.. that's probably the best explanation of GD-ROM I could find. I always wondered why manufacturers wasted the surface area as the laser tracks outward on the disc. The trick is to use a good variable-speed motor in combination with a more sensitive pickup laser to read the dense data that is now spinning exponentially faster than it is in the center (someone correct my math here and tell me how fast it really is going).
Not really, it's very sharp and clear. The fonts are easy to read. If you still can't see, you can hit a button on the controller to bring up a two-mode magnifying glass.
The web browser disc supports "blind dialing" which waits 2 seconds and dials whether there is a dial tone or not. You could get away with that and another modem waiting on an ATA. I suspect any internet game would allow you to do blind dialing if the web browser disc does.
It's not external, it's modular. There is a tab on the bottom of the DC that lets you remove the 56k modem and replace it with something better. I'm personally excited about a rumored ethernet card so I can use it on the cable modem.
The web browser in DC is nothing like Pocket MSIE. It's something called Planetweb, and it's nothing to be excited about. Still, it's better than WebTV. It also has built-in email and IRC, if you can believe that.
My browser disc didn't work so I returned the whole thing for a new one... everything works now except I cancelled the internet registration half-way through and now it thinks I'm registered. I can't figure out how to get back to registration so I guess I'll have to sign up on the PC to get my login information that way and manually enter it. It's not exactly ready for prime-time.
The machine is silk-screened on the front with a "Compatible with Windows CE" logo. It doesn't say "Powered by Windows CE". Some games use WinCE, some don't.
Even better, you could get yourself a MediaGX or one of the video/sound-integrated Super7 motherboards. I ran across a baby-AT MediaGX that is the smallest motherboard I've ever seen -- even smaller than MATX boards. For about $100 you get a 233 MHz system with sound and video. Add $15 each for two PCI ethernet cards, 64 megabytes for $40, and one of your spare hard disks (or get a CompUSA rebate special for around $50). Finally, get a case/ps for $40 if you don't already have one.
That would work much better than your $1000+ Libretto or the lousy Multia...plus it won't overheat. Best of all, it's i586.
TOC is the publically-published protocol and it talks to a special TOC server. This protocol doesn't work with the AIM servers. MSN Messenger uses the proprietary one and it talks directly to the AIM server.
I'm sounding like a broken record, but MSN is not using the open protocol. MSN Messenger is using the unpublished, proprietary protocol that AIM uses to make themselves look like a real AIM client.
He said that Microsoft is using the open AOL Instant Messenger protocol. This is not true!
AOL did release a special public version of the AIM protocol called "TOC" that connects to special TOC servers made for that purpose and even released several open-source clients to connect with that special server.
The AIM clients for Windows and Macintosh connect to another set of servers whose protocol is undocumented. MSN Messenger is connecting to that other set of servers with the UNDOCUMENTED protocol. Microsoft reverse-engineered that protocol, in fact.
The story should state that:
1) Yahoo Messenger and Prodigy were using the publically-published TOC protocol.
2) MSN Messenger is using a reverse-engineered protocol.
Sorry, but NAIM and LAIM do not use TOC. They use the FAIM library, which is a public-domain reverse-engineered version of the AIM protocol. FAIM-based applications like these do not use TOC.
Microsoft isn't using the TOC protocol. They are using a reverse-engineered version of the protocol that the regular AIM clients use. Only Yahoo and Prodigy were using TOC -- not Microsoft.
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1) Graphics are not as good as Dreamcast.
2) Only two controller ports (WHY?!).
3) Very expensive.
4) No remote control for DVD (WHY?!).
We also concluded that the only reason the PS2 plays PSX titles is so that you can keep convincing yourself that your PS2 is better than your PSX.
Of course, the Dreamcast next to the PS2 is so much better (except for the controller of course)... and the $20 Dreamcast keyboard lends itself well to Quake3. No word on whether Unreal on the PS2 will support a $50 USB keyboard.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Does anyone see a pattern here? Is it over for Intel?
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Plays CDs and CD-R's with MP3s on them. Equalizer, anti-shock (though I doubt playing MP3 CD-Rs could have any kind of anti-shock), and a built-in battery charger if you use rechargeables. Fairly ugly-looking, but it's portable and the best part is that there's NO FRIGGIN' DOWNLOADING. Has a digital display, a simple dsp equalizer, and bass boost.
Available for immediate shipment at: 1-800-292-6095 or http://www.tigerdirect.com/.
Umm, duh...
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
So if you expect to utilize your dual-processor machine, you should consider Solaris x86, Unixware, or Linux, instead of the *BSD's.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
The one major drawback to being so connected is that underground service line cuts seem to be a major problem in the region. The diggers keep the utility-locator services so busy that the locators can't seem to keep up... in most of western Fairfax county there is an ongoing major replacement of underground electrical transmission lines. That work has obliterated the cable system in some neighborhoods. My cable modem works fine on the downlink, but the uplink is suffering from a couple of local digging accidents that cut the line past my house. It still works, but it's really dogging it on the uploads. I noticed that the locator service did not mark the location of any of the cable-TV lines in the neighborhood, so it looks like they're going to bill the power company for the repair.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Therefore, I don't see how this eliminates a LAN-based solution. I actually expect the cable modem and DSL modules to be ethernet interfaces. The modems are only reachable via ethernet, anyway -- for example, my cable modem sits on the network. It doesn't connect directly with anything. Surely the Dreamcast cable/DSL access packages will replace the 56k modem with an ethernet interface.
You didn't expect the cable/DSL modems to actually plug directly into the Dreamcast, did you? Have you seen the power and thermal requirements of those devices?
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
http://www.softrare.com/openbsd-sh4/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
My browser disc didn't work so I returned the whole thing for a new one... everything works now except I cancelled the internet registration half-way through and now it thinks I'm registered. I can't figure out how to get back to registration so I guess I'll have to sign up on the PC to get my login information that way and manually enter it. It's not exactly ready for prime-time.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
That would work much better than your $1000+ Libretto or the lousy Multia...plus it won't overheat. Best of all, it's i586.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
protocol. This is not true!
AOL did release a special public version of the AIM protocol called
"TOC" that connects to special TOC servers made for that purpose and
even released several open-source clients to connect with that special
server.
The AIM clients for Windows and Macintosh connect to another set of
servers whose protocol is undocumented. MSN Messenger is connecting to
that other set of servers with the UNDOCUMENTED protocol. Microsoft
reverse-engineered that protocol, in fact.
The story should state that:
1) Yahoo Messenger and Prodigy were using the publically-published TOC
protocol.
2) MSN Messenger is using a reverse-engineered protocol.
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
GAIM *does* use TOC.
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/
Kris
Kriston J. Rehberg
http://kriston.net/