Get a FX5200. They're very cheap, come in several different configurations (including dual DVI), and sport between 64 and 128mb. Mine (a Gaintech) uses a tiny cooler that's absolutely silent, but i've seen them with fanless sinks. As it's usual with nVidia, drivers are excellent and i never had a gfx application crashing on me.
It has a decent performance for it's price, so you might even be able to play DX9/OGL2.0 games with it.
It won't be of any use to the regular Joe. But there's a lot of scientific experiments that rely on accurate time measurements, notably those involving relativistic effects.
Release the docs? So you've just created thousands of hours work for someone sanitising internal only documentation (probably with rude comments about peoples design skills etc) supporting queries, updating information as new chip revs come out, etc.
They don't have to, of course. But releasing specs it's a hell of a lot easier (and cheaper) for them than releasing a binary driver, which also requieres thousands of hours to develop and test. It's obvious that Linux is not an afterthought for nVidia; the quality of their drivers proves it, but their fixtation with binary only drivers causes endless headaches to the end users. Like i said, there's no real reason why at least specs can be published. That's all the excuse they need to separate themselves from the problem.
All of this, assuming of course the driver source itself can't be opened because of IP restrictions.
Well, you have a point. The main reason Linux has no stable API for drivers is because it's in constant developement; and it has changed quite a bit over the last few versions. It also "encourages" (forces?) the release of OSS drivers, or specs, at the very least, and Linus himself stated this was one of the main reasons behind this line of thinking.
Like you said, vendors have the right to keep their drivers closed, which is understandable. Sometimes writing drivers is not trivial (gfx cards, notably) and takes a lot of time and money. What i find idiotic is that most of the time not even the techincal documentation for the hardware is available - if you don't want to play OSS, fine, you're entitled to, but i bet developers would love to have some specs in return. It's not unrational, and it's not fanatical.
Why they don't release specs is a whole different discussion. But it can be done.
Anyway, nVidia atleast goes through the trouble of providing very decent Linux drivers for almost all their products, even while closed source. I just wish they would go the extra mile and release specs.
In mu experience, games that do a lot of harddrive access work MUCH faster on Linux, for some reason. This is both with native games and those using Wine/WineX; for example, UT2004 and Doom 3 load levels in seconds on my Linux box.
SDL is a multiplatform solution much like DirectX; it covers controllers, 3D graphics (via OpenGL) and audio. It's quite easy to use, and it's ported to almost everything. Lots of games use it, notably the Unreal series.
The solution is out there, and it's already proven to work.
Couldn't neutrons be shielded in some way? I recall reading about people experimenting with Farnsworth fusors and they took precautions to avoid neutron generation, no matter how small. I just can't remember the specifics.
You're a lucky man. My latest tech support capades with my ISP were a display of their policy of "if we ignore the client long enough, perhaps they'll stop bitching".
There were ongoing efforts to create OSS support for NetMD players; of course, the protocol is ugly and convoluted, and Sony won't open it. Right now they support operations with tracks already available on the Minidisc, but no uploading, which kinda defeats the point.
Anyway, i also wish Sony would get off their asses and give the MD a fair chance. The hardware is great, cheap, and the media is readily available.
Well, keep in mind that is in an ideal world where most of the software is OSS in some way or another. Even while i don't agree with some parts of his thinking, the world is moving (slow but steady) towards a future where most desktop software will become a comodiy, and, well, if you write those you'll just have to adapt. And there'll always be work to be done in consulting and custom software.
Your career in embedded software won't suffer a bit though;)
This is something i though the second i heard HL2 would need online activation. Are you purchasing the game, or leasing it? Online activation should be there for people who bought the game off Steam, not the ones that shelled 50 bucks to get their game in a nice, shiny box. This also bugged me about Windows XP. CD keys are one thing, requiered activation is another.
As it is, you investment is tied to the existence of Steam - meaning that the software you bought isn't really yours unless they let you to. You didn't buy a license, you brought the goddamn game! What if, for any reason, Steam died tomorrow and wouldn't be up for another week? What happens if you want to play the game years from now and Valve is history? What if you want to play the game, pay for it, but have no access to the net? It's a lot of "what if"'s once you think about it...
Basically, you're paying nothing for top quality developement tools, never mind the rest of the software you use every day. No licenses, no fees, nothing. GCC is a top notch compiler, and the little coding i did over Linux was a joy; it's a great OS to write software for. He stated that coders would still be needed (and cherished), only not paid as much as they used to.
All of this is debatable, of course, and i feel that OSS benefits paid programmers the least. But, anyway, that was his argument.
Ease of Use: 7 my bandmates and i call it "anal lube" if you have used one you know why. shave and a haircut, 4 bits. toggling thru the menus can be annoying but you get used to it, moving linear just like playing legend of zelda.
You're the brother of Mike Matthews! The Big Muff Pi and Guitar sytnh are the best guitar pedalboxes ever:) Not that he'll care, but say him "thank you so damn much" from me!
Anyway, GPL proliferation made living off coding more difficult. There was a small paper written by Stallman himself where he discussed this, and pretty much ended up agreeing that yes, as software becomes a comodity, programmers will get paid less - this compensated by other benefits from open source licensing. I just can't find the damn link right now. But it just sucks, because sometimes people don't want the best product, they just go for the cheapest.
There's more to "amplifier sound" than just adding harmonics. If you like that sound, theres's a gadget called exciter that would do it for you. The distortion discussion is long and i feel, IMHO, than an amplfier that adds excessive unwanted distortion can't be called Hi-Fi to start with. But still...
Valve amplifiers have a number of design implementation characteristics that make them desirable for audio. For starters, almost every single valve amplifier is transformer-coupled at the output, which gives it a distinctive sound "coloration". Valves have much better slew rates and open-loop freq. response than transistors, which are desirable characteristics in audio devices. And, for a number of reasons, valve amps usally drive speakers much better, resulting in, yes, better sound. Class-A amplifiers (specially the so-called "single ended ones", where just one device energizes the speaker) exhibit a similar behaviour, which is why they are usually agreed to "sound more valveish" than regular ones.
Of course, valves have limited life, become microphonic over time and require manteinence. But that's part of the fun of it...
The truth is, most valve amps DO sound better. It might not be by much, but the difference is appreciable, and some people are willing to pay for it. A special case is instrument amplifiers, where valves are still unmatched. If you ever played an electric guitar, you'll know.
That being said, yes, i agree that a good set of speakers can make a bigger difference than a new amp. And the people who spend $2500 in interconnects and power cables (yes, they do) are insane, but don't think valves are obsolete. They have their place, even when in most areas transistors are more practical. For audio gear, instrument amplifiers, and power communications valve designs are still the norm. And, if you're using a CRT, you're pretty much looking at a huge device which works by the same principle as a vaccum valve.
Don't feel like that. They wouldn't do it if it weren't good buisness; think of it like a promotion.
But even then, i agree, abusing such a service is downright bad. Like nmos said, the LM317 is quite a venerable part, avaiable anyware for cents. It's kinda cheap to ask a free sample of one.
I don't think anybody has any reason to pay for some unknown web browser, unless it has some amazing features.
You should try Opera then. Don't get me wrong, i like Firefox a lot, but Opera has been my browser of choice for years now, and mainly for it's VERY polished interface. You can get tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, download manager and powerful bookmark handling with other browsers, but no one does it better than Opera, and after a while, when you get used to it's ways, you just can't go back. Most people i know dislike Opera on a first try because it behaves different (specially than IE), but after a while they just fall in love.
I sure hope they do better in the future. It's not a question of "is there room for a non-free browser?", but "is there room for a better browser?". Opera is better, IMHO, so i pay for it gladly. And it keeps getting better with each revision.
Actually, most semiconductor companies are very liberal when it comes to sampling. TI, for once, ships three samples of almost anything on their catalog, to anywhere over the world, as long as you fill some personal info and state what are you intending to do with the devices (or atleast they used to). They once shipped me a very high quality opamp IC that i turned into a beautiful headphone amp. I can't recall the price, but it's surely wasn't cheap, if not unavaiable.
Maxim does the same, and i got from them a couple of LCD display drivers that would've costed me a sum here in South America.
Of course, they don't want the service to be abused. But for them it's a neat way to do advertising amongst designers (i sure regard both companies better after that) for cheap. Anwyay, 90% has no use for electronic parts anyway, it's not like it's free T-shirts.
Very little. LEDs are very efficient power-wise and suck relatively little current; normal LEDs light at maximum with about 10-15mA, after that they burn out pretty quickly.
The power depends on the voltage, but, say, if you use a 12v power supply and light a 100 of those you'd be using just a tad under 20 watts. That's less than a cheap bulb, and trust me, it would light just a bit brighter;)
As a matter of fact, LEDs are quite a neat lighting solution; they're cheap, awfully efficient and have a long working life. The thing is that, atleast until recently, clear light LEDs were unavaiable. Those are hard to make, and even then, white light LEDs are not very pure, color wise. Flashlights are beggining to carry LED diodes, for one.
It's not because it's impossible (just take a look at Apple), but becase the mess that it's Windows nowadays is the result of having backwards compatibility prioritized over everything else. Gates and co. are not stupid; they know that the applications are what make the OS. If you introduce a new Windows that need new apps and supports older ones with a VM (performance hit and issues waiting there), all of the sudden other options become much more viable, specially Apple. If you have to replace all your apps to use a new OS, why not switch OSs altogheter?
I don't think MS developers suck; as a matter of fact, if anyone can afford to hire the best, it's Microsoft.
Microsofts' software issues came by design. Too many features, too many pieces of code interfacing with each other, endless hacks and patches (most of them to ensure backwards compatibility), and, as most major software producers expect, usually rushed deadlines. It's just bound to happen. Every soft has bugs, but Microsoft doesn't seem able to catch a break.
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Get a FX5200. They're very cheap, come in several different configurations (including dual DVI), and sport between 64 and 128mb. Mine (a Gaintech) uses a tiny cooler that's absolutely silent, but i've seen them with fanless sinks. As it's usual with nVidia, drivers are excellent and i never had a gfx application crashing on me.
It has a decent performance for it's price, so you might even be able to play DX9/OGL2.0 games with it.
It won't be of any use to the regular Joe. But there's a lot of scientific experiments that rely on accurate time measurements, notably those involving relativistic effects.
Release the docs? So you've just created thousands of hours work for someone sanitising internal only documentation (probably with rude comments about peoples design skills etc) supporting queries, updating information as new chip revs come out, etc.
They don't have to, of course. But releasing specs it's a hell of a lot easier (and cheaper) for them than releasing a binary driver, which also requieres thousands of hours to develop and test. It's obvious that Linux is not an afterthought for nVidia; the quality of their drivers proves it, but their fixtation with binary only drivers causes endless headaches to the end users. Like i said, there's no real reason why at least specs can be published. That's all the excuse they need to separate themselves from the problem.
All of this, assuming of course the driver source itself can't be opened because of IP restrictions.
Well, you have a point. The main reason Linux has no stable API for drivers is because it's in constant developement; and it has changed quite a bit over the last few versions. It also "encourages" (forces?) the release of OSS drivers, or specs, at the very least, and Linus himself stated this was one of the main reasons behind this line of thinking.
Like you said, vendors have the right to keep their drivers closed, which is understandable. Sometimes writing drivers is not trivial (gfx cards, notably) and takes a lot of time and money. What i find idiotic is that most of the time not even the techincal documentation for the hardware is available - if you don't want to play OSS, fine, you're entitled to, but i bet developers would love to have some specs in return. It's not unrational, and it's not fanatical.
Why they don't release specs is a whole different discussion. But it can be done.
Anyway, nVidia atleast goes through the trouble of providing very decent Linux drivers for almost all their products, even while closed source. I just wish they would go the extra mile and release specs.
In mu experience, games that do a lot of harddrive access work MUCH faster on Linux, for some reason. This is both with native games and those using Wine/WineX; for example, UT2004 and Doom 3 load levels in seconds on my Linux box.
SDL is a multiplatform solution much like DirectX; it covers controllers, 3D graphics (via OpenGL) and audio. It's quite easy to use, and it's ported to almost everything. Lots of games use it, notably the Unreal series.
The solution is out there, and it's already proven to work.
Couldn't neutrons be shielded in some way? I recall reading about people experimenting with Farnsworth fusors and they took precautions to avoid neutron generation, no matter how small. I just can't remember the specifics.
You're a lucky man. My latest tech support capades with my ISP were a display of their policy of "if we ignore the client long enough, perhaps they'll stop bitching".
There were ongoing efforts to create OSS support for NetMD players; of course, the protocol is ugly and convoluted, and Sony won't open it. Right now they support operations with tracks already available on the Minidisc, but no uploading, which kinda defeats the point.
Anyway, i also wish Sony would get off their asses and give the MD a fair chance. The hardware is great, cheap, and the media is readily available.
Well, keep in mind that is in an ideal world where most of the software is OSS in some way or another. Even while i don't agree with some parts of his thinking, the world is moving (slow but steady) towards a future where most desktop software will become a comodiy, and, well, if you write those you'll just have to adapt. And there'll always be work to be done in consulting and custom software.
;)
Your career in embedded software won't suffer a bit though
This is something i though the second i heard HL2 would need online activation. Are you purchasing the game, or leasing it? Online activation should be there for people who bought the game off Steam, not the ones that shelled 50 bucks to get their game in a nice, shiny box. This also bugged me about Windows XP. CD keys are one thing, requiered activation is another.
As it is, you investment is tied to the existence of Steam - meaning that the software you bought isn't really yours unless they let you to. You didn't buy a license, you brought the goddamn game! What if, for any reason, Steam died tomorrow and wouldn't be up for another week? What happens if you want to play the game years from now and Valve is history? What if you want to play the game, pay for it, but have no access to the net? It's a lot of "what if"'s once you think about it...
Basically, you're paying nothing for top quality developement tools, never mind the rest of the software you use every day. No licenses, no fees, nothing. GCC is a top notch compiler, and the little coding i did over Linux was a joy; it's a great OS to write software for. He stated that coders would still be needed (and cherished), only not paid as much as they used to.
All of this is debatable, of course, and i feel that OSS benefits paid programmers the least. But, anyway, that was his argument.
Price Paid: US $140 used
Ease of Use: 7
my bandmates and i call it "anal lube" if you have used one you know why. shave and a haircut, 4 bits. toggling thru the menus can be annoying but you get used to it, moving linear just like playing legend of zelda.
Yep! Priceless!
Sorry, make that "son" ;)
You're the brother of Mike Matthews! The Big Muff Pi and Guitar sytnh are the best guitar pedalboxes ever :) Not that he'll care, but say him "thank you so damn much" from me!
Anyway, GPL proliferation made living off coding more difficult. There was a small paper written by Stallman himself where he discussed this, and pretty much ended up agreeing that yes, as software becomes a comodity, programmers will get paid less - this compensated by other benefits from open source licensing. I just can't find the damn link right now. But it just sucks, because sometimes people don't want the best product, they just go for the cheapest.
There's more to "amplifier sound" than just adding harmonics. If you like that sound, theres's a gadget called exciter that would do it for you. The distortion discussion is long and i feel, IMHO, than an amplfier that adds excessive unwanted distortion can't be called Hi-Fi to start with. But still...
Valve amplifiers have a number of design implementation characteristics that make them desirable for audio. For starters, almost every single valve amplifier is transformer-coupled at the output, which gives it a distinctive sound "coloration". Valves have much better slew rates and open-loop freq. response than transistors, which are desirable characteristics in audio devices. And, for a number of reasons, valve amps usally drive speakers much better, resulting in, yes, better sound. Class-A amplifiers (specially the so-called "single ended ones", where just one device energizes the speaker) exhibit a similar behaviour, which is why they are usually agreed to "sound more valveish" than regular ones.
Of course, valves have limited life, become microphonic over time and require manteinence. But that's part of the fun of it...
The truth is, most valve amps DO sound better. It might not be by much, but the difference is appreciable, and some people are willing to pay for it. A special case is instrument amplifiers, where valves are still unmatched. If you ever played an electric guitar, you'll know.
That being said, yes, i agree that a good set of speakers can make a bigger difference than a new amp. And the people who spend $2500 in interconnects and power cables (yes, they do) are insane, but don't think valves are obsolete. They have their place, even when in most areas transistors are more practical. For audio gear, instrument amplifiers, and power communications valve designs are still the norm. And, if you're using a CRT, you're pretty much looking at a huge device which works by the same principle as a vaccum valve.
Don't feel like that. They wouldn't do it if it weren't good buisness; think of it like a promotion.
But even then, i agree, abusing such a service is downright bad. Like nmos said, the LM317 is quite a venerable part, avaiable anyware for cents. It's kinda cheap to ask a free sample of one.
I don't think anybody has any reason to pay for some unknown web browser, unless it has some amazing features.
You should try Opera then. Don't get me wrong, i like Firefox a lot, but Opera has been my browser of choice for years now, and mainly for it's VERY polished interface. You can get tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, download manager and powerful bookmark handling with other browsers, but no one does it better than Opera, and after a while, when you get used to it's ways, you just can't go back. Most people i know dislike Opera on a first try because it behaves different (specially than IE), but after a while they just fall in love.
I sure hope they do better in the future. It's not a question of "is there room for a non-free browser?", but "is there room for a better browser?". Opera is better, IMHO, so i pay for it gladly. And it keeps getting better with each revision.
Actually, most semiconductor companies are very liberal when it comes to sampling. TI, for once, ships three samples of almost anything on their catalog, to anywhere over the world, as long as you fill some personal info and state what are you intending to do with the devices (or atleast they used to). They once shipped me a very high quality opamp IC that i turned into a beautiful headphone amp. I can't recall the price, but it's surely wasn't cheap, if not unavaiable.
Maxim does the same, and i got from them a couple of LCD display drivers that would've costed me a sum here in South America.
Of course, they don't want the service to be abused. But for them it's a neat way to do advertising amongst designers (i sure regard both companies better after that) for cheap. Anwyay, 90% has no use for electronic parts anyway, it's not like it's free T-shirts.
Very little. LEDs are very efficient power-wise and suck relatively little current; normal LEDs light at maximum with about 10-15mA, after that
;)
they burn out pretty quickly.
The power depends on the voltage, but, say, if you use a 12v power supply and light a 100 of those you'd be using just a tad under 20 watts. That's less than a cheap bulb, and trust me, it would light just a bit brighter
As a matter of fact, LEDs are quite a neat lighting solution; they're cheap, awfully efficient and have a long working life. The thing is that, atleast until recently, clear light LEDs were unavaiable. Those are hard to make, and even then, white light LEDs are not very pure, color wise. Flashlights are beggining to carry LED diodes, for one.
Geee, imagine a world without lawyers...
Oooooh, Ghostbusters for the C64... they don't make them like that anymore :(
I agree 100%, but you know what?
They won't. Not anytime soon, atleast.
It's not because it's impossible (just take a look at Apple), but becase the mess that it's Windows nowadays is the result of having backwards compatibility prioritized over everything else. Gates and co. are not stupid; they know that the applications are what make the OS. If you introduce a new Windows that need new apps and supports older ones with a VM (performance hit and issues waiting there), all of the sudden other options become much more viable, specially Apple. If you have to replace all your apps to use a new OS, why not switch OSs altogheter?
I don't think MS developers suck; as a matter of fact, if anyone can afford to hire the best, it's Microsoft.
Microsofts' software issues came by design. Too many features, too many pieces of code interfacing with each other, endless hacks and patches (most of them to ensure backwards compatibility), and, as most major software producers expect, usually rushed deadlines. It's just bound to happen. Every soft has bugs, but Microsoft doesn't seem able to catch a break.
It's that time of the month already?