Id really like to know what brought this to MS's attention. It's puzzling that MS would have one of it's own doors closed (i.e. letting people play XBOX's...) in order to stop Sony.
...Unless, of course, they realized that this situation would be to their advantage - It might cover, say, a tendancy for the Xbox to break down, or maybe some complaints about their controllers? I mean, it's kind of hard to rig things when you give the people the controllers, isen't it? - And, of course, I'm sure that MS wasen't demoing buggy prerelease games, or anything else to try and make it look like the PS2 isen't stomping all over the Xbox in the 'Total games released' catagory, and they COULD have just handed the controllers over to the audience like Sony was doing... But it was against show policy! Sure! Yeah.
It would be interesting to see a really cheap PIC-based solution, however - That would be what would bring beaming stations down from the one-off, rare item to standard usage.
Due to the way PalmOS is licenced to the Sony and HandEra, you see radically diffrent innovation.
HandEra's licence allows them to modify the OS and sell the modifications to third parties.
Sony's licence forces them to fold back their OS modifications into PalmOS proper.
As a result, the TRGPro comes out with Compact Flash capability long before Sony looked into the market, or Palm released the SecureDigital-capable models. (m500 & m505?) - They already had an full-fledged API and even a fairly capable seamless-integration program (AutoCF/AutoCard, that mapped remote storage to Palm RAM). They enjoyed limited success, despite using industry-standard peripherals, and having what's fairly widely regarded as exellent support.
When Sony introduced their propriatary MemoryStick interface, they handed the MemoryStick code over to Palm, and it formed the base of the new Memory API's that Palm placed in OS4 - Not because it was better, or more developed, but because Sony GAVE it to them. HandEra promptly added these APIs into the TRGPro, and also into the HE330 - Free of charge. Sony's track record for OS upgrades is kind of spotty at best - At one point, they wanted to charge $50/unit.
Likewise, when Sony and HandEra took a stab at new screen resolutions, it was very similar.
The HE330 has what I've heard called a 'QVGA' screen - 1/4 of a 640x480 screen. It's allegedly a fairly common format. The Dragonball EZ is capable of running it out of the box, and all the translation/extrapolation is done directly with the processor, in the OS. From what I'm lead to understand, HE's system extensions for screen drawing are very flexable, and allow authors to write (relatively) resolution-independant applications. I have a friend who owns one, and he says that it handles just about everything he throws at it just fine.
Sony went for an almost totally hardware-based solution, using a propriatary 320x320 screen, and (again!) hard-coded resolutions. And, of course, that screen hardware is made by a Sony subsidiary - So even if they DO give their hacked-up Screen API to PalmSource, it only works with Sony screen hardware.:(
So, will Palm go with the already supported, well written solution, or the free one? Or will it all be shoved to the side in the mad dash for OS 5?
I puked when I found out the the 4 drives I need to get this running will cost me $3500.00 from compaq. ...why cant they use standard hotplug drives and mounts?
Because they can't get $3500 for standard hardware? (See Connector Conspiracy for more examples)
Maybe there's a reason you only paid $850 for a loaded quad system?
But environmentalists are pushing for zero pollution (which means zero technology which means zero population).
I think that anyone advocating for 'zero polution' is more than counterbalanced by the companies/lobbists who would like to have 'zero' controls.
As a side point, if technology/population without pollution is as impossible as you seem to think, then we're probably going to have a really, really hard time with space travel much beyond the orbit of the moon.
I like Bucky Fuller. I like him so much, I'm willing to quote him:
Pollution is simply energy - In the form of unfamiliar matter - Which the timing of the omniregenerative cosmic system cannot immediately use but must use later. - Critical Path - Chapter 9 (p277?)
As for the rest of your 'points', do you have to use such obvious straw-man attacks? I know a lot of enviromentally active people. Very few think the way you present them.
I'm not an optomertrist, but isen't there a diminishing return to increasing frame rates? I remember something about the retna's image retention interfering with higher frame rates. (For those of you who've delt with Xwindows - Remember interlaced resolutions? You sure coulden't SEE the individual lines, even if they gave you a headache.)
Or you could use Blissymbolics as a base symbol-language, perhaps with localization modules to subscript the symbols in whatever language the user is familiar with?
One of the problems with symbol-based languages is that their ambiguity makes complex communication difficult. Try translating "A generator is easily repaired by rewinding the armature with fine copper wire.", or "The horrors that I have seen have etched an acid path in my very soul."
The ultimate portable device, as I see it, will like the Pogo, be reliant on the Internet.
...And therefore not only have the problems inherent to PDAs(Small, underpowered/battery life, awkward interface), but have all the problems inherent to wireless networking (Relatively low speeds, intermittant coverage, battery life)
Why have in-unit storage if you can have unlimited storage potential through the use of the Internet?
Good question - If you're not posting from a network appliance (Ex:WebTV, iOpener, Audrey, New Internet Computer), maybe you aught to buy yourself one and experience the amazing array of problems associated with having ALL your data held hostage by some fickle, intermittant remote server - Not to mention that it's probably going to be a long,long, long time before ubiquitous wireless networking reaches the speed of USB, much less EIDE, SCSI or Compact Flash.
Also, another barrier that must be reached is faster wireless internet connections through these devices (plus cost coming down).
Neither of which is going to happen soon, and neither of which are going to happen together - Not in america, at any rate. Who do you think is going to put up/all/ those 3G wireless nodes? Some company! And why are they going to do it? Same reason as always! To bleed consumers as white as they can stand!
THe only way we'll see widespread, reasonably priced 3g in this country anytime soon is if the goverment steps in and funds the infrastructure. And that's about as likely as it is for NASA's funding to get doubled next fiscal year - IE: Short of alien intervention, not too likely.
However, once these are reached, think of the possibilities--
Yeah! Let's!
Centralized storage of your music content! Along with that holy grail, Copy Control!
Paying to look at grany, small pictures of your children!
Automated tracking of your location, whereever you are!
Truely and finally insecure documents! Now ANYBODY can steal your private material and information!
PDA functionality without anywhere near the reliability of access!
Paying. And Paying. And Paying. And Paying, to access your own data, nonetheless
Hate to say it, but if this is where Mobile computing is headed, I think I'd better get off the bus NOW.
I was rummaging through a fistfull of disks, and I found that my 5.25" disks from several years earlier were in generally better shape than 3.5" disks that were newer. DD disks tend to last longer than HD disks, of course, because the spread isen't as bad.
...They've tackled this problem before, and they have a number of requirements that kind of sync with yours....
Portability
Durability
Increased ventilation(No, you're probably not overclocking, but do you want your system to hang mid-performance from a heat overload in some hot/sweaty dance club?)
Specialty hardware requirements
No need of a battery
Take a look here or here* for PCs built into a standard suitcase chassis.
* - If you like the base case used in this one, I think they're currently on sale at Menards (Hardware chain) for @$20. I'd go for something a LOT sturdier, personally. Take a look at Pelican's line of resin/plastic cases - They're even watertight, if you can resist knocking holes in it for your card outputs. A safe assumption would be 'Build it like it's going to be flung around by luggage handlers.'
It's great that you can complain about how mass media is destroying your culture... but what do you propose to do about it?
Here are just a few suggestions:
Just stop protecting intellectual property. We've already got more than enough of it.
Support local theatre (by going out and enjoying it)
Yes, yes, yes! If you think musicians have been hit hard by the Korporate Death Kulture, you aught to see what it's doing to theatre.
Death of a salesman would never, never, never make it to mainstream theatre nowadays, because of heavily over-gauded, over-funded corporate-sponsored crap like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.
Find a local acting troup, and go see a play. Encourage the hell out of them - It's one of the few outlets for local talent left, and most of them are doing it for either love, or a pittance.
And it makes a great date, too.:)
Why not a single loop running from a heat-dissipating surface in the tank to the heat-collecting plate on your CPU?
As far as dissipating the heat into the tank, why not this idea:
Garner/scrounge a large/long test tube or similar glassware(Hint - Got a dead electric heater around?), with a dual-hole stopper.
Run two tubes into the test-tube, one to the bottom, one to the top. Feed your hot liquid in from the top, and draw from the bottom where the liquid has cooled the most.
Suggest you keep a tank heater in the opposite side - all but the very cheapest are thermally switched, and that way it could cover for the CPU when the system is running under light loads.
Be wary of people who start talking about using soldered connections or metal plates in the tank - It's easy to poison fish - The ecology is a tightly closed loop, and any small amount of exposed metal can translate into a LOT of dead fish.
Simple - Microsoft is paying Licencing fees to Xerox on their new Block Recognizer. Which, when I first heard it, sent warning bells off in my mind. Since when does Microsoft licence ANYTHING?
Haven't they made their entire empire out of copying the work of others, then using their lawyers to beat the lawsuits off?
But in light of this, it makes/perfect/ sense.
Xerox beats the living daylights out of Palm, and points at Microsoft's licence as proof they own the technology.
Microsoft pays next to nothing for the graffiti patents, and has their butts covered when Palm tries to sue them for using it.
Palm can't sue M$, and they probably can't countersue Xerox. If Xerox manages to kill Palm completely, then M$ just drops Character Recognizer support, and leaves Xerox hanging.
It's brilliant from a stratigic viewpoint. Kind of like giving a little bit of money to a bunch of ignorant Arab terrorists to keep the Russians from taking over a certain country.
I find the idea of getting large quanties of Flash-ROM that work transparently with CF really interesting. Hell, 64mb at a dime a piece, they cost as much as GOOD CDR blanks, and are rated for 10x the shelf life.
Second that. They're what you describe, and the price is about $15/year with a 30-day free trial.
For that, you get three email redirect addresses, and optional (although somewhat inneffective) spam filtering.
Looking above at the Sony SPDIF control system, I guess my question is 'Do any CD-ROM electronics share a reading laser type with the Sony jukeboxes?' That could get you 90% of the way there, if you could just unplug the servo/head electronics and plug them into a CD-ROM chassis.
Personally, I'm Way Too Poor to buy a CD Juke just to tear it apart and play with it. This seems like a really worthwhile idea, tho.
I used to use one of these with CDParanoia - When it was in a good mood, it'd just give me an endless pile of jitter errors - When it was in a bad mood, it'd flood my SCSI bus and cause General Badness. The same disks ripped OK with my Plextor, but that isen't exactly fair, is it?:)
I guess most people would assume that a $15 SCSI peripheral would be junk, but I thought a comment was worth making before somebody dropped $150 on ten of these things.
Maybe try finding a BIOS for your support chipset that allows boot? Maybe a refrence BIOS?
Might not work, might. If nothing else, if you crisp the BIOSs of all your spare boards, you would have a good excuse to pick up something cheap that DID boot without monitor.:)
I woulden't do it with a spiffy new MB, but it's probably less likely to auger your system than tearing a socket out and wire-wrapping a video card into it.
I usually get a large sheet of paper, and run a strip of double-sided tape across the top. As I'm dismantling, I draw a sketch of the laptop and label the holes the screws came out of, then stick them on the tape next to a matching label. If you have to move it, lay a layer of clear packing tape over the screws so they don't jump off.
Likewise, quick notes on tricky sliding/prying that is necessary will help you when the hardware you ordered arrives next week and you're scratching your head and muttering 'Now, did I pop this first, or that?'
Go at it with the kind of mindset that most people would use for handling a bomb, and you'll do fine.:)
For "normal" folk, though, *none* of these distros would be adequate. Windows is such a joy to install -- you put the disk in, you answer a few questions, and you have a working computer.
Stuff like this definately reminds me of the week I spent watching Win98 fail to install on my machine - I eventually worked out that my DOS SCSI CD drivers were causing the system to hang, via a laborious try-change-try again process. God knows that the installation process wasen't providing any meanigful feedback.
Slashdot Mirror
...Unless, of course, they realized that this situation would be to their advantage - It might cover, say, a tendancy for the Xbox to break down, or maybe some complaints about their controllers? I mean, it's kind of hard to rig things when you give the people the controllers, isen't it? - And, of course, I'm sure that MS wasen't demoing buggy prerelease games, or anything else to try and make it look like the PS2 isen't stomping all over the Xbox in the 'Total games released' catagory, and they COULD have just handed the controllers over to the audience like Sony was doing... But it was against show policy! Sure! Yeah.
You'd probably be interested in BeamPro Exhibition, for the PalmOS.
It would be interesting to see a really cheap PIC-based solution, however - That would be what would bring beaming stations down from the one-off, rare item to standard usage.
Due to the way PalmOS is licenced to the Sony and HandEra, you see radically diffrent innovation.
:(
HandEra's licence allows them to modify the OS and sell the modifications to third parties.
Sony's licence forces them to fold back their OS modifications into PalmOS proper.
As a result, the TRGPro comes out with Compact Flash capability long before Sony looked into the market, or Palm released the SecureDigital-capable models. (m500 & m505?) - They already had an full-fledged API and even a fairly capable seamless-integration program (AutoCF/AutoCard, that mapped remote storage to Palm RAM). They enjoyed limited success, despite using industry-standard peripherals, and having what's fairly widely regarded as exellent support.
When Sony introduced their propriatary MemoryStick interface, they handed the MemoryStick code over to Palm, and it formed the base of the new Memory API's that Palm placed in OS4 - Not because it was better, or more developed, but because Sony GAVE it to them. HandEra promptly added these APIs into the TRGPro, and also into the HE330 - Free of charge. Sony's track record for OS upgrades is kind of spotty at best - At one point, they wanted to charge $50/unit.
Likewise, when Sony and HandEra took a stab at new screen resolutions, it was very similar.
The HE330 has what I've heard called a 'QVGA' screen - 1/4 of a 640x480 screen. It's allegedly a fairly common format. The Dragonball EZ is capable of running it out of the box, and all the translation/extrapolation is done directly with the processor, in the OS. From what I'm lead to understand, HE's system extensions for screen drawing are very flexable, and allow authors to write (relatively) resolution-independant applications. I have a friend who owns one, and he says that it handles just about everything he throws at it just fine.
Sony went for an almost totally hardware-based solution, using a propriatary 320x320 screen, and (again!) hard-coded resolutions. And, of course, that screen hardware is made by a Sony subsidiary - So even if they DO give their hacked-up Screen API to PalmSource, it only works with Sony screen hardware.
So, will Palm go with the already supported, well written solution, or the free one?
Or will it all be shoved to the side in the mad dash for OS 5?
Because they can't get $3500 for standard hardware? (See Connector Conspiracy for more examples)
Maybe there's a reason you only paid $850 for a loaded quad system?
Two-disk Xwindows might do the trick - Or you might even be able to scrounge up some of those old 2.88mb floppy drives.
"...I can set up that system in THREE notes - I mean, disks!"
I think that anyone advocating for 'zero polution' is more than counterbalanced by the companies/lobbists who would like to have 'zero' controls.
As a side point, if technology/population without pollution is as impossible as you seem to think, then we're probably going to have a really, really hard time with space travel much beyond the orbit of the moon.
I like Bucky Fuller. I like him so much, I'm willing to quote him:
Pollution is simply energy - In the form of unfamiliar matter - Which the timing of the omniregenerative cosmic system cannot immediately use but must use later. - Critical Path - Chapter 9 (p277?)
As for the rest of your 'points', do you have to use such obvious straw-man attacks? I know a lot of enviromentally active people. Very few think the way you present them.
I'm not an optomertrist, but isen't there a diminishing return to increasing frame rates? I remember something about the retna's image retention interfering with higher frame rates. (For those of you who've delt with Xwindows - Remember interlaced resolutions? You sure coulden't SEE the individual lines, even if they gave you a headache.)
Or you could use Blissymbolics as a base symbol-language, perhaps with localization modules to subscript the symbols in whatever language the user is familiar with?
One of the problems with symbol-based languages is that their ambiguity makes complex communication difficult. Try translating "A generator is easily repaired by rewinding the armature with fine copper wire.", or "The horrors that I have seen have etched an acid path in my very soul."
Apparently somebody already thought of how to do this one. And actually has written an idea demo.
Now all he has to do is figure out how to actually WRITE CODE for an iPod.
I was rummaging through a fistfull of disks, and I found that my 5.25" disks from several years earlier were in generally better shape than 3.5" disks that were newer. DD disks tend to last longer than HD disks, of course, because the spread isen't as bad.
YMMV. IANAMF (I am not a Magnetic Field)
...They've tackled this problem before, and they have a number of requirements that kind of sync with yours....
Take a look here or here* for PCs built into a standard suitcase chassis.
* - If you like the base case used in this one, I think they're currently on sale at Menards (Hardware chain) for @$20. I'd go for something a LOT sturdier, personally. Take a look at Pelican's line of resin/plastic cases - They're even watertight, if you can resist knocking holes in it for your card outputs. A safe assumption would be 'Build it like it's going to be flung around by luggage handlers.'
Yes, yes, yes! If you think musicians have been hit hard by the Korporate Death Kulture, you aught to see what it's doing to theatre. :)
Death of a salesman would never, never, never make it to mainstream theatre nowadays, because of heavily over-gauded, over-funded corporate-sponsored crap like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.
Find a local acting troup, and go see a play. Encourage the hell out of them - It's one of the few outlets for local talent left, and most of them are doing it for either love, or a pittance.
And it makes a great date, too.
A twiddler is a single-hand chordal keyboard, folks. He's not necessarily trolling.
They use serial ports - There's a driver for the Palm Pilot - Don't know about the PocketPC, though.
Why not a single loop running from a heat-dissipating surface in the tank to the heat-collecting plate on your CPU?
As far as dissipating the heat into the tank, why not this idea:
Garner/scrounge a large/long test tube or similar glassware(Hint - Got a dead electric heater around?), with a dual-hole stopper.
Run two tubes into the test-tube, one to the bottom, one to the top. Feed your hot liquid in from the top, and draw from the bottom where the liquid has cooled the most.
Suggest you keep a tank heater in the opposite side - all but the very cheapest are thermally switched, and that way it could cover for the CPU when the system is running under light loads.
Be wary of people who start talking about using soldered connections or metal plates in the tank - It's easy to poison fish - The ecology is a tightly closed loop, and any small amount of exposed metal can translate into a LOT of dead fish.
Simple - Microsoft is paying Licencing fees to Xerox on their new Block Recognizer. Which, when I first heard it, sent warning bells off in my mind. Since when does Microsoft licence ANYTHING?
/perfect/ sense.
Haven't they made their entire empire out of copying the work of others, then using their lawyers to beat the lawsuits off?
But in light of this, it makes
Xerox beats the living daylights out of Palm, and points at Microsoft's licence as proof they own the technology.
Microsoft pays next to nothing for the graffiti patents, and has their butts covered when Palm tries to sue them for using it.
Palm can't sue M$, and they probably can't countersue Xerox. If Xerox manages to kill Palm completely, then M$ just drops Character Recognizer support, and leaves Xerox hanging.
It's brilliant from a stratigic viewpoint. Kind of like giving a little bit of money to a bunch of ignorant Arab terrorists to keep the Russians from taking over a certain country.
How many CD-R's have you had die on you?
I find the idea of getting large quanties of Flash-ROM that work transparently with CF really interesting. Hell, 64mb at a dime a piece, they cost as much as GOOD CDR blanks, and are rated for 10x the shelf life.
Second that. They're what you describe, and the price is about $15/year with a 30-day free trial.
For that, you get three email redirect addresses, and optional (although somewhat inneffective) spam filtering.
Looking above at the Sony SPDIF control system, I guess my question is 'Do any CD-ROM electronics share a reading laser type with the Sony jukeboxes?' That could get you 90% of the way there, if you could just unplug the servo/head electronics and plug them into a CD-ROM chassis.
Personally, I'm Way Too Poor to buy a CD Juke just to tear it apart and play with it. This seems like a really worthwhile idea, tho.
I used to use one of these with CDParanoia - When it was in a good mood, it'd just give me an endless pile of jitter errors - When it was in a bad mood, it'd flood my SCSI bus and cause General Badness. The same disks ripped OK with my Plextor, but that isen't exactly fair, is it? :)
I guess most people would assume that a $15 SCSI peripheral would be junk, but I thought a comment was worth making before somebody dropped $150 on ten of these things.
Maybe try finding a BIOS for your support chipset that allows boot? Maybe a refrence BIOS?
:)
Might not work, might. If nothing else, if you crisp the BIOSs of all your spare boards, you would have a good excuse to pick up something cheap that DID boot without monitor.
I woulden't do it with a spiffy new MB, but it's probably less likely to auger your system than tearing a socket out and wire-wrapping a video card into it.
I can see your point, for that use - Dosen't anybody make a desktop setup for the Newton yet?
All of the Palm basic app info (And many secondary ones) can be accessed through the desktop application without draining the PDA's batteries.
Running a webserver off of a PDA just seems like a lot of bother for not a lot of added benefit.
I usually get a large sheet of paper, and run a strip of double-sided tape across the top. As I'm dismantling, I draw a sketch of the laptop and label the holes the screws came out of, then stick them on the tape next to a matching label. If you have to move it, lay a layer of clear packing tape over the screws so they don't jump off.
Likewise, quick notes on tricky sliding/prying that is necessary will help you when the hardware you ordered arrives next week and you're scratching your head and muttering 'Now, did I pop this first, or that?'
Go at it with the kind of mindset that most people would use for handling a bomb, and you'll do fine. :)
Stuff like this definately reminds me of the week I spent watching Win98 fail to install on my machine - I eventually worked out that my DOS SCSI CD drivers were causing the system to hang, via a laborious try-change-try again process. God knows that the installation process wasen't providing any meanigful feedback.
When windows fails, it (IME) fails spectacularly.