Even though the Alpha processor has its technical merits compared to Intel, or perhaps AMD, consider also the fact that in any market, diversity is _good_ in and of itself.
Even though I do not (personally) have the funds to buy an Alpha, a SPARC, a PPC-Mac (or RS6000) or an SGI/MIPS, I recognise those machines as being of value to the industry, by their mere existence. The diversity in engineering provides much-needed flexibility and a 'different perspective'.
If we all were the same, we would all use Windows...
After reading the various replies in this thread, I couldn't resist...
By looking at the page of NEC it seems to suggest that their 'cell' is 12V/20mAh, with a connected version of 10 cells for 12V 200mAh. The 200mAh model is about as thick as three or four floppy disks and about 2/3 the height.
The average laptop-battery is about 1 1/2 the height(length) of a floppy and about 5 floppies think. (well, mine is). My current battery provides me with about 3.5 hours of juice and it provides 3600mAh at 10.8V. (Lithium/Ion)
Now there's always the difficulty in expressing these things because almost all variables are related. I'll try to calculate the batteries back to their energy-values in Joules.
3600mAh at 10.8V provides (3.6A * 10.8V * 3600 seconds)== 139968 Joules of power.
For the sake of argument, let's compensate the 'thinness' of the battery (compared with my current battery) by assuming three fit in the length of the 'current' battery.
That would provide 600mAh at 12V in a similar battery. This mounts to (0.6A * 12V * 3600s) 25920 Joules. Even in a very positive estimate of 5 200mAh cells in the same size, it would provide only (1A * 12V * 3600s) 43200 Joules of power. (this last figure is slightly under 1/3 of the amount of power my current battery provides)
As a conclusion, the new battery from NEC won't give us the "durability" most of you have been celebrating about. However, as NEC's article states, it has a significantly higher discharge rate. This 'battery' therefore sooner approaches (as some posters already stated) the specifications of 'burst' capacitors.
Then again, it has the potential for improvement. As Ericsson is already working with Lithium/Polymer (i.e. Electron/Polymer, as opposed to NEC's Proton/Polymer) batteries in their cell-phones, we should be seeing credit-card thickness batteries with longer lifespans for (to begin with) PDA's/cellphones pretty soon.
Another thing I noticed in the posts is a discussion about the units of measurement. Things like the 'Coulomb' and the 'KWh'.
Basically, energy is expressed by Joules. And Power is expressed in Watts, which equals 1 Joule 'consumed' in 1 second. Electrical power (consumption) is calculated by the formula of Power(consumption) equals Voltage times Current (or P=V*I).
[Start inflammatory bit]
Up until now, this has all been highschool-level physics. Which means either one of three things:
1) The posters didn't read the article, clicked on reply and started yapping away,
2) The posters haven't finished highschool yet.
3) The posters won't finish highschool.
[End inflammatory bit]
So the timespan, potential and current are interconnected. Enter the Coulomb. Coulomb is a measurement of charge. Current can therefore be expressed in Coulombs as well as Amps.
1 Coulomb/sec equals 1 Ampere. 1 Ampere equals 1 Watt over 1 Volt. Which in turn means 1 Joule over 1 Volt in 1 second.
(1sec * 1J) * 1V == Watts * Potential == Current
1sec * (1J * 1V) == Time * Coulombs == Current
[Thus Coulomb is the relation between energetic value and potential difference]
The KWh is merely a 'compound' unit for use by power-companies who don't want to daunt their customers by stating a 9-figure number on the bill as the 'power consumed'. Besides, the cost/Watt consumed are so small, they can't reasonably calculate with it.
So, the KWh is one KW (1000 Watts), sustained for one hour (3600 seconds), which results in 3.6 million watts. Stating "200KWh consumed" looks so much friendlier than saying "720000000 Watts consumed" (720 _million_ watts).
Running 4 computers 24/7 in your home (which I do), without the monitors and having saved on the number of harddisks, would probably end up around 300Watts continously. 300 Watts * 3600 * 24 equals 25920000 Watts per day, or 7.2 KWh.
This, at 365 days a year, ends up in a whopping 2628 KWh on computer power-consumption a year alone.
Erhhh... do you really want to connect a voltage feedback to the input on your cardbus? It's gonna take some interesting 'software drivers' to reroute a "battery" device in the PCMCIA to the powersupply...
Ouch... Those among us with vivid imaginations can just "see" the circuit-boards frying, "smell" the chips burning out. Not to mention "feel" the smoldering heat of a _lap_top undergoing this process.
In recent moths we've regularly seen comments, articles and complaints about the way Highschools (and the USA in general) reacted to the Highschool shootings.
One of the more shocking reactions to this was the hysteria that followed, restricting freedom of speech and even the way people dressed.
After reading the article on Australia's internet censorship and seeing things like Gothic, piercing, tattoo, heroine, etc. being banned, doesn't this produce the same results:
The deliberate suppression (oppression?) of minorities' opinions, ideas and expression of (their) culture?
Maybe Australian government should fund some re-education programs for the 'morally misguided'... (geeks, nerds, goths, maybe even jews, aboriginees, or anybody whose bloodlines cannot be traced back to the original 'colonists')
Slashdot Mirror
Even though the Alpha processor has its technical merits compared to Intel, or perhaps AMD, consider also the fact that in any market, diversity is _good_ in and of itself.
Even though I do not (personally) have the funds to buy an Alpha, a SPARC, a PPC-Mac (or RS6000) or an SGI/MIPS, I recognise those machines as being of value to the industry, by their mere existence. The diversity in engineering provides much-needed flexibility and a 'different perspective'.
If we all were the same, we would all use Windows...
After reading the various replies in this thread, I couldn't resist...
By looking at the page of NEC it seems to suggest that their 'cell' is 12V/20mAh, with a connected version of 10 cells for 12V 200mAh. The 200mAh model is about as thick as three or four floppy disks and about 2/3 the height.
The average laptop-battery is about 1 1/2 the height(length) of a floppy and about 5 floppies think. (well, mine is). My current battery provides me with about 3.5 hours of juice and it provides 3600mAh at 10.8V. (Lithium/Ion)
Now there's always the difficulty in expressing these things because almost all variables are related. I'll try to calculate the batteries back to their energy-values in Joules.
3600mAh at 10.8V provides (3.6A * 10.8V * 3600 seconds)== 139968 Joules of power.
For the sake of argument, let's compensate the 'thinness' of the battery (compared with my current battery) by assuming three fit in the length of the 'current' battery.
That would provide 600mAh at 12V in a similar battery. This mounts to (0.6A * 12V * 3600s) 25920 Joules. Even in a very positive estimate of 5 200mAh cells in the same size, it would provide only (1A * 12V * 3600s) 43200 Joules of power. (this last figure is slightly under 1/3 of the amount of power my current battery provides)
As a conclusion, the new battery from NEC won't give us the "durability" most of you have been celebrating about. However, as NEC's article states, it has a significantly higher discharge rate. This 'battery' therefore sooner approaches (as some posters already stated) the specifications of 'burst' capacitors.
Then again, it has the potential for improvement. As Ericsson is already working with Lithium/Polymer (i.e. Electron/Polymer, as opposed to NEC's Proton/Polymer) batteries in their cell-phones, we should be seeing credit-card thickness batteries with longer lifespans for (to begin with) PDA's/cellphones pretty soon.
Another thing I noticed in the posts is a discussion about the units of measurement. Things like the 'Coulomb' and the 'KWh'.
Basically, energy is expressed by Joules. And Power is expressed in Watts, which equals 1 Joule 'consumed' in 1 second. Electrical power (consumption) is calculated by the formula of Power(consumption) equals Voltage times Current (or P=V*I).
[Start inflammatory bit]
Up until now, this has all been highschool-level physics. Which means either one of three things:
1) The posters didn't read the article, clicked on reply and started yapping away,
2) The posters haven't finished highschool yet.
3) The posters won't finish highschool.
[End inflammatory bit]
So the timespan, potential and current are interconnected. Enter the Coulomb. Coulomb is a measurement of charge. Current can therefore be expressed in Coulombs as well as Amps.
1 Coulomb/sec equals 1 Ampere. 1 Ampere equals 1 Watt over 1 Volt. Which in turn means 1 Joule over 1 Volt in 1 second.
(1sec * 1J) * 1V == Watts * Potential == Current
1sec * (1J * 1V) == Time * Coulombs == Current
[Thus Coulomb is the relation between energetic value and potential difference]
The KWh is merely a 'compound' unit for use by power-companies who don't want to daunt their customers by stating a 9-figure number on the bill as the 'power consumed'. Besides, the cost/Watt consumed are so small, they can't reasonably calculate with it.
So, the KWh is one KW (1000 Watts), sustained for one hour (3600 seconds), which results in 3.6 million watts. Stating "200KWh consumed" looks so much friendlier than saying "720000000 Watts consumed" (720 _million_ watts).
Running 4 computers 24/7 in your home (which I do), without the monitors and having saved on the number of harddisks, would probably end up around 300Watts continously. 300 Watts * 3600 * 24 equals 25920000 Watts per day, or 7.2 KWh.
This, at 365 days a year, ends up in a whopping 2628 KWh on computer power-consumption a year alone.
Erhhh... do you really want to connect a voltage feedback to the input on your cardbus? It's gonna take some interesting 'software drivers' to reroute a "battery" device in the PCMCIA to the powersupply...
Ouch... Those among us with vivid imaginations can just "see" the circuit-boards frying, "smell" the chips burning out. Not to mention "feel" the smoldering heat of a _lap_top undergoing this process.
:)
In recent moths we've regularly seen comments,
articles and complaints about the way Highschools (and the USA in general) reacted to the Highschool shootings.
One of the more shocking reactions to this was the hysteria that followed, restricting freedom of speech and even the way people dressed.
After reading the article on Australia's internet censorship and seeing things like Gothic, piercing, tattoo, heroine, etc. being banned, doesn't this produce the same results:
The deliberate suppression (oppression?) of minorities' opinions, ideas and expression of (their) culture?
Maybe Australian government should fund some re-education programs for the 'morally misguided'... (geeks, nerds, goths, maybe even jews, aboriginees, or anybody whose bloodlines cannot be traced back to the original 'colonists')