Hey no problem but take a look at the motherboards that use the ServerWorks LE and HE chipset. The LE is the lower cost version that doesn't have memory interleaving (sp?). Apparently the onboard generic IDE sucks on these boards but they are great in other regards and do in fact usually feature onboard LAN and SCSI (some even have dual onboard NICs). The other chipset to look at is the 440GX and GX+.
It is true for desktop motherboards that integrated features are bad news (although with the newer boards this is changing) but on the high end boards integrated SCSI and NICs are common. This makes it far easier to stuff a nice system into a small rack box. For example you can put a complete server into a 1U which I believe is only 1.75" high (but 19"x?? like rather large pizza box).
Take a look at high end motherboards from Intel, SuperMicro, Tyan, and Asus. There are definately some interesting products out there...
3ware makes pure hardware based IDE RAID. Adaptec has one too.. But these aren't all that cheap. Adaptec is ~ $400 I think and the 3ware starts at $150 or so for a 2 port but goes up to $400 or more for an 8 port. The Promise cards are partially software based (some in hardware).
The nice thing with the 3ware (and I presume Adaptec) product is that it supports all the nifty stuff like hotswap.
The newish IDE RAID cards can provide a high perfomance alternative to SCSI. I believe a lot of the large network storage devices use IDE drives due to the cost savings. Hopefully we'll see IDE drive makers follow IBM's lead in supporting some of the SCSI-like features like tagged queing (supported in FreeBSD - don't see support in Linux yet).
Of course SCSI still has its place with 15,000 RPM drives but for large storage applications with RAID usage IDE is very attractive. Hopefully this will drive SCSI prices down but I'm not counting on it.
Have you tried 3ware? They make IDE RAID cards that have linux driver support (in the 2.4 kernel). I'm not sure if their devices support the new 48bit LBA standard. They seem to be focusing more on their larger products but their RAID cards (which are used in their larger products so they shouldn't be going away any time soon) are here.
Promise has the FastTrak100 TX4 PCI that supposedly has four independent IDE channels (no slave/master crap, everything is master like 3ware products) so you have another option there with support for 48bit LBA in Promise drivers mentioned at linux-ide.org it sounds like a promising solution (no pun intended).
You could always put a couple Promise Ultra100's in there too - it sucks to waste PCI slots but with high end motherboards having onboard LAN, sound, etc I would expect that you have plenty of open slots. I've used both Promise Ultra/FastTrack products (with the kernel drivers, not Promises) and 3ware products and both are great.
From front page of linux-ide.org:
Leading the World to Announce Native 48bit LBA Support
Supporting Maxtor BIG DRIVE TECHNOLOGY
Releasing Support of new Promise Ultra 133 TX2 48bit HOST
Future Release Support of new Silicon Image's CMD 48bit HOST
When I read your post I had to go read the article because from what you wrote it sounded like Transmeta was going out of the notebook market. They aren't (for anyone else reading)... I don't see how their "change in strategy" is a big deal or such a change - from the article it sounds like it will compliment their current offerings. Also they need something for all those chip designers to do:).
Well I should have clarified that comment with "if it is a hard drive" as I was thinking about this specific case. If you are thinking of hard drives too - drive manufacturers almost never just disappear. They usually get brought up/merged like Quantum, etc..
Oh yeah - Crucial has free shipping too. That is the other thing about Pricewatch - be sure to add shipping costs to the totals. The lowest priced in a particular category almost always have high shipping costs...
Personally for memory I don't even bother with Pricewatch anymore. Crucial has great prices and excellent quality (the link to crucial is 15% off instead of the regular 10%). I maxed out the memory on my Dell Inspiron 4000 to 512mb for less than $100 (remember this is a laptop so the memory is the more expensive SODIMM stuff).
I paid about $5 more for some 128MB chips yesterday. Oh, and another little bit for tax. Because I know the vendor, and they don't give me grief on returns. I also get to look at the product prior to purchase. (Was looking for a PCI modem with a controller on it. IOW, not a WinModem. Anybody know of an internal PCI controller based modem?)
Buy a Lucent (LT) winmodem. Seriously! There are drivers out for Linux. I got one when my Dell laptop (Inspiron 4000) happened to have one built in. In my short testing of it I found that it works exceedingly well with high connect speeds and excellent compression. I too hated winmodems at one point but they can be an excellent solution if your processor is of a recent vintage.
You can get the best of both worlds. For example smaller dealers like Bunta.com, Mwave.com, and NewEgg.com are all well respected for their customer service. There are many other small dealers that are run honestly. All it takes is a bit of research to seperate the shoddy dealer from the great dealer. Places like ResellerRatings.com (which I've mentioned in a couple posts already, no I don't work for them, yadda yadda) are very handy...
Ok, there was the hard drive that wasn't right. Got that from a fly by night that has long since vanished. The warranties on hard drives (and almost every other buyable PC part) are covered by the manufacturer. All you need to do is go to the manufacturers home page and start the RMA process. Of course it is probably too late but... Also you sometimes get nice bonsuses like a larger hard drive because they no longer make the smaller size.
Shopping via Pricewatch and not getting screwed isn't all that hard. You just need to cross reference the company you are buying from with the companies ratings on ResellerRatings.com. Of course it helps to take the ResellerRatings with a grain of salt as the system can be force fed but in general you can weed out the bad guys with seconds of work.
That 99.9% of the public will use it in the manner in which it is sold to them and that the other.1% does not constitute a viable market. A corollary to this is that what it does (as-sold) does not justify it's price to the vast majority of the public that would use it that way.
So let me get this straight. First you argue that the Empeg has few features so the cheaper CD player is preferred. Then when I point out that in fact the CD player is the feature limited item you come back with a statistic that you pull out of thin air to make your point?
While I fully agree that the regular public would most likely not be interested in modifying the Empeg to their own means that does not mean the Empeg has no market. Just look at how many people read SlashDot. I would bet that a high percentage of SlashDot readers would choose the Empeg over the CD player if they were within the same price range. In reality it is only the implementation of the Empeg that is flawed. Perhaps they would have been wiser to sell a simplier solution that took care of the vexing problems like display and input. The cost of producing the Empeg was simply too high for the market. If they started small they could have developed an accurate forecast of market for the Empeg. Then they could start to produce it if they felt the market was receptive. Instead they choose to believe the market demanded something like the Empeg and went ahead and started production.
So? Let the market prove it. It did. End of story. You are trying to say 100% that it is worthless while I am merely pointing out the idea has merit even if the actual implementation by Empeg was flawed (in price, etc).
I purposely chose a page that was static (e.g., no replies allowed) as I believe that those signatures are also static. If you wish to take the time, I think that you will find other people have commented on my signature in the past. I have no time to search through the archives looking for such an examples but you are welcome to do so if you are the type of person who likes to retract unfair accusations.
You make a mountain over a molehill. I really could care less either way. For what it is worth I don't have a hard time believing what you say at all. I merely was inquisitive in my first post. It is excellent reverse troll material.
In closing, this argument has gotten absurd. I explained why the general public would view the Empeg as overpriced.
No, you choose to argue that the Empeg was an unreasonable product that had no demand and was thus worthless. When countered with the possible uses of the Empeg you shot back with silly retorts that lambasted valid ideas. Ideas that you apperently choose to ignore or could not comprehend. If you could not see a use for the Empeg or a similar solution than no problem - don't buy one. But that does not mean that other people can't see uses for such a product.
You came up with some esoteric uses for it that might make it valuable to you -- but to very few others.
Quite a few other people are interested in using computers in their car to perform similar operations. Why do you think people are interested in buying a car that has an onboard navigation system? There is demand else the car makers wouldn't produce such a system. But no real geek would be satisfied by a boxed navigation system. I would imagine the average SlashDot reader has seen the power possible from open solutions and therefore tends to prefer the open solution over the closed even at higher cost because does not limit expansion possibilities. Open this and open that is the rage but there is a real ideal and viable demonstarted working behind such things. That doesn't mean the hype isn't highly annoying...
The fact that it has failed in the marketplace, despite having a high profile and being marketed by a large company, supports my arguments very well and I'll leave that market failure to stand on its own.
If you had argued that the Empeg failed due to cost instead of the features you would have won by now. In fact there would have been no arguement. I believe the reality is that the Empeg failed due to lack of market demand too. But it was the high cost and not the lack of features that led to its demise.
I think that this may be the most telling statement in your whole response:
Personally I myself would not choose an Empeg even if the company was still producing them today simply beause I believe other options are more interesting.
So what you are saying is that you cannot cost-justify it given its limitations? If you could, you would have one in your car today.
Tada!
It's overpriced for its capabilities.
I would prefer another solution because I have more time than money. I don't mind tinkering with an onboard system made with commodity PC parts. But those like me who already have a working onboard computer would most likely be interested in the Empeg simply because it is very hard to squeeze the computer down to the size of a car stereo. I don't have the need for such a small system but people who drive sports cars probably do... Of course that is an extremely small market. But I would think that those who have more money than time would be highly interested in the Empeg no matter the size of their vehicle.
The Empeg is overpriced period. Not for it's capabilties but for what it is. If I argued in the same line as you I would say your CD player is overpriced for its capabilities. But I don't because obviously for you it is not overpriced for its capabilities while for me it is.
I wonder if the reason that we are having this arguement is that you don't want to admit that cost played the higher role than features when you made your decision. To me, and I maintain many others, the Empeg has an infinite number of features while the CD player is the one that is limited in features. But I would not choose either the CD player or the Empeg simply because neither meets my needs. The Empeg is too expensive and the CD player too lacking in features. It's fine if the reason you choose the CD player was the lack of jusitfication in spending double or more of it's cost on the Empeg. No problem - I understand 100%. But that is no reason to argue that the Empeg is worthless because it is too expensive.
Anyway - I too grow weary of arguement. I believe we both can see the others arguement even if we don't agree. There are many examples of people using a PC in there car for wacky things like navigation, music playing, car to home wireless LAN, etc. For examples just do a google search with "car mp3 player"... So in closing I maintain that the Empeg had a good idea but the implementation was flawed. Hopefully we'll soon see similar products that have a lower price tag. But even if we don't there are plenty of options for those that want more than a CD player but wouldn't/couldn't pay for an Empeg.
But unfortunately you are simply ignoring a few things:
No, I am not. I went to the web page and saw what it could do as sold to the end-user. And your point is?
Normal people in cars want music. That's why it is sold for that purpose. I don't care about being able to hook my GPS to it and get a worse display than the GPS comes with. Can you connect the dots?
GPS
Database
Wireless Ethernet
Tada! I don't want to look at the GPS data, I want to collect and store it. Perhaps with a different screen a realtime navigation system would be interesting but it really is of lesser interest than simply maintaing GPS logs with a minimum amount of work.
I don't have any need to store files from a digital camera on it -- I have a laptop for that or I can just buy more memory modules.
Compact Flash Adapter
Hard Drive
Wireless Ethernet
Tada!
This isn't just storing the pictures, it's always transferring them to the main server with the minimum amount of work.
It's not an in-dash computer (Diamond has enough sense to know that a 128 x 32 display does not a computer make). You seem to have a fixation with display. It really reveals your limited thinking of additional uses for something like the Empeg. There is nothing wrong with that but you continually say talk about yourself and then make generalizations as if your choices are the "normal" choices that everyone would make. My sole arguement is that while this CD player you purchased serves your needs other people might be interested in the options a system like the Empeg makes possible...
It's a car stereo. That's why it is sold as that. And in that role, it's sorely lacking. Even the audio specs are not that good with the AUX input having an upper limit of 18khz and only a 50db separation. They don't even publish the frequency response specs for the D/A section.
So for you it is a car stereo. No problem. I have said it before and I'll say it again - I'm not interested in the Empeg. There? Got it? I'm interested in a similar solution but using off the shelf commodity PC parts.
You are in a car driving. What application could possibly make up for the fact that it can't play CDs, doesn't come with a tuner, doesn't come with an amp, and eats up the only available DIN slot in most cars? Don't cell phones distract you enough? Now you want to play PacMan on your dashboard?
Is this your regular form of arguement? Tangent after tangent while chopping core arguements? If you can't see a use for something like the Empeg than you made the right decision. Not everyone is going to have the same interests. I would think that should be exceedingly obvious by now but you ignored this issue...
Please! I would suspect you put this in your sig just because of this little arguement.
Shows what you know. That's been my sig for months and months. Here's the URL of a post I made in July:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13374&thresh ol d=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=67350
If you happened to investigate the signature system a little closer you might notice that if you change your sig now it will change everywhere. At least that is how it worked in Slash 1.x, haven't check in 2.x. If what you say is true than I find it unsurprising that we are having this arguement. If all you intend to do is continue editing out valid points and inserting mindless tangents there is no point in continuing.
I believe it is plain to see that you are obviously biased towards your solution.
Yes. I developed that bias by comparison shopping. That's why I chose the JVC. I looked at the Empeg and, frankly, the cost was not an issue. What were issues were the shortcomings that I have mentioned previously (no CD, no amp, tuner not included, etc.) Even if you were to offer me the Empeg for $400, I'd still take the JVC KD-SH99 that I chose.
Great! But that doesn't mean everyone else will make the same choice.
Feel free to maintain the persecuted attitude but I doubt any logical person will buy it.
I don't feel persecuted. My comments have not been modded down and this debate has nothing to do with the merits of Linux vs. some other OS.
No but it does tread a similar vain - proprietary versus open. On that you can scoff all you want but I doubt that the "average" slashdot poster would prefer a CD player versus an onboard computer that runs linux. Obviously the possibilities are not evident to you so such a solution would merely be an annoyance.
You know what no logical person will buy? The Empeg. That's why they are being discontinued.
Well quite a few people have already purchased an Empeg. Personally I myself would not choose an Empeg even if the company was still producing them today simply because I believe other options are more interesting. But the people buying Empegs bought them partially for the same reason you brought your CD player - they wanted a simplyfied solution that had most, if not all, of the annoying little quircks like power supply problems ironed out.
One last note - in terms of fuzzy music. You mentioned that you could avoid fuzzy music by listening to the original CD. But of course this brings us back full circle to the whole problem of carrying an entire library of CDs with us at all times. Perhaps you meant simply a few CDs that you would like to listen to in unadulterated form. Well the same thing is possible with an onboard computer. There is nothing to stop one from playing a straight CD image of a music disk. Obviously they will take up more space but on a 100gb hard drive a couple full uncompressed albums would not get in the way at all.
What it comes down to is that you are simply interested in listening to music in your car. I am interested in listening to music in my car and playing with a number of other interesting possibilities. In terms of time my solution will be more costly but that is a choice I am free to make. If you derive personal satisfaction from a premade solution than why argue another persons personal satisfaction found in a non-premade solution. It simply makes no sense.
But unfortunately you are simply ignoring a few things:
The Empeg can:
1. Play MP3s stored on a hard disc.
2. Run other applications (less than 30% cpu usage for pure mp3 playing).
3. Perform other duties such as file repository, temporary digital camera storage, etc.
4. Be expanded with additional components like GPS, wireless ethernet, navigation systems or even super duper amps and subs.
The JVC I mentioned can:
1. Play MP3s stored on CD.
2. Play audio CDs.
3. Receive AM and FM radio stations (w. no add-ons).
4. Directly drive loudspeakers.
5. Provide a subwoofer active crossover.
6. That's about it...
Obviously in your limited view the empeg is only good for one thing. For some people a solution like the empeg opens a lot of doors that your solution simply leaves closed. The age old arguement of proprietary versus closed can be found elsewhere.
Troll or Flamebait -- Any comment on/. that is less than wildly enthusiastic about any Linux-related product.
Please! I would suspect you put this in your sig just because of this little arguement. I believe it is plain to see that you are obviously biased towards your solution. Feel free to maintain the persecuted attitude but I doubt any logical person will buy it. Personally I find a solution like the empeg more interesting and useful but I would prefer to implement it using standard PC hardware.
I don't mind settling for ADSL either as it has been pointed out to me (and I believe it) that selling 784kb SDSL for $50/month was a fluke of Chicago being the test market. I only hope they fix the reverse dns on the new ILEC provisioned lines (of course the IP address on the ILEC line) ASAP. Sorta kills the mail servers:(.
Unfortunately I am on a Rhythms line right now (784k SDSL). I hope that my DSL provider (DirectvInternet, formerly Telocity) leaves me on Rhythms instead of migrating my service over to Ameritech. Save me WorldCom - you're my only hope for continued 784kb upload speeds. The tyranny of 128kb upload must not happen!
On the same note your unit can do so much less than the empeg. So we could go around in circles for days on end with the same arguement. You got what you wanted for your needs. Do you really feel the need to defend your choice so much? If you got what you needed everything is great. Some people won't be happy with your solution. If cost is the only deciding factor than I agree on the surface your unit appears to be more capable than the empeg. But considering the actual costs it isn't that much of a difference if the empeg fits someones needs better than your unit.
I think a lot of people just don't want to deal with CDs anymore. No matter what kind of CD it is nor how often you have to change it. Enjoy your "fuzzy" music.
Perhaps because it can do so much more? I'm interested in the extra processing cycles and storage for long vacation tricks. Plug in a GPS receiver and add on a PCMCIA slot (so you can stick your compact flash/smart media/whatever digital camera pictures on there) and you are in business.
Some people don't see the possibilities. Therefore it is worthless to them. It isn't that hard to see both sides of the story and the empeg seems pretty cheap considering it's oly a bit more than 2x your CD player.
note: I don't even own one. Personally I'm planning on going another homegrown route on this one...
Technically it should be possible to use the builtin chipset as one display and a PCI card as another. But would you really want to? The 2D display quality of a nvidia chip pales compared to a Matrox G4xx. If you want stunning 2D go with Matrox or someone else...
Just my 2 cents - I've used a Geforce2 32mb and a TNT2 16mb (both AGP) extensively. The 2D quality just isn't as good as a G200/G400/G450.
Nvidia basically writes only one driver for all of their video chipsets. I'm sure there are depends in the code for different chipsets but the download is one file. Basically the graphics chipset in this motherboard chipset is already supported by the existing nvidia drivers so no new drivers will need to be written (nor likely tweaked specifically as the Geforce2 MX is sold on regular AGP cards too).
I think it is possible to build a business supporting open source software but a number of things help.
- Having open source programmers in house that you support.
- Having a high percentage of proficient and motivated geeks.
- Having a enough time and insight to build your business long term instead of short term.
In my opinion the tech crash was due to too much too fast. It isn't possible to build a megacorporation (let alone a small consultancy) with just money. RedHat has the first two things in the list above. Now the question is just whether they'll have enough time. From this report it sounds like they could be doing a lot worse.
Personally I would love an Open Source car. I'm not kidding - if we had a platform to custom build our own cars I'm sure people would come up with something much more interesting than what the handful of huge corporations churn out. But the car would be open source "free" - not have a beer free.
That is true - I remember now why I left it alone. I hit some compilation error... It's a mess (running 4.0 rc2) so might as well blow it away. The real reason for upgrading is the load uw-imap puts on the it. Plus my impatience:).
So when was the last time you did a "make world" on a sparc2?
Slashdot Mirror
Hey no problem but take a look at the motherboards that use the ServerWorks LE and HE chipset. The LE is the lower cost version that doesn't have memory interleaving (sp?). Apparently the onboard generic IDE sucks on these boards but they are great in other regards and do in fact usually feature onboard LAN and SCSI (some even have dual onboard NICs). The other chipset to look at is the 440GX and GX+.
It is true for desktop motherboards that integrated features are bad news (although with the newer boards this is changing) but on the high end boards integrated SCSI and NICs are common. This makes it far easier to stuff a nice system into a small rack box. For example you can put a complete server into a 1U which I believe is only 1.75" high (but 19"x?? like rather large pizza box).
Take a look at high end motherboards from Intel, SuperMicro, Tyan, and Asus. There are definately some interesting products out there...
3ware makes pure hardware based IDE RAID. Adaptec has one too.. But these aren't all that cheap. Adaptec is ~ $400 I think and the 3ware starts at $150 or so for a 2 port but goes up to $400 or more for an 8 port. The Promise cards are partially software based (some in hardware).
The nice thing with the 3ware (and I presume Adaptec) product is that it supports all the nifty stuff like hotswap.
The newish IDE RAID cards can provide a high perfomance alternative to SCSI. I believe a lot of the large network storage devices use IDE drives due to the cost savings. Hopefully we'll see IDE drive makers follow IBM's lead in supporting some of the SCSI-like features like tagged queing (supported in FreeBSD - don't see support in Linux yet).
Of course SCSI still has its place with 15,000 RPM drives but for large storage applications with RAID usage IDE is very attractive. Hopefully this will drive SCSI prices down but I'm not counting on it.
Have you tried 3ware? They make IDE RAID cards that have linux driver support (in the 2.4 kernel). I'm not sure if their devices support the new 48bit LBA standard. They seem to be focusing more on their larger products but their RAID cards (which are used in their larger products so they shouldn't be going away any time soon) are here.
Promise has the FastTrak100 TX4 PCI that supposedly has four independent IDE channels (no slave/master crap, everything is master like 3ware products) so you have another option there with support for 48bit LBA in Promise drivers mentioned at linux-ide.org it sounds like a promising solution (no pun intended).
You could always put a couple Promise Ultra100's in there too - it sucks to waste PCI slots but with high end motherboards having onboard LAN, sound, etc I would expect that you have plenty of open slots. I've used both Promise Ultra/FastTrack products (with the kernel drivers, not Promises) and 3ware products and both are great.
From front page of linux-ide.org:
Leading the World to Announce Native 48bit LBA Support
Supporting Maxtor BIG DRIVE TECHNOLOGY
Releasing Support of new Promise Ultra 133 TX2 48bit HOST
Future Release Support of new Silicon Image's CMD 48bit HOST
When I read your post I had to go read the article because from what you wrote it sounded like Transmeta was going out of the notebook market. They aren't (for anyone else reading)... I don't see how their "change in strategy" is a big deal or such a change - from the article it sounds like it will compliment their current offerings. Also they need something for all those chip designers to do :).
How come CNN's RSS feed is so bad? Check it out here:
cnn.com/cnn.rss
It has one story in it and that's it! Not updated very often... Pretty worthless.
if the company no longer exists
Well I should have clarified that comment with "if it is a hard drive" as I was thinking about this specific case. If you are thinking of hard drives too - drive manufacturers almost never just disappear. They usually get brought up/merged like Quantum, etc..
Don't forget the Better Business Bureau - some people have had great experiences with the BBB helping them out when the venders go bad.
Oh yeah - Crucial has free shipping too. That is the other thing about Pricewatch - be sure to add shipping costs to the totals. The lowest priced in a particular category almost always have high shipping costs...
Personally for memory I don't even bother with Pricewatch anymore. Crucial has great prices and excellent quality (the link to crucial is 15% off instead of the regular 10%). I maxed out the memory on my Dell Inspiron 4000 to 512mb for less than $100 (remember this is a laptop so the memory is the more expensive SODIMM stuff).
I paid about $5 more for some 128MB chips yesterday. Oh, and another little bit for tax. Because I know the vendor, and they don't give me grief on returns. I also get to look at the product prior to purchase. (Was looking for a PCI modem with a controller on it. IOW, not a WinModem. Anybody know of an internal PCI controller based modem?)
Buy a Lucent (LT) winmodem. Seriously! There are drivers out for Linux. I got one when my Dell laptop (Inspiron 4000) happened to have one built in. In my short testing of it I found that it works exceedingly well with high connect speeds and excellent compression. I too hated winmodems at one point but they can be an excellent solution if your processor is of a recent vintage.
If you definately don't want a winmodem take a look Winmodems are not modems; Linux information page.
You can get the best of both worlds. For example smaller dealers like Bunta.com, Mwave.com, and NewEgg.com are all well respected for their customer service. There are many other small dealers that are run honestly. All it takes is a bit of research to seperate the shoddy dealer from the great dealer. Places like ResellerRatings.com (which I've mentioned in a couple posts already, no I don't work for them, yadda yadda) are very handy...
Ok, there was the hard drive that wasn't right. Got that from a fly by night that has long since vanished.
The warranties on hard drives (and almost every other buyable PC part) are covered by the manufacturer. All you need to do is go to the manufacturers home page and start the RMA process. Of course it is probably too late but... Also you sometimes get nice bonsuses like a larger hard drive because they no longer make the smaller size.
Shopping via Pricewatch and not getting screwed isn't all that hard. You just need to cross reference the company you are buying from with the companies ratings on ResellerRatings.com. Of course it helps to take the ResellerRatings with a grain of salt as the system can be force fed but in general you can weed out the bad guys with seconds of work.
That 99.9% of the public will use it in the manner in which it is sold to them and that the other .1% does not constitute a viable market. A corollary to this is that what it does (as-sold) does not justify it's price to the vast majority of the public that would use it that way.
So let me get this straight. First you argue that the Empeg has few features so the cheaper CD player is preferred. Then when I point out that in fact the CD player is the feature limited item you come back with a statistic that you pull out of thin air to make your point?
While I fully agree that the regular public would most likely not be interested in modifying the Empeg to their own means that does not mean the Empeg has no market. Just look at how many people read SlashDot. I would bet that a high percentage of SlashDot readers would choose the Empeg over the CD player if they were within the same price range. In reality it is only the implementation of the Empeg that is flawed. Perhaps they would have been wiser to sell a simplier solution that took care of the vexing problems like display and input. The cost of producing the Empeg was simply too high for the market. If they started small they could have developed an accurate forecast of market for the Empeg. Then they could start to produce it if they felt the market was receptive. Instead they choose to believe the market demanded something like the Empeg and went ahead and started production.
So? Let the market prove it. It did. End of story. You are trying to say 100% that it is worthless while I am merely pointing out the idea has merit even if the actual implementation by Empeg was flawed (in price, etc).
I purposely chose a page that was static (e.g., no replies allowed) as I believe that those signatures are also static. If you wish to take the time, I think that you will find other people have commented on my signature in the past. I have no time to search through the archives looking for such an examples but you are welcome to do so if you are the type of person who likes to retract unfair accusations.
You make a mountain over a molehill. I really could care less either way. For what it is worth I don't have a hard time believing what you say at all. I merely was inquisitive in my first post. It is excellent reverse troll material.
In closing, this argument has gotten absurd. I explained why the general public would view the Empeg as overpriced.
No, you choose to argue that the Empeg was an unreasonable product that had no demand and was thus worthless. When countered with the possible uses of the Empeg you shot back with silly retorts that lambasted valid ideas. Ideas that you apperently choose to ignore or could not comprehend. If you could not see a use for the Empeg or a similar solution than no problem - don't buy one. But that does not mean that other people can't see uses for such a product.
You came up with some esoteric uses for it that might make it valuable to you -- but to very few others.
Quite a few other people are interested in using computers in their car to perform similar operations. Why do you think people are interested in buying a car that has an onboard navigation system? There is demand else the car makers wouldn't produce such a system. But no real geek would be satisfied by a boxed navigation system. I would imagine the average SlashDot reader has seen the power possible from open solutions and therefore tends to prefer the open solution over the closed even at higher cost because does not limit expansion possibilities. Open this and open that is the rage but there is a real ideal and viable demonstarted working behind such things. That doesn't mean the hype isn't highly annoying...
The fact that it has failed in the marketplace, despite having a high profile and being marketed by a large company, supports my arguments very well and I'll leave that market failure to stand on its own.
If you had argued that the Empeg failed due to cost instead of the features you would have won by now. In fact there would have been no arguement. I believe the reality is that the Empeg failed due to lack of market demand too. But it was the high cost and not the lack of features that led to its demise.
I think that this may be the most telling statement in your whole response:
Personally I myself would not choose an Empeg even if the company was still producing them today simply beause I believe other options are more interesting.
So what you are saying is that you cannot cost-justify it given its limitations? If you could, you would have one in your car today.
Tada!
It's overpriced for its capabilities.
I would prefer another solution because I have more time than money. I don't mind tinkering with an onboard system made with commodity PC parts. But those like me who already have a working onboard computer would most likely be interested in the Empeg simply because it is very hard to squeeze the computer down to the size of a car stereo. I don't have the need for such a small system but people who drive sports cars probably do... Of course that is an extremely small market. But I would think that those who have more money than time would be highly interested in the Empeg no matter the size of their vehicle.
The Empeg is overpriced period. Not for it's capabilties but for what it is. If I argued in the same line as you I would say your CD player is overpriced for its capabilities. But I don't because obviously for you it is not overpriced for its capabilities while for me it is.
I wonder if the reason that we are having this arguement is that you don't want to admit that cost played the higher role than features when you made your decision. To me, and I maintain many others, the Empeg has an infinite number of features while the CD player is the one that is limited in features. But I would not choose either the CD player or the Empeg simply because neither meets my needs. The Empeg is too expensive and the CD player too lacking in features. It's fine if the reason you choose the CD player was the lack of jusitfication in spending double or more of it's cost on the Empeg. No problem - I understand 100%. But that is no reason to argue that the Empeg is worthless because it is too expensive.
Anyway - I too grow weary of arguement. I believe we both can see the others arguement even if we don't agree. There are many examples of people using a PC in there car for wacky things like navigation, music playing, car to home wireless LAN, etc. For examples just do a google search with "car mp3 player"... So in closing I maintain that the Empeg had a good idea but the implementation was flawed. Hopefully we'll soon see similar products that have a lower price tag. But even if we don't there are plenty of options for those that want more than a CD player but wouldn't/couldn't pay for an Empeg.
But unfortunately you are simply ignoring a few things:
h ol d=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=67350
No, I am not. I went to the web page and saw what it could do as sold to the end-user.
And your point is?
Normal people in cars want music. That's why it is sold for that purpose. I don't care about being able to hook my GPS to it and get a worse display than the GPS comes with.
Can you connect the dots?
GPS
Database
Wireless Ethernet
Tada! I don't want to look at the GPS data, I want to collect and store it. Perhaps with a different screen a realtime navigation system would be interesting but it really is of lesser interest than simply maintaing GPS logs with a minimum amount of work.
I don't have any need to store files from a digital camera on it -- I have a laptop for that or I can just buy more memory modules.
Compact Flash Adapter
Hard Drive
Wireless Ethernet
Tada!
This isn't just storing the pictures, it's always transferring them to the main server with the minimum amount of work.
It's not an in-dash computer (Diamond has enough sense to know that a 128 x 32 display does not a computer make).
You seem to have a fixation with display. It really reveals your limited thinking of additional uses for something like the Empeg. There is nothing wrong with that but you continually say talk about yourself and then make generalizations as if your choices are the "normal" choices that everyone would make. My sole arguement is that while this CD player you purchased serves your needs other people might be interested in the options a system like the Empeg makes possible...
It's a car stereo. That's why it is sold as that. And in that role, it's sorely lacking. Even the audio specs are not that good with the AUX input having an upper limit of 18khz and only a 50db separation. They don't even publish the frequency response specs for the D/A section.
So for you it is a car stereo. No problem. I have said it before and I'll say it again - I'm not interested in the Empeg. There? Got it? I'm interested in a similar solution but using off the shelf commodity PC parts.
You are in a car driving. What application could possibly make up for the fact that it can't play CDs, doesn't come with a tuner, doesn't come with an amp, and eats up the only available DIN slot in most cars? Don't cell phones distract you enough? Now you want to play PacMan on your dashboard?
Is this your regular form of arguement? Tangent after tangent while chopping core arguements? If you can't see a use for something like the Empeg than you made the right decision. Not everyone is going to have the same interests. I would think that should be exceedingly obvious by now but you ignored this issue...
Please! I would suspect you put this in your sig just because of this little arguement.
Shows what you know. That's been my sig for months and months. Here's the URL of a post I made in July:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13374&thres
If you happened to investigate the signature system a little closer you might notice that if you change your sig now it will change everywhere. At least that is how it worked in Slash 1.x, haven't check in 2.x. If what you say is true than I find it unsurprising that we are having this arguement. If all you intend to do is continue editing out valid points and inserting mindless tangents there is no point in continuing.
I believe it is plain to see that you are obviously biased towards your solution.
Yes. I developed that bias by comparison shopping. That's why I chose the JVC. I looked at the Empeg and, frankly, the cost was not an issue. What were issues were the shortcomings that I have mentioned previously (no CD, no amp, tuner not included, etc.) Even if you were to offer me the Empeg for $400, I'd still take the JVC KD-SH99 that I chose.
Great! But that doesn't mean everyone else will make the same choice.
Feel free to maintain the persecuted attitude but I doubt any logical person will buy it.
I don't feel persecuted. My comments have not been modded down and this debate has nothing to do with the merits of Linux vs. some other OS.
No but it does tread a similar vain - proprietary versus open. On that you can scoff all you want but I doubt that the "average" slashdot poster would prefer a CD player versus an onboard computer that runs linux. Obviously the possibilities are not evident to you so such a solution would merely be an annoyance.
You know what no logical person will buy? The Empeg. That's why they are being discontinued.
Well quite a few people have already purchased an Empeg. Personally I myself would not choose an Empeg even if the company was still producing them today simply because I believe other options are more interesting. But the people buying Empegs bought them partially for the same reason you brought your CD player - they wanted a simplyfied solution that had most, if not all, of the annoying little quircks like power supply problems ironed out.
One last note - in terms of fuzzy music. You mentioned that you could avoid fuzzy music by listening to the original CD. But of course this brings us back full circle to the whole problem of carrying an entire library of CDs with us at all times. Perhaps you meant simply a few CDs that you would like to listen to in unadulterated form. Well the same thing is possible with an onboard computer. There is nothing to stop one from playing a straight CD image of a music disk. Obviously they will take up more space but on a 100gb hard drive a couple full uncompressed albums would not get in the way at all.
What it comes down to is that you are simply interested in listening to music in your car. I am interested in listening to music in my car and playing with a number of other interesting possibilities. In terms of time my solution will be more costly but that is a choice I am free to make. If you derive personal satisfaction from a premade solution than why argue another persons personal satisfaction found in a non-premade solution. It simply makes no sense.
The Empeg can:
1. Play MP3s stored on a hard disc.
2. Run other applications (less than 30% cpu usage for pure mp3 playing).
3. Perform other duties such as file repository, temporary digital camera storage, etc.
4. Be expanded with additional components like GPS, wireless ethernet, navigation systems or even super duper amps and subs.
The JVC I mentioned can:
1. Play MP3s stored on CD.
2. Play audio CDs.
3. Receive AM and FM radio stations (w. no add-ons).
4. Directly drive loudspeakers.
5. Provide a subwoofer active crossover.
6. That's about it...
Obviously in your limited view the empeg is only good for one thing. For some people a solution like the empeg opens a lot of doors that your solution simply leaves closed. The age old arguement of proprietary versus closed can be found elsewhere.
Troll or Flamebait -- Any comment on
Please! I would suspect you put this in your sig just because of this little arguement. I believe it is plain to see that you are obviously biased towards your solution. Feel free to maintain the persecuted attitude but I doubt any logical person will buy it. Personally I find a solution like the empeg more interesting and useful but I would prefer to implement it using standard PC hardware.
I don't mind settling for ADSL either as it has been pointed out to me (and I believe it) that selling 784kb SDSL for $50/month was a fluke of Chicago being the test market. I only hope they fix the reverse dns on the new ILEC provisioned lines (of course the IP address on the ILEC line) ASAP. Sorta kills the mail servers :(.
Unfortunately I am on a Rhythms line right now (784k SDSL). I hope that my DSL provider (DirectvInternet, formerly Telocity) leaves me on Rhythms instead of migrating my service over to Ameritech. Save me WorldCom - you're my only hope for continued 784kb upload speeds. The tyranny of 128kb upload must not happen!
On the same note your unit can do so much less than the empeg. So we could go around in circles for days on end with the same arguement. You got what you wanted for your needs. Do you really feel the need to defend your choice so much? If you got what you needed everything is great. Some people won't be happy with your solution. If cost is the only deciding factor than I agree on the surface your unit appears to be more capable than the empeg. But considering the actual costs it isn't that much of a difference if the empeg fits someones needs better than your unit.
I think a lot of people just don't want to deal with CDs anymore. No matter what kind of CD it is nor how often you have to change it. Enjoy your "fuzzy" music.
Perhaps because it can do so much more? I'm interested in the extra processing cycles and storage for long vacation tricks. Plug in a GPS receiver and add on a PCMCIA slot (so you can stick your compact flash/smart media/whatever digital camera pictures on there) and you are in business.
Some people don't see the possibilities. Therefore it is worthless to them. It isn't that hard to see both sides of the story and the empeg seems pretty cheap considering it's oly a bit more than 2x your CD player.
note: I don't even own one. Personally I'm planning on going another homegrown route on this one...
Technically it should be possible to use the builtin chipset as one display and a PCI card as another. But would you really want to? The 2D display quality of a nvidia chip pales compared to a Matrox G4xx. If you want stunning 2D go with Matrox or someone else...
Just my 2 cents - I've used a Geforce2 32mb and a TNT2 16mb (both AGP) extensively. The 2D quality just isn't as good as a G200/G400/G450.
Nvidia basically writes only one driver for all of their video chipsets. I'm sure there are depends in the code for different chipsets but the download is one file. Basically the graphics chipset in this motherboard chipset is already supported by the existing nvidia drivers so no new drivers will need to be written (nor likely tweaked specifically as the Geforce2 MX is sold on regular AGP cards too).
I think it is possible to build a business supporting open source software but a number of things help.
- Having open source programmers in house that you support.
- Having a high percentage of proficient and motivated geeks.
- Having a enough time and insight to build your business long term instead of short term.
In my opinion the tech crash was due to too much too fast. It isn't possible to build a megacorporation (let alone a small consultancy) with just money. RedHat has the first two things in the list above. Now the question is just whether they'll have enough time. From this report it sounds like they could be doing a lot worse.
Personally I would love an Open Source car. I'm not kidding - if we had a platform to custom build our own cars I'm sure people would come up with something much more interesting than what the handful of huge corporations churn out. But the car would be open source "free" - not have a beer free.
So when was the last time you did a "make world" on a sparc2?