Perhaps the particular chipset/setup was somewhat conservatively configured. If that was the case, then it'll be interesting to see if the 'good' parts of the benchmarks as well as the poorer parts increase when AMD sort out the configuration. If they do, then this processor will fly.
I hope they succeed - it's not a good idea to rely on vague promises from the owners of the Amiga name.
The Amiga and Atari computers seem to be fairly similar in their situations - they were both abandoned by their original developers around 1993 (the Atari Falcon030, Atari's last computer, was supposed to be the beginning of a long range). Now they're being kept alive by their fans...
If the original operating sytem is poor, why not code another one?
Some mad German programmers wrote an entirely new operating system for Atari computers a few years ago. It's called MagiC, and it uses pre-emptive multitasking, memory protection (if the hardware supports it), is coded in optimised assembler, and is compatible with most well-written software.
Or, if you don't want to use MagiC on your Atari, there's MiNT, a freeware UNIX-like kernel which can be used to run X11, all your favourite UNIX apps (gcc, pine, lynx etc) and also runs most well-written software.
Atari hardware may not be so great, but the software is amazing. Papyrus, CAB (now known as iCab), Texel, Photoline, Calamus, Cubase...
There are Java telnet clients out there - pretty nifty too. You just need one of them on your own machine, so you could bring up said java applet, use it to telnet into your box, and read as much email as you like...
I already had the Mesa 3.0 rpm installed (for use with Blender and xscreensaver), and simply downloaded the q3test rpm and installed and ran it; it 'worked' first time. You can see the somewhat splendid-looking results at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~afoster/ - please don't laugh at the advanced HTML I used...:-)
You can probably get the Mesa rpm from http://www.mesa3d.org/ or somewhere like ftp://contrib.redhat.com/
Oh, and don't expect much in the way of performance - my P166MMX doesn't exactly fly in software mode.
Maybe I was a bit harsh at first. A couple of the themes I've seen for Gnome and E look wonderful, while a lot of them really would cause eyestrain. But again, the flashy graphics are irrelevant unless the underlying user interface design is sound. Of course, if the user interface and the graphics are good, then you've got a pretty good program.
A possible killer-application addition to Gnome might be the ability to redesign user interfaces without fiddling with the source code. I don't know how it might be done, or if it would be practical, but it would be amazing if it were possible. Don't like the arrangement of buttons in a dialogue box? Change them! Want a different menu bar? Toolbar? Want to translate the program to another language, but have little programming experience*?
Ford Prefect
* I haven't really used Gnome much (I'm waiting for stability to improve a little, as I did with Linux 2.2) so this feature may already be available. I think KDE has something like it.
User interface design does not mean pretty graphics. A good user interface can look very basic, but if it is designed properly that is irrelevant. KDE has the best user interface under Linux I've found so far - it's all arranged fairly logically, and reading a manual isn't really necessary. I don't want two or three 'panels' taking up valuable screen estate with all their icons and dockable applets, I want to start programs. I don't want pretty little icons on the menus, I want standardised keypresses and functioning drag and drop. I don't want memory-consuming, network-choking themes, I want usable applications.
I dislike almost all these 'themes' available (for E, Gnome, KDE, Win95...) - text generally becomes illegible, and often almost painful to read. Some themes (such as the BrushedMetal one for Gnome and E) look extremely nice, but still aren't too comfortable on the eyes. If you really think a system is usable, try producing a large, complex document or program without the pretty pictures driving you to distraction.
'OK' sets everything you just did in the dialogue box, and closes it.
'Apply' sets everything you just did, but doesn't close the box. (Non-modal dialogue boxes.)
'Close' closes the box without setting anything.
The best system is like this...
[ Apply ] [ Revert ] [ OK ] [ Cancel ]
I believe the concepts involved originated on NeXT, not Windows, and they were copied.
Despite what many people think, it isn't necessary to have animated toolbars, high-resolution, full-colour bitmaps for everything, illegible 'themes'... A good user interface is logical, friendly, simple but powerful. Contrast Papyrus (Atari word-processor) with Microsoft Word.
Ford Prefect
What the world needs now is GEM, sweet GEM
on
GNOME 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
I wouldn't call GEM 'swift' when running on a basic ST - but then, that's probably because I bought NVDI 4.11 (the software screen accelerator for those not in the know). A hyper-fast, hyper-compatible VDI replacement coded in assembler, complete with high quality and standardised printer,screen, bitmap and metafile drivers. The font rendering knocks spots off XFree86's - far faster, uses truetype and speedo fonts, and works throughout the system. X needs something like that.
Duplicated stories? What about the stories that are never posted? About a week ago, I submitted the address to a BBC article describing the very recent Teleglobe transatlantic link failure. This caused the US to be inaccessible from Janet (the Joint Academic NETwork which connects all the UK universities) for roughly 24 hours. It probably affected quite a few slashdot readers, me included. It was never posted. However, www.doodie.com was.
Late last year, I also posted the address of a New Scientist article which was very positive towards Linux. It too was ignored.
I've been trying for several months to install Red Hat 5.2 on my Toshiba laptop. When I try booting from the boot disk, nothing happens - the disk buzzes for a moment, then goes silent. I've tried with different copies of the disk, and still can't get it to work - it reads disks fine in DOS. I've tried the Toshiba web sites, but they don't have any information regarding this.
Thanks...
Ford Prefect
In case you're wondering, it's a T1100 PLUS, with an 8086 processor, 640KB memory, CGA graphics, two DD floppy disk drives, and a monochrome 640x200 LCD display. Could the specifications have something to do with it?:)
The www.backofficecto.com server seems to have partially resurrected itself (either that or Janet has cached the pages already). I was looking about the site (with a bemused grin on my face) and found a somewhat revealing 'Subscriber Profile'.
Slashdot Mirror
In the UK they go for free[1]. But you do have to buy five games from a selection of not-that-great ones...
[1] According to an advert I saw in a paper, anyway. Dixons?
Perhaps the particular chipset/setup was somewhat conservatively configured. If that was the case, then it'll be interesting to see if the 'good' parts of the benchmarks as well as the poorer parts increase when AMD sort out the configuration. If they do, then this processor will fly.
You sure?
I hope they succeed - it's not a good idea to rely on vague promises from the owners of the Amiga name.
The Amiga and Atari computers seem to be fairly similar in their situations - they were both abandoned by their original developers around 1993 (the Atari Falcon030, Atari's last computer, was supposed to be the beginning of a long range). Now they're being kept alive by their fans...
If the original operating sytem is poor, why not code another one?
Some mad German programmers wrote an entirely new operating system for Atari computers a few years ago. It's called MagiC, and it uses pre-emptive multitasking, memory protection (if the hardware supports it), is coded in optimised assembler, and is compatible with most well-written software.
Or, if you don't want to use MagiC on your Atari, there's MiNT, a freeware UNIX-like kernel which can be used to run X11, all your favourite UNIX apps (gcc, pine, lynx etc) and also runs most well-written software.
Atari hardware may not be so great, but the software is amazing. Papyrus, CAB (now known as iCab), Texel, Photoline, Calamus, Cubase...
There are Java telnet clients out there - pretty nifty too. You just need one of them on your own machine, so you could bring up said java applet, use it to telnet into your box, and read as much email as you like...
And maybe even play ttyquake as well.
I imagine the only real 'limitation' is available memory - so if someone has a 32MB 386 out there, we'd like to know... :-)
Although, would virtual memory count? It would probably drag the framerate down even further...
I already had the Mesa 3.0 rpm installed (for use with Blender and xscreensaver), and simply downloaded the q3test rpm and installed and ran it; it 'worked' first time. You can see the somewhat splendid-looking results at http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~afoster/ - please don't laugh at the advanced HTML I used... :-)
You can probably get the Mesa rpm from http://www.mesa3d.org/ or somewhere like ftp://contrib.redhat.com/
Oh, and don't expect much in the way of performance - my P166MMX doesn't exactly fly in software mode.
Eats all available hard disk space and memory, then explodes...
... if gmc still segfaults continuously at Gnome 2.0, I think I'll give it a miss... :)
It's KDE 1.1, probably running on Red Hat 5ish (note the duff, easily-fixable Courier fonts).
/.
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not - you probably are, but it's hard to tell on
Infidels! Baguette is the only true path!
: realises the link is about pi, not pie. Ooops...
Maybe I was a bit harsh at first. A couple of the themes I've seen for Gnome and E look wonderful, while a lot of them really would cause eyestrain. But again, the flashy graphics are irrelevant unless the underlying user interface design is sound. Of course, if the user interface and the graphics are good, then you've got a pretty good program.
A possible killer-application addition to Gnome might be the ability to redesign user interfaces without fiddling with the source code. I don't know how it might be done, or if it would be practical, but it would be amazing if it were possible. Don't like the arrangement of buttons in a dialogue box? Change them! Want a different menu bar? Toolbar? Want to translate the program to another language, but have little programming experience*?
Ford Prefect
* I haven't really used Gnome much (I'm waiting for stability to improve a little, as I did with Linux 2.2) so this feature may already be available. I think KDE has something like it.
User interface design does not mean pretty graphics. A good user interface can look very basic, but if it is designed properly that is irrelevant. KDE has the best user interface under Linux I've found so far - it's all arranged fairly logically, and reading a manual isn't really necessary. I don't want two or three 'panels' taking up valuable screen estate with all their icons and dockable applets, I want to start programs. I don't want pretty little icons on the menus, I want standardised keypresses and functioning drag and drop. I don't want memory-consuming, network-choking themes, I want usable applications.
I dislike almost all these 'themes' available (for E, Gnome, KDE, Win95...) - text generally becomes illegible, and often almost painful to read. Some themes (such as the BrushedMetal one for Gnome and E) look extremely nice, but still aren't too comfortable on the eyes. If you really think a system is usable, try producing a large, complex document or program without the pretty pictures driving you to distraction.
Does Linus use themes?
Ford Prefect
'OK' sets everything you just did in the dialogue box, and closes it.
'Apply' sets everything you just did, but doesn't close the box. (Non-modal dialogue boxes.)
'Close' closes the box without setting anything.
The best system is like this...
[ Apply ] [ Revert ]
[ OK ] [ Cancel ]
I believe the concepts involved originated on NeXT, not Windows, and they were copied.
Despite what many people think, it isn't necessary to have animated toolbars, high-resolution, full-colour bitmaps for everything, illegible 'themes'... A good user interface is logical, friendly, simple but powerful. Contrast Papyrus (Atari word-processor) with Microsoft Word.
Ford Prefect
I wouldn't call GEM 'swift' when running on a basic ST - but then, that's probably because I bought NVDI 4.11 (the software screen accelerator for those not in the know). A hyper-fast, hyper-compatible VDI replacement coded in assembler, complete with high quality and standardised printer,screen, bitmap and metafile drivers. The font rendering knocks spots off XFree86's - far faster, uses truetype and speedo fonts, and works throughout the system. X needs something like that.
Duplicated stories? What about the stories that are never posted? About a week ago, I submitted the address to a BBC article describing the very recent Teleglobe transatlantic link failure. This caused the US to be inaccessible from Janet (the Joint Academic NETwork which connects all the UK universities) for roughly 24 hours. It probably affected quite a few slashdot readers, me included. It was never posted. However, www.doodie.com was.
Late last year, I also posted the address of a New Scientist article which was very positive towards Linux. It too was ignored.
Ford 'Mostly Harmless' Prefect
Can anyone help?
:)
I've been trying for several months to install Red Hat 5.2 on my Toshiba laptop. When I try booting from the boot disk, nothing happens - the disk buzzes for a moment, then goes silent. I've tried with different copies of the disk, and still can't get it to work - it reads disks fine in DOS. I've tried the Toshiba web sites, but they don't have any information regarding this.
Thanks...
Ford Prefect
In case you're wondering, it's a T1100 PLUS, with an 8086 processor, 640KB memory, CGA graphics, two DD floppy disk drives, and a monochrome 640x200 LCD display. Could the specifications have something to do with it?
http://hegel.cs.man.ac.uk/systems/Maverik/
Innovative software, under the GPL.
So, everyone - let's slashdot it again! :-)
Ford 'Mostly Harmless' Prefect