I agree the specs don't tell the whole story. However, don't dismiss the effects of games AND price. I may make the 'Uber XXtream L33t 5000' system, but if its priced out of the range of the average person, who is going to buy it? It doesn't matter if my system has the best games ever, full motion CG, and synflesh knockers! Sure, the fanboys will buy it, rich kids will buy it, and the like. However, for the rest of us (aka: the majority), $600 is a serious chunk of change. Last time the PS2 won because they where first, they had name precognition, the system was comparably, and it had a lot of games. Personally, I hope nobody wins this generation. Competition only helps us consumers.
Well, In addition to the HDMI issues, there are no memory slots (see link provided by original story). So, how are you going to get your old saved games, cars, etc from PS2/PS1 onto it? There are several ways, I am sure, but not easily accessible for the masses. This also affects its functionality as a media center. This cripples their much touted '100%' backwards compatibility with all previous games. Not really surprising, anybody who know much about emulation knows there are ALWAYS issues and 100% compatibility is a pipe dream.
Really, I was at BestBuy yesterday, saw the premium bundle for $399
You can buy them right now, at walmart, bestbuy, etc for 399!!! You are the one spreading FUD
The problem is, you don't need a jet engine to very very fast on a motorcycle. I know of 6 production bikes that can do 180MPH+ stock, all but one costs less then 15k. Jet engines on a bike are a loud and messy way to commit suicide.
Wow, really? So the only enemy the US has to protect itself and its people from in the foreseeable future is al-Qaida? Nobody else could possibly hurt us!!?!?! Based on the last 100 years (2 world wars, many smaller ones), maybe it would be a good idea to stay on the forefront of military technology. Nice knee jerk reaction, though.
And yet, America still has the largest number of immigrants per year, anywhere from 1 to 2 million.
"Even allowing for immigration, the United Nations projects that the population of the current European Union members will fall by around 7.5million over the next 45 years. There has not been such a sustained reduction in the European population since the Black Death of the 14th century. (By contrast, the United States population is projected to grow by 44 percent between 2000 and 2050.)" source
Wow, looks like a horrible place to life. If our education sucks, hear care sucks, economy sucks, blah blah, its a wonder why millions flock here? Studies like this are FUD, and immature troglodytes like you love them because they reinforce their perception of the world. Go play in your sandbox.
I would argue the plethora of options in the PC world is the main reason optimizations aren't done. Almost always, there is a tradeoff between memory needed, CPU cycles used, and complexity. In the PC world, there are two major CPU makers, three+ video card makers, ten+ memory and mobo makers, dozens of secondary storage makers, etc. In order to optimize, you MUST have a good idea of the platform it's going to run on. If you have a task that is extremely memory intensive and PC100 memory on a quad Xeon, minimizing memory reads at the cost of additional CPU usage is acceptable. Optimizations are by necessity very specific, so you would have to make dozens (possibly hundreds) of optimization instances, for likely hardware combinations. Obviously, this would be hideously expensive.
Console software makers have it easy, they know the CPU, cache size, memory bandwidth, memory latency, quantity of memory, GPU speed, number of shaders, etc to optimize for.
I agree, at least from a developer standpoint. I don't want their greasy palsied fingers in our code! However, I think we would all benefit from better documentation in the F/OSS community. The rest of the developer community will understand it better and be more likely to use/modify/improve it. Unfortunately documentation sucks. Most of us [hackers, code monkeys, bit chuckers, and software engineers] hate writing documentation (myself included).
Ironically, I do have an aunt Mabel. She recently learned how to email; she can't see very well SO ALL OF HER EMAILS LOOK LIKE THIS. *sigh*
Don't worry about it, I did also. I had mental images of angry^H^H^H^H^H^H feminists, wearing period armor & combat boots, chanting something involving film, men, and penises (Think PCU) Shame you got so much flack about it.
Didn't sony commit to a 'Spring 2006' launch? Repeatedly? Then deny they would miss the deadline until the deadline passed? Why is November 2006 any more reasonable or believable? That is merely the most recent line of BS they are feeding everybody.
They appear to be based on the G4, but have been redesigned:
"The chip contains three identical, customized IBM 64-bit multi-threaded PowerPC-based CPU cores, each implementing two simultaneous instruction threads and featuring clock speeds in excess of 3 GHz. The cores are enhanced with specialized function VMX acceleration for gaming applications, as well as with a high speed 128-bit vector unit. Additionally, the processor includes a 1 MB Shared L2 Cache with custom logic for high-speed data streaming for graphics and system applications, and provides an aggregate front side bus (FSB) bandwidth of 21.6 GB/sec, IBM added.
The chip is highly configurable and programmable, based on IBM's eFUSE technology. It contains 165 million transistors, and is fabricated in IBM's 90 nanometer Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology to reduce heat and improve performance, according to IBM."
How about teaching pedestrians not to walk about in front of a moving vehicle? It turns out, at least in Washington DC and Baltimore, that pedestrians are more likely to be found at fault then the driver of the vehicle. On the other hand, this is evolution at work. If you think stepping in front of a fast moving car is a reasonable thing to do, we don't need your DNA in the gene pool, thanks.
I think the problem was the school you attended. I also got a BS in CS (2002). My experience was very different to say the least. The CS degree program at my school New Mexico Tech wasn't perfect but it sure prepared me better then that. I was required to take several general programming classes and many more specialized classes (data structures, software design, computer architecture, compiler writing, networking/security, databases, etc). All of which required significant to insane amounts of programming/design. My largest CS class was 45 people, my smallest was 7. Just doing the class work produced a software engineer of decent caliber, a extra work on your part would make a excellent one. I never worried about business or management skills, I wanted to be a software engineer.
I guess the purpose of the rambling post is to point out that experiences vary and you only get out what you put into it. If you really work at it you will excel, as apposed to doing the minimum to graduate with a C+ GPA.
On a side note, what managers want and what they can get are usually two different things. Managers would love to hire software engineers that are C/C++/C#/Java/.Net/CORBA/... experts, used to programming under ISO and CMMI level 5, invented the TCP/IP stack, and also independently wealthy and willing to work for Dr. Pepper. These kind of people are hard to find, they will have to stick with us entry level types who are will to learn.
MS Visual Studio 2005
Enterprise Architect
MS Visio
MS Word
XMLSpy
I am sure one or more of these is available on Mac, but why would I want a mac? Talk about a lesser OS. Expensive hardware, limited upgradeability, unix 'like'. Every single machine I use, home or work, dual boots into XP and 1+ linux distros (usually Redhat AS 4 and/or Gentoo). If I need a CLI, I have cygwin or a linux box next to my windows box! If I want to use any one of the number of tools/games exclusive to Windows, I have it.
Ah, the sweet tears of Sony fanboys. We have had to listen to them say "Oh, it will be faster and cheaper and better then teh stupid 360!!! Down with Micro$oft!!!!" over and over again. As I read these comments, the fanboys seem quiet....
Radio waves travel hundreds of miles and requires a cheap infrastructure. Very little of Africa is wired, so there isn't cat5 laying around. 802.11 has short range, satellite is too expensive. Just how are you planning on getting them to the net? The people these laptops are designed for live hundreds to thousands of miles from a accessable internet connection. I believe the laptops come loaded with lots of education material already, which is the point.
You purchased a product for X dollars, did this product say "With horse armor"? No, yet you purchased it. Then the same makers later offer completely aesthetic mods for a small fee and you freak out? Don't want non-functional armor on your horse? Don't buy it! If horse armor turns your crank, spend the money!! Its $2.50. If you can't afford a cash outlay of this magnitude what are you doing buying a $300/$400 game system, $60 game, and possibly a HDTV?
As for the pricing scheme, welcome to the real world. Ever buy a piece of lumber, a car part, a few floor tiles, etc? How much do your house/car/bathroom would cost if the manufactures paid the same prices you have to?
Hey! Stop that! This is slashdot, you are only allowed to denigrate Microsoft and make wild uninformed accusations! The more outlandish and rabid the better!
Seriously people, the parent has a good point. You purchased a product for X dollars, did this product say "With horse armor"? No, yet you purchased it. Then the same makers later offer completely aesthetic mods for a small fee and you freak out? Don't want non-functional armor on your horse? Don't buy it! If horse armor turns your crank, spend the money!! Its $2.50. If you can't afford a cash outlay of this magnitude what are you doing buying a $300/$400 game system, $60 game, and possibly a HDTV?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree the specs don't tell the whole story. However, don't dismiss the effects of games AND price. I may make the 'Uber XXtream L33t 5000' system, but if its priced out of the range of the average person, who is going to buy it? It doesn't matter if my system has the best games ever, full motion CG, and synflesh knockers! Sure, the fanboys will buy it, rich kids will buy it, and the like. However, for the rest of us (aka: the majority), $600 is a serious chunk of change. Last time the PS2 won because they where first, they had name precognition, the system was comparably, and it had a lot of games. Personally, I hope nobody wins this generation. Competition only helps us consumers.
~nate
Well, In addition to the HDMI issues, there are no memory slots (see link provided by original story). So, how are you going to get your old saved games, cars, etc from PS2/PS1 onto it? There are several ways, I am sure, but not easily accessible for the masses. This also affects its functionality as a media center. This cripples their much touted '100%' backwards compatibility with all previous games. Not really surprising, anybody who know much about emulation knows there are ALWAYS issues and 100% compatibility is a pipe dream.
~nate
Really, I was at BestBuy yesterday, saw the premium bundle for $399 You can buy them right now, at walmart, bestbuy, etc for 399!!! You are the one spreading FUD
~nate
I have seen the $399 Premium XBox360 at BestBuy and Walmart. You probably linked to one of the bundles, with the wireless headsets and all that.
~nate
The problem is, you don't need a jet engine to very very fast on a motorcycle. I know of 6 production bikes that can do 180MPH+ stock, all but one costs less then 15k. Jet engines on a bike are a loud and messy way to commit suicide.
~nate
Sweet!! I would love to talk to those guys. Where did you get to talk to them?
~nate
Wow, he has a perfect score of -1s. Is there any way the taco master can boot this moron?
~nate
Wow, really? So the only enemy the US has to protect itself and its people from in the foreseeable future is al-Qaida? Nobody else could possibly hurt us!!?!?! Based on the last 100 years (2 world wars, many smaller ones), maybe it would be a good idea to stay on the forefront of military technology. Nice knee jerk reaction, though.
~nate
They are Democrats, they can't help it. If they had intestinal fortitude and foresight, they would be Republicans!
~nate
And yet, America still has the largest number of immigrants per year, anywhere from 1 to 2 million.
"Even allowing for immigration, the United Nations projects that the population of the current European Union members will fall by around 7.5million over the next 45 years. There has not been such a sustained reduction in the European population since the Black Death of the 14th century. (By contrast, the United States population is projected to grow by 44 percent between 2000 and 2050.)" source
Wow, looks like a horrible place to life. If our education sucks, hear care sucks, economy sucks, blah blah, its a wonder why millions flock here? Studies like this are FUD, and immature troglodytes like you love them because they reinforce their perception of the world. Go play in your sandbox.
~nate
I would argue the plethora of options in the PC world is the main reason optimizations aren't done. Almost always, there is a tradeoff between memory needed, CPU cycles used, and complexity. In the PC world, there are two major CPU makers, three+ video card makers, ten+ memory and mobo makers, dozens of secondary storage makers, etc. In order to optimize, you MUST have a good idea of the platform it's going to run on. If you have a task that is extremely memory intensive and PC100 memory on a quad Xeon, minimizing memory reads at the cost of additional CPU usage is acceptable. Optimizations are by necessity very specific, so you would have to make dozens (possibly hundreds) of optimization instances, for likely hardware combinations. Obviously, this would be hideously expensive.
Console software makers have it easy, they know the CPU, cache size, memory bandwidth, memory latency, quantity of memory, GPU speed, number of shaders, etc to optimize for.
~nate
I agree, at least from a developer standpoint. I don't want their greasy palsied fingers in our code! However, I think we would all benefit from better documentation in the F/OSS community. The rest of the developer community will understand it better and be more likely to use/modify/improve it. Unfortunately documentation sucks. Most of us [hackers, code monkeys, bit chuckers, and software engineers] hate writing documentation (myself included).
Ironically, I do have an aunt Mabel. She recently learned how to email; she can't see very well SO ALL OF HER EMAILS LOOK LIKE THIS. *sigh*
~nate
Don't worry about it, I did also. I had mental images of angry^H^H^H^H^H^H feminists, wearing period armor & combat boots, chanting something involving film, men, and penises (Think PCU) Shame you got so much flack about it.
~nate
Bah, typical FUD and lies. Somebody should mod the parent accordingly.
~nate
Didn't sony commit to a 'Spring 2006' launch? Repeatedly? Then deny they would miss the deadline until the deadline passed? Why is November 2006 any more reasonable or believable? That is merely the most recent line of BS they are feeding everybody.
~nate
They appear to be based on the G4, but have been redesigned:
"The chip contains three identical, customized IBM 64-bit multi-threaded PowerPC-based CPU cores, each implementing two simultaneous instruction threads and featuring clock speeds in excess of 3 GHz. The cores are enhanced with specialized function VMX acceleration for gaming applications, as well as with a high speed 128-bit vector unit. Additionally, the processor includes a 1 MB Shared L2 Cache with custom logic for high-speed data streaming for graphics and system applications, and provides an aggregate front side bus (FSB) bandwidth of 21.6 GB/sec, IBM added.
The chip is highly configurable and programmable, based on IBM's eFUSE technology. It contains 165 million transistors, and is fabricated in IBM's 90 nanometer Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology to reduce heat and improve performance, according to IBM."
~nate
Personally, I am waiting for the 5 assed bear. Now THATS something worth stuffing and putting on your wall!
~nate
How about teaching pedestrians not to walk about in front of a moving vehicle? It turns out, at least in Washington DC and Baltimore, that pedestrians are more likely to be found at fault then the driver of the vehicle. On the other hand, this is evolution at work. If you think stepping in front of a fast moving car is a reasonable thing to do, we don't need your DNA in the gene pool, thanks.
~nate
I think the problem was the school you attended. I also got a BS in CS (2002). My experience was very different to say the least. The CS degree program at my school New Mexico Tech wasn't perfect but it sure prepared me better then that. I was required to take several general programming classes and many more specialized classes (data structures, software design, computer architecture, compiler writing, networking/security, databases, etc). All of which required significant to insane amounts of programming/design. My largest CS class was 45 people, my smallest was 7. Just doing the class work produced a software engineer of decent caliber, a extra work on your part would make a excellent one. I never worried about business or management skills, I wanted to be a software engineer.
I guess the purpose of the rambling post is to point out that experiences vary and you only get out what you put into it. If you really work at it you will excel, as apposed to doing the minimum to graduate with a C+ GPA.
On a side note, what managers want and what they can get are usually two different things. Managers would love to hire software engineers that are C/C++/C#/Java/.Net/CORBA/... experts, used to programming under ISO and CMMI level 5, invented the TCP/IP stack, and also independently wealthy and willing to work for Dr. Pepper. These kind of people are hard to find, they will have to stick with us entry level types who are will to learn.
~nate
Please, on a daily basis I use (incomplete list):
MS Visual Studio 2005
Enterprise Architect
MS Visio
MS Word
XMLSpy
I am sure one or more of these is available on Mac, but why would I want a mac? Talk about a lesser OS. Expensive hardware, limited upgradeability, unix 'like'. Every single machine I use, home or work, dual boots into XP and 1+ linux distros (usually Redhat AS 4 and/or Gentoo). If I need a CLI, I have cygwin or a linux box next to my windows box! If I want to use any one of the number of tools/games exclusive to Windows, I have it.
~nate
Ah, the sweet tears of Sony fanboys. We have had to listen to them say "Oh, it will be faster and cheaper and better then teh stupid 360!!! Down with Micro$oft!!!!" over and over again. As I read these comments, the fanboys seem quiet....
~nate
Is there any way we can have articles with more spin please? Maybe: "Republicans kill bill that saves cute ponies from slaughter"!
Thanks!
~nate
Radio waves travel hundreds of miles and requires a cheap infrastructure. Very little of Africa is wired, so there isn't cat5 laying around. 802.11 has short range, satellite is too expensive. Just how are you planning on getting them to the net? The people these laptops are designed for live hundreds to thousands of miles from a accessable internet connection. I believe the laptops come loaded with lots of education material already, which is the point.
~nate
You purchased a product for X dollars, did this product say "With horse armor"? No, yet you purchased it. Then the same makers later offer completely aesthetic mods for a small fee and you freak out? Don't want non-functional armor on your horse? Don't buy it! If horse armor turns your crank, spend the money!! Its $2.50. If you can't afford a cash outlay of this magnitude what are you doing buying a $300/$400 game system, $60 game, and possibly a HDTV?
As for the pricing scheme, welcome to the real world. Ever buy a piece of lumber, a car part, a few floor tiles, etc? How much do your house/car/bathroom would cost if the manufactures paid the same prices you have to?
~nate
Hey! Stop that! This is slashdot, you are only allowed to denigrate Microsoft and make wild uninformed accusations! The more outlandish and rabid the better!
Seriously people, the parent has a good point. You purchased a product for X dollars, did this product say "With horse armor"? No, yet you purchased it. Then the same makers later offer completely aesthetic mods for a small fee and you freak out? Don't want non-functional armor on your horse? Don't buy it! If horse armor turns your crank, spend the money!! Its $2.50. If you can't afford a cash outlay of this magnitude what are you doing buying a $300/$400 game system, $60 game, and possibly a HDTV?
~nate