Posted on 05/13/2005 11:50:04 PM PDT by HAL9000
Yes, and who controls Google? Some very big liberal Democrats. :-(
You can say what you want about the paradigm shift where we were supposed to get free internet and LD and say it didn't come through but....
Dial up internet costs have gone down more than 50% on average. From $19.95 to $9.95. Broadband costs have gone down by 30%+ considering my first DSL package was $44.95 for 768/128 and is now $29.95 for 3.0/768.
LD 5 years ago was still 5 cents a minute for your home land line. I now pay $60 for home and unlimited local, regional and LD. That's 1,200 minutes at 5 cents a minute. Running an at home business I use that in 5 business days. So you can basically say my LD costs have decreased 70% in 5 years.
I don't know where you come from but to me that's overwhelming progress.
Oh, and the Xbox 360 is more of a Trojan Horse than any industry insider has really admitted. No one is paying attention to their phrase "Those who use Windows Media OS will recognize the GUI immediately." If you don't think you won't be able to use this for Office functions within 2 years.... you're blind.
companies like Rogers aready markets a VoIP system. you don't need a pc, or an xbox just plug it in and go.
Free except for the cost of the VoIP system. Canadian telephone companies are freaking out about it.
If MS is going to Power PC processors, that means they can get out from under all the vulnerabilities of the x86 processor that have so annoyingly echoed up through the Microsoft OS for so long, does it not?
ditto Vonage...
Plus, you can take it with you anywhere you go, or move to, call anywhere in the world. All you need is a phone jack.
Yes, Microsoft can get their PowerPC chips built to spec. Microsoft also bought Connectix recently, so they own the "Virtual PC" x86 emulator which already works on PowerPC. I think they'll use that emulator to run first-generation Xbox games - but they could also use it to boot Windows on the Xbox 360.
As others have said, though, this thing is supposedly poised to do most of the low-end computing tasks that home users typically use their PC's for. And at 300 bucks or so, which is the number I've seen cited elsewhere, it's priced so you won't feel too bad about buying a new one every couple of years. And CNET reports that it'll be compatible with the new Longhorn OS, so somebody is thinking ahead.
I think it's too early to tell, but this thing might have potential as far as making inroads into the home PC market.
Wow bump!
Would you be talking about the chip's architecture?
I recall the old Motorola 68x chips were "clear", in that you could (and did) load your OS onto the computer every boot-up, and that memory was loaded from "bottom-up", while the X86 "partitioned" memory usage and loaded memory above a certain address...
That's my best recollection of the differences..
At any rate, with my old 68x system, I could use a different OS, like Unix with my machine simply by booting a Unix disk, or replacing the OS chip on the motherboard with a Unix chip..
Is this the case here with Power PC?
And is it a Motorola descendent?
There is little information available on the processor, but if you follow this link to a preview on anandtech about the xbox 360 and click on the PPE link in the forth paragraph there is some interesting info on what may be used.
Opps...link here http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2414
Link to a more in depth preview: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzY4
Intel is going to be mighty embarrassed if an emulator on a PowerPC chip is as fast as a P4.
Thanks for the links.. That first one has some of the basic info I need for further research on the CPU architecture and memory management..
From my first link: The PPE is a new core unlike any other PowerPC core made by IBM. The PPE is kept simple purposefully, although it has the base functionality of any modern day, general purpose microprocessor. The role of the PPE in Cell is to handle the tasks that any general purpose microprocessor would run; basically, anything that you could run on your Athlon 64 would be run on the PPE.
In other words, no emulator is needed.
I surely would be. I don't hold myself out as any kind of expert, so I'd encourage you to use Google to clarify the differences between the Power PC chip and others.
The Power PC Chip does indeed have some Motorola parentage, along with IBM. I'm not sure who is currently manufacturing which versions.
The chip arcitecture of the power PC chip apparently doesn't have the buffer overflow issue that has been used in exploits against machines using X86 CPUs.
Isn't that the same processor that Apple uses in the Mac. Dell killer? What about Intel and AMD? Is Microsoft FINALLY admitting that Apple has been right all along. Perhaps it will run OS X 10.4 Tiger.
PwerPC, eh? Then Microsoft really is stabbing Intel in the back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.