Intel: The chipset is the product

"Yousuf Khan" wrote:

Would suggesting Fedora to a newbie, be a good or bad mov

I think it would be good. Just be sure to tell them about apt4rpm for
installing packages.

Robert Myers wrote:

You barely know me. I already made a post to the Beowulf mailing list
suggesting that the HPC community should seize this opportunity to get
as much Microsoft money as possible. HPC is, like racing cars, a
money-losing proposition. How much would Microsoft sink into a grand
challenge problem to say that a grand challenge problem was solved using
Windows? The cost of the actual scientific enterprise to Microsoft? A
day's earnings if it went hog wild. Cost to hype it to the press?
Several times that. Value to Microsoft in getting people to stop
thinking of them as a predatory monopolist? Priceless. Time for
science to get on the gravy train.

When you're marketing to morons you can say or do anything and spin it
as a breakthru. String meaningless unrelated terms together, like
"Microsoft will set up a Windows Bayowolf (mouth breathers like phonetic
spelling) cluster to run distributed setiathome and find the largest
prime number." And the public would be really impressed... Maybe add to
the end of that "which Intel will embed in the design of the new
Septinium processor." There is no limit to how impressive you can be if
what you say doesn't mean anything.

Can we look for processors in designer colors next?


--
bill davidsen
CTO TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979

Bill Davidsen wrote:

Robert Myers wrote:

You barely know me. I already made a post to the Beowulf mailing list
suggesting that the HPC community should seize this opportunity to get
as much Microsoft money as possible. HPC is, like racing cars, a
money-losing proposition. How much would Microsoft sink into a grand
challenge problem to say that a grand challenge problem was solved
using Windows? The cost of the actual scientific enterprise to
Microsoft? A day's earnings if it went hog wild. Cost to hype it to
the press? Several times that. Value to Microsoft in getting people
to stop thinking of them as a predatory monopolist? Priceless. Time
for science to get on the gravy train.


When you're marketing to morons you can say or do anything and spin it
as a breakthru. String meaningless unrelated terms together, like
"Microsoft will set up a Windows Bayowolf (mouth breathers like phonetic
spelling) cluster to run distributed setiathome and find the largest
prime number." And the public would be really impressed... Maybe add to
the end of that "which Intel will embed in the design of the new
Septinium processor." There is no limit to how impressive you can be if
what you say doesn't mean anything.


Is it inconnceivable that Microsoft money could produce something at
which the public really should be impressed?

Would Microsoft involvement in science or mathematics be any less
attractive than IBM's involvement in computer chess?

http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/home/html/b.html

I don't _think_ the matches added anything to our fund of understanding
about computers, I interpret what Kasparov has had to say about the
match as meaning he has, um, reservations about the human in the loop
aspect of the match on the side of Deep Blue, and it is not entirely
unfair to characterize what IBM was doing as corporate grandstanding.

I wouldn't characterize the customers IBM was aiming at as morons,
though. Technologically and mathematically naive and probably unfit to
make the technology decisions they do make, yes, but not morons.

I've made such a fuss about IBM posturing as a leader in HPC and buyin
by the US DoE (which may actually be encouraging the posturing and
probably wants the world to think that it, too, is in the business of
chess matches) that some might think I have it in for IBM when I'm
actually an IBM admirer.

Big science is expensive, glamorous, and politically charged. Would
science, mathematics, and computation be better off if IBM stayed away
from the mixture of chess boards, TV cameras, and press releases? I'm
troubled by all kinds of things around all of IBM's Deeps of various
hue, but, on balance, I wouldn't stop IBM's chess shenanigans even if I
had the power to.

If Microsoft wants to trade an investment in science for a little
respect, I'll take it. My Folding@Home Windows client doesn' erase my
resentment of Microsoft's tactics and net effect on computation, but it
makes it a little easier for me to live with it.

The work that _could_ be done is mindbending, and some of it has the
potential to have a directly positive influence on human welfare. I'd
love to think that Microsoft would put its shoulder behind putting more
idle PC's to work and giving more visibility to what's possible.

RM

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:41:59 -0400, Bill Davidsen
wrote:

Can we look for processors in designer colors next?

Only in Macs...



Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips John Savard wrote:
Intel could have *so easily* just blown the competition away.

Make an improved P4 that also has support for the IA-64 architecture.
And, yes, there are extra IA-32 instructions that let the chip access
all the features too, and the chip runs as fast as a pure IA-32
chip... but it performs even better with Itanium code (although maybe
not as well as a true Itanium).

A novel idea, but I suspect unworkable. The OS would need
to be IA64, and the x86 machine state and registers would
have to be mappable for task switch. AMD's x86-64 obviously is.

Internally, I somehow doubt IA64 and x86 are very compatible,
even on the hidden actual uops. Performance of x86 or IA64
would suffer.

-- Robert

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:41:59 -0400, Bill Davidsen
wrote:

Can we look for processors in designer colors next?

Only in Macs...

You've obviously not shopped for PCs recently. There are kits to
put *windows* (how did M$ miss this?) in the sides of cases to
see pretty blue lights on the (also optional) lights inside. If
you think Apple has a corner on the nutzo's you're just not with
it!

--
Keith

In article ,
lid says...
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips John Savard wrote:
Intel could have *so easily* just blown the competition away.

Make an improved P4 that also has support for the IA-64 architecture.
And, yes, there are extra IA-32 instructions that let the chip access
all the features too, and the chip runs as fast as a pure IA-32
chip... but it performs even better with Itanium code (although maybe
not as well as a true Itanium).

A novel idea, but I suspect unworkable. The OS would need
to be IA64, and the x86 machine state and registers would
have to be mappable for task switch. AMD's x86-64 obviously is.

If you'll remember, the original promise from INTC was that they
would have both x86 and IA64 in the first generation, ostensibly
to bridge the gap. Itanic-I was a known dog before it taped-out,
so that promise was quickly dropped in favor of "no one needs
64bits".

Internally, I somehow doubt IA64 and x86 are very compatible,
even on the hidden actual uops. Performance of x86 or IA64
would suffer.

This is rather obvious, based on history alone.

--
Keith

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 21:11:31 -0400, KR Williams wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:41:59 -0400, Bill Davidsen
wrote:

Can we look for processors in designer colors next?

Only in Macs...

You've obviously not shopped for PCs recently. There are kits to
put *windows* (how did M$ miss this?) in the sides of cases to
see pretty blue lights on the (also optional) lights inside. If
you think Apple has a corner on the nutzo's you're just not with
it!

Hey, I'm buying one of these Las Vegas cases! I've done some
customized cases in the past, but the labor is pretty intensive, and I
just don't have the time. This is for my 12 year old son, and he
needs a new case and PS for his P4 upgrade anyway, so it only makes
sense to get a flashy, trendy one.

It's got the whole schmier - front lights, fan lights, case window
(may need a decent PS)... You can even buy lanparty motherboards with
colorful glowing plastic components, but I'm not willing to risk the
tradeoff of form over function on a MB.
http://www.motherboards.org/articles...ws/1287_2.html

Sure, it's a bit silly, but he thinks it's cool, his friends think
it's cool, and it works just like a normal case, so why not? His
priorities are different than mine.


Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips KR Williams wrote:
In article ,
says...
On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:41:59 -0400, Bill Davidsen
wrote:

Can we look for processors in designer colors next?

Only in Macs...

You've obviously not shopped for PCs recently. There are kits to
put *windows* (how did M$ miss this?) in the sides of cases to
see pretty blue lights on the (also optional) lights inside. If
you think Apple has a corner on the nutzo's you're just not with
it!

And don't forget the glowing fans and cables! Reminds me of the
tricked out cars & trucks with light cables.

Jerry

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004 21:11:31 -0400, KR Williams wrote:

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 18:41:59 -0400, Bill Davidsen
wrote:

Can we look for processors in designer colors next?

Only in Macs...

You've obviously not shopped for PCs recently. There are kits to
put *windows* (how did M$ miss this?) in the sides of cases to
see pretty blue lights on the (also optional) lights inside. If
you think Apple has a corner on the nutzo's you're just not with
it!

Can we talk, err.. rice?... for a computer?

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??