begin quoting Tracy R Reed as of Thu, May 12, 2005 at 01:42:14PM +0700: [snip] > I think you are being quite impractical here.
I don't. Chasing the absolutely cheapest solution rarely saves real money. > One of the big reasons > for the success of FOSS and the whole industry and economy based on it > (things like Google) is that PC's are cheap and therefore ubiquitous. I disagree. FOSS got its start on expensive machines with limited access. There used to be thriving freeware software ecologies on non-x86 personal computers that died with the triump of the x86 boxen. > Hackers can now afford a cheap but powerful PC to connect to their cheap > high speed net connection. And? Totally irrelevent. Hackers managed to get good machines *anyway*. All that cheap does is let them have three (or more!) machines where once they'd have just one. And you don't need a late-model "powerful" PC to be a hacker -- in fact, I'd argue that it's a distraction, not a benefit. So "they can now afford" is a totally bogus argument. > And I think Intel/AMD have done quite a bit > of research and innovation. Then why haven't they come up with a _decent_ design? > They both do tons of R&D themselves with > numerous huge labs. Lots of things have changed to get us from the > original 4.77Mhz (I think) 8086 up to our modern dual-core 64 bit 3+Ghz > monsters with dual crossbar switched Hypertransport busses etc. From where I'm standing -- so my view is skewed -- that's mostly just copying ideas and doing the R&D to wedge 'em into the x86 brokenness. > Alpha, PPC, and even Sparc have all been commercial failures compared to > x86. So if you aren't in the #1 spot you're a commercial failure? I don't accept that -- it doesn't fit in my economic world-view. I haven't heard that SPARC and PPC cpus are being made and sold at a loss. In fact, we seem to almost hear routinely that production can't keep up with demand -- that's a commercial _failure_? > So DEC got bought out and most others license out the technologies > for their less-than-popular cpu's as another revenue stream so that we > end up with the good stuff in our x86 cpu's anyhow. As I understand it > some of the Alpha technology has been licensed for use in Intel and AMD > cpu's. They both use IBM's SOI technology now. Intel owns the AXP IP, don't they? You'd _hope_ they'd be able to use that a little bit. > Sure, it's a classic case of VHS defeating BETA and I would have > preferred it if the Sparc or Alpha or PPC chip had become the > mass-produced commercial success that x86 has been such that we would > all have them on our desktops. So buy a PPC box. Don't expect everyone else to fund the market for you. That just plays into the hands of the status quo... > These cpu's were nowhere to be found back > when it mattered. No, but other CPUs were, and the same sort of wait-and-see attitude meant that the market got stuck with x86. > And had they existed back then we would probably be > having the same debate now because they would now appear to be quite > poorly designed with lots of features kludged on to keep them in the > game just like x86 appears now. I would emphatically disagree, but that's speculation, unfortunately. > But when they did finally come along > they played a very expensive proprietary game which ensured they never > hit production volumes that make them a good deal when it comes to > price/performance. Tell me how SPARC is proprietary again? Anyone can license it and make SPARC chips, from what I understand. LESS proprietary than the x86 line. > "Value given for value received" may be more > complicated than you think when you take into account economies of > scale. Yes. You have to increase the market of the good designs so that the economies of scale can bring down the price. If smart folks won't do this, then everyone is doomed to crap. It's more complicated because most of the people out there are not making informed decisions -- and those who *can* make informed decisions are following the lead of those who aren't informed. It's a sad state of affairs. > How much you pay for your Sparc is directly related to how many > of them are produced despite the fact that the performance of the cpu > remains the same. So it behooves me to buy SPARC if I consider it a technically better CPU, even if it costs somewhat more, as I then increase the demand, which increases how many are produced, which lowers the per-unit price. Either you spend your money on how you want the world to be, and stand a chance of changing the world, or you spend your money based on how someone else wants the world to be, and give up your voice in how it ought to be. -Stewart "Going with the cheapest is almost always the worst solution" Stremler
pgpFOVc7ydVF7.pgp
Description: PGP signature
-- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
