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7:59 PM
Libretto 50CT
Well, for those of you susceptible to gadgetry temptation, PC Connection is clearing out the Libretto 50CT for
$798. The US version of the 50CT includes the floppy drive, so all around it's a
great deal. Don't forget the enhanced port replicator, which you'll want if you need
the keyboard/mouse ports and a PC Card slot, and the 16MB upgrade (only about $70 from NECX or Insight).
6:06 PM
Award and Phoenix team up
In a $117 million stock swap deal, Award and Phoenix are joining forces to
provide BIOS's to all segments of the market. Phoenix has typically focused on the
mid-to-high-end range of systems while Award has sold its BIOS's to overseas
manufacturers. Under the deal, Award will become a subsidiary of Phoenix.
EE Times' story
Alternatives to Rambus DRAM
Although Intel has endorsed Direct Rambus DRAM as the heir to the memory
throne, so to speak, computer manufacturers are still out exploring different options.
Two of the standards vying for acceptance along with RDRAM are DDR DRAM (double
data rate DRAM, which transfers data on the rising and falling edges of the clock) and
SLDRAM (SyncLink DRAM? Check http://www.sldram.com
for more info).
DDR DRAM looks to be the cheapest, followed by SLDRAM and then Direct Rambus DRAM.
RAM manufacturers are a little wary of Rambus DRAM because they would need to pay a
licensing fee to manufacture RDRAM's, further driving up their costs. However,
because Intel has only committed to supporting RDRAM in their chipsets (and we know that
Intel has a virtual lock on the PC chipset market these days), DDR and SLDRAM are going to
have a tough time gaining acceptance unless Intel chooses to support them.
EE Times' story
11:54 PM
More StarCraft observations
Seeing as how we've been playing a lot of StarCraft lately, I guess I'll
offer some observations. First of all, we're leaning towards Terrans as being the
most powerful race. In allied games, a Terran is the only race that can stop a
combined rush from multiple players, and with very few losses, I might add. Those
bunkers are nearly unkillable in the early game without heavy losses to your troops.
So usually Terrans end up surviving because you don't want to waste troops on them
when you can take out a different race with less effort. The next thing I'm sure any
serious players has noticed is that Terrans have an all around crazy defense. It's
almost impenetrable, especially for Protoss players (Zerg have the Guardian, which is a
passable solution). Playing against a Terran can result in a very protracted game if
you allow him to dig in.
Also, in team games, marines can get pretty stupid. First of all, they defend
against both air and ground, so no cheesing with air units. One things especially
true with marines is that the more you have, the more effective they become.
Normally this is a fairly recursive argument, but in the marines' case, since they have a
ranged attack, what you see is all the marines being able to attack while the front lines
take damage. Other melee units have to move into position and waste time positioning
themselves rather than doing damage. Trust me, it can get very ugly in large numbers
when every single marine is beating on your line of zealots and all you can do is attack
the front lines.
Of course, templars, reavers, and siege tanks are the solution. But it certainly
takes more effort to orchestrate a competent defense than it does to build a horde of
marines.
4:14 PM
Spring fling
Spring fling is happening here at Penn...it's a big ol' party weekend,
basically. I'm puzzled what to do since I make it a point not to hit the sauce, so
to speak. Honestly, I can't think of a lot of stuff to do here in Philly other than
drink and watch movies.
Software DVD
I'm extremely puzzled as to why I can't find any software DVD solutions
anywhere on the Internet. It seems like this stuff would be more popular, don't you
think? Hopefully a company like Xing or Mediamatics will release a shareware version soon.
Xing has a new product called XingDVD, but I haven't seen any real info on it aside
from the briefing on their site.
Anyhow, Intel apparently is distributing its own software DVD player for free to PC
OEM's with its latest 440BX chipset. It seems Intel is having a tough time
explaining exactly why their customers need all this extra processing power (although I
know I could use it). I'd like to get my hands on that piece of software, anyhow.
EE Times' story
4:47 PM
New info on the Pentium II 350/400 and the 440BX
chipset
Intel has updated their website with all new information about the Pentium II 350/400 and the 440BX chipset with the 100 MHz
front-side bus speed.
Now where's that dang Pentium Pro Overdrive?
2:06 PM
Nice Protoss strategies
An excellent post on early game
Protoss strategies was made on the Battle.net Strategy and Tactics forum by Rick
Blaine. If you are a StarCraft player, check it out.
Big computer day
Yep, today we're going to see the usual round of price cuts from Intel and
the official announcements of the Pentium II 350 and 400 and the low-cost Celeron line of
processors, as well as the introduction of the BX chipset. Quite a lot of stuff to
go over!
The Pentium II 350 and 400 are just what you expect...faster Deschutes processors.
The 333, at $483, is still a mad overclocking buy, so grab it rather than its
faster brethren.
Celeron is not a hot performer because of its lack of L2 cache, but hey, it's cheap
(VERY cheap), and that's the point.
The BX chipset is nice and not really all that expensive. The problem is you
really get screwed trying to get PC100 compliant SDRAM to use in a BX board at 100 MHz.
This stuff is extremely expensive and QC for PC100 SDRAM has to be extremely tight.
Be careful with it, that's all I have to say. There's a very strong
likelihood that a lot of substandard SDRAM will be floating around.
Anyhow, the SDRAM is where you will find yourself spending a lot of extra money, unless
you decide to run the board at 66 MHz (although, actually, I believe the board decides for
you, based on the processor speed you are running). The other catch, of course, is
that the performance obtained by raising the bus speed to 100 MHz isn't very significant
because the L2 cache is inside the Pentium II itself and runs independently of the bus
speed. AGP devices, especially those like the Real3D Starfighter AGP which use DIME
and find themselves bottlenecked at higher resolutions by the AGP interface, will find the
boost in bus speed to be a major performance enhancer in certain cases. However, in
terms of overall system performance, the 100 MHz bus looks like it will really only come
into its own in much more demanding environments like server applications and higher end
multiprocessing workstations. The cost of the PC100 SDRAM, to me, is too prohibitive
to move to the BX chipset at this point, although I'm hoping supply and demand will drive
the prices down soon.
News.com's
story
6:50 PM
Officially pissed off
Well, having exhausted all possible avenues of troubleshooting available
to me, I finally tried to contact my dealer regarding an RMA replacement of my
motherboard. They appeared to be willing to exchange my motherboard, even for
another brand, but apparently couldn't get any contacts to get them any Pentium Pro
boards. I'm going to check back with them tomorrow, but in the mean time, it seemed
as if my best option was to contact Tyan directly for an RMA replacement.
OK, so I'm sitting on long distance at my own expense for 20 minutes. Not
unusual, but annoying. Anyhow, I talk to the fellow and everything seems cool, we
decide I need to RMA the board rather quickly. Until, that is, I find out they don't
cross-ship boards, EVER. I asked about 5 times and he said "They just don't do
that here." I say, "Don't people ever ask for this?" and he says,
"Yeah, people ask all the time, we just don't do it." So I ask,
"What's the turnaround time?" "Oh, about 2-3 weeks." I was
expecting days, not weeks! What do they expect me to do, not have a computer in the
mean time?
Clearly, this is not an option and Tyan gets a big thumbs down from me for trying to
foist that stupid policy on end-users. I might need that Libretto sooner than I
thought.
1:49 PM
Windows CE Services 2.1 released
Hmm...well, I think this is more of interest to those of you with Windows
CE 2.0 machines, but anyhow, Philips released Windows CE 2.1 services on their web page,
and it's downloadable by anyone. Get it here.
2:24 AM
More digital camera info
An interesting article on the EE Times addresses the many design, cost,
and complexity issues surrounding digital camera design. Sensor sensitivity, lens
quality, eliminating mechanical shutters at the cost of increased circuitry...it's all
there. Take a look.
EE Times's
story
The end of Moore's Law?
A famous postulate made by Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel, says that
computing power roughly doubles every 18 months. This observation has proven
surprisingly accurate over the past few decades, but developments in the industry point to
an upcoming impasse in chip design and development which may break this long standing
cycle. Normally a set of design rules are specified by the process technology used
to manufacture the chip, and the designer tries to stick to them. However, it's
becoming increasingly clear that chip design and the process technology at hand need to be
integrated to continue wringing performance out of chips as new process technologies
become increasingly and prohibitively expensive to set up. Very accurate simulation
and verification tools are an essential key to the task at hand.
EE Times's story
Toshiba's Libretto 100CT
PC Magazine recently reviewed the Libretto 100CT, which, as I said before,
is a significant revision in Toshiba's line of PC-compatible palmtop notebooks.
Check it out.
By the way, Computer City is supposedly selling out the 50CT for $699. It's very
tempting...I'm thinking about whether or not to get one of those instead. There's
several things that are missing that really bug me, though. I'd have to get the
optional port replicator to get the external PS/2 mouse/keyboard support, and I'd only be
able to get 32MB of memory, max. I might be able to live without the 64MB of RAM
that's possible in the 100CT, but no external mouse support is a doozy, and adding all
that stuff on is a chunk of change.
I also didn't realize it, but the Hitachi Prius that I talked about a VERY long time
ago is out in the US as the Hitachi
Visionbook Traveler. This notebook is flat out awesome, but a little dated,
unfortunately. 3 PC Card slots, can you believe that?
PC Mag's Libretto
100CT review
6:34 PM
Making little changes...
I spent a little time today adding a nifty news fader to the page.
Pretty cool, right? I thought you'd like it. :-)
StarCraft strategy
With the release of StarCraft, there's a lot of discussion going on around
here regarding good approaches to use regarding upgrades, unit combos, and how to break
certain kinds of unit defenses. A very good strategy
guide was posted over at OGR by BlackLizard, the #1 beta tester on the beta ladder.
Most of the advice is good, but some things did change between the beta and the
final, so watch out for that.
One thing we are currently trying to figure out is how to deal with Mutalisks (Zerg
flyers). Nearly every anti-air unit does only half damage to them because of their
size, and Scouts seem to cost WAY more than Mutalisks (you can see I play Protoss).
It gets very ugly when a horde of Mutalisks smacks your air defenses and then you have
nothing to counterattack with.
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