In het ontwikkel team van Intel bij de Merced levert grote bonje op. Een van de Engineers klapt anoniem uit de school.

Now a senior Intel Merced engineer, who refuses to be named under any circumstances, but who is thoroughly reliable, has given us the inside track on what's happening in the corporation.

The engineer said that one of the biggest problems with Merced is where the architects are based. Around 70 per cent are based in Santa Clara, CA. He said: "It should not be based there, and I'll tell you why."

According to the engineer on the team, Intel corporate culture is "seething with brutal peer competition and totally driven by greed".

lees hier de rest.

Billy knoeit niet alleen met zijn software, als het om statistieken gaat kan ie er volgens The Register

This week Microsoft trumpeted that downloads of IE 5, launched on 18 March, had passed a million, tripling the previous record set by IE 4. Five days separate the launch and the press release, which means there must have been around 333,000 downloads of 4 in the first five days. But back on 3 October 1997 Microsoft claimed more than a million downloads of IE 4 in the first two days. This interesting discrepancy is explained by Microsoft as being accounted for by the company having counted each and every download of the Active Setup executable as a full download of IE 4.

lees aldaar de rest...

Stardock heeft een nieuwe versie van Windowblinds uitgebracht. Windowblinds is een leuk programaatje waarmee je je Windoos desktop kunt verbouwen, bijv. met een BeOS of MacOS look. Er zijn veel koele skins neer te halen bij skinz.org. De updates in v0.80:

- Smart Window Painting Mark II greatly improves performance and increases compatibility.
- On-line help system integrated
- Alpha blending between user interface components
- ICQ integration (more to come soon)
- Ability to remove skins from the WindowBlinds configuration dialog.
- Optional active/inactive explorer bitmap backgrounds.
- Titlebar plug in support (title bars can have mini applications like clocks, virtual desktops, etc. in them)

Ik heb 'm even geprobeerd en hij is inderdaad een stuk sneller en stabieler. Zie www.windowblinds.net voor meer info.

The Register doet het weer... geniet:

We did a bit of contract work for MS a few years back, and this involved listening to a Bill Gates speech (it was highly-paid contract work, obviously). The great man wasn't known to be in the UK at the time as far as the press was concerned, but in reality was to be telling Microsoft's Blue Chip customers all about Digital Nervous Systems at the QE2 Conference Centre in Westminster.

lees de rest daar...

een nogal vreemd verhaal, maar volgens

The Register begint MS toch een beetje te flippen met NT:

Weird noises from this week's Gartner Symposium in San Diego say Microsoft, despite apparently postponing development of one version of NT, is planning something in excess of ten different new versions. But from the reports it seems clear that the scheme is going to fall awkwardly between the techie plan, which is converging on one code base and then tailoring in different directions, and the marketing one, which is give us all your money.

de rest moet je maar bij The Register lezen...

Ik zie op Betanews dat Alex van Kaam de final version van Motherboard Monitor 4.0 (handig proggie om je mobo temp en fan speed uit te lezen) klaar gebakken heeft. Hier heb je de feature list, die ik ff van de MBM site geript heb:

- In the system tray MBM will use around 1% resources, this is 90% less then 3.x Full support for Intel P2/3's with Thermal diode inside the CPU on boards that have a W83782D or W83783S chip connected to an Intel CPU with diode like the Celeron's. Good examples of this are: GigaByte GA6-BXE > select Winbond 3 - P2 Thermal diode Abit BX6 rev 2 > select Winbond 2 - P2 Thermal diode
- Added support for TempFan, a device that can change your Fan port to a temperature port, great for all users of an Abit BH6, BX6 or Asus P2L97 who only have a motherboard sensor. As I write this the device is not yet avaible for the big public but should be soon. Check out the FanTemp FAQ on my page.
- Added support for several languages. As I write this English, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian and French is included, other language will probably follow later as small downloads of about 8K.
- E-mail support, MBM can send you an e-mail on an alarm or at set intervals, either via SMTP or MAPI, using RAS (your dial-up network) or trying to send it via LAN
- Changed tab setup, no more pull down boxes but buttons instead.
- Added a medium view, to view VUMeters, Voltages and Fans
- 9X users can place their resources under the VUMeters
- All log files can be saved as CSV now
- Simplefied the Fan alarms
- More CPU info in the system info section
- User can choose what tabs he wants visible.
- Negative readouts from Winbond chips can be turned on
- Play wave on CPUIdle launch
- Fixed wave bug that meant that some soundcards where unusable after MBM played a wave until you closed MBM
- Many other small changes, some you might not even like

Motherboard Monitor 4.0 kun je hier downloaden.

The Register heeft een vaag verhaal over een geheim genootschap tussen MS en

Sources close to both Microsoft and Compaq's plans have revealed the extent of their co-operation on future versions which are OpenVMS based. Eckhard Pfeiffer, CEO of Compaq, and Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, are continuing their plans to leave Intel out in the cold, our sources said. The "alliance" between Compaq and Microsoft extends until 2005, our sources confirmed. Samsung will produce cheap Alphas. "OpenVMS" in its full manifestation is Windows NT 8, our source told us. Where does this leave Intel and the Merced engineers currently fleeing Compaq? Our source refused to be drawn on this one. Tomorrow, we will publish a strictly internal document from Compaq on how it should be seen by the outside world. This is not nearly half as funny as Intel's document How to deal with the European Press but will help all you Compaq partners how to understand the new world order. One snippet suggests that all Compaq badges have to be on the belt, "or lower".... A sign of a gulag, we will be bound...

ehhh??

Enige Onofficiele lees tussen de regels nieuwtjes over de AMD K7. en daarbij ook wat info over de schaalbaarheid van de komende Alpha's

Robert Stead, European marketing director of AMD in Northern Europe, was keen to distance himself from any relationship with Compaq or copper technology, in the future. That much is on the record. But what is off the record is far more interesting. In the last three weeks we have shown slides demonstrating that Alpha promises to scale up to 1.4GHz technology well before Intel can do the same with its Merced processor. Never mind its McKinley platform, alleged to be .13 micron technology. Remember, dear readers, the US FTC forced Intel to fab these Alpha microprocessors. The slides are there, the quotes are there and Compaq is on the record. Where, then, does that leave AMD? Or Intel... Intel claims it has a copper technology but has been very coy about how it will implement it. Can it cross-license it from Loot "Boot" Gerstner's loss making company IBM? And how does NatSemi feel about all of this? Patently, it is a nightmare. Is, then, AMD a minor partner in a Microsoft-Compaq "alliance" which only has a minor part in future copper technology, possibly forged by copper alliances? No one will say. But drawing all of this together, it seems apparent to us, at least, that AMD, in its minor role, is part of a joint Microsoft-Compaq "alliance" to attack Intel. What does the FTC think about this? It's a bit of a muddle, we aver... Is this confusion good for the industry? That's not to say for us either. We leave that sort of decision to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which must surely be connected to the HQ of the United Nations in New York... It, after all, has the say-so on whether roses are placed into guns

komt van The Register

MaximumPC heeft z'n first impressions van de TNT2 op de site gedumpt:

Based on our preliminary tests, it's pretty explosive. In fact, the TNT2 consistently outperformed the TNT between 16- and 75-percent in our extensive benchmark gauntlet. Much of the speed gain can be attributed to the TNT2's smaller .25 micron process and the new optimizations to its dual-pipeline, single-cycle multitexturing graphics architecture. nVidia optimized the pipeline to handle faster rendering speeds and will officially ship the chip in two flava's: an entry-level part with a 125MHz bus and a 150MHz memory clock, and a speedier part sporting a 150MHz bus and memory clocked at 183MHz.

Er zitten ook een paar benchmarks bij (TNT2 vs TNT).

Race-Games Fanaten opgelet, lees alles over dit wielletje in hun review van Logitech's Formula Force Feedback wheel.

And there's no steering lag. USB right? USB is lagless especially on my Abit board. Right now, I feel like throwing my Force Feedback Pro joystick out of the window as the lag let too many Kilrathis kill me in the past. Feel is superb. Feels like an over assisted power steering, which is good enough. Means, it feels like a Honda Civic SiR. Overassisted. But in computers, that's great. It rotates a full 180 degrees left to right, very responsive. Force can be adjusted fully.

CNN heeft een artikel waarin Windoos NT wordt vergeleken met Linux en waarom Mikroschoft in z'n broek moet scheiten van de Opensource beweging. De conclusie:

After having used both Windows NT and Linux, which OS do these Windows NT users plan on investing in for the future? Linux wins by a wide margin, indicating substantial growth for Linux and relative stagnation for Windows NT.

En hier lees je waarom.

uhoh... dack to the ol' drawingboard BillyBoy!!!

Via o.a. Coolinfo kwam een tigste lek in IE5 aan het licht!

Microsoft is denying that a major security hole discovered in IE 5 is a problem - it's a feature of the software's security, according to the company. The hole allows web servers to read whatever is in an IE 5 user's clipboard cache, without their knowledge or consent. Microsoft software that allows remote servers access to data on local machines without knowledge or consent has of course been topical recently. The latest problem/feature has been documented by sysopt.com here - the page also has a little demo to prove it can be done. Reading the clipboard can be done via a small piece of Java/ActiveX code, and remote servers can do this essentially because IE 5's default installation has the security features set to allow it.

IE 5 includes an ActiveX control called the Dynamic HTML Editing Component, which is intended to allow WYSIWYG editing capabilities to be added to sites. This allows script on an HTML page to access a user's clipboard (sorry, we're too dumb to understand why this should be helpful). If the Web designer uses the vanilla HTML Edit Control, then the user gets a warning. But if the "Safe" version is used, then it can just happen.

According to sysopt.com, the fix is as follows: "In IE5, go to Tools, Internet Options, Security, then click on the Custom Level button, find the 'allow paste operations via script' option, and click on Prompt or Disable, then click OK, and click Apply."

That seems fairly plain sailing, but it's bizarre that the default installation of IE 5 leaves something like this switched on. Microsoft responded to the revelation of the security issue by pointing out that OEMs could switch the setting off before distributing IE 5, and saying: "The option is set to 'enable' by default to allow enhanced functionality." Exactly what enhanced functionality can be achieved by leaving your clipboard wide open to snoopers does not appear to have been made clear.

Het komt, het komt later.... maar het komt! coolinfo laat weten dat:

NEC Corp. [TOKYO:6701] has announced the commercial availability of a 128 megabit Direct Rambus DRAM becoming the first computer memory maker to debut such a device.

The new chip, which operates at 800 megahertz and offers 1.6 gigabytes per second of peak bandwidth, will be offered as a single package and built into a 184-pin, 128 megabyte Rambus inline memory module (RIMM). It will be available in volume quantities from July this year and production is scheduled to hit 3 million units per month by the end of 1999.

Backed by Intel Corp. [NASDAQ:INTC], the chips are based on proprietary technology by Rambus Inc. [NASDAQ:RMBS]. Use of Rambus DRAM chips is expected to take off this year with, on a bit-basis, output of Rambus chips making up around 9 percent of all DRAM output by the end of this year. This figure is expected to climb to 50 percent in 2001.

Klein, sneller dan mijn server, en nu dus ook met USB uitbreidings mogelijkheden...

, "OEMs can now offer almost infinite flexibility for mobile and embedded designs. USB enables CardPC-based designs to be even smaller, compatible with hardware from over 500 companies." He added, "No DIP switches, IRQ settings, COM ports or DMA channels need to be changed for USB peripherals." The entire micro-motherboard measures just 3.4 inches by 2.1 inches by 0.5 inches and dissipates under 9.5 watts. The firm says it scores 263 on the CPUMark16 and 234 on the CPUMark32 benchmarks.

een leuk dingetje om je agenda op bij te houden.

Rivastation heeft ook een paar 3DMark99 benchmarks gepost. Een TNT2 op 125/150MHz wordt vergeleken met een TNT op 105/115 eneen V2 SLI op 93MHz. De Voodoo2 SLI is bij de meeste benchmarks nog sneller dan de 125MHz TNT2. Check 't zelf.

Heb jij een muis van Logitech?
Ben jij een liefhebber van Incontinent Exploder?
Dan heb jij eeen PROBLEEM.
en dus niet omdat je nou een liefhebber van Ms bent, maar het blijft dat versie 8.2 (en lager) van Logitech mouseware een vehoogd risico oplevert bij het browsen onder IE5. vooral wanneer je meerdere IE5 vensters open hebt en/of Outlook Express moet je niet je scroll toets gebruiken.

I am sorry, but Internet Explorer 5.0 is not supported in existing versions of MouseWare. However, we are working on the issue, and the next version of Mouseware should support IE 5.0.

Regards,

Logitech Technical Support

nog liefhebbers voor een kopietje van IE5?

Een zoveelste TNT2 Review, maar deze heeft een paar getalletjes en vergelijkt met o.a. de V3

Since its debut, the TNT has been a solid performer, and did much to bridge the lead held by 3DFX with the Voodoo 2/SLI. But along came the Voodoo 3, and 3DFX seemed to take a huge jump over NVIDIA performance wise. Even with the lack of 32 bit support, the sheer speed and compatibility of the V3 made it a card that couldn’t be dismissed as a serious gamer’s tool. Despite assurances from NVIDIA that the TNT-2 would be the answer to 3DFX’s challenge, many doubted that there was much left to be had in a basically unchanged TNT core. At best, it was speculated that the TNT-2 would bridge some of the V3 gap, but that NVIDIA would still be relagated to second banana in the graphics chip wars. Even ATI looked to be mounting a challenge with the Rage Fury, which boasted solid 32 bit performance and excellent visuals. But rest assured, NVIDIA’s boast was not an idle one.

Planet Half-Life has posted the newly released Team Fortress Classic Lan Pary for Half-Life. This is TFC for play only over a LAN. You can expect the Internet version of this free upgrade at the end of next week.

GameSpot.com heeft wat ztuff over de PIII 500 geplaatst:

First, let's deal with the controversy. Each Pentium III has a unique serial number embedded in it. That serial number can be read by software. The intent was to enable more trust over the Internet because you could identify the user. Similarly, large corporations could more easily track their computer assets.

On the surface, the Pentium III is no more than a Pentium II, clocked a little faster. That's because there's very little software available to take advantage of the PIII's new features. These features are collectively called Streaming SIMD Extensions. Ya gotta love those flashy marketing types at Intel. Cold, dead fish on rice, anyone?

SSE is divided into two main parts. The first is the single-point SIMD (single instruction, multiple data). When software - games - arrive that can take advantage of floating-point SIMD instructions, we should see better 3D performance. Floating-point SIMD accelerates the kind of matrix math that most 3D game programmers use in their transform and lighting engines. Intel is making a software library (the intrinsics) available for easy integration into applications. Like the K6-2's 3Dnow instruction set, games that use the DirectX transform and lighting engine will instantly benefit, as support for SSE (like 3Dnow) is built into DirectX 6.1.

As you would expect from a part that runs at 500MHz, performance is very good, indeed. However, if you already have a 400MHz Pentium II or better, it's probably not worth upgrading now - wait for faster versions. If you have a Pentium 266 or 300, it might be worth considering - but you also might just wait for the prices to drop. But if you're in the market for new systems, 500MHz Pentium III systems are going for the same price the PII/450s were selling for only a couple of months ago. So, if you're not concerned about the processor serial number, a spanking new Pentium III may be just the ticket to remove those performance woes you've been having in Unreal.

Abit heeft nieuwe BIOSsen gereleased voor de BH6 en [toekomstige ZM6 contest winnaars opgelet:] ZM6 plank:

- BH6 rev KG - ZM6 rev JZ

Abit verteld er niet bij wat ze doen...

Ik zie op Tomshardware Technews een leuk bericht over virussen in de mailservers van Mikrosoft:

Microsoft Corp. shut down its corporate e-mail servers Friday because of a devastating macro virus. Intel Corp. was also hit hard by the virus, which gains entry to e-mail systems via Microsoft's Outlook/Exchange products.

The virus replicates itself quickly, spreading infected pornography-related information throughout corporate messaging platforms and overloading servers.

The so-called 'Melissa' virus is believed to have originated in Western Europe and was first discovered on the alt.sex newsgroup.

An official at Network Associates' McAfee unit, which first identified the virus, says it's proliferation rate is unprecendented.

At least 20 large companies had been infected by late Friday -- in one case 60,000 users affected.

Microsoft was forced to suspend all incoming and outgoing Internet mail Friday.

A spokesman said Microsoft's product support division spent all day Friday alerting customers and partners about the virus.

EBNews heeft een korte newsposting over de 100MHz Celerons van Intel:

ntel Corp.'s 815 chipset will connect the company's value-line Celeron processors to a projected 100-MHz front-side bus, according to industry sources briefed by the Santa Clara, Calif.-based microprocessor firm. Intel declines to discuss upcoming products before they are officially unveiled, but the company is expected this year to upgrade the Celeron bus from the current 66 MHz to 100 MHz. The Intel 815 chipset would then enable Celeron to upgrade to PC100 SDRAM.

Geen idee wat die 815 chipset mag zijn. Een ZX chipset zou 't (100MHz) ook kunnen doen. Misschien een 'vernaggelde' versie van de Camino?

Reactor.ru (Russische site) heeft een paar ventjes van Metabyte geinterviewt op de CeBIT. Ze hebben o.a. info weten los te peuteren over de Metabyte PGC (Progressive scan nogwattes, zeg maar 'TNT SLI') technologie:

Q: When we can expect the release of PGC for TNT?

A: The point is that we did not come to a final conclusion about which chip to use in the final product. Generally speaking we can do that for any processor. I think the decision will be made within a month. For the time being we have a PGC solution based on two Banshee boards

(Comment: He leads me to a stand demonstrating Incoming performance first on a single Banshee and then on two boards working in parallel. The second configuration gives a 50% performance boost - 63 fps against 39. No picture misalignments, which were told about by some reviewers, can be noticed.)

We also have a solution based on TNT. We demonstrated it with NVIDIA on CGDC (you know, we could not demonstrate our Banshee solution on the NVIDIA stand). But as I said before these products are not yet at their commercial state, and it is yet unknown which chip will be used in the final product. It will be clear within a month.

Zie de interview voor meer stuff (o.a. over de Elsa 3D glasses).

Sharky Extreme heeft z'n Celeron overclocking guide van een update voorzien. Hier lees je hoe je heerlijke selderij kunt verbouwen:

Thanks to many requests, Sharky Extreme decided that instead of hearing how other publications pontificate about their overclocking achievements with the Celeron 300 A, that we would actually write a "how to" guide for the masses to use and consult with.

In the following article, we're going to take you step by step through the overclocking process that takes a Celeron 300 A or 333, 366, 400, or 433 CPU up from their stock speeds to 450, 500, and 550MHz. We cover the basics here folks, so this is strictly for the beginner to intermediate level overclocker. No previous overclocking experience is required.

Spit hier verder...

Voodoo Extreme heeft een paar benchmarks gepost van de V3-3500/3000&2000 met een TNT als referentie. Zie deze 1, 2, 3 plaatjes.

PCWorld heeft een artikel gepost over Windoos 98 Second Edition, een emmer bugfixes waar je voor moet dokken:

According to a Microsoft spokesperson, the new edition will carry the same price as the current one--about $90 for the upgrade from Windows 95. Current Windows 98 users will be able to order a less expensive upgrade CD-ROM from Microsoft's Web site. However, Microsoft has yet to determine when the disc will ship or how much it will cost. In the past, Microsoft has charged between $10 and $20 for CD-ROM updates such as the Office 97 Service Release and Windows NT service packs. Judging from our hands-on testing with the update's second beta version, many Windows 98 users will jump at a similarly priced upgrade.

Beyond3D heeft een artikel gebouwd rond de Nec/Videologic PowerVR 250. Hier de benchmarks van de CeBIT (al eerder gepost) met een reactie daarop:

Quake II Timedemo 1

1024x768x16: 61.8 fps

800x600x16: 95.5 fps

640x480x16: 118.2 fps

Quake II Crusher

1024x768x16: 49.7 fps

800x600x16: 55.0 fps

3D Mark 99 Max

800x600x16: 4202

So, from looking at these early numbers, it appears as though deferred texturing (as to single-pass multitexturing) works really well. These results were somewhat of a surprise to me. I had already known that DirectX performance would be one extremely high, but I never expected that OpenGL (GLQuake, Quake II, etc) performance would be this high as it is. As we can see from this overview (which is made by PowerVR Generation, with benchmarks from Tom's Hardware, as well as my own PowerVR ones from CeBIT) PowerVR 250 manages some of the highest scores out there.

Er zit ook nog een interview bij met Videologic, met vragen over de release date, performance bij 32-bit kleur enz. Check it out hier.

Het volk bij 740 (een of andere site toegewijdt aan Intel's i740 videochip) hebben de specs van de i752 te pakken weten te krijgen:

The Joytech site has listed the Apollo 7520 card which of course uses the I752 chip. Since the page seems to be screwed up over there I'll just quote all of the specs here.

Powerful INTEL 752 Graphics Chip

Optimized For Pentium III Processor Performance

Optional Flat Panel Support-Digital Display Port

Software DVD at 30 fps, full screen mode

FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS

General Features

Optional memory interface 8/ 16MB SGRAM / SDRAM

Up to 133 MHz SGRAM / SDRAM Support

Display Resolution up to 1600x1200x16 at 85Hz refresh rate

250 MHz Integrated 24-bit RAMDAC

Optional 3.3V/ 1.8V TV-Out Encoder Support

ACPI Compliant Power Management

PC98 and PC99 compliant

DDC1 and DDC2B support