De Amerikaanse openbare aanklager zal rond 18:30 eastern time (0:30 in NL?) uitspraak doen in de Microsoft anti-trust rechtszaak. Het hele feest is live te volgen bij Techweb:

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson will issue the first half of his ruling in the Microsoft antitrust trial today at 6:30 pm eastern time, 3:30 pacific time. It is his "findings of fact." In a non-jury trial such as this, it is up to the judge to decide who's telling the truth. He's decided.

Techweb will present live audio coverage of the judge's opinion from 6:30-10:30 eastern time (3:30-7:30 pacific time). You can listen on your Real Audio G2 player (click on the Techweb Today channel button), or with Real Audio 5.0 at: http://www.techweb.com/today

Our coverage will include commentary and analysis, as well as live coverage of the expected press conferences that will be held by Microsoft, the Department of Justice and other interested parties.

Commentators will include Winmag.com's Fred Langa, Byte.com's Jerry Pournelle, Techweb legal analyst Peter Peckarsky, and Wendy Goldman Rohm, author of The Microsoft File.

Live coverage of the Judge's first ruling in the Microsoft Antitrust Trial, starting at 6:30 eastern/3:30 pacific at: http://www.techweb.com/today.

Bij Hardwareinfo.net is net een review gepost van de optische Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer muis. Koen was er erg te spreken over en zal hem blijven gebruiken . Hieronder een hap uit de test:

Het meest functioneel is nog wel dat de muis zeer nauwkeurig is. Doordat er maarliefst 1500 keer per seconde wordt gekeken waar de muis zich bevindt zijn worden ook zeer kleine nauwkeurige bewegingen perfect doorgegeven aan de PC. Hiermee heeft de Intellimouse Explorer een nauwkeurigheid die met geen enkele conventionele muis te vergelijken is. Vooral de Quakers onder ons zullen hier gelukkig mee zijn, want zij weten als geen ander dat de mogelijkheid om zeer nauwkeurig te kunnen richten in veel 3D games het verschil is tussen leven en dood.

Een laatste voordeel van optische techniek is dat de muis op vrijwel alle ondergrond werkt. Dit betekent niet alleen dat een muismat absoluut niet meer noodzakelijk is, maar ook dat je de muis op de meest gekke andere plaatsen kunt gebruiken. Of je de muis nu over de vloerbedekking, over je arm of zelfs over een kussen beweegt, hij blijft altijd keurig functioneren. Het enige oppervlak dat ik tijdens de test kon vinden waar de muis niet op werkt is een spiegel. Gelukkig zullen er maar weinig mensen zijn die een spiegel willen gebruiken als muismat.

Bij Tac-Sim hebben ze een review gepost rondom de Guillemot 3D Prophet GeForce 256 kaart. Hieronder een gedeelte:

Overall, the 3D Prophet is the fastest, strongest, and most stunning consumer video card available. It is driven by the powerful GeFORCE GPU, making it hands down the most cutting edge technology available for your desktop. If you have not up graded to a new card since the days of the Voodoo 2 and TNT, then you must get a 3D Prophet.

Even if you own a Hercules TNT2 Ultra, Xentor 32, or Voodoo3 3000 it is still a good purchase to make. The 3D Prophet does have a huge step forward. It is not necessarily speed, but playable high quality settings. Speed increases are bound to happen with Nvidia drivers. We all know the large jumps in performance that the detonators provided on the TNT. Performance increase via drivers are not rare in the realm of Nvidia.

Ik lees bij Planet Multimedia dat de Net.Box van KPN , waarmee gesurft kan worden op een TV, definitief geflopt is :

De mislukking van zowel KPN als World Online met Internet op tv is overigens al eerder gemeld door het blad Adfo Web, en vervolgens begin oktober in Planet Multimedia geciteerd.

Het ging bij KPN Franse doosjes van NetGem, die voor 700 gulden werden verkocht (800 inclusief toetsenbord) of voor 30 gulden te huur waren. Louter medewerkers van Primafoon zijn ermee opgescheept, klanten wilde het ding niet. Volgens de Volkskrant is de Net.Box nu voor 200 gulden te koop.

Overigens is er in Nederland nog steeds geen WebTV. Philips ziet die waarschijnlijk niet meer zitten. Het wachten is op digitale tv, inclusief Internet-toegang.

Tja, wil wil er nou internetten op een TV, da's toch zwaar onhandig?

Digital Web heeft review gepost van de Matrox Marvel G400 TV, een video-editing kaart met 16Mb geheugen en hardwarematige MJPEG codec:

You can attach a TV to the break-out box by using the s-video and composite video outputs but not another monitor as with regular G400. You can also connect a digital Flat Panel as the secondary display. Support for digital Flat Panel available as a separate upgrade module which means occupied PCI slot. Marvel G400 has on-board Zoran ZR36060PQC chip designed to support a hardware MJPEG encoder for true to source video capture. The advantage of the hardware MJPEG codec on the Marvel G400 is that capturing at full D1 (704 x 480 (NTSC) at ~30 fps (29.9 fps)) resolution can be done without dropping any frames due to the inability of your CPU to keep up with the capture. ATI All-in-Wonder 128 and the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500TV, which perform solely software MPEG2 video captures are CPU dependent . Using a software MPEG2 codec to capture video causes the entire workload to be placed onto your CPU and any processes running in the background while this capture is taking place will contribute to dropped frames. If you look at ATI's All-in-Wonder 128, which only does MPEG2 video capture in software, one of the requirements for capturing MPEG2 at 640 x 480 at 30fps is that you must have a Pentium III processor. The Marvel G400, with its hardware MJPEG, describes the minimum system requirements as a 233MHz AGP enabled system.

Bij Hardware-One hebben ze een review in elkaar gezet van de Asus V6600 GeForce 256 videokaart die in Singapore al verkrijgbaar is. Ze hebben de V6600 vergeleken met de Creative 3D Annihilator en zijn tot de conclusie gekomen dat er vrij weinig verschillen zijn tussen de twee:

Well, I have no qualms in recommending the ASUS V6600 to users. It performs as expected and delivers as promised. Moreover, if you do have any ASUS components (like VR100 glasses, TV-Tuners, etc) that you may wish to use in conjunction with the GeForce, then the V6600 becomes the obvious choice to ensure full compatibility.

The games bundled with both Creative and ASUS GeForce cards are nothing to shout about. But personally I feel Creative has the edge in terms of software, with WinDVD bundled together with the card that offers good software DVD playback. And if you’re into overclocking your GeForce (which may not necessarily be always possible with either brand), Creative seems to be the better bet.

However, no particular card seems to be significantly better to strongly recommend over the other. Prices between the two cards are very competitive too. In the end, it's a personal choice in the end.

Lees de rest van de review hier.

Digitimes Taiwan heeft een artikel gepost over de niet zo frisse methodes waarmee Intel Taiwanese mobo fabrikanten ervan hoopt te weerhouden om VIA en Slot-A planken te bouwen. Het artikel is niet leesbaar voor ons polderbewonders, maar gelukkig heeft Ace's Hardware een engelstalige samenvatting:

. . . or be prepared to receive capital punishment. Well, that's what this Ctech Taiwan editorial is trying to say. According to Digitimes Taiwan, Taiwanese motherboard makers are very much shaken up by Intel's sueing VIA and FIC. Some are so scared that they put in some effort in trying to brown-nose Intel. First and the most obvious is of course the production of K7 motherboard. While most of the motherboard makers are impressed by the performance of K7, they dare not openly support AMD. So instead of selling K7 motherboards using their own brands, some motherboard makers are using other/local brand names in places like Japan and China. Then there is the shortage of BX chipsets. An unnamed motherboard maker reportedly got a copy of a competitor's catalog, and then highlighted items that would piss off Intel, such as "K7", "PC133' etc. and sent that to Intel, in hope that Intel would now ship less chipsets to that competitor. Also, after Intel started the suit against FIC, a high level personnel from another motherboard maker immediately contacted the media to announce its loyal support for Intel, and that it will use more Intel than VIA chipsets. And last but not least, there is the poor FIC. Even though they are pissed at Intel, they dare not do anything too drastic. Instead of protesting by not using Intel's chipset, they could only say that they will still use Intel chipset according to need of the market.

Personally, all these are just too damn ugly and disgusting. . .

De rechtszaak die Caldera tegen Microsoft heeft aangespannen zal 17 januari beginnen, zo bericht Techweb:

A U.S. district court judge in Salt Lake City has given an unabashed go-ahead for a jury trial in the Caldera vs. Microsoft private antitrust case.

Judge Lee Benson has dismissed all eight of Microsoft's motions for summary judgment on antitrust grounds, clearing the path for a trial to begin in Utah on Jan. 17. Benson issued a ruling on four counts late Wednesday. The other four were ruled on earlier this year.

Caldera, the owner of DR-DOS, which tried to compete with Microsoft's MS-DOS, is alleging that Microsoft committed a hodgepodge of illegal acts, including illegal tying, making intentional vaporware announcements, blacklisting developers, and exclusionary licensing. [break] Verder heeft ook The Register een aantal nieuwsartikelen over de rechtszaak gepost: [/break] Microsoft's efforts to block key aspects of Caldera's antitrust suit have now almost entirely run into the sand. US District Judge Dee Benson issued a judgement denying a further four Microsoft motions. Microsoft has been trying for summary judgement of various parts of Caldera's case, but has scored straight zeros, and only has one shot left for the judge to rule on.

In moving for summary judgement Microsoft has basically been asking the judge to rule that there is no case to answer. So by denying the motions, the judge is saying that Caldera has produced enough evidence to suggest that Microsoft may have violated antitrust law in each of the areas. The latest batch of rejections cover claims that Microsoft: created intentional incompatibilities in order to undermine DR-DOS; used spurious error messages to create the perception of incompatibilities, thus making it look as if DR-DOS was broken; excluded DR-DOS developers from the beta of Windows 3.1; and merged DOS and Windows into a single product, Windows 95, in order to destroy competition from DR-DOS and other competitors.

Yepyo schrijft: "Alsof uncle SAM niet genoeg te doen had hebben ze besloten ons met z`n alle ook nog even te big botheren....sorry brotheren. :-)":

Imagine a global spying network that can eavesdrop on every single phone call, fax or e-mail, anywhere on the planet.

It sounds like science fiction, but it's true.

Two of the chief protagonists - Britain and America - officially deny its existence. But the BBC has confirmation from the Australian Government that such a network really does exist and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are calling for an inquiry.

Spooky... Meer info lees je bij BBC News.

Als Diamond ergens wél goed in is, dan is het mooie dozen ontwerpen . Hardware.fr kreeg het voor mekaar om een afbeelding van de Diamond Viper II (Savage 2000) doos te pakken te krijgen:

Twee MSI 6167 reviews vandaag, de eerste van Hot Hardware:

This is the first review of a non-Intel platform we have done here at Hot Hardware. It was also the most challenging and enjoyable one. The folks at AMD have a real winner on their hands with the K7, there is no denying them of that.

The MSI MS-6167 is a solid performer with good quality and stability. It should be noted that thoughout the entire battery of tests, we never experienced a lock up or application error. On the other hand, the MS-6167 is a little bland however, in terms of features, since it doesn't have any overclocking options or system monitoring functions. The AMD system platform is still young so it is understandable that the few designs out of the block are conserative. We hope to see MSI pack in additional bells and whistles in the next rev. of this board. [break] ...en eentje van Singapore Hardware Zone: [/break] The biggest letdown was the AGP performance. Somehow, the 3D Mark 99 tests revealed jerky graphics as it was running the Game 2 benchmark. There's nothing else I can blame except for the poor AGP implementation by the AMD chipset. Somehow, graphics were smoother on the BX motherboard. This also explains why the MS-6167 graphic performance was almost on par with the Intel Pentium III-500. Part of the reason is also due to the lack of Enhanced 3DNow! support in 3D Mark 99. Until I test another motherboard based on the AMD chipset, I cannot be certain if the 3D jerkiness was due to the chipset or motherboard. Still, I hope the next generation of chipset will be much more optimised, and would also include support for AGP 4x.

Avatar/NorthernLight schrijft: "De Cobalt Cube 2 is een zeer handige, easy-to-install (5 minuten!), Linux server. Configuratie en onderhoud wordt door middel de ingebouwde HTTP server gedaan. De reden dat ie de 'Cobalt Cube" heet, is dan ook dat er dus niks als keyboard, muis, beeldscherm, e.d. aangesloten wordt.

Hij kan worden ingezet als Internet en Intranet server, voor het zwaardere werk dus. Voorbeelden: alternatief NT Domain Server, mailserver, webserver, DHCP server of firewall. Diverse smaken zijn verkrijgbaar, qua technische specs.":

En nu we toch met de Cobaltjes bezig zijn, hier wat nieuws van News.com:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California--Cobalt Networks, which makes special computer servers, raised $110 million in its IPO, 40 percent more than initially expected, and will begin trading today.

The Mountain View, California-based company sold 5 million shares at $22 each. The shares sold at the top of the expected price of $20 to $22 apiece. Goldman, Sachs, which handled the sale, raised the range from $14 to $16 yesterday. The sale represented an 18 percent stake and gave the company a market value of $600.6 million. [break] Verder werd anderhalf week geleden de Cobalt RaQ 3i aangekondigd: [/break] October 26, 1999 - Cobalt Networks, Inc., a developer of server appliances today introduced the RaQ 3i, Cobalt’s third-generation server appliance. The RaQ 3i offers a full suite of Internet services with remote administration capabilities, prepackaged in a single rack-unit height, industry standard design. The RaQ 3i expands Cobalt’s RaQ server appliance product line by providing a larger, more powerful platform and broader availability of partner applications. The array of solutions available for the RaQ 3i will make it an ideal appliance platform for high-traffic Web portals, e-commerce, and application hosting. RaQ 3i customers and developers can build on leading edge Web and Internet technologies from industry leaders including Intershop, Oracle, OpenMarket, Miva, RSA, Sane Solutions, CyberCash, Signio, and Real Networks.

"The new Cobalt RaQ 3i delivers a compelling server appliance platform for Intershop commerce products," said Ed Callan, Vice President of Marketing at Intershop. "Cobalt’s customers will now have access to powerful e-commerce solutions based on Intershop’s industry leading sell-side e-commerce solutions and the cost-effective, easy-to-manage, and scalable RaQ 3i. The RaQ 3i with Intershop Hosting and Merchant uniquely deliver e-commerce for ISPs and businesses."

Cobalt designed the RaQ 3i with an open source design and extensible architecture making it easy to integrate, deploy, and support Internet and network-based applications. Cobalt server appliances are pre-configured with the Linux operating system and provide the core web publishing, email, and file transfer services upon which ISPs and developers can build their solutions. The Cobalt RaQ 3i significantly extends the range of available applications for the Cobalt RaQ product line.

Ik las bij Daiki dat Alpha twee nieuwe Athlon coolers gereleased heeft:

Alpha disclosed two Athlon Coolers. P612H35TM is double fan type. P612H35M is single fan type. According to this page, following M/B is being supported.

JC zegt veel positieve opmerkingen over de overklokbaarheid van de Athlon 500 binnen te krijgen. Veel CPU's draaien 600MHz uit het doosje, wie geluk heeft haalt zelfs 700Mhz:

You know, I am just getting more and more tempted every day towards purchasing the modified Athlon at Trinity Micro. I mean, now that we know that just about all 500MHz Athlons are just downbinned K7-600 cores (for latecomers among you, if you have a 500MHz Athlon and take apart the casing, you'll see a 600MHz K7 chip inside, most likely), I'm realizing that it'd be insanely cool to buy a modified 500, then clock it to 600, then try my hand at overclocking to 700 and maybe above! Aargh, if only I wasn't waiting on other purchases! [break] ...en recenter: [/break] Meanwhile, I'm getting more and more stories about people very conservatively (conservatively!) clocking their 500MHz K7/Athlons to 700MHz. I feel SOOOOO behind the times now! Of course, I should let you know: Our local "distributor" is offering us one of those one time deals for the Athlon and a FIC SD11, and they're hinting at a sharply reduced price. If its cheap enough, I'll go for it (this is for the office, not for my home luvin'). But I really would prefer getting one of those modified Athlons with the [genericmanufacturer] K7M.

Nu hebben we alleen nog zo'n kant en klaar Goldfinger dipswitch dingetje nodig .

Terry van Hardware Extreme heeft een review van de Tennmax P3STF Pentium III cooler op z'n site gezet. Hier een stukkie:

Most of you should already know then TennMax P3TF cooler well. It was in fact one of the first Pentium III coolers to hit the market. The cooler was quite a success. Despite this, the P3TF had to face some competition when larger, more powerful PIII coolers were released. Realizing this, TennMax decided to take another go with this great cooler and thus the P3STF was born.

The TennMax P3STF uses the exact heatsink design as it's younger brother with the exception of the of more powerful fans found on the P3STF. These fans measure 50 X 15mm compared to the TF's 50 X 10 and spin at 5400rpm and they move around 36CFM of airflow over the heatsink. This increase could be a great benefit to cooling performance of the unit. The heatsink design is grooved which helps dissipate heat quickly and vents for the cooling of the L2 cache chips are included as well which is a good addition as some coolers do not have this feature.

BXBoards heeft een review gebakken van de Tyan S1857B, een bijzonder moederplankje dat zowel over een socket370 als slot1 gleuf beschikt. Verder is het bord nogal kaal uitgevoerd, met maar 1 ISA slot en matige mogelijkheden voor overklokken:

Discounting the rather nice AMIBIOS, the six PCI slots and the Slot1 / Socket 370 architecture, this is a pretty unexceptional product. Its not bad, just old fashioned in feel. Most mainboards we see here at BXBoards nowadays are showing innovation, providing pre-Camino support for UDMA/66, voltage adjustment or advanced clock generators - not so Tyan! If you are the kind of user who gets off on your vinyl record colletion while the rest of the world enjoys CD, the Tyan fit the bill perfectly with its no risk, straight down the middle feature set. Its not a bad product, it just hasn't kept pace with the rest of the market, in cutting edge features.

De Heatsink Guide heeft een vergelijking van vier harddisk coolers gepost. Getest werden de Global WIN IStorm and IStorm II, Global WIN King Kong II, InClose BayCooler II en Cooler Master CoolDrive:

The IStorm II's great performance and innovative design, combined with the alarm feature, make it my personal favourite. It certainly deserves the "Ultimate Cooling product" award, which I had already assigned to the "old" IStorm, reviewed a longer time ago.

However, the IStorm also has disadvantages: It sticks out of the case, which some people find ugly, and it is not possible to install two or more IStorms directly over each other. Those who don't like the IStorm should consider the Inclose BayCooler II - I found this unit very convincing; it has great features and a very sturdy metal design. The Cooler Master CoolDrive, with its huge heatsink, is a good choice for those who already have very good case ventilation, and don't need much addidtional airflow from the HDD cooler. Finally, Global WIN's new low end HDD cooling solution, the King Kong II, provides a good price-performance ratio, but isn't necessarily the unit i'd chose.

Ok, da's weinig verassend. The Register vroeg een aantal britse distributeurs naar de leverbaarheid van Rambus geheugens:

One problem will be buying the Direct RDRAM memory modules at a reasonable price, while the other problem will be actually finding the modules. Memory distributors, in the UK at least, are telling The Register that they do not expect RIMMs to arrive in any quantity until the beginning of next year.

Sukh Rayat, MD of UK distributor Flashpoint, told us two weeks ago that so far there is practically no demand for Rambus memories. John Byrne, joint MD of Vanguard, also in the UK, said his company was not expecting supplies until Q1 of next year. [break] En wat betreft het i820 Rambus fiasco: Intel kan gewoon geen fatsoenlijk planken in elkaar timmeren (overclockers wisten dat al veel langer ): [/break] However, third party manufacturers, such as Gigabyte and Chaintech, have, we understand, no real problems with supporting more than two RIMMs, which must be terribly aggravating for Intel.

The chip giant is, of course, covering its options by also developing chipsets which will support PC-133 and double data rate (DDR) memory. But these will not be ready until next year.

Wez_db schrijft: "Internet Access Nederland introduceert als eerste provider in Nederland, het Internet via de satelliet!":

Hoe werkt het ?

Normaal gesproken heeft u verbinding met het Internet via een modem of ISDN adapter. De snelheden die daarbij mogelijk zijn varieren van 33.6kbps - 64 kbps. De verzend/ontvangst snelheid van uw PC van en naar het Internet is daarbij gelijk. Echter de hoeveelheid informatie die u verstuurt/ontvangt, bijv. het opvragen van een Internet pagina, is niet gelijk. Zo zult u vrijwel altijd weinig informatie versturen (upstream) maar veel informatie ontvangen (downstream). De belemmerende factor is dus de downstream, vanaf het Internet naar u toe. Door gebruik te maken van de ASTRA satelliet voor de downstream is er echter een grote snelheidswinst te behalen ! Zo blijkt uit onze tests dat een ASTRA downstream snelheid varieert van 400 kbps ( 19 uur 's-avonds) tot ruim 800 kbps ( 9 uur 's ochtends) !! Kortom, informatie die u verstuurt, bijv, het verzoek om een Internet pagina, loopt via uw modem of ISDN verbinding. Het antwoord daarop, de betreffende Internet pagina, komt via de ASTRA satelliet razendsnel bij u binnen !

Behalve het 'normale' surfen zijn er nog diverse andere mogelijkheden, zoals download on demand of video on demand op snelheden van 10 Mbps of meer !

Wat heeft u nodig ?

Hardware: Behalve uiteraard uw computer heeft u een modem of ISDN adapter nodig, een 60cm satelliet schotel en een DVB kaart welke uw computer verbindt met de satelliet schotel.

Software: Naast uw standaard Internet software, MS Explorer of Netscape heeft u een zgn. client nodig voor de satelliet toegang. Deze ontvangt u bij de DVB kaart.

Abonnement: Internet Access Nederland biedt een abonnement aan waarbij zowel de toegang tot het Internet via de modem of ISDN adapter als ook de toegang tot de ASTRA satelliet is inbegrepen. Behalve de normale (lokale) telefoonkosten betaalt u verder geen kosten voor het gebruik ervan.

De kosten voor dit grapje vallen mee: 499 excl. eenmalig en FL 59,90 excl. maandelijks. Check www.ixs.nl/satellite voor meer info.

Jeroen stuurde deze link naar de PowerView 290 desktop display van Panoram Techologies. Deze LCD beeldplaat heeft een resolutie van 3840x1024px en een oppervlakte van maar liefst 111 bij 290cm!

The PowerView 290 is a next generation Panoram product. The 11.5" X 43.5" (111 X 29 cm) image carries a 3.9 million pixels resolution. This provides massive screen real estate, and fine line details with an image density of nearly 8,000 pixels per square inch. All this in an affordable, compact design for the desk or conference table. Selectable dual inputs are compatible with the output generated by most computer platforms including Mac, HP, Sun, SGI AND NT5.0

Damn, wat regeert dit ding hard .

3D Unlimited heeft een review van de Voodoo 3-3000 PCI neer gemikt. De reviewer heeft een paar benchmarks gedraaid, alleen zonder referentie met een andere videokaart, dus daar schieten we weinig mee op:

The Voodoo 3 3000 PCI is a great board for starters looking for a 2D/3D combo, something that Voodoo 2 couldn't offer. You will start to see more Voodoo 3's being shipped with new computers, but more then likely in the AGP flavor. Since this card doesn't cost $350, but still gets more then the job done, it might not push 200 fps, but it still kicks ass. The Voodoo 3 3000 PCI is designed for the lower-end gamer, who doesn't have either an AGP slot or just doesn't need the raw speed of a GeForce 256 or a TNT2 Ultra. But like all hardcore gamers and my self, we all love speed, and most of us try to push our boards to max. If you are a hardcore gamer this board isn't for you, not that it isn't a great board, I think a TNT2 or GeForce256 would look better with your new 900mhz Kyrotech Athlon. Anyone else agree? But if you are still with the older machines and want a great card for the value, this is for you.[break] Update 15:55 [Robin]: Bij Thresh and Gang hebben ze ook een review van dit kaartje opgehangen. Daar vind je wel vergelijkingen met andere Voodoo3's, een V2 SLI combo en een TNT kaart. Check de review hier.[/break]Let's get one thing straight. The Voodoo3 3000 PCI isn't meant to compete with the TNT2 Ultra's and the G400's, let alone the GeForce 256 and Savage 2000! This is a card that will serve as an upgrade for mainstream consumers who have older graphics cards that shipped with their Dell or Gateway computer. In addition, the 3000 PCI is a great choice for TNT and Voodoo2 users looking to get a bit more performance out of their system. While it may not be the fastest card out there, it isn't priced like it is either.

Dean Kent van Real World Technologies (Silicon Insider) heeft industry update gepost over de maand de gebeurtenissen in de afgelopen drie weken. Hier een stukje over de situatie met de VIA KX133 chipset:

As mentioned in the last update, VIA has not been anxious to produce the KX133 chipset, apparently for two reasons. The first is that they saw a window of opportunity in releasing a 133MHz capable chipset with AGP 4x before Intel, and the second being an uncertainty about whether they want to continue strongly supporting AMD when they now have their own processor line in development. Though the KX133 was originally planned for October, it has been pushed back until 'sometime' in Q1 '00.

Our sources have indicated that VIA would actually prefer to not make the KX133 at all, but pressure from FIC has kept it on the table. VIA has plans to aggressively improve their market position, and diverting resources to support the relatively small Athlon market is not attractive to them. One has to wonder, however, if the Intel lawsuit may change VIA's attitude and cause them to put some resources on the chipset to get it out more quickly.

Verder interessante info over de Rambus produktie, i820 moederplanken en nieuwe Intel en AMD processors. Check 't hier.

Als reaktie op de recente geruchten over plannen van Bill om de goedkope AMD K6-2 processor te gebruiken in de X-Box console heeft JC een artikeltje in elkaar gedraaid met een vergelijking tussen de K6-2, Hitachi SH-4 (Sega Droomkast) en Sony Emotion (PS2). Hier een stukje:

I'm noticing some people whispering that Microsoft is considering the ultracheap 180nm K6-2-500 for their X-Box, with the rationale that pumping that with a T&L engine will hide the slow floating point unit.

But more interesting is this: All the other next generation console cpus (emotion, sh-4, possibly the PPC Gecko) rely primarily on special SIMD instructions not unlike the 3DNow! on the K6-x. They don't use what we in the PC industry consider a "regular fpu". Instead, game makers are "forced" to use the proprietary SIMD ops on these cpus. The interesting thing here is that if you make a game only for 3DNow! SIMD and not x87 (most "3DNow! enhanced" games in the PC marketplace only use a little SIMD but mostly still rely on x87 fpu, which is why you see little performance boost in most of these games), then you'll likely see a tremendous amount of performance pumping out of that faux-puny K6-2.

Johan De Gelas van Ace's Hardware heeft een artikel gepost waarin hij een antwoord probeert te vinden op de vraag of de Athlon met recht een zevende generatie CPU genoemd mag worden:

It is funny, the Athlon faces the same accusations as the P6 faced when it emerged. When Intel introduced the PII* (and Pentium pro), the PII outperformed the 5th generation Pentium MMX only by a small margin. Many people started to ask themselves "is that all a six generation CPU can do ?".

What they forgot was that the PMMX was 5th generation core with a few 6th generation tricks. The branch prediction of the P55 (Pentium MMX) was much better than what the original 5th generation P54 (plain vanilla Pentium) featured, and the P55's L1-cache was twice as big as the P54's. In other words, it is only natural that the first incarnation of a new generation doesn't perform that much faster than an older but well know, tweaked and tuned architecture. A new core however has a higher potential: tweaks and better caches can bring the performance far above the previous generation. A Pentium MMX is quite a bit slower than a Coppermine, clock for clock.

De conclusie (ja, Athlon is zevende generatie) en argumentatie lees je hier.

Hard OCP heeft een review gepost van de Athlon 650 CPU. Na wat tweaken slaagden ze erin om 'm vrij stabiel op 800MHz te draaien met een Asus K7M mobo. Hieronder een hap uit de conclusie:

Ok, what did we learn here? Our little AMD 650MHz is an overclocking Mofo. I would figure that about any 650 will kick an extra 100Mhz at default voltage, at least ours did 750 with NO PROBLEMS whatsoever. We did have to bust up the voltage to get it stable at 800 and then it still would ditch Prime95 in about 5 to 6 hours. Not that that is bad performance but just not rock stable. We used a WD 9 Gig ATA66 drive (supplied by AZZO) on the K7M board and it was lightning fast. The AMD North Chipset is native to ATA66 unlike the BX boards you have seen with the built on controllers. We were actually doing a FULL BOOT into Win98 in less than 25 seconds. Now we were not loading any other proggies in the background but I was still very impressed with the speed.

Q3A was the only game we took time to jack with and it without a doubt really likes the 800MHz that the Athlon was pushing out. Over 140 FPS on the low end V3 is astounding to me. I can't wait to get the big gun TNT2U, GeForce and Napalm on the SOB. I think the hardware is pushing ahead of the gaming software for sure.

Bij Riva Station hebben ze in een artikel wat info gepost over Elsa's Chipguard feature die de Erazor X GeForce mee krijgt. Chipguard zet automatisch de snelheid van je kaart omlaag wanneer de kaart té heet wordt. Handige anti-aanbak maatregel dacht ik zo. Check deze page voor het artikel.

ChipGuard has been programmed to guarantee long life for the graphics processor, despite these high demands. Hard-core gamers will especially appreciate this safeguard, as well as the overclocking tool.

ChipGuard continually monitors the temperature of the chip during use. As soon as the temperature exceeds a critical value (approximately 100° Celsius), the clock rate of the chip and memory is automatically reduced to a non-critical value. This protects the chip from thermal failure. For technical reasons, the user is notified a few seconds after ChipGuard is activated.

In order to preclude regular graphics processor overheating, the ELSA high-end graphics boards are provided with active ventilation. The fan is checked every time Windows is started, to ensure that it is functioning properly.

timeshock schrijft: "Op 15 november wordt in Las Vegas de release-party van Corel Linux gehouden. Dit is live te volgen op internet. Voor meer info volg deze link":

Hier alvast wat reclametekst:

Easy to install Easy to use Easy to configure A powerful Linux® operating system for your desktop Corel® LINUX® is an easy-to-use, powerful operating system specifically designed for your desktop. Corel enhancements to Debian GNU/Linux and KDE give you a familiar and productive environment where you won’t lose time relearning how to do your work. The system comes complete with a simple graphical installation program, a full-featured file manager, centralized configuration and system updates, an e-mail client and a Web browser.

EMQ schrijft: "Ik zie een datum met een "Fever"-meter.
Hmm, 15 November 1999. Lijkt dit niet op de Geforce aankondiging op de nVidia page ?? Go check it out !"

Het zou kunnen...Volg deze link

hjs stuurde me deze link naar wat info over de games die geleverd worden met de Diamond Viper II met de Savage 2000 chip. Zou erg cool zijn als Quake 3 erbij komt, alleen volgens mij verschillen de bundles in Europa wel eens met de USA.

S3 is currently looking into including TrickStyle, Slave Zero and Quake 3 with the retail Viper II card. Quake 3 should come with 3 extra levels developed “in house” by S3 to show off the real power of S3TC. If everything goes according to plan, Viper II will ship to retail outlets on Friday, November 12th. [break] Verder vind ik ook nog wat info over TV-Out features:[/break] Our sources at S3 informed us that retail Viper II will come with TV out port. Some OEM versions will also include Flat Panel connector. This does not seem to be a problem as there are not many gamers using flat panel displays.

Seniorbro schrijft: "Ik heb een site-tje opgezet met oplossingen voor veel problemen die veel Voodoo3 gebruikers hebben. Veel informatie over hardware en software, oa over niet compatibele moederboarden (voltage issues) dus ook interressant voor alle TNT2 en hoger gebruikers.":

There is a problem with the combination of older motherboards and newer AGP graphic cards. This is because some of the early AGP motherboards used a linear regulator to control the power supply to the AGP slot. Linear regulators can supply at most 2.5 A of current while the switching regulator used on newer motherboards can supply up to 6 A at 3.3 V. When these motherboards with linear regulators were produced the average consumption of a graphic card was 1 to 2 A. Making a supply of 2.5 A more then sufficient. Since then graphic cards have developed and today the average consumption is 4 to 5 A. This is no problem for the motherboards using a switching regulator, but those older ones with a linear regulator run into problems such as overheating, burnouts and lockups. If your board has a linear regulator then you WILL have problems.

Bij 3D News.net hebben ze wat meer info gepost over Quake 3 Arena. Onderstaande geleend van deze pagina.

1. Single Tournament Mode

this campaign consist of 6 parts with 4 levels each, which can be played in any order + difficulty. each part is a bit "difficulter" as the one before...

2. Levels (included)

- 31 levels in 3 categories; Gothic, Space & Hightech
- classic DM arenas, 1:1, + 5 CTF maps as bonus

3. Models

[not sure if these are models, i guess pre-defined players, but they wrote] "20 heroes (wireframe) with 71 skins" (...) "... general soldiers in different sizes and weigths..." each "model" has 3 different "death scenes/anims"

4. Bots

47 variables to set the "intelligence, behavior, efficiency of the 9 weapons"...
quote: note about Unreal Tournament bots: "UT bots using nodes, waypoints to walk through a map" (John Cash) "Q3A bots dividing each map in 4 parts and calculate which "way" is the best between the areas. Also they're using some techniques of 'fuzzy logic' which occur some human like actions. You can give the bots commands via the console like 'Defend Base' in the CTF mode, they are 'understanding' those commands. There will be a database of around 80.000 words..

5. Last words:

Quake 3 Arena is now in its beta version, all models + bot intelligence are ready, ID is working on the leveldesign and on the menu/GUI. There will be a "parent-mode" (password) in Q3 which will deactivate the blood, ID did this according to the Littleton-massacre...

harry schrijft: "SACD werd door Sony CORP. op 21 mei in Japan gelanceerd, in Europa op 27 augustusen in Noord Amerika op 31 augustus 1999. Sinds de lancering van SACD zijn vele belangrijke platenmaatschappijen, waaronder de voornaamste HiFi-labels en multinationals, begonnen met het produceren van SACD's. Sony lanceert hiervoor de nieuw ontwikkelde ultramoderne players, versterkers en luidsprekers voor een optimale SACD weergave. Het is een beetje te vergelijken als ontwikkeling van de CDROM naar de DVD-CDROM, in het begin zullen er ook de gewone CD's in agespeeld kunnen worden, dan heb je nog de hybride, (CD/SACD), en later de volledige SACD met grotere opslag en Direct Stream Sample techniek.":

The Compact Disc was an important accomplishment in music reproduction. But over the years, discerning listeners have demanded even more. That's why Sony and Philips, the inventors of CD, have created the new Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD). Thanks to a revolutionary technology called Direct Stream Digital® (DSD®) encoding, this is the highest quality sound source available today. For nearly 30 years, digital audio has been based upon Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) technology — and nobody knows PCM better than Sony. We've used it to develop everything from Compact Disc and DAT to professional DASH recorders and digital mixing consoles. But to achieve a truly fundamental breakthrough in music reproduction, Sony has invented a truly amazing audio technology: Direct Stream Digital (DSD®) encoding. DSD encoding is destined to serve as the foundation for digital audio in the future.

Voor meer info over de SuperAudioCD, check deze page. Krijg je gelijk een leuke flash animatie voor je neus