Overclockers' Workbench brengt ons een review van de nieuwe MSI K7 Pro Slot-A moederbord van Microstar. Het bordje is nog steeds gebaseerd op de AMD Irongate chipset en bevat verder o.a. 3 DIMM sockets, 6 PCI sloten (1 ISA), on-board sound van Creative Labs en 32 verschillende busspeed settings. Overclockers' Workbench kreeg de K7 Pro stabiel aan de praat met een FSB van 119MHz:

MSI K7 Pro is a very promising board that would really steal the limelight off ASUS K7M which has been around for quite some time.

At this moment of time, I did not find any problems except that the modified Athlon is very unstable and probably don't like to work with it well.

Other than that issue and with the new features built on to the board, it is a great contender for the Athlon market.

Readers might be interested to know that this board will be available by early late January. If you have not decided about which board to get for your newly purchased Athlon, why not give it a thought.

I am sure that in the near future, there will be more players that will come out with even more innovative products as most manufacturers are now eyeing for the Athlon pie.

scooter meldt dat er voor Asus V6600 en V6800 gebruikers nieuwe beta drivers klaarliggen, gebaseerd op de 3.68 Detonators van nVidia. Download ze vanaf deze link, of check even deze page.

Bij AnandTech is er zonet een review gepost van de Asus V6600 Pure GeForce kaart met 5.5ns SDRAM geheugen, wat een maximale snelheid van 186MHz wist te behalen. De core snelheid van de V6600 Pure bleef steken op een respectabele 150MHz. Hieronder een gedeelte:

Included with the ASUS V6600 Pure package you will find your standard 3D game package and demo set that are all but useless for the avid gamer. One nice addition to the package is the included software DVD decoder. With this software it is possible to watch a DVD movie without the need for a separate DVD decoder card. This is a nice feature that we wish was included in more upper level video cards. Also nice is the V6600's ability to put out clear, crisp graphics at resolutions as high as 1600x1200.

When all is considered, ASUS has produced a good middle range GeForce card. The drivers are solid, the card performs well, and the overclockabilty of the card leaves little to be desired (except for 5 ns RAM that is). Price wise and availability wise is where the ASUS V6600 stands out. The V6600 Pure will run about a tad bit less than the ELSA ERAZOR X, as the card runs about $220, however it can be found in more places than the ELSA, including your local hardware dealer. With most GeForce based cards performing very similarly in our tests, price, as usual, turns out to be the final line. The ASUS V6600 Pure is the card to buy if you are looking for an easily accessible midrange GeForce based card, especially if the price is right.

Overclockers Australia heeft een review gepost van de 'Everglide Large Black Attack Pad', da's een hele mooie naam voor een zwart gekleurd muismatje. Uiteraard hebben we het hier wel over een echte Everglide, dus betere precisie bij het mikken op de Windows trashcan:

Even though the Explorer does not need a mouse mat it still benefits from the lower friction on the Everglide surface. The ball mouse was similar - I would say my accuracy with the railgun in Q3 probably doubled because of the fine, smooth movements afforded by this mousepad. Sadly, that is where the first flaw with this unit appears. It first manifested as an irritating habit of falling off the railgun platform on Q3DM17. I first put this down to my not being used to the higher sensitivity of the mouse and persisted. But no, I would land on the platform, run to the first health, turn on that corner of the platform and accellerate towards the other health with the arrow keys.. falling off the platform. It really seemed that I was not completing the turn in time, even after my brain had compensated for the new mousemat. After a fair bit more experimentation, I discovered what was occurring. It seems the surface is a little TOO smooth for my ball mouse. It seems that when you move the mouse rapidly to one side (as when turning) the ball does not grip and takes a little while to spin up - basically it skids unpredictably. This soon became a serious point of irritation and noticeable in a few other places in Q3.

Firinsquad heeft een interessant artikel gepost met Quake III benchmarks van een single en dual Celeron systeem onder Win98, NT en 2000. Uit de resultaten blijkt dat SMP alleen voordelen heeft op lage resoluties, wanneer de videokaart niet tegen z'n fillrate limit zit (dat wisten we al langer). Op hogere resoluties is één CPU in Win98 vaak sneller dan NT of 2000 met multi-processing. Tevens keek Firingsquad naar de voordelen van pre-compiled Quake III .DLL's, die de Quake Virtual Machine omzeilen:

If you're running Windows 98, the DLLs will definitely give you a nice frame rate boost. Your resolution will determine the size of the boost -lower resolutions will have larger DLL gains. The NT4/W2K situation is a little fuzzy. The DLLs still offer some improvement, but the frame rate increases aren't nearly as large as the increases in Win98.

As far as we know, using the DLLs won't hurt you (as long as there isn't any duplicitous code). They might interfere with future mods, but the files are easily removed.

iXBT Labs heeft een review van de VIA Joshua processor online gemikt. Joshua is nog steeds gebaseerd op de oude Cyrix 6x86 core, maar kan dankzij 256KB full-speed L2 cache, een verbeterde FPU en 0,18micron produktietechnologie toch een interessante low-cost CPU worden:

As for the performance, we expect it to be at the level of Celeron processor with the working frequency according to PR-rating. Some drawbacks of a slightly improved architecture should be compensated mostly by 256KB L2 cache working at the processor clock frequency. In general, it has to do with office applications, where the extra 128KB L2 will hardly be a burden. Speaking about the games, we have to mention a significantly improved coprocessor since the times of 6x86MX. And of course, you shouldn't disregard the support of 3DNow!. Today almost all the more or less serious games as well as new graphics card drivers are optimized for this set of SIMD instructions.

Via de Computer Planet kwam ik bij deze ijskast van CMi Worldwide, volgens de makers 'the ultimate kitchen resource center'. Met de iCEBOX kun je internetten, mailen, video/audio CD's draaien of gewoon TV kijken. Het apparaat is shockproof en is daarmee ook geschikt voor alternatief iMac-werpen :

The CounterTop version of the iCEBOX is designed to fit efficiently on a kitchen counter.

It combines the features of:

email

Internet

cable-ready TV

audio CD

video CD

home monitoring

This specialized Internet/information tool is cost effective and simple to use. Users control the flow and pace of information, navigating between desired functions with a wireless keyboard and remote.

Designed to withstand the rigors of kitchen use, they are waterproof, greaseproof, and shockproof.

Betanews bericht dat de beta versie van WinZip 8.0 op het EFront FileForum neergehaald kan worden. Hier een overzicht met de veranderingen in 8.0 beta:

WinZip brings the convenience of Windows to the use of ZIP files and other archive and compression formats. The optional wizard interface makes unzipping easier than ever. WinZip features built-in support CAB files and for popular Internet file formats such as TAR, gzip, UUencode, BinHex, and MIME. ARJ, LZH, and ARC files are supported via external programs. WinZip interfaces with most virus scanners.

Changes in Current Version:

• Added Zip and E-Mail feature to attach documents to messages
• Self Extractor now only supports 32-bit extraction
• User interface is more like Windows
• Added Desktop Theme and Screensaver Installer feature
• Can now zip files of common type with single action
• Added an Explorer style area to view archives and files
• Various improvements to the help sections

News.com meldt dat de vorige week tegen @Home afgekondigde Usenet Death Penalty niet in zal gaan. @Home wist de usenet admins er voor verstrijking van het ultimatum van te overtuigen dat het voldoende maatregelen tegen spammers onderneemt:

"Because of the rapid and positive response from the people at Excite@Home Network, the Usenet Death Penalty originally announced to go into effect at the close of business (Tuesday) has been lifted," Usenet spam tracker David Ritz wrote today in an email.

The harsh sentence caused Excite@Home to begin scanning its network last week for users with potentially misconfigured software. But the threat of a ban failed to ignite an outcry from its customers, a symptom of the dwindling use of Usenet. Once a venerable platform for online discussions, the influence of Usenet newsgroups has progressively declined, according to analysts and those in the industry.

Usenet administrators still could cancel messages that appear to be posted from Excite@Home users if the levels of abuse and lack of response return to their earlier levels within 30 days, according to Ritz's letter. Spam originating from Excite@Home has decreased considerably in the past few days, Ritz told CNET News.com.

Ars Technica schreef een review van een bijzondere ATX kast: de Palo Alto ATCX kan als minitower én deskop kist gebruikt worden. De drivebays van de kast kunnen geroteerd worden, zodat deze zich zowel bij verticale als horizontale plaatsing van de kast in de juiste positieve bevinden:

The ATCX is hard to pigeonhole because it's very extensible. For example, converting the case from a mid-tower to a desktop turns one of the external 3.5" bays into an internal one.

As you can see, the case's convertible nature is primarily made possible by the removable drive chamber. Rotate it 90°, and whammo, ya gots yerself a different case. Of course, the important thing to remember is that when you buy the case, you'll likely be getting a unit outfitted to be either a mid-tower or a desktop. It's not sold (to the best of my knowledge) with everything that you need to convert it back and forth (although I have seen kits available on-line from time to time). Not only does the front bezel change, but the bottom of the case uses a different panel when it is not serving as the base of the case, and the same is true for the right-side panel. Let's look at the basic configuration of the mid-tower:

3D Audio Immersion heeft een review gepost van de Sigma Designs RealMagic Hollywood+ MPEG2 decoder. DVD's kunnen met dit kaartje via een beeldkwaliteit-verziekende loop-through kabel op een monitoren bekeken worden, of kunnen via de S-Video uitgang direkt naar de TV gepassed worden:

At this point in time, I was pretty disappointed in the card, particularly because it was touted as THE DVD decoder to get if you wanted the best experience from a computer. So far, the image quality can't hold its own to the Cinemaster powered Matrox DVD player that came with my G400Max. The colors are not as bright, the pitcure flickers, and there is less definition in the images. Now it was time to test the TV out feature of the card, and this is where my bad impression of the Hollywood+ was completely blown out of the water. I was awestruck as each and every movie that I fed my system came out bright and sharp on my TV just as smooth (if not, smoother) and detailed as my set-top DVD player. UNBELIEVABLE!!! All the menus were displayed properly. Watching Pleasnatville and The Matrix on my big screen TV were a total joy. All this time, I was thinking "how can a card perform so poorly on my computer screen, and so unbelieveably well on via the TV out?" So, from my experience with the card, I can only reccommend this card if you will be watching the majority of your movies via its TV output. If your purpose is to watch movies on your computer, you're much better off buying a card based on the ATi Rage128 chipset.

Volgens The Man Himself liggen de zaken iets anders dan eerder door The Register geschetst (thanks chaos voor de tip):

Seems like the aforementioned Mike of the Register has posted a bit about yours truly being unemployed for the holidays. It wasn't all that bad, as a result I didn't have to work through New Year's Eve because of the Y2K bug, and in the interim I got a lot of work done and caught up on some gaming. Anyway I will have a full story, hopefully with official comments from the involved parties if they will touch this one with ten foot pole. Anyway, I sent a few clarifications to Mike about it as I did not read it until it was up. Anyway, if you are concerned about me, don't worry, I won't bow down to pressure from any entity. It's just not in my nature.

Frenzy bezorgde ons een linkje naar New Order, waar men een nieuwe bug in Microsoft IIS heeft ontdekt. Internet Information Server blijkt niet overweg te kunnen met lange URL strings met extensie .ida. De foutmeldingen die hier als gevolg van onstaan kunnen in sommige gevallen een Denial of Service Attack veroorzaken:

Microsoft IIS 5.0 has problems handling a specific form of URL ending with "ida". The problem can have 2 kinds of results.

One possible outcome is that the server responds with a message like "URL String too long"; "Cannot find the specified path" or the like.

The other possible result is that the server terminates with an "Access Violation" message (effectively causing a Denial of Service attack against the server). Vulnerable are all IIS versions (up to and including IIS 5.0). When a remote attacker issues a URL request with the malformed URL: http://www.example.com/...[25kb of '.']...ida The server will either crash (causing an effective DoS attack) or report its current directory location (revealing the directory structure).

Volgens een onderzoek van IDC heeft bijna een kwart van de Nederlandse bevolking regelmatig toegang tot internet. Nederland loopt hiermee gelijk op met andere Europese landen:

Volgens IDC doet Nederland niet onder voor de rest van West-Europa. Uit het onderzoek, dat is gehouden onder de bevolking van twaalf West-Europese landen, blijkt dat in het gehele gebied een kwart van alle inwoners over internettoegang (thuis, op het werk, bij vrienden, et cetera) beschikt. Vijf procent hiervan heeft een online aankoop gedaan in de drie maanden van 1999 waarin het onderzoek is gedaan.

Uit de studie komen opmerkelijke verschillen naar voren. In Zweden is zestig procent van de bevolking online, in Frankrijk slechts zestien procent. In Groot-Brittannië doet meer dan een kwart van de internetgebruikers aankopen via het net, in Spanje koopt slechts twee procent online.

Lees voor het complete verhaaltje dit artikel van Webwereld.

The Register schrijft dat Chris Tom, de webmaster van AMD Zone, door Dell is ontslagen. Chris werd onder meer verdacht van het lekken van details over de Coppermine bug:

Chris Tom, who, together with his brother, has built AMD Zone and Slot A, into one of the most regularly visited AMD spots on the Web, was called into Dell's HQ in Austin at the beginning of last month to explain his actions.

According to Tom, in a statement to The Register, he was suspected of leaking details of a bug in Intel's Coppermine processor -- an allegation that Mr Tom absolutely refutes.

Anders Hammervald van Sharky Extreme heeft een review gepost van de 'Absolute Multimedia Outrageous GeForce 256 DDR'. Naast deze erg leuke naam valt er weinig over dit kaartje te zeggen: het is een redelijk geprijsde GeForce met 150MHz DDR SGRAM en TV-out:

The Outrageous 3D GeForce DDR is a relatively inexpensive DDR board which offers just about everything we expect from a high-end video board today. The "Software choice" is a nice touch and with the exception of the box art not exactly being the best we have seen, there's not much here to complain about.

Bart van Groningen schrijft: "BetaOS bericht dat Microsoft heeft besloten dat - naar aanleiding van de recente wetwijziging van de amerikaanse overheid ten aanzien van encryptie - Windows 2000 internationaal met 128-bits encryptie geleverd gaat worden":

Microsoft Corporation has recently announced today that Windows 2000 will ship with 128-bit encryption internationally. This is to follow the new federal regulation on encryption exports announced on January 14, 2000.

We hadden je al eerder bericht over dit gave spelletje... Toen met een verhaaltje wat het allemaal voorstelde. Ik kan alleen maar zeggen, als je het niet kent, weet je niet wat je mist. De Beta wordt inmiddels steeds verder door ontwikkeld, en momenteel zijn we aangeland bij versie 5.2. Deze versie moet (in tegenstelling tot v5.1x) ook aan de client side geïnstalleerd worden:

As promised, the beta 5.2 patch is out! Head over to the downloads page to pick up your flavor. Both Windows and Linux are available, as well as upgrade files or full installations. This is a server *and* client patch, so it is recommended that *everyone* download the 5.2 patch. Remember that 5.2 is not compatible with 5.0 and 5.1, which is why everyone needs to upgrade. BETA 5.2 changes :

- modified chasecam (to reduce lag)

mp_chasecam 0 : ghostmode only
mp_chasecam 1 : chasecam only
mp_chasecam 2 : both modes

- fixed crashing bugs
- updated de_train.bsp, fixed crash bug
- fixed scoreboard bugs (20 players not showing up)

Look for a lot of cool stuff in the coming weeks including new beta6.0 screenshots and other revelations.

Op deze plek kun je alle 5.2 versies (volledig en update) voor 5.2 krijgen. Vanmiddag zal tevens onze clanserver geupdate gaan worden. Deze clanserver kun je vinden op

.

Houdt er rekening mee dat de Game Master van Demon (met de 4 drukst bezochte CS servers in nederland) op vakantie is, en dat die dus mogelijk nog even op zich laten wachten.

Planet GeForce nam een GeForce DDR onder handen en onderzocht de invloed van een socket370 cooler en een paar extra geheugen heatsinkjes op de overklokbaarheid van de kaart:

I'm sure alot of you are surprised that this fancy cooling solution yielded only slightly higher-overclockability of the GeForce GPU core... heck, I know I was.

Remember that this particular GeForce card was one of the very first made, an engineering prototype of the DDR reference design. That being the case initial yields of the GeForce chip itself were not nearly as good as they are. I suspect that a newer board should be able to hit much higher ratings.. cases of people hitting over 160 MHz lends to that idea. Still, 135 MHz is nothing to laugh at, as one can see:

120 x 4 = 480 megapixels/sec
135 x 4 = 540 megapixels/sec

That's 60 megapixels/sec over spec, putting it in Quadro territory.

Dat schiet dus niet op. We hebben bij HardOCP al eerder dit soort verbouwingen gezien en die leverden ook niets op. Mocht je het desondanks toch willen proberen, dan geeft de GeForce overclocking guide van Planet GeForce een aantal handigen tips (thanks hjs voor de link).

Volledig volgens de planning, zijn we gisteren de Japan Celeron Users group voorbij gegaan! En morgen weer een plaatsje , want dan gaat Team HP .

De DPC Hitparade Top 10 van 18 januari 2000

1. BONESTAAK(21, Gisteren:50,239, Totaal:219,607)
2. B.Slagter(50, Gisteren:32,559, Totaal:139,800)
3. dennis.vanveen(151, Gisteren:13,362, Totaal:48,442)
4. Andy(1, Gisteren:10,068, Totaal:1,447,087)
5. M.Smakman(342, Gisteren:7,670, Totaal:11,803)
6. [eNeRGy](26, Gisteren:7,179, Totaal:194,705)
7. Katsov(25, Gisteren:6,446, Totaal:199,634)
8. HarryB(13, Gisteren:5,588, Totaal:336,429)
9. Chainsaw(20, Gisteren:5,168, Totaal:230,120)
10. Maverick(91, Gisteren:4,824, Totaal:77,418)

En de kanshebbers:

11. Snakebyte(63, Gisteren:4,692, Totaal:118,187)
12. Jorma(5, Gisteren:4,252, Totaal:714,685)
13. sienema(2, Gisteren:3,808, Totaal:881,764)
14. wildhagen(12, Gisteren:3,713, Totaal:357,628)
15. Robert Reuser(144, Gisteren:3,610, Totaal:51,066)
16. Sub-Team Hack BV(22, Gisteren:2,887, Totaal:217,634)
17. utct(134, Gisteren:2,811, Totaal:53,832)
18. Lies(93, Gisteren:2,671, Totaal:76,130)
19. Richard Zuidhof(36, Gisteren:2,372, Totaal:167,357)
20. jlin(90, Gisteren:2,127, Totaal:77,749)

De Top 5 teams van 18 januari 2000

1.( ) AnandTech (740,547)
2.( 1) Russian Team (586,587)
3.( 1) Slashdot.org (572,770)
4.( 2) HackZone Team -- Combined power of Russia and exUSSR countries (536,528)
5.( ) Team Warped (OS/2) (422,315)
10.( 1) Dutch power cows (305,091)
52.( 4) HIT2000 Linux, Hack & Crack event of 1999, the Netherlands (57,568)
53.( 1) The #koffie Team (57,420)

Teams om ons heen(total stats):
34.( ) Winbiff Users Group (Tot:33,071,977, Gis:60,791)
35.( ) Michigan State University (MSU Spartans) (Tot:31,913,572, Gis:131,282)
36.( ) The #koffie Team (Tot:31,827,541, Gis:57,420)
37.( ) Team HP (Tot:29,772,498)
38.( 1) Dutch power cows (Tot:29,528,521, Gis:305,091)
39.( 1) Japan Celeron Users Group (Tot:29,479,896, Gis:71,294)
40.( ) Texas Longhorns (Tot:28,365,112, Gis:52,775)
41.( ) Wonder Monkeys (Tot:26,837,019, Gis:83,636)
42.( ) Singapore RC5 Effort (Tot:26,630,145, Gis:85,717)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Dutch power cows is vandaag 10e en heeft een kans van een op 105 om de sleutel te vinden!

Wie anders dan The Register zou dit nieuws kunnen brengen . In dit artikel wordt namelijk melding gemaakt van Nude Overclockers, een site van 4 virtuele naakte overkloksters die niks liever doen dan "thermal grease op hun hete heatsinks smeren", aldus Sarah. Op de site kun je al o.a. reviews lezen over de Ratpadz mousepad en Windows Millennium.

Hieronder de info van The Register, thanks Rikkie voor de tip.

Our thanks to Register spotter David Thorarinsson for alerting us to Nude Overclockers.

This site purports to be run by four women who -- yes --overclock in the nude. The females are virtual renditions, not real. This is a Weird Science for the Internet generation, which is why we think teenage/young adult males are behind this very peculiar blend of schoolboy smut and hardware reviews.

It will be sometime before Nude Overclockers challenges Tom's Hardware Guide or AnandTech, but 10 out of 10 for enterprise in what is becoming an increasingly crowded market. ®

Volgens een studie van NEC Research en zoekmachine-fabriek Inktomi heeft internet inmiddels een omvang bereikt van meer dan 1 miljard pagina's:

Jan. 18, 2000-- Inktomi Corp. (Nasdaq:INKT - news), developer of scalable Internet infrastructure software, today announced that the company and the NEC Research Institute, Inc. have completed a new study that verifies the Web has grown to more than one billion unique pages. This milestone for the Internet comes as an outgrowth of Inktomi's global Web crawling operations, and the new expanded database represents the industry's largest catalog of unique Web pages.

Inktomi, which powers searches for many of the world's most prominent portal and content sites, worked with the NEC Research Institute to validate the findings and methodology of the study. In addition, Inktomi's WebMap(TM) index of over one billion documents will be combined with its Concept Induction(TM) technology to build unique new services for its customers, such as the Inktomi Media Search Database. By examining the entire Web and analyzing the billions of links between all of its documents, Inktomi can distill an index of the highest quality documents to provide users with more relevant and intuitive results. Inktomi's customers include America Online, British Telecommunications, HotBot, iWon.com, LookSmart, MSN, Snap.com, and Yahoo!.

``Together with Inktomi, our study has verified the existence of over one billion unique indexable Web pages on the Internet,'' said Steve Lawrence, Research Scientist, NEC Research Institute, Inc. ``Inktomi is on the leading edge of innovation in the search field helping users access the incredible diversity of information on the Web.''

``We're very pleased to be working with the NEC to combine their distinguished research efforts with our proven industry experience providing search services to the world's largest portals and destination sites,'' said Dennis McEvoy, senior vice president at Inktomi. ``As the first company to expand its Web search operations to over one billion documents, Inktomi continues to solidify its position as the leading provider of Internet infrastructure software.''

Voor meer vrolijk geneuzel kun je de press release lezen.

Mitsubishi heeft bekend gemaakt dat het de eerste 512MB PC266 en PC200 DIMMs heeft gesampled . De modules hebben een 184 pins layout en zijn gebouwd rond 256Mbit DDR SDRAM chips, die zijn vervaardigd op een 0,18micron produktieproces. Mitsubishi verwacht komende April tot volume produktie over te kunnen gaan:

Jan. 18, 2000--Mitsubishi Electronics America's Electronic Device Group today announced sample availability of a 512-Mbyte registered dual in-line memory module (DIMM) that is compliant with JEDEC standards, meets PC266 and PC200 requirements, and is targeted to meet the large main memory needs of high-end servers, workstations, and PCs. Built using 18 pieces of Mitsubishi's discrete 256-Mbit PC266 or PC200 Double Data Rate (DDR) Synchronous DRAMs (SDRAMs), which are manufactured in a 0.18-um CMOS process technology, the 184-pin registered DIMM can achieve a peak data transfer rate of up to 2.1 Gbytes per second at a clock frequency of up to 133 MHz -- or up to 266 Mbits per second per data pin -- when used with a 64-bit data bus.

The 512-Mbyte registered DIMM samples are first available using 256-Mbit DDR SDRAMs in a by-4-bit configuration, which is ideally suited for server, workstation, networking, and communications system applications that require system-level error correction code (ECC) detection and correction with ``chip-kill'' protection. Mitsubishi is also now developing a 512-Mbyte DIMM using 256-Mbit DDR SDRAMs in a by-8-bit configuration.

``The availability of the 512-Mbyte registered DIMM demonstrates Mitsubishi's commitment to the needs of high-end server, workstation, and PC customers who want JEDEC-compliant, PC266 and PC200 DDR SDRAM module solutions as soon as possible,'' said Cecil Conkle, assistant vice president of DRAM marketing at Mitsubishi Electronics America Inc.

The 512-Mbyte DDR SDRAM based DIMM uses the JEDEC-standard stub series terminated logic (SSTL_2) interface. This interface typically features less than half the voltage swing of the low-voltage transistor-to-transistor logic (LVTTL) interface used in conventional SDRAM. The module offers 2.5-volt operation for low power dissipation. Input signals to the registered DIMM access memory chips through either the phase locked loop (PLL) or one of the register buffers on the DIMM.

Packaging, Availability and Pricing

Mitsubishi's 512-Mbyte DDR SDRAM based DIMM, MH64D72KLG, is available in a JEDEC-standard 184-pin module that is 133.35-mm x 43.18-mm. Samples of the DIMM will be available in February 2000, with volume production scheduled for April 2000. Sample pricing for the PC266 and PC200 versions of the DIMM are $7,048 and $5,334 each, respectively.

biwan@multiweb.nl" rel="external">|Obi_Wan| bracht ons een link richting het DVD Anywhere systeem van Digihouse, waarmee op de 2,4GHz band over een afstand van ca. 30 meter draadloze video en audio verzonden en ontvangen kan worden. Langs die fiets is het niet meer nodig om het hele huis onder de kabels te leggen:

So you have a DVD player in your PC ... but it's not quite a home theater! It could be! Now you can easily enjoy your DVD movies on any TV in your home using X-10's DVD Anywhere! Using 2.4Ghz wireless audio/video sending you can also watch regular or cable TV and control the lights and appliances (mood and environment control) all with one wireless remote. It's the incredible breakthrough X10 product: DVD Anywhere!

How It Works:

The DVD Anywhere transmitter transmits high-quality visual images and stereo sound to any television in your home, up to 100 feet away. The key to this breakthrough is the use of new 2.4 GHz technology. The frequency has a broad signal range which means that more video information can be transmitted. The results are cleaner pictures, reduced signal interference and multiple channels. What's more, because it's used much less than the old 900 MHz frequency, the 2.4 GHz range is virtually uncluttered.

elefino kwam een linkje brengen naar Ace's Hardware waar gemeld wordt dat Rambus Inc. een rechtszaak aangespannen heeft tegen Hitachi. Hitachi zou gebruik maken van technologiën waar Rambus sinds 1990 patent op heeft. Voor meer info lees dit artikel van EETimes.

Rambus, Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Hitachi regarding several patents the company made years ago. Here's an interesting quote: "We are in negotiations with companies that use this technology, but it would be inappropriate to comment further on those negotiations, since they are confidential. Indeed, our patents cover fundamental aspects of synchronous memories. Other companies (besides Hitachi) will want to license this IP as well for non-Rambus products," Kanadjian said. Essentially, Rambus is suing Hitachi for making SDRAM, as silly as it sounds. The Rambus patents Hitachi has apparently violated include:

• Synchronous Memory Device
• Synchronous memory device having an internal register
• Synchronous memory device having a programmable register and method of controlling same
• Integrated circuit I/O using a high performance bus interface
  

I shake my head when I look at these, but it's because I keep forgetting that you can patent anything...Bell Labs must be kicking itself for not patenting the transistor....

Nemesis schrijft: "Beetje kostbaar grapje: Door een fout in het dataverkeer binnen de Webwinkel van IBM stonden (helaas ... ) twee versies van hun Thinkpad te koop voor $1 !!":

Some IBM customers took advantage of a too-good-to-be-true deal on the computer maker's Web site today, ordering dozens of the company's laptops for $1 each.

For about an hour this morning, IBM's Web store listed two different versions of its ThinkPad i Series 1400 computer for $1 each, a company representative confirmed. The machines typically sell for between $1,300 and $2,300.

IBM blamed the discrepancy on a data error and said it has begun notifying customers that it can't honor the discounted price. "We can't sell these for a dollar," a company representative said. "We'll work something out with our customers."

"Slechte marketing natuurlijk, honoreer die bestellingen gewoon, dit soort acties doet wonderen voor je marktaandeel ."

Koeneman schrijft: "Op de site van Savage Daily News spotte ik wat specs van de de opvolger van de Viper II Z200, de Diamond Viper II LE Z400. Misschien dat de drivers van de Z200 ongeveer af zijn als deze uit gaat komen?":

Well its been around 4 months now since the merger was 1st proposed on the board desk of Diamond's share holders. Guess what, the Viper II is the only thing they have shown so far and thats not the most stupendous thing in the world, well yet at least. Well for all you people out there wondering whats next, heres a little tease for you...

• Diamond Viper II LE Z400
• Savage2000+ Chipset
• 64mb 5ns SyncDram
• 400mhz RAMDAC
• 175mhz Clock, 150mhz Memory Clock
• Full AGP 4x abilities, also AGP 2x/1x ready
• S3TC, S3T&L, Direct3D, OpenGL Compatibilities
• Analog and Digital Outputs, Digital Flat Panel Port
• Composite Out & S-Video Output

All in All this is a sweet card, lets just hope it comes out to be a superiour card in direct competition to the Voodoo4/5 series of 2D/3D products. Go S3/Diamond!!! Just so you people don't wonder your butts off, I contacted an S3 dev for this...

Hm, als we Savage Daily News dus mogen geloven komt deze informatie recht uit de development hoek van S3/Diamond vandaan. Hopelijk kan dit model wel de verwachtingen eens waarmaken .