The Wizard meldt: dat hij een mailtje van Norrod heeft gekregen, ze schrijven dat ze alle i820 moederborden uit de winkels gaan halen, ook wel een logische stap na alle problemen (i820 niet meer interessant voor normale consument). De ongelukkige eigenaren van een plankje van met de i820 chipset zonder RDRAM kunnen hem inruilen voor een 'alternatief' (is dat RDRAM?):

Intel heeft officieel bekendgemaakt dat ze geen i820 Chipset meer gaan leveren. Er zit een fout in deze chipset die niet verholpen kan worden. Alle fabrikanten, o.a. MSI en ASUS, gaan hun boarden terughalen die zijn uitgerust met deze chipset. NoRRoD Computers heeft met onmiddelijke ingang ook alle i820 boarden uit het assortiment gehaald. Indien u in het bezit bent van een moederbord met een 820 chipset kunt u deze bij onze winkels terugbrengen en omruilen voor een alternatief.

Naast dat melden ze ook nog even tussen neus en lippen door dat de V7700 pure van Asus, een GeForce2, 895 harde guldens moet gaat kosten.

G-Rax schrijft dat Dr Dre 239,612 mensen heeft kunnen vinden die via Napster hun muziek verspreiden. En je raad al wat er gaat gebeuren: Dr Dre dumpt persoonlijk deze lijst voor de deur van Napster en die sluiten dan weer een berg gebruikers af :

Rap artist Dr. Dre today gave the company a list of 239,612 usernames of people he says have illegally made his songs available online. He wants those usernames banned from the Napster service--or at least blocked from trading his songs online.

Like hard rock band Metallica before him, Dr. Dre is suing Napster for contributing to what the artists say has been widespread online pirating of their works. Metallica was the first to put public pressure on the company by targeting more than 317,000 actual individuals using the service to trade that band's songs.

That effort has led to tension between Napster and some of its software users, as well as between Metallica and some of its fans.

Napster barred hundreds of thousands of people from its service last week, but many have found ways to avoid the company's roadblocks.

SuSE Linux en TurboLinux hebben aangekondigd dat zij in samenwerking met IBM, S/390 ports van hun Linux distributies in ontwikkeling hebben. De beta van de SuSE S/390 release komt in juni beschikbaar:

Today, SuSE Linux, the international technology leader and solution provider in open source operating system (OS) software, announced the porting of SuSE Linux OS to the IBM S/390 server platform. The first Beta Version (presented at Vista 2000) will be available for download from SuSEs ftp-server (ftp://ftp.suse.com) in late June. The release of the production version is scheduled for fall of this year.

IBM's S/390 enterprise server, is the backbone of business critical data processing. Mission-critical applications that require the traditional strength of the S/390 platform - unmatched in reliability, security, scalability and availability - can now be complemented by other new applications running on Linux.

SuSE, with the first worldwide, truly cross-platform Linux distribution on the S/390, has taken a decisive step to enhance Linux as a relevant server-operating system in the business space. International Data Cooperation (IDC) announced the market-share for Linux server operating environments rose from 16% last year to 25% this year.

The S/390 architecture allows the configuration of logical partitions on a single machine so that different operating systems (OS/390, VM/ESA, VSE/ESA, Linux) can run in parallel. SuSE's interoperatability allows professional users to take advantage of running traditional OSs and SuSE Linux S/390 in parallel. They can use standard Internet applications, such as Apache or Sendmail, on the OS/390.

In addition to the Intel Platform, SuSE Linux also runs on PowerPC and Alpha processors. SuSE's availability on the S/390 facilitates the system administration tasks across heterogeneous network through SuSE's common system administration tool, YaST. At the same time, it minimizes the expenditure for development or acquisition of new products.

"IBM welcomes and advocates SuSE's commitment to provide overall Linux support for S/390," comments Tom Rosamilia, Vice President, IBM S/390 Software Development. "From our ThinkPads to the S/390 mainframes, the variety of SuSE Linux supported platforms offers unique opportunities to IBM customers under the roof of a standardized open source operating system.

"Today, our special thanks are addressed to the S/390 technicians. In cooperation with the developers of SuSE Labs, they created a functional Linux basis for the S/390 in the shortest imaginable time, " explains Dirk Hohndel, CTO of SuSE Linux AG in Germany. "With SuSE Linux for the S/390, we establish Linux as a cost-effective and reliable alternative to the top tier of operating systems, Unix. Now Linux is a major league player in the enterprise server environment and in business critical data processing."

Bij Akiba's PC Watch (Wazige Japanse Site) is een AMD roadmap te vinden. Dankzij Ace's Hardware kan iedereen weten wat er bij de roadmap gezegd wordt:

According to the article, the 1.1 GHz Thunderbird, using a 200 MHz FSB, will debut in the middle of the third-quarter. A 1.13 GHz version will also be available, apparently, for use with a 266 MHz FSB. By mid-Q4, the article expects to see Thunderbirds at 1.2 GHz (200 MHz) as well as 1.33 GHz.

The article reiterates statements made earlier by AMD that they will reach 1.5 GHz by January 2001. The 1.5 GHz chip will be the Mustang, according to this roadmap.[break]En dan nog een heel interessante mededeling over de compatibiliteit van Thunderbirds met de VIA KX133 chipset:[/break]There is also some further information that while Thunderbirds produced with Aluminum interconnects (Austin FAB25) will work with the KX133 chipset, versions with Copper interconnects (Dresden FAB30) have compatibility problems.

Bij MHW hebben ze een review gemaakt van de Tyan S2380 Trinity K7, een Athlon mobo gebaseerd op de VIA KX133 chipset. Groot voordeel zijn de 6 PCI-sloten, maar voor de overcklocker biedt dit bord weinig mogelijkheden. De performance was dan weer goed, dan weer minder:

After evaluating the results, I have some mixed feelings about the overall performance of the board. I can say that the board is an average performer in some tests, yet it excels on some but fails in others. It's just a mixed bag, hence the rating of average.

The Trinity K7's layout may pose problems if one desires to use a high performance cooling solution for their CPU. So future buyers must keep this in mind. The performance isn't as striking as one would think, especially for a product from a company with as great a reputation as Tyan. The board needs a bit more refining of tweaks to be a real performer. I was a bit disappointed as I was expecting more. Heck, the board could just need a future BIOS revision.

Veronica zal geen nieuwe televisiezender beginnen maar is van plan om vanaf 1 september 2001 programma's via internet uit te gaan zenden. Hieronder een gedeelte uit dit artikel van Nu.nl:

Veronica begint geen nieuwe televisiezender, maar richt zich de komende jaren uitsluitend op internettelevisie. De uitzendingen van Veronica op internet beginnen op 1 september 2001.

Veronica besloot eerder dit jaar de Holland Media Groep te verlaten. De Vereniging Veronica zendt tot september volgend jaar niets meer uit, maar blijft wel doorgaan met het uitgeven van het omroepblad en haar internetactiviteiten.

De vereniging verkocht haar aandelen in HMG terug aan de andere grote aandeelhouder CLT-UFA, voor een bedrag tussen de 100 en 200 miljoen gulden.

Dat de vereniging vanaf 1 september volgend jaar met televisie op internet begint, is geen toeval. Onderdeel van de overeenkomst tussen HMG en de vereniging is dat de laatste de naam Veronica vanaf die datum terugkrijgt. [break]Bij WebWereld is wat meer info te vinden:[/break] "Televisie is een vraagteken", aldus Van der Reijden. "Het is de vraag of het commercieel verstandig is." Wat Veronica precies op internet wil gaan doen is nog onduidelijk. "Het zullen geen gewone televisieprogramma's zijn. Nu wordt het aanbod eenzijdig geoffreerd aan het publiek, dat gaat zitten en kijkt. Straks gaan we mensen betrekken bij het maken en wijzigen van het programma. We richten ons helemaal op de nieuwe wijze van overdragen."

Van der Reijden weet dat hij niet iedereen aan de PC kan binden. "Vooral 55+'ers zullen gewoon naar de televisie blijven kijken. Jongeren zullen sterk anders reageren, zij kijken straks naar de nieuwe TV."

Volgens WebWereld houdt Stichting Brein de hele Napser affaire nauwlettend in de gaten. De beleidsmaker van Brein en hoofd opsporingsdienst van copyrightclub Buma Stemra schijnt Metallica-actige stappen te willen ondernemen tegen Nederlandse Napsteraars...

Een optie is om – à la Metallica en Dr. Dre – Napster door te spitten op IP-nummer. Zij huurden hiervoor een gespecialiseerd detectivebureau in.Uiteindelijk werden ruim 300.000 Metallica-fans van Napster afgesloten. Dr. Dre kwam woensdag met een lijst van bijna 240.000 gebruikers. Brein zou ongeveer hetzelfde kunnen doen, waarbij men zich concentreert op IP-nummer, gebruikersnaam en computernaam.

Zo wordt niet alleen duidelijk hoeveel Nederlanders gaat die Napster gebruiken, maar kunnen ook individuele gebruikers ter verantwoording worden geroepen.

"Als het Napstergebruik binnen ons land de spuigaten uitloopt, zullen we stappen ondernemen", stelt Kuik. De kans is overigens klein dat iemand die twee liedjes heeft gedownload wordt aangepakt. Eerder zullen grootverbruikers het haasje zijn.

"Het aanbod is illegaal en daarmee ook het downloaden", vervolgt Kuik. "Zowel de aanbieder als downloader zou kunnen worden vervolgd, civielrechtelijk of strafrechtelijk. Dat hangt af van het overleg dat we met het Openbaar Ministerie zullen voeren."

Thanks Jotti voor de tip.

John Carmack heeft in zijn nieuwste .plan update zijn mening gegeven over de videokaarten van nvidia (GeForce 2), ATi (Radeon) en 3dfx (Voodoo5). Kort samengevat komt er uitgerold dat hij een voorkeur heeft voor de GeForce . Hieronder een gedeelte uit zijn verhaal, ik heb er het een en ander uit moeten knippen dus klik hier voor het hele zaakie.

I have gotten a lot of requests for comments on the latest crop of video cards, so here is my initial technical evaluation. We have played with some early versions, but this is a paper evaluation. I am not in a position to judge 2D GDI issues or TV/DVD issues, so this is just 3D commentary.

Nvidia

The DDR GeForce is the reining champ of 3D cards. Of the shipping boards, it is basically better than everyone at every aspect of 3D graphics, and pioneered some features that are going to be very important: signed pixel math, dot product blending, and cubic environment maps.

The GeForce2 is just a speed bumped GeForce with a few tweaks, but that's not a bad thing. Nvidia will have far and away the tightest drivers for quite some time, and that often means more than a lot of new features in the real world.

GeForce is my baseline for current rendering work, so I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

ATI

Marketing silliness: "charisma engine" and "pixel tapestry" are silly names for vertex and pixel processing that are straightforward improvements over existing methods. Sony is probably to blame for starting that.

The Radeon has the best feature set available, with several advantages over GeForce

Depending on the application and algorithm, this can be anywhere from basically no benefit when doing 32 bit blended multi-pass, dual texture rendering to nearly double the performance for 16 bit rendering with compressed textures. In any case, a similarly clocked GeForce(2) should somewhat outperform a Radeon on today's games when fill rate limited. Future games that do a significant number of rendering passes on the entire world may go back in ATI's favor if they can use the third texture unit, but I doubt it will be all that common.

The real issue is how quickly ATI can deliver fully clocked production boards, bring up stable drivers, and wring all the performance out of the hardware. This is a very different beast than the Rage128. I would definitely recommend waiting on some consumer reviews to check for teething problems before upgrading to a Radeon, but if things go well, ATI may give nvidia a serious run for their money this year.

3DFX

Marketing silliness: Implying that a voodoo 5 is of a different class than a voodoo 4 isn't right. Voodoo 4 max / ultra / SLI / dual / quad or something would have been more forthright.

Rasterization feature wise, voodoo4 is just catching up to the original TNT. We finally have 32 bit color and stencil. Yeah.

The real unique feature of the voodoo5 is subpixel jittering during rasterization, which can't reasonably be emulated by other hardware. This does indeed improve the quality of anti-aliasing, although I think 3dfx might be pushing it a bit by saying their 4 sample jittering is as good as 16 sample unjittered.

I haven't been able to honestly recommend a voodoo3 to people for a long time, unless they had a favorite glide game or wanted early linux Xfree 4.0 3D support. Now (well, soon), a Voodoo5 6000 should make all of today's games look better than any other card. You can get over twice as many pixel samples, and have them jittered and blended together for anti-aliasing.

It won't be able to hit Q3 frame rates as high as GeForce, but if you have a high end processor there really may not be all that much difference for you between 100fps and 80fps unless you are playing hardcore competitive and can't stand the occasional drop below 60fps.

There are two drawbacks: it's expensive, and it won't take advantage of the new rasterization features coming in future games. It probably wouldn't be wise to buy a voodoo5 if you plan on keeping it for two years.

Dank aan Slashhead voor de tip.

Bij Tom's Hardware Guide is vandaag een review te vinden van de Asus CUBX, een Socket 370 plank met Intel's good old BX chipset aan boord. De lay-out is vrij relaxed met 6xPCI, 1xISA, 1xAGP, 0xAMR en 4xDIMM. Verder is de CUBX volgens Patrick Schmid in staat om op 150MHz bussnelheid te draaien:

Adding together all features of the CUBX shows that Asus raises the claim to have one of the best BX motherboards ever. Two things could have been better though. I am still not quite sure about the origin of the one crash I encountered, but that may be nothing. However, I have to moan a bit about the PLL-chip used on the board. It does not offer 1 MHz increments of the FSB as typically found on Abit products, which can be a rather important feature for overclockers, particularly if you try and overclock Celeron processors with high mulitpliers. Six PCI and one ISA slot is the maximum, I don't think that there's any motherboard with seven slots. I also doubt that many people are going to equip all four DIMM sockets.

The board ran stable up to 150 MHz and also allows you to use the cheap Celeron processors, which have been announced up to 700 MHz now. Regarding features, performance and overclocking, Asus provides an excellent motherboard once again. What a pity that BX can't stay forever.

If you are an overclocker or computer freak, than you should have a good look at the CUBX, as it might serve as reliable basis for quite a long time.

Barend schrijft: "Bij Storage Review hebben ze de IBM Deskstar 75GXP gereviewd. Ze konden helaas geen 75GB exemplaar krijgen, dus hebben ze met 'slechts' 45GB genoegen moeten nemen."

Daarnaast is IBM's 75GXP met 7200rpm en platters van 15GB alvast geschikt voor ATA/100, alhoewel we daar niet al te veel van hoeven te verwachten volgens Storage Review. De meeste nieuwe Socket A en i815E borden zullen echter wel de interface ondersteunen.

In addition to performance, IBM drives have been renown for quiet, unobtrusive operation. IBM's Deskstar 5, for example, was markedly quieter than the competition… and remember, that was a couple years before the emphasis on acoustics currently sweeping ATA drive manufacturers. The Deskstar 75GXP is no exception, turning in muted performance reminiscent of the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 40. In other words, it's a bit quieter than the similarly performing Quantum Fireball Plus LM.

The drive also operates just slightly warm to the touch in our minitower-based testbed without active cooling. Remember, however, that we've deviated from our usual policy of testing flagship models. We're normally able to deliver "worst case" scenarios when it comes to heat and noise projection since it stands to reason that the drive model with the most platters would emit the most of both in the family. The larger brothers of the 45 gig 75GXP (60 gigs and 75 gigs) may be a bit hotter, or a bit noisier than what we experienced here.

Chris Angelini van Sharky Extreme maakt ons blij met een review van de bekende Abit KA7 KX133 moederplank. Het bord werd erg goed beoordeeld en nu is aangekondigd dat Abit KA7 bezitters dalijk gewoon kunnen upgraden naar een Thunderbird heeft de KA7 er weer een flink pluspunt bij. Hieronder een hap uit de conclusie:

Appealing mainly to the performance enthusiast, the KA7 includes the most comprehensive set of speed enhancing features we've seen. Hopefully we'll soon see a variation of the KA7 with ATA/100 support (and maybe a few hard drives supporting the same standard). For the time being though, ABIT has once again been proven in the high-end market. Those new to "tweaking" will marvel at the 85-page manual that explains each feature as well as some of the terms used.

We have few stipulations about the board, but it should still be noted that the KX133 might not yet appeal to the corporate environment. However, since the KA7 lacks an AMR slot and onboard audio, it is safe to assume that ABIT is looking to please a different crowd. Without hesitation, ABIT's latest contribution was able to please us.

Bij PCGamers.net is een review te vinden van de GeForce2 GTS kaart van Creative, de 3D Blaster Annihilator 2. De review lijkt op alle reviews die we tot nu toe van GeForce2's gezien hebben, en de conclusie is ook weer hetzelfde: alleen kopen als je geld teveel hebt of met een zwaar verouderde videokaart zit. Deze reviewer maakt het nog wat bonter dan de meesten; volgens hem moet je ook maar niets kopen als je een TNT2 of Voodoo3 hebt. Over de voors en tegens van de kaart:

Highs : 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 is extremely fast, superb image quality. Stable drivers is a big plus, brand name means the company is highly unlikely to go out of business as do your warranty. No comparsion is made to other cards based on the same chipset yet but Creative is highly unlikely to be at the bottom tier. Blaster Control v4 look nice (let's face it you may have to face it everyday on your desktop) and included two powerful utility. The box is rock solid and is made up of recyclable materials. Bragging rights at LAN and/or Geek parties. (Editor - Geek parties?)

Lows : $350 is a little bit steep, not a lot faster than GeForce256 DDR, GPU is still not supported by too many games, you don't really need to play Quake 3 Arena at 120 fps, or your monitor may not support 1280x1024 (and if it does we may still have the refresh rate issue, 60Hz is bad for your eyes), the full power of the card cannot be fully unleashed until there are games out there that are that demanding. Software bundle won't make a gamer happy, and let's face it who but us stupid gamers shell out $350 for a video card for non-professional, entertainment usage?

Bij ZDNet is een artikeltje te vinden over een vage Japanner die niets te doen had, en toen maar een mp3-speler bouwde. That's right, een compleet zelfgebouwde mp3-walkman. De details over het bouwen hiervan heeft hij neergezet op zijn website. En ja, dat is duurder dan er zelf een in de winkel kopen:

Normally, a hand-built device will cost significantly more than those available for retail. Think of assembling a car from purchased parts. Similarly, a complete MP3 player costs less than the sum of its parts. But Akamatsu couldn't care less. "Yes, the MP3 player (you build) will (be) more expensive than any other cheap MP3 players," he said. "However, the significance is to build my own work, not cost."

Akamatsu said his site is a valuable resource for MP3 builders because visitors only need "experience in designing embedded microcontroller systems to understand the instructions." Unfortunately, most normal people have none. Further, if you're not up to speed on designing embedded microsystems, there are no "Embedded Micro-Controller Systems for Dummies" or "Learn Embedded Micro-Controller Systems in Under 12 Minutes" texts to consult. The tedium is almost oppressive.

De kwartaalcijfers van nVidia zijn bekend gemaakt, en die liegen er niet om. Een resultaat van $148,5 miljoen, 109% meer dan in hetzelfde kwartaal vorig jaar. De nettowinst is verdrievoudigd t.o.v. het vorige jaar. Het grootste gedeelte van deze winst kwam niet van de nieuwe GeForce256 en Geforce2 GTS, maar van de TNT2! Bergen verkopen ze ervan, vooral aan Dell in de zakelijke OptiPlex systemen.

For all the talk of Nvidia Corp. as a high-performance graphics chip supplier, the company is finding its success driven by the more vanilla corporate market.

Sales of the Nvidia RIVA TNT-2, a 3D chip now two generations older than Nvidia's latest product, made up the majority of the $148.5 million the company reported for the first fiscal quarter of 2001, a 109% gain compared with a year ago. Net income for the Santa Clara, Calif., company jumped threefold from the same period, driving the company's earnings of 47 cents per share well past the 39 cents three brokers polled by First Call/Thomson Financial had expected.

nVidia heeft ook weer hoge verwachtingen van het volgende jaar, vooral vanwege de X-Box deal.

Bij EBN online is te lezen dat Hitachi, IBM, Sharp en Toshiba een voorstel hebben gedaan voor een nieuwe flat-panel interface. Het dingetje draagt de klinkende naam 'Digital PV Link', hieronder uitgelegd. De technische specificatie is aangeboden aan de DVI (digital visual interface) groep, waar ook de specificaties van de huidige DVI FP-aansluitingen vandaan komen:

Called the Digital Packet Video Link, the new format would use a packet data approach to transmit a variety of multimedia and high-resolution protocols to flat-panel screens. The new interface was unveiled in a technical paper at the Society for Information Displays Symposium in Long Beach, Calif.

Johji Mamiya, IBM Japan's advanced project staff engineer, said the Digital PV Link will be offered to several industry standards groups, including the DVI consortium, which will be asked to work the proposal into a future DVI 2.0 standard.[break]Natuurlijk zijn er wel wat voordelen ten opzichte van de originele DVI 1.0:[/break]The Digital PV Link would attach a header to each data packet being sent to the display, allowing control of multiple screens, higher-resolution displays, improved encryption, the handling of mulitple multimedia inputs, error correction, scaling for different pixel densities, and operation independent from a specific operating system or panel architecture.

We kunnen overigens deze techniek pas in 2002 in desktop flatpanels verwachten en vanaf 2003 ook in notebook-schermen.

Bij CNET is een nieuwsbericht gepost waarin te vinden is dat we de eerste producten met de langverwachte Transmeta Crusoe-processor volgende maand al kunnen verwachten. Dit zegt David Ditzel, de CEO van Transmeta. Hij verwacht dat volgende maand op de PC Expo in New York producenten hun nieuwe producten met de Crusoe tonen. Het is nog niet duidelijk of dit notebooks of webpads zullen zijn:

Ditzel said it's not yet clear whether the first Crusoe devices will be full-featured notebook computers or "Webpad"-style Internet appliances.

"It's a horse race between the pad guys and the notebook guys," he said.[break]En met kerstmis moet het dan toch ook allemaal in hoeveelheden te koop zijn:[/break]Ditzel said Transmeta's product launch strategy is on schedule.

"We hope to have a variety of interesting and sexy products shipping in high volume in time to be under the Christmas tree," he said.

Er wordt de laatste tijd wat heen-en-weer bekritiseert . Nu zijn Hardware Central en Firingsquad onderwerp van discussie, omdat de recentelijke Rambus artikelen van beide sites een nogal rooskleurig beeld geven van de prestaties en mogelijkheden van Rambus. JC vroeg een aantal industry insiders om gefundeerde kritiek (positief/negatief) op de reviews van Hardware Central en Firingsquad, wat resulteerde in een aantal interessante reacties waarin HWCentral, Firingsquad en Rambus het zand in worden geboord. Ik quote een aantal interessante opmerkingen:

The reasons for higher prices is: Low yields, cost of validation/testing, die size (20% penalty vs. SDRAM), packaging... and supply.

1) Yields for DRDRAM are exceeding 90% right now - however, PC800 DRDRAM is below 50%. Recall that PC700 and PC600 were 'added' after the fact when manufacturers could not qualify any PC800 parts (go do a search of the news from a year or two ago). There is a reason Intel relaxed some of the validation constraints a short while ago.

2) Testing of DRDRAM is very time consuming, because it is *complicated*. Remember, we are not talking about a simple serial transmission, we are talking about a packetized communication channel. Equipment is expensive, and test setup takes time - as does the validation.

3) Die size is approx 20% larger than SDRAM, which is why Intel originally was saying there would only be a 20% cost premium over SDRAM - anyone remember this?

4) There are definitely packaging issues, however it seems that some recent packaging improvements have at least partially taken care of this. The worst situation is that the chips did not sit flush on the module, which would likely mean more breakage during handling (before the heat spreaders were attached).

5) Though demand might be exceeding supply, this in itself is a *huge* marketing ploy. If there are 100 'Tickle-me-Elmo' dolls available, and 110 people want them - you have a supply issue. If there are 100,000 people who want them, you have a high-demand. [break] De lage pincount van de Rambus interface zou theoretisch een voordeel moeten zijn voor moederplank fabrikanten, maar volgens deze engineer is Rambus door de hoge kloksnelheid en de bouw van het Rambus protocol juist buitengewoon gevoelig voor timing en signaal problemen: [/break] In reality, the higher bus speeds along with the protocol nature of RAMBUS cause the motherboard design to be MORE limited often requiring additional layers to be added to the board to allow a lower signal to noise ratio. While I personally like to see all my bus lines straight from point A to point B, it is nice to be able to move one around a bit to fit things in if needs be. This luxury is not an option with RAMBUS. It is very sensitive to impedance differences from one line to the next. The net result is that the system is more expensive. [break] De hoge warmteproduktie van Rambus chips verhoogt de produktiekosten omdat er een koelplaat nodig is om de hitte kwijt te raken. Bovendien bemoeilijkt dit het testen van Rambus chips, omdat de werking van een RIMM alleen getest kan worden wanneer de chips al gemonteerd zijn: [/break] Power and Cooling. PC133 maximum heat worst case is claimed but if all memory accesses are within the same bank on both types (worst case that engineers must design cooling for), 4.6 Watts from one RDRAM chip has a higher dissipation per unit area than 11.6 / 8 or 1.45 Watts per PC133 SDRAM chip. This is the real reason for the spreader to spread the heat to at least 4 chips in size to allow passive cooling. Since the spreader adds to chip height, larger spreading between slots is required and the spreader adds cost. This is also why full speed testing to worst case of RDRAM die must wait for packaging and incur higher costs due to wastage. Notice that the cost to a large OEM is not even estimated. This allows them to imply something that probably is not true.

Mocht je er nog niet van overtuigd zijn dat Rambus bepaalde nadelen heeft, dan zou ik dit artikel van JC zeker lezen.

We zijn weer terug op de 5e plaats, maar de score is met meer dan 700.000 blocks nog steeds erg mooi!

DPC heeft 1876 leden, dat is 16 meer dan gisteren!

De DPC Hitparade Top 30 van 17 mei 2000

1. 57,612 [Dutch Power Cows] Interior Lulu(2, Totaal:4,006,726)
2. 32,401 [Dutch Power Cows] wiho(1, Totaal:9,031,544)
3. 21,733 [Dutch Power Cows] blimmel the schylger cow(13, Totaal:785,415)
4. 18,771 [Dutch Power Cows] The LawnMooh'er Men(6, Totaal:1,295,296)
5. 17,019 [DPC] Quakers United | Cewle Coown' Cadavers(42, Totaal:387,512)
6. 16,801 [Royal Dutch Power Cows]Utrecht DPC clan(223, Totaal:87,167)
7. 16,644 2fast4u [Dutch Power Cows](14, Totaal:775,874)
8. 15,894 bjonkhart(94, Totaal:193,734)
9. 11,263 [Dutch Power Cows] BaDMaN(36, Totaal:473,791)
10. 9,572 [Dutch Power Cows] Tuur(311, Totaal:51,762)

En de nummers 11 tot en met 30:

11. 8,834 [Dutch Power Cows] Exploder(37, Totaal:459,647)
12. 7,959 [Dutch Power Cows] Sub-Team Hack BV(28, Totaal:583,254)
13. 7,012 [Dutch Power Cows] ThE RaVeR(31, Totaal:538,732)
14. 6,793 [Dutch power Cows] Ronnie Tober(235, Totaal:82,323)
15. 6,673 [Dutch Power Cows]\-Killemall eats cows for lunch-(183, Totaal:107,260)
16. 6,199 [Dutch Power Cows] AmgS(53, Totaal:337,336)
17. 6,040 [Dutch Power Cows] Jobe(21, Totaal:672,470)
18. 5,967 [Dutch Power Cows] Jurgen Wildhagen(8, Totaal:1,091,190)
19. 5,733 [Dutch Power Cows] iMAGE(742, Totaal:13,119)
20. 5,701 [Dutch Power Cows] HarryB(9, Totaal:904,702)
21. 5,176 [Dutch Power Cows] NCP-Viper(63, Totaal:300,680)
22. 5,065 [Dutch Power Cows] #hekje team(30, Totaal:557,284)
23. 5,039 [DUTCH POWER COWS]USRFORCE CLAN(15, Totaal:757,839)
24. 4,965 [Dutch Power Cows] TEX(60, Totaal:306,694)
25. 4,927 [Dutch Power Cows] Oezie Woezie(48, Totaal:368,143)
26. 4,748 [Dutch Power Cows] Theo Nieuwstraten(58, Totaal:317,516)
27. 4,715 Richard Zuidhof(27, Totaal:583,553)
28. 4,543 [Dutch Power Cows] Insomniacs(34, Totaal:488,416)
29. 4,498 Chainsaw(23, Totaal:646,448)
30. 4,491 coen(333, Totaal:46,698)

De Top 15 teams van 17 mei 2000

1.( 0) 990,836 Russian Team
2.( 3) 852,244 AnandTech
3.( 0) 808,729 Slashdot.org
4.( 2) 782,078 HackZone Team -- Combined power of Russia and exUSSR countries
5.( 1) 764,209 Dutch Power Cows
6.( 72) 556,320 Team Japan HAM Radio Stations
7.( 1) 458,133 Team Warped (OS/2)
8.( 1) 453,472 The Amiga RC5 Team effort
9.( 1) 405,491 #DeathMatch
10.( 1) 388,406 Team EvangeLista (Macs Rule! :-)
11.( 0) 357,600 Japan Windows NT Users Group
12.( 2) 326,967 Team Hungary STB+
13.( 1) 295,297 Japan FreeBSD Users Group
14.( 1) 288,677 Libertarians for Privacy (1-800-ELECT-US)
15.( 3) 275,862 L0phT Heavy Industries

Teams om ons heen (total stats):

12.( ) Japan Windows NT Users Group (Tot:123,054,725, Gis:357,600)
13.( ) Team Hungary STB+ (Tot:108,311,231, Gis:326,967)
14.( ) Team Win32 (Windows) (Tot:104,512,682, Gis:223,981)
15.( ) Czech RC5 Team (Tot:102,447,982, Gis:198,203)
16.( ) Dutch Power Cows (Tot:96,571,935, Gis:764,209)
17.( ) CCC.de (Tot:95,771,745, Gis:267,359)
18.( ) #DeathMatch (Tot:91,245,529, Gis:405,491)
19.( ) Team OS/2 Japan (Tot:88,104,570, Gis:214,052)
20.( ) PINGUIM: Portugal Is Now Going Up In Megakeys (Tot:77,811,241, Gis:174,688)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Wanneer halen we ze in:

Japan Windows NT Users Group: 66 dagen
Team Hungary STB+: 27 dagen
Team Win32 (Windows): 15 dagen
Czech RC5 Team: 11 dagen

Dutch Power Cows is vandaag 5e en heeft een kans van één op 58 om de sleutel te vinden!

Mijlpalen voor 17-05-2000

-Wiho: 9.000.000
-Interior Lulu: 4.000.000
-HarryB: 900.000
-NCP-Viper: 300.000
-Enthroned: 100.000

Gefeliciteerd!

The Register brengt het nieuws dat Connectix, ontwikkelaar van de Virtual GameStation PSX emulator, afstevend op een overwinning in één van de twee rechtszaken die het door Sony aan het broekje gelapt kreeg. Een rechtbank in San Francisco heeft de claims die door het Sony advocatenleger werden aangedragen vrijwel volledig aan de kant geshoveld:

Yesterday, the San Francisco District Court threw out almost all aspects of Sony's attempt to block the sale of VGS on the grounds of copyright and trademark infringement. The verdict follows last February's appeal win by Connectix against a preliminary injunction granted to Sony last year which prevented the software developer from shipping VGS.

Of course, it's not over yet for Connectix. Following the February ruling, Sony fired off a second action against the company alleging that VGS violates Sony patents.

The appeals judge pointed out in his ruling that while the court that heard the original case against Connectix had made a mistake in granting the preliminary injunction on the grounds of copyright infringement. However, he noted Sony might have had a case for a ban had it included patent infringement in its suit.

De Korea Herald schrijft dat Samsung - als reactie op Intel's i820+SDRAM terugroepactie - de produktie van Rambus chips met minimaal 50% verhoogt. Brakke i820 mobo's worden inclusief geheugen vervangen voor i820 borden met Rimram, waardoor er een onvoorziene vraag naar RIMMetjes is ontstaan:

Samsung Electronics will boost production of Rambus DRAM earlier than scheduled as Intel, the world's largest CPU manufacturer, started to recall some computers for chip defects.

The company said it will increase its output of 128 M and 144 M Rambus DRAMs by 50 percent or more from the present 2 million units per month.

[...] Japanese companies will also likely start increasing production of Rambus DRAMs as the chip is expected to substitute synchronous DRAMs from the latter half this year.

"The profitability of Rambus DRAMs is quite good since their price is 2.5 times that of the same-level synchronous DRAMs."

Da's een interessante opmerking...

Red Hat heeft bekend gemaakt dat het een pre-production versie van haar IA-64 Linux distributie heeft gereleased. Developers die in bezit zijn van een Itanium devbak kunnen de beta release gebruiken om zachte goederen voor Intel's nieuwe IA-64 platform tot onwikkeling te brengen. Daartoe is de beta versie voorzien van de Red Hat / Cygnus compiler en toolkit. Deze is gebaseerd op het werk van het Trillian project, waar onder andere Intel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM en Silicon Graphics in deelnemen. Genoeg vertaald , hier heb je de complete press release:

Red Hat, Inc. announced today the availability of an early release of the Red Hat source code for the forthcoming Intel Itanium processor platform targeting high-end servers and workstations. This distribution enables the development of IA-64 software for the most intensive computing environments, from high performance design automation to enterprise level databases. A free download version of the code can be obtained at ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/ia64.

``Red Hat's release of pre-production tools and software represents an important milestone in the development of the IA-64 Linux platform,'' said Michael Pope, Intel's director of e-Business Solutions Marketing. ``This release will enable the open source Linux community to accelerate their development of advanced server and workstation applications for Itanium processor based systems.''

Intel recently announced the availability online of the Itanium Processor Microarchitecture Reference, a guide for software developers that details the functional behavior of Intel's Itanium microprocessor. This guide, together with the Red Hat code will enable developers to create programs that will be Red Hat/IA-64 ready before the production release of the Itanium microprocessor.

``Commercial developers know that as the principle source of the GNU development tools for both IA-32 and IA-64 Linux, (as well as for many proprietary operating systems), Red Hat is positioned to help developers port and optimize their applications for IA-64 Linux,'' said Michael Tiemann, CTO, Red Hat, Inc. ``We believe this will be especially valuable to developers who want to extend their Linux-based offerings into high-end, 64-bit enterprise and technical computing markets.''

This pre-production version will include the Red Hat/Cygnus compiler and tool kit. It is based on the tools and kernel developed by the Trillian project, a group of companies that include Red Hat, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Caldera, CERN, SuSE, TurboLinux and SGI. The full release of Red Hat's offering will coincide with the IA-64 hardware availability from Intel.

``We continue to work closely with Red Hat, Intel and our strategic independent software vendors (ISVs) to speed development of 64-bit e-commerce solutions that are optimized on Dell systems,'' said Bob Van Steenberg, vice president and general manager of enterprise server products in Dell's Enterprise Systems Group. ``As a world leader in Internet commerce and infrastructure products, Dell is on track to be among the first to deliver to its customers Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell Precision WorkStations based on Intel's 64-bit Itanium processors.''

VIAHardware heeft een korte preview geschreven over de komende chipsets van Intel, Via en Ali. Hieronder 3 kwootjes, respectievelijk van de i815, de PM133 en de Ali Aladdin TNT2 :

The i815's controller, on the other hand, supports 8 RAS lines and 1024MB of SDRAM. This implies a total reworking of the i810's memory controller, if not a completely new controller design. It also, of course, adds support for the new Intel PC133 memory standard, which has just recently been released. Intel's PC133 standard requires tighter timing and closer tolerances then VIA's older PC133 standard, thus most manufacturers have flocked to VIA's. It will be interesting to see how well "VIA PC133" functions in a board designed to Intel's spec.

[...] Looking to capitalize on their PC133 chipset success and eager for the high-profit mid-range, VIA is on the verge of releasing the PM133 chipset. Building on the Apollo Pro 133A, the PM133 adds one feature: an S3 Savage4 integrated into the chipset. Like the i815, it supports PC133, and it also supports an AGP4X/Pro slot as well as the integrated AGP4X video. It brings the 2GB support of the VAP133A chipset with it as well. One advantage it holds over the i815 is its integrated video performance: the savage 4, even the lower clocked, shared memory version in the PM133, can easily defeat the Intel i752 of the i815. Considering a power user isn't likely to use either, it may be a moot point. Otherwise, it is identical in every way to the VAP133A, and as such should perform exactly the same in all respects.

[...] Acer Labs have been quiet lately, but they crave a piece of this huge market as much as Intel and VIA do. Their entry is the Aladdin TNT2, which integrates an underclocked nVidia TNT2 into a 100/133MHz Northbridge. Very little other information is available on this chipset, and its questionable if it will even have an AGP4X upgrade option. ALi has been missing release dates lately, however, and it’s anyone's guess as to when they will be able to enter the market.

The Register schrijft dat er diverse aanwijzingen zijn dat Apple een op PalmOS gebaseerde handheld in voorbereiding heeft. Enige tijd geleden deed Apple een mislukte poging om de Palm divisie van 3Com over te kopen en inmiddels wordt PalmHotsync software nadrukkelijk ondersteund in MacOS 9 en OS X. De speculaties worden verder aangedikt met geruchten dat er op een Taiwanese produktielijn palms-met-appeltje zijn gesignaleerd:

That Apple and Palm Computing have a connection is clear: CEO Steve Jobs admitted some time back that he'd attempted to buy Palm from its then parent, 3Com. And at his keynote speech at last January's MacWorld Expo, Jobs introduced Palm CEO Carl Yankowski with the words: "[We've been] doing a lot of work with these guys lately."

And, don't forget, there were claims earlier this year that Apple-branded Palm devices had been spotted on a Taiwanese production line, though regular readers may recall we were pretty sceptical about them at the time.

All these hints don't, of course, clearly point to the existence of an 'iPalm', but it seems odd that Jobs would take such an interest in noting Palm's work with Apple if it was just about making sure Palm's HotSync software worked OK on a Mac. There do seem to be strong ties between MacOS X and Palm, specifically building synchronisation functionality into the upcoming OS, but does that warrant the kind of press Jobs has given the companies' co-operative efforts?

Hitachi heeft een nieuwe 19" ErgoFlat CRT met platte beeldbuis aangekondigd. Deze CM771 monitor heeft een diepte van 45 cm met een 0,22m dotpitch en een maximum resolutie van 1600*1200px. De horizontale refreshrate bedraagt 96KHz, wat neer komt op een verticale refresh van 75Hz bij eerder genoemde max resolutie. Dit alles gaat verkocht worden voor een verwachte prijs van 479 dollar, wat met de huidige belachelijk hoge dollarkoers wel weer zal neerkomen op een bedrag in de buurt van de 1400 florijnen:

Hitachi America, Ltd., a subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. today announced the new CM771 CRT monitor - one of the world's first flat-faced Invar Shadow Mask monitors.

This revolutionary new 19" (18" viewable) ErgoFlat monitor provides realistic, vibrant images with less distortion and significantly reduced glare. Featuring a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 at a flicker-free 75 Hz, the CM771 also provides a reduced depth of only 17.7 inches that enables this 19" monitor to have the same depth as conventional 17" monitors.

The CM771 has an auto synchronization range of 31-96 kHz, and has a video clock frequency of 203 MHz. This monitor features some major changes to conventional flat-face monitor technology by changing the shape of the deflection yoke. By using a new Rectangular Cone Deflection Yoke, the CM771 is able to eliminate the purity uniformity issues that require multiple circuitry compensation components in flat-faced Aperture Grill monitors. This makes the CM771 user-friendly as it eliminates the need for frequent convergence adjustments that flat-faced Aperture Grill models require.

In addition, Hitachi's new design produces a more efficient beam landing pattern that enables the CM771 to produce high contrast, high brightness images with one of the lowest power consumption rates available for a CRT monitor. More than 10% brighter than the average flat-face CRT, the CM771 also provides a super-fine dot pitch of 0.22mm horizontal and 0.14mm vertical to form one of the crispest, brightest images available. Entering the market with an MSRP of $479.00 the CM771 represents one of the best values on the market today.

The CM771 features Hitachi's EasyMenu on-screen controls with adjustments for color temperature, moire, trapezoid, DMS, pincushion and more. This monitor is also user and environmentally friendly with features such as TCO '99 compliance, EPA energy star approved, and features simple plug-and-play functionality.

News.com meldt dat het in problemen verkerende Silicon Graphics volgende maand de geplande spinoff van MIPS Technologies tot voltooing zal brengen. MIPS is de fabrikant van de processors die in de SGI workstations en servers worden gebruikt (voor de low-end Visual Workstations wordt sinds vorig jaar ook gebruik gemaakt van huis-tuin-en-keuken Intel hardware):

The company, which owns about 25 million MIPS shares, said last year that it would divest its interest in the unit that designs computer processors. Shareholders as of June 6 will receive 0.135 MIPS share for each Silicon Graphics share on June 20.

SGI, based in Mountain View, Calif., has focused on computers for scientific applications as rivals such as Hewlett-Packard invaded the market for high-powered machines used in animation and graphic design. The company has sold some units and is betting new product introductions will help boost revenue going forward.

Zoals je gisteren al in deze nieuwsposting hebt kunnen zien, is de KA7-100 met additionele ATA100 controller realiteit geworden. Aanvankelijk werd het bestaan van de plank nog ontkend door Abit, maar gezien de vroege geruchten over het bestaan ervan en de uitsparingen in de KA7 layout was het overduidelijk dat Abit plannen had voor een KA7 met ATA100 controller. Vandaag werd de plank officieel aangekondigd in onderstaande press release:

Revealing the next version of the award winning KA7, ABIT is announcing the KA7-100. This board is designed to support AMD-K7 Athlon Slot A 200MHz FSB Processors using the VIA VT8371(KX133) /VIA 686A chipset. It also supports all normal industry standard functions for motherboards such as Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI), AGP 4X and 100/133MHz SDRAM Memory Bus Settings. The KA7-100 uses four 168-pin DIMM sockets supporting PC100/PC133 SDRAM modules up to 2 Gigabytes MAX. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512MB SDRAM). In addition, ABIT has added a new level of stability and performance with their famous 6 chip Data Buffer Set with ECC support.

ATA/100

Ultra ATA/100, or Ultra DMA/100, is an extension of the current Ultra ATA/33 interface. This new high-speed interface has a 100 Mbytes/sec transfer rate and maximized disk performance under the current PCI local bus environment.

Multi I/O Functions

The KA7-100 has on board Bus Master IDE Ports offering 2+2 Channels of Bus Master IDE which support up to four Ultra DMA 33/66/100 devices. Also supported are 6 PCI slots and 1 ISA slot for maximum upgradeability. While most other boards only have 5 PCI slots, ABIT has added an extra PCI slot, making the KA7-100 the most expandable and upgradeable board in its class. In addition to the normal serial and parallel ports, the KA7-100 has 2 USB ports PLUS an extra header for 2 extra USB channels, built-in Wake on LAN/Wake on Modem header, built-in IrDA TX/RX header and one Thermal Sensor Cable Included for hardware monitoring.

Hilko schrijft: "AnandTech heeft pas geleden een artikel over de voor en nadelen van Rambus gepubliseerd (net als enkele andere sites). Ed van Overclockers.com heeft dit artikel eens onder een loep gehouden en vond een paar dingen waar hij het niet mee eens was... Ed noemt Anand's artikel een advertentie van Rambus in plaats van een net artikel .":

Dangling modifier aside, they wanted an ad in editorial clothing. And that's what they pretty much got. It sure looks an awful lot like a cut-and-paste between RAMBUS advertising along with some ifs, ands and buts.

[...] There is nothing wrong with Rambus trying to get its message across. Nothing even wrong with writing editorial comment. You see that in magazines all the time, but do you know what? There's something marked on each and every page of such "editorials": ADVERTISEMENT.

Do you take them just as seriously as regular editorial material? I think not.

[...] "Once you reach a certain point (What point?) you're going to have to start adding more layers to the motherboard's PCB (Why?), which begins to increase the cost of the motherboard at a pretty hefty rate. Some motherboard manufacturers such as ABIT won't even consider a motherboard design that employs a design with more than 4 layers; chances are that if you said that an 8-layer design (Where did you come up with that figure?) was required in order to have dual SDRAM banks, they would opt for another solution."

Bij GameCenter staat een nieuwsbericht waarin verteld wordt dat de specs van de Xbox zijn opgewaardeerd: in plaats van een Pentium III 600MHz kunnen we nu een 733MHz verwachten.

It's official: Microsoft has upped the CPU on its X-Box video game system from 600 MHz to 733 MHz. Microsoft has also upped the X-Box's capabilities; previously, the company said the X-Box would be capable of a trillion operations a second, and now it claims the system is capable of 1.2 trillion operations per second.

Nou, het is weer raak op de E3. Iedereen vliegt elkaar in de haren. 3dfx heeft openlijk blijk gegeven van hun boosheid tegenover Apple. Op de E3 demonstreerde 3dfx de Voodoo5 op een Apple met AGP. De kritiek was dat Apple alle machines standaard verkoopt met een ATI Rage 128 in het AGP-slot, en dat klanten dus geen keuze hebben.

LOS ANGELES--3dfx took aim at rival graphics chipmaker ATI Technology this week by demonstrating an AGP version of its Voodoo5 graphics card--and openly criticizing Apple for shipping its Power Mac systems exclusively with ATI's Rage 128 chip. The drama took place at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, which ends Saturday at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The company announced in April that it would offer versions of the dual-processor Voodoo5 and single-processor Voodoo4 for the Mac's PCI slot, but at the time it wouldn't say whether an AGP version was also in the works. Apple's recent Power Mac G4 systems come with ATI's Rage 128 Pro controller preinstalled in the AGP port, which would seem to limit third-party opportunities. Now, however, the company has decided to go ahead with an AGP version.

Bryan Speece, who heads 3dfx's Mac marketing efforts, criticized Apple in a pointed letter distributed this week to media covering the show.

What's clear today is that Apple stubbornly insists on shipping the Rage 128 in every PowerMac ordered," he wrote. "And that produces a very un-level playing field for any third-party vendor and their users. Instead of getting an option to configure his new system with a V5 rather than a Rage 128 for a modest price delta users are forced to eat a Rage 128. Apple then apparently feels that same user should go pay upwards of $300 for a 3dfx V5 at a retailer. And, frankly, retailers aren't thrilled about carrying a Mac AGP card when Apple's pre-filling all those AGP slots anyway."

Pittige kritiek dus op het beleid van Apple. Het is even afwachten of Apple zich hier iets van aantrekt; waarschijnlijk hebben zij een zeer lucratieve deal met ATI (lucratief voor beiden, dan wel).

Bij EBN lees ik dat Intel plotseling een meeting bij elkaar heeft geroepen. Kennelijk beginnen ze in de gaten te krijgen dat het toch niet zo goed loopt met RDRAM: er zijn nog te weinig fabrikanten die het fabriceren. Bij deze moedigde Intel maar even iedere geheugenproducent aan om snel aan de gang te gaan met meer Rambus DRAM. Het is toch vreemd hoe een processormaker andere bedrijven kan dwingen iets te maken...

Intel Corp. has called what sources say is an emergency meeting to gauge the commitment of the industry's top DRAM suppliers to Direct Rambus DRAM memory production.

The two-day meeting, under way at Intel's Chandler, Ariz., campus, was called by high-level company executives, who are concerned that insufficient support for the new memory interface could undermine Intel's high-end microprocessors, which are designed to operate with the architecture.

According to sources, Intel is using the occasion to encourage DRAM suppliers to accelerate their transition from mainstay SDRAM to Direct RDRAM devices and guarantee adequate supplies of the memory ICs to support Intel's own chip plans.