How many cores would you like, sir?

[Wayne]

The new 8 core Mac Pro

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

Sigh! Makes my machine look even more ancient than it is :(

Wayne

[Dan]

Helluva machine!

The only drawback I can see ... is that it runs a MAC OS and ADOBE software!

And that nasty apple thingy logo on the side kind of spoils the whole effect ...



<..:p..>

[Wayne]

Helluva machine!

The only drawback I can see ... is that it runs a MAC OS and ADOBE software!

And that nasty apple thingy logo on the side kind of spoils the whole effect ...

<..:p..>

I dunno. I've been playing about a bit with the iMac we recently acquired (It's the only machine connected to a printer that has ink in it and I needed to print a letter!) I thought I'd play with the scanner part of the printer and thought it would be a pain to use. It was a doddle. Turn on the printer, select 'scan' from the menu, put photo under scanner and hit the 'Mono' or 'Colour' button and wait... didn't even have to start any program on the Mac, it just grabbed the file and opened the folder where it was scanned into ready for me to move to my USB memory stick to bring up here to my Linux machine.

Sometimes I wish I had the money..... even for a printer! My Lexmark Z51 is long in the tooth (I bought it because it had OS/2 drivers back in the day!) and it costs $50 to replace each of the two cartridges! I could buy a new printer for $50, use it till it's dry, chuck it out and buy another one! :eek:

Wayne

[Dan]

I will admit to being overly disgusted with MACs due to the stunning number of crash reports and software failure reports sitting in my desk at work.

OS 10 is a bit better, but OS9.x and Quark Xpress and Photoshop were no more than a viscious plot of agony inflicted on millions of innocent workers in the print media industry.

I think I'd actually rather run Windows!

<..:eek:..>

[Wayne]

I wil admit to being overly disgusted with MACs due to the stunning number of crash reports and software failure reports sitting in my desk at work.

OS 10 is a bit better, but OS9.x and Quark Xpress and Photoshop were no more than a viscious plot of agony inflicted on millions of innocent workers in the print media industry.

I think I'd actually rather run Windows!

<..:eek:..>

There's a PPC machine in the office where I do some work running OS 9. I've been thinking of putting a Linux distro on it because the browser is so old I can't check my GMail accounts. I need to zip up and move to my server about 3.5Gb of data first but while it's zipping the machine is unusable and stops dead before finishing compression. I started to compress each directory containing data one by one but was told yesterday that the company will close this month so gave up. I might ask for the machine as a parting bonus :-)

Wayne

[Dan]

http://www.globalcomputer.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2294050&CatId=242

http://www.globalcomputer.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2273681&CatId=242

I actually cannot buy cartridges for my R40Xi for that little!


Definitely a throw-away item!

<..:eek:..>

[Dan]

Someone at the office is actually collecting old PPCs and PowerMacs in the store room. I suggested they give them away, or just dumpster them, but the response was, "No! They might be worth something!"

I just shook my head and walked away.

<..:cool:..>

[Wayne]

http://www.globalcomputer.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2294050&CatId=242

http://www.globalcomputer.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2273681&CatId=242

I actually cannot buy cartridges for my R40Xi for that little!


Definitely a throw-away item!

<..:eek:..>

Looks like a bl**dy good price! Unfortunately, we don't get those rebate offers here and shipping charges would soon put the price up. I can walk into a large store, pay near full price but get 10-20% points on my store card (Which equals cash to spend there) or go to a discount store and get 10-15% off off the price. I save time and train fare going to the large store though :)

Wayne

[Wayne]

Someone at the office is actually collecting old PPCs and PowerMacs in the store room. I suggested they give them away, or just dumpster them, but the response was, "No! They might be worth something!"

I just shook my head and walked away.

<..:cool:..>

The iMac in question (PPC, CRT) is worth about 30,000 yen today with the extra memory that was put in. Funnily enough, the first PC I bought here, with 5" floppy disks is worth about as much as I originally paid for it. It's a geek collectors item! We chucked it out a few years ago :(

Wayne

[schwim]

the guy at the local computer shop said that at the last intel bonanza he attended, they had already presented a time line for 16 core, and it should be by next year.

thanks,
json

[Dan]

I looked these up on lowendmac.com. Even the MAC enthusiasts call 'em "Road Apples!"

[Dan]

Morning, Schwim.

Yeah! Harder and harder to keep up with the Jones'!

Think I'll just start leasing the dang things.

[Wayne]

I looked these up on lowendmac.com. Even the MAC enthusiasts call 'em "Road Apples!"

Maybe they'll start to ferment and wild apple users will eat them and get drunk :D

It's only 22:15 but I feel the need to hit the sack and dream a little, some of my crazy, unreal dreams again..... Sometimes I wake up more exhausted than when I went to bed, they take so much out of me they feel more real than the "life" I'm enduring now!

Wayne

[martin.sourada]

If I could afford it I would go for it. Dual boot linux-mac is very interesting option. And 8 cores. hm.... that is maybe enough to run gentoo on it :D... Well, now more serious. It's great machine and must perform great, but who needs such power on a desktop? Only a limited number of people AFAIK. I do not - therefore it would be too much waste for me - having 8 cores, while only one or two in work. Now I am perfectly happy with Celeron M 420 (1,6 GHz). Eight 3GHz cores would be up to about 15-times faster. I wonder what would I need it for...

[Dan]

Alrighty then.

Just getting ready for work here, so I'll take the watch.

Go get some bunk time!


<..:p..>

[Dan]

... Eight 3GHz cores would be up to about 15-times faster. I wonder what would I need it for... ... Freecell?

<..:p..>

[Wayne]

If I could afford it I would go for it. Dual boot linux-mac is very interesting option. And 8 cores. hm.... that is maybe enough to run gentoo on it :D... Well, now more serious. It's great machine and must perform great, but who needs such power on a desktop? Only a limited number of people AFAIK. I do not - therefore it would be too much waste for me - having 8 cores, while only one or two in work. Now I am perfectly happy with Celeron M 420 (1,6 GHz). Eight 3GHz cores would be up to about 15-times faster. I wonder what would I need it for...

Umm, it's called "bragging rights" where I come from :D

Wayne

[Wayne]

Alrighty then.

Just getting ready for work here, so I'll take the watch.

Go get some bunk time!


<..:p..>

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Waynezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Wayne]

... Freecell?

<..:p..>

That's old hat! It's taken 5 years for M$ to develop a Mahjongg game for Vista, it probably needs that much power to run! :D

Wayne

[Flounder]

This remind anyone of the clockspeed days when we compared chips by the hertz and not the flops (or for some of the oldies here mips). I don't think anyone has made software to justify getting a dual-core yet let alone a quad-core machine. Oh well by the time we need the stuff the multi-core chips will be cheap.

[martin.sourada]

This remind anyone of the clockspeed days when we compared chips by the hertz and not the flops (or for some of the oldies here mips). I don't think anyone has made software to justify getting a dual-core yet let alone a quad-core machine. Oh well by the time we need the stuff the multi-core chips will be cheap.

In linux, software developers usually use multiple threads, dunno how effectivly, but I think that 8 cores could make a difference here. And so is the case when you use more applications simultaneously, or are compiling something. More cores are perfect for processing videos, for real-world physics simulations (usually a bunch of many parallel counts), etc. But here, now and for me, they are completely useless. ;)

btw. where are the days when an office suite needed <32 MB of memory? Nowadays OpenOffice are real memory eaters and what do they do to deserve such memory? Dunno. You can do most of the things you do in Writer in AbiWord, yet for Writer it takes about a minute to start, while AbiWord pops up after few seconds... I think, development is nowadays about features (and usually those, you would never use :D ), not about effectivness.... *sigh*

[SDX]

If I could afford one, I would have one. Those things can hold up to 3 TB! (That's 3072GB) That's enough to triple-boot Fedora, PCLOS, and OSX and let each OS have 1024 GB! I guess you could even quad-boot or quint-boot. If you "octobooted", each OS would still have 384GB! Man, I need to save up some $$$ and get one of these things.

[Trek1701]

The new 8 core Mac Pro

http://www.apple.com/macpro/

Sigh! Makes my machine look even more ancient than it is :(

Wayne
Seems we are at the same boat...

[Wayne]

Seems we are at the same boat...

Yeah looking at your specs seems we have the same CPU. I maxed out the memory some time ago to 512Mb and recently got a 250Gb disk since a new series of Doctor Who started last weekend and I was running out of space on my other two disks :D

Wayne

[3006828]

long live the Celerons :P my 1.2gig P3 based beauty is still humming along :P

regardless.. show me anything written to take use of 8 cores and ill get excited, until then.. Im going to have a Hot Cross Bun :D

[Wayne]

long live the Celerons :P my 1.2gig P3 based beauty is still humming along :P

regardless.. show me anything written to take use of 8 cores and ill get excited, until then.. Im going to have a Hot Cross Bun :D

Is it that time of year again? Put a rabbit in the oven and you'll have a Hot Cross Bunny!

Wayne

[Shadow Skill]

I dunno. I've been playing about a bit with the iMac we recently acquired (It's the only machine connected to a printer that has ink in it and I needed to print a letter!) I thought I'd play with the scanner part of the printer and thought it would be a pain to use. It was a doddle. Turn on the printer, select 'scan' from the menu, put photo under scanner and hit the 'Mono' or 'Colour' button and wait... didn't even have to start any program on the Mac, it just grabbed the file and opened the folder where it was scanned into ready for me to move to my USB memory stick to bring up here to my Linux machine.

Sometimes I wish I had the money..... even for a printer! My Lexmark Z51 is long in the tooth (I bought it because it had OS/2 drivers back in the day!) and it costs $50 to replace each of the two cartridges! I could buy a new printer for $50, use it till it's dry, chuck it out and buy another one! :eek:

Wayne
I don't even have room in here for a printer and I have wanted one for years. I guess when I move out.

[3006828]

Is it that time of year again? Put a rabbit in the oven and you'll have a Hot Cross Bunny!

took the words right out of my mouth :D

[Wayne]

I don't even have room in here for a printer and I have wanted one for years. I guess when I move out.

My Z51 is connected to another machine right now although I haven't set it up. I really need to get a USB printer cable, although it worked fine with OS/2 with the parallel cable it's a bit unreliable with Linux. The other printer (connected to my son's PC) is an Epson. I think it needs a new yellow cartridge. It drives me nuts that Epsons will not print black if one of the colour cartridges is empty! The Z51 is too old to care if the colour cartridge is empty and will happily print black text. I'll never buy an Epson again, they're nearly as crappy as Lexmark!

Wayne

[Trek1701]

Yeah looking at your specs seems we have the same CPU. I maxed out the memory some time ago to 512Mb and recently got a 250Gb disk since a new series of Doctor Who started last weekend and I was running out of space on my other two disks :D

Wayne
Tell me, did you noticed any significant improvement going to 512Mb RAM?

Trek1701

[Wayne]

Tell me, did you noticed any significant improvement going to 512Mb RAM?

Trek1701

Less usage of swap :D

I haven't noticed it but there probably was an improvement, especially since I have six desktops with Evolution, Firefox with 4 or more tabs open, Pan, sometimes GTK-Gnutella, in the daytime Rhythmbox and in the evening Totem or Xine playing an AVI or a DVD and if I get the urge to actually do something, OpenOffice :eek:

Wayne