pouët.net

While we're on the subject of new revelations, how 'bout that new PowerMac G5...
It looks quite nice, then again Apple apparently faked a lot of the performance tests by crippling the Intel chip...
It nevertheless seems like a very nice machine.

Ok, so I'm a gullible Windows user. Still, cheesegrater or not, Apple has managed to make an enticing-sounding machine yet again in a way I can't remember anyone else doing. (Dangit Jobs...)

Benchs are not *this* faked IMHO.

But the PPC970 benchs you can find on the net now are not using the G5 which is used in the powermacs. The G5 features 1Ghz FSB, Altivec, ... which where not taken in case by all the old benchs spredead on the net before the official release.

It's a wonderful hardware with a wonderful OS ^^

I'm waiting for the laptops :)

Apple explaination to faked benchmarks:
http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/03/06/24/2154256.shtml?tid=126&tid=181

faked here and there. the important thing demopeople should notice is that 1GHz bus (or something, read that stuff yesterday).

pushing textures,manipulating images(code/photoshop) and other data,etc will benefit from that. thus making it a pretty neat machine for demos/games.

This is interresting.

In september Genesi should release the Amiga Pegasos II, based on the G4 800MHz. It could be neat to have a Pegasos III based on a G5 at 2GHz :)

I would think that coding for a fixed (well, ok, controlled) platform would make demomaking easier. You would have less complaints from people with unusual hardware.

That's sure...

consoles, amiga, ataris, macintosh rock for that, but IBM made the PC technology open for concurence, which leaded to low cost and marketting fights we know. On one hand it leaded the PC to be widelly spread at relativelly low prices, but the variety of hardware makes coder's life hard..

PC Rocks, Choupette !

Sanx!! My favorite GAY! \o/

Hey mate long time no one saw you on IRC! when do you come back? :)

macintosh is not fixedhw you silly people =)

neither is amiga, but its definetly more "fixed" than macintosh ;)

Crusader: It might make it easier, but probably less interesting in some cases. There are patterns in adoption though...

Look at true fixed hardware platforms -only the "good-old" mircocomputers and handhelds have a serious following. Consoles for instance (they're fixed as fuck) rarely have any attention.

(Other than that, any computer that traditionally ships with a single button mouse is suspect)

and the 'apple' key.. brr... 'druk nu op het appeltje'

:(

Yes, but they had the opticle mouse standard first. Or at least they say they did. And you can use a 3- or 4-button PC mouse with the Mac.
And no, IBM did not really make PC hardware open; Compaq reverse-engineered a bios and all that to force the market open.
And oh yeah, the PowerPC G5 is IBM's.

i think greg joswiak got to be vice president of hardware product marketing at apple just because his last name reminds people of steve wozniak.

Just because Steve Jobs says so doesn't make it true. They had a bunch of computers in the computer labs with 1st gen. optical mice (Sun units I believe) years ago, and they were already ancient back then. Optical Mice were already commonplace for PC users when Apple came out with it, so I'm not convinced that's a solid claim.

The G5 arguably also not the first 64-bit desktop, depending on your preference for Opterons.


Which is just the argument I cannot live with. Why ship it with a single button mouse in the first place? There's native support for multibutton mice, but you're fucked anyway -you'll have to buy a decent separately. It's like selling a family car with one seat installed -the other three you need to buy separately.

Btw, I love the tower case ...but not enough to ignore what's under the hood ;)

G5 is the first 64-bit desktop, since all other 64-bit CPUs, including Opteron, are workstation/server class.
Then again, where do you draw the line between an expensive desktop and a cheap workstation?
But technically the PowerPC 970 is to the POWER4 what the Athlon64 will be to the Opteron... So hey.

As for single-button mice... Well, PCs have weird 'legacy' stuff aswell... Like onboard sound... Most of them have AC'97 or rubbish like that. I want to replace that with a real soundcard immediately.
And videocards still support textmode and CGA/EGA/VGA, which I'm never going to use anyway.
Let's face it, both Apple and IBM Compatibles are off-the-rack.

And what about the Bios =))))

Well, you need some kind of bios ofcourse...
But yea, the bios for PCs is still in realmode, blah!?
I don't need realmode at all...
And I don't need interrupt-handlers for realmode diskroutines etc either...

Since I can configure and buy Opteron configurations in hardware stores a couple of weeks already, I'd say they were first. Note that I didn't mention UltraSPARC machines, those really won't fly as a common consumer product. ;)

Your AC'97 point: the absolute difference is that you have a CHOICE. There's plenty of mainboards out there with or without AC'97 sound crappers. You're not FORCED to get a bundled audio solution. Apples have a single button mouse or a single button mouse. That's crap, especially since far too many apple users yearn for a multibutton mouse.

As for the rest: no you don't need it, but are you forced to buy additional hardware because of that? No.

I thought only pc people complained about the one button mouse.

here we go again...

There is obviously a difference in philosophy between wintel pcs and apple pcs. It has been there since the 80ies and it's still strong, even though both sides have narrowed the gap significantly. Let's say that the one button mouse is a fundamental thing for apple, just as the bios and the text mode is for pcs. Apple zealots get sick at the sight of text mode just as fast as pc zealots get sick at the sight of a single button mouse. Choose your shit and be happy with it.

If I have to comment on the launch of the G5, I'd say that it means nothing important to me. I am a x86 zealot, Apple computers never draw my attention. It's nice to see that Apple managed to overcome the cpu limitations of the G4's, they were looking too low compared to the 3GHz wintel pcs. On the other hand, I got sick of the once more marketing blah blah regarding 'reliable benchmarks' that are at least laughable. I know it's not Apples fault, everybody does that these days, but it makes me sick nevertheless.

using macos software with a single button mouse is easy, since they are designed to work with that. i used single button mouse on my imac for 1,5years until my promouse died, after which i bought myself a 3 button mice. having more buttons didn't help at all when using macos software.

though, when using linux on my mac i was dying without the extra buttons and needed to emulate them on the keyboard.

btw. apples promouse is way cooler than any other mouse on the market that i've seen, even though it has only one button. it just looks and feels perfect.

i hope that now with g5 coming up, the g4 laptop prices will come down so that i can buy one. :)

I'm always tempted to buy a mac. They look so nice, and are so easy to use and friendly, and alsmost everything you need is in the box when you buy it. Seems fast too...

But, I need a pc at work, almost none of the software I need is available. And when I go home, how can I watch so many demos on a mac???

No, Opterons are server/workstation class CPUs. And in that class, we've had 64-bit CPUs for ages. Ever heard of Alpha for example? Why are Opterons not desktop PCs? Well for one they're too expensive... And then there's the large cache (for AMD measures anyway), the low clockspeed, and the multi-CPU support... And where are the single-CPU motherboards, chipsets, AGP slots etc? Afaik you can only buy Opteron systems with 2 or more CPUs. Not exactly desktop material.



Erm, that's not true at all. There are boards without sound... But you don't get the option for sound or no sound on every board. The boards in the class that I want, always have sound onboard. Not that I care though.



It's not like a mouse is as expensive as a decent soundcard (speaking of which, Apples come with very decent sound/DSP support as standard).
And yea, knos is right, only PC people complain, because they have never used a system that is actually DESIGNED to use one mousebutton (you can't judge from your Windows experience). So no, you're not forced to buy additional hardware, the single mousebutton works, as nosfe said already.

But the really important part is this:
We have a fast PPC970 CPU, we have a good nVidia/ATi card, we have good sound support... WE CAN DO DEMOS ON MAC!

Oh, and psonice, you're not the only one who noticed the PC software problem... There's VirtualPC for Mac, which is supposed to be quite good...
Then again, most people just bitch about it for no reason, they forget that they already HAVE a PC at home, and they don't have to throw it away if they get a Mac, they can use both.