Re: And you thought Apple II users were screwed by Apple...

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

salfter@chakotay.ncc74656.org (Scott Alfter) wrote:

Voyager fan, eh?  ;-)

>Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>case, Apple is the monopoly.  Every bit as bad as
>>Microsoft or Intel when it comes to its users (well, with
>>regards to Intel...AMD, IBM and Cyrix, IDT, and the other
>>chip manufacturers together currently outsell Intel in
>>PC CPU chips, so they do have to watch it somewhat).
>
>VIA (a major x86 chipset manufacturer, probably 2nd only to Intel) bought
>National Semiconductor's x86 processor business (the part of Cyrix that
>makes the MII and used to do the 6x86 and 5x86) and Centaur (the IDT
>division that did the WinChip).  Right now, they're a bit of a question mark
>as to their plans in the processor market.

I hope they are going to come out with something good.
Kind of sucks that they have been gobbled up because
Cyrix and Centaur's IDT have gone at the problem from
two different angles.  One had the largest die size and
highest operating temperature.  The other was the
smallest and ran the coolest.

I got a WinChip after my MII melted.

>For the immediate future, that
>leaves AMD as Intel's main competition.  Fortunately, AMD now has the
>fastest x86 processor on the planet (and the bragging rights that go with
>it), so Intel won't be able to start overcharging people for its
>processors...yet.

Yes, AMD is amazing isn't it.  I can't wait to see some
kick-butt K7 units.  There is one company called Cold
Fusion that markets an AMD K6-III running at 550Mhz
which blows away Intel.  They do this with a refrigeration
unit that lowers the CPU temperature to -40 degrees F.
That's several degrees below 0 C.

>(The specs for the G4 might very well be interesting (haven't seen them),

The G4 is pretty amazing.  It can crunch 1 gigaflops so
the floating point performance is supposed to be at the
level of the Cray 1 (supercomputer from 20 years ago).
That's why Apple is calling it a supercomputer on a chip.

>and I know that Linux has been ported to PowerPC, but where are the
>motherboards?  If the only way to get one is to buy an RS/6000 or a Power
>Mac, there'll be a bunch of people who won't buy 'em.  I'm fairly sure you
>can get Alpha motherboards that go into ATX cases, and of course x86
>motherboards are available for both AT and ATX cases...how about PowerPC?)

Giving the blistering performance of the G4, I would not
be surprised if they eventually make a PCI coprocessor
card for the PC with a G4 in it.  If only used as a math
card or a parallel CPU card, the G4 would make a
GREAT PC peripheral!