[wplug] (OT) 32 more bits

[Michael Semcheski]

Drew from Zhrodague wrote:
>>We can see how big a deal 64bit was for those Suns and Alphas.  They
>>just skyrocketed and left Intel in the dust.  Oh well, maybe Intel and
>>AMD can make up some market share.
> 
> 
> 	Totally, and look what 64 bit computing has done for Apple! I 
> guess not much more than the wow-factor, pretty much on all fronts.
> 
> 	My biggest complaint is with software, I think. With all the 
> whiz-bang hardware available, it is quite pathetic where we currently sit 
> -- and this is why we're all linterested in GNU/Linux et al.

Sorry for contradicting my own sarcastic post.  Also, I'm not trying to
be arguementative, but...  I just bought three 64 bit Xeon processors
today.  (One single processor system, one dual processor system.)

Personally, I think software bloat is overrated.  For many things, I can
not tell the difference between a Pentium 3 and an Athlon 64.  Both are
fast enough for normal GUI use that processor tends to stay idle.

Here are a few things I do that make me appreciate my processor and RAM:

Using portage and gentoo or BSD/ports.  Downloading, compiling and
building is fast enough to be comparable to finding the right package on
the web and installing via a package manager.  On an older machine, this
would take way too long.

Analyzing video or heavy duty graphics processing.  Thats what the
machines I bought today are for.  Having 12GB of RAM is not something I
value highly enough to purchase today, but it was worth a few dollars to
keep the option open as RAM prices move downward.

My own builds.  Less time spent watching the compiler == more code I can
write.

Actually, that list was a lot shorter than I expected it to be.

Mike

> 	As an example, I have a USB P5 glove interface, and 3D videocards. 
> Like the P5, shutter-glasses are $20 from various vendors -- but where is 
> my virtual reality? Not much other than a few demos and examples and 
> press-releases.
> 
> 	I think that a Palm Pilot has enough computing power for surfing, 
> email, and systems administration. Software is so bloated today, where we 
> need a 3Ghz machine with 2 gigs of RAM to do the same things we all did 10 
> years ago on our 90Mhz pentiums -- with little innovation, save a few 
> bells and whistles.