#New computer
46 messages in this thread
> >>Also sounds very expensive.<<
> $1600 for a basic machine is not expensive at all.
I think I was replying to Steve's "what does this sound like…" message that
had the spec but not the price. That price sounds good for a machine with that
spec although I would like to know what software is avaialble and how expensive
that is likely to be.
By the way, do you know how two 60MHz Power PC processors are likely to compare
in performance with one 120 MHz Pentium?
Peter Wade
Autopiloting from London, England
>>By the way, do you know how two 60MHz Power PC processors are likely to
compare in performance with one 120 MHz Pentium?<<
Since a Pentium is running Windoze, very possibly far greater. Depends on the
efficacy of the task distribution, really.
Mr. Zombie
> Since a Pentium is running Windoze, very possibly far greater. Depends
> on the efficacy of the task distribution, really.
If I owned a Pentium it would spend some of its time running a sane operating
system, probably one of the freeware unix lookalikes like Linux or NetBSD. As I
understand it the Power PC is a RISC chip which means that it should complete
most operations in a single clock cycle, but each operation would achieve less
that the more complex instructions of the Pentium. I don't know which would win
when it comes to actually getting things done.
Peter Wade
Autopiloting from London, England
Paul,
A 60 mhz PPC is *very* comparable to a 60 mhz Pentium, IF the PPC has a
decently designed cache system attached.
Given the above…
For applications that are single threaded, in other words that use only
processor: Running one program, the 120 mhz pentium would get the job done
about 2x as fast as the dual PPC/60. For apps that are threaded AND the threads
get a decent amount of synergy going, it is possible – though unlikely – that
the app will run almost as fast as the Pentium/120. For two separate apps, both
using the CPU 100% of the time, the PPC should meet and possibly beat the
performance of the Pentium/120.
FWIW, I can't see this machine (the "be") getting anywhere, cost or no.
Unfortunately.
Ben Williams – For Black Belt Systems
World Wide Web Pages: http://www.blackbelt.com/blackbelt/bx_top.html
Ben-
>>A 60 mhz PPC is *very* comparable to a 60 mhz Pentium, IF the PPC has a
decently designed cache system attached.<<
Hasn't Motorola given a real speed boost to the 603 recently? If that's the
model they're using, I'd expect each PPC to be more like a 75MHz Pentium, if
not a bit more.
Mr. Zombie
Yes, the 603 is a bit faster, and a 620 faster yet – but at the price they're
asking for this machine, my *guess* is that it's a 601.
Ben Williams – For Black Belt Systems
World Wide Web Pages: http://www.blackbelt.com/blackbelt/bx_top.html
>>but at the price they're asking for this machine, my *guess* is that it's a
601.<<
Nope, twin 603 CPUs. I read through the whole Acrobat file.
Mr. Zombie
>Yes, the 603 is a bit faster, and a 620 faster yet – but at the price they're
asking for this machine, my *guess* is that it's a 601.<
Nope. The 603 is slower running 68040 emulator and cheaper than 601. The cheap
IDE Performa 5200 has a 603. I can remember vaguely that 603 is power-wise as
well, for portables & PowerBooks, but not *faster* than 601. The 603e is a
different story. The PowerPC 620 is the speed demon, but you have to pay for
that! The PowerPC 604 is the good deal.
The 601 is just the first one, a prototype with room for improvement (603, 604,
620)
It makes a lot of sense twin 603 with the OS and price of this machine.
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
>>The 603e is a different story.<<
Well, that's the question, isn't it? I don't understand the need for power
management in a desktop system, though. Nice, but I'd rather have speed.
Mr. Zombie
Paul
There is a couple of FAQs in their www site really informative about all Be
features, including the reason for having 5 ISA slots. Really cool!
We could talk about the BeBox with a deeper knowledge about what we're talking
about… B-)
Do you want me to upload them?
Best regards
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
Ben,
<FWIW, I can't see this machine (the "be") getting anywhere, cost or no.
Unfortunately.>
Why not?
Asha
@}–,–`–
Asha,
Bear in mind this is only my opinion, not a pronouncement of fact. I don't
claim to have any facts here. 🙂
I made that statement because there is no software for the machine. Without
software, it's not useful. If it's not useful, it won't catch on. Software
takes significant time to develop, or even to port.
In fact, a machine has to be VERY useful to catch on.
The price is low, I'll grant you that – but then again, I can get a 75 mhz
Pentium for about 1700 bucks right now, and dropping fast. And I can get a raft
of software for it, so it's massively useful.
To get software developers on board this thing – just as for the NeXt, the
Amigas, the Ataris, Windows NT machines – there has to be a perceived market
available for the developers to sell INTO, or the only developers you're going
to get are going to be either (a) new and inexperienced, (b) been around but
have no infrastructure to risk and so unlikely to succeed anyway, or (c) funded
by the manufacturer of the hardware so there is no risk (except the added
burden on the manufacturer, of course). Big name, machine-selling products will
be scarce to nonexistant.
We (my company) make software for four versions of Windows NT, the Amiga OS,
Win 3.1 and Win 95. Care to guess where over 97% of our sales for the last
quarter have been? Win31, of course. Win95 looks like it's beginning a strong
roll, not surprisingly – it's highly compatible, unlike NT (because Microsoft
hasn't seen fit to upgrade the RISC NT emulations to enhanced mode) and so has
a huge resource base of software available already, it's inexpensive, and it
offers a number of perceived benefits to the end user. Win NT is dead in the
water except for a few diehards who absolutely need the processing power of an
Alpha. MIPS & PowerPC (NT) software sales are so thin as to be non-existant for
us, and I suspect this is the case for most developers. Why in the world would
a user buy a PowerPC or a MIPS when they can get an Alpha that will run the
tail off those systems for similar machine costs? Beats me. Alphas are so fast
they make ALL the other CPUs look like slugs. Even so, those machines are rare
birds.
There you have my thoughts on the matter, FWIW.
Ben Williams – For Black Belt Systems
World Wide Web Pages: http://www.blackbelt.com/blackbelt/bx_top.html
Ben,
You said and I quote:
>>Bear in mind this is only my opinion, not a pronouncement of fact. I don't
claim to have any facts here. 🙂
I made that statement because there is no software for the machine. Without
software, it's not useful. If it's not useful, it won't catch on. Software
takes significant time to develop, or even to port.
In fact, a machine has to be VERY useful to catch on.<<
If it is for a general purpose microcomputer, yes. I would have to agree with
that statement. However, based on the preliminary information shared here, I
can see that this platform may have excellent potential, as part of an embedded
system. Indeed, I can think of several applications where it may do well…
Regards,
John Chang
>I made that statement because there is no software for the machine.<
No software, but the mother of software. (oops). I mean CodeWarrior.
It's not that bad…
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
Ben,
<I made that statement because there is no software for the machine. Without
software, it's not useful. If it's not useful, it won't catch on. Software
takes significant time to develop, or even to port.>
That's a really good point. I'm wondering why they're having the big
release without any software then. That doesn't make any sense. I read
elsewhere that the machine has been in development for five years. If that's
the case, then why isn't there any software? Even the Amiga had a few pieces
here and there when it rolled out.
Asha
@}–,–`–
<<No, I haven't heard of the BeBox. Where did your hear about it, and what's
the buzz? what is it and what does it do?>>
PMFJI Computer Reseller News (Mainstream for dealers – Microsoft, Intel and
Macs) dated October 9 devotes their Opinion/editorial page to the Be. Two
articles. The first one entitled "I'm Impressed Now, But … " describes the
Introduction of the Be as "impressive and exciting" and says that the BeBox
"drew a standing ovation at the Agenda conference from a crowd of some of the
most skeptical and high-level executives to gather in this industry". But the
writer seems to have doubts because "its future depends more on channel
marketing than on technical glamour"
The other article is entitled "Think We'll Ever Get A $500 PC?" The writer
spends a good part of the article pointing out why we will never get one from
Intel/Microsoft. He talks about what would make it possible and then says "…
Can it be done? It has already been done. It was called the Commodore Amiga.
With an installed base of tens of millions ——- Commodore's Amiga DOS was
its own, and, many still believe, superior to anything from Redmond (or
Cupertino). But Commodore went bankrupt. Can someone else break through and
succeed? I recently saw something called the BeBox and it blew me away.
——– Could this be the answer? Listen carefully. The drums are beating."
I, like Chris, thought the whole thing was a joke when I read the first
announcements. It is an interesting world.
Nick Rahal – Infotronics Inc.
One of Newteks Top Ten
Ben,
While I respect your opinion (hmmm, gotta move this thread to Soapbox), it is
filtered through your marketplace, products, and experience. For example …
The company I work for, C4 Imaging Systems, does not have an NT or a Win31 or
a Win95 product. We do have products that are NeXTStep based, Solaris based
(front ended by Mac 8500s), and (for sale mostly in Germany) DOS based.
Last month we sold 30 units of our NeXTStep product. We didn't sell 1 NT
product (because we don't have one and there has been no demand for one). You
say "30? Big deal" … well, the package goes for $200k a pop.
It all comes down to market. If you're selling shrink wrap product, the mass
market OS/hardware is what will sell. If you are selling turnkey solutions,
the OS/hardware makes no difference as long as it gets the job done. NeXTStep
has fantastic development tools (and Objective C is a h*ll of a lot nicer to
use than C++).
Whether the BeBox, the new Amiga, or any other product will succeed in the
marketplace can't be predicted accurately from either your experience or mine.
MicroSoft (with Cairo) is moving to where NeXTStep has been for years
(distributed objects) and where Be, Inc. says they are now (objected oriented
OS). Microsoft is, as usual, playing catchup. They sell shrink wrap well …
that doesn't mean that no one else can compete and succeed.
-Steve Ahlstrom
Steve,
I agree that the be, NeXtStep and etc can succeed in the venues you're talking
about.
I was, as you intimated, speaking from the perspective of success as to general
popularity – something I think/thought the Amiga community in general aspired
to, certainly something *I* wanted for the Amiga.
I tend to think that very few people here are in the market for $200k/unit
software packages – and by extension, I was speaking to the majority. 🙂 I do
recognize there are excpetions.
I also think that if Be or whoever are marketing niche product, then again, by
the very definition of the word, they aren't competing with MS. They're not
offering the same product and/or services, and so the odds of people here
having a Be "rather" than a something-else later down the road are slim to
none. They're going to want applications, and you know as well as I do that for
the general computer user, they're not going to be there.
Ben Williams – For Black Belt Systems
World Wide Web Pages: http://www.blackbelt.com/blackbelt/bx_top.html
Asha,
The $1600 price tag they are touting is without HD and RAM. In their web page
they say a 16 megs of RAM is a good place to start, which would bring the cost
of the computer (without monitor) up to about $2500. Sounds to me like they
are reinventing the PC.
Visit http://www.be.com/ They do have a nice page.
Best, Jim
Jim-
>>16 megs of RAM is a good place to start<<
Well, it is a RISC machine, so it needs more RAM, and I guess there's some
overhead for the multi-processing, too.
Mr. Zombie
Mr Z,
<<Well, it is a RISC machine, so it needs more RAM, and I guess there's some
overhead for the multi-processing, too>>
Nice to see the Be is not interested in JoeUser. A $3000 system will not
intice the mainstream for a lookysee. I guess I'm hoping someone will give me
the bigger picture.
Speaking of the mainstream, a friend of mine picked a note off one of the
newsgorups compiling some calls to tech support for new PCers. One caller put
the mouse under their big toe without the results they had expected :-/ Maybe
$3000 is reasonable.
All explainations welcome.
Jim
Jim-
>>A $3000 system will not intice the mainstream for a lookysee.<<
True enough. But what can they do? RISC needs more RAM. True, a RISC Amiga,
if it were designed true to the Amiga philosophy, wouldn't, but then again,
even minimum workable system requirements for the Amiga are rising, and if it's
modernized, they'll rise again.
My guess is they'll sink beneath the waves unless they can get some good, cheap
vertical applications quickly. Which is too bad.
My other guess, unlike Dale's, is that unfortunately there will be no sharp
break in architectures any time soon. Rather, as is already happening,
industry consortiums will define evolutionary steps which motherboard makers
etc follow, and over time, the PC will change and lose some of its oldest
baggage.
Maybe when/if some radically new processory technology, maybe all that light
stuff they're working on, comes out, it might trickle down and spark a big
jump. (to mix my metaphors <g>)
>>One caller put the mouse under their big toe without the results they had
expected<<
WHAT!? Oh man, that's rich. Why did he put the mouse under his big toe?
Mr. Zombie
Mr. Z
<<WHAT!? Oh man, that's rich. Why did he put the mouse under his big toe?>>
Did you pick up on my attempt to be politically correct? The caller was a
female that likened the mouse to the foot feed on her sewing machine. I
suppose I'd better throw in the story about a guy that held a document up to a
computer screen and couldn't figure why it wouldn't send the fax when he pushed
the send button.
Jim
Jim-
>>Did you pick up on my attempt to be politically correct?<<
Yah, I was just being stubborn.
A sewing machine!? Sheesh.
Mr. Zombie
That's as bad as the caller asking where the "any" key was when the
software said "Push Any Key to Continue". 🙂
MOS via Autopilot & Amiga
James,
<The $1600 price tag they are touting is without HD and RAM. In their web page
they say a 16 megs of RAM is a good place to start, which would bring the cost
of the computer (without monitor) up to about $2500. Sounds to me like they
are reinventing the PC.>
You may be right, and if you are, and PC aps don't run on this system, then
they're probably not going to get too far with it, especially with no software
to intice customers.
But the system intrigues me, and I plan on following the information to see
what happens. Could be interesting! 🙂
Asha
@}–,–`–
Asha,
<<and PC aps don't run on this system, then they're probably not going to get
too far with it, especially with no software to intice customers>>
Flash!! More news from the net. Talk of Clone and Mac emulator cards for the
Be. Why not buy an already supported machine?
I still kind of like the thought of Mr. Bill (Gates) making somewhere less than
a billion next year. Let the Be run it's course ;^)
Jim
>I still kind of like the thought of Mr. Bill (Gates) making somewhere less
than a billion next year. Let the Be run it's course ;^)<
Yeah! I'm with you!
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
James,
<Flash!! More news from the net. Talk of Clone and Mac emulator cards for the
Be. Why not buy an already supported machine?>
If I were about to by a brand new machine, the LAST thing I'd want to do is
stick a Clone or Mac card in the darned thing. If I wanted to run those
programs, I'd buy a clone or a Mac. I don't….so I won't…
Looks like my first idea (buy a 4000T/060 and run with it) is still the
sanest idea for now….;/
Asha
@}–,–`–
Asha,
<< Looks like my first idea (buy a 4000T/060 and run with it) is still the
sanest idea for now….;/>>
I would even let the next generations of Amigas use PC components (Risc chips,
video boards, sound cards and so on), as long as the OS was as logical and
stable as Amigados. Messy dos seems to be a hack on a hack on a hack. All the
pentium chips in the world still can't make the envoirnment user friendly.
Sorry, still having trouble picking up that lemming attitude. Though it's hard
to pick on something so well supported.
Best Jim
> Though it's hard to pick on something so well supported.
I believe it's easy to pick on them. Their support comes from their propaganda
machine. When they tell you to choose between a $1,000.00 clone or a multi-
thousand dollar Mac/Amiga/Atari…
What they DON'T tell you is that $1,000.00 clone also needs _ADDITIONAL_ 32
Megs RAM, a sound card, a graphics card, etc., to match any of the other
choices. Then, when you find out that software packages cost 1-1/2 to 3 times
that of other platforms, and it takes up 2 to 10 times the storage space…
Yea, I can still knock the clone. It's just TOO easy.
Wolf Pup
— Howlin' in the Waves…
>You may be right, and if you are, and PC aps don't run on this system, then
they're probably not going to get too far with it, especially with no software
to intice customers.<
They seem to be trying to invite Insignia to port their SoftWindows.
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
<<They seem to be trying to invite Insignia to port their SoftWindows.>>
How well does that SoftWindows work, anyway? Is it any faster than PC Task
and e586 Emplant as far as 486 emulation, Windows, games, etc? I thought about
getting it for my Mac Emplant at one time.
Waiting till Motorola decides to release that 68060.
Chris Shepard: 030/50 A2000 with Toaster 4000 & MacIIfx via Emplant.
Asha,
>>You may be right, and if you are, and PC aps don't run on this system,<<
I wonder if they're going to come out with a Bridgeboard? Hmmmn…
Marion Deland
CROSSINGS – Newsletter for Amiga/PC/Mac compatibility
Marion-
>>I wonder if they're going to come out with a Bridgeboard? Hmmmn…<<
A 132MHz Pentium bridgeboard for $150 would be just fine by me. <G>
Mr. Zombie
Marion,
<I wonder if they're going to come out with a Bridgeboard? Hmmmn…>
If this new BeBox thing turns into an "Amiga-like" machine but with no
software (at least now), then it isn't going to go too far very fast (at least
in my humble opinion).
My own feeling is that if you want to run clone software, get a clone, they
aren't that expensive and emulation is never as good as running native aps. Of
course if it's only a program or two, that's a different story, but we're
talking about most software right now, since there aren't any native aps.
I don't know…I think it's too early to make any real calls.
Asha
@}–,–`–
Yep, it's too early to tell how much a success the BeBox machine will be
considering it's lack of software. But we can sure have fun with our
imaginations! Look at it this way, Be Inc. has the hardware, what we wished the
Amiga would evolve to eventually. AT has the software, AmigaDOS plus all the
applications that run with it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if AT contracted with
Be Inc. to port the OS over to their new machine. I doubt it will happen but
it's something to dream about.
// John (Warp 4040 & ShapeShifter Quadra 840)
\X/ jgager@BMI.NET
John,
<Wouldn't it be wonderful if AT contracted with Be Inc. to port the OS over to
their new machine. I doubt it will happen but it's something to dream about.>
Yes, it would be wonderful, but it doesn't have to be AT that does it! AT
has said that they are willing to licence. So if someone (some company, group
of programmers…) wanted to, I'll bet they could licence the OS for the
purpose of porting it to the Be Box. Just a thought….:)
Asha
@}–,–`–
Jim,
www.be.com is kind of a nice web site I've only been there a few minutes and
I've been quite informed about the BeBox and had some really good laughs.
..later, after looking through a lot of stuff at the Be web site…pretty sexy
machine really. Looks like a, potentially, fine group running it. Nice screen
shot. It's kind of a cross between Mac/Amiga/OS2/WinEver/XWindows.
Hmm. They've got some good ideas, but I'm really starting to think the Wintel
platform has made it's, unfortunate, place in world computing.
Buying a Be box sounds at the outset like buying a new 'Power'ful Amiga, but
they do have alot of integrated stuff that Escom/AT just won't be able to do
for a few years. Or at least that's thier claim. Like the integrated database
etc.
We'll see.
Later,
Robb
>>Why not?
For the primary reason there will never be an Amiga in every home and office.
Because… "is it IBM compatible?"
The only people who really care about whiz-bang specifications and great
operating systems have Amigas and Macs and whatnot… like us on this forum.
And we can't understand why not everyone has an Amiga… we blame Commodore.
But Apple has always had great marketing… and are they winning the PC
battle? No.
As much as I would love to see a non-IntelSoft machine with fancy specs and a
nice feel to it take over (it is my dream…) it is still only a dream.
Although many BeBox, Amiga, And Mac computers may continue to sell, combined in
numbers they are unlikely to match PC clones in sales for MANY years, like a
decade or two more of computer evolution.
But have hope, eventually all dinosaurs become extinct.
Ian
>But have hope, eventually all dinosaurs become extinct.<
Think about this. Is it possible the $500 PC? Not with Intel & Micros***
THAT is the point to exploit.
Rafa <Motorola Inside> from Berlin, thanks to AP1.80
>…olive oil is the way to go.<
Ian,
> But Apple has always had great marketing… and are they winning the PC
battle? No.
The Mac's problem isn't marketing OR software support. It's got both. There
were a couple of problems with this machine.
1) When the Mac first came out, it was a marvel. Unfortunately, everyone
thought it was a toy because it didn't have a keyboard interface:
"What's an icon? And what's a mouse used for. It's a toy." (Sound
familiar?)
2) Macs were just too expensive. You could get a clone or Apple II for
"relatively" cheap. A Macs was VERY expensive for the quality with its closed
architecture and _SMALL_ black & white sceen Granted, the PC only had 4
colors, but that's more than the original Macs.
The Amiga, on the other hand, had a GREAT product for a VERY competitive price.
I remember a salesman trying to push a @ 5,000+ PC over a $ 2,000 Amiga because
"You don't need everything that computer can do."
Just a couple of thoughts. (I DID like Macs when they first came out.)
Wolf Pup
— Howlin' in the Waves…
>>But Apple has always had great marketing… and are they winning the PC
battle? No.<<
Between some of their definite blunders and the pissant little toy they started
with, they blew it. I think they had a small chance to actually dethrone the
clone, not that their machines are such great shakes anyway, but compared to
clones…
Mr. Zombie
Ian,
<Although many BeBox, Amiga, And Mac computers may continue to sell, combined
in numbers they are unlikely to match PC clones in sales for MANY years, like a
decade or two more of computer evolution.
But have hope, eventually all dinosaurs become extinct.>
I'm counting on it! 🙂
Asha
@}–,–`–