the empty calorie

I found it ever easier to just replace windows completely, rather than dual boot. If I REALLY want to run windows, I'll run VMware. But no thank you, i don't need windows. Microsoft is unwilling to adapt to our revolution, we dont want them, we don't need them!

First, some clarification. The PS2 is a 64-bit system. the Nintendo GC is a 64-bit system. The Xbox is a 32-bit system. All the new systems being released are 64-bit systems. Now, let's go on...The Xbox 360 may have all the hullabaloo going on, but that will shortly die. I'm hearing about how people are going "ooh wireless controllers on the 360" and blah, but really, who isn't coming out with wireless controllers? Only difference is, it's standard on all the new systems coming out, except the 360. You must either buy the "full xbox 360" for ridiculously more than the dummied-down coresystem that most people will get. Besides, most people are just going to get the coresystem, and not the "full xbox 360" and they will be a bit disappointed to see that this time, the hard drive isn't included. There are controllers with wires in the box! You won't be able to play your regular Xbox games without add-on components! Not to mention that the 360 doesn't have the power under the hood that the PS3 will have, I don't think the xbox is going to do so well..sounds a lot to me like the Sega Dreamcast...it has the holiday hype, but what's going to happen when Sony releases their more powerful console, with the better features INCLUDED? The same thing that happened to the Dreamcast. Everyone completely forgot about it, even Sega, even though it has pretty advanced features for the time. Now as far as PS3 is concerned, It's a more powerful system than the 360, and typically, Sony does get much better games for their systems that Microsoft has, but really, I think the best system would be the new Nintendo. How many people are already addicted to the classic library of Nintendo games? Not to mention, Nintendo has done a LOT more with their system than the others have. Others have just added horsepower and storage, for the most part, while here is Nintendo, coming through with motion-sensitive controllers and other technologies that the other's didn't even dream of during development. When in-store demos start showing up, the Nintendo system will be the one making everyone ooh and ahh just like the very advanced (at the time) Nintendo 64 did when everyone was dropping there jaws just hearing Mario speak, and jumping down three-dimensional green pipes..Anyone can throw more power into a system, but only Nintendo has the magic to make their systems really do what no others have done. Nintendo is far from dead. Nobody else can do what they do for video games.As for the PC...dime-a-dozen, specifications will vary between systems, keyboard and mouse doesn't give you anywhere NEAR the control of a fine analog controller, or Nintendo's motion-sensing controllers. Nintendo always has had the most comfortable controllers...Now, me, if I get any new system, it will be the Nintendo. It pains me to say that in a way, because in the early 90's, during the great holy wars between SNES and Genesis users....I was a Sega kid. Video games just lost my interest after Sega quit making consoles, but a Nintendo that can play all the NES games and SNES games??? I won't even buy the new games if I don't like them. It would be nice to find all my Sega games on one too, but I don't see that happening.

Okay, now this is a bit...I don't even know what to call it. Someone was saying that before windows, nobody but scientists and such were using computers? That's not true. It didn't take a scientist to use an Apple II. It wasn't really THAT difficult to use CP/M, either, nor was DOS that hard. Sure, with the Apple II, you had to learn to type in such "difficult" commands, such as LOAD and RUN. Mine came with all these cool books from Apple that told you in plain, understandable terms, how to use your computer. They even came with manuals for programming in Applesoft BASIC, targeted at the average joe that had never used a computer in their life. Back then, if you wanted a computer, you had better learn how to use it. That same fact of life is still true, although most buyers of computers aren't really trying to learn. From what I've observed, people have a much easier time learning DOS. There are exceptions, mainly people who have never used anything but Windows itself. People that have a hard time using Windows as it is (I'm talking about someone I know), and when they wonder how I even managed to play some cool game on their old computer that they haven't played in years, and would love to play again, and want to learn how to run the game, I tell them the three VERY SIMPLE things they would need to do.DIRCD MONKEYMONKEYI showed them that over a year ago, and to this day, that person still can't get Monkey Island to run on their computer. Now, I myself can't see anything that is stopping them, other than their ability to remember very short, easy commands. Once again, if you want a car, you had better learn to drive. Using a computer is no different, and I need not even comment on the poor documentation included with Microsoft products...that when a person wants to do something, and can't figure out how, they consult Help, which says to them on the screen, stuff like "make sure your monitor is turned on and plugged in."

Intel D850MV Motherboard, 850/ICH2 chipsetPentium IV 1.7GHz256M RDRAM40G Hard DriveATI Rage128 32M

This thing looks pretty cool...Although I don't know what I would use it for either. Maybe a DIY MP3 player or something, possibly a portable game system, I'm not sure.But what exactly is XScale? That's a processor family I've never heard of.

Well, I haven't had the best of luck...there's not really a good way to access my site, because I'm using dynamic IP, and NAT I believe..Am I stuck or is there something I can do?

I am running OS 9 on my iMac G3, and I am also running OS X 10.4-Tiger on two other computers. I do wish I had an older SE/30 or something to run System 7 on, though. I'd like to use MacPaint.

Heh, Sony didn't want to do it on their own, so they turned to OSS...Sony is a REALLY funny company...Sony also owns Columbia...who has said before that they really want to put a stop to people "stealing" music, but yet, under their own brand, are selling the hardware, the blank media, and the software to do all these things that movie and record companies (like Sony/Columbia) don't want us doing.

Linux I am not sure about, but I do know that UNIX is entirely written in C, and I'm willing to make a safe bet that Linux itself is also written in C.Writing a distro seems to be more about packages included and the package management used than actually altering the source code. If I was going to creat a distro, I'd basically end up creating another Slackware.

Oh wow...must be one of the Model 1's or something...Anyways, I've seen that the source code for CP/M has been put up...I figure it might be kind of interesting, if I knew completely what I was doing, to modernise CP/M. I got the chance to play with CP/M-86 a bit, and boy, did I like it much better than DOS. Wish I still had my IBM XT laying around.

I know there is a port of Slackware to the IBM S/390 Architecture..I myself would be more inclined to use BSD if possible. That would be nice, OpenBSD running on a system with about 1024 POWER5 processors..

I don't mean based-on, I mean itself. TRS-DOS or NEW DOS on your TRS-80 would count. And I wasn't trying to include PC-DOS..Hey, what model of TRS-80 is it, anyways?

Just because I'm curious...Does anyone here still use CP/M?If so, what do you do with it? I've been toying with the idea of putting some CP/M software on a disk and using my CP/M-86 bootdisk to run it, but I have no CP/M software, and don't really know what's good.Or how about this, does anyone here still use anything that predates PC-DOS?

I have Debian 3.1 running on a Pentium-S 133MHz machine with 64MB RAM. I use it to store my videos and music and play them. Works just fine for me. A 466Mhz Celeron, but, as it is a Dell, some funny hardware you have may not work (mainly soundcard and modem). I wouldn't worry about your graphics card. There is always the VESA framebuffer, although my Trident PCI card with 2MB RAM is actually supported by Xorg/Xfree86. As long as you've got at least a 486, you should be fine. And a lot of people in here I've noticed seem to think 4MB RAM on a video card is old...I'm holding a 1 MHz MOS 6502 processor in my hand as I type this. And I don't even really consider that old. It's not old unless it has vacuum tubes.

Debian 3.1 (sarge) is pretty damn zippy on my P133 system using its own kernel. If you're just building a media storage box, you don't really need much. Just don't try installing KDE or GNOME and you should be okay. Debian is nowhere near as sluggish as SuSE. SuSE doesn't really give you a much of a choice on what to install, debian is a lot more customisable than SuSE on installation, and you do have the option to just install the base system and grab only the things you need. SuSE installs KDE or GNOME, and whatever other junk Novell wants to throw in, whether you like it or not.And by the way, xboxrulz, what is your definition of a "slow" machine? Something with a 1GHz processor will have plenty of power to play and store movies and music. If I have a P133 doing the same things with Debian as we speak (I'm watching SLC Punk on it right now), I wouldn't say that a computer with a processor nearly ten times faster is going to struggle with running Debian for doing the same tasks. X, TWM, ALSA, XMMS, XINE, BitTorrent, what more do you really need? That's not really a big load for a computer with the specs he posted.

Speaking of RTOS...I keep hearingthat you can get a free copy of QNX RTOS from QNX, as long as it's intended for non-commercial use, but I've had a hard time finding this. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I've never used an RTOS before.

I'd love to get a hold of one of these dual-core systems...I'd take it over the Intel Developer box..for now at least. Or maybe just to say "This is the last PPC Power Mac model that was made" for historic purposes.

I myself am a Vonage subscriber, and I'm kind of dependant on using it to talk to my girlfriend, who lives in another country than I. Other than when I have torrents downloading or such, the sound quality is actually just as good as the normal telephone lines here, and has no delay that I've noticed, other than while big downloads are going on one of the computers. I have had it for about six months and have been very pleased with the quality (and the price as well).

Well, I can't see why I'd even want to hide my source code. Besides, when they take the code, the'yd have to modify it, otherwise it's basically a mirror of your site...once they modify the code, it's not your code anymore, so what's the big deal?

I just thought of something...I do have two running darwin-x86 systems that already have httpd...how would i use that?

I wouldn't go on saying that....I've actually been able to exchange hardware between my PPC macs and my x86 machines. THink about it....Macs have AGP, and PCI slots, maybe even PCI express on the new revised powermacs with dual dual-core G5 processors..I sure wouldn't mind swiping one of those, but the X86 mac is going to be badass, as is usual of Apple hardware, and it will for sure make any dell look anemic comparing features between a PowerMac and a Dell, or whatever PC. Runing OS X on anything but a Mac would kind of cheapen the experience for me. I'm running it on a Pentium IV computer. It's cool, but it still doesn't do it for me. Next computer I buy will be an Apple.

Good, good...I will hav to give this a try.. Also, I've wondered, what about if I want to serve FTP as well, would lighttpd also serve FTP, or is there something else I would want to use as well? Figure maybe I can use it like a portable/public access hard drive.

Really, BeOS is a lot better with media...I've really never seen anything run as smoothly under lots of stress as BeOS. But, Linux is quite nice...I myself still prefer BSD, though. Anyone here ever manage to get their hands on a BeBox?

I would just go for the Playstation 2's Linux kit. Gives you SVGA output and a keyboard. I think it would be kind of a treat running linux on the MIPS processor inside the PS2.. I would absolutely love just having a Linux-equipped PS2 as a computer...Looks much better than a beige box..a lot smaller too.

I myself, would try a net-install of debian, and just get the basics thorugh apt, like ALSA and XMMS, XINE, and X server and some lightweight window manager like Windowmaker, and that will take up a relatively small footprint on your hard disk. I'm in the process of doing the same myself with and old Pentium 133 machine, and so far, it's worked just fine for me.