Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1996 11:08:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: Amancio Hasty <hasty@rah.star-gate.com> Cc: multimedia@freebsd.org, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Nerd Talk Message-ID: <Pine.AUX.3.91.960616105048.20662B-100000@covina.lightside.com> In-Reply-To: <199606150413.VAA00403@rah.star-gate.com>
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On Fri, 14 Jun 1996, Amancio Hasty wrote: > Hi, > For starters we don't know yet what are going to be the full specifications > for the new Sony PC. So lets pick that one up after monday when Sony > announces their product and please don't forget that they have their > PlayStation division to tap from for technology. That's true. Although I think if they did integrate anything from the Playstation, they'd need to provide, for example Windows DirectX drivers for it, otherwise I don't think ANY software would support it. > So lets deal with BeBox, whats so great about it in terms of multimedia? The OS has built-in SMP and multithreading, which is very easy to program (the OS itself is C++), allowing you to devote real-time threads to multimedia. Since the base machine has 2 CPU's, this is a big win for multimedia. Also, I expect the BeBox will eventually support one or more of the 3-D video cards entering the market, since it has standard PCI slots and already supports, for example, many S3-based SVGA cards. > Also if you already own a PC , I don't see any reason why you can > outfit your PC with the appropiate gear. S3 Virge (3d engine) , > GUS PnP, matrox meteor or suitable vga plus video capture board-- > I think Matrox has a decent combo vga + video capture. > Tapi devices are starting to rolling so if you shop around you > can probably find a decent Tapi board. My point is that you > can get a fairly decent multimedia PC. Yeah, but you end up spending $1000 or more, on top of the cost of your existing Pentium PC. The reason I'm thinking of buying a BeBox (since I mentioned it, I might as well defend myself :-) is my 486 is about as souped up as I could want. Upgrading to a Pentium would only buy me the ability to run my *existing* software a bit faster. Buying a BeBox would give me enough CPU horsepower for the next few years, combined with a brand-new architecture and brand-new C++-based OS which everyone says is very fun to program (supported by Metrowerks latest compilers). So at first, there won't be many programs, but this just means the market is more open for hobbyists to port over from UNIX and develop their own programs (no pressure from Microsoft). And at developers prices, it will cost $1000 + RAM + video card + keyboard/mouse/floppy/CD-ROM + hard drive + monitor (all standard PC components), so if I scrounge around, it's about $1500 for the whole system (without monitor). > JKH just posted that Intel is selling P200 with their Aurora motherboard > for about $1300 . Now I love to see the price projection for a > dual P200 + motherboard by next christmas 8) Yeah that is pretty impressive. Raw horsepower-wise, the PC is always the best bet. The main idea Be is banking on, that two medium-power CPU's will be cheaper than one high-power CPU (and that up to 8 high-power CPU's will be almost 8 times as fast as the top-of-the-line for power-users), applies to the Pentium and P6, but only if the OS supports it. And as of now, there is no "consumer-grade" OS to support dual-Pentiums, so the prices remained (until now) in the high-end server price range. Since FreeBSD supports SMP, that is too cool! Still, I like the idea of dual PowerPC's for $1000, and a brand-new OS, and I don't need to justify myself, after all I can say I saved $1000 by buying a BeBox and NOT buying the Amiga 4000 when it was re-released in 1995 ($2700 and that was only a 25MHz 68040!!) :-) :-) ---Jake the former Amiga fanatic :-) > Regards, > Amancio
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