Comment I don't always read, but when I do... (Score 3) 211
I am unable to understand why any sane man would spend reading time on anything but technical manuals.
Intended as a screen saver, 50 lines of code, Seagate st-251 MFM hdd, dos 3.3, AT clone with an ISA RTC - considering I was 2 at the time, not too shabby.
I do have date stamps older than I am on other machines (Like my appleIIgs's hd, or a disc pack that came outa a VAX).
Actually the turbo button was for decreasing performance so your "old" applications could run as they intended....
Just marketing got a hold of it and just like the old fridge sized IBM tape drives back in the day that were going to be designed with a "Idle" light instead were granted with a "Ready" light (remember IBM's were never..IDLE!), the "make the machine go slower button so your old stuff runs" became "Push this button and when the light comes on you're running the computer faster than if it wasn't on!"
I went through the numbers myself... they don't seem to add up very well as TFA would lead you to believe...
let's first blab about something totally unrelated---
Someone buys a Yugo and does a lot of modifications to it, another buys a stock low-mid range performance car-so something like this:
"How much money have you spent total on your car?"
Yugo boy: I spent $5,000 to buy my car, and $16,000 in modifications
Stock boy: I spent $21,000 to buy my car.
"What kind of gas mileage do you get? (in MPG)"
Yugo boy: I used to get 34MPG before I modified it, now I get 18, and I can only use high octane
Stock boy: I get 18MPG on regular 87 octane
"Compare your cars speed on a generic track with straight aways and turns, be courteous if you can"
Yugo boy: Stock boy's car is faster than mine in turns, but my car out-accelerates him in straightaways.
Stock boy: Yugo's car is faster than mine in straightaways when it's not broken down at the side of the road or if his engine doesn't hiccup, I have the edge in braking and turning.
"How do your cars do for everyday driving?"
Yugo boy: I've removed the power steering for wright and power, the ride is loud, bouncy, and stiff, but that just means I can feel and hear the road better, and if I am at a drive-through or a stop light for an excessive amount of time it might overheat.
Stock boy: I have a comfortable quiet ride with no issues, and my car is easy to drive.
"What do you do when things go wrong?"
Yugo boy: I have to fix it myself, buying any parts that broke.
Stock boy: My car is fully under warranty, and I can have almost any part that broke replaced for free, as long as it wasn't directly my fault.
"What options do you have to make your cars faster?"
Yugo boy: I am maxed out, all I could do is lessen the weight more and buy a different engine, both are extremely expensive to do
Stock boy: There are an array of bolt-ons, computer re-programmers, and other easy modifications I can do to this car to make it faster, quite a few of them don't even void the warranty.
so relating this to computer parts...
setting up 2 rigs almost the same (full atx name brand mobo with at least 2 pcie slots, radeon 5770 graphics, corsair 650watt psu, cooler master case, blu-ray reader, a dvd burner, a 1tb 7200rpm hdd), one with a core i7 920 and 3gb ddr3 1600 ram in tri channel ($1052 with a stock heatsink) and the other with a "new" core i7 875K and 4gb of ddr3 1600 in dual channel ($1062 with an aftermarket heatsink), the "modified yugo" ends up being more expensive than the stock mid range car... For me it's a no brainer, and this isn't even factoring AMD into the equation...
When we look at AMD it ends up being $670 for all the support products (same specs used, full atx brand name mobo with at least 2 pcie slots, radeon 5770 graphics, corsair 650watt psu, cooler master case, blu-ray reader, a dvd burner, a 1tb 7200rpm hdd), 4gb ddr3 1600 in dual channel, which leaves you quite a bit of money to spend on the CPU and heatsink you want, and there are a nice amount of options from $50-$310 depending on the amount of tinkering you want to do to get the performance you are looking for. (which correlates to a price range of $720-$980 without the heatsink.
So depending on the level of AMD tinkering you would want to do you could have $72-$82 differential for the high end AMD chip to spend on cooling/whatnot or if you look at the low end you could have up to $332-$342 differential between those intel options to spend on cooling/whatnot... (so you could do a nice heatsink fan/low level water setup with the high end cpu, or an all-out phase change setup with one of the bargain bin AMD chips)
So my opinion before this was announced and after it was is still the same... if you go intel, socket 1366 is the way to go, if you want a cheap capable rig, AMD has a lot to offer.
Some drastic price cutting could change my opinions though!
McMurdo's only able to sustain 1,258 residents, the vote is currently 1,440
Just as long as all you want is 96+ (and possibly a few 95's thrown in) I've had an older serial based scantool.net ELMSCAN 5 kicking around since 2003. One of the reasons I was excited when netbooks first hit was that I could buy one just to use with it just to use with it. I paid $120 for the tool back in the day, and it was well worth it then, but I think the newer usb elmscans are only going for like $60... The free software is limited, but will give you just about everything you need and is still much more.. if you need anything more, I've been really happy with the scanmaster xl software, which although not free, gives you a bunch of functionality that you don't even see in $900+ scan tools.. As far as linux based software for the elm327
if you want cheaper, there are schematics online somewhere you can use and I think there's somewhere you can pick up an ELM327 chip, you should be looking at somewhere around $25 in parts+ your time to put it together. Stay with a reputable manufacturer and/or reseller though, as the multiple clones on ebay are usually somehow made incorrectly (Sadly), even though it's such a simple design....
good luck!
When it is raining, it is because he is sad.
He once knew a call was a wrong number, even though the person on the other end wouldn't admit it.
If a monument was built in his honor, Mt. Rushmore would close, due to poor attendance.
His bear hugs are actually hugs he gives to bears.
His computer password Is unbreakable by anyone, even those who can read it-
He is-
The most interesting man in the world
etc...
Sometimes they get it right in at least one regard though (like in Dirty Harry our hero only shot 5 shots in the ending gun fight leaving 1 left for the end)
No man is an island if he's on at least one mailing list.
