Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 13th Apr 2008 16:29 UTC
Every now and then, a computer comes along that makes a mark, that sets a trend, or that simply stuns you - but not because of its internals, its processor or its software, but because of its appearance. Through the history of computing, there have been a number of computers that were actually designed to appeal not just because of raw technology alone, but also because of stunning looks. Read on for a countdown of my ten most beautiful computers.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2005-07-06
I agree with people. Leaving off the Cray series is the biggest one left off the list.
I didn't see anyone talk about the Compaq Luggable http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/compaq/ Maybe not the prettiest computer in the world is stacks very well against some of Thom's using what I think is the same criteria. And talk about a pain to upgrade or work on. I think it took 4 torx different wrenches just to get to anything.
What about the IBM laptop with the "butterfly" keyboard? How did this miss everyone's list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_keyboard
Keyboard's wise. The bank I worked for (Seattle, WA area) bought 286 Olivetti computers (actually decent looking marble look) http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/m24.jpg . They were decent for 286 computers, nothing's perfect. The KEYboard I would rate 2nd to IBM's best. I used those keyboards until I moved to Macs in 2000.
I haven't seen an Apple iMac that I haven't liked. I current have the White 24" Core2Duo, a iMac Lamp (G4) and a G3 OS 9.2 Bondi blue (I think that's what it is, I'm shade challenged/color blind). All three are still used. The last by my wife's parents to check their e-mail.
I stopped getting wood building my own computers after doing so for 19 years (I started building my own in 1981 when I couldn't afford the Atari 400 and I the blood loss to prove it. Pins in circuit boards used to stick up off the boards and like needles they could go deep into your fingers and hands.
Building your own is no challenge now days. There is so little you have to worry about (other than Windows itself). You don't have to worry about soldering anything, changing jumpers, changing DIP switches, making sure the cards you put into the computer are in the only order they will work for that specific combination of accessory cards ... I could go on and on.
The only people that need any skill anymore are people upgrading Mac hard drives (iMacs and Mac Minis) and memory in general in Mac Minis.
Edited 2008-04-14 16:55 UTC