SamuraiCrow wrote:
It has USB ports for all of the above and comes with Linux on its hard drive. Whether the PS3 version of Linux is usable remains to be seen but I think that it will have the same functionality of the version of Windows Media Ceter edition on the XBox 360.
Yes, because the WMC on the 360 is perfectly usable as an OS :roll: (yes I have used it on my bro's 360). As for the PS3, woo so you can spend EVEN MORE money than the arm and a leg Sony will charge you for the console to get a USB keyboard and mouse, and do what with them exactly? I highly doubt the Linux that comes pre-installed will be made to be usable as a real end-user OS, probably more akin to the WindowsCE was it that was on the Dreamcast. In order for it to become a usable system an end-user such as myself and the majority of people who may own the console would have to wait for hackers to port something usable to the hardware.
The Cell is kind of like a C64 in the way that it deals with its local-store memory and DMA to access all of the expansion memory. It's not that much like an Amiga but it has the capabilities to kick butt for the hackers who are willing to take advantage of it.
Woo and yay for those hackers who will bother to do such things, but I doubt we'll see a 'scene' like back in the C64 or Amiga days
[/quote]Who really cares about the clones when the latest version of AmigaOS won't run on the PC anyway. AROS is good but AmigaOS is better. BTW the clones didn't stand a chance until Motorola licenced the 68000 archetecture to Intel for use in the 386 design.[/quote]
Exactly how is OS4 better than AROS? The only difference is OS4 is being made for antediluvian hardware with no forseeable upgrade path (don't anyone dare say cell-based A1, it's never gonna happen in a million ice-ages) and it's in a more finished state, purely because there is a team working on it as their job, they've been paid to do OS4, AROS developers are incredibly small in number, and only work sporadically on it because they have real life jobs/commitments, on top of which they have had to completely re-implement the OS from scratch with no access to the source code which AmigaInc think is still profitable
You've forgotten about the capabilities of the Cell processor already? It will blow the doors off of a PC for anyone willing and able to remember how to program a RAM-expanded C64 or an Intel 8086 PC with expanded memory adapter.
As I said just above Cell is not going to come to desktop computing, IBM simply have no interest in the desktop market anymore. Without the support of Apple they have no incentive to develop for a niche so small the average member of the public doesn't even know it exists. They make a mint off of embedded applications like car ECUs, industrial machinery, consoles, etc. why would they risk (no pun intended) going back into the desktop PC market? Especially with a solution as expensive as Cell processors when the OS that is about 90% of the desktop market has no intentions of ever supporting them?
Finally remember the iron law of console-Vs-PC arguments - a console will (should) outstrip PCs in terms of raw graphical and processing power when it initially arrives, and in the case of the 360 and PS3, they do, quite nicely. However, within a year, year and a half tops, the PC market always closes the gap and then shoots ahead. Already developers Bethesda Softworks have had to cut some advanced lighting effects from their latest game (Oblivion) because it was too ambitious for the 360, the particular lighting effects were also going to be available as a toggable option in the graphics options of the PC version to 'scale up' in the future, but they cut it for us Windoze users aswell to ensure complete equality between the two versions. :roll:
Consoles may have started to turn into home computers in the Commodore/Atari/Amstrad/Sinclair style but they've got a fair way to go yet before they actually become proper hybrids like the machines of the late 80s/early 90s
