Re: Dragonfly and Hyperthreading....

[Garance A Drosihn <drosih@xxxxxxx>]

At 9:51 AM -0500 2/22/05, EM1897@xxxxxxx wrote:
> You know its funny, we talk about intel like they are
> a bunch of bumbling twits,

Like all big companies, Intel has its good spells and
its bad spells.

> but the truth of the matter is that without them we'd
> all be shoveling gravel or delivering packages or
> something.

Given that I was a mainframe systems programmer before
Intel was making CPU's for personal computers, I doubt
that I would be shovelling gravel right now.  Your
mileage may vary.

> Perhaps a moment to  ponder the days of our dual-floppy
> wordstar systems, or reviewing some 6502 assembly code
> would give us a fresh perspective?

It isn't like Intel is the only company who has introduced a
new chip since 6502 days.  Innovation might have gone at a
different pace or a different direction without Intel, but
it certainly would have happened.

Motorola, DEC (alpha, which Intel bought), Sun, MIPS, HP,
and IBM have all brought significant chips to market since
the days of the 6502.  It is absurd to suggest we would
"all be shovelling gravel" if it wasn't for Intel.

You want us to "ponder history", but it seems you only want
to ponder *some* of that history.

> And while AMD is getting all the press on the Opteron,
> Intel is beating their brains out in the flash memory
> market, they've completely taken over the notebook
> market with the P-M, and AMD posted a loss last quarter.
> They know what they're doing. Its not all about who
> has the fastest processor.

I've bought three Intel-based machines, and two AMD-based
machines.  And for my next machine, I'll buy whatever is
the best deal at the time.

Every time I go to buy a new computer, I base my decision on
who has the best deal for my needs at that time.  Not five
years earlier.  Not trying to guess at some future chip.
This means I buy hardware from different companies.  This is
fine with me.  This is what keeps the competition going.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn            =   gad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Senior Systems Programmer           or  gad@xxxxxxxxxxx
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute    or  drosih@xxxxxxx