History repeats itself. Way back in the day Intel made chips with model numbers like 8086, 80286, 80386 and 80486. Since the first two numbers were the same, they decided to drop them and name the chips the 286, the 386 and the 486. They placed a math coprocessor on the 386, making it faster but more expensive. They did this for the 486 as well. Then they found that people wanted lower priced chips, so they unveiled the 386/486SX (which somehow stood for “single precision”) and the 386/486DX (“double precision”). The SX lines were literally identical to the DX lines, but the math coprocessor was broken (literally physically broken). They would then happily sell you a math coprocessor chip – to replace the one they broke for you. Sneaky? Yes, but it worked – if you weren’t concerned with speed you could save some money and then upgrade later.

When the 286 came out demand was so high Intel farmed out some production of it to a startup chip maker named AMD. After the demand settled they told AMD their services were no longer needed. Imagine Intel’s surprise when AMD started coming out with chips whose architecture mimmicked the x86 architecture. Obviously being privvy to special Intel documents gave them the knowledge needed to be able to make these cloned chips. Interestingly enough their case held up in court – the judge figured they could have made the cloned chips even without the Intel knowledge (it just might have taken longer).

AMD even named their chips the 386, 486, etc., for which they were sued again. Intel claimed they owned the copyrights for those names, but of course they didn’t have a case – you can’t very well copyright a number. Intel quickly tried to rename their chips the i386 abd i486 (“i” for Intel – this was long before the iMac) but those names never took (and wouldn’t have helped them in court anyway). Intel made the argument that the numbers were conjured from thin air and that the sequential-ness of them all was coincidence. They also made the argument that SX and DX were similarly conjured from thin air, that they didn’t stand for anything, and that the DX2 was not a “clock doubled double precision” chip. This went so far that the clock tripled 486DX chip went under the name 486DX4, not the logical 486DX3, so that they could help the name argument (and make a quick buck off those who assumed it was a quadruple speed chip).

It didn’t work – what Intel needed to do was to put their money where their mouth was and conjure up a new name for the 586, so they dubbed it Pentium – a made up word whose root was “penta-” (five). This worked – Pentium took off as a strong brand name. AMD’s 586 chip, which they dubbed the K5, looked puny in comparison. Even their quick follow-up, the K6, bombed.

AMD’s fallacy was that their chips were never as fast as Intel chips, even at the same clock speeds. This was less relevant, since AMD entries never debuted at a clock speed as high as their Intel counterparts.

Intel, meanwhile, unveiled the Pentium successor, Pentium II. They had pretty good ties to the strong “Pentium” brand, and since the greek prefix for six was “sexta-” (a “Sextium” wouldn’t have worked, they sumised), and since sequential naming got them in trouble in the past, they kept the Pentium name, following up the Pentium II with the Pentium III and Pentium IV. They also came out with another “budget” chip, the Celeron (whose name became originally became synonymous with “celery”) which was a Pentium II without cache. This was in response to a fad notion of the Network Computer – that people en masse would give up their desires to own pricey machines and instead all make do with dumb terminals. Woefully slow, they eventually gave it a limited cache and it became an attractive option for low priced computing.

Then just after the introduction of the Pentium III, AMD finally released their Athlon chip (what would have been the K7). Finally, they released a chip with a higher clock speed than an Intel chip and one who could benchmark faster as well. In addition to being marginally faster on real-world applications, it was also less expensive. Ever since then Intel and AMD have been waging a war on clock speed and price.

The other half of hating Microsoft is hating Intel, since the “Wintel” architecture is the market beast. Therefore, those who love to hate Microsoft love to love AMD and their Athlon. Me personally I went with Intel’s Pentium III two years ago when I made my system, since Athlon was untested in the market. The added cost of locating an Athlon motherboard (at the time) negated any price difference the chip provided. And I think that while Athlon has proved itself (more or less) in the marketplace, I’ll probably stick with Intel, but as my next processor purchase is down the road some, I’ll keep and eye out on both.

One of the things that would happen with the Microsoft/Intel cozy alliance was that Microsoft would find something that they thought it would be great if the processor could perform as an operation, so they would phone up Intel and suggest it. Intel would agree and place it in their next chip. Now Microsoft is happy since they have software that uses the new operation (and they are the only ones so far that know how to use it) and Intel would be happy since now the most popular software code in the world ran better on their chips. This is why in the end they let AMD do whatever without further litigation – they just figured that they could do one better next time and AMD would just keep playing catchup.

Now history is repeating itself in a few ways. The Register is reporting that AMD is naming their next athlon the Athlon XP and had curiously delayed it to hit at the same time as Windows XP. They’re also doing away with megahertz as a method of naming chips. the 1.3GHz model will be named the Athlon XP 1500+, the 1.4GHz model is named the Athlon XP 1600+, and so on. This gives the consumer the illusion of added speed, and the name change gets them all chummy with Microsoft, who probably doesn’t have a problem burning bridges with Intel. Will it work? Who knows – the economy is going to shit as we speak (both before and because of the WTC incident) and so clinging to someone who you think is going to come out alive isn’t unheard of, but this does put another fun wrinkle on which chip I should go for.

I love my Handspring Visor. It runs PalmOS and does all the neat crap I need it to do. For $150 it’s one of the more useful things I have. It’s also sturdy enough to be durable, which is more confidence than the Palm models inspire in me. And I like Handspring as a company. They make a Visor called Platinum which is a faster Visor with more memory, and a Visor called Prism which is a Platinum with color. Were I to buy a new one I would get the Prism. The other selling point to a Visor (though unused so far on my model) is the springboard – a cartridge slot with which you can expand the unit to do any number of things.

However, Handspring decided to come out with a Visor called Edge. Its gimmick was that it was slimmer than a standard Visor – so much so that you couldn’t use the springboards – the main gimmick of the Handspring line – without an adapter. It sold disasterously, most (including Handpring) believing it had to do with the fact that it wasn’t color.

Now Handspring is coming out with two new Visors, the Pro and Neo. Neo is basically the Platinum repriced and with three diffrerent translucent cases. Pro is Platinum but with 16MB of RAM, unprecedented on a PalmOS device (PalmOS can’t address more than 8MB simultaneously, so either it’s a modified PalmOS or there’s a switching trick involved). Neat, but they’e still not color. Not that I’m in the market for a new PDA anytime soon – I still hold to the notion that they’re only for organizing and my bottom-rung PDA does just fine with that – but whenever I buy a new PDA it’s going to have color. I hope Handspring figures that out and these things get affordable soon.

Got me again. I thought this Flight Simulator stuff was going too far. It is, but I didn’t know what “too far” was until now.

Oh yeah, in all the confusion I forgot. There’s a store here called “Big Lots”. Their gimmick is that they carry closeout items. They sent us an ad recently and in it they advertised the aforementioned (a long while back) Logitech iFeel MouseMan for $22. When I got this for X-Mas they were selling for $50-$60, so if you want one and you have a Big Lots anywhwere near, give them a look. I just hope this doesn’t mean that Logitech/Immersion are screwed or anything.

I guess this answers my question.

Ah shit. Yes, we know the terrorists could have trained on a flight simulator. Yes, the flight simulators have very realistic representations of major cities (which isn’t “shocking” or “chilling” at all). But are flight simulators a “problem”? I of course say no. This aforementioned article, however, implies that they could be. It also implies that flight simulators may be responsible for the WTC attack.

I’m afraid I don’t follow. Is he insisting that the terrorists got training on the program and then just re-did what they played in the game? If so, is he implying that were the computer program never to exist that Tuesday would have never happened? If so, the man is an idiot. Perhaps they would not have hit the World Trade Center, but they would have done something. The first time I ever took off in Flight Simulator 5.0 (way back in 1993 or so), I slammed my plane into the World Trade Center the first time. And the Eiffel Tower. And the Sears Tower. It’s really not that hard – pick the biggest thing around and hit it.

Dr. Bob Arnot, who is a doctor (or not), even insists that the only way the terrorists knew to hit the WTC is because it was in the game. Oh please – it couldn’t be because the WTC is the biggest landmark on the NYC skyline. By that logic he should be prosecuting postcard manufacturers. Also by that logic the press should be prosecuting the people who gave the terrorists flight training. Oh wait, they already are. Next they’ll go after the manufacturers of box cutters. At least ABC News had the intelligence to question the logic of allowing knives up to 4″ on board and not having a bullet proof door to the cockpit.

Arnot also goes on to be shocked that anyone who can afford $34.95 can learn such deadly skills. I wonder if the terrorists actually bought the software. Like with the Columbine Lawsuit, I wonder if it makes a difference if they pirated the software.

What also bugs me about the article is what Arnot won’t say. He never mentions a partuicular piece of PC software. He also never comes right out and says “they should not have made this software”, but he implies it. What he does in the article is to play on the fears and ignorance of the masses.

The final irony of all of this is that, for example, Flight Simulator is a non-violent game. Like I mentioned before the crashes in the game are unspectacular. It is literally intended to be a clinical simulation of flying a plane – which is why most gamers don’t bother with it, it’s too boring for them. Flight Simulator is also 23 years old It’s not some “new piece of software” – it started its life on the Apple ][. It didn’t even start its life under Microsoft. Flight Simulator is even used over in the Trigon at A&M to help Navy cadets learn to fly (any “real” training they need comes later). By Arnot’s line of reasoning, it could be responsible for any number of plane crashes over the years.

While Flight Simulator could have taught the pilots how to crash into the WTC, it couldn’t teach them how to hijack a plane, smuggle weapons, fake their identification, or kill people with box cutters. Neither will Counter-Strike, BTW.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. People want easy answers and the ratings go to the network that can give them. And while I appreciate the Penny Arcade response, it’s not going to dispel the myth that gamers have such a violent, knee-jerk reaction to criticism because we spend all day on murder simulators.

I guess that leads to another question – Microsoft is coming out with Flight Simulator 2002 soon. Will they take out the WTC towers? On the one hand they should – FS2002 is supposed to be as realistic as possible. However, that’s a somewhat cold way of handling it – just removing them from the game. But if they leave them in the game then it’s kinda morbid – plus it makes them more likely to suffer criticism for allowing a new version of the game to re-enact the events.

I hate to say it, but I’ve personally done this several times. I always crash my plane into buildings in Flight Simulator – it’s just easier than having to land them (which I can’t do and wind up crashing them anyway). Gamers have complained over the years that Microsoft didn’t have any “cool crashes” in the game – whenever you crash you just see your plane sitting there and the words “you have crashed” appear in the screen. Now I’m glad they made the crashes so clinical. The other thing I am glad about is that this story is not “blaming” a computer game – no more than the media is “blaming” the flight school they think the terrorists took lessons from. I’m hoping they don’t try to draw a parallel to Counter-Strike next.

Well on the one hand I don’t really have any insight or anything to say really concerning the whole terrorist bit that happened today, other than to say that I was completely terrified earlier today once more and more information came forward, feeling a sickness I haven’t experienced since the Bonfire collapse. However, I don’t want to leave the matter completely unaddressed, since that’s kinda shallow.

Therefore, I will say this much. I take great pride in the fact that here in America, when we want to, we will get you. Whenever you download an illegal MP3 or copy a video you rent, you don’t “get away” with it because you’re too good or smart to be caught, you get away with it because the authorites let you. Period. When America wants you, they get you. When the WTC was bombed back in 1993 all they had was part of the axle of the truck that exploded and they had an arrest in three days. They had Timothy McVeigh arrested within 48 hours, and dead six years later. Sometimes it takes a while, like with the Unabomber, but we will find you and we will get you.

And this is why I am thankful we have a Republican Texan in the White House who is not afraid to use force and the military to extract justice.

I just discovered that the “bug” wasn’t with the code I wrote or modified – it was with the way the data type was laid out (alphanumeric instead of date) and that it was my Boss’ fault. Frustrated at the wasted time, relieved that it wasn’t my fault, amused that it was my boss’ fault. Oh, and relieved that the deadline has been pushed back to whenever we get the stinking thing done (which will be soon but not tomorrow night).

Also, at the end of last week lots of press members were invited out to the Skywalker Ranch in LA to view/partake in the DVD for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Apparently the deal is that once midnight Tuesday rolls around on the west coast (2 AM for you Texas types) websites are allowed to post their reviews of the 2-disc set, so check on The Force or DVDFile if you’re up. On the one hand the reviews should be good – early word is that this is one fantastic transfer of the film and one hell of an offering on DVD. On the other hand, the websites are likely to criticize the film (again) and lament that it’s too little too late. In either event, it doesn’t really matter – myself and millions of others will be purchasing the DVD no matter what for the simple fact that this is freaking Star Wars on DVD – something we were always told wouldn’t be forthcoming in any way shape or form until 2006. One sixth of the way to a full set!