[geeks] Wooh - Mac OS X.2

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 10:06:27PM -0500, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> The dev. kit is part of the OS on 6.5.x, and is available for free for
> previous versions of the OS.  GCC sucks, but it is usable if you can't
> afford MIPSpro.

I'm highly worried about the compatibility problems I hear about.
 
> > Or, for $900 to $1100, I can buy an older G4 with OSX, and while the
> > graphics won't be as meaty, the compiler will be free, and the
> > development kits are far nicer from what I've seen,
> 
> To each their own.  POSIX.1 with X11 suits me fine.  What more do you need
> that you isn't available for free?

You obviously haven't paid too much attention to many of the things
I've talked about doing.  That's OK.  I'm the guy who would really be
pushing the video and disk systems of any machine I purchase.  I
stream video through GL textures.  Turn pictures to colored vertexs,
load 30 megs models and want to work on the interactively.  I apply
linear algebra in strange ways to colors, and want all of it in
realtime.  I want my own inferno[1] on a budget.  I want to quickly
prototype ideas, then combine them together into larger usefull
programs. 

Well for starters, good video apis.  dmedia seems OK, but from I've
seen quicktime and the carbon classes are far nicer.  Of course,
either is a far cry better than linux at the moment (OpenML should
change that, if it ever arrives).

All the pieces are available for free.  But the idea is to save time
so I can focus on the cool stuff, not on adding one more picture or
video codec to my program.

> > and it will likely be a faster machine, at least for general desktop
> > use.
> 
> Perhaps.  It depends on what you run.  I have no real complaints about
> what I run, except that I could really use a second CPU if I'm going to be
> doing Postgres and compiling and coding and web-browsing and such all from
> the same machine.

I could use a second processor for processing the next frame of video
while the first one finishs up the current frame.  I could use a 2nd
processor for doing hidden surface removal while the first sends the
data to the GL card.  When I push my machine, the main process is the
main process.  There is no seperate compiling, databases[2], and web
browsing is idle.  
 
> > I'm not saying that't what I've going to do, but it does weigh on my
> > mind that it might be more practical to go with a mac over and SGI for
> > my next main workstation.
> 
> If you want Aqua and Office vX and newer versions of Adobe apps, and
> 4-byte integers are fine for you, you're probably right.  If you just want
> a tasty 64-bit Unix that no one seems to love (except for us IRIX ports
> guys!), you'll be pleasantly surprised with what a machine as (relatively)
> old as an Octane can do.

4 byte integers are fine as long as I'm not working with 32bit
floats.  Altivec really rocks for a lot of what I'm interested in, but
for a lot of it, the O2 and Octane can offload to the video
subsystem.  Both are good.  As I said before, I haven't made up my
mind.  But increasingly I want an Octane, and the cost of video IO on
it is just so so high.
 
> my primary bitch is that I can still afford neither 1600x1200 nor texture
> memory.  But, I have a Sun and a PC that have 1600x1200 framebuffers in
> them, so it's no big loss.

Texture memory could temporarily be done without.  Dual head could
make up for lack of 1600x1200.  Lack of affordable video IO is a grave
problem.  The O2s have it, but I'm feeling less confident in them
(mainly because I see fewer and fewer adequate ones, and the upgrades
are expensive).
 
> I should point out that I'm not a heavy graphics user.  I play games on
> the PC, and I like playing around with subdivision surfaces on the Octane,
> and I occasionally toss something together in GIMP, but I'm no modeler.
> I'm a data-cruncher and typesetter, so I mainly go for fat I/O pipes and
> the overall ability for the system to figuratively walk, whistle, eat
> crackers, chew gum, pat its head, rub its tummy, and recite the alphabet
> backwards simultaneously without breaking a sweat.

I am a heavy graphics user, when I have to do more than write papers,
email, and etc on my machines that is.  But, without the graphics
stuff, a SS10 or 2 would be adequate.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd

[1] Current pricing unknown, but was once a million dollar a seat
effects processing system based on the Onyx line of machines.

[2] Actually, those are always on a seperate machine anyway.