@MikeB

Quote:

With regard to my writing style you might as well accept it, I don't know what to change.

OK. Here are a few tips from someone trained in communication. They can be good for all of us at times. Take 'em or leave 'em.

* When you read through your sources for quotes to support your arguments, try not to take sentences out of a context so they appear to be far more positive in support of your argument than they are.

* If you take information from a source where both platforms are covered and compared, at least try to reflect the original text in its intention: To compare and to contrast.

* Consider the quality of your sources.
- Do the statements about the PS3 come from Sony-sponsored or a Sony-owned studio?
(obviously the same goes for 360 and MS)
- Are they coming from a trustworthy source or from someone whose background you have no idea of?
- Try to find more than one source to support your claim.

* Try to stay on topic in every post. Making posts longer with irrelevant quotes or links only clouds the discussion, but in the long run people tend to notice patterns that put your arguments in a worse light.

* Do not attempt to emphasize elements in a text. It is quoted for a reason (to let people judge for themselves). If you add emphasis, add "emphasis added" or "own emphasis" as a comment.

* Provide links to your sources

* Once your post is done, read through it.
- Is it constructed to be as informative as possible?
- Are some elements not necessary to support your argument?
- Are your words chosen to tilt or slant the perception - i.e. are you being as objective as possible?

I know I haven't bothered sticking with many of those rules in these threads, because there's no point if only some do it. However, I can guarantee that I'll stick to 'em if you lot do

@jtsiren

Quote:

Here is something for you number buffs to digest (U.S. numbers)... was this already discussed?

Heh, yeah. Far more detailed numbers were up earlier

@Hannibal_Smith

Quote:

As I posted about 6000 pages ago (it seems like that!) Mike clear does not want discussion, just agreement. This behaviour is incredibly irritating, and I'm not even actively participating in this thread. I'm beginning to see where his 'rep' has come from.

OK, I don't know you, but considering this discussion doesn't actually relate to anything PS3 anymore, I will just quit this discussion, to those who wanted this to happen, congratulations. Though thanks to everyone who did add valuable input, it was most helpful!

To those who don't like this thread, I truly ask myself why did you really even bother getting involved?

My last post for this thread and maybe I will use other boards in the future. IMO this place has changed a lot and sadly not for the better (no offense to current staff and the *majority* of polite, understanding and interesting people intended).

@MikeB

It's too bad you want to quit the discussion. Either way I hope you take the advice from all sides to heart. It will serve you well in the future.

@BrianK

Quote:

Wow you're blaming Microsoft for the downfall of BeOS?

I certainly blame the fall of BeOS on Microsoft. When any of the PC companies talked about bundling it MS promptly gave them a call. MS locked Be out of the market so there was no way they could succeed.

MS didn't even fight this in court, they just paid up.

MS is a convicted monopolist on 2 continents, Be was just one of their victims.

Quote:

Again consult your history Apple's denial of allowing BeOS run on their hardware and then the inability for the 2 to merge and instead Apple buying NeXT, a failing company and to the big profit of Jobs, was more of a role then Microsoft's activity.

NeXT wasn't big but they did have some very good, mature technology. At the time they had the best application server on the market - the BBC news site was built on it. Be didn't have anything like this. Moreover NeXT had one thing Be didn't - Steve Jobs.

However Be continued for years after the Apple thing, so it didn't really have anything to do with their eventual failure.

Quote:

The egos and fights between Jobs and Gasseu are so much greater a reason why Be failed.

I don't see how this is relevant, Jobs ended the clone market then refused to give Be details of their hardware, this was for perfectly sensible reasons - BeOS was a lot more advanced than MacOS at the time and OS X was still a long way off.

If anything it did Be a lot of good since it forced them to go over to x86 where they got a lot more users. Microsoft prevented them from gaining any real traction in that market.

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Whyzzat?

Re OpenGL on PS3 Linux:

From B3D (talking about an interview with Phil Harrison on Gametrailers):


" At 5:57, he says 'Having Linux with OpenGL running on Playstation 3 is the place to do that.' You have a harddrive, embedded development tools in the platform can be made a lot easier.

At 6:20, he's asked about user created content. Phil says 2 ways. 1 is technical solutions like Linux or OpenGL or other game development enmvironment. The other is to embed that in the game experience itself. 'We support both approaches which you'll see embodied in a product and a service that will be out this year.' "

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Whyzzat?

@minator

Quote:

don't see how this is relevant, Jobs ended the clone market then refused to give Be details of their hardware, this was for perfectly sensible reasons - BeOS was a lot more advanced than MacOS at the time and OS X was still a long way off. If anything it did Be a lot of good since it forced them to go over to x86 where they got a lot more users

The failure of Be lies mainly with Be. The BeOS started 1991 to run on the BeBox using the Hobbit processor. By 94 the Hobbit looked limited and they changed their OS to run on PowerPC. There were a couple Bebox running Hobbit released internally to them but never sold. In 96 failed as Gassee expected to make an agreement with Apple to run on Apple hardware. Due to the limited PowerPC market and Apple being the only real source this forced Be to yet again change processor technologies to x86 which didn't really start being selling until late 98.

Now if you want to argue they had to fight Microsoft at this point you'd be right to a degree. The company sold ~1.5 years after their x86 release. It's unbelieveable someone would believe Be's failure was completely due to Microsoft. There was undeniable missteps and mismanagement issues in the company the first 7 years before they even got to the x86 platform. Gassee turning away from thier own Hobbit hardware went tried to work with Apple in the closed system failed. Gassee then towards x86, which really was their only option, and tried to work that even larger elephant of a closed market.

Now I'm not saying Microsoft didn't have a role. It clearly did. As did Apple who denied Be too, albeit in a different fashion. But, ultimiately Gassee owns the blame as he ran the company he was to ensure ducks were in the row. If x86 was truly their market why did they waste 6 years writing for PowerPC? By the time Be started shipping x86 they were already on a downward slide only if they met no resistence they might, and I repeat might, have made it. Had Gassee accepted the $200M offer for Be, at that time valued at $80M he wanted $400M, from Apple we might just be using BeOS today.

Last edited by BrianK on 21-Feb-2007 at 04:44 PM.

@minator

Quote:

From B3D (talking about an interview with Phil Harrison on Gametrailers):

I think that was from the DICE, right ? I saw that interview, but I got the feeling the info given was rather vague. Nobody asked a follow up question, like "is Sony working on HW OpenGL drivers for the PS3, and if so, will it include full shader support ?". Something like this.

OpenGL runs on the PS3 right now - if you enable GLX and tweak it a bit. But not HW accelerated...I am always skeptical if a top manager talks about tech details.

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AmigaOne XE G3/933/VIA/FM801/R200 (fixed),
G3SE/600/Voodoo3/Sil680/RTL8139/SBLive! (noiseless!)
µA1-MK2/G3/933/R200/CMI8738
XE/G4 (broken 7450/800)

@BrianK

Hm, it is rather obvious, that MS's common business practice is a very offensive(*) politics against the competition as soon as they consider them a thread to their core business model. Be was one victim, MS tries the same with Linux since years (BTW: Another one was GEOS, read the interview with the GEOS CEO). In case of Linux without success because they have no clear target (that's the only reason why they could not beat it yet). Usually they fight only companies they can cope with. IBM and SONY might be to serious to take on, and MS knows that (and Apple is kept alive, because they stand in their own way anyway).


(*)From OS News:

Ballmer was the bad cop, he came in and said, "Look if you don't sell or license to us, we really have to crush you, we can't afford to have a competing PC operating system". I don't think he was trying to be mean or intimidating; it was just matter of fact.

Interview with GEOS CEO from 89 or so. I am pretty sure, this was not the only incident.

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G3SE/600/Voodoo3/Sil680/RTL8139/SBLive! (noiseless!)
µA1-MK2/G3/933/R200/CMI8738
XE/G4 (broken 7450/800)

@BrianK

Quote:

The BeOS started 1991 to run on the BeBox using the Hobbit processor. By 94 the Hobbit looked limited and they changed their OS to run on PowerPC.

Hobbit didn't look limited, AT&T had decided to stop making them. Be had no choice but to change CPU.

The did start selling machines but they cost to much to make (they lost $200 per machine) and eventually gave up going instead for the Apple clone market. At the time there was a healthy clone market and Apple's OS was looking decidedly creaky.

Be jumped to x86 after Apple pulled the mat from under the clone market and stopped giving out specs to their hardware. Again Be had little choice in the matter.

Quote:

Had Gassee accepted the $200M offer for Be, at that time valued at $80M he wanted $400M, from Apple we might just be using BeOS today.

Those figures have been around a long time, has anyone ever verified them?
IIRC Gassée denied these were the figures. In any case it would have been their investor's decision, not his alone.

Many of Be's decisions were reacting to external events they had no control over, how were they supposed to know AT&T would cancel the CPU or Apple would end the clones?

If MS had not stopped Be accessing the PC market they would of had deals with major PC vendors, several were interested - including (IIRC) Dell. Nobody knows what would have happened next but given it's competition would have been Win98 and WinME...

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Whyzzat?

@MikeB

Quote:

My last post for this thread and maybe I will use other boards in the future. IMO this place has changed a lot and sadly not for the better (no offense to current staff and the *majority* of polite, understanding and interesting people intended).

That is a shame. I for one did not want this, I spent considerable effort in trying to have a meaningful conversation. It is not served by anyone pulling back. Obviously you do as you feel right for yourself.

@minator

Quote:

Many of Be's decisions were reacting to external events they had no control over, how were they supposed to know AT&T would cancel the CPU or Apple would end the clones?

Again the comment was made it was Microsoft's fault. It wasn't Microsoft that cancelled the Hobbit. It wasn't Microsoft that killed off the Apple clone market. It wasn't MIcrosoft that denied selling Be to Apple to be the next Apple OS.

Be,Inc. was making a computing solutions for clients. It appears they failed to work with AT&T and ensure any agreements so they knew the Hobbit would have a next release. It appears they failed to put any long term agreements in place with Apple ensuring a knowledgeable PowerPC clone.

But, really you're supporting my point here Microsoft isn't the reason Be failed. There were problems before they even began to take on Microsoft in the x86 marketplace. At best Microsoft competition was a last straw in the line of fumbles.

@clebin

Quote:

I just ran out of time on my Crackdown attempt after getting, precisely, 99 orbs.

Managed to beat ya ;)

I grabbed 109 orbs this time - the last one was in the very second the demo timed out.

Man I can't wait for the full game

@Trezzer

Quote:

Man I can't wait for the full game

Got it from Target on 2/20.

@Jorge

Great point. My comments should in no way be interpreted nor am I arguing MS is a fanastic company. They definitely have had and likely do have issues. But there's little denying they have done good things too.

One arguement is Microsoft's taking over the computer industry and eliminating jobs that would be there without them. Now even this is just a guess. Don't forget all of Microsoft stuff blue-screens and needs tons of work to maintain. If we had an alternative that was more stable and secure you'd likely need less people working on computers.

@Trezzer

I do owe you an apology (perhaps something some more people should be doing, instead of keeping silent?).

In my opinion it is a bit strange this hasn't been a big topic in the media, as the upscaling issue with the PS3 was in the media.

I have done some more research (hence the late reply) and it seems I wasn't the only one who wasn't aware of the fact that HDCP is always on on the PS3.

In the thread you linked it wasn't "just" the fact that HDCP made sure he couldn't grab 1080p, but it also turned out that particular grabber couldn't handle 1080p. That one person in that thread states HDCP is on, didn't look like conclusive evidence to me. But it turned out that person was right and so were you.

@jiyong

Yeah, the thread was a little confusing, but it did state that HDCP was enabled in all resolutions. I can understand why you doubted it though - it makes no sense at all. It would be an entirely fair assumption that HDCP was off (especially in games). Can't blame you at all.

@BrianK

Quote:

Got it from Target on 2/20.

I have it pre-ordered, but I think it's not out till the 27th or so here.

(update): Oh, cd-wow says they'll ship it on the 23rd

Last edited by Trezzer on 21-Feb-2007 at 08:42 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

IMO Ralph always seems angy, unconstructive and often impolite. BBRV spouts false allegations, causing trouble, revealing private data of ex-emoplyees or threatening to do this when they complain, painting grandiose pictures which fall apart as soon as you touch them, just talk, talk, talk...

If I had to choose between BBRV and Ben Hermans I would choose BBRV at any time

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@BrianK

Quote:

Now if you want to argue they had to fight Microsoft at this point you'd be right to a degree. The company sold ~1.5 years after their x86 release. It's unbelieveable someone would believe Be's failure was completely due to Microsoft. There was undeniable missteps and mismanagement issues in the company the first 7 years before they even got to the x86 platform. Gassee turning away from thier own Hobbit hardware went tried to work with Apple in the closed system failed. Gassee then towards x86, which really was their only option, and tried to work that even larger elephant of a closed market.

Since it was impossible to deal with Apple, and fight against fierece competition against Microsoft and free Linux, was there any chance from the beginning at all?

They could have made wiser decisions yet end result could have been the same still...

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Amiga 500, Efika, Mac Mini and PowerBook