Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : ATI Technologies in 1997 (T.ATY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marc who wrote (3884)	8/19/1999 12:32:00 PM
From: Marc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5927

It's all about features and price not who's the fastest in Quake. Note that sub 1000$ computer are now Intel+ATI. Why because if you want to differenciate one PC from another you need the type of feature ATI is offering. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 8/19/99 - The eOne: At less than a grand, love is grand indeed 'Keep your shirt on, Coates,' you say. 'Do you think you're the first person to ever fall in love?' 'Sorry,' I gush. 'I have found the computer of my dreams, and because this is my worst time of year, that is to say back-to-school season, when everybody I encounter seems to be asking me what computer they should buy to send Dick and/or Jane off to the dorm with, I am absolutely delighted to be able to tell you about eOne, which is a dream come true, the very essence of The Computer, the machine that I personally would have designed if they ever put me in charge down at the factory.' 'Settle down, old-timer,' you say. 'Catch your breath and tell me in a few sentences shorter than that one why you are so agitated.' OK, here goes. Irvine, Calif.-based eMachines Inc. e4me.com has blatantly copied Apple Computer Inc.'s Steve Jobs and produced eOne, a virtual carbon copy of the glorious iMac, with one superlative difference. It runs Windows 98 rather than the Macintosh operating system and thus puts a buyer in the consumer software maitnstream rather than in the software-lacking Macintosh minority. Best of all, at least while now making its debut at the Circuit City chain, the eOne costs about $800 compared with the $1,200 sticker price on an iMac. For openers, the eOne offers 64 megabytes of RAM, a 433-megahertz Intel Celeron processor with a 128-kilobyte cache and 66-megahertz bus speed, which rivals the speed of the iMac and runs Windows software lightning fast. The CD-ROM player pops out of the front of the box just below the 15-inch monitor. The monitor delivers resolution up to 1024 x 768 pixels and a dot pitch of .28, which matches virtually every high-quality monitor now being sold separately. Below the tray where CDs are inserted is a set of buttons like those on a dedicated CD music player that lets you play music CDs through the machine's built-in stereo sound system without booting up the computer. Like the iMac, the eOne relies heavily on the new universal serial bus (USB) technology to connect peripherals like printers, scanners, TV cameras and such to the machine. But while Apple's interim-CEO-for-life Jobs stunned critics by making USB the only way one can hook peripherals to the iMac, the eOne also offers a full suite of conventional PC ports including a parallel port for printers, a serial port for things like Palm handhelds and a game/MIDI port for joysticks, music keyboards, etc. The eOne even outdoes the iMac in the area of networking by including not only an Ethernet port but also a connector allowing users to network multiple eOnes or other Wintel machines using the new Intel AnyPoint system that uses the regular telephone wires in a house to carry data between machines. And, guess what? I still haven't covered it all. The eOne also has a built-in television display that lets you connect a VCR's video- and audio-out cables into the side of the computer and display cable or antenna broadcasts on the monitor screen, a feature absent in iMac. Better yet, this video system is based on the powerful ATI All-In-Wonder board that allows a user to capture either individual frames or moving video in the Windows AVI format. The single frames can be saved in virtually every format around from TIFF to JPG to BMP. The video also includes an 8-megabyte advanced graphics AGI board that allows users to play the bulk of high-speed computer games. The video-in ports also allow connecting Sega or Nintendo game machines to the computer. You also can use the video-out from your family's camcorder and use the ATI software to capture still pictures of your own tapes. EOne is a wonderful simplifier for gadget-weary gearheads like your humble correspondent. It is a wonderful way to simplify our work areas, which quickly clutter up with power cords, monitor cables and transformers for peripherals. It may be particularly welcome for the millions of parents now contemplating whether to send their kids off to school with a new computer because its built-in modem and Ethernet guarantees that it can be used on college networks. Negatives? _Since the monitor and the CPU are in the same box, if one gets ruined, then both are ruined and you are out $800 unless you send the whole thing in for repairs. _The keyboard is a bit too small and the cursor keys are tiny and terrible. _The Ethernet connection conflicts with the Intel AnyPoint telephone networking, so you can't use the eOne as a server to share high-speed Internet connections from DSL or cable modems. _The case is sealed and, thus, there is no expansion board to allow an eOne to add traditional boards. Ain't love grand? For $800, it makes these shortcomings seem almost cute. ( Binary beat readers can participate in the column at chicagotribune.com or e-mail jcoates(AT)ameritech.net Snail-mail him in Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 60611.) (c) 1999, Chicago Tribune.