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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles R who wrote (102760)	4/7/2000 12:10:00 AM
From: chic_hearne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575620

Re: Would you mind digging up the number of cable modems and DSL installed in the last 12 months and projections for the next couple of years and posting them on this thread? Chuck, I'm not going to take the time to find a link to this, but last stats I saw stated 250 mil internet users and 1.2 mil on some type of broadband. IE, tremendous growth is around the corner. I have a MMX 233 now and I don't give a damn what my friends have. The next PC I buy probably will be based on Spitfire 550s or whatever the lowest speed grade AMD will offer in the Q2/Q3 time frame. No doubt, I believe you. Heck, I'm still running at 266 Mhz at home. That doesn't mean people will not continue to upgrade like they have over the past 10 years? The bottleneck today is NOT the processor for MOST users. Less than 1% of the population has DSL or Cable Modem today. I have seen plenty of data over the years to suggest that the average user connect to the web at 33.6/52kbps and uses PC for word processing, email. Broadband will provide the need for faster processors. Still, everyone (even using petty apps) will still want their computers to boot fast, load apps fast, etc. To summarize again, you are a power user and are not representative of the "masses". You can disagree on that point and that's OK. Not even close. Chuck, I don't even play games or run any intensive apps (from home). Does this mean I still won't want a faster computer? chic PS- Chuck, if you want to make an issue of the need of fast processors, address voice recognition or the "bluegene" project I provided you a link too. Like the lab rats told me, "if we build it, they will find a use".

To: Charles R who wrote (102760)	4/7/2000 12:24:00 AM
From: Ali Chen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1575620

Charles, <..DSL or Cable Modem today ..and processors> Cable does not make any difference. The cable is still slower than any processor transfers and rendering rate. Especially if your neighbour's kids are serving 5-6GB movies upstream to several anonymous CuteFTP users at once, and totally block any of your requests. I am running a K6-300 but most of the time I see "Opening page blah.blah.com; "connecting to 123.234.212.222..." "Web site found. Waiting for reply..." You are absolutely correct on other points too. Lack of processor speed is a common fallacy. All these elongated boot times are because of the total stupidity of Plug-n-Play approach, dumb MS networking protocols, and hidden service embedded into your computer by default when installing MS and other net browsers. Load times are also not exactly simple disk loads but rather dynamic linking with shared DLL of enormous size, with tons of unnecessary fonts and loads of marketing crap like unremovable "AOL instant messenger", multiplied by "smooth" windows panning and fading, etc etc etc etc..... There is an observation that the "speed of computer" remains the same no matter how MHz it has for the particular generation, and dog-slow for every new generation of software. It makes people feel that they need to buy new computer, and this is the driving force behind the progress in computing industry. Simple. Chick is a typical victim of the Msoft trap. - Ali