Architosh Staff (info@architosh.com)

27 Oct 2002

 

TidBits: G5 Feedback, Red Hat Info, and First 64-bit Laptop

G5 Feedback - The OzConnection

Our recent Motorola PowerPC articles have generated a ton of email, some of it quite interesting. We will begin publishing some of it today, with just a few items in this edition of TidBits.

Ian Castle wrote in to kindly correct us (or scold us, we're not quite sure which) about a few items in our Red Hat on Linux article. He writes:

While I found the article generally interesting, it got a little bit hard to swallow when you started speculating on the meaning of Alan Modra's email signature - from the email quoted in the article.

At specific issue with Ian was the fact that we didn't get he Aussie reference. In this article Alan Modra's signature said he was from the IBM OzLabs - A Linux Technology Center. Ian writes:

Somehow you managed to conclude that this somehow represents "O.S. Labs", and go on to wonder if this is somewhere in Boston. I would be surprised if readers from Australia had not already pointed out that Australians are affectionately known as "Aussies"... And, by extension, the country is abbreviated to "Aus".. Which is usually written as it sounds "Oz".

Ian writes that Alan is really from the IBM Australia Labs and that Alan's email address was the final clue, being that the domain was bigpond, a reportedly well known large Australian ISP.

Well...we certainly appreciate being corrected on this one. Now we know that Oz means Australia. You learn something everyday. -- Thanks Ian for the correction.

Red Hat PowerPC Linux Feedback

Robert Wiebe wrote in to tell us that Motorola has been shipping a so called HA-Linux (high availability Linux under the Motorola brand) in the telecom space, to run on a compactPCI chassis using its PowerPC-based host processors. Robert tells us that Moto's HA-Linux is basically Red Hat Linux for PowerPC with the Motorola HA layer on top. We found this interesting and would appreciate any feedback on it. -- Thanks Robert!

First 64-bit Laptop Not Apple's

A couple of writers have called us on the notion that Apple could be the first computer maker to ship a 64-bit laptop computer. We were unaware that such a computer already existed. You probably were too!

DeeKay writes:

the 970s huge powerdrain which makes it very unsuited for a laptop aside: Not true, there once was the AlphaBook1 featuring "only" a 233/116MHz 21066 but still: True 64bit! ;-)

http://www.amc.com/chipdir/fam/alpha/index.htm http://www.linuxalpha.org/archives/axp-list/April2000/0180.shtml http://www.linuxalpha.org/archives/axp-list/April2000/0152.shtml

Just wanted to point this out, hehe!..

Yes, they definitely were ahead for their time! <:-/ I wish Apple would've bought the Alpha Team when they were up for sale, they would have so many great patents and awesome chips that now are being wasted for crappy Pentiums!

This is interesting stuff. The AlphaBook 1 still exist in very limited stock by Tadpole (its maker) and sells for US$18,000. Ouch! And it wasn't very fast either, according to posters familiar with it.

We think Apple's first 64-bit laptop will be a lot cheaper than the AlphaBook. Now Christopher Henderson wrote to us with a direct link to Tadpole where we were able to see their latest Solaris-based portable workstations: the SPARCbook 5000 and SPARCbook 6500.

Now this 64-bit mobile baby runs a 650Mhz UltraSPARC -IIi processor with a 512 L2 cache and supports up to 2 GB of ECC RAM. We imagine this machine cost well over ten grand, but if you don't have the cash Tadpole is giving away three SPARCbooks next year to celebrate a ten year anniversary. -- Thanks Christopher and DeeKay

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