They *just* released the "Broadband" adapter in the US, and currently you can only get it direct from Sega. Retailers are supposed to be able to start selling it in March. Well.... When you've got VGA, Keyboard, and Mouse, it just screams to run X-Windows. Of course I'll admit that most of us probably don't have any of those for their Dreamcast (I know I don't). Now how long before someone ports UNIX to the PS2? Anyone know where to find Hardware info on that sucker? I finally got to see one today and it has a rather interesting looking expansion bay. ISTR hearing something about a Hard Disk for it. Plus it has two USB, and I think one Firewire port. After seeing one I'm more curious about the hardware than I had been. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

Are you sure? www.netbsd.org/Ports/ still lists it as a "Suggested" Port, not even a non-integrated one. -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- I am the mother of all things, and all things must wear a sweater. ---------

Um. I thought, given the context, that this person was talking about the Sony Play Station 2, which is also frequently refered to as the PS/2. -- Jim Strickland jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BeOS Powered! -----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Zane H. Healy" wrote: Ah, well if we're talking about the PS2, I can say with some authority that at least LInux ran on it before the TX5900 core ever hit fab. It was part of the verification suite we ran on the behavioral and gate level simulators as well as on the god-awful Quickturn... -- Chris Kennedy chris(a)mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97

Mark Green wrote: Let me try that again. Linux was ported by one of my teams to the verification environment for what was then known as the R5900. Included as part of this environment were high fidelity software implementation of most of the PS2 peripheral devices; in the case of Quickturn this was a hybrid solution with physical peripherals implemented by a PC and the mapping between the R5900 and the PC performed by a slug of software and a couple of gate arrays; essentially the same hardware that Toshiba used for development of its first DVD decoder. As for Red Hat producing some of the development software, it's only by act of purchase. Since the R5900 is a modified MIPS architecture the decision was made to use gnu as the basis for the toolchain. Cygnus had the contract to produce the production toolchain for SCE, but they were so incredibly slow that we ended up building our own to support the verification effort. The statement that Red Hat had anything to do with it is only valid in the context that Red Hat eventually purchased Cygnus. Okay, so I'll admit that some things are easier when you have the keys to the kingdom ;-) GPUII is decidedly an -- architecturally interesting -- bit of work. Two groups of FPU units, its own assembler and weird DMA porting between it and the processor (of course the processor itself can be a DMA _target_ -- there's 1K of on-board scratch=pad ram that's referenced by creating a PTE with what's normally a reserved bit in the MIPS ISA PTE spec set -- that can be loaded via DMA while the processor's pipe contnue execution (and for that matter, while the BIU continues to fetch instructions and operands). While it wouldn't materially affect a _port_, getting some apps to run would be interesting as well. The TX5900 uses the same floating point format as the GPU, which is best described as single-precision IEEE without truncate or rounding modes. I'd expect that to be the case. The PS2 was hardly designed as a general purpose machine; there's all sorts of architectural brain damage that makes sense only in the context of gaming. Still, it's interesting how many problems we found running apps on top of Linux on top of the simulations and emulations vs. what was found with the purpose-build verification suite and RTG tools. -- Chris Kennedy chris(a)mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97

They already have. The contract is out on heem. He will soon receive a "friendly greetings from Peter Wendt' message from the godfather. lorenzo Reply to: lgwalker(a)look.ca

Flame bait if I've ever seen it. Just because some marketing bleeb who has little or no knowledge about computer history came up with what he thought was a neat designation doesn't mean we have to obediently follow along. Let's not compound the designation confusion. This "flavor of the year" will soon pass on (failed game machine ?) and be replaced by another. Maybe by a Digital Entertainment Computer. Hmmm, DEC- has a ring to it don't you think ? Reminds me of how IBM hijacked the Personal Computer (PC) designation. It's just another bloody game for overactive adolescents with the Hawaian disorder "lak-uv-nookie". For a supposed "failed computer" the PS2 made IBM an awful lot of money, also introduced VGA, plug and play on a PC, and because of IBM's stupid MCA liscencing policies forced their competitors to come up with EISA. Since Compaq took over DEC I guess you could say that DEC was a "failed" computer company. But then again what can you expect from an "OpenVMS enthusiast" Congratuations, you just joined Richard on my hopeless TWIT list. larry Reply to: lgwalker(a)look.ca

We're totally off topic here, however, I've got to disagree here. Something tells me the machines were running "Dead or Alive 2". Oddly enough my wife and I are both huge 3D Fighter fans. We've got "Dead or Alive 2", "Soul Caliber" and 2 or 3 others on the Dreamcast. Both "Dead or Alive 2", and "Soul Caliber" are incredible, but the word is that "Soul Caliber" pretty much pushes the Dreamcast to its limits. However, from what I saw yesterday graphically at least "Tekken Tag Team" blows "Soul Caliber" away! I was totally stunned by the level of detail in the backgrounds in Tekken. The game is actually hard to play, just for the fact I was to busy admiring the beautiful background graphics, and all the movement in them (one tropical setting even has the grass moving). OTOH, based on specs I've seen before the Dreamcast wins on Audio. However, I'm wondering if PS2 games aren't going to start including surround sound, since the system supports Dolby Digital and DTS for DVD playback. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

Yeah, I think there's some issue with MCA causing graphics glitches with Gran Turismo II. ;-P -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- Please dispose of this message in the usual manner. -- Mission: Impossible -

Mike Ford skrev: There are in fact IBM systems with both MCA and PCI buses, so that shouldn't pose that much of a problem, mind you. -- En ligne avec Thor 2.6. A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.