Wotcha!

 Ken Locarnini wrote-
>>I have worked a little bit on SGI Indys, and I certainly admire the
>>machinery, but I think it is a mistake at this point to develop music
>>software on what is rapidly becoming a niche platform.
>>
>I held on to my Amiga 500 way too long in the same hopes..............

Presently I use a PowerMac G3.But about SGI,Digital Alpha,Sun,etc.  
-I have two words: 64-bit!  (Don't forget to add the combination of 
pre-emptive mulitasking,muliti-proccessor support,etc.)  

Now I'm no authority on computer architectures/OSes (though I have one 
word that keeps popping up whenever I have to use a WinHel,"Why ?") but 
isn't a 64-bit system unspeakably more powerful/useful than 32-bit ? 

Wouldn't it be great if those 64-bit workstations were  available at 
about the  price point as present 32-bit systems ?
We'd all be able to do things that we struggle with on 32-bit,like 
real-time DSP,Synthesis,etc.with relative ease.

My hope is that increasing numbers of people will start moving to 64-bit 
workstations,thereby driving the price down,spurring development of 
easier to use Operating system interfaces,etc.

Speaking of low price points-SGI offers an O2 system for $5902 
with:17"mon,180MHz MIPS5000 proc,512k cache,64MB SDRAM,2GB UWSCSI,100B-T 
Ether,12X CD,32-bit graphics,etc.

Then again I could be wrong about some of this,if so, call me an idiot 
and get on with it.....


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Drew Yves Skyfyre,neophyte microtonal computer musician and afficionado 
of the avant-garde.Goa,India. e-mail:
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"Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air."-Sylvia Plath
"Do the Monkey with me."-Johnny Bravo on the Cartoon Network.
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> Wouldn't it be great if those 64-bit workstations were  available at 
> about the  price point as present 32-bit systems ?
> We'd all be able to do things that we struggle with on 32-bit,like 
> real-time DSP,Synthesis,etc.with relative ease.

Yes they are. Follow links to vendors from www.alphapowered.com. Some sell
500 MHz Alpha PC164pc systems for < $2,000 (running Linux, FreeBSD, etc.,
or WinNT.) Digital I/O is supported in OSS/Alpha for Zefiro ZA2, and
other digital I/O cards.

gb 

But Linux, FreeBSD, WinNT are not 64-bit OS's.... so even though the
processor is 64-bit the OS is still 32-bit....

Michael

On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Gregory
Boduch wrote:

> > Wouldn't it be great if those 64-bit workstations were  available at 
> > about the  price point as present 32-bit systems ?
> > We'd all be able to do things that we struggle with on 32-bit,like 
> > real-time DSP,Synthesis,etc.with relative ease.
> 
> Yes they are. Follow links to vendors from www.alphapowered.com. Some sell
> 500 MHz Alpha PC164pc systems for < $2,000 (running Linux, FreeBSD, etc.,
> or WinNT.) Digital I/O is supported in OSS/Alpha for Zefiro ZA2, and
> other digital I/O cards.
> 
> gb 
> 
>