ziz a dumb question?

[Polytropon]

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:03:50 -0700, Gary Kline <kline at thought.org> wrote:
> On Sat, May 01, 2010 at 04:19:13AM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> > On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:57:08 -0700, Gary Kline <kline at thought.org> wrote:
> > > i've never been anything near the extreme-green movement.  i
> > > figured that newer computers/cpus/etc would be more efficient
> > > than what came before. 
> > 
> > Oh, you mean that a "modern" desktop PC consumes as much power
> > as my old AS/400e with 10 hard disk drives - as loud a a common
> > PC, 2 times as big and 4 times as heavy? :-)
> > 
> 
> 	Yeah, gee-whiz :)

Incorrect values: 4 times as big and 8 times as heavy - but
the same power consumption. :-)



> 	i've thought about this for at Least ten years.... why not
> 	have 4 CRT's or xterminals hanging off one very beefy
> 	machine?  but do they have anything with graphics and
> 	keyboard + mouse that can work via one USB port/jack? 

Don't confuse my use of "network terminal" with classic serial
terminals. Look, for example, at the devices AXEL builds, or
already present for many years: Sun Ray terminals. They also
have audio I/O, card reader, and USB connectors (where the
keyboard and mouse usually are connected). A regular monitor
(maybe with speakers) makes it a full-featured workstation.
But no data users can mess around with, and its power requirements
are really low.

Our university's library had many of them, and I liked them
because they were completely silent (in difference to the
boring beige PC boxes they scattered around the library).

You can find specs of an AXEL terminal as exemple here:

	http://www.axel.com/usa2/prod_ax3.html?mv2_pos=1

They're calling it "thin client", but it's terminal. A box
where you plug in a screen and a keyboard and connect it
to a network IS a terminal. :-)



> i'm
> 	sure my wasted cycles could be put to very good use. 

Today's average users are treating their high-end HPC PCs
as worse typewriters, so there are enough cycles to use. :-)



> but it 
> 	would mean haning off a second display/kybd/mouse.  

Which is no problem using network terminals, everything you need
is a LAN (or maybe even WLAN) connection.

Still, multiple GPUs is possible, but results in a major raise
of power consumption (because you have to use a "modern" GPU).
Multiple input devices is no problem via USB.



> 	the ARM/A-9 chip looks great.  its a RISC chip that is super
> 	efficient.  gang four A9's in one package:: low power and at
> 	least 2GHZ ....  the only drawback is that the a9 is only
> 	32bits.  So we cannot try to calcale the 7th root of
> 	infinity, :-) 

ARM is an efficient platform in terms of energy, and I think
it will be more and more important in the future, especially
if you consider the mobile devices market. And when it's good
at running on battery, it's good on running on AC power. When
the industry comes up with "extra new energy efficient PC
hardware", we already know that it existed for years. :-)



> i mean, come-on-people, get real.  4G of ram
> 	ought to be Plenty!!  

Hey, 640 kB should be enough for everyone. :-)



> 	i'm trying to// or i'm =thinking about= getting rid of my
> 	pfSense machine.  i used ifp for *yesrs* with no breakins.
> 	So NOBODY got into my poetry!!

That's what they want to make you believe. :-)



> 	according to my /var/log/<foo>.log files, the only crackins
> 	were from kiddie-scripters.  i squashed them.   

By using means of blocking for known script-kiddie sources, you
can get rid of a lot of useless traffic - and possible trouble.





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...