The Hades Winter Olympics

By Jerry Pournelle

June 16, 2003

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Column 275

Intel D865GBF Desktop Motherboard

The newest machine at Chaos Manor is Lassie, built on an Intel D865GBF motherboard with an Intel 2 GHz Celeron processor. The chip was about $100 at Fry's. The motherboard is capable of handling a 3 GHz Pentium 4 and a full Gigabyte of DDRAM memory on each of two channels, and the only thing I need do to upgrade to that configuration is to drop in a faster processor. As it stands it's no slouch at games, although for really high end systems you'll want a D875P Canterwood board, a top of the line ATI or nVIDIA graphics board, and a really good sound card capable of "5.1" sound. A lot more about these machines later: But I am recommending the Intel D865GBF motherboard with integrated video and Analog Devices integrated sound as the best deal you'll find for general purpose office systems. Build it with low cost components and upgrade when you need to; and you'll love it. Recommended, and see the full report later.

Winter Olympics To Be Held In Hades:
Cable Modem Comes to Chaos Manor

It began a few weeks ago on our morning walk with Sable the Husky puppy: We saw an Adelphia crew putting new cable up on the utility poles. "Fiber?" I asked, and was assured that it was.

This was good news. Studio City is home to a great many writers and other Industry people. In Los Angeles when we say "the Industry" we mean movies and television. Because so many in Studio City were connected with the Industry, we got cable television much earlier than many other parts of the San Fernando Valley: which meant that we had ancient coaxial cable, not fiber. We also had plenty of copper telephone wire. The result was that we had early cable television, and good dialup modem connections—but we couldn't get high speed Internet connections even though the Internet backbone goes down Ventura Boulevard a quarter mile from my house. The nearest DSL switch is over 3 miles away, and while coax will carry cable modem, Adelphia, which has a City Hall-provided monopoly, didn't want to do that.

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