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The Arswards for 1999 100

Posted by Hemos from the yet-more-end-of-year dept.
Doll Part writes "Ars' year-end Arswards are up, and they look back at geek life this past year and talk about things that have really made a difference. Linus is Person of the Year (predictable), but most their other entries are technologically provocative, and they try to remember the whole year, rather than just December. There's a really interesting bit about the start of the AOL madness, too. " One of the things that I particularly enjoy about the Arsawards is that you don't have to have released in 1999 - you just need to have made your impact in that year, like in the case of...oh. That'd be telling, wouldn't it?
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The Arswards for 1999 More

The Arswards for 1999

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  • In your case, no. It's _optical_ which means it has to be seen.

    Again, in your case, no. Now go away.
  • How do you know that it's sitting on your doorstep if you are at work? Do you have a webcam pointed at your front door?

  • Speaking of all this, did anyone ever have an 'optical' mouse for the old Apple II/*? Not sure if it's the same technology...actually, I almost certain it isn't. It required a reflective mousepad, I think. Or maybe they just thought it looked cool, I don't know. Now that, my friends, was a real mouse. One button...practically no software that supported it...annoying, puzzling motion...ah, the memories.
  • I was very pleased to see that this video card won Video Card of the Year. As of late it's been seriously underated, even after sites like Anandtech [anandtech.com] declared it the best card for Athlon systems.

    Also, Matrox was kind enough to release specs for their G200 (and G400? I think they're very similar in driver writing). This basically makes it the only 32-bit color viable card for Linux gamers.
  • >Cursing and a jerky boys reference?
    I always thought they were one in the same, actually. (G)

  • With a name like "The Arswards", it's a shame they didn't get Arseface [demon.co.uk] himself as their mascot!

    (In case you're one of those Without Culture, he's a character in Preacher [yankthechain.com], the second greatest comic book being published today.)

  • Someone says something vaguely good about a Microsoft product and it gets moderated down as a "Troll"?
  • No, the best translation would be along the lines of "Art of technology"
  • We've got an ancient sparc sitting near me with an optical mouse. suns have had 'em for yonks.

    However, they're clunky and awkward, especially if you're used to mice with balls (thees ees a real mouse, sen~or, con cojones!) or trackballs.

    MS's hardware division seems to exist on a higher plane than their software division as most of their products are pretty damn good. Of course they screwed up on the new natural keyboards.

    dave "might as well face it, you're addicted to mwheelup"
  • I'm in the same boat, having recently bought an SBLive card. I'm trying to run it under Redhat 6.1 with no luck. Could you *please* post the link to the information that you found helpful ? Much appreciated.
  • To quote:

    One of the things that I particularly enjoy about the Arsawards is that you don't have to have released in 1999 - you just need to have made your impact in that year

  • It was hidden under the heading

    Ins tall Soundblaster Live on Linux [zdnet.com];=) google [google.com] is your friend

    good luck.
  • Lego should have been the greatest invention of the millenium...
  • I haven't tried it myself, but here's my evidence:

    I borrowed a friend's, just to try it out, stuck on the USB->PS/2 adapter, plugged it into my computer, and turned it on. It worked great, and didn't require any special drivers. So my guess is, if you set it up as you would a standard MS wheelmouse, it'll work fine.

  • I'm still trying to find out if the razor boomslang mouse (www.razorzone.com) works under linux. It's also a USB w/ ps/2 adapter mouse (so it's not _totally_ OT...), but I haven't gotten a straight answer from anyone, including news groups and the company itself. Please, if you know if this mouse works (including the wheel), reply or email!

  • Re:Creative (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yeah, I have a Hoontech 4D Wave-NX card. It works great with ALSA and only cost $47 with coax and optical digital outputs. What a deal!
  • ars is latin for arts
  • urgle said:
    No, the best translation would be along the lines of "Art of technology"
    Actually the translation is Art Technology
    the phrase would have to be Ars technicae to mean art OF technology
  • The Catholic Church, for all its faults, did not keep the price of Bibles artificially high; the price was very high as it was. You cannot manually copy out an entire document, illustrate (rather well) and bind it for a pittance.
  • I can appreciate your frustration, but it does make sense to applaud the big name companies who go opensource. It sets a precedent for other companies and it brings a lot of press. Plus, it effects a lot of people because of market share.

    But, all companies who have open source drivers should get recognition.
  • If Microsoft the result of a true free market, I would quit being the rabid free market enthusiast I am and become a socialist post-haste.

    Microsoft's success is due to not living in a free market, to locking users into a system, to the unfortunate network effects that cause people to stick with one product even when it is not very good. As a contrast, the Unix market is fairly free; with a bit of effort, anyone can use just about any Unix. A simple recompile of apps is often all that is needed. At the moment, Linux is doing well in this market, but it will someday be replaced by a slimmer competitor.

    There is no competitor to Windows. The Windows market is served by exactly one product, owned by MS.

    You're as bad as that twit communist AC who has been posting. Take some econ classes and come back.

  • True, but then again, no athlon can touch a quad alpha system. We're talkign bang for the buck here remember. For the buck, the bang of the Athlon is still very high. For my particular purposes, which is to build a beowulf cluster for computational chemistry calculations, I ran the 2 pieces of software we're going to use on a C300A at 450, a C366 at 550, an Athlon 500 and an Athlon 700. Using the Athlon-performance-Mhz as my unit - ie it seemed to be about 1.1 to 1.15 celeron MHz/athlon Mhz), the prices in $CDN worked out to be per Athlon Mhz:

    C300 @300 $1.43
    C400 @400 $1.29

    C300@450 $1.06
    C366@550 $1.13
    C400@600 $1.14

    Athlon 500 $1.50
    Athlon 700 $2.11

    (this was 2 months ago).

    Even when I considered how muhc memory we'd save (NFS mounted disks, servers runing FreeBSD because Linux's NFS sucks, go check to see if its true), as well as other parts, because we'd need more Celerons for the same power as Athlons, it was still a factor of at least 1.5 to 1. As I said - the bang for the buck wont come down for Athlons til about mid summer I think, and only then will it EQUAL the spring of 99's price/performance .

    BTW - the Cpu of the year for 99 was the Celeron 300, even if it was released in 98. Its prices were high in 98. Spring 99 saw its prices dip way below even a K6-2 400's price at the time, and the price performance was incredible.
  • I just got a SBLive card and was looking for how to get it up on Linux. Google sent me to an old /. article talking about how nobody could figure it out, then I saw the date (mid Apr), tried another google link, and was happy.

  • Mee Too (Score:1)

    by zrk ( 64468 )
    I've used Mandrake 6.5, and it didn't even notice when I changed mice from a normal wheelmousie.

    I'll definitely have to try out the USB connector, though.

    So much smoother than regular meeses
  • What most people mean by a "free market" is a market that is left alone to operate by its own laws.

    A free market is one in which buyers are free to choose their product rationally; i.e. one in which all act in their own self-interest. It has been shown that this results in everyone being better off (simple example: I have a cow, but want goat meat, while you have three goats but want beef; an exchange of goods benefits us both).

    Among other things, a free market requires competition to work. We do not have competition in the Windows OS arena; naught but Windows runs Windows apps (well, there are VirtualPC for Macs and wine for Linux x86, but they are marginal). In addition, buyers do not act in their own best interest, but rather buy according to a fuzzy, ill-defined and irrational idea of what they must do, due to the network effects of using tied software (i.e. software which runs on one OS).

    Contrast this with the Unix market. You can download just about anything from Freshmeat and get it to run on just about any Unix. I understand that some fellow runs Gnome on AIX machiens and makes it look almost exactly like it's a standard RedHat install, with all the trimmings.

    This is competition. In theory, anyone can run anything on anything. Of course, it's not quite that good, but it's not Windows. You will note how utterly great the Unix market is. This is not due solely to the inherent greatness of Unix; the Windows API, odd as it is, could probably be made to work well. There's just no way to break into the market.

    Anyway, your 'nobody made them buy stuff' rationale is the first-level doesn't-understand-the-free-market sort of thing used by both free-market advocates who misunderstand what they advocate and buy socialists who misunderstand what they advocate (i.e. large-scale theft, removal of incentives and the start of a downward spiral into dystopia).

  • since it worked for him, mod me as "irresistable to women"

    I can't wait



    P.S. Sorry for being offtopic

  • the integrated circuit

    You could argue that without the printing press, and the ability to both preserve and to disseminate knowledge reliably, the IC would never have been born.

    the toilet

    I'd rather have to pee in the street rather than lose my email :-)

    Phillip.

  • It's Arsward. It comes from Ars Technica [arstechnica.com]. Ars Technica is latin and translates roughly into "the technical art."
  • Yeah but from my post they have PROOF that I'm funny! How do we know if you're irresistable to women or not, huh? Give us a picture... ;-)

  • > Socialists assume that people are (or can be) motivated by belief in an ideal...

    Nonsense. Socialists are motivated by enlightened self-interest. Think about it, was Karl Marx an idealist or a materialist? Unfortunately this silly idea that socialism is a particularly airy form of idealism, is widely shared by people who know nothing about the theory or history of socialism.

    Of course the reason for that is that this fraudulent idea is deliberately promoted and disseminated by anti-socialists, in order to make voters think socialism is inherently impractical, which of course it is not. Somewhere a while back I read a quote by, of all people, Milton Friedman - who, as you know, is in no way pro-socialist. He stated that the single most influential program in twentieth century American politics was that of the Socialist Party in 1928; every one of the items on that platform - which includes such "radical" notions as universal public schools, utility regulation, old-age pensions, etc. - has since been made part of U.S. law. Well, has the U.S.A. been economically successful in this century? and particularly since when those 1928 Socialist Party proposals were incorporated in U.S. law? If you say "yes", then you agree that socialism DOES work in practice.

    Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

  • Aw, now THAT'S funny! That kinda name just gets me outta sync and makes me forget everythin else... ARSwards! Mwahah!

    Oh please please, mod me as "Funny". ;-)
  • Too bad backorder is the name of the G400 game ...

  • Creative (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2000 @08:12AM (#1379647)
    I'd like to give Creative an award for releasing their drivers' source ahead of most everybody else in the hardware industry. I think they started the ball rolling. Now 3Com has to be the "biggest" company to release drivers - these will doubtless be VERY useful for encouraging corporate adoption of linux, but Creative started it.
  • ...gutenberg didn't invent the moveable-type press. that was done by some chinese guy in the 600's, i think. he probably invented the first practical one, though.

    all-in-all, i like the article, except that *my* case is much better than the one they picked :).
  • Now, I don't like Microsoft much, but I will admit, that some of thier hardware is pretty good (I've got a M$ Natural Keyboard 1.0 I love).

    Has anyone used this new Microsoft Optical Mouse? Does it really work well on any surface? Does it work under Linux?

    Is it USB and PS/2? or USB only?

  • stupid, if you're going through PS2, you don't need drivers

    I dearly hope you're not replying to me.

    1) In Windows, yes, you do. Maybe not for a generic mouse, but I'm not sure... for a wheelmouse, though (which the Intellimouse Explorer qualifies as), you certainly do -- at least, if you want to use the wheel.

    2) Aside from this oversight, you've very nicely restated my point. Since you don't need any special drivers for the IME, it should work fine in linux.

  • Re:Creative (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 12, 2000 @08:30AM (#1379654)
    Trident wrote an ALSA module for their 4DWave chipset before Creative even decided to relase a binary only module. Just because Trident isn't as big as Creative doesn't mean they don't deserve praise as much.

    What bothers me is that people are commending Creative for releasing open source drivers, when Trident has had ones from the start. But who does Slashdot post about, saying they're a great company? Creative, of course.

    I know what chipset my next soundcard will contain. If you REALLY want to support open companies, buy a Trident based card (www.hoontech.com has one).

    Course, companies like Advansys have also written open source drivers, but oh well.. If they're not popular, they're not recognized.
  • Its called package tracking. Its been around for years. Look into it!

  • Re:Microsoft Optical Mouse (Score:4)

    by Kamel ( 96072 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2000 @09:03AM (#1379657)
    I own one of the optical mice, actually I bought it the first day it was released in stores.

    It has several issues people should know about though. It doesnt work on glass or reflective surfaces (the LED doesnt get picked up properly by the imager on them), also it doesnt work too well with glazed surfaces (like a shiny table surface), it does work really well on textured surfaces though, a mouse pad works well, so does a book cover etc.

    It has some really bad problems with fast mouse moving though. You cant just move the mouse around ultra quick as one would in a game of quake. The optical "camera" inside the mouse cant track the surface fast enough, so it loses its tracking and the mouse goes crazy. Sucks. The only solution is the crank the mouse to a high resolution in whatever game your playing (assuming the game requires quick mousing).

    The mouse also works great under windows (both USB and PS2), and works well under Linux (ps2), however it cannot function as a serial device, as the current supplied by the serial port is not enough to supply the LED and camera within the mouse, so using a PS2 to serial converter will not work.

    All in all its a pretty neat device, and works with everything after a bit of tweaking. I personally hate cleaning ball mice, so I really like it.

    KAMEL
  • I have used the MS optical mouse by plugging into the USB port of my Mac G3 Laptop (Lombard) running LinuxPPC. It worked perfectly in both X and the console, and it sure was nice to have those three buttons back :)

    -Outland Traveller
  • I too love the celeron. I have a 300a that I just bumped up to 450. You should note though that if you want to build the fastest system you can, the Athlon is the only way to go. You can buy one of the lower speed grade already modded out. Now you can control voltage, L2 cache divider, and the bus multiplier. With control of those many have been able to hit 800 Mhz. Celerons are fast, but there is no celeron that can touch an Athlon at 800 Mhz.
  • It looks like lots of people do care, considering that their server is slammed. And does the word millenium appear anywhere? And the fact that they do this every year plays into this how? Half-Life rules!
  • Latin: Ars, Artis, 3rd declension feminine
    English: (1) Art, craft, skill , method, technique (2) an occupation, profession (and others which don't apply here)

    So the best translation of Ars Technica is probably along the lines of "the technological art" (and perhaps profession)

  • and they have been for months. That was literally the first bugfix posted when Creative opened up the source. Get the curent CVS version or a recent snapshot.
  • Those Ars technica (Technical Arts, :-)) people must've read the Linux Kernel 3.0 joke post [linuxtoday.com], refering mainly to After-Y2K [after-y2k.com] stuff..

    "Also, the 3.0 kernel should be out in the not-too-distant future, and Linux will only get better."

    Unless Linus has changed his 2.4 plans, it's still 2.4 .. Maybe 2.5 will morph into 3.0, but first we need 2.4 before 2.5 forks off, and then we need at least 12 months for a "major" version change worth of work. Really. It's a shame that such a good piece of review has such an obvious typo. Then again, they might've been confused by this piece [linuxtoday.com] of information, even though it really didn't mention release dates. Oh well, caveat Ars Technica.
    ---
  • Just as a note, Honeywell had an optical mouse about 5 years ago. I think people tend to give Microsoft credit for inventing this. I admit that Honeywell never had much market share - I'm not even sure if they make mice anymore. But they had it first.

  • As others have noted, you can indeed use either a USB or a PS/2 connection for this mouse, but it should be noted that a serial-to-PS/2 adapater WILL NOT WORK with this mouse. So, if you've got an older system (like some of mine) which has no PS/2 or USB ports, and you're used to being able to using PS/2 mice via a USB-serial adapter, you're not gonna be able to use the IntelliMouse Explorer. (If you're really in need, you could always go buy a cheap USB card.)

    That said, it's still a fantastic little piece of hardware.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • You are right, they did not keep the price artificially high. But price was irrelevant. The point of making bibles "closed source" was not to make money, it was to control access to the information by limiting the number of copies that were made, thus to keep people under the control of the church. Bibles were available only for the clergy, regardless of price.
  • Actually the translation is Art Technology

    No. From an intuitive standpoint, that is an incredibly awkward translation (and a good sign it's wrong). More concretely, technica is not a noun. Technica is derived from techna, technae (meaning "trick or artifice") by adding an -ic which makes it an adjective. Thus technicus, -a, -um means "pertaining to trick or artifice" (given the context, "technological"). Thus my translation stands :)

    Kudos to nd.edu (specifically http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?tec hnica [nd.edu]) for the excellent resources they have available!

  • The comment that I am responding to is probably the most insightful one that I have read all day on Slashdot. Look beyond the lines about Microsoft, Windows 2000, Internet Explorer, and the DOJ and think about what the poster is saying generally about the economic system of free-market capitalism. Without going into a paean about its virtues, I think that it can hardly be denied that this innovation has been responsible for an era of unparalleled prosperity and technological innovation.

    The previous post may not have been phrased in the most diplomatic manner possible, but to ignore its underlying message by moderating based on the overt example that he/she uses is unfair. I don't think it is a troll at all.
  • Actually I voted for Homeworld *wink* ///Gonzo
  • I nominate ArseAwards as the Award of the Year. I would also like to nominate Time Magazine as having being the best "best of the millenium" of the millenium.

    However I think the ArseAwards got one thing wrong: the controversy of the year should be whether or not anybody cares what someone else thinks was the best of the year.

    This is just millenium fever, it isn't news.
  • Now if only creative's drivers were SMP friendly...

    However the opensound stuff is very nice, though
    propriatary and closed.

    -JB
  • With all the hoopla over PDAs and/or "the search for 7 of 9" (or neural shunts, ala _The Matrix_), why weren't any cool new video devices mentioned? Some goggles? Those cool new reflective prescription lenses?

    And, most of all, what about that 3D holographic enhancement stuff for LCD screens derived from the same cheezy plastic stuff they use on Pogs and childrens' bookcovers (you know, the stuff that makes the dinosaur appear on the cover of the Jurassic Park videos) -- that's one of those things that makes you go: Holy Shit, Batman!!!

    The stuff that won awards was all definitely interesting, but there was something lacking about its representation of "what we lust after" in the geek community.

  • Technological Innovation of the Millenium? (Score:3)

    by Fross ( 83754 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2000 @08:36AM (#1379679)
    well, rummaging through the forums didn't provide too much of relevance, but that's what forums are like ;)

    though the printing press won the award, i wouldn't have said it had the impact it could (and did) have immediately, as much knowledge and its dissemination was still controlled by few sources (such as the catholic church) - no open sourcing until the 17th-18th centuries :)

    i was surprised to see none of what i would consider the greatest technological inventions of our millenium got any considerable votage, namely:

    the combustion engine. for obvious reasons.

    the integrated circuit. for allowing the crunching down of technology into such a small space as to make computers, small electronic circuits and essentially every appliance we use today from microwaves to dishwashers to toasters and water meters, a possibility.
    and last but definitely not least, and probably the top of all:

    the toilet. the invention of the u-bend allowed for an amazing increase in santitation in the home, leading to greater quality of life for all concerned. look at countries that don't have a sewage disposal system comparable to the western world, and the impact it has in terms of disease and pollution. this simple device put paid to all that.

    but all round, it is amazing to think how far we have come as a race in a thousand years. i think that calls for a drink! ooh! fermentation! damn, that was invented over a thousand years ago, wasn't it... *grin*

    Fross

  • I'm using one right now...


    It works PS2 and USB. I couldn't get the USB to work even under Win98, but that might be my system. Using the PS2 with ps2rate.exe is just as good. Serial won't work though. :(


    The mouse itself is very solid. Assuming that it'll last long, I have absolutely no problems with it at all. The extra buttons are helpful (although probably useless in Linux) and the mouse generally feels very comfortable to use. I have the Explorer version so now I have this funky looking red-glowing mouse that looks cool IMHO. The movement of the cursor on the screen is very smooth and precise, so it beats out other mice in that category at least. The price hurts (which is why I got it for Xmas) but as long as it doesn't break within a year I'm extremely happy with it and it was worth it. At least one thing that MS did pretty good with...
  • Just to reply to one section of your comment:

    The Integrated circuit was not NEARLY the invention that the Vacuum Tube was. The IC was simply a synthesis of existing transistor and photographic technologies.

    The Vacuum tube was something entirely new, and nothing had ever been developed before that could do what it could do. Without this invention the field of electronics would not even exist.
  • I have 2 at home and 1 at work -- love em. It's a USB mouse with a PS2 adapter. I'd strongly recommend plugging it directly into a USB port, though - the increased sampling rate results in much smoother, more fluid movements.

    And yes, it works on just about any surface. Desk surface, pant leg, paper... You can even lift it up half an inch and use it on no surface at all. Only things it really has trouble with (so far) are mirrored and glossy surfaces, so glass desks are out ("as if").

    As far as I know, there is no Linux support yet. Pitfall one.
  • Check out www.linux-usb.org [linux-usb.org]. Under supported devices it lists this mouse. I have the IntelliMouse Explorer working under USB on a debian system at home. It works amazing and I'd definately reccomend it. Alex mach64@yahoo.com
  • Of course, by Ars' logic, which was that Half-Life was released so late in '98 that its main impact came in '99, it really didn't deserve the awards in '98...but years are an illusion, and the fact that Half-Life is a great game is not.
  • The Microsoft Intellimouse with Intellieye see: http://www.microsoft.com/catalog/display.asp?subid =22&site=10077&pg=1 [microsoft.com]
    works great in Linux. It is must less expensive than the Intellimouse Explorer while letter you use your middle finger on the right mouse button (the way I prefer it). I have it plugged into the PS/2 port because I am also running Windows 95, not Windows 98. I haven't tried the USB under Linux. The computer doesn't care if it's optical or not. The mouse wheel works in most X programs also, such as mozilla and even in standard xterms, and it works as the middle button in all programs in X if you click it.
  • the printing press won the award, i wouldn't have said it had the impact it could (and did) have immediately, as much knowledge and its dissemination was still controlled by few sources (such as the catholic church) - no open sourcing until the 17th-18th centuries :)
    The printing press made possible the first open source publication, Gutenberg's Bible. Up until that time, the bible had been exclusively produced by the Church, and they kept the price so high that no one could afford one for themselves. So people had to go to their priest to have it read and interpreted to them. With the printing press came books cheap enough for people to buy, and so they learned to read for themselves.

    The bible was the source code to the Church, and Gutenberg made it open. Soon after the source was released came the Reformation.

  • Interesting. I shopped around on pricewatch.com [pricewatch.com] for about half an hour, ordered one, and a few days later it was sitting on my doorstep. No waiting for me..

  • The printing press was directly or indirectly responsible for the opening of educational opportunities for the common person, the overthrow of political systems throughout the Western world, a total revolution in learning and thought, the disenfranchisement of a thousand-year-old religious governing authority and the founding of a methodology by which all future scientific advances are based. These are just the high points. For the sake of brevity I'll stop with them.

    These are some of the reasons why Gutenberg's printing press is unanimously held in such awe. The consequences of a common person being able to apply a new technology to distribute information to others is so powerful that it literally changed the fabric of mankind's existence. Virtually everything that came after Gutenberg was transformed by it.

    For this past millenium, no other innovation or invention has had the sweeping effects of Gutenberg's simple application of a wine press to movable type. His fame is justly earned.

  • Re:Microsoft Optical Mouse (Score:3)

    by irix ( 22687 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2000 @08:42AM (#1379693) Journal
    Since we are talking about Ars anyways, they have a good review of the mouse on their site that should answer your questions:

    http://arstechnica.com/r eviews/4q99/msmouse/msmouse-1.html [arstechnica.com]

  • ...for winning "Game of the Year" awards two years in a row. Half-Life stole all the awards even though it came out in late 1998, because everyone thought it was such a fantastic game, it should win it even though it was out just two months.

    And now sites like Ars Technica are saying that Half-Life deserves to be placed in the 1999 games because it was too late in 1998... That's definitely a first!

    Heck, what can I say. Half-Life does deserve to win two years in a row.

  • There is *one* surface I couldn't get the MS Optical to work on... a mirror. Other than that, everything is pretty much fair game.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Best CPU was not the athlon... (Score:3)

    by mathboy ( 10519 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2000 @08:47AM (#1379697)
    It was the Celeron. Whatever intel did to make such damn high quality C300A's was great. They used technologies from P2 production and yet left the Celeron at 1.5 times less Mhz than the P2.

    This left us with only one thing to do. OVERCLOCK. They tried to lock the bus to make it hard to do, but that didnt matter. With the advent of really nice 100Mhz FSB boards out there like the BH6 which was rock solid for overclocking, things just took off.

    Now that Celerons up to 533are now being produced, with Intel 'doing the OC for us' by having them at 100Mhz bus now, those halcyon days are over. The C300A was just the BEST at overclocking. No need for any special cooling devices for me, and among a dozen friends that tried it, 11 of us succeeded - the other guy went and got a replacement that worked. The power/$ because of this is something the Athlon wont even match til prices fall this summer.

    Or ARE the halcyon days over? According to this [slashdot.org] slashdot note about this [sharkyextreme.com] article, there may be more such days ahead during the early release of the intel flipchip 500 and 550e, before they start streaming into high quality high speed high price chips, and lo end ones which wont OC. GET THEM AT THE START of the cycle.

    If you arent running a server, the leeway intel has given for overclocking is just too large to ignore. If you consider it, the Athlon, while a technological marvel and all for the elegant solutions it employs to be compatible with a stupid x86 design (see this [arstechnica.com] ARSTechnica comparison G4 vs Athlon) just does NOT give the same bang for the buck if you check it all out. (And REALLY, the Alpha is still an amazing chip, 64 bits and all, and heavily underused - and its years old.)

    So if price/performance and x86 compatibility are all that matters, the Celeron300A was the best CPU deal of the year.

    Math

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