[ltp] The MWave "disaster"

[Henry J. Cobb]

Software is the way forwards.

The competition to IBM's MWave comes from Intel, not the DSP makers.

In the future more and more of the PC's functionality will come from
"features" powered by the CPU.  Modem, Soundcard, MPEG, all are being
hollowed out and are handing over more and more of their processing to the
central CPU and nowhere is this more evident in the laptop and palmtop
markets where you really don't want to power multiple processing engines
from your battery.

Linux has the advantage here because the Linux real-time extensions are so
much cleaner than hacking these things on top of WinDos9x.

What I'd really like to see is not MWave support for the thinkpads, but a
new PowerPC laptop with all the extra costs of modem, sound and DVD support
eliminated through real-time extensions to the Linux kernel.  (PowerPCs have
always delivered far more DSP power per penny than Intel, even before they
switched to copper.)

IBM wouldn't have to pay anybody else anything for the CPU, OS or (deleted)
DSPs, so even they could deliver these units for a reasonable price.

I figure $999 for a 500 Mhz CPU, 64 MB of RAM and 6-8 gig harddisk, with
DVD as an option.

-HJC http://www.cheapestdeals.com