Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

HP 820 Tower - RED EDITION

Marcos Montenegro said:
reviving thread to find out what happened to RED Edition tower?
Click to expand...

From what I gathered, the whole idea just fell apart. It was to be offered through two vendors - ProMAX serving the LA market and TekServe serving the NYC market - and the product just never materialized, probably due to the required parts from RED being in short supply or maybe it was some other reason that made it impractical to offer or perhaps the pre-order numbers just weren't good at all. As is often the case with OEM's, HP still has the micro-site pages up for the unit, but that's about it.
 
Well if there are some scrap heap 5.25" bay RedMag Readers I'd love to have them.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
With the way I stated it, it may seem a bit extreme, even a bit of a conspiracy theory. That said, I harbor no love for what Microsoft or their products -- Windows, Office, et. al. -- have become. Call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but I have spent the better part of my life building, maintaining and using computers, the vast majority all running some incarnation of a Microsoft OS. From the early days of MS-DOS up to now. If I had to put a number on it, I would wager that I have personally assembled more than 2500 computers in the last 15 years alone, with close to all of them being installed with Windows. I can also attest to the large number of Microsoft people I know and have known over the years. Some who are with the company today, some who are not.

Yes, the Windows kernel is a rather impressive piece of software engineering. Unfortunately, the conglomeration of crap surrounding it ranges from elegance to anything but, with the latter taking the lion's share. Entire industries have been built upon the shortcomings and inadequacies of the Windows OS. Every time Microsoft has spawned a new initiative to address some of these inadequacies, they are faced with law suits from multiple directions. Windows is also an OS that has gaping security holes and there is little to no effort from Microsoft to actually address them. We have constant little updates and fixes, most of which address the security issues by re-dressing them or attempting to disguise. One of the core motivational forces behind Windows development is to preserve backward compatibility at almost any cost. Poor development practices from third parties have been allowed and encouraged from the start. With the shift to the NT kernel in the mainstream Win2K product, some attempts were made at heightened security, but compatibility with Win9x practices were also maintained, circumventing most of the progressive advances. Microsoft gets sued every time they try to alter functionality of key security components, close back doors or offer up their own solutions to a problem where third parties already have a commercial solution in place. Call it industry coercion, that's a more apt description than intentional hampering of security development, and definitely more proper than calling it an outright conspiracy.

With that, it makes one wonder if Apple, or anyone else, had become the dominant OS provider, if the world would treat them any differently or if they would face most of the same issues. I believe they would face most of the same issues. Look at the state of the Mac OS before the transition to OS X. It suffered many of the same ills that have always plagued Windows, and at times in a more severe way.

I'm not an Apple fan-boy by any means. I don't pull any punches when discussing their shortcomings, inadequacies and outright blunders. The new Mac Pro is a really nice workstation, but as you say it's just not powerful enough for what many of us need. As is typical with many fresh Apple designs, it is already starting trends and I think Apple is on the right track here. But also in typical Apple fashion, it's too much, too soon. Many professionals still have a need for PCIe expansion or the need to connect legacy devices without expensive external converters or expansion boxes. Thunderbolt or similar external interfaces are indeed an ideal future, but that future isn't here just yet. Even if we're willing to try and make it happen, it's just not. The interfaces can't live up to their own bandwidth abilities with the way they're currently supported. Even if they could, the bandwidth is inadequate for many peripherals still used out there.

I do agree with you on PC hardware and the need to run Windows (and Linux on occasions where it fits). I own 8 to 10 PC's for every Mac here. Of the companies I own and run, I place Macs where it makes sense, PC's everywhere else, typically running Windows. A Linux server here and there.

…The only Microsoft software I dislike more than Windows is Office, or Office 365 in particular. Microsoft has become so complacent in their monopoly that the software has stagnated into an insult to modern productivity. They have the industry by the short and curlies, attempts by others to produce alternative products fail to woo the masses away from the de-facto turd that is MS Office. And yet the core product has not evolved in 20 years. The code base is mostly older than that. It's buggy, disorganized, lacking modern functionality, ugh… And the father of the whole Office 365 pay for the privilege of using our old software concept, Satya Nadella, is now in the driver's seat at MSFT. Oh, goody…
Click to expand...


there are two mainstream o/s alternatives for people who want large, scalable systems with a track record in reliability on a micro computer, with long term support.. thats linux and windows.. and there is a reason

macs are nice toys.. they are shiny, their progress meters are accurate!

but i remember around 2000 trying out photoshop, and asking some new mac to open a new 30,000 x 30,000 pixel blank canvas ..like id been doing on windows for many years (photoshop had a 2gig file size limit..or 30000 pixel width..whichever came first ;) ..the mac vomited and died just after it reported not having enough ram to continue..i nearly felt sorry for it.. my windows machine on the other hand.. with a quarter as much ram,..and after grinding for a minute..delivered the blank canvas..and i drew on it .

ive programmed since i was 8years old, ..yes spectrums, commodores, bbc electrons.. but mostly on windows and msdos, since 1990. i wrote TSR programs that would use the system clock interrupt to time share.. before microsoft became a "multi-tasking" os..and did the same thing!

believe me..i have every reason to hate windows. its a pig at times. we've spent too much time together.. but.. it delivers more often than it does not..and i reluctantly admit that

so while your apple software is born, and then dies..and is tied to the next piece of hardware, the next version of the apple os.. my x86 programs are still running 30years on without being re-compiled!.. and

despite the crippling backward compatibility that windows has built into it..which has allowed the largest library of commercial and free software to be available.. it still outperforms the mac in most ways ..especially in openness, price , and upgradeability..

so i can't advise anyone who wants to be on the edge artistically, or computationally, or anyone who is not financially very well off or just wants something that matches their dining room table, or anyone who does not need prores (im just putting together a windows Prores encoder for myself) ..to ever buy one.

i like imacs. the 5k screen is interesting, but id miss the 1366x768 res on my asus.. good for pixel peeping
 
Im sorry but the Macs Ive worked with since PowerPC is not a toy.

If working with computers is all about tearing it apart and making it work with something from the MSDOS days then count me out.

Ive been there and yes I spend a great deal of my childhood building cars too so get with the times.

In this day of age, I if I have to spend any time on making a DVD (drivers)to work on a new Windows OS Im out.

I want to create (or in car terms ride) not tinker and toy around with parts from the old desktop.

And Im not sure which Apple product you chocked a 30K pixel file on but Ive never had issues from the Quadra > PowerMac > IntelMacs opening files that big.

Are you sure it wasnt an LC III pizza box with 4Megs for RAM?
 
While I'm not a big fan of Apple desktops... it's only because I've got more powerful options in the PC world.

On the laptop end of things... I've got a high end HP 17", i7 extreme series 32Gig ram, RAID SSD beast - but since getting the loaded rMBP last year I've barely used the HP (and my back loves me for it). No it does not have the specs of the HP - but it's a FAR better package for mobile computing (and it cost a fair bit less). It spends about half its time running Windows and works as well as you'd expect any Tier 1 vendor product to work.

I've always been a bit of a PC snob... thought Apple was for fashion and fanboys who opted for a slick marketing plan over capability, but IMO these days there's not much difference between Apple products and comparable products from quality PC vendors, I buy what fits my needs - don't really care about the debate anymore. The rMBP is as good a balance of cost/capability/portability as anything on the PC market, and in general Apple products are not the overpriced underperforming systems they used to be.

They do however still make choices that bug me... like why no 32GB option on the rMBP, and why no high end gpu option on the new 5k iMac...
 
egon touste said:
there are two mainstream o/s alternatives for people who want large, scalable systems with a track record in reliability on a micro computer, with long term support.. thats linux and windows.. and there is a reason

macs are nice toys.. they are shiny, their progress meters are accurate!

but i remember around 2000 trying out photoshop, and asking some new mac to open a new 30,000 x 30,000 pixel blank canvas ..like id been doing on windows for many years (photoshop had a 2gig file size limit..or 30000 pixel width..whichever came first ;) ..the mac vomited and died just after it reported not having enough ram to continue..i nearly felt sorry for it.. my windows machine on the other hand.. with a quarter as much ram,..and after grinding for a minute..delivered the blank canvas..and i drew on it .

ive programmed since i was 8years old, ..yes spectrums, commodores, bbc electrons.. but mostly on windows and msdos, since 1990. i wrote TSR programs that would use the system clock interrupt to time share.. before microsoft became a "multi-tasking" os..and did the same thing!

believe me..i have every reason to hate windows. its a pig at times. we've spent too much time together.. but.. it delivers more often than it does not..and i reluctantly admit that

so while your apple software is born, and then dies..and is tied to the next piece of hardware, the next version of the apple os.. my x86 programs are still running 30years on without being re-compiled!.. and

despite the crippling backward compatibility that windows has built into it..which has allowed the largest library of commercial and free software to be available.. it still outperforms the mac in most ways ..especially in openness, price , and upgradeability..

so i can't advise anyone who wants to be on the edge artistically, or computationally, or anyone who is not financially very well off or just wants something that matches their dining room table, or anyone who does not need prores (im just putting together a windows Prores encoder for myself) ..to ever buy one.

i like imacs. the 5k screen is interesting, but id miss the 1366x768 res on my asus.. good for pixel peeping
Click to expand...


1,000 % dead on
 
L. Langer said:
From what I gathered, the whole idea just fell apart. It was to be offered through two vendors - ProMAX serving the LA market and TekServe serving the NYC market - and the product just never materialized, probably due to the required parts from RED being in short supply or maybe it was some other reason that made it impractical to offer or perhaps the pre-order numbers just weren't good at all. As is often the case with OEM's, HP still has the micro-site pages up for the unit, but that's about it.
Click to expand...

FWIW, units were made and sold. But as far as current status, that is an HP question, not RED.
 
Brent@RED said:
FWIW, units were made and sold. But as far as current status, that is an HP question, not RED.
Click to expand...

Well, I have confirmed that HP was loaning out the customized RED Edition demo/review hardware last year to promote their workstations and that's all there is. As for who actually has one, does anyone actually own one or did anyone own one at any time? I haven't seen anything that claims the product ever materialized other than your statement that units were made and sold, neither of the vendors make any claim of ever offering the product beyond the pre-production promotions in 2012/2013, and the only reviews from anyone about the product are from those who were given the pre-production units to review/test back in 2012 and 2013.
 
Last edited:
Sorry, I don't really have details. The guy at Red who was the contact for HP said they made the product and had sales. Don't know quantities or anything as to pre-production or productuon units. Just trying to clarify some were sold, that's all.
 
egon touste said:
macs are nice toys.. they are shiny, their progress meters are accurate!
Click to expand...

Egon, you might want to take another look at Apple. For instance... HP just announced a new 15" workstation (ZBook 15u)... thin, light, powerful - competitor for rMBP. Comparing it fully loaded to a fully loaded rMBP this is what you get:

Processor - HP i7-4900MQ, rMBP i7-4980HQ <faster
Memory - HP max 32GB DDR3 1600 <more, rMBP 16GB DDR3 1600
Hard Drive - HP max 2x512GB SSD (likely max 600MB/s), 1TB SSD (1GB/s) <better design & faster
Graphics - HP Quadro K2100M, rMBP NVidia GT 750M <tie
Display - HP 1080p <really? , rMBP 2880x1800 <much better

Price - HP $5700, rMBP $3100 (I imagine that not many people pay full list for HP stuff... but I'd expect the discounted price to be in the mid $3k range).

Dimensions - HP 9.98 x 14.78 x .84(front... gets fatter in the back) 4.23lb, rMBP 9.73 x 14.13 x .71, 4.46lb

I don't know about you... but IMO the rMBP is the better system, and for a lot less money. This is why I don't pick on Apple much anymore, because for comparable quality systems they're very competitive (and the rMBP runs Win8.1 as well as any comparable system). If the rMBP had 32gig of memory I'd call it about as close to perfect for my use as I can get in a laptop (well... a 4k display and higher end graphics would be nice... but that just getting greedy). I don't understand why PC makers think 1080p is acceptable for display resolution STILL, there are PHONES with better resolution.
 
Apple must be doing something right since everyone is still trying to match their mystic.

Look its a computer, it works for some or most of us.

It doesnt require me to have to pull whats left of my hair after my nephew visits a few sketchy websites (thanks Mine Craft :P).

Sure next time dont let him touch my Windows box, its my work place I get it :)

Of late I would let them go nuts on my Mac Pro and really the only thing to worry about is them changing my desktop background ;)

Sorry, fun experiences during the Holidays.
 
Marcos Montenegro said:
I've been using PRORES in Windows using the MIRAIZON plugin in Adobe Premier. Cheap, good and reliable.
Click to expand...

+1 especially with the new version. Haven't touched my Mac Pro since integrating this plugin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top