Not that we want to impugn Mac the Knife's sobriety (as if that were humanly possible), but we strongly suspect that the edged implement sampled one too many of the local colorful delicacies during his Seybold trip to New York. The Knife first reveals that Apple's upcoming consumer-level machine will cost less than $1000 including a monitor, which is something we've all been hearing from multiple sources for a long time. Nothing too off-the-wall there. But then he goes on to say that Apple's paying only $20 per 266 MHz G3 chip.

$20 for a G3 266?! And no, it's not a typo caused by his convention-inspired intoxication and missed by his probably similarly-inebriated editors; he goes on to state that since that price is so low, Apple's trying to craft a complete motherboard for these low-end systems that includes video and a 266 MHz G3 all for under $100. Even if these particular G3's are the lower-end 740's with zero backside cache, we just can't believe that a 266 MHz version in any volume could cost less than dinner and a movie for one. Heck, does anyone want to sell us a 266 MHz G3 for $20? We're willing to forgo the evening's trek to Buddha's Delight and the midnight screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show to scrape up the cash.

In fact, we'll even toss in our old 200 MHz 604e to sweeten the deal. Any takers? In the meantime, we hope the Knife suffers relatively few indignities as he dries out in the drunk tank...

The nightmare just never ends for Java. The latest blow comes from Hewlett-Packard, who, rather than license Sun's Java virtual machine for embedded systems, decided instead to build their own from the ground up and license it to others at a lower price than Sun charges for the "official" version. Information Week has the news.

Why is this a problem? First of all, Sun gets less money. That doesn't mean a thing to most of us, but we're sure Sun's less than thrilled about it. Secondly, HP admits that their implementation (which they're calling "Java compliant" but not "Java compatible" to avoid legal action) provides "extended APIs" that essentially breaks the Java "write once run anywhere" standard. So much for the dream...

Unsurprisingly, the first licensee of this non-Java Java is-- you guessed it-- Microsoft, who wants to use HP's virtual machine in the Windows CE operating system. After introducing the great schism in Java on the desktop, they're only too happy to sponsor its corruption in embedded systems, as well. Sad to say, but it's really starting to look like Java's ship has sailed, at least as far as compatibility issues go.

Quick little fantasy bit: Next time you're sitting around daydreaming about the Mac you'd like sitting on your desk, consider a system sporting four 300 MHz G3 processors, each with a 1 MB backside cache, running on a 100 MHz system bus with 66 MHz PCI Ultra II SCSI, an 8MB graphics card, and fast ethernet. Sound like fun? Here's the scary part: according to Mac OS Rumors, that system really exists, and is available from Phase 5 Digital Products for $4495.

"But AtAT," we hear you protest, "the G3 isn't a multiprocessing chip, so what good is a quad-G3 system?" Wrong question. The right question is, "What good is a quad-G3 Mac?" Because in addition to that $4495, this dream system will also cost you the Mac OS. Instead, it runs AmigaOS 3.1, which apparently manages to overcome the G3's multiprocessing limitations via software-- something which the Mac OS can't do.

So unfortunately this system remains a fantasy for now, at least for those of us who aren't quite willing to chuck the Mac OS for Amiga's operating system (nice as it is). We still find it strange that given the Mac's dominance in the computationally-intensive world of graphics and content creation, there are currently no serious choices for multiprocessing systems. Someday...