The Talos secure workstation is the first ATX-compatible, workstation class mainboard for the IBM Power8 processor

128 GB of RAM though

NEVER
EVER

What is the fucking point of 128GB RAM?
Inflating the price?

a billion tabs of firefox open, think about the posibilities

tmpfs

GNOME 4

VMs, among other things.

Power shit will never be affordable for enthusiasts. Even used stuff is still absurdly overpriced from a price/performance standpoint.

multitasking/multiuser, cache, RAM disks, fuck-huge data sets

There is no such thing as too much RAM.

Does anyone even make consumer SPARC machines? I'm not even sure if Oracle makes SPARC workstations anymore.

Seems like a perfect match for Illumos.

Qubes with every process in a VM, recursively.

I just wish somebody would release an ATX compatible version of this case.

Playing minecraft.

Dudes this thing's way too powerful for personal/private computering
Most of us are using Thinkpads and Shitberries to run networks
Who would actually buy this

If you're looking to make a personal rig, you could combine BeagleBones together.

Well no, most tasks want a fast computer, not a dozen slow ones.

Some nutters pay that much for gaming PCs, it's not out of the question. But as much as I'd love to do so, it's far too expensive for me to consider especially for an Australian, and I think any attempt to take the high-end is doomed right now. There needs to be a solid footing in the low-to-mid-end first.

Sheeeiitttt

I'm an Aussie who thought he could afford the Talos until I did a tax calculation.

Getting a $5k Talos(board + low end POWER) becomes at least $9k.

What are these guys doing, man? Even an AmigaOne is cheap compared to this. They're doing pre-orders for the X5000 and it's like $2500.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOne

Freesoftware is always a good 5-10 years behind non-free software but the fact that it manages to steadily keep up the pace while providing openness and the modabillity is astounding to me.

I don't really benefit from new "innovations" in software anymore although the new hardware is somewhat compelling bar the spying.

Nobody makes new SPARC desktop machines but they're pretty cheap on eBay.

Also Illumos doesn't work on POWER8. Your choices are basically Gentoo, Debian, RHEL, and FreeBSD.

already gave them $10. There's no way I'm gonna spend more

Yeaaah. The other issue is they didn't redesign for POWER9.

Where can I find a new SPARC machine that's not 5+years of age, preferably new?

because they are obsolete, most sold as parts, doesn't work.

If you're willing to run a crippled T1, you can put the stripped down opensparc on an fpga. I think you can still find the source code (even stripped, but not sure) on Oracle's website.

You don't, you buy used SPARC for cheap and run it into the ground. Then when these new machines are affordable, you buy one.

It's only 10% funded with two weeks left. This does not seem to be taking off.

You can buy the mobo for 3.7k now, and the rest later. That'll help the project.

Not enough to make a dent. Also that's only for USA people, I simply cannot afford to fork out 6k+ for a mainboard only as much as I'd love to.

So you want me to build a computer from scratch, using an aged CPU, right?

I will take your post as a dull poke.

-----
btw, iirc, powerpcs are public domain, and I see more progress to make boards with them than this shit.

s/powerpcs/SuperHs/
j-core.org/

Two max, and sometimes ahead.

Since it is a different instruction set I wouldn't able to run x86 programs on the POWER cpu right? Is there such a thing as emulation of x86 on POWER8s without virtualization? You'd have to compile everything from source....

Sun Workstations were $10-20,000 back in the day.

???

What it really needs is to catch the attention of some non-retarded government somewhere that understands the value of computer security. (An extreme rarity in this day and age, yes.)

my employer constantly needs to buy workstations, but I have no saying in management decisions. moreover, it would take me a whole Stallman lecture to convince them.

It's really sad to see this great firehouse hardware starve

Not that I know of.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVM_Lx86

What do you mean only for USA? This project has free worldwide shipping, afaict.

In terms of the cost. It's about 1.35x more in AUD, there's probably also import taxes. Unfortunate.

How can it be more in AUD? Surely you pay just 3.7k USD and hence less in AUD.

Sadly there are import dues yes, nothing to do about those.

It's the other way around. $1.00 AUD is worth about $0.75 USD. That's a non-trivial amount for an expensive computer. Sadly, there was a time when they two currencies were about equal.

But can it play CS?

And then we elected the corrupt incompetent fucktwats known as the Liberal National party and it has been downhill ever since.

Is there a political party anywhere that isn't?

By direct implication of my previous statement Labor is a whole lot less corrupt and more competent. But if you want a completely uncorrupt party try some of the minors with no election prospects due to the broken two party system.

The campaign has been extended.

Do you want to help fund it?

1) Is the Power ISA open source the way RISC-V is?
2) Is it possible to run windows in qemu which from what I have read emulates x86. Also, what would the performance hit be while do this?

1) Is the power ISA open source like the risc-v isa is?
2) Is it possible to run windows within something like qemu which I have read emulates x86. Also, what would the performance hit be doing this?

It looks neat but there's no way I'd have that much money to freely blow on a computer. I wish they succeed at least, so we can hopefully see more computers like this for cheaper.
What is the feasibility of a POWER-8 SBC? Couldn't someone make something around the size of the RasPi or Olimex Micro and release that for something like £200?

First of all this

Second if it's like that it's because people share knowledge and communicate between them.
Their is no secret opposed to non-free/libre software.

My hopes are dashed.

So do I.
No. The CPUs are as big as some SBCs and they're heavy on power and cooling requirements. For those systems you actually do want ARM.