Coming to Steam Deck and Dock

 Now all game boxes including Steam OS contribute directly and indirectly to Global Warming.

Linux was way behind the XBox of Microsoft in games.

Microsoft killed the innovations by enticing young with imaginary games in the trend of Star Wars and Visual Basics and no line of Code for creative work, while Linux has grown into 128 million lines in Code in current Linux 5 Kernel.

Steam OS probably has used this kernel for Steam Deck and Dock outsmarting Microsoft (would not win the never ending battle of Wits and Wisdom or even a rematch).

It is cheap and under $400/=.

ASUS Tablet with more punch is $3000/=

ACER is little below $1500/=

Mind you, this is a Standalone PC with a Game Pack.

Incredible price and I hope the RDNA GPU supplies come good by December, if not the ZEN CPU.

I would recommend  you to buy the next level of $500/= odd version for connectivity to NVMe external drives instead of SATA, SSD and eMMC disks.

SATA stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment which is relatively slow.

All serial as opposed to parallel devices are slow by nature and draw power from the computer (no power jack is necessary).

All my external devices which I paid a fortune including to Imation needed separate power supply.

Companies that produce them are:

1. Western Digital
2.  Seagate
3. Samsung
4. Toshiba
5. Adata
6. Sandisk
7. Imation (gone bust I believe)
8. Hitachi

All my hard disks are working (having used  many a times, to boot Linux and for Data and erased many a times in that process using Gparted of Linux) except one portable Sandisk which I paid a lot. Sandisk's internal connection to USB 3 broke. There was bad metal connection inside it (with all my portable data Lost), that connects to the USB 3 connection wire (and then to the PC).

I do not recommend it.

SSD stands for Solid Sate Device with no moving parts for flash memory.

NVMe stands for Non Volatile Memory Express only for PC with PCIe slot in the mother board.

I think MMe means multimedia multiplexing environment and not a hard disk type.

This slot in the motherboard is used in earlier designs of computers for graphic cards to support faster data transfer but now is used by NVMe.

In old computers the RAM was limited to 1 GB RAM (32 bit computers) and graphic was dedicated to a graphic cards to save RAM memory and did not heat up when running.

Please do not accept a 32 bit computer even, if it is given free.

They are Energy Vultures and consume lot of electricity.

GPU means Graphic Processing Unit.

In old computers only the CPU was running hot and needed a heat sink and fans running, all the time to cool the computer.

When I was running 13 computers (32 bit) in our home network, three of them caught fire when the temperature was hovering around 85 to 90 Fahrenheit.

Of course few of the Cathode Ray Tubes of TVs caught fire,too.

When these things happened, I started using thermometers for my pet fish tanks outside and they die at 84 Fahrenheit.

I stopped keeping fish in fish tanks altogether.

Wild fires in Canada and Australia are natural outcomes which Oil Ministers all over the globe ignored for over 70 years.

The new CPUs and GPUs are all integrated in thin wafer circuits all into one motherboard and they consume more energy than old PCs and without heat sinking measures, they are too hot to handle.

In cold countries with heating bills going up playing a game in a box is a quick way to go to sleep with warmth (heat) to cushion you.

My PC has only PCI slots.

eMMC means embedded Multi Media Card and the controller system.

All the gadgets in this world contribute to global warming from production line to the user base at home.

Blaming only cars and vehicles is barking at the wrong tree.

The vehicles at least deliver goods.

What is the contribution of computers to the alleviation of hunger and poverty in the Globe (that Coronavirus has exposed us)?

Coming to Steam Deck and Dock.

I have to make a few early observations to counteract, mostly negative remarks.

I played my first game with kids with Atari.

Coming from a generation where children's toys were baby dolls and motorized cars with hard to manipulate remote controllers, DOS video games were master stroke in history of children games.

I must say I and my adult friends played them more  than the kids.

For kids the games were passing stage of their childhood development.

But Disney Game on Lion King had a lasting impact.

Lion king was a classic film for kids and adults.

Playing golf was painful in.Atari.

Myself a good snooker and billiard player playing a billiard game on cellphone is very painful to say the least.

One needs applied mathematics brain to workout the game strategy and lot of skill and practice to go with it, to pot a billiard ball (not pools).

I used to beat British guys in UK and they see this little guy from Ceylon humble them in billiards and snooker (mind you I did not play with professional guys or in clubs).

Actually I win my post (out of 60 odd candidates) in a selection interview by asking the interview board, is there a snooker table in the hospital.

If they ask why, my ready made answer is I could practice playing snooker while I wait for a patient to arrive from a distance or kill my time practising alone till midnight.

Waking up from sleep to answer a call is very annoying and miserable thing.

But I was good at cat naps.

Watching TV or sipping beer was not my way and I never sip a drink when on call and absolute concentration is necessary in critical care.

With that background playing games with PlayStation with only two games with the first buy was sucking dollars and pounds from poor parents.

My son stop playing PlayStation in less than two months.

My daughter loved reading and that also fiction.

Me a reader in Science and Technology.

I cannot find four partners to play Bridge now but I play Bridge using a cellphone.

I try to improve my game.

Bottom line is boys love playing video games but only a few girls play video games.

The Coronavirus has made girls to join the Band Wagon of video games.

That is a good thing but ignore their comments about Steam Deck and Dock.

Mind you, these guys come from Windows and Apple background and does not know what is Linux.

The current Linux 5 Kernel can handle many graphic cards, if the O.E.M. guys volunteer their specifications to the Linux developers.

Equally they have some game boxes from childhood that they have Pathological Attachment (term pathology has disease connotation here) to those devices.They are all biased in their opinions and they are not comparative or balanced.

I see Steam Deck 2 coming in the future since old guys like me have visual problems to counter and I prefer a very BIG Display.

Coronavirus has added lot of grannies and grand dads playing Steam Games.

The joystick and touch pads will improve coordination problems, especially after mild form of stroke and if, I am one of the directors of the hospital, I would order some Steam Deck and Dock items for both children and geriatric patients.

So if you are philanthropist please keep my above observation as a reference point.

Steam should focus the global nature of games.

If we can cut down on the pills and if Steam contributes to that goal, even a little childhood fancy game played by a sick  adult is a bonus to recovery.

It is very big thing!

Back to home for recuperation.

It has a relatively big display screen which is touch sensitive.

This display is not BIG enough for my age.

It has both touch pad and two joysticks.

It has SD card ports to upgrade capacity but playing with SD card is not an option.

SD card  slows the system.

It has Linux OS (Steam OS 3) and probably  latest  KDE plasma, I guess.

Mind you it is coming in December and book now.

There is no crowd sourcing and it has got capital from Steam Machine sales in the years gone by.

Steam Valve is the operating company.

It is a standalone PC for a work desk.

Since it is a PC one can install

1. Windows 10 or 11 with Steam running on top of Windows.

2. It can run on any Linux distribution that supports Steam (since Steam is Linux almost all Linux distributions support it but one has to purchase Steam games).

3. Why not run on its own Steam OS 3 and enjoy 50,000 games you will never finish in a life time?

It has Photon which is modified Wine that runs Windows games on Linux box.

It is a Three In One Game Box.

It has AMD CPU  Zen and AMD RDNA GPU.

What a nice combination to beat Intel architecture owned by Lenova in China.

It beats, IBM based of Lenova in China  by a big margin.

It has ports in the dock for all the connectivity and WiFi connection off the dock.

No need of PS5 of Sony and XBox of Microsoft.

Linux is the winner after all.

The best buy in the market today.

I have a Console  of a Cheap Chinese made Copycat in which I could not not play a single game. I paid a big sum in Rupees.

It's keyboard could not type my 18 digit alpha numeric password for WiFi connectivity to download new games.

I tried even in French Keyboard but failed.

So do not buy cheap Chinese stuff.

Chinese alphabet is a graphic design not alphanumeric like the English Keyboard.

Luckily the computer software and hardware are based on the English keyboard for instructions.

It can be hacked but not easily duplicated in China.

That is why they are developing Kline OP in China.

The Chinese are very bad in typing  English and  Linux Code.

If not for American's base in Taiwan and British in Honk Kong Chinese ambition to go to Mars bypassing the Van Allen Belt is only a daydream.

They are number one Copycats on this planet.