Posts by Annihilator

Retro tech fan views LaserDisc movie data with a budget microscope

Re: I wonder how much data could you compress on a Laserdisc-sized blu-ray.

I mean, arguably all of the optical disc formats are laserdiscs really :-D

Re: I wonder how much data could you compress on a Laserdisc-sized blu-ray.

Pretty easy to calculate - data area of a bluray is about 9,000mm2, a laserdisc is about 70,000mm2. So about 8x as much. So 200GB for a single layer, 400GB for a dual layer. More if you used the more modern 4K disc format (they increased from about 25GB to 33GB for single layer, and allowed triple layers), so up to 800GB.

Realistically if they were to create a whole new disc format, there would be further advances in the data density. There are petabit-scale discs being developed from a while ago (standard disc size), I doubt they'll go anywhere though.

NASA abandons delayed SLS upper stage for ULA's Centaur V instead

Re: Cancellation by stealth?

You know that it's Musk and SpaceX building the HLS/pointy-bit right?... If it was anyone else, I think we'd be calling it out as vapourware already, with zero chance of being operationally ready and human-rated by next year. But NASA seem to be screwed because they're not allowed to point at SpaceX and say "they're clearly lying"

Once upon a time, saving your bits meant punching holes in floppies

Re: Also used to drill a hole in 3.5" floppy disk

They worked, in much the same way you can overclock a processor. There's a risk that you introduce errors or create instability. From memory the track size was the same, but the gaps between magnetic bits/1s/0s was halved, so you needed a layer of metal oxide that was able to keep that level and not lose cohesion or 'bleed' between the bits.

My experience, they worked but would degrade quickly over time, so you'd use it to move data, but not to store data.

Re: Also used to drill a hole in 3.5" floppy disk

I remember this - weren't the 720 ones called Double Density, and the 1.44 ones High Density? And also required a fair amount of similar teenage optimism as the magnetic surface wasn't good enough to reliably write and subsequently retrieve data. Was fine for transferring stuff, but not so useful for storing stuff and hoping to get it back...

Artemis II headed back to the bay; helium issues force another delay

Reports say that they first noticed the leak when 3 of the engineers started talking like Alvin, Simon and Theodore.

As memory shortage persists, vendor price quotes are not long remembered

Re: Hedging ?

With RAM, you can pretty easily. Micron (as an obvious example) has seen their share price trebling since October 2025, in line with RAM prices. Same with SK Hynix.

Samsung (a bit more diversified, so less of a direct market indicator, but still massive manufacturer of DRAM) has seen it double.

'The EU runs on Microsoft' – and Uncle Sam could turn it off, claims MEP

The risks and benefits of globalisation are pretty well understood though. The idea that every single country has its own ability to make everything it could ever possibly need is a very isolationist view. It makes sense for countries to specialise in certain areas, and to think that the UK for example (and let's just focus on IT here) would have an Intel/AMD-esque company to build chip, as an example, is pretty nuts - the cost to build a chip fab plant simply wouldn't pay for itself. Same with every country developing its own office suite would be madness too.

Where it becomes dangerous, is when monopolies appear and you're stuck with that one country. The whole point of the balance is meant to be a friendlier version of the old nuclear "mutually assured destruction" adage - yes you can isolate a country, but it'll bite you on the bum as they'll look to isolate you too. This is the bonkers thing that a certain north american government seems to not understand..

Let them eat Pi: RAM shortage bumps Raspberry prices as much as $60

"Personally, I hope all sides lose."

I think it's safe to say that the only side who will lose is the consumer. As demonstrated by the Pi price rises (which to be fair, is no different to every other manufacturer), the cost increases will be passed straight onto the end user.

NASA taps Claude to conjure Mars rover's travel plan

Fair enough

"Nonetheless, Claude could not provide an example of RML, a shortcoming that the model attributed to the lack of a publicly documented standard."

Entirely what I'd expect when using an AI tool in a private engagement. If I work at Big Private Tech Industries, I'd want to use AI tools safe in the knowledge they're not suddenly able to describe and demonstrate our proprietary tech to Big Rival Tech Industries just because they asked the same AI tool.

ATM flashes a port or two for the enterprising hacker

I'd sort of missed the UPS complaint. Staggering that anyone would think an ATM had one - I've never walked around a city with a power cut and admired the ever-glowing ATMs.

Re: I think it's 90% certain,

More like 100% certain. That's how those things connect, via those dual connective routers. Frankly I'm surprised they've bothered with both vdsl and SIM.

In ye olden days when a line like that was expensive, they used to have dial-up modems instead - you could even hear some of them dialling when you made the request for cash if they had an internal speaker. I'm guessing the person reporting this security breach would have had kittens at the wire tapping opportunities there of picking up another extension and listening in..

They also operated differently - normally an ATM will ask for pin and validate it immediately, then ask how much cash you wanted. The shop-standing dial-up ones used to ask for your pin, how much cash you wanted, *then* validated it, just so they could do one dial-up request instead of two.

I'm really not sure what the excitement is here - how do you think remote ATMs are deployed in supermarkets and other places? It's always over the public internet now, that's how they're so prevalent.

The biggest security risk here is "someone might nick the cat5 cable or VDSL/4G modem". Or someone might unplug it so it stops working. Or plug in their laptop and nick some free internet access (assuming it's not locked down).

Look at any ATM in your local coop. It's literally plugged into a wall socket. It's possibly even connected via wifi to the shop's network rather than its own access point, I wouldn't expect anyone to be taking photos and worrying about someone running wireshark on their laptop..

NASA begins formal anomaly review after MAVEN probe lost in space

Re: Send Bugs

"Ooh this makes me very angry"

'Ralph Wiggum' loop prompts Claude to vibe-clone commercial software for $10 an hour

Re: Sounds awful

I am genuinely surprised to hear it's that low. Just ran an experiment and I fully expected that a new "tab" in notepad (because of course it needs tabs now) would double the memory requirements - it doesn't. Again, pleasantly surprised.

Re: Sounds awful

Yes that image was in the back of my mind when I posted that.

Re: Sounds awful

I think the problem with that analogy is the light switch will continue to work, but will form part of ever more complex building jobs that don't even realise they have the light switch built in, uses up terabytes of memory to flick the switch, and you end up horrified in 4 years time that your light switch inexplicably doesn't work anymore when a part of AWS-US-East-1 has an outage.

Concorde at 50: Twice the speed of sound, twice the economic trouble

Re: BA were asshats about it

Spot on. I thoroughly recommend anyone with a PR-pushed-view that BA withdrew Concorde off their own back would do well to read Mike Bannister's autobiography, not least for the section on how Air France's persistent operational breaches were really the cause of the crash.

Watching "Concorde: A Supersonic Story" on iplayer is also a cracking watch, to fill in the blanks on why only 2 operators came onboard,

Re: BA were asshats about it

It's a lovely "what if" puffpiece, but crucially torpedoed by the line buried near the bottom of the article

"This is particularly crucial when one considers that spare parts for Concorde had stopped being supplied in 2003"

"achieved" being a slightly double-meaning word. It *maintained* supersonic flight without afterburners is probably more accurate, but technically once it was in the window, it continued to achieve supersonic flight without the use of afterburners.

An even shorter way of saying it is in one word - supercruise. :-)

Congress ctrl-Zs bulk of proposed cuts to NASA science

Stall tactics

"Also not mentioned in the agreement is the fate or identity of the "space vehicle" to be transferred to Houston"

Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave. 3 more years until you can quietly drop the text altogether.

Intel unleashes Panther Lake CPUs, first built on 18A process

Re: Wifi?

With networking now at the same level of importance as local storage, I imagine they're just shortening the path between CPU and wifi, similar to moving PCIe lanes off the south and north bridge and directly into the PCH. It'll be bundled into that.

Re: Tamagotchi

"they’ve rebranded it"

There's no point finishing the sentence Lynn. I'll just speak over you.

The Y2K bug delayed my honeymoon … by 17 years!

To be fair, those examples actually show you where the Y2K problem was forced to be solved well *before* the year 2000. There were plenty of people born in 18xx opening or operating bank accounts in 19xx, similarly there were plenty of mortgages opened in the 1980s which would close in the 2000s. Same with pension calculators, leaseholds, freeholds, investments etc.

Or maybe... MAYBE... the time effort and money was spent to ensure nothing DID happen (in most instances).

Pretty sure it's not Y2K, but Richard Herring often brings up the most depressing New Years Eve he's ever had - home alone watching himself on the (purportedly live but actually) pre-recorded Jools Holland Hootenanny.

NASA tries savin' MAVEN as Mars probe loses contact with Earth

Distances

I assume that the distances involved require a "big dish" somewhere in the chain - so while we could easily talk to L4 or L5 by means of a large radio antenna on earth, it wouldn't be able to talk to anything on Mars unless they build a big dish there.

Part of why they're testing laser comms I think

Roomba maker iRobot gets cleaned out in Chapter 11

Re: Best reason to not buy a Roomba

There's plenty of reasons not to buy one, but I remember thinking at the time people outraged that it didn't deal with literal shit on the floor properly were probably expecting a bit too much for a robotic vacuum cleaner.

"I can't believe my robot vacuum cleaner just smeared that turd I left on the carpet across the rest of the house!" Really? I can. And I'm not really blaming the robot for that outcome...

Legacy Update expands archive of vanished Microsoft downloads

Oh good gracious me, I've just visited both Legacy Update and Windows Update Restored. The interface gave me such a nostalgic flashback, I'll be poring over both these sites, thanks.

Not to mention the inclusion of the tagline "Where Do You Want to Go Today?"

UK tribunal says reselling Microsoft licenses is A-OK

Re: Copyright?

I'm guessing Teslas have a user/login type setup, and the features are stuck with your account. So you can sell the car, but you'd need to handover your username and password to the new owner for them to continue using the software features.

'Windows sucks,' former Microsoft engineer says, explains how to fix it

I think I posted this the other day, but having recently reluctantly "upgraded" to Win 11, my biggest, easiest example of what he's talking about is in the Start menu. I've disabled the "recommended" element of the Start menu, because why on earth would I want it?

The result? In the middle of the Start menu is a blank section that says:

"Recommended - to show your recent files and new apps, turn them on in settings <link to settings>"

Network operator ponders building a new submarine cable – on land

Re: Political instability nixes it

Power is the reason. They wanted to use submarine cable tech, because the optical repeaters are powered by the cable itself.

Microwave repeaters need height, and power, or they're stuffed. And they've only got about 40-50 miles range, so you'd need about 100 of them stretched across Africa. A cable largely disappears over time and isn't visible.

Re: Political instability nixes it

That's the exact scenario I was remembering. It'll get nicked just in case it's copper.

Microsoft gives Windows 11 a fresh Start – here's how to get it

Re: Recommened section

Know what's infuriating? Currently I have the recommended section turned off in the settings. Guess what I see in the start menu now.

A recommended heading, underneath which is says "to show your recent files and new apps, turn them on in settings <link to settings>"

Windows 11 tiptoes further into dark mode with new dialogs

Well this is the bonkers thing - you still can. It's under accessibility/contrast themes and a quick try suggests that all the dialog boxes mentioned in the article change when you enable one. So quite why they're reinventing the wheel is beyond me.

But this is an operating system that still hasn't completely ditched the Control Panel approach and relies on a batsh1t crazy combo of that along with the Settings app, so hardly surprising.

Windows 11 update knocks out USB mice, keyboards in recovery mode

"This particular snafu echoes Windows 95's early USB support, when BIOS firmware lagged behind the OS, leaving users with USB keyboards unable to access BIOS settings without digging up legacy PS/2 keyboards."

Happened well into XP times from my memory - a BIOS would only natively support USB keyboards quite late on. Blew my mind the first time I saw one with mouse support. From my memory though, keyboards stayed PS/2 for quite a while, it was mice that first made the jump (and always came with that USB/PS2 dongle - fun fact, they didn't really do anything, the mouse recognised it was connected to one and started sending PS/2 signalling through the USB interface instead)

Re: If a machine is old enough to have a PS/2 port

Na, PS/2 has survived longer than you might think. Just checked, mine still has one, and it's probably 3 years old, and comfortably running Windows 11. I had no idea though.

Re: PS/2 keyboards unaffected..

I have to carefully select which USB port my mouse (or wireless dongle) is plugged into. If it shares resources with another port that I happen to have plugged a hard drive into, the lag/jitter is astonishing.

In '90s Microsoft, you either shipped code or shipped out

Re: Oh it's far worse

To be fair, that's in no way unique to Microsoft, by any stretch of the imagination. Most large organisations in my experience...

Vodafone keels over, cutting off millions of mobile and broadband customers

"Readers also reported that broadband was affected by the outage, which is odd since we would have expected cellular and internet connectivity to be largely separate."

I don't know why you would have expected that - companies are all about "synergies" and "efficiencies", I'd 100% expect them to be sharing as much kit as possible.

Texas senators cry foul over Smithsonian's pricey Space Shuttle shuffle

Enola Gay, was named after the pilot's mum right? Which sounds awfully like an old Les Dawson joke.

Re: Barge?

Doesn't help that the shuttle is nowhere bloody near the Potomac. It's at Dulles, entirely conveniently as it was delivered there atop the aforementioned 747 shuttle carrier.

NASA's deep-space laser comms demo has left the chat

Ah don't feel bad, El Reg would explain what MS Clippy was too.

Re: Downlink?

It's technically two-way laser communications, but the uplink to the probe is at what Nasa calls a "low rate" one, also used as a beacon for Psyche to aim at. The transmitter is actually about 100 miles away from the receiving telescope, but yeah, there's still a need for a hefty one (5m) to receive the signal at the higher rates.

It's a demonstrator though, it's main goal is for proving data links between human missions to Mars, rather than probes.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/deep-space-optical-communications-dsoc/

Solar flair: Logitech's K980 Signature Slim keyboard runs on rays

Re: it's easy to imagine the hardware being rolled out across an enterprise...

Having dealt with corporate procurement, I would imagine $work would have signed up to a leasing company and be charged £70 a year for the same £35 product.

Re: Pah

2-3 hours for a mouse with a Li-ion battery the size of a matchbox?? What was it doing to run down that fast, communicating via spark gap transmitter?

Re: Pah

"I need a keyboard to access this server console"

And chances are, you won't be doing that via bluetooth. USB if you're lucky, PS/2 if you're not!

Re: Bluetooth battery level protocol

So they could roll out their crapware, same reason every keyboard manufacturer seems to have.

Re: Pah

I had solar powered calculators in the 80s/90s, I think schools were basically issued them (albeit without any battery or charging capabilities) - I doubt they were ever taken outside, but managed to work just fine.

It does raise a good point though - perhaps we shouldn't be calling them "solar powered", rather "photovoltaic powered".