Posts by 45RPM

ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that turned Europe on to PCs, is 40

Re: Where it all began...for some

And whilst the Apple II may not have been big in the UK (and it did have cheesy graphics, but that had nothing to do with the CPU), some huge and massively popular games, like Prince of Persia, started life there.

Similarly, the BBC Micro was regarded as one of the quicker 8bit machines - and it was packing a 6502 family CPU as well.

If you look at raw clock speed, then yes. The Z80 is quicker. But clock speed doesn’t tell the whole story - if it did then an over clocked Pentium 4 would toast a Ryzen (which clearly isn’t the case). The 6502 is more efficient, getting more work done per clock cycle. When you take everything into account, the Z80 and the 6502 are pretty comparable.

macOS Server discontinued after years on life support

Re: A final shot to the head for a twitching zombie

Hmm - I’m sure there was a very good reason that I set up all my network stuff on Linux.

Space Launch System dress rehearsal canceled for repairs

Is it NASAs fault - or is it Boeing? I thought that the rocket was a Boeing product.

If I buy a car and my car doesn’t work then that isn’t my fault - it’s the fault of the manufacturer or the dealer (well, as long as I didn’t break it through my own stupidity).

Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP

I’m not surprised. I haven’t heard anything bad about Windows 11, other than the usual grumbling that one hears about something new. On the face of it, I’m the sort of person who’d have upgraded like a shot. However…

Windows 11 doesn’t run on my HP Z800, at least, not without a good deal of farting around that I’m not prepared to do.

I could upgrade to a newer PC - but why should I? Linux works perfectly on my Z800, and I don’t use Windows frequently enough for it to be worthwhile to upgrade.

I have another machine, a Ryzen powered machine that I use for games. It’s currently running Windows 10, and will happily run Windows 11 - but my plan there (and has been for some time - nothing to do with Windows 11) is to upgrade to SteamOS - I hear good things about Proton.

So all in all, I would upgrade to Windows 11. But I can’t. And it was Microsoft’s decision to lock me out of that upgrade.

An early crack at network management with an unfortunate logfile

Not quite the same, but back in the day when we had to write copious documentation for all the software that we wrote, sometimes running to hundreds of pages, I became convinced that no one ever read it.

With hindsight, writing “and they all lived happily ever after” as the very last sentence probably wasn’t the most discreet way of testing this theory. Especially since it lead them to actually read the rest of the document very carefully indeed. And, whilst the document was usable (it contained everything that it needed to), it also had a few, ahem, extra words and deliberate misspellings.

Some of the reviewers thought it was funny. On balance though, the scales of corporate justice were tipped against me. The shit hit the fan.

Auctioneer puts Space Shuttle CPUs under the hammer

Re: Important question

You beat me to it. At the very least, it should be able to play Tetris.

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

The vast number of desktops is an advantage for Linux users, I think, rather than a pain.

The point is that Linux users aren’t general users - for whom the sheer amount of choice is a disadvantage.

I don’t think that Linux will ever be for the common man, nor should it try to be. It’s found its evolutionary niche - so why compromise by becoming easier for the average user, and in doing so ruin itself for all the users who love it for what it is?

Other than the fact that it won’t run on my HP Z800 (which I’m not going to replace, because I don’t use Windows enough for it to be worth it), what’s wrong with Windows 11? Genuine question - why is it in some way ‘worse’ than Windows 10? (Not comparing it to Linux or macOS - just a Windows to Windows comparison)

Re: Oy Vey

Hear hear! And imagine if one ‘side’ or the other won the ‘war’, and we ended up with a computing monoculture - as almost happened in the late nineties with Windows. How did that work out? Badly - with Windows ME, that’s how.

Let’s celebrate the diversity (which is invariably a good thing), and enjoy a variety of operating systems (even if, ultimately, we might stay on the one that we’re already familiar with). We’re human - we’re not clones, and each of us has a different lifestyle and a different use-case - so isn’t it great that we have a choice of systems to fulfil those different needs?

I haven’t been able to get Proton to work at all in my (admittedly limited) testing with Kubuntu. I’m sure if I gave it some thought I could get it to work but that’s the point isn’t it?

I know this stuff, I like this stuff, I enjoy this problem solving. Until it ‘just works’ for everyone then this OS isn’t suitable for everyone to use as their main, and probably only, platform. It’s great for aficionados and pretty hopeless for everyone else.

Linus Tech Tips came to a similar conclusion recently.

Well personally, I use a Mac. Although I do have Windows as well I seldom use it.

Sometimes it isn’t about being pretty, it’s about being consistent. The appearance of applications shouldn’t clash with each other or with the desktop UI.

Hmm. As an old school techie, with much the same history as you, I don’t see it that way.

Firstly, I dispute that Apple is looking over your shoulder on the Mac. On iPhone and iPad, sure, they keep a tight rein on everything you do (albeit that they still aren’t spying on you), but on the Mac - and even on the M1 - you can do pretty much anything you want software wise (I certainly do)

Secondly, and don’t get me wrong because I love Linux and I have more Linux machines than anything else - even if my daily desktop driver is MacOS, Linux does not have a great desktop experience. I don’t think it ever will. To have a great desktop experience requires great consistency and great consistency requires an iron grip on the platform with rigidly enforced standards. This is antithesis to Linux and would take away from Linux one of its most compelling features - it’s freedom.

Linux has some really nice desktop interfaces (and some bloody horrible ones - but that choice is a good thing), but applications written for one UI (KDE or Gnome for example) don’t necessarily play well on a different UI. And that’s before we get into any conversations about individual application interface design choices (and the lack of enforced guidelines).

For example, I like OpenOffice and I like KDE. OpenOffice does not look like it belongs on KDE. I like the JetBrains suite of tools, and I like their UIs - but they don’t look like they’d be at home anywhere other than on an imaginary JetBrains OS. And Gimp is just ugly (to my eyes).

Until Linux can present a consistent face to users then the day of Linux on the desktop for everyone will never come.

Happy birthday Windows 3.1, aka 'the one that Visual Basic kept crashing on'

It was a bit dog slow though. After years of using PCs, this was the straw that broke the camels back for me.

I had a 20MHz Opus PC V 386 at the time, with a generous 8MB RAM, 160MB hard disk and 387 co-pro - and it felt like it was running in concrete boots. Admittedly, when I upgraded to a 486DX2 it was snappy - and my friend with a 12MHz 286 really suffered (you could see the windows drawing rather slowly on that one!)

I needed a 68k machine for learning 68k assembly. I bought an 8MHz Mac SE - and was astonished to see this lowly machine, albeit black and white only, steamroller the 386 for just about everything except playing games and maths heavy tasks. I was sold. Windows was out, and it was Mac from then on for me (admittedly with a heavy dose of Linux and I still have two Windows machines at home. But the daily runner is a fruit)

The march of Macs into the enterprise: Demand is on the increase

Hmm. I have a 2010 MacBook Air which I still use regularly. I’ve replaced the battery (I don’t remember any glue getting in the way), and I’ve upgraded the SSD. The memory is fixed, but for light work I can get away with it. It’s running Sierra quite happily.

Yup - as with all machines. They have no batteries. Some require a little power to boot, but the trick there is to plug them in and flick the PSU on, off and on again. Which, in fairness, must put some strain on those old caps. I will recap them one day. Maybe. Well, if I need the machine again.

Except for laptop toastiness, I’ve never experienced those issues. And all my Macs, from the SE/30, through my Quadra, G3, G5, Mac Pro, MacBook Air (and all those of my colleagues) still work. I have a storeroom of old Macs from the day my business first started through to the present day - and I am reasonably sure that I can pull any one of them out and have it boot.

But if we want to talk about overheating, I’d be delighted to show you my Lenovo (or, in fairness, any of my laptops with an Intel or PPC CPU - this isn’t a Windows vs Mac thing!)

Re: In the 2020s you need to get business done, you use a Mac

What business software do you need that doesn’t have an acceptable alternative on the Mac? Sure, the big name might not be available, but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing available for a Mac Only enterprise (trust me on this, I run one, and support another).

With regard to creative software on Linux, I admit that I was being slightly flippant. But the same point as the above exists - in amongst the ‘rubbish’ on Linux there are some real diamonds - and not just Blender either. If your creative field is video, 3D or software development in particular then Linux has your back. And just because it doesn’t have ‘Adobe’ plastered all over it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t great.

Far too sensible and well considered. You’ll never start a flame war by being reasonable! Have a thumbs up.

The experience I have is that Macs work for longer (so the lifetime cost is lower) and they cost less to support (with the proviso that your IT infrastructure is set up to work in a Mac friendly manner, rather than a Windows friendly manner).

It used to be that if you were a business, and you needed to get business done, you used a PC (with DOS or Windows), if you were a creative you used a Mac and if you wanted to play games you used an Amiga.

In the 2020s it seems that you’re a business, and you need to get business done, you use a Mac, if you’re a creative you use Linux (with the caveat that we still use Macs for that use-case too, but Linux seems to be very well catered for in this field) and if you want to play games you use Windows.

C: Everyone's favourite programming language isn't a programming language

Re: Nothing new...

I think I disagree with you, but from a religious rather than rational perspective.

Religiously, I love C, I don’t like programming in other languages, but only because I’m comfortable with it, and I’m closer to the grave than the cradle - so I really don’t want to learn something new.

Rationally, I know I need to learn something new (so I do) or get out of the game.

So you’re right - though I wish you weren’t - so have a thumbs up.

Asahi Linux reaches 'very early Alpha'

Whilst I don’t want to work on Linux on my Mac (I have many other machines to use for that), I am delighted that this work exists. It’s a fantastic initial effort and, if successful, with guarantee a users investment in this new Apple hardware even after Apple has stopped supporting it.

For those of us who only want to use MacOS on our Macs, the lessons learned here may also be useful in developing the necessary hacks for a future incompatible-with-first-gen-m1 MacOS to be made compatible. (Just as I can run MacOS 12 Monterrey on my 2009 Mac Pro now)

All in all, a happy story in dark times. A story with no downside!

Just two die for: Apple reveals M1 Ultra chip in Mac Studio

I like the look of it but…

…I really want something I can tinker with. At the very least, I want to be able to add storage and PCIe cards in the box - not externally. Ideally, I’d like to be able to add memory too - and I accept that there’ll be a performance penalty vs the on die memory.

In a perfect world, I’d like the CPU to be on a card which I can replace - just as I did on my 9600, G3, G4 and Mac Pro. But that ain’t gonna happen (not the end of the world though, any more than the lack of CPU upgrade for my SE/30, Quadra 650 or G5 was the end of the world. I can live with that limitation)

File suffixes: Who needs them? Well, this guy did

Re: Still humans in the mix here not just machines

This is true. But even reading data can be dangerous - although I’m don’t know of any vulnerabilities in file off the top of my head.

But I really shouldn’t be thinking at all today.

Re: Still humans in the mix here not just machines

@ali dodd

Damn! Absolutely correct - have a thumbs up. Of course it could be unwise for the OS to have to probe into each file to get its type. That way malware lies. So the only issue is the hiding of the extension.

So obvious. So right. I’m going to blame my previous oversight on the fact that I’ve currently got Covid and any thinking is hard work.

(Shuffles back to bed in disgrace)

File extensions are a horrible anachronism. I can’t understand why they’re still needed in most cases (all binary files should have a specification which mandates the use of a magic number - that some don’t just means that the specification of these outliers needs updating).

In fact the only possible use-case I can see is for text files which might contain different content (c code, c header) but even that might not be necessary in many cases - it should be possible to identify html or xml just by looking at the first few characters.

Extensions and the workaround of enabling them to be hidden just brings confusion and dismay. It’s a nasty throwback to the days of CP/M!

Chromium-adjacent Otter browser targets OS/2

Hmm. Let’s face it Windows, also technology from the eighties, has more than a slight toehold in 2022 - and this despite better alternatives being available.

Speaking of which, Unix (technology from the seventies) and its progeny (Linux, Android, iOS, MacOS) pretty much dominate.

I still have my OS/2 2 install CD - I can’t imagine that I’ll ever use it again.

Google's Chrome OS Flex could revive old PCs, Macs

It’s an odd thing. But when I buy a Mac I buy it because I want it to be a Mac. And even with my old Macs (and some are very old - I still have my SE/30 that I took to university when it was still the newish hotness), I still want them to be a Mac.

Damned if I can work out why I’d put a less capable OS on them. Especially one which is, arguably, one big spyware.

Out of beta and ready for data: 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS is here

I’ve been running a 64bit Raspbian (CLI only version) on my 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 for several months now - with no trouble at all. It works very well but…

I think that the number one thing that the Pi needs is more compute. For cheap disposability, the Zero and 3 have got you covered. I’d like to see a more expensive, fast, Pi - perhaps even at the £100 price point.

But perhaps I’m a bit Pi obsessed. I love ‘em!

Tesla driver charged with vehicular manslaughter after deadly Autopilot crash

Autopilot should not be marketed as anything other than cruise control. Until the car manufacturer is prepared to take full responsibility for any accidents which take place while the cars software is driving, the functionality should not be marketed as automatic or autonomous.

But there we go. Another example of Tesla being a triumph of marketing hype over function.

Nvidia promises British authorities it won’t strong Arm rivals after proposed merger

Re: On the other hand ...

Absolutely correct. And I was very sloppy in my use of language. I hope it was clear though that was I meant was that they didn’t ensure these companies were sufficiently protected against hostile takeover, and they made no effort to block sales which weren’t in the national interest.

Nevertheless, thumbs up for pointing out my poor use of language.

Re: On the other hand ...

Tell you what, you list the top tier companies that Labour sold and I’ll list the ones that the Tories sold and I guarantee that my list will be longer. That isn’t to say that Labour didn’t sell off either, but the Tories a) sold off more and b) were more inclined to sell outside the protection of Europe (and then c) evict us from Europe)

So yes, Labour were sadly not above graffitiing on the walls of our metaphorical house. The Conversatives smashed the furniture and then burned the house down.

With the corrupt clowns we currently have in charge, all Nvidia needs to do is grease the right palms and the deal will go through without a hitch.

For all that the Conservative party has a reputation for fiscal prudence and business friendly policy, never forget that their first duty is to fill their pockets and get their grubby snouts in the trough.

You want evidence? Look at the bastions of British Industry. Look at when they got sold - and, critically, to whom. You can be absolutely sure that the Tories have no interest in the greater good - and if you doubt what I say then perhaps I could interest you in a bridge in our capital city? I have the paperwork right here - all you need to do is transfer the funds into my account. In advance, of course.

OK, boomer? Gen-X-ers, elder millennials most likely to name their cars, says DVLA

Yes. I’ve named most of my cars - the ones I liked anyway.

My first I didn’t name - although if I had it would probably have been called chitbox (or something similar)

My second, which was destroyed when a Disco drove into it, would have been called scrap even before it actually was.

My third was ugly as hell, but supremely comfortable and dependable. She was a Volvo 360 and I eventually called her Bea. She died in a collision with an artic, and although repairable the insurance company decided she wasn’t worth it.

My fourth was a ‘67 Beetle, actually my wife’s, and we called her Buttercup - after the heroine in the Princess Bride.

My fifth was a tuned up P1800S, called Pandora. Beautiful and difficult, one of the greatest cars ever made.

My sixth was a Volvo V70, called Victor - although Bea 2 might have been an appropriate name. An estate car beyond reproach.

My seventh was a Volvo XC40. As yet unnamed - still too new - will it live up to the high standards set by its illustrious forebears, some of which I still have?

I don’t like getting new cars, so I tend to hang on to them. Vic has been in the family for thirteen years now, and shows no signs of that changing any time soon.

(In the interests of survey completeness, I’m an early model Gen X.)

China's Yutu rover spots 'mysterious hut' on far side of the Moon

That’s Rupert, surely?

I’ve examined the picture carefully and it’s clearly not a hut. It’s obviously two aliens standing next to each other. Watching. Waiting.

Seaberry carrier board turns a Raspberry Pi into a desktop PC with 11 PCIe slots

This is more or less exactly what I want to build a home NAS. I want something that makes a Pi fit in a standard case (tick), that gives it plenty of onboard storage (tick - although I’d settle for Sata ports, I don’t need PCIe), and that doesn’t chew through the power like a junky on a binge (which is why that old PC or Mac just won’t cut the mustard)

That being said, I don’t want it at that price. At £120 or less, including the compute board, I’d buy. More than that? No thank you.

Desktop bust and custom iPhone 13 Pro made from melted-down Tesla car for the Elon Musk dork in your life

Does Elon Musk have a soul? Did he ever?

And as for being a waste of a good car, I concede that there’s much to admire about the innovation behind a Tesla - particularly with regard to the battery and motor technology - but a Good Car per se? I dispute that. There are too many childish fripperies, hand waving to distract you from the fact that the build quality isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Remember SoftRAM 95? Compression app claimed to double memory in Windows but actually did nothing at all

Ahem. Nerd alert.

RAMDoubler for MacOS functionality had nothing to do with MacOS’s pre-emptive multitasking capabilities (or lack thereof) and everything to do with the odd way in which RAM was allocated in Classic Mac OS. In fact, to be totally accurate, MacOS 8.6 and newer did have some limited pre-emptive abilities for Carbon applications, but still retaining the odd memory allocation scheme.

The odd memory allocation scheme was that it was manual. The developer of the software specified the memory range to be allocated in advance (overridable by the user) and the application took as much unfragmented memory as it could up to the maximum value specified by the developer. If it couldn’t get the minimum specified then it wouldn’t launch.

The upshot of this was that programs might have oodles of unused RAM but that RAM couldn’t be freed for use by something else. Additionally, you could have sufficient free memory, but fragmented, and the application still wouldn’t launch.

Another side effect of this was that virtual memory, as implemented by classic MacOS was spectacularly inefficient. And slow.

Connectix RAMDoubler on the Mac worked by a) defragmenting memory on the fly, b) allowing unused memory allocated for one program to be used by another and c) implementing an efficient virtual memory system. In other words, it just did what Apple should have implemented in the first place. RAM wasn’t doubled - but it wasn’t wasted either.

/nerd-mode

New year, new OS: OneDrive support axed for old versions of Windows from 1 Jan 2022

Re: Arbitrary dropping of support

Yeah, I know, I know. Anything Apple must be bad (although I suspect you know that such a black and white view is imbecilic or you wouldn’t have posted as Anonymous Coward)

It is worth noting though that if you want to keep that sweet sweet file sync action going on older versions of Windows, iCloud Drive still works with Windows 7.

Just because you don’t have any Apple hardware doesn’t mean that you can’t use (enjoy might be pushing it) Apple products.

Super-rare wooden Apple 1 hand built by Jobs and Wozniak goes to auction

It looks very nice, aesthetically, in that wooden case. And there’s no doubting that these machines are historically important - especially if you consider that they evolved into the Apple II, which ran VisiCalc, and in so doing became the first desktop business computer mega hit - and prompted IBM to take this whole microcomputer thing seriously, giving us the IBM 5150 (and its descendants)

It belongs in a museum where everyone can enjoy it.

As to whether it’s overpriced, that depends on whether you’d consider articles like the Wright Flyer, Puffing Billy, Colossus and other early examples of their type have an intrinsic value based on their historical provenance.

Facebook may soon reveal new name – we're sure Reg readers will be more creative than Zuck's marketroids

Re: Mos Eisley

You win. I wish I could more than one thumbs up it.

Re: It doesn’t need a new name

Are you suggesting Pantyliner as the new name then?

Hell

It even gets a reference to the Circle in there. Nine of them. And it nicely describes what social media is doing to peoples lives.

Windows 11 Paint: Oh look – rounded corners. And it is prettier... but slightly worse

Confession. I don’t like Paint. I’ve never liked Paint. I particularly don’t like it because of the substandard graphics crapped out of it by business users who don’t know what they’re doing, or how to use Visio (which would generally be a better tool for their use-case). But…

I’m genuinely glad that Microsoft is giving it some love. I may not like it, but I’ve seen it used by talented artists to produce some genuinely gobsmacking images that should be impossible with so lowly an editor.

Here’s to another 36 years of Windows paint - whatever it ends up being called.

Apple arms high-end MacBook Pro notebooks with M1 Pro, M1 Max processors

Re: Great but ...

I did a quick search for CAD CAM tools for Mac. I found plenty. It’s not my field though, so I don’t know how good they are. (Just as there are alternatives to the software I suggested - and, incidentally, nothing on Windows works as well as BBEdit in the text editor field, and I’ve tried many. I’m very particular.)

As to a killer application for the Mac, ever since the rise of the web that’s become a bit of a non argument - web based software can do what most people need from a computer.

The killer application therefore becomes the OS itself. What works best for you? Where are you most comfortable? For me, Windows doesn’t do it for me for day to day use because the UI is janky and *nix is just a thin veneer on top. Linux I love and run on all my servers, but the (many) UIs are janky and inconsistent - so it’s not a good daily driver for me. ChromeOS is too Googley for me. MacOS is Unix through and through, with a UI that I find to be consistent and familiar.

Don’t misunderstand me though. I’m not saying that Windows is rubbish. It it works for you that’s great. It just isn’t right for me. So isn’t it good that we have a choice?

Re: eWaste

Open Source software != Linux. You didn’t specify that the open source you wanted was Linux. Don’t get me wrong, I love Linux - but why the hell would you buy a Mac laptop to run Linux?

You buy a Mac to run MacOS. You can install Open Source software on MacOS.

But, FWIW, there are projects to put Linux on M1.

Re: Great but ...

Hmm. An interesting non argument. You’ve chosen a use case that might be important to you, but it’s a minority use case and not a market that the Mac plays in.

It’s also easy to invert. After all, I could complain that there’s no software for Windows because my preferred applications - Xcode, BBEdit, Transmit, Nisus - aren’t available.

They’re both nonsense arguments, and you know it.

Re: Great but ...

You’re such a card. What native software would you like? Because it might well have it already.

Re: Performance claims

I don’t know why you got a downvote. You’re right. It will be interesting. I’m sitting on the side of the fence that says these computers will be barnstormingly good - but I have a vanilla M1 (both MacBook Air and Mini) and they’re astonishingly fast for everything except games. They blow my 12 core 3.6GHz Xeon Mac Pro out of the water for most workloads - and all whilst sipping at the power.

I suspect that you’re on the sceptical side of the argument - and that’s fine by me. Your point is still good. It’ll be interesting, so have a thumbs up.