Posts by Nugry Horace 65 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Nov 2011
One odd thing about this: Windows maps scancode 0x6E to F23, and so this patch is doing the same for Linux. But if you have a genuine IBM 122-key Host Connected keyboard, F23 only sends 0x6E if you've switched to the rarely-used scancode set 3. At power-up it sends 0x6A.
My best guess is that the Windows developer who originally mapped 0x6E to F23 was using a Key Tronic 122-key keyboard, which does send 0x6E in both modes.
The PC200 was definitely a misstep by Amstrad -- they reused the chipset from the PPC portable, meaning they were targeting the home gaming market with a chipset designed to run Wordstar and Lotus 1-2-3 on an LCD panel. I think a successful PC200 would have needed, at the very least, MCGA graphics (even if only the 320x200x256 mode) and a sound chip.
It's interesting that the C64 and the BBC both had Z80 accessories to run CP/M (in the case of the Beeb, multiple different ones, even). In the 1980s environment I can see where CP/M would be a useful feature for a Z80-based computer -- it meant access to a mature ecosystem of development tools like Microsoft M80, so would make it easier to develop for the platform, always a good thing. But that doesn't sound so persuasive if you're writing 6502 software.
(I was reading up on the C64 CP/M cartridge today. From the Z80 side it looks like living in a cramped flat where there are strange bumps under the carpet which you don't know what they are, but you know you mustn't trip over them.)
There was obviously a niche in the market for a cheap wordprocessing / office computer because the PCW filled it very successfully for some years. Maybe if Amstrad hadn't had the PCW to hand, they could have packaged the QL in an all-in-one case with a proper keyboard and floppy drive, and sold it. It could even have shipped with CP/M -- CP/M-68K, of course. With a 68K architecture it might even have lasted a bit longer than the Z80-based PCW did.
The built-in dishwasher in our kitchen has the 'finished' light on the inside, so you can't tell if it's safe to open it unless you've already opened it.
Manufacturers seem to think that sending a notification to the user over the Internet is a satisfactory substitute for, I dunno, putting a light somewhere where you can see it.
I remember when my work laptop was running Windows 10 from a 128Gb SSD. The drive kept filling up, and in the end had to be upgraded. What concerned me was that I remembered running Windows NT 4 on a system with a 2Gb hard drive, and while Windows 10 is clearly an improvement, is it really such an improvement that it needs 64 times the space to run in?
Oh, it could push adverts - just not Microsoft's adverts. Back in the early 2000s when everyone used USB ADSL modems, you'd end up with Windows systems exposing their Messenger service over the Internet without any firewall, and so spammers started broadcasting NET SEND popups (some even containing pornographic ASCII art).
I had to deal with a support call for an application I maintain, where it was apparently hanging when the user closed it. Cause: Some module loaded by the system-provided open file dialog trying to access a network resource and sitting there spinning. No change I could have made that would fix it, short of writing my own open file dialog instead of relying on the system one.
I remember seeing an editorial in Personal Computer World in around 1992 describing something similar to the Retro-Printer - a hardware device that interpreted a well-known set of printer codes and rendered them on a modern device. This was in the days when every DOS program needed its own printer driver.
An external interface could replace the bottom 16k of ROM with RAM. But on a pre-128k Spectrum that would still leave the problem of the video RAM being fixed at 0x4000, which is a tad low for a CP/M system. (Not a problem on a 128, as you could put the video RAM at 0xC000 and page it out when not using it).
My favourite discussion of this type was on Raymond Chen's blog, where the comments section turned into a jokey arms race about how a program could ensure it was the one whose alerts ended up on top. From memory it ended something like "My program uses a robot arm to draw on the screen with permanent marker. It needs to do this to tell you that you could free up space by deleting temporary files." "Well, MY program uses the robot arm to stick a post-it note that covers the monitor entirely. It needs to do this to tell you that you have unused icons on your desktop."
There's even one out there called Universal Disk Format (it's what DVDs use). I remember seeing recommendations to format your USB sticks as UDF to get around FAT limitations. Never caught on because operating system support for using UDF on anything other than a DVD suffered from all sorts of weird limitations.
The problem being that:
If Abort terminates the process, you drop back to COMMAND.COM, which may well try to access the same drive and trigger the same error.
If Fail doesn't terminate the process, the application may ignore the failure, keep trying to access the same drive, and trigger the same error.
The way to get out of the loop, as I recall, was to Abort (to get back to COMMAND.COM) and then Fail (because COMMAND.COM did check the result and handle a failed read). You'd end up at a "Current drive is no longer valid>" prompt.
I remember when someone in our office discovered the Windows 95 'Robotz' theme. It sounded like the computer had a terrible case of indigestion.
Then a few years later we all became terribly familiar with the Windows XP setup music, because when it was being installed on a laptop the volume keys couldn't be used to mute it.
(Relevant Dilbert: https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-12-27 )
I still remember reading "So Beautiful, So Disturbing", a blog entry that imagined Vista as an unexpected new wife.
One error message I've seen from C++ programs under Windows is "This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way".
It made me wonder "What, it asked the Runtime to have a bunch of topless women chase it off a cliff?"
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