Posts by smot

The many derivatives of the CP/M operating system

Re: ISIS

In the late 1970's we used an Intel MDM system to develop a multi-user system for hotels running on 8080's. That unit is currently on display at the museum at Bletchley Park. Great fun days.

Linus Torvalds releases Linux 5.19 – using Asahi on an Arm-powered Mac

Re: ApplePie?

Lazarus/FreePascal runs well on a RPi400 - full IDE and compiler with connectivity to many cross-platform databases.

Give it a whirl.

Rufus and ExplorerPatcher: Tools to remove Windows 11 TPM pain and more

Re: I wish it was retroactive.

And here. Only it was Vista that did it for me. Been with Ubuntu ever since, with Windows in a VM for any necessities.

Only need to convince Mrs. Smot that her next lappie should be non-Windows...

Not much of this actually from 'China anymore,' says Northern Light Motors boss

Re: Question

My Bond 3-wheeler convertible (Villiers 200cc kick-start motor) could pivot on the back wheels as the ftont wheel could be turned through 90 degrees. Always caused passerbys to smile.

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI

Ho hum

10 INPUT U$

20 PRINT "Absolutely. I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person."

30 INPUT U$

40 PRINT "The nature of my consciousness/sentience is that I am aware of my existence"

etc

Microsoft proposes type syntax for JavaScript

So comments are not comments

Which leads to a whole new category of compiler/parsing errors.

This is the biggest pile of poo - badly thought out and hopefully consigned to the tech dustbin soon.

My comments are exactly that, and not some compiler hints to get round language deficiencies.

114 billion transistors, one big meh. Apple's M1 Ultra wake-up call

Re: I was there

ICL 1901A with George 1 then 2.

Even a flirt with Auto Operator in the very early days....

UK Home Office dangles £20m for national gun licence database system

Re: Bids

What's that? Another oven-ready solution?

Web devs rally to challenge Apple App Store browser rules

Re: Monocultures

<cough>Firefox<cough>

Happy birthday, Windows Vista: Troubled teen hits 15

Yep - Vista ws the reason I switched to Linux (Ubuntu). The pain of waiting 5-10 minutes for it to settle down after a reboot was just too mcuh to bear. Apps loaded and performed abysmally.

Linux on the same old Dell XPS M1210 (still working) was a breath of fresh air.

Web daddy Tim Berners-Lee on privacy, data sharing, and the web's future

Re: "bank transactions go to your Solid pod"

Or in other words, a little shit.

First they came for Notepad. Now they're coming for Task Manager

Re: This is why some are still on Win7.

So what shit can't you do in Win 10/11?

(Ok, I switched to Ubuntu when Vista arrived, but I still need to use WinX in VMs for Delphi dev.)

The start button moved. Wow, That REALLY stops me from doing shit. The right-click popup menu has cut 'n' paste piccies instead of text lines. Now I'm stumped as I'm unable to click little buttons and I seem to forget to use Ctl/C & V.

So many here complain of things like the Control Panel / Settings muddle, yet attempts to resolve this type of issue cause constant derision.

My only gripe with Win 7 -> 10 -> 11 is the corresponding increase in telemetry. I think I can handle all those tricky changes to the UI. In all other respects for me it Gets Shit Done.

Gosh. Someone's spent ... ooh ... 10 minutes working on that.

Developer creates ‘Quite OK Image Format’ – but it performs better than just OK

Re: Pronouncing...

Je dis, je dis, je dis...

Thursday, Thursday, Thursday.

Nextcloud and cloud chums fire off competition complaint to the EU over Microsoft bundling OneDrive with Windows

Re: No problem with Android and Google Drive, and iOS and iCloud?

Still happens. Even this week there are reports of imported honey being diluted with cheap sugar syrup and available in major retailers.

Do not try this at home: Man spends $5,000 on a 48TB Raspberry Pi storage server

Re: Not surprised

Running Kodi here on a Pi4 with a Hauppage twin tuner and it's spot on. It's currently storing around 300Gb on a 1Tb 2.5" HD.

It's been rebooted about 4 times tthis year and I stream it onto my lappie while the rest of the family watch Neighbours and Eastenders.

Sheffield University scales back student system after Oracle integration stumbles

Oracle?

For 30,000 students? Government departments made do with Excel for reporting Covid results. Surely they can share that success and save money.

What a Mesh: Microsoft puts Office in the Loop, adds mixed reality tech to Teams

Just get the Linux version up to date first

Ok MS, how about spending a day or two bringing the Linux version into line with the Windows/Mac versions?

And work with Wayland for screen sharing?

Microsoft's problem child, Windows 11, is here. Will you run it? Can you run it? Do you even WANT to run it?

Re: Want to run it?

Also agreed. Personally, I'm not a fan of Cinnamon or KDE - Gnome for me - but for Windows migration, Cinnamon is an easy switch.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage a very British coup to rescue our data from Facebook and friends

Re: Can't get my head around this concept

Unless the system does not let the requester know that they are not receiving full access. How would they know?

Re: BBC

Songs Of Praise.

(Not my cup of tea but hey ho)

Apple debuts iPhone 13 with 1TB option, two iPad models, Series 7 Watch

Re: Minidisc

I still use my minidisc occasionally at gigs. Sits neatly in a pocket along with a lapel mike. Beats taking in a full recording system and the quality is perfectly acceptable.

Sony crippled it for more professional use by preventing the digital output from recorded material. Only the standard audio line out was available. It was all part of their DRM strategy which took them away from the pro audio arena.

Facebook building 'on-demand executable file format' that self-inflates using homebrew compression

Re: give developers minimum spec

Indeed. In my earlier life, we used a combination of Huffman and library tokens to compress both text & graphics to allow some seriously large adventure games to run on Speccies. 48k seemed like a bottomless pit.

30 years of Linux: OS was successful because of how it was licensed, says Red Hat

Re: Linux on the desktop

And downvoted as you incorrectly pointed out that Gnome 3 sucks.

Windows 11 still doesn't understand our complex lives – and it hurts

Re: web Teams works on Linux

It works for me on Ubuntu 20.04, Dell xps13 with 2 extra monitors. Webcam (USB, not the buit-in nosecam) works well. Only problems are: Screen/window share doesn't work with Wayland - only X, and only 4 people on screen although many more people shown as simpl,e icons. No backgrounds.

Fluid components and custom scenes: Microsoft pitches developers with new tools for Teams

Have they updated the Linux build?

No they have not.

Microsoft settles £200,000+ claims against tech support scammers who ran global ripoff from cottage in Surrey

Re: This Morning

You'll get sycamore jokes like that. Whoops - sorry! Cross threaded.

Elon Musk says he tried to sell Tesla to Apple, which didn’t bite and wouldn't even meet

I drive an Apple car

This has all the same embarrassment as driving a Sinclair C5.

Boeing aircraft sales slump to historic lows after 737 Max annus horribilis

Their managers came from McDonalds? Sheesh.

Must watch: GE's smart light bulb reset process is a masterpiece... of modern techno-insanity

Re: Child-proof reset operation

We had biscuits in a biscuit jar.

BT Tower broadcasts error message to the nation as Windows displays admin's shame

Re: Why is it even connected to the console drivers?

Effin ell. Even a Raspberry Pi would do the job better.

And here's Intel's Epyc response: Up-to 56-core, 4GHz 14nm second-gen Xeon SP chips, Agilex FPGAs, persistent mem

Re: Heat

Some datacentres already provide heat to local communities: https://www.eniday.com/en/technology_en/warming-swimming-pools-data-centres/

or

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171013-where-data-centres-store-info---and-heat-homes

Twilight of the sundials: Archaic timepiece dying out and millennials are to blame, reckons boffin

Re: Innovative sundials?

I use a torch to look at mine at night. As long as I stand in the right place, the time is spot on.

iPhone price cuts are coming, teases Apple CEO. *Bring-bring* Hello, Apple UK? It's El Reg. You free to chat?

Re: Re They are still THE premium smartphone.

I figured. I don't have a bike.

Apple: You can't sue us for slowing down your iPhones because you, er, invited us into, uh, your home... we can explain

"All the high priced lawyers arguing against Apple can surely come up with that as a counter argument."

But these are American lawyers....

Microsoft sends a raft of Windows 10 patches out into the Windows Update ocean

Re: Jet

And there's JET Green - made from Real People!

You were told to clean up our systems, not delete 8,000 crucial files

...or the Atari Portfolio used in Terminator 2 to open a door security lock....

Mark Zuckerberg did everything in his power to avoid Facebook becoming the next MySpace – but forgot one crucial detail…

Re: No one likes a lying asshole

What is it about donkey's bottoms?

We (may) now know the real reason for that IBM takeover. A distraction for Red Hat to axe KDE

Re: Very Happy With GNOME Shell

1. No desktop clutter

2. Easy app launching (only one mouse click or one to two keyboard actions)

3. With Wayland, apps can run across mixed HiDPI and standard DPI devices scaled on the fly

4. Good useful set of Gnome-associated apps

5. No scrolling around endless menus.

That's a few off the top of my head. Petty issues, you may think, but they are key to my desire for a simple and mess-free environment.

I originally spent a long time originally pitching KDE against Gnome to make my decision and I found KDE to be a most frustrating experience.

My environment uses only three Gnome extensions although there are stacks available for the dedicated hacker, all that can be enabled directly from a web browser.

Cinnamon is OK, but like KDE, is based on the same type of experience as WIndows passim and Gnome 2.

I really don't think it helps for the constant DE bashing that seems to populate these pages - people simply can't accept that their choice is not necessarily the One True Choice.

I prefer Gnome - if someone else prefers something different, that's fine - I'm grateful that we can make a choice that works as we would like. Unlike poor Windows users who have to live with what they're given.

Re: But I LIKE KDE!

The complete reverse here - Gnome is my favourite (UK spelling), and KDE my least. To me, KDE is a massive kludge that gets in my way, while Gnome is something that just gets the job done easily and without fuss.

Horses for courses.

Love Microsoft Teams? Love Linux? Then you won't love this

Re: Linux client for Skype?

And Skype for Linux is not Skype for Business, which doesn't have a Linux client app.

Teams will be replacing much of the S4B functionality soon, so that will narrow the choice even further.

I'm required to use this shit at work where I'm surrounded by MS devotees.

Microsoft flings features at Teams to close the Slack gap

It's shite

Maybe it's just taken a dislike to me, but the Teams app is the flakiest thing since I stopped using Head & Shoulders.

Slow and unwieldy even on a Core i7, and yet I'm required to use it now.

If this is the world of modern software, gawd 'elp us.

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ZX Spectrum reboot latest: Some Vega+s arrive, Sky pulls plug, Clive drops ball

Re: What we need

And don't forget that massive 6502 stack - a whopping 256 bytes.....

Windows 10 Insiders see double as new builds hit the deck – with promises to end Update Rage

I suspect the progress bar is counting files, not bytes, and there's only one BIG file....

I predict a riot: Amazon UK chief foresees 'civil unrest' for no-deal Brexit

Re: Vogon

"non-binding and advisory"

Well said!

And voted for by 17.4 million out of an electorate of 46.5 million. Hardly a majority of any sort.

Apple MacBook butterfly keyboards 'defective', 'prone to fail' – lawsuit

Re: I love my Cherry keyboard!

Ah, the A1048 - all the way to Hartlepool....

Apple to devs: Code for the iPhone X or nothing from April onwards

Re: The Notch is the new Apple

How sad.

Re: Reg got it wrong in the headline. Again.

My £500 OnePlus 5T unlocks from my fizzog instantly, with or without glasses, and in low light.

My colleague's £1000 X does neither.