* Posts by Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

1143 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Feb 2013

The monitor didn't work but the problem was between the user's ears

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: "Do not try this yourself."

"Impossible, unless it was an outrageously stupid voltage switch design."

In 90's, about half of the switches could be moved with a fingernail. Rest of them were either recessed, hidden, or needed a considerable force.

Oracle blurts Google's Android secrets in court: You made $22bn using Java, punk

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Wait a minute

"Damn... there is no coffee icon."

There is, kind of, if you fancy that coffee being served on a keyboard.

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Power

"I've always understood that the gel-filled batteries in UPSs are deep-discharge-tolerant"

As a general rule - no. Deep discharge cells are too expensive and unnecessary for the UPS use. Most UPS designs consider cell voltage below 12 volts as "empty" and will cut power off. Also, generic VRLA cell will rapidly deteriorate when its voltage drops below 10 volts. For that reason, typical UPS refuses to charge deeply discharged cells. There are exceptions, like solar energy storage solutions using a modified UPS and deep discharge cells. But charging circuit has to be well aware of the battery type.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRLA_battery

AGM & Gel VRLA batteries:

Have shorter recharge time than flooded lead-acid.[15]

Cannot tolerate overcharging: overcharging leads to premature failure.[15]

Have shorter useful life, compared to properly maintained wet-cell battery.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

"that era was time of the 8.4GB limit"

Imposed by a BIOS INT13 interface limit, not by disks, and it had to be amended with BIOS INT13 extensions.

SCSI-2 protocol has a 2TB hard limit. Nothing before that.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

"72Gb hard disks in 1997? Not that I recall."

Indeed. 9.1 GB SCSI disks had just hit the streets. Noisy beasts with 1.6" thickness. Price-wise they were quite, but not entirely unlike a brick of gold.

For a reference point, I have a working Netfinity 5500 in my shed, built in early 1998. Hasn't been running all the time, so it doesn't qualify for the pissing contest.

2x Pentium II 400 MHz in Slot-1 cartridge format.

4 slots for PC-100 ECC SDRAM, taking either 128 MB or 256 MB sticks. Was quite heartwarming to know that you could sell your car for a whopping 1 GB of memory.

40 MB/s RAID controller on the motherboard.

6 hot-swap SCSI disk slots with 3.5" width and 1" height (those 9.1 GB Seagates with 1.6" height took away two slots). 70GB DLT tape drive.

In 1998, a fully loaded 5500 had a street price of 25000 pounds or thereabouts. Woot.

Waving Microsoft's Windows 10 stick won't help Intel's Gen 6 core

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: People are excited???

Being just excited does not suffice.

To qualify as a W10 evangelist, one has to be super excited.

Microsoft develops new 'Super' language

theregister.co.uk/2005/08/04/microsoft_nicely/

Trump's new thought bubble: Make Apple manufacture in the USA

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: If the American people want to put their trust in The Donald

"We Always like to compare build quality of your average Ford to a Benz S-Class"

Especially by people who haven't seen S-class build quality up close. Or are using pre-1995 models for comparison. Times have changed a bit, to put it mildly.

As for the country of origin - that's an arbitrary distinction, bordering on meaningless. For instance, European Ford models are largely designed in Europe and assembled in Europe. Some components are manufactured in-house, others by suppliers all over the world. Should we define such a car as an US product? Yes, no, maybe, kind of, who-the-hell-knows. All modern cars are complex international efforts these days.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Increasingly convinced that Scott Adams is right

"Trump appeals to the section of society who believes in the quick fix, the gut feeling"

A good moment to remember H. L. Mencken:

"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong."

The designer of the IBM ThinkPad has died

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Butterfly keyboard

John Karidis designed the keyboard. Richard Sapper was also involved.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard

richardsapperdesign.com/products/1990-2000/thinkpad-701

Yahoo! Mail! Had! Nasty! XSS! Bug!

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

offtopic!

Have to admit it was rather worrying to read several Yahoo! related articles without requisite exlamation marks. Seems that normal service is being restored.

Articles in concern:

m.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/yahoo_dumps_135tb_of_users_news_interaction_data_for_machine_eating/

m.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/13/ok_to_spy_on_employees_at_work_european_court/

m.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/14/hedge_fund_manager_can_turn_yahoo_around/

It's Wikipedia mythbuster time: 8 of the best on your 15th birthday

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: It's about as reliable as a newspaper

In 90's, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung was quite solid. Before several attempts at modernization.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Allgemeine_Zeitung

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Nah

Well, compared to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia...not bad.

Trustworthy x86 laptops? There is a way, says system-level security ace

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Performance vs security?

"So are we now at the point of "fast, cheap, secure - chose any two"?"

At the point of painful understanding, perhaps, but the underlying principle hasn't changed much. System design has always been a fine art of compromises.

Microsoft in 2016: Is there any point asking SatNad what's coming?

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: "Possibly more noble intentions, but awful execution"

Like a popular wisecrack in Russia: wanted the best, but achieved the usual.

(хотели как лучше, но получилось как всегда...)

There's an epidemic of idiots who can't find power switches

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: IT Support Robots

Only if we can have robot users to go with it. And a deathmatch set up between the two clans.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: How not to turn it off and on again

Ah, the voltage selector. Problem ticket from days of yore:

"Sorry, folks, I seem to have blown the power supply. I was lying in the bed, half awake. There was a computer nearby. Somehow I reached for that tempting red slider switch, and started to flip it. Oh boy. Was that a quick wake-up! Don't you just love a smell of freshly baked MOSFET in the morning."

City of London cops in Christmas karaoke crackdown shocker

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad
Paris Hilton

"voiceless backing tracks from the likes of Beyonce, Gaga, Kanye and Kylie"

So which is a bigger offence here - to offer these tracks with or without vocals?

After Death Star II blew: Dissecting the tech of Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Slow today

"how enormous trans-national organisations could take decades to design a fighter aircraft, and Saab create the Viggen on a shoestring."

Hmmm, it isn't that plain simple. Couple of loosely scattered points:

- Viggen didn't fall from the skies like Dannebrog. Saab had decades of previous experience for designing planes. Preceeding J-35 Draken was already a successful fighter, good enough for exports into neighbouring countries. Bizarre looks for an extra bonus.

- Viggen had a rather unique airframe, but engines and lots of other innards were bought in.

- In 60's and 70's development cycles weren't that long. Around 5 years for simpler projects, ten for complex ones. Several fighter designs came out every year. But somewhere along the way, for a multitude of reasons, the pace started to slow down. Now it's decades as you say.

- Smaller companies often have their advantages. Less inertia, less bureaucracy & politics, smaller communication overheads. All these tend to grow exponentially with size. If the stars align, people are enlightened, and common project management pitfalls can be avoided, then wonderful things may happen. Isolated team within a bigger company may also work well. Like Lockheed Skunkworks.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

"There's also the small matter of technological plateauing"

Or even a regress, à la Asimov:

"The civil wars of the last two centuries have smashed up more than half of the Grand Fleet and what's left is in pretty shaky condition. You know it isn't as if the ships we build these days are worth anything. I don't think there's a man in the Galaxy today who can build a first-rate hypernuclear motor."

Lettuce-nibbling veggies menace Mother Earth

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: On a serious note

Yes, but these are different greens. Human beings have much higher standards for greenstuff. As freshness and looks are of utmost importance, it takes much more energy in all phases of production, with a high percentage still ending up in a compost fill, emitting oh-so-lovely methane.

For our porcine cousins, almost any nutrition will suffice. Not to mention a difference in feeding rituals. Haven't heard of pigs travelling 30 miles in order to consume their salad from a finely engraved trough, while enjoying an ocean view. Which is rather sad, come to think of it. Maybe they would also like to have higher standards.

Russia's blanket phone spying busted Europe's human rights laws

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Not so much

None of your namby-pamby 90% stuff. 146% is the current mark to beat.

gawker.com/5864945/putin-clings-to-victory-as-russias-voter-turnout-exceeds-146

Senate asks DHS: you don't negotiate with terrorists, but do you pay off ransomware?

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: They forgot the most pertinent question

Some of them do understand.

m.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/02/itsavvy_congressmen_to_feds_can_your_cryptobackdoor_campaign/

m.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/01/congress_gives_bipartisan_bollocking_to_fbi_over_encryption_backdoors/

Lenov-lol, a load of Tosh, and what the Dell? More bad holes found in PC makers' bloatware

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

"Could be the SATA controller mode setting, AHCI versus compatibility mode"

Yes, that's definitely the thing. Win7 installer doesn't have much to offer in the department of AHCI drivers. Especially for mobile southbridges like ICH9M.

It's of course possible to find correct AHCI driver and load it during install. But who bothers to do that. We're the IT crowd, for Pete's sake, we don't do such things. It'll be much easier to wail on the forums about the horrendous onslaught of non-standard disk controllers, even if AHCI controllers have been prevalent since 2005 or so.

That said, AHCI driver model leaves a lot to be desired, it's a bloody fakeraid with all the niceties to go with it. But that's a rant for another day.

Sneaky Microsoft renamed its data slurper before sticking it back in Windows 10

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: PS/2 BIOS

Could have been PS/1 then, or PS/VP. These had BIOS setup in ROM. Can't remember the entry key though. Somewhere around 1995 IBM started to use F1 key for most machines.

Anyhow, in 90's there were dozens of possible keys and weird key combos around. Del worked on a rather small fraction of machines.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: I Can't Seem to Find

If neither service is present, maybe you have uninstalled KB3022345/KB3068708? Or managed to intercept them before install?

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: PS/2 BIOS

"it took several phone calls over two days to ascertain the key press needed to enter the BIOS."

Sure about that? PS/2 machines did not have built-in BIOS setup. They needed a config floppy with a misleading name - a reference disk, if memory serves right. This floppy had to have a special .adf config file for every odd Micro Channel adapter in the machine, or no work to be done that day. Quite annoying. Especially in pre-www days.

TBH, PS/2 wasn't the only family of weird beasts out there. Older Compaq machines like Deskpro 286 also needed a set of config floppies. It was possible to install these floppies on the HDD and call out via F10 key. Unless you had to replace the HDD - in that case, back to floppies again.

Apple – it's true: iPad Pro slabs freeze when plugged in to charge

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: JassMan Probably the users fault

"Apple has got so paranoid their devices are now rejecting even their own chargers!"

Yes it has. Had to troubleshoot an intermittent iPhone 5 charging problem. After upgrading to iOS 8.1.2 it sometimes complained that the original charger is unsupported. Reversed the plug, charges fine. Reversed again, charges fine.

The cause turned out to be rather simple - a slightly oxidized contact on the data line. Bugger.

Remember Windows 1.0? It's been 30 years (and you're officially old)

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

AARD

AARD was active in Windows 3 previews, but MS neutered it for official releases.

www.drdobbs.com/windows/examining-the-windows-aard-detection-cod/184409070

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Ahhh Windows 3.11 for Workgroups...

"You might be thinking of 95, although I think that was around 19 floppies"

Yes, 19 for a retail version. W95 OSR2 (4.00.950B) took 23 floppies, if someone decided to create installation disks. It wasn't normally sold on floppies. Only CD versions and OEM preloads on harddisks.

OSR2.5 (950C) may well have been 27 because of included IE 4.0 goodness.

Grr. Could use some mindbleach right now. Maybe a bottle of scotch will suffice.

Uncle Sam's IT bods find 2,000 data centers they FORGOT about

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: The Uptime Institute

It's already a thing. Probably trademarked too.

El Reg's obit for its founder, Ken Brill, has a nice overview.

www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/02/ken_brill_the_father_of_datacenters_dies_of_cancer_at_69/

Big Bang left us with a perfect random number generator

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: The comment referred to ...

"The comment referred to by Re., is of course, only one, by a moron, I hate the @Loyal ... Twitter custom. The Reg is supposed to be a tech. site, can they not make the destination of replies clear without that crap?"

If only our dear Regtards had provided us an easy way to edit comment headings...or a link to the preceeding comment. But hey, let's throw more tech at it, there can never be enough.

Hypervisor headaches: Hosts hosed by x86 exception bugs

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: VMware is not affected

Hard to say, until there's more info on it.

2013 batch (AAK167/BD132/BT248) definitely made ESX turn purple at face.

Can't remember if VMware ever tried to apply CPU microcode patches via kernel updates. Anyhow, in 2013 IT folks ran around like Duracell bunnies, doing BIOS updates for every ESX and Hyper-V server out there.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: I'd expect more of The Register...

"Xen bug report suggests that the problems lie with the delivery of exceptions to 32-bit guests"

Plausible, and it wouldn't be the first such bug.

Search for Intel errata AAK167 and BT248 from 2013.

Can I remind of F00F bug from nineties, too? No? OK then. Coat, please.

Multinationals hiding more than half a trillion from G20 tax collectors

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Come on El Reg - you can do better

"Seriously El Reg, if you're going to write about this stuff can you get someone that understands it properly to advise you?"

Heh-heh. Touché.

Linus Torvalds targeted by honeytraps, claims Eric S. Raymond

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: I'm confused

Especially equal is not a new concept.

"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."

Doctor Who's good/bad duality, war futility tale in The Zygon Inversion fails to fizz

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: El Reg cutback?

URL works, though.

www.theregister.co.uk/weekend

Working with Asperger's in tech: We're in this together

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Asperger's has been very good to me

As an old wisecrack goes - "What do you mean by "suffering from x"? I'm not suffering, I'm enjoying it!"

Oz submarine bidders paper over hack attacks, deliver tenders by hand

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Collins class was initially too noisy compared to their previous Oberon-class subs. And hull noise is a bloody difficult thing to rectify. No wonder they spent a fortune on rebuilds. Good to know it wasn't in vain.

Btw, one of the Porpoises managed to jump out near the Statue of Liberty:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Porpoise_class_submarine

Brussels flings out Safe Harbour guidelines, demands 'safer' new framework ASAP

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Ah

Yep. They seem to need a new safeword for this Safe Harbour play.

Symantec numbers are out. Execs might wish they weren't

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

storage-free business?

Nah. Heading for the profit-free business. Bong would definitely approve. If he hasn't been running the operation all along.

TPP: 'Scary' US-Pacific trade deal published – you're going to freak out when you read it

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Eh?

"This is the problem with negotiating these things in secret. The people who have the relevant expertise are not consulted, and so huge mistakes are made."

Even better. If any ambiguities in the treaty are disputed in the arbitration, or court, then it is permissible to consult previous versions of the text to find out the original intent of it, or in other words, "the spirit of the law". Secret versions, natch.

Thus, discarded parts of the treaty may still have some influence in later decisions. And that's the other problem with treaties and laws developed in secret.

Is the world ready for a bare-metal OS/2 rebirth?

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: But ...

"Talking of VMS replacement - what happened to the much hyped "Wolfpack" clustering tech MS pushed back in the day ?"

Watered-down version was called MSCS and was included in the NT Server 4.0 Expensive Edition. Don't know if the rest was simply discarded, or was it re-used in later MSCS versions.

"Did it actually work ?"

Initially, for some very limited values of "work". Cluster services tended to cause more outages than they managed to avoid.

2008 and 2012 are tolerable.

'T-shaped' developers are the new normal

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Is this a Turing Test?

Hmh. Must be a true celebrity - has an Uncyclopedia article and all.

uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Polly_Toynbee

US Senate approves CISA cyber-spy-law, axes privacy safeguards

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Welcome to 1984.

manages to make the old Soviets [look] like *good guys*

Depends on the era. Stagnated and formerly-known-as-evil society of 1984 is easily achievable. Just unite two dominating political parties into one.

Reaching the horror of 1950 requires a dictator-demigod. But the current executive branch seems already strong enough for the job, so the stage is set.

Russian subs prowling near submarine cables: report

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

"To avert a revolution, we need a small victorious war."

-- Vyacheslav Plehve

If MR ROBOT was realistic, he’d be in an Iron Maiden t-shirt and SMELL of WEE

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: That comic is bad

Am thinkink it has its moments, da?

ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010904

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: stare at a screen of hex and infer something

Harumph. Those spoiled Hollywood kids have hex dumps to play with...

OK, OK, going already.

Volkswagen enlarges emissions scandal probe: 'Millions' more cars may have cheated

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Just VW doing this?

As for this particular 'this' - yes, it's only VW.

Others haven't claimed that they can do a low-emission diesel without any urea injection. Whatever those others have (or haven't) cooked up is another topic.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Not the Time to get rich

"Buy low, sell high, and don't take any wooden nickels..."

Careful now. That's probably covered by a business process patent.

Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

Re: Rewrite the software

Jawohl, Herr Oberhurenjägerführer!