Posts by mike.dee

Cheap 'n' simple sign trickery will bamboozle self-driving cars, fresh research claims

The problem is that, even for railways this isn't done il all tracks. not all tracks are using ERTMS, or even older national systems like SCMT or KVB: some are still using semaphores, axle counting and dead tracks.

Linux rolls out the welcome mat for Microsoft's Copilot key

I think it should be mapped to one of the key that are present on DEC LK201 keuboard. Compose, or Help, or Do.

And randomly play this C64 tune https://csdb.dk/sid/?id=41354

Developers feared large chaps carrying baseball bats could come to kneecap their ... test account?

I suppose that being a mayor TV broadcaster, it's already paying an hefty license for every repeater it has.

25 years on from Y2K, let's all be glad it happened way back then

Re: Y2K Today

There are a lot of devices now that are using complex software using dates and times, and having internet connectivity. A CRT TV set bought in 1995 probably had a microcontroller inside, but all that did was decoding remote signal, and setting registers on various chips. Maybe also was used to manage teletext pages. I still have one of them, and it could display the time, but it's actually displaying the upper right part of teletext pages: with bad analog reception the time became funny characters. If you get a smart TV today there are a lot of applications and it connects alwats to Internet. The software it's way more complex that the one used on a 1995 TV.

The same is for all home appliances that have a smart counterpart. Now probably most of device made now aren't supposed to remain in use in 2038 and electronic devices aren't built anymore for serviceability, but on the other hand the software stack is used could be adapted and somewhat copied on newer devices, so it's possible that the date probles will hide in newer devices, without anyone able to correct the bug, because it's hidden i older and older software cruft.

Boffins carve up C so code can be converted to Rust

Re: Why?

But you can easily use regulatr expressions in Java. So if you have a problem, just

import java.util.regex.*;

Now you have two problems.

Re: Why?

If one prefer a syntax that it's quite like C, I think that James Gosling had devised a solution in 1995, when working in Sun.

In Java the source of a lot of problems present in C are avoided using different data structures and hiding the pointer presence.

Christmas 1984: The last hurrah for 8-bit home computers

Re: Glory Days

There was the Olivetti M20 that had a Z8001 processor. It was possible to run a Z8000 version of CP/M, a prorietary OS named PCOS, and with the optional 8086 board MSDOS.

It was commercialized in 1982, but in 194 Olivetti made available the M24, that was almost fully IBM compatible, and the M20 wasn't made anymore.

Kyndryl follows in IBM's footsteps with rolling layoffs likely affecting thousands

Re: Hewlett Packard And Cloud

The demise of HP started with the arrival of Carly Fiorina that made off with the cash after destroying the HP way that made the company to build innovative stuff. After 1999 the people with useful business and technology fantasies were laid off.

Put an MBA as CEO of at techology and manufacturing company, see the stocks rise, and then see the company tank slowly.

The case for handcrafted software in a mass-produced world

Re: Use an LLM to translate from C to some Oberon dialect, say

Machine code was designed to be understandable and executed by machines, and it was like this from the beginning. Assemblers were written to make easier for people to write more easily the code using mnemonics and not a series of numbers, and because the old processors and microprocessors were way simpler, was easier to understand their structure. Assembly language is still strongly tied to underlying machine, so soon after assemblers, the first compilers and interpreters were made to make easier for people to write what the calculator had to do. Layers and layers of abstraction were added to try to make easier to express what the machine had to calculate.

Are the LLM the next step of the ladder?

There's always the underlying problem that people had to express what are the calculations to do at the end, and in most cases they have no idea of what they want.

Bargain-hunting boss saw his bonus go up in a puff of self-inflicted smoke

Re: Too, too common an issue

To be honest, some Apple II and early Macintosh had exploding power supplies even if set at 220V.

The RIFA capacitors had a tendecy to go bang easily. Unfortunately they were ubiquitous.

Switzerland to end 2024 with an analog FM broadcast-killing bang

Re: DAB, now totally obsolete

The problem with DAB and DAB+ is that at home makes no sense, given the alternatives, streaming and satellite broadcasting, both have more bandwidth available, so there's more choice and better audio quality compared to DAB.

And now mobile streaming is available, and because DAB channels are transmitted at low bandwidth, the quality isn't a factor for DAB, and in mobile DAB requires more power compared wit FM and comparable with power used for streaming on mobile.

At the same time FM radio it's good enough to be listened in mobile, has low power requirement on reception and a receiver it's quite easy to build: An FM receiver could be made using eight transistors and two diodes, while for DAB a quite powerful microcontroller it's required.

Re: DAB+ also cuts down on "electrosmog,"

In my experience the electrosmog and power consumption arguments are true, but simply because the DAM transmitters are of lower power and because of this have lower coverage compared with FM transmitters in the same sire. Broadcasters and advertisers are more interested to cover big cities rather than small villages in the middle of the mountains.

Thanks for coming to help. No, we can't say why we called – it's classified

Re: "Or struggled to serve a classified client?"

I've head a story abut Italian trains. Normal Italian trains are running with a 3000V DC supply. French trains are running with a 1500 V DC supply, and Italy and France share a border, so on two train lines there are a change between 3000 and 1500 V. Old Italian locomotives could run on 1500 V at basically half speed, so it wasn't a big deal on a border station to mix Italian and French passenger trains.

Italian railways bough new trains that use a lot of power electronics and forgot to ask the dual voltage option.

The trains could be modified with a relatively small aftermarket extra circuit that makes the computers controlling the engine happy. But instead Italian railways decided to change part of the stations to run with 3000 V power, and maintain in services the older trains and use diesel railcars in the meantime.

Giving Windows total recall of everything a user does is a privacy minefield

Re: Windows 11 is literally making people who would never use Linux suffer with with Linux.

Wirh Windows one could have problem with older printer. I have an old HP Deskjet all-in-one, that has the nice feature to not having DRM on cartridges. I have the installation CD for Windows XP but the drivers are only 32 bit, and HP doesn't have drivers for Windows 10. I have installed the drivers on a 32 bit version of Windows 10 a lot of time ago, but on 64 bit version it doesn't work and the installation fails. On KDE/Linux, the printer was autodetected and correct drivers were installed.

BOFH: Come on down to the dunge– erm … basement

Re: ZX Spectrum with original monitor?

The 128K version had a RGB monitor port. I'm not sure if it was the same pinout of the sinclair QL one, in that case the Sinclair-branded monitor was usable with the toastrack.

I had an old black and white TV set as "monitor", then I bought a Philips BM 7502 and used a DIN-RCA cable sold for tape recorders.

Re: Worked too hard...

Does the power supply have the dreaded Rifa capacitors that plagued the Apple IIe and early Macintoshes? They probably were made of explodium and tended to release their magic smoke if left unpowered for a lot of time. Electrolytic capacitors have some problem if left unpowered for a lot of time.

Intel throws chips on the table, Microsoft plays the Copilot card in wild bet on AI PCs

Re: "sluggish sales"

A sizable part of the population doesn't need now to have a general purpose personal computer, but it's happily using their smartphone. Few people, outside business necessities, are buying PCs.

People buying a desktop or tower computer for home are almost all enthusiasts and gamers, the one that in the 1980s bought a ZX Spectrum or a Commodore 64: we were relatively few compared to the general markets, and even if there computer were sold in millions, they were used by a niche.

Beer gut-ted: As many as '70 million pints' spoiled during coronavirus pandemic must be destroyed in Britain

Re: Unpasteurised milk

It cost less than the one in supermarkets, the farmer gets more money, if you use your own glass bottle you make less waste. Besides, boiling milk isn't rocket science.

Singapore releases the robot hounds to enforce social distancing in parks

Re: Local wildlife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NIj6So_UII

I think for the UK market a different form factor robot (and easer to buld) will work better.

Don't forgert the ring modulator on the audio signal.

Forget toilet roll, bandwidth is the new ration: Amazon, YouTube also degrade video in Europe to keep 'net running amid coronavirus crunch

Re: Excuse me...

I pay TV license and still have a VHS and a DVD recorder, but now I an using a DVB receiver with an USB had disc attached.

Besides nowadays you can find a lot of CD, DVD ad even blue rays at low prices, especially in flea markets but in some small grocery stores you can find them, typically near the cash register like the chewing gums and the alkaline batteries.

Canadian family gives up modern tech to live like it's 1986

Everybody said that in 1986 home computers were widespread., so audio CDs. Actually I had my first PC in 1986, was a Sinclair QL. No modem until the '90s actually. At school we used a bunh of Olivetti M24 and a newfangled Olivetti M28 with their almost-XP or AT compatible architecture

I think that having to use an '80s computer could be really interesting as a learning experience. On that times to make something useful you have had to leanrd how a computer works and all of the quirks of the system you were using.

And for television. I stilll have only CRT tv sets, hooked to a dvb set top box.