Posts by Doctor Syntax

Zilog to end standalone sales of the legendary Z80 CPU

Coincidently I saw it announced in another place that CP/M is 50 years old.

Memories of S-100, Z80 (and the video board had a Z-80A!), 8"" disks, SDOS (a CP/M close) and Microsoft FORTRAN.

Re: 8-Bit Wars Redux

AFAICR the 6502 memory mapped peripherals while the Z80 (and, I suppose, the 8080) had a separate peripheral address space that didn't require gaps to be left in memory with INP and OUT instead of PEEK and POKE.

Ex-Amazon exec claims she was asked to ignore copyright law in race to AI

Note to HR. Never mess with somebody who knows where the bodies are buried.

Rarest, strangest, form of Windows saved techie from moment of security madness

MIPS was fine running Unix. Better to have stayed with that.

Some smart meters won't be smart at all once 2/3G networks mothballed

Re: Mesh

"Pop along to Hampshire Farmers Markets."

The travel costs would be a bit steep.

Re: SMART = DUMB

Non-technical ministers use the same business planning method as non-technical managers: believing the salesman.

"Redcare etc. are so antique that it's laughable and Redcare's IP options have been available for decades now."

My sister-in-law has one of those personal alarms in case she falls. It depends on the land-line. It's only a year or so since she got it.

It comes via a lot of battery storage. As things stand we have a power cut, I pick up the POTS phone (the DECTs have just dies, of course, and phone in a notification. (Since out 3G went a few weeks ago mobile coverage has become flaky)

Re: a device controlled by a third party

"So...? You don't use a Windows PC/Laptop then?"

You obviously haven't read many of my posts.

Re: Mesh

I take it you think Microsoft insisting on this and that bits of H/W for the next version of Windows are doing for entirely altruistic reasons and the fact that it will sell new PCs made by their hardware partners and with them new Windows licences is just a coincidence?

Or is Poe's law in operation here.

However with a 2/3G connection the meter does not have access to every other device on your LAN.

My friends are a couple even more elderly then I am. She is wheelchair bound and he has given up driving so I'm in the habit of giving them a lift to see other friends once a week and giving her a lift to our monthly local history group and Civic Soc meetings. It takes me a little of my way but not much. Her in-house wheelchair is electric (but not the foldable one that goes in the car boot) if that answers your question.

Re: So, smart meter joy is continuing

"Can" and "will" are two different words.

Re: So, smart meter joy is continuing

Not having a tumble drier would be the big win here. Although with a spring winter like the one we're having...

Re: So, smart meter joy is continuing

Did you have to use a Hildebrand Glow meter to work out the former IT director's problem or did you do it remotely from what he told you? Even if it needed a site visit the number of fan heaters would have been a clue. Real geeks read specifications.

Re: So, smart meter joy is continuing

"be on the same part of the grid as the local firehouse"

Or hospital.

Re: newer != better

"a mobile 2/3g base station"

They're not switching them off just because they can. They're switching them off so the frequency range can be sold to someone else and not left empty. A mobile 2/3g base station is not going to be popular.

I suppose the Droitwich transmitter could be replaced could be replaced by one using these transistor thingies. I hear they work quite well.

Sack the CEO on principle. If additional reasons are needed they can be attended to later.

Evidence saya that won't be taken into consideration. The problem of alarms depending on landline is supposed to be being looked at but in the meanwhile the POTS switch-off is going ahead leaving any substitute depending, ultimately, on the electricity supply which is a good deal more fickle than POTS.

Re: Never worked - No Coverage

"JUST why cant the meters hang off Wi-Fi as a option"

You want a device controlled by a third party to sit on your home LAN phoning home*? OK if your router supports a guest network but otherwise...

Then there's the problem of what happens when the meter has cut off the supply**? That takes out the customer's router and then there's no way to switch it back on.

* Other than a Windows PC, of course.

** Of course it can do that. Some unfortunate individuals have been "accidentally" remotely converted to pre-pay. Pre-pay doesn't work unless it can cut off the supply.

Re: Mesh

Isn't obsolescence what it's all about from the mater supplier's PoV?

It's not just meters that are affected. Since 3G got switched off here ordinary mobile calls from home calls -provided I can make one - drop out and incoming calls go straight to voice mail.

Meanwhile my friend with the overshadowing 5G mast tells me her wifi has suddenly become unreliable. Could it just be coincidence?

Re: So, smart meter joy is continuing

"all those people who didn't want anything to do with 'em are going to have the joy of watching the technician come back"

Not quite. It's just that we're still getting phone calls and letters to ignore about installing the first one.

Microsoft is a national security threat, says ex-White House cyber policy director

Are you running on pre-UEFI H/W? If not, look who signs the first stage of boot loader. That was the OP's point.

Tesla Cybertruck turns into world's most expensive brick after car wash

Re: Car wash mode

"If it can't handle Edinburgh rain"

The phrase "not of merchantable quality" occurs to me.

Re: Not a unique issue

A lot of RAM and a very thorough RAM test on reboot?

an $80,000 "paperweight"

To be fair it would hold down an awful lot of paper in that mode.

Sacramento airport goes no-fly after AT&T internet cable snipped

Re: Can someone please explain

This was my original thought too but if it was a deliberate taking down of the airport as a whole it may be that multiple connections were cut, hence the way it was described.

A couple of teenageers ripping out wires as a prank would also be deliberate.

AI energy draw from Chicago datacenters to rise ninefold

Re: Two

Tax AI use. And for good measure, tax all cryptocurrency transactions at 200% of their value.

Your trainee just took down our business and has no idea how or why

Re: Has an ignorant kid broken your boxes? Have they ever

Realistically, the manager spent $80,000 raining himself. Perhaps he was told that in private.

Re: A little knowledge is dangerous in a user

"until a user infected a system in the payroll dept causing delays to theirs and everyone else's wages being paid on time"

At which point, no doubt, it became your fault for not "doing something about it".

You're thinking that would make it foolproof. You'll just discover a better grade of fool who knows the flap is there to protect the sight switch or the door release or whatever it is he's looking for.

I hope someone looked at why the power circuit fuse for the bench failed to protect the rest of the power.

Re: Also fire alarms

Hospital toilets are apt to have similarly placed alarm buttons or, even worse, pull switches which look like light switches. Based on observation rather than experience, I should add.

I'm saying I've encountered hell desks.

Other persuasive hand and power tools are available.

Re: Whoopsie!

"The key point is enough supervision to understand properly when they reach that point, and not rushing it."

Nobody said that was easy.

"silent DC and sounds of panic as the helpdesk was swamped with calls"

Providing you can power up quickly enough the trick is to tell them not to answer the phones for a few minutes then tell them to check again, it's all runng here so it must have been a comms failure at their end. Providing the customers don't get together to compare notes.

Re: Whoopsie!

And yet at some point the trainee has to fly solo. Nobody said it was easy.

Microsoft claims it didn't mean to inject Copilot into Windows Server 2022 this week

So?

Re: Rename it to "CrapPlot"

No, it works the other round. They'll expect you to pay to keep it out.

Without local oversight? Without any oversight at all it seems.

An 8k script can pull in a lot of other stuff once you run it..

Re: Misnomer

It doesn't execute any code or process? What does it run on? Pixie dust?

Re: The last place anyone needs this shit

"is a server"

But only just in the last place, following closely on "everywhere else".

It also raises the question of what other, even less desirable, functionality has been added unintentionally? It's not as if server OSes are something you'd want to trust so that their builds would be very carefully managed.

Re: Not a good look

That's the thing about AI. Once it gets clever enough it just ... erm ... edges it's way in of its own volition when nobody's looking.

185K people's sensitive data in the pits after ransomware raid on Cherry Health

Someone down at the bottom of the heap was probably saying "Look what happened to them. If we don't do something about it it could happen to us." and it got propagated through the reality distortion field as "It couldn't happen to us.".