Posts by Blackjack

How Windows got to version 3 – an illustrated history

Read this for OS/2

[https://www.karlstechnology.com/blog/history-of-ntfs/

https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-history-of-os2]

And this for Windows NT:

[https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-history-of-windows-nt-31]

"In NT, APIs are implemented as subsystems on top of a native API that isn’t publicly documented. Because of this, Microsoft can have compatibility with many different systems (as the modern Windows Subsystem for Linux shows), and Microsoft can make major changes to the NT microkernel and NT executive without disturbing userland. A program written for NT in 1993 can run unmodified on Windows 11 in 2023 as the entire API and userland haven’t changed while everything underneath most certainly has. "

This is how Microsoft ended ruling the Computer market because it keeps compatibility going on way longer that anyone else.

And that's also why Windows is a buggy mess that causes problems with each "update".

I love Linux but I hate when I have to upgrade a distro or install a different one and an App no longer works so I have to resign myself to use a different App.

And if you need to use some kind of emulator or VM to run something? Most of the time you can have that emulator or VM on Microsoft Windows and for the other times? That's why they implemented that Linux Subsystem.

What? Is Mac only you say? There is probably a clone of that Aop for Windows!

There isn't? Oh well, I guess you are a Mac user then.

Microsoft, PC makers cut prices of Copilot+ gear in Europe, analyst stats confirm

It seems most people in Europe do not want expensive computers that do things they care about worse.

The ultimate Pi 5 arrives carrying 16GB ... and a price to match

A lot of people use the Pi as a gaming box butI think that overall the 8 GB model is the best option unless you really need 16 GB of Ram, even for a gaming box

The channel stands corrected: Hardware is a refresh cycle business now

Re: Money dear boy

Bad desktop hardware is amazingly cheap, by that logic I could sell you an extremely cheap hair comb.

Surely it will be as good as an expensive one, right?

Money dear boy

Hardware in the seventies was really expensive. In the eighties it became cheaper and the nineties had a price war starting around 1995/1996 that's how a lot of families got their first computer.

But today hardware is freaking expensive and there is not a huge improvement from a computer from a decade ago from one released today save for the fact the computer from a decade ago may not he able to run Windows 11.

So there is not much motivation to replace hardware yearly like there was at a time when a computer today was way much faster that a computer a released mere one or two years ago.

BOFH: Forecasting and the fine art of desktop upgrades

Honesty, this time really feels like the Boss really deserved it.

And cleaning people usually don't take things but they sometimes move things and unplug cables.

Oh the horror stories about that could fill several dead tree books but they would get a tad repetitive.

Haiku Beta 5 / In tests it's (Fire)foxier / It pleases us well

Haiku is cute and having both LibreOffice and a Firefox fork means ir has some use However for now it is still not something to use daily.

Just when you thought terminal emulators couldn't get any better, Ghostty ships

A good terminal emulator should be GUI independent so no thanks.

Windows 11 24H2 can run – sort of – in 184MB

Honesty if you need to hack Windows 11 to make it functional you may as well use something else.

But as long as The Microsoft Office is king, good luck with getting rid of Windows.

The unlicensed OneDrive free ride ends this month

Again, always have offline backups.

AI can improve on code it writes, but you have to know how to ask

Well, there is a few videos by a guy who codes games for the Nintendo 64 (yes really) and he tested AI helping him to code, he got mixed results.

Granted if he tried again now the tesults may be better or worse because these AI chatbots eat a lot of garbage data and just because they get feed similar garbage data a million times it doesn't stop the data from being wrong.

If you want AI to help coding get a specific AI that does that, these glorified chatbots are just too unreliable.

Microsoft declares 2025 'the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh'

Re: Whatever happened

Actually Cars companies nowadays can and have wrecked cars software, no sure how legal it is but they do keep doing it.

Google's 10-year Chromebook lifeline leaves old laptops headed for silicon cemetery

I think there is still at least one Linux for

Chromebook project going on, that should work better?

How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC

I haven't coded in BASIC in a long ass time. The thing stopping me getting back to it is all the different versions available I cannot decide.

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

[When Y2K hit, there was no AWS, no online streaming services, smartphones, or social media: Sure, we had the internet, but the world was nowhere nearly as constantly online as in 2025.]

I miss those days, even if my Internet connection was really slow, I used Dial Up until the year 2004.

Also The year 2038 problem will probably catch up down the pants in some things.

HMD Fusion: A budget repairable smartphone with modular flair

I like HMD phones, I still use my "New Nokia 1" as my travel phone.

Just the last Android upgrade it had made it mostly useless -_-

With how Android updates tend to break HMD phones I don't feel like investing in repairable one.

Eight things that should not have happened last year, but did

Delivery drones will eventually be a regular thing, even uf they probably will need people to remote control them outside of fixed routers and even then theee will be a need of human supervision.

Can 4G feature phones rise again on the back of QVGA, thin clients, and remote browsers?

He is aware that would need fast and reliable Internet, right? Otherwise people just end with a mostly useless phone.

Microsoft adds another problem to the Windows 11 24H2 naughty list

And Microsoft wonders why some people refuse to leave Windows 10 yet...

How Androxgh0st rose from Mozi's ashes to become 'most prevalent malware'

Considering these botnets tend to autodelete if Wifi routers get turned off for a few minutes, maybe that can get used if someone can prevent reinfection.

Naïve Reg hack thinks he can beat Christmas food comas once and for all

The only way to beat Christmas food comas is to eat in moderation and drink no alcohol in other words avoid getting the food coma in the first place.

Been doing that for years and so I can get up early in Christmas day and enjoy the morning.

SvarDOS: DR-DOS is reborn as an open source operating system

Optimizing DOS memory is a thing I hated so much I gad custom boot floppies for the specific games and or software that just wouldn't run cause not enough low ram.

Also you guys forgot about the Arachne (web browser) that has become open source as Arachne GPL.

BOFH: Printer's festive bips herald a merry mystery for the Boss's budget

Wonder what he will do it the Boss gets a credit freeze? Although that shouldn't affect debit cards only debit ones...

Guide for the perplexed – Google is no longer the best search engine

When Google couldn't beat YouTube it bought it, so really any Google killing App is just waiting to see if they become good enough for Google to buy them.

BOFH: Don't sell The Boss a firewall. Sell him The Dream

Re: A lovely BOFH Christmas present!

And that's why the BOFH is getting all the malware on Christmas day disguised as an e-mail about him getting a company bonus. Ir he fails for it? Revenge is served. If he doesn't then he will still find out he somehow ended paying the younger man Pub tab due to not paying attention to that paying app settings due to getting caught in a prank war.

Careful there, you need to backdate the firewall paperwork yesterday so the bean counters don't get nervous and order the firewall to be removed because you apparently didn't pay for it. Normally they wouldn't care but in case of an audit, possible sell out or merge of the company...

Remember is not doing the job well or bad, is having the paperwork saying you did everything above board and doing it with some easy to fix mistakes. So the company accountant has something to do, doesn't get fired and runs away with most of the company money.

Suggested Actions fails to suggest its own survival as Windows 11 feature killed

So basically they did a Clippy and people didn't like it so it is getting axed? They really didn't see that coming?

Facebook, Threads, WhatsApp, Instagram stumble on and offline in global outage

I guess everyone went to Tik Tac Toe and Discordia for a while then.

Microsoft hijacks keyboard shortcut to bring Copilot to your attention

Microsoft should do like Samsung is doing and have an option to block the darn AI.

Cruise robotaxis parked forever, as GM decides it can't compete and wants to cut costs

There should really be international laws about big companies electronics waste.

South Korean web giant Naver creates its own Linux distro

Should have called it Naverix instead, unless that's a bad wrong there.

Raspberry Pi 500 and monitor arrive in time for Christmas

[Num Lock key is no longer, and a power key has been added – infuriatingly close to the Delete button.]

That will get annoying really fast.

Also who really uses touchscreens on a desktop? A keyboard and mouse not only work better and faster but you avoid cleaning the monitor so much so that's a plus. Any extra use you may get of a touchscreen on a desktop computer gets faced with the fact most Linux software is not made with touchscreens in mind

We can't make this stuff up: Palantir, Anduril form fellowship for AI adventures

[Sauron, the startup, apparently makes "deterrence pods" that contain drones capable of detecting anyone who approaches a location where they are installed – scanning their faces, and shining a searchlight on anything the system deems suspicious.]

Yeah because criminals have never covered their faces or evaded cameras and having something as evident as a searchlight to let criminals know where the camera pod is won't backfire at all.

Outlook is poor for those still on Windows Mail, Calendar, People apps by end of year

Is Thunderbird any good?

Are Copilot+ PCs really the fastest Windows PCs? X and Copilot don't think so

Are those posts made by Gen AI with a human shepherd that's an ignoramus looking over the tweets before they actually get posted?

GenAI comes for jobs once considered 'safe' from automation

So far any use of GenAI in actual work

requires a human fixing the AI mistakes, unless that changes AI Shepherds iare becoming a very much required job.

Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz

I suspect a lot of people downgrading to Windows 10 due to finding it less annoying and due to hardware compatibility issues.

Tech support chap showed boss how to use a browser for a year – he still didn't get it

[dialup connection shared among its 50-odd staff. That went well]

Maybe for e-mail but dial up speeds definitely wouldn't have worked well in a single connection shared by 50 something computers.

More so at that time period. We are taking like 56 kbit/s line speed at maximum here.

BASIC co-creator Thomas Kurtz hits END at 96

BASIC was my first programing language unfortunately it was also the last one.

iOS 18 added secret and smart security feature that reboots iThings after three days

Meanwhile some Android phones explode if you leave them too long charging.

Windows 95 setup was three programs in a trench coat, Microsoft vet reveals

Re: "Progress, eh?"

Hope you got paid by the hour.

Crook breaks into AI biz, points $250K wire payment at their own account

Did maybe they steal the money from themselves or was it a company employee?

Weekends were a mistake, says Infosys co-founder Narayama Murthy

Work smarter, not harder.

NASA wants ideas on how to haul injured moonwalkers

Make them easy to cut into smalll pieces and out then into a box?

Fedora 41: A vast assortment, but there's something for everyone

What are the problems of using Btrfs?

Photoshop FOSS alternative GNU Image Manipulation Program 3.0 nearly here

Cool, I will give it a try once official version 3.0 finally launches.

Mozilla's Firefox browser turns 20. Does it still matter?

I still use Firefox and I will until it dies.