Re: VAX in action
On 13 October 2015 at 02:33, Sean Caron wrote: > I will also lay the blame for my lack of inline quoting at the > feet of same; GMail makes a total hash of it. No it doesn't; it works perfectly. Either hit Ctrl-A to expand all, then trim as required, or if that's too hard, go into Settings and the Labs tab and enable: «Quote selected text Ryan A Quote the text you have selected when you reply to a message. (Now works with the mouse too!) » It does proper quoting as well or better than any offline MUA. I'm using it right now. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
I don't know if this memoir is well-known or not, but I thought it might interest. « The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode A bridge to 21st Century Computing By Jack Allweiss Copyright 2010 My name is Jack A. Allweiss, also known as “The Father of the B5900 System”. I did not give myself that title, my friends and co-workers at Burroughs Corporation did, and I consider it a great honor. This true story is about the B5900, and why it was an important milestone for Burroughs and later Unisys, as well as the computer industry in general. » http://jack.hoa.org/hoajaa/BurrMain.html -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
On 14 October 2015 at 17:15, Noel Chiappa wrote: > Wow! What a fabulous story/writeup! Highly recommend to everyone. Oh good -- glad someone else enjoyed it. :-) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Atari Unix
Apparently efforts are underway to get this unreleased product working. I believe it was aimed at the TT030 desktop "workstation" model of the ST family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030 Atari did licence UNIX™ and got a really good deal — $10 a seat! http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/18/the-atari-st-could-have-run-unix/ … But the original 68000 version couldn't hack it. No MMU. http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1383 The product did eventually exist: http://www.atariunix.com/ But as ever it was too little, too late. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Atari Unix
On 17 October 2015 at 15:06, Dave G4UGM wrote: > Perhaps also "too expensive"? AIUI Atari UNIX never shipped as a product, so that’s academic; nobody knows what they would have charged. I’m not sure about this, though. But the “big 3” alternative home computer platforms of the 1980s all offered a UNIX — Acorn RISC-iX, Commodore Amiga UNIX and Atari UNIX. None caught on — they were vastly expensive for home users, and the machines were seen as toys by professionals using SUN workstations and so on. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Atari Unix
On 17 October 2015 at 16:01, wrote: > I was always under the impression that a few of them made it out there? > > I have a TT030 and actually was just looking at it last night. It has a VME > slot (as they call it) that has a dual serial port board installed. I think > it has a modem port. I know it's not compatible with normal ST softwar,e has > VGA, does not use a ps2 keyboard but uses an ST keyboard, and has real SCSI > versus ACSI! > > Strange computers. Doesn't look quite as cool as the Mega 2/4 IMHO but still > interesting! Er, possible crossed wires here. The TT shipped, sure. It’s Atari UNIX that I /think/ did not. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
The KIM Uno -- a modern clone of the KIM-1
Just learned of this via a tweet from a former colleague: « The KIM Uno is a small "open-source hardware" project to build a replica of the classic 1976 KIM-1 computer. It doubles up as a 6502 programmable calculator. It costs about $10 in commonly available parts (board & parts without case or power supply), but provides a faithful KIM-1 'experience'. An atMega328 (Arduino Pro Mini, actually) mounted on the back of the board contains all the logic and memory. » http://obsolescence.wix.com/obsolescence#!kim-uno-summary/c1uuh -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Vintage BBC Computer gets FPGA Buddies
« The BBC Microcomputer System (or BBC Micro) was an innovative machine back in the early 1980’s. One feature that impressed reviewers was a “tube” interface that allowed the machine to become an I/O processor for an additional CPU. When the onboard 6502 became too slow, it could become a slave to a Z-80 or even an ARM processor. The bus was actually useful for any high-speed device, but its purpose was to add new processors, a feature Byte magazine called “innovative.” [Hoglet67] has released a very interesting set of FPGA designs that allows a small board sporting a Xilinx Spartan 3 to add a 6502, a Z80, a 6809, or a PDP/11 to a BBC Micro via the tube interface. There’s something satisfying about a classic computer acting as an I/O slave to a fairly modern FPGA that implements an even older PDP/11. » http://hackaday.com/2015/10/03/vintage-bbc-computer-gets-fpga-buddies/ -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: VCF-Berlin, 2015
On 28 October 2015 at 08:58, rod wrote: > Well they managed to keep that quiet or I would have gone like a shot. > My wife and I go to Germany three or four times a year on holiday. > > I worked in Germany for a year (1969/70) and speak enough German to get > around. > > So I am totally hacked off that it was a secret closed show and so I never > knew about it. > I could have been there in less than three hours. door to door. > > Whoever hid this event form the greater collecting world should be made to > key in the PDP8 bootstrap 1024 times!!! > > Seriously though, it would have been nice to have gone I was thinking much the same thing. It's only a train ride for me -- OK, a long train ride, but still. I even have a few friends in Berlin I could have couch-surfed with. :-( -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Know any Fortran programmers who need a more interesting job?
«Why NASA Needs a Programmer Fluent In 60-Year-Old Languages To keep the Voyager 1 and 2 crafts going, NASA's new hire has to know FORTRAN and assembly languages. » http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17991/voyager-1-voyager-2-retiring-engineer/ -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: The list seems very quiet today
On 30 October 2015 at 12:02, rod wrote: > The list seems very quiet to-day. > I have had only one post this morning. > Anybody know why? No replies to my message about NASA wanting Fortran programmers... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Know any Fortran programmers who need a more interesting job?
On 30 October 2015 at 16:28, Paul Koning wrote: > Neat. I would think that a large fraction of the membership of this list is > qualified for that job. That's why I posted it! :-) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Vintage computing events in Germany [Was: Re: VCF-Berlin, 2015]
On 4 November 2015 at 22:34, Anke Stüber wrote: > Hi, > > On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 09:24:04PM +0100, Anke Stüber wrote: >> […] Classic Computing 2015 […] > > btw, there are more vintage computing events in and around Germany that > I don't recall being mentioned on the list, like Classic Computing[0] > (usually in Germany, varying cities) and VCFe/CH[1] (Switzerland, > Winterthur, unfortunately not happening this year). Also VCFe[2] > (Germany, Munich) hasn't been mentioned in a while. > > If there is any interest, I can post announcements for those events in > advance. Echoing whjat -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Vintage computing events in Germany [Was: Re: VCF-Berlin, 2015]
On 5 November 2015 at 15:03, Liam Proven wrote: > On 4 November 2015 at 22:34, Anke Stüber wrote: >> Hi, >> >> On Wed, Nov 04, 2015 at 09:24:04PM +0100, Anke Stüber wrote: >>> […] Classic Computing 2015 […] >> >> btw, there are more vintage computing events in and around Germany that >> I don't recall being mentioned on the list, like Classic Computing[0] >> (usually in Germany, varying cities) and VCFe/CH[1] (Switzerland, >> Winterthur, unfortunately not happening this year). Also VCFe[2] >> (Germany, Munich) hasn't been mentioned in a while. >> >> If there is any interest, I can post announcements for those events in >> advance. > > > Echoing whjat I appear to have managed to hit UNDO and SEND in a single keystroke. >_< That previously read: Echoing what Rod said -- yes, please do! (A Brit in Central Europe writes.) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Query for dec teleprinter roms
On 21 November 2015 at 10:27, simon wrote: > I am very curious as what you are talking about. Is it something with html > in mail? I configured thunderbird to only show me plain text so I can focus > on the content and not some graphic noise. I don't know what they're talking about either. Cory's email looked normal to me, except for the top-quoting. Speaking of which, Simon, if you are using Thunderbird then you have ABSOLUTELY NO excuse for top-quoting. Please do it right. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Emulation
On 21 November 2015 at 16:55, Ray Arachelian wrote: > What you really want is the MESS project, http://www.mess.org/ - which > is part of MAME and has retro computer emulators. Not any more, no. As Al K said, MESS has now been merged into MAME. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: DEC Papertape Readers
On 27 November 2015 at 13:44, Holm Tiffe wrote: > ..a friend forwarded something that look very similar to them, looks as if > DEC cloned them in some way .. > > https://www.facebook.com/Excite.Espana/videos/10154330747448032/ > > > :-) Very nice! But that looks like the roll (book, whatever) equivalent of a lace card. I'm amazed it held together enough to play, and I suspect it's not going to survive more than a handful of plays at best. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: A stored collection piece is a Schrodinger's cat
On 28 November 2015 at 11:58, Adrian Graham wrote: > That's what I've been doing for the last 2 months, all centred around fixing > a PET4032. Is Sir aware of Tynemouth Software? http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/2015/09/commodore-pet-8032-repair-overclocked-to-death.html http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/2015/05/commodore-pet-romram-replacement-boards.html -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: A stored collection piece is a Schrodinger's cat
On 30 November 2015 at 18:43, Adrian Graham wrote: > All of this fixing I'm currently doing is all Dave's fault, so yes :) [Actual LOL] -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: A stored collection piece is a Schrodinger's cat
On 1 December 2015 at 01:12, Adrian Graham wrote: > The > ROM/RAM replacement board he sells is an excellent 40 pin toolkit to help > tracing faults in the vast majority of PETs so with the help of Dave and the > good folk here I've got life back into my most dead 4032. He's a smart and very helpful chap. He built a Raspberry Pi 2 into my old LMT 68FX2 ZX Spectrum replacement keyboard. The snag is, a Spectrum keyboard layout is really very little use with anything else (e.g. Linux or RISC OS.) Shame, as it has a good action and feel -- individual sprung keys. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Oberon and the OberonStation (retro-style FPGA computing)
On 24 November 2015 at 08:45, Mark Wickens wrote: > Thanks for letting us know about this William - I'm sure there is still > plenty of interest in Oberon, Modula-2, Modula-3 and other derivatives. Was there ever an ARM version? I am wondering how hard it would be to port to Raspberry Pi... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: TU-58
On 2 December 2015 at 17:13, Tony wrote: > Mathematically, circumference is PI times diameter or 3.14159. times the > diameter. [1] Please do not top-quote. [2] Turn up your humour detectors. The OP was making a joke about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill That is why he said "in some states" with a smiley. By attempting to "correct" him, you have merely exposed your own ignorance of history and mathematics and your inability to work out the meaning of a smiley. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Oberon and the OberonStation (retro-style FPGA computing)
On 2 December 2015 at 17:54, Jos Dreesen wrote: > On 02.12.2015 15:04, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On 24 November 2015 at 08:45, Mark Wickens >> wrote: >>> >>> Thanks for letting us know about this William - I'm sure there is still >>> plenty of interest in Oberon, Modula-2, Modula-3 and other derivatives. >> >> >> >> Was there ever an ARM version? I am wondering how hard it would be to >> port to Raspberry Pi... >> > > Check out http://www.astrobe.com/default.htm Thanks for the info! So, Oberon *Language* yes, but Oberon *operating system* no? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: [cctalk] Re: TOP POSTING
On 10 December 2015 at 16:54, wrote: > Bad news is Gmail never deletes your emails, ever. They remove them from > your view but keep it on their servers for profiling you. *I* never delete my emails. I have a trail back to 1994. So? Also, [[Citation needed]] for paranoid ravings. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: TOP POSTING (was: RE: Best 200 buck I have ever spent!!! Deal of a lifetime!!!
On 10 December 2015 at 18:07, tony duell wrote: > If your mail program doesn't let you scroll to the end of a message and > start typing then it is fundametnally broken. It may not be convenient, but > that is not my problem! Strongly agree. Adrian, if your email client doesn't let you bottom-quote properly, it's broken. The only desktop client I've seen that is so completely broken is MS Outlook. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: [cctalk] Re: TOP POSTING
On 10 December 2015 at 18:19, Fred Cisin wrote: > Let's indulge, for a moment, in some paranoid rantings, . . . > IF Google were not so honorable and ethical, what kind of power > COULD they eventually wield with such complete knowledge of people? I'm with Scott McNeally. "You _have_ no privacy on the Internet. Get over it." If I cared, I could run my own server, PGP everything, etc. I am capable of it. But [a] life's too short [b] Gmail is a very good service, runs on all my PCs and devices, keeps them all in sync -- mail, address book and calendar [c] Even if I did go PGP-crazy, there are very few people I could communicate with. I have other email addresses. Lots of 'em. About 5 still get checked regularly. But, frankly, Gmail is the best, so I stay with it. I am paranoid enough to use a local client to keep a local backup, though... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: [cctalk] Re: TOP POSTING
On 10 December 2015 at 20:42, Rich Alderson wrote: > From: Liam Proven > Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 8:33 AM > >> On 10 December 2015 at 16:54, > wrote: >>> Bad news is Gmail never deletes your emails, ever. They remove them from >>> your view but keep it on their servers for profiling you. > >> *I* never delete my emails. I have a trail back to 1994. So? > > Piker. Um. I don't know what that means. In UK English, "pikey" is a highly offensive pejorative term for a person of Gypsy or Romany origin, or these days, more generically, a person of very lower-class origins: "trailer trash". I am guessing you didn't mean that. :-) So, what, it means I'm very young? I'm fine with that, given I'm nearing 50. :-D > My e-mail archives extend back to the 1970s, stored on 9-track mag tape > (with slight interruptions for job changes--learned that lesson after a > while). > Oh, ;-) I had some too -- I never preserved my old DOS-based OLR/email program Matrix. :-( I only have emails from when I switched to a Windows client onwards. :-( But in 1970, I was 3. I got my first email account at 15Y old, at University. Didn't keep those, either. :-( > On the subject line topic, I read this list via an Exchange/Outlook setup, [...] > Simple. Quick. This must be some strange new usage of the words "simple" and "quick" that I wasn't previously aware of. [To paraphrase Douglas Adams.] ObEditWar: I'm still trying to learn ErgoEmacs, but damn it is hard to love... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: [cctalk] Re: TOP POSTING
On 11 December 2015 at 15:33, Kevin Anderson wrote: > I used to be an ardent bottom-poster like this list requires, but then I was > given one very good reason to switch that I believe is valid and persuasive > -- bottom posting (and even inline posting), I understand, is a very royal > pain in the arse for people who are visually disabled or challenged and > require the use of assistance software. Yes, this is true. And for the benefit of the 1 blind close friend with whom I email a lot, I learned, uncomfortably, to top-post. Now I do it with everyone because people miss bottom-posted replies. :-( -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: TOP POSTING (was: RE: Best 200 buck I have ever spent!!! Deal of a lifetime!!!
On 11 December 2015 at 19:47, Dave G4UGM wrote: > > I have searched high and low for a decent e-mail client for Windows. All the > ones I have tried suck in some way. Outlook will no longer let me post > in-line on HTML mails. FreeBird won't look at calendars. Em is just a pain. I don't use Windows unless someone pays me to suffer it. However, I used to use and like Thunderbird and still do on Linux and Mac. If you're willing to go proprietary -- I prefer not to -- I have heard nothing but praise for The Bat! [sic] -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: TOP POSTING (was: RE: Best 200 buck I have ever spent!!! Deal of a lifetime!!!
On 11 December 2015 at 23:48, Dave Wade wrote: > It does not make sense for the ply to come at the end. It's a total waste of > time having to re-read all the unnecessary crap many times just to get to a > one sentence reply. You don't. I don't. Any decent MUA suppresses this. Again, if you see this kind of behaviour, you have a broken email client. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: TOP POSTING (was: RE: Best 200 buck I have ever spent!!! Deal of a lifetime!!!
On 11 December 2015 at 23:57, Dave Wade wrote: > In order to get buttons that let you go to the next message There's one on your keyboard. It's the big long rectangular one at the bottom. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: [cctalk] Re: TOP POSTING
On 12 December 2015 at 03:00, Rich Alderson wrote: > From: Liam Proven > Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 10:54 AM > >> On 10 December 2015 at 20:42, Rich Alderson >> wrote: > >>> From: Liam Proven >>> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 8:33 AM > >>>> *I* never delete my emails. I have a trail back to 1994. So? > >>> Piker. > >> Um. I don't know what that means. In UK English, "pikey" is a highly >> offensive pejorative term for a person of Gypsy or Romany origin, or >> these days, more generically, a person of very lower-class origins: >> "trailer trash". I am guessing you didn't mean that. :-) > >> So, what, it means I'm very young? I'm fine with that, given I'm nearing >> 50. :-D > > Two cultures separated by a common language, and all that. Indeed. > According to the dictionaries of American English which I just consulted, it > is > refers to small-time gamblers and others who make limited cash outlays. Hmm. Oh! OK. New one on me, and I thought I was reasonable at US idioms. I have probably misheard or misparsed it before now, thought it strangely out-of-context and moved on. > In nearly 60 years of reading and watching movies and television program(me)s, > the internalized definition I have for it is any person who does something in > a > small way. Usually used jokingly. Thus, that your collected e-mail is two > decades' less duration than mine leads to such a description. That was my general impression, but I read it as age rather than quantity. Close enough for government work. > Certainly no offense intended. Oh, none taken! >>> On the subject line topic, I read this list via an Exchange/Outlook setup, >> [...] >>> Simple. Quick. > >> This must be some strange new usage of the words "simple" and "quick" >> that I wasn't previously aware of. > > Well, given that I first learned EMACS (to give the TECO spelling) when you > were all of 8 years old, the method I described *is* simple and quick, for me. First editor. Hmm. I guess the Commodore full-screen BASIC code editor on the PET series doesn't really count. But before I used it in any anger, in Comp Sci class, I got a ZX Spectrum after playing with my uncle's ZX 81. But the Spectrum barely had an editor, either, so I mostly used Beta BASIC which was slightly (slightly) richer. (A used Spectrum 48K cost my parents £80. No idea of exchange rates in 1982-1983: at a total guess ITRO US$ 140-150? That was the most computer we could afford.) First actual discrete editor which could load and save files was probably EDT on a terminal on the University VAX in about 1985. I was never a master but I could use it. Does that have enough early-editor kudos? Probably not. :-( > Isn't this the Old Geezers club? :-) Well, quite! :-D -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What did computers without screens do?
On 14 December 2015 at 23:16, Ian S. King wrote:
> And think of all the PDP-8s *still* buried in the control units of
> factories across the world. The majority of these machines had no
> displays, not even teleprinters. Some had custom controls wired in through
> stock or custom modules, and some had no more "UI" than the front panel
> ("set switches 2 and 3 to the 'on' position and press the 'run' key").
> Some didn't even have that - the stock 8/m was a turnkey system. The
> reasoning was the same as that behind the microcontroller replacing the
> 555: complex behavior could be modeled in software rather than intricate
> analog elements, and it was easy to change things if you needed to (e.g.,
> if you changed out an instrument or effector.
Much the same reason that ARM cores are widely embedded today. AIUI
it, it is typical for a modern smartphone not merely to be based on a
multicore ARM CPU, but to contain something ITRO half a dozen other
ARM cores as well.
The main CPU may well be a big.LITTLE device -- e.g. 8 cores, 4
complex superscalar fast ones which take lots of electricity, and 4
small simple dumber ones *with the same instruction set* that use very
little but have a much lower IPC, so that the phone's OS can switch
between fast cores and power-frugal cores depending on load and
available battery power.
Then the Wifi chip contains an ARM core running part of the stack, and
so does the Bluetooth chip, and so does the NFC chip, and so does the
power-management chip, and so does the battery-monitoring chip, and so
does the USB controller... etc.
ARM cores can be *very* cheap to license, and it's easier to implement
stuff in software and run it on a tiny slow ARM core than build
hardware to do it.
By the same token, a colleague and friend of mine recently discovered
this gem & Tweeted it:
Chris Williams @diodesign
TIL modern Intel chipsets have a hidden SPARC core (inside Intel's
Management Engine)
https://recon.cx/2014/slides/Recon%202014%20Skochinsky.pdf … (2014)
2:59 AM - 14 Dec 2015
--
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Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Re: Wood (was Re: IBM Mainframe terminal stuff)
On 20 December 2015 at 04:30, Eric Smith wrote: > On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> Was it the Processor Technology Sol that had oak strips on the sides? > > Walnut. Are you sure it wasn't rosewood? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR) ;-)
Re: Available: various PSION organizers, parts, and documentation from the mid-80s
On 22 December 2015 at 05:03, steven stengel wrote: > I have boxes full of like-new PSION II organizers that I recently received > from a US distributed. > > These aren't rare or valuable, but they are new in the box and seemingly > never used. > > There are different models, with both 2 and 4 line displays, and different > amounts of memory. > > > I also have memory modules, cables, and development documentation. > > There's also a PSION module duplicactor. > > > If any of this interests anyone, let me know. Wow! Do you have any LZ64 or plain ol' LZ models? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Remember the old "Choose your own adventure books" By D & D! ! !
On 21 December 2015 at 13:46, Mike wrote: > Has any of you took one of them old choose your own adventurer books and > coded it into a text RPG in basic? Blimey, yes, I have -- but in about 1983! Even then, given my very meagre programming ability, I found it a dull project. The simplistic way of doing it was a lot of GOTOs -- which is basically what the book is -- and the proper way, with a database of text and jumps, was tedious. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Data Recovery Services
On 21 January 2016 at 12:50, Peter Faraday wrote: > Iv had some luck with drives where the head gets suck in the park position. > If the drive spins up then shuts down it could be this. Bit of an > agricultural fix but, take the lid off and give the head a slight nudge off > the centre and get the lid back on quick. I'm lead to believe this will > only work with old drives dew to the tolerances in gap of head to platter. > Big risk with this is crashing the head into the disk but iv used it a few > time with 100% success. The drives were from early 90s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction#Hard_disk_drives -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 26 January 2016 at 06:24, Mark J. Blair wrote: > So I think my next challenge is to figure out how to write out 1.8M XDF > floppies from the installation floppy images. Maybe I can find a utility to > write them from DOS? I have a 386 clone running MS-DOS 6.22 that I use for > running ImageDisk. Should work. Even a DOS shell under Windows should, I think. They're just 1.4MB disks with some extra sectors per track and tracks -- pushing the spec a little, not different hardware. There are lots of disk images of OS/2 out there -- I used to have 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5 before I switched countries. Try VetusWare: http://vetusware.com/ Or OldDos Ru: http://old-dos.ru/ However, sorry to say, but I think the 3.x / 4.x timeline will be too new and require higher-spec hardware than a 486 with 12MB. > I use a SCSI2SD in it for its hard drive, and I can pop the MicroSD card into > a reader on my Mac to get files on and off of it. Mid-1990s era CDs were usually not bootable media, because the firmware of the time couldn't do it. You tended to need to boot off a floppy or 2 and a small setup program ran, then accessed the CD and bootstrapped the main one off CD. So don't expect the ISO to be bootable. Look on it for boot floppy images, in /BOOTDISK/ or something like that. Another option: Boot it under DOS. Install MSCDEX and SCSI CD drivers -- and SMARTDRV. Ensure that DOS can see and read the CD-ROM drive and that it's cached. (Important -- CDs are very slow without caching.) Copy the OS/2 files into a subdirectory of the DOS drive, or even into a whole dedicated partition. (Older versions should be _substantially_ less than a CD-full.) E.g.: C: -- MS-DOS D: -- OS/2 OS E: -- installer files F: -- free for data or swap file. Then hack the config file on the boot CD to read the files from the hard disk. I've been following your posts on Twitter about this, and enjoying it. :-) Good work so far! -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 26 January 2016 at 17:24, Mark J. Blair wrote: > That site looks a bit more challenging for an English-only speaker. :) Maybe > google translate can help me find my way around... yeah, much better now. > Thanks for the links! Yes, it certainly is. I live in the Czech Republic, but I don't speak Czech worth a damn -- but between that and rudimentary Cyrillic reading ability, I can handle a little very basic Russian. That site's still too much for me, but Google Chrome and Google Translate make it navigable. I don't normally recommend such things, but for decades-old releases of an OS, Bittorrent can be your friend, too. E.g. https://thepiratebay.se/search/ibm%20os%202/0/99/300 -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 27 January 2016 at 07:18, Mark J. Blair wrote: > That XDFCOPY.EXE from the BonusPak ISO also has the same issue under MS-DOS > 6.22 on the PS/2. However, I got an OS/2 prompt from the first two floppies > of the OS/2 Warp Connect 3.0 set (which are regular 1.44M floppies), and then > I can CD to the DOS 6.22 HD and use that XDFCOPY.EXE to write the images. Yay! > > This is like a text adventure. :-D Yes, it is a bit, isn't it? I actually bought OS/2 with my own money. I was always extremely averse to doing that. It was good for its time, but NT 3.x was technically superior, just lacking in the UI department. Win95 brought a better UI. NT 4 combined them and Windows 2000 brought them together -- NT with Plug&play, power management etc. I don't like to have to say it, but Windows was better than OS/2. And Windows drove the rest of the industry onwards, to better it. Which, now, with Ubuntu and RHEL and Mac OS X and iOS and Android, it has, I reckon. Today there is eComStation. I have review copies but I've never got it 100% working. I may need to dedicate a machine to it. :¬( I miss OS/2, just as something genuinely /different/ in the greater DOS family -- but really, NT was better in almost every way. Less flexible by far, but also far more polished and stable. (E.g. I could reliably kernel-trap an OS/2 machine with Fractint, one of my favourite apps.) But trying the modern version today brings the bad memories flooding back, I'm afraid... Of multi-thousand-line CONFIG.SYS files, of juggling drivers (PATA versus SATA today, for example), of patchy or missing hardware support etc. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 27 January 2016 at 23:00, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote: > Hmmm... agree to disagree I guess. I generally found the Workplace shell in > OS/2 a bit cumbersome and maddening compared to a lot of the GUI > alternatives. I have to agree. Classic MacOS, particularly in MacOS 8 and 9, was perhaps the most polished GUI I've ever used. I also retain great fondness for Acorn's RISC OS desktop, with its unusual and distinctive elegance: * "maximise" only makes a window as big as it needs to be to show all icons without scrolling * drag-and-drop file saving -- no need for a directory browser in the dialog * the first GUI with anti-aliasing & full-window moving & resizing (as opposed to outlines) * the first Icon Bar, before even the NeXT Dock, AFAIK WPS was impressively powerful and had an impressive design, but the actual implementation was a bit patchy and clunky. Sorry to have to say it, but I found the Windows 9x Explorer more actual /use./ The idea of the Start menu, implemented as a directory of directories, was *inspired*. Shortcuts are clunky but they work -- if the implementation had originated on NT and NTFS, it would have worked better. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 27 January 2016 at 18:38, j...@cimmeri.com wrote: > Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't NT a > descendent of DEC VMS? Oversimplifying freely: DEC OS team lead Dave Cutler wanted to take VAX/VMS multi-platform. DEC rejected this. So he allowed himself and his core team leads to be headhunted by Microsoft. Microsoft had recently fallen out with IBM over OS/2. OS/2 1.x was a joint MS/IBM development. IBM kept the 80386 version, OS/2 2.x. MS got the portable, CPU-independent version, OS/2 3.x, which was barely more than a skeleton draft at that point. MS hired Cutler and gave him the OS/2 3 project. Cutler & his team retained some of it, but redid a lot, reusing ideas, concepts and even filenames from VMS -- but no code, obviously. The result was named "Windows NT". Entertainingly, WNT is what you get if you shift the letters of 'VMS" 1 position forward in the alphabet. Actually, though, it was developed on multiple CPU platforms, and one was an in-house board design based around Intel's RISC chip, the i860 -- codenamed the N10. NT allegedly stood for "N Ten" before MS marketing retconned it to "New Technology". -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 28 January 2016 at 17:45, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > I run Windows 98SE on a 14 year old Pentium III. I have > replaced the power supply twice and all three hard disk drives. I have answered this at length before. Do not even *TRY* to run Win9x on modern hardware. Most things won't work, there are no drivers, and it remains horribly inefficient. The same codebase as Netscape 7.2 still exists. It is called Mozilla Seamonkey. It is a more modern, updated version of the *same program*. I have previously posted links to detailed instructions on how you could migrate your entire profile, complete and intact, onto Seamonkey (or Thunderbird, the stand-alone mail program) without needing to change or reconfigure anything. NT-based Windows is a lot more pleasant, more reliable and on a modern multicore CPU much faster and more responsive than Win98. I suspect most people would recommend Windows 7, which has substantially the same look and feel as Win 98 and would require minimal re-familiarisation. As for Ersatz-11, there is a Win32 version, or you could run the existing version under a VM in Virtualbox, a free hypervisor. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 28 January 2016 at 19:40, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The latest rig that I've run 98SE on is a Intel P3 (440GX) with 2GB of > memory. I can do it, but it took the "unofficial final service pack" to > reduce the amount of memory to something reasonable. Exactly. I think it can't handle >512MB and it *definitely* can't do multicore. It's pointless. It's buying a new car and putting roller-skate wheels on it... because you're used to skates. > Drivers, I think would be the stumbling block on modern hardware. Definitely. > I'd use > VirtualBox in any case to deal with that issue. I've certainly done with > other old systems. Well yes, but you need a host OS, and there is no reason not to _use_ that host OS and work on it. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: What to Do with a PS/2?
On 30 January 2016 at 06:18, Robert Ferguson wrote: > This is exactly correct, although marketing had nothing to do with the “NT” > retcon; we did it ourselves. > > - Rob > > ps: the i860 was not a pleasant thing. There was much rejoicing in the halls > the day we decided to drop it as a target architecture. Wow! Thanks for that! My compliments on your work. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 31 January 2016 at 17:19, Noel Chiappa wrote: > BTW, are you indicating that Win 98SE _in general_ should only be used for > retro-computing, or only Win 98SE _in the particular configration you > described_ should only be used that way? AFAICS: At all. Ever. It's a nearly 20y old piece of code which was notoriously unstable and insecure when it was new. Look, I built, installed, ran, maintained & supported MS-DOS-based PCs for over 20y. I am not biased against DOS. But it's one of the feeblest OSes ever to sell well. DOS-based Windows was a bodge, a kludge, a temporary fix because OS/2 bombed and NT took a while to get ready. But NT is a better OS in every important or material way. I don't run MS OSes any more. I've moved on. Life's too short. I'm a domain expert in them: this is why I no longer use them. I'm typing under Mac OS X (on a 30y old keyboard) and my laptops run Linux. All require vastly less maintenance and are more stable and reliable -- as well as much cheaper -- than MS solutions. But anyone with an ounce of technical knowledge should know better than to run an old, unmaintained, out-of-support MS OS on any live Internet-facing machine. Even if it exchanges media with Internet-facing machines, *no*. Don't do it. Move on. Retro computing is a great hobby, even a way of life, but whereas a decades-old copy of anything from Linux to Multics is as safe today as it ever was, OSes of the Internet era *cannot* be used safely once they're well out of date. Old viruses are still out there, waiting to pounce. It's enough work fixing up old machines without fighting old malware too. Don't do it. Nothing older than Win7 on any Windows PC that accesses the Internet. This includes email. Yes, Jerome Fine, I'm talking to you, among others. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 4 February 2016 at 15:07, Mazzini Alessandro wrote: > > I would disagree on this point. Unix and linux, in all its flavours, had > plenty of security fixes in the same timeframe mentioned, so I would not > consider them as safe as etc > > That they are less obvious to attack, in comparison, is another thing. Oh yes, true, but you need to think about the roles. Unix was traditionally mostly used as a /server./ The exploits and malware are about getting remote access to a server, or at least taking it offline or rendering it inaccessible. Windows is primarily a client OS, used for surfing, email, chat, downloading & running programs, etc. /Totally/ different usage patterns. And the vast success of OS X as a client -- now the most successful closed-source UNIX® of all time, with more installed seats than all the others ever put together -- compared with the small amount of malware and very few successful exploits, shows the difference. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 4 February 2016 at 15:17, Dale H. Cook wrote: > It is unusable in one important way. This thread began as a discussion of > running serial port terminal emulators on a PC. At work I still use some > MS-DOS programs (admittedly not terminal emulators) over serial ports. For my > purposes (setting up a variety of vintage specialized hardware over RS-232) > NT-based operating systems are sometimes unusable because they present the > application program with a virtual serial port, and MS-DOS programs running > under those operating systems cannot read from or write to the UART > registers. Some of the setup programs for that vintage hardware were written > before the mid-1990s and access the UART registers, so I have to run those > under Win98 or earlier. I have a portable MS-DOS 3.3 machine that I use to > set up that vintage hardware. A fair point, but then, one is not going to use MS-DOS to browse the Web in 2016, right? Even the handful of ancient DOS web browsers can't handle the modern Web. There's a big difference between a "daily driver" and a specialist tool. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 4 February 2016 at 15:57, j...@cimmeri.com wrote: > Well, my 2 cents: I still use WinXP for all my primary, workhorse machines. > Rarely have any issues with it. I *really* hope you've applied the registry hack to get EposReady updates for it, then! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/26/german_tinkerer_gets_around_xpocalypse/ >Win7 is ok but annoyingly > over-user-friendly. Agreed. I don't like the ribbons, the new fake-folders in Explorer -- but it works, it's supported and updated. > Win 98, though... I don't see the point of using it > any more. It can't do anything that XP can't do far better. Agreed, as far as Win32 apps go. DOS stuff, though, no. :( To answer your offlist question, BTW: I am typing on an original Apple Extended II keyboard attached to a 2011 Mac mini running OS X 10.10, though an ADB-USB convertor. My laptops run Ubuntu although I experiment regularly with all the mainstream contenders. The workhorse is an old, cheap Thinkpad X200 with Ubuntu 14.04, the latest long-term support version. The desktop-replacement, now sidelined by the Mac, has Ubuntu 15.10, ArchLinux, CrunchBang and others. Both the PCs can dual-boot into Win7, although I don't use it as much as every *year* these days, so this always means a ton of updates before I can do anything. The Mac has a Win10 VM on it, just for playing with. I don't like it much, to be honest. The last Windows version I really liked was Windows 2000 -- since then, the bloat has piled on for little reward. XP can be stripped down to nearly as lean as W2K, though. I sometimes run the TinyXP 3rd party distro inside VMs. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?
On 4 February 2016 at 19:35, Dale H. Cook wrote: > In my world it is impossible for any one computer to do everything that I > need to do with a computer, thus my five active PCs and many spares, plus old > stuff like my CP/M machines in my personal museum. I don't use an MS-DOS > machine to browse, and I don't use an NT-series-OS machine to run MS-DOS > programs that need UART register access that NT does not allow. Then you will be fine. But you are refusing to address the actual point here: people choosing to use long-obsolete versions of Windows for everyday mainstream use, which is suicidally risky. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
StackExchange retrocomputing forum
This now has enough followers to move on to the next stage of the approvals process -- gathering enough example questions... http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/94441/ -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Virtualizing AIX 1.3 - WAS::::Re: AIX for IBM PS/2
On 5 February 2016 at 18:07, Steven Hirsch wrote: > On Fri, 5 Feb 2016, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: > >> On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Mazzini Alessandro >> wrote: >>> >>> Last night I had no issues to navigate it. Didn't try today >> >> >> the URL works fine here. > > > Must have been authored against IE and happens to hit a Firefox bug. It > renders properly in Win7 IE. I'm seeing an increasing number of such > problems lately. What are remarkable -- and *totally* wrong -- assumption to make. Works fine on Google Chrome on Mac OS X, incidentally. Google Sites are dynamically generated from a high-level markup the user enters in a special editor, AIUI. The fact that it is a Google product, a company that makes its own cross-platform browser and is a rival of Microsoft, makes the contention that it's a Microsoft-specific page ludicrous. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Mystery system
On 5 February 2016 at 17:16, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: > (Norwegian "inn" is the same as English "in") > :-) Og "i" også, er det ikke sant? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Farewell and thanks!
On 5 February 2016 at 23:54, Steven Hirsch wrote: > I've finally had my fill of the general grumpiness and bluntly worded > interactions on this list. > > Over the years I have learned a lot and would like to particularly express > my thanks to Tony Duell, Fred Cisin and Chuck Guzis for being unfailingly > polite and very forthcoming with technical advice. I apologise for the offence that I have given. I am British, not American, and the tone of European converse is far too abrupt and confrontational for an American-dominated forum. I was rebuked by moderators twice that day alone for comments which I had thought were reasonable and proportionate. I was wrong. My comments were inappropriate. I regret them and apologise for them. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 20 February 2016 at 19:51, Greg Stark wrote: > I work on Postgres and we have always claimed to support VAX machines > but have the caveat "Code support exists for M32R and VAX, but these > architectures are not known to have been tested recently." in our > documentation. Recently I started a project to get a member in our > build farm building Postgres for VAX to fill this gap. So far I've > been using simh but I would be really interested in getting a decently > fast VAX that doesn't take too much space (or power) to run builds on. > > I am currently in Europe (Dublin) but will be visiting NYC, Florida, > and Montreal in the upcoming months so this is a good chance for me to > pick one up without paying exorbitant shipping if there's any around. I have a VAXstation 4000 going spare. It's currently at Red Hat's offices in Farnborough. More details on request (if I can find them!) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 21 February 2016 at 16:27, Liam Proven wrote: > I have a VAXstation 4000 going spare. It's currently at Red Hat's > offices in Farnborough. More details on request (if I can find them!) It's a 4000/60, I'm afraid it's untested, and Farnborough is just outside London England. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 22 February 2016 at 15:39, Toby Thain wrote: > So has Minix 3 - last I checked, x86 & ARM only - what's the point of that. Oh, come on. Be fair. First, it's a student project without a huge amount of visibility in the outside world. Secondly, those are *the* two main computing platforms in the world today, amounting to sales of *billions* of processors every year. I suspect that every other general-purpose processor arch put together amounts to a rounding error compared to ARM+x86. It's not NetBSD. They're comparing it to NetBSD for what you could call marketing purposes, but it's not a fork or derivative or anything else. It's a whole new kernel to which they are porting the NetBSD userland, as it's a good, clean, solid, FOSS offering. If you want a simple low-end very portable Unix, there is still NetBSD itself. Minix 3 is not just another FOSS Unix. It is trying to become something very very different, something that has never been successfully done in the FOSS world: a true microkernel Unix-like OS. Not like the Xnu kernel of MacOS X: that is based on Mach 3.0, but it is a large monolithic kernel containing a single huge in-kernel "Unix server" derived from FreeBSD. Unlike the GNU HURD, Minix 3 is relatively complete and functional -- and it's got there in under a decade. It's not a new version of Minix 1 or 2 -- it's a totally new kernel. The *only* OS in the world remotely comparable to Minix 3 is QNX, which is not FOSS. Minix 3 is built from a number of cooperating user-space processes -- servers -- which can die and be respawned while the OS is running. Yes, including the filesystem, network stack etc. They even have tech demos of this allowing for in-place complete version upgrades of the running OS, *without reboots.* Minix 3 is the single most technically impressive new Unix-like OS that I have seen or heard of in the entire FOSS world in this century. It deserves more respect than "what's the point of that". -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 21 February 2016 at 17:37, tony duell wrote: > Be careful. There are several Farnboroughs in England, and the one > 'just outside London' is almost certainly not the one you mean. The > 'just outside London' one for me is between Bromley and Green > Street Green. > > I assume you mean the one in Hampshire, but... I confess I didn't know that there was more than one Farnborough. However, I did specify that the VAXstation was in Red Hat's UK HQ. There's only one Red Hat and it only has one UK HQ. It is in the business estate adjacent to Farnborough Airport in Hants. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 22 February 2016 at 16:54, Toby Thain wrote: > Portability was a fundamental free software tenet. It has technical benefits > and it would make the project more relevant. The original Minix was far more > portable. > > If it can't adapt to what comes after x86 and ARM in whatever markets(?) it > is pursuing then it will be in danger of extinction. Surely if it is chasing > things like QNX then that would be vital - it's a different market with more > diversity of architectures. > > I don't think the current perceived size of x86/ARM markets will protect it > as effectively as a diversity of targets would. Remember how ubiquitous > SPARC, VAX, 68K were at one time; if you were stranded there, you don't > exist now. Again: *it's an experimental research and educational project*. It is not a replacement for NetBSD. If you want lots of platforms, then NetBSD still exists. And it *is* portable and it runs on 2 totally dissimilar CPU architectures, one CISC, one RISC. It is an attempt to demonstrate that it is possible to build a true microkernel Unix. There are or have been compromised hybrid microkernel Unices -- DEC OSF/1, Mac OS X, arguably MkLinux, and various other academic projects that were never released or deployed publicly. Minix 3 is different: it's true FOSS and the team are soliciting community involvement. But while it's still an incomplete project that is in development, they're only targeting the 2 main arches which comprise about 99.9% of the modern computer market. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 22 February 2016 at 17:36, Mazzini Alessandro wrote: > Not to intrude, but apple could also have gone with the serious power cpu, > thus not "needing" to move to x86. As long as there's enough of a push, sw > houses release versions for a different architecture... and power is hardly > a dead end. The problem is that the mainstream PC market is increasingly going to portables. Laptops outsell desktops 2 times over now. POWER chips are still going strong but they're big and run hot taking lots of power. Apple needed a CPU line that could offer good notebook chips as well as desktop chips, and POWER (and PowerPC) was only addressing desktop devices. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 22 February 2016 at 17:41, Toby Thain wrote: > *Today's* "modern computer market." > > Are they doing _that_ or are they going after QNX? Or both? #confused It's a decade-old project. It needs to run on cheap commodity kit. Cheap commodity kit means x86 and ARM. What is in any way confusing about that? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 23 February 2016 at 23:41, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote: > > Are you sure? I've seen plenty of Freescale cores going pretty low as > far as power consumption goes, like their whole e200 line to start from > the very low end, but there's also e6500 for example if you want 64 bits > and more processing power. And then plenty of choice in between. AFAIK, not remotely competitive with the Core 2 Duo line, which is what Apple had in mind when it switched the Mac line's CPUs the second time. And whereas PowerPC Macs could run Classic MacOS in a VM, Macintels can run Windows in a VM, which is far, far more useful. I personally didn't like the move, but it was a smart one for the company. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 23 February 2016 at 20:15, Charles Anthony wrote: > > And let us not forget the wombat, beloved of the VMS RDBMS. > > "PLOT WOMBAT" I remember discovering WOMBAT in the Help command for RDB, and sitting there, increasingly bemused, exploring the various options within HELP WOMBAT... wondering if this was some surreal joke being played on me... :-) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Minix 3 vs portability - was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine
On 23 February 2016 at 16:46, Toby Thain wrote: > So where does QNX come in? Isn't that embedded rather than > desktop/laptop/tablet? It's also the basis of Blackberry 10, the OS on my Passport. There is a desktop version -- I wrote about it a few years ago: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/01/25_alternative_pc_operating_systems/?page=2 It's still a free download but the company took it closed-source again (IIRC) and the freebie download version hasn't been updated. It was nearly the basis of the new Amiga OS: http://www.trollaxor.com/2005/06/how-qnx-failed-amiga.html This is after they moved away from TAOS, another stunning OS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9806607 Where does QNX come in WRT Minix 3? Well, while everyone focuses on failed microkernel Unices, e.g. the HURD, or impure microkernel Unices, like Mac OS X (and AFAIK DEC OSF/1, AKA Tru64), there's been an actual shipping true-microkernel Unix and Posix-compatible OS, capable of running a GUI desktop, running embedded *and* on tablets and smartphones, SMP-capable, enviably robust, on sale since *1982*. QNX shows it can be done. All Minix 3 has to do is replicate it as FOSS, as Linux replicated commercial monolithic Unix kernels as FOSS. (And Haiku recreated BeOS, and AROS recreated AmigaOS, and so on. FOSS is arguably better at re-implementing than innovating.) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 20, Issue 29
On 1 March 2016 at 14:27, Fred wrote: > The vast majority (not > all, as that would be unfair, and I have met some younger than me folks > that know their stuff) of youth today know how to USE the device, but not > necessarily how to fix it if it breaks physically or logically http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/ -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Free Sinclair QL emulator
While experimenting with Sinclair emulators on Ubuntu last night, I made 2 discoveries which might interest folk here. First, the author of perhaps the premium Sinclair QL emulator for Windows, QPC, has made it unrestricted freeware. The news is from mid-2014 but I'd missed it. Both QPC1 and QPC2 are now available free of charge. I found this news via Dilwyn Jones' site, here: http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/emu/ This is the direct download & info site for QPC: http://www.kilgus.net/qpc/index.html They come bundled with SMSQ/e, the final-generation QL OS, derived from QDOS, complete with bootable hard disk images. The second discovery was that QPC2 for Windows installs and runs flawlessly under WINE on 64-bit Ubuntu. :-) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: SeaMonkey - Re: Usenet News Servers
On 6 March 2016 at 21:33, Dave Wade wrote: > SeaMonkey is essentially the same code as in Thunderbird/Firefox. Personally > I prefer to keep browser and mail/news separate. Pretty sure it will import > from the old Netscape Communicator. It appears that Jerome has killfiled me, as I have answered this question for him at considerable length several times. Perhaps someone would like to forward my old messages to him. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Connecting a Cambridge Z88 to the Internet
On 18 March 2016 at 15:27, Adrian Graham wrote: > I know exactly where my Z88 and power supply are, serial cable and modem > not a problem. But! Dial-up services? I could RS232 onto a VAX... Since I've been playing with my new Raspberry Pi 3 today, I was thinking one of those might make a convenient host system. A USB <=> RS-232 convertor is probably the easiest way. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Connecting a Cambridge Z88 to the Internet
On 18 March 2016 at 15:09, Austin Pass wrote: >> On 18 Mar 2016, at 14:04, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> I've been asked about doing this for an exhibition. >> >> From some cursory Googling, it seems that the Z88 has a terminal >> emulator, and equipped with a suitable serial cable, you could just >> run a cable to a host device with an Internet connection and have a >> text-only terminal session fairly readily. >> >> Not much more than that, though. >> > > I haven't, but have all the pre-requisites to giving it a go... I'd be fascinated to hear of any gotchas if you were curious enough to give it a go. My skills at things like making serial cables are very minimal indeed. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Connecting a Cambridge Z88 to the Internet
I've been asked about doing this for an exhibition. >From some cursory Googling, it seems that the Z88 has a terminal emulator, and equipped with a suitable serial cable, you could just run a cable to a host device with an Internet connection and have a text-only terminal session fairly readily. Not much more than that, though. Has anyone on CC done this? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
WinWorld
Quote: « WinWorld from the past, to the present, for the future WinWorld is an online museum dedicated to the preservation and sharing of abandonware and pre-release software, as well as any and all knowledge associated with such works. We offer information, media and downloads for a wide variety of computers and operating systems. Our collection includes abandonware operating systems (like Windows 3.1 or 95), beta operating systems (like Chicago, Whistler, and Longhorn), abandonware applications (like AfterDark, the epic screensaver software we all grew up with) and more. We offer all of our content free of charge to any interested party. Whether you're doing looking to go down memory lane and re-visit Windows 3.1, do some research on computing history, or repurpose an old system that can't run the latest and greatest, WinWorld is here to help by providing unrestricted access to our entire library at no charge. We do not accept donations, just download and enjoy. WinWorld provides you with large amounts of downloads and high quality information that BetaArchive FTP and Vetusware can't compare with! Get Windows Abandonware, Games, Macintosh old software and more from our software library right here at WinWorld! For news, support and discussion visit WinBoards. No registration is required to post, so why not drop in and say hi? » Impressive assortment of OSes and apps for older PCs, Macs and broadly related systems -- CP/M etc. https://winworldpc.com/ -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...
On 29 March 2016 at 21:34, geneb wrote: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk > > It's pretty entertaining. :) I just Tweeted this. Great story, and a great presentation. This is the link to the Share Songbook, BTW: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot79z78u3zd6vxs/SHARE%20Songbook.pdf?dl=0 -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
RC2014 homebrew computer
I confess it is in no way a classic machine, but I thought that this might be of interest to some people here. I had not heard of it before until a chance retweet from a ZX Spectrum-related account today: http://rc2014.co.uk/ « RC2014 is a simple 8 bit Z80 based modular computer. It is inspired by the home built computers of the late 70s and computer revolution of the early 80s. It is not a clone of anything specific, but there are ideas of the ZX81, UK101, S100 and Apple I in here. Built mainly with parts donated to Nottingham Hackspace and components salvaged from random bits of equipment, it uses modern PCBs. It runs on a backplane that hosts the individual modules. This has standard 0.1″ header sockets meaning new modules are simple and cheap to design and can use Veroboard or even jumper wires to breadboard. For resilience, most of the modules have been designed on to dedicated PCBs. In it’s typical basic form it has; 32k RAM, 8k ROM (running Microsoft BASIC), 3.7628Mhz Z80 processor serial communication at 115200 baud. Other modules include 8k x 8 bank switchable EPROM, SD card bootloader, ZX Printer interface, Blinkenlights, LED dot matrix display driver, LCD display driver » (Errors in the source material.) More info and purchasing sources: https://www.tindie.com/products/Semachthemonkey/rc2014-homebrew-z80-computer/ And a (for my money, insane, but) interesting peripheral: https://hackaday.io/project/9567-5-graphics-card-for-homebrew-z80 -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: WinWorld
On 30 March 2016 at 18:58, Fred Cisin wrote: > They define "abandonware" as: > "In order for a piece of software to be abandonware, it must, as a general > guideline: > Be over 7 years old. > Be out of support by the manufacturer. > Be mostly out of use by the general populace (abandoned)" > > So, if you are a software author, if you won't SUPPORT stuff that you did > over 7 years ago, they believe that they have a right to distribute it? No, not the same thing. I think the more important question is/are: Will the original author still *sell* it to you? Or, if it's a discontinued version of a still-current product, will it make it available to you in some way, possibly very cheaply or even free of charge? I think it is entirely reasonable to ask software vendors to make obsolete, discontinued, unsupported versions of products, versions which no longer run on current hardware or operating systems, available FOC. For instance, Microsoft offers Word 5.5 for DOS as a free download, as it is Y2K compliant, which no earlier versions were. For decades, Apple offered MacOS 7.5.5 this way, for instance. Actually, many vendors will not do this. If they don't, if they no longer even possess the product in any form, then I do think it's fair enough that others offer the service. I own real, licensed copies of OS/2 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5. However, due to the age and location of the media, and the fact that my current laptop and desktop machines do not possess optical drives, nor any place to fit optical drives, let alone floppy drives, it's considerably more convenient to download these ancient OSes and run them in VMs than it is to use my actual originals. I am thus legally licensed to use them. I own them. I am not licensed to run CCP/M or CDOS, although I worked with these OSes in my first 2 jobs, back on the Isle of Man at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. I am curious to see if I can get them running today. I cannot legally obtain them; Digital Research no longer exists. So, again, I think downloading an old one is legit. Many companies would, I think, happily block distribution of old versions, on the bases of protection of trade. I do not own Microsoft Office 365, nor Office 2013, 2010 or 2007, as I hate the new UI. I do not even like Office 2003 or XP as much as I liked older versions. I do own Office 2000 and 1997, though. So I run a downloaded copy of Word 97, under WINE. It understands the same file formats, is tiny and very fast even on my 2008-era laptop, as that machine is a decade newer than the kit it was designed for. I don't want any newer version, thanks; IMHO the product has degenerated since then. I legally own it. I have licences. So I download it, because I can and because Microsoft won't provide me with a copy of the version I prefer. Microsoft would prefer me to buy a new copy and then, perhaps, let me use my old media if I prefer. I don't want to. I own the version I want. As it happens, though, it's in a storage unit 1000 miles away, with an inconvenient sea in the way. So, I downloaded it. Am I admitting to scandalous software piracy? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Wanted: stand for NeXT monitor
On 29 May 2015 at 16:09, Chris Osborn wrote: > In fact, when I got OSX (aka OPENSTEP 5) running on a beige G3 tower for the > first time, I couldn’t understand why it was so absolutely unusable, since > the performance of OPENSTEP 4 on my NeXT was very snappy. It *really* did not benefit from running on a RISC chip. (E.g. http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=766974 -- sadly the original article has gone. Couldn't find a mirror.) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: organizing a trip to Cuba
On 24 June 2015 at 14:19, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Oh, I know. I'm from Sweden. We had a very big scandal where 5 containers > with a VAX-11/782 and peripherials or something like that was found under > strange circumstances. When the whole thing started to be investigated > suddenly no one seemed to know or own those containers. The system was > unclaimed for years, and it became a question of what to do with it, since > no one seemed to claim it. I think it was eventually decided that since DEC > made it, it was returned to them. The original shipping destination was of > course somewhere in Soviet Union. This was in the early 80s... I'm sure > someone can find the full story online somewhere. It's mentioned in the Datasaab article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datasaab -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: [SPAM key] - Re: How many use old browsers (e.g. =< Netscape 4 or IE 6) as their ONLY source of web content?
On 3 July 2015 at 18:22, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > I understand that Netscape has been replaced by Mozilla. HOWEVER, > since CHROME seems to be the most widely used, would CHROME > be able to support the retention of ALL of my old e-mails and posts > from usenet? Over the past 15 years, I probably have accumulated > over 100,000 e-mails and posts in about 130 folders! So I would like > an easy upgrade path which supports being able to view and modify those > old e-mails and usenet posts. Can CHROME support that? Chrome is just a web browser. It does not do email at all. However, the program that was called Netscape 6.x & 7.x is alive and well. It was the "Mozilla Internet Suite" -- the final Netscape releases were Mozilla, rebadged. As Mozilla Inc now focuses on Firefox, the old Internet Suite was forked and is now called SeaMonkey. http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ SeaMonkey will run fine on Windows 7. What you may have to do is this: [1] Use an old version of Thunderbird (Mozilla's standalone email client) to import your Netscape 7 profile. Details here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Migrate_from_Mozilla_Suite_or_Netscape_to_Thunderbird [2] Use a newer version of Thunderbird to import the profile from old Thunderbird: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_migration_-_SeaMonkey This should import your entire Netscape profile and continue to work just fine. However, in the first instance, copy your whole Netscape 7.2 profile from the Win98 machine to your unused Win7 machine. Reinstall Netscape 7.2 on the new machine and check it works. You can download it here: http://sillydog.org/narchive/full67.php Then install SeaMonkey. It *should* notice and import your profile. It is very important to install Netscape *before* SeaMonkey. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Offered: Amiga 500/2000 BASIC manual, in German
In honour of the 30th anniversary. Anyone want this handbuch? In good condition, some staining on front cover but no dog-ears or creases. Free for the cost of postage from the Czech Republic. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Saved DEC kit
On 5 August 2015 at 20:25, Fred Cisin wrote: > "A pint is a pound, the world around." is no longer true. Never was. You always did use weird pints. They were *our* bloody silly measure, until we adopted something more sensible and easier to use... And *nobody* else uses pounds, Fahrenheit or MM-DD-YY. Not in about 2 generations, mostly. Often more. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
In Realtime: Saving 25,000 Manuals — August 15, 2015
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 Apologies if this is old news... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
On 10 August 2015 at 22:39, Eric Christopherson wrote: > He corrects that in the video itself :) Indeed so. Just watched it through for a second time, actually. Great fun and I too am jealous. :-D -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: More on manuals plus rescue
On 20 August 2015 at 01:50, William Donzelli wrote: > It does not matter. You can not scan ashes. Not yet. But the tech is getting closer... From automatically reassembling the Stasi's shredded files: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19344978 http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_stasi?currentPage=all http://www.bstu.bund.de/EN/Archives/ReconstructionOfShreddedRecords/VirtualReconstruction/_node.html ... to reading burned 2000YO scrolls from Pompeii: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30888767 -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Vintage Software Copyright
On 22 August 2015 at 01:34, Fred Cisin wrote: > and maybe it should have come down ALL the way to MS-DOS price Arguably -- and I'm aware it's stretching a point -- it did, in the form of DR-DOS. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: In Realtime: Saving 25,000 Manuals — August 15, 2015
On 15 August 2015 at 13:03, Liam Proven wrote: > http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4683 > > Apologies if this is old news... Some pictures, from sun-rescue: https://www.flickr.com/photos/textfiles/albums/72157657277241785/page1 -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: punchcard svg file available
On 10 September 2015 at 15:42, Fred Cisin wrote: > He also said that the colored pencils that I manually did graphs > with were "COLOUR PENCILS". Sounds legit to me. But then in the old world we still spell the proper, old-fashioned-way. ;¬) -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
ZX Spectrum disk interfaces
A question born only of idle curiosity. In thge 1980s, I bought an MGT +D disk interface for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2BD In the end, I traded mine in for its upmarket cousin, the DISCiPLE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISCiPLE (I link to WP as I originally wrote those articles, IIRC. :-) ) I have noticed that multiple people have now cloned the +D: http://sintech-shop.co.uk/sinclair/-d-disk-interface-clone/a-6196/ http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/spectrum/spectrum_storage.html#plusd But this post, from FB, claims that the Beta Disk interface can handle high-density drives, giving 1.5MB per disk: https://www.facebook.com/groups/speccy4ever/permalink/1237322356346334/ Given that HD floppies and drives are far more readily-available than DD these days, how come most 8-bit interfaces can only handle DD? Is it purely a data rate issue? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Is tape dead?
On 15 September 2015 at 19:40, Fred Cisin wrote: > AVG and McAfee. not necessarily the best stuff. > Scan, while the malware was screwing stuff up in the background, did not > find anything to complain about! Until a few weeks ago I worked for AVG. *Don't* run 2 resident shield apps at once. They conflict. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: OT: x86 machine code [Was: Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming]
On 18 September 2015 at 13:06, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > I've been told this more than a few times and read it in various places. > It always make me wonder, could we not allow a mode in modern Intel > processors that lets us bypass the x86 code emulation/translation and > run "directly on the metal" (if there were such a thing). > > The purpose, of course, would be to gain performance. Certainly this > would already have been done if there was any significant gain to be > had? I think not, because the "RISC core interpreting x86 instructions" is a fairly gross over-simplification, as best as I have been able to determine. Yes, all C21 x86 chips borrow lots of design principles from RISC, but they are CISC chips executing CISC code -- just doing a lot of fancy on-the-fly optimisations. There isn't an underlying separate different microcode. That has been done, though. It was the Transmeta Crusoe line of processors. These were not directly x86-compatible at all: they had their own instruction set, and during boot, loaded a translation layer on top which executed x86 code via a sort of optimising compiler/interpreter with JIT. The purpose was to achieve very low power consumption, for portables. The performance was not as good as native x86 even at the time -- although nearly -- but the processors used significantly less power. They were not RISC, though: they were VLIW underneath. I always thought it was *the* critical mistake of Transmeta not to at least release the native instruction set. If they could also execute Motorola 680x0 code, or PowerPC code, or Alpha code, or any other discontinued (or effectively discontinued) instruction set, they would still have a market today. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: OT: x86 machine code [Was: Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming]
On 18 September 2015 at 13:35, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > I believe the VIA C3 had an undocumented feature to allow executing the > underlying RISC instructions. [[Citation needed]] I've never heard of anything like this. Are you perhaps thinking of the Crusoe family chips? -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]
On 18 September 2015 at 16:55, Fred Cisin wrote: > CryptoLocker has been around for a year. I don't think that McAfee nor AVG > see it. "Well, it's not a VIRUS, . . ." Former AVG employee here. I quit; this is not an official statement. CryptoLocker/CryptoWall/etc are *not* a single program. It's a whole family of them. The programs are constantly modified so that the anti-malware doesn't pick them up until it's too late. Antimalware mostly still uses signature databases for identification, plus hooks for suspicious activity. Cryptolocker is not infectious, so it doesn't perform canonical suspicious activities. It opens lots of user data files but so do indexing tools from Windows Search to Google Desktop to Copernic. However, Cryptolocker et al spread by fooling users into running something they shouldn't run. I'm sorry, but you got suckered. Me, I only use Windows if someone pays me to. Life is too short otherwise. My desktop is a Mac (and before that was a Hackintosh); my laptops run Ubuntu. Both are much *much* less work and I don't need to run antimalware. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]
On 18 September 2015 at 18:25, Dave G4UGM wrote: > Are you 100 % sure you don't need anti-malware... > > http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/08/05/apple-to-patch-actively-exploited-privilege-escalation-bug-in-os-x-10105---report > > from what I have seen the fix from Apple isn't a fix... > > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/22/os_x_root_hole/ > > but to run SUID. Of course as you know from Facebook I am not a MAC expert, > but I do know that if a product has as many lines of code in it as OS X it > will have bugs and security holes... Well, overall, yes. It's a Unix box. If it was a web server or something, it would be remotely exploitable, like any other Unix box. But it's not. It has no outwardly-accessible services at all -- it's behind a firewall and all it does is share a single folder with my laptops. It doesn't even have ssh. It isn't a mail server, web server or anything. There are a few Trojans on OS X, but I think I am smart enough to avoid them. There's no adware, no spyware (except what Apple might have built in), no self-infecting viruses, nothing. I don't use most of Apple's apps -- I don't use their browser, email client, chat client, or productivity tools; I very occasionally use their media player and their text editor, and that's about it. The Apple text editor isn't the default, incidentally. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]
On 18 September 2015 at 18:49, Fred Cisin wrote: > Absolutely. > I now think that it was a "We're Adobe, click here to update Flash Player" > or maybe "Java update" I can see how one of those, done well, might fool most of us. I am not one of those daredevil ascetics who runs Windows without anti-malware but with no Flash, Java, etc. -- crap like that is the reason I run Windows. I won't let MS clients connect to the Internet on my own machines though -- no MS chat client, email, browser, music player, video player, _anything_. All disabled or removed and replaced with FOSS alternatives. Sadly, this isn't really practical in business. > But, I never got my winnings from the Elbonian Lottery. It would have been all muddy anyway. > It got everything in that computer, and started on the backup drive that was > currently connected. I now realize the importance of diconnecting the > backup drive promptly.D'uh! Yes, and thank you for the salutory lesson! > But, it got bogged down in the first directory of the backup drive, and > hadn't moved on to the other directories by the time it started extortion of > the computer! Tht directory was full of zillions of files, mostly photos > copied from my friend's computer after he died. He saved me from beyond the > grave! And, I still have his machine to make another copy of those. Small blessings, I guess. > Hmmm. 30 years ago, I stepped on the DIRectory of a floppy, and created a > subdirectory that had a subdirectory that was its parent directory. It > actually worked well enough to prevent CHKDSK /V from being able to walk the > DIRectory tree (kept trying to follow subdirectories back onto themselves). > I wonder if that would work on this? (until they notice, and change their > sequence). Also created files named "*.*" and ".???", multiple > entries for same file in DIRectory, etc. Nce... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]
On 18 September 2015 at 19:10, Dave G4UGM wrote: > But you do use a browser and all of those have holes... True, but they do on any OS. There are far fewer 'sploits for OS X or for Linux than for Windows (e.g. the famed WMF decoder one) -- andf by avoiding IE or anything that embeds or wraps IE, that reduces the chances still further. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: OT: x86 machine code
On 18 September 2015 at 20:00, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > No, it was not Crusoe. I'm fairly sure it was VIA, and less sure it was > the C3. Maybe Cyrix? Whatever was current technology around 2002 I > guess. > > I remember reading the rumour that the RISC instruction set was > accessible, and I contacted VIA about this. I got an email from someone > I gathered was a company executive, and I signed an NDA to get the > information. I got a paper document in the mail. > > Unfortunately, a few years ago I cleaned out the room where the document > was stored. As I didn't think it was important at the time, I threw it > away. > > I would love to provide a proper citation, but I searched the net and > couldn't find anything to back this up. Remarkable! OK then. As a journo, and one who doesn't generally sign NDAs, I would not have met this. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming
On 19 September 2015 at 17:02, Rod Smallwood wrote: > Its a while back but I seem to remember in BASIC you replaced a set of line > numbers with another of the same range but different code. Blimey, I've never seen that. I do remember that ZX BASIC had a cool-but-dangerous feature: you could get it to evaluate an arbitrary string as if it were an expression. This meant you could do cool things in BASIC programs -- enter formulae such as "2*4+3.5" when the program wanted a numeric value, for instance. Then a friend showed me that you could also access the program's own variables. If the program had variables called a, b & c, you could also enter "a*b+c" and it would use the values. Which meant that if it /didn't/ have such variables, the program would crash out with an "unknown variable name" error... a sort of early "exploit". -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: eval() considered dodgy - Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming
On 19 September 2015 at 19:45, Toby Thain wrote: > Thank God nobody would build such a thing into a modern language, especially > not the one that runs in almost every browser... Well, quite. :-) Or rather, :-( -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming
On 19 September 2015 at 19:53, tony duell wrote: > A lot of disk-based BASICs had a statement that would merge a program from > disk in this way. Sometimes the program had to be saved in ASCII, not > tokenised, > the BASIC interpretter then essentially read the file as if you were typing > it on the > keyboard. So program lines would indeed replace those with the same line > number. OK, that I've seen, yes. Even, very carefully, used it. But the examples I've seen do not behave as you describe. Note, I am not saying it's impossible or never happens, merely that it does not match the behaviour I've seen. In ever BASIC interpreter I've ever used, the LOAD command loads a new program in from $MEDIUM. This implicitly gets rid of the program previously in memory. It is not the same as a NEW command, which usually also resets all variables etc. If you want to keep the existing program in memory *and* load additional lines from storage, there was a different command: MERGE. But in everything from ZX BASIC to BBC BASIC to GWBASIC, loading a program erases all lines of code in interpreter RAM and replaces the whole program with the one loaded from disk, but leaves variables etc. intact. This means that, in effect, the program modules being loaded are overlays: you can pass state (a whole set of initialised variables and their values) from one module of code to another. I maintained a large MS-DOS payroll program written this way: it consisted of 18-30+ sub-64kB modules of code. (How many depended on the client's requirements.) The first module initialised all the variables in memory and drew a menu. The menu LOADed the other modules, many of which LOADed each other to handle the task. All the variables remaining in place in RAM, all effectively globals, as GW-BASIC didn't offer local variables, named procedures etc. The reason was that you couldn't have a program of >64kB on GW-BASIC. The original developer taught me to think of each chunk as a procedure, and all the variables as globals. The code was extensively commented to explain what variables it expected to find in place, what they held, which ones it would modify etc. Once I understood it, I found it really elegant. I don't think I've *ever* seen a program that MERGEd in code during execution, though. That sounds terrifying! > One of the extension ROMs for HPL on the HP9825 (a BASIC-like language) had > a command to store a string as a program line. It could be used within a > program, > thus leading to an official way to have self-modifying code. Nifty! -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Backups [was Re: Is tape dead?]
On 20 September 2015 at 05:58, John Foust wrote: > Someone's demonstrated you can hide in the firmware of hard drives. And access the hypervisor layer of an OS in various ways from programs executing inside a VM. So, for instance, much malware self-inactivates if it detects that it's running inside a guest instance, so that anti-malware investigators cannot examine its behaviour. What is now being investigated (doubtless by both sides) is malware that can inject code into the hypervisor from within a guest. Once you've reached x86-64 Ring -1, then you're a god, you can do anything you like to any VM and no anti-malware in the VMs can prevent it. There is also research into using the increasingly industry-standard remote-management features in core chipsets to hide or distribute malware, again out of reach of any OS-level task. And there is the very controversial claim of malware that could transmit itself from machine to machine using speakers and microphone. It's a jungle out there, with all that that implies about parasitism, zombieism, concealment and stealth and creepy disgusting infections that hide for a lifetime then apparently explode out of nowhere. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus - Re: ENIAC programming
On 20 September 2015 at 13:54, Peter Coghlan wrote: > BBC BASIC (when running on a BBC Micro at least) does clear (most) variables > when a program is loaded. Most variables are stored in memory above the > program and if a small program was replaced by a larger program, some could > get > overwritten. Acorn may have decided that it was too much trouble to figure > out > whether or which variables might be affected and that it was easier to be safe > by clearing them every time a program is loaded. > > BBC BASIC (on a BBC Micro) doesn't have a MERGE command or equivelant either > but it is possible to merge programs together using slight hackery. However, > once BASIC is made aware of the change, it will clear the variables so a > certain level of deviousness is required to do stuff like overlays. Hmmm. I'm now wondering if the command was CHAIN not LOAD... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
Acquiring a bunch of Lisp Machines
Just stumbled across this. I don't know what more to the story there is. http://kremlin.enterprises/post/129364443055/your-code-is-so-bad-we-had-to-make-etclocal -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)
