I am an 80's kid however I have never come across anything like these
BBS boards. They're so alien to me, and also so fascinating. What have I
been missing out on all my life? Anyway, I am typing on an '84 Macintosh
so as to achieve a somewhat authentic experience. I'll be lurking around
here for the forseeable so I'll hopefully see you folk around!
Craig Molus wrote to All <=-
I am an 80's kid however I have never come across anything like
these BBS boards. They're so alien to me, and also so
fascinating. What have I been missing out on all my life? Anyway,
I am typing on an '84 Macintosh so as to achieve a somewhat
authentic experience. I'll be lurking around here for the
forseeable so I'll hopefully see you folk around!
Craig Molus wrote to All <=-
I am an 80's kid however I have never come across anything like these
BBS boards. They're so alien to me, and also so fascinating. What have
I been missing out on all my life? Anyway, I am typing on an '84
Macintosh so as to achieve a somewhat authentic experience. I'll be lurking around here for the forseeable so I'll hopefully see you folk around!
I am an 80's kid however I have never come across anything like these BBS boards. They're so alien to me, and also so fascinating. What have I been missing out on all my life? Anyway, I am typing on an '84 Macintosh so as to achieve a somewhat authentic experience. I'll be lurking around here for the forseeable so I'll hopefully see you folk around!
Craig Molus wrote to All <=-
I am an 80's kid however I have never come across anything like these
BBS boards. They're so alien to me, and also so fascinating. What have
I been missing out on all my life? Anyway, I am typing on an '84
Macintosh so as to achieve a somewhat authentic experience. I'll be lurking around here for the forseeable so I'll hopefully see you folk around!
I am an 80's kid however I have never come across anything like these BBS boards. They're so alien to me, and also so fascinating. What have I been
That's a great story Daniel. I wish I had been around back during the glory days. My first foray onto the internet was back in 1995 when, as a pair of 10 year olds, my friend fired on Duke Nukem 3D, dialed onto a server using his 28.8k modem and began a death match against 3 random players. I was absolutely blown away... both figuratively and literally (in the game!). Going back in time and seeing all this is a real privilage for someone like me.
No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with accessing BBS's with modern PC's. I have also logged into my iPad simultaneously just to learn the
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Andeddu to Ogg on Wed Jul 08 2020 01:46 pm
No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with accessing BBS's with modern PC's. I have also logged into my iPad simultaneously just to learn the
One thing to keep in mind is when replying to messages, it's good to quote the message you're replying to, or at least the part you're replying to, so that people can follow the conversation more easily. Sometimes it can be hard to know what you're referring to without any context.
Nightfox
... it's a strange world indeed :-P re: subject
No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with accessing BBS's with modern PC's. I have also logged into my iPad simultaneously just to learn the layout and commands as everything can be achieved much more quickly and efficiently on a modern connection. I am running at 1200 baud on my old Mac which means that pages take a little while to refresh. I'd love to pick up an old Amiga or something classic that can support a higher transfer rate.
Kind regards,
Craig
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Andeddu to Ogg on Wed Jul 08 2020 01:46 pm
No, there's absolutely nothing wrong with accessing BBS's with modern PC's. I have also logged into my iPad simultaneously just to learn the layout and commands as everything can be achieved much more quickly and efficiently on a modern connection. I am running at 1200 baud on my old Mac which means that pages take a little while to refresh. I'd love to pick up an old Amiga or something classic that can support a higher transfer rate.
Kind regards,
Craig
I'm typing this now on a CRT, connected to a 486 DX/33, logged in via mTelnet. The file downloading features don't work well, but this is pretty much what it was like for me in the 90s, except with much, much faster transfer speeds.
I don't mind using new computers, but it is the glow of the CRT which hooks me in. Now I just have to get that CGA monochrome green phosphorescent screen working on a BBS.
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Thu Jul 09 2020 06:42 pm
I'm typing this now on a CRT, connected to a 486 DX/33, logged in via mTelnet. The file downloading features don't work well, but this is pretty much what it was like for me in the 90s, except with much, much faster transfer speeds.
I don't mind using new computers, but it is the glow of the CRT which hooks me in. Now I just have to get that CGA monochrome green phosphorescent screen working on a BBS.
I agree, there's something special about the glow of a CRT that you
don't get with an LCD. Despite the poor performance, single-tasking and general clunkiness of the setup, bringing a retro machine online has
its perks. The loud and tactile M0110 keyboard from 1984 I am typing on right now brings joy to my fingertips. The humming of the disk drive & monochrome rays of the 9" CRT provides me with a comfort and
reassurance my modern gaming laptop could never hope to offer.
Best of luck with your monochrome green monitor. I myself would love to get an old Apple //c with the original green monochrome Monitor //c to
BBS on.
One of my updates to SlyEdit a while ago was adding the ability to change th subject within SlyEdit, so it's easier to do if you want to.
One of my updates to SlyEdit a while ago was adding the ability to
change th subject within SlyEdit, so it's easier to do if you want to.
so do you no longer have a distribution .zip or whatever for slyedit and it's in the cvs?
Wow, I remember that 3dfx card back when in my school days. My friend had a Voodoo 2 3DFX card which he used on games like the original Half-Life, he was the envy of my small tech loving geek group until my dad purchased a monster Pentium III with a Geforce graphics card. Ah, seems like you're onto plums with your old case - such a shame!
I had a 3DFX Voodoo card in the late 90s, and then a Voodoo 2. I was fairly excited when I got those and installed them in my PC. The 3DFX Voodoo cards seemed to be able to handle anything you threw at them, and any game using 3DFX ran fast and smooth, and looked great too. Since those early 3DFX cards were 3D-only, you also needed a regular video card for the everyday 2D graphics.
For a while, I had mine paired with a Matrox Millennium G200, which I think was one of the best general-purpose video cards at the time.
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
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Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Sun Jul 12 2020 12:06 pm
I have a machine with a Voodoo 2 graphics card, and that graphic card has a composite out. I hooked that up to the monochrome monitor, and it worked! Well, not that well, the picture was distorted due to the differing refresh rate and resolution, but I was able to see Doom run on that green monochrome monitor, which is an interesting site to behold.
Wow, I remember that 3dfx card back when in my school days. My friend
had a Voodoo 2 3DFX card which he used on games like the original Half-Life, he was the envy of my small tech loving geek group until my
dad purchased a monster Pentium III with a Geforce graphics card. Ah, seems like you're onto plums with your old case - such a shame!
I agree, I feel more focused using this old machine. It's just one post
at a time, no distractions. No constant adverts popping up, videos appearing in the corner of the screen or audacious banners - just rows
and rows of lovely text. The internet's hayday was probably back in the early 2000s when broadband was widely available but web pages were
largely unadulterated by corporate advertising & data collection programmes. This is probably why I am addicted to BBSing right now -
it's like being transported back to a much happier pre-Facebook, Amazon and Google period in time.
These old-school machines give you a much more raw and direct
experience, it's like whenever Jeremy Clarkson gets into an 80s sports car, he always speaks of the lack of ABS, power-streetring and traction control enhancing his drive, it's a 1:1 man to machine interface with nothing in between.
I had a 3DFX Voodoo card in the late 90s, and then a Voodoo 2. I was fairly excited when I got those and installed them in my PC. The 3DFX Voodoo cards seemed to be able to handle anything you threw at them, and any game using 3DFX ran fast and smooth, and looked great too. Since those early 3DFX cards were 3D-only, you also needed a regular video card for the everyday 2D graphics. For a while, I had mine paired with a Matrox Millennium G200, which I think was one of the best general-purpose video cards at the time.
Nightfox
I had a 3DFX Voodoo card in the late 90s, and then a Voodoo 2. I was
fairly excited when I got those and installed them in my PC. The 3DFX
I never owned such a 3D accelerator because we moved on from the PC which was a weak 486DX2 to a Playstation prior to around 1999 when my dad purchased the above computer. I did watch an excellent video on YouTube by
Good analogy between older computers and 80's sports cars. I do prefer to drive a manual for the same reason, that feeling of control. The internet in the early 2000's did have a lot of banner ads, and pop up ads. I don't miss those! Web page design was better though, no huge fonts and masses of white space and hamburger menus.
I was talking to someone today about whether older computers were better to learn on than newer ones. Like many of my era, we started programming on a "Home Computer", for me, it was briefly an Apple IIe, then a few inbetween and a Commodore 64. There were advantages to having it start up instantly, no configuration, being able to key in a program directly. But the biggest one was that there was nothing else going on. Thats why sometimes in Linux I like to switch to a text console and work there. Its' not so much the CLI or text like nature, its the ability to have the computer as focused on what I'm doing, as I am! It's just you and what you are working on, and nothing else. I think that is the real reason I look back fondly to the old DOS terminal, it was the fact that there were no distractions, nothing going on that wasn't related to what you were trying to do. Nothing else in your field of vision unrelated to the task at hand.
Moved on? Did you never have a PC again after that? :P
Nightfox
Ha, I remember when I was doing IT work years ago, my manager was telling me of this time he was looking at stuff "not suitable for work", and one of the other managers came to his desk. It was an open plan office, and it was just my and him in the back corner. He closed the main IE window, but all these pop ups kept coming up, and no matter what he closed, more pop ups appeared! Couldn't get rid of them all in time...
Moved on? Did you never have a PC again after that? :P
Hehe, I didn't own a PC again until 1999 thus skipping the entire PS2/Xbox/Gamecube console generation. My staples were pretty much online multiplayer shooters such as Quake 3, Unreal Tournament & Counter-Strike... as you can see, the internet had a huge effect on me when I was a kid!
On 07-14-20 22:38, Dennisk wrote to Andeddu <=-
Looking back, you're quite right about those ads... they were even
nastier as they were pop-ups rather than being banners or videos built into the page! The BBC posted a recent article documenting how their web-page design has changed from 2000-2020 & I really did much prefer their clean and almost minimalist design from 20 years ago.
Ha, I remember when I was doing IT work years ago, my manager was
telling me of this time he was looking at stuff "not suitable for
work", and one of the other managers came to his desk. It was an open plan office, and it was just my and him in the back corner. He closed
the main IE window, but all these pop ups kept coming up, and no matter what he closed, more pop ups appeared! Couldn't get rid of them all in time...
I use Linux, so you can always call up a text-only screen, and run a program from that, such as multimail. Instant "DOS mode" with a CTRL-ALT-F2. Best of all, you can still multitask a little, so you can
at least play some music or have a download or something going in the background.
I think the difference between people who may have used computers
before GUI and younger people used to iPads, is that for many, the
first time they used a computer, it was a passive tool. A box of
circuits you can make do what you want. You are kind of aware that all the OS and GUI stuff is just an abstraction. I first used an Apple
IIe, and then I saw the GUI and OS take more and more prominence as an "experience". Whereas kids that first used iPads, first see the glitzy UI, and then maybe, dig underneath to realise there really is a general purpose machine under it. Maybe.
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
I agree, I feel more focused using this old machine. It's just one post
at a time, no distractions. No constant adverts popping up, videos appearing in the corner of the screen or audacious banners - just rows
and rows of lovely text.
calcmandan wrote to paulie420 <=-
For me it's tmux, emacs, fpc, emacs gnus, alpine, wordgrinder, fbi,
fbgs, mplayer, lynx, links2, youtube-dl
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
@VIA: VERT/AMSTRAD
@MSGID: <5F0E3A02.643.dove-internet@amstrad.simulant.uk>
@REPLY: <5F0DA99C.640.dove-internet@endofthelinebbs.com>
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Tue Jul 14 2020 10:38 pm
Ha, I remember when I was doing IT work years ago, my manager was telling me of this time he was looking at stuff "not suitable for work", and one of the other managers came to his desk. It was an open plan office, and it was just my and him in the back corner. He closed the main IE window, but all these pop ups kept coming up, and no matter what he closed, more pop ups appeared! Couldn't get rid of them all in time...
Haha, I can recall a similar incident involving me as a very young teenager in my bedrooom enthusiastically browsing some colourful
websites when my mum walked in. I shutdown the browser as quickly as possible but got hit by a barrage of smut-filled pop-ups. It never
stopped me, but I was pretty sure my parents were aware of what it was
I had allocated much of my internet usage to.
I tend to use the iPad Mini 5 now whenever I browse the internet. I
don't think I can go back to furiously typing away at a desk (unless I
am BBsing!). My gaming laptop is almost exclusivly reserved for gaming
and nothing else. Much of the videos I watch are on my iPhone 8 too. I don't own a modern desktop PC so spend very little time in my study.
I don't think young people think about operating systems, GUIs or otherwise. iOS, MacOS, Windows 10 & Android, etc... are so intuitive
that little to no thought is required in relation to what lies under
the interface. Things are expected to just work - no troubleshooting whatsoever, just press the icons.
Vk3jed wrote to Dennisk <=-
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@MSGID: <5F0EC342.642.dove-internet@freeway.apana.org.au>
@REPLY: <5F0DA99C.640.dove-internet@endofthelinebbs.com>
On 07-14-20 22:38, Dennisk wrote to Andeddu <=-
Looking back, you're quite right about those ads... they were even
nastier as they were pop-ups rather than being banners or videos built into the page! The BBC posted a recent article documenting how their web-page design has changed from 2000-2020 & I really did much prefer their clean and almost minimalist design from 20 years ago.
Yes, there was that time when popup ads were all the rage and they
often multiplied on dodgy sites. :/
Ha, I remember when I was doing IT work years ago, my manager was
telling me of this time he was looking at stuff "not suitable for
work", and one of the other managers came to his desk. It was an open plan office, and it was just my and him in the back corner. He closed
the main IE window, but all these pop ups kept coming up, and no matter what he closed, more pop ups appeared! Couldn't get rid of them all in time...
Oops! :D yep I certainly remember some sites that opened a gazillion popups, and not just pr0n sites either.
I use Linux, so you can always call up a text-only screen, and run a program from that, such as multimail. Instant "DOS mode" with a CTRL-ALT-F2. Best of all, you can still multitask a little, so you can
at least play some music or have a download or something going in the background.
Linux is good that way. Unless I need the machine for web surfing or general desktop (GUI) apps, I prefer to run at the command line. I
find with a little scripting, I often get more done than others do by clicking on a mouse everywhre. And on Linux, it's quite easy to make scripts self adjust to different conditions. I have some that check
the current working directory (and save that in a variable), then act accordingly.
I think the difference between people who may have used computers
before GUI and younger people used to iPads, is that for many, the
first time they used a computer, it was a passive tool. A box of
circuits you can make do what you want. You are kind of aware that all the OS and GUI stuff is just an abstraction. I first used an Apple
IIe, and then I saw the GUI and OS take more and more prominence as an "experience". Whereas kids that first used iPads, first see the glitzy UI, and then maybe, dig underneath to realise there really is a general purpose machine under it. Maybe.
I first used an Apple II and loved it. Found transitioning to DOS
based PCs straightforward, especially since I had used CP/M on the
Apple II. That made DOS somewhat familiar. Later, I did find DOS's
lack of multitasking constraining until I discovered DESQview, then
OS/2 . :)
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Tue Jul 14 2020 10:38 pm
Ha, I remember when I was doing IT work years ago, my manager was telling me of this time he was looking at stuff "not suitable for work", and one of the other managers came to his desk. It was an open plan office, and it was just my and him in the back corner. He closed the main IE window, but all these pop ups kept coming up, and no matter what he closed, more pop ups appeared! Couldn't get rid of them all in time...
Haha, I can recall a similar incident involving me as a very young teenager in my bedrooom enthusiastically browsing some colourful
websites when my mum walked in. I shutdown the browser as quickly as possible but got hit by a barrage of smut-filled pop-ups. It never
stopped me, but I was pretty sure my parents were aware of what it was
I had allocated much of my internet usage to.
I tend to use the iPad Mini 5 now whenever I browse the internet. I
don't think I can go back to furiously typing away at a desk (unless I
am BBsing!). My gaming laptop is almost exclusivly reserved for gaming
and nothing else. Much of the videos I watch are on my iPhone 8 too. I don't own a modern desktop PC so spend very little time in my study.
I don't think young people think about operating systems, GUIs or otherwise. iOS, MacOS, Windows 10 & Android, etc... are so intuitive
that little to no thought is required in relation to what lies under
the interface. Things are expected to just work - no troubleshooting whatsoever, just press the icons.
:) I tended to play more PC games than console games, because PC games seemed easier to get at the time. If you didn't have the money to buy a PC game, you could at least play shareware games (or maybe get a copy of a game from a friend or family member..). Also, I tended to like building my own PC too. And I also sometimes used my PC for homework in high school - Doing research with things like Microsoft Encarta (computer encyclopedia) and typing & printing reports instead of hand-writing them.
Nightfox
Also, SlyEdit now uses dd_lightbar_menu.js, which is a lightbar menu library created and added to the CVS in sbbs/exec/load. I could include dd_lightbar_menu.js with a stand-alone SlyEdit package, but that could potentially create some confusion in case someone overwrites their dd_lightbar_menu.js with the one in the SlyEdit package (which would eventua end up being outdated).
TL;DR: I felt like keeping SlyEdit just in CVS would be easier to maintain d etc. and minimize the chance of overwriting files with old copies etc..
I remember being obsessed with online gaming back in '99... I even picked up Age of Empires II and played fairly competitively on The Zone (MSN's old gaming network). Haha, Encarta was great... I still recall '95 which I used on the 486. It really was a great resource prior to Wikipedia. I especially loved watching the videos contained within.
TL;DR: I felt like keeping SlyEdit just in CVS would be easier to
maintain d etc. and minimize the chance of overwriting files with old
copies etc..
ah, that's too bad. i want to update but dont want to hunt around for every slyedit file.
That said, nowadays I use computers because you can use it for things other than gaming :-) They are a better proposition of value as long as you don't try to stay on the top of the wave.
If you try to be in the
bleeding edge of gaming hardware you are in it for a lot of hardware costs.
TL;DR: I felt like keeping SlyEdit just in CVS would be easier to
maintain d etc. and minimize the chance of overwriting files with old
copies etc..
ah, that's too bad. i want to update but dont want to hunt around for every slyedit file.
Yes!
I do most of my BBSing with an offline reader, MultiMail. I download
QWK packets to my PC via FTP, then fire up a full-screen DOSBOX
window. Once I've got a DOS prompt filling my entire screen, I run
Multimail, TheDraw, Qedit and VDE and interact in a mostly
distraction-free environment. I can't easily copy and paste URLs
unless I save them to a file, so it keeps me focused on the BBS
environment.
I will eventually get a tablet when my daughter needs one for school. In the early years, they the ones at school, but later on we will be required to provide our own.
I do wonder if in the near future, we will have difficulty maintaining our technology, because so few people understand how it works fundamentally.
The fact that these system are "locked down" make it worse. Steve Wozniak was able to work in a time when technology was open. I have behind me in the bookshelf a technical manual on the XT system, which has schematics, detailed configuration, and pages and pages of BIOS source code in assembly. You could easily understand the details how how things worked at a fundamental level. Now?
I used to rely on my devices as well. Now, not so much. I've said before how I no longer own a cell phone and my tablet is used almost exclusively for flight planning/navigation.
I spent most my typing/computing time on my workstation. I got it used from a mom&pop shop that had a stack of retired corporate systems. Got it for $80 after
we made a deal to max the RAM and remove the HDD/Windows.
I had a drive at home ready to use so.. I run command line linux and it fulfills
all my needs. Even youtube.
It is funny. I used to be a game console kid. There was only a
computer at home which my parents used for work, and they did a
very bad job at maintaining it. If you installed a game in it you
could find my father formatted the computer the next day because
he had broken it or something.
I think the real appeal of consoles, which has already been lost,
is that if you had the console and a few accessories, you were
granted it would just work. You got a PlayStation game, and if you
had a PlayStation, a controller and a memory card, the game would
just work, period. If you had a PC game, you could discover your
graphic card was not powerful enough, or storage was running low,
or that in order to play you had to turn this quakity knob down...
Nowadays, when my friends and I set a game console orgy, we always
face problems because that simplicity has been voided. There are
online accounts whose credentials people forget, wireless
controllers that run out of battery, etc...
--
gopher://gopher.operationalsecurity.es
That's true. I don't think it's that big of a deal though.. If you are a computer user, you'll probably always eventually upgrade or replace your current PC at some point. And in that way, it's very similar to consoles - A new console game might require a more powerful console, thus requiring you to buy a new console to play a game you might want to buy.
It's probably a double-edged sword. I think the fact that computers can be upgraded is one of the good things about computers. If all you need is a better graphics card, you can usually just buy a new graphics card and put it in your PC. Although honestly, graphics cards themselves can be rather spendy, and there are game consoles that cost about the same as just a graphics card by itself.
If you use a PC for other things though, I think having a PC can be a good value.
Nightfox
In the 90s, my brother and I used to play real-time strategy games sometimes (Warcraft 1 & 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, etc.). Later I had played Age of Empires 2 with a co-worker sometimes, and then one of my nephews started to like Age of Empires 2 and I'd play some games with him.
In the 90s, my brother and I used to play real-time strategy games sometimes (Warcraft 1 & 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, etc.). Later I had played Age of Empires 2 with a co-worker sometimes, and then one of my nephews started to like Age of Empires 2 and I'd play some games with him.
Consoles absolutely dominate PCs in relation to bang-for-buck. Let's take the Xbox Series X and the PS5 as an example: in terms of raw power, both are sitting around solid Ryzen 7 paired with an RTX2080. In terms of
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Nightfox to Andeddu on Thu Jul 16 2020 09:09 am
In the 90s, my brother and I used to play real-time strategy games sometimes (Warcraft 1 & 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, etc.). Later I had played Age of Empir
2 with a co-worker sometimes, and then one of my nephews started to like Age of Empires 2 and I'd play some games with him.
I played all those games to death... especially WC2 & Red Alert. There's a timeless quality to 2D isometric RTS games that the later 3D games lost. I recently picked
and played Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition online with a friend. The remastered graphics & smooth animations are a sight to behold... a very nice coming togethe
of the old & modern. I hope more developers go back to the 2D isometric formula (with updated sprites, obviously!)
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Nightfox to Andeddu on Thu Jul 16 2020 09:09 am
In the 90s, my brother and I used to play real-time strategy games sometimes (Warcraft 1 & 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, etc.). Later I had played Age of Empir
2 with a co-worker sometimes, and then one of my nephews started to like Age of Empires 2 and I'd play some games with him.
Loved Dune 2000, C&C. Fun times.
---TLM
The bang-for-buck could probably be debated. If all you're doing is playing video games with it, then perhaps a console is a better value. But PCs can be used for a lot more than just games, so for me, I tend to see more value in a PC. I've had consoles throughout the years but still tended to play games on my PC more anyway, though the console games are definitely fun.
Nightfox
It's a use case scenario that's obviously down to the individual. I was specifically speaking of high end gaming PCs vs consoles. For example, my friend purchased an RTX2080 Ti last year costing him around ¤1200 & this year he upgraded his CPU to a high performance Ryzen 9 along with a new motherboard and more RAM for a further ¤1200. All that cash he's spend and he'll still be in the ballpark of a standard next-gen console costing a paltry ¤500-600.
Andeddu wrote to calcmandan <=-
I have this need, or perhaps addiction, to constantly have YouTube on whenever I'm doing something - for instance, when I get up in the
morning, I pop my iPhone on a small wooden stand to prop it up & fire
on a video. I'll make breakfast, brush my teeth, get ready in the bathroom, etc... all whilst the video is running. Much of the time when
I am driving back home from work, I'll stick on a YouTube video and
stream it with the phone nestled on the centre console (listening, not watching, obviously!). In bed, the last thing I'll do before falling asleep is sticking Netflix on my phone for a half hour to relax and
clear my mind. Haha, I feel like a slave to all this tech!
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Wed Jul 15 2020 09:17 pm
TL;DR: I felt like keeping SlyEdit just in CVS would be easier to
maintain d etc. and minimize the chance of overwriting files with old
copies etc..
ah, that's too bad. i want to update but dont want to hunt around for every slyedit file.
I suppose I could make a stand-alone SlyEdit release, with just the SlyEdit-specific files (you'd just have to make sure to keep dd_lightbar_menu.js up to date in sbbs/exec/load).
Blizzar has already stated they don't intend to remake the old Warcrafts, which is a pity, because Warcraft 1 needs better controls.
I had a lot of fun with the early warcrafts. When Warcraft 3 hit, it was nice, but it was not the same. They had tackled this rpgish element on it.
I am still beating Command and Conquer in my spare time. I beat the main game already, and now I am with the cover operations expansion.
--
gopher://gopher.operationalsecurity.es
I played all those games to death... especially WC2 & Red Alert. There's a timeless quality to 2D isometric RTS games that the later 3D games lost. I recently picked up and played Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition online with a friend. The remastered graphics & smooth animations are a sight to behold... a very nice coming together of the old & modern. I hope more developers go back to the 2D isometric formula (with updated sprites, obviously!)
Loved Dune 2000, C&C. Fun times.
---TLM
Heh, I beat the original Dune II with the Harkonen. I loved nuking people with the death hand. Also, the ending is golden.
Hello MRO!
** On Friday 17.07.20 - 19:53, mro wrote to Andeddu:
my son is 25 and he's a total idiot with computers and hardware.
he 'fixed' my mom's router by taking out the wifi password.
Outch.. removing the pw is a pretty bad solution. But.. it sounds like he's a pragmatist.
Not just younger people but older ones too who find it far more comfortable. I personally still enjoy real-mode assembler, I've gotten back into it just for kicks, but most people dropped it, and dropped the idea that it was good to know, in favour of more complex tools.
Jonathan Blow has a good talk on YouTube about this exact subject, its titled "Preventing the Collapse of Civilisation", but its mostly about software development. He not only makes the same argument, but also argues that software isn't that much better, its buggier, and hard to fix. And this might sound odd for anyone who lived through Windows 95, but he is kind of right. I come accross lots of niggly bugs at work. Sure, the programs don't crash, but they just often don't work correctly. And something REALLY basic, like copy and paste too. Who know how that works now.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
Yep. It seems your currency symbol might not be coming through for me, so I don't know what currency that is - but last year I built a new PC and opted to get an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super, which was about $580US. I've done some gaming on it (as I enjoy PC gaming), but I've actually been using the GPU for some general computing tasks - I have some photo & video editing software that makes use of the GPU, and I've had my PC run some distributed computing projects (with BOINC) that make use of the GPU.
But it does seem a bit crazy how much graphics cards cost. I didn't get the 2080 because those cost so much more.. And the RTX 2070 is already the most expensive video card I've ever bought.
Nightfox
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Fri Jul 17 2020 11:38 pm
Not just younger people but older ones too who find it far more comfortable. I personally still enjoy real-mode assembler, I've gotten back into it just for kicks, but most people dropped it, and dropped the idea that it was good to know, in favour of more complex tools.
Jonathan Blow has a good talk on YouTube about this exact subject, its titled "Preventing the Collapse of Civilisation", but its mostly about software development. He not only makes the same argument, but also argues that software isn't that much better, its buggier, and hard to fix. And this might sound odd for anyone who lived through Windows 95, but he is kind of right. I come accross lots of niggly bugs at work. Sure, the programs don't crash, but they just often don't work correctly. And something REALLY basic, like copy and paste too. Who know how that works now.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
I can relate to that also. I feel as though Microsoft hit its zenith
with Windows 7 in recent times, everything that has come after has been sorely dissapointing. I also had a trying time preventing Windows 10
from carrying out forced system and driver updates. It's as if they're systematically removing control from the user, as if they don't trust
us or something and need babied throughout the whole process.
I guess underneath all this newfangled graphical layering, remenants of the old code still linger & occasionally conflict with the updates.
okay it's not translating the \1X color codes.
any idea what i can do about that?
i'm running 3.17
I don't think it ever did translate the \1 color codes.. I'll have
to double check. Maybe it did at some point and one of the updates
I made broke it. All of my SlyEdit color configuration files still
have the control character rather than the \1 though (and they
always did)..
i dont think you understand. the entire interface has \1 codes instead of the regular interface i'm used to. it's a bunch of \1 code mess
my son is 25 and he's a total idiot with computers and hardware.
he 'fixed' my mom's router by taking out the wifi password.
i was teaching him how to use windows command line shit when he was 10, he now it's all gone.
there is nothing new and amazing about computers so they dont become enthusiasts.
Ever try Dune 2000? Basically RTS networked version of Dune II with updated graphics. Loved it!
---TLM
No, I haven't.
Nowadays, if it does not run on a game console, a game console emulator, OpenBSD native, Linux Native or DOS, I don't run it. I don't see myself installing Windows in a game computer just for playing.
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
I think that sort of expertise will be mostly lost after the Millenial generation as using computers now in almost any context requires only
the most superficial knowledge.
Back in the day it was imperitive to
have SOME idea of how systems functioned in order to carry out basic
tasks such as, gaming, troubleshooting, productivity & even connecting online. Modern day OSes are so heavily layered that users are unable to see what lies beneath the thick veneer of usability - they'd shriek at
the sight of a non-GUI.
---
Synchronet BBS for Amstrad computer users including CPC,
PPC and PCW!
Andeddu wrote to Nightfox <=-
Consoles absolutely dominate PCs in relation to bang-for-buck.
Dennisk wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I've done that too. I have a basic backup script, that operates
correctly depending on which machine I run it from.
Dennisk wrote to Andeddu <=-
One thing windows does do well, is backwards compatibility, but I don't see this as the reason for the forced updates.
Arelor wrote to Andeddu <=-
I prety much agree with this. I much prefer 2D graphics for real time strategy. I just don't see the point of 3D for the genre. It reminds me
of this Spanish social media in which they tried to make its interface looki like a 3D action game.
On 07-17-20 07:46, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Andeddu <=-
And in the BBS Documentary, some of the old timers complained that
when you didn't have to write your own BBS from scratch, you didn't
have a real understanding or appreciation of what's going on
underneath...
On 07-17-20 07:52, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dennisk <=-
@VIA: VERT/REALITY
Dennisk wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I've done that too. I have a basic backup script, that operates
correctly depending on which machine I run it from.
I miss my script! I've never been that great at scripting, but when I
was consulting I made a little script that cobbled together a name of
the folder with the date, and did a compressed tar archive to a tape
device designated by an environmental variable or to my laptop. That
came in handy when needing a quick backup before making system
changes.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Arelor to The Lizard Master on Sat Jul 18 2020 06:09 am
Ever try Dune 2000? Basically RTS networked version of Dune II with updated graphics. Loved it!
---TLM
No, I haven't.
Nowadays, if it does not run on a game console, a game console emulator, OpenBSD native, Linux Native or DOS, I don't run
it. I don't see myself installing Windows in a game computer just for playing.
It was released for consoles too, but I just don't see how much fun it would be to try and do that with an RTS like that.
---TLM
Vk3jed wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
preference is not to run a GUI on systems performing server functions (which is what a BBS really is), but if you prefer to run a GUI, no
biggie for me. A GUI can sometimes present information better, if you have a monitor attached, and may have more convenient controls.
Nightfox wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
They're designed as loss-leaders. Lose money on the hardware, make
money on the recurring subscription revenue.
That model always annoyed me. It's like how inkjet printers can be inexpensive, but the ink cartridges are very expensive.
It was released for consoles too, but I just don't see how much fun it would be to try and do that with an RTS like that.
---TLM
Argh, point and click games suck in consoles. There was a mouse system for PSX but I don't think it ever became popular.
I made the mistake of buying Comandos 2 for the playstation. At 3 bucks, it didn't look like a very bad option. The game suuuucked hard.
You may want to meditate on that. Just sayin.
Daniel Traechin
... Visit me at gopher://gcpp.world
my son is 25 and he's a total idiot with computers and hardware.
he 'fixed' my mom's router by taking out the wifi password.
he knows nothing about everything.
i was teaching him how to use windows command line shit when he was 10, he was playing bbs doorgames with my users. i was teaching him simple linux scripting.
now it's all gone.
there is nothing new and amazing about computers so they dont become enthusiasts.
PC gaming has an advantage when it comes to gaming mods and player made downloadable content. I'll use Counterstrike as a great example. Halflife had a great number of development tools created for it, allowing for gameplay outside what the developers created, or creating new games by themselves.
They are removing control from the user partly because they want control over the experience, and can't stand the thought of users not being up to day, and partly because users don't mine being controlled.
One thing windows does do well, is backwards compatibility, but I don't see this as the reason for the forced updates.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
I prety much agree with this. I much prefer 2D graphics for real time strategy. I just don't see the point of 3D for the genre.
It reminds me of this Spanish social media in which they tried to make its interface looki like a 3D action game. You were
supposed to move your character in the screen and talk to people that way. It crashed hard.
They're designed as loss-leaders. Lose money on the hardware, make
money on the recurring subscription revenue.
It was released for consoles too, but I just don't see how much fun it would be to try and do that with an RTS like that.
---TLM
Argh, point and click games suck in consoles. There was a mouse system for PSX but I don't think it ever became popular.
I made the mistake of buying Comandos 2 for the playstation. At 3 bucks, it didn't look like a very bad option. The game
suuuucked hard.
--
gopher://gopher.operationalsecurity.es
On 07-19-20 07:55, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Vk3jed <=-
My favorite server environment is just enough GUI to run a couple of xterms tailing log files. twm, for example.
I wouldn't mind trying or even owning some of the systems from the 70s, something like the Commodore PET or Wang 2200 but anything earlier is too cumbersome to use it seems. Old CRT screens delight me.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
Have you ever considered that you might have more free time if you
*WEREN'T* carting around a phone/iPad which is streaming
something?
There's more to life than YouTube. Put the devices down for a
while and try to experience it.
... Gone crazy, be back later, please leave message.
I'm not too happy about the last part. I guess I'm old school in believing th at when I buy a piece of software, I can modify it all I want for personal
use. The EULA should protect the maker of the software from any reliability issues caused by modding their code or creating new content that runs on their platform. Even while distributing patches or home made game content I have trouble seeing any issues, since the host program is required for the new content to run. I view it like fan fiction, where the end product is not intended to be mistaken for studio content, or intended to profit off someone else' intellectual property.
I think the nostalgic interest comes with when you first had that
"holy crap" moment, when you can't believe you could do this. I can
think of several - connecting to a BBS for the first time, the first
time I telnetted to a system in a different time zone, and the first
time I set up a web server.
Going back to re-visit those feelings is powerful, and it's part of
what keeps me working in a DOS window with a telnet client and an
offline reader after 30+ years.
70s, something like the Commodore PET or Wang 2200 but anything
earlier is too cumbersome to use it seems. Old CRT screens delight
me.
I never had one as a kid (I was a C= kid myself) but I'm tempted to
get an Apple IIc or a IIgs.
Haha, I don't have much free time these days so I guess I have become extremely efficient in my YouTube consumption. No matter what menial
task I am doing at home, I seem to be carting around a phone or iPad
which is streaming something of interest.
Maybe the behaviour issues are exacerbated by the use of technology? I find my kids behave worse when they've been playing on the Computer/Raspberry Pi/Nintendo DS. I mean, I spend more time on the computer than I should myself, but if there is a way to give them something else to do, I think one should.
A co-worker has a daughter that has some behavioral issues (only child with single parent, parents separation/ divorce was a heated mess) she has chosen programming to be her main hobby rather than sprts or hanging around friends.
The circle of friends she does have are all in similar family situations, and
must've learned how to write code on Raspberry Pi's and Arduinos together.
I'm not sure why I find that interesting. Maybe it's because it's a path less travelled for mid teens that aren't trying to hack and break stuff.
I'm not too happy about the last part. I guess I'm old school in believing th at when I buy a piece of software, I can modify it all I want for personal
use. The EULA should protect the maker of the software from any reliability issues caused by modding their code or creating new content that runs on
their platform. Even while distributing patches or home made game content I have trouble seeing any issues, since the host program is required for the new content to run. I view it like fan fiction, where the end product is not intended to be mistaken for studio content, or intended to profit off someone else' intellectual property.
I prety much agree with this. I much prefer 2D graphics for real time strategy. I just don't see the point of 3D for the genre.
It reminds me of this Spanish social media in which they tried to make its interface looki like a 3D action game. You were
supposed to move your character in the screen and talk to people that way. It crashed hard.
Even though 3D graphics is amazing now, where things look close to lifelike, there's still an issue with RTS games. I don't think the CPU/GPU horse-power is there as yet to render large scale battles with high quality well animated units. Perhaps it'll come soon though. I am looking forward to Age of Empires 4 however it's rendered in 3D unike the recent Definitive Editions of the earlier games. Such a shame, either way, I hope it's good!
I think the nostalgic interest comes with when you first had that
"holy crap" moment, when you can't believe you could do this. I can
think of several - connecting to a BBS for the first time, the first
time I telnetted to a system in a different time zone, and the first
time I set up a web server.
Years ago I liked palying the Mechwarrior series of games and loved playing Mech Commander, which was similar to Command in Conquer in the top down control of assets. When Mech Commander 2 came out, another studio made it and in my opinion ruined it by making it truly 3d. I feel it didn't provide much of a tactical improvement, since it was still hard to gauge terrain height or line of sight.
I think the nostalgic interest comes with when you first had that
"holy crap" moment, when you can't believe you could do this. I can
think of several - connecting to a BBS for the first time, the first
time I telnetted to a system in a different time zone, and the first
time I set up a web server.
Going back to re-visit those feelings is powerful, and it's part of
what keeps me working in a DOS window with a telnet client and an
offline reader after 30+ years.
I never had one as a kid (I was a C= kid myself) but I'm tempted to
get an Apple IIc or a IIgs.
Also I still find a desktop PC useful (even though many people these days seem to like using tablets and smartphones, and maybe a laptop).
I grew up using mainly IBM-compatible PCs, but I always thought the Macs at my schools were interesting. Sometimes I'm tempted to get an old beige Mac (even an early Mac, Mac Plus/Classic, or Color Mac Classic & such), or perhaps a transparent G3 or G4 Mac tower, but then I'm not sure what I'd actually use it for.
I'm in agreement about the aesthetics of the late 70s/early 80's computers. Those computers were distinctive, and although the form factor is a little less practical it conveys the message that this is a machine, a tool.
I did want to use an old XT case to house an AMD 700MHz, but never got around to it. Unfortunately, I lost the case.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
Yeeaahhhhh.... well alrighty then.
Sounds more like a dependancy than an efficiency. I don't understand why anyone would need YT 24/7. Give your body some rest from the proximity of radio so close to your body.
I don't really see too many people with desktop PCs in their houses nowadays. Back in the 1990s-2000s it would be strange NOT to see a PC tucked away in the livingroom corner, or in a bedroom. Now most folk use laptops for productivity, games consoles for gaming and tablets for casual interet browsing, e-mails and Skype.
Compact Macs are great. You'd be able to find a nice Mac Plus for a resonable price, the 128Ks are collector's items, and non-upgraded 512Ks in a reasonable condition are fairly rare. I've been looking for SEs but there doesn't seem to be many in A1 condition, at least where I am from.
Eh, you'd be onto plums if you're looking to use it for anything other than word-processing or BBSing. I only BBS on mine as the games are absolutely rancid on these archaic machines!
If it makes you feel any better, I'm 18 and I'm trying to teach myself
about all this shit. Want to do it for a living, even. Not gonna pretend
to know anything extraordinary, but I'm trying, at least.
https://hbaguette.neocities.org
Nightfox wrote to Andeddu <=-
As far as PC gaming, I soon learned about Kali, which was a
program that allowed IPX/SPX networked games to be played over
TCP/IP on the internet. I enjoyed playing DOS games that way
(Descent, Descent 2, Warcraft 2, etc.).
A few weeks ago, I was looking at how much memory Windows 10 and the various apps I had were using. I had two chat programs, Teams, Outlook, and music streaming. Maybe a browser tab was open on Facebook or something. I think it was consuming 7.5GB. So, on a lark, I downloaded some Linux distro or other that specializes in minimalism, and set up the same exact environment. I had Freelook, Teams, same two chats, and even better streaming using VLC. I think I might have been using around 2GB memory (also still on a 64-bit operating system).
Dreamer wrote to Dennisk <=-
Dennisk wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Today, all the basic functionality has been there since the beginning,
and the OS's haven't changed that much. The computers are faster, but
the difference between going to 8G from 2G isn't as significant as from
4K to 64K, nor are larger hard drives all that different, not as
different as going from casette to disk. Apart from ability to run AAA games, a 10 year old computer is barely different to a modern one. In 1990, a 10 year old computer came from another world.
Linux was my main OS for quite a few years, until I finally started college in 2014. Right off the bat, my first instructor insisted we
write everything using Microsoft Word, and the formatting for the documents was so strict that he insisted we use the desktop version,
not the web version due to differences. So, I bought a new PC with
Windows 10. The next semester I took a database class that insisted on Microsoft Access. I found myself using Linux less and less.
Now that I'm teaching, I'm exploring modifying the classes so that we don't have to dictate, at least for the CIS classes, exactly which OS
to use. I even found a textbook for the database class that doesn't specifically rely on Access.
A few weeks ago, I was looking at how much memory Windows 10 and the various apps I had were using. I had two chat programs, Teams, Outlook, and music streaming. Maybe a browser tab was open on Facebook or something. I think it was consuming 7.5GB. So, on a lark, I downloaded some Linux distro or other that specializes in minimalism, and set up
the same exact environment. I had Freelook, Teams, same two chats, and even better streaming using VLC. I think I might have been using around 2GB memory (also still on a 64-bit operating system).
So, I resized my Windows 10 partition and installed Linux on my
desktop. I'm feeling a lot happier now. There's only one or two tasks I still need Windows for; I've set up a Windows 10 VM for that.
i think windows normally uses disk for caching. way too often in my opinion. regarding this guy having 7 gigs of usage, there's a lot of programs that arent really optomized or they have memory holes.
I think it was Bryan Lunduke who addressed this recently and made the case that we don't really need desktop PCs anymore. I'm too lazy to look up the exact video, but it sounds like him (he likes to approach both ends of topics).
I like video games sometimes, and I think some are just better on a PC with a keyboard & mouse. And a laptop could potentially get too hot with some workloads.
Nightfox
I had a typing class in 8th grade, and that classroom was full of Mac Classics. Sometimes we'd have some leftover time if we finished our typing assignments, so sometimes I'd play some games on those machines. I remember playing a shufflepuck game and NetTrek. Although those were small black & white Macs, I thought those games were still at least mildly fun. But I could probably play them on a Mac emulator on my PC these days.
I had heard about networked computers. And I noticed the IPX/SPX networking options in DOS games, so I knew you could play networked PC games. I first started using the internet in 1995, and it was one of those things I thought was amazing - So much stuff was easily accessible. One thing was that on BBSes back then, I often liked to download PC games and utilities from BBSes, and on the internet, it was a lot easier to find the latest versions of software. On BBSes, sometimes it was hard to know if what you had downloaded was the newest version or not, as sometimes a file wouldn't spread to all BBSes in your area.
As far as PC gaming, I soon learned about Kali, which was a program that allowed IPX/SPX networked games to be played over TCP/IP on the internet. I enjoyed playing DOS games that way (Descent, Descent 2, Warcraft 2, etc.).
Nightfox
I'm really annoyed about it too. I either left it behind at a rental property somehow, or my parents threw it out of the garage, not sure which. Odd thing is, I still have the monitor, the keyboard and the motherboard and addon cards (all still work, though not 100% sure about the keyboard). Last I saw it was over 10 years ago...
Yeah, you are right. I only see people who are developers or hobbyists still using desktops. Even at work, we don't use them, we have laptops instead.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
In my house, the kitchen, dining area, and living room were basically one long space with only a bar seperating the kitchen off. The living room TV stayed on from the time my mom got home until bedtime. She watched her drama shows in
the early afternoon (she was a cafeteria lady, so got home early), then was usually moving around the house doing chores.
I don't bother with cable television. Usually I stream music while I work on the computer, but if I'm moving around doing things I'll have YouTube videos going in my pocket. There are several personalities I listen to, and while they often have interesting visuals in their videos, they are perfectly enjoyable in a podcast format.
You want to see the future? Right here - https://youtu.be/AITWKXVekGw
---TLM
I don't really see too many people with desktop PCs in their housesNot sure where you are from, but I don't know anyone that doesn't have a PC in addition to a laptop, console and a smart phone and/or tablet. Most
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Wed Jul 22 2020 12:55 am
i think windows normally uses disk for caching. way too often in my
opinion. regarding this guy having 7 gigs of usage, there's a lot of
programs that arent really optomized or they have memory holes.
Why would an OS use the disk for caching programs? The point would be to make the loading of programs & data faster, and that works best by loading it and keeping it in RAM (which is much faster than a HDD, and perhaps still faster than an SSD).
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Tue Jul 21 2020 08:57 pm
I think it was Bryan Lunduke who addressed this recently and made
the case that we don't really need desktop PCs anymore. I'm too lazy
to look up the exact video, but it sounds like him (he likes to
Perhaps you'd be able to get your hands on a replia case one day so you
can rebuild the machine. The iconic IBM PC XT - Model 5160 case is the
most gorgous desktop case I've come across. Wish I could assemble a modern-retro build, with up to date hardware components - I do miss the
old desktop cases, always preferred them over the towers.
powerful CPU, it's also necessary to have adequate cooling when the
PC is doing those types of tasks. A laptop and a tablet don't
really have a lot of space to move much air through for cooling as
well as a desktop, and I'm not sure you could even do liquid cooling
in a laptop or tablet if you wanted to. Tablets & smartphones
typically don't have
WTH? I do video editing and coding, and I just have a mid-range PC. I've never considered liquid cooling on any of my desktops. I rarely even hit 50% usage on my PC. But, I probably fall closer to "most users" in what I do.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Wed Jul 22 2020 04:30 pm
Why would an OS use the disk for caching programs? The point would
be to make the loading of programs & data faster, and that works
best by loading it and keeping it in RAM (which is much faster than
a HDD, and perhaps still faster than an SSD).
windows swaps to disk, always has.
Memory swapping isn't caching, it's something different.. Swapping memory to disk is done so that effectively more RAM is available to run programs than there is physical RAM in the system.
machines. I remember playing a shufflepuck game and NetTrek.
Although those were small black & white Macs, I thought those games
were still at least mildly fun. But I could probably play them on a
Mac emulator on my PC these days.
I love the monochrome black and white screens. Shame they didn't make them green though, I'd have preferred that.
Memory swapping isn't caching, it's something different.. Swapping
memory to disk is done so that effectively more RAM is available
to run programs than there is physical RAM in the system.
it puts information that was once in the memory into a physical file on the harddrive that it then uses as virtual memory.
sounds like a cache to me.
Moondog wrote to Andeddu <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Andeddu to Dennisk on Tue Jul 21 2020 04:00 pm
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Tue Jul 21 2020 10:19 am
I'm in agreement about the aesthetics of the late 70s/early 80's computer Those computers were distinctive, and although the form factor is a littl less practical it conveys the message that this is a machine, a tool.
I did want to use an old XT case to house an AMD 700MHz, but never got around to it. Unfortunately, I lost the case.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
I love the early 80s IBM desktop cases, they're so cold, austere and utilitarian - a no nonsense business machine! Such a shame you lost that old case.
What I recall the most about old IBM systems was the big red/ orange
power toggle switch on the side or back of a PC. Server hardware was a bit different and had the switch on the front, as well as a big yellow arcade console style reset buttons. Once I had the opportunity to
salvage an RS6000 cabinet, and thought it would be cool to hide a media pc, stereo receiver and a mini-fridge inside it. Even when gutted, it wouldn't been too much a hassle to get it into the house.
I have a few general XT/AT clone cases with 2 digit clocks and Turbo buttons sitting around, but they're not as iconic as the older IBM desktops or even the newer PS/2 cases.
I remember back in the days when Windows needed a "swap file" on the hard drive to act as additional memory. Some performance problesm were solved
I don't really see too many people with desktop PCs in their houses nowadays. Back in the 1990s-2000s it would be strange NOT to see a PC tucked away in the
livingroom corner, or in a bedroom. Now most folk use laptops for productivity,
games consoles for gaming and tablets for casual interet browsing, e-mails and
Skype.
Dreamer wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I agree. I thought about dropping the database class, as I'm steering
the program more towards coding than management, but I found at at the last minute that my department's business degree uses the class. Access
is great for the business side, so it stays. I did change the book from pure skills- based to much more concepts-based. We'll see how that
goes.
I've found 90% of my students have ZERO incoming knowledge of
computers. Like, they struggle with the intro PC OS class, and they
have trouble passing the intro programming class. Apparently, the fundamentals aren't taught in public school anymore like they were in
the 80's and 90's. I'm actually putting in a mandatory computer
literacy class for new students. Sigh.
So, at the moment, I have to be careful and "hold the hand" of each student. Lessons tend to be very guided. When I tried doing a more
flipped classroom concept, it was a disaster and very stressful for
both me and students.
something. I think it was consuming 7.5GB. So, on a lark, I downloaded some Linux distro or other that specializes in minimalism, and set up
the same exact environment. I had Freelook, Teams, same two chats, and even better streaming using VLC. I think I might have been using around 2GB memory (also still on a 64-bit operating system).
Linux should support NTFS out of the box now, yes? Might be an
interesting project for any of us running Windows.
Apparently so. I can't remember ever having issues with NTFS. In the
early days, like mid-nineties, it may have been read-only; certainly
for a while it was recommended to not do anything "important" with the NTFS mounts, but at some point I stopped seeing those warnings.
--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
Synchronet Beaumont Software Dev -
bbs.beaumont.software
Moondog wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
It doesn't surprise me that MS Office and it formats would be the
default formats used by a college or other institution that receives
deep discounted software for being a learning institution and for
student discounts.
Windows 95 in conjunction with the MS Office suite
killed off several alternatives such as the Lotus Suite and well
favored proigrams such as Wordperfect.
Dennisk wrote to Andeddu <=-
I'm hoping to be able to find one which is at a recyclers or second
hand store or in storage somewhere, or maybe, by some miracle, mine
will be found. It is a nice case, I liked it back then in 1993, and
still do now. That is why I took the internals out to try and put a
new PC in it. The problem was the differing form factors, and I didn't want to start drilling into it.
Nightfox wrote to Andeddu <=-
I think Mac OS (or 'system' as it was called back then) would look a
bit weird on a green screen. Although it was odd to see new computers
in the early 90s being made with black & white screens, I tend to think
of that as the classic Mac look on those old Macs.
I've often thought it would be interesting to see a Mac Color Classic. I've never actually seen one of those in person.
Moondog wrote to Andeddu <=-
Desktops nowadays tend to be used for specific purposes. Unless you
have a docking station for a laptop (which for most intents turns the mobile laptop into a non-mobile desktop device) a desktop allows for
usage of multiple dispays and other devices that are better off being stationary.
Moondog wrote to Andeddu <=-
I have a few general XT/AT clone cases with 2 digit clocks and Turbo buttons sitting around, but they're not as iconic as the older IBM desktops or even the newer PS/2 cases.
Moondog wrote to Nightfox <=-
I remember back in the days when Windows needed a "swap file" on the
hard drive to act as additional memory. Some performance problesm were solved by d isbaling that feature, deleting the swap file, then re-enabling it. I recall a company sold a ram disk card that could be configured to act as storage of the swap file.
Dreamer wrote to Nightfox <=-
I used to swear I would always have at least a desktop PC, but with how powerful computers are getting, I'm beginning to appreciate having something in a small form factor.
The only thing I need a desktop for is War Thunder. For anything
except games, a laptop would do the trick nicely.
... Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
I think desktops have had their time. These days it's mostly gamers in the 18-30 category who are into PC games who own desktops. Regular folk have no interest in using up a ridiculous amount of space on a system whose functionality can be ported over to a small tablet. I don't even have a desk anymore and find web-surfing much smoother and more enjoyable on my iPad.
Not sure where you are from, but I don't know anyone that doesn't have a PC in addition to a laptop, console and a smart phone and/or tablet. Most households have multiple devices.
-=- Gary aka HSM -=-
-=TheFreeSpeak.com=-
I didn't spend to much time with my XT case on the desk (and all
subsequent pc models) ..and found the first opportunity to place it on its side in a cradle beside the desk. Out of sight, and reclaim desktop space was best for me.
I'm hoping to be able to find one which is at a recyclers or second hand store or in storage somewhere, or maybe, by some miracle, mine will be found. It is a nice case, I liked it back then in 1993, and still do now. That is why I took the internals out to try and put a new PC in it. The problem was the differing form factors, and I didn't want to start drilling into it.
I don't go for minimalism at all, not in machines or devices or rooms or decorations. I've seen monitors which took "minimalism" so far, they didn't even have a visible on-off button! I don't know when it became taboo to have labels and buttons and indicators as to what the tiny LEDS actually mean, but it is a dumb taboo.
Some of the functionality, not all. For many, the functionality that is ported is enough though. "Devices" are really a subset of the full functionality of a proper computer, a subset which does fit most peoples needs.
As long as I can still get a propert desktop, its fine.
I think Mac OS (or 'system' as it was called back then) would look a bit weird on a green screen. Although it was odd to see new computers in the early 90s being made with black & white screens, I tend to think of that as the classic Mac look on those old Macs.
I've often thought it would be interesting to see a Mac Color Classic. I've never actually seen one of those in person.
I have seen youtube videos and have read articles about ealry Macs had issues with leaky cmos batteries and bad capacitors, and the electrolytes would destroy traces on the cicuit boards. One of the common things a new owner of an early Mac needs to do is replace the capacitors. Other than the film capacitors that go bad, tantalum capacitors are very sensitive and could
burst if they hadn't had used in a long time.
Amigas tend to be good retro pc's because they still have an active support community and plenty of modern peripherals exist to retrofit older SCSI drives and other items such as memory boards. An IDE interface that uses CF or SD cards saves time looking for floppies that still good.
Desktops nowadays tend to be used for specific purposes. Unless you have a docking station for a laptop (which for most intents turns the mobile laptop into a non-mobile desktop device) a desktop allows for usage of multiple dispays and other devices that are better off being stationary.
Two of my friends that lived next to each other had run a coax ethernet cable across the lawn so they could game and transfer files. It also cool because one ran a BBS, and I could chat with him and the neighbor, even though he had one phone line dedicated to the BBS. I sort of recall the line running from the house to the clothes line between the houses, then to the other house.
Recently I seen a replica of an SX-64 portable based on a Raspberry Pi. These case was all 3d printed and a 4:3 lcd was used to match the proportions. I would like to do something similar making a copy of my Compaq Portable II. In order to get a keyboard to lock into the case as a "bottom" when carried, I figure I'll gut a modern keyboard and place it into a custom chassis. Other than 3d printing, I wonder if I can heat form Kydex to make the plastic shell?
I didn't spend to much time with my XT case on the desk (and all
subsequent pc models) ..and found the first opportunity to place it on its >> side in a cradle beside the desk. Out of sight, and reclaim desktop space >> was best for me.
Back then you couldn't reclaim any real space because you had a massive CRT monitor to contend with... I always thought it sensible to stick the PC
under the monitor to maximise desk space.
I also prefer the look of desktop computersfrom an aesthetic point of
view though. No one wants a desktop style computer now as towers can be hidden away or placed on their sides and LCDs take up little room. I'd
still prefer to have a full on desktop style case like before if I still
had a traditional computer setup today.
The scope of people absolutely requiring a desktop PC is narrowing by the day. Heavy 4K video editing, CAD, gaming enthusiasts who really must play in 4K ultra... etc, are really the only folk who need a desktop.
I have nothing against desktop PCs, I still believe they have their place... however, it's very clear that they are becoming more and more marginalised
in this day and age.
sounds like a cache to me.
A cache on a computer is typically a mechanism to speed up data access. Memory swapping to the hard drive is designed for an entirely different purpose.
I remember back in the days when Windows needed a "swap file" on the hard drive to act as additional memory. Some performance problesm were solved by d isbaling that feature, deleting the swap file, then re-enabling it. I recall a company sold a ram disk card that could be configured to act as storage of the swap file.
Back then you couldn't reclaim any real space because you had a massive CRT monitor to contend with... I always thought it sensible to stick the PC under the monitor to maximise desk space. I also prefer the look of
I don't mind minimalism if it's carried out tastefully. Apple products are gorgous whether it's their phones, laptops, tablets, desktops or all-in-ones... so I can abide by the design philosophy when it's pulled off correctly.
Desktops are more niche now as they require a specific use case for the majority of the time. For the average member of the public who is only interested in Skype, IMs, YouTube, Netflix, web-browing and online shopping apps such as eBay, tablets and cheap laptops are more suitable. Most folk don't want a big hunk of metal taking up space in their living rooms or bedrooms.
The scope of people absolutely requiring a desktop PC is narrowing by the day. Heavy 4K video editing, CAD, gaming enthusiasts who really must play in 4K ultra... etc, are really the only folk who need a desktop.
I suppose that might be true.. It seems weird considering laptops would tend to be more expensive than desktops (for equivalent power), so laptops
I often liked using 17" laptops for the screen size, but it seems many computer makers don't make them that big these days. I know Apple stopped
Nightfox wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Fri Jul 24 2020 10:16 am
I still have a floppy drive and PC Speaker in my desktop, and two spinning hard drives for BTRFS raid 1. I would have put a 5 1/4 inch drive, if I could fit it.
I'd think a PC speaker is still useful for beep codes in case something
is wrong with the PC. Some motherboards have an LED display that can display numeric codes instead, but then you'd have to have a case with
a clear side and be able to look inside. With a beep code, if
something goes wrong, you can at least hear the beep and not have to
look inside the PC for a code.
Dreamer wrote to MRO <=-
MRO wrote to all <=-
god i hate that lunduke guy. he's full of shit and annoying.
fucking poser too.
His shtick is a cross between comedy, tech news, and retro blog.
And he tends to go all in on the comedy and opinion. I can see how
it can be annoying.
On 07-23-20 01:13, Moondog wrote to Nightfox <=-
I remember back in the days when Windows needed a "swap file" on the
hard drive to act as additional memory. Some performance problesm were solved by d isbaling that feature, deleting the swap file, then
I prefer a straight delivery, like LGR or Tim Pool.
Interesting.. I was in middle school & high school in the 90s and
there weren't any required computer literacy classes - However there
were classes such as typing and programming that were electives. I
took a programming class in high school (late 90s) and it ended up
being with QBASIC.. I was a bit disappointed it wasn't something
Sounds like you were a few years behind me. I graduated mid-nineties. My required classes would have been around 1992.
We almost got a C++ class, but no one wanted to learn game programming. I was pissed.
Several manufacturers offer small form factor systems for those who want desktop options without the big case footprint. For a seasoned exntusiast the form factor may be limiting, however for the regular user that buys a system and may only upgrade the memory during it's life cycle, it's more than OK. An Intul NUC or Mac Mini are good examples. Mini-ITX systems take
Personally, I prefer browsing on a larger monitor than squinting at a 7" screen.
Drive space is no longer a premium item, and most systems, even the cheap ones, have more than enough drive space for using a swap file.
Moondog wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
When I was there, the "Old" system was brand new! It
was an AS400. 20 years ago AS400's were still pretty common, as were terminals out on the factory floor.
On 07-24-20 15:29, Moondog wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Drive space is no longer a premium item, and most systems, even the
cheap ones, have more than enough drive space for using a swap file.
Of the laptops I've commonly run into, there's only 3, maybe 4 USB
ports.
Unless you use Bluetooth, a keyboard, mouse, printer and a thumb
drive will take up your ports.
17" is a bear of a laptop to cart around. 14-15" is a nice balance for viewability and portability. And huge screen real estate isn't a huge consideration for Granny or Timmy who's mainly just watching youtube, browsi facebook and amazon, replying to emails, and maybe opening the occasional office document.
What I see something is laptop "permanently" setup, why pick a laptop?
I've seen an amber screen in a Mac Plus. I kind of liked it.
I don't know what it was about those old Macs - maybe just because we
weren't used to a white screen - but I used to get bad raster burn
after a day on a Mac - burn-y, squinty eyes.
Working on a green screen 14" CRT all day and night, no problem.
Please, try porting a REAL building collapse simulator to a tablet, then simulate the collapse of a stadium.
Besides, young adult gamers are no tiny demographic by any means. If it was the only remaining niche for desktop computers, I'd say desktop computers have a long way to go.
For the record, at job we deploy workstations only because they are cheaper in the long run, can be upgraded easily, and are much more comfortable to work with if somebody has to spend 6 hours at the screen.
The pc boxes were always wider and deeper than any of the monitors I
worked with. I didn't like a monitor sitting on top of the pc case; often that was too high as well. Placing the monitor on a maximum 4" high plinth/riser (with room to keep some papers undereath) was much better. I really liked the look of just a monitor and a keyboard on the desk
surface. When the monitor was strategically placed in the far corner of a desk, turned back at about 45º, the long part (electron gun/beam section) would fit very nicely when parked in a corner - you could reclaim quite a bit of the desk surface.
Marginalized from people who need a pc for entertainment. But for real work, a dedicated pc box and a separate monitor still has a good life.
Shipping to Australia is the problem here. Maybe I'll have to bite the bullet and get them shipped. Obviously for portable devices, I want them smaller and still functional. I do think the Apple desktops look pretty good, and better than pimped out PC's with gratuitous LEDS. I draw the line where usability and functionality is sacrificed, which I've seen here and there.
If you think about it, the XT case itself is somewhat simpler than many cases that came later (partly due to lack of buttons, etc). Another nice one is the Amstrad PC2386/PC2286. The back of expansion cards faced the side, not the back, making them easier to use, but there was a slide on cover you could put on to hide them if you wanted. Everything well positioned. Monitor and keyboard matched the style.
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
My setup (IMO) is the best of both worlds for my needs. I have a MacBook Pro which I use for everything. I have a thunderbolt docking station for when
I'm in my home office; One cable instantly connects me to my 32" widescreen monitor, wired ethernet & speakers. The bluetooth keyboard & trackpad are already on the desk so I just need to plug & play.
This way everything I'm working on is always with me, I don't need to keep track of whats on my desktop or whats on my laptop. If I need (or want) to work on the couch or in the back yard instead of being cooped up inside, I just unplug one cable & go.
Granted this approach may not work for everyone, but for those of us who can pull it off, it offers great flexibility.
This YouTuber recently made a video about laptop docks:
"Laptop Docks! They're pretty neat!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc31L3zJiaU
I used to do that, but when tower cases became common, I started using tower cases and I'd put a power center surge protector like this under the monitor:
www.ebay.com/i/324200569661
Nightfox
What do you consider minimalism pulled off correctly? I've often felt like Apple products are too minimalistic. One thing is their computers don't have any front USB ports. Front USB ports make it easy to plug in USB flash drives etc. Otherwise, you have to reach around back or plug in a USB extension cable or USB hub with an extension cable to make the USB ports more accessible.
Nightfox
I suppose that might be true.. It seems weird considering laptops would tend to be more expensive than desktops (for equivalent power), so laptops would usually only be considered when you had to take them with you often.
I thought that might still be the case, considering they have to cram things into a small space for laptops, but maybe not.
I was also thinking that one nice thing about a desktop is being able to use a large monitor, but it seems most laptops let you plug in an external monitor. But then it might become awkward about how to position the laptop screen in relation to the monitor, and it might be useful to also use an external keyboard & mouse so you can put the laptop off to the side while you use the external monitor. With a laptop I often like using an external mouse anyway, as I don't really like touchpads.
I often liked using 17" laptops for the screen size, but it seems many computer makers don't make them that big these days. I know Apple stopped making a 17" MacBook. At home I'm currently using a 27" 4K monitor with my PC, and when I go to a laptop I often have to try to focus better to look at its smaller screen.
I think video editing in general (including transcoding) and other computational-intensive things (like distributed computing, bitcoin mining, etc.), where the CPU and/or GPU might be near 100% for much of the time, would benefit from a desktop PC case where it can get better cooling than you'd get in a laptop.
Also, with the decline of optical media for movies & music, I'd think some people would want to set up a media server PC in their home, which might be on a desktop (though I suppose a small form-factor computer or high-end laptop would work for that too).
Nightfox
Even with older pc's I've seen where AA style bios battery wasn't removed and eventually leaked, and some look like they blew up. Lots of vinegar and a
tiny brass brush or tooth brush can do wonders.
My Portable II has a CGA output and a composite video out. If I were to get mTCP and mTelnet running on it, I'd use an external monitor for prolonged view ing.
Under the skin, the Portable II is very similar to a desktop case. If someone made a copy of the exterior, it wouldn't be too hard to craft a generic cage, then drill and mount brackets and stand offs for the boards.
I discovered LGR a few months ago and enjoy watching his videos. Lots of nostalgia there.
Nightfox
Moondog wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Dreamer on Fri Jul 24 2020 09:05 pm
Dreamer wrote to MRO <=-
MRO wrote to all <=-
god i hate that lunduke guy. he's full of shit and annoying.
fucking poser too.
His shtick is a cross between comedy, tech news, and retro blog.
And he tends to go all in on the comedy and opinion. I can see how
it can be annoying.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Ennev to Andeddu on Thu Jul 23 2020 11:54 am
What I see something is laptop "permanently" setup, why pick a laptop?
Although it shouldn't, this really grinds my gears... I always put my laptop away after use, but that's probably because my main laptop is always a high gaming machine. I can't risk something --a hard object or liquid-- falling o or over it. I understand that most folk purchase a basic netbook style lapto that's only worth 250-400 dollars, which can be transported from room to roo with convenience & never has go to into a case unless it's leaving the house guess they're expendable!
Cheap budget laptops are more than capable these days of carrying out the low-level tasks required by the masses. They would not find value in saving very small sum of money they would if they opted for a desktop PC. I also fi that a huge number of people prefer to sit with a laptop whilst seated in th living sofa & watching television. I guess they feel less "anti-social" as they're able to do all this in the immediate presence of their family.
It's different for different people, but I don't mind gaming on a 15" monito My friend who uses a 32" 1000 dollar ROG monitor would never stoop to my lev as he said it would "lack immersion". My last laptop (the ASUS ROG G752VY) h a very nice 17" G-sync monitor which I was very fond of. I believe you'd get used to a smaller monitor fairly quickly, if you were so inclined to do so.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Andeddu to Nightfox on Sat Jul 25 2020 06:32 pm
I used to do that, but when tower cases became common, I started
using tower cases and I'd put a power center surge protector like
this under the monitor:
www.ebay.com/i/324200569661
Haha, I've never seen a surge protector as substantial as that
before. I always thought they were built into the sockets!
computers because they had individual switches that let you easily turn each component on/off. Sometimes I'd leave my computer on to work on something and use the switch to turn the monitor & speakers off to save power.
MRO wrote to all <=-
I used to do that, but when tower cases became common, I started
using tower cases and I'd put a power center surge protector like
this under the monitor:
www.ebay.com/i/324200569661
if that thing were to get a power surge it would blow the fuck
up and burn the house down.
computers because they had individual switches that let you easily turn each component on/off. Sometimes I'd leave my computer on to work on something and use the switch to turn the monitor & speakers off to save power.
i wouldnt trust that though. stuff isnt made to last. too many on
and off's and your stuff will blow out. ---
I have another point of view. Laptops are supposed to be nomadic warriors designed for working on the road on harsh conditions.
I have an Acer Aspire that was well worth above 1k when purchased. I have used it on trips. I have used it in moving trains. I have used it in moving buses. Why? Because this stuff is designed so you can troubleshoot a server on the road, get articles finished before you hit the deadlines, and allow you to carry a working computer environment everywhere you need.
I am sure people laughts at me when they see me in a bus working at what is a glorified portable desktop. More power to them. A big system with a good touchpad, a big screen and optical media beats an ultraportable solution that requires lots of dongles to reach the same level of functionality.
Yes, this Acer is full of scratches and nicks, but who cares. That is what it is for. I have covered the worst ones with stickers (love the Anarma, aka Spanish NRA, ones).
Now, if you see a desktop with dents and scratches, now that is somebody who abuses his hardware.
During our saturday parties, some of my friends would grab a latop and start gaming or social-mediaing in the sofa while everybody else was socializing. Maybe they felt less anti-social, but let me tell you it is the most anti-social behavior you will experience in a non hostile environment.
You can get used to a smaller screen the same you get used to a smaller keyboard or a less powerful processor, but it greatly impacts productivity. I don't get as many words writen in a text procesor in two hours in a netbook as I do in an ultrabook (and I don't get as much done in an ultrabook as I get done in a workstation).
Working conditions matter.
Interesting. It seemed to me those used to be fairly popular for desktop computers because they had individual switches that let you easily turn each component on/off. Sometimes I'd leave my computer on to work on something and use the switch to turn the monitor & speakers off to save power.
Nightfox
I'd probably agree with them being usually underpowered and more expensive. I think they do look nice, but I'm not sure they look significantly better than their competitors.
Nightfox
I've sometimes sat on a couch with my laptop, but I find it more comfortable to sit in a good chair at a desk when working on my PC.
I do find a larger monitor nice, but I don't really mind gaming on a smaller monitor too. When I was growing up, I had a 15" CRT monitor with my PC, and only bought a 17" CRT later, so I was used to having the 15" monitor.
Nightfox
But even a "desktop" box like the CHUWI Larkbox is amazing and could have
a domestic application.
A desktop pc doesn't have to be the proverbial big box.
I still think Netbooks and Ultrabooks are underpowered, which is
strange because mobile phones absolutely trounce them in terms of raw
power despite their far smaller form factor. Even my 2018 iPhone 8 is
a more capable web-browser than my powerful i7-8750H/1080GTX laptop
along with the vast majority of PCs, notwithstanding the small screen. Webpages load up instantly and are buttery smooth, never skipping a
single frame. I guess this has much to do with Safari being a well optimised web-browser.
I think the Gen-Z demographic are going to be the first demographic to ditch PCs/laptops in favour of ultrafast smartphones, tablets and
consoles. Obviosuly, they'll still come across these larger machines
at work due to their business application.
Interesting. It seemed to me those used to be fairly popular for
desktop computers because they had individual switches that let you
easily turn each component on/off. Sometimes I'd leave my computer on
to work on something and use the switch to turn the monitor & speakers
off to save power.
Perhaps they were popular, I just never saw one. I live in the UK though and it was pretty standard for our surge protectors to be built into the sockets, you could buy special ones with individual switches, similar to your old one. It's a pretty cool looking device though... I won't deny that!
www.ebay.com/i/324200569661
computers because they had individual switches that let you easily
turn each component on/off. Sometimes I'd leave my computer on to
work on something and use the switch to turn the monitor & speakers
off to save power.
i wouldnt trust that though. stuff isnt made to last. too many on and off's and your stuff will blow out. ---
I remember when my dad bought a 17" monitor back when we had a Pentium 2 system... I thought it was huge becasue I was used to the standard 15" monitor.
I prefer using my laptop on a table/desk too. I haven't used a laptop on the couch for over a decade. Tablets are far better for that.
I think they were popular more for the feature of having the individual switches rather than the surge protection. The surge protection was a nice feature though.
I had one of those same PC power center surge protectors for a long time. After 25 years, one of the switches started to get flaky - I just got rid of it last year. Before that, I never had a problem with it.
I thought they were fairly popular with computer users..
I had one of those same PC power center surge protectors for a long
time. After 25 years, one of the switches started to get flaky - I
just got rid of it last year. Before that, I never had a problem
with it.
I thought they were fairly popular with computer users..
i dont think i've ever seen something like that before. well maybe in school they had it for the old apple computers.
if you want to protect your computer and equiptment i would suggest chaining your surge protectors and get atleaset one pricy one and put it closest to your electronics on the chain. ---
For myself, I could foresee continuing to use a desktop PC for quite a while. I just like to build my own PC, though I suppose if there small form-factor computers that would fit my needs, then I'd probably be okay with that.
Also, I've often felt like having a media server at home was the natural progression of media, with optical media becoming less popular and purchased downloadable music and movies becoming more popular. I ripped all my music CDs to FLAC & MP3 (I still have my CDs) and copied the MP3s to my phone, USB drive for my car, etc. - I didn't want to have to buy all my music again in a downloadable format, and I figured most people were probably the same in wanting to rip their music CD library..
and purchased downloadable music and movies becoming more popular. I
ripped all my music CDs to FLAC & MP3 (I still have my CDs) and copied
the MP3s to my phone, USB drive for my car, etc. - I didn't want to
have to buy all my music again in a downloadable format, and I figured
most people were probably the same in wanting to rip their music CD
library..
I think you're an outlier tbh. Most of the people I've spoken to who are very non-technically minded rely on streaming services for both their music and TV consumption. I don't know anyone other than my own parents who uses a USB drive in their car... it's bluetooth connecting to their phone and Spotify or Apple Music for the majority of the YOUNGER population. Folk are happy to throw away their old CDs as EVERYTHING can be streamed, so long as you're subscribed.
Like it or lump it, non-ownership of digital media is the future. I am personally against the streaming only medium, but it's taking over in a BIG way. I've spoken to many 20 year olds and younger who have no idea what file formats are, they've heard of MP3s but have little concept about what you're on about. Everything works on modern systems as you're using apps... there's literally no fucking around with file formats. Kids don't have time for that anymore, and that's why traditonal computing is DEAD.
If you're sitting with your friends immersed in the laptop computer screen, it's clearly anti-social. It just give the perception of being less anti-soc because your presence is still there, rather than sat in the corner on a desktop. That doesn't really happen anymore though... I constantly see peopl immersed in their smart phones instead - any sort of recreational internet activity is much superior on a GOOD smartphone than on a laptop IMO (somethi I never thought I'd say).
I still think Netbooks and Ultrabooks are underpowered, which is strange because mobile phones absolutely trounce them in terms of raw power despite their far smaller form factor. Even my 2018 iPhone 8 is a more capable web-browser than my powerful i7-8750H/1080GTX laptop along with the vast majority of PCs, notwithstanding the small screen. Webpages load up instantl and are buttery smooth, never skipping a single frame. I guess this has much do with Safari being a well optimised web-browser. I think the Gen-Z demographic are going to be the first demographic to ditch PCs/laptops in favour of ultrafast smartphones, tablets and consoles. Obviosuly, they'll st come across these larger machines at work due to their business application.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Nightfox to Andeddu on Sun Jul 26 2020 11:03 am
I think they were popular more for the feature of having the individual switches rather than the surge protection. The surge protection was a n feature though.
this is my personal experience: not all surge protectors from back in the da worked. i've seen stuff fry on it from just a power surge.
i'm not sure about today's hardware. i try to avoid electrical problems
constantly see people immersed in their smart phones instead - any sort of recreational internet activity is much superior on a GOOD smartphone than on a laptop IMO (something I never thought I'd say).
despite their far smaller form factor. Even my 2018 iPhone 8 is a more capable web-browser than my powerful i7-8750H/1080GTX laptop along with the vast majority of PCs, notwithstanding the small screen. Webpages load up instantly and are buttery smooth, never skipping a single frame. I
not know about saving things to files, as that's how our computers & other computing devices have always worked.. If they want to save a piece of music, podcast, etc. for offline playing, where do they think it's being saved?
Nightfox wrote to Arelor <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Arelor to Andeddu on Sun Jul 26 2020 03:41 pm
I don't know, most smartphone users I know have a love-hate relationship with their phones. They hate them because they work like crap but they love them because they can have social media with them everywhere.
I don't think a smartphone should work like crap. My main frustration with smartphones is the virtual keyboard. I type much faster and more accurately on a real keyboard.
In general I find desktop chat software to be more sane. Also many browser
Most of the desktop chat software I used to use is gone now, or so few people use them that they're probably not worth using. In the past,
I've used ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and AOL Instant
Messenger to keep in touch with people who used various services, but those are all gone now, except perhaps ICQ, which is very different
from how it used to be anyway.
One thing I used to like about ICQ was that you could fill out a small user profile and search for a random chat partner anywhere in the world using ICQ. I met some interesting people that way and talked to them online. Sometimes I feel like it's a bummer that I've lost contact
with all of them. I remember talking to people in various countries
with it but now I can't remember their names. :/ We make social connections many ways these days..
I don't know, most smartphone users I know have a love-hate relationshi with their phones. They hate them because they work like crap but they love them because they can have social media with them everywhere.
I don't think a smartphone should work like crap. My main frustration with smartphones is the virtual keyboard. I type much faster and more accurately a real keyboard.
Mobile apps or mobile sites use reduced versions of images.
For instance, m.facebook.com loads within 10 seconds and only 200kB (and
no ads). The main site, facebook.com takes over 30 seconds and nearly
2MB. The core images on the former are much smaller scale for the same
image on the main site.
The iPhone is most likely feeding small rez images, and thus you get the impression that performance is buttery smooth compared to the laptop.
We should collect some of these predictions, put them in a time capsule
and come back a year later and compare them to what actually transpired. Further to your "I think..", a smartphone is most likely the first device *anyone* (not limited to GenZ or GenCovid) would buy these days. And.. considering that a modicum a things like reading a pdf document, sending/ editing photos, can be done on a smartphone.. a PC or laptop is only a secondary consideration. That's far different than what was possible/ affordable only 15 years ago.
i've had one great gaming laptop, a bunch of netbooks, a bunch of laptops and now i have just a walmart laptop sitting on a rack doing nothing.
my gaming laptop sat on the desk for years with my display plugged in, mouse, etc. never took it anyplace because it was huge.
the asus netbooks didnt last long. not really built to last. i used 2 of them to run bbses and they burned out around the same time. pretty but not useful. my phone is better for personal tasks.
the walmart laptop is just too slow for me to use. at my other place i jacked it into the tv and watched movies and tv shows i downloaded. it's a low end laptop with just 4 gigs of ram. i cant replace the ram but the hd went out on it and i was able to replace that.
tablets and phones are just better for everyday tasks. i still need a nice desktop computer for my entertainment, though.
I don't really see streaming services as an adequate replacement for CDs & such, since you aren't going to have a good signal everywhere.. For a new medium to be useful, I've often thought it would have to be technically better than what was used before, and I just don't see streaming as better. It's handy when you don't want to go get a physical copy and insert it in your player, or when some content is only available via streaming (such as news or some obscure content), and when you're in a place with a reliable internet connection (such as at home). If you're driving, on a bus/train, or otherwise mobile, there will probably be spots where your connection will drop out.
That seems interesting and weird to me at the same time.. To solve the issue of possible connection drop-outs, I've heard some streaming players let you save media locally so you can play it without having to worry about your connection dropping out. So I'd think people would still be aware of file formats & such. I wouldn't imagine people would generally not know about saving things to files, as that's how our computers & other computing devices have always worked.. If they want to save a piece of music, podcast, etc. for offline playing, where do they think it's being saved?
I don't know, most smartphone users I know have a love-hate relationship with their phones. They hate them because they work like crap but they love them because they can have social media with them everywhere.
In general I find desktop chat software to be more sane. Also many browser games. I believe that services which deploy their own mobile application s have a theorical chance of offering a better experience on mobile, but I still need to find one.
I have a desktop computer from 2007 that crunches through websites no-problem btw. I cheat because I use custom DNS and proxies on the LAN for sanitizing the traffic, but even when not using those, I don't really appreciate performance issues. (Check Linux Magazine #232 www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2020/232 for how I perform LAN level http traffic sanitation)
That has more to do with the fact it's only a few major players prevalent in the mobile social media market, and they're spent years and major $$ to design good interfaces that work around the limitations of mobile form factors, and try to find advantages where possible. Web pages on the other hand, for all the innovations of html5, websockets, etc, are still mostly just web pages. That's one of the things I enjoy about the BBS experience - it just somehow FEELS more interactive to have a terminal instead of staring at a mostly static page.
That has far more to do with the mobile apps and mobile versions of sites not loading the absolute glut of javascript, css, etc than any better actual speed on mobile. If you load the desktop versions of sites on your iPhone, your laptop will kick its but again.
Interesting. It seemed to me those used to be fairly popular for
desktop co he monitor & speakers off to save power.
Back in the old days power switches were located on the backs of printer and desktops, so a power strip or power station with individual power switches saved from doing some reaching.
I quite liked MSN Messenger, spoke to some interesting people there. People that I have no idea how I got into contact with them in the first place. People that I kept in contact with for years.
Despite Facebook being a much larger audience, it doesn't seem to result in conversations.
I don't know about that... in the UK 4G internet connections are very stable. I am able to start a 720p YouTube video and drive for 30 minutes to and from work in a rural area, mostly fields and a couple of houses/farms, and not suffer any drops or buffering issues. Audio is perfectly fine too due to high quality stability... it's awfully rare to come across a 4G blackspot. Most streaming players allow you to download
The scope of people absolutely requiring a desktop PC is narrowing by
the day. Heavy 4K video editing, CAD, gaming enthusiasts who really
must play in 4K ultra... etc, are really the only folk who need a
desktop.
entertainment can be achieved with tablets and laptops and casting to a large LCD screen if necessary.
I remember back in the days when Windows needed a "swap file" on the
hard drive to act as additional memory. Some performance problesm
Yep, it's still there. Windows got a lot better at memory management for a while there, so I would not be surprised if most users don't know anything about virtual memory.
There are a couple areas just in my local city not far from my house where I don't get a good cell signal. One is a shopping center where I often go to buy groceries. Between towns, it's also common for there to be low/no cell signals. We're also about an hour and a half drive to the ocean beach, and on the drive there, there is a long stretch where there is no cell signal at all.
I just don't believe there will be a strong and reliable cell signal everywhere you go.
My boss used to be one of those flagship-kilobuck-of-death-smartphone-user and he is was not happy either.
Also I am quite unimpressed with flagship-kilobuck-of-death-smartphones because they are usually very lacking software wise. I have seen their smtp client hang the whole phone when connecting to smtp servers that require non-standard ports, for example.
Nowadays I advice peope to buy a cheapo. If you are going to be unhappy, be unhappy for exchange money instead of kilobucks.
that's what i had too. full size keyboard. let out a loud boom when it boots up. if i had my external speakers turned on it was scarey.
really beautiful, huge , heavy, overheating laptop.
well i had a 1 ghz netbook with 1 gig of ram. it ran windows 7 and i was playing world of warcraft at work on it.
i had to lower the settings but still, the os had minimal ram and handled stuff fine.
Maybe its just XP/IE? My desktop is from 2009, and web pages run OK. I had an older graphics card too, a GTX 285.
another guy i hate a little less than lunduke is this kyle hill science guy. i call him the science joe dirt.
I just don't believe there will be a strong and reliable cell signal
everywhere you go.
I think that'll happen this decade. All cities will be bathed in 5G
whereas 4G will be redirected to areas with non-high density
residential housing. Everyone should have access to a strong cell
signal within 5-10 years.
Personally, I don't think 5G will get the traction that the pundits are proclaiming.
There are still many concerns as to the long-term effects of 24/7 exposure.
Arelor wrote to Dennisk <=-Peo
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to MRO on Tue Jul 28 2020 09:14 am
MRO wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Nightfox on Mon Jul 27 2020 09:35 pm
with it but now I can't remember their names. :/ We make social
connections many ways these days..
I quite liked MSN Messenger, spoke to some interesting people there.
ple that I have no idea hc
I got into contact with them in the first place. People that I kept in
ontact with for years.
ti dont think people really communicate with strangers on social media.
hey voice their opinions.places.
i get what you are saying. i used all those msgers and i used to talk to people for fun. i talked to some real cool people. those days are over. ---
No they don't, which is odd, because you would think it is the easiest place
to do so. You can easily
get into a group with people who share an interest, moreso than other
..
... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
I don't know, you can easily walk into #openbsd at a big IRC network
and expect it to be full of people interested in OpenBSD. For example.
But IRC is not exactly Average_User friendly so I will take the point, more or less.
Nightfox wrote to Arelor <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Arelor to MRO on Tue Jul 28 2020 05:55 pm
I think Windows Vista is what got Windows its reputation for wasteful memory management, though, since it is said it cached so much stuff to RAM. At least that is what I have heard.
I agree that seems wasteful. But there seems to be the school of
thought that unused RAM is wasted RAM (which I don't really agree
with)..
Moondog wrote to Dreamer <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dreamer to Moondog on Thu Jul 23 2020 02:42 pm
If you;re limited to to how many USB ports are on a laptop or want to
run multiple displays along with the laptop display, you'll need more
than what the laptop itself offers for ports. Of the laptops I've commonly run into, there's only 3, maybe 4 USB ports. Unless you use Bluetooth, a keyboard, mouse, printer and a thumb drive will take up
your ports. i can run one big d isplay and the onboard display, but if
I need dual 27" displays to do design work, I need a dock.
Another advantage of a dock is you don't have to re-plug every device
in your laptop or tablet each time. Remove the laptop and leave everything else set up.
Nightfox wrote to Dreamer <=-
We almost got a C++ class, but no one wanted to learn game programming. I was pissed.
Moondog wrote to Dennisk <=-
Most YouTubers are annoying because they try to overplay personality traits overly animate their delivery in order to grab attention.
I prefer a straight delivery, like LGR or Tim Pool.
What is worse is when a Youtuber has very little personality, and their presentation of technical knowledge is less engaging as reading froma textbook. I like it when they mark the videos as to when certain
events happen. The introduction and anecdotes are where personality
ehlps bring in viewers.
Vk3jed wrote to Moondog <=-
On 07-24-20 15:29, Moondog wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Drive space is no longer a premium item, and most systems, even the
cheap ones, have more than enough drive space for using a swap file.
I was talking more about the speed of access, rather than diskspace.
In the old days on FAT16, fragmentation used to really hurt swap file performance. Modern filesystems and faster disks have helped, but SSD
is even better in that regard.
HusTler wrote to Dreamer <=-
Yep, it's still there. Windows got a lot better at memory management for a while there, so I would not be surprised if most users don't know anything about virtual memory.
Bullshit. Windows still uses too much memory.
Unused RAM can be used for buffers to improve performance. It's zero cost, because as soon as that ram is needed, the buffers are flushed to disk.
I was skeptical of this idea too, but switching to Linux I realised that it was true, unused RAM is a lost opportunity.
We really need to keep track of these predictions and check back later within 10 years! <G>
Personally, I don't think 5G will get the traction that the pundits are proclaiming.
There are still many concerns as to the long-term effects of 24/7
exposure.
Possibly. I haven't used IE in donkeys years. Haven't used it at home since the late 90s, and barely at work.
The GTX 285 was great, I chose it over the GTX295 due to lower power usage (thought still high compared to the GT1030 I have now) and cost. But it was a beast. Was able to run Rage smoothly, but it would overheat a bit and cause my computer to poweroff in warm weather.
I used it until it died a year or so ago.
Cities maybe, but I would imagine there would still be rural areas and areas without habitation where there might be no cell signal at all. If you want to take a long road trip, I wouldn't rely on listening to streaming services in the car the whole way.
Nightfox
I have a 900Mhz 701 EEE that came with the 4gb ssd. When trying to update it with Ubuntu, the installer would complain about the drive space limitation. For awhile I had it running either Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Easy Peazy, which were nice streamlined distros. I'm thinking about installing MATE on an SD ca rd and booting to the card on startup.
Why would I resurrect such a device? I use a chronograph for load development when reloading ammunition, and I made a USB to serial cable that allows me to view the data feed through PuTTY.
I am like you though, I prefer CDs and USB sticks for music rather than streaming services. I can't justify spending 10 dollars per month just to listen to music - I have my principles.
Around 12 years ago, I got to level 60 in WoW on an EEE PC 700 running Windows XP. It had a 7" screen, a crappy 1ghz processor and 512mb RAM. How times have changed!
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Andeddu to Nightfox on Wed Jul 29 2020 05:10 pm
I am like you though, I prefer CDs and USB sticks for music rather
than streaming services. I can't justify spending 10 dollars per
month just to listen to music - I have my principles.
I still like to buy music on CD, though it has been years since I've actually played a CD to listen to it. Normally these days I'll rip a CD to FLAC and MP3 and play the MP3 files. But I like owning my own copy of
On 07-29-20 06:36, Dreamer wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Also, we used to tweak the swap file in Windows 95 because Microsoft,
for some reason, thought it was a good idea for the OS to constantly
grow and shrink the swapfile. It tended to happen when you were
I still like to buy music on CD, though it has been years since
I've actually played a CD to listen to it. Normally these days I'll
rip a CD to FLAC and MP3 and play the MP3 files. But I like owning
my own copy of
you must be the only guy in your state who still buys cds.
i think the last time i bought a cd it was 2004 or earlier.
I solely use IE when on a PC... this is because I don't exceed more than 30 mins per week browsing on my computer. I know it's not the best, it's gotten worse tbh with Microsoft Edge; IE's replacement.
I had exactly that mentality too, especially back when iTunes was offering poor 128Kbps quality songs at $1 each. I thought *that* was robbery. Instead, I only purchased tunes from services that offered at least 384Kbps.
Buy an old T4XX series laptop, work over the case with a magic
eraser, buy a new keyboard for $20 on eBay, and you've got a like-new
laptop.
When you have it opened up, blow the air out of the fan, and replace
the thermal paste if you're feeling up to it.
I have gotten 12+ years of use out of my Thinkpads that way, and they
all looked at least 8/10 after all that use.
If you're talking about the business laptops, they sell a ton of
laptops with a 14" screen - all of the T4/L4 series laptops of late.
I still like to buy music on CD, though it has been years since I've actually played a CD to listen to it. Normally these days I'll rip a CD to FLAC and MP3 and play the MP3 files. But I like owning my own copy of music and playing it from something where I'm not relying on any external connection in order to play it.
Nightfox
I had exactly that mentality too, especially back when iTunes was offering poor 128Kbps quality songs at $1 each. I thought *that* was robbery. Instead, I only purchased tunes from services that offered at least
384Kbps.
But.. after a little resistance, I actually settled with Spotify. I like looking up different cover versions of songs and compare them.
Also, I can just tag specific songs by an artist and store them in a main songlist. Then from my own songbase, I can just play the tunes by Artist.
It's rather nice to look up a tune instantly and play it.
Spotify also allows playing tunes offline.
Nightfox wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Nightfox on Wed Jul 29 2020 07:47 pm
Unused RAM can be used for buffers to improve performance. It's zero cost, because as soon as that ram is needed, the buffers are flushed to disk.
I was skeptical of this idea too, but switching to Linux I realised that it was true, unused RAM is a lost opportunity.
Makes sense, but how often do you need that? Also, one thing that's always important to know is how much RAM is available to run other applications. If all your RAM is being used, it can be hard to know if some of that is just buffers and cached data that could be used for something else. Also, large amouts of used RAM can be a sign of a
memory leak somewhere.
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Wed Jul 29 2020 09:17 am
Possibly. I haven't used IE in donkeys years. Haven't used it at home since the late 90s, and barely at work.
The GTX 285 was great, I chose it over the GTX295 due to lower power usage (thought still high compared to the GT1030 I have now) and cost. But it was a beast. Was able to run Rage smoothly, but it would overheat a bit and cause my computer to poweroff in warm weather.
I used it until it died a year or so ago.
I solely use IE when on a PC... this is because I don't exceed more
than 30 mins per week browsing on my computer. I know it's not the
best, it's gotten worse tbh with Microsoft Edge; IE's replacement.
The GTX285 was one of the definitive last-gen cards, the graphics card you'd use to run all last generation games at the highest fidelity/fps. The 1080GTX (for 1080p) is that card today. I remember back in 2010 I
was gaming on a Alienware M11x... a very cute 11" gaming laptop with a GT335M. It was surprisingly powerful - I was able to play CoD MW 2, Starcraft II, Crysis, Deus EX: Human Revolution, SWTOR, etc... on reasonable settings. I still can't believe I put up with that 11"
screen though! My current laptops 15" screen is positively colossal in comparison.
Ogg wrote to All <=-
Hello Andeddu!
** On Wednesday 29.07.20 - 12:10, andeddu wrote to Nightfox:
I am like you though, I prefer CDs and USB sticks for music rather
than streaming services. I can't justify spending 10 dollars per month just to listen to music - I have my principles.
I had exactly that mentality too, especially back when iTunes was
offering poor 128Kbps quality songs at $1 each. I thought *that* was robbery. Instead, I only purchased tunes from services that offered at least 384Kbps.
But.. after a little resistance, I actually settled with Spotify. I
like looking up different cover versions of songs and compare them.
Also, I can just tag specific songs by an artist and store them in a
main songlist. Then from my own songbase, I can just play the tunes by Artist.
It's rather nice to look up a tune instantly and play it.
Spotify also allows playing tunes offline.
Andeddu wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Andeddu on Tue Jul 28 2020 09:01 am
Buy an old T4XX series laptop, work over the case with a magic
eraser, buy a new keyboard for $20 on eBay, and you've got a like-new
laptop.
When you have it opened up, blow the air out of the fan, and replace
the thermal paste if you're feeling up to it.
I have gotten 12+ years of use out of my Thinkpads that way, and they
all looked at least 8/10 after all that use.
If you're talking about the business laptops, they sell a ton of
laptops with a 14" screen - all of the T4/L4 series laptops of late.
I've heard old ThinkPads are tanks that go on working forever - never owned one though. I like the look of them and would consider one for recrational web-browsing, however I use my iPad for that now.
I agree, compressed air and thermal paste are all you need to add years
to your laptop's lifespan. I still have an old machine from 2005 that's still in good working order.
I used to be very much against digital game downloads when Steam first came out back in 2003. I eventually stopped caring and haven't purchased any physical copies of PC games since 2012. I have continued to purchase physical only PS4/XboxONE titles, however I wouldn't be surprised if the big publishers make a concerted attempt to move to the platform holder's digital store. I'll probably reluctantly move away from the physical medium in everything shortly, as they're trying so hard to push us down that road.
All the time! I noticed this when I switched to Linux, and was using a machine with 256M of RAM (which was a lot back then). In windows, if I started a program, then quit, then started it again, it would have to load again. But in Linux, if I was to quit a program, then restart it, it wouldn't use the disk. The binaries were already cached, so it was loading
Now they are bringing Edge to Linux, I find it interesting, because that would allow some corporative computers that need Edge yes or yes run native Linux.
I think the whole place I work in has a single Windows computer which somebody in accounting uses for accesing a government website that only supports IE and Edge. *
* Excluding some diagnostics machines that use WIndows EMbedded as firmware.
I remember using IE 4 back in the day thinking it was so good & kept upgrading as they were released. Once tabs because a thing I switched over to FireFox and then eventually Chrome.
Andeddu wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I've heard old ThinkPads are tanks that go on working forever - never owned one though. I like the look of them and would consider one for recrational web-browsing, however I use my iPad for that now.
Andeddu wrote to MRO <=-
Around 12 years ago, I got to level 60 in WoW on an EEE PC 700 running Windows XP. It had a 7" screen, a crappy 1ghz processor and 512mb RAM.
How times have changed!
Back when I started out using MS-DOS, I learned a lot from my dad, who was always a computer guy. He had a disk cache driver/program for DOS that would basically do that - It would cache data & programs from the HD into RAM, and you could specify the size you wanted for the disk cache.
yeah if your video card sucks, they wont even let it run now.
I haven't used IE since maybe 2004 or so when Mozilla Firefox came out. I started to use IE originally when it seemed most web sites were designed to work in IE, and would work only in IE.. Not necessarily that IE was a great browser. I think Microsoft purposefully used to make IE behave slightly differently in order to leverage their marketshare and get web developers to develop their sites mainly for IE.
I've never really been interested in using Edge since it came out..
I wouldn't want to buy music in any lossy compressed format, no matter what bit rate. I'd rather buy music in a lossless format like FLAC or on CD.
An IE user? A rare breed!
I'll probably get a GT1080 for my next PC. Just have to justify it.
Really, the only new games I want to play are Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, apart from that, the current PC suffices. Spending 1.5K to play two games doesn't make much sense.
This may be a silly question, but does anyone really need Edge or IE anymore?
I am totally vanilla when it comes to using computers. I have never tried Linux or anything like that. I just stick with whatever is packaged with
I've been buying digital games on Steam for a while, and I don't really mind. A while ago, I found that Steam had a backup feature that let you save local backups of the games you've purchased on Steam - So you could move the backup to a USB drive, burn it to an optical disc, etc.. I think the backups were in a format that you could later use Steam to re-install the game from your backup rather than from Steam's servers. I don't know if Steam still has that feature now though.
I remember when the first DOOM came out, around 1994 or so. A 486
with a good graphics card could play decent full screen, but a couple
of people had 386es with 8 MB of RAM and old 256mb VGA graphics, and
they'd play with the screen shrunk down to about 5x7".
That's a nice feature I didn't know existed. If you had the Steam client offline and you were able to re-install these games from a backup drive, that's fairly pro-consumer.
Nightfox wrote to Dennisk <=-
Makes sense, but how often do you need that? Also, one thing that's always important to know is how much RAM is available to run other applications. If all your RAM is being used, it can be hard to know if some of that is just buffers and cached data that could be used for something else. Also, large amouts of used RAM can be a sign of a
memory leak somewhere.
Nightfox wrote to Andeddu <=-
I haven't used IE since maybe 2004 or so when Mozilla Firefox came out.
I started to use IE originally when it seemed most web sites were designed to work in IE, and would work only in IE.. Not necessarily
that IE was a great browser. I think Microsoft purposefully used to
make IE behave slightly differently in order to leverage their
marketshare and get web developers to develop their sites mainly for
IE.
I've never really been interested in using Edge since it came out..
necessarily that IE was a great browser. I think Microsoft
purposefully used to make IE behave slightly differently in order to
leverage their marketshare and get web developers to develop their
sites mainly for IE.
I never really understood the hate for IE... it's fairly well optimsed, runs all web-pages well, the formatting is decent, etc... I did a lot of
I am guilty of purchasing music on iTunes too. I have accepted that Apple is my phone/tablet company I am loyal to, so have placed all my eggs in that one basket. I've only ploughed around 150 dollars into music over the past 5-6 years and a further 150 dollars into other apps. If I want to jump ship, it won't be a massive problem - I'll just lose all my media.
The "new Edge" isn't bad at all. If you're a Google Chrome user, you'll hardly notice the difference, and you have access to the same web apps. I put it through the paces beginning early this year up until I dumped Windows, and I never felt the need to go back to Chrome. That's after using Chrome since it debuted.
The 486DX2 my dad had was solid enough to play DooM 1 and 2 on a full screen however I had to shrink the window whenever playing Duke Nukem 3D... that game kicked the system's ass!
That's a nice feature I didn't know existed. If you had the Steam
client offline and you were able to re-install these games from a
backup drive, that's fairly pro-consumer.
i dont think they have that now.
it would be a great way for piracy. you can trick it to think it's connecting to a server.
Nightfox wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Nightfox on Thu Jul 30 2020 08:52 pm
All the time! I noticed this when I switched to Linux, and was using a machine with 256M of RAM (which was a lot back then). In windows, if I started a program, then quit, then started it again, it would have to load again. But in Linux, if I was to quit a program, then restart it, it wouldn't use the disk. The binaries were already cached, so it was loading
Back when I started out using MS-DOS, I learned a lot from my dad, who
was always a computer guy. He had a disk cache driver/program for DOS that would basically do that - It would cache data & programs from the
HD into RAM, and you could specify the size you wanted for the disk
cache.
Nightfox
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Thu Jul 30 2020 08:57 pm
An IE user? A rare breed!
I'll probably get a GT1080 for my next PC. Just have to justify it.
Really, the only new games I want to play are Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal, apart from that, the current PC suffices. Spending 1.5K to play two games doesn't make much sense.
I am totally vanilla when it comes to using computers. I have never
tried Linux or anything like that. I just stick with whatever is
packaged with Windows, which just happens to be IE.
The GTX1080 is a very capable card. My current thin and light laptop
has a GTX1080 and it cruises most games today. It's still a 1080p card though so I wouldn't be going above that resolution if you're wanting
to maintain the highest graphical fidelity. I reckon the GTX1080 will
be capable as an early next-generation card, it should run the new
engines such as UE5 reasonably well. The PS5 and Xbox Series X will obviously crush a PC like that but they're running 4x the resolution, which is a waste of horse-power in my opinion!
Andeddu wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Andeddu on Thu Jul 30 2020 08:56 am
I remember when the first DOOM came out, around 1994 or so. A 486
with a good graphics card could play decent full screen, but a couple
of people had 386es with 8 MB of RAM and old 256mb VGA graphics, and
they'd play with the screen shrunk down to about 5x7".
The 486DX2 my dad had was solid enough to play DooM 1 and 2 on a full screen however I had to shrink the window whenever playing Duke Nukem 3D... that game kicked the system's ass!
Nightfox wrote to Dreamer <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Thu Jul 30 2020 06:36 pm
The "new Edge" isn't bad at all. If you're a Google Chrome user, you'll hardly notice the difference, and you have access to the same web apps. I put it through the paces beginning early this year up until I dumped Windows, and I never felt the need to go back to Chrome. That's after using Chrome since it debuted.
If you're a Chrome user, why bother switching to Edge? One downside is that Edge only runs on Windows, while Google Chrome is made for
Windows, Mac, and I believe Linux too..
Back when I started out using MS-DOS, I learned a lot from my dad,
who was always a computer guy. He had a disk cache driver/program
for DOS that would basically do that - It would cache data &
programs from the HD into RAM, and you could specify the size you
wanted for the disk cache.
A ramdisk? Or was it SMARTDRV?
IE6 certainly had a reputation, with memes and all sorts of things going around about how most of a web app's development time was "getting the darned thing to work in IE". :D In the early 2000s, a number of government sites here only worked on IE, but these days, browser dependency is pretty much gone, and sites generally ask for a recent browser, and if they specify a particular browser, usualy Chrome, Firefox and Safari are at the top of the list, and Edge is usually on it. There's also a greater chance that an unsupported browser will actually work these days - seems everyone's sticking more to standards nowadays. :)
They called it "Embrace and extend" - embrace a standard, then extend it in a way that's incompatible with everything else.
I thought I had heard Apple dropped the digital rights a while ago,
too. I wonder if you could re-download your media without digital
rights management?
I didn't start buying from iTunes until Apple dropped DRM, so all of my Apple music files play perfectly well on my Android and the PCs.
I thought I had heard Apple dropped the digital rights a while ago,
too. er if you could re-download your media without digital rights
management?
Music yes, movies no.
This may be a silly question, but does anyone really need Edge or
IE anymore?
I've gone for NVIDIA cards only because in the past the drivers were better for Linux, even though they were proprietary. What is their main competition like now?
most linux guis are just trying to copy windows.
there are some cool programs that make things pretty but i dont think you need to run linux.
if you want to run a server, i highly recommend linux.
regarding your browser, i use opera, firefox, chrome, and edge.
edge does this thing now where it loads chrome plugins, which is cool.
i love addons.
i dont think they have that now.
it would be a great way for piracy. you can trick it to think it's connecting to a server.
IE6 in particular was criticized for having non-standard behavior, displaying some HTML elements incorrectly or differently, etc. Web developers had to take extra steps to ensure their web pages & sites worked properly with IE because it was just different. In other words, IE was a pain in the ass. But some web sites were made to only work in IE, when IE had a large percentage of usage share. As I had stated above, I think Microsoft purposefully made IE6 behave that way to use their (Microsoft's) market dominance to sort of force people to use IE rather than another web browser.
The whole IE fiasco made me distrust Microsoft's web browser.
I'm sure there are probably ways to convert your media to a different format without any digital rights management. With some conversions, you may lose a little bit of quality, but at least you'd still be able to play them.
At the very least, if you really had to, you could probably play your music through a line-in cable and record the tracks in a different format on another device (though that wouldn't really be ideal). Alternately, I know at least on Windows, in an audio record app, you can usually select system audio as a recording source and record any audio playing on Windows (though that also isn't as ideal as directly converting an audio file from one format to another).
I thought I had heard Apple dropped the digital rights a while ago, too. I wonder if you could re-download your media without digital rights management?
The first PC I ever built from scratch (with my first paycheck or 2 from my first job), in 1996, had an AMD "5x86" processor, which was a 486DX4-133. Duke Nukem 3D ran fairly well on that PC.
I've gone for NVIDIA cards only because in the past the drivers were better for Linux, even though they were proprietary. What is their main competition like now?
think Microsoft purposefully made IE6 behave that way to use their (Microsoft's) market dominance to sort of force people to use IE rather than another web browser.
The whole IE fiasco made me distrust Microsoft's web browser.
If you're a Chrome user, why bother switching to Edge? One downside is that Edge only runs on Windows, while Google Chrome is made for Windows, Mac, and I believe Linux too..
connecting to a server.
I just checked my Steam client on Windows, and with my library, there's an option in the "Steam" menu that says "Backup and Restore Games". So it seems that feature is still there.
that was almost 20 years ago. now microsoft is the good guy and google wants to sell your info and so does facebook. ---
Andeddu wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Dennisk to Andeddu on Fri Jul 31 2020 07:59 pm
I've gone for NVIDIA cards only because in the past the drivers were better for Linux, even though they were proprietary. What is their main competition like now?
nVidia still dominate the high end gaming market. AMD have quite a few mid-level cards such as the RX5700-XT. It's apparently a halfway house between an nVidia GTX2050 Super and GTX2070. The card will still cost around 400 dollars alone which is still pretty steep when you compare
the power of the upcoming consoles in relation to PCs.
On 07-31-20 09:05, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Having standards to stick to was one of the main ideas of the web from
the start. :) These days I've gotten to like Vivaldi (web browser),
but still it seems that Google Chrome is the best for speed.
On 07-31-20 09:07, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I didn't start buying from iTunes until Apple dropped DRM, so all of my Apple music files play perfectly well on my Android and the PCs.
That's cool. I've mainly avoided buying digital download music for a
long time, and have only bought maybe 2 songs from Apple (in 2004 or
so); I've also bought a Mark Knopfler album direct from his web site
that was in FLAC format (Mark Knopfler was the main guy behind the band Dire Straits; several years ago I went to see a Mark Knopfler concert,
and they had recorded most of their shows on the tour and you could buy
a music album from a specific show).
On 07-31-20 12:11, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Yeah, when I had an iPod Touch, I remember browsing it in my file explorer, and I found all the MP3 files had mangled names and were organized in folders with mangled names - at least, the names were
mangled to me. I'm sure the names meant something to iOS and iTunes.
But you basically have to use iTunes to manage your music on an iOS device. One thing I like about Android is that you can just copy the files to the device and and can organize it the way you want, so you
don't have to go through any software like iTunes etc..
With an Android phone, you shouldn't need any extra software. You can browse the filesystem of an Android device with the OS's native file explorer and just copy music files over to it.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Jul 31 2020 10:01 pm
The whole IE fiasco made me distrust Microsoft's web browser.
that was almost 20 years ago. now microsoft is the good guy and
google wants to sell your info and so does facebook.
I'm not sure if I fully trust any of them, Microsoft included.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Jul 31 2020 10:01 pm
that was almost 20 years ago. now microsoft is the good guy and
google wants to sell your info and so does facebook. ---
Nah, Microsoft wants a piece of that too, and they desperately want to move to forced subscription models on everything.
see if it actually will let you do everything offline. i dont think it will.
Descent was one of my favorite games. I liked Rise of the Triad too. I haven't heard of Dark Forces.
Nightfox
Dark Forces is the Star Wars game which spawned the iconic Jedi Knight series.
Decent was very difficult, I don't think I got very far in it due to the controls... I had a mouse and keyboard, perhaps it would have been more amenable using a joystick or a joypad style input.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Jul 31 2020 10:06 pm
see if it actually will let you do everything offline. i dont think
it will.
Someone has said that you have to be online when re-activating your games otherwise it's blocked by DRM... which kind of defeats the purpose.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Andeddu to MRO on Sat Aug 01 2020 08:56 pm
Someone has said that you have to be online when re-activating your
games otherwise it's blocked by DRM... which kind of defeats the
purpose.
Not at all. The purpose isn't archive, it's to avoid needing network bandwidth to pull the whole install down for metered or slow connections. For that, it works exactly as intended.
Vk3jed wrote to Nightfox <=-
On 07-31-20 09:05, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
Having standards to stick to was one of the main ideas of the web from
the start. :) These days I've gotten to like Vivaldi (web browser),
but still it seems that Google Chrome is the best for speed.
I've settled on Firefox, because of its strong cross platform support.
yeah that's not something i would really want. i really dont like steam. and i dont like the validation shit i get sometimes when i login with what they think is a different computer. it's very annoying.
most of us have decent internet speeds so downloading a big game doesnt really take long, though.
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Nightfox to MRO on Fri Jul 31 2020 11:48 pm
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Fri Jul 31 2020 10:01 pm
The whole IE fiasco made me distrust Microsoft's web browser.
that was almost 20 years ago. now microsoft is the good guy and
google wants to sell your info and so does facebook.
I'm not sure if I fully trust any of them, Microsoft included.
well microsoft wants to sell TO you, not sell YOU.
so in that, i trust.
i think windows normally uses disk for caching. way too often in my opinion.
IE6 in particular was criticized for having non-standard behavior, displaying some HTML elements incorrectly or differently, etc. Web developers had to take extra steps to ensure their web pages & sites
It's also harder to crack a license and distribute copies when there's no physcical media.
I don't think a smartphone should work like crap. My main
frustration with smartphones is the virtual keyboard. I type much
faster and more accurately on a real keyboard.
Sounds like you might like to try the devices that feature a built-in keyboard. My BB Q10 keyboard feel amazing. I rarely miss a letter. But there is no way I would type something like *this* message with it.
One thing I used to like about ICQ was that you could fill out a
small user profile and search for a random chat partner anywhere in
the world using ICQ. I met some interesting people that way and
talked to them online. Sometimes I feel like it's a bummer that
I've lost contact with all of them. I remember talking to people in
various countries with it but now I can't remember their names. :/
We make social connections many ways these days..
It is a shame you can't find and reconnect with those same people you enjoyed conversing with. I wonder if there is a facebook page of ICQ numbers that might have the name that you might recall. But then, there is also the possibility that those same people are not around anymore.
Hello atroxi!
** On Saturday 01.08.20 - 04:53, atroxi wrote to Andeddu:
Certainly, I'm a 00s kid and I've certainly never have had the chance
to experience BBSes in their heyday, I pretty much got introduced straight into the internet around 2007-2008. I do think that there's a certain charm in BBSes, it's more "raw" presentation as compared to
the highly graphic filled, attention-grabbing, internet of today.
Some BBSes have very prominent graphic destinations. Have you visited Danger Bay?
Some BBSes have ansi art galleries.
Still getting my grips into the whole thing but so far I'm enjoying
it.
Good! As a youngun, what do you perceive to be the strengths and
weaknesses of today's BBS scene? What would like to see happen?
Atroxi wrote to Ogg <=-ce
Re: Re: This strange world
By: Ogg to All on Sun Aug 02 2020 12:08 pm
Hi Ogg!
Hello atroxi!
** On Saturday 01.08.20 - 04:53, atroxi wrote to Andeddu:
Certainly, I'm a 00s kid and I've certainly never have had the chance
to experience BBSes in their heyday, I pretty much got introduced straight into the internet around 2007-2008. I do think that there's a
rtain charm in BBSes, it's more "raw" presentation as compared to
the highly graphic filled, attention-grabbing, internet of today.
Some BBSes have very prominent graphic destinations. Have you visited Danger Bay?
Some BBSes have ansi art galleries.
Oh wow, I haven't looked into that. I should check that out. But I
think I was being a sour grape when I typed that and was meaning to
sneer at how webpages nowadays seem to have more whitespace rather than actual text or whatnot placed into them. I was just thinking right now
how websites, especially news sites around 2009-2011, used to be really efficient with their front pages. But now it's all just big text, big pictures that would require you to play with their weird, slow and animated menus to even find what you want to see. (And most of then
even killed their atom feed!)
Still getting my grips into the whole thing but so far I'm enjoying
it.
Good! As a youngun, what do you perceive to be the strengths and
weaknesses of today's BBS scene? What would like to see happen?
That's a difficult question you've thrown me, haha! Right now I feel as
if I haven't even scratched 10% of what BBSes can do. But if I'm going with what I currently know and have experienced. I think BBSes today
gives me that feeling of reading through forums around 2009-2010 before Facebook took over. Specifically it's giving me a sense of persistence
and community. That I'm able to have substantial, long conversations
with other people and it's a good thing I think. With regards to weaknesses, I think it's just a matter of me figuring out how things
work. Though even at that front, certain BBSes have been quite helpful
in helping me understand the certain nooks and crannies that are, at first, quite eccentric such as message threading or downloading files.
I haven't even played any games yet! But that will come for sure.
What I would like to see happen? Who knows? The fact that something
like this still exists today gives me a sense of venturing towards the great unknown where anything can happen and I think such a thing would
be exciting. :-)
Cheers,
Atroxi
On 08-02-20 10:57, Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-
I think Android media player apps tend to use metadata tags too. When
I browse my music with my Android media player, it lets you browse by artist, album, etc., just like iTunes/iOS. The difference is that
Android devices don't muck up the filenames. :)
On 08-02-20 10:45, Digital Man wrote to MRO <=-
@VIA: VERT
Re: Re: This strange world
By: MRO to Nightfox on Wed Jul 22 2020 12:55 am
i think windows normally uses disk for caching. way too often in my opinion.
I think you mean "uses disk for swapping (virtual memory)". The idea of "caching" is to temporarily store something in a faster medium. Disk is the generally the slowest medium on a computer, so about the only thing you could "cache" to disk would be data from an even *slower* medium,
like optical media.
Hi Atroxi,
Definately look into an offline QWK reader. Even if you remain online while you read and reply, its better because you can use
your own selected text editor.
I don't get the excessive white space in website either. Might have to do with people having widescreen monitors, and web pages
looking awkward if the text was to fill it from side to side.
I think Android media player apps tend to use metadata tags too.
When I browse my music with my Android media player, it lets you
browse by artist, album, etc., just like iTunes/iOS. The difference
is that Android devices don't muck up the filenames. :)
Yes, Android seems even more dependent on metadata. Songs that had an artist in iTunes (presumably deduced from the filename), come up on my Android phone as "Unknown Artist" for the artist.
Why would no physical media make a difference for cracking? A piece
of soft
If activation relies on an installer, lack of authorization may prevent the software from being downloaded. "Live" software such as Office 365 exists only on the cloud, and requires a sign-in. Downloaded components such as Office 2016 are licensed controlled through your account. Any future activations will require previous installs to be released from your cloud account.
I'm not sure where iTunes would be getting the information from
other than the metadata in the MP3s (or other format they might be
in).. It would have to be the same metadata read on Android
devices.
I believe there is a filename format that if done right, some software recognises as containing the metadata.
atroxi wrote to calcmandan <=-mpl
Re: Re: This strange world
By: calcmandan to paulie420 on Mon Jul 13 2020 06:40 am
These days I run Arch, usually with a flavor of KDE - but don't even boot into x. I find myself running startx less and less and less. :P
Me too. What are your daily tools?
For me it's tmux, emacs, fpc, emacs gnus, alpine, wordgrinder, fbi, fbgs,
ayer, lynx, links2, youtube-dl
Wow, I've also been leaning lately towards the same way. I find myself
in the terminal most of the time. Which is why I've been using a tiling window manager as it keeps everything as simple as possible.
Since my work usually involve text-editing, I just mostly use vim and latex. I tried emacs before but I feel like I'm being sucked into the emacs black hole, where my current tools gets slowly replaced by emacs alternatives, but I do find emacs so easy to port especially when you configure your config in org mode as compared to vim.
calcmandan wrote to atroxi <=-
atroxi wrote to calcmandan <=-
Re: Re: This strange world
By: calcmandan to paulie420 on Mon Jul 13 2020 06:40 am
These days I run Arch, usually with a flavor of KDE - but don't even boot into x. I find myself running startx less and less and less. :P
Me too. What are your daily tools?
For me it's tmux, emacs, fpc, emacs gnus, alpine, wordgrinder, fbi, fbgs,
mpl
ayer, lynx, links2, youtube-dl
Wow, I've also been leaning lately towards the same way. I find myself
in the terminal most of the time. Which is why I've been using a tiling window manager as it keeps everything as simple as possible.
Since my work usually involve text-editing, I just mostly use vim and latex. I tried emacs before but I feel like I'm being sucked into the emacs black hole, where my current tools gets slowly replaced by emacs alternatives, but I do find emacs so easy to port especially when you configure your config in org mode as compared to vim.
Yeah I made my bed long ago with emacs. Decided not to engage in the religious debate of emacs vs vim.
Daniel Traechin
... Visit me at gopher://gcpp.world
Atroxi wrote to calcmandan <=-
Yeah, that... religious war can be pretty rough sometimes. I also
prefer not to get myself involved in any zealotry when it comes to text editors. I always take the stance that: "I use what works for me!" and leave it at that.
Especially now with USB-C: you can get power, video, USB, memory card I/O, all in one little dongle.
At home, I have the charger directly a usb + hdmi through my kvm at my desk, which does good enough. I'm using a single large monitor so it works well enough for my use lately.
Atroxi wrote to calcmandan <=-
calcmandan wrote to Atroxi <=-
Atroxi wrote to calcmandan <=-
Yeah, that... religious war can be pretty rough sometimes. I also
prefer not to get myself involved in any zealotry when it comes to text editors. I always take the stance that: "I use what works for me!" and leave it at that.
Yeah. Surprisingly, there was never a similar debate on wysiwyg editors
in the html web days. I suppose those days didn't last long enough.
Daniel Traechin
Yup, probably. Imagine some emacs and vim guys have been duking it out since the 80s, that's intergenerational warfare I tell you. Haha!
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