Comments on: In Tech News

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 21:26:52 +0000

I did training for Computerland in San Diego when I was out there and they gave me all kinds of hardware to play with. There were all kind systems that were so superior to the IBM-PC [ATT 6300, TI-Pro, for example] but they just couldn’t get any traction.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 05:06:27 +0000

Wow, I never even heard of a TI99/8! TI made some serious mistakes with the TI99/4A. They decided they were going to be the sole source of software for the computer, for example, while Jack Tramiel over at Commodore didn’t care who wrote software for his computer. Then they decided to get into a price war with Commodore. Well, that was a fool’s errand from day one, because Commodore’s VIC-20 computer was ridiculously cheap and simple to build, being based on the most primitive processor of the day and with many cost-cutting / quality cutting techniques used in its construction. The RF shield, for example, was aluminized cardboard. Which is why it consistently overheated unless you blew a fan on it, because there was no (zero) heatsink for any component inside that tiny little chassis. Yet TI tried to compete on price without ever applying any of the cost reductions that Commodore applied, such as reducing on-board logic to mass-produced ASIC’s.

So it goes. So many good ideas in this industry that have gone to heaven because people don’t know how to sell them or market them. SIGH.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 02:58:55 +0000

“Come on, m8, you and I have both worked for people with tougher NDAs than anyone in the tech industry.”

Hence my caveat “commercial”. 😉 😀 I’m still on a 35 year “Say a word and end up in a deep black hole forever!” NDA as payment for “serving my Country”! And thanks for nothing! Because of that, I’m not even eligible for Veteran’s support or pension. However, I have been told that when it expires in a few years, I may be able to legally claim back payments etc. We’ll see. *shrug*

Part of my absence was due to my support provider loosing their contract with CentreLink (most of the contracts were cancelled. Part of the whole typical Gov idea that “A new broom sweeps clean” philosophy, and also the new providers who are desperate to get a contract will not argue about Abbott’s stupid new rules and do what they are told! This new provider is using these new Google Cloud Workstations (provided by HP). I read somewhere they are based on Linux, but not sure about that. Their facilities are quite limited (basically the services Google provide, of course).

Hiya Steve. 😀 TI were a strange company! But they did have some fairly unique components and quite good support (necessary for an Engineer). One of the few companies that provided all their data books for free without my asking (though, I made it a rule NEVER to pay for them! If a company wanted me to choose their components, they could bloody well give me the data books for free!) I somehow got involved with the TI 99/8 computer that was never released (a successor to the /4A & the unreleased /2. A shame. It held good promise. 🙂

Thanks Juanita. 😀 In a way, it’s been good for me. Forced me to focus on other things and to re-evaluate my business plans. 🙂 The main reason for the delay was lack of free ADSL2 ports at the local exchange. Luckily, it’s the main exchange for the region, so Telstra has been forced to expand the facility. One of the reasons I moved to this area. 😉 I know how the crooks think!

I like LibreOffice also. 🙂 It’s getting better all the time (mostly with compatibility and performance). 🙂 I use both Win & Linux, so nice to have something that works on both.

Good luck Badtux. 😀 I received notification via MSDN that I can d/l a copy. But no internet, no can do! (and wouldn’t anyway!) LOL

OK. 😀 Take care all, and be well! TTYL 😀

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 03:42:23 +0000

I’m letting Badtux try it out. I’ve been working on my laptop, so if I was going to try lit, I would do it on the big box because I have a Win 7 DVD for that box, and Linux on a separate disk. I can recover relatively quickly if it gets bombed by an upgrade.

Yeah, M$ has a really bad habit of blowing up your computer when you attempt to upgrade.

By: JuanitaM

JuanitaM — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 17:50:50 +0000

Bryan: Looking forward to hearing your opinion on Windows 10. I’m still looking at that icon, and there’s a certain amount of temptation to try out the new system, but my trust in MS having a seamless upgrade is beyond low at this point, too. My laptop is getting some age on it now, and it won’t be long before I’ll have to make that major decision. Yikes!

Steve Bates: Although I use LibreOffice pretty much daily, like you, I use the basics only. Haven’t missed Office at all. I slightly mispoke on how hard it was to download. The downloading part was actually very easy, it was when it blew up my computer that the trouble began. 😉

Kryten: Welcome back and hope you get up and running with your internet service soon. It would be a major change in my lifestyle to lose internet service, that’s for sure!

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 03:45:13 +0000

Welcome back, Kryten, and yeah, we have all been burned by M$ and wait until the beta testers have finished finding the obvious bugs before considering an upgrade.

Come on, m8, you and I have both worked for people with tougher NDAs than anyone in the tech industry.

It isn’t obvious if you haven’t been on the island, but those landing strips on the west end of Shemya are about 100 feet below the active runway, and while there are roads up, I wouldn’t try to taxi up the ops area on them. When we went off the end of runway in Rivet Ball, it was the drop down to the lower level that broke the aircraft in half. We had to climb up to the runway.

I would think that you might get an even lower price as the hardware sales are in the tank, although there may be an impact by the ‘back to school’ purchases. I would be interested in a real world evaluation of Win 10 by someone not dependent on advertising.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:21:16 +0000

Shemya was used by B-24’s and B-25’s during WW2, but yeah, you weren’t going to park many B-52’s there, one reason why it was never used like Diego Garcia for forward staging. The shortage of space is probably one reason why B-29’s never ended up flying out of Shemya. The runway and the small apron area next to it isn’t the only flat space on Shemya, BTW, there’s also the old WW2 fighter runways and the system of taxiways that used to connect them to the main runway. I don’t imagine they’re very flat anymore though after over 70 years of temblors cracking them.

I’m thinking about buying one of those $399 laptops with Windows 10 preloaded on it just to have something to carry on trips that I don’t care about if it gets smashed or stolen. My Macbook Pro is way too big a chunk of change for something like that, I can VPN into my local network or into my work network anyhow if I need to access it on the road. So I may have a personal report on Windows 10 shortly…

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 14:01:57 +0000

JuanitaM, I’ve ended up with LibreOffice as a consequence of my decision upon retirement to run only Ubuntu Linux at home. (I do have access to Stella’s Windows box, but use it as seldom as possible.) Aside from a couple of the file format conversion plugins, I have found nothing to complain about in LibreOffice. In fairness, not much of what I do places heavy demands on any office suite… I managed to convert my (foolishly) handcrafted invoice form with not too much trouble.

Kryten, welcome back. I actually worked for TI as an employee in 1971; it was my first “real” job out of college. More than just their NDAs are restrictive! I lasted only a year before I found something I liked a whole lot better, the first of several jobs in the Texas Medical Center, pushing bits to and from various kinds of lab equipment (GCs, MSs, etc.). The job at TI was… how shall I phrase this… an education, but once I was out, I can’t say I missed it. Ever.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 06:19:31 +0000

Hi Bryan & all. 🙂

Hope you are better & doing well Bryan. also hope all the regulars are well. 🙂

Been quite busy the past month, and still no Internet (though that should be solved Aug. sometime).

Yeah, I’m sticking with win 7.1 for the foreseeable future. Win 8/8.1 was/is a disaster (much like Vista). I figure 8 was the typical M$ prototype for the alpha/beta testers (fools that bought it) as Vista was for 7. You would think by now people would wise up… Then again, they are typical humans so I won’t hold my breath for that! 😛 😀

I’ve played with a couple ‘3D RAM’ prototypes over the years. They showed promise (mostly for high density storage), but production yields were highly problematic (which makes any actually produced horribly expensive). Will be interesting to see what the yields will be for 3D Xpoint. 🙂 In the late 80’s, I was a 3rd party tester/dev for Texas Instruments (I was forced to sign one of the most restrictive commercial NDA’s I’ve ever seen!) I worked on a pretty advanced (at that time) 32-bit programmable DSP. I had 1 of only 2 working prototypes in the World. 😀 It was a truly amazing chip, even by today’s standards! But it wasn’t until the mid-90’s before they managed to get decent yields to enter mass production. It’s typical in the industry to wait for production capabilities to catch up with R&D! 😀

OK. Catch you all whenever. 😉 😀 Take care, be well! 😀

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 04:17:15 +0000

There isn’t room for more than a half-dozen aircraft of bomber/airliner size to park on Shemya, so it wasn’t very useful as a bomber base. The runway is the flattest area on the island.

The reality is that people moved from XP to 7 because the stuff in between was crap and XP hit EOL. No one in a Win shop is going to move to 10 until they can’t avoid it. I only moved to 7 because I needed a cheap laptop for hurricanes. Fortunately I did, because I might have been stuck with 8 if I had waited.