Posts by Sandtitz

Re: Bogus

"Given that the OS in question was Windows 95, which had FAT32 as its underlying filesystem"

FAT32 support came out with Windows 95 OSR2, so it could have been FAT16 as well.

Re: But why was Foundry revenue down -31% in 2023?

"According to Reuters, Intel failed to invest in the lastest EUV fab technology and instead 'invested' in outsourcing more production."

The article says that was only last year but it was a decade+ ago when Brian Krzanich led Intel and wanted in-house developed chip making process instead of buying from ASML.

Perhaps the engineers at Intel were overconfident of their abilities and when they failed to produce sub-14nm* chips, the competition (TSMC etc) passed Intel and are far in the lead now.

*or thereabouts...

Re: Windows Server 2008 (R2) was supported on Itanium until 2020.

"it was enough to keep Itanium support in Linux for a decade or more after Microsoft had given up"

"I’m not talking about continuing to sell the product, I’m talking about continuing to offer updates for it."

I'm not talking about sales either.

Microsoft dropped Itanium support in 2020. Until then MS offered updates for the Itanium version of Windows 2008. Linux kernel dropped Itanium with 6.7 - kernel 6.6 will be EOL in 2026.

The difference (2020-2027) in support is less than decade, so how did you come up with the 'decade or more after Microsoft had given up' quote?

Itanium failed miserably and both Linux and Windows could have dropped support even earlier for all I care...

Re: The user was left to set the time on her PC every day

My first PC didn't have a battery backed RTC. Upon every boot I was prompted for time and date. Mostly it was just 00:00, Jan 1 1980 (IIRC) becase I didn't care.

Re: Reddit was started in 2005

We don't have details of the dispute. The alleged infringement can be about much more recent patent than something invented two decades ago.

Until we hear more about the intricacies in this case, deeming this an "obvious money grab" is showing some lack of forte in the logic department.

Re: Microsoft Presentation for the 1989 IBM PS/2 forum

The SIQ was very frustrating and IIRC it happened to me annoyingly often for the years I used OS/2 at home (2.1 -> Warp 4). I remember someone actually wrote a driver where you could use e.g. joystick port to reset/restart PM - the only other way was resetting the PC and losing all work. Most annoyingly I couldn't replicate this with a specific software or work pattern.

I don't think SIQ affected the sales in any meaningful way, people just didn't find use for OS/2 - all the software was for Windows (and DOS), and driver support was poor. I also remember my snappy 486/33/8 (with a reasonably fast non-SCSI hard drive) using around 4 minutes to load OS/2 2.1 desktop -- 3 minutes longer than just DOS+Windows.

Software offerings was poor all around. Things like terminal emulators for dialing into the BBS's were lacking in basic features (ANSI, Zmodem) for a long time until i found ZOC. Interestingly my 14400bps ISA modem (with crappy UART) suffered from buffer overruns under OS/2 all the way to my later Pentium box with Warp 3/4 - but when I made the move to NT4 the problems vanished - better multitasking I guess.

Re: Why does anyone buy Apple?

That's a good idea, but I don't have a Mac so can't compare...

Re: Sweating assets

The pick-up rolls failed early and required replacing too often. HP even offered a free one-time DIY cardboard fix for every model.

Not picking up papers / picking several papers at the same time were the typical problems.

The redheaded stepchild in otherwise all right LaserJet 5 family.

Actually all upright HP models have been shite, perhaps because they naturally gather dust inside them. After 6L they came up with Laserjet 1100 - shite for the same reasons.

Re: Some elements of the operating system simply do not work

"If you have Microsoft Authenticator (required if you have corporate 365 with MFA)"

Authy and others work just fine with 365+MFA.

Re: Marketing needs to feed

"It’s just a new driver that MS happen to include in the standard build, nothing special."

It won't be just a new driver, although I suspect a Wi-Fi adapter would probably work without official OS support.

802.11be includes ability to connect simultaneously to all 2.4/5/6 GHz bands. Operating Systems expect wireless adapter to connect to a single band, so existing framework needs new code in how connectivity is reported and configured. 802.11be should come with major latency improvements so perhaps changes in the network stacks are needed as well. Certainly some work has been done with Linux kernel, and not just new drivers.

I do not understand what people have against newer gen devices and faster speeds. "640kB is enough"?

Re: Its gonna be hard to supplant DRAM

"because persistent memory is of little use to most people"

Intel tried to sell the Xpoint memory for awhile in many configurations. The Optane NVMe drives had lowest random access latencies available but most people were already pretty happy with the move from HDD to SSD (and NVMe) that the difference wasn't worth the price difference.

The Optane NVDIMM modules are/were in a different class - the latency being something like 1 / 100th of NVMe drives. The sequential read speeds were only regular NVMe class (even if the memory bus allows way more) but write speeds were much lower.

Too bad those NVDIMM's worked only on Intel Xeon platforms, were expensive (duh!) and initially they were available in small 16/32GB modules, and you could populate maybe three of them per CPU (or per system? getting hazy...) so not that big. I think the later NVDIMM generatiosn allowed much bigger systems.

I'm sure there are applications that will greatly benefit from those super low latencies, but as you say, little use to most people.

Re: ChromeOS *is* Linux

I also recommend checking the EOL list for the Chromeos Flex. Some of those computer models have lost support last year already, many will lose support before Windows 10 is actually put to pasture, and some models actually came with Win11 which will outlast the support date in the Chromeos Flex list!

So if you only fancy a quick web browser and nothing else, then Flex could be worth a shot. Otherwise it's Linux every time.

What really irks me is that Google can't be bothered to support optical media many of those computers will have. No way to listen to CD's or watch DVD's.

I have an Android TV box that is a great HTPC. Cheap, easy to setup, easy to use even for the technophobes. I also have a lot of CD's, and films in DVD format - and a USB DVD drive - but I can't use it because Google has removed all optical support from the Linux kernel so Kodi/VLC and others cannot read the discs.

Re: Unsurprising....

"Usually, it ends with the AI realising that Humans are the problem.."

Can't recommend enough the Colossus novel, where the AI takes control of both US and Russian nuclear arsenal, detonates a few of them and threatens humans unless they "act nice together" under its absolute rule. A ripping yarn.

The film version is faithful to the book and well made as well. Just avoid the book sequels.

"I'm in the position where I've prevented all of my VMware products connecting to t'internet just in case..."

I think that is wise for any infrastructure product, a mandatory security mitigation really.

Re: Xiaomi Mi 9, the one with Qi charging, since March 2019, aka 58 Month.

"Satya Stupella killed Windows Phone when it just was taking off."

Quite a revisionist take there. WinPhone market was fizzling, with less and less apps was ported for it.

Micros~1 could have spent Billions more with it, but it wasn't a winning hand.

NB. I was happy with the Lumia 820 and 640 phones I used at some point. TIFKAM was better interface than what IOS or Android offered.

Satya has a good record at Micros~1 - now, his predecessor on the other hand...

Re: Brutality

"Do you know why it doesn't work as a deterrent? Because inmates gets a place to sleep, 3 meals a day, access to medical care, TV & Internet and all that FOR FREE! Make them earn their keep (not Auschwitz style but close) and you'll see some deterrent.

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons"

A place to sleep? Perhaps some vagrants do petty crimes to exit winter conditions and for a more regular meal ticket. I believe that is a very small percentage of all prisoners, however.

So, how much nutrition would AC be ready to give the inmates? Denying medical care - do you think most criminals are already paragons of health and would care? Denying TV - should the inmates also be denied of all news and entertainment as well? All those are recipe for mental issues and more violence. Any freed inmate will just cause more problems for the society when they come back with no skills, in poor health due to denied medical care and starvation, and probably bearing a grudge against everyone. Easiest course for them is to continue criminal life.

People commit capital offenses because they don't pay any thought to a possible sentence; some believe they can get away with crimes; some have the "get rich or die tryin" mentality; some are ushered to crimes by the company they are with. Some people have mental issues (psychopaths, sociopaths) and can be violent without (apparent) provocation, or are totally indifferent to other people's suffering without consideration for their own punishment. People still kill people in states where death penalty is certain.

Re: Armchair

"People...keep buying overpriced crap cause it's Apple (insert favourite maga-corp here),"

I use an iPhone. Not because it's Apple, but because it isn't Google. What's your excuse for using Android - the extra privacy?

"watch Disney movies...."

Sturgeon's Law applies with all movies. Disney has good movies and bad movies.

Re: Explosion proofing

Earthquake "proof" rack cases (or mechanisms to be put under your existing rack) do exist; I would always put at least rubbery rack feet to absorb shocks even if you weren't in a mine / earthquake area. Near-by pile driving, or hauling/operating of heavy equipment in the same building can cause shocks as well.

Good or bad? Can't say.

The current licensing scheme has been per CPU license with up to 32 cores. So if you have a 36 core Intel Xeon, you need 2 licenses. Or if you had dual socket server with 8 core CPU's you would still have to pay for two licenses. So, when buying new VMware servers it's usually the CPU models with core count /32 producing an integer that somehow are the most attractive even if it's not the best fit.

Depending on the new licensing details this could be beneficial for some deployments:

HPE Microserver has a single 4-core Xeon. Good enough to run a couple VM's in a remote office.

Lower core count VMware clusters for Oracle DB usage due to Oracle's stupid (...or ingenious?) physical host licensing requirements.

AMD and Intel server CPU's with highest single thread performance (=raw GHz) have typically low core counts.

Re: Disagree on a few points

"Multiple CPUs? Since 286 generation"

Really? I thought 386 was the first with SMP. Or was this some sort of asymmetric 286 CPU cards on a backplane thingy?

"Windows NT 4.0 - albeit I find no official information which minimum CPU was needed for multiprocessor support"

NT4 required a 486 and I think it had several HAL's included: Compaq Systempro comes to mind. Not that I ever had the pleasure of using SMP 386/486.

"I could not get two visible CPUs in my Hyper-V VM, despite changing to multiprocessor kernel due to no matching hal which boots NT 3.51, I tried all."

Hyper-V is poor for running historic OS's. NT3.1 SMP has been done on VirtualBox.

"blagging your way into a mental health facility to avoid prison time"

That's the idea in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Re: Did I have the issue?

"but it could have been a coincidence..."

This problem seems to manifest only when 802.1x and 802.11r are in use.

So, if you are using a single wireless access point with only a PSK shared secret, then it probably was just a coincidence.

Re: Merry Pranksters.

"Now that's hilarious. Russia has proven it's degraded economically from what a dump it was in Soviet days - a 3rd world country with a first 3rd world military. Reliant on the likes of Iranian and Nork handouts of weaponry."

Curiously there was no rebuttal for these Iranian and Nork weapon transfers, because of too much evidence that cannot be brushed away.

Just last year he claimed that stories about Iranian drones are not credible:

"There's also the 'Iranian drone' meme. Russia can produce 5th gen fighters and space station parts, yet we're meant to believe it can't produce what's essentially a souped-up RC aircraft. Err.. right."

A few months ago he made up a story about the failed T14 Armata development with "they didn't want T-14's being captured", something that Kremlin or no other Russian source has claimed so far. Perhaps Russians should stop developing new armament altogether for that reason.

Perhaps he is a devil's advocate, with the devil being somewhere inside Kremlin walls.

""but you could still install a 32 bit version up to Win 10"

Better yet, just use winevdm. Win3.1 era software work really well on my 64-bit Windows 10.

"As for their servers, have you tried using their support sites to get all the drivers etc you need to set one up?"

That's HPE, not HP. Same ancestor, different businesses since 2015.

I don't find HPE support site particularly hard to use at all, and setting one Proliant up doesn't really require even a visit. What's your beef?

"If I buy a Tesla, I don’t expect to be able to install software from BMW, or use wheels from Maserati"

Your analogy isn't hitting the mark at all. Tesla doesn't have an app store (as of yet), iPhone has.

This is not about replacing the operating system in Apple products, but what is allowed in the app store.

All the web browsers on iOS are just skins on Apple's inferior WebKit browser engine. Originally - and probably still to some degree - Apple just wanted to deny browser-based games and such by committing to a subset of HTML5 features - to push users into App Store. Having fewer features results in fewer vulnerabilities at the cost of weaker usability but I, for one, would like better browsers than what Safari or Firefox Focus can offer in my iPhone.

Apple has some valid reasons for mandating use of their own frameworks.

Parents need parental control over kids' internet browsing and if Apple's parental control won't work with 3rd party browsers, well, there's a problem.

I think Apple is also requiring software developers to use the built-in crypto provided by iOS which is probably better than having every app having vulnerable openssl libraries. Then again... Google, Microsoft and other big players are at least as adept in providing security updates / features.

Re: Version numbers are not what you think

"For a long time, you couldn't tell much from a software projects version numbering which many of them particularly keen to avoid major releases – think of the openssl scheme. But more and more have since adopted more lax definitions of major.minor.patch or have gone all the way to time-based-releases."

PuTTY is turning 25 years next year and it's still only at 0.79.

I'm perfectly fine with that.

Re: Like I've said before

>>"Any independent and sovereign country should be able to join any economic or military alliance"

1) agreed, but it would stop being independent. Remember Brexit ?

No, being part of economic or military alliances do not make countries non-independent, nor does it mean that Russia can annex them. No matter what RT says.

You completely disregarded how Russia is part of Collective Security Treaty Organization (military) and also part of Eurasian Economic Union. Russia is still just as independent and sovereign as e.g. NATO or EU countries, no matter how much you tell the opposite.

"NATO forbid that and forced them to fight"

You are spouting unbelievable bullshit there, comrade.

"Why would that matter ?"

You stated that you are from a NATO country when all evidence points to Russia. Let me just say that I don't suspect you of being Russian.

"Russia lost the cold war and should have been disbanded in the mid-90. Since then, it's a warmongers club without any "democratic" oversight."

TFTFY.