Off-Topic / Dumping Thread

[Tursi]

Yiffco was always a weird domain. When I first snagged it I thought it was hilarious and didn't know a great deal about it, just another furry archive I thought. But after a few years when the novelty wore off we went with more personal domain names. Since I released it to the internet, it immediately went to squatters. It's not really safe to visit obsolete domains on the internet these days.

 

[Gary from OPA]

I agree. Let's bring back 9900...

 

https://hackaday.com/2024/03/21/why-x86-needs-to-die/

[Gary from OPA]

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

While looking through some old files, I came across the '95 newspaper clipping I saved from the year that I got to meet James Doohan at Gen Con in Milwaukee. 

 

[jrhodes]

Are these considered all-wheel-drive?

[Gary from OPA]

2 minutes ago, jrhodes said:

Are these considered all-wheel-drive?

Only when you riding them wearing just flipflops...

 

See a video of similar one with a guy wearing apple vision pro and riding around the theater buying popcorn and drinks going to watch Dune Part 2.

[Gary from OPA]

28 minutes ago, InsaneMultitasker said:

While looking through some old files, I came across the '95 newspaper clipping I saved from the year that I got to meet James Doohan at Gen Con in Milwaukee. 

 

I miss the days when I used to help run sci-fi conventions, I was part of the Toronto Trek for a while as well, plus Eye of Harmony (Doctor Who) so I meet most of the original sci-fi actors and had tons of autographed photos. Once Comic Com took over the fan run conventions basically died off, the '90s ruled the last good generation after the 60s,70s,80s. Nothing great happening really after about 2005 or so, Internet and dot com then social media and smartphones ruined the original fun and mayhem.

[Gary from OPA]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/openai-courts-hollywood-in-meetings-with-film-studios-directors

 

OpenAI has scheduled meetings with Hollywood studios & talent agencies to encourage filmmakers & studios to use AI in their work.

 

They have already opened their AI video-making software to a few big-name actors and directors.

 

WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE HOLLYWOOD STRIKE THEN?

[+OLD CS1]

Dear Autocorrect: is it never "duck."  NEVER.

[jrhodes]

41 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Dear Autocorrect: is it never "duck."  NEVER.

Surely you  meant "luck" or "suck"? Perhaps even "cuck"? lol

[+OLD CS1]

2 minutes ago, jrhodes said:

Surely you  meant "luck" or "suck"? Perhaps even "cuck"? lol

[Kchula-Rrit]

1 hour ago, jrhodes said:

Surely you  meant "luck" or "suck"? Perhaps even "cuck"? lol

The first time I heard With A Little Luck by Paul McCartney & Wings, on AM radio I thought he was saying "another word."  It was not duck.

K-R.

[Kchula-Rrit]

Glad I wasn't shipping a kidney...

I ordered some parts for my TI99.  Got a notice they were shipped by "Priority Mail."  Just got the parts today, but I looked at the tracking history.

First, the parts languished in the sender's Post Office for two days, then wandered to Southern California.  Last I saw, they were sitting in San Diego, two days ago.

Someone must have found the mistake because the parts zipped up here in two days!

The sender is, maybe 400-500 miles from me, maybe a day's drive on the Interstate highways.  But the parts just took a 2000-mile tour of the West Coast.

Makes me wonder about my income-tax payments that I sent by Priority Mail with tracking.

K-R.

[+OLD CS1]

42 minutes ago, Kchula-Rrit said:

Makes me wonder about my income-tax payments that I sent by Priority Mail with tracking.

I have had similar things happen to me, where a package sits around for a day or two before getting sent out.  Heck, I had a state tax filing sit at a Post Office for a day before getting postmarked and sent... which made my filing late after I went through hell to get it sent that day because I was on a trip and had completely forgotten.

 

A while back, USPS shut down our sorting facility in Tallahassee.  Used to be, letters and packages sent here in town were delivered the next day.  Now, everything goes to Jacksonville then comes back.  It can take two to four days for in-town mail, regularly.  I had a local customer check take a month from the postmarking to delivery.

[+Ksarul]

And that doesn't even figure in the ping-pong movements. I've had packages bounce back and forth between widely separated sorting centers multiple times before they finally escaped the do-loop and made it to my mailbox. Weird is that the local sorting center is usually one of the end points of the ping-pong game. It is like they are tossing the inbound sacks of mail right back onto the truck that brought them in as it returns to the mail center where they started, all to avoid having to sort them that day for waiting customers. . .

[Gary from OPA]

1 hour ago, Ksarul said:

And that doesn't even figure in the ping-pong movements. I've had packages bounce back and forth between widely separated sorting centers multiple times before they finally escaped the do-loop and made it to my mailbox. Weird is that the local sorting center is usually one of the end points of the ping-pong game. It is like they are tossing the inbound sacks of mail right back onto the truck that brought them in as it returns to the mail center where they started, all to avoid having to sort them that day for waiting customers. . .

I had issues getting parcels here at my new home in Canada which is in Scarborough, Ontario and even tho we Canucks use postal codes here, I had already made up a short list of which services to have Toronto, Ontario listed and what services to use Scarborough on.

 

One problem with Canada is very few things get delivered now by our actual government postal service, the majority of stuff handled by different couriers and there is a ton of them, and it's like Russian roulette which one going to end up with your parcel, the worse being eBay international shipping seems they use a different courier company each time.

 

Anyway, I discovered that it all depends if I had Toronto or Scarborough listed as my address, using the wrong one or the right one depending on the company can cause weird bouncing of going to different sort centers and sometimes out for delivery notices but not arriving until the next day as the driver finds it's not on the truck.

Edited March 24 by Gary from OPA

[Gary from OPA]

Shark Tank takeover of TikTok:

 

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/mr-wonderful-preps-tiktok-bid-5960276/

 

Quote

Investor and "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary says he's assembling a syndicate to try and buy TikTok for a starting bid of $20 billion to $30 billion — just 10% of the app's last valuation. The reasoning behind the low price? Any deal would likely not include the algorithms that are key to the app's success, O'Leary tells CNBC; the buyer would have to recreate them with U.S. rather than Chinese code. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin may also make a bid for what O'Leary calls "the largest entertainment and business network in America."

 

[+OLD CS1]

On 3/22/2024 at 9:17 AM, Gary from OPA said:

I agree. Let's bring back 9900...

 

https://hackaday.com/2024/03/21/why-x86-needs-to-die/

Other than dropping real mode, I fail to see his other issues.  I do not disagree entirely, though.  There is no reason not to be fully 64-bit.  We should have been 64-bit 25 to 30 years ago.  But, Intel is just not 64-bit smart.  I mean, it tried to beat the punch by announcing its 64-bit platform with HP, what would finally become the abysmal Itanium five years after a good 64-bit CPU (R4000) found home in a bloody gaming console and Sun produced the UltraSPARC.  At the very latest, when Intel stopped manufacturing the 233MMX for the embedded market, they should have dropped the 32-bit cores from their processors.  But Intel kept fooling itself by thinking it could make scaled-down CPUs for low-end and tablet markets and those damned netbooks.  Intel should have never messed with 32-bit netbook Atom CPUs.  Anyway, you get it.

[+OLD CS1]

16 minutes ago, Gary from OPA said:

he's assembling a syndicate

[jrhodes]

[RXB]

64 bit?

 

64-bit data timeline
1961
IBM delivers the IBM 7030 Stretch supercomputer, which uses 64-bit data words and 32- or 64-bit instruction words.
1974
Control Data Corporation launches the CDC Star-100 vector supercomputer, which uses a 64-bit word architecture (prior CDC systems were based on a 60-bit architecture).
International Computers Limited launches the ICL 2900 Series with 32-bit, 64-bit, and 128-bit two's complement integers; 64-bit and 128-bit floating point; 32-bit, 64-bit, and 128-bit packed decimal and a 128-bit accumulator register. The architecture has survived through a succession of ICL and Fujitsu machines. The latest is the Fujitsu Supernova, which emulates the original environment on 64-bit Intel processors.
1976
Cray Research delivers the first Cray-1 supercomputer, which is based on a 64-bit word architecture and will form the basis for later Cray vector supercomputers.
1983
Elxsi launches the Elxsi 6400 parallel minisupercomputer. The Elxsi architecture has 64-bit data registers but a 32-bit address space.
1989
Intel introduces the Intel i860 reduced instruction set computer (RISC) processor. Marketed as a "64-Bit Microprocessor", it had essentially a 32-bit architecture, enhanced with a 3D graphics unit capable of 64-bit integer operations.[6]
1993
Atari introduces the Atari Jaguar video game console, which includes some 64-bit wide data paths in its architecture.[7]
64-bit address timeline
1991
MIPS Computer Systems produces the first 64-bit microprocessor, the R4000, which implements the MIPS III architecture, the third revision of its MIPS architecture.[8] The CPU is used in SGI graphics workstations starting with the IRIS Crimson. Kendall Square Research deliver their first KSR1 supercomputer, based on a proprietary 64-bit RISC processor architecture running OSF/1.
1992
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduces the pure 64-bit Alpha architecture which was born from the PRISM project.[9]
1994
Intel announces plans for the 64-bit IA-64 architecture (jointly developed with Hewlett-Packard) as a successor to its 32-bit IA-32 processors. A 1998 to 1999 launch date was targeted.
1995
Sun launches a 64-bit SPARC processor, the UltraSPARC.[10] Fujitsu-owned HAL Computer Systems launches workstations based on a 64-bit CPU, HAL's independently designed first-generation SPARC64. IBM releases the A10 and A30 microprocessors, the first 64-bit PowerPC AS processors.[11] IBM also releases a 64-bit AS/400 system upgrade, which can convert the operating system, database and applications.
1996
Nintendo introduces the Nintendo 64 video game console, built around a low-cost variant of the MIPS R4000. HP releases the first implementation of its 64-bit PA-RISC 2.0 architecture, the PA-8000.[12]
1998
IBM releases the POWER3 line of full-64-bit PowerPC/POWER processors.[13]
1999
Intel releases the instruction set for the IA-64 architecture. AMD publicly discloses its set of 64-bit extensions to IA-32, called x86-64 (later branded AMD64).
2000
IBM ships its first 64-bit z/Architecture mainframe, the zSeries z900. z/Architecture is a 64-bit version of the 32-bit ESA/390 architecture, a descendant of the 32-bit System/360 architecture.
2001
Intel ships its IA-64 processor line, after repeated delays in getting to market. Now branded Itanium and targeting high-end servers, sales fail to meet expectations.
2003
AMD introduces its Opteron and Athlon 64 processor lines, based on its AMD64 architecture which is the first x86-based 64-bit processor architecture. Apple also ships the 64-bit "G5" PowerPC 970 CPU produced by IBM. Intel maintains that its Itanium chips would remain its only 64-bit processors.
2004
Intel, reacting to the market success of AMD, admits it has been developing a clone of the AMD64 extensions named IA-32e (later renamed EM64T, then yet again renamed to Intel 64). Intel ships updated versions of its Xeon and Pentium 4 processor families supporting the new 64-bit instruction set.
VIA Technologies announces the Isaiah 64-bit processor.[14]
2006
Sony, IBM, and Toshiba begin manufacturing the 64-bit Cell processor for use in the PlayStation 3, servers, workstations, and other appliances. Intel released Core 2 Duo as the first mainstream x86-64 processor for its mobile, desktop, and workstation line. Prior 64-bit extension processor lines were not widely available in the consumer retail market (most of 64-bit Pentium 4/D were OEM), 64-bit Pentium 4, Pentium D, and Celeron were not into mass production until late 2006 due to poor yield issue (most of good yield wafers were targeted at server and mainframe while mainstream still remain 130 nm 32-bit processor line until 2006) and soon became low end after Core 2 debuted. AMD released their first 64-bit mobile processor and manufactured in 90 nm.
2011
ARM Holdings announces ARMv8-A, the first 64-bit version of the ARM architecture family.[15]
2012
ARM Holdings announced their Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores, their first cores based on their 64-bit architecture, on 30 October 2012.[16][17]
2013
Apple announces the iPhone 5S, with the world's first 64-bit processor in a smartphone, which uses their A7 ARMv8-A-based system-on-a-chip alongside the iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 which are the world's first 64-bit processor in a tablet.
2014
Google announces the Nexus 9 tablet, the first Android device to run on the 64-bit Tegra K1 chip.
2015
Apple announces the iPod Touch (6th generation), the first iPod Touch to use the 64-bit processor A8 ARMv8-A-based system-on-a-chip alongside the Apple TV (4th generation) which is the world's first 64-bit processor in an Apple TV.
2018
Apple announces the Apple Watch Series 4, the first Apple Watch to use the 64-bit processor S4 ARMv8-A-based system-on-a-chip.
2020
Synopsis announce the ARCv3 ISA, the first 64-bit version of the ARC ISA.[18]
64-bit operating system timeline
1985
Cray releases UNICOS, the first 64-bit implementation of the Unix operating system.[19]
1993
DEC releases the 64-bit DEC OSF/1 AXP Unix-like operating system (later renamed Tru64 UNIX) for its systems based on the Alpha architecture.
1994
Support for the R8000 processor is added by Silicon Graphics to the IRIX operating system in release 6.0.
1995
DEC releases OpenVMS 7.0, the first full 64-bit version of OpenVMS for Alpha. First 64-bit Linux distribution for the Alpha architecture is released.[20]
1996
Support for the R4x00 processors in 64-bit mode is added by Silicon Graphics to the IRIX operating system in release 6.2.
1998
Sun releases Solaris 7, with full 64-bit UltraSPARC support.
2000
IBM releases z/OS, a 64-bit operating system descended from MVS, for the new zSeries 64-bit mainframes; 64-bit Linux on z Systems follows the CPU release almost immediately.
2001
Linux becomes the first OS kernel to fully support x86-64 (on a simulator, as no x86-64 processors had been released yet).[21]
2001
Microsoft releases Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for the Itanium's IA-64 architecture; it could run 32-bit applications through an execution layer.
2003
Apple releases its Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" operating system which adds support for native 64-bit integer arithmetic on PowerPC 970 processors.[22] Several Linux distributions release with support for AMD64. FreeBSD releases with support for AMD64.
2005
On January 4, Microsoft discontinues Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, as no PCs with IA-64 processors had been available since the previous September, and announces that it is developing x86-64 versions of Windows to replace it.[23] On January 31, Sun releases Solaris 10 with support for AMD64 and EM64T processors. On April 29, Apple releases Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" which provides limited support for 64-bit command-line applications on machines with PowerPC 970 processors; later versions for Intel-based Macs supported 64-bit command-line applications on Macs with EM64T processors. On April 30, Microsoft releases Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition for AMD64 and EM64T processors.[24]
2006
Microsoft releases Windows Vista, including a 64-bit version for AMD64/EM64T processors that retains 32-bit compatibility. In the 64-bit version, all Windows applications and components are 64-bit, although many also have their 32-bit versions included for compatibility with plug-ins.
2007
Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard", which fully supports 64-bit applications on machines with PowerPC 970 or EM64T processors.
2009
Microsoft releases Windows 7, which, like Windows Vista, includes a full 64-bit version for AMD64/Intel 64 processors; most new computers are loaded by default with a 64-bit version. Microsoft also releases Windows Server 2008 R2, which is the first 64-bit only server operating system. Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6, "Snow Leopard", which ships with a 64-bit kernel for AMD64/Intel64 processors, although only certain recent models of Apple computers will run the 64-bit kernel by default. Most applications bundled with Mac OS X 10.6 are now also 64-bit.[22]
2011
Apple releases Mac OS X 10.7, "Lion", which runs the 64-bit kernel by default on supported machines. Older machines that are unable to run the 64-bit kernel run the 32-bit kernel, but, as with earlier releases, can still run 64-bit applications; Lion does not support machines with 32-bit processors. Nearly all applications bundled with Mac OS X 10.7 are now also 64-bit, including iTunes.
2012
Microsoft releases Windows 8 which supports UEFI Class 3 (UEFI without CSM) and Secure Boot.[25]
2013
Apple releases iOS 7, which, on machines with AArch64 processors, has a 64-bit kernel that supports 64-bit applications.
2014
Google releases Android Lollipop, the first version of the Android operating system with support for 64-bit processors.
2017
Apple releases iOS 11, supporting only machines with AArch64 processors. It has a 64-bit kernel that only supports 64-bit applications. 32-bit applications are no longer compatible.
2018
Apple releases watchOS 5, the first watchOS version to bring the 64-bit support.
2019
Apple releases macOS 10.15 "Catalina", dropping support for 32-bit Intel applications.
2021
Microsoft releases Windows 11 on October 5, which only supports 64-bit systems, dropping support for IA-32 systems.
2022
Google releases the Pixel 7, which drops support for non-64-bit applications. Apple releases watchOS 9, the first watchOS version to run exclusively on the Apple Watch models with 64-bit processors (including Apple Watch Series 4 or newer, Apple Watch SE (1st generation) or newer and the newly introduced Apple Watch Ultra), dropping support for Apple Watch Series 3 as the final Apple Watch model with 32-bit processor.

 

[+OLD CS1]

22 minutes ago, RXB said:

64 bit?

Yup.

[SteveB]

Sometimes you don't even need 16 Bit  ...

 

[Gary from OPA]

17 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Other than dropping real mode, I fail to see his other issues.  I do not disagree entirely, though.  There is no reason not to be fully 64-bit.  We should have been 64-bit 25 to 30 years ago.  But, Intel is just not 64-bit smart.  I mean, it tried to beat the punch by announcing its 64-bit platform with HP, what would finally become the abysmal Itanium five years after a good 64-bit CPU (R4000) found home in a bloody gaming console and Sun produced the UltraSPARC.  At the very latest, when Intel stopped manufacturing the 233MMX for the embedded market, they should have dropped the 32-bit cores from their processors.  But Intel kept fooling itself by thinking it could make scaled-down CPUs for low-end and tablet markets and those damned netbooks.  Intel should have never messed with 32-bit netbook Atom CPUs.  Anyway, you get it.

This person I follow on twitter recently acquired a Sun SPARC which uses the TMX390 processor and he been able to get it basically back up and running:

 

 

[+OLD CS1]

I gave away all my UltraSPARCs, for better or worse.  I still have a few SunStations and an IPX.  One of the machines which manages quinary-level network functionality (as well as mailing list outbound services) on my system is a dual Ross 100MHz SS20 clone (Axil 320.)