Build 1074 feels like Linux

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 21:28:13 -0500, (Gary Heston)
wrote:

[snip]

The IBM PC took over because it had the IBM logo on it, which businesses
regarded as making personal computers legitimate. The 8080 CPU didn't do
^^^^
8088. (The 8080 was an 8-bit processor and what CP/M was
originally written for.)

much the Z-80 did, while it was 16 bit internally, it was choked down to
8-bit externally.

IBM had the opportunity to select the 68000 family. It was superior to
the Intel architecture, but IBM decided Motorola couldn't provide
enough, if I recall correctly. I wish they'd gone with the 68000,
Motorola already had both 16 and 32-bit versions which would run common
code with the 68008.

Ah, the good old days, when there was more than one processor
architecture. Gone is the National Semi 3232, the RCA 1802, the Motorola
6800 and 68000, the 6502 family, the Fairchild F8, the TI 9900.

I'm sure at least one of you out there has heard of a few of them. The
rest of you were born to late. :-)

I have heard of all of them except for the first. Adding to the
list, Zilog had the Z-8000.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On 06/11/2015 07:07 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 05:00:56 +0000 (UTC), Stef
wrote:

You don't need to go to school or class to learn Linux. I didn't.
Completely self taught. And my educational background isn't
computers. In fact, ALL my computer expertise I learned from books,
HOWTOs, research, and doing. So, if I can do it, anyone can. If they
try. Most don't. Too much work. They want it easy. Everything handed to
them in a nice neat pretty package. A sad commentary on the state of
contemporary education. And its failure. No one is taught to think
anymore.

This is, by far, the best way to learn anything. If you have the
passion and interest to teach yourself virtually any topic or skill,
you will be amongst the most successful in your field.

Of course, it can be extremely valuable to apprentice with an
experienced journeyman in just about any field. However, when it
comes to relatively new fields or technologies, there are few
journeymen so people like you get to become the masters.


I have also found that the best software out there are the ones
written by those in the particular field that needed the
software for their business. The worst are the ones written
by a programmer that has no clue about the business need.

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 07:07:26 -0700, Stormin' Norman wrote:

This is, by far, the best way to learn anything. If you have the
passion and interest to teach yourself virtually any topic or skill,
you will be amongst the most successful in your field.

Yes, try that with brain surgery or any other field where mistakes
can be costly.

Stef wrote:

GreyCloud wrote:

Stef wrote:

Joel wrote:

"Roger Blake" wrote in message
...

On 2015-06-10, Joel wrote:
This machine it's slow to open applications and fast to close. That's
why I prefer older Windows versions, they are much smoother. And it's
becoming darker
interface like Linux.

There is no single "Linux user interface." Linux users have the choice
of quite a few, some very much like Windows, some like nothing else on
Earth. I use Xfce myself which has a pretty traditional look and feel,
and would hardly describe it as "dark."


The command console is usually black as ms-dos. I know Linux users can
change the wallpaper and configure the looks. You can have both on same
machine, there is a lot of options to do with those. Only thing I don't
understand is why they say Linux is safer and open source. Should be
closed and safer.

With Linux you can change everything or just about. Well, even "just
about" can be changed, but you have to get into the code and recompile
it which you can't do with proprietary "closed" software. And that's
one of the reasons that makes Linux "safer:" you can check the code for
"bad" things, edit them out, and recompile. Or fix errors. Or alter
the app to suit your needs.


That may be as one that can and understand linux and where the config
files are, but for the rest of the people, linux will be almost
impossible for
them to configure without going to some school or class. If their wi-fi
connection doesn't work, what would you think their first reaction to
this will be?

Linux isn't for everyone. And it takes relearning. But Windows users
who try it, for some reason, expect it to be Windows, look like
Windows, and work like Windows. Why? I don't know. But they do. And
they quickly become frustrated and give up.

My wife left windows 98 a long time ago and moved to an iMac running OS X.
She didn't have much of a learning curve, but she isn't that computer
literate either. I had Linux loaded under a VMWare and let her try out a
reliable RedHat distro, and she was put off with a few inconsistencies in
the user interface. So I just pinned the email and browser on to the
desktop and she was fine... for about a month and then panicked when an
update request came up. I told her I'll do it. She wanted some photos
printed an HP 8610 under linux. Not a problem for her. I did have to help
her out for a while, but she still didn't like it for whatever reasons she
had. She went back to her iMac.


You don't need to go to school or class to learn Linux. I didn't.
Completely self taught.

Some can and some can't. Just the shows the diversity of people.

And my educational background isn't
computers. In fact, ALL my computer expertise I learned from books,
HOWTOs, research, and doing.

I got paid to go to various vendor schools to run and program computers,
from the DECs to Tektronix to Suns and Primes. Back then there were many
differences between the platforms that made it interesting. Today, it is
pretty stagnated.

So, if I can do it, anyone can. If they
try. Most don't. Too much work. They want it easy.

Of course, if they have no desire to work a computer and just want to get it
done. Also, most don't have time to spare due to other pressing matters.

Everything handed to
them in a nice neat pretty package. A sad commentary on the state of
contemporary education. And its failure. No one is taught to think
anymore.


I'll concur with that one.
Soon, in a few more years, the rest of the manufacturing workforce will be
laid off and replaced with robots. As Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems said, we
won't need them anymore.

What do Windows people do when the wifi doesn't work? They call tech
support. A Linux user will find out why it doesn't work and fix it.


Sometimes that isn't as easy as it sounds. Depends on the computer.

Dell has tried to sell PCs with linux preinstalled and so has HP. Their
efforts were ignored by the public and soon the PCs were pulled from the
market place.

Linux (Ubuntu, I think) still available on Dells, and HPs, too.
Lenovos as well. They just make it hard to find on their web sites.
Probably due to pressure from Microsoft. But it's there.


Problem is, they aren't advertised on their front page.
I haven't seen a linux PC advertised at HP for a long time now.
Even more odd, HP owns OpenVMS, but never advertises it. You have to google
for it and it is on some obscure HP website.

The real problem is computing stagnation. Even HPs CEO recognizes this
and
is trying to do something about this. Kind of reminds me of the 70s and
CP/M and S-100 boxes. That market stagnated as well. When IBM came out
with something new, the PC, the CP/M almost died overnight.

Microsoft and Windows have too much control over the market. That's
where the stagnation lies. Why improve when you have 90% of the market?

That's true, as I've heard that there is no incentive to make things better,
let alone fix all of the bugs. On the other hand, a paradox sits in front
of us... linux is given away free for the download, but still has the lowest
market share of desktop systems. I suppose it is because there are too many
distros out there and some aren't that good.

Linux, and to a certain extent Apple, are constantly changing and
improving, but they have too little marketshare to have any meaningful
effect. But MS has slowly been loosing ground to Linux. Mainly in the
server area among businesses and governments. They're pricing
themselves out of that market with outrageous licensing and fees.


That is actually changing now. It used to cost a bit for Visual Studio, and
now you can get it free for the download. The development environment is
large because they cover a vast range of disciplines more so than linux
does. But the environment is the best I've used so far. Apple needs to
clean up their Xcode environment a lot... too many complaints and still has
a few holes that aren't covered, like database engines and connectivity. On
Apple it is easiest to just download MySql complete development package for
business purposes, but Apple doesn't excell in the business area like MS
does. MS got in on the ground floor and succeeded where others could not
because they held the line on pricing their products. The only programming
language back in the 80s the beat MS was Turbo Pascal and then Turbo C/C++
running at $49 vs MS Pascal at $380. IBMs OS2 programming languages cost
more than MS, so they priced themselves out of that market.
The big UNIX vendors machines usually sat in the $15000 to $25000 bracket.
Tho their software worked great the cost differences were much wider than a
PC doing pretty much the same thing. That's why they all went out of
business in about 10 years.

The problem with Linux distros is that when they come out with a new version
they always introduce new bugs. I've seen some do distro hopping hoping to
find the best distro.

T wrote:

On 06/10/2015 09:53 AM, GreyCloud wrote:
Stef wrote:

Joel wrote:

"Roger Blake" wrote in message
...

On 2015-06-10, Joel wrote:
This machine it's slow to open applications and fast to close. That's
why I prefer older Windows versions, they are much smoother. And it's
becoming darker
interface like Linux.

There is no single "Linux user interface." Linux users have the choice
of quite a few, some very much like Windows, some like nothing else on
Earth. I use Xfce myself which has a pretty traditional look and feel,
and would hardly describe it as "dark."


The command console is usually black as ms-dos. I know Linux users can
change the wallpaper and configure the looks. You can have both on same
machine, there is a lot of options to do with those. Only thing I don't
understand is why they say Linux is safer and open source. Should be
closed and safer.

With Linux you can change everything or just about. Well, even "just
about" can be changed, but you have to get into the code and recompile
it which you can't do with proprietary "closed" software. And that's
one of the reasons that makes Linux "safer:" you can check the code for
"bad" things, edit them out, and recompile. Or fix errors. Or alter
the app to suit your needs.


That may be as one that can and understand linux and where the config
files are, but for the rest of the people, linux will be almost
impossible for
them to configure without going to some school or class. If their wi-fi
connection doesn't work, what would you think their first reaction to
this will be?

Dell has tried to sell PCs with linux preinstalled and so has HP. Their
efforts were ignored by the public and soon the PCs were pulled from the
market place.

The real problem is computing stagnation. Even HPs CEO recognizes this
and
is trying to do something about this. Kind of reminds me of the 70s and
CP/M and S-100 boxes. That market stagnated as well. When IBM came out
with something new, the PC, the CP/M almost died overnight.


Hi GreyCloud,

What ?!?!?!?! I do this stuff all the time. I can use command line
or the build-in GIU utilties. Linux is as easy, if not easier, to
configure that Windows!

Not if your field of expertise is in medicine.
Do you think a surgeon has the time to mess around with this stuff?
He has to hire someone else to do it.
For a lot of people, they just don't have the interest in doing computing at
all. My cousin hates computers, but he hires other people to handle that
job.


I am constantly using my Live USB and direct USB to troubleshoot
Windows machines. And, on live media the wireless works
spectacularly! So does printer-config!

I think you are remember about 10 years ago. Here is a link
to Fedora Core 22's Live Media. You should burn a bunch of
them and see for yourself:

https://spins.fedoraproject.org/

By the way, good luck telling KDE4 apart from Windows 7 (Windows 7
ripped off KDE4).

Got any proof of that?
When it says copyright by Microsoft, it looks like it is the other way
around.

Roger Blake wrote:

On 2015-06-10, Slimer wrote:
Stop promoting the piece of garbage some pre-teens coded in-between 7th
grade classes. Windows works, Linux doesn't.

Windows is crap. TOPS-20 is the bomb.

I still have my old Vaxstation 4000 vlc with VMS and DEC windows along with
their C and fortran compilers. Sits in a nice storage box.

Gary Heston wrote:

In article ,
Gene Wirchenko wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:53:44 -0600, GreyCloud
wrote:

[snip]

The real problem is computing stagnation. Even HPs CEO recognizes this
and
is trying to do something about this. Kind of reminds me of the 70s and
CP/M and S-100 boxes. That market stagnated as well. When IBM came out
with something new, the PC, the CP/M almost died overnight.

Ah, no. The Z-80 had been taken about as far as it could go with
general-purpose systems. That is why the IBM pc took over.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

The IBM PC took over because it had the IBM logo on it, which businesses
regarded as making personal computers legitimate. The 8080 CPU didn't do
much the Z-80 did, while it was 16 bit internally, it was choked down to
8-bit externally.

IBM had the opportunity to select the 68000 family. It was superior to
the Intel architecture, but IBM decided Motorola couldn't provide
enough, if I recall correctly. I wish they'd gone with the 68000,
Motorola already had both 16 and 32-bit versions which would run common
code with the 68008.

Ah, the good old days, when there was more than one processor
architecture. Gone is the National Semi 3232, the RCA 1802, the Motorola
6800 and 68000, the 6502 family, the Fairchild F8, the TI 9900.

I'm sure at least one of you out there has heard of a few of them. The
rest of you were born to late. :-)


I know. My boxed up workstation, actually two, uses the DEC vax on a chip,
and the other is a 64-bit sparc.

No workstations from any of the major vendors are made that I know of.
Gone are the SGIs with the mips chip as well.

Roger Blake wrote:

On 2015-06-11, Gary Heston wrote:
I'm sure at least one of you out there has heard of a few of them. The
rest of you were born to late. :-)

Microprocessors are for newbies. ;-) If you don't have 36 bits you're
not playing with a full DEC.

LOL!!! I still have my old Vaxstation 4000 vlc in a box right now.
Damned good machine and it still works.

Roger Blake wrote:

On 2015-06-11, Gary Heston wrote:
I have a VAX 6210 and a 6220 in the garage, along with a few
VAXStations, and an IBM System 7 (no relation to Windows or PCs).

And an ASR33 for the 7's console.

I collect old computers.

Sounds great! I used to have a DEC PRO 380 and a MicroVAX II but they
went by the wayside a few moves ago. I used to know a guy that had
one of the "smaller" DEC-20 systems running in his garage, and another
with an IBM Series 1 mini.

I'm ex-DEC so did a lot of work with their systems back in the day.

I've heard that a company named VSI is taking over OpenVMS. Not sure what
platform they are using. But I suspect it won't be cheap either.

For historical purposes, Microsoft had a few VAXes in their MS Word dept.
to develop software for MS windows 3.1.

Gene Wirchenko wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 13:47:29 -0600, GreyCloud
wrote:

Gene Wirchenko wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:53:44 -0600, GreyCloud
wrote:

[snip]

The real problem is computing stagnation. Even HPs CEO recognizes this
and
is trying to do something about this. Kind of reminds me of the 70s and
CP/M and S-100 boxes. That market stagnated as well. When IBM came out
with something new, the PC, the CP/M almost died overnight.

Ah, no. The Z-80 had been taken about as far as it could go with
general-purpose systems. That is why the IBM pc took over.

There were 8086 CP/M computers just before IBM came out with their PC.
I remember the one in Seattle that Bill Gates bought out.
That's why in the beginning there was MS dos and CP/M for the IBM PC.

Microsoft bought the OS (QDOS), not the computers.

Convergent Technologies had an 8086 series of systems, too. Nice
computers.

There was an 8086 S-100 bus board sold about two or three months before the
release of the IBM PC. Can't remember the name of the company that sold it
tho.
But, it's all in the past now only for the purposes of reminiscing.

In article ,
GreyCloud wrote:
Gary Heston wrote:


[snip]


I know. My boxed up workstation, actually two, uses the DEC vax on a chip,
and the other is a 64-bit sparc.

No workstations from any of the major vendors are made that I know of.
Gone are the SGIs with the mips chip as well.

I have a pair of O200 servers, several Indigo2 systems (including one
10K), several O2, a couple of Personal Iris systems, and I think an
Indy. Not to leave out Sun, I've a 3/60.

Gary

Stormin' Norman wrote:

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 20:46:45 +0100, mechanic
wrote:

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 07:07:26 -0700, Stormin' Norman wrote:

This is, by far, the best way to learn anything. If you have the
passion and interest to teach yourself virtually any topic or skill,
you will be amongst the most successful in your field.

Yes, try that with brain surgery or any other field where mistakes
can be costly.

Ed Schumed, a self educated aeronautical engineer was responsible for
designing the P-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabre fighter planes. He also led
the team of engineers that designed the F-5 Tigershark. The Mustang
was responsible for saving the lives of countless allied airmen during
WWII and made a very significant contribution to ultimate victory over
Germany.

Abraham Lincoln was a self-educated attorney and arguably the most
impactful President in the history of the USA.

Throughout human history the list of autodidacts is quite extensive
and very impressive.

And don't forget that Bill Gates left Harvard to start up his own company
that we all know.

Gary Heston wrote:

In article ,
GreyCloud wrote:
Gary Heston wrote:


[snip]


I know. My boxed up workstation, actually two, uses the DEC vax on a
chip, and the other is a 64-bit sparc.

No workstations from any of the major vendors are made that I know of.
Gone are the SGIs with the mips chip as well.

I have a pair of O200 servers, several Indigo2 systems (including one
10K), several O2, a couple of Personal Iris systems, and I think an
Indy. Not to leave out Sun, I've a 3/60.


drool

Those were great machines.

On 06/12/2015 01:03 PM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Fri, 12 Jun 2015 13:03:40 -0600, GreyCloud
wrote:

Stormin' Norman wrote:

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 20:46:45 +0100, mechanic
wrote:

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 07:07:26 -0700, Stormin' Norman wrote:

This is, by far, the best way to learn anything. If you have the
passion and interest to teach yourself virtually any topic or skill,
you will be amongst the most successful in your field.

Yes, try that with brain surgery or any other field where mistakes
can be costly.

Ed Schumed, a self educated aeronautical engineer was responsible for
designing the P-51 Mustang and F-86 Sabre fighter planes. He also led
the team of engineers that designed the F-5 Tigershark. The Mustang
was responsible for saving the lives of countless allied airmen during
WWII and made a very significant contribution to ultimate victory over
Germany.

Abraham Lincoln was a self-educated attorney and arguably the most
impactful President in the history of the USA.

Throughout human history the list of autodidacts is quite extensive
and very impressive.

And don't forget that Bill Gates left Harvard to start up his own company
that we all know.

I am not sure that one bolsters my argument..... ;-)


The word that come to my mind was "buzz kill"

On 06/11/2015 01:00 PM, GreyCloud wrote:
T wrote:

On 06/10/2015 09:53 AM, GreyCloud wrote:
Stef wrote:

Joel wrote:

"Roger Blake" wrote in message
...

On 2015-06-10, Joel wrote:
This machine it's slow to open applications and fast to close. That's
why I prefer older Windows versions, they are much smoother. And it's
becoming darker
interface like Linux.

There is no single "Linux user interface." Linux users have the choice
of quite a few, some very much like Windows, some like nothing else on
Earth. I use Xfce myself which has a pretty traditional look and feel,
and would hardly describe it as "dark."


The command console is usually black as ms-dos. I know Linux users can
change the wallpaper and configure the looks. You can have both on same
machine, there is a lot of options to do with those. Only thing I don't
understand is why they say Linux is safer and open source. Should be
closed and safer.

With Linux you can change everything or just about. Well, even "just
about" can be changed, but you have to get into the code and recompile
it which you can't do with proprietary "closed" software. And that's
one of the reasons that makes Linux "safer:" you can check the code for
"bad" things, edit them out, and recompile. Or fix errors. Or alter
the app to suit your needs.


That may be as one that can and understand linux and where the config
files are, but for the rest of the people, linux will be almost
impossible for
them to configure without going to some school or class. If their wi-fi
connection doesn't work, what would you think their first reaction to
this will be?

Dell has tried to sell PCs with linux preinstalled and so has HP. Their
efforts were ignored by the public and soon the PCs were pulled from the
market place.

The real problem is computing stagnation. Even HPs CEO recognizes this
and
is trying to do something about this. Kind of reminds me of the 70s and
CP/M and S-100 boxes. That market stagnated as well. When IBM came out
with something new, the PC, the CP/M almost died overnight.


Hi GreyCloud,

What ?!?!?!?! I do this stuff all the time. I can use command line
or the build-in GIU utilties. Linux is as easy, if not easier, to
configure that Windows!

Not if your field of expertise is in medicine.
Do you think a surgeon has the time to mess around with this stuff?
He has to hire someone else to do it.

My colleagues that deal with Allopath hate them. They would
much rather help the office staff than an Allopath. Trying
to help an Allopath is like trying to teach a arrogant dog.
Well, except a dog has better listening skills. And, that is OS
independent!

My hat is off to you that you have to deal with these numskulls.
I would probably be in jail for assault.

For a lot of people, they just don't have the interest in doing computing at
all. My cousin hates computers, but he hires other people to handle that
job.


I am constantly using my Live USB and direct USB to troubleshoot
Windows machines. And, on live media the wireless works
spectacularly! So does printer-config!

I think you are remember about 10 years ago. Here is a link
to Fedora Core 22's Live Media. You should burn a bunch of
them and see for yourself:

https://spins.fedoraproject.org/

By the way, good luck telling KDE4 apart from Windows 7 (Windows 7
ripped off KDE4).

Got any proof of that?
When it says copyright by Microsoft, it looks like it is the other way
around.

1) KDE4 never got sued.

2) All you have to do it look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49PxrcmY6dU

This is a long video, but you really only have to watch
a few minutes to get the point.

3) M$ has a long history of ripping others off