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• Post #4450681

  Answer my riddles three if you want to get in the building. #computers #bios

• Post #3683661

  An interesting result of how "cheap" words and code have become in the age of LLMs is that the Blaise Pascal quote "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time." has gotten a whole new meaning. It used to be when I saw a PR with a long description it was an indication that someone spent a lot of time and thought on it. Now it means the opposite. #programming

• Post #3154712

  Nobody wants these old-fashioned mice, and yes, please tell me EVERY TIME I BOOT MY COMPUTER. I might forget how much fun my new touchpad is! #retrocomputing

• Post #2500453

  Starting with a piece of A4 paper, cutting it in half each time, I can make 9 little boats!

• Post #2330851

  The instructions for my adhd meds have one fun extra function! Is this #origami? 😅

• Post #2330849

  Today I have upgraded 4 machines to #Fedora 44. That's not all of the ones I have to do. Maybe I have too many computers...

• Post #2330848

  Whatever will they think of next! 120 MEGA byte #floppies That is like almost TEN copies of doom! #retrocomputing

• Post #2330847

  Who has two thumbs and just bought a #laserdisk player by the kilo? For about €2/kilo.

• Post #2330846

  Hello fellow #laserdisk and/or #electronics nerds. I bought a #pioneer CLD-2700 today for scrap pricing. It does not turn on, at all. No standby light, no nothing. I found a suspiciously rusty looking screw in the psu area that looks suspiciously like electrolyte damage? Can someone with a bit more experience than me weigh in? I'm pretty comfortable with soldering and such but I'm really not good with analogue electronics or power supplies. Thanks! #retroelectronics #lazyweb...

• Post #2330845

  I think at this point the only viable ai policy for open source projects is: "If we can tell you're using ai we ban you immediately." Disclosure doesn't do much, people just lie about what they used ai for. And I'm so fucking tired of talking to Claude via PR comment. If we can't stop people from using it, and it "democratizes" software development then let's just get rid of everyone who can't even be arsed to...

• Post #2093921

  MUDs, IRC, and Go: peak entertainment of 1994! #retrocomputing #retrointernet #internet

• Post #1848058

  Now we're getting to the good part of #irix After the just unacceptably and inexplicably bad install process. #unix #sgi #retrocomputing

• Post #1765235

  It's always best to, when you create debug messages, show them to your users. That way your users don't have to GUESS whether you give a shit or not! #ebay #ux #computerswereamistake

• Post #1395536

  On Matthew Garrett's post: "LLMs: (enable that) Free software people: Oh no not like that" No, people RENTING their empowerment to use computers in freedom is, in fact, exactly the "not like that" we have been talking about forever. Paying apple $99/year to put your own software on your own phone is also "not like that" Paying a company to let you use their computer how they want you is exactly what we didn't want.

• Post #1010604

  If anyone is looking for a great #retrocomputing podcast, I've been listening to "Advent of Computing" a podcast about computer history. It's a very easy to listen to podcast and Sean is a great host. Go listen to it! You'll enjoy it!

• Post #939115

  Is this one of those "Soundblaster or 100% compatible" devices the cool kids are always talking about? #retrocomputing #soundblaster

• Post #827038

  Kind of subtoot: I really don't want to yuk anyone's yum, but why would you bother using an LLM to write the code for your #retrocomputing hobby thing. If the point is just to "have the thing" why bother with the old computers at all. Use an emulator, or better yet, use a modern computer. I just don't get it, for me the joy is in the discovery and learning new skills in a fun environment. 🤷‍♀️

• Post #685646

  My current thinking is that in order to make a resolution independent UI toolkit one must first have a resolution independent drawing library? The things I've found on that were algorithms based on device independent pixels. Is that still actually the state of the art? My primary design constraint is that I want the scaling to be zero cost when there's no actual scaling happening. Can anyone point me to some good books/posts on the subject? #programming #uidesign #hidpi

• Post #684423

  MPU-401AT + MT-32 playing #sierra's Thexder II (badly) Testing my capture setup and video editing rig. I'm pretty happy with it! #retrocomputing #rolandMt32 #mpu401

• Post #632617

  The exact moment software went downhill was when #mozilla changed away from this. #retrocomputing

• Post #574159

  There is a silver lining to the whole #python #chardet debacle. If it is legal to throw a pile of code at an LLM, and tell it to write a new version of that code that is not a derivative then that gives us a lot of options too. GPL compatible #ZFS? no problem! #ReactOS from the leaked NT/2k sources? No problem! Maybe this is a golden age for the collapse of proprietary software after all. If they can do an end run around the #GPL we can do an end run around the #EULA. #opensource

• Post #397105

  Today I learned several important lessons: * #AIX 5.1 with 64MB of RAM is miserable * My 43P-140 has 64MB of RAM * Memory from a #sun Ultra 10 works great in a 43P-140 * AIX 5.1 with 576MB is quite plesant. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. #retrocomputing #unix

• Post #276292

  Not to brag, but if anthropic had paid me $20,000 and given me a month I'd also have been able to write them a very shitty C compiler.