Posts by Old Used Programmer

Re: concussion ball?

Given their injury rates, the armor is inadequate.

Re: Y2K - Learning to be Paranoid

For part of the 1990s, I worked at a company that had an in-house set of date handling subroutines that we were all supposed to use. At one point, a new version of them was released, so I tested a couple of critical dates. On the first pass I discovered that it showed 1900 as a leap year, so I set the programmer who'd done the work a note about the century year rule. One the second pass, 1900 wasn't a leap year and neither was 2000. Another note was sent. On the third pass he got it right.

Re: Lovely idea - no chance of it ever happening

Wildest piece of compact code I ever wrote was a two card boot loader for an IBM S360/30 that would IPL load, bring an object deck into memory at the target programs preferred location, and run it. Took two cards because when you hit the IPL button, after selecting the card readed as to boot device, it would read one record and start the IO command chain on it.

I even managed to keep columns 73 to 80 clear (for sequence numbers) by having the code on the second card use the second IO command word from the first card (no seek needed, so getting the second card into memory only needed one IO command).

Re: The work of giants

My wife wrote a novel and several short stories with the formatting done with nroff. Granted, she had vi to do the editing (what with working on the UC Berkeley campus at the time), but had gotten to the point that she put the formatting commands in on the fly.

Re: Program / Programme

Another version is to call it "autocorrupt."

Re: They have absolutely ZERO chance

Part of the setup in RPiOS (and, since it's a Debian derivative, one would presume other distros as well) is to set the WiFi country code...selecting it from a very long list.

Re: As per the OP's story

For writers, there are three kinds of markets (magazines in this case)...

1. Those that pay on acceptance.

2. Those that pay on publication.

3. Those that pay on threat of lawsuit.

The old (US) quip about that is... Trouble leaving here fine.

Re: Set the standard

His PBS children's songs were for Sesame Street, they were for The Electric Company.

Re: five eyes"

Plus points for the Keith Laumer _Retief_ reference.

Re: Idiotic tariff nonsense

You jest, but I have some concerns if Trump ever figures out that Raspberry Pis are made in the UK.

Re: Type ia supernova,

It's type 1 (the numeral) A.

Re: As I've said before

I find that RPiOS on a Pi is very easy to install. One can even buy inexpensive media with it already installed.

Re: It took mine a *month*...

...vacuuming the cat...

Re: Replacing Office is the easy part

I switched my wife over to OpenOffice (and then LibreOffice) when she got a PC new enough that it wouldn't run Word for Windows 2.0. She intensely disliked later versions of Word,as all she wanted it for was writing SF. Her earlier transition was from vi/nroff/-ms macros. Until she died, she still had an e-mail account on a unix system and used mail. For news, she stuck with trn.

Re: Does not sound like any kind of fix to me

The ones who are only wearing black until they find something darker?

Re: Pc fixing tool

Hmm... My choices would have been either bodkin points (for those in protective gear) or broadheads for those not so equipped.

Re: Ethernet when you can, Wi-Fi when you have to

Not only do I use wired Ethernet whenever I can, but when I travel I take a couple of Cat-6 cables with me because every once in a while you still run into a hotel that has an RJ-45 jack.

Re: Nostalgia?

The IBM 1620 Mod II used a Selectric for a console typewriter (as did the S/360 systems until they went with CRTs), so--yes--there has been a computer keyboard that good. When IBM brought out the PC, they tried to match the "touch" of the Selectric and came fairly close. Hence all the people here talking about IBM Model M and Unicomp keyboards.

Re: More Weasel-Words

Pretty good chance this will be a major topic of discussion at this years SmofCon.

Re: Politicians lack of grip with reality

In the early 1970s my father was a civilian employee of the US Navy, working on ground support equipment. At one point, a knob was lost from one unit. He said he could have gone across San Diego Bay (he was working at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado) and purchased a replacement for about $0.25, or if he went to an inexpensive source, probably $0.10 to $0.15. He could also have walked over (about 100 yards) to the supply depot and pointed to the shelf where the spares were. But that's not how the Navy did things, so he put in a supply requisition for a replacement knob.

Six months later... A box showed up on his desk. The box had been sent from Bremerton, WA. In the box was an invoice for one knob for $10.52. The knob was in the box...and 51 more exactly like it.

He used to comment that his one hope for the US was that Soviet Naval Supply system was worse than ours...

Re: Please do not all power on at once

At one point in the mid-1930s my father was the staff electrician in NY residence hotel. One person there wouldn't pay his electric bill, so they'd pull the fuses. He replaced them with pennies. All my father would say about his solution was that the next time the guy pulled that he'd "get a handful of fire." After that...he paid his electric bill on time.

Re: What do you mean he is quiet?

I spent a couple of summers in the US Federal Summer Employment program working in the data center of the 11th Naval District in San Diego. This required a security clearance--Confidential, which is as low as it gets. I sometime wonder what the reaction of those doing the clearance was when they came across my father. He had a job for several years with a clearance high enough to crawl around inside nuclear armed Air Force B-52s on the flight line, and he had sockets welded to the bumper of his personal car to hold the flight line flags he kept in the trunk. (Yes...as a civilian, he was allowed to drive his *personal* car on the flight line of a SAC base.)

Re: Fake interest in product

I get assorted spam calls for my late wife. I tell them that she is no longer at this number. NONE of them have ever asked for a new number to contact her. I'd be tempted to find--and provide--a number for the Vatican (as she was Catholic). One time I mentioned the problem someone suggested that I supply the number for Dial-a-Prayer.

Re: Ones Aurora

I refer to that as the "CE effect".

Re: Memories having a secretary

In a mainframe shop, add CEs and console operators to that list of people to be on the good side of.

Re: The mouse doesn't work in the afternoon..

I have mixed feelings about Pournelle... I was once asked to be on a panel discussion at an SF con with him. It was during one of his...better lubricated...periods and he was at least two sheets to the wind. Any time he couldn't make his point rationally or logically, he tried making it louder. I got a lot of sympathy from the audience...

Re: Hmm

Okay.... How do the workers, supplies, and construction materials get to an airport that isolated?

Re: Werner von Musk

Thank you, Tom Lehrer.

Re: Here are the copies

IBM 2311 drives used the 1311 disk pack...6 platters. 10 tracks per cylinder. Total capacity per pack, about 7.25MB. 2314 drives (11 platters, 20 tracks per cylinder, 29MB per pack) were a big improvement.

Re: Canada tariffs....

The Canadians appear to be tailoring their counter-tariffs to go after goods from red states....of which California is not one.

Re: That's the point

What are you baiting your breath with, and what do you think that bait will catch?

Re: In some ways it doesn't matter.

Same here. Planning to always refer to "That Felon in the White House" for the next four years. I rather doubt that very many people who read The Register voted for him.

Re: At that price...

Things the Pi5 brings over the Pi4B... Built in RTC with a battery option. Fan header separate from the GPIO block. The ability to put real mass storage (NVMe SSD) within the footprint of a standard case, rather than a fat, very stiff, external cable and storage device. There is even at least one M.2 adapter that lets you use the official case and put the lid on for a very tidy package.

I will take exception to your claim that "happily married" is an oxymoron. It's why 2.5 years after her death, I still deeply miss my late wife.