You state that it works fine for like three things. Do the games require Vista or was there another reason for installing it? I don't see any compelling reason in your list for me to upgrade.
I bought a laptop in April (an HP Pavilion dv9235nr), and it came with Vista installed.
Is Vista something I would buy? I seriously doubt it. I wouldn't go out and buy ANY Microsoft operating system, if I had the choice.
The only reason I bother with it instead of putting Linux on there is that the laptop has features built-in (wi-fi, webcam, TV tuner) that don't work under Linux without some effort, and in the case of the webcam, it would take more effort than I have time to commit. It was easier for me to re-install Vista from the backups I made. (I tried to make Linux work on this beast for about two months before I gave up. It wasn't that Linux wasn't working, but that I wanted more from it than it was able to provide, because the drivers just weren't there.)
I don't have the option of "(up|down)grading" unless I'm willing to shell out >$100 on WinXP, and that isn't going to happen. Vista it is, then. It's not so bad.
The point of my comment is that it doesn't seem to be as bad as the pundits claim it to be, so if Vista comes on a new system by default, perhaps one shouldn't re-install an operating system without seeing if it suits one's needs.
Whether one wants to spend the money on it, well... I can't make that call for anyone but me. I wouldn't buy a Microsoft OS for anything. All the systems I have with XP or Vista on them came to me that way.
I have XP on two systems (my kids use those), Vista on my personal laptop, and Linux on my desktop.
XP is okay, for what it's used for: games and surfing the Internet.
Vista is not bad, though I've had it "blue screen" twice in as many weeks, but I think I know what the problem is there. (When this started, I had installed a program to facilitate video communication. I'm going to remove it and see if conditions improve.) I've read a lot of articles from people slamming Vista, but to be perfectly honest, it works fine for the purposes I have for it: surfing, playing a few games (SL and Starcraft), and reading email.
Linux, well... I don't have problems on that. The last time I rebooted, it was to enable an updated kernel.
It ate your hard drive? Ooh, sorry. You gotta expect some bugs in a beta.
Uhh... No. If it ate my hard drive, it's alpha.
I expect "beta" to work somewhat, though without the full functionality that the developer wants it to have. Sure, it may have bugs that cause it to crash sometimes (or often), but I the more violent, destructive sorts of repercussions, I relegate to alpha-level software.
If you happen to be talking about disk defragmenting software on the other hand, that's something else entirely.
I look forward to hearing about E.U. nations recognizing each state as an independent country.
You mean the European Empire? You can keep it. It's sucking the things out of each country that made them unique and interesting. Before too long, you all will be speaking the same language from the cradle to the grave.
The individual states are independent. The problem is that too many people here are ignorant of the rules are imposed on the federal government by the Constitution to realize that they are being taken. Politicians are working to secure as much power as they can. They finally realized that the best way to wrest the control they so desire from the hands of the people is to take it slowly, so slowly that by the time the people realize what has happened, it's too late for them to do anything about it, shy of open rebellion.
In the last reference, for example, line 2027 says to go to whichever line corresponds to the value of JVERB. (If JVERB is '1', go to line 9000, etc.) Some BASIC variants had an equivalent command, "ON ___ GOTO..."
".EQ." is "==", ".NE." is "!=".
Granted, that doesn't clarify the spaghetti code that the source seems to be, but that's the way programming was done then. It's not like he could (or would?) have fired up a RAD and shot off some quick "Visual Basic" crap or anything.
I am pretty sure I have a print-out of Adventure from my high school days, but given the size of the source (several pages), I'm thinking it's a post-Woods version. It's buried in a box in my cellar, if I still have it.
FWIW, I spent a lot of time playing DUNGEON (which went on to become the Zork series) on the DEC PDP-11/70 at my high school. I still have the map I drew up.:)
I had Comcast Broadband for about three years. (I've since switched over to Earthlink broadband, which uses Comcast's wires, their modem, etc)
Comcast themselves don't support anything but MS Windows because most of the time, the people coming to install the broadband stuff are contractors who aren't paid to know two or three different operating systems. Instead, they are trained to know one (if that), and that is MS Windows, preferably Win2k or WinXP. I think that's the biggest reason for the "Windows only" support. Trying to support more than one operating system increases the complexity of the support structure they would have to maintain, and since most of the users are using Windows (and those that aren't are probably going to know what they're doing anyway), it's the most cost-effective approach.
That said, a Windows system is only necessary for that initial configuration, where the cable modem is registered with the local network. After that, they couldn't really care less what one does on their "LAN side" of the modem. If problems arise, though, you're on your own, unless you have a Windows system you can use for walking through the troubleshooting steps with Support.
For example, I have several computers on my LAN. Comcast (and now Earthlink) doesn't care. If I were to share my network with my neighbors and war drivers, I'm sure they'd have something to say, but as long as it's my own personal use, they don't say a word.
I used my kids' WinXP system for doing the initial configuration. Since then, I have had systems running Solaris, Linux, MacOS X, and several flavors of MS Windows.
I am becoming more convinced that people watch series like 24 or The Unit and are mistakenly under the impression that they are accurate representations of US capability. It's no worse than what is rumoured to have happened when Tom Clancy's book, "Hunt for Red October" came out: People at the Pentagon were wondering why they hadn't been kept "in the loop" about certain technologies.
They completely forgot that Clancy's work was fiction, and that he used well-known facts (such as certain ships or weapons and their publicly-known capabilities) as support material to add to the story.
It's bad enough that in the movie of the same title, the torpedo used to sink the Soviet Alpha was a wooden dummy with a "self-destruct mechanism".
Let's see if I have this right: If a meteorologist does not subscribe to the "Global Warming is caused by Man" theory, then s/he should be stripped of scientific credentials, simply because it goes against the interpretation that seems "obvious" to a prominent climatologist.
That is pretty ridiculous, pompous even.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens (to one extent or another) in almost any given subject, though not at the say-so of the same climatologist.
Certain things are clearly a certain way (like Mathematics), but almost everything else, I think, is up for discussion.
What do you mean Win2k isn't secure? It's perfectly secure so long as you don't connect it to any sort of network. That's similar to what has been said about WinNT: It's perfectly secure......until you remove the shrink wrap from its package.
Unless I'm mistaken, Solaris 8 contains at minimum the csh/tcsh, which is BSD licensed. While the advertising clause was removed in 1999, you still have to give credit to author in the docs. Unless ( AT&T | Novell | SCO | Sun ) had recreated all UCB/BSD code (userland or kernel), they would have to still have the credits in the manual.
True, and that's why the documentation says portions of the code may be derived from code belonging to UCSD. That doesn't make the underlying operating system BSD-like though, which is the point I'm trying to make (since that's the way I read the parent post).
I cannot see a future business model for SCO, their licence revenue is drying up year-on-year as people port their apps to Linux or Solaris; and all the people that can make money from Unix (as opposed to SCO who just lose it), that is Sun, IBM and HP, do not need SCO at all. Sun's Solaris is based on BSD and they have already bought a get out of jail free card for any Unix V pollution,
You might want to re-check your facts.
Last time I checked, SunOS 4.1.x was BSD-based, and when Solaris 2.x was released, it was with SunOS 5.x, which is SVR4-based.
The copy of SPARC-based Solaris 8 that I have handy mentions that parts of code may contain code derived from BSD, but that's about it.
I used an Apple IIgs as my main computer until 1996.
I think I used mine regularly until around 1995, when I got a 386DX/40. (Booting that beast as many times as I did allowed me to identify a sound effect in True Lies...)
It had a 40 meg Vulcan hard disk, a ZipGS accellerator and 4 megs..
I had a RAM card that let me add 8MB RAM, but no accelerator. I had a 20MB HD in it, but the last time I tried to boot from it, it didn't work.:(
I had an external Zoom 14.4 attached to it, and I was able to use it at full speed..
I've always been convinced it was something with the modem, because I was able to use a 14.4k modem, 28.8k, and 56k modems (all Zoom, thanks!:) ) just fine. It was just that one that I thought was funny, because the local SysOps knew if was really me, by how I connected.
GS/OS was a great OS. I had jpeg decoders, Moria, and I played with GNO/ME..
I agree... I tried to play with GNO/ME, but I couldn't get it to work. By the time I found out about it, I couldn't find a way to get everything I needed on floppy.
The terminal that I used was ANSITerm..
I used SnowTerm and one other whose name escapes me. I have a PC Transporter (it basically turned the IIgs into a 286 clone), and got a chuckle when people would ask me what comm program I used. I'd tell them Qmodem (before they sold out and started sucking) or {Commo}. They'd ask what system I had, and I'd tell them "Apple IIgs." You could sense the confusion... "When did they come out with a version for that?!?" they'd ask. If I was feeling generous, I'd tell them about the hardware.
I remember when I got my first 9600 baud modem, an upgrade from 2400 baud. It was a Racal-Milgo-- a big beastie. I had it hooked up to my Apple IIgs, and for some reason, I could only get 4800 baud.
I remember calling one board, and right as I got the Login prompt, the SysOp dropped in and addressed me by name. (This was just before Caller ID was common, and this BBS didn't have it anyway.)
I asked how he knew it wasw me, and that's when I learned that I was the only one in the area that got MNP5 at 4800 baud.
I still have the 3.5" floppy with the registered version of LoRD on it, from back when a friend of mine ran a BBS (and when he went off to college, I took it over for him).... I think I still have a copy of Trade Wars, too.
I know for a fact that I have a CDROM with all the files that were on the board when we decided it was time to pull the plug. The board had about 2700 unique users from 29 different countries when we were done.
Ah... Those were the days... Good times... Good times...
The interesting thing is, that although the protocol is closed, it is not patented and thus it is not against the law to crack it.
I'm sure Skype's lawyers might see this differently.
If this happened in the US, lawyers would be crying "foul!" on the basis of the protocol being a Trade Secret, and they would have something to say about the agreement that one sees when installing the software. I believe I remember seeing a "no reverse-engineering" clause in there.
This being a Chinese source, though, means that US rules don't necessarily apply.
Welcome to the Sun Secure Global Desktop demonstration server... well, it was the demonstration server until it got mentioned on Slashdot - now it's only demonstrating how we didn't size it with this sort of load in mind.
Probably best to check back in in a couple of days - it should be available again...
Slashdot Mirror
I bought a laptop in April (an HP Pavilion dv9235nr), and it came with Vista installed.
Is Vista something I would buy? I seriously doubt it. I wouldn't go out and buy ANY Microsoft operating system, if I had the choice.
The only reason I bother with it instead of putting Linux on there is that the laptop has features built-in (wi-fi, webcam, TV tuner) that don't work under Linux without some effort, and in the case of the webcam, it would take more effort than I have time to commit. It was easier for me to re-install Vista from the backups I made. (I tried to make Linux work on this beast for about two months before I gave up. It wasn't that Linux wasn't working, but that I wanted more from it than it was able to provide, because the drivers just weren't there.)
I don't have the option of "(up|down)grading" unless I'm willing to shell out >$100 on WinXP, and that isn't going to happen. Vista it is, then. It's not so bad.
The point of my comment is that it doesn't seem to be as bad as the pundits claim it to be, so if Vista comes on a new system by default, perhaps one shouldn't re-install an operating system without seeing if it suits one's needs.
Whether one wants to spend the money on it, well... I can't make that call for anyone but me. I wouldn't buy a Microsoft OS for anything. All the systems I have with XP or Vista on them came to me that way.
You lead a blessed existence, then.
I have XP on two systems (my kids use those), Vista on my personal laptop, and Linux on my desktop.
XP is okay, for what it's used for: games and surfing the Internet.
Vista is not bad, though I've had it "blue screen" twice in as many weeks, but I think I know what the problem is there. (When this started, I had installed a program to facilitate video communication. I'm going to remove it and see if conditions improve.) I've read a lot of articles from people slamming Vista, but to be perfectly honest, it works fine for the purposes I have for it: surfing, playing a few games (SL and Starcraft), and reading email.
Linux, well... I don't have problems on that. The last time I rebooted, it was to enable an updated kernel.
Uhh... No. If it ate my hard drive, it's alpha.
I expect "beta" to work somewhat, though without the full functionality that the developer wants it to have. Sure, it may have bugs that cause it to crash sometimes (or often), but I the more violent, destructive sorts of repercussions, I relegate to alpha-level software.
If you happen to be talking about disk defragmenting software on the other hand, that's something else entirely.
You mean the European Empire? You can keep it. It's sucking the things out of each country that made them unique and interesting. Before too long, you all will be speaking the same language from the cradle to the grave.
The individual states are independent. The problem is that too many people here are ignorant of the rules are imposed on the federal government by the Constitution to realize that they are being taken. Politicians are working to secure as much power as they can. They finally realized that the best way to wrest the control they so desire from the hands of the people is to take it slowly, so slowly that by the time the people realize what has happened, it's too late for them to do anything about it, shy of open rebellion.
There's a tea party at my house next week.
But it was funny. Admit it.
I laughed the first time I heard it, and I laughed when I read it a moment ago. I'll laugh again in a second, when I read it yet again.
GOTO (5014,5000,2026,2010)KQ
PAUSE 'NO NO'
2026 JVERB=K
JSPK=JSPKT(JVERB)
IF(JTWO.NE.0)GOTO 2028
IF(JOBJ.EQ.0)GOTO 2036
2027 GOTO(9000,5066,3000,5031,2009,5031,9404,9406,5081
1 5200,5300,5506,5502,5504,5505)JVERB It's not that hard...
In the last reference, for example, line 2027 says to go to whichever line corresponds to the value of JVERB. (If JVERB is '1', go to line 9000, etc.) Some BASIC variants had an equivalent command, "ON ___ GOTO..."
".EQ." is "==", ".NE." is "!=".
Granted, that doesn't clarify the spaghetti code that the source seems to be, but that's the way programming was done then. It's not like he could (or would?) have fired up a RAD and shot off some quick "Visual Basic" crap or anything.
I am pretty sure I have a print-out of Adventure from my high school days, but given the size of the source (several pages), I'm thinking it's a post-Woods version. It's buried in a box in my cellar, if I still have it.
FWIW, I spent a lot of time playing DUNGEON (which went on to become the Zork series) on the DEC PDP-11/70 at my high school. I still have the map I drew up.
I had Comcast Broadband for about three years. (I've since switched over to Earthlink broadband, which uses Comcast's wires, their modem, etc)
Comcast themselves don't support anything but MS Windows because most of the time, the people coming to install the broadband stuff are contractors who aren't paid to know two or three different operating systems. Instead, they are trained to know one (if that), and that is MS Windows, preferably Win2k or WinXP. I think that's the biggest reason for the "Windows only" support. Trying to support more than one operating system increases the complexity of the support structure they would have to maintain, and since most of the users are using Windows (and those that aren't are probably going to know what they're doing anyway), it's the most cost-effective approach.
That said, a Windows system is only necessary for that initial configuration, where the cable modem is registered with the local network. After that, they couldn't really care less what one does on their "LAN side" of the modem. If problems arise, though, you're on your own, unless you have a Windows system you can use for walking through the troubleshooting steps with Support.
For example, I have several computers on my LAN. Comcast (and now Earthlink) doesn't care. If I were to share my network with my neighbors and war drivers, I'm sure they'd have something to say, but as long as it's my own personal use, they don't say a word.
I used my kids' WinXP system for doing the initial configuration. Since then, I have had systems running Solaris, Linux, MacOS X, and several flavors of MS Windows.
Vista came on my laptop, and I'm running Kubuntu now.
...was a two-page advert from Sun, featuring Sally Struthers.
:D
The gist was something like, "Thinking of switching to NT? Isn't there enough suffering in the world?"
I'd LOVE to find out where that can be found online...
They completely forgot that Clancy's work was fiction, and that he used well-known facts (such as certain ships or weapons and their publicly-known capabilities) as support material to add to the story.
It's bad enough that in the movie of the same title, the torpedo used to sink the Soviet Alpha was a wooden dummy with a "self-destruct mechanism".
Let's see if I have this right: If a meteorologist does not subscribe to the "Global Warming is caused by Man" theory, then s/he should be stripped of scientific credentials, simply because it goes against the interpretation that seems "obvious" to a prominent climatologist.
That is pretty ridiculous, pompous even.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens (to one extent or another) in almost any given subject, though not at the say-so of the same climatologist.
Certain things are clearly a certain way (like Mathematics), but almost everything else, I think, is up for discussion.
How many of those were imposed by the Automatic Update routine?
I have two WinXP systems (and several non-XP systems). Both of them got IE7 without me deciding to upgrade-- it just happened. (I've GOT to fix that.)
On the other hand, all of my systems, be they Linux, Mac, or Win*, have FireFox. I've even taught my kids to use FF instead of IE.
I found it on Amazon for about $26.06 US, which came to just under $30.00 including shipping.
:)
Yes, the second edition.
Vote Democrat, and you'll be looking at getting at least one of these, maybe both.
Consider the Republican (if s/he is reasonably intelligent [Hey-- it can happen!]), or better yet, consider the Independent candidate.
If you're registered to vote on Tuesday, VOTE...
True, and that's why the documentation says portions of the code may be derived from code belonging to UCSD. That doesn't make the underlying operating system BSD-like though, which is the point I'm trying to make (since that's the way I read the parent post).
You might want to re-check your facts.
Last time I checked, SunOS 4.1.x was BSD-based, and when Solaris 2.x was released, it was with SunOS 5.x, which is SVR4-based.
The copy of SPARC-based Solaris 8 that I have handy mentions that parts of code may contain code derived from BSD, but that's about it.
More information may be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V. Have fun.
I think I used mine regularly until around 1995, when I got a 386DX/40. (Booting that beast as many times as I did allowed me to identify a sound effect in True Lies...)
I had a RAM card that let me add 8MB RAM, but no accelerator. I had a 20MB HD in it, but the last time I tried to boot from it, it didn't work.
I've always been convinced it was something with the modem, because I was able to use a 14.4k modem, 28.8k, and 56k modems (all Zoom, thanks!
I agree... I tried to play with GNO/ME, but I couldn't get it to work. By the time I found out about it, I couldn't find a way to get everything I needed on floppy.
I used SnowTerm and one other whose name escapes me. I have a PC Transporter (it basically turned the IIgs into a 286 clone), and got a chuckle when people would ask me what comm program I used. I'd tell them Qmodem (before they sold out and started sucking) or {Commo}. They'd ask what system I had, and I'd tell them "Apple IIgs." You could sense the confusion... "When did they come out with a version for that?!?" they'd ask. If I was feeling generous, I'd tell them about the hardware.
I remember when I got my first 9600 baud modem, an upgrade from 2400 baud. It was a Racal-Milgo-- a big beastie. I had it hooked up to my Apple IIgs, and for some reason, I could only get 4800 baud.
I remember calling one board, and right as I got the Login prompt, the SysOp dropped in and addressed me by name. (This was just before Caller ID was common, and this BBS didn't have it anyway.)
I asked how he knew it wasw me, and that's when I learned that I was the only one in the area that got MNP5 at 4800 baud.
I still have the 3.5" floppy with the registered version of LoRD on it, from back when a friend of mine ran a BBS (and when he went off to college, I took it over for him).... I think I still have a copy of Trade Wars, too.
I know for a fact that I have a CDROM with all the files that were on the board when we decided it was time to pull the plug. The board had about 2700 unique users from 29 different countries when we were done.
Ah... Those were the days... Good times... Good times...
Yes-- In every sense of the term.
This was the exact point of the last line in my comment.
I'm sure Skype's lawyers might see this differently.
If this happened in the US, lawyers would be crying "foul!" on the basis of the protocol being a Trade Secret, and they would have something to say about the agreement that one sees when installing the software. I believe I remember seeing a "no reverse-engineering" clause in there.
This being a Chinese source, though, means that US rules don't necessarily apply.
That was the first one I ever saw, back in 2001. I started following it then.
I'm sorry to see it end.
I'll look at it next week, if I remember to.