OR just spend $60 on a sharp wizard 730!
on
IMSAI Series Two
·
· Score: 3, Informative
You get a nice built in keyboard, an lcd display, and it'll sync up to your real computer.
From there you can program your Z80 in assy, C, or basic. Heck, you can even download a basic interpretter onto your little palm-top/pda.
Experience the joys of accessing memory, indirectly indexing, and jumping back and forth.
And save $900 in the process!
So yeah, this is cute, but as dumb as a box of rocks. You can get those microprocessor notebook-style trainers for a couple of hundred bucks (check mouser.com ), not 9!
Really, it's rare that the consumer gets more than a few bucks in their pocket (I've had some from comcast) but as long as the company being sued views it as a spank, then you have to console yourself with that.
In terms of the sprint spectrum- there was issue that they were pushing the spectrum but planning a new network (Sprint PCS) that was NOT compatible... I was excited to hear about the suit (I had a spectrum (not the sinclair, dummy!)) phone and thought this would be cool-
it turns out the "settlement"- a couple of bucks off getting sprint PCS service was worse than the special they had going on at radioshack at the time!!
The lawyers response? "This was the best we could do. Now excuse me I have this fat check to cash..."
Both sides get screwed. I've seen it many times on I-95 or the Jersey Turnpike where the accident is on my side- I'm slow for a few miles. Once I pass the accident the other side is a giant parking lot becuase they are trying to see why all those funny lights are flashing!
And in an intersection- it just got worse. So I don't see this as a problem. Besides, if it is just traffic and intersection will get bogged down anyway. The occaisional driver wants to make that left hand turn, blocking those in his lane that want to go straight, waiting for the oncoming traffic to break. Happens all the time in DC.
Good sir, I read your comment and took a long, hard analytical look at myself. And in no way could I be classified as a "butt-munch". However the rest of your comment rings of truth to my ears like a golden church bell on a beautiful Sunday morn.
and what was the combination to that lock in episode 17?
Lets get down to brass tacks- this is an exercise in conceptual visualization. It's not actually what you see, but if you were 1 angstrom tall and the laws of physics were suspended, you would see this...
This is ever so important for high school and even college physics/engineering students. They might say "So what if my answer is off by a factor of 10? or a couple of factors of 10?" This is an easy visualization between 10^25 and 10^15. When you were in high school could you grok Avogadro's number? I know I sure couldn't!
P.S.- if that "you should write your numbers in hex!" guy responds to this it's blood wars.
I mean, waht do you do? Do you just serve up content on software someone else writes? (Http, or SQL database?)
Or do you write your own real-time communication software? Writing device drivers across platforms can be sticky (if you are writing a high level device driver, utlizing CDLI or DLPI) to down right icky (you go down to the metal).
For us, switching platforms has a higher cost than the money spent on the boxen.
I understand that having a GM be the final arbiter can be both fair and unfair, so are there any/many instances where a non-cheater was expelled as a cheater?
I understand the example in the article (fighting a guy with twice your stats) perfectly- I went to a live action role playing event (LAIRE for those who know) and it SUCKED. In the first round of combat, in one hit, the "npc" character completely decimated me. Yes, they were given orders by the GM's not to actually kill anyone.
NOTE: this message is free from any comments regarding Microsoft servers as military grade.
AS a victim to some early on auction obsession (involving other peoples money, no less!) I hear you loud and clear.
And yes, a parcel in the mail sure makes all those bills seem not as bad!
But this coupled with the comments just below (MRC TAMIYA and the message boards deep within ebay) it all starts to make sense.
I guess E-bay gives you a certain flexibility- if you want to find that one obscure part for cheap, do your search and once the auction is over you don't come back until next time. And for others, its an obsession!;)
I did not know they had forums... See that right there is an instant community builder. If you have any kind of traffic some people are bound to stick around. I've seen it around Song fighters, comic fiends, and since auctions can be a rush I could see people sticking around and chatting it up.
And yes, my last couple of auctions were stores having auctions on line (or estate auctions). It's funny, the music shop down the road sells some of their stuff cheaper on e-bay... more reason for me to not leave my house!
okay, its all becoming clearer now... In terms of computer parts (spare scsi drives, old mac os operating systems) since there's high turn-around and volumes out there, much of it with auction houses, I don't see the same camraderie.
BTW: Oh yeah, I TOTALLY used to race MRC TAMIYA when I was younger!
Tell me, do they still have those very small, formula-1 look-a-like racers that can't run on a normal street (I think they have neoprene wheels) so you have to build your own tracks?
listen chump, I EAT kernel dumps in hex for breakfast. I have read 0xDEADBEEF hex dumps in the past year! (that's a nod to my rs/6000 boys: Yeehaw! Howya doin?) Most of that time was spent listening to my favorite jungle track, "0x5B8D80 ways to die" (aka 6 million ways to die(decimal) for the hex impaired)
I'd like to inform you that since I'm not accessing any memory locations (where the high order hex digit actually refers to a segment register), and that since I am talking to HUMANS, I will continue to use the commonplace decimal.
besides, whats the difference between d13 and x13? a measly 6! (still puts you in the ball park) and if the 100 and 1000 were in hex (relating to d256 and d4096) that STILL gets you in the ball park! Precision is not a part of my argument, merely factor of scale is. As such, your nit pick is noted yet ignored.
However I thought the d10 marked 10,20,30,.... was lame. Use your imagination!
As for statistical validity it works- you get values from 00-99, and your chance of rolling any given two digit number (09, 10,87) is 1/10 * 1/10, giving you 1/100.
THe only problem is, when you roll them 1 at a time and your ten's digit is a 0, MAN OH MAN are you praying to roll another 0! (100 being (usually) far better than 06!)
but seriously, as an infrequent e-bayer (13+ to my name) maybe I missed the whole community aspect.
but beyond checking out someone's rating (are they crooks? are they auction kooks? Are they attached to some university and selling off old computer components? Did it "fall off a truck"?) I always thought the idea of community was more of an extrapolation.
If I'm trying to find some old analog synthesizer of course I'm gonna check and see some auctions to find what the going rate is. I'll see some users names come up frequently and I'll see who has a passion for this stuff. Chances are we're bent in the same direction. But beyond the congratulatory e-mail and the negotiation of mailing addresses and payment methods is there more to the e-bay community?
It's stars, stars mean sales, and that's that. Or am I just missing out on the richer tapestry of e-bay life that only becomes apparent when you have 100+, or 1000+?
Sometimes its nice to have pockets of the world that are not easily accessible. That way they maintain their distinct cultural nuances and avoid societal homogenization.
A good example is the hawaiian island of Kaua'i. There have been some comical failed attempts to make the main highway (Kuhio Hwy, but it changes names) go all the way around the island (I think the earth moving machines are still stuck in the swamps to this day). Since it never happened there are still out of the way places. Never mind that it isn't a huge gap, and that driving from one extreme corner of the island to the other takes less time than it does to drive from New York to D.C. (2 hours as compared to 4-5 (depends on how fast you drive!)) that little element of inaccesibility and that lack of convenience tends to preserve the outer corners.
But I don't think there will be any threat to sicilian culture. With the way italians drive, the mere threat of an accident on that bridge will stop most people in there tracks.
-P.S.- don't bug me on the italian digs. I'm full blooded and yes I've been there.
Oh, the D100 is basically a golf ball! The idea "looks" good on paper, but in execution the d100 sucks. too big, too many faces, takes far to long to come to rest. I MUCH prefer 2d10.
(okay, here's where I bring it back ontopic) Besides, a good DM can make do with a d6, and either a d10 or a d20. everything else can be improvised from the above. Don't lose the spirit of the game and push the story; the DM already knows what he wants his players to do and most "tests" have only two options: you did it, or you didn't. They can come up with some number for you to beat and you either do or don't. Oh sure, you can make the combat last a bunch of rounds, but you either roll well a lot, or you don't.
As long as there's a set up ("Call the guards! The princess is missing! A reward for anyone who finds her!"), a decently long discovery phase ("where was the butler on the night of the attack? What is the theives guild up to? And who broke into the palace's treasure room but stole only a daggar?"), an enemy revealed ("THE BISHOP!"), and/or a betrayal, a fight and then some form of denoument (look it up), that sounds like a fun night to me!
Or you could just play illuminati and end the night fighting with your friends in a paranoid rage.
actually, I had my Mac Plus "owned" by nVIR B, an Olde Skool (krusty) virus... But that's part of the equation. When it happens you recover and you learn something new. Periodically running a virus catcher can help! Then it never happened again.
Now your comments on the security of vanilla distro linux are actually On topic and a great spring board. Like you said with the old macs, you "get your setup just right"...
It's the same way with linux. If yr not running behind a firewall (even a lame one like a linksys) you should NOT connect your linny to the net! There are at least 5,000 web pages on how to harden your linux distro, not to mention security BOOKS you can buy (don't run send mail! disable all the basic accounts! don't run finger!)
The beauty of linux is that if you want to you can see the software you are running and you can change it. Now so far the only changes I've done to software is to edit some header files just to get it to compile! No one runs with a new linux distro (well, actually I still am, but I'm behind a firewall, and that machines dual boots into MacOS more often). The idea behind most distro's is to give you almost everything you might want and allow you to prune away.
Now you have a custom set up. If something goes wrong now you know whats on your machine, trace it back. And if you find it's becuase of a code exploit you cna either fix it or find the update.
As a side note: Maybe the distro for newbies would be more like a minix- a minimal set of unix stuff to get started. And you just add capabilities as you go.
I'll give you a counter-example, and this is more to the point.
Mac OS 8.6 was *THE* standard before 9 and X. More stable, better for the environment, better for the economy, etc. etc. There was a free upgrade available everywhere to get you from 8.5 to 8.6. Yet two years ago I ran 8.5 for a year and a half.
Why? DIDN'T need to upgrade. It gave me everything I needed, didn't crash out* (I had 1 or 2 problems with ProTools, but it was an anomaly) , and I didn't need USB support.
My system was set up in such a way that everything, CDEV's, INIT's, and all extensions got along with each other and the only time I had to reboot was when I wanted to turn my computer off.
To extend this, if you have a set up that has had the HECK tested out of it, stands up to "attack" (whether that means a "hack" for an network box, or a heavy load for a server) and doesn't give you problems, why re-invent the wheel?
That's right, buy the source to the end of life products you use. I understand that this is an expensive proposition, however this is what we do where I work. This way any bugs/exploits can still be researched and fixed by the good guys, and the bad guys are just shooting in the dark.
Not that we intended to have all of our COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) to go end of life, but you make do!
However when UK air traffic goes down for a few hours and the only developer who knows the product is in hawaii for two weeks on his honeymoon (yep. That was me.) you have a problem!
It's called appletalk and while PC users were being strangled with novell netware Apple had this easy-peasy way to connect macs (ring style) with some $30 adapters (under $10 if you homebrewed!)
Slashdot Mirror
You get a nice built in keyboard, an lcd display,
and it'll sync up to your real computer.
From there you can program your Z80 in assy, C, or basic. Heck, you can even download a basic interpretter onto your little palm-top/pda.
Experience the joys of accessing memory, indirectly indexing, and jumping back and forth.
And save $900 in the process!
So yeah, this is cute, but as dumb as a box of rocks. You can get those microprocessor notebook-style trainers for a couple of hundred bucks (check mouser.com ), not 9!
Really, it's rare that the consumer gets more than a few bucks in their pocket (I've had some from comcast) but as long as the company being sued views it as a spank, then you have to console yourself with that.
In terms of the sprint spectrum- there was issue that they were pushing the spectrum but planning a new network (Sprint PCS) that was NOT compatible... I was excited to hear about the suit (I had a spectrum (not the sinclair, dummy!)) phone and thought this would be cool-
it turns out the "settlement"- a couple of bucks off getting sprint PCS service was worse than the special they had going on at radioshack at the time!!
The lawyers response? "This was the best we could do. Now excuse me I have this fat check to cash..."
Thank god I married a (soon to be) lawyer...
Both sides get screwed. I've seen it many times on I-95 or the Jersey Turnpike where the accident is on my side- I'm slow for a few miles. Once I pass the accident the other side is a giant parking lot becuase they are trying to see why all those funny lights are flashing!
And in an intersection- it just got worse. So I don't see this as a problem. Besides, if it is just traffic and intersection will get bogged down anyway. The occaisional driver wants to make that left hand turn, blocking those in his lane that want to go straight, waiting for the oncoming traffic to break. Happens all the time in DC.
And my boss laid out both "tips" for me-
yep - keep the money where they can see it (sometimes people forget! And other times they are trying to stiff you.)
And count it out.
THe third trick is knowing how many pennies to ask for so they only get (in america) silver change...
But these days yr lucky if the person behind the cash register can even greet you properly.
Good sir, I read your comment and took a long, hard analytical look at myself. And in no way could I be classified as a "butt-munch". However the rest of your comment rings of truth to my ears like a golden church bell on a beautiful Sunday morn.
and what was the combination to that lock in episode 17?
Audacity- audio
Cinelerra- video.
Sure sounds like multimedia to me!
That makes one of us, becuase I can't read that link at all!
(sure you posted it right?)
Lets get down to brass tacks- this is an exercise in conceptual visualization. It's not actually what you see, but if you were 1 angstrom tall and the laws of physics were suspended, you would see this...
This is ever so important for high school and even college physics/engineering students. They might say "So what if my answer is off by a factor of 10? or a couple of factors of 10?"
This is an easy visualization between 10^25 and 10^15. When you were in high school could you grok Avogadro's number? I know I sure couldn't!
P.S.- if that "you should write your numbers in hex!" guy responds to this it's blood wars.
I'm sorry, I must have written that without any blood flowing to my brain!
I mean, waht do you do? Do you just serve up content on software someone else writes? (Http, or SQL database?)
Or do you write your own real-time communication software? Writing device drivers across platforms can be sticky (if you are writing a high level device driver, utlizing CDLI or DLPI) to down right icky (you go down to the metal).
For us, switching platforms has a higher cost than the money spent on the boxen.
I understand that having a GM be the final arbiter can be both fair and unfair, so are there any/many instances where a non-cheater was expelled as a cheater?
I understand the example in the article (fighting a guy with twice your stats) perfectly-
I went to a live action role playing event (LAIRE for those who know) and it SUCKED. In the first round of combat, in one hit, the "npc" character completely decimated me. Yes, they were given orders by the GM's not to actually kill anyone.
NOTE: this message is free from any comments regarding Microsoft servers as military grade.
AS a victim to some early on auction obsession (involving other peoples money, no less!) I hear you loud and clear.
;)
And yes, a parcel in the mail sure makes all those bills seem not as bad!
But this coupled with the comments just below (MRC TAMIYA and the message boards deep within ebay) it all starts to make sense.
I guess E-bay gives you a certain flexibility- if you want to find that one obscure part for cheap, do your search and once the auction is over you don't come back until next time. And for others, its an obsession!
I did not know they had forums...
See that right there is an instant community builder. If you have any kind of traffic some people are bound to stick around. I've seen it around Song fighters, comic fiends, and since auctions can be a rush I could see people sticking around and chatting it up.
And yes, my last couple of auctions were stores having auctions on line (or estate auctions). It's funny, the music shop down the road sells some of their stuff cheaper on e-bay... more reason for me to not leave my house!
okay, its all becoming clearer now...
In terms of computer parts (spare scsi drives, old mac os operating systems) since there's high turn-around and volumes out there, much of it with auction houses, I don't see the same camraderie.
BTW: Oh yeah, I TOTALLY used to race MRC TAMIYA when I was younger!
Tell me, do they still have those very small, formula-1 look-a-like racers that can't run on a normal street (I think they have neoprene wheels) so you have to build your own tracks?
Looks like I should be checking out ebay...!
listen chump, I EAT kernel dumps in hex for breakfast. I have read 0xDEADBEEF hex dumps in the past year!
(that's a nod to my rs/6000 boys: Yeehaw! Howya doin?) Most of that time was spent listening to my favorite jungle track, "0x5B8D80 ways to die" (aka 6 million ways to die(decimal) for the hex impaired)
I'd like to inform you that since I'm not accessing any memory locations (where the high order hex digit actually refers to a segment register), and that since I am talking to HUMANS, I will continue to use the commonplace decimal.
besides, whats the difference between d13 and x13? a measly 6! (still puts you in the ball park) and if the 100 and 1000 were in hex (relating to d256 and d4096) that STILL gets you in the ball park!
Precision is not a part of my argument, merely factor of scale is. As such, your nit pick is noted yet ignored.
Good day.
yeah like I said in my post, I prefer the 2d10.
However I thought the d10 marked 10,20,30,....
was lame. Use your imagination!
As for statistical validity it works- you get values from 00-99, and your chance of rolling any given two digit number (09, 10,87)
is 1/10 * 1/10, giving you 1/100.
THe only problem is, when you roll them 1 at a time and your ten's digit is a 0, MAN OH MAN are you praying to roll another 0! (100 being (usually) far better than 06!)
but seriously,
as an infrequent e-bayer (13+ to my name) maybe I missed the whole community aspect.
but beyond checking out someone's rating (are they crooks? are they auction kooks? Are they attached to some university and selling off old computer components? Did it "fall off a truck"?)
I always thought the idea of community was more of an extrapolation.
If I'm trying to find some old analog synthesizer of course I'm gonna check and see some auctions to find what the going rate is. I'll see some users names come up frequently and I'll see who has a passion for this stuff. Chances are we're bent in the same direction. But beyond the congratulatory e-mail and the negotiation of mailing addresses and payment methods is there more to the e-bay community?
It's stars, stars mean sales, and that's that.
Or am I just missing out on the richer tapestry of e-bay life that only becomes apparent when you have 100+, or 1000+?
Sometimes its nice to have pockets of the world that are not easily accessible. That way they maintain their distinct cultural nuances and avoid societal homogenization.
A good example is the hawaiian island of Kaua'i.
There have been some comical failed attempts to make the main highway (Kuhio Hwy, but it changes names) go all the way around the island (I think the earth moving machines are still stuck in the swamps to this day).
Since it never happened there are still out of the way places. Never mind that it isn't a huge gap, and that driving from one extreme corner of the island to the other takes less time than it does to drive from New York to D.C. (2 hours as compared to 4-5 (depends on how fast you drive!))
that little element of inaccesibility and that lack of convenience tends to preserve the outer corners.
But I don't think there will be any threat to sicilian culture. With the way italians drive, the mere threat of an accident on that bridge will stop most people in there tracks.
-P.S.- don't bug me on the italian digs. I'm full blooded and yes I've been there.
Oh, the D100 is basically a golf ball! The idea "looks" good on paper, but in execution the d100 sucks. too big, too many faces, takes far to long to come to rest. I MUCH prefer 2d10.
(okay, here's where I bring it back ontopic)
Besides, a good DM can make do with a d6, and either a d10 or a d20. everything else can be improvised from the above. Don't lose the spirit of the game and push the story; the DM already knows what he wants his players to do and most "tests" have only two options: you did it, or you didn't. They can come up with some number for you to beat and you either do or don't. Oh sure, you can make the combat last a bunch of rounds, but you either roll well a lot, or you don't.
As long as there's a set up ("Call the guards! The princess is missing! A reward for anyone who finds her!"), a decently long discovery phase ("where was the butler on the night of the attack? What is the theives guild up to? And who broke into the palace's treasure room but stole only a daggar?"), an enemy revealed ("THE BISHOP!"), and/or a betrayal, a fight and then some form of denoument (look it up), that sounds like a fun night to me!
Or you could just play illuminati and end the night fighting with your friends in a paranoid rage.
Cuthulu, anyone?
actually, I had my Mac Plus "owned" by nVIR B, an Olde Skool (krusty) virus...
But that's part of the equation. When it happens you recover and you learn something new. Periodically running a virus catcher can help! Then it never happened again.
Now your comments on the security of vanilla distro linux are actually On topic and a great spring board. Like you said with the old macs, you "get your setup just right"...
It's the same way with linux. If yr not running behind a firewall (even a lame one like a linksys) you should NOT connect your linny to the net! There are at least 5,000 web pages on how to harden your linux distro, not to mention security BOOKS you can buy (don't run send mail! disable all the basic accounts! don't run finger!)
The beauty of linux is that if you want to you can see the software you are running and you can change it. Now so far the only changes I've done to software is to edit some header files just to get it to compile!
No one runs with a new linux distro (well, actually I still am, but I'm behind a firewall, and that machines dual boots into MacOS more often). The idea behind most distro's is to give you almost everything you might want and allow you to prune away.
Now you have a custom set up. If something goes wrong now you know whats on your machine, trace it back. And if you find it's becuase of a code exploit you cna either fix it or find the update.
As a side note: Maybe the distro for newbies would be more like a minix- a minimal set of unix stuff to get started.
And you just add capabilities as you go.
I'll give you a counter-example, and this is more to the point.
Mac OS 8.6 was *THE* standard before 9 and X. More stable, better for the environment, better for the economy, etc. etc.
There was a free upgrade available everywhere to get you from 8.5 to 8.6. Yet two years ago I ran 8.5 for a year and a half.
Why? DIDN'T need to upgrade. It gave me everything I needed, didn't crash out* (I had 1 or 2 problems with ProTools, but it was an anomaly) , and I didn't need USB support.
My system was set up in such a way that everything, CDEV's, INIT's, and all extensions got along with each other and the only time I had to reboot was when I wanted to turn my computer off.
To extend this, if you have a set up that has had the HECK tested out of it, stands up to "attack" (whether that means a "hack" for an network box, or a heavy load for a server) and doesn't give you problems, why re-invent the wheel?
maybe they mean end-of-life AIX 3.2.5?
Cuz I though aix was the dot in dot com (or com dot, whatever)
OH MI GOOD GOLLY GOSH! You just blew my mind!
Again!
That's right, buy the source to the end of life products you use.
I understand that this is an expensive proposition, however this is what we do where I work.
This way any bugs/exploits can still be researched and fixed by the good guys, and the bad guys are just shooting in the dark.
Not that we intended to have all of our COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) to go end of life, but you make do!
However when UK air traffic goes down for a few hours and the only developer who knows the product is in hawaii for two weeks on his honeymoon (yep. That was me.) you have a problem!
It's called appletalk and while PC users were being strangled with novell netware Apple had this easy-peasy way to connect macs (ring style) with some $30 adapters (under $10 if you homebrewed!)
You can run appletalk on ip.