I think the accomplishment is somewhat negated by the fact that SIMPOS didn't run on a general purpose computer, but rather a system that was essentially a hardware-implemented Prolog interpreter.
they just compile IL.... so there's maybe some things you can't do with it (reflection? anonymous types?) looks to be that they did it just for fun
Having done similar stuff with Java, reflection and anonymous types should still work fine. The only thing that didn't work properly under my Java compiler was messing around with ClassLoaders: all your code had to be linked ahead of time. So stuff like Mock Object libraries (which programmatically generate new classes at runtime) won't work. There are ways around this, though, as long as you can make your compiler fast enough for use at runtime, or are happy to write a stub layer that allows your compiled objects to interact with interpreted ones.
The advantage of an OS based on a typesafe language is that the distinctions between kernel and non-kernel components become less important. External driver processes will run in the same memory space as the kernel, and can share objects with the kernel, meaning the traditional performance problems don't exist. Yet the possibility of stopping and restarting a driver (because it is a separate process) remains. This means that driver bugs under such an OS should be recoverable as long as the driver's init process can effectively reset the hardware state (which should be trivial in most cases). It really is the best of both worlds: you get Linux-like performance with stability more like you'll find in research systems like Minix.
Also: you talk about including the drivers in the kernel, then start talking about graphics drivers. You do know that most graphics interfacing under Linux is done by the X server, not the kernel, don't you? For most desktop users, framebuffers are not in common use except during startup and shutdown.
Additionally, this isn't *really* bootstrapping, since the.Net framework is required to be running the entire time the C#-based OS is running, and ultimately handles most of the low-level functionality.
Have you not thought to ask how they're getting the framework to run without an operating system to run on? They're not just loading MS's DLLs and executing them without Windows, which would likely be *very* hard, they're reimplementing and bootstrapping using a MSIL->native compiler.
They're rewriting their own C# runtime in C#, based on an MSIL-to-native-code compiler and some extensions that allow them to embed assembly language code into C# classes.
I think calling it dead may be a little premature. The git repository has checkins as recently as yesterday, so I assume it is still actively being worked on. I'm guessing they're not bothering much with the web page because the thing is still effectively at the stage of being a technology demo, not ready for any actual real use yet. For a system that can only run processes written in a language that uses automatic garbage collection, this implementation of GC isn't going to get you very far. Unless you want a system that crashes almost as soon as you start trying to do any serious work with it.
Yahoo has no obligation to deliver email on behalf of spammers. Suing Yahoo would get a spammer precisely nowhere.
Spamhaus, however, are in the business of telling other people who is a spammer and who isn't. If they do this without keeping good evidence that proves to a courts satisfaction that their statements are true, this is libel, which means they can be sued for it, and if they fail to justify their statements they can be successfully sued.
This is far from the only legal attack on blackhole lists. Another (which I don't believe has yet been tried) is that they work by storing information about IP addresses. IP addresses can be considered personally identifying information under the meaning of data protection legislation, therefore (at least here in the EU) their holders' consent is required to process information about them in a way that is prejudicial to that holder (except in certain narrow exceptions, none of which I believe applies).
I don't know about in the US, but here in the UK it's considered unreasonable if the legal costs exceed the amount of money awarded, and the judge might in this case award only part of the costs, based on what *would* have been reasonable for the claimant to spend. So perhaps $3 of the legal fees are up for grabs too?
OTOH, pennies are legal tender, but don't try paying your taxes (or tolls--except in Illinois) with them!
Legal tender has no influence over whether or not you can pay for a service with a specific method of payment. It does, however, mean you can pay any debt with it. The relevant statute is USC 31.IV.51.I.5103 (Legal Tender):
United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.
It seems to me that if any court or tax office refuses to accept payment in pennies, they are in breach of this statute.
(Here in the UK, pennies are only legal tender for debts up to 25p, which seems somewhat more sensible.)
Interesting. They have a UK operation that works as a UK company. I'm pretty sure EU data protection law requires all such signup forms to have an opt-out checkbox on the initial form, which they are presumably in violation of. Anyone want to report them?
This is a negative thing. In the free market (TM) negative things are solved through boycott. Boycotts result in companies suffering until they improve.
It's only your opinion that this is negative. A lot of people believe microtransactions, even in the Zynga style, are good. They allow people with differing amounts of time available to play and compete in the same game, simply by varying the amount of money they spend.
Obviously this wouldn't work for every game (I wouldn't play an FPS that included such a mechanic, for instance), but for the Zynga-style building stuff games it's an ideal mechanic (IMO).
The problem is with your reading of what these laws mean. The fiduciary duty of a director to his shareholders does not require him to be a cutthroat bastard who makes profits at every possible opportunity for those shareholders. Fiduciary duty, to quote the wikipedia article on the topic, simply means that the director "must not put his personal interests before the duty [to the shareholders], and must not profit from his position as a [director], unless the [shareholders] consent". The extensions to it you quote (which, incidentally, I believe may apply only in Delaware) mean that he must also not put the interests of anyone else over those of his shareholders. This is interpreted narrowly. Basically, the point of principle is this: a director may not rip off the shareholders. He must take no action that he is aware beforehand will decrease the value of the shareholder's investment. Only in unusual circumstances (e.g. the company is about to be declared bankrupt) does the duty extend to requiring him to take positive action.
(At least, from my good understanding of UK law and brief reading of the differences in US law, this is what appears to be the case. OTOH, I could be wrong. If I am, there will be cases of directors being sued for not taking positive actions in the course of regular trading to improve the value of their companies, so please point me to one.)
Really, you don't have to look any farther than recent events involving GE's international tax evasion strategy (many other companies as well), BP cutting corners leading to plant explosions and multiple major oil leaks, all the patent trolls, the mobile patent wars in general; the list goes on and on.
This is irrelevant to the point at hand. The simple fact is that the directors of these businesses are paid at least partially in ways that are related to how much profit the company makes (whether in shares or simply in performance-related bonuses) and therefore have a personal interest in improving the companies' profitability at any cost to others. I doubt their fiduciary duties ever entered their minds in making these decisions (BP, at least, is a UK registered company where the fiduciary duty I can categorically state does not extend to positive actions in most cases).
TV signals go a long way because they are coming from 10,000 to 100,000 watt transmitters.
Analogue TV, yes. Digital TV, however, requires nothing like the power. I get my digital TV feed from an 8kW transmitter located about 30 miles away, and the frequency used for this (~450MHz) isn't that different from analogue TV frequencies. Interestingly, a 4kW signal from a transmitter located close to this one is not receivable, although this may be due to co-channel interference issues as others not far from me have reported that it does work.
Yes, it is. Local councils are cutting back on face-to-face services, and now only handling certain types of query online. Some others, they charge more money for if you don't do them online. Information is now frequently only available via web sites, where previously it would be put in leaflets and left in the libraries, etc. Increasing numbers of jobs are only accepting applications via email or web sites. To an ever-increasing extent, basic and important services are beginning to require Internet access.
Yes, it isn't at the level of necessity that having a home is. But the indications are that for the foreseeable future, it will continue to approach this level, and at some point may even be comparable to it (although I would say it is unlikely to surpass it). And only a few years ago it would have been unimaginable to compare them. This seems to suggest a rapid rate of approach to me.
And that included the RAM needed for the video display (which BTW was also handled by the CPU, not a dedicated video chip; therefore it had a "fast mode" where video output was switched off).
This isn't quite true: the ZX81 video output was produced by the ULA chip, but this chip used the CPU as what we would today call a DMA controller to pull the data out of memory while it snooped on the bus to interpret it, hence the CPU was unavailable while it was producing each video line.
The design was somewhat improved, but still not completely fixed, for the Spectrum: the ULA accessed memory directly, but put the CPU into halt mode if it attempted to access memory in the 16K->32K region while video output was being produced.
A Z80 itself wouldn't be fast enough to produce the 256-pixel display lines the ZX81 produced. The fastest possible way would be the OTIR instruction, which requires 16 cycles per byte. PAL TV signals require each scanline's data to be produced in 56 microseconds, which at the 4MHz clock that the ZX81 could plausibly have run at (it actually only ran at 3.5MHz, but the Spectrum used similar components and ran at 4) is 224 cycles, or enough time to process 14 bytes = 112 pixels. But this would have required a pixel-buffer based display memory, which the ZX81 didn't have enough memory for. For character-oriented display, the fastest loop would probably be something like:
loop: LD A, (HL) ; 7 LD A, (IX + A) ; 19 OUT (n), A ; 12 INC HL ; 6 DJNZ loop ; 13
for a total of 57 cycles per character. Even at the 8MHz theoretical maximum speed of a Z80A, this just wouldn't be possible.
The only 8-bit machines I remember that produced their video output directly from the CPU were based on the 6502, which had a much faster memory architecture (although it lacked somewhat in arithmetic performance, particularly for 16-bit operations which weren't directly supported, IIRC).
Since when can you get any display for $25? Even a 14" monitor would cost a bundle.
Device has TV out. This simplifies things. But even if it didn't, you're wrong. Reasons for these statements:
1. most students probably already have access to a TV. 2. old CRT TVs change hands either free or for very little money on a very regular basis. Check out your local freecycle/freegle list... you probably won't be waiting long until a 14" TV comes up. 3. My local computer shop sells second hand reconditioned CRT monitors for almost no money. They do 17" for £5 (about $7) or larger sizes for £10 (about $14). I don't imagine they're alone in this.
But still, I think it's a mistake to have Linux as an OS. It's way more complex than the old 8-bit computer paradigm.
Yes, and no. The problem is that the old 8-bit paradigm doesn't really stretch to modern applications. There's no point doing this if the device isn't powerful enough to do things that the students will find useful. And these days, in order for it to be useful, it really needs:
* Internet access * High resolution display * Ability to run familiar applications (e.g. a web browser, office package, etc.).
The hope is to get the students to *use* the device first, then persuade them to tinker with it.
For our generation, the 8-bit systems worked because (1) there was nothing better within the average person's budget and (2) there was a network effect where large quantities of software were being written for the 8-bit systems and therefore they were useful.
If the only requirement was a system that was easy to tinker with, it already exists: Arduino is perfect for this application, and with the addition of a few peripherals is about as powerful and useful as the 8-bit systems we grew up with.
But a system that's actually useful for modern applications, presents useful software that the students can use to get the jobs they need to do done, that's more likely to actually get them using it. And once they're using it, *then* we can start teaching them how it works. And Linux isn't complicated enough to get in the way too badly, I think. And getting those applications working *without* that complexity would be tricky.
That's an interesting question. There's a possibility Novell could sue them for slander of title. Ironically, this is one of the things SCO sued Novell over. See groklaw here.
Why the system isn't built so that if you don't have the goddamned evidence clear as a bell ready to submit when papers are field, you're not even allowed through the door, is beyond me.
That was always the intention. The problem is that SCO and their victims got caught up arguing about whether or not the court should open the door, and spent their millions litigating over that issue. The entire case was decided in requests for summary judgment, which is basically the courts way of deciding whether or not to take the case seriously. The problem is that SCO produced so much paperwork that looked like it might be evidence, their victims had to spend a fortune debunking it. It's hard for an outsider like a judge to just look at the evidence presented and determine its validity, so there have to be arguments over it, which is what happened. I honestly don't know how this could have been handled better.
no way to block OpenVPN without blocking every single TLS connection
Um, I got the impression from the article that that's exactly what they're doing.
This article seems a little clearer: it appears to only be VPNs that are to blocked. And it doesn't sound like (as some are assuming) it will become illegal to use them, just a requirement is being placed on ISPs to take steps to block them. So, yeah, VPNs that produce traffic that is hard to distinguish from regular encrypted traffic will be the way forward.
If it works, but redirects to the www version i know they sort of know what they're doing, but are living in the 90s, so definitely shouldn't be a first choice.
Speaking as somebody who was a web developer for most of the 2000s, I had a lot of experience running pages without the www. and clients *complaining* that it wasn't there. It was an expectation that all web sites must use it. Leave it out of URLs that people type in (on your letterhead or adverts, for example) and people add it themselves. Allowing two forms of the url, one with and one without, creates unnecessary complications when dealing with cookies. Therefore, redirecting makes everyone happy. Except, it would appear, you...
Slashdot Mirror
I think the accomplishment is somewhat negated by the fact that SIMPOS didn't run on a general purpose computer, but rather a system that was essentially a hardware-implemented Prolog interpreter.
they just compile IL.... so there's maybe some things you can't do with it (reflection? anonymous types?)
looks to be that they did it just for fun
Having done similar stuff with Java, reflection and anonymous types should still work fine. The only thing that didn't work properly under my Java compiler was messing around with ClassLoaders: all your code had to be linked ahead of time. So stuff like Mock Object libraries (which programmatically generate new classes at runtime) won't work. There are ways around this, though, as long as you can make your compiler fast enough for use at runtime, or are happy to write a stub layer that allows your compiled objects to interact with interpreted ones.
The advantage of an OS based on a typesafe language is that the distinctions between kernel and non-kernel components become less important. External driver processes will run in the same memory space as the kernel, and can share objects with the kernel, meaning the traditional performance problems don't exist. Yet the possibility of stopping and restarting a driver (because it is a separate process) remains. This means that driver bugs under such an OS should be recoverable as long as the driver's init process can effectively reset the hardware state (which should be trivial in most cases). It really is the best of both worlds: you get Linux-like performance with stability more like you'll find in research systems like Minix.
Also: you talk about including the drivers in the kernel, then start talking about graphics drivers. You do know that most graphics interfacing under Linux is done by the X server, not the kernel, don't you? For most desktop users, framebuffers are not in common use except during startup and shutdown.
Additionally, this isn't *really* bootstrapping, since the .Net framework is required to be running the entire time the C#-based OS is running, and ultimately handles most of the low-level functionality.
Have you not thought to ask how they're getting the framework to run without an operating system to run on? They're not just loading MS's DLLs and executing them without Windows, which would likely be *very* hard, they're reimplementing and bootstrapping using a MSIL->native compiler.
They're rewriting their own C# runtime in C#, based on an MSIL-to-native-code compiler and some extensions that allow them to embed assembly language code into C# classes.
I think calling it dead may be a little premature. The git repository has checkins as recently as yesterday, so I assume it is still actively being worked on. I'm guessing they're not bothering much with the web page because the thing is still effectively at the stage of being a technology demo, not ready for any actual real use yet. For a system that can only run processes written in a language that uses automatic garbage collection, this implementation of GC isn't going to get you very far. Unless you want a system that crashes almost as soon as you start trying to do any serious work with it.
Yahoo has no obligation to deliver email on behalf of spammers. Suing Yahoo would get a spammer precisely nowhere.
Spamhaus, however, are in the business of telling other people who is a spammer and who isn't. If they do this without keeping good evidence that proves to a courts satisfaction that their statements are true, this is libel, which means they can be sued for it, and if they fail to justify their statements they can be successfully sued.
This is far from the only legal attack on blackhole lists. Another (which I don't believe has yet been tried) is that they work by storing information about IP addresses. IP addresses can be considered personally identifying information under the meaning of data protection legislation, therefore (at least here in the EU) their holders' consent is required to process information about them in a way that is prejudicial to that holder (except in certain narrow exceptions, none of which I believe applies).
f it's a "you-can't-copy-this-document publishing solution" why is there a big green button labelled "Download" in the bottom right of the page?
I don't know about in the US, but here in the UK it's considered unreasonable if the legal costs exceed the amount of money awarded, and the judge might in this case award only part of the costs, based on what *would* have been reasonable for the claimant to spend. So perhaps $3 of the legal fees are up for grabs too?
OTOH, pennies are legal tender, but don't try paying your taxes (or tolls--except in Illinois) with them!
Legal tender has no influence over whether or not you can pay for a service with a specific method of payment. It does, however, mean you can pay any debt with it. The relevant statute is USC 31.IV.51.I.5103 (Legal Tender):
It seems to me that if any court or tax office refuses to accept payment in pennies, they are in breach of this statute.
(Here in the UK, pennies are only legal tender for debts up to 25p, which seems somewhat more sensible.)
Interesting. They have a UK operation that works as a UK company. I'm pretty sure EU data protection law requires all such signup forms to have an opt-out checkbox on the initial form, which they are presumably in violation of. Anyone want to report them?
There is a skill in playing a Zynga game: remembering to come back regularly to click everything you're allowed to click once more...
This is a negative thing. In the free market (TM) negative things are solved through boycott. Boycotts result in companies suffering until they improve.
It's only your opinion that this is negative. A lot of people believe microtransactions, even in the Zynga style, are good. They allow people with differing amounts of time available to play and compete in the same game, simply by varying the amount of money they spend.
Obviously this wouldn't work for every game (I wouldn't play an FPS that included such a mechanic, for instance), but for the Zynga-style building stuff games it's an ideal mechanic (IMO).
I'm fed up of hearing this bullshit.
The problem is with your reading of what these laws mean. The fiduciary duty of a director to his shareholders does not require him to be a cutthroat bastard who makes profits at every possible opportunity for those shareholders. Fiduciary duty, to quote the wikipedia article on the topic, simply means that the director "must not put his personal interests before the duty [to the shareholders], and must not profit from his position as a [director], unless the [shareholders] consent". The extensions to it you quote (which, incidentally, I believe may apply only in Delaware) mean that he must also not put the interests of anyone else over those of his shareholders. This is interpreted narrowly. Basically, the point of principle is this: a director may not rip off the shareholders. He must take no action that he is aware beforehand will decrease the value of the shareholder's investment. Only in unusual circumstances (e.g. the company is about to be declared bankrupt) does the duty extend to requiring him to take positive action.
(At least, from my good understanding of UK law and brief reading of the differences in US law, this is what appears to be the case. OTOH, I could be wrong. If I am, there will be cases of directors being sued for not taking positive actions in the course of regular trading to improve the value of their companies, so please point me to one.)
Really, you don't have to look any farther than recent events involving GE's international tax evasion strategy (many other companies as well), BP cutting corners leading to plant explosions and multiple major oil leaks, all the patent trolls, the mobile patent wars in general; the list goes on and on.
This is irrelevant to the point at hand. The simple fact is that the directors of these businesses are paid at least partially in ways that are related to how much profit the company makes (whether in shares or simply in performance-related bonuses) and therefore have a personal interest in improving the companies' profitability at any cost to others. I doubt their fiduciary duties ever entered their minds in making these decisions (BP, at least, is a UK registered company where the fiduciary duty I can categorically state does not extend to positive actions in most cases).
TV signals go a long way because they are coming from 10,000 to 100,000 watt transmitters.
Analogue TV, yes. Digital TV, however, requires nothing like the power. I get my digital TV feed from an 8kW transmitter located about 30 miles away, and the frequency used for this (~450MHz) isn't that different from analogue TV frequencies. Interestingly, a 4kW signal from a transmitter located close to this one is not receivable, although this may be due to co-channel interference issues as others not far from me have reported that it does work.
Yes, it is. Local councils are cutting back on face-to-face services, and now only handling certain types of query online. Some others, they charge more money for if you don't do them online. Information is now frequently only available via web sites, where previously it would be put in leaflets and left in the libraries, etc. Increasing numbers of jobs are only accepting applications via email or web sites. To an ever-increasing extent, basic and important services are beginning to require Internet access.
Yes, it isn't at the level of necessity that having a home is. But the indications are that for the foreseeable future, it will continue to approach this level, and at some point may even be comparable to it (although I would say it is unlikely to surpass it). And only a few years ago it would have been unimaginable to compare them. This seems to suggest a rapid rate of approach to me.
And that included the RAM needed for the video display (which BTW was also handled by the CPU, not a dedicated video chip; therefore it had a "fast mode" where video output was switched off).
This isn't quite true: the ZX81 video output was produced by the ULA chip, but this chip used the CPU as what we would today call a DMA controller to pull the data out of memory while it snooped on the bus to interpret it, hence the CPU was unavailable while it was producing each video line.
The design was somewhat improved, but still not completely fixed, for the Spectrum: the ULA accessed memory directly, but put the CPU into halt mode if it attempted to access memory in the 16K->32K region while video output was being produced.
A Z80 itself wouldn't be fast enough to produce the 256-pixel display lines the ZX81 produced. The fastest possible way would be the OTIR instruction, which requires 16 cycles per byte. PAL TV signals require each scanline's data to be produced in 56 microseconds, which at the 4MHz clock that the ZX81 could plausibly have run at (it actually only ran at 3.5MHz, but the Spectrum used similar components and ran at 4) is 224 cycles, or enough time to process 14 bytes = 112 pixels. But this would have required a pixel-buffer based display memory, which the ZX81 didn't have enough memory for. For character-oriented display, the fastest loop would probably be something like:
loop:
LD A, (HL) ; 7
LD A, (IX + A) ; 19
OUT (n), A ; 12
INC HL ; 6
DJNZ loop ; 13
for a total of 57 cycles per character. Even at the 8MHz theoretical maximum speed of a Z80A, this just wouldn't be possible.
The only 8-bit machines I remember that produced their video output directly from the CPU were based on the 6502, which had a much faster memory architecture (although it lacked somewhat in arithmetic performance, particularly for 16-bit operations which weren't directly supported, IIRC).
Yes. Of course. There are no textbooks at this price range.
What could they have been thinking?
Since when can you get any display for $25? Even a 14" monitor would cost a bundle.
Device has TV out. This simplifies things. But even if it didn't, you're wrong. Reasons for these statements:
1. most students probably already have access to a TV.
2. old CRT TVs change hands either free or for very little money on a very regular basis. Check out your local freecycle/freegle list... you probably won't be waiting long until a 14" TV comes up.
3. My local computer shop sells second hand reconditioned CRT monitors for almost no money. They do 17" for £5 (about $7) or larger sizes for £10 (about $14). I don't imagine they're alone in this.
But still, I think it's a mistake to have Linux as an OS. It's way more complex than the old 8-bit computer paradigm.
Yes, and no. The problem is that the old 8-bit paradigm doesn't really stretch to modern applications. There's no point doing this if the device isn't powerful enough to do things that the students will find useful. And these days, in order for it to be useful, it really needs:
* Internet access
* High resolution display
* Ability to run familiar applications (e.g. a web browser, office package, etc.).
The hope is to get the students to *use* the device first, then persuade them to tinker with it.
For our generation, the 8-bit systems worked because (1) there was nothing better within the average person's budget and (2) there was a network effect where large quantities of software were being written for the 8-bit systems and therefore they were useful.
If the only requirement was a system that was easy to tinker with, it already exists: Arduino is perfect for this application, and with the addition of a few peripherals is about as powerful and useful as the 8-bit systems we grew up with.
But a system that's actually useful for modern applications, presents useful software that the students can use to get the jobs they need to do done, that's more likely to actually get them using it. And once they're using it, *then* we can start teaching them how it works. And Linux isn't complicated enough to get in the way too badly, I think. And getting those applications working *without* that complexity would be tricky.
That's an interesting question. There's a possibility Novell could sue them for slander of title. Ironically, this is one of the things SCO sued Novell over. See groklaw here.
That was always the intention. The problem is that SCO and their victims got caught up arguing about whether or not the court should open the door, and spent their millions litigating over that issue. The entire case was decided in requests for summary judgment, which is basically the courts way of deciding whether or not to take the case seriously. The problem is that SCO produced so much paperwork that looked like it might be evidence, their victims had to spend a fortune debunking it. It's hard for an outsider like a judge to just look at the evidence presented and determine its validity, so there have to be arguments over it, which is what happened. I honestly don't know how this could have been handled better.
no way to block OpenVPN without blocking every single TLS connection
Um, I got the impression from the article that that's exactly what they're doing.
This article seems a little clearer: it appears to only be VPNs that are to blocked. And it doesn't sound like (as some are assuming) it will become illegal to use them, just a requirement is being placed on ISPs to take steps to block them. So, yeah, VPNs that produce traffic that is hard to distinguish from regular encrypted traffic will be the way forward.
If it works, but redirects to the www version i know they sort of know what they're doing, but are living in the 90s, so definitely shouldn't be a first choice.
Speaking as somebody who was a web developer for most of the 2000s, I had a lot of experience running pages without the www. and clients *complaining* that it wasn't there. It was an expectation that all web sites must use it. Leave it out of URLs that people type in (on your letterhead or adverts, for example) and people add it themselves. Allowing two forms of the url, one with and one without, creates unnecessary complications when dealing with cookies. Therefore, redirecting makes everyone happy. Except, it would appear, you...
Yes. Assuming they're H. sapiens and you're interested in helping them out...