Actually I have a stack of about 20 5.25" drives I've pulled out of systems that have crossed my path (usually nonfunctional when I got them).
As for 8" drives, I've used a few, but never had the chance to take apart a system containing one, and I never cared enough to research what type of connection they used.
---
Consider the standard COM port. That is a piece of gold there. No change there. Nothing changed, everything got 100% perfected for it good linux support and the like.
---
Actually, COM ports have changed quite a bit over the years. Different UARTS allowing for faster than 9600bps transfer rates, etc.
---
Consider the *interface* for modems. The hayes compatable/AT command set virtually guarantees that the modem will work under linux and work well with almost anything that follows the spec.
---
I do tech support for a living for a very, very large computer manufacturer. They sell modems from 3 manufacturers, and short of ATA, ATDT, ATZ, ATI, and the other very basic AT commands, the command sets are completely different. Why? Because there isn't a standard. They just followed the leader at the time (Hayes).
---
Standard 1.44 Megabyte floppy drives are another little consideration. They work flawlessly and well for what they do.
---
I certainly wouldn't say a 1.44MB floppy was flawless. And want to know the history of the floppy drive? Get a start by looking at your BIOS and older floppy drive cables. The 34(36? I forget) pin connection is for 3.5" floppies, while the other type is for the 5.25" (and perhaps 8") drives. Also, take a look at the different sizes and formats for floppies. Anything from 120kbytes to 2.88mbytes depending on what you pick up.
---
Sure some crazy people thought that paying something like $10 per individual media was "cool" and "progressive" for things like LS 120 disks or even more for zip cartriges and other junk but it's expensive and difficult to justify for anything but the most necessary purtchesses.
---
The biggest selling points on Zip and LS120 and gang are speed and size. 1.44mbytes doesn't cut it for anything but the most basic of uses today, and that was true even 8 or so years ago, when the first 2.88mbyte floppy drives started hitting the market.
---
CD burners havn't come down in price at all
---
The original CD-R drive was something like $6000 and either 1X or 2X. About 3 months ago I picked up a 4x4x32 CD-RW drive for $120, and can pick one up for under $100 now.
So, you want a 2 line summary of something that isn't easily summarized, so people can get a very, very basic impression of the series (or whatever the topic is), and quite possibly the wrong impression to begin with?
And if you don't have the time to read the links, what are you doing reading the comments?
The links are there for a reason. The reason? To give context to the story. What you're asking for is the equivilant of asking for a cookie when you already have it in your hand. Take 10 seconds of your time to click the link and read a little bit.
Bleh. Please forgive the repost, forgot to change to Plain Text.
I do tech support for Dell's home/small business customers, and have to deal with explaining how to use these things to the customer.
The fun thing about these is they're BIOS locked. I don't know to what extent (Dell won't tell us), but it may be done on a service tag level, meaning that the particular disk may be locked to a particular service tag (serial number) (don't laugh too hard, our STM (think Ghost on a CD with a REALLY bad implementation of the restore on a floppy that doesn't work 90% of the time) disks do this). I'm not sure though, as the service tag is actually on the BIOS level.
But we're weary of telling people to flash to the latest revision of the BIOS for their system for fear of what type of protection there is here.
And considering that there are already 2 known issues requiring a BIOS flash on their XPS 4100 (or XPS Z) systems, I pray that it just checks for a Dell Certified(TM) BIOS.
But then again, Dell's the same company that makes a new revision (2.0) of their Resource CD, chaning the filesystem layout as well as the user interface, and doesn't tell ANYONE in Tech Support about it for a good couple weeks, and all we have on it right now is the file list available to everyone in the knowledge base. Yes, Dell doesn't tell us where the drivers are on the CDs. We get to find out by trial and error mostly.
Lameness filter begon already. -sigh- Maybe if I log in it'll accept it.
You should also notice the guitar in his hands, the stupid position he's in, and the headphones.
Gee, could that guitar be connected to some sort of computer, which is capable of recording the notes he's playing? And gee, could he be setting up a program to record such sounds?
SUE HIM!
He may try playing Stairway to Heaven! Can't have that!
Nothing short of a miracle would allow the X-Box to play PSX2 software. Do you have any clue how different the architectures of the two systems are?
He knows exactly how different they are. That's why he said team up with Bleem!, who have a retail Playstation emulator. Bleem is porting their emulator to the Dreamcast as well. Currently it runs on PCs, and performs admirably well on my K6-2 333 with a Voodoo3.
The problem is emulating the rest of the chips in the PS2.
The deceased band member would be Cliff Burton, who died in an accident with their tour bus in.. 86?
Master of Puppets, the background song, is a Metallica song of the album titled Master of Puppets. And it probably was the actual song:) I've found that if you listen to it when you're thinking of another word that sounds similar, it does sound like that words instead of "master".
The sucking cock reference would be that their musical style changed quite quickly in the early 90s I believe, from very heavy to more mainstream. Personally I like both, but Metallica was labled as sellouts by many people for cutting their hair of all things. Bah.
And thank you for watching A History of Metallica. Heh.
Actually, Slashdot started on a Multia:) Not far off from The 386 In The Corner(TM) though. It was actually the mail server for his employer at the time (The Image Group I believe, can't remember for sure), and he ran/. off it (this was back when 100 comments on a story was unheard of) until it couldn't handle the load anymore. Personally though I think Slashdot had more interesting topics back then as well. -Shrug-
We're talking about the infamous Sengan disabling comments on the US bombing Iraq story. That's what this part of the thread is about anyway.
If you were refering to my TCWWW statement, at one point Rob (Malda) had DNS screwed and we couldn't get to slashdot if you put the www. in front of it. He left it like that for quite some time, and he'd post articles that link to/. and say something like "But they used The Cursed WWW", and hence TCWWW.
Sengan violated the biggest rule of Slashdot in that everyone can state their opinion on something. That wasn't nearly as bad as how he did it though.
He posted a flaimbait story, and disabled comment posting (the only story to EVER have this done that I know of, and I've been around since quite nearly the beginning of slashdot. Remember TCWWW anyone?), put his flaimbait opinion on it, posted some horribly incorrect information, and expected people to be happy with him about it. He marked it as a news piece, when it was more editorial than anything.
That's why you rarely see Sengan around anymore. After that he was constantly flamed on every story he posted (I think he continued to post for a little while longer).
One of the guys (Romero) who made Wolf3D, Spear of Destiny, Dooms 1, 2, Ultimate, Final, and a bunch of packs from what I remember, and Quake. Given their history, I don't see much reason to fear as far as the game goes.
Actually, the only time I ever used Napster was to recover songs from a few very damaged CDs I have. MP3s over my cable modem beat my CD-RW drive's rip speed and cdparanoia any time.
If that fails, I use my.mp3.com and the MP3 to WAV feature of WinAmp (would say XMMS but my sound card doesn't work in Linux), and then reencode, although on my K6-2 300 that's rather tedious.
Well, you could always tar xfvz whatever.tgz, delete what you don't want, then rearchive the resulting tree(s). Slack packages are just standard tarballs with an install.sh script that you may need to modify.
What I think they're doing is modifying the I-Opener to be difficult to modify, and working on making a $300 (or so, enough to make a profit I guess) Linux box, to prevent their I-Opener from competing with the more expensive, profit making, Linux computer.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I have a stack of about 20 5.25" drives I've pulled out of systems that have crossed my path (usually nonfunctional when I got them). As for 8" drives, I've used a few, but never had the chance to take apart a system containing one, and I never cared enough to research what type of connection they used.
---
Consider the standard COM port. That is a piece of gold there. No change there. Nothing changed, everything got 100% perfected for it good linux support and the like.
---
Actually, COM ports have changed quite a bit over the years. Different UARTS allowing for faster than 9600bps transfer rates, etc.
---
Consider the *interface* for modems. The hayes compatable/AT command set virtually guarantees that the modem will work under linux and work well with almost anything that follows the spec.
---
I do tech support for a living for a very, very large computer manufacturer. They sell modems from 3 manufacturers, and short of ATA, ATDT, ATZ, ATI, and the other very basic AT commands, the command sets are completely different. Why? Because there isn't a standard. They just followed the leader at the time (Hayes).
---
Standard 1.44 Megabyte floppy drives are another little consideration. They work flawlessly and well for what they do.
---
I certainly wouldn't say a 1.44MB floppy was flawless. And want to know the history of the floppy drive? Get a start by looking at your BIOS and older floppy drive cables. The 34(36? I forget) pin connection is for 3.5" floppies, while the other type is for the 5.25" (and perhaps 8") drives. Also, take a look at the different sizes and formats for floppies. Anything from 120kbytes to 2.88mbytes depending on what you pick up.
---
Sure some crazy people thought that paying something like $10 per individual media was "cool" and "progressive" for things like LS 120 disks or even more for zip cartriges and other junk but it's expensive and difficult to justify for anything but the most necessary purtchesses.
---
The biggest selling points on Zip and LS120 and gang are speed and size. 1.44mbytes doesn't cut it for anything but the most basic of uses today, and that was true even 8 or so years ago, when the first 2.88mbyte floppy drives started hitting the market.
---
CD burners havn't come down in price at all
---
The original CD-R drive was something like $6000 and either 1X or 2X. About 3 months ago I picked up a 4x4x32 CD-RW drive for $120, and can pick one up for under $100 now.
Hrm.. Did I just get bit by a troll?
So, you want a 2 line summary of something that isn't easily summarized, so people can get a very, very basic impression of the series (or whatever the topic is), and quite possibly the wrong impression to begin with?
And if you don't have the time to read the links, what are you doing reading the comments?
+1 Insightful?
The links are there for a reason. The reason? To give context to the story. What you're asking for is the equivilant of asking for a cookie when you already have it in your hand. Take 10 seconds of your time to click the link and read a little bit.
The OS is on CD-ROM. Why wait when you can start market penetration, and release a patch? Sounds sort of like most games of late, doesn't it?
CYRIX!
:)
But only during the winter.
I'll give you $20 for it :)
Bleh. Please forgive the repost, forgot to change to Plain Text.
I do tech support for Dell's home/small business customers, and have to deal with explaining how to use these things to the customer.
The fun thing about these is they're BIOS locked. I don't know to what extent (Dell won't tell us), but it may be done on a service tag level, meaning that the particular disk may be locked to a particular service tag (serial number) (don't laugh too hard, our STM (think Ghost on a CD with a REALLY bad implementation of the restore on a floppy that doesn't work 90% of the time) disks do this). I'm not sure though, as the service tag is actually on the BIOS level.
But we're weary of telling people to flash to the latest revision of the BIOS for their system for fear of what type of protection there is here.
And considering that there are already 2 known issues requiring a BIOS flash on their XPS 4100 (or XPS Z) systems, I pray that it just checks for a Dell Certified(TM) BIOS.
But then again, Dell's the same company that makes a new revision (2.0) of their Resource CD, chaning the filesystem layout as well as the user interface, and doesn't tell ANYONE in Tech Support about it for a good couple weeks, and all we have on it right now is the file list available to everyone in the knowledge base. Yes, Dell doesn't tell us where the drivers are on the CDs. We get to find out by trial and error mostly.
Lameness filter begon already. -sigh- Maybe if I log in it'll accept it.
Hah. I'm on 1.5 megabit DSL and let it load thinking "Oh, it's just slashdotted to hell and back."
Then I hit stop and waited for it to parse. A good 5 minutes on a K6-2 333. Ouch.
Except it WAS "iD".
You should also notice the guitar in his hands, the stupid position he's in, and the headphones.
Gee, could that guitar be connected to some sort of computer, which is capable of recording the notes he's playing? And gee, could he be setting up a program to record such sounds?
SUE HIM!
He may try playing Stairway to Heaven! Can't have that!
Bleh. Gotta love journalism.
He knows exactly how different they are. That's why he said team up with Bleem!, who have a retail Playstation emulator. Bleem is porting their emulator to the Dreamcast as well. Currently it runs on PCs, and performs admirably well on my K6-2 333 with a Voodoo3.
The problem is emulating the rest of the chips in the PS2.
Actually, it probably isn't. Right now there's still a broken link in the story.
Rob and gang will routinely fix a URL after they put a wrong one in without saying they updated. You posted 20 minutes after him.
Actually it's not availability, but rather "the lunatic fringe" as Michael Dell put it. Bah, whatever.
The argument is the AMD chipsets aren't stable enough. But then we (I do tech support for Dell) use the 820 chipset, so...
The deceased band member would be Cliff Burton, who died in an accident with their tour bus in.. 86?
:) I've found that if you listen to it when you're thinking of another word that sounds similar, it does sound like that words instead of "master".
Master of Puppets, the background song, is a Metallica song of the album titled Master of Puppets. And it probably was the actual song
The sucking cock reference would be that their musical style changed quite quickly in the early 90s I believe, from very heavy to more mainstream. Personally I like both, but Metallica was labled as sellouts by many people for cutting their hair of all things. Bah.
And thank you for watching A History of Metallica. Heh.
Actually, Slashdot started on a Multia :) Not far off from The 386 In The Corner(TM) though. It was actually the mail server for his employer at the time (The Image Group I believe, can't remember for sure), and he ran /. off it (this was back when 100 comments on a story was unheard of) until it couldn't handle the load anymore. Personally though I think Slashdot had more interesting topics back then as well. -Shrug-
We're talking about the infamous Sengan disabling comments on the US bombing Iraq story. That's what this part of the thread is about anyway.
/. and say something like "But they used The Cursed WWW", and hence TCWWW.
If you were refering to my TCWWW statement, at one point Rob (Malda) had DNS screwed and we couldn't get to slashdot if you put the www. in front of it. He left it like that for quite some time, and he'd post articles that link to
Gah. Flaimbait? Heh.
:) (Yes folks, the AC problem is a fairly recent thing)
I wasn't interested in the entire user thing at the time, but figured I probably should register. -Shrug-
Oh well. I still remember thinking Anonymous Coward was one person
Sengan violated the biggest rule of Slashdot in that everyone can state their opinion on something. That wasn't nearly as bad as how he did it though.
He posted a flaimbait story, and disabled comment posting (the only story to EVER have this done that I know of, and I've been around since quite nearly the beginning of slashdot. Remember TCWWW anyone?), put his flaimbait opinion on it, posted some horribly incorrect information, and expected people to be happy with him about it. He marked it as a news piece, when it was more editorial than anything.
That's why you rarely see Sengan around anymore. After that he was constantly flamed on every story he posted (I think he continued to post for a little while longer).
There isn't one. Just the +1 starting at 26.
One of the guys (Romero) who made Wolf3D, Spear of Destiny, Dooms 1, 2, Ultimate, Final, and a bunch of packs from what I remember, and Quake. Given their history, I don't see much reason to fear as far as the game goes.
Are they perhaps going after high density markets, such as rackmount servers and clusters? Just my initial thought on it.
Actually, the only time I ever used Napster was to recover songs from a few very damaged CDs I have. MP3s over my cable modem beat my CD-RW drive's rip speed and cdparanoia any time.
If that fails, I use my.mp3.com and the MP3 to WAV feature of WinAmp (would say XMMS but my sound card doesn't work in Linux), and then reencode, although on my K6-2 300 that's rather tedious.
Well, you could always tar xfvz whatever.tgz, delete what you don't want, then rearchive the resulting tree(s). Slack packages are just standard tarballs with an install.sh script that you may need to modify.
What I think they're doing is modifying the I-Opener to be difficult to modify, and working on making a $300 (or so, enough to make a profit I guess) Linux box, to prevent their I-Opener from competing with the more expensive, profit making, Linux computer.