Musket balls were made out of iron or iron-clad stones. That right there is half the advantage - modern ammo is lead, and only armor piercing ammo has a (relatively small) bonded steel core.
Pistols are not subsonic; some pistols are subsonic. The speed of sound is approximately 1024fps, whereas the 9mm Luger (most common 9mm variant) is approximately 1300-1900fps (depending on who makes it, etc.). A.45ACP travels at approximately 850-1100 fps.
That said, the speed of the bullet has little to do with its effectiveness on its own. The density, internal ballistics, and impactive surface area also play a large part in the effectiveness of a projectile at killing or stopping its target.
Finally, while there are armor piercing bullets today (with a steel core), rifle and handgun bullets are primarily designed today to penetrate flesh and (sometimes, depending on design,) upon impact, expand. Lead is a soft metal and isn't going to penetrate steel, no matter how hardened or thick, all too readily.
Muskets, on the other hand, would fire shot: specifically, iron clad stone shot, or cast iron shot. These have a higher density and without the projectile tip of a modern bullet (which is there to decrease ballistic drag, not to push through its target), would be much more likely to penetrate steel of any thickness.
A more appropriate comparison would've been against a modern.30 caliber carbine, like the M1A, firing steel core/AP ammo. I have no doubt which is superior: modern.308 AP can penetrate the hardened steel of a vehicle's engine sufficient enough to disable it immediately.
This is largely due to the military history of the round. The 1911 handgun was officer issue from WWI through the Korean War, and used in high numbers during Vietnam as well (I am uncertain whether it was 'standard' issue). It was the preferred until the 9mm was adopted in the 1980s.
Both the.45ACP and 1911 are preferred in the US for a number of reasons - historical longevity not the least of these. Veterans are a big part of the firearm owning public, and as such have historically had a natural preference for both what they're familiar with and what works.
Additionally, the.45ACP (and 1911) is a well-tested, reliable platform. Gun owners are a traditionally conservative lot here in the US, and so they stick with what works..45ACP has demonstrated repeatedly that it has "stopping power" due to the cartridge's ability to pass through bone and cartilage where the 9mm might be deflected or stopped - and it's bigger, making each shot's wound larger.
Finally, the.45ACP (particularly in a steel-frame 1911), unlike the 9mm (in a polymer/metal frame) has a very "soft" recoil - more of a push than a kick or jab, as occurs with 9mm. The 1911 design has not only been copied, it has been modified and improved upon in many small ways (though the original design by John Moses Browning was a very good one, and little actual improvement was needed - the changes have largely been for things such as personal preference, such as sight and grip type. Though some changes, such as double-stack variants and different calibers, have also been done.)
First, comparing a rifle to a handgun is a lousy comparison. There are very few handguns from any area with the potential to compete against a rifle for penetration, again from any era.
Second, as someone else noted, it wasn't a "modern" 9mm, it was a 45ACP handgun. The.45ACP is a bigger, slower, flatter projectile than the 9mm and is better suited for penetrating a limited (12" or so) amount of flesh. However, heavy winter clothing, foliage, and the like have been known to stop both cartridges on occasion enough to prevent serious injury (though the.45ACP undoubtedly does more impactive/bruising damage).
Just because it's "modern" doesn't mean it's invariably more powerful; the rifles and muskets of yesteryear were invariably of a larger caliber, with larger projectiles. The biggest personnel weapon in common use is.30 caliber, or 7.5mm, give or take, depending on which country we're talking about. Small arms of yesteryear had smaller, faster projectiles as time went on.
Additionally, the caliver was commonly used at sea during this era, not the musket. It was smaller and fired a smaller projectile. Just the same, it did use standard munition ball, which I recall to be around the 2 oz. mark. That's roughly 4 times as heavy as the heaviest personal arms bullet of today.
Finally, the reproduced musket was likely made to a higher quality than the original, allowing it to take a heavier charge of powder. Metallurgy for barrels back then was crude, often resulting in brittle steel. Likewise, powder production during the 1500s was imprecise and still resulted in a great deal of variation, further contributing to the weapon's inaccuracy past 50 yards.
I seem to recall that ship-borne personal firearms were primarily used by sharpshooters in the rigging to snipe officers (senior, deck, and crew officers alike) from enemy ships once they drew close. Though that may not have been a prevailing tactic until the 1800s; I don't recall my naval combat history that well.
I would be interested to see how many ships utilized elevated cannons in order to, upon flanking the enemy ship, shoot downward upon the enemy's deck (and hull) in order to inflict water-taking damage upon the enemy ship.
That would seem to me to be a very sound tactic, because a man is a very small target to hit, and a sunk ship, no matter how many surviving crew members it had, would still be sunk. Likewise, a sinking ship would take more crew members away from the duty of fighting in order to simply keep the ship afloat.
At least in this case (where the second hole is below the water line), two holes would be greatly desirable. Due to the ballistic coefficient of a projectile in water, it would be almost impossible to sink a ship by hitting it first under the water line (as the projectile would bleed entirely too much potential energy, too quickly, to penetrate).
The British had developed gun making tech to the point that their guns had more uniform bores and had tighter tolerances twist bore and shot,
Twist bore?
You're clueless about this, aren't you? IE, you're speaking out of your ass.
Rifling - what you call 'twist bore' was experimental at the time when these cannons were in use. Rifling was invented in 1498, and wasn't actually used (to any degree) before 1540. It was not commonplace until the mid-19th century.
The very word, "cannon" denotes a smooth bore. "Guns" have rifling. They can be used interchangeably, mostly, but in terms of naval artillery, a rifled bore is a gun, not a cannon.
Furthermore, shot flies wildly out of a rifled barrel, with maybe 30% of the shot flying (significantly) wide. It is also uncommon for a rifled gun to have choke: rifled barrels are designed for ball and conical projectiles, and a choked barrel 'squeezes' shot so as to encourage a tighter shot pattern grouping on the target - and to encourage accuracy at a longer distance.
The rest of what you mention about naval guns and cannon,
The 'backwards compatibility' MS offers is largely for the purpose of assuring their vendor-lock-in remains intact. That is, so that people will upgrade to the next version of Office.
Now that Windows Server has such a big foothold in the corporate world, the lock-in provided by the client OSes themselves is less of an issue. There is also less of a business need for backward-compatibility.
The only reason MS ever undertook backward compatibility so seriously is because corporate interests demanded it. That is still largely the case. Apple has very carefully avoided that mess, repeatedly; if they wanted to be in that mess, they'd pursue it instead of making a solid consumer product exclusively, and instead pursue corporate contracts and 3rd party vendors.
Apple's Classic interface is akin to Windows' various "Compatibility" modes. It is little different. The only reason it worked as poorly as it did (and I'd argue it worked well, considering the amount of change that took place) is because so much change from OS 9 to 10 took place. Windows, on the other hand, had relatively minor changes yet still had similar compatibility issues.
Seriously: if you want emulation, use an emulator. I realize a pet program of your's likely no longer works because it used Classic/OS 9 interfaces, but what of the OS X versions? If there aren't any, then it's likely that nobody but you cares.
I'm starting to wonder whether it might be a good idea to get that acknowledgement written into contracts. "You acknowlege that Caimlas may be recording his conversations while working for $company." Wonder how well that'd fly or hold up in court...
A lot of the 'big' sites were up, and popular back then, all of which were independent entities (unlike now, where they're mostly owned by a scant few):
Hotmail Lycos Tripod Angelfire Geocities 2600 HappyHacker... and of course all the big search engines which aren't any more. Actually, it seems like the big web sites were largely just the search engines and 'aggregation' sites. Not much has changed in that regard, really. Other than that, I remember the web of 1996 being much like it is now: full of animated cursors, wallpapers, screensavers, and porn, with the random page about someone's dog thrown in to disrupt your chain of thought.
Re:In some ways it was much better in 1996
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Uh, more porn in 1996 than today? Surely you jest. Porn has grown in volume exponentially. I suppose there's probably less variety, but the quality and quantity is astoundingly higher. I suppose there was a lot more 'community' porn back then, as well as 'community' means to acquire it, than there are now, so that might be one major difference. But it's still more than available if you know where to look.
The biggest difference is probably that it's less visible now than it was then. Google has "Safe Search" and IIRC a policy on 'adult' advertising. Back then, however, adult advertisers were pretty much the only ones advertising.
Ah, those were the days...
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In 1996, the only connection options to me locally were BBSes and AOL: there was 1 local BBS, and AOL was still a long-distance number for us, I seem to recall. Our family computer was still ancient - the IBM Portable Computer, an 8088 with 640K and a 10Mb drive, a hand-me-down from a family friend. I would go over to a friend's house where we would
I remember the first time I saw the "Internet" - really, just the AOL interface. But just the same, it was amazing: I was 13 or so, and simply blown away by the fact that you could send images over the phone line. I was familiar with Morse code and the telegram, and the like (being a geek and in Boy Scouts), but that you could send color images over the line using the same basic mechanisms, at such speeds (14.4kbps)?! Astounding! Our "Internet" use was culminated in downloading freeware and shareware, which we would then play locally. Those were the days...
Then there was 1997. I remember that summer well. We didn't have air conditioning, and the computer was in the warmest room in the house. Our local provider had just gone from a "per minute" to "unlimited" account. The "unlimited" account would disconnect after 5 hours; it was almost every night that I hit that 5-hour mark.
I think that may have been the summer - or the one after - when I stayed home for a week while my parents left town for vacation. Whatever their destination was, I didn't want to go; instead, I stayed home and used the computer/the Internet for 5-15 hours each day, downloading software and grainy porn at less than 2kbps.
Well, first off, a move from one OS to another is slightly different from an upgrade - but I'll address what you said, as an OS upgrade is, in my experience, invariably a headache.
You move from one OS to another, in the natural progression of things, because you have to. Because if you don't do it before the hardware becomes too old to be considered reliable, then you have machines dying on you. Basically, you upgrade when you can, so that you move to the 'new' stuff when you can, so that you don't fall behind the 8-ball or run into a budgetary cutback when you most need the upgrades, only to realize you didn't upgrade when you could've.
Also, you do it because maintaining two (or three, or four) drastically different operating systems on the same network is a multiple of work for the same (or less) result. Your attention is divided between two similar (yet different) tasks, and you are, essentially, managing two smaller networks instead of one. Yet, the time requirements are more than just the one large network.
This has always, always been the case with Windows. A fresh install has always been the preferred method, whether that was the Microsoft-sanctioned gospel or not. Win 3.1 to 95, 95->98, 98->2k, and so on and so forth. There would almost always be some little glitch or irritation resulting from an "upgrade" instead of an "install". I have personally not seen Windows upgrade properly - not even once.
For that matter, there were issues with 98 to 98SE. Again, a fresh install was preferred. Nobody who's even remotely familiar with Windows would consider an OS upgrade something that isn't likely to fail. No sysadmin or even an IT peon - someone with half a brain and two weeks of experience - would think it's a good idea to "upgrade" anything MS touches. That's a damn sure way to introduce irritating, untraceable bugs.
I just thank God every night that at least Windows has improved to the point where it doesn't need to be reinstalled every ~6 months. I can't imagine that kind of IT overhead/headache in today's computing environment, what with activation and all the headaches of product tracking.
Funny enough, it would seem thta the "fresh install on every version" mentality has migrated over with the "new to Linux" crowd. You've got everyone downloading and installing the latest, greatest Ubuntu - from CD. Why not just do a proper upgrade? (Granted, I'm not all that familiar wtih Ubuntu upgrades, but I've got a system I've been upgrading, from version to version, since slink.)
Well, actually, Linux has all of the issues that both Windows and MacOS X have, and more, with compatibility.
We - both users and the distro packagers - can just recompile our software against the new libraries to get it to work, usually. Or we upgrade - for free! - to the latest version, which doesn't have that compatibility issue. And these are "worst case" scenarios, like if you were using something like Gentoo or Slackware. Most of us just use intelligent package management: we type a couple characters, and voila! 2 years of software development progress, in a hundred+ programs, installed.
I am kinda pissed about the CFQ scheduler right now, though. It's not what it was hyped up to be, so I went back to anticipatory.
People are still bitching about the PPC emulation layer and the Classic environment?
That was 5 years ago. They provided that 'bridge' from the old to the new so people would cross it. The reason for doing this is not "none" it is "because perpetual support of old shit would get us into the same mess MS is in now, and we have to design our OS to plan for the future, not let it grow organically with slipshod additions".
That's just silly. MS will just release a new, compatible version - and vendors will fall in line as long as it's not a truly disruptive development change for them. What're they going to do, port to Mac or Linux? That's much more of a headache.
Yes, adoption will be slow. But there will be adoption eventually - and vendors will sell it like they always have. And you know what? People, by and large, will use it. They'll bitch like they always have, sure; and it won't matter. It won't matter because MS doesn't care, and it won't matter because they will have applications to use.
Chances are the users will bitch about those applications, too - just like they do about the ones we've got now.
You can stick to your frozen XP install; that's fine. I've run across a couple people using old 68k Macintoshes and win95 in the past couple years, too, and they didn't seem to mind using their computers. if it works for you, use it. That doesn't mean change won't occur around you.
That was exactly my thought as well. I wonder if they will offer another version, or if a derived product might have a VGA/DvI out? This IS the developers version, apparently: it also only has 1 ethernet and 1 USB. Given that the arch supports Intel's WMMX2, lack of video seems kind of silly.
Realistically - to be a good geekable, or even viable consumer product, it needs to have at least two network interfaces of some sort. And preferably at least 2x USB ports, though I know I would personally make use of 3+ if they were available (printer, flash, camera). And where's the SD slot?
Then again, it's quite possible that they don't want to make their product (and company) into a "cult personality" in the open source community, and they're just looking at getting free advertising. Or maybe they hadn't thought of doing these things yet, or didn't foresee the geeking limitations to the device. Who knows? It's a dev kit, as of now; I suppose we'll see more later, yes?
(Side note: gumstix is likely pissing themselves, on account of this dev kit costing less than their entry level board alone, and contains a lot more than what the gumstix does by quite a bit!)
This, in itself, is not disruptive - though it could easily help pave the way to a major disruption.
Think for a moment about what you just posted on. You don't seem to be paying attention!
I'm uncertain of the specs on the Linksys, but I don't doubt it's on rough par (or less) with the Gumstix boards in terms of power and capabilities. Soekris boards use ~20+ year old hardware specs, mostly! And the mini-itx shit? That's little different than the Atom: commodity x86 hardware.
The "disruption" being spoken of is that we're looking at a $100 "dev" model, being sold in the US, with an ARM processor running over 1GHz, connectivity, and 512Mb of RAM. They see these devices dropping down to $40 or so once they become mass-produced. This equipment uses a miniscule amount of power.
So, to pull one from trade rags: what does this mean? In essence, it's advertising for ARM-based hardware. It's out there, and it's capable. Not only that, but the numbers alone demonstrate that it's at least as capable now as Intel's processors in the same market: especially with Linux.
How would you like a "netbook" that has no moving parts whatsoever, with an ARM processor which runs cool enough to neither be warm or need a heatsink, and yet can run for a couple days without a battery recharge? That's where we're headed.
An unfamiliar MAC would be one which isn't in your reporting/asset records, and is of a host type/name/etc. that is unrecognized or not set by you. And "port 73" could very well be any of the things you mention - switch, router, room, etc. numbers apply.
As for placing such a device... I suspect the best place to put a device like that is actually in the server room, or near the switches. Just plug it right into the switch and find an extra UPS port to plug it into. The messiest cables are always in the server room, because users will bitch and moan about cables being visible - and they will notice a change, if only for a reason to bitch. Even an attentive admin is going to likely overlook such an environmental intrusion, simply on the basis of having too much shit to do - it'll come up when equipment needs replacement, and that's it.
Twenty computers the size of wall worts plugged into four power strips?
Damn, that is cute computing. If it didn't cost $2k to do, it'd be something I'd do right now. Think of the bragging rights: "Yeah, this mid-tower? it's got 20, 1.2GHz cores with 10Gb of RAM."
Though, personally, I'd probably just nail the power strips on a piece of plywood and display them in the living room...
It's not an impossible goal for you. It costs you nothing to install Linux on the desktop. It's an impossible goal for them, being a company which needs to make money.
Linux on the desktop will not make financial sense for a distribution until the infrastructure is there to support it. By infrastructure, I mean a Linux-friendly network environment. That means Linux servers, first and foremost, with useful client management tools. Then, and only then, will companies consider moving to Linux on their workstations - and, most importantly, paying the distribution vendor licensing and service/support fees.
MS realizes this (and has for a number of years), and it's why they've pushed to much effort into new server technologies and very little into their client operating system - to the exception of technologies which support their monoculture. Granted, Linux on the server and workstation isn't about monoculture, but you do need some semblance of cohesive, complete technology before switching over clients makes any sense.
There are two groups of people who are buying netbooks, I think: women, and geeks. Women, because they're cute, and geeks, because they're cute (the computers, in both cases, not the people, are the cute item). The geek, however, is going to put whatever his preferred software is. I'm guessing there are still a lot more Windows geeks than Linux geeks, simply on the basis of numbers - and the fact that Windows is likely to be much more comfortable for the younger geeks who have little experience or knowledge (and who are also the most likely demographic to buy a netbook).
I thought I agreed with you on your comment, but then I thought about it for a moment. People who do the whole "warez" thing, and who have been doing it for years, know how to work stuff like this.
As a teen, I was pretty heavily into warez. Everyone who was 'into' computers was. It's just what you did, and how you got your software when you were a kid. So how would a person go about putting XP on a laptop that has no CDROM?
I've installed Windows (2003) on a system with SATA but no floppy drive. I don't remember exactly how I did it, because I seem to recall that USB was not available within the setup, either. But I do remember it was a huge pain in the ass.
Things have gotten easier since then, much easier, with the widespread use of LiveCDs. Windows fans have learned a lot from the Linux community, and BartPE helped a lot in that regard. A cursory look at various torrent sites tells me that there is "live" XP for installation on USB media.
This would, I believe, make the installation of Windows to the internal disk on a netbook fairly trivial. In fact, one of the first search results was "Windows XP sp3 Lite for ASUS eee PC". Seems like XP is getting a fairly wide acceptance/installation on netbooks to me.
I imagine that most people don't learn Mandrin as a 2nd language partially on the basis of it only being a Chinese language. But I suspect that the language having something like 5000 written characters also has something to do with it.
English? 26, or around 80 or so if you count all numbers and punctuation.
They think their nation and culture is superior, just like most people from every other nation and culture.
Oh really? How many young Americans did you ask to see if they like their culture?
It would seem to me that most young Americans think their nation and culture suck, as evidenced by cultural and political trends. They're voting out the old and pulling something distinctly un-American into the country.
Truthfully, I've met a great deal of young people in the US who have a fair amount of disdain for America and her culture; they prefer the cultures of European countries and Asia to America's. The relatively large number of young American ex-pats in Asian countries is probably a good indicator of this.
I'd be interested in finding out what the older generations of Chinese think about China, as well as America. Are they uber-nationalist as well?
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Musket balls were made out of iron or iron-clad stones. That right there is half the advantage - modern ammo is lead, and only armor piercing ammo has a (relatively small) bonded steel core.
Pistols are not subsonic; some pistols are subsonic. The speed of sound is approximately 1024fps, whereas the 9mm Luger (most common 9mm variant) is approximately 1300-1900fps (depending on who makes it, etc.). A .45ACP travels at approximately 850-1100 fps.
That said, the speed of the bullet has little to do with its effectiveness on its own. The density, internal ballistics, and impactive surface area also play a large part in the effectiveness of a projectile at killing or stopping its target.
Finally, while there are armor piercing bullets today (with a steel core), rifle and handgun bullets are primarily designed today to penetrate flesh and (sometimes, depending on design,) upon impact, expand. Lead is a soft metal and isn't going to penetrate steel, no matter how hardened or thick, all too readily.
Muskets, on the other hand, would fire shot: specifically, iron clad stone shot, or cast iron shot. These have a higher density and without the projectile tip of a modern bullet (which is there to decrease ballistic drag, not to push through its target), would be much more likely to penetrate steel of any thickness.
A more appropriate comparison would've been against a modern .30 caliber carbine, like the M1A, firing steel core/AP ammo. I have no doubt which is superior: modern .308 AP can penetrate the hardened steel of a vehicle's engine sufficient enough to disable it immediately.
This is largely due to the military history of the round. The 1911 handgun was officer issue from WWI through the Korean War, and used in high numbers during Vietnam as well (I am uncertain whether it was 'standard' issue). It was the preferred until the 9mm was adopted in the 1980s.
Both the .45ACP and 1911 are preferred in the US for a number of reasons - historical longevity not the least of these. Veterans are a big part of the firearm owning public, and as such have historically had a natural preference for both what they're familiar with and what works.
Additionally, the .45ACP (and 1911) is a well-tested, reliable platform. Gun owners are a traditionally conservative lot here in the US, and so they stick with what works. .45ACP has demonstrated repeatedly that it has "stopping power" due to the cartridge's ability to pass through bone and cartilage where the 9mm might be deflected or stopped - and it's bigger, making each shot's wound larger.
Finally, the .45ACP (particularly in a steel-frame 1911), unlike the 9mm (in a polymer/metal frame) has a very "soft" recoil - more of a push than a kick or jab, as occurs with 9mm. The 1911 design has not only been copied, it has been modified and improved upon in many small ways (though the original design by John Moses Browning was a very good one, and little actual improvement was needed - the changes have largely been for things such as personal preference, such as sight and grip type. Though some changes, such as double-stack variants and different calibers, have also been done.)
First, comparing a rifle to a handgun is a lousy comparison. There are very few handguns from any area with the potential to compete against a rifle for penetration, again from any era.
Second, as someone else noted, it wasn't a "modern" 9mm, it was a 45ACP handgun. The .45ACP is a bigger, slower, flatter projectile than the 9mm and is better suited for penetrating a limited (12" or so) amount of flesh. However, heavy winter clothing, foliage, and the like have been known to stop both cartridges on occasion enough to prevent serious injury (though the .45ACP undoubtedly does more impactive/bruising damage).
Just because it's "modern" doesn't mean it's invariably more powerful; the rifles and muskets of yesteryear were invariably of a larger caliber, with larger projectiles. The biggest personnel weapon in common use is .30 caliber, or 7.5mm, give or take, depending on which country we're talking about. Small arms of yesteryear had smaller, faster projectiles as time went on.
Additionally, the caliver was commonly used at sea during this era, not the musket. It was smaller and fired a smaller projectile. Just the same, it did use standard munition ball, which I recall to be around the 2 oz. mark. That's roughly 4 times as heavy as the heaviest personal arms bullet of today.
Finally, the reproduced musket was likely made to a higher quality than the original, allowing it to take a heavier charge of powder. Metallurgy for barrels back then was crude, often resulting in brittle steel. Likewise, powder production during the 1500s was imprecise and still resulted in a great deal of variation, further contributing to the weapon's inaccuracy past 50 yards.
I seem to recall that ship-borne personal firearms were primarily used by sharpshooters in the rigging to snipe officers (senior, deck, and crew officers alike) from enemy ships once they drew close. Though that may not have been a prevailing tactic until the 1800s; I don't recall my naval combat history that well.
I would be interested to see how many ships utilized elevated cannons in order to, upon flanking the enemy ship, shoot downward upon the enemy's deck (and hull) in order to inflict water-taking damage upon the enemy ship.
That would seem to me to be a very sound tactic, because a man is a very small target to hit, and a sunk ship, no matter how many surviving crew members it had, would still be sunk. Likewise, a sinking ship would take more crew members away from the duty of fighting in order to simply keep the ship afloat.
At least in this case (where the second hole is below the water line), two holes would be greatly desirable. Due to the ballistic coefficient of a projectile in water, it would be almost impossible to sink a ship by hitting it first under the water line (as the projectile would bleed entirely too much potential energy, too quickly, to penetrate).
The British had developed gun making tech to the point that their guns had more uniform bores and had tighter tolerances twist bore and shot,
Twist bore?
You're clueless about this, aren't you? IE, you're speaking out of your ass.
Rifling - what you call 'twist bore' was experimental at the time when these cannons were in use. Rifling was invented in 1498, and wasn't actually used (to any degree) before 1540. It was not commonplace until the mid-19th century.
The very word, "cannon" denotes a smooth bore. "Guns" have rifling. They can be used interchangeably, mostly, but in terms of naval artillery, a rifled bore is a gun, not a cannon.
Furthermore, shot flies wildly out of a rifled barrel, with maybe 30% of the shot flying (significantly) wide. It is also uncommon for a rifled gun to have choke: rifled barrels are designed for ball and conical projectiles, and a choked barrel 'squeezes' shot so as to encourage a tighter shot pattern grouping on the target - and to encourage accuracy at a longer distance.
The rest of what you mention about naval guns and cannon,
The 'backwards compatibility' MS offers is largely for the purpose of assuring their vendor-lock-in remains intact. That is, so that people will upgrade to the next version of Office.
Now that Windows Server has such a big foothold in the corporate world, the lock-in provided by the client OSes themselves is less of an issue. There is also less of a business need for backward-compatibility.
The only reason MS ever undertook backward compatibility so seriously is because corporate interests demanded it. That is still largely the case. Apple has very carefully avoided that mess, repeatedly; if they wanted to be in that mess, they'd pursue it instead of making a solid consumer product exclusively, and instead pursue corporate contracts and 3rd party vendors.
Apple's Classic interface is akin to Windows' various "Compatibility" modes. It is little different. The only reason it worked as poorly as it did (and I'd argue it worked well, considering the amount of change that took place) is because so much change from OS 9 to 10 took place. Windows, on the other hand, had relatively minor changes yet still had similar compatibility issues.
Seriously: if you want emulation, use an emulator. I realize a pet program of your's likely no longer works because it used Classic/OS 9 interfaces, but what of the OS X versions? If there aren't any, then it's likely that nobody but you cares.
I'm starting to wonder whether it might be a good idea to get that acknowledgement written into contracts. "You acknowlege that Caimlas may be recording his conversations while working for $company." Wonder how well that'd fly or hold up in court...
A lot of the 'big' sites were up, and popular back then, all of which were independent entities (unlike now, where they're mostly owned by a scant few):
Hotmail ... and of course all the big search engines which aren't any more. Actually, it seems like the big web sites were largely just the search engines and 'aggregation' sites. Not much has changed in that regard, really. Other than that, I remember the web of 1996 being much like it is now: full of animated cursors, wallpapers, screensavers, and porn, with the random page about someone's dog thrown in to disrupt your chain of thought.
Lycos
Tripod
Angelfire
Geocities
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HappyHacker
Uh, more porn in 1996 than today? Surely you jest. Porn has grown in volume exponentially. I suppose there's probably less variety, but the quality and quantity is astoundingly higher. I suppose there was a lot more 'community' porn back then, as well as 'community' means to acquire it, than there are now, so that might be one major difference. But it's still more than available if you know where to look.
The biggest difference is probably that it's less visible now than it was then. Google has "Safe Search" and IIRC a policy on 'adult' advertising. Back then, however, adult advertisers were pretty much the only ones advertising.
In 1996, the only connection options to me locally were BBSes and AOL: there was 1 local BBS, and AOL was still a long-distance number for us, I seem to recall. Our family computer was still ancient - the IBM Portable Computer, an 8088 with 640K and a 10Mb drive, a hand-me-down from a family friend. I would go over to a friend's house where we would
I remember the first time I saw the "Internet" - really, just the AOL interface. But just the same, it was amazing: I was 13 or so, and simply blown away by the fact that you could send images over the phone line. I was familiar with Morse code and the telegram, and the like (being a geek and in Boy Scouts), but that you could send color images over the line using the same basic mechanisms, at such speeds (14.4kbps)?! Astounding! Our "Internet" use was culminated in downloading freeware and shareware, which we would then play locally. Those were the days...
Then there was 1997. I remember that summer well. We didn't have air conditioning, and the computer was in the warmest room in the house. Our local provider had just gone from a "per minute" to "unlimited" account. The "unlimited" account would disconnect after 5 hours; it was almost every night that I hit that 5-hour mark.
I think that may have been the summer - or the one after - when I stayed home for a week while my parents left town for vacation. Whatever their destination was, I didn't want to go; instead, I stayed home and used the computer/the Internet for 5-15 hours each day, downloading software and grainy porn at less than 2kbps.
Well, first off, a move from one OS to another is slightly different from an upgrade - but I'll address what you said, as an OS upgrade is, in my experience, invariably a headache.
You move from one OS to another, in the natural progression of things, because you have to. Because if you don't do it before the hardware becomes too old to be considered reliable, then you have machines dying on you. Basically, you upgrade when you can, so that you move to the 'new' stuff when you can, so that you don't fall behind the 8-ball or run into a budgetary cutback when you most need the upgrades, only to realize you didn't upgrade when you could've.
Also, you do it because maintaining two (or three, or four) drastically different operating systems on the same network is a multiple of work for the same (or less) result. Your attention is divided between two similar (yet different) tasks, and you are, essentially, managing two smaller networks instead of one. Yet, the time requirements are more than just the one large network.
This has always, always been the case with Windows. A fresh install has always been the preferred method, whether that was the Microsoft-sanctioned gospel or not. Win 3.1 to 95, 95->98, 98->2k, and so on and so forth. There would almost always be some little glitch or irritation resulting from an "upgrade" instead of an "install". I have personally not seen Windows upgrade properly - not even once.
For that matter, there were issues with 98 to 98SE. Again, a fresh install was preferred. Nobody who's even remotely familiar with Windows would consider an OS upgrade something that isn't likely to fail. No sysadmin or even an IT peon - someone with half a brain and two weeks of experience - would think it's a good idea to "upgrade" anything MS touches. That's a damn sure way to introduce irritating, untraceable bugs.
I just thank God every night that at least Windows has improved to the point where it doesn't need to be reinstalled every ~6 months. I can't imagine that kind of IT overhead/headache in today's computing environment, what with activation and all the headaches of product tracking.
Funny enough, it would seem thta the "fresh install on every version" mentality has migrated over with the "new to Linux" crowd. You've got everyone downloading and installing the latest, greatest Ubuntu - from CD. Why not just do a proper upgrade? (Granted, I'm not all that familiar wtih Ubuntu upgrades, but I've got a system I've been upgrading, from version to version, since slink.)
Well, actually, Linux has all of the issues that both Windows and MacOS X have, and more, with compatibility.
We - both users and the distro packagers - can just recompile our software against the new libraries to get it to work, usually. Or we upgrade - for free! - to the latest version, which doesn't have that compatibility issue. And these are "worst case" scenarios, like if you were using something like Gentoo or Slackware. Most of us just use intelligent package management: we type a couple characters, and voila! 2 years of software development progress, in a hundred+ programs, installed.
I am kinda pissed about the CFQ scheduler right now, though. It's not what it was hyped up to be, so I went back to anticipatory.
People are still bitching about the PPC emulation layer and the Classic environment?
That was 5 years ago. They provided that 'bridge' from the old to the new so people would cross it. The reason for doing this is not "none" it is "because perpetual support of old shit would get us into the same mess MS is in now, and we have to design our OS to plan for the future, not let it grow organically with slipshod additions".
That's just silly. MS will just release a new, compatible version - and vendors will fall in line as long as it's not a truly disruptive development change for them. What're they going to do, port to Mac or Linux? That's much more of a headache.
Yes, adoption will be slow. But there will be adoption eventually - and vendors will sell it like they always have. And you know what? People, by and large, will use it. They'll bitch like they always have, sure; and it won't matter. It won't matter because MS doesn't care, and it won't matter because they will have applications to use.
Chances are the users will bitch about those applications, too - just like they do about the ones we've got now.
You can stick to your frozen XP install; that's fine. I've run across a couple people using old 68k Macintoshes and win95 in the past couple years, too, and they didn't seem to mind using their computers. if it works for you, use it. That doesn't mean change won't occur around you.
That was exactly my thought as well. I wonder if they will offer another version, or if a derived product might have a VGA/DvI out? This IS the developers version, apparently: it also only has 1 ethernet and 1 USB. Given that the arch supports Intel's WMMX2, lack of video seems kind of silly.
Realistically - to be a good geekable, or even viable consumer product, it needs to have at least two network interfaces of some sort. And preferably at least 2x USB ports, though I know I would personally make use of 3+ if they were available (printer, flash, camera). And where's the SD slot?
Then again, it's quite possible that they don't want to make their product (and company) into a "cult personality" in the open source community, and they're just looking at getting free advertising. Or maybe they hadn't thought of doing these things yet, or didn't foresee the geeking limitations to the device. Who knows? It's a dev kit, as of now; I suppose we'll see more later, yes?
(Side note: gumstix is likely pissing themselves, on account of this dev kit costing less than their entry level board alone, and contains a lot more than what the gumstix does by quite a bit!)
This, in itself, is not disruptive - though it could easily help pave the way to a major disruption.
Think for a moment about what you just posted on. You don't seem to be paying attention!
I'm uncertain of the specs on the Linksys, but I don't doubt it's on rough par (or less) with the Gumstix boards in terms of power and capabilities. Soekris boards use ~20+ year old hardware specs, mostly! And the mini-itx shit? That's little different than the Atom: commodity x86 hardware.
The "disruption" being spoken of is that we're looking at a $100 "dev" model, being sold in the US, with an ARM processor running over 1GHz, connectivity, and 512Mb of RAM. They see these devices dropping down to $40 or so once they become mass-produced. This equipment uses a miniscule amount of power.
So, to pull one from trade rags: what does this mean? In essence, it's advertising for ARM-based hardware. It's out there, and it's capable. Not only that, but the numbers alone demonstrate that it's at least as capable now as Intel's processors in the same market: especially with Linux.
How would you like a "netbook" that has no moving parts whatsoever, with an ARM processor which runs cool enough to neither be warm or need a heatsink, and yet can run for a couple days without a battery recharge? That's where we're headed.
Uh, what?
An unfamiliar MAC would be one which isn't in your reporting/asset records, and is of a host type/name/etc. that is unrecognized or not set by you. And "port 73" could very well be any of the things you mention - switch, router, room, etc. numbers apply.
As for placing such a device... I suspect the best place to put a device like that is actually in the server room, or near the switches. Just plug it right into the switch and find an extra UPS port to plug it into. The messiest cables are always in the server room, because users will bitch and moan about cables being visible - and they will notice a change, if only for a reason to bitch. Even an attentive admin is going to likely overlook such an environmental intrusion, simply on the basis of having too much shit to do - it'll come up when equipment needs replacement, and that's it.
Twenty computers the size of wall worts plugged into four power strips?
Damn, that is cute computing. If it didn't cost $2k to do, it'd be something I'd do right now. Think of the bragging rights: "Yeah, this mid-tower? it's got 20, 1.2GHz cores with 10Gb of RAM."
Though, personally, I'd probably just nail the power strips on a piece of plywood and display them in the living room...
It's not an impossible goal for you. It costs you nothing to install Linux on the desktop. It's an impossible goal for them, being a company which needs to make money.
Linux on the desktop will not make financial sense for a distribution until the infrastructure is there to support it. By infrastructure, I mean a Linux-friendly network environment. That means Linux servers, first and foremost, with useful client management tools. Then, and only then, will companies consider moving to Linux on their workstations - and, most importantly, paying the distribution vendor licensing and service/support fees.
MS realizes this (and has for a number of years), and it's why they've pushed to much effort into new server technologies and very little into their client operating system - to the exception of technologies which support their monoculture. Granted, Linux on the server and workstation isn't about monoculture, but you do need some semblance of cohesive, complete technology before switching over clients makes any sense.
Nonsense.
There are two groups of people who are buying netbooks, I think: women, and geeks. Women, because they're cute, and geeks, because they're cute (the computers, in both cases, not the people, are the cute item). The geek, however, is going to put whatever his preferred software is. I'm guessing there are still a lot more Windows geeks than Linux geeks, simply on the basis of numbers - and the fact that Windows is likely to be much more comfortable for the younger geeks who have little experience or knowledge (and who are also the most likely demographic to buy a netbook).
I thought I agreed with you on your comment, but then I thought about it for a moment. People who do the whole "warez" thing, and who have been doing it for years, know how to work stuff like this.
As a teen, I was pretty heavily into warez. Everyone who was 'into' computers was. It's just what you did, and how you got your software when you were a kid. So how would a person go about putting XP on a laptop that has no CDROM?
I've installed Windows (2003) on a system with SATA but no floppy drive. I don't remember exactly how I did it, because I seem to recall that USB was not available within the setup, either. But I do remember it was a huge pain in the ass.
Things have gotten easier since then, much easier, with the widespread use of LiveCDs. Windows fans have learned a lot from the Linux community, and BartPE helped a lot in that regard. A cursory look at various torrent sites tells me that there is "live" XP for installation on USB media.
This would, I believe, make the installation of Windows to the internal disk on a netbook fairly trivial. In fact, one of the first search results was "Windows XP sp3 Lite for ASUS eee PC". Seems like XP is getting a fairly wide acceptance/installation on netbooks to me.
You sir, are correct.
I imagine that most people don't learn Mandrin as a 2nd language partially on the basis of it only being a Chinese language. But I suspect that the language having something like 5000 written characters also has something to do with it.
English? 26, or around 80 or so if you count all numbers and punctuation.
They think their nation and culture is superior, just like most people from every other nation and culture.
Oh really? How many young Americans did you ask to see if they like their culture?
It would seem to me that most young Americans think their nation and culture suck, as evidenced by cultural and political trends. They're voting out the old and pulling something distinctly un-American into the country.
Truthfully, I've met a great deal of young people in the US who have a fair amount of disdain for America and her culture; they prefer the cultures of European countries and Asia to America's. The relatively large number of young American ex-pats in Asian countries is probably a good indicator of this.
I'd be interested in finding out what the older generations of Chinese think about China, as well as America. Are they uber-nationalist as well?