Friend who worked at JPL told of NASA scrounging 486s long into the Pentium era, for use in anything that went into space -- because the 486 CPU was by then thoroughly understood, and patching bugs at 300 baud is at best tedious. So they wanted absolutely known hardware.
I still have a DX4-100 board here somewhere that takes 72pin SIMMs (can also do 30pin), and plenty of old RAM... when I find it again I should see what it can really do. It was my parts-and-RAM tester for a long time because it booted fast and wasn't fussy; pretty much anything that could physically connect to it worked.
Now I'm wondering what's the absolute minimum hardware that the oldest Puppy can run on -- anyone tried that?
Yeah, I had a 486 that came with 4mb (pretty good in 1994) and a year or so later a local shop advertised 4mb sticks for $100 each... drove clear across L.A. to get there, ran in with the cash, grabbed four sticks, and ran out the door before they could realise their mistake.:P Machine was still in use in 2001, when a keyboard short killed it.
That 486's sound card is still in my DOS gaming box (now a P4), tho just this week it's finally trying to die... got my money's worth, eh??:)
It did exactly what it was designed to do -- shunt a whole bunch of money to the construction firms that won the bid, and of course as you note to the 'non-profit' backers. Whether anyone ever rode the thing after it was built was irrelevant.
From what I've gleaned from Thomas Mitchell's blog (https://4thst8.wordpress.com/ ), this seems to be standard Nevada politics.
Mandrake was the first distro that didn't make me want to hurt someone. And ever since, seems every distro that I find usable is some Mandrake descendant. There's gotta be a connection....
My prediction is that any aliens who come clear out here to bumfuck nullspace (cuz Earth's system is kinda out in the middle of nowhere, as stars go) are either looking for something or running from something. Which means most likely 1) the vanguard of a resource-hungry conqueror, or 2) refugees from war or the law, in either case soon to be followed by irate enforcers.
So I won't complain about it running slow... the low idle RPM did make one mechanic eye it suspiciously, but if it ain't broke... presumably the thermostat is stuck, but I learned with the old truck to leave that the hell alone!
I had indeed looked for a diesel (figured out the fuel efficiency difference came to about ten grand over the life of the truck) and as I recall you helped me a lot with how to ID a good used diesel, and I looked at a lot of trucks but never did find a diesel that hadn't been rode hard and put away wet. Was getting down to the wire and went to look at one last truck, guy had sold it but had this other one he says look at, try it, you'll like it... And I say no, it won't get good enough gas mileage (since I knew people who were getting 6-8mpg tops with similar trucks) and he says seriously, this one is real efficient. Hmmph, anyone can say that. But it had been recently rebuilt end to end (so practically a new truck despite 220k miles on the odometer) and for $3000 it was a good enough deal to eat the gas mileage for a while. So I test-drove it and the durn thing performs like a new truck, accelerates like a race car, stops on a dime, and handles just perfect. (Allowing for that the long frame means "I need 40 acres to turn this rig around", and we won't even discuss parking spots.)
So it went home with me and to work moving me cross-country, and even pulling 15,000 pounds up a 6% grade it still made about 8mpg, so not in the league with a diesel but not bad for gas, and 12-14mpg on the highway with a more-moderate load (empty trailer is still 4000 pounds, and the truck itself is 6000 pounds almost exactly), well, that was a bonus. And I absolutely love it, wholly a pleasure to drive no matter how many hours I spend in it (and we've done some 18 hour jaunts together).
Oh, funny story.... I bought it in Lancaster, California; checked CarFax and I'm its 7th owner. (Had always been commercial in CA, never privately owned.) Anyway one day I was getting gas in Three Forks, Montana, and the guy at the next pump says to me: "I'll bet you bought that truck in California." I allowed as how this was so, and he says, "I built that rack." Seems it was originally a studio truck, and they had these overheight racks for their equipment (that's why it's not level with the cab).
My F350 peaks at about 14mpg; has a gas 460 engine. Not much difference between town and highway driving. I've noticed it idles very slow, down around 600rpm (highway efficiency sweet spot is around 2200), and wondered how much that contributes. Also runs relatively cold (has to be really working hard to bring the gauge up).
Total conversion to web apps by subscription has been Microsoft's wet dream since 1999. They first rolled out the idea during the Win2K launch tour. At the event I attended, the audience of some 1000 IT professionals all developed identical angry frowns.
Modernist.... I just installed WinXP on the 'new' everyday frankenputer. Win10 is why yonder box runs PCLinuxOS, for those rare times when I actually need a "current" OS.
Oddity: WinXP-32bit on a 64bit CPU, as a new install, uses only about 75-100mb RAM. Seen this twice now. WTF.
Job security. If you can't invent something new, sell it to the management, and cause customers to require both new versions and ongoing support -- WE DON'T NEED YOU.
In a saturated market, there's no money in more-of-the-same.
Exactly. I spend half my time with parallel windows of one thing or another, including browsers. Why would I want a desktop where I can only see one thing at a time? why do we have oversized or multiple monitors, again??
Yeah, I missed that, sufficiently that for a while I used Program Manager on Win95. After a certain point it got awkward, but damn, it was handy sometimes.
SOME dogs bark due to boredom, but turns out that the desire to bark a lot is genetic -- in my observation (speaking as a pro dog trainer) it's a simple dominant gene. It was selected for in sheepdogs in particular because constant barking served to "mark territory" in a way that discouraged predators.
And in the desert, there are days when you can visually "prove" that the Earth is not flat, but rather is a concave bowl: damp morning and a local inversion can turn valleys into lenses that produce this bowl-like optical illusion, and also let you see distant stuff that's normally over the horizon.
More like massive inflation in the mobile home market, because it tags after the stickbuilt market -- when an average stickbuilt house was $60k, an average mobile was about $8k brand new. Multiply that by four and suddenly that 1960s singlewide you got used for $2000 can be sold for $20,000 on a rental lot, or $120,000 if it's on a private lot. (Yes, I've seen such prices, and more.)
Most of these people bought those mobiles back in the four-figure days, and since mobiles on a rental lot in a trailer park (not on a permanent foundation on owned land) are insured like cars, with depreciation over time down to basically nothing -- if they get destroyed, the insurance payout is like for an old car -- nothing much. Then again, you've only been paying $100/year to insure it, not $2000+ like it would have cost you for a stickbuilt house...
Seems to me someone who can churn out contractor-grade singlewides (tough but ugly) in a hurry at minimal cost has themselves a ready-made market.
But in reality most of those trailer parks (which for the most part are grandfathered into areas that no longer allow singlewides) will now be closed and the land sold to developers for way more than the lot rent was ever worth, and there'll be nowhere to put that trailer even if you can afford it.
Yeah, even the best "luxury" mobile/modulars are not up to basic stickbuilt standards. And their max lifespan is measured in decades, not centuries. But they're closing on just as pricey. And they do require more maintenance, especially if not on a permanent foundation -- the roof needs care every other year or so and winter-frozen plumbing is a way of life.
Also, you can't get a loan unless they're on a permanent foundation, which (depending on your state) tax-wise turns them from a vehicle (cheap) to real estate (10-100x as much tax). Some local codes don't allow 'em at all without a foundation.
OTOH, you can get a near-new repo doublewide starting at $20k, and mobile-ready private lots start at around $20k. If you just want a retirement home that will last you 30 years or so, and aren't worried about its resale value, this can be a good option.
But if I were going for a lower-cost modular, it would be one of the metal prefabs -- 600sqft start at $18k and more-standard-sized houses at around $50k, plus setup and finishing work (which any local indy contractor can do at half the cost, to whatever specs you like).
If I was really strapped... I'd consider a pole barn conversion (make sure the contractor has experience; this will cost a third to half as much as a regular house of the same size, but requires specialty knowledge so you don't wind up with sinking floors).
Another option in mobiles are used contractor singlewides -- these in my observation are tougher than average, and often available at four figures.
And mobiles, even doublewides, are commonly available free for the moving (tho remember a mobile that's set unmaintained for more than a few years WILL have water damage). Here's a couple:
https://billings.craigslist.or... I've been inside this one; it's rough, but salvageable if you're really handy. Lots of water damage including some floor that needs replacing, and one exterior wall that could stand rebuilding where the power pole leaned on it, and probably needs all-new plumbing. (Most freebies are in better shape than this.)
Ah, someone must have snagged the free doublewide, the listing is gone. Roof had multiple leaks from lack of regular maintenance, with concomitant ceiling damage, but otherwise was in good shape. Estimated cost to move it was $10k-$20k, so not precisely free, but you'd have moving costs regardless.
Conclusion: mobile/modular/prefab can be a good option, and if you're savvy you can keep costs down, but don't get suckered into believing it has the same long-term value as a stickbuilt house... no matter what your realtor tells you. Believe your insurance guy instead; he'll know what the real costs are, come to have to replace it.
In baseball, the criterion is the ball's angle of travel across the plate. Ideally you want it so the batter can't get a clean look at the ball, and so his bat can't make square contact.
Slashdot Mirror
Friend who worked at JPL told of NASA scrounging 486s long into the Pentium era, for use in anything that went into space -- because the 486 CPU was by then thoroughly understood, and patching bugs at 300 baud is at best tedious. So they wanted absolutely known hardware.
That sounds like my kind of frankenputer :)
I still have a DX4-100 board here somewhere that takes 72pin SIMMs (can also do 30pin), and plenty of old RAM... when I find it again I should see what it can really do. It was my parts-and-RAM tester for a long time because it booted fast and wasn't fussy; pretty much anything that could physically connect to it worked.
Now I'm wondering what's the absolute minimum hardware that the oldest Puppy can run on -- anyone tried that?
Yeah, that's how I remember it too.
Also remember separate FPUs on 286 and 386 boards.
Lordy, we're a bunch of greybeards...
Yeah, I had a 486 that came with 4mb (pretty good in 1994) and a year or so later a local shop advertised 4mb sticks for $100 each... drove clear across L.A. to get there, ran in with the cash, grabbed four sticks, and ran out the door before they could realise their mistake. :P Machine was still in use in 2001, when a keyboard short killed it.
That 486's sound card is still in my DOS gaming box (now a P4), tho just this week it's finally trying to die... got my money's worth, eh?? :)
Actually yes; record and next-to-record lows all along the east coast and upper midwest:
https://www.wunderground.com/c...
It did exactly what it was designed to do -- shunt a whole bunch of money to the construction firms that won the bid, and of course as you note to the 'non-profit' backers. Whether anyone ever rode the thing after it was built was irrelevant.
From what I've gleaned from Thomas Mitchell's blog (https://4thst8.wordpress.com/ ), this seems to be standard Nevada politics.
Mandrake was the first distro that didn't make me want to hurt someone. And ever since, seems every distro that I find usable is some Mandrake descendant. There's gotta be a connection....
Headline should read:
"France Takes Vow of Poverty, returns to era of horse and buggy"
My prediction is that any aliens who come clear out here to bumfuck nullspace (cuz Earth's system is kinda out in the middle of nowhere, as stars go) are either looking for something or running from something. Which means most likely 1) the vanguard of a resource-hungry conqueror, or 2) refugees from war or the law, in either case soon to be followed by irate enforcers.
None of which are likely to be good news.
So I won't complain about it running slow... the low idle RPM did make one mechanic eye it suspiciously, but if it ain't broke... presumably the thermostat is stuck, but I learned with the old truck to leave that the hell alone!
I had indeed looked for a diesel (figured out the fuel efficiency difference came to about ten grand over the life of the truck) and as I recall you helped me a lot with how to ID a good used diesel, and I looked at a lot of trucks but never did find a diesel that hadn't been rode hard and put away wet. Was getting down to the wire and went to look at one last truck, guy had sold it but had this other one he says look at, try it, you'll like it... And I say no, it won't get good enough gas mileage (since I knew people who were getting 6-8mpg tops with similar trucks) and he says seriously, this one is real efficient. Hmmph, anyone can say that. But it had been recently rebuilt end to end (so practically a new truck despite 220k miles on the odometer) and for $3000 it was a good enough deal to eat the gas mileage for a while. So I test-drove it and the durn thing performs like a new truck, accelerates like a race car, stops on a dime, and handles just perfect. (Allowing for that the long frame means "I need 40 acres to turn this rig around", and we won't even discuss parking spots.)
So it went home with me and to work moving me cross-country, and even pulling 15,000 pounds up a 6% grade it still made about 8mpg, so not in the league with a diesel but not bad for gas, and 12-14mpg on the highway with a more-moderate load (empty trailer is still 4000 pounds, and the truck itself is 6000 pounds almost exactly), well, that was a bonus. And I absolutely love it, wholly a pleasure to drive no matter how many hours I spend in it (and we've done some 18 hour jaunts together).
http://home.earthlink.net/~riv...
Oh, funny story.... I bought it in Lancaster, California; checked CarFax and I'm its 7th owner. (Had always been commercial in CA, never privately owned.) Anyway one day I was getting gas in Three Forks, Montana, and the guy at the next pump says to me: "I'll bet you bought that truck in California." I allowed as how this was so, and he says, "I built that rack." Seems it was originally a studio truck, and they had these overheight racks for their equipment (that's why it's not level with the cab).
My F350 peaks at about 14mpg; has a gas 460 engine. Not much difference between town and highway driving. I've noticed it idles very slow, down around 600rpm (highway efficiency sweet spot is around 2200), and wondered how much that contributes. Also runs relatively cold (has to be really working hard to bring the gauge up).
Total conversion to web apps by subscription has been Microsoft's wet dream since 1999. They first rolled out the idea during the Win2K launch tour. At the event I attended, the audience of some 1000 IT professionals all developed identical angry frowns.
Modernist.... I just installed WinXP on the 'new' everyday frankenputer. Win10 is why yonder box runs PCLinuxOS, for those rare times when I actually need a "current" OS.
Oddity: WinXP-32bit on a 64bit CPU, as a new install, uses only about 75-100mb RAM. Seen this twice now. WTF.
Job security. If you can't invent something new, sell it to the management, and cause customers to require both new versions and ongoing support -- WE DON'T NEED YOU.
In a saturated market, there's no money in more-of-the-same.
Exactly. I spend half my time with parallel windows of one thing or another, including browsers. Why would I want a desktop where I can only see one thing at a time? why do we have oversized or multiple monitors, again??
Yeah, I missed that, sufficiently that for a while I used Program Manager on Win95. After a certain point it got awkward, but damn, it was handy sometimes.
Ditto, because that's the only part of it I can figure out!
Argh... what's your magic? mine goes through the motions but no sound happens. (PCLOS with TDE or KDE here.)
SOME dogs bark due to boredom, but turns out that the desire to bark a lot is genetic -- in my observation (speaking as a pro dog trainer) it's a simple dominant gene. It was selected for in sheepdogs in particular because constant barking served to "mark territory" in a way that discouraged predators.
I don't know shit about him, but found this:
https://ajitvpai.com/
"Ajit has spent several years as a lawyer for Verizon"
Hmmm.
I'm inclined to trust ESR's opinion:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=617
Yeah, basic fail there.
And in the desert, there are days when you can visually "prove" that the Earth is not flat, but rather is a concave bowl: damp morning and a local inversion can turn valleys into lenses that produce this bowl-like optical illusion, and also let you see distant stuff that's normally over the horizon.
Here ya go. First used contractor livable-mobiles I came to:
https://www.modspace.com/en/li...{0F68FB5C-485D-4EB0-A922-E35D898B3A8B}&branch=&condition=&price={17F31D26-DFAA-44C5-B6F2-19168ACA76FB}2&finance=&leasePrice=&zip=&lat=&lng=&dist=&unitno=&order=default&page=1&refresh=false
That's at the high end of that market; should be able to get really basic for about half that.
More like massive inflation in the mobile home market, because it tags after the stickbuilt market -- when an average stickbuilt house was $60k, an average mobile was about $8k brand new. Multiply that by four and suddenly that 1960s singlewide you got used for $2000 can be sold for $20,000 on a rental lot, or $120,000 if it's on a private lot. (Yes, I've seen such prices, and more.)
Most of these people bought those mobiles back in the four-figure days, and since mobiles on a rental lot in a trailer park (not on a permanent foundation on owned land) are insured like cars, with depreciation over time down to basically nothing -- if they get destroyed, the insurance payout is like for an old car -- nothing much. Then again, you've only been paying $100/year to insure it, not $2000+ like it would have cost you for a stickbuilt house...
Seems to me someone who can churn out contractor-grade singlewides (tough but ugly) in a hurry at minimal cost has themselves a ready-made market.
But in reality most of those trailer parks (which for the most part are grandfathered into areas that no longer allow singlewides) will now be closed and the land sold to developers for way more than the lot rent was ever worth, and there'll be nowhere to put that trailer even if you can afford it.
Yeah, even the best "luxury" mobile/modulars are not up to basic stickbuilt standards. And their max lifespan is measured in decades, not centuries. But they're closing on just as pricey. And they do require more maintenance, especially if not on a permanent foundation -- the roof needs care every other year or so and winter-frozen plumbing is a way of life.
Also, you can't get a loan unless they're on a permanent foundation, which (depending on your state) tax-wise turns them from a vehicle (cheap) to real estate (10-100x as much tax). Some local codes don't allow 'em at all without a foundation.
OTOH, you can get a near-new repo doublewide starting at $20k, and mobile-ready private lots start at around $20k. If you just want a retirement home that will last you 30 years or so, and aren't worried about its resale value, this can be a good option.
But if I were going for a lower-cost modular, it would be one of the metal prefabs -- 600sqft start at $18k and more-standard-sized houses at around $50k, plus setup and finishing work (which any local indy contractor can do at half the cost, to whatever specs you like).
If I was really strapped... I'd consider a pole barn conversion (make sure the contractor has experience; this will cost a third to half as much as a regular house of the same size, but requires specialty knowledge so you don't wind up with sinking floors).
Another option in mobiles are used contractor singlewides -- these in my observation are tougher than average, and often available at four figures.
And mobiles, even doublewides, are commonly available free for the moving (tho remember a mobile that's set unmaintained for more than a few years WILL have water damage). Here's a couple:
https://billings.craigslist.or...
I've been inside this one; it's rough, but salvageable if you're really handy. Lots of water damage including some floor that needs replacing, and one exterior wall that could stand rebuilding where the power pole leaned on it, and probably needs all-new plumbing. (Most freebies are in better shape than this.)
Ah, someone must have snagged the free doublewide, the listing is gone. Roof had multiple leaks from lack of regular maintenance, with concomitant ceiling damage, but otherwise was in good shape. Estimated cost to move it was $10k-$20k, so not precisely free, but you'd have moving costs regardless.
Conclusion: mobile/modular/prefab can be a good option, and if you're savvy you can keep costs down, but don't get suckered into believing it has the same long-term value as a stickbuilt house... no matter what your realtor tells you. Believe your insurance guy instead; he'll know what the real costs are, come to have to replace it.
In baseball, the criterion is the ball's angle of travel across the plate. Ideally you want it so the batter can't get a clean look at the ball, and so his bat can't make square contact.
https://sports.stackexchange.c...