While it could be open (and a ROM dump and a disassembler could take care of it), IBM had copyrights on it and would not let anyone else just copy it and sell it (in the US, that is).
It took a clean-room implementation to jump-start the PC-compatible industry.
And, I dare to say it, it's a shame that the PC, that mediocre, ugly, puke inducing, project, became industry-standard.
All of them had some props. If I got the pictures right, this one has no prop whatsoever - even the spacesuit or the ladder the actor pretends to climb do not exist, not even as a blue-screen prop.
Every large company in this business wants a stranglehold on the entire industry. It just happens that Microsoft has it now. Unless we have far better anti-monopoly laws than there are today, if you take one Microsoft down (or an IBM before it) it will be a question of time before another one appears. For companies like them, keeping this stranglehold is a matter of survival. If we deprive Microsoft from it, its fall will be inevitable.
As IBM has already shown us.
Not to say they have any right to abuse their monopolies - they don't. And they should be punished when they do.
People call it processor checkpoints. When the time comes, the processor state gets saved to the checkpoint register. If you remove the CPU, the next time you insert one, its state is restored and processing resumes from the last checkpoint.
IIRC, some Sun servers could do that, but you had to let Solaris know what processors were going out and wait until it says it's OK to remove the module.
One of the reasons for not using pencils is that nothing remotely flammable should be used in a pure oxygen atmosphere - as most early spaceships had. Wood and graphite are, certainly, flammable enough to make people worried.
And, anyone who remembers the Apollo I accident know that, given the right amount of oxygen, just about anything can burn.
It seems poised to follow Betamax. The main difference being that Betamax was really better than VHS and some people still use Betamax-like technologies in professional settings. HD-DVD has no such future.
Saying that without Stallman we would not have Free Software is like stating that, without Columbus, we would not have discovered the Americas. It would happen, perhaps later, perhaps in a little bit different way.
But it would have happened.
Not to say I don't respect RMS deeply for his contributions. As it stands, he was the driving force behind it.
The universe is probably full of intelligent life, some of it even capable of traveling between solar systems. What remains true is that even the closest solar system is mind boggingly far and everything else is farther still. Vast regions of our galaxy are bathed in deadly radiation (even in our own solar system, being close Jupiter is as clever as standing inside a microwave oven)
It is perfectly reasonable to imagine interstellar contact is very, very rare.
And detecting the work on nuclear fission a couple years before the first detonation is, I bet, a bit more difficult that hyper-relativistic space travel.
It would be a bit difficult to hide a couple million civilizations making contact with humans.
But I agree that I would not make contact just yet. Right now, it is quite safe to let humans be the lords of their little planet, while they don't have any technology that can nuke their worlds in less than a couple thousand years, if at all.
A real space-faring civilization (one that can go to another solar system) is a lot more difficult to ignore. I expect to meet other species as soon as we develop a viable way to go interstellar, but not before. Giving this kind of technology to people who tend to blow each other up for silly reasons is very irresponsible.
Nevertheless, I would love if some advanced and benevolent species stumbled on us and decided to share some knowledge about the galaxy, other civilizations and things like that. I would love to see their arts, religions...
It is interesting to imagine what it takes to be a space-faring civilization.
A first would be some form of vision, so they could get curious about what lies beyond the stars. They need to see (or sense, somehow) the sky.
They need at least one "hand" in order to be able to manipulate stuff. I find it unlikely to meet an alien without some fairly apt hands (unless their spaceships grow in trees).
They need to be able to breath, or at least, not die in the presence of, oxygen (or our technologies started to differ at the invention of fire)
They must come from a world with the gravity just right. A little bit too much and they won't be able to take off and a bit too little, their planet won't have much of an atmosphere.
There are lots of possible solutions to all of these problems here on Earth. But, again, I think we could tell an advanced alien from a sea urchin quite easily.
Same with temperature, or, again, our technologies differ from the very beginning.
True. There is great beauty in their craft. Lawyers are not so far from hackers as many hackers believe - they are still walking around code, legal code, and trying to bend it in ways it was never meant to be.
It's their obligation to do whatever legally allowed to protect their client's interests. That includes stalling until other departments figure out what _they_ could or should do.
Slashdot Mirror
While it could be open (and a ROM dump and a disassembler could take care of it), IBM had copyrights on it and would not let anyone else just copy it and sell it (in the US, that is).
It took a clean-room implementation to jump-start the PC-compatible industry.
And, I dare to say it, it's a shame that the PC, that mediocre, ugly, puke inducing, project, became industry-standard.
Let the general public be damned. I will call them hackers.
Let's take back our word.
All of them had some props. If I got the pictures right, this one has no prop whatsoever - even the spacesuit or the ladder the actor pretends to climb do not exist, not even as a blue-screen prop.
This _is_ painful.
I must disagree.
Every large company in this business wants a stranglehold on the entire industry. It just happens that Microsoft has it now. Unless we have far better anti-monopoly laws than there are today, if you take one Microsoft down (or an IBM before it) it will be a question of time before another one appears. For companies like them, keeping this stranglehold is a matter of survival. If we deprive Microsoft from it, its fall will be inevitable.
As IBM has already shown us.
Not to say they have any right to abuse their monopolies - they don't. And they should be punished when they do.
Thanks. That was quick.
I may be wrong, but I think there aren't many places cooler than ILM to work for.
It is also quite impressive that _all_ the props will be CGI. It must have been incredibly painful to sync them with a live actor.
I think I may have seen it. Can you name it?
And that was _the_ hickup that ended that 40 year period... Shame... ;-)
People call it processor checkpoints. When the time comes, the processor state gets saved to the checkpoint register. If you remove the CPU, the next time you insert one, its state is restored and processing resumes from the last checkpoint.
IIRC, some Sun servers could do that, but you had to let Solaris know what processors were going out and wait until it says it's OK to remove the module.
Too bad I already posted here
Grow up. That "ancient code" running on the "dinosaur OS" have probably been doing so 24x7 for the last 40 years without a single hickup.
Call us back when you get that level of reliability with anything else.
One of the reasons for not using pencils is that nothing remotely flammable should be used in a pure oxygen atmosphere - as most early spaceships had. Wood and graphite are, certainly, flammable enough to make people worried.
And, anyone who remembers the Apollo I accident know that, given the right amount of oxygen, just about anything can burn.
HD-DVD seems quite doomed.
It seems poised to follow Betamax. The main difference being that Betamax was really better than VHS and some people still use Betamax-like technologies in professional settings. HD-DVD has no such future.
It seems the Digg crowd is invading Slashdot...
Get a life.
Saying that without Stallman we would not have Free Software is like stating that, without Columbus, we would not have discovered the Americas. It would happen, perhaps later, perhaps in a little bit different way.
But it would have happened.
Not to say I don't respect RMS deeply for his contributions. As it stands, he was the driving force behind it.
If and when Windows becomes foolproof, it can also be said it's 98.3% userproof.
The universe is probably full of intelligent life, some of it even capable of traveling between solar systems. What remains true is that even the closest solar system is mind boggingly far and everything else is farther still. Vast regions of our galaxy are bathed in deadly radiation (even in our own solar system, being close Jupiter is as clever as standing inside a microwave oven)
It is perfectly reasonable to imagine interstellar contact is very, very rare.
And detecting the work on nuclear fission a couple years before the first detonation is, I bet, a bit more difficult that hyper-relativistic space travel.
It would be a bit difficult to hide a couple million civilizations making contact with humans.
But I agree that I would not make contact just yet. Right now, it is quite safe to let humans be the lords of their little planet, while they don't have any technology that can nuke their worlds in less than a couple thousand years, if at all.
A real space-faring civilization (one that can go to another solar system) is a lot more difficult to ignore. I expect to meet other species as soon as we develop a viable way to go interstellar, but not before. Giving this kind of technology to people who tend to blow each other up for silly reasons is very irresponsible.
Nevertheless, I would love if some advanced and benevolent species stumbled on us and decided to share some knowledge about the galaxy, other civilizations and things like that. I would love to see their arts, religions...
The far side of the moon is, perhaps, the worst place in the solar system to study Earth... The rim would be far better.
It is interesting to imagine what it takes to be a space-faring civilization.
A first would be some form of vision, so they could get curious about what lies beyond the stars. They need to see (or sense, somehow) the sky.
They need at least one "hand" in order to be able to manipulate stuff. I find it unlikely to meet an alien without some fairly apt hands (unless their spaceships grow in trees).
They need to be able to breath, or at least, not die in the presence of, oxygen (or our technologies started to differ at the invention of fire)
They must come from a world with the gravity just right. A little bit too much and they won't be able to take off and a bit too little, their planet won't have much of an atmosphere.
There are lots of possible solutions to all of these problems here on Earth. But, again, I think we could tell an advanced alien from a sea urchin quite easily.
Same with temperature, or, again, our technologies differ from the very beginning.
It's a fun exercise.
Because of the same principle that governs the stock market - there is always a bigger fool. ;-)
Thank you for the very bad movie reference. I have managed to almost forget it and you brought it back.
True. There is great beauty in their craft. Lawyers are not so far from hackers as many hackers believe - they are still walking around code, legal code, and trying to bend it in ways it was never meant to be.
It's their obligation to do whatever legally allowed to protect their client's interests. That includes stalling until other departments figure out what _they_ could or should do.
"Building software for 64-bit windows would usually be a matter of a few compiler switches and using the proper types and macros."
Building is easy. Supporting is hard. If you can't use the phone with your OS of choice (a bad choice, IMHO) then return the phone and get a refund.