Hmm... back then, almost all PCs at least HAD PS/2 ports (the iPaq PC and the ThinkPad X series were the exceptions), and they still usually shipped with PS/2 keyboards, right?
Still, I'd much rather have a USB Cat than my PS/2 Cat - easier to neuter, it would work, and my laptop (both this and the used ThinkPad I'm getting) only has USB (well, the ThinkPad has a PS/2 port on the media slice, but that doesn't count...) Of course, they may well have made it for laptop users - b/c otherwise you'd have to lug around a keyboard, or modified keyboard guts...
The BIOS in this system required a keyboard to be present to initialize the PS/2 port. Being a laptop, it can most definitely boot without an external keyboard.
I guess if I felt REALLY bored, I could rip up a cheap membrane keyboard, and put the microcontroller in a little dongle...
Basically, you can use it for anything you would use a barcode scanner for.
The first solution is the obvious one - need a Point of Sale unit on the cheap? Grab a CueCat, short out the right pin, and you've got a barcode scanner.
They're good for cataloging home libraries, because you can just swipe the barcode, and put it in the system (there are programs that autograb from sites like Amazon).
One person here mentioned that they used them for scanning badges for volunteers for an organization, to manage work. That's what I call a good idea.
Basically, if you work with things that have barcodes on them, it should help you out.
You would also have to hang a PS/2 keyboard off of the CueCat, the way it works. When I was fooling around with a CueCat on my old laptop, I at least had to hang a PS/2 KB off of it while I booted.
Oh, and they're pretty rare, but Digital Convergence DID make some USB CueCats for the Mac market...
I've got a non-hacked one with a busted PS/2 plug lying around somewhere. When it worked, I got good scans about 85% of the time (into DOS EDIT - I didn't DARE use that CRQ crap). Very rarely, I would get a REALLY weird scan that I couldn't explain...
Of course, the busted pin being the clock pin, and not either of the NC pins, it makes things REALLY interesting when one tries to scan...
It's not that the ROM has part of the OS. It's that the OS can only interface with THAT ROM. (However, this is getting thrown out of the window - Apple's hiring people with experience in ACPI, which is part of the BIOS, and a modern system wouldn't touch it (ACPI or the BIOS) with a 10ft pole)
OpenFirmware is an open standard, but Mac OS (X PPC) can only talk to it. It can't talk to the firmware that the PPC Amiga boards use (either the Linux bootrom that they're using now, or the Amiga OS 4 firmware that'll come out god knows when), which is something entirely different. It can't talk to the firmware that IBM's RS/6000s use.
The fact that they appear to be using the BIOS, however, tells me that they're using a totally different method of keeping OS X on Apple. Probably a chip on the mobo, is my guess. Also, LaGrande will be in Intel's line by then - they could be using that - it would also kill piracy of OS X.
I actually considered suggesting that they do imaging the hard drives, considering that all of the P3 and Celery systems use the same motherboard (and, of course, chipset) (the Celeries use a crappy LAN card that has no drivers in W2K, but that can be taken care of...)
With W2K, they'd be SAILING. They're stubborn, and stay on XP, though;-)
And, a cheap 80 or 120GB HDD later, they could get roaming profiles going again. I also forgot to say that even with roaming profiles, they had 55GB left on C:, and that was WITH the OS (W2K Server) - they didn't actually DELETE the profiles, just disabled them, so that's how I know that figure. *smacks sysadmin voodoo doll with Model M*
Plus, I'm almost willing to bet that OS X 10.5 will be a fat OS. All binaries will probably be "Universal Binaries" or whatever Apple's calling them (they're fat binaries...) So, no separate "OS X for Intel machines, OS X for PowerPC machines". I'm just calling it OS X86 for simplicity. (And yes, I DO see the irony of writing a 478-character long post to defend leaving an X and a space off of something)
Well, one advantage is that you can now compare Apples to apples (pun intended). You'll know that the Mac Mini 2 has a 2.8GHz Pentium MD (no, I don't know anything. Those are just numbers and names that I pulled out of my ass.), rather than a 1.45GHz G4. And, you CAN compare a 2.8GHz dual core P-M to a P-D or A64.
I agree with everything you said - except for a couple things.
We do NOT want to run the OS that came with them. We did that for a year. We are NOT going back to Windows ME;-) Windows 2000, though? I'll push for that - in my experiment, it worked a LOT better.
Disable SCRIPTING?!?!? You kidding? A lot of sites (including educational ones) use scripting.
CD-RW drives are NOT what we want - they'd get used for piracy faster than you can say "Nero". FWIW, the older systems actually have DVD drives (but 1/3 are broken). As for the hard drives, we don't store stuff on the HDDs anyway. We USED to use roaming profiles, but the braindead sysadmin said there wasn't enough HDD space on the server (dual 60GB drives in a JBOD config - C: (shudder) is OS and profiles, D: is Exchange's storage), and disabled profiles - roaming or local. So, the only ways to save data are floppies, finding a network share (not easy, unless you've got the Journalism password - at one point, about 20 people were using it instead of their main account, but there were only 5 people in Journalism, and those were only supposed to use it for Journalism (I was one of TWO who used my own account)), or using a UFD (those get stolen, though - I've had one stolen, and a friend of mine had one stolen. Also, there's no front USB on these dinosaurs - and Dell ordered the mobos without the header (it's got a place for one))
Version 2.0 of this mod weighs in at 1.23MB. Considering that it also has the capability to strip OUT large portions of the game...
There is NO WAY IN HELL that somebody can fit a full 3D sex sim in 1.23MB. (The only problem? the guy DID say that the graphics were better in V2)
Which means, of course, that he's gotta be using at least SOME parts of GTA code for this. The question, of course, is what parts he's using. He very well could be modifying the hooker system (note: I don't know how it works - I've never played any GTA game newer than GTA2)... if it allows full control of the models, then he could definitely put the control system (the only part that GTA doesn't have) in 1.23MB.
However, I DO agree with TFA's assessment that the article is BS...
Preaching to the choir. I already said that I suspected that the XP installs were misconfigured (or that they didn't use 2000), and that there could be spyware.
FWIW, I'm switching from a Dell Inspiron 1100 (P4 2.2GHz Northwood, 384MB RAM, i845GL, Intel Extreme Graphics, 14.1" XGA, 30GB HDD, CD-ROM) to an IBM ThinkPad X21 (P3 700MHz Coppermine, 384MB RAM, i440ZXM, ATI Rage Mobility 4MB, 12.1" XGA, 20GB HDD, DVD-ROM in media slice). Yes, I know, CPU slowdown. However, it's a better system, and a LOT lighter (even with the media slice). 3.5lbs for the laptop, 5.8 with media slice, versus 8lbs for the Dell.
Hmm... I'm going to blame it on a combo of XP and spyware.
As a test, I got four of the P3 866 machines running 2000 (fully patched at the time), but otherwise an identical software configuration. They outright FLEW. And, they seemed somewhat immune to spyware, too - and that was without anybody changing their habits. (Granted, I used Opera, but I was in the minority - most people used IE)
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The guy running it didn't want his kids to be made fun of, so he sold it off.
I'm not bad at reading bad handwriting - after all, I can read my own;-)
If I'm typing notes off of a PowerPoint, and the instructor doesn't follow the ppt, it can be ugly trying to keep up (especially when caffeine-based OCing screws up your aim for keys - I can do about 70wpm not on caffeine, probably 80 uncorrected wpm with it, but 50 corrected...) Handwriting, on the other hand, maxes out at 10-20wpm. If the instructor is writing, I can buzz along at 70wpm, and end up waiting on him/her to write more.
The four year old computers at my school BARELY have enough power for MS Publisher and one IE window for research... Specs are: Celery 1.1GHz Coppermine, 256MB PC133, 20GB DeskStar 60GXP (we've had two die already), WinXP Pro Corporate SP1 (illegal install, but a site license was then slapped on top of it), Office XP
The five year old computers can't really do that without thrashing swap (although, those are LOADED with spyware...) Specs: P3 866MHz, 128MB PC133, 20GB Seagate HDD, XP Pro, Office XP (software is same as the 4 year olds)
Then again, something's screwy, b/c I can run Publisher 2003 and Opera with a bunch of tabs open on my system, which is a 433MHz Celery, with 128MB of PC133 (running at 100, though, AFAICT), an 8.4GB Maxtor, and Win2K (I know, change the OS variable, everything changes...)
Well, TFA said that they're using DirectX 7. They originally went for DX9, then their first publisher wanted a proprietary DX7 framework, then they switched publishers - to another (different) proprietary DX7 framework user.
I thought that we all figured out that it was misinterpreted as self-confidence. That, I'm not so sure that it would be misinterpreted. If it WERE misinterpreted, I would hope that it would lead towards sense of humor (which that shirt actually IS indicative of - I find it quite funny, just don't think it'll work) and geek status, rather than self-confidence.
I might ask a female friend of mine about this, but then again, I might not... (Then again, she IS one of the people who suggested that somebody should buy me a Lion's Den gift certificate;-))
Hmm... I wouldn't wear that, because it would simply get me the sluts ("Blondes have the fun... and the STDs"). The girls that I want would consider me an arrogant asshole if I tried that...
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Hmm... back then, almost all PCs at least HAD PS/2 ports (the iPaq PC and the ThinkPad X series were the exceptions), and they still usually shipped with PS/2 keyboards, right?
Still, I'd much rather have a USB Cat than my PS/2 Cat - easier to neuter, it would work, and my laptop (both this and the used ThinkPad I'm getting) only has USB (well, the ThinkPad has a PS/2 port on the media slice, but that doesn't count...) Of course, they may well have made it for laptop users - b/c otherwise you'd have to lug around a keyboard, or modified keyboard guts...
The BIOS in this system required a keyboard to be present to initialize the PS/2 port. Being a laptop, it can most definitely boot without an external keyboard.
I guess if I felt REALLY bored, I could rip up a cheap membrane keyboard, and put the microcontroller in a little dongle...
Basically, you can use it for anything you would use a barcode scanner for.
The first solution is the obvious one - need a Point of Sale unit on the cheap? Grab a CueCat, short out the right pin, and you've got a barcode scanner.
They're good for cataloging home libraries, because you can just swipe the barcode, and put it in the system (there are programs that autograb from sites like Amazon).
One person here mentioned that they used them for scanning badges for volunteers for an organization, to manage work. That's what I call a good idea.
Basically, if you work with things that have barcodes on them, it should help you out.
That's the case for the USB ones.
On the PS/2 ones, you have to short out a pin on the microcontroller (there's a hole in the board specifically for that).
You would also have to hang a PS/2 keyboard off of the CueCat, the way it works. When I was fooling around with a CueCat on my old laptop, I at least had to hang a PS/2 KB off of it while I booted.
Oh, and they're pretty rare, but Digital Convergence DID make some USB CueCats for the Mac market...
I've got a non-hacked one with a busted PS/2 plug lying around somewhere. When it worked, I got good scans about 85% of the time (into DOS EDIT - I didn't DARE use that CRQ crap). Very rarely, I would get a REALLY weird scan that I couldn't explain...
Of course, the busted pin being the clock pin, and not either of the NC pins, it makes things REALLY interesting when one tries to scan...
Suha 714-563-1029 mailto:laptops@pacbell.net
How does that work?
It's not that the ROM has part of the OS. It's that the OS can only interface with THAT ROM. (However, this is getting thrown out of the window - Apple's hiring people with experience in ACPI, which is part of the BIOS, and a modern system wouldn't touch it (ACPI or the BIOS) with a 10ft pole)
OpenFirmware is an open standard, but Mac OS (X PPC) can only talk to it. It can't talk to the firmware that the PPC Amiga boards use (either the Linux bootrom that they're using now, or the Amiga OS 4 firmware that'll come out god knows when), which is something entirely different. It can't talk to the firmware that IBM's RS/6000s use.
The fact that they appear to be using the BIOS, however, tells me that they're using a totally different method of keeping OS X on Apple. Probably a chip on the mobo, is my guess. Also, LaGrande will be in Intel's line by then - they could be using that - it would also kill piracy of OS X.
I actually considered suggesting that they do imaging the hard drives, considering that all of the P3 and Celery systems use the same motherboard (and, of course, chipset) (the Celeries use a crappy LAN card that has no drivers in W2K, but that can be taken care of...)
;-)
With W2K, they'd be SAILING. They're stubborn, and stay on XP, though
And, a cheap 80 or 120GB HDD later, they could get roaming profiles going again. I also forgot to say that even with roaming profiles, they had 55GB left on C:, and that was WITH the OS (W2K Server) - they didn't actually DELETE the profiles, just disabled them, so that's how I know that figure. *smacks sysadmin voodoo doll with Model M*
Less typing that way ;-)
Let's not get into a flame war over semantics...
Plus, I'm almost willing to bet that OS X 10.5 will be a fat OS. All binaries will probably be "Universal Binaries" or whatever Apple's calling them (they're fat binaries...) So, no separate "OS X for Intel machines, OS X for PowerPC machines". I'm just calling it OS X86 for simplicity. (And yes, I DO see the irony of writing a 478-character long post to defend leaving an X and a space off of something)
Or run on Rosetta.
Any app that can run on a G3 (with some exceptions) can run on an OS X86 Mac in emulation.
Well, one advantage is that you can now compare Apples to apples (pun intended). You'll know that the Mac Mini 2 has a 2.8GHz Pentium MD (no, I don't know anything. Those are just numbers and names that I pulled out of my ass.), rather than a 1.45GHz G4. And, you CAN compare a 2.8GHz dual core P-M to a P-D or A64.
I agree with everything you said - except for a couple things.
;-) Windows 2000, though? I'll push for that - in my experiment, it worked a LOT better.
We do NOT want to run the OS that came with them. We did that for a year. We are NOT going back to Windows ME
Disable SCRIPTING?!?!? You kidding? A lot of sites (including educational ones) use scripting.
CD-RW drives are NOT what we want - they'd get used for piracy faster than you can say "Nero". FWIW, the older systems actually have DVD drives (but 1/3 are broken). As for the hard drives, we don't store stuff on the HDDs anyway. We USED to use roaming profiles, but the braindead sysadmin said there wasn't enough HDD space on the server (dual 60GB drives in a JBOD config - C: (shudder) is OS and profiles, D: is Exchange's storage), and disabled profiles - roaming or local. So, the only ways to save data are floppies, finding a network share (not easy, unless you've got the Journalism password - at one point, about 20 people were using it instead of their main account, but there were only 5 people in Journalism, and those were only supposed to use it for Journalism (I was one of TWO who used my own account)), or using a UFD (those get stolen, though - I've had one stolen, and a friend of mine had one stolen. Also, there's no front USB on these dinosaurs - and Dell ordered the mobos without the header (it's got a place for one))
Version 2.0 of this mod weighs in at 1.23MB. Considering that it also has the capability to strip OUT large portions of the game...
There is NO WAY IN HELL that somebody can fit a full 3D sex sim in 1.23MB. (The only problem? the guy DID say that the graphics were better in V2)
Which means, of course, that he's gotta be using at least SOME parts of GTA code for this. The question, of course, is what parts he's using. He very well could be modifying the hooker system (note: I don't know how it works - I've never played any GTA game newer than GTA2)... if it allows full control of the models, then he could definitely put the control system (the only part that GTA doesn't have) in 1.23MB.
However, I DO agree with TFA's assessment that the article is BS...
Preaching to the choir. I already said that I suspected that the XP installs were misconfigured (or that they didn't use 2000), and that there could be spyware.
FWIW, I'm switching from a Dell Inspiron 1100 (P4 2.2GHz Northwood, 384MB RAM, i845GL, Intel Extreme Graphics, 14.1" XGA, 30GB HDD, CD-ROM) to an IBM ThinkPad X21 (P3 700MHz Coppermine, 384MB RAM, i440ZXM, ATI Rage Mobility 4MB, 12.1" XGA, 20GB HDD, DVD-ROM in media slice). Yes, I know, CPU slowdown. However, it's a better system, and a LOT lighter (even with the media slice). 3.5lbs for the laptop, 5.8 with media slice, versus 8lbs for the Dell.
Hmm... I'm going to blame it on a combo of XP and spyware.
As a test, I got four of the P3 866 machines running 2000 (fully patched at the time), but otherwise an identical software configuration. They outright FLEW. And, they seemed somewhat immune to spyware, too - and that was without anybody changing their habits. (Granted, I used Opera, but I was in the minority - most people used IE)
I HATE them. Chalk on board is almost as bad as nails on board, to me, anyway.
;-)
Whiteboards are much better. And, chalk in the eraser is even worse - could really screw it up
I disagree ;-)
;-)
I'm not bad at reading bad handwriting - after all, I can read my own
If I'm typing notes off of a PowerPoint, and the instructor doesn't follow the ppt, it can be ugly trying to keep up (especially when caffeine-based OCing screws up your aim for keys - I can do about 70wpm not on caffeine, probably 80 uncorrected wpm with it, but 50 corrected...) Handwriting, on the other hand, maxes out at 10-20wpm. If the instructor is writing, I can buzz along at 70wpm, and end up waiting on him/her to write more.
Hmm...
The four year old computers at my school BARELY have enough power for MS Publisher and one IE window for research... Specs are: Celery 1.1GHz Coppermine, 256MB PC133, 20GB DeskStar 60GXP (we've had two die already), WinXP Pro Corporate SP1 (illegal install, but a site license was then slapped on top of it), Office XP
The five year old computers can't really do that without thrashing swap (although, those are LOADED with spyware...) Specs: P3 866MHz, 128MB PC133, 20GB Seagate HDD, XP Pro, Office XP (software is same as the 4 year olds)
Then again, something's screwy, b/c I can run Publisher 2003 and Opera with a bunch of tabs open on my system, which is a 433MHz Celery, with 128MB of PC133 (running at 100, though, AFAICT), an 8.4GB Maxtor, and Win2K (I know, change the OS variable, everything changes...)
Well, TFA said that they're using DirectX 7. They originally went for DX9, then their first publisher wanted a proprietary DX7 framework, then they switched publishers - to another (different) proprietary DX7 framework user.
Somebody needs to look for "Sirius Cybernetics" on these things. I just can't wait for the failed one that got Marvin's firmware ;-)
I've never been over there - I've been in the US all of my life....
Look at the "future Windows servers". Last I checked, Longhorn Server is a server.
I thought that we all figured out that it was misinterpreted as self-confidence. That, I'm not so sure that it would be misinterpreted. If it WERE misinterpreted, I would hope that it would lead towards sense of humor (which that shirt actually IS indicative of - I find it quite funny, just don't think it'll work) and geek status, rather than self-confidence.
;-))
I might ask a female friend of mine about this, but then again, I might not... (Then again, she IS one of the people who suggested that somebody should buy me a Lion's Den gift certificate
Hmm... I wouldn't wear that, because it would simply get me the sluts ("Blondes have the fun... and the STDs"). The girls that I want would consider me an arrogant asshole if I tried that...