I had (and still have kicking around) an old C128. The C128 was a remarkable machine for its day, and had a Z80 as a second processor. It actually shipped with CP/M in addition to its regular OS.
Of course, GEOS for the C128 was far more capable, so the majority of C128 users didn't spend too much time in CP/M mode. I played with it on several occasions and even wrote a little code in it here and there, but I never found it that useful.
You can't really call it a financial failure when it was making money hand-over-fist at the time it was killed. Sure, the original few versions were financial failures, but the same can be said for MS-Windows, and few would call it a financial failure overall...
The MP130, MP2000, MP2100, and eMate were all successful products. The MP120 was borderline.
Not in the case of Massachusetts. Look at the state's history with Microsoft -- they were the only ones not to cave in with regards to the antitrust case, and there are numerous stories regarding their ongoing efforts to better embrace open source.
I see the announcement both as a way to encourage the regular rank & file and the various commonwealth communities to embrace the efforts more than it is an effort to gain some ground negotiating with Microsoft.
In addition to looking at projects like LyX, I hope they look at projects like FrameMaker. Frame does a lot of things really well, and not even Adobe seems to have learned all of its lessons.
The beta isn't available for any of my machines yet. Can someone who can try it check to see if it supports transparency in SWF (a.k.a. Flash) files yet?
For diversions, how about Interactive Fiction? It has a textual interface that lends itself well to speakerbox usage, shell accounts, and there's a vast library of free titles available.
I have to agree. The average NYT reader isn't going to have a clue what a browser is, let alone try and figure out how to download and install one.
I'd guess that a good fraction of the NYT readers don't even go online.
I think the whole NYT idea was misguided from the start. It would have been better to put the resources to better use and get the message out to people who could make use of it.
This got mentioned the other day, too. I think it's the first time I've had any of my articles referenced multiple times in comments on different/. articles in such a short time.
Assuming that the suits know enough to begin with to even have a clue of what Firefox is (or there's enough in the ad to tell them, and I don't think there is if they're clueless).
The New York Times still wouldn't be my first choice for going after the suits. I think I'd go for the Economist or Wall Street Journal first...
As the original poster of the mentioned article about Firefox in Saugus my point was that the New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet.
I'd personally like to see the energy being spent to go into more effective advertising. The article promoting Firefox on Saugus.net is meant to be just one example... Saugus.net has a history of promoting free software, though; I'd like to see more local sites without such a history getting into the act.
Newton's Library also has a good collection of free e-books in the original e-book format: the Newton book. Newton book readers are built-in to a handful of hardware devices and are available (if one looks hard enough) for multiple platforms via add-on software. It looks like most of the eReader free books are available all the time for free from Newton's Library.
I've actually used the IF-optimized language Inform as a teaching aid for computer science. It's a great introduction to object-oriented programming and concepts for beginners.
Along the same lines of story-focused IF capable of giving the chills I'd also recommend Shade. It's also fairly brief and can be traversed in a relatively short time.
There's at least one commercial software developer already out there and active: Maurice Randall. He's got a functioning shell interface, FAX application, and more (be sure to check out "Wheels") for GEOS on the C64/C128. His site can be found at: http://www.cmdrkey.com/
There's been an amazing amount of high-quality software created for the C64 and (especially) the C128. GEOS (now found on some hand-helds and phones) cut its teeth on the Commodore 8-bit machines. There have been several superb operating systems designed for them. There are even graphical web browsers available. Yes, web browsers, in the plural.
Slashdot Mirror
I had (and still have kicking around) an old C128. The C128 was a remarkable machine for its day, and had a Z80 as a second processor. It actually shipped with CP/M in addition to its regular OS.
Of course, GEOS for the C128 was far more capable, so the majority of C128 users didn't spend too much time in CP/M mode. I played with it on several occasions and even wrote a little code in it here and there, but I never found it that useful.
Anyone who wants to try it (and has a Mac handy) can utilize a free CP/M emulator to give it a whirl.
The language Inform is missing from the chart.
But then what will you use for heat in the winter?
Is it my imagination or is this essentially a new flavor of Kabbalah with the same strengths and weaknesses?
You can't really call it a financial failure when it was making money hand-over-fist at the time it was killed. Sure, the original few versions were financial failures, but the same can be said for MS-Windows, and few would call it a financial failure overall...
The MP130, MP2000, MP2100, and eMate were all successful products. The MP120 was borderline.
SubEthaEdit sports quite a few different editing modes, including for the Inform language for writing interactive fiction.
Collaborative Interactive Fiction, anyone?
Saugus uses open formats and open source. Perhaps Boston can learn a bit from its smaller (but older) neighbor to the North.
Not in the case of Massachusetts. Look at the state's history with Microsoft -- they were the only ones not to cave in with regards to the antitrust case, and there are numerous stories regarding their ongoing efforts to better embrace open source.
I see the announcement both as a way to encourage the regular rank & file and the various commonwealth communities to embrace the efforts more than it is an effort to gain some ground negotiating with Microsoft.
In addition to looking at projects like LyX, I hope they look at projects like FrameMaker. Frame does a lot of things really well, and not even Adobe seems to have learned all of its lessons.
The Internet is littered with copycat sites. I don't doubt that everything of any value at all has been copied. Look at even a simple site like:
Saugus.net's Computer Terms... and see how many times it's had its content copied without people even having the decency to give proper credit.
Googling on partial text of a few of the definitions will get you the copycats; there's no reason to advertise them here.
Excellent! Thanks.
The beta isn't available for any of my machines yet. Can someone who can try it check to see if it supports transparency in SWF (a.k.a. Flash) files yet?
Thanks.
AFAIK both NetHack and CConq (the console version of XConq) are fairly hard to play through screen readers because of the way terrain is represented.
Your milage may vary, though.
Interactive Fiction has no such problem, however.
For diversions, how about Interactive Fiction? It has a textual interface that lends itself well to speakerbox usage, shell accounts, and there's a vast library of free titles available.
I have to agree. The average NYT reader isn't going to have a clue what a browser is, let alone try and figure out how to download and install one.
I'd guess that a good fraction of the NYT readers don't even go online.
I think the whole NYT idea was misguided from the start. It would have been better to put the resources to better use and get the message out to people who could make use of it.
This got mentioned the other day, too. I think it's the first time I've had any of my articles referenced multiple times in comments on different /. articles in such a short time.
Assuming that the suits know enough to begin with to even have a clue of what Firefox is (or there's enough in the ad to tell them, and I don't think there is if they're clueless).
The New York Times still wouldn't be my first choice for going after the suits. I think I'd go for the Economist or Wall Street Journal first...
As the original poster of the mentioned article about Firefox in Saugus my point was that the New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet.
I'd personally like to see the energy being spent to go into more effective advertising. The article promoting Firefox on Saugus.net is meant to be just one example... Saugus.net has a history of promoting free software, though; I'd like to see more local sites without such a history getting into the act.
Newton's Library also has a good collection of free e-books in the original e-book format: the Newton book. Newton book readers are built-in to a handful of hardware devices and are available (if one looks hard enough) for multiple platforms via add-on software. It looks like most of the eReader free books are available all the time for free from Newton's Library.
I've actually used the IF-optimized language Inform as a teaching aid for computer science. It's a great introduction to object-oriented programming and concepts for beginners.
Along the same lines of story-focused IF capable of giving the chills I'd also recommend Shade. It's also fairly brief and can be traversed in a relatively short time.
Saugus.net has also opened up their annual Halloween Ghost Story Writing Contest to interactive fiction entries. So far though there haven't been any takers.
It's a fun medium and it's a shame more people don't try writing for it.
There's at least one commercial software developer already out there and active: Maurice Randall. He's got a functioning shell interface, FAX application, and more (be sure to check out "Wheels") for GEOS on the C64/C128. His site can be found at: http://www.cmdrkey.com/
There are also a lot of open source developers out there. Craig Bruce comes right to mind; his site is at: http://www.csbruce.com/~csbruce/cbm/"
There's been an amazing amount of high-quality software created for the C64 and (especially) the C128. GEOS (now found on some hand-helds and phones) cut its teeth on the Commodore 8-bit machines. There have been several superb operating systems designed for them. There are even graphical web browsers available. Yes, web browsers, in the plural.
I know Audion plays more audio formats than iTunes, and as freeware it's worth downloading just for that even if all else were equal.