Should have bought an Atari then. They had display list interrupts that allowed you to reprogram the video to whatever mode/character set/palette you wanted scanline by scanline. The Amiga had something similar many years later.
>Where's the 9-11 connection?
Not so much 9-11 per-se. More the general 'war on terror'. You have an 'enemy' living amongst you at look like you but want to do you harm. Add in state sponsored torture, questions about what is acceptable in war versus peace time and so on. When thy spent some time living on New Caprica there was the issue of one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
That would have been something like an Acorn Atom bck then. The BBC went from 'not invented' to 'in the shops' in a few months as Acorn bascally did a few mods to a design they were already well advanced with.
>I don't think anybody knows them at the level they could know a BBC, Spectrum, Atari 400/800, or Apple.
Yep. I was an Atari 400/800 user and had the OS source code listing, DOS source listing, hardware manuals, basic manuals and bought every mag going that over time had all sorts of neat tricks and ways to push the envelope. I really knew that machine inside out and then some. These days you can have a single language with an API of 5000 calls so the chances of ever being in that position on any sort of mainstream platform are about nil.
It gave a peculiar level of confidence in your coding that you knew *exactly* what ought to happen and when so you spent more time looking for your own bugs and never even considered the OS, language, hardware etc could be screwing with you.
Plus the Teletext adaptor - that was cool too. You could have BBC Basic progs use it to get your stock/shares prices daily for you or to check the TV listings for your favourite progs - not bad for 1983/4 or whenever.
>you could patch all of the system calls
You could do that with the Atari 400/800 and those hailed from the late 70's. Most OS calls were made by vectoring thru pointers in RAM to the ROM. You could add your own code then continue on or write complete replacements.
I don't know if it's a natural side effect of getting older but this is yet another 'discovery' that I remember reading about years ago. It's getting quite scary how often there seem to be reports of amazing new discoveries which are actually quite well known and understood things but apparantly forgotten by some.
>my girlfriend had make-up and beauty cream stolen from her
I blame modern advertising techniques. When you have ads on TV with blinged up rappers saying 'When I is vexed wiv me dry hands man, I get me some Oil of Olay - it's da bomb' - it's no wonder security staff get confused.
>Perhaps that is part of the reason why we americans do not rate very highly on the global happiness scale.
Really? You all look happy (or is the grin genetic?) and are always saying how great it is to be American. Seriously, is this true? I'd always assumed American's to be a fairly happy if slightly crazy bunch on the whole. Certainly all the ones I know are frighteningly chipper and full of energy. Tires me out just talking to them.
>The EU will simply take the money by force
I know it's an alien concept to American's, what with us Eurpeens being commies and all that and American firms usually being allowed to do what they want as long as they grease a few palms but what usually happens is:
1. A law is enacted
2. A firm ignores it.
3. They get fined
4. They pay the fine.
In the UK last week a few multi million pound fines got dished out to various big companies (this was from watchdogs rather than the EU though) and it's pretty much a given they'll pay up.
All exchange rates change constantly though the day - that's how currency dealers make their money, trying to guess how the day will go.
AMD didn't do good, Intel messed up
on
Is AMD Dead Yet?
·
· Score: 1
When AMD had a good streak, it was more because Intel got lazy and fumbled the ball rather than AMD doing anything particularly well. During this time they kept churning out increasingly cheap yet powerful processors that gave great value for money compared to Intel. There was no particularly clever technology being deployed, it was just cheaper for the same power. I built loads of PC's during this time and they all had AMD CPU's because they gave by far the best value for money and ease of overclocking. The X2 was a bit of a coup but by then Intel were playing catch up with a vengence so any lead was soon lost.
>Toshiba will think twice next time when it comes to forcing competing formats on consumers
Quite how ths got marked inightful is a mystery. HD-DVD is (or now, was) the official standard for HD and was sanctioned by the DVD standards body, the DVD Forum. BluRay was the non-standard bully boy. After all the previous wars, the whole point was there is a DVD standards body who decide upon updates and new features in conjunction with the various manufacturers - SOny decided to go off on a tangent (again) but this time won (probably as a result of bundling it in the PS3)
Carrying a knife is an arrestable offence in the UK, hell, carrying a golf club in public is illegal - offensive weapon as far as the law is concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
Should have bought an Atari then. They had display list interrupts that allowed you to reprogram the video to whatever mode/character set/palette you wanted scanline by scanline. The Amiga had something similar many years later.
I thought the song was just their 'switch on' code and them hearing it and feeling a urge to go to the meeting room was part of them being 'enabled'
But by then they had *really* good object frameworks and a new OS is just like playing with Lego. ;-)
Yup - that's exactly how I remember it - Beeb & Master.
>Where's the 9-11 connection?
Not so much 9-11 per-se. More the general 'war on terror'. You have an 'enemy' living amongst you at look like you but want to do you harm. Add in state sponsored torture, questions about what is acceptable in war versus peace time and so on. When thy spent some time living on New Caprica there was the issue of one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
That would have been something like an Acorn Atom bck then. The BBC went from 'not invented' to 'in the shops' in a few months as Acorn bascally did a few mods to a design they were already well advanced with.
>I don't think anybody knows them at the level they could know a BBC, Spectrum, Atari 400/800, or Apple.
Yep. I was an Atari 400/800 user and had the OS source code listing, DOS source listing, hardware manuals, basic manuals and bought every mag going that over time had all sorts of neat tricks and ways to push the envelope. I really knew that machine inside out and then some. These days you can have a single language with an API of 5000 calls so the chances of ever being in that position on any sort of mainstream platform are about nil.
It gave a peculiar level of confidence in your coding that you knew *exactly* what ought to happen and when so you spent more time looking for your own bugs and never even considered the OS, language, hardware etc could be screwing with you.
Plus the Teletext adaptor - that was cool too. You could have BBC Basic progs use it to get your stock/shares prices daily for you or to check the TV listings for your favourite progs - not bad for 1983/4 or whenever.
>you could patch all of the system calls
You could do that with the Atari 400/800 and those hailed from the late 70's. Most OS calls were made by vectoring thru pointers in RAM to the ROM. You could add your own code then continue on or write complete replacements.
>As to myself: I've always dated intelligent human females
You mean you've considered non-human ones at some point?
If you can keep a straight face while asking if the signs indicate Leo is about to enter Uranus then it could prove useful.
About people using 'normative' when 'normal' would do perfectly well. That for me would set off more alarm bells in the dating department.
I don't know if it's a natural side effect of getting older but this is yet another 'discovery' that I remember reading about years ago. It's getting quite scary how often there seem to be reports of amazing new discoveries which are actually quite well known and understood things but apparantly forgotten by some.
>my girlfriend had make-up and beauty cream stolen from her
I blame modern advertising techniques. When you have ads on TV with blinged up rappers saying 'When I is vexed wiv me dry hands man, I get me some Oil of Olay - it's da bomb' - it's no wonder security staff get confused.
>have the time to jack into one of my boxes
You must have one sexy PC!
>The damn thing weighs more than most people
Would that be American people or normal sized ones?
>Perhaps that is part of the reason why we americans do not rate very highly on the global happiness scale. Really? You all look happy (or is the grin genetic?) and are always saying how great it is to be American. Seriously, is this true? I'd always assumed American's to be a fairly happy if slightly crazy bunch on the whole. Certainly all the ones I know are frighteningly chipper and full of energy. Tires me out just talking to them.
>hmm, will it be Illegal for MS to screw Linux?
OK in most of Europe - age of consent around 16.
>The EU will simply take the money by force
I know it's an alien concept to American's, what with us Eurpeens being commies and all that and American firms usually being allowed to do what they want as long as they grease a few palms but what usually happens is:
1. A law is enacted
2. A firm ignores it.
3. They get fined
4. They pay the fine.
In the UK last week a few multi million pound fines got dished out to various big companies (this was from watchdogs rather than the EU though) and it's pretty much a given they'll pay up.
>You hate your own pet?
Look, there's this thing with words whereby the order in which they are printed changes the meaning. No, really!
When AMD had a good streak, it was more because Intel got lazy and fumbled the ball rather than AMD doing anything particularly well. During this time they kept churning out increasingly cheap yet powerful processors that gave great value for money compared to Intel. There was no particularly clever technology being deployed, it was just cheaper for the same power. I built loads of PC's during this time and they all had AMD CPU's because they gave by far the best value for money and ease of overclocking. The X2 was a bit of a coup but by then Intel were playing catch up with a vengence so any lead was soon lost.
My first thought was it referred to the choccy bar 'Milky Way' and got all excited.
>Toshiba will think twice next time when it comes to forcing competing formats on consumers
Quite how ths got marked inightful is a mystery. HD-DVD is (or now, was) the official standard for HD and was sanctioned by the DVD standards body, the DVD Forum. BluRay was the non-standard bully boy. After all the previous wars, the whole point was there is a DVD standards body who decide upon updates and new features in conjunction with the various manufacturers - SOny decided to go off on a tangent (again) but this time won (probably as a result of bundling it in the PS3)
Carrying a knife is an arrestable offence in the UK, hell, carrying a golf club in public is illegal - offensive weapon as far as the law is concerned.