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unwiredben

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Submissions

Apple Arcade (again): late payments, stonewalled studios, terrible tech support

mobilegamer.biz
3 points·by unwiredben·il y a 2 ans·0 comments

Opus (audio codec) Patent Pool

opuspool.com
4 points·by unwiredben·il y a 2 ans·2 comments

Texas will use computers to grade written answers on this year's STAAR tests

texastribune.org
3 points·by unwiredben·il y a 2 ans·0 comments

Trying to Decode Lev-1

destevez.net
39 points·by unwiredben·il y a 2 ans·4 comments

Trying to decode LEV-1

destevez.net
1 points·by unwiredben·il y a 2 ans·0 comments

The Radio Station That Bridge Built

nutsvolts.com
38 points·by unwiredben·il y a 3 ans·9 comments

On Alchemy

scopeofwork.net
1 points·by unwiredben·il y a 3 ans·1 comments

How the Intel 8088 Got Its Bus (2022)

eejournal.com
1 points·by unwiredben·il y a 3 ans·0 comments

comments

unwiredben
·l’année dernière·discuss
I got to hang with him a little in the early 2010s when I was doing JavaScript work and found him nice and personable. I'm so sorry for his early passing.
unwiredben
·l’année dernière·discuss
I was at Palm when the iPhone launched, and one note from this analysis summed up Apple's new power in the market and how they really changed the landscape.

"Cingular has allowed Apple to launch a device with WLAN and inbuilt services"

At that time, the carriers controlled so much of the cell phone experience. We certainly would have loved to have launched Palm Treo phones with WiFi radios, but our carrier partners wanted the only way to get data in and out of the devices to be through their monetized data plans. They also wanted to control what you did with that data so they could charge for their own email or messaging systems or web portals. The same applied to app stores. Palm OS didn't have a unified app store at that time, just sideloading and some third-party methods, and some carriers had started making their own stores where you could buy apps billed through your cell phone bill. They hated the idea of a platform owning that, and I expect that was part of the reason Apple originally released it with no app store. They needed the phone to be a massive hit in order to gain the power to also bypass that wall that the cell companies put up.

Palm did benefit from the iPhone launch -- it had us uplevel our efforts away from the post-Palm OS phones that we were in the middle of developing that were aimed at the RIM market and instead try something radical with webOS, and when the Pre launched, it actually had WiFi on board, although the Sprint-exclusive Pixi phone lacked WiFi due to carrier request. There was some momentum there for a while, but then HP bought us, hit its own set of brick walls with carriers, and ditched the hardware business shortly after Apple started launching on other carriers.
unwiredben
·il y a 2 ans·discuss
and also its Voja4, not Voya (my mistake in remembering name spellings)
unwiredben
·il y a 2 ans·discuss
At Hackaday Supercon in 2002, the badge for attendees (https://hackaday.com/2022/10/12/the-2022-supercon-badge-is-a...) implemented a fictional 4-bit CPU along with control panel for directly entering instructions and running and stepping through code. I had a huge amount of fun implementing a space shooter video game on it, as the panel included a bit-by-bit view of one of its pages of memory. Comparing its Voya4 architecture with the 4004 was fascinating. Some similar tradeoffs, but the Voya4 has the benefit of 50 years of CPU instruction set exposure.

Alas, dimitygr's method wouldn't work on the badge, as the memory and RAM are all internal to the PIC24 that implements the CPU emulator.

BTW, 4-bit CPUs are still made and used. Many of the mass-produced IR remotes are programmed using a 4-bit MCU. See https://www.emmicroelectronic.com/sites/default/files/produc... for a datasheet.
unwiredben
·il y a 2 ans·discuss
That's often a recently launched StarLink formation -- the bunch up in a line when deployed, and have to be maneuvered over several weeks to spread out and take different orbits.
unwiredben
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
a visit to the research reactor in Hamilton, Canada
unwiredben
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I grew up reading his "Ask the Guru" columns in Computer Shopper and loves all the creative ways he came up to use PostScript. His hardware hacker articles were also great. He will be missed.
unwiredben
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
Jerry Pournelle isn't up to much anymore, as he died in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle
unwiredben
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
I've got USB-powered desk fans at home and the office. I've tried a fair number, and typically get ones that have a couple of different speed settings and good bearing that are mostly silent.
unwiredben
·il y a 3 ans·discuss
As soon as it prompted for number, I was out of there. Kinda reminded me of the Dianetics commercials, though.
unwiredben
·il y a 4 ans·discuss
Effectively an ATM-style interface?
unwiredben
·il y a 5 ans·discuss
The east part of Austin where Tesla is located is still underpopulated compared to most of Travis county, so there's room for a lot of housing to be built out that way. Connectivity from there to central Austin isn't too bad, since that's the direction of the airport and Houston.
unwiredben
·il y a 7 ans·discuss
No, when setting up the TV, if you choose not to have a network connection, there is no need to link. There wouldn't be a way to link, as the TV can't reach the Roku servers.