The collected works of PymbleSoftware - Page 13

Harold Holt and Jimmy Hoffa for sure.

Harold Holt and the wacky conspiracy theories that surround him: The Australian Prime Minister was a Chinese spy and got picked up by a Chinese submarine... Yeah sure.
They never ever found the body....

I've seen most places I've wanted to go to, I wouldn't mind spending more at some of the places I've been though.

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There was a time, a certain era when Babylon 5 was being produced on Amiga and SGI stuff did high end rendering of things like Jurassic Park and the liquid metal terminator... things other platforms couldn't... I had a DEC Alpha and Pentium 90 running Linux kernel 0.99pl12 in an office I shared with another post grad student, I wandered over to the main computing center where the mainframes used to be and caught a demo with a SGI sales representative demoing stereo glasses on an O2 or Indy or Something. It seemed like a kinda magic... SGI, 4DWM and everything seemed like a kinda magic....

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I think at least part of it was if not all of it... The black and white tile morph into the security guard sequence was somewhere, I think SIGGRAPH a graphics text book or something. I can't remember what exactly.

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The Mac minis with OS-X server are kinda cool in one respect, you can jam them up behind other servers in the rack and hide them easily and nobody notices them and you can remote desktop/VNC into them.


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1. Install MacPorts
2. Open an Xterm and type "sudo port install nedit"
3. Coffee
4. Enjoy.
5. ???
6. Profit !!!

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The gfx card is in the Maya H.w compatibility list...?

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I like San Francisco, it is a very livable city in some respects. I'd probably go to Big Bear or Squaw Valley or somewhere for weekend skiing.



Japan is something really special if you can take the time to reflect in a mountain top shrine, or hang out with Snow Monkeys in the hot springs. I've only been three times, and I've love to go back.

You could not drag me back to Bali kicking and screaming. It is a sleazy tourist trap, full of drugs, twenty something kids off their faces and crass souvenir sellers trying to ram stuff down your throat or offering massages or eh-hem illegal underage services...

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I have A4000 and a Sam440, there are new Amiga systems for sale and I am a re-seller but i sell systems only in Australia. I've been running AmigaOS 4.1 on a 733MHz PPC for awhile.

http://acube-systems.biz/
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/

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Thanks.

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Strange, we used libjpeg-turbo at an image processing job and the improvements we were supposed related to MMX, SSE2, SSE3, CUDA, extensions... Otherwise there was supposed to be no other improvements... Co-workers said something like that...


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Okay, I got a new laptop just to do WIndows Phone 8 development on..

The first incredibly stupid thing I did was do "express setup" of Windows 8 Home. It was late, I was tired, I just wanted to install the Windows Phone 8 SDK and go to bed.
Because of the express set up, I had a network or live account or something and no administration rights. Installing the SDK and it completes with the message "Can not add user to Hyper-V group".
I upgraded Windows 8 Home to Windows 8 Pro, fine. Then I changed the account from network to local and then it goes and starts doing the exact same updates again, or at least it appeared that way, half a Gb, a hundred Mb or so and so forth.
I tried to download a Windows Phone 8 sample but when I attempted to open it, that too failed. Couldn't find some sub file of the project. Creating a default project and attempting to debug it fails because the emulator can not be started... Because of the Hyper-V group issue. Every time I attempt to debug something, I have to "Retry" in the message box for the first time after starting Visual Studio.

I started using this laptop without a mouse, moving the pointer across the screen really quickly using the track pad kept getting interpreted as gestures, I kept getting switched between apps and the "start" screen even though all I wanted to do was click on something on the top corner then focus back to another part in the opposite corner. Okay use a mouse and live with it... Track pads are useless with Windows 8..

I woke up this morning and I just pulled the machine out of sleep mode, first thing in the morning, from last nights session, I have at least 20 tabs open in both Chrome and IE-10, Visual Studio open, Blend, and heap of other stuff and a blue screen appears with something like "Will restart in 14 minutes XX seconds to install some important patches, save your work or restart now", so I start closing tabs and emailing myself urls or stuff I might want to read later, another blue screen, 4 minutes XX seconds and the seconds are ticking down... So I am busy trying to close tabs, thinking about what I should do about what is in Visual Studio and time runs out... No option to pause or extend the session a few minutes longer and it just restarts. I am pissed off enough to post this on a Mac before logging back into the Windows8 phone dev machine with out checking what the state of my session is. Just when I was beginning to feel burnt out on this iOS app and in the mood to do some Windows Phone 8 work...

I am going through MSDN on stuff about Windows Phone 8 SDK and other parts and there are 404s and there are pages that tell you nothing useful but direct to something else which in turn puts you in a loop of equally useless pages and stuff like that all over the place. A lot of pages will not work unless you are using Internet Explorer, I can not have some stuff open on the Mac and be working on WIndows8 beside it.. I have to switch back and forth on Windows8. You can only have one Microsoft identity on the machine at one time. It used to be that You can log into say hotmail in one browser with the first account and then log into hotmail with the second account in a different browser. But no, logging into something on IE resets your Chrome session and then on Chrome when you switch from say inbox to sent you get the wrong email sent box. Only one identity at time on WIndows8 , just have the other session open on a Mac for stuff that will work outside of IE. Documentation and developer support is shambolic and you are trapped in a straight jacket working only in IE and having to switch accounts back and forth if you have separate accounts for for different things and it is all tied together through the "identity" .. the developer console, email accounts just for dev work, personal accounts from back when hotmail ran on BSD, logins to training and tools site, etc. God help you if you try to work with any of them as separate IDs.

A real Microsoft faniboi I used to work with a poker machine company suggested an app called Start8, It drops you straight into Desktop mode by passing the "Start Screen", gives you a start button or something in order for you to make it look like Windows7 or something. ... And this from a guy who worships in the direction of Redmond.

I've heard people whine about WIndows8 but man... I am wondering what happened to Microsoft. Seriously.



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Addendum: I just checked and it restored the Visual Studio, Phone Emulator and IE session but my Chrome session never existed. To be fair that might have been a Samsung update that got pushed, I saw a "Samsung update blah blah wants to make changes to your machine".. But still... No, option just for a few minutes grace, just bang reboot as you are trying to save stuff. WindowsXP used have a "Restart Later" button and you could delay things for another 15 minutes..

Ah, Wirth, favorite quote:
Europeans call him by name, Americans call him by value

That is an old paper from 1995. I could never get Oberon, to work properly or do anything useful with it.

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To do Window Phone 8 development you need Windows8 Pro on a machine with second level address translation (ie an i3 to i7 or whatever) for Hyper-V which runs the emulator. I wrote a book on bada and it almost disappeared as a platform, see what happens with Windows Phone. I've missed the boat too many times, I thought the web would never replace wias, gopher, archie, veronica, etc. I never got web 2.0 or social media...

These days I hold my nose and give everything a shot.



One wonders how that is measured, PSI, KPa, and quantified?

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Someone here had to mention it. Just remember, when its after early morning on the west coast, say Nor'Cal is already tomorrow (22nd Dec 2012) in Australia, regardless of what the Mayan Calendar says...

Oh, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, if the comet doesn't get us first

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I think the local stock exchange used to have VAXstations for people to do software development on, I was busy crawling under the floors, which is odd because I am a software developer and was a software developer at that time not a cable guy, it was decades ago and that floor in that building is now a gym. The stock exchange is now in another building altogether.

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Oh, well have to wait until the next apocalypse, off the top of my head, Jan 19 2038, the end of 32bit UNIX time.

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I dunno, I've been to both and I know where I would build a factory.


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I ran into someone else today who also learnt RPG-II on the System/36.
Without the correct form editor that was something that really did look like line noise and makes APL look verbose.

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Way back when I was working on number plate recognition stuff... I was mucking about with zfs, mirroring root zpools, etc.. and just one note of warning: The MacFUSE ZFS stuff is completely incompatible with OpenIndiana zfs on commodity external USB drives. I don't remember the specifics but it was one of those you wanted to kick something events, I've tried hard to forget. ( http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ )

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I had a DevPlus account with SupportFolio access. SGI pulled it and then I fought long and hard to get access again, then it expired.
Now they want serious dollars for a support contract.

I think well time to pass things along. I am not offering unsolicited support on SGI hardware via email.
if you want something fixed join nekochan, post your own problem, buy a SGI support contract or offer me money.




I don't have time for this. I am not even reading it.
I black list anything that comes through the company account that is not related to the business.

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I get them from time to time. I used to get two or three phone calls a day from one guy who should never have been let near a computer, that alone something off the beaten path. You are in business and in an area I need help with. I demand help with something. I will take up all of your time and never dream of compensating you. I might try that with the local builders, plumbers or electricians, see how far I get.


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http://www.htmlescape.net/20/unicode_char_2026.html

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Did you even read the linked page?






Back in those days you could understand an entire system chip by chip, you knew exactly what your 6845T did .. and could do stupid tricks with your video output or whatever...

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I have a fairly similar system 24 CPUs 48 Gb RAM. I might be willing to part with, the downside is that I am in Australia. </hijack>


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At least its not dueling banjos. You wouldn't want that.

I did some dovecot stuff a life-time ago and it was a cake walk at the time, but that was Linux.

I also did some sendmail.cf stuff even further back in the dim dark distance past and the guy I worked with loved warped and weird arcane stuff and with a guru-ninja-sendmail-freak at hand it was manageable almost enjoyable.

These days I rely on webmail and let someone else play with mail servers while I attempt to get real stuff done.

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Not sure about this but if I recall correctly, the compaq compiler initially produced better code than gcc on Tru64 but eventually advances in gcc and a lack of investment from DEC/Compaq/HP/whoever eventually reversed the situation. But don't take my word for it. measure some real results. But back in the day a lot od DEC stuff was floating around universities so a lot of very interesting research stuff was done on Ultrix and OSF/1..

I haven't fired up my Alphas in the longest time. I should have 5.1B on one of them and definitely a compiler or two as well.
I just don't have that much time with parenthood and churning out apps and constant updates.
Pretty sure I have older versions of all those binaries and much more, bash definitely is my login shell.



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Back in the day when my first DEC Alpha was brand new, I remember playing Quake on OSF/1 or maybe Linux with OSF/1 binary compatibility hacks.
I've got Quake III Team Arena on Solaris as well.

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I've got a spare o200 but I live on the ass end of the planet.

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Nice, I'd be more interested in the aurora effect looking back from the ice moon.
The beginning of the video is difficult to see the particles.
I take it that the software is Wavefront Studio 21.

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No. Fuel is entry level in that generation of systems. Tezro is the multi-CPU option.


Linux generally sucks on non mainstream platforms, why run Linux on MIPS when you can run Linux on Intel? What is the point? Support is woeful for propriety devices on Linux. You can't play with SpaceBalls or Crystal Eyes Shutter glasses on Linux (See our wiki here for info on those).. As for software ... Maya, Shake and a lot of the interesting software will not run on Linux/MIPS but does on IRIX. Linux on any other platform than x86 is pretty much the same, just not as well developed, and you'll hate people who embedded x86 assembler in software and just assume the whole world runs Intel just because they do. 4DWM is a different window manager and IRIX has a different feel to it than Linux. Yes I have run the Gentoo Linux/MIPS Live CD on my Octane, but I got bored with it quickly...



Where are you located? I don't use my Intellistation that much.

One of my PIs was pulled from a dumpster behind the SGI regional office here and traded to me. Friends of friends and the hardware for sale forum here are other options.
Maybe try Craigslist, gumtree or ebid or something like that close to where you live.

A couple of years ago I had a handful of Sun machines and could barely give them away...

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Actually I have two


(Don't do as I do, do as I say).

9112-265 running AIX with missing NFS network mounts...
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16726232

Forget it, they are insanely expensive to ship, even across town, IBM stuff is really really heavy. If you were at least in Oz, I'd consider it.
I have been disappointed with the build quality of the plastics of the Intellistations, the server stuff is really solid though.

I've also got a Xeon based x3550 running Linux and a few other O/Ses under VMWare, Virtualbox or whatever.
If I want to play with AIX, I fire up my F80. These days I am just too busy.

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(La)TeX rocks and I produce my user manuals with it, and while you can practically program every dot on the page, create chess diagrams, music scores, write books with indices, TOCs, etc... Even though I use it all the time, I think TeX is a bit of an overkill for a letter to grandma.



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I run into problems like that all the time... then I google something about my problem like table handling and copy and paste little bits of LaTeX mark up, or I reach for my books...

http://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Document-Pr ... latex+book
http://www.amazon.com/LaTeX-Companions- ... x+book+set
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_ ... aps%2C6044

I fiddle with bits of mark up, I stumble a couple of times, then LaTeX does something awesome for me. Some times you have to fight with it a little and force it to layout things in a certain away otherwise it will put things as you say all over the place... I have tables with double lines, no lines, whatever I want, once I work out how, or copy and paste something from a tute or example that looks great. I borrowed the linux.sty file in my final year or university and hacked it a little and used it in an assignment. The lecturer was impressed I was handing in an assignment the day after handed out when there was two weeks to do it and there was a line of people outside his door complaining that it was "too difficult"... and the layout and presentation was just perfect. Just the way I wanted it. No fighting with WordPerfect, MS Word, WordStar or whatever was around at the time. It was computational linguistics and I was using a lot of symbols used in linguistics and maths.

You can do a lot of funky stuff with it... make text swirl in spirals and stuff. I like it and won't be giving it up anytime soon.


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No doubt attached to mice

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Make your own...

You can make barcodes with (La)TeX, and you can do it with your SGIs.

http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/ ... g-barcodes

Even QR codes..
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/ ... d-barcodes

I've said it before and I'll say it again, (La)TeX rocks!


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Mmmmm... Thunking layers... Not as perverse as a clockwork orange at all..

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I had a pricelist for PDP parts I posted here a long time ago and I think that they wanted like $30,000 for something like 2k of RAM in 1964 when that would have bought you a posh house.

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