The collected works of hamei - Page 41

That's interesting ! thanks ... I'm still looking for a keyboard that has the F keys in a double row down the left side. HP built them that way but HPIL she don't work with an SGI



You forgot your FINIS, Pymble

It's actually RS-274D, aka "g-code", kind of like Assembler for machine tools. Then they got "conversational" controls, which would be like writing your term paper in Postscript And it's not old, I just threw that together off the top of my head ... you can still control machine tools that way but I doubt that very many people do.

Writing programs that way sucks because it is so labor-intensive but you have total control over everything the machine does. Total. When you use a CAM system the machine cuts a lot of air, does a bunch of junk you don't really want but oh well. It was fast and easy and all I had to do was click on the various surfaces in the order I wanted them cut.

All the machine tool stuff predates personal computers and even large computers by decades. The first numerically controlled machine was running in 1952. They didn't start small and build up, either - it's more like trickle-down. This was when men built SR-71's and XB-70's with slide rules instead of taking twenty-five years and six billion dollars to buy a bridge from China - then bolt it together with bad fasteners. It will be funny when the Bay Bridge falls down ... I read what they did and go, "WHAT ! Nobody with an IQ over thirty would do that !"

But they did.

Automatically Programmed Tools, the One True APT :


Looks simple and it is but it will do geometry up the wazoo. APT predates FORTRAN It was the first ANSI standard. Somewhere around 1964 they rewrote it in FORTRAN ... and it will still do some things that graphical point-n-click CAM programs cannot. I have APT/360 code (public domain) if someone wants to help get it running in Irix .... it's fun to play with (if you don't have to make the rent with it.)


And the more architectures you have, the more ideas and the more choices ... as long as everyone can run on the same roads, a lot of different cars is a good idea. That was the Loonies' rallying cry back when they were the underdogs


You could build your own PDP-8 from the prints that came with a K&T. Honest, the machine came with full prints to the boards and K&T built three boards of their own that went into the PDP-8 for real-time control and they wrote their own operating system. Not "sort-of" real-time, realtime. Sundstrand likewise. And when you called tech support, you got someone who knew their shit. No one from India ! Some of those guys could think in binary. Seriously. It was nice to talk to people who knew their job. Knew it inside-out, frontwards and backwards, and never once said "Oh we can't tell you that, it's a seeecret !" Gag.

But hey now, it really is more important that Mark Zuckerberg has eighty billion dollars in the Caymans than the US has an industrial base, right ?

I would not be surprised if the US collapses within the next ten years. You simply can't run a country on hot air.

Here's a photo of the Teletype keys, better than my description. You can see why they would have a terrible action :


And the site I stole it from has a great description of how they work - it's "innovative"

http://www.oldcomputers.arcula.co.uk/perf1.htm

It's enabled by applying a patch to the code ... Instructions are in /doc/CHANGES. They say it will be the default for the next release. Hey, that's some serious testing, ain't it ?!


Seems like Adobe wants back in the game, they are pushing their support for "Open Source ! We believe in Open Source !" ... you just have to shake your head sometimes. But if it delivers better rendering for CCF aka OTF aka Type1 fonts, I'll take it

The Library of Congress would have to be as large as Indiana to store much The K&T D control could have as much as 192k of memory. A lot of it was for part program storage tho. The executive program probably fit into about 40k. It took over twenty 8" reels overflowing with tape to load. That's a stack almost chest-high ... Paper tape is fun tho. It's much more tactile than a floppy disk.

Nothing is too off-topic for us


Very very cool and looks like a nicely-made product

However ...


Not new, Decitek readers used a similar system in 1980


Sorry, can't be unvarying. As the film on the reel gets smaller the path changes. May not be much but the claim cannot be true.

Also, the "dancer arms" on a Remex reader were not simple spring-loaded devices to put tension on the tape. They had an analog potentiometer connected to the arm to measure the diameter of the tape on the reel. As the diameter got smaller the reel on that side spun faster (variable speed dc motors were used) to achieve the same linear speed. And vicey-versey on the other side, natcherly.

I had both Decitek and Remex readers - in practice, the Remex performed better.

I also had a Tallyreader or two which were mechanical. They sounded like very small-caliber machine guns for miniature armies People bitched about the mechanical readers but in practice, I had less trouble with the Tallyreader than the nice optical devices.

Look at the Portability page ... some nice behind-the-scenes shots of the Nixons' lives. Never thought I'd feel nostalgic for Tricky Dick ...

Toolshest -> Desktop -> Customize -> Color Schemes -> Inverness

Every time I do this have to hunt all over to find whatever I did last time. This is not as sophisticated but easy to remember and works great - just copy the area between the cutlines and save to a file named whatever you want (I used < combine.ps >) then change the postscript filenames you want to collate in the text. Then run < ps2pdf combine.ps [or whatever name you chose] outputname.pdf >

I know, there are better ways. But this is very simple to remember even if you only do it occasionally. Google searches are becoming less and less useful.

< combine.ps >

-------------

%!PS
% Written by Helge Blischke
%
% edit the script to use the real filenames desired then run
% < ps2pdf combine.ps outputname.pdf >
%
% The following 2 procs encapsulate the jobs to be processed
% much as is done with EPS images:

/_begin_job_
{
/tweak_save save def
/tweak_dc countdictstack def
/tweak_oc count 1 sub def
userdict begin
}bind def

/_end_job_
{
count tweak_oc sub{pop}repeat
countdictstack tweak_dc sub{end}repeat
tweak_save restore
}bind def

% Now, collate the pages like this:

_begin_job_
(filename_1.ps)run
_end_job_

_begin_job_
(filename_2.ps)run
_end_job_

_begin_job_
(filename_3.ps)run
_end_job_

% and so on.

--------------------

Just went past the infinality site ... that is one of the biggest group of stupid fucks I've come across. What a bunch of useless buffoons

Otherwise, the new CFF freetype compiles fine. I don't notice any huge change in the Adobe fonts yet tho .... maybe a little nicer. Or maybe my imagination

Not fair to canavan, his infinality worked fine I don't remember what was going on then but every time I opened fireflop it had different fonts. Getting everything stabilized for high-res was a bit tricky for a while. Plus screenshots have to be resized now, which is whence some of the awfulness of that one comest.

Not sure if there's any difference with the new freetype rendering, will report back after I've used it some more.

They look pretty neat but kind of big ... how did you like it ?

Yes, it looked quite awful. Then I resized it and it didn't get any better

The weird thing was, every time I opened Firefox it chose different fonts. It was as if someone put a random-selection roulette wheel in the code. Gremlins ?

I could get you two complete computers, a tape punch and a 2' x 2' x 4' plywood box of spares if you wanted to ship them from China

About the newer freetype ... tried it out, made the change in the source (it's not really a patch, just changed one line in a c code file). Didn't bother with infinality: that was a nice feature but their website sucks dead donkey organs, absolutely stoopid and ghastly, how do these people graduate from third grade ? Anyway, Freetype-Adobe compiles fine, installs fine, runs fine.

Is it better ? Hard to say. Is it different ? Maybe. It's easy for the mind to play tricks - "Is that T cleaner than before ? Could be. I think so. Yes, definitely cleaner than before. It's new code, must be better, right ?"

It's definitely not worse and other code looking for the big number when they do configure should be happy so what the heck, may as well leave it. It's not a step backwards at least.


Edit : note on the infinality page saying that it crashes when used with the new Adobe cff font engine. Maybe they will get around to fixing it before that becomes the freetype default

I best make sure they are still there .... there's a lot of stuff.


Umm, you ain't gonna be sending a PDP-8 by mail They aren't as tall but they're every bit as heavy as a Xerox laser printer. Let me make sure the stuff hasn't gone to the smelter before we get too excited tho. Most people don't consider tape punches and 1975 computers to be valuable

Look at this disgusting piece of shit :

http://www.patents.com/us-6670967.html

They gave someone (in the NSA, no less) a patent for a frigging Xdefaults entry. What a bunch of clowns. "Intellectual Property" indeed

There are some DAT drives that have audio firmware, and some that can be flashed with the audio firmware. Older drives now but still a neat feature

Does anyone (hi diegel !) happen to know the name of the actual executable that this version of firefox runs as ? Would like to use a real minimized icon here, I've tried just about every name ff ever used and every name that shows up in top, the process manager, pstree, you name it. FF doesn't like any of them

That would be great if you could do it ... I've "compiled" erlang (said it succeeded but in practice, refused to make any executables that work) a few times with no non-trivial success. I really like variety but an old stick tied to your leg with a bandana is no substitute for a wheel.

a) We're not supposed to even breathe the word "commercial software" here because the site owner (quite reasonably) doesn't need to be hassled by the SBA.

b) fleaBay is your friend

c) there is a good chance it will come with a running installation. If not, experience is what you get when everything turns to shit. Seriously, in the old dayes this was a major problem for privateers and one that you learned about quick. Nowadays, see (b)

d) If you don't have to, don't get all excited about reinstalling Windows. This is Irix. I'm running the same installation that I did eight years ago. The same installation has gone through three computers and several hard disks.

e) The easiest way in the beginning might be to pick up a disk installed for an Octane. One's first Irix install can be frustrating. After about the third time it's no big deal but the first time can be a pita.

Oh. It's an Octane. Unless you have an external scsi CD-ROM drive you'll be doing this over a network connection. More fun. Not that it's intolerably difficult but if you just want to get running and this is your first Irix experience ...

Your profile doesn't show where you are located - in this forum that's useful because people here come from all over the world. Maybe there is someone close by who wouldn't mind coming over to help for a pizza and a beer. Does your girlfriend have good hooters ? A little eye candy can help in these situations.

d) Last and least is the dreaded Loonix Install. If you want a 60 lb box that performs as well as a 486-66DX, go for it.

good luck

If possible I would use something like iges, step, sat or stl files. Those are the most common in industry, where a little "glitch" in the model means several hundred (or thousands) of dollars down the toilet. There are Irix applications that will read those.

Nope, you got the question right and the same answers as me. Too bad they seem to be the wrong answers

If you put an rgb image file in $HOME/.icons with the executable_name-dot-icon as a name, when you minimize the application you get that picture as an icon. Works for every other application I have. FF2 required some other name, iirc it was either "mozilla" or "Mozilla". FF3 doesn't respond to any of the names I've tried, both the ones you point out and about a half-dozen others - none of the names it shows up as in process manager, pstree, top, nuthin'. What the hell is it calliing itself ?

p.s. - your screenshots look as bad as mine Are you running on that Times Square display setup nowadays ?

Sorry, can't help myself : why would anyone who is not a lawyer or a job creator think this ?

Patents are ludicrous crap. In 1800 there was a point to the idea but since then, they have become nothing but a disease. They serve no useful purpose whatsoever. They are yet another layer of shit on top of the cesspool of garbage burying life today ... How can anyone rational "support" something like that ?

It's an Apple I

www.latimes.com/business/technology/la- ... 0683.story

They look nice. But why the Kickstarter ? Why not just sell them ? That whole commuuuuunity thing is sort of ... repulsive

Wreck : we're not socialists. We're Communists ! better hide the women and children !

And wot the 'ell appened to Ozztralia, Pymble ? you guys went from "Now this is a knife !" to "omigosh, that man said an insensitive word. He must be imprisoned for the rest of his life. Think of the chiiiiildren !" in like twenty years. Wow.


I hear Woz and Jobs had the same problem ...


Did community, when the moon was in the seventh house and jupiter aligned with mars .... The computers look good tho, hope you do well.

That stuff sucks and it makes these threads worthless in the future. Could you please just resize the shots to a resonable size and upload them to the thread itself ?

There's nothing worse than trying to solve a problem, finding an old thread which is exactly the answer, then finding that the solution is on some long-gone "hosting" site.

Just checked, the Blender we have is not new enough to support FBX

Maybe getting a new B to run would be a good project for the relaxed and happy Mr P

Delete your ioconfig.conf and reboot before you get too carried away. (It will make a new file with just the hardware you have connected upon reboot.) Ioconfig has bit my ass many times in the past. It never deletes old hardware entries, so gets easily confused when you change input devices.


My Mom had a solution for that. She'd poke a little hole in the bottom of each one to see what was inside. Then she ate the good ones ... sheesh.

have another hit ! sweet sausalito sunshine ..

This thing is driving me nuts. Either the people running dns here are total morons (possible) or they are very clever people doing it on purpose (also possible) or there are two groups equally responsible, the morons and the cunning bastards. Anyhow ...


The timestamps returned from everything past the gateway in the traceroute are a stone lie - you can sit and watch it take minutes to return on some of those hops.

There is a rumour that enforcing tcp-only on some well-known external dns servers will alleviate this problem. I know that just setting one's dns server settings to known-good servers does not help. The ip's are getting poisoned somewhere. Somewhere north that starts with a B and ends with a g .. Even worse, the poisoned entries eventually screw up the good ones and you have to clear all the cached ip's in the local dns server.

Using the real ip also does not help much. If you know the correct ip, that occasionally works but not usually. Most servers now host several sites on one ip and use the desired hostname to figure out which website will be returned. If you just use the ip you don't get the site you want.

But I'd like to know what is really happening. Too bad I'm not smart enough to figure this out on my own ... but Cisco was behind this and they're smarter than me. Thanks, assholes. Anything for a buck, eh ?


Anyway, first biggest thing I do not understand is, if you do an nslookup the ip is returned right away. Often it's even the correct one. However, a ping immediately thereafter can come back with "domain name not found." Umm, how is that done (and how to get around it ?

Woof ! Woof ! Irix Dog Food is the most nutritious for your growing hound !


There are also Windows and Solaris and Mackletosh "It's Yeewwwnix !" machines on the network awailable for testing if need be.