5 ms·
More and more, I wonder if projects like this (I assume they're made possible 'all of a sudden' because of AI coding tools) are going to eventually breathe new
by xp84 3mo ago
More and more, I wonder if projects like this (I assume they're made possible 'all of a sudden' because of AI coding tools) are going to eventually breathe new life into dozens of "obsolete" platforms long ago deemed too costly to keep supporting. Maybe we'll be able to daily drive OS9 with modern browsers and bugfixes. Or for those of us less masochistic, say, Windows 2000 or NextStep!
- someperson 3mo agoI feel like the best Beatles songs are yet to be written. Or alternatively best classic Simpsons episodes are yet to be made.
- dosisking 3mo ago> Or alternatively best classic Simpsons episodes are yet to be made. Yes. This will happen.... when pigs fly (It's still good, it's still good)
- soulofmischief 3mo agoI think people seem to be downvoting this because it's not something they like whether true or not, however I think it's a thought-provoking perspective which warrants some consideration.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoI think there is real insight but it kinda relies on a rhetorical trick. AI could arguably create a simpsons episode. It absolutely could not make a Beatles song. The Beatles can only make a Beatles song, and they do not exist.
- xamuel 3mo agoThe Beatles absolutely still exist! They published a new single in 2023 ("Now and Then") and they surgically injected slices from archive footage into new footage for the music video to make it look like young Lennon and Harrison perform alongside elder McCartney and Ringo.
- gcanyon 3mo agoI think you're underselling where we'll get to in the next 5-10 years. I'm thinking: Best Beatles song recorded between Rubber Soul and Revolver, composed mainly by McCartney but Lennon wrote the bridge and Ringo was feeling adventurous and Harrison was angry that day, and it was deemed not commercial enough to include on Revolver. Best season 3 episode of The Simpsons, really showing the transition to Homer as the lead, written by Robert Cohen with significant musical input from Danny Elfman and featuring seven characters loosely representing the deadly sins, with Homer as Gluttony of course.
- anthk 3mo agoThere's already Netsurf with beter JS support than the Duktape one under Unix, Windows and even RiscOS.
- russelg 3mo agoThis isn't an all-of-a-sudden, the engine has been worked on for over 7 years now https://github.com/fwgs/xash3d-fwgs https://github.com/fwgs/xash3d-fwgs
- Coeur 3mo agoOr even create new platforms where we're not bound by platform owners' imposed artificial limitations.
- ColdStream 3mo agoSo the entire free software movement? ;)
- itomato 3mo agoOne of the first things I did with ChatGPT was feed it source for the existing OHCI USB Host Adapter driver to make it work with more common UHCI hardware. There are many people working to extend NeXT, Openstep and even Rhapsody. Not to mention emulation projects and deep dives into XNU source, early Darwin source and shoehorning kernels and libraries into various places. The Epson NX was purpose-built to run NeXTStep, for example, and bringing support for machines like that and the Canon object.station into 86box is a pet project of mine. Join us https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5286.msg33664#msg33664 https://www.nextcomputers.org/forums/index.php?topic=5286.ms...
- User23 3mo agoThat reminds me of how I had had to cross compile a Linux kernel with a special USB patch to install a system on my Bondi Blue iMac.
- ColdStream 3mo agoOne impressive one to me is the current effort to port Doom to the Neo Geo. Because of its unique hardware setup in that it is entirely sprite based and doesn't have a frame buffer, it is a very difficult challenge to take on. And yet most of the code on these projects is being done via AI and it works pretty dang well. Considering these coding system probably have almost no idea of the Neo Geo's specifics and with very little reference code directly linked to the system to bounce off, that is dang impressive.
- CursedSilicon 3mo agoAt least in retro spaces there's a lot of rejection of using AI to do things. Half-Life (and the later Source engine games such as Half-Life 2 and Portal) were ported without LLM assistance however (Source: I am in the Discord where the developer has been working and diligently posting updates on the project)
- CamperBob2 3mo ago(Removed inaccurate remark, or rather, removed my reply to an inaccurate remark)
- hoten 3mo ago"unsustainable" is an odd word to use for a hobby. They aren't trying to hit productivity goals. Maybe they just still like programming.
- CamperBob2 3mo agoI do, too, but I'm feeling increasingly awkward doing it by hand. NGL, it's not an altogether-comfortable feeling. At least not yet.
- CursedSilicon 3mo agoWhat a bizarre take Many people refuse to use LLM's for various reasons that I don't need to rehash here
- CamperBob2 3mo ago"Bizarre" is rejecting powerful tools on ... what, religious grounds? It would be one thing if we were talking woodworking or pottery or another skilled craft, where your personal growth of talent with experience is evident in the product, resulting in something you can look back on fondly and point to with pride. But moving some legacy code (which you didn't write) from one platform to another? What do you get out of doing that by hand?
- cellularmitosis 3mo agorelated: https://powerfox.jazzzny.me/ https://powerfox.jazzzny.me/
- user3939382 3mo agoThe big blocker is actually TLS. Without it lots of tools including browsers are blocked. Now with AI I bet it is manageable, before that the effort required resulted in what you see, almost nothing.
- userbinator 3mo agoTLS is not really that much of a blocker, nor was AI necessary to clear that hurdle (albeit crypto is fundamentally "just maths" and thus very, very portable): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36486512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36486512
- user3939382 3mo agoIt’s a blocker bc it’s complex and not available. By blocker I mean huge hurdle, not so much saying it’s impossible. Your link shows work has been done there.
- Palomides 3mo agomodern tls libraries on classic macs has been available for at least 6 years, and was pretty easily possible sooner if anyone bothered, no AI needed
- user3939382 3mo agoA library and working OS utilities including a browser are not the same thing. A year or so ago I was able to get 1 very old browser working but nothing else had TLS. The browser also didn’t have modern JS which is another similar non-trivial issue.
- geerlingguy 3mo agoProjects like TenFourFox and PowerFox have ported modern FireFox to late PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X. And some of those Macs are at the bleeding edge (back then) of modern device support (PCIe, WiFi, etc.) so they can also run surprisingly modern hardware and software via Linux. Getting harder with 32 bit support vanishing though.
- SkyeCA 3mo agoI'm hopeful it will. Just the other day I got an old webcam I own working on Windows 11 despite there being zero compatible drivers for it on any modern version of Windows. I might be a developer, but I'm not one who knows how to develop drivers, so I gave Claude the spec sheets for several of the chips inside the camera, stated what my goal was, and after doing some debugging guided by the AI it just worked. So tada, an obsolete piece of hardware is now usable again. Things like that are what have changed my mind on AI assisted development.
- bsaul 3mo agoNever developped a driver, but doesn't that require running the OS in some special mode, or in a VM, requiring a ton of time waiting for the thing to reboot over and over again ?