jdswain

8 ms·

61.
by jdswain 3y ago
Well apparently he did write a check book balancing program for the Apple II, so by that measure he probably wrote more code than Steve Jobs.
62.
by jdswain 3y ago
So maybe being a bit pedantic here, but the Atari ST was originally going to use CP/M 68k, but part way through development they changed the base OS from that to what was more of a MS-DOS clone (which as others have said was also mainl
63.
by jdswain 3y ago
As a parent myself, I'd like to say that it's not that easy. There are measures you can take, but it doesn't always work. The web is maybe easy to control, but what about all the other means of communication kids have now, li
64.
by jdswain 3y ago
I used to get Byte magazine back then. The cover date was three months in the past by the time I got it. Before the internet the News section was still relevant even after three months. Some books I ordered took 6 months if they arrived at
65.
by jdswain 4y ago
Plus the Apple //e (January 1993) had 80 columns and lower case, which coupled with the disk drive made it useful for business. But I guess the IBM PC (August, 1991) already had all that by then (and the Apple ///,
66.
by jdswain 4y ago
In Australia/New Zealand we have a similar charity started by an Ophthalmologist that began by performing the surgeries himself: https://www.hollows.org/au/about-fred
67.
by jdswain 4y ago
You know what would help with this, if the click rectangle updates were delayed, maybe by 1 second, after the UI updates. Then if you were already aiming for a button when it moves, you'd still tap it.
68.
by jdswain 4y ago
The front bezel is clipped in, it's quite hard to detach, but can be carefully removed, and then the screen just sits behind with a eDP connector. Quite a contrast to an iPad.
69.
by jdswain 4y ago
I tried using Blink shell for a while and it was ok, but when my iPad screen broke I got a Thinkpad X280 as a replacement. For emacs, programming and a lot of other things it's way better. I've just spent some time in KiCAD this e
70.
by jdswain 4y ago
So Lora is probably more practical. We had to trigger a solenoid so needed a bit more power anyway, but could reliably run off a LiIon battery with a solar panel for recharging. Makes the whole package more complicated, but it worked well.
71.
by jdswain 4y ago
Does anyone know what kind of range you get with BTLE sensors like this? I'd think a decent distance would be required in most cases, and BTLE is meant to be short range. A while back I built a LoRa device and we got really good range,
72.
by jdswain 4y ago
There’s a story about someone watching Woz entering hex into the computer directly to write a program, and every now and then he’d pause for a little. They asked him why and he said he was calculating the offset for a forward branch, which
73.
by jdswain 4y ago
I’ve used SRP on a few projects, including for a large bank for the log in from their counter system. Once you get the algorithm sorted out it’s quite simple and it feels a whole lot better than some of the password storage systems I have s
74.
by jdswain 4y ago
And Atari DOS was written by the same people that wrote DOS for the Apple ][. Shepardson Microsystems. The book ‘The Atari BASIC Source Book, written by some ot the same people is still an interesting read today.
75.
by jdswain 4y ago
I do miss the diversity of computing from back then. Today everything has converged on looking and acting almost the same, but back then there was so much more choice. Amiga, Atari St, Mac, SGI, Sun, NeXT, and a whole lot more.
76.
by jdswain 4y ago
Some people have problems with sodium lauryl sulfate. In toothpaste it gives me mouth ulcers, and in soap I get skin irritation. It’s quite hard to find SLS free toothpaste, or even shampoo, but it could be worth trying if you have unexplai
77.
by jdswain 5y ago
Like the original NeXT AppKit, where the UI was built from objects in memory, then stored on disk as archived objects. The objects could be manipulated with InterfaceBuilder and live tested. These concepts seem to have been lost along the w
78.
by jdswain 5y ago
I live in an area of New Zealand surrounded by hydroelectric dam's, and I've often thought it would be a great place for a datacenter. They'd be electricity savings from avoiding the transmission losses to get the electricity
79.
by jdswain 5y ago
I had an older student at my high school teach a machine language course, complete with a one page table of opcodes and their hex values so that we could type them in. After that I purchased a copy of Programming the 6502 by Rodnay Zaks. Bo
80.
by jdswain 5y ago
Indiana Pi Bill - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill
81.
by jdswain 5y ago
Did something similar to OP. I was writing a controller for a streaming system and managed to accidentally set the volume to 100. This was with speakers not headphones. I had to pull the power plug to stop it. Just about gave me a heart att
82.
by jdswain 6y ago
It looks like 5 1/4” drives themselves are getting quite rare, not many on eBay, while there are lots of 3.5”. So even with a controller, getting a drive is not simple. I’d say the main reason, is that 3.5” drives are much more common,
83.
by jdswain 6y ago
Ray Holt also went on to design the Jolt computer, a very early 6502 based computer which lead to the SYM-1 (also designed by Ray Holt), and TIM-1, which was more of a kit with a pre-programmed ROM. I built my own TIM-1 this year and have b
84.
by jdswain 6y ago
Cheese is low in lactose, and gelato is too, it's mainly sugar with only a little bit of milk. Someone I know, who is lactose intolerant, believes that frozen milk isn't as bad, I've not found any scientific evidence of this,
85.
by jdswain 6y ago
Wouldn't a better solution be to make them all in phase with each other? Then there wouldn't need to be any HVDC interconnect.
86.
by jdswain 6y ago
The details always matter in these kinds of statements, and I guess there is often exaggeration in a lot of claims to have designed things. Someone that made a one sentence comment on a design then claims to be the one that actually made it
87.
by jdswain 7y ago
The article does have two good topics, and I can see the connection, but it does detract from the message. There are some very important things said about Coronavirus, and USA should be taking notice of this right now, but unfortunately if
88.
by jdswain 7y ago
Location: New Zealand (timezone quite good for most of US) Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No Technologies: iOS, Android, Swift, Objective-C, Kotlin, Java, C++, Embedded Résumé/CV: Available on request Email: Jason@1av.com I've b
89.
by jdswain 7y ago
I was thinking of Eric Schmidt. A quick check shows a net worth of $14.7 billion.
90.
by jdswain 7y ago
I think he did, as a consultant. The main reference I found was an article in MacTech, written by an Apple employee: "Object Pascal is an extension to the Pascal language that was developed at Apple in consultation with Niklaus Wirth,

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