Re: 70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 3:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:


The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
software.


Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.

https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf

Although that paper suggest 32K of core.

-Gordon



A quick search shows NO DOCUMENTS online. Another LOST sytem from the 
70's.Ben.

Re: 70's computers

[Gordon Henderson via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:


The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
software.


Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.

https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf

Although that paper suggest 32K of core.

-Gordon

Re: Catalog of Braegen Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems...

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

just a catalog


sorry  to  disappoint
 
 
 
ed#
 
In a message dated 10/23/2018 8:06:40 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
jacob.rito...@gmail.com writes:

 
Hi Ed,
  I talked to that craigslist guy in DC.  He's saving the cdc drive for me 
(others welcome, too - just trying to keep it from the skip).  
Are you saying you've found disk cartridges to fit it?  And is this an 
announcement of a huge haul you've come across in Anaheim (I'll be in sfbay in 
a couple weeks and miiight be able to drive down to help muscle stuff if you 
need help), or are you literally talking about a paper catalog?
 
thx
jake

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 9:58 PM ED SHARPE via cctalk  
wrote:
resent  with corrected subj. message
 Catalog of Braegen  Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and 
unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems... ANY ONE HAVE 
THE HARDWARE IN CAPTIVITY?.. the cdc discs look like that bold one someone 
posted from Craigs list the other day...  ed# www.smecc.org
 Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

Re: Catalog of Braegen Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems...

[Jacob Ritorto via cctalk]

Hi Ed,
  I talked to that craigslist guy in DC.  He's saving the cdc drive for me
(others welcome, too - just trying to keep it from the skip).
Are you saying you've found disk cartridges to fit it?  And is this an
announcement of a huge haul you've come across in Anaheim (I'll be in sfbay
in a couple weeks and miiight be able to drive down to help muscle stuff if
you need help), or are you literally talking about a paper catalog?

thx
jake

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 9:58 PM ED SHARPE via cctalk 
wrote:

> resent  with corrected subj. message
> Catalog of Braegen  Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and
> unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems... ANY ONE
> HAVE THE HARDWARE IN CAPTIVITY?.. the cdc discs look like that bold one
> someone posted from Craigs list the other day...  ed# www.smecc.org
> Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
>

Catalog of Braegen Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems...

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

resent  with corrected subj. message
Catalog of Braegen  Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and 
unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems... ANY ONE HAVE 
THE HARDWARE IN CAPTIVITY?.. the cdc discs look like that bold one someone 
posted from Craigs list the other day...  ed# www.smecc.org
Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

Re: Aphorism (Was: Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 05:09 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote:

I had an Ultra Sparc machine that ran continuously for more than 5 years except 
for maybe 2 power outages and a couple time to vacuum it out.
Oh, well, I had a homemade UVax-II system built out of grey 
market and 3rd party boards.
I ran it for 21 years until the last in a succession of many 
hard drives finally gave up the ghost.
I ran it from 1986 to 2007, basically 24/7 except for power 
failures and occasional maintenance.


Jon

Re: printer and rape and disc subsystems...

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

omg... opps


In a message dated 10/23/2018 6:30:06 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:

 


someone needs to turn auto-correct off

Re: 70's computers

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 6:10 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:

> The 10 or so PPU units.
> Ben.

Early SCOPE and COS also put the operating system in those, leaving the
CPU for real work.  But for I/O, not that much different from IBM
"channels", no?

--Chuck

Re:printer and rape and disc subsystems...

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

someone needs to turn auto-correct off

Catalog of Braegen Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and unibuss add in stuff too printer and rape and disc subsystems...

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

Catalog of Braegen  Compter systems FOUND! Anaheim CA. lsi 11 systems and 
unibuss add in stuff too printer and tape and disc subsystems... ANY ONE HAVE 
THE HARDWARE IN CAPTIVITY?.. the cdc discs look like that bold one someone 
posted from Craigs list the other day...  ed# www.smecc.org

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

Re: 70's computers

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

both will run focal... but I need  focal 11 on paper tape I have asked several 
people  but have not heard if it is even available? 

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail

On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 Noel Chiappa via cctalk  wrote:
PS:

> Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot
> simpler.

As a rough measure of how much more complex, the -8/E and -11/20 are roughly
contemporaneous, and built out of the same technology (SSI TTL on larger
boards): the -8/E CPU is 5 quad boards, and the -11/20 CPU is 9 quad board
(equivalents - some are duals, etc).

Noel

Re: 70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 7:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 10/23/18 5:34 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:


With NO GUI and hidden IO, you get speed.


I understand what GUI is, but what's "hidden IO"?

--Chuck


The 10 or so PPU units.
Ben.

Re: 70's computers

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 5:34 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:

> With NO GUI and hidden IO, you get speed.

I understand what GUI is, but what's "hidden IO"?

--Chuck

Smalltalk (was: Desktop Metaphor)

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr. via cctalk]

Josh Dersch wrote on Tue, 23 Oct 2018 07:25:41 -0700
> I've never seen evidence for any Smalltalk having a desktop metaphor (as in
> the discussion at hand -- icons and folders representing files and/or data,
> not merely windows, etc.).  It's certainly possible that the platform was
> used for experimentation with such within PARC or elsewhere, but no
> smalltalk images I've seen contain anything like that.  Is your thesis
> available to read anywhere?

One complication is that the meaning of terms change over time. I am
typing this in Smalltalk (Celeste email app in Squeak 4.1) and it
doesn't use icons.

Smalltalk-72 had a read-eval-print interface but many applications
written in it experimented with different GUI ideas. There were tests
for the overlapping windows that Alan Kay described as "like papers on a
messy desktop". This got filtered into "Smalltalk had a desktop
metaphor" but that is confusing since by the time Star came out the term
meant something that was a step in the direction of Microsoft Bob or
Magic Cap.

Some Smalltalk applications used icons in the sense of the MacPaint tool
bar. In fact, the term "icon" was invented by David C. Smith for his
1975 thesis:

http://worrydream.com/refs/Smith%20-%20Pygmalion.pdf

This had icons, though these were used in an environment more like
Scratch than a desktop (it didn't have windows, for example, and the
icons were related to the various application domains rather than
operating system functions). But given the role David played in the
development of the Star, I would call this a part of the future desktop
metaphor.

Smalltalk-76 got overlapping windows and popup menus as part of its
basic system and the command line got replaced with a select text and
execute or print scheme, later used in Oberon as well.The windows had
title tabs (like later used in BeOS) and they could be collapsed to just
the tab or expanded into the full window. Not quite icons on a desktop,
but not too different either.

I don't know if Smalltalk-76 had multiple projects (desktops) but -78
certainly had them. When seen from another project they were a small
window with a tiny view of the project and any windows it had. Those
looked a lot like icons, though they were literal representations and
not symbolic ones. See figure 11 in:

https://freudenbergs.de/bert/publications/Ingalls-2014-Smalltalk78.pdf

By the way, in the posts about the improvements from PARC to Apple there
was no mention of drag-n-drop, which to me was the most important
difference in practice.

My conclusion: Smalltalk didn't (and still doesn't) have a desktop
metaphor but was a key element in its creation.

-- Jecel

Re: 70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 6:18 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

Dunno.  I'd say that the CDC 6000 seies machines had pretty good code
density, and of course, ran like the wind.

Instructions are 15 or 30 bits and no condition codes to preserve. Most
are 3-address.

And a very simple instruction set.

--Chuck


With NO GUI and hidden IO, you get speed.
Ben.

Re: 70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 5:57 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

PS:

 > Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot
 > simpler.

As a rough measure of how much more complex, the -8/E and -11/20 are roughly
contemporaneous, and built out of the same technology (SSI TTL on larger
boards): the -8/E CPU is 5 quad boards, and the -11/20 CPU is 9 quad board
(equivalents - some are duals, etc).

Noel


I plan to design with MSI TTL but use 74LSXXX and a few CMOS 22v10's for 
the hardware build.

The 22V10's are programed as simple roms.

The layout for a 18 bit data path, 1 20 alu card with 2 fill bits
or 2 12 bit cards with 3 fill bits per card.

If I use PAL logic I suspect I can put the whole cpu on large card, but
I need a simple instuction set.

For now it trial and error to see what fits best, but 16 bit CPU
extended to 18 bit data path looks to be most compact.
18..16..  8...
[00][*OP*][AC][IX][index or #]

*op*OP code or jmp condition.
AC  JMP,A,X,S
IX  #,Z+index,X+index,S+index

Ben.

Re: 70's computers

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

Dunno.  I'd say that the CDC 6000 seies machines had pretty good code
density, and of course, ran like the wind.

Instructions are 15 or 30 bits and no condition codes to preserve. Most
are 3-address.

And a very simple instruction set.

--Chuck

Re: 70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 5:26 PM, Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk wrote:




On Oct 23, 2018, at 4:08 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
wrote:


From: Ben Bfranchuk



I just can't find a clean simple design yet. ...
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user
software.


There was a recent discussion about code density (I forget whether here, or
on TUHS), and someone mentioned this paper:

  http://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/papers/iccd09/iccd09_density.pdf



I took a peek at PDF, before supper. "Benchmark in C"
That implies byte addressing, so that is not good test for older 
machines with word adressing only.



which shows that for a combo of benchmarks, the PDP-11 had the densest code
out of all the ones they looked at. (They didn't look at the PDP-8, but I
suspect that since it's a single-address design, it's almost ceertainly not
as dense.)

The PDP-11 dates back to the days of core (it went through several generations
before DRAM arrived - e.g. the -11/70 originally shipped with core), and given
core prices, minimizing code size was pretty important - hence the results
above.

So if you want to get the most bang out of 16K buck...


Get rid of byte adressing. OK 64K of bytes or 32K words is much the 
same, but we all know in hindsight 64KB is just too small for may 
applications.




Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot simpler. Which
axis is the most important to you?


For simplicity and reasonable density, you might want to look at J1 (which is
a Forth CPU).  It has been implemented in 300 lines of Verilog and the entire
CPU + 16KB of memory fits in a reasonably sized Spartan 3E FPGA (and you
have space for all of the other “cool” stuff).

Admittedly, you get to write in Forth which may be a minus for some folks.  ;-)

I did write a simulator for it (in Forth of course!) but I’m in the process of 
redoing
it in C so that I can have multiple threads of execution (for the various 
devices I
want to emulate).  For me it was important because I’m using this as the 
controller
in an FPGA so I wanted to have a better debug environment for developing the
code.  ;-)


I use ALTERA FPGA products so I code in ADHL or use TTL macros.
It is not that I understand VERLOG or VHDL, but they are so VERBOSE that 
I don't know just is being defined or compiled.


The FPGA is emulating TTL or 22V10 PAL logic so that I can get a design 
tested before I start laying out PCB's.




TTFN - Guy

Re: 70's computers

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

PS:

> Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot
> simpler.

As a rough measure of how much more complex, the -8/E and -11/20 are roughly
contemporaneous, and built out of the same technology (SSI TTL on larger
boards): the -8/E CPU is 5 quad boards, and the -11/20 CPU is 9 quad board
(equivalents - some are duals, etc).

Noel

Re: 70's computers

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 7:08 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>> From: Ben Bfranchuk
> 
>> I just can't find a clean simple design yet. ...
>> The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
>> where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
>> software.
> 
> There was a recent discussion about code density (I forget whether here, or
> on TUHS), and someone mentioned this paper:
> 
>  http://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/papers/iccd09/iccd09_density.pdf
> 
> which shows that for a combo of benchmarks, the PDP-11 had the densest code
> out of all the ones they looked at. (They didn't look at the PDP-8, but I
> suspect that since it's a single-address design, it's almost ceertainly not
> as dense.)

Interesting.  There are lots of single address machines; it isn't all that 
obvious they would be less effective.  

It also depends on other instruction set features.  Some years ago I learned 
the architecture of the Dutch Electrologica X1 and X8 machines.  They are 
single address, with multiple registers (not many though).  But they gain a lot 
of efficiency by allowing almost all instructions to optionally set a condition 
flag, and almost all instructions to be executed conditionally on that flag.  
So a lot of code full of branches becomes much shorter.  The fact that the 
condition flag setting itself is a choice (unlike the setting of condition 
codes) helps a lot.  For example:

if (x >= 0) { foo (); x += 2; }
else x -= 3;

translates to just 5 instructions:
a=x,p
  y,sub(foo)
  y,a+2
  n,a-3
x=a
since the condition flag is (normally, though it's a choice) preserved by 
function call/return.

Pretty efficient.

paul

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Chris Hanson via cctalk]

On Oct 23, 2018, at 11:12 AM, Jim Manley via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:59 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr  wrote:
> 
>> An (optional) X server (and clients) can be added to the OS (I use them
>> all the time) but
>> is not part of the base install ...
>> 
> 
> Wrong.  Apple has been using self-customized, optimized-for their-hardware
> supersets of the VNC protocol (which is X based) for Screen Sharing since
> early versions of OS X, if not from the beginning, and It's (still) In
> There (per Prego spaghetti sauce ads) in the latest versions of OS X.

VNC is not X11, and not very related to the X11 protocol at all. I say this as 
someone who has hacked together a partial implementation of VNC in Common Lisp.

Furthermore, what’s used for Screen Sharing has almost no relationship to the 
technology used for native UI. macOS (and OS X, and Mac OS X, and 
OPENSTEP/Mach, and NEXTSTEP in its various spellings) do not and never have 
used X11 as their primary display system.

Prior to Mac OS X 10.0, the operating system used Display PostScript, where the 
Display PostScript interpreter was colocated with the window server that 
managed presentation on behalf of applications and routed events to them. As of 
Mac OS X 10.0, the window server just provides drawing surfaces and event 
routing, and drawing happens on the application side via a variety of 2D and 3D 
APIs.

>> BTW, the X server on OS X, interfaces not to the bit-map but instead to the
>> native OS X display rendering framework.
> 
> That's not possible, at least when communicating cross-platform, where
> bitmaps are the only representation.

It’s entirely possible to implement an X server atop some other display 
technology. There are X servers for Windows. There were X servers for classic 
Mac OS. There were X servers for Lisp Machines. The X server for macOS, 
XQuartz, is just an application that applications can talk to using the X11 
protocol.

Please be more conscientious in your claims.

  -- Chris

Re: 70's computers

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 7:26 PM, Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> For simplicity and reasonable density, you might want to look at J1 (which is
> a Forth CPU).  It has been implemented in 300 lines of Verilog and the entire
> CPU + 16KB of memory fits in a reasonably sized Spartan 3E FPGA (and you
> have space for all of the other “cool” stuff).
> 
> Admittedly, you get to write in Forth which may be a minus for some folks.  
> ;-)
> 
> I did write a simulator for it (in Forth of course!) but I’m in the process 
> of redoing
> it in C so that I can have multiple threads of execution (for the various 
> devices I
> want to emulate).  For me it was important because I’m using this as the 
> controller
> in an FPGA so I wanted to have a better debug environment for developing the
> code.  ;-)

I like Forth, I've used it for quite large programs though not recently.

There are versions that support multi-threading.  Since it's a stack language, 
that's pretty easy to do.

paul

Re: 70's computers

[Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 4:08 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>> From: Ben Bfranchuk
> 
>> I just can't find a clean simple design yet. ...
>> The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
>> where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
>> software.
> 
> There was a recent discussion about code density (I forget whether here, or
> on TUHS), and someone mentioned this paper:
> 
>  http://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/papers/iccd09/iccd09_density.pdf
> 
> which shows that for a combo of benchmarks, the PDP-11 had the densest code
> out of all the ones they looked at. (They didn't look at the PDP-8, but I
> suspect that since it's a single-address design, it's almost ceertainly not
> as dense.)
> 
> The PDP-11 dates back to the days of core (it went through several generations
> before DRAM arrived - e.g. the -11/70 originally shipped with core), and given
> core prices, minimizing code size was pretty important - hence the results
> above.
> 
> So if you want to get the most bang out of 16K buck...
> 
> Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot simpler. Which
> axis is the most important to you?

For simplicity and reasonable density, you might want to look at J1 (which is
a Forth CPU).  It has been implemented in 300 lines of Verilog and the entire
CPU + 16KB of memory fits in a reasonably sized Spartan 3E FPGA (and you
have space for all of the other “cool” stuff).

Admittedly, you get to write in Forth which may be a minus for some folks.  ;-)

I did write a simulator for it (in Forth of course!) but I’m in the process of 
redoing
it in C so that I can have multiple threads of execution (for the various 
devices I
want to emulate).  For me it was important because I’m using this as the 
controller
in an FPGA so I wanted to have a better debug environment for developing the
code.  ;-)

TTFN - Guy

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 3:30 PM, Jim Manley via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 12:55 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr  wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:59 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr 
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> An (optional) X server (and clients) can be added to the OS (I use them
>>> all the time) but is not part of the base install ...
>>> 
>> 
>> Apple has been using self-customized, optimized-for their-hardware
>> supersets of the VNC protocol (which is X based) for Screen Sharing since
>> early versions of OS X, if not from the beginning, and It's (still) In
>> There (per Prego spaghetti sauce ads) in the latest versions of OS X.
>> 
>> That’s distinct from the X server and apps that are available as a
>> separate download (and I believe that now they point to Xorg).
>> 
> 
> No, it's not.  You don't need any third-party X components to use Screen
> Sharing, and it works across all platforms, in both directions, that have a
> VNC-compatible client and/or server (depending on which direction you're
> looking from, remotely).  I could show you in the source, but, then I'd
> have to kill you, if Apple didn't get to both of us first.  There's what's
> in the public docs and especially marketing (including technical) material,
> and then there's what's actually In There.  It's the sort of stuff marked
> with "COMPANY PROPRIETARY" watermarks that, if you try to scan or run it
> through a photocopier, produces black output due to opto-molecular chemical
> overlays.

You’re not listening.  I said that X and Screen Sharing are separate.  I use 
both all the time.
X on OS X is *not* in any way shape or form using anything from Screen Sharing 
and is
currently sourced from Xorg.

You are also forgetting, that as an ex-Apple employee (working in the kernel) I
did get to see a lot of the source base.

> 
> 
>> BTW, the X server on OS X, interfaces not to the bit-map but instead to the
>>> native OS X display rendering framework.
>>> 
>> 
>> That's not possible, at least when communicating cross-platform, where
>> bitmaps are the only representation.
>> 
>> *sigh*
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> As far as OS X is concerned, X is just another OS X application that wants
>> to render to the screen.  I use it all the time and it works well along
>> side the normal OS X applications which wouldn’t be possible if the X
>> server wrote directly to the HW.
>> 
> 
> That's the case for your add-on X components - that's not how it can be
> done under the covers, but you apparently don't have access to that level.
> Screen Sharing isn't the only function that has this sort of capability, as
> also do 3-D graphics and video - they aren't constrained to the low-speed
> 2-D world for which Display Postscript/PDF, Quartz, etc., were developed.
> Performance is everything in these technologies, and they have their own
> APIs through which the hardware is accessed (the GPU), because going
> through the gobbledy-gook stack that's fine for documents and other
> high-drag data structures is a non-starter for them.

What I’m saying is that the X components render using the native OS X
rendering capabilities and does not access the HW directly.  Go look in
the Xorg sources.

TTFN - Guy

Re: 70's computers

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Ben Bfranchuk

> I just can't find a clean simple design yet. ...
> The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
> where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
> software.

There was a recent discussion about code density (I forget whether here, or
on TUHS), and someone mentioned this paper:

  http://web.eece.maine.edu/~vweaver/papers/iccd09/iccd09_density.pdf

which shows that for a combo of benchmarks, the PDP-11 had the densest code
out of all the ones they looked at. (They didn't look at the PDP-8, but I
suspect that since it's a single-address design, it's almost ceertainly not
as dense.)

The PDP-11 dates back to the days of core (it went through several generations
before DRAM arrived - e.g. the -11/70 originally shipped with core), and given
core prices, minimizing code size was pretty important - hence the results
above.

So if you want to get the most bang out of 16K buck...

Not the simplest machine to implement, mind - the -8 is a lot simpler. Which
axis is the most important to you?

Noel

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 3:29 PM, Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk wrote:

>> FreeBSD may not have the installed base of Linux but it has a its fans.
> 
> Yes, this workstation runs FreeBSD 10.4 and Xfce.

I prefer OpenBSD myself for mission-critical stuff--the nearly paranoid
attitude to new software is unusual to say the least.   Even old
packages that have had demonstrated security issues are omitted.   You
want to use telnet?  Good, find a version somewhere and convert and
compile it yourself--we're not even going to give you a telnet client,
much less a host.

Was VirtualBox or QEMU ever offered as a standard package on OpenBSD?  I
don't think so...

--Chuck

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Jim Manley via cctalk]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 12:55 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr  wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:59 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr 
> wrote:
>
>> An (optional) X server (and clients) can be added to the OS (I use them
>> all the time) but is not part of the base install ...
>>
>
> Apple has been using self-customized, optimized-for their-hardware
> supersets of the VNC protocol (which is X based) for Screen Sharing since
> early versions of OS X, if not from the beginning, and It's (still) In
> There (per Prego spaghetti sauce ads) in the latest versions of OS X.
>
> That’s distinct from the X server and apps that are available as a
> separate download (and I believe that now they point to Xorg).
>

No, it's not.  You don't need any third-party X components to use Screen
Sharing, and it works across all platforms, in both directions, that have a
VNC-compatible client and/or server (depending on which direction you're
looking from, remotely).  I could show you in the source, but, then I'd
have to kill you, if Apple didn't get to both of us first.  There's what's
in the public docs and especially marketing (including technical) material,
and then there's what's actually In There.  It's the sort of stuff marked
with "COMPANY PROPRIETARY" watermarks that, if you try to scan or run it
through a photocopier, produces black output due to opto-molecular chemical
overlays.


> BTW, the X server on OS X, interfaces not to the bit-map but instead to the
>> native OS X display rendering framework.
>>
>
> That's not possible, at least when communicating cross-platform, where
> bitmaps are the only representation.
>
> *sigh*
>

Believe me, after developing graphics hardware and software for the past 46
years, I'm starting to think Apple would have the right idea with you, as
noted above.  My first graphics "workstation" was a Tektronix 4014
vector-based display hooked up to a PDP-11/70 (the high-voltage green
flashes that cleared the capacitive display "memory" probably explain the
lack of kids ... as far as I know!).  My second (actual) workstation was an
Evans & Sutherland (yes, Dave and Ivan) Picture System 1 (PS/1), which was
dual-port mind-melded to one MB of static RAM in a box 3 x 3 x 3 feet, that
cost a million bucks all by itself.  The other RAM port connected to the
Mass Bus on yet-another PDP-11/70 that connected to a network from which my
user account files were accessible, from which 3-D vertex-and-edge model
coordinates were loaded into the mega-RAM.

The PS-1 then sucked in the coordinates and performed translation, scaling,
and rotation in custom 3-D optimized floating-point hardware.  However, it
could only display wireframes in real time on a very short-persistence
23-inch diagonal, absolutely flat CRT (that cost somewhere in the
six-figure range).  It was a completely vector-based display in any two
colors you wanted, as long as it was white strokes on a black background.
There was no frame rate, as there were no frames - it just kept drawing
line segments as commanded all day and night (which is what it took to get
things working as intended, not as stated to the machine!).

My third and fourth graphics workstations were a pair of $50,000 (each) SGI
2400s, delivering a whopping 30,000 Gouraud-shaded polygons/second.  My
$5.00 Raspberry Pi Zeroes can each deliver 40,000,000 Gouraud-shaded
polygons/second ... in 1040p60.  Where, oh where, did I park that pesky
time machine, so I could take what's in my pocket now and buy the entire
federal government from three-to-four decades ago???

There are a few more decades of those sorts of things on my ledger.  Let's
just say that "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy."

As far as OS X is concerned, X is just another OS X application that wants
> to render to the screen.  I use it all the time and it works well along
> side the normal OS X applications which wouldn’t be possible if the X
> server wrote directly to the HW.
>

That's the case for your add-on X components - that's not how it can be
done under the covers, but you apparently don't have access to that level.
Screen Sharing isn't the only function that has this sort of capability, as
also do 3-D graphics and video - they aren't constrained to the low-speed
2-D world for which Display Postscript/PDF, Quartz, etc., were developed.
Performance is everything in these technologies, and they have their own
APIs through which the hardware is accessed (the GPU), because going
through the gobbledy-gook stack that's fine for documents and other
high-drag data structures is a non-starter for them.

All the Best,
Jim

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 10:16 PM Richard Loken via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> I am replying to this email on a FreeBSD 10.3 box and Motif.  I don't
> know what FreeBSD runs out of the box because I immediately delete it
> and install Motif.

FreeBSD doesn't run *any* graphical user interface out of the box.
What you end up with after install of the FreeBSD OS is a console with
a login prompt.
As any _real_ operating system should be, IMNSHO.

After you have logged in, you can (of course) install Xorg and your
selection of desktop environments (or a wm + extras if you prefer
that) via the package system (or ports, if you prefer to wait for
compiling from source).

> FreeBSD may not have the installed base of Linux but it has a its fans.

Yes, this workstation runs FreeBSD 10.4 and Xfce.
-- 
Regards,
Torfinn Ingolfsen

Re: Hyperland and Doctor Who (Was: 70's computers

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Later, in 2017, it [Shada] was reconstructed again, using animation for 
the missing 
scenes.  That was released on DVD in UK almost a year ago.
The USA release was delayed until last month, and played once on BBC America. 
Amazon.uk has had it available on DVD for a year; amazon.com (USA) should 
have it about now.  Is that still "70's"?


Correction: the USA release of Shada (with animated reconstruction) has 
been further delayed.  AGAIN.  to November 6.

But, Amazon.co.uk has it available:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Shada-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B0767QDRBJ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8=1540332477=8-1=shada
The 1992/2013 narration reconstruction is available from amazon.com.

Re: Aphorism (Was: Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

[dwight via cctalk]

I had an Ultra Sparc machine that ran continuously for more than 5 years except 
for maybe 2 power outages and a couple time to vacuum it out. The only failure 
was one day the disk drive let out a stream of smoke. It was a tantalum 
capacitor. It burned the board. IT was going to give me a new drive. I said, " 
No Way". I had a lot of data on that disk. I asked for one of their failing 
disk, unsoldered the matching capacitor, scraped the carbonized PC board of and 
soldered the replacement capacitor in. It ran until I was force to give up the 
machine when we moved buildings.

Dwight



From: cctalk  on behalf of Fred Cisin via cctalk 

Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2018 11:01:42 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Aphorism (Was: Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> "If it doesn't crash, you're not running a sufficiently varied and
> demanding workload."

Are rights available for wall plaques, T-shirts, and bumper stickers?

Hyperland and Doctor Who (Was: 70's computers

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Modern computers are just to play with on the web and read mail and
download DR WHO.
Remember when "personal" computers were on a par with model trains for 
"practicality" and "usefulness".
I've got the Doctor Who MP4 files on a SATA III drive plugged into a 
Seagate GoFlex-TV streamer.


On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:

Since this is the CLASSIC  LIST I only watch the 70's Dr Who :)


Not sure, then, how to categorize "Shada".  It was a [Tom Baker] Doctor 
Who story, written by Douglas Adams.  It was being filmed in 1979, 
intended to air in the first couple of months in 1980.  But, a labor 
strike caused it to not get completed.

I'd call that "70's".

In 2003?, a reconstruction was done, to complete it, using narration by 
Tom Baker to fill in the missing pieces.  Is that still "70's"?


Later, in 2017, it was reconstructed again, using animation for the 
missing scenes.  That was released on DVD in UK almost a year ago.
The USA release was delayed until last month, and played once on BBC 
America.  Amazon.uk has had it available on DVD for a year; amazon.com 
(USA) should have it about now.  Is that still "70's"?


There were a LOT of Doctor Who episodes that got lost.  At one time, 
videotape was more valuable for re-use than the expected unlikelihood of 
further re-runs.  When it became profitable, BBC began reconstruction from 
VHS, re-transcoding from overseas copies, random archeological finds, etc. 
A major project.  There are still quite a few unaccounted for.
Consider: how would you recolourise something being reconstructed from B 
16mm film?  Besides manual and/or computer assisted Turner style 
recolorization, they developed ways to recolourise working from artifacts, 
such as the B 16mm film being high enough resolution to be able to 
differentiate the grey images of the RGB pixels of the colour screen that 
it was filmed from!



OB_ON-Topic:  In 1991, Douglas Adams, Ted nelson, and Tom Baker made a 
pre-WWW (or at least before WWW became popular) 25 minute BBC documentary 
about what the internet would become, called "Hyperland".  None of the 
high-quality studio copies are extant.  I talked to Ted Nelson last week; 
he has/had a studio VHS somewhere, but can't find it; leaving the mediocre 
ones on WWW, such as archive.org, as the only ones.  He asked me whether I 
could digitize VHS; I assured him that I would improve my capability for 
such, or have it done commercially.   "Hyperland" is NOT available 
commercially in any format.


Last year, I created an .SRT file for it!
It is now FINALLY possible to watch "Hyperland" with captions/subtitles!
I needed a lot of help from a friend with good hearing, but we got it 
done!

(copies available on request)
(caption .SRT files consist of an arbitrary sequence number (like last 
columns on a punch-card), a start and stop time, and lines of text.  When 
actually used as NTSC closed captions, the text is transmitted as two 
bytes at a time in line 21 of the verticsl retrace interval)


I use ANYDVD and Handbrake to transcode MY DVDs to MP4, always with 
captions/subtitles.  So far, all of mine fit [now barely] on a 7mm SATA 
2TB drive out of a Seagate "Backup Plus Slim", which fits into Seagate 
GoFlex-TV.



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: 70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 3:12 PM, Paul Koning wrote:




On Oct 23, 2018, at 5:07 PM, ben via cctalk  wrote:

...
The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user software.


16k words (or even 8k words) is a fine memory size for a single user OS on 
PDP11.  RT-11 runs fine in that, at least the older versions.  I used to run 
RT-11 on an 8kW machine with an RC11 system disk.   DOS-11 also fits in that, 
if you're masochistic enough to want to try that OS.

paul



I have a DE-0 to run a PDP-11 from PDP2011 but I have hardware problems 
here with the monitor and keyboard I have.

http://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/

It is on the to-do list after I get a blinking lights computer running.

Ben.

Re: 70's computers

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 5:07 PM, ben via cctalk  wrote:
> 
> ...
> The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
> where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
> software.

16k words (or even 8k words) is a fine memory size for a single user OS on 
PDP11.  RT-11 runs fine in that, at least the older versions.  I used to run 
RT-11 on an 8kW machine with an RC11 system disk.   DOS-11 also fits in that, 
if you're masochistic enough to want to try that OS.

paul

70's computers

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 1:30 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:

Modern computers are just to play with on the web and read mail and
download DR WHO.


Remember when "personal" computers were on a par with model trains for 
"practicality" and "usefulness".


I've got the Doctor Who MP4 files on a SATA III drive plugged into a 
Seagate GoFlex-TV streamer.


Since this is the CLASSIC  LIST I only watch the 70's Dr Who :)



--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com


Still designing a early 1970's computer 74181 ALU/ 74170 RAM
256x4 PROMS and CORE STYLE memory. The design will be something 18
bits, just after the time the PDP-8/e came out.

Just waiting for my PDF reader to arrive so I can dig up more 
information about that time on general purpose computers at that

time. You just seemed to have 3 kinds of computers back then,
a simple  16 or 12 bits, a decimal or special order product
or a large 32/36 bit machine in a educational or lab environment.

I have a lot of ideas, but I just can't find a clean simple design
yet.

I notice a people are digging up the PDP-8 as a computer. Basic
FPGA development cards are now a dime a dozen, so are there other
computers worth looking at in hind sight as re-build project
or simh emulation?

The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
software.







Ben.

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Jim Manley via cctalk]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 9:34 AM Eric Smith via cctalk 
wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018, 02:36 Jim Manley  wrote:
>
> Microsoft did offer a RAM expansion board specifically to allow the
> Softcard to access 64K of RAM dedicated to CP/M,
>
> Even that wasn't dedicated to CP/M. It was a 16K RAM card that was
> equivalent to the Apple "Language Card", which allowed replacing the 12K of
> ROM of the Apple II and II+ with 16K of RAM, of which 4K had two banks.
> Although it was useful with the Softcard, it wasn't in any way specific to
> it.
>

From
https://www.pcmag.com/feature/300240/the-secret-history-of-microsoft-hardware/2
-

"Microsoft RAMCard for Apple II (1980)

Microsoft produced the Apple II RAMCard as an accessory card for its Z80
SoftCard ... The RAMCard plugged into one of an Apple II's free slots and
provided 16KB of additional system memory (brining the total to 56KB) for
CP/M programs running on the SoftCard."

MS's ad for the card appears above the writeup.  Dedicated only applies to
the Premiere Softcard for the //e, which is what I had.

The bottom line is that this Microsoft product was
_developed_for_and_sold_with_their_Softcard_.  The wise (and unavoidable,
without a lot of extra work) benefit to other software running on an Apple
has nothing to do with its primary intent.  Visicalc and other software was
modified to take advantage of the 56K memory footprint this card made
available, but that doesn't detract from its primary intended use with the
Softcard in any way, shape, or form.

All models of the Softcard could output 80 x 24 text, not only through
> third-party cards, but Apple's own 64K RAM and 80 x 24 video combo card,
>
> Which was only available for the IIe. I stand by my assertion that the
> Softcard did not in any way provide 80x24 text. It could use the capability
> if it was separately provided.
>

Oh, really?  Then where did the CP/M 80x24 text bits come from, outer
space?  They came from the Softcard - the means for how it appeared in
front of the user's eyes isn't important.  You remind me of people who
insisted that MHz and MBs were the sine qua non for evaluating systems
during The Spec Wars of the 1980s and 1990s.  Nowadays, no one even pays
any attention to such trivia, because it's meaningless, and always has been.

Re: Selling keyboards without the terminal

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

Hi  Chuck!  Ah  the  frantic  keys pounding  and screaming  while  playing?


Maybe   yea I poke  mine  pretty  slow...   there are  some  days  I have  
trouble  making  my  fingers  type... maybe  I  type  too  slow!!?!  
 
I  am looking at  a  site that   says   cheap  usb  ps2 adapters  are   not  
active   circuits thus  can cause  problems... I  suspect mine  are  cheap ones
 
any  truth  on  this  site?
 
 
https://clickykeyboards.com/product/ps2-to-usb-adapter-converter-for-keyboards-short-usb-cable/
 
 
Ed#
 
In a message dated 10/23/2018 1:26:58 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:

 
On 10/23/18 1:09 PM, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote:

> dunno   what   being a  gamer  has  to  do  with it  working or not...

It's always seemed to me that gamers use/abuse keyboards more than those
of us who simply use them to type.

Maybe that's a mistaken impression.

--Chuck

Re: Selling keyboards without the terminal

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 1:09 PM, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote:
> dunno   what   being a  gamer  has  to  do  with it  working or not...

It's always seemed to me that gamers use/abuse keyboards more than those
of us who simply use them to type.

Maybe that's a mistaken impression.

--Chuck

Re: Selling keyboards without the terminal

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

dunno   what   being a  gamer  has  to  do  with it  working or not...


 
my  problem was it  would  just   have the keyboard  go away and  not  
respond... tried  several I  had...
worked on older  computers...
 
 
oh well! 
 
 
Ed#
In a message dated 10/19/2018 11:14:11 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:

 
> So, at least I have an excuse. The model Ms work fine for me--I use one

> of the PCPlay-based USB keyboard+mouse adapters. But then, I'm not a
> gamer...
>
> --Chuck

Re: Selling keyboards without the terminal

[ED SHARPE via cctalk]

I like  my   xps. I  do not  make  grocery lists on it  I  edit  news  video  
with it...   for  video editing faster is better and  what  I  really  want is  
not  yet   fast  enough!

 
 
speaking of   video and  keyboards and computers...
 
I  need  an AMIGA  keyboard  to go with  the  Amiga  with video toaster one of  
our cable  TV  friends   contributed for a  display here...  the  enigma  now 
is  which  display to put it in?  computers or   video production and 
television?   Think I  will put it in  video production   as  what  makes it  
unique  is the  video toaster  card...
 
 
Ed#
 
In a message dated 10/19/2018 12:14:51 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:

 
>>> the ps2 to usb adapters do not work well with my dell xps

>>> go fast computer!
>> That would explain all the extra spaces...
On Fri, 19 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
> I wonder how many letters got deleated while the mail program's input got 
> lost as the fast computer popup windows kept popping up.
> Is just me, but is keyboad input geting slower and slower on web stuff,
> even the old 110 buad tty gave better response running under a PDP/8.

Computer Software Boyle's Law:
extraneous actions, features, ads, etc. will expand to fill all available 
space and speed resources.

For example:
Operating system distribution requires a double layer DVD, instead of a 
single sided 5.25" floppy.

When you want to type a shopping list, is it quicker on the new machine? 
(How long from power cycle on the amazingly fast Dell XPS before Office 
gives you a blank document screen?) Does a shopping list need to have 
PICTURES of eggs?

10 years ago, at the college, a memo announcing a room or time change for 
a meeting was done on Word, printed in color, scanned, and attached to an 
email. (I'm not sure WHY, but how else to get a horizontal rule that was 
offset by a couple of pixels from one end to the other?) I wonder whether 
they have now switched from the same half dozen words now being done with 
video and sound?


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:

Modern computers are just to play with on the web and read mail and
download DR WHO.


Remember when "personal" computers were on a par with model trains for 
"practicality" and "usefulness".


I've got the Doctor Who MP4 files on a SATA III drive plugged into a 
Seagate GoFlex-TV streamer.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 11:12 AM, Jim Manley  wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:59 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr  > wrote:
> An (optional) X server (and clients) can be added to the OS (I use them all 
> the time) but
> is not part of the base install ...
> 
> Wrong.  Apple has been using self-customized, optimized-for their-hardware 
> supersets of the VNC protocol (which is X based) for Screen Sharing since 
> early versions of OS X, if not from the beginning, and It's (still) In There 
> (per Prego spaghetti sauce ads) in the latest versions of OS X.  I do have 
> some first-gen PowerPC systems that I need to see if they power up (ironic 
> name, PowerPC!), let alone boot, and then I'll have to find original OS X 
> boot media ... some of us have actual lives, though, so don't hold your 
> breath!

That’s distinct from the X server and apps that are available as a separate 
download (and I believe that now they point to Xorg).

> 
> BTW, the X server on OS X, interfaces not to the bit-map but instead to the
> native OS X display rendering framework.
> 
> That's not possible, at least when communicating cross-platform, where 
> bitmaps are the only representation.  Projects such as Wayland and Weston are 
> attempting to provide a modern alternative to X that fully supports vector 
> representations (using GPU hardware acceleration), through a protocol and 
> supporting library for a compositing window manager (Wayland) and a 
> compositor reference implementation (Weston).  XWayland implements a 
> compatibility layer to seamlessly run legacy X11 applications on Wayland.  A 
> few years ago, the Raspberry Pi Foundation was funding this effort, in part, 
> but it was too soon then, and I don't know what the statuses of the projects 
> are, at this point, although instructions for building the software for Linux 
> are Out There.  Support for Retina and HiDPI displays is mentioned, but I 
> didn't see anything explicitly about OS X or Windows support in a cursory 
> scan of the associated wikis - I assume they're talking about running 
> Wayland/Weston on Linux using Apple and PC hardware.  GNOME and KDE are fully 
> supported, since that's where development started.

*sigh*

Yes, it is.  Just as there exist X implementations that use the GPU to 
accelerate rendering.  It says *nothing* about the cross platform protocol.  
It’s how the X server communicates with the rendering hardware or in OS X’s 
case the software interface to do the rendering.  As far as OS X is concerned, 
X is just another OS X application that wants to render to the screen.  I use 
it all the time and it works well along side the normal OS X applications which 
wouldn’t be possible if the X server wrote directly to the HW.

TTFN - Guy

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Alan Perry via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 11:41 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:



On 2018-10-23 2:45 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:05, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.

Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".

I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E.  ;-)



AFAIK neither Oracle nor IBM make workstations any more, only headless
servers, so it's rather academic.
Oracle does not make workstations, but, as I said, Oracle's customers 
can and do run Solaris on systems with heads.


alan

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

On 2018-10-23 2:45 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:05, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.

Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".

I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E.  ;-)

Solaris is EOL and is no longer in development. However, Solaris 11
switched to GNOME 2, nearly a decade ago.

AFAIK neither Oracle nor IBM make workstations any more, only headless
servers, so it's rather academic.


Hence why I prefer to be excruciatingly clear.

I generally try, at least with my professional hat on.

You can still get a graphics adapter with lower end P9 AIX systems but 
not on the high end machines maybe because there is no place to plug in 
a keyboard.


Paul.

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 11:12 AM, Jim Manley via cctalk wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:59 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr  wrote:
> 
>> An (optional) X server (and clients) can be added to the OS (I use them
>> all the time) but
>> is not part of the base install ...
>>
> 
> Wrong. 

Jim, have you ever WORKED for Apple

Both Guy and I have, and your level of misinformation on topics
both he and I are VERY familiar with is getting annoying.

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Jim Manley via cctalk]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 3:59 PM Guy Sotomayor Jr  wrote:

> An (optional) X server (and clients) can be added to the OS (I use them
> all the time) but
> is not part of the base install ...
>

Wrong.  Apple has been using self-customized, optimized-for their-hardware
supersets of the VNC protocol (which is X based) for Screen Sharing since
early versions of OS X, if not from the beginning, and It's (still) In
There (per Prego spaghetti sauce ads) in the latest versions of OS X.  I do
have some first-gen PowerPC systems that I need to see if they power up
(ironic name, PowerPC!), let alone boot, and then I'll have to find
original OS X boot media ... some of us have actual lives, though, so don't
hold your breath!

BTW, the X server on OS X, interfaces not to the bit-map but instead to the
> native OS X display rendering framework.
>

That's not possible, at least when communicating cross-platform, where
bitmaps are the only representation.  Projects such as Wayland and Weston
are attempting to provide a modern alternative to X that fully supports
vector representations (using GPU hardware acceleration), through a
protocol and supporting library for a compositing window manager (Wayland)
and a compositor reference implementation (Weston).  XWayland implements a
compatibility layer to seamlessly run legacy X11 applications on Wayland.
A few years ago, the Raspberry Pi Foundation was funding this effort, in
part, but it was too soon then, and I don't know what the statuses of the
projects are, at this point, although instructions for building the
software for Linux are Out There.  Support for Retina and HiDPI displays is
mentioned, but I didn't see anything explicitly about OS X or Windows
support in a cursory scan of the associated wikis - I assume they're
talking about running Wayland/Weston on Linux using Apple and PC hardware.
GNOME and KDE are fully supported, since that's where development started.

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[John Ames via cctalk]

> Grant Taylor wrote:
>> *Every* Unix desktop out there draws on Win95.
>
> Nope.  That's simply not true.
>
> The following three vast families of window managers / desktops prove
> (to my satisfaction) that your statement is wrong.
>
>   ? Common Desktop Environment (a.k.a. CDE) and it's ilk.
>   ? The various *Box window managers / desktop environments.
>   ? Motif window manager and it's ilk.
>
> They are all significantly different from each other and from Windows's
> Explorer interface, first publicly debuting with Windows 95.
There's also the Afterstep/Window Maker crowd, open-source
reimplementations of the NEXTSTEP desktop environment, which predates
even Windows 3.x. Win95 was certainly very influential in the design
and refinement of many other desktop environments going forward, but
it's not the be-all and end-all of anything.

>> Liam Proven wrote:
>
> How many graphical Unix desktops are sold or distributed in the world
> today that are not Linux? Excluding Mac OS X as I specifically address
> that point, I think.
>
> Now, I can point to 3 living (FSVO "living") descendants of those OSes:
>
> * CDE is now FOSS
> (It had a conceptual re-implementation, the XForms Common Environment,
> XFCE. Here's a screenshot:
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Xfce3.jpg
> Note, it has now moved to a Windows-like model)
>
> AFAIK no current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux
> offers CDE as a desktop choice.
>
> * NeXTstep inspired GNUstep
> http://www.gnustep.org/
> (and LiteStep but that's now dead)
>
> No current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux offers
> GNUstep as a desktop choice.
>
> * Risc OS inspired the ROX Desktop:
> http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/
>
> Again, no current or historical full-function general-purpose Linux
> offers ROX as a desktop choice.
But this is kind of a questionable standard to begin with, because the
whole point in the Freenix world is choice. No distributions offer
those as default options during the install process, but all of them
(aside from CDE, which only just went open-source a couple years ago
and is still in the process of being cleaned up and forward-ported to
modern *nixen) are available in the repositories for most major
distributions, and all of them are still actively updated.


> BeOS used the Windows model.
Kinda-sorta-not-really. BeOS (like just about everything post-1995)
takes cues from Win95, but its roots are in classic Mac OS and it
definitely hews closer to that in most respects, despite the absence
of a global menu bar.

> Outside of Apple, I think it is fair to say that no new OS or desktop
> environment since 1995 has used anything other than the Win95 model.
Haiku says hi. Or would, if they could spare the time from trying to
awkwardly kludge Linux development models into a BeOS world.

> The fact that there are a small handful of clones of the Apple Mac OS
> X GUI doesn't really invalidate this point.
This "aside from the things that don't match up with my argument, my
argument is flawless!" line of reasoning is novel.

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Excuse me, but I work for xxx and it is not EOL.


Outsider EOL predictions sometimes lead to a spike in workload for the 
Real-Time Resume' Updater.

(cf. "aerospace collapse" just under half a century ago)

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Alan Perry via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 11:00 AM, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote:



On 10/23/18 10:45 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:05, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.

Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".

I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E.  ;-)

Solaris is EOL and is no longer in development. However, Solaris 11
switched to GNOME 2, nearly a decade ago.
Excuse me, but I work for Oracle on Solaris (primarily on USB code) 
and it is not EOL. Oracle just released Solaris 11.4 and the next 
release is being worked on.


alan
- insert that not speaking for my disclaimer again -

not speaking for my *employer* disclaimer

Aphorism (Was: Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

"If it doesn't crash, you're not running a sufficiently varied and
demanding workload."


Are rights available for wall plaques, T-shirts, and bumper stickers?

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Alan Perry via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 10:45 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:05, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.

Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".

I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E.  ;-)

Solaris is EOL and is no longer in development. However, Solaris 11
switched to GNOME 2, nearly a decade ago.
Excuse me, but I work for Oracle on Solaris (primarily on USB code) and 
it is not EOL. Oracle just released Solaris 11.4 and the next release is 
being worked on.


alan
- insert that not speaking for my disclaimer again -

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Alan Perry via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 10:37 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

On 10/23/2018 11:19 AM, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote:

When I bring up Solaris 11.4 in VirtualBox, I get a Gnome desktop.


Ya, I think that Solaris has started using Gnome as the default 
desktop.  But I'm fairly sure that C.D.E. is still there and a menu 
choice away at login time.




Solaris 10 defaulted to Java Desktop System (based on Gnome) and the 
various Solaris 11 released defaulted to other versions of Gnome (I 
don't know enough about Gnome to identify the versions). I think that 
since Solaris 11 11/11 (the original S11 release) there has been no CDE, 
only Gnome.

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Nemo via cctalk]

On 23/10/2018, Geoffrey Oltmans via cctalk 
wrote (in part):
> I’d say that Windows 95’s UI blew the doors off of anything I’d used up that
> point in terms of usability.

Interesting... I recall gathering around a colleague's PC many years
ago.  One of us noticed his screen and said "Hey, you switched to
OS/2."  He replied, "No. Win95".  It really fooled a lot of us.

N.

Re: Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 1:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On 10/23/18 9:32 AM, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> I have a RPi dedicated to a SIMH VAX-11/750 running BSD that I
>> intended to leave up and rack up some impressive uptime. Then I was
>> reminded by the local electricity provider that this isn’t the right
>> place to try that. We get clear day, calm weather power outages
>> here.
> If it doesn't crash, you're not running a sufficiently varied and
> demanding workload.

Or you may be running it on a sufficiently well designed OS.

paul

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Brian L. Stuart via cctalk]

On Tue, 10/23/18, Paul Berger via cctalk  wrote:
> This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to 
> look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them 
> look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.  One of my biggest 
> aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more 
> like it used to on X.

Amen Brother!

I mostly use rio (based on the same named windowing
system on Plan 9) for my window manager so at least
I get to avoid the dancing frogs.  But back in the '80s
we were using a much nicer approach to cut-and-paste
on X than the commercial guys ever managed.

Time to take my cane back inside now that I've finished
yelling at the kiddies to get off my lawn.

BLS

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

That notwithstanding, I have to say, I still think it's ludicrous to
imply that anything _before_ Win95 could have drawn upon it, even if
making a negative statement.


"The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, 
having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back 
of a packet of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few foot 
notes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly torturous 
Galactic Copyright Laws. Its interesting to note that a later and wilier 
editor sent the book backwards in time, through a temporal warp, and then 
successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the 
same laws."-HHGTTG



For those prone to misinterpretation, "wilier editor" is NOT a reference 
to "John Wiley & Sons" publishers.

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 10:59 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to 
look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them 
look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.  One of my biggest 
aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more 
like it used to on X.


I don't know what we're doing differently, but am and have been using 
what I know to be standard X11 primary selection buffer with middle 
click to paste.


I do periodically use the actual clipboard in combination with the 
primary selection buffer so that I can hold two things at once.


I've also started selecting content, copying the primary selection to 
the secondary buffer for part of my workflow.


Aside:  Is anyone aware of anything that uses the secondary selection 
buffer.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

RE: Desktop Metaphor

[Rick Bensene via cctalk]

Curious Marc wrote:

>Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite advanced GUI and object oriented 
>programming (including the smalltalk windowing environment), >but no desktop 
>metaphor or icons that I have seen. I believe desktop metaphors appear later 
>in the Alto commercial successor, the >Xerox Star, and in the Apple Lisa, 
>which bears strong Xerox influences. Xerox’s desktop metaphor pushes the 
>object concept a bit far, >while the Lisa got what would become the modern 
>ubiquitous version of the concept almost dead on. Did I get this approximately 
>>right? Are there any other GUI desktop metaphors that predates this?

Marc is correct here.  My memory was faulty in my original posting about the 
"Desktop Metaphor".  The Alto, at least in its initial incarnation didn't 
really have a true desktop metaphor, though prototypes of the desktop 
environment may have run on it internally to PARC.   The Star, which was a 
commercial product (as opposed to Alto), definitely did, and that's where my 
memory was faulty.Thanks, Marc, for pointing out my error.

A place I worked for many, many years ago was involved with Smalltalk and OO 
database development.   They had a working Xerox Smalltalk machine, and  that's 
what I remembered the desktop metaphor from, but was thinking it was an Alto.  
After doing a little digging through old notes, I realized my memory of the 
machine was incorrect, and that the machine they had was a Star.

I remember tinkering around with the Star, which by the time I was at the 
company, had been pretty much put out to pasture.   The environment was quite 
intuitive, and easy to use, though it took me a little while to get my mind 
wrapped around the concept of Smalltalk, because I had no exposure to object 
environments prior to playing with the machine.   I was surprised at how 
responsive the machine was considering that the tech in it by that time was 
pretty old.   It was definitely an education playing with it.   I wonder 
whatever happened to that machine?  Hmmm...maybe I should send out some Emails 
to folks that I worked with back then.

The only other desktop metaphor environment that existed around this same time 
was at Tektronix, though the work at Tektronix was slightly behind the work  at 
Xerox,  was heavily based on the developments at Xerox, and the work was done 
under license from Xerox with regard to the Smalltalk-80 implementation used on 
the machine.

Tektronix created a machine called Magnolia that used a Smalltalk environment 
like the Alto/Star, had a bitmapped display and a desktop GUI.   Prototypes of 
the machine were running in early 1981, and it was quite refined by '82.  The 
machine never became a product, though it did pave the way for a couple of 
generations of Smalltalk-based workstations introduced by Tektronix beginning 
in late '84.   

-Rick

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:05, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> > This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.
>
> Fair.
>
> > "Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
> > active use and/or maintenance".
>
> I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E.  ;-)

Solaris is EOL and is no longer in development. However, Solaris 11
switched to GNOME 2, nearly a decade ago.

AFAIK neither Oracle nor IBM make workstations any more, only headless
servers, so it's rather academic.

> Hence why I prefer to be excruciatingly clear.

I generally try, at least with my professional hat on.

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/23/18 9:32 AM, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote:

> I have a RPi dedicated to a SIMH VAX-11/750 running BSD that I
> intended to leave up and rack up some impressive uptime. Then I was
> reminded by the local electricity provider that this isn’t the right
> place to try that. We get clear day, calm weather power outages
> here.
If it doesn't crash, you're not running a sufficiently varied and
demanding workload.

c.f.Jim Gray's 1985 paper here:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/tandem/TR-85.7.pdf

--Chuck

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 19:12, ben  wrote:
>
> On 10/23/2018 4:33 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> > On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk  wrote:
> >
> >> Try and find a printed page size PDF
> >> reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
> >
> > I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.
> >
> > I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.
> >
>
> I piced up a used 9.7 inch Onyx Boox off ebay.
> I live in CANADA so got the useless AMAZON -- no selecton, massive
> shipping charges, and no products sold from CANADA.

I do use Amazon, but I live in the Czech Republic. There's no Czech
Amazon either (although the company has a big office here.)

But I don't buy ebooks, at all, from anyone, so I don't care.

I use Calibre to sync stuff to/from my Kindle DX, or just mount it as
a filesystem and copy it in manually.

https://calibre-ebook.com/

> When I was looking for a new reader, all I could find was the 6" crap
> on the web, thus my kindle statement. Until they bring back the DX
> I still feel we are stuck with crappy low priced readers and windows 95
> windows.

I found a PDF that reliably caused my Kindle DX to reboot the moment I
opened it.

So I bought a cheap Chinese tablet (a Chuwi Hi9 Air) and now I mostly use that.

> Where do you get them? I know of Bitsavers but that is all.

Lots of places -- there are many. Scribd is one. Direct downloads, mostly.

> PS: WIRTH still has his stuff around for GUI system.
> https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/

Yes, that's on there. :-)


-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 18:59, Paul Berger via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to
> look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them
> look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.  One of my biggest
> aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more
> like it used to on X.

If you want it old-style, build it old-style.

Install the minimal or server version of Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora,
whatever you want, then install X.org and your window manager of
choice.

This is how I have been experimentally assembling GNUstep desktops for
years now.

My favourite minimalist no "desktop" /per se/ distro is Crunchbang --
you might want to look at BunsenLabs or Crunchbang++.

Another comparable option is Tiny Core Linux, but I haven't tried it myself.

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 11:19 AM, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote:

When I bring up Solaris 11.4 in VirtualBox, I get a Gnome desktop.


Ya, I think that Solaris has started using Gnome as the default desktop. 
 But I'm fairly sure that C.D.E. is still there and a menu choice away 
at login time.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 6:02 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:


I have a 15" 2880 by 1800 display on my laptop, which has a pretty good PDF
reader which will show two pages side-by-side. The resolution is high enough
that it's as good as reading off paper, albeit scaled down to about 70% because
the screen is physically smaller than A4.



I use the old TV format low res 800x600 windows for windows
because I can't read TINY STUFF.


Plug my laptop into a nice HiDPI monitor -- or indeed any good-enough laptop
into one of those cheap 4K monitors which use scummy UHD TV panels -- and PDFs
become gloriously large and crisp. Go on, find €300 or so and treat yourself to
a new display.



I love music so all my money is spent nice flat ELECTROSTATIC speakers 
and VALVE amps, and NEW VINYL.


Modern computers are just to play with on the web and read mail and
download DR WHO.

Ben.

High res e-readers - was Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Toby Thain via cctalk]

On 2018-10-23 2:12 p.m., ben via cctalk wrote:
> On 10/23/2018 4:33 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Try and find a printed page size PDF
>>> reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.
>>
>> I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.
>>
>> I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.
>>
> 
> I piced up a used 9.7 inch Onyx Boox off ebay.
> I live in CANADA so got the useless AMAZON -- no selecton, massive
> shipping charges, and no products sold from CANADA.

Kobo is sold in Canada. The Aura HD is 265dpi with 6.8" diagonal. Fine
for reading PDFs. And the newer model H2O is just as good, I use mine
every day.

--Toby


> 
>> https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ
>>
>> https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Globally/dp/B0015TG12Q
>>
>>
> 
> When I was looking for a new reader, all I could find was the 6" crap
> on the web, thus my kindle statement. Until they bring back the DX
> I still feel we are stuck with crappy low priced readers and windows 95
> windows.
> 
>> One of the main reasons I got it is that it renders PDFs well and a
>> lot of important computer history books and the like are only readily
>> available as PDFs.
> 
> Where do you get them? I know of Bitsavers but that is all.
> Ben.
> PS: WIRTH still has his stuff around for GUI system.
> https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/
> 

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Alan Perry via cctalk]

Even though Oracle only sells server hardware running Solaris, there are 
customers running Solaris on laptops and other systems with graphic 
consoles. When I bring up Solaris 11.4 in VirtualBox, I get a Gnome 
desktop. (I work on USB and boot, so I don't pay much attention to the 
desktop and couldn't tell you what version of Gnome it is.)


alan
- insert blurb about not speaking for my employer -

On 10/23/18 10:08 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
AIX probably still has them but graphic consoles are pretty rare now 
most AIX boxes are used as servers these days.


Paul.


On 2018-10-23 2:05 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.


Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".


I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E. ;-)


That notwithstanding, I have to say, I still think it's ludicrous to
imply that anything _before_ Win95 could have drawn upon it, even if
making a negative statement.


Hence why I prefer to be excruciatingly clear.

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[ben via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 4:33 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk  wrote:


Try and find a printed page size PDF
reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.


I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.

I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.



I piced up a used 9.7 inch Onyx Boox off ebay.
I live in CANADA so got the useless AMAZON -- no selecton, massive 
shipping charges, and no products sold from CANADA.



https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ

https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Globally/dp/B0015TG12Q



When I was looking for a new reader, all I could find was the 6" crap
on the web, thus my kindle statement. Until they bring back the DX
I still feel we are stuck with crappy low priced readers and windows 95
windows.


One of the main reasons I got it is that it renders PDFs well and a
lot of important computer history books and the like are only readily
available as PDFs.


Where do you get them? I know of Bitsavers but that is all.
Ben.
PS: WIRTH still has his stuff around for GUI system.
https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

AIX probably still has them but graphic consoles are pretty rare now 
most AIX boxes are used as servers these days.


Paul.


On 2018-10-23 2:05 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.


Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".


I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E. ;-)


That notwithstanding, I have to say, I still think it's ludicrous to
imply that anything _before_ Win95 could have drawn upon it, even if
making a negative statement.


Hence why I prefer to be excruciatingly clear.

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 10:47 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.


Fair.


"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".


I'm fairly sure that Solaris and AIX both continue to ship C.D.E.  ;-)


That notwithstanding, I have to say, I still think it's ludicrous to
imply that anything _before_ Win95 could have drawn upon it, even if
making a negative statement.


Hence why I prefer to be excruciatingly clear.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Paul Berger via cctalk]

This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to 
look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them 
look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.  One of my biggest 
aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more 
like it used to on X.


Paul.


On 2018-10-23 1:49 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 17:58, Jon Elson  wrote:


ARRGhhh!  I HATE Unity!  I have switched all my Ubuntu
systems to gnome-classic, which suits me fine.
(You have to hack the theme xml file to make the borders
wide enough to grab and stretch.)
I lasted about 4 hours with Unity.  I am a spatial thinker,
I want all my icons and toolbar icons to STAY PUT, I grab
them by position, not by searing for the picture (icon) I
want to select.

I am not trying to impose my choices on anyone.

I liked Unity. It was simple, quick, clear and effective.

I find GNOME 3 to be frustrating to the level of shouting incoherently
at my computer within half an hour. Ditto KDE (any version >1.x).
Others like them.

Chacun à son goût.

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 17:58, Jon Elson  wrote:

> ARRGhhh!  I HATE Unity!  I have switched all my Ubuntu
> systems to gnome-classic, which suits me fine.
> (You have to hack the theme xml file to make the borders
> wide enough to grab and stretch.)
> I lasted about 4 hours with Unity.  I am a spatial thinker,
> I want all my icons and toolbar icons to STAY PUT, I grab
> them by position, not by searing for the picture (icon) I
> want to select.

I am not trying to impose my choices on anyone.

I liked Unity. It was simple, quick, clear and effective.

I find GNOME 3 to be frustrating to the level of shouting incoherently
at my computer within half an hour. Ditto KDE (any version >1.x).
Others like them.

Chacun à son goût.

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 17:49, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On 10/23/2018 04:41 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> > It's pointless to compare environments from _before_ Win95 as a way of
> > saying that Win95 didn't influence them!
>
> Your statement that I replied to is:
>
> *Every* Unix desktop out there draws on Win95.
>
> That "every" includes desktops before Windows 95.

This may be an unfortunate mismatch of English idioms.

"Out there", to me, means "current, available/on sale/in use now, in
active use and/or maintenance".

That notwithstanding, I have to say, I still think it's ludicrous to
imply that anything _before_ Win95 could have drawn upon it, even if
making a negative statement.

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Richard Loken via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:


How many graphical Unix desktops are sold or distributed in the world
today that are not Linux? Excluding Mac OS X as I specifically address
that point, I think.


I am replying to this email on a FreeBSD 10.3 box and Motif.  I don't
know what FreeBSD runs out of the box because I immediately delete it
and install Motif.

FreeBSD may not have the installed base of Linux but it has a its fans.

--
  Richard Loken VE6BSV: "...underneath those tuques we wear,
  Athabasca, Alberta Canada   : our heads are naked!"
  ** rllo...@telus.net ** :- Arthur Black

Computers that never crash (Was: Microsoft-Paul Allen)

[Alan Perry via cctalk]

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 8:48 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On 10/22/2018 08:33 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
 You've discovered some computer that doesn't ever crash?
>> On Mon, 22 Oct 2018, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
>>> Hmmm, well, my home desktop has been up 478 days, my web server has been up 
>>> 232 days, and my Asterisk phone system has been up for 571 days.  The web 
>>> server is directly on the WAN, and subject to constant attacks, too. That's 
>>> pretty close to never crashing in my book!  These are all Linux systems.
>> 
>> I really should get around to putting together a UPS -
>> nothing here has been up more than nine hours, . . .
>> 
>> 
>> 
> OH, and NONE of these systems are on a UPS!  Now, usually, we have a power 
> interruption a few times a year, so this has been a rather exceptional 
> stretch.
> 

I have a RPi dedicated to a SIMH VAX-11/750 running BSD that I intended to 
leave up and rack up some impressive uptime. Then I was reminded by the local 
electricity provider that this isn’t the right place to try that. We get clear 
day, calm weather power outages here.

alan 

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 06:13 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
My personal favourite in recent years was Ubuntu's Unity, 
which is a better Mac OS X than Mac OS X (IMHO).
ARRGhhh!  I HATE Unity!  I have switched all my Ubuntu 
systems to gnome-classic, which suits me fine.
(You have to hack the theme xml file to make the borders 
wide enough to grab and stretch.)
I lasted about 4 hours with Unity.  I am a spatial thinker, 
I want all my icons and toolbar icons to STAY PUT, I grab 
them by position, not by searing for the picture (icon) I 
want to select.


Jon

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Grant Taylor via cctalk]

On 10/23/2018 04:41 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

It's pointless to compare environments from _before_ Win95 as a way of
saying that Win95 didn't influence them!


Your statement that I replied to is:

   *Every* Unix desktop out there draws on Win95.

That "every" includes desktops before Windows 95.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/22/2018 08:33 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

You've discovered some computer that doesn't ever crash?

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
Hmmm, well, my home desktop has been up 478 days, my web 
server has been up 232 days, and my Asterisk phone system 
has been up for 571 days.  The web server is directly on 
the WAN, and subject to constant attacks, too. That's 
pretty close to never crashing in my book!  These are all 
Linux systems.


I really should get around to putting together a UPS -
nothing here has been up more than nine hours, . . .



OH, and NONE of these systems are on a UPS!  Now, usually, 
we have a power interruption a few times a year, so this has 
been a rather exceptional stretch.


Jon

Re: Advice needed: Entry point into things PDP-8

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 10:39 PM Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk
 wrote:
> you.  The thing
> is, I would like to have something pdp8-ish that would allow me to play
> a little bit
> with the programming languages that were available for these machines,
> FORTRAN 4K and
> FORTRAN IV in particular.  Now,  I would love to be able to time some
> FORTRAN jobs just
> to get an idea about what it was like back then.  I am aware of PiDP-8,
> simh, as well as
> SBC6120, SBC6120RBC.

I would probably do all the things but in a particular order.

If my goal was to learn PDP-8 software, I would just start with simh
running on anything.  I have a PiDP-8.  It's nice.  You definitely get
the feel of running an older PDP-8 (except no noise for floppy drives
or DECtape, and no seek time) but under the blinky covers, it's
running simh.  You can learn everything about the configuration of
PDP-8 models, about memory, and all the programming languages with
simh.  From there, consider a PiDP-8 if you want a quick junior-sized
emulated machine for the look and feel of things.

The SBC6120 with FB6120 is also nice.  I have one.  Unlike the PiDP-8,
the SBC6120 has a native 12-bit microprocessor (IM6120) and isn't
emulating anything except running some front panel ROM code to handle
disks in a way that hides the details from the OS/8 side of things
(much like the DECmates do).  Unfortunately, they are expensive.  Not
many were made and they weren't exactly cheap when new.  As for the
GAL programmer, the GALs in the SBC6120 are rather ordinary but, yes,
some programmers can't handle them.  I have multiple device
programmers and even the one from 1990 can program 20 and 24-pin GALs
(I'm not sure about newer programmers - I don't have one because my
older ones work fine).  Someone on the list could probably bang them
out for you for a few dollars unless you really wanted to own the
entire hardware toolchain.

>From there, one of the challenges of repairing your VT78 and VT278
boards is there's no blinkenlights console to assess repair status
during the repair or to try to toggle in test programs.   Replacing a
ROM is easy enough, even if you have to make a pin-swapping socket
adapter to use a modern EPROM (I don't know what type of ROM is in the
VT78, but it's possible that it's something standard like a 2708 or
2716).

Getting replacement parts for your VT278 is probably not all _that_
hard - one likely source is a DECmate II or III board, if you can find
a spare.  Last time I bought one, it was about $50 but it probably has
gone up a little.

The VT278 does have a compatibility issue with the console SLU (03/04)
and the flags.  That's why there's OS/278 in the DECUS collection.  If
you were going to write your own code from scratch, you'd have to take
the operation of the console device into account when writing your TTY
code, and you might not be able to just run anything you find.  I have
a VT278 but have only run WPS-8 on it, not OS/278 so I can't provide
deep details.  You would likely want an RX02 (and cable) if you were
going to resurrect the VT278.  The cable can be made (DB25 one end,
DC37 other end, and the pinouts are available).  Inside the VT278
pedestal is a _real_ RX02 but there's a simple 40-pin-to-DB-25 passive
board inside the case, much like the one in an RX02 for a MINC-11,
and, again, this can be made new.  Finding any RX02 drive is an
exercise in shopping and paying freight, but then you'll need someone
to at least cut some starter floppies for you.

So if you are going to go the emulation route, I'd start with just
downloading simh and some OS/8 image files (RK05 or RX02) and learning
the software side of things.  This may generate enough interest to
want to explore the hardware side of things, and for that, you
definitely have a swath of projects in front of you with varying
degrees of cost and effort.

-ethan

Re: Advice needed: Entry point into things PDP-8

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 8:11 AM systems_glitch via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> There's also our Ohio Scientific 560Z "Processor Lab" reproduction:
>
> http://www.glitchwrks.com/2017/02/26/osi-560z-build

That's fun.

For a long time now, I've wanted to noodle around on a Challenger 3.
We had a family friend in the 1970s who had one and I used to go visit
and spend hours on it.  I was using PETs every week at the same time
so it was a bit of a shift to a floppy-based system and one that had 3
CPUs on top of that!  I started fiddling with PDP-8s about 4-5 years
later and was surprised to learn there was a PDP-8-on-a-chip (IM6100
then later then IM6120).   Very cool that you've made it available
now.  I just don't think I'll ever run across a Challenger 3.  I
haven't in the past 30 years, and I live about 2 hours from where they
were made.

Was the original 560Z a popular board?  I'm guessing it was a niche product.

-ethan

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Josh Dersch via cctalk]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 7:14 AM Mark Green via cctalk 
wrote:

> I worked on the early Smalltalk systems, mainly variations of Smalltalk
> 76. They were there. It was the motivation for my MSc thesis which explored
> concurrent message passing for UI implementation including a demo of a
> system based on the desktop metaphor.
>

I've never seen evidence for any Smalltalk having a desktop metaphor (as in
the discussion at hand -- icons and folders representing files and/or data,
not merely windows, etc.).  It's certainly possible that the platform was
used for experimentation with such within PARC or elsewhere, but no
smalltalk images I've seen contain anything like that.  Is your thesis
available to read anywhere?

I wrote an Alto emulator (https://github.com/livingcomputermuseum/ContrAlto)
that you can use to run a variety of Smalltalk versions (-72, -74, -76, and
early renditions of -80 are available on Bitsavers) if you wish to revisit
this.

- Josh

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Mark Green via cctalk]

I worked on the early Smalltalk systems, mainly variations of Smalltalk 76. 
They were there. It was the motivation for my MSc thesis which explored 
concurrent message passing for UI implementation including a demo of a system 
based on the desktop metaphor. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 23, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 01:19:37PM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote:
>> [...]
>> That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had TV display output
>> formats, now it is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about the
>> Alto, you had a full sized 8x10? page format. The printed page DOES matter
>> for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF reader, or one a
>> tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK. I suspect a good PDF
>> reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the online doc's at places like
>> bit savers to get the knowledge close to a classic computer.
> 
> The Kindle is cheap crap optimised to sell Amazon eBooks. Any feature that 
> does
> not directly push you to give more money to Amazon is made virtually unusable.
> This includes its PDF reader. I gave mine away in disgust.
> 
> I suspect that you also have a cheap crap monitor or laptop which uses a nasty
> 1080p TV panel. They have a much lower resolution than the printed page, so of
> course it's going to look like crap. A4 is 11.69" tall, and squeezing that 
> into
> 1080 pixels gives you 92DPI - worse than fax. Rotating the screen into 
> portrait
> mode gives more pixels, but now the limit is fitting the 8.27" wide document
> into 1080 pixels, or 130DPI. (Obviously, these are DPIs of the source, not the
> scaled image on your monitor.)
> 
> I have a 15" 2880 by 1800 display on my laptop, which has a pretty good PDF
> reader which will show two pages side-by-side. The resolution is high enough
> that it's as good as reading off paper, albeit scaled down to about 70% 
> because
> the screen is physically smaller than A4.
> 
> Plug my laptop into a nice HiDPI monitor -- or indeed any good-enough laptop
> into one of those cheap 4K monitors which use scummy UHD TV panels -- and PDFs
> become gloriously large and crisp. Go on, find €300 or so and treat yourself 
> to
> a new display.
> 

Peripherals and Interfacing handbook pdp-11

[Diane Bruce via cctalk]

Up for grabs free for postage, 1971 version.

-- 
- d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://artemis.db.net/~db

Re: Advice needed: Entry point into things PDP-8

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

There's also our Ohio Scientific 560Z "Processor Lab" reproduction:

http://www.glitchwrks.com/2017/02/26/osi-560z-build

It uses the Intersil IM6100 and executes PDP-8 code. Memory management is
implemented in handlers written in 6502 assembly on the host system, so you
can have whatever memory management you like. I believe one of the guys on
the osiweb.org forums has PDP-8/e memory management working. I don't know
if he has OS/8 running yet, but does have at least FOCAL going. You of
course need a 12-bit memory board, which we also make (uses modern
components, works with FeRAM for a core-like experience). And you'll need
some sort of host system, the simplest being an Ohio Scientific 502 at the
moment (basically a single-board 6502 system with serial console).

That's probably the cheapest/most reliable *non-emulation* route. Of
course, emulation is going to be both cheaper and more reliable.

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 12:17 AM Paul Anderson via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> Hi Carlos,
>
> With the cost of PDP-8 parts and the need for maintenance and repair, if
> you can find an emulator that will do what you want, go for it.
>
> Paul
>
> On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 10:39 PM Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> > Greetings all...
> >
> > I have been pondering something and would love to receive feedback from
> > you.  The thing
> > is, I would like to have something pdp8-ish that would allow me to play
> > a little bit
> > with the programming languages that were available for these machines,
> > FORTRAN 4K and
> > FORTRAN IV in particular.  Now,  I would love to be able to time some
> > FORTRAN jobs just
> > to get an idea about what it was like back then.  I am aware of PiDP-8,
> > simh, as well as
> > SBC6120, SBC6120RBC.
> >
> > I happen to have three VT78 cpu boards (sans the RAM board) and two
> > vt278 cpu boards.
> > All were in rather sorry condition; I picked them up from a junk pile
> > that was stacked
> > several feet high and in which the contents were mostly random. Thus,
> > the VT78 boards'
> > components were scratched and in fact two of them are missing the
> > control panel ROM chip.
> > Otherwise they are complete, but I am missing the RAM boards.  The VT278
> > boards
> > were further abused by someone who yanked out the oscillators and a few
> > TTL chips,
> > damaging several traces, which I have now repaired.  Alas, only one of
> > them has the
> > HM6120 cpu chip, and I do not know if it is good or not. Both are
> > missing the SMC5037
> > CRT generator chip.  Other than that, they are complete.
> >
> > So, now that we all know what I have, let me say out loud what I've been
> > thinking:
> >
> > If I try to build actual hardware:
> >
> > I've read that the VT278 has serious software compatibility issues with
> > older software
> > due to the use of the HM6121 I/O chip.  So even if I get an adequate
> > keyboard, buy the
> > CRT chip and manage to use it to drive a monitor, I would need an
> > original floppy drive
> > system and media, because I do not have the DP278 serial comms board
> > that would allow me
> > to send the VT278 a program to run;
> >
> > For the VT78, I would need to hack a memory board, and, since it can be
> > coaxed to accept
> > a program to run if it is fooled into thinking that it is loading a
> > program from an
> > MR78/paper tape, perhaps I could make it boot something.  I would need
> > to wire-up
> > and arduino or something like it to translate the keyboard and display
> > terminal
> > chatter in the serial console into something usable.  But, that's three
> > hardware
> > projects (memory board, MR78-like contraption, microcontrolled serial
> > console
> > translator)...
> >
> > The last hardware option is to go and make an SBC6120RBC;  I would need
> > to buy
> > programmers for the GAL/PAL devices, and I've heard that not all
> > programmers can deal
> > with the kind of chips used in it.  And, if it turns out that the HM6120
> > chip that I
> > have is bad, I would have to hunt down one of those rare beasts.. It
> > would be awesome, though,
> > to have an SBC6120RBC up and running, and be able to time actual
> > hardware running
> > FORTRAN.
> >
> > And then comes the emulation option, with the PiDP-8.  I have to say
> > that the emulation
> > of the blinkenlights is very, very attractive to me, and this option is
> > a no-brainer
> > hardware-wise.
> >
> > So...  am I missing something in my estimation of the effort involved in
> > these options?
> >
> > What would _you_ do?
> >
> > Carlos.
> >
> >
>

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2018 at 01:19:37PM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> That may be true but DOS/WINDOWS and APPLE II all had TV display output
> formats, now it is WIDE SCREEN ONLY. From what little I have seen about the
> Alto, you had a full sized 8x10? page format. The printed page DOES matter
> for graphic displays. Try and find a printed page size PDF reader, or one a
> tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK. I suspect a good PDF
> reader, a not tablet, is needed often for all the online doc's at places like
> bit savers to get the knowledge close to a classic computer.

The Kindle is cheap crap optimised to sell Amazon eBooks. Any feature that does
not directly push you to give more money to Amazon is made virtually unusable.
This includes its PDF reader. I gave mine away in disgust.

I suspect that you also have a cheap crap monitor or laptop which uses a nasty
1080p TV panel. They have a much lower resolution than the printed page, so of
course it's going to look like crap. A4 is 11.69" tall, and squeezing that into
1080 pixels gives you 92DPI - worse than fax. Rotating the screen into portrait
mode gives more pixels, but now the limit is fitting the 8.27" wide document
into 1080 pixels, or 130DPI. (Obviously, these are DPIs of the source, not the
scaled image on your monitor.)

I have a 15" 2880 by 1800 display on my laptop, which has a pretty good PDF
reader which will show two pages side-by-side. The resolution is high enough
that it's as good as reading off paper, albeit scaled down to about 70% because
the screen is physically smaller than A4.

Plug my laptop into a nice HiDPI monitor -- or indeed any good-enough laptop
into one of those cheap 4K monitors which use scummy UHD TV panels -- and PDFs
become gloriously large and crisp. Go on, find €300 or so and treat yourself to
a new display.

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 13:11, Geoffrey Oltmans  wrote:
>
> I’ll throw in my two cents to say that I’ve used a fair number of GUIs over 
> the years both commercially available and FOSS, and I’d say that Windows 95’s 
> UI blew the doors off of anything I’d used up that point in terms of 
> usability. Nobody IMO can fairly compare it with the previously available X 
> based desktops. The Mac was good, the Amiga was good, but there was a lot 
> more flexibility in how Win95 operated, and that’s probably why  (along with 
> familiarity) that it has been so oft copied up to this point (Mac OS X’s UI 
> notwithstanding, which is also quite good).

I'd go with that, actually, yes.

My personal favourite in recent years was Ubuntu's Unity, which is a
better Mac OS X than Mac OS X (IMHO).

But the fact that I like it and am comfy with it doesn't mean that I
don't want to see people trying to do something different...

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

RE: Desktop Metaphor

[Geoffrey Oltmans via cctalk]

I’ll throw in my two cents to say that I’ve used a fair number of GUIs over the 
years both commercially available and FOSS, and I’d say that Windows 95’s UI 
blew the doors off of anything I’d used up that point in terms of usability. 
Nobody IMO can fairly compare it with the previously available X based 
desktops. The Mac was good, the Amiga was good, but there was a lot more 
flexibility in how Win95 operated, and that’s probably why  (along with 
familiarity) that it has been so oft copied up to this point (Mac OS X’s UI 
notwithstanding, which is also quite good).

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 23:41, Jim Manley via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> This reference to "object-oriented" is way off, conflating GUI "objects"
> and true object-oriented software.


Yep. Welcome to the wonderful world of marketing. :-(

> U ... no.  You're apparently completely uninformed about MIT Project
> Athena, aka The X Window System, or X11, or just X, for short, and no, it's
> not plural.

Um. Right. See my length post in the other thread.

> BTW, MacOS X is based on Mach, the version of Unix that was designed for
> multiple, closely-coupled processors,

Yes...

> and it, too, uses X as a basis for
> its GUI.

No it doesn't.

Not at all, not even a little bit.

Mac OS X is based on NeXTstep. NeXTstep used Display Postscript as its
display server.

Postscript is encumbered by Adobe patents (and is mainly intended for print.)

Thus, Mac OS X moved from Display Postscript to Quartz, which renders
PDF to the screen. "Display PDF" instead of DPS.

Early OS X versions included a separate X server so that Unix X.11
apps could be run. It does not any longer, AFAIK. (I am running 10.13
on my iMac at home.)

> The iPhone was the best example of this - after swearing there would never
> be an iPhone for years, they actually shipped the original version, not
> only without an elegant copy/paste mechanism, but no means of performing
> copy/paste at all for the first year, let alone not provided a means for
> anyone outside Apple and its partners to create native apps.

I think you should read this:

https://blog.fawny.org/2018/10/22/hardtouse/


-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Microsoft-Paul Allen

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 22:54, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On 10/22/2018 08:14 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> > *Every* Unix desktop out there draws on Win95.
>
> Nope.  That's simply not true.
>
> The following three vast families of window managers / desktops prove
> (to my satisfaction) that your statement is wrong.
>
>   · Common Desktop Environment (a.k.a. CDE) and it's ilk.
>   · The various *Box window managers / desktop environments.
>   · Motif window manager and it's ilk.
>
> They are all significantly different from each other and from Windows's
> Explorer interface, first publicly debuting with Windows 95.
>
> > The Win95 Explorer re-wrote the book on OS UI design.
>
> "A" book, maybe.  I don't think it was "the" book.
>
> > The _only_  company to resist was Apple, because of course, some of the
> > reasons that Win95 is the way it is are attempts to do things differently
> > from Apple so as not to get sued.
>
> I think /company/ is critical in that statement as it implies for profit
> business which excludes many other non-business related options.  Even
> then, IBM, Sun, HP, etc were releasing commercial Unixes with CDE and /
> or Motif after Windows 95.

See my comments in the other thread.

It's pointless to compare environments from _before_ Win95 as a way of
saying that Win95 didn't influence them!

And plain WMs aren't desktops. In my long comment in the other thread,
I've been very generous in what I'm calling a "desktop" but at the
least it has to be a cohesive environment offering accessory programs
and features such as file management, text editing, and so on.

A bunch of terminals in a window manager are not a "desktop environment".

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
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UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 22:56, Grant Taylor via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> It's perfectly possible to use GUIs without any icons.
>
> It's possible to use GUIs without a mouse.
>
> The GUI is not responsible for what people do with them / the mouse.

Exactly so.

Oberon is a good example of a GUI with no icons. It is text-based -- a
TUI -- but graphical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)


-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 21:19, ben via cctalk  wrote:

> Try and find a printed page size PDF
> reader, or one a tad smaller. Reading a PDF on a KINDLE DOES NOT WORK.

I suggest you look at the Kindle DX.

I bought one. I got it 2nd hand, from the USA, via eBay.

https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-DX-Wireless-Reader-3G-Global/dp/B002GYWHSQ

https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Globally/dp/B0015TG12Q

One of the main reasons I got it is that it renders PDFs well and a
lot of important computer history books and the like are only readily
available as PDFs.


-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 at 03:40, Curious Marc via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> As they used to say, Windows95 = Mac 1984. Which is pushing it a bit but has 
> some truth in it... Maybe Mac 1990. Curiously, the Xerox Alto has quite 
> advanced GUI and object oriented programming (including the smalltalk 
> windowing environment), but no desktop metaphor or icons that I have seen. I 
> believe desktop metaphors appear later in the Alto commercial successor, the 
> Xerox Star, and in the Apple Lisa, which bears strong Xerox influences. 
> Xerox’s desktop metaphor pushes the object concept a bit far, while the Lisa 
> got what would become the modern ubiquitous version of the concept almost 
> dead on. Did I get this approximately right?

I'd say you're pretty much bang-on.

> Are there any other GUI desktop metaphors that predates this?

Not that I'm aware of.

-- 
Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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Re: Desktop Metaphor

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2018 at 18:58, Rick Bensene via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> Liam Proven wrote:
>
> 
> >On the one hand, the cosmetics. *Every* Unix desktop out there draws
> >on Win95.
>
> I take exception to the "*Every*" in Liam's statement above.

I think you are missing my point so far that you're looking in the
opposite direction.

>  Replacing "Unix" with "Linux" would make the statement more correct.

How many graphical Unix desktops are sold or distributed in the world
today that are not Linux? Excluding Mac OS X as I specifically address
that point, I think.

I can think of _one_ modern desktop that isn't a Linux one -- the
Lumina desktop of TrueOS (i.e. FreeBSD.) Guess what -- it's a Win95
clone.

> X-Windows-based desktop metaphor UI's existed within the Unix world long 
> before Win95 came on the scene.

That is _precisely my point_. There are _dozens_ of counter-examples,
that is, non-Windows-like desktops from before Win95,  and _none_ has
any measurable modern impact today. Apart from Mac OS X going its own
way, basically every other desktop still in active development or
still being distributed today is Win95-like.

Exceptions: Budgie, GNOME 3, Elementary OS'  Pantheon -- all broadly
Mac OS X-like.

I would also note that Budgie and Pantheon are both derivatives of
GNOME 3, as was the now-effectively-dead Ubuntu Unity.

> The whole desktop metaphor UI existed long before Windows 95 in non-Unix 
> implementations by Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) with the pioneering 
> Xerox Alto, introduced in 1973,  which implemented  Alan Kay's concepts for 
> the desktop metaphor that were postulated in 1970 using Smalltalk as the core 
> operating system.

That, again, *was the point I was trying to make*.

We used to have a ton of prior art and alternative designs, and today,
they have all gone, with basically no impact.

> Windows 95, and the earlier versions of Microsoft's desktop metaphor UI's, 
> were patterned after these implementations.   Microsoft simply took concepts 
> that already existed in the world of UI design, and made their own 
> implementation based on those concepts.

Whereas this is at its reductio-ad-absurdam core true, it misses the point.

If you strip this down to a comparison of the elements that all
desktops have in common, then there's nothing left to compare.

Yes, it all came out of Xerox... although of course Xerox learned from
Englebart, Sketchpad, etc.

But what matters are the _differences_.

Apple has created 3 main desktop UIs (setting aside the Newton, iPod, iOS etc.)
* Lisa OS
* classic MacOS (note, no space)
* Mac OS X (note, space), now styled macOS (note capitalisation).

Lisa OS went nowhere much, but the Mac is clearly strongly derived
from it (although MacOS was a very profoundly different OS.)

Lisa OS and MacOS both contained numerous innovations which nobody had
done before. From memory -- I welcome correction...
* a global menu bar in a fixed location
* standardised menu entries, with strict rules for naming them (e.g.
File/Edit/View/etc, restriction to single words only)
* standardised dialog boxes, with standardised names, in a standardised order
  (trivial example:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh=Do_It.txt
)
* standarised window decorations in fixed positions
* fixed restricted meanings for desktop icons, which were themselves
limited in function)
* menus shared between apps (e.g. the Apple menu)

Apple took the somewhat nebulous ideas of Xerox PARC -- of a system
for programmers, with Smalltalk visible and so on -- cut them down to
something implementable and standardised and controlled them until
they were much easier and simpler.

It discarded stuff Jobs and his lieutenants didn't get. No Smalltalk,
no interpreter or programming exposed to the user, no built-in
networking or network functionality. It cut it down to compiled apps
with distinct functionality and a strictly controlled unified UI,
running cooperatively in a single shared desktop UI.

Compare to the early Alto and its kind: UI was wildly varied, might be
textual, might not, and there was no uniformity between apps.

But the Lisa with its "templates" and multitasking and so on was too
complex and too expensive. So this was cut-down even further to the
Mac.

Much of what we take for granted in UIs today comes either direct from
the Mac, or from systems designed soon after the Mac which were either
consciously aping it, or were avoiding it and inventing non-Mac-like
ways to do things so as to avoid Apple lawsuits.

DR GEM put drive icons on the desktop. Apple sued. DR removed them
(from the PC version). Microsoft, fighting shy, had no drive icons.
Windows 1/2/3 had an empty desktop unless you first opened and then
minimised some windows.

Win95 came up with "my computer", an entirely virtual folder, and in
there were the drive icons -- so it did not infringe Apple's patents.
As it happens it thus recreated the non-infringing method DR had
invented, but made it more 

Re: Rolm computers

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 10/22/18 11:28 AM, Peter Van Peborgh via cctalk wrote:
> I would be interested in any Rolm items you might have. (no promises.)

My wife had a job as a temp at Rolm.  I think we have a Rolm frisbee
that our dogs play with.

--Chuck