🚀 go-pugleaf

On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 8:35:51 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:

> Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
> bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?

I would take that proposition more seriously if there were some reasonable way 
to connect a GeForce GTX 1080 to a Raspberry Pi 3.

I'm afraid that Parkinson's Law ensures that there are still plenty of people 
for whom even the Raspberry Pi 3 is merely interesting and amusing, while they 
salivate at the arrival of chips like the Ryzen 2700 X.

John Savard

On Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 11:39:36 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, April 21, 2018 at 8:35:51 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> 
> > Is the PC also dying in the light of the RPi3, a 64
> > bit processor available for the price of a few bananas?
> 
> I would take that proposition more seriously if there were some reasonable way 
> to connect a GeForce GTX 1080 to a Raspberry Pi 3.
> 
> I'm afraid that Parkinson's Law ensures that there are still plenty of people 
> for whom even the Raspberry Pi 3 is merely interesting and amusing, while they 
> salivate at the arrival of chips like the Ryzen 2700 X.

...for my own part, while the Ryzen 2700 without the X, and perhaps a GeForce 
GTX 1050 (without even the Ti) might be what I'll build my next system with, 
what has me really excited is the NEC SX-Aurora Tsubasa... even in its modest 
A100-1 "personal" configuration.

John Savard

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:12:50 -0500, Dave Garland
<dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:

>On 4/23/2018 1:04 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 12:00:04 AM UTC-6, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> 
>>> 	However the Word solution came with a bit of paper that said it
>>> would work and the Star Office one didn't and the bit of paper was deemed
>>> more important than evidence.
>> 
>> Yes, because the evidence only shows you about the documents that already exist,
>> while the bit of paper shows you about documents that will be generated in the
>> future.
>> 
>> Microsoft does come out with new versions of Word from time to time, other
>> companies will use them, and they will likely make changes that it will take
>> time for the open-source community to keep up with.
>> 
>Not just LO, but the changes will threaten everyone with older 
>versions of Word, too. And in 3 decades of supporting individuals and 
>small businesses, I can count on one hand (maybe one finger) the 
>number of times that any of those new features were ever used. I can't 
>remember a single client who used macros (most would have stared 
>blankly and said "what's that?"). I interoperated with them for a 
>decade or more using a copy of Word 97 and never experienced an 
>incompatibility greater than not having the same fonts installed.
>
>Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
>people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
>people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
>popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
>probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
>them documents they couldn't open any more.

They don't have to document decisions made anually by the board of
directors of a Fortune 100 financial services company.  That's one of
the things that I have to do.  The information needed is contained in
various Excel spreadsheets, memoes, datasets on the mainframe, APL
sharefiles, and assorted other sources.  We used to have to track it
all down by hand and key it into the document.  Now most of it is
sucked from the original source by a VBA script.  What tooks weeks now
takes hours and as we continue to refine the script expect to get it
down to minutes.

By the way, Word documents have been XML for several generations now.

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:12:52 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
>
>> Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
>> people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
>> people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
>> popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
>> probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
>> them documents they couldn't open any more.
>
>Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
>model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
>reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
>to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
>
>Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  

The PC industry actually DOES provide old system compatibility going
back 40 years.  Getting back to the 16-bit DOS era and beyond requires
using an emulator, which is no hardship given that you're running
about a thousand times the clock speed with multiple cores..  But that
given, I can boot up a CP/M session on my gaming rig and run 8-bit
Wordstar just fine (once I've hexedited the configuration file to
match the terminal that the emulator pretends to have).

>As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
>anything.

My newest machine can read my handwriting at least as well as the last
secretary I had and sometimes does what I tell it to do verbally.  It
also recognzes me when I boot it up.

However you talk about your "old PC physically works reasonably well
but the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since
it is no longer compatible".  With what is it not compatible that is
causing you problems?

On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:12:52 -0700 (PDT)
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
> 
> > Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
> > people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
> > people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
> > popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
> > probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
> > them documents they couldn't open any more.
> 
> Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
> model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
> reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
> to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.

	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as ones
from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty years now.

> Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
> Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  

	I could quite easily use the data files I was using 40 years ago -
if I still had them. I can certainly compile and run 40 year old source
code.

> As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
> anything.

	The main thing I notice is that the web browser takes an ever
increasing proportion of the resources - at some point I will have to
upgrade this workstation to something that can take more memory just to
keep the browser happy.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:12:52 -0700 (PDT)
> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> 
>> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
>> 
>>> Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
>>> people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
>>> people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
>>> popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
>>> probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
>>> them documents they couldn't open any more.
>> 
>> Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
>> model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
>> reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
>> to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
> 
> 	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
> fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
> does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as ones
> from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty years now.

Obviously not windows, then.

> 
>> Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>> Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
> 
> 	I could quite easily use the data files I was using 40 years ago -
> if I still had them. I can certainly compile and run 40 year old source
> code.
> 
>> As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
>> anything.
> 
> 	The main thing I notice is that the web browser takes an ever
> increasing proportion of the resources - at some point I will have to
> upgrade this workstation to something that can take more memory just to
> keep the browser happy.
> 



-- 
Pete

On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:

> > 	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
> > fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
> > does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as
> > ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty
> > years now.
> 
> Obviously not windows, then.

	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with somewhat
more effort than any of the BSDs).

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On 2018-04-24, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:

> On 2018-04-24, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
>> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 11:12:54 AM UTC-4, Dave Garland wrote:
>>
>>> Near as I could tell, the new MS versions were mostly a way to goad 
>>> people into unnecessary "upgrades" and generate repeat sales. Some 
>>> people just  want the new shiny, and some were frightened when the 
>>> popup appeared that said "if you save in the old format, you're 
>>> probably going to break things". And some because people were sending 
>>> them documents they couldn't open any more.
>>
>> Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
>> model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
>> reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
>> to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
>>
>> Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>> Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
>>
>> As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
>> anything.
>
> *applause*

Stan Kelly-Bootle, in "The Devil's DP Dictionary", coined the term
"sidegrade" to describe these not-really-upgrades, emphasizing that
there is usually some ulterior motive.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
> model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
> reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
> to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
>
> Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
> Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
>
> As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
> anything.

1996 MSDC at Moscone some m'soft people offline were saying that up
until then, customers were buying every new release because it would
have new features they needed. However, crossover/tiping-point 1996
... 99% of the people had 99% of the features they needed/used and no
longer were motivated to move to every new release .... as a result they
were going to have to go to the auto model every year (to maintain
revenue growth) ... get latest bright and shiny because everbody else
was (as well as old stuff broke and/or obsolete).

late 80s, really started the move of all the easy stuff off mainframe
and by the early 90s, company had gone into the red. customers that were
left had all the stuff that was really hard or impossible to
move. mainframe hardware revenue is now a percent or two of bottom line
(change over circa early 70s from rented to sold hardware), but
mainframe division accounts for 25% (and 40% of bottom line) ... aka
software & services (leased/rented, reoccurring revenue). IBM doesn't
need a lot of investment to keep that stable market ... and since it is
all the old stuff that proved impossible to move off old systems
... incompatibilities could have disastrous effects on all the stuff
that already proved couldn't be (easily) redone.

Note, IBM somewhat backed into that position ... early 70s they had
Future System that was going to completely replace and completely
incompatible with the 360 stuff ... which eventually failed for lots of
reasons.
http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm
past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

mainframe operating systems go out of service ("end of life") forcing
upgrade to newer versions. newer versions drop support for older
machines ... forcing buying new machine (unless wanting to drop all
maintenance/service) ... changes that are only required by newer
operating systems (but not required for customer software).

past posts that nearly all mainframe revenue is now software & services
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012l.html#47 I.B.M. Mainframe Evolves to Serve the Digital World
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#31 Still think the mainframe is going away soon: Think again. IBM mainframe computer sales are 4% of IBM's revenue; with software, services, and storage it's 25%
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012m.html#43 Blades versus z was Re: Turn Off Another Light - Univ. of Tennessee
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#13 System/360--50 years--the future?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#25 System/360--50 years--the future?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012n.html#44 Under what circumstances would it be a mistake to migrate applications/workload off the mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#9 Is Microsoft becoming folklore?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#17 Still think the mainframe is going away soon: Think again. IBM mainframe computer sales are 4% of IBM's revenue; with software, services, and storage it's 25%
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#5 mainframe "selling" points
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#15 A Private life?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#24 New HD
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013b.html#25 Still think the mainframe is going away soon: Think again. IBM mainframe computer sales are 4% of IBM's revenue; with software, services, and storage it's 25%
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#60 Why Intel can't retire X86
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013c.html#84 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013e.html#4 Oracle To IBM: Your 'Customers Are Being Wildly Overcharged'
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#35 Reports: IBM may sell x86 server business to Lenovo
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#57 The cloud is killing traditional hardware and software
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#64 What Makes an Architecture Bizarre?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013f.html#70 How internet can evolve
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013g.html#7 SAS Deserting the MF?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013h.html#40 The Mainframe is "Alive and Kicking"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#80 IBM Sales Fall Again, Pressuring Rometty's Profit Goal
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014f.html#84 Is end of mainframe near ?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#145 IBM Continues To Crumble
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#155 IBM Continues To Crumble
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014m.html#170 IBM Continues To Crumble
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#30 Why on Earth Is IBM Still Making Mainframes?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015.html#85 a bit of hope? What was old is new again
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2015g.html#19 Linux Foundation Launches Open Mainframe Project
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016b.html#52 MVS Posix
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2016g.html#69 "I used a real computer at home...and so will you" (Popular Science May 1967)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017.html#62 Big Shrink to "Hire" 25,000 in the US, as Layoffs Pile Up
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017b.html#23 IBM "Breakup"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017c.html#63 The ICL 2900
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017d.html#17 The Pentagon still uses computer software from 1958 to manage its contracts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017f.html#11 The Mainframe vs. the Server Farm: A Comparison
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017g.html#86 IBM Train Wreck Continues Ahead of Earnings
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#61 computer component reliability, 1951
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017h.html#95 PDP-11 question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017i.html#73 When Working From Home Doesn't Work
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#4 upgrade
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018b.html#63 Major firms learning to adapt in fight against start-ups: IBM
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018c.html#33 The Pentagon still uses computer software from 1958 to manage its contracts

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 10:08:33 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:

> >Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
> >model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
> >reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
> >to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
> >
> >Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
> >Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
> 
> The PC industry actually DOES provide old system compatibility going
> back 40 years.  Getting back to the 16-bit DOS era and beyond requires
> using an emulator, which is no hardship given that you're running
> about a thousand times the clock speed with multiple cores..  But that
> given, I can boot up a CP/M session on my gaming rig and run 8-bit
> Wordstar just fine (once I've hexedited the configuration file to
> match the terminal that the emulator pretends to have).

FWIW, on a personal note, I looked into running an emulator
so I could run old DOS/Windows applications.  However, 
installing it seemed difficult (it's possible I needed to
simply devote more time to it.)  However, I have little desire
to "hexedit the configuration file" to make it all work.


> 
> >As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
> >anything.
> 
> My newest machine can read my handwriting at least as well as the last
> secretary I had and sometimes does what I tell it to do verbally.  It
> also recognzes me when I boot it up.
> 
> However you talk about your "old PC physically works reasonably well
> but the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since
> it is no longer compatible".  With what is it not compatible that is
> causing you problems?

My MS-Word and Internet Explorer have a difficult time today.

For instance, I send Word documents to friends.  They could only
open it as Read-Only due to the old version.  They could not get
around that restriction without going to a lot of trouble.  

As someone mentioned, I now use plain text files.  But things
like italics and boldface get lost.  It's impossible to send
a more formal document with headings and pagination.

As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
on my browser.

On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:28:01 -0000 (UTC), John Levine
<jo...@taugh.com> wrote:

>In article <kj3tdd1kpvtqje471...@4ax.com>,
>JimP  <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Several computer experts, that know of the inder workings of Windows
>>than I do, told me the various upgrades of Windows are just patches
>>that MS is selling as new versions'.
>
>I certainly hope so.  Would you want them to rewrite and debug the
>whole system from scratch?
>
>The last time the guts of Windows was rewritten was Windows XT which
>replaced the ad-hoc code in 95/98/Me with the NT kernel.

Micrsoft isn't selling new versions of Windows.  They have stated that
there isn't going to be another version after Windows 10.

Windows XT?????  Do you mean XP?  If so, then you are a bit confused.
Microsoft didn't "replace the ad-hoc code in 95/98/Me with the NT
kernel", they just stopped selling that product line, which had served
its purpose of motivating software and hardware developers to develop
for the NT platform.

On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:55:20 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 10:08:33 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> >Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
>> >model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
>> >reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
>> >to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
>> >
>> >Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>> >Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
>> 
>> The PC industry actually DOES provide old system compatibility going
>> back 40 years.  Getting back to the 16-bit DOS era and beyond requires
>> using an emulator, which is no hardship given that you're running
>> about a thousand times the clock speed with multiple cores..  But that
>> given, I can boot up a CP/M session on my gaming rig and run 8-bit
>> Wordstar just fine (once I've hexedited the configuration file to
>> match the terminal that the emulator pretends to have).
>
>FWIW, on a personal note, I looked into running an emulator
>so I could run old DOS/Windows applications.  However, 
>installing it seemed difficult (it's possible I needed to
>simply devote more time to it.)  However, I have little desire
>to "hexedit the configuration file" to make it all work.

I had to hexedit that same configuration file on my Z-89.  That's
nothing to do with Windows, that's all on CP/M.  Wordstar comes with
canned configurations for a variety of terminals.  If the one you have
isn't one of them then you have to hexedit the configuration file. And
most of the ones that it supports are long, long forgotten.  The
emulator provides a VT100 interface.

And compared to installing CP/M on a new machine back when CP/M was
current installing Virtual Box or vmWare Player on Windows is trivial.
>> >As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
>> >anything.
>> 
>> My newest machine can read my handwriting at least as well as the last
>> secretary I had and sometimes does what I tell it to do verbally.  It
>> also recognzes me when I boot it up.
>> 
>> However you talk about your "old PC physically works reasonably well
>> but the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since
>> it is no longer compatible".  With what is it not compatible that is
>> causing you problems?
>
>My MS-Word and Internet Explorer have a difficult time today.
>
>For instance, I send Word documents to friends.  They could only
>open it as Read-Only due to the old version.  They could not get
>around that restriction without going to a lot of trouble.  

I don't see how that makes the software more difficult to use than it
was when you first got it.  It makes data interchange more difficult,
however Word supports a wide range of formats with more added with
every version.

>As someone mentioned, I now use plain text files.  But things
>like italics and boldface get lost.  It's impossible to send
>a more formal document with headings and pagination.

I just tried saving a document in RTF format in Word for MS-DOS 5.5.
Word for MS-DOS can't show formatting except as a color change.  When
I opened the document with the latest version of Word, it came right
up with bold, italic, bold italic, and underline right where they were
supposed to be, looking much better than in Word for MS-DOS.

There is formatting that can be done with Word that won't carry
through to an RTF but for basic stuff of this nature it's fine.

>As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
>on my browser.

So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.

On 2018-04-25, J  Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:55:20 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>> As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
>> on my browser.
>
> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.

Seamonkey works fine for me.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

On Tue, 2018-04-24, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>> > 	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
>> > fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
>> > does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as
>> > ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty
>> > years now.
>> 
>> Obviously not windows, then.
>
> 	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
> DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with somewhat
> more effort than any of the BSDs).

About the same effort, I think.  You just don't install the packages
which do untraditional things (the various desktops, "NetworkManager"
and so on).

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

In article <slrnpe04sd.31ka.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid>,
Jorgen Grahn  <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>On Tue, 2018-04-24, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
>> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>
>>> > 	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
>>> > fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
>>> > does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as
>>> > ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty
>>> > years now.
>>> 
>>> Obviously not windows, then.
>>
>> 	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
>> DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with somewhat
>> more effort than any of the BSDs).
>
>About the same effort, I think.  You just don't install the packages
>which do untraditional things (the various desktops, "NetworkManager"
>and so on).
>

I run e16 as my window manager on FreeBSD.  All I really want is something
that gives me multiple desktops and lets me open xterms and a few gui
apps (gimp, firefox etc from a menu).  It's pretty easy to set up every
time I load a new version.

I gave up trying to do that on Ubuntu (which I had to use on a work laptop).
Their useless GUI was just too intertwined with everything and it kept 
fighting me.
-- 
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:

> On 2018-04-25, J  Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:55:20 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>
>>> As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
>>> on my browser.

I have little interest in most of the interactive "user experience"
websites.   I find only a few sites offering text that I want to read
that completely fail in Netscape 4.76. :-o  But the general move to
HTTPS means I have to use a newer browser (FF, Seamonkey) and even
then, many big sites are going to the latest encryption standard (TLS
2.0?) and won't load at all.  So the web is gradually going dark and
will continue to do so until I (a) upgrade to a much newer browser and
(b) figure out how to to defeat all the penc that recent browsers want
or try do do for me, in some cases insiste on doing. (How do I make a
browser ignore all <LINK... tags?  Netscape does it because it's too
primitive to handle them -- a big win.)


Yes, a few sites do stuff that crashes Netscape.  One such item is
<BODY... tags that contain kilobytes of data before the closing '>'.
And <IMG... tags fail that have no SRC attribute but use other cute
locutions to reference the data.

Some sites that are, in principle, simple info sites with text and
images are (I surmise) constructed by some kind of authoring tools or
proprietary cloud tools and consist entirely of javascript.  Nothing
I've tried renders them.  My newest test bed box with Slackware
14.2 and FF 45 might when I finally finish making FF stop doing things
I hate and give it a try on them.

>> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
>> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.
> 
> Seamonkey works fine for me.

Right.  The only site I visit where I really want HTTPS and related
security stopped working with the version of FF I was using but works
fine with Seamonkey from the same distro.  What's the notion behind
Mozilla providing both Seamonkey and FF?  Seamonkey seems to be
marginally better and less slathered with UX "features" than FF.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

> 
> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.
> 

Examples? There are a few that won't work with Edge but not many...

Dave

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> 
>>> Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
>>> fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
>>> does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as
>>> ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty
>>> years now.
>> 
>> Obviously not windows, then.
> 
> 	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
> DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with somewhatn
> more effort than any of the BSDs).
> 

Depends on your choice of UI. Most major  Linux distros come in versions
for each of the popular UIs. I use Mate, but Mint seems popular, and  you
can get Gnome, etc. If you don't like the prebuilt distros  it's fairly
easy to install one of the (perhaps) second-tier UIs in popularity. If you
want to go further down the list you may have to compile it yourself. Of
course you probably knew this.

-- 
Pete

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Monday, April 23, 2018 at 10:08:33 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
> 
>>> Microsoft and the hardware makers followed the auto industry
>>> model of planned obsolescence.  My old PC physically works 
>>> reasonably well, but the software is obsolete and difficult
>>> to use for many tasks since it is no longer compatible.
>>> 
>>> Note that IBM provided old system compatibility going back 40 years.
>>> Would it kill the PC industry to provide that?  
>> 
>> The PC industry actually DOES provide old system compatibility going
>> back 40 years.  Getting back to the 16-bit DOS era and beyond requires
>> using an emulator, which is no hardship given that you're running
>> about a thousand times the clock speed with multiple cores..  But that
>> given, I can boot up a CP/M session on my gaming rig and run 8-bit
>> Wordstar just fine (once I've hexedited the configuration file to
>> match the terminal that the emulator pretends to have).
> 
> FWIW, on a personal note, I looked into running an emulator
> so I could run old DOS/Windows applications.  However, 
> installing it seemed difficult (it's possible I needed to
> simply devote more time to it.)  However, I have little desire
> to "hexedit the configuration file" to make it all work.
> 
> 
>> 
>>> As mentioned, they upgrade and upgrade but really don't improve
>>> anything.
>> 
>> My newest machine can read my handwriting at least as well as the last
>> secretary I had and sometimes does what I tell it to do verbally.  It
>> also recognzes me when I boot it up.
>> 
>> However you talk about your "old PC physically works reasonably well
>> but the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since
>> it is no longer compatible".  With what is it not compatible that is
>> causing you problems?
> 
> My MS-Word and Internet Explorer have a difficult time today.
> 
> For instance, I send Word documents to friends.  They could only
> open it as Read-Only due to the old version.  They could not get
> around that restriction without going to a lot of trouble.  
> 
> As someone mentioned, I now use plain text files.  But things
> like italics and boldface get lost.  It's impossible to send
> a more formal document with headings and pagination.
> 
> As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
> on my browser.
> 

Why not use OO or LO? What are the compatibility issues with recent
versions of "word"?

-- 
Pete

On Wed, 25 Apr 2018 06:35:54 -0700
Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> > On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
> > Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> > 
> >>> Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
> >>> fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine
> >>> and does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as
> >>> well as ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for
> >>> over twenty years now.
> >> 
> >> Obviously not windows, then.
> > 
> > 	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
> > DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with
> > somewhatn more effort than any of the BSDs).
> > 
> 
> Depends on your choice of UI. Most major  Linux distros come in versions
> for each of the popular UIs.

	Yeah mine is rather less popular, but I have had it running under
Linux and some distros have it packaged.

> I use Mate, but Mint seems popular, and  you
> can get Gnome, etc. If you don't like the prebuilt distros  it's fairly
> easy to install one of the (perhaps) second-tier UIs in popularity. If you
> want to go further down the list you may have to compile it yourself. Of
> course you probably knew this.

	Really the main effort with Linux distros tends to be around
updates (especially major version bumps) which with FreeBSD are pretty much
effortless.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On 2018-04-25, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

> Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>
>> Seamonkey works fine for me.
>
> Right.  The only site I visit where I really want HTTPS and related
> security stopped working with the version of FF I was using but works
> fine with Seamonkey from the same distro.  What's the notion behind
> Mozilla providing both Seamonkey and FF?  Seamonkey seems to be
> marginally better and less slathered with UX "features" than FF.

The impression I get is that Seamonkey was developed by a group of
people that didn't like the way Firefox was going.  Since I too don't
like the way Firefox is going, that makes me an ideal candidate.
Looking at Seamonkey's home page (https://www.seamonkey-project.org),
it seems to be a sanctioned offshoot.  "Legal backing is provided by
the Mozilla Foundation."

I use the Seamonkey browser exclusively now, under both Linux and
Windows.  And when I discovered that a site with a pathetic webmail
server also supported IMAP, I set up Seamonkey's mail client to access
it.  Works like a charm.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:

> On 2018-04-25, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> 
>> Mozilla providing both Seamonkey and FF?  Seamonkey seems to be
>> marginally better and less slathered with UX "features" than FF.
> 
> The impression I get is that Seamonkey was developed by a group of
> people that didn't like the way Firefox was going.  

Oh!  Well, good.  Better explanation than some I'd imagined, tnx.

> Since I too don't like the way Firefox is going, that makes me an
> ideal candidate.

Me too and all like that.  :-)

> Looking at Seamonkey's home page
> (https://www.seamonkey-project.org)...

Hmmm, might be a good fit for SWMBO, also on a slow connection, using
Windoes but not liking the MS browser.

> it seems to be a sanctioned offshoot.  "Legal backing is provided by
> the Mozilla Foundation."
> 
> I use the Seamonkey browser exclusively now, under both Linux and
> Windows.  And when I discovered that a site with a pathetic webmail
> server also supported IMAP, I set up Seamonkey's mail client to access
> it.  Works like a charm.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

On 25 Apr 2018 03:09:02 -0300
Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

> Seamonkey seems to be
> marginally better and less slathered with UX "features" than FF.

	Memory consumption is a lot better than FF.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Wed, 2018-04-25, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <slrnpe04sd.31ka.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid>,
> Jorgen Grahn  <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>>On Tue, 2018-04-24, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
>>> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> > 	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
>>>> > fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
>>>> > does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as
>>>> > ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty
>>>> > years now.
>>>> 
>>>> Obviously not windows, then.
>>>
>>> 	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
>>> DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with somewhat
>>> more effort than any of the BSDs).
>>
>>About the same effort, I think.  You just don't install the packages
>>which do untraditional things (the various desktops, "NetworkManager"
>>and so on).
>>
>
> I run e16 as my window manager on FreeBSD.  All I really want is something
> that gives me multiple desktops and lets me open xterms and a few gui
> apps (gimp, firefox etc from a menu).

Same use case as mine (although I use ctwm).

> It's pretty easy to set up every time I load a new version.
>
> I gave up trying to do that on Ubuntu (which I had to use on a work laptop).
> Their useless GUI was just too intertwined with everything and it kept 
> fighting me.

I ran Debian that way at work for a while (xfce as the desktop I
think) and it was surprisingly like a bad Windows clone -- things like
the normal config files being ignored, because they were overridden by
Control Panel-like GUI tools.

But see above -- uninstall that crud, and Ubuntu is really a normal
Unix.  (You have to know /what/ to uninstall, though, perhaps by
following the "depends on" chain from a package you really hate, until
you find the first you know you want to keep.)

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

In article <slrnpe1odi.31ka.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid>,
Jorgen Grahn  <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>On Wed, 2018-04-25, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> In article <slrnpe04sd.31ka.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid>,
>> Jorgen Grahn  <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>>>On Tue, 2018-04-24, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 24 Apr 2018 07:40:30 -0700
>>>> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> > 	Whereas my old PC (about five years old now) works fine and has
>>>>> > fully up to date software (OS and applications) that also works fine and
>>>>> > does the right thing with 30 year old data files (my oldest) as well as
>>>>> > ones from today. I've had a consistent UI of my choice for over twenty
>>>>> > years now.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Obviously not windows, then.
>>>>
>>>> 	Nope FreeBSD, but I could do the same with OpenBSD, NetBSD,
>>>> DragonFlyBSD and any number of Linux distributions (probably with somewhat
>>>> more effort than any of the BSDs).
>>>
>>>About the same effort, I think.  You just don't install the packages
>>>which do untraditional things (the various desktops, "NetworkManager"
>>>and so on).
>>>
>>
>> I run e16 as my window manager on FreeBSD.  All I really want is something
>> that gives me multiple desktops and lets me open xterms and a few gui
>> apps (gimp, firefox etc from a menu).
>
>Same use case as mine (although I use ctwm).
>
>> It's pretty easy to set up every time I load a new version.
>>
>> I gave up trying to do that on Ubuntu (which I had to use on a work laptop).
>> Their useless GUI was just too intertwined with everything and it kept 
>> fighting me.
>
>I ran Debian that way at work for a while (xfce as the desktop I
>think) and it was surprisingly like a bad Windows clone -- things like
>the normal config files being ignored, because they were overridden by
>Control Panel-like GUI tools.
>
>But see above -- uninstall that crud, and Ubuntu is really a normal
>Unix.  (You have to know /what/ to uninstall, though, perhaps by
>following the "depends on" chain from a package you really hate, until
>you find the first you know you want to keep.)
>
>/Jorgen
>

yeah, now that I don't need the thing for work, I could probably fool with
it some more without worrying about leaving it unusable for while.  Maybe
I should just load the server version and build up from that rather than
starting with the destkop version.
-- 
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 9:35:38 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:

> >> However you talk about your "old PC physically works reasonably well
> >> but the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since
> >> it is no longer compatible".  With what is it not compatible that is
> >> causing you problems?
> >
> >My MS-Word and Internet Explorer have a difficult time today.
> >
> >For instance, I send Word documents to friends.  They could only
> >open it as Read-Only due to the old version.  They could not get
> >around that restriction without going to a lot of trouble.  
> 
> I don't see how that makes the software more difficult to use than it
> was when you first got it.  It makes data interchange more difficult,
> however Word supports a wide range of formats with more added with
> every version.

As mentioned, the latest MS-WORD gives trouble when faced with
a document produced by old versions of WORD.  You can get around
it, but it's a pain.  In some corporate environments, you cannot
get around it due to security restrictions.

In one transfer, the new WORD screwed up the pagination, and I
had to waste time tinkering with the margins and other settings
to get the pages to fit properly for printing.



> 
> >As someone mentioned, I now use plain text files.  But things
> >like italics and boldface get lost.  It's impossible to send
> >a more formal document with headings and pagination.
> 
> I just tried saving a document in RTF format in Word for MS-DOS 5.5.
> Word for MS-DOS can't show formatting except as a color change.  When
> I opened the document with the latest version of Word, it came right
> up with bold, italic, bold italic, and underline right where they were
> supposed to be, looking much better than in Word for MS-DOS.
> 
> There is formatting that can be done with Word that won't carry
> through to an RTF but for basic stuff of this nature it's fine.

Personally, I haven't had good luck with RTF.

 
> >As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
> >on my browser.
> 
> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.

I am seeing fewer and fewer websites working with my PC.
Unfortunately, Firefox didn't run well on my PC.

The reality is that today's computer business does not like
old software or old hardware.  "They" keep introducing
incompatibilities forcing end users to upgrade, even if
their existing machines run just fine in isolation.

I know a fellow who runs an old version of LOTUS.  For himself,
it works just fine.  But he no longer can send his spreadsheets
to anyone else.  At one time Excel was able to read old LOTUS.
No more.

On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 4:53:29 AM UTC-4, David Wade wrote:
> > 
> > So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
> > don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.
> > 
> 
> Examples? There are a few that won't work with Edge but not many...

Well, Wikipedia won't work with my old browser.  Why not?  Why the
heck should they care?

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 9:35:38 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
> 
>>>> However you talk about your "old PC physically works reasonably well
>>>> but the software is obsolete and difficult to use for many tasks since
>>>> it is no longer compatible".  With what is it not compatible that is
>>>> causing you problems?
>>> 
>>> My MS-Word and Internet Explorer have a difficult time today.
>>> 
>>> For instance, I send Word documents to friends.  They could only
>>> open it as Read-Only due to the old version.  They could not get
>>> around that restriction without going to a lot of trouble.  
>> 
>> I don't see how that makes the software more difficult to use than it
>> was when you first got it.  It makes data interchange more difficult,
>> however Word supports a wide range of formats with more added with
>> every version.
> 
> As mentioned, the latest MS-WORD gives trouble when faced with
> a document produced by old versions of WORD.  You can get around
> it, but it's a pain.  In some corporate environments, you cannot
> get around it due to security restrictions.
> 
> In one transfer, the new WORD screwed up the pagination, and I
> had to waste time tinkering with the margins and other settings
> to get the pages to fit properly for printing.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>>> As someone mentioned, I now use plain text files.  But things
>>> like italics and boldface get lost.  It's impossible to send
>>> a more formal document with headings and pagination.
>> 
>> I just tried saving a document in RTF format in Word for MS-DOS 5.5.
>> Word for MS-DOS can't show formatting except as a color change.  When
>> I opened the document with the latest version of Word, it came right
>> up with bold, italic, bold italic, and underline right where they were
>> supposed to be, looking much better than in Word for MS-DOS.
>> 
>> There is formatting that can be done with Word that won't carry
>> through to an RTF but for basic stuff of this nature it's fine.
> 
> Personally, I haven't had good luck with RTF.
> 
>  
>>> As to the Internet, more and more websites no longer operate
>>> on my browser.
>> 
>> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
>> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.
> 
> I am seeing fewer and fewer websites working with my PC.
> Unfortunately, Firefox didn't run well on my PC.
> 
> The reality is that today's computer business does not like
> old software or old hardware.  "They" keep introducing
> incompatibilities forcing end users to upgrade, even if
> their existing machines run just fine in isolation.
> 
> I know a fellow who runs an old version of LOTUS.  For himself,
> it works just fine.  But he no longer can send his spreadsheets
> to anyone else.  At one time Excel was able to read old LOTUS.
> No more.
> 

I used to use Lotus on OS/2. I had a lot of  WordPro files. Later I
discovered a free downloadable version for win which I used to convert them
all to Word, so I could use hem in LibreOffice.

-- 
Pete

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 4:53:29 AM UTC-4, David Wade wrote:
>> 
>>> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
>>> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.
>>> 
>> 
>> Examples? There are a few that won't work with Edge but not many...
> 
> Well, Wikipedia won't work with my old browser.  Why not?  

Huh.  I can read Wikipedia pages with my "new" browser: FF 2.0.0.13.
But I get multiple pop-up windows reporting that login.wikimedia.org
and upload.wikimedia.org use an unsupported crypto protocol. No easy
way to determine what FF wants to fetch from these other servers --
possibly images although I get at least some images if I enable it in
the browser.

Of course I don't trust the net not to attack me but neither do I
trust the complicated process of certificates and crypto itself not to
be penetrated far beyond my level of awareness.  So I wish sites whose
proprietors want to use crypto would just negotiate the protocol and
use whatever protocol (or none) that my browser supports.  For any
case where I really care, I take pains to minimize any harm that might
arise from a successful attack and use a relatively up to date
browser.

> Why the heck should they care?

If your doctor routinely uses current "best practice" but fails to be
attentive to your own unique case, symptoms, circumstance & reports in
detail, it will speed h{is,er} workday but you won't be entirely happy
(sometimes, perhaps, very unhappy) with the results.  A good physician
*starts* at "best practice" but is attentive to detail.  Website
managers are free of the physician's Hippocratic onus which is
typically replaced with the Friedman onus:

       Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
       of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
       a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
       their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman



-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> 
> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> 
>> On Wednesday, April 25, 2018 at 4:53:29 AM UTC-4, David Wade wrote:
>>> 
>>>> So have you installed Firefox or Chrome?  More and more web sites
>>>> don't work on ANY Microsoft browser you know.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Examples? There are a few that won't work with Edge but not many...
>> 
>> Well, Wikipedia won't work with my old browser.  Why not?  
> 
> Huh.  I can read Wikipedia pages with my "new" browser: FF 2.0.0.13.
> But I get multiple pop-up windows reporting that login.wikimedia.org
> and upload.wikimedia.org use an unsupported crypto protocol. No easy
> way to determine what FF wants to fetch from these other servers --
> possibly images although I get at least some images if I enable it in
> the browser.
> 
[snip]

The other day I tried to do something I have never done - retrieve an
online coupon - and  got a message to the effect that my browser isn't
supported and I should upgrade to a newer browser. Well, I have an old
iPhone, which I don't want to replace, and I can't upgrade what I have.
People who design these websites need to build in a fallback for
curmudgeons. I had a similar problem in a store trying to read reviews from
a website. I think for some reason they want some enhanced security - maybe
SSL - that I don't have. OK, fine, so I'll take my chances. Don't make me
upgrade to access something on the supposedly "open" web.

-- 
Pete

Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:

> The other day I tried to do something I have never done - retrieve an
> online coupon - and  got a message to the effect that my browser isn't
> supported and I should upgrade to a newer browser. Well, I have an old
> iPhone, which I don't want to replace, and I can't upgrade what I have.
> People who design these websites need to build in a fallback for
> curmudgeons. 

Yes, indeed.  But when you business model has transited from
$SOMETHING_USEFUL_OR_INTERESTING to counting clicks and selling
web-bug hits, we'uns crips, geezers, curmudgeons and other assorted
marginal minorities (as seen from a mass-marketing perpective) aren't
worth the bother.

> I had a similar problem in a store trying to read reviews from a
> website. I think for some reason they want some enhanced security -
> maybe SSL - that I don't have. OK, fine, so I'll take my
> chances. Don't make me upgrade to access something on the supposedly
> "open" web.

See also: presbylyssomania

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

On 2018-04-26, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

> If your doctor routinely uses current "best practice" but fails to be
> attentive to your own unique case, symptoms, circumstance & reports in
> detail, it will speed h{is,er} workday but you won't be entirely happy
> (sometimes, perhaps, very unhappy) with the results.

Possibly dead.

> A good physician *starts* at "best practice" but is attentive to
> detail.  Website managers are free of the physician's Hippocratic
> onus which is typically replaced with the Friedman onus:
>
>        Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
>        of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
>        a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
>        their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman

Another trend undermining the very foundations of our free society
is that of believing corporate PR blitzes that try to portray themselves
as benevelont philanthropists bent on improving the lives of people
other than their own boards and stockholders.  People are waaaaay
too trusting, too cowed by gratuitous complexity, and too unwilling
(or addicted) to break free.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

On Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 1:09:23 AM UTC-4, Mike Spencer wrote:

>        Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
>        of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
>        a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
>        their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman

The film Executive Suite just aired on TCM.  Great movie.
In the climatic scene, there is a shown between the comptroller
who is only interested in maximizing return to the shareholders,
by any means possible; and another VP, who has a long term view
and cares also about the customers and employees.

(Fredic March played the comptroller and William Holden
play the other VP.)

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 1:09:23 AM UTC-4, Mike Spencer wrote:
> 
>> Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
>> of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
>> a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
>> their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman
> 
> The film Executive Suite just aired on TCM.  Great movie.
> In the climatic scene, there is a shown between the comptroller
> who is only interested in maximizing return to the shareholders,
> by any means possible; and another VP, who has a long term view
> and cares also about the customers and employees.
> 
> (Fredic March played the comptroller and William Holden
> play the other VP.)
> 
> 

Interesting article on MarketWatch a day or so about Sears. Apparently
Eddie Lampert, the guy who bought it thru his hedge fund was interested in
maximizing "shareholder value" at the  expense of everting else. There's no
long-term  in p%ssing off your employees and customers to milk a couple
more dollars from it. The article writer said it might be heresy to Wall
Street  to suggest that this was a bad idea.

-- 
Pete

On 2018-04-26, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Don't make me
> upgrade to access something on the supposedly "open" web.

"Open" web? Ha! We're well down the road to lockdown. https,
WebAssembly, Encrypted Media Extensions, Secure Boot, ...


-- 
Ian

"Tamahome!!!" - "Miaka!!!"

On Thursday, in article
     <4d0b61e8-2eba-478b...@googlegroups.com>
     hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 1:09:23 AM UTC-4, Mike Spencer wrote:
> 
>>        Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
>>        of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
>>        a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
>>        their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman
> 
> The film Executive Suite just aired on TCM.  Great movie.
> In the climatic scene, there is a shown between the comptroller
> who is only interested in maximizing return to the shareholders,
> by any means possible; and another VP, who has a long term view
> and cares also about the customers and employees.

It's a fantasy film, then?

-- 
Simon Turner                                    DoD #0461
si...@twoplaces.co.uk
    Trust me -- I know what I'm doing!          -- Sledge Hammer

On 2018-04-27, Simon Turner <si...@twoplaces.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thursday, in article
>      <4d0b61e8-2eba-478b...@googlegroups.com>
>      hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 1:09:23 AM UTC-4, Mike Spencer wrote:
>> 
>>>        Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
>>>        of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
>>>        a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
>>>        their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman
>> 
>> The film Executive Suite just aired on TCM.  Great movie.
>> In the climatic scene, there is a shown between the comptroller
>> who is only interested in maximizing return to the shareholders,
>> by any means possible; and another VP, who has a long term view
>> and cares also about the customers and employees.
>
> It's a fantasy film, then?
>

I was advised once that the title 'VP' in American companies is
meaningless.


-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man

On 4/26/2018 1:52 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2018-04-26, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> 
>     [snip...]         [snip...]          [snip...]
> 
> Another trend undermining the very foundations of our free society
> is that of believing corporate PR blitzes that try to portray themselves
> as benevolent philanthropists bent on improving the lives of people
> other than their own boards and stockholders.  People are waaaaay
> too trusting, too cowed by gratuitous complexity, and too unwilling
> (or addicted) to break free.
> 

Remember all those things that mom and dad said:  "You'll understand 
when you get a little older"???  Well, those people never did 
understand...   ;-)

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On 4/27/2018 5:06 AM, ma...@mail.com wrote:
> On 2018-04-27, Simon Turner <si...@twoplaces.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Thursday, in article
>>       <4d0b61e8-2eba-478b...@googlegroups.com>
>>       hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>
>>> On Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 1:09:23 AM UTC-4, Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>
>>>>         Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations
>>>>         of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of
>>>>         a social responsibility other than to make as much money for
>>>>         their stockholders as possible.     -- Milton Friedman
>>>
>>> The film Executive Suite just aired on TCM.  Great movie.
>>> In the climatic scene, there is a shown between the comptroller
>>> who is only interested in maximizing return to the shareholders,
>>> by any means possible; and another VP, who has a long term view
>>> and cares also about the customers and employees.
>>
>> It's a fantasy film, then?
>>
> 
> I was advised once that the title 'VP' in American companies is
> meaningless.
> 
> 

According to Merriam-Webster (the most standard US dictionary):

vice (n.)
1a : moral depravity or corruption : wickedness
1b : a moral fault or failing
1c : a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming : foible
2 : blemish, defect
3 : a physical imperfection, deformity, or taint
4a often capitalized : a character representing one of the vices in an 
English morality play
4b : buffoon, jester
5 : an abnormal behavior pattern in a domestic animal detrimental to 
its health or usefulness
6 : sexual immorality; especially : prostitution

On 2018-04-27, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Interesting article on MarketWatch a day or so about Sears. Apparently
> Eddie Lampert, the guy who bought it thru his hedge fund was interested in
> maximizing "shareholder value" at the  expense of everting else. There's no
> long-term  in p%ssing off your employees and customers to milk a couple
> more dollars from it.

Who's thinking long term?  Take the money and run.

> The article writer said it might be heresy to Wall Street to suggest that
> this was a bad idea.

FSVO "bad".  Lampert made money, so it's by definition good.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

On 27/04/2018 01:10, Peter Flass wrote:
> <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> Interesting article on MarketWatch a day or so about Sears. Apparently
> Eddie Lampert, the guy who bought it thru his hedge fund was interested in
> maximizing "shareholder value" at the  expense of everting else. There's no
> long-term  in p%ssing off your employees and customers to milk a couple
> more dollars from it. The article writer said it might be heresy to Wall
> Street  to suggest that this was a bad idea.
> 

P%ssed off workers are not very productive so sales drop. Bankruptcy 
reduces the value of the shares to zero. I zero a genuine "shareholder 
value" maximisation?

On 27/04/2018 18:28, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> Who's thinking long term?  Take the money and run.

Most people on Wall Street take the money and come back the next working 
day.

Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
> Interesting article on MarketWatch a day or so about Sears. Apparently
> Eddie Lampert, the guy who bought it thru his hedge fund was
> interested in maximizing "shareholder value" at the expense of
> everting else. There's no long-term in p%ssing off your employees and
> customers to milk a couple more dollars from it. The article writer
> said it might be heresy to Wall Street to suggest that this was a bad
> idea.

private-equity LBO borrows 100% to buy the company ... and then puts the
loan on the bought company's book ... then private-equity extracts money
in lots of different ways ... under lots of different excuses ... and
then can walk away from the remainder. sometimes they can IPO whats left
... extracting even more. over half corporate defaults are companies
that have been through (or are in) the private-equity mill. what is
somewhat surprising is all of these defaults never seem to affect the
credit rating of the original private equity borrower.

no matter what happens, the private-equity companies walk away with boat
loads of money. one of the analogies is 100% mortgages for
house-flipping ... except the mortgages goes with the flipped houses
(rather than paid off) ... they make money even if the flipped house is
sold for less than they paid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/economy/05simmons.html?_r=0

again, it seems remarkable that it doesn't seem to ever touch the credt
rating of the private-equity companies that take out the original loan.

last decade, they were heavily into buying up gov. contractors ...  then
putting heavy pressure on them to cut corners every way possible (so
there was more money for the private equity owners). They other thing
they appeared to leverage ... is gov. agencies aren't allowed to lobby
congress ... and gov. contractors aren't allowed to use moeny from
gov. contracts to leverage congress ... but there seems to be no
restriction on the lobbying by private equity owners .... resulting in
enormous increase in gov. outsourcing last decade.

in intelligence, 70% of funds and over half the people (including
Snowden)
http://www.investingdaily.com/17693/spies-like-us

which also significantly accelerates the rapidly spreading success of
failure culture ... aka make more money off series of failures
http://www.govexec.com/excellence/management-matters/2007/04/the-success-of-failure/24107/

note that the for-profit companies that got contracts for doing
security clearances were found to be filling out the paper work
but not actually doing background checks

computer related, AMEX was in competition with KKR for
take-over of RJR and KKR wins, KKR runs into some trouble
and hires away president of AMEX to help
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_at_the_Gate:_The_Fall_of_RJR_Nabisco
IBM has gone into the red and hires the former president of AMEX
to help turn things around ... who uses some of the same
techniques at RJR
http://www.ibmemployee.com/RetirementHeist.shtml

then leaves for another private-equity company that will buy the beltway
bandit that employs snowden
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/barbarians-capitol-private-equity-public-enemy/

Lou Gerstner, former ceo of ibm, now heads the Carlyle Group, a
Washington-based global private equity firm whose 2006 revenues of $87
billion were just a few billion below ibm's. Carlyle has boasted George
H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and former Secretary of State James Baker III
on its employee roster

... snip ...

lots of politicians on the payroll to help with congressional lobbying
on behalf of their gov. contractor subsidiaries.

private-equity posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#private.equity
success of failure posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#success.of.failure
former AMEX president posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submisc.html#gerstner

one of the other areas that private equity has moved in on is health
care, buying up hospitals and medical/dentist practices.

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On 2018-04-27, Andrew Swallow <am.sw...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> On 27/04/2018 01:10, Peter Flass wrote:
>> <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
>> Interesting article on MarketWatch a day or so about Sears. Apparently
>> Eddie Lampert, the guy who bought it thru his hedge fund was interested in
>> maximizing "shareholder value" at the  expense of everting else. There's no
>> long-term  in p%ssing off your employees and customers to milk a couple
>> more dollars from it. The article writer said it might be heresy to Wall
>> Street  to suggest that this was a bad idea.
>> 
>
> P%ssed off workers are not very productive so sales drop. Bankruptcy 
> reduces the value of the shares to zero. I zero a genuine "shareholder 
> value" maximisation?

The worth of the shares may be reduced to zero, but there is still a lot
of value in the company to be sucked out. Go to any bankruptcy hearing,
and notice how the vultures battle to have 'their' men in charge of
winding up the company.

I noticed this many years ago, when an outfit called, I think, IOS (a
thing to allow overseas US citizens to invest without being liable for
US taxes) went belly up. the name 'Bernie Cornfeld' comes to mind.

Anyway, whatever was left was rapidy moved on elsewhere.

The film 'The producers' dealth  with that sort of thing.


-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man

Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> On 2018-04-27, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2018-04-27, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Interesting article on MarketWatch a day or so about Sears. Apparently
>>> Eddie Lampert, the guy who bought it thru his hedge fund was interested in
>>> maximizing "shareholder value" at the  expense of everting else. There's no
>>> long-term  in p%ssing off your employees and customers to milk a couple
>>> more dollars from it.
>> 
>> Who's thinking long term?  Take the money and run.
> 
> "A long term investment is a short term investment that went wrong."
> 
> -- Sir James Goldsmith.
> 
> 

Who has made more money, Goldsmith or Buffet?

-- 
Pete

Peter Flass wrote:

> Who has made more money, Goldsmith or Buffet?

Who's still alive?

On 2018-04-27, Ian <${send-direct-email-to-news1021...@jusme.com> wrote:
> On 2018-04-26, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Don't make me
>> upgrade to access something on the supposedly "open" web.
>
> "Open" web? Ha! We're well down the road to lockdown. https,
> WebAssembly, Encrypted Media Extensions, Secure Boot, ...

+= Certificate Transparency

(https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/starting-today-google-chrome-will-show-warnings-for-non-logged-ssl-certificates/)



-- 
Ian

"Tamahome!!!" - "Miaka!!!"

On Tue, 01 May 2018 18:31:43 GMT, Ian
<${send-direct-email-to-news1021...@jusme.com>
wrote: 

> On 2018-04-27, Ian
> <${send-direct-email-to-news1021...@jusme.co
> m> wrote: 
>> On 2018-04-26, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Don't make me
>>> upgrade to access something on the supposedly "open" web.
>>
>> "Open" web? Ha! We're well down the road to lockdown. https,
>> WebAssembly, Encrypted Media Extensions, Secure Boot, ...
> 
> += Certificate Transparency
> 
> (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/starting-today-google-c
> hrome-will-show-warnings-for-non-logged-ssl-certificates/) 
> 
> 
> 

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-chrome-66-released-
today-focuses-on-security/

I use chrome 49, I'm so out-dated.

-- 
Bah, and indeed, Humbug.

On 2018-04-24 3:55 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> 
> FWIW, on a personal note, I looked into running an emulator
> so I could run old DOS/Windows applications.  However,
> installing it seemed difficult (it's possible I needed to
> simply devote more time to it.)  However, I have little desire
> to "hexedit the configuration file" to make it all work.

For plain DOS programs there is
   https://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox/files/dosbox/0.74/DOSBox0.74-win32-installer.exe/download

which seems good enough to run Rogue

On Fri, 11 May 2018 12:54:49 -0400
Alan Bowler <atbo...@thinkage.ca> wrote:

> which seems good enough to run Rogue

	Rogue runs just fine on the latest FreeBSD with just a recompile
(or compat libs for an older version), stable interfaces are a wonderful
thing.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/