Posts by Richard Plinston

Re: The VERY definition of Android Landfill @ Nick

> The glued in battery is guaranteed built in obsolescence;

Sorry to disappoint you, but the battery is not glued in.

I don't know where you got that from, just made it up probably. The battery is replaceable but needs screws removed and the connector disconnected.

http://www.areamobile.de/b/2267-teardown-das-moto-g-und-die-speicher-frage-update

Re: Why?

> So you can expect a few GB at most. 3GB or so.

If you had read the article instead of leaping into unfounded speculation, you would had learnt:

"""8GB or 16GB – around 5.5GB and 13.5GB, respectively, after the system has had its share."""

Also:

"""Thankfully, the Moto G supports USB On-The-Go hosting out of the box."""

Just carry a 32Gb USB stick or seven, or a several terabyte USB 3.5inch disk.

Re: I'd like to think

> (and hand future revenue over to Google)?

Google does not make revenue at the expense of phone makers. Google's revenue is from things that phone makers generally do not do. If they did want to do that, such as send advertising, or search, or maps, then they can do so without using Google at all.

> profit is sanity?

Then making Windows Phones is insane. Nokia are running at a loss, in spite of huge subsidies from Microsoft. I doubt that other WP makers made much if any at all.

> a chance of taking the #2 spot from Apple.

While in some markets in Europe WP may have around 10%, worldwide it is still at the 4% mark, and this is with the cheap end of the market and subsidized by Microsoft with $1billion/year plus marketing help.

Re: Lolz

> there's no real landfill Windows Phone category.

Windows Mobile 6.x phones were dead-ended by its replacement WP7 being completely incompatible in hardware and software.

Windows Phone 7 phones were dead-ended by its replacement WP8 being completely incompatible in hardware and software.

Next will be the Windows Phone 8 phones (and Surface RT/2 tablets) when Microsoft dumps both to replace them with a 'converged product' that is incompatible with either.

Re: Still $100 too much

>> "Probably a lot more once you get an ARM Linux variant on it."

> Yeah, except name one that has even sort of semi decent touch screen support.

Android. Maemo, Meego, Jolla, Tizen, ...

Re: As consumers just scratch their heads...

> Meanwhile, probably 75% of the iPads I see in the wild are propped up and/or have real keyboards thanks to 1st or 3rd party accessories.

What _is_ unique to Surface is that, due to the floppy way the keyboard connects, and it must be connected*, and the way the stand operates, it is only usable in landscape, and is almost completely unusable on the lap.

In comparison there are several keyboard/covers/stands that allow landscape or portrait and/or remote keyboards and/or comfortable and stable laptop use. With the combination cover/keyboard/stand the tablet can be propped up on an airline tray while the keyboard is used on the lap - much preferred.

* I understand there will be an additional cost item that will allow a bluetooth keyboard to be used on Surface 2/pro 2. But it is still stuck in 16:9 landscape by the stand.

Re: Own and use a Surface RT excellent laptop replacement

> I think the Surface is a better option storage wise.

"""For the 32GB version of the new [Surface RT] tablet, users have access to only 16GB of storage, with the remaining half taken up by Windows recovery tools, Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and built-in apps."""

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/5/3603652/microsoft-surface-windows-rt-disk-space

> Something the iToy can dream of!

You appear to be, yet again, completely uninformed.

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=ipad+keyboard&client=firefox-a&hs=Jp6&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jESWUq_JNpGtkgX584HYDg&ved=0CGsQsAQ&biw=1469&bih=860

You may be unaware of the concept, but it is called consumer choice.

> Commerce isn't a gentleman's game. It's a fight to the death.

Most competitors know that co-operation is valuable. They rely on providing better services and products to grow rather than tearing down the market and trying to kill competitors with price-wars or other destructive methods.

Microsoft, however, does not just want to win, it wants to make everyone else fail. It doesn't do that with better products, it does it, or at least has done it in the past, with abusive contracts, predatory pricing (such as 'loyalty' discounts) and by 'partnerships' that turn out to be one-way.

Re: RT?

> Surface RT is NOT a laptop,

Absolutely, it is completely unusable on your lap. The floppy keyboard connection, the single poor screen angle (2! on Surface 2), the bad weight distribution (compared to a laptop), the distance from keyboard edge to rear stand forcing the keyboard too close. Swipe the screen wrong and it will go to the floor.

Re: "If it uses QNX rather than Linux"

> Linux, originally conceived as a Unix-like substitute in larger machines.

Linux originally ran on 80386 machines, which were considerably less powerful than even the most modest ARM phone.

It happens that Linux can scale from very small machines to supercomputers.

Re: the crazy thing is

> Do you not remember all the people saying that MS had to have an ARM offering, absolutely had to, otherwise it was going to fail? That's why they put a load of cash into developing RT, unfortunately it didn't work out for them that well...

Actually they have had an ARM offering for a long time: CE. This was the MS-DOS/Windows 2/3 of the ARM world. Single tasking with a TSR like background tasking.

What they needed was a viable ARM offering they could use to threaten their OEMs with 'loyalty' discounts to stop them using other ARM OSes such as Linux/Android or WebOS. More importantly to stop them building ARM based servers until MS could get their ARM server OS finished (which may be another couple of years).

Re: still behind.

> windows is leagues ahead of its rivals in so many ways ...

> 1. The desktop version of their kernel is now running on desktops and their flagship console

I am not sure why you think that makes Microsoft 'ahead'. Android runs on the Linux kernel, iOS kernel is also based on BSD/Darwin as MacOS is. MS managed to get WP and RT on NT kernel last year, about two years behind.

Re: ooooouch

> And whilst the project has achieved some savings in operating costs (excluding the migration costs), those savings would have been even greater migrating to a modern Windows version!

I don't know whether you are uninformed, lying, or merely confused:

"""By switching from Windows to LiMux, its own Linux distribution, the German city of Munich has saved over €11 million ($14.3 million) to date compared to the costs of a similar migration to a more modern Microsoft-based IT infrastructure."""

http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/321474/switching-linux-saves-munich-over-11-million

Re: ooooouch

> selling low-end ARMs at a razor-thin margins while selling ultra-high end ARMs at big fat margins.

What you may not know is that the really low-end ARM processors have been selling at around 50 cents in several thousand lots for many years. High end ARMs are cheaper than Celerons.

Re: So fix it!

> That's because it's bollocks to say that not everyone thinks the same way - they blatantly do.

You say that only because you are incapable of understanding that not everyone thinks like you - and you never will.

Re: So fix it!

> Yes. Totally. If someone wants to paint a masterpiece all they have to do is devote 10-20 years to mastering the technical skills and thinking - really thinking - about what it is they want to say. I don't think it's any shock to realize that most people are not in fact motivated to do that. But it is theoretically doable. Ask any artist.

Your assertion is complete nonsense. But one finds that about 'artists' (or musicians, or poets, or ... computer programmers), they are incapable of understanding that not everyone thinks like they do - and never will.

A Jazz musician was being interviewed on the radio and he was disappointed that youngsters were not flocking to jazz concerts. His solution was to get together a group and go around all the schools and play jazz to them. He claimed that all that was needed to love jazz was enough exposure to it.

That is the sort of deranged thinking that led Microsoft to force Metro/Modern down everyone's throats.

Re: BBC Basic

> What I loved about BBC Basic was ...

> How I longed for a version of basic that could be compiled rather than interpreted but that never came to pass

"""A Compiler for BBC BASIC V was produced by Paul Fellows, team leader of the Arthur OS development, and published initially by DABS Press."""

Re: Old Manuals

> I bet you can even get COBOL free.

http://www.opencobol.org/

Re: "the smallest version can fit in 256 KB of RAM"

> The Linux kernel itself requires more to run. So i kinda doubt it.

I used to run a Linux distro (FreeSCO) that booted off a 1.44Mb diskette and ran on a 20Mb 80386. Granted it was a 2.4 kernel.

Puppy Linux can run on a 64Mb machine with a GUI and useful applications, though 128Mb would be better.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/MinimumSystemRequirements

Re: Three out of Four Reasons

> Funny that the SurfaceRT I bought last week from a UK electronics chain cost £259

That is because Surface RT is the obsolete model (replaced by Surface 2) and MS took a $900million writedown and put them in the bargain bins before they had to write off another couple of billion.

> as well as to generate invoices using Office.

That is a business use that is specifically disallowed by your license for Office RT Student and Home edition (or preview). You need to purchase a commercial license for that product.

(which is another reason why it didn't sell).

> Microsoft produced a crippled ARM tablet so they could have a product that can compete with the iPad and Android tablets.

I think that it went more like:

Microsoft produced WindowsOnARM so that it could wave 'loyalty discounts' (removal thereof) at its OEMs to prevent them make Android tablets, and more importantly, Linux based ARM servers.

This worked with HP who decided that dumping WebOS was cheaper than losing discounts on _all_ products.

But then MS had to make some ARM products.

Meanwhile several companies decided that they had sufficient alternatives to tell Microsoft that if the loyalty discounts were lost they would stop making Windows PCs and make Android, Chrome, Tizen and Ubuntu products, which they now make alongside Windows.

Re: unhelpful review

> Once you have PC or tablet software that can do interesting things with camera input

I have a Panasonic camera with WiFi and can link to it with my tablet or phone and drive the zoom, set focus point, and take pictures remotely. It can download to the tablet for post processing or upload to web sites. For taking movies the tablet can be used to follow focus.

It doesn't work with Windows, RT or WP though.

Re: Wrong comparison

> If it was a review of the Surface Pro (and this is another problem with Microsoft's marketing - the confusion between RT and Pro)

A confusion that you seem to have added to.

> Pretty sure there are tens of millions of third party apps for windows.

Almost none of which as usable on a touch tablet*.

* They may be almost usable with stylus and keyboard, but then you would be much better off with a proper laptop for those applications (not 'apps') rather than something that is not usable on one's lap, nor usable in pure touch tablet form for those.

Re: Disruptive is a fair description

> An increasingly large portion of the core is being moved to a closed source code base, entirely under Google's control.

In what way ? The kernel mods have been submitted to the mainline kernel.

Google are working on a replacement for Dalvik called ART - Android Run Time - and the source code is available.

> good luck finding apps that'll run on it.

What are you saying ? That CyanogenMod can't run Android apps ?

Re: Not perfect

> after a year or so, a vendor will abandon a device and leave it without anymore OS updates.

The device still works as well as it did when you bought it, possibly better. (granted it may need a replacement battery).

You don't complain that your car's engine hasn't been updated recently do you ?

Re: Virus Attractor...

> heck even uses a large number of 20 year old Microsoft patented software designs,

The 'designs' are vfat long name construction which are easily avoided _unless_ the device wants to plug in SD cards from other devices, such as cameras, which use fat32, or connect to a Windows computer over USB and act as a thumbdrive.

This is why Nexus 5 does not have a SD card slot, uses a transfer protocol over USB and can't mount a FAT SD card on its OTG port - it doesn't use 30 year old Microsoft designs. Microsoft still does.

Re: Oh dear

> Sure, but if the CPU and the hardware around costs 10k+, how many could afford it?

Why do you pick 10k+. Atari and Amigas, 68000 based, were perfectly capable of running Linux, and do so, and were priced much less than an IBM PC or clone of the time.

There is nothing about an IBM PC clone that suddenly makes it cheaper than other non-IBM PC machines of the day. It wasn't like the components were cheaper if you mentioned IBM or Bill Gates name.

Re: Oh dear

> Most CP/M machines, and Apples ones, were too expensive for home use.

Untrue. The Apple II was a home computer. CP/M machines were no more expensive, and usually cheaper, than MS-DOS ones when these came available.

> "Interoperability" was at source code level, not binary level.

Completely untrue. Any CP/M machine could run any CP/M binary executables. They were configurable for the screen controls, but then so were many MS-DOS programs*.

> While all DOS/Windows machines could run the same executables, and board and peripherals were (and are) compatible among different models and brands thanks to the use of common standards.

Complete nonsense. In the early days there were many computers running MS-DOS that were _not_ IBM-PCs. HP, Wang, DEC, Apricot, SCP all built machines that were _completely_ different and either used S100 or proprietry bus for their boards. Later, many moved to IBM compatibility with ISA bus, then there was the PS/2 with incompatible MicroChannel, EISA, PCI, PCI Express.

You won't push an ISA board into a PCI slot.

> If MS had not licensed DOS to clone manufacturers, there would have never been the low-cost PC clones

No, there would have _continued_ to be low cost CP/M, CP/M-86, and Concurrent-CP/M machines - around the same price as IBM-PC clones.

> Without PCs, Intel would have not maybe become the powerhouse it is now.

I don't know why you tie Intel to DOS, before there was DOS Intel had the CP/M and CP/M-86 market and several others. There may have also been Motorola, Zilog and others but they were all equally capable of making high-volume low-cost CPUs and systems.

> DOS extenders made DOS applications run in protected mode on 286 and 386, and access more then 640k.

No, you are completely wrong yet again. DOS extenders could switch the machine between real mode and extended mode on order to swap RAM pages between real memory and extended memory, but DOS applications, nor DOS itself*, _NEVER_ ran in anything but real mode and could never directly access anything above 1Mbyte address space. If they wanted to access data not currently in that address space they asked the EMS manager to fetch it to where they could access it.

Also the 640Kb limit was not a DOS limit but was a restriction on the IBM-PCs. Other machines running MS-DOS could access the full 1Mbyte of the 8086 model.

> Smartphones and other mobile devices used them - including Windows CE - well before both.

And home computers (Acorn Archimedes) and millions of other embedded devices well before those.

* For example Turbo-Pascal was available for CP/M, CP/M-86, MS-DOS and PC-DOS. The MS-DOS version could be configured for serial terminal screens (or ANSI if you had a display adaptor card and monitor).

* Actually there was an 80286 MS-DOS: version 4.0 and 4.1 (not to be confused with the much later 4.01) were based on 3.1 and 3.2 respectively. It was used by Wang, Siemanns and ICL (where I worked with it) and was known as 'European DOS'. It was intended to run protected mode programs and provided some multitasking with background tasks. It was dumped when OS/2 was started.