Posts by Roadcrew

Re: Netbooks were never bad..

We still have a couple or three - use an HP Mini (Cedarview Atom) daily and still have a couple of earlier efforts - the second-hand Linux-loaded AA1 that came with an early (slow,small, unreliable) flash drive (with unique nasty connector) has borked yet another drive and these are now too expensive to consider buying, so it boots its Linux from one of those truly tiny USB sticks, and makes good use of the SD slot too.

The HP Mini standard battery lasts even better than the mahoosive upgraded lump on the back of the AA1, its processor/gpu is swifter and its easy internal access is a joy, so it gets more use. In fact the only HP Mini aspect that annoys us occasionally is the screen - which had a pixel missing from new, and now has a bunch of them gone. Ah well...

Think I prefer using -slightly- larger-than-traditional-netbook screens, but they are so perfect for stuffing in a bag or even a poaching pocket. It was only £130 new from a high street store, so it may get a new screen one day, if it behaves well... ;)

Oh, and there's an early EEE PC in a cupboard, loaded with Linux kid's stuff (Childsplay, Gcompris, etc). This EEE comes out when small people are visiting. It's survived surprisingly well, although the battery is getting tired. :(

Re: The curse of having an Amstrad

Heh!

I was a Dad who typed that in for our 464.

Happy days....

It took some BASIC-fu to get it running, iirc.

Then we hacked it about with local/family/school references inserted and the like.

Had done something similar on the ZX81 previously, as well as a couple of

self-published 'action' games. So it was not hard to fix, just tedious.

Happy days indeed.

Re: Bean Counting?

Beans, beans, food for the heart, the more you eat the more you....

Re: Government Tied up in Bow

IIRC....

When working in Dallas I was told that Bob Biard at TI was a GaAs pioneer in the early 60s - the IR LED specifically. They were around the industry in the late 70s, I'm sure.

Think there may have been a GaAs front end to the TI GSM 'phone chipset in the '90s?

The RF & IC development did come much later than the IR LEDs - wasn't there even a rad-hard CPU from someone?

Original IR LED was allegedly a TI private venture....

Re: Oscilloscopes

Got one for about £80 from Amazon last year, should probably have spent more on it to get higher speed...

Pro: It works OK, pretty much as described, fair enough value/quality

Con: Not a huge advance over software-on-standard-PC-audio-card for audio stuff

Windows only at this price point - but TinyXP in a VM under Linux does the job after some fiddling.

When I get round to it (hah!) plan is to dedicate an ancient-but-repairable low end XP laptop to become the dedicated 'scope box. Now where did I put that laptop?

Bottom line - haven't used it much for a few months now, but have projects in hand that will surely need it.

What's the manufacturer? Model number?

Darned if I can remember - and the lab is like a tip right now. Maybe tomorrow.

I've been retired all this century, age is advancing, usual excuses....

Re: String

...but surely it's an embiggened pipe we need?

Lots of spare lengths of water pipe stacked up where they abandoned the drought relief plan when it rained.

Oh, wait...

Re: Very pleased with Linux.... Apart from Pulse audio ....

I'd have agreed with that some 18 months ago, but then was pointed at the excellent Pulse Audio Volume Control (pavucontrol) which does more than the label on the box. Fixes all our probs, might help yours?

Re: a couple of people....

Unless, of course you include all the Linux Kernel users (notice that this is on topic!) - Android is not much of a desktop, although it can be made to work, sorta.

I'm referring to Google Chrome OS, which works well enough for us (and gazeeellions of others it seems), so long as one improves the storage on the ChromeBook/Box. USB3 sticks are pretty effective for that, we find.

It's surely true to say now that most of the Linux kernels crafted by Linus T and his team are installed in something other than a regular GNU-Linux distro.

Pretty surprising....

Seriously, now

.... but VM just suck balls at support.

Time for a teabagging party then?

(giggle)

Good luck with getting them sorted.

Re: stick linux on it, and use it to read books

>>There have been instances recently where a warranty was voided because the purchaser installed Linux.

Then *removing* Linux before returning it is probably a smart idea.

Stuffing anything onto the media that resembles the original Win thing would probably help....

But if in doubt, saying something along the lines of " Musta gotta virus then, innit?"

...should hopefully cover most warranty avoidance issues.

Even better, "It stopped working!"

Re: Forgetting something Mr Chemist?

Dillo, Lynx, Midori, etc.... Oh! YOu're using WinDoze!. Sorry.

GCHQ peeps...

When visiting GCHQ and varied offshoots in a technical capacity most of the people we met were (on the face of it) pretty decent. Quite a few very relaxed individuals, doing an important job.

Very nearly ended up working at one of the varied offshoots, and in hindsight that could have been more fun than what I ended up doing.

The impression I had was yes, these were people who (on the whole) would rather walk than be involved with Orwellian mass surveillance.

But I have also seen what happens anywhere when jobs are on the line and Mighty Masters of Management start putting on the pressure to do evil stuff - good people can end up part of a moderately machiavellian machine.

To all the good people at GCHQ - hello!

It's your masters' motives we distrust....

And it's about time there was someone effective in government with a proper education and some decent experience of the world we live in. Malevolent muppets, most of them.

<sigh>

|But to be fair to Linus....

...he did say that both of his best-know works (Linux and GIt) were named after him!