PPC Challenge '21

[m1maverick]

I’d say it was a true / false statement in the way that it was said. At least it sounded like it to me🤷🏼‍♂️
You are right technically it is an opinion, but that can be said about anything.
The difference between facts and opinions is that facts have proof to back up the facts.

I think you're being too literal in your reading of his statement. It was clear to me what was meant.

I work on old 8-bit computers which most would consider useless even though I could write a letter on one and print it off on a dot matrix printer. 99.999% of the population would consider doing so foolish. The fact that I may enjoying using it for such purposes does not change the general statement that these computers are, for all intents and purposes, useless.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I always enjoyed involving myself in a challenge; especially this one because it is fun! It's the fun factor, because so many people today are living a life that is "way too serious". A life that in my opinion is "always wanting be right" and never wanting to be at least wrong in their opinions and that always gets people into disagreements, because both sides believe their opinions are "right" in their frame of mind, their frame of reference.

Both sides are right in a way; a Core 2 Duo is for all intents and purposes useless for many tasks, but another person may offer a differing opinion that a Core 2 Duo is not useless. In fact, it is very capable. My Macbook Pro 17" running a C2D T9300 dual core is running Linux Mint 20 and can access ALL the websites and can even do "ZOOM", which is the most latest necessity for home office or home schooling. You see that we are living in a duality world where the coin has both sides. Both sides are valid in the context of where you believe which side has the ultimate truth. But in reality, both sides do not have the ultimate truth, the ultimate answer to anything. Which is why I really love this challenge because it takes away the "seriousness" of life, the duality of life where one "has" to choose which side is right and which side is wrong. Whereas, like a playful child, just play whichever sides you like and have fun with it.

I still use my PowerBook G4 and G3 for certain tasks and granted they are no longer deemed useful to most people, I still use them for certain tasks and still have fun with. Likewise, the "dot matrix printer" are still being used today in many businesses for printing invoices, packing slips and for warehousing, because it can take continuous business forms. So dot matrix is not useless especially with the boom in online sales recently. Some businesses use a dot matrix printer MORE than their in house inkjet or laser printers. When I was working with the recycling computer depot, I was shocked to find businesses that were willing to pay an arm and a leg for even a used dot matrix printer, because it is part of their mission critical component in their business. One national law firm I used to service for where an OS9 machine is part of their critical legacy database infrastructure that they were willing to pay anything to make sure they have spares. So the other side of the coin for a dot matrix printer or an OS9 machine is equally true for their importance in someone's computing life.

 

[m1maverick]

I still use my PowerBook G4 and G3 for certain tasks and granted they are no longer deemed useful to most people, I still use them for certain tasks and still have fun with. Likewise, the "dot matrix printer" are still being used today in many businesses for printing invoices and for warehousing, because it can take continuous business forms. So dot matrix is not useless. Some businesses use a dot matrix printer MORE than their in house inkjet or laser printers. When I was working with the recycling computer depot, I was shocked to find businesses that were willing to pay an arm and a leg for even a used dot matrix printer, because it is part of their mission critical component in their business. One national law firm I used to service for where an OS9 machine is part of their critical legacy database infrastructure that they were willing to pay anything to make sure they have spares. So the other side of the coin for a dot matrix printer or an OS9 machine is equally true for their importance in someone's computing life.

Today dot matrix printers are typically used with multipart forms (such as in the invoice example you mentioned). They're typically not used for business / personal correspondence anymore.

 

[Amethyst1]

For instance, I have noticed that men are on average more likely to end sentences with periods than women

I am a man

naturally giving their textual speech a more "factual" feel than otherwise.

Two plus two equals five.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Depends on what your day-to-day tasks are. I regularly use a 25 year old computer for many of my day to day tasks (though not all of course). But I spend 85% of my day in a terminal so the age of the computer really doesn't matter for what I need from it. Everyone's mileage will vary.

If your day-to-day tasks involve "modern web" apps, sure. Too many modern websites are simply unusable on too many older systems (without jumping through hoops that require a "modern" system to act as a bridge, which kind of defeats the purpose.)

But there are *PLENTY* of day-to-day tasks that don't require anything modern. If you spend most of your day writing documents in Microsoft Word - you can use Microsoft Word 5.0 from 1991 on a Macintosh Plus! Modern versions of Word can still read documents saved from Word 5.0 just fine. (Although Word 5.0 can't read modern documents.) Heck, I write Markdown documents regularly, and that doesn't need graphical editing, so I can use TextEdit/SimpleText/TeachText/Windows Notepad/DOS EDIT/emacs/vi to write my documents no problem.

If your job, like mine, involves a lot of "text mode command line" work remotely to servers, that can be accomplished by anything that can act as a serial terminal with a bridge Linux/UNIX box (that can itself be ancient, since newer ssh versions have been ported to basically every architecture, including A/UX.) The biggest annoyance of using an old system is that I'm used to 100+ columns, 50+ lines in my terminal window now, and I go through log messages where a single log message could overwhelm a 40x25 display.

For my day-to-day work, the biggest barrier is that I am on a lot of Zoom/Google Meet/WebEx calls every day (yes, a mix of all three,) including video. There is no way to join a WebEx video call, with video, on an older system. And I demo my company's web-based product on these calls - can't do screen sharing on older systems, even if I could get our website to load on older browsers. (On a lark, I did hack a demo copy of our product to remove SSL, and the login screen loaded on Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 - I filed a bug with our UI designer complaining that it didn't render properly. He laughed.)

 

[mj_]

Thank you @m1mavrerick. You got exactly what I was trying to say. I enjoy fiddling around with retro hardware and old computers just as much as the next guy. Revisiting the past and reliving the days of yore, back when we were all young and innocent and life was much much simpler, is a blast. However, I fail to see the point behind trying to convince oneself that modern life can be lived on a 90s computer. Think about cars - do I love old cars? Absolutely. They are gorgeous, great to look at, and more often than not engineering marvels of their time. Would I trade the convenience of a modern Toyota, Chrysler or Volkswagen for an 80s Ferrari, Ford, or Mercedes Benz? Absolutely not.

I would, however, like to address one thingt that I do not quite agree with:

The problem is that software today is utter trash, rather than the older machines. There is absolutely zero reason that you should need the type of computers we have today for things such as word documents and watching web videos.
Software has become bloated.

Software today isn't utter trash. Software today is infinitely more complex because the world we live in today is infinitely more complex. Back in the 90s and even into the early 2000s computers were rarely connected to each other in the way they are today. Most viruses spread via floppy disks passed around in schoolyards and the worst damage they were able to inflict was to modify your MBR to keep your computer from booting. Data breaches, security incidents, (digital) identity theft, keystroke logging, or encryption malware holding your valuable and priceless memories or business data ransom was about as distant to 90s computer users as self-driving cars running on nitrogen emitting nothing but pure oxygen are to us today. Remember the worst security incident of that era? It was the ILOVEYOU computer worm developed by a 24-year old college student in early 2000. Seems absolutely laughable compared to today's organized and sometimes state-sponsored computer crime units hijacking global corporations demanding millions of dollars in ransom money, doesn't it?

 

[Amethyst1]

If you spend most of your day writing documents in Microsoft Word - you can use Microsoft Word 5.0 from 1991 on a Macintosh Plus!

WordStar FTW!

 

[Amethyst1]

Would I trade the convenience of a modern Toyota, Chrysler or Volkswagen for an 80s Ferrari, Ford, or Mercedes Benz?

Hell YEAH!

Remember the worst security incident of that era? It was the ILOVEYOU computer worm developed by a 24-year old college student in early 2000.

"So that text file has a very strange-looking icon - ah who cares, let's click on it!"

Seriously?

 

[Dronecatcher]

Software today is infinitely more complex because the world we live in today is infinitely more complex.

The end results from this super sophisticated software and the mighty hardware that's necessary to run it - outside of industrial, research and military applications, is no better than that made on 90s machines.
Music, art, design, literature - all of these things have made no qualitative leap.

 

[m1maverick]

Hell YEAH!



View attachment 1703104

"So that text file has a very strange-looking icon - ah who cares, let's click on it!"

Seriously?

What's strange looking about it?

 

[m1maverick]

If your day-to-day tasks involve "modern web" apps, sure. Too many modern websites are simply unusable on too many older systems (without jumping through hoops that require a "modern" system to act as a bridge, which kind of defeats the purpose.)

But there are *PLENTY* of day-to-day tasks that don't require anything modern. If you spend most of your day writing documents in Microsoft Word - you can use Microsoft Word 5.0 from 1991 on a Macintosh Plus! Modern versions of Word can still read documents saved from Word 5.0 just fine. (Although Word 5.0 can't read modern documents.) Heck, I write Markdown documents regularly, and that doesn't need graphical editing, so I can use TextEdit/SimpleText/TeachText/Windows Notepad/DOS EDIT/emacs/vi to write my documents no problem.

If your job, like mine, involves a lot of "text mode command line" work remotely to servers, that can be accomplished by anything that can act as a serial terminal with a bridge Linux/UNIX box (that can itself be ancient, since newer ssh versions have been ported to basically every architecture, including A/UX.) The biggest annoyance of using an old system is that I'm used to 100+ columns, 50+ lines in my terminal window now, and I go through log messages where a single log message could overwhelm a 40x25 display.

For my day-to-day work, the biggest barrier is that I am on a lot of Zoom/Google Meet/WebEx calls every day (yes, a mix of all three,) including video. There is no way to join a WebEx video call, with video, on an older system. And I demo my company's web-based product on these calls - can't do screen sharing on older systems, even if I could get our website to load on older browsers. (On a lark, I did hack a demo copy of our product to remove SSL, and the login screen loaded on Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 - I filed a bug with our UI designer complaining that it didn't render properly. He laughed.)

In summary: Use the right tool for the job.

 

[Amethyst1]

What's strange looking about it?

The fact that back in 2000, a genuine text file looked like that on Windows:

 

[mj_]

The end results from this super sophisticated software and the mighty hardware that's necessary to run it - outside of industrial, research and military applications, is no better than that made on 90s machines.
Music, art, design, literature - all of these things have made no qualitative leap.

The end result of this super sophisticated software is a world that has been plunged into a worldwide pandemic the likes of which it hasn't experieced since 1918 and still managed to send a huge percentage of its workforce home without prior notice to continue working from home

Music, art, design, and literature may not be the best benchmark to measure technological development. Neither is the average life expectency of a Mongolian prairie chicken by the way, because that would be just as pointless.

 

[wnlewis]

Lions! And Tigers! And Bears! Oh my!

On Sunday, I turned off the ViewSonic P815 that I use with the Sawtooth (AGP) G4 that is my go to machine for many things. I left the computer on.

When I pushed the power switch on the P815. The screen stayed dark, although the signal light indicated that I was getting a signal from the video card - an ATI Rage 128 Pro Mac Edition AGP 2x card.

The card has had a failing fan (the original Apple cards did not have fans, the ATI cards of the same specifications, did have fans) for quite a while. What I did not know was the fan had stopped completely for quite a while.

I pulled the card, cleaned it carefully, pulled the fan, oiled it, and reinstalled the card. I also checked the other cards and made sure they were seated.

This time when I turned on the P815 the green light came on but it blinked three times, which is an error code that says something has failed.I would like to fix the monitor. The tube is still good and it is an Engineering grade monitor.

So, I conected a newer newer ACER display with a VGA cable. I got it to power up and give the Apple logo and show the desktop. It did not do the display of the initial startup sequence. It ran for about three minutes and then the "null" warning sign displayed. So I pushed the power button on the computer and shut it down.

I tried the DVI cable. I got the complete startup routine, but in about three minutes the "null" sign appeared and the computer locked up again.

I then got out the DiskWarrior disk Rev. 810, popped that in, and booted the computer.

It was working. About 7 or 8 minutes into the procedure, the "null" sign appeared and the computer locked up.

Now I need to determine if the problem lies with: the SSD that I was checking, the video card (I hope), the power supply (it's been several year since it was replaced), the main processor on my Sonnet 1.0 GHz upgrade card, the mother board (I replaced the original with the second reversion of the motherboard that allows dual processors), or something else entirely - like maybe bad RAM (at least 15 years old).

The DiskWarrior disk has been consistently capable, and that's software. It has never resulted in a "null" sign lockup.

So, I think I am looking at hardware issues. What test methods can I use on each of the systems? Thanks for the help.

 

[m1maverick]

The fact that back in 2000, a genuine text file looked like that on Windows:

View attachment 1703135

How is the typical end user supposed to know what is and is not genuine? Is this a genuine icon for a text file?

How about this?

 

[Amethyst1]

How is the typical end user supposed to know what is and is not genuine?

Sorry if I'm being arrogant, but a "typical user" should know what a text file looks like on their system. These aren't that uncommon. And what about not opening mails/attachments from senders you don't know?

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Sorry if I'm being arrogant, but a typical user should know what a text file looks like on their system. These aren't that uncommon. And what about not opening mails/attachments from senders you don't know?

To be fair, this was still during what is probably the early adoption phase of the internet in the home.

Also, I feel we're diverging from the topic of this thread, and the terms "average user" and "typical user" don't fill me with much joy

 

[Amethyst1]

the terms "average user" and "typical user" don't fill me with much joy

Couldn't agree more! I should have written "any user".

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Couldn't agree more! I should have written "any user".

Aha, I do like that classification better. I do wish that training materials were more readily available back in the day, I feel like things would be a lot better now had more people been able to receive a proper education on the devices they were purchasing back then.

 

[Dronecatcher]

The end result of this super sophisticated software is a world that has been plunged into a worldwide pandemic the likes of which it hasn't experieced since 1918 and still managed to send a huge percentage of its workforce home without prior notice to continue working from home

Funny you should use that as an example, kind of proves my point how uniquely screwed up we have become.

Music, art, design, and literature may not be the best benchmark to measure technological development.

Cultural and artistic endeavors are the very pinnacle of what we can aspire to as a civilisation.

 

[mj_]

Cultural and artistic endeavors are the very pinnacle of what we can aspire to as a civilisation.

I respectfully disagree, but I also feel that this has gone far enough and is no longer in any way relevant to this thread.

I would like to sincerely apologize for derailing this thread with my initial question. This is the internet, I should have known better. I want to thank everybody who took my question seriously and attempted to provide me with an answer, additional insight, and a great opportunity to exchange opinions. I wish everybody partaking in this challenge all the best and, most importantly, a wonderful time.

 

[r34per]

I think i'll give the challenge a try this year, though would using an IBM power 720 be cheating?

 

[repairedCheese]

I think i'll give the challenge a try this year, though would using an IBM power 720 be cheating?

Considering I saw a video involving a PC card running inside a 68k Amiga to take part in DOSember, I think you'd be fine!

 

[z970]

@mj_ Truth be told, I disagree as well. In my own opinion, the marriage of both spiritual and scientific enlightenment should be more important goals as a species and civilization than art and culture, although the latter are still very important parts to our general collective output if at the end of the day we wish to possess any real substance at all.

No need to apologize - transmission of thought is a fluid event and will inevitably sway from one topic to another. Echo chambers are no good for anyone, so please rest assured that we greatly appreciate your valuable differences in perspective, and that we too, wish you the highest of experiences in an excellent year to come.

@r34per I would very much like to see an IBM POWER 720 in action.

 

[m1maverick]

Sorry if I'm being arrogant, but a "typical user" should know what a text file looks like on their system. These aren't that uncommon. And what about not opening mails/attachments from senders you don't know?

Why should they know? In my example I provided two genuine icons for a text file but they look different. Why would a typical user know what is and is not a genuine icon? Especially when they change? UI elements change regularly so why would a typical user know that one is genuine and another it not?