I feel like it's a little weird that Intel and Apple have been doing that
lately (new CPU each year). With the yearly new CPU models, it seems
Capitalism my friend. Sadly it is the only way people think, and not so much about societal value or impact of these practices.
Sometimes that is difficult, but many times an understand of general
logic
will go a long way to getting you from A to B. During COVID, we had a developer pass away unexpectedly. I am a COBOL programmer by trade. I
had
to pick up at least a basic knowledge of SAS coding (mainframe and PC) pretty quickly. There was actually a third language that a couple of
2. Juggling the order (and command line switches) for device drivers in autoexec.bat and config.sys for maximum free memory (via "loadhigh", "devicehigh", EMM, EMS, etc. (This assumes we're going all the way back to MSDOS days). ;-)
I feel like it's a little weird that Intel and Apple have been doing that lately (new CPU each year). With the yearly new CPU models, it seems
like the changes are pretty small. Some time ago, I remember seeing some
Nightfox wrote to Gamgee <=-
Re: Re: Hi all!
By: Gamgee to Digital Man on Sun Aug 31 2025 10:00 pm
2. Juggling the order (and command line switches) for device drivers in autoexec.bat and config.sys for maximum free memory (via "loadhigh", "devicehigh", EMM, EMS, etc. (This assumes we're going all the way back to MSDOS days). ;-)
One of my favorite featues added in MS-DOS 6 was the ability to have multiple boot configurations. You could modify your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT with different sections which would have different
settings & drivers loaded (or not loaded) when you boot up. This way,
if any of your software required a different system configuration in
order to run, you could easily reboot and choose the other
configuration from a menu that MS-DOS would show you (it also had a default configuration which would automatically be selected, if I
recall).
My current desktop computer from 2014 sports an Intel Celeron at 1.99 GHz, though, and is running Windows 11, so I think something newer will fly in comparison regardless of what it is. :-D
Except in Intel's case it - capitalism - isn't working. They are selling a percentage of their business to the federal government - another form of bailout - to keep from going under.
Except in Intel's case it - capitalism - isn't working. They are selling a
percentage of their business to the federal government - another form of bailout - to keep from going under.
Technically, the US government is taking stock in exchange for funds already promised to Intel under Biden's US Chips and Science act, and funds already granted through the Secure Enclave Program.
How did you manage to install Windows 11 on that? My understanding is that Windows 11 requires PCs with TPM, and I didn't think PCs that old
had any TPM functionality.
How did you manage to install Windows 11 on that? My understanding is
that Windows 11 requires PCs with TPM, and I didn't think PCs that old
had any TPM functionality.
You're right! I used Flyby11 (https://github.com/builtbybel/Flyby11) which more or less is a somewhat simplified way of/guide for downloading the Windows 11 ISO, mounting it, and executing a "Windows Server" upgrade (a special flag to the setup program, which skips the hardware checks). You can choose to keep all your files and settings during the upgrade. Worked like a charm!
Not sure how the absence of a TPM affects things -- maybe things like BitLocker and similar won't work (but I wasn't using that in Windows 10 either)...
Interesting.. Good to know. And are you using a purchased Windows 11 serial too? It would be interesting to know if an activated Windows 11 will work on an older PC. If so, I'd consider doing that with my 2014 Lenovo laptop.
TPM is just a security feature that uses cryptography to protect against malware. So I suspect Windows could run fine without it and without the additional security checks.
Interesting.. Good to know. And are you using a purchased Windows 11
serial too? It would be interesting to know if an activated Windows 11
will work on an older PC. If so, I'd consider doing that with my 2014
Lenovo laptop.
It came with Windows 8.1 "with Bing" :-D on it when it was new in late 2014, then I applied the free upgrade to Windows 10 Home when that was offered by Microsoft, and then upgraded it to Windows 11 Home using Flyby11 earlier this summer. So it (still) says that it's activated through a digital license.
4. On my first PC (a Kaypro PC), I upgraded the 8088 CPU to a VIC-20
and it was a noticeable speed increase.
Ahhhhh - the good old days!! :-)
Hi there. I'm scarface from New Zealand. I'm pretty new to BBS's, mainly just been playing the games (poorly haha). I've also been lurking the message board a bit and thought I should take the time to introduce myself.
I'm a child of the late 80's, brought up with a mix of DOS, Debian, and various window's starting from 3.11. I've gotten to know a lot more
about computers ever since, but always know there is heaps more out
there to learn.
In recent years, I mainly use linux, but dabblein other OS's in VM's. sc> I've also made a decent effort at my own OS for the x86, purely for the sc> learning opportunity of learning x86 assembly.
For work, I started off a sysadmin at my dad's work, then did university and whatnot. After uni I've been a web developer, security consultant.
On the side I do various projects in a bunch of languages. I like trying things out, even "esoteric" stuff.
I'm probably a bit younger than the average age, but is nice to see
there are even younger folks getting engaged with this sort of
technology. I worry sometimes about the direction of the software industry. I'm not so sure it is always going forward haha.
Anyhow, that's me. Using SyncTERM from ubuntu. Happy for recommendations of other clients to enjoy this though!i just use mtcp telnet for my 286 and dctelnet for my amiga 2000hd
Digital Man wrote to Gamgee <=-
4. On my first PC (a Kaypro PC), I upgraded the 8088 CPU to a VIC-20
and it was a noticeable speed increase.
NEC V20, yup, did that one too. And had a VIC-20 before an Apple or IBM/clone PC to boot. :-)
Ahhhhh - the good old days!! :-)
Yup. There was a project at my last job where we were developing a wireless hand held controller for something and each needed a unique address and there was this chicken-and-the-egg concept of how to
program the initial address for each. I suggested adding/using DIP switches for the unique address (only the lower 8-bits needed to be unique). They (the young'n hardware designers) were like... "what's a
dip switch? Hey that looks useful - let's use that". And so the controllers have DIP switches and no bespoke/bizarre provisioning
system needed. Some times the old way is still the best way.
Ah, interesting. Maybe I'll try to upgrade Windows on my laptop that
way. Thanks for sharing!
assembly. u should dabble in FreeDOS's kernel it is reaLLY COOL AND SUCH!
tenser wrote to Digital Man <=-
Much of this is good; consider PCI interrupt routing. Instead of
four level-triggered interrupt lines that require magic to discover
how they map to a physical line on a 8259A or IOAPIC, and because
they are separate signals from memory may outpace DMA, MSI/MSI-X
over the memory fabric is both much simpler and more rational. I consider LBA similarly a strict improvement over CHS, and even
NVMe is much saner than SATA+AHCI. Memory-mapped IO accesses for
PCIe config space beat the pants off of the legacy port-based ECAM
stuff.
My clicky FOCUS 2001 keyboard - I miss that to this day!
tenser wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
My clicky FOCUS 2001 keyboard - I miss that to this day!
Hey! I had one of those; loved that thing!
Hi there. I'm scarface from New Zealand. I'm pretty new to BBS's, mainly j been playing the games (poorly haha). I've also been lurking the message b
Hi there. I'm scarface from New Zealand. I'm pretty new to BBS's, mainly j
I'm a child of the late 80's, brought up with a mix of DOS, Debian, and va window's starting from 3.11. I've gotten to know a lot more about computer ever since, but always know there is heaps more out there to learn.
In recent years, I mainly use linux, but dabble in other OS's in VM's. I'v also made a decent effort at my own OS for the x86, purely for the learnin opportunity of learning x86 assembly.
Anyhow, that's me. Using SyncTERM from ubuntu. Happy for recommendations o other clients to enjoy this though!
From what I remember, it wasn't common practice for CPUs until Intel start their Core i3/i5/i7 line (in 2009, I think?) and they started making new versions every year. I remember with the 286, 386, etc., it was maybe 3-4 years between new generations of a CPU, and in the meantime, you'd mainly see faster versions (higher megahertz) and different variants sometimes, s as SX and DX, etc..
Digital Man wrote to Nightfox <=-And don't forget -
3. Swapping out the UART chips on the MB (or expansion serial card) to use the high-speed 16550 UARTs, to properly use 19200/33600,56K modem speeds.
4. On my first PC (a Kaypro PC), I upgraded the 8088 CPU to a VIC-20
and it was a noticeable speed increase.
6. Massive, complicated batch files to run a mailer and BBS package for FidoNet. For me it was FrontDoor (and later Intermail) and PCBoard. LOTS of errorlevels and branches for mail/callers/doors/maintenance. I still have my masterpiece batch file that made it all work together.
Ahhhhh - the good old days!! :-)
hyjinx wrote to Gamgee <=-
4. On my first PC (a Kaypro PC), I upgraded the 8088 CPU to a VIC-20
and it was a noticeable speed increase.
I think you mean V20 :) A VIC-20 is quite a different thing!
6. Massive, complicated batch files to run a mailer and BBS package for FidoNet. For me it was FrontDoor (and later Intermail) and PCBoard.
LOTS of errorlevels and branches for mail/callers/doors/maintenance. I still have my masterpiece batch file that made it all work together.
Ahhhhh - the good old days!! :-)
I was just about to say the same!
(I am writing this on an IBM 5160 XT though!)
8088 was the OG IBM PC CPU and that was a subset of the 1979-based 8086. I have a feeling that the 80186 was fairly early too, but that never saw much use. The 80286 was 1982 IIRC. The 80386 was 1985. The 80486 was 1989. Pentium was 1993, P2 1997, P3 1999, and then it started to change. This is around the time when I started to lose interest in PC hardware.
Hi there. I'm scarface from New Zealand. I'm pretty new to BBS's, mai
Hi from Wellington :)
Very cool that you got into assembly. I always found x86 a massive PITA
to be honest, just couldn't get the hang of doing everything in reverse. Coding in x86 real mode as well... urghh. How did you find it? What
tools did you use, and what books/resources did you use (i.e. did it
make learning it any easier?)
SyncTerm is great. NetRunner is probably the only other one that comes close, but SyncTerm is mostly what people these days use.
tenser wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
My clicky FOCUS 2001 keyboard - I miss that to this day!
Hey! I had one of those; loved that thing!
I think it was Northgate that made a similar keyboard. Clicky, but with
a light feel. I think it helped that I was single when I had it - with
my office adjacent open to my living room, I tried bringing out my
trusty IBM model M keyboard and was quickly vetoed.
I'm typing on a Logitech MX Master now, miss the klicky bits.
Re: Re: Hi all!
By: hyjinx to Nightfox on Sun Sep 07 2025 09:35 pm
Pentium was 1993, P2 1997, P3 1999, and then it started to change. Th around the time when I started to lose interest in PC hardware.
When you say you lost interest in PC hardware, did you switch to Mac? And around 2006 or so, Apple started using Intel processors for the Mac, so it basically using PC hardware too..
When computers started to become more about tools rather than objects of fun and tinkering. That's probably when I lost interest in the hardware.
By: hyjinx to Nightfox on Thu Sep 11 2025 09:01 pm
When computers started to become more about tools rather than objects fun and tinkering. That's probably when I lost interest in the hardwa
When was that? I feel like they're often still for fun and tinkering. I like they've been both for fun and tools for a long time.. You can still your own desktop PC if you want to, and these days, there are also DIY pro you can make with a Raspberry Pi board & similar things - There are a lot fun projects you can work on. And there are still good games for computer
Normal consumer computing (so, I wouldn't consider the RaspberryPI part of that) was fun and interesting. Every other month, you were wondering what new amazing tech was coming along - new graphics like the advances from 4 colours to 16, to 256, to millions, new CPUs which were significant marks better than the ones before. Exciting new operating systems that did things that no others did before it in some way or another. Untold amounts of tinkering, just for tinkerings sake.
Now Windows has been amounted to a big pile of advertising, CPUs are all pretty much meh, all the same, Graphics cards, whilst insane, are all just doing the same thing, just faster, PCs encouraged tinkering and upgrading, different computer types still existed on the market - Acorn Archimedes, Macintosh PPC/64k, Atari ST, Amiga and the 8 bits before them. Linux has been turned into a big lot of boring blah - enterprise kubernetes containerised IoT function deployers.
hyjinx wrote to Nightfox <=-
Now Windows has been amounted to a big pile of advertising, CPUs are
all pretty much meh, all the same, Graphics cards, whilst insane, are
all just doing the same thing, just faster, PCs encouraged tinkering
and upgrading, different computer types still existed on the market - Acorn Archimedes, Macintosh PPC/64k, Atari ST, Amiga and the 8 bits
before them. Linux has been turned into a big lot of boring blah - enterprise kubernetes containerised IoT function deployers.
I miss the days of Audacious Hardware Design. Give me a MIPS-powered
Silicon Graphics box in some fever-dream color, Pee-Wee's
playhouse-derived case design, and a kick-ass keyboard. Or a Sun Sparc.
Or one of those industrial design looking IBM RS/6000s.
tenser wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I miss the days of Audacious Hardware Design. Give me a MIPS-powered
Silicon Graphics box in some fever-dream color, Pee-Wee's
playhouse-derived case design, and a kick-ass keyboard. Or a Sun Sparc.
Or one of those industrial design looking IBM RS/6000s.
No love for DEC? Their later Alpha boxes looked pretty slick.
In 2000, I ran a company off of a Sun Enterprise 250 - Purple, gray,
big vents, a big door with a key... we replaced it with a bunch of
white boxes running Linux. :(
hyjinx wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Now it's a sea of beige, and a sea of beige operating systems.
tenser wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
No love for DEC? Their later Alpha boxes looked pretty slick.
A friend of mine couldn't bear to see a DEC Alpha being tossed out at work, so he brought it home. It ran NT 3.51 and IIS for way longer than
it should have - but it would not die.
When computers started to become more about tools rather than objects of fun and tinkering. That's probably when I lost interest in the hardware.
Now it's a sea of beige, and a sea of beige operating systems. Even
Linux has ceded ownership largely to a few big corps when it comes down
to it, excluding the kernel, for the most part anyway. But even that has parts coded by IBM, Microsoft, Google and others. Nothing is free any more. No more cathedral and the bazaar.
Why not upstream all of that? A great question, with a few different answers. One is that some of it couldn't; some stuff had been done
in collaboration with a vendor, under NDA, and Google was legally
barred from sending that code upstream. Some was because, even
though there was no significant intellectual property concerns, code
might be so Google-specific that it didn't make sense to send upstream; much of that is historical baggage, but getting rid of it takes time.
But probably the biggest reason was that it wasn't economically viable
for a lot of stuff. Google might make a change that was a win, but
for a specific, constrained use-case. It may be cool to upstream, but when it's sent someone looks at it and says, "yeah, this is neat, but
it only works for n=1; you should generalize it for any n." Except
that doing that generalization might be 10x the work of the current
patch: the engineer can't justify the investment because it provides
no additional value to Google, so it's easier to just float the patch.
Of course, over time, that decision is more expensive than doing the
work and getting the thing upstreamed, but we're talking about a 5-10
year timeline here.
This is a really interesting insight. I bet more people would like to
know the inner workings of contribution in the corporate fed open source world. If you'd ever consider wrapping this convo into dialogue that
you'd be willing to share to a wider audience, I'd love to interview you for the YouTube channel. Let me know if you're interested.
Heh, I don't know if you really want to interview me; I'm pretty
boring. But I'd be happy to chat with you some time if you'd like
to explore further.
Heh, I don't know if you really want to interview me; I'm pretty boring. But I'd be happy to chat with you some time if you'd like
to explore further.
Hehe, I disagree. You are definitley not boring. At least to the right target audience ;P
Seriously though, you seem to have a wealth of knowledge and experience and it's an absolute privilege to be able to get your insights into things.
I'd definitly watch an interview with you.
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