HN user
Recovering sysadmin. Finnish weirdo. Totally not a robot.
I wish someone would just write a clear description of that magic version of REPL that isn't a REPL. Maybe also a demo. And how to get the actual pristine source out once you've done development on a running image. Maybe we could be enlightened. The complaining clearly isn't doing it. Articles like this one didn't succeed either. Pointing at Slack surely isn't going to do it.
Apart from better (luck with) enclosures, cables, and power, probably not. USB-SATA bridges are notoriously flaky.
The models that are a crappy PC can, almost like any or other crappy PC. Some have a very tiny DOM that might or might not be enough for a recent system. Of course, once the system is minimally up, it can use the big disk for software. No idea if any have special weaseling on them, but you can always search for the model and e.g. Debian (that tends to have best hits). Running with read-only root or just initrd is also quite possible.
The ARM models tend to be very very very slow and small and have architectures that are obsoleted in many Linux distributions combined with hardware that's weird enough that NetBSD doesn't support it (e.g. LAN chip or SATA, which you might need in a NAS). And yes, looking at NetBSD pages and build configs is one avenue for finding well supported devices. Although the documentation isn't great or complete. Some models may also have weird boot sequences or rescue modes that are extra hassle.
I keep wondering if a neat little buildroot config would work with some of these devices. Other odd options would be https://armbian.com/boards and https://openwrt.org/supported_devices .
That will be a single point of failure, though. (Which you might not care about depending on the backup strategy.)
You might want to re-read the hn guidelines.
Usually both at the same time. Soldered on the board and unchangeable.
Or a bumper sticker, so license plate scanners can enjoy it, too.
I wonder if people today remember BIND's history with security.
One obvious target might be rewriting from an unsupported, broken, and/or obsolete target to something that still works. Or moving a project from a platform that no other system in the company uses to the same setup that all the others use.
Of course it won't quite work, but I can definitely see why some people would want that.
Have you ever tried to indulge an all-consuming urge to kill when you don't have opposable thumbs? Or hands? Or anything other than a bread slot?
https://community.frame.work/t/noisy-psu-fan/74751
Well, almost. Maybe. Not all units. But probably.
Yes. There's the obvious difference of "it's a working printer" and desirable and useful product. You don't need to be state of the art to be in the first category was my thought.
I'm thinking of everything working on the principle of smashing an inked ribbon into paper to make markings.
Would be interesting to see that. I used to build it on Coherent, HP-UX, and Aix at least IIRC. Maybe others. It was kind of fun except for all the curses and termcaps.
The page mentions there's an emulator that should be able to run it. Don't know if there's a local copy that could be used along with some method to transfer the sources. Cloud boxes might not suffice.
Yes. It was a pretty big chunk, too. Floppies were around 880k and base model RAM sizes were 512k to few MB. Having better part of a meg of libraries in ROM really helps fit more stuff in. And it was possible to load RAM patches or shadow things IIRC.
Yes, and it really was just a Disk Operating System.
It is. Just with web tacked on to make it worse.
Kind of like Usenet, but with web crap.
"From scratch", ie raw materials only, probably limits the results to plotters until you've bootstrapped some presicion machinery. And electronics. How many parts you're allowed is going to be an arbitrary choice anyway.
But the heads being disposable and one day unavailable is kind of a valid concern if a new source doesn't eventually turn up.
There was no reason to sell a dot matrix printer that wasn't compatible with tractor feed. Especially when some of the biggest uses of those printers required that stock. Doesn't mean they required tractor feed paper to operate.
A Matrix printer is essentially a typewriter with extra steps and typewriters had been eating any paper for .. a century before?
2400 dpi is not the bar for entry, though. Even 240 would qualify as a printer, albeit not a good one (SOTA in 1995 maybe).
Practically infinite number of persons in law enforcement and blackmail businesses absolutely would accuse you.
That's still a terribly small bus factor.
The skill isn't the plowing. The skill is thinking and learning and the ability that atrophies is that of mental effort (which is what drives thinking and learning). Losing those will affect people's lives and potentially even their humanity.
It did not. There are professional horse shoers like there always were. Not in huge numbers, but there are. Domesticated horses didn't just disappear from the world.
They are usually ludicrously expensive. But since Chinese manufacturers started using them for various small machine (3d printer, engraver...) frames, there's a now finally a cheaper supply.
Probably the idea is to have one big AC-DC PSU and then separate DC-DC regulators for each box from that rail.
"Priceless"
Check https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48705076
The top model is a little over 2k, though.