>> “There are two types of people: those who have suffered a catastrophic loss of data, and those who will.”
Also "There are just two types of equipment; those which are already broken and those which will be broken".
I've found a good way to point out anyone thinking right direction not to trust their valuable data in any single entity, product, location, etc.
When I heard it decades ago IIRC 80's Nokia Data Unix courses I went. The distinction made Backups is just 1/3 of the triad Redundancy, Backups, Archives.
1) Redundancy is what you get using RAID, multiple network connectivity etc. ie. good for avoiding single point of failures and avoiding loss service or product availability.
2) Backups are for recovering lost data needed returning lost running known state right before fault or some time state before what backup schedule and used rotation cycle can provide.
3) Archives are meant to saving valuable data not expected to change or active use and but there is need saving much longer periods.
Not seeing and understanding usefulness of difference between these seem hard some people I met over decades. Which then led to confusion, not knowing what they are up to with their data and also often later disappointment when they found out that for example backup programs are not great if you expected archiving instead.
I've listened through those flights few times and it still each time takes me back to memories still giving me goosebumps. Especially Apollo 11 when I was nine year old kid listening tiny battery radio all nights at our summer cottage attic.
I don’t usually get parenting right but the stars lined up for this one: I got hold of the Lego Saturn V kit (1969 pieces!) and my two kids and I built it over a few days while listening to this in the background. Last piece on right about the time “the Eagle has landed.”
That's so cool. I feel like society did a bad job passing on the torch of that throughout history to the newer generation, especially outside the US (I'm not an American), so a lot of us are really disconnected with what went down outside of the US.
Many common SOC's MediaTek, Realtek, and Broadcom SOC's quite often used modern audio capable devices analog pins can be software defined either input or output.
IIRC I saw already Bruce Schneider's blog some team proof of concept where they listened using laptop speakers what was spoken in that room. Audio quality wasn't perfect, but it making sense what was spoken was good enough.
"…I saw already Bruce Schneider's blog some team proof of concept where they listened using laptop speakers what was spoken in that room."
Users need to know the electrical features of their H/W and its limits. If a loudspeaker output stage is designed (hardware wired) so that it can never act as an input then no later firmware update can turn the speaker into a microphone.
This is why hardware authentication is becoming more and more important.
Right, it's true that if there is an amplifier stage then it doesn't work. But some devices have had also tiny speakers used for for user interface audio feedback mechanism also used beeping error codes etc. Those SoC can drive that kind load of quite well directly and there is just a tiny speaker coil from IO-pins. That kind of speaker can function lousy microphones. That's what that PoC was all about.
First thing came now from long time ago my former aussie colleagues (mates) in Saudi when we worked there. That when you get out plane and are asked to show passport by the border guards. And they usually ask some the usual questions and then perhaps like
Q: Do you have ever committed a crime or have criminal record?
For heavens sake even though down under they understand jokes, do not try your luck with an answer:
A: Is it still required? :)
Depending the person interviewing and how bad day have had already, they may get you some feedback and give a lesson. I don't know if this is true, but that what those colleagues then told and I think I'm gonna believe and not try joking in that situation.
Right, that ROM BASIC was such a waste for them for years.
Some clone makers quickly found out ways take advantage of that space adding more RAM there. Then bit later it came area where you could even map over 1MB placed memory blocks there with a config.sys loaded driver.
>Why do you think Windows is currently such a mess?
There have been some writings and posts here about Microsoft. Here is one from last spring, from a guy that was long time Windows core developer and moved to Azure group. It's well worth reading, what he writes about challenges they have had and most likely still have if not even worse now.
I have read that, yeah it also shows a lot how things changed.
As per his interview on Dave's Garage, besides being of an age where he really doesn't need to work, at the time he was involved on getting Linux running on XBox on Azure, apparently Microsoft uses idle consoles from XBox Cloud for AI.
It is, but some tools like Turbo C did provide asm generating switch (-S AFAIK) directly you to use and saved you from using debug.com or any better disassembler.
Sure, it wasn't uncommon feature at all, but many fellows I knew had not noticed it before I suggested using it when a colleague or a friend was wondering how he would write that function assembler and try to make it faster.
It tells me more about some people not being curious enough to read documents and explore environment they work than others apparently.
Assembler generating was long time a standard feature of compilers simply because writing the assembler code was easier than directly runnable or linkable object code. And for language designer and compiler programmer it was easier to read verifying correct code generating that way. Why bother writing assembly compiler, linker etc. when you usually already had them in the system that time.
Then later it changed bit as vendors did not any more ship any or just some crippled compliers to compile just a new kernel with the base system to curb their language competition. Which made third party compilers had to either provide with complete set their own creating executables or ask buyer also licensing system vendor compiler toolkit which they would not otherwise need. That then caused prospect third party compiler customer add that licensing fee top of offering and compared which option they would buy if any. That was time when developement toolkits started changing. Under MS-DOS there never was compiler shipped with it that was a situation all the time, but with the minis and larger systems more what described here above.
ps. I think you get much too wound up about C-language. For a long time there was no real alternative use to cross environments compatible way developing thing without major rewrite each platform. That what mattered more than anything else then and in some sense also to some these days also. And no language needs to be put on pedestal like you wrote message you already changed or deleted so that I did not get to answer.
> Assembler generating was long time a standard feature of compilers simply because writing the assembler code was easier than directly runnable or linkable object code. And for language designer and compiler programmer it was easier to read verifying correct code generating that way. Why bother writing assembly compiler, linker etc. when you usually already had them in the system that time.
It's easier to directly generate binary object code than assembly. It also makes for a way, way faster compiler. Also, one of the first programs I wrote when developing my compiler was an object file disassembler.
Yes, mostly proprietary third party systems which abtracted complexities away from programmers placing their trust to that often not even sure your language vendor was not belly up or with good luck purchased by someone else who then told you we do not support it any more next year. And left you to deal with that. Not fun, not even close I may add. I know who weren't so lucky and had to gather pieces at least mostly rewriting things again new toolkit.
Software development invests in that written code and you learn to appreciate that when you got a lot of it understanding how large and costly task it would be to rewrite another language. Especially then it was that. Now LLM's, much better IDE's etc help a lot with that. Today standards thinking you do not make fair comparison what it was back then.
>...have you ever tried to write portable C code in K&R C without it being full of #ifdefs?
Yes I have done it, not just tried. It wasn't too bad after all when you knew how to do it. Most of systems dependent were hidden away by ourselves to .h files and some to libraries we did. That time it was common thing to teach even, and if not learn from others code how to do it.
That way we knew we had better chance easier to port it something even remotely close existing kind of platforms and OS's. Investment in written software as too great to ignore.
But, did you lately or when did last time write software without relying those abstractions being hidden away either device vendor language libraries or third parties modules?
While you think of it, let me tell you that this situation where we are now is so much much less diversity with our target systems and plenty of programming languages with multitude of good libraries and ready made modules do not compare at all to what situation was end of 80's. Comparing software development effort today's languages and tools by then doesn't make sense at all. Everything was so much slower and time consuming.
That area where C-language is still relevant is now much narrower, but there still are niches where I understand it fairly well. I also understand that you don't get it but that is not a my problem, it's more of a you problem if that irritates you from my point of viewing this matter.
But whatever written here for before above, I see no value continuing this argument with you any more. If you haven't this far understood what I tried conveying there is no hope with me you will eventually get what I try to explain.
That was one example among many others that I could have chosen from compiled languages, I just happened to chose the very first successful one.
I might also add that I was surprised that you lost an opportunity to advocate for D, which what I was actually hitting for with that remark alongside a smiley.
Some people forget not only is Fortran one of the few languages with first class support for GPU programming, and one of the reasons OpenCL lost, it has all the goodies of modern languages.
I used it as example, as I could have used any other compiled language, including D.
But when Turbo C with assembler (TASM) came out those were just great. And by that asm output generating feature it was often way faster way to write something first in C, translate to asm and go from there do what you wanted with that asm directly. I'm not sure which higher level compilers came with that feature, but once available it was many times just great thing to have for sure.
And file handles stdin, stdout, stderr same file numbers also. There was and still is overlapping features with Microsoft later and current operating systems.
Linked post is quite good and had forgotten completely XEDOS mentioned Byte article.
It did, and also up till 3.0 (thus 2.10 and 2.11) had also SWITCHAR which you could change command options character / to - like in it was in UNIX convention, from CONFIG.SYS definition.
The problem with changing / to - was, that under MS-DOS command line parsing was left completely to a a loaded program, which then would had to know how to find out this change and act accordingly. And if not only MS-DOS std. utilities behaved properly and others not so much. Thus causing confusion which perhaps then lead to dropping that feature 3.0 onwards.
I think it was also before 2.0 or at least what delivered with Apricot PC (UK made PC) 1.25 which I tinkered with few days as we had it on display from Finnish importer ARAIC Rautakirja Oy (Finnish railways VR magazines and other related travel reading importer, also keeper of the R-kiosks). A very nicely built non IBM PC compatible PC with good graphics and then uncommon 3.5" 70kb disk drives before Apple Macintosh made the more popular.
e: Now did it change also path separator from \ to / ?
It may have done it also. I bit later work more with Xenix and can't remember for sure. Starting from 286 versions SvR2.x, 386 SvR3.x up till SCO UNIX SVR4 early 90's and less with MS-DOS besides maintaining couple of TSR's I had written and just checked every MS-DOS release that those still did work.
I think I did have some time early -90's someone did alternative C0.lib which actually when you linked it with your programs it made much easier porting some *nix software to MS-DOS. No need to make modifications command line handler, as that modified startup-library as I think it's or was called, did what was needed.
It was then COMMAND.COM ie. Dos command line did not do that. And there were alternatives like something called 4DOS which I did never use, but those could have done it. Or did they?
I have't used Windows for quite long time. And I do not know if CMD.EXE or PowerShell whatever its name are any better. Maybe someone knowing would like to comment this.
This isn't so much a cmd thing as a fundamental Windows API thing. CreateProcess takes in the entire command line as a single string.
Powershell is a completely different model where native commands run in-process, you can import commands and invoke APIs from arbitrary .NET assemblies, and then the PS runtime handles all argument parsing (and many other things). But it also lets you invoke and interop with arbitrary command-line executables and then those do their own parsing like they always have.
>This isn't so much a cmd thing as a fundamental Windows API thing. CreateProcess takes in the entire command line as a single string.
So is that CreateProcess much different from nix execve() which passes just a pointer to string of executable first followed by pointers to arguments *argv[], and process environment same way *envp[]?
Thus it is the shell which responsibility is to expand all wildcards before passing to that executable arguments nix systems, which do not expand any wildcards itself before passing to executed program.
I'm no Windows programmer so, genuinely what's the difference from point of executed program and just that Windows any shells do not expand wildcards etc. ?
My previous post when I did mention that alternative c0.obj (not lib, sorry) that I for example had about 36 years ago from somewhere was a nifty modified trick which took that plain dumb MS-DOS COMMAND.COM passed string and instead just making it a char *argv[] array first expanded wildcards before your main() got control. It did work very well and saved quite bit of effort when I ported some tools to MS-DOS and I think there was another version of it for OS/2 (1.something) that I used also.
I did not have to add ported software from unix any command line expanding code myself because that alternative startup c0.obj did it for me. Shame I do not remember where I got it and who did it, but it was really good. Now thinking of it perhaps it was from Compu$erve some forum or WSMR-SIMTEL20 archive.
I remember that also Fabrice Bellards lzexe and something spawnsq() (not sure about exact name any more) library also was in use. The latter swapped (saved out file) out running most of MS-DOS program before executing like execve() and freed a lot more memory to run that other program then loading it back when called program was done. I think it used something like 8k memory while resident when other called was running. Which was often enough and no need do any horrible .BAT rewrite tricks to able to accomplish same functionality.
PowerShell has a built-in command parser that all cmdlets share (provided commands; `function` based command scripts; so forth) and it's in a C# library that other .NET-based CLIs can import if they like (though today it's still not that common in writing .NET CLIs to use PowerShell's command parser and not a simpler one or the new-ish System.CommandLine which also doesn't quite resemble PowerShell's built-in one).
no, Windows still leaves that to the program. Usually handled by the msvc runtime for argv/argc, but the base windows API is GetCommandLine, giving you a single string.
Also "There are just two types of equipment; those which are already broken and those which will be broken".
I've found a good way to point out anyone thinking right direction not to trust their valuable data in any single entity, product, location, etc.
When I heard it decades ago IIRC 80's Nokia Data Unix courses I went. The distinction made Backups is just 1/3 of the triad Redundancy, Backups, Archives.
1) Redundancy is what you get using RAID, multiple network connectivity etc. ie. good for avoiding single point of failures and avoiding loss service or product availability.
2) Backups are for recovering lost data needed returning lost running known state right before fault or some time state before what backup schedule and used rotation cycle can provide.
3) Archives are meant to saving valuable data not expected to change or active use and but there is need saving much longer periods.
Not seeing and understanding usefulness of difference between these seem hard some people I met over decades. Which then led to confusion, not knowing what they are up to with their data and also often later disappointment when they found out that for example backup programs are not great if you expected archiving instead.
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