An AlphaStation’s SROM
The AlphaStation 500 is a workstation from Digital, circa 1996. Mine is a 500 MHz model and has an Alpha 21164A processor (aka EV56). And the way it boots is weird. On your common-or-garden PC, there has always been some kind of ROM chip. It holds a piece of firmware known as the BIOS. This ROM chip is available at a well-known location in the processor’s address space (remembering that any PC processor boots up in 16-bit, 8088 compatible mode, with a 1 MiB address space, just like an I … ⌘ Read more
Warren Buffett: growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us [pdf]
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Stargazing 4
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Debugging Lotus 1-2-3 by fax
Honestly, this would still be easier today than some of the bug reporting systems I’ve seen. ⌘ Read more
Windows 9x QuickInstall simplifies installing Windows 98
If you’re elbow-deep in ’90s retrocomputing and maintain a fleet of your own personal seemingly identical but definitely completely different Windows 98 machines, Windows 9x QuickInstall is tailor-made just for you. It takes the root file system of an already installed Windows 98 system and packages it, whilst allowing drivers and tools to be slipstreamed at will. For the installer, it uses Linux as a base, paired with … ⌘ Read more
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Markdown and the Slow Fade of the Formatting Fetish - a nice article about Markdown VS proprietary formatting. With quotes like "Microsoft Office works in an office where you pretend to work until you can finally go home." 😄
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@arne@uplegger.eu I’m very glad I only rarely have to deal with .docx & Co. And when I have to, 99% is in read mode only. Even though, I don’t think that Markdown is the best choice, I use it on a daily basis. Some things, like links, in reStructuredText are better in my opinion.
Jira just resists to switch to Markdown and forces us to use its silly markup language.
For real typesetting, LaTeX is the way to go. But I very, very rarely do that.
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@lyse I do agree "the rules of the web", are far too loose - at least the syntax ones. I do think backwards compatibility is necessary.
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@thecanine@twtxt.net My apologies, mate! :-( As @david@collantes.us pointed out, this was definitely not my intent at all.
For the easter egg hunt, I first looked for a hidden image map link on the pixel dog in the right lower corner itself. Maybe one giant pixel just links to somewhere else, I figured. But I couldn’t find any and then quickly moved on. Hence, I naturally viewed the HTML source. Because where else would be a good hiding place for easter eggs, right?
Next, I noticed the <font> tags. I thought I had read quite some time ago that they are not an HTML5 thing, but wasn’t entirely sure about it. So, I asked the W3C HTML validator. Sure enough. I thought I let you know about the violations. If somebody had found a mistake on my site, I’d love to hear about it, so I could fix it. I’m sorry that my chosen form of report didn’t resonate with you all that well. I reckoned you’ll also find it a bit funny, but I was clearly very wrong on that.
I actually followed the dog cow link to the video, so I ended up on the easter egg. However, I didn’t recognize it as such. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well.
Regarding my message about the browser quirks: I read your answer that you were arguing against the HTML validator findings. Of course, everybody can do with their sites whatever they likes.
Trump announces tariffs on all imports + 2 more stories
U.S. faces global import tariffs; CERN unveils plans for 91km collider; Russia seeks to legalize Taliban. ⌘ Read more