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Comment by rob74 | Hacker News Reader

I know there's a rule against posting titles like "How To Do X" in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, but in this case the title doesn't make sense without the "how" - of course Apple's developers reflashed Mac ROMs in the 90s, they had to do it as part of their job, the article is about how they did it.

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Submitters can edit titles after they submit a story, even in these cases AFAIK

Also "How X" != "How to X"

here in California there were zero instances of "flashing a ROM" among ordinary developers -- it was obviously illegal (maybe a reason) but also you just buy a Mac and get the rom image.. Macs were everywhere... fifty percent of the Macs in the world were in this area, by some measures at some time.

This was the nightmare of Apple from the early days and they actively pursued it. Also, intelligent people in the creative professions were inventing things.

Why was it illegal?

I think the poster (maybe someone’s AI experiment?) is on a tangent about replacing the standard Apple ROMs with your own versions? That wasn’t really a thing, but it wasn’t illegal either. What was illegal was copying Apple’s ROM code to sell in your own clone machines.

> maybe someone’s AI experiment?

if you take half-a-second, longer than I spent reading that article, you would know this is a personnel account, right? do you need to repeat "AI" rumors here ? It is neither amusing nor adding any substance to the topic IMHO

Hmm. You seem to be railing against something that is not related to the article. The article describes how Apple internal developers reflashed ROMs while developing the firmware for new prototype computers. This is something that Apple's developers had to do on a regular basis.

yes - my fault.. so it goes

You’re misreading the rule. Such titles are allowed.

If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

Just the relevant bit:

translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X"

I see you've never submitted anything. I suggest you try a few times, deal with the automatic title mangling, and then come back and tell us how you feel about this rule ;)

It's such a dumb rule to even have. If the article shows 10 Ways To Do X, then it is pretty accurate. How To Do X sounds like there is one way to do it, and it's being shown.

What happened to the don't editorialize rule, because that's exactly what's being done in the provided example. You're not just shortening an acceptable length title, but you've changed the meaning.

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