betamaxthetape

This is certainly a good reminder to have regular backups. I have (had?) a VPS in SBG1, the shipping-container-based data centre in the Strasbourg site, and the latest I know is that out of the 12 containers, 8 are OK but 4 are destroyed [1]. Regardless, I imagine it will be weeks / probably months before even the OK servers can be brought back online.

Naturally, I didn't do regular backups. Most of the data I have from a 2019 backup, but there's a metadata database that I don't have a copy of, and will need to reconstruct from scratch. Thankfully for my case reconstructing will be possible - I know that's not the case for everyone.

Right now I'm feeling pretty stupid, but I only have myself to blame. For their part, OVH have been really good at keeping everyone updated (particularly the Founder and CEO, Octave Klaba).

I believe that when I signed up back in 2017, the Strasbourg location was advertised as one of the cheapest, so I can imagine a lot of people with a ~$4 / month OVH VPS are in the same situation, desperately scrambling to find a backup.

(For those that have a OVH VPS that's down right now, you can find what location it is in by logging onto the OVH control panel.)

[1] https://twitter.com/olesovhcom/status/1369598998441558016

This is amazing. I had a play around with it whilst it was in beta, and was blown away by the variety of papers returned. On a whim I searched for a very obscure topic that I'd researched before (just for personal interest) in the past using worldcat / google scholar, and to my surprise was presented with several highly relevant papers I'd never come across before, that were exactly what I was looking for.

As someone who always used the Ctrl-P keyboard shortcut, I never even knew that a print-with-preview interface existed in Firefox.

While there are only minor changes between VSCode and the open source builds, increasingly the ecosystem around VSCode is becoming proprietary. For example, the Remote Development extension is proprietary[1].

[1] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/faq#_why-arent-the...

As someone who as expressed concerns about the Hippocratic license in the past, it is 100% about the term Open Source.

As noted in my earlier comment, this new organisation may(?) be signalling a change where the term "Ethical Source" is used - I think that is a much better name for these sorts of licenses.

This has been pointed out before, but the Hippocratic license is not an open source license as defined by the OSI[1]. The author of the licence, Coraline Ada Ehmke, argues that OSI does not define what is and isn't open source[2]. My personal view is that re-using a well-established name (brand?) for a purpose not aligning to the brand's mission[3] is disingenuous. On a broader level I don't think it will be helpful to either side: detracting from true open source licences on one side and detracting from arguments made by Coraline on the other (since every announcement will be subject to comments like this).

That's why I'm pleased that the new organisation is called the Organization for Ethical Source. I think that there are plenty of interesting arguments around the Hippocratic licence, and calling it "Ethical Source" would be (IMHO) a much better term, both from describing what it does and avoiding the comparisons to open source licenses / criticisms from open source purists.

[1] https://twitter.com/OpenSourceOrg/status/1176229398929977344

[2] https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1175878569169432582

[3] https://opensource.org/osd

Jason Scott (textfiles on HN) explained[1] the main reasons that make several people (including myself) uncomfortable with KyroFlux.

(sidenote: the author of FluxEngine[2] replied to that thread, which is where I first heard about it)

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/buyj9f/ti...

[2] http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/

Earlier today there was discussion of the FluxEngine[1], due to it's newly added Mac 800k disk read/support (OK, it had read for a while, but now it can both read and write).

What I love about the FluxEngine is that it is so simple - no custom PCBs, just a single PSOC development board with a single set of soldered header pins.

Not saying that the other alternatives are bad - it's great to have competition. For several years it seemed that KryoFlux would be the sole dominant USB floppy controller, nice to see there's a range of options available.

Edit: seems as though FluxEngine may gain support for using GreaseWeazle hardware[2] at some point, which would be neat!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25656283

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25675381

This is why I was so excited when I heard about this. I have a Mac Classic II in the role of "transfer station" - it has a SuperDrive (the floppy drive, not the CD/DVD drive), so can read both standard IBM 1.44MB disks as well as the Mac 800K ones. But it's been getting a bit temperamental recently, mainly due to failing capacitors and an old SCSI hard drive.

FluxEngine completely eliminates the need for it - I can download a 800k system disk image, write it to a physical floppy disk, and use that. What's more, transferring individual files is easy now too: I can read back the physical disk to a DiskCopy image, and either mount that in an emulator such as Mini vMac, or convert[1] it to a raw disk image and mount it with hmount[2]. (The reverse process is similar).

[1] https://www.bigmessowires.com/2013/12/16/macintosh-diskcopy-...

[2] https://linux.die.net/man/1/hfsutils

I thought that was neat too (and the video itself was awesome), however I do with that they had hidden the gif when the video begins playing. Most modern machines won't mind, but my older machine didn't like having to play a video whilst also render an animated gif in the background - it managed, but the CPU shot up considerably.

Take a look at the Creative Commons licenses[1]. All but one of them (CC0 - the Public Domain one) require any copies / remixes of the work to display attribution. As the creator, you can specify how you want the attribution, such as with a link back to the website. (There's a fall-back in the license to a default attribution if you don't specify how you want the attribution).

Creative Commons have a license chooser[2] to help people find the right license for them. It asks two simple questions:

* Do you want people to be able to share adapted versions of your work?

* Do you want people to be able to use your work commercially?

And from your answers to those, recommends a suitable Creative Commons license.

Of course, there are plenty of other licenses out there, but Creative Commons is good because it is widely known and used.

[1] https://creativecommons.org/

[2] https://creativecommons.org/choose/

What a great site! I've flicked through a few of the videos and really like the style.

My one nitpick / thought would be that the terms of service[1] are a bit limiting. I wasn't expecting Creative Commons (although it's always great to see CC-licensed educational materials), but expressly forbidding any commercial use is a bit of a shame - what if someone is learning as part of a job? The terms have been auto-generated by a ToS generator[2], so this wording may not be fully intentional.

[1] https://calmcode.io/terms.html

[2] https://getterms.io/

Out of curiosity, which video?

The videos are all hosted on Vimeo, I believe, so I imagine it's vimeo doing the blocking. I have uBlock installed and additionally block all cookies (I have a whitelist but neither calmcode nor vimeo is on that list), and the videos work just fine.

I've always found the folks at DigitalFAQ.com to be helpful. For example, here's [1] a thread about the best VHS players to buy.

I'm interested that you're trying to recover the audio only, and from an S-VHS tape. Both VHS and S-VHS could do Hi-Fi audio, and the former was cheaper, so are you sure it's not just regular VHS tape you have? (Alternatively, some professional S-VHS decks recorded PCM audio, which you'll need special hardware to play back).

In any case, as the thread on DigitalFAQ attests to, many of the best VHS machines for recovering tapes are S-VHS models, so if you don't mind the higher prices, getting a good quality S-VHS deck is a good way to go if you plan on doing more recovery in the future.

[1] http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/1567-vcr-buyin...

Note that the linked video has a computer-generated voice-over, and is reading a direct transcript of a Medium post [1]. The medium post also links to a more complete source article [2] from War History Online.

[1] https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/when-a-german-fighte...

[2] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/german-pil...

That would be awesome! Those sound like some really interesting stacks - particularly the industrial monitoring one, as there currently aren't many stacks like that in the collection.

I'm happy to answer questions about moving stacks from old media onto more modern systems - there are a few 'gotchas' particularly due to the way old Macs used resource forks and new systems... don't. Email hypercardonline@gmail.com

> As someone who made a great many HyperCard stacks...

I don't suppose you still have the files for those stacks lying around? I maintain the HyperCard Online project, a collection[1] of over 3,500 HyperCard stacks on the Internet Archive directly emulated in-the-browser.

I've made an uploader[2] that anyone can use to contribute their own stacks to the collection. It accepts all formats of stacks (all the .sit, .bin, .hqx-style compression formats that were common in the 80s/90s, disk images, and just raw HyperCard stacks).

It's always great to see what stacks folks are uploading - recently a large number of Japanese stacks were uploaded, covering a wide range of topics.

[1] https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks

[2] http://hypercardonline.tk/

LiveCode can import HyperCard stacks. You'll need to use LiveCode version 6, since the HyperCard import functionality has been broken in LiveCode 7 onwards, but you can import a HyperCard stack using LiveCode 6, save the project in LiveCode's file format, and continue in a recent version of LiveCode.

HyperTalk and LiveCode aren't 100% compatible (probably around 80%, less if you used a lot of XCMDs since they aren't supported), but if you have an old stack you want to modernise, LiveCode is a great and affordable (it's GPLv3, with a commercial offering if you need to publish closed source projects) way to do it.

The best resource[1] on converting a HyperCard stack to LiveCode is by Jacqueline Landman Gay of HyperActive Software[2]. I believe HyperActive can also do consulting and conversion work for HyperCard stacks to LiveCode.

[1] https://www.hyperactivesw.com/mctutorial/rrintro.html

[2] https://www.hyperactivesw.com/index.html

Since the original version of DDS tape is basically just DAT tapes being used to store computer data, many of the commercially-available DDS drives could be re-flashed to allow them to read DAT as well. (Re-flashing was necessary to remove the software restriction that otherwise recognised DAT tapes and refused to read them).

I'm not going to post any links, but there's plenty of info online.

There are in fact proof-of-concepts similar to what you describe[1] (this one is based off the Doomsday Duplicator[2], a hardware device used for Direct RF capturing off laserdisc players).

My (admittedly basic) understanding of VHS vs S-VHS decks is that due to the stricter tolerances required by the S-VHS standard, S-VHS decks typically have better transports than regular VHS decks (lower wow/flutter, better tracking, etc...). And of course many of the high-end decks have a built in TBC.

[1] https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode/issues/16

[2] https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978

I'd be really interested to know what difference (if any) the S-VHS deck made compared to the regular one you were using.

I've got a decent capture setup (semi-Professional gear that captures at up to 10-bit uncompressed 4:2:2 - over 100GB an hour!) that I obtained basically for free since it is fairly old (early 2000s). Since good VHS decks are getting harder (and more expensive) to find, I haven't got a good[1] one yet. I'd be interested to know if the difference between the two decks was noticeable!

[1] I consider the recommendations on this thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-restore/1567-vcr-buyin... to be fairly good at separating good VHS decks from the rest of the pack.

> What about my bank? They have >100M users, and with an app/service portal, they'll be required to be "interoperable". I don't want my bank or my bank info to be interoperable.

Here in the UK we have something like that, called Open Banking[1]. IMHO the most noticeable benefit to consumers is that many of apps from the UKs largest banking providers now allow you to view your accounts from all your banks through their app (traditionally you could only view accounts you held with that bank). I believe that some budgeting / spending-tracking apps also take advantage of it to amalgamate information from all of your accounts.

[1] https://www.openbanking.org.uk/

Wow, that's an amazing effort! What a generous thing to devote your time to - I'll look forward to the results.

I'm not sure how you're planning to upload them back to the archive, but be aware that the command line tools[1] sometimes have issues with uploading larger files. I've found that the command-line tools are more reliable (supporting more retries by default) than the direct Python API.

Also, by default, archive.org will "derive" the uploaded video into a variety of different formats (this is normally a good thing, but I'm mentioning it since you might have already re-encoded them yourself and may want to avoid the system from "messing" with them). You can turn off derivation with a command line flag "--no-derive" to the "ia upload" tool (or a "queue_derive=False" parameter to internetarchive.upload() if using the Python API).

(source: I'm currently uploading thousands of local government videos, many of them 3+ hours long, to archive.org. With this many videos, I have scripts checking the hashes of uploaded videos to make sure the process worked before deleting any source files on my machine.)

[1] https://archive.org/services/docs/api/internetarchive/

If you still have any of those XCMDs lying around, it'd be great if you could upload them[1] to the HyperCard stacks collection[2] - particularly if you still have source code. (Of course, only if not covered under NDAs, etc...).

If they're still on old media (floppy disks, SCSI hard drives, etc...) contact me[3] and I'll do by best to help get them transferred.

[1] http://hypercardonline.tk/

[2] https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks

[3] HyperCardOnline@gmail.com

I've just checked "of" on my Mac with HyperCard, and the answer is no - it's not optional. (I tried with "answer the number of cards" and "answer number of cards", which both worked fine, but "answer the number cards" and "answer number cards" both didn't).

If you still have copies of those industrial control HyperCard stacks, I'd love if you were to upload them[1] for the online collection[2] (provided, of course, that doing so doesn't violate any NDAs / etc...).

[1] http://hypercardonline.tk/

[2] https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks

To inspect stacks you need to be in a "privileged" user-mode. Often stacks set the usermode to unprivileged upon startup to prevent accidental / nefarious edits. To change this, and be able to inspect the stack:

1.) Open the stack.

2.) Type Alt-M to open the message box.

3.) Type "set the usermode to 5" and press enter. (This sets the usermode to the highest level).

4.) If the menubar isn't showing, type "show menubar" into the message box and press enter.

Voilla! Full access to edit and inspect the stack. (Note that all changes are lost when you close the tab - the emulator does not yet have persistent storage).

It is a real, functioning emulator of the Macintosh Plus from 1986. See the webpage[1] of the James Friend, who ported the emulator to JavaScript, as well has his posts[2][3] explaining more detail behind the project.

[1] https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/

[2] https://jamesfriend.com.au/why-port-emulators-browser

[3] https://jamesfriend.com.au/porting-pce-emulator-browser

(As an aside, the Readme file probably didn't work because no text editor was installed - the items in the HyperCard stacks collection typically only include the OS, HyperCard and the stack itself. If you try opening the stack it should work just fine.)

The Internet Archive has a large collection[1] (3,500+) of HyperCard stacks that can be run directly in the browser (using in-browser emulation of an old Mac Plus).

I've been "maintaining" this collection of stacks for around three years - keeping the uploader[2] running (yes, you can add your own stacks!), checking the stacks for bugs / errors in the emulation, etc... and the range and breadth of what was created in HyperCard is just amazing.

You've got silly little animations[3], sound samplers[4], choose-your-own adventure stories[5], reference guides[6] and teaching materials[7] (that last one was added to the collection with the very kind help of someone at the USGS who mailed me a CD-ROM so I could add it).

I thoroughly recommend that those unfamiliar with HyperCard have a browse of the collection and see what was made possible by this groundbreaking 1980s tool.

[1] https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks

[2] http://hypercardonline.tk/

[3] https://archive.org/details/hypercard_computer_sind_doof

[4] https://archive.org/details/hypercard_cheapsequencersit

[5] https://archive.org/details/hypercard_inigo_gets_out

[6] https://archive.org/details/hypercard_macprinters-11

[7] https://archive.org/details/hypercard_usgs---teaching-earth-...

It was in the renewal of the Applesoft Basic license that Apple gave Microsoft a perpetual license to the Mac interface:

> Apple's original deal with Microsoft for licensing Applesoft Basic had a term of eight years, and it was due to expire in September 1985. Apple still depended on the Apple II for the lion's share of its revenues, and it would be difficult to replace Microsoft Basic without fragmenting the software base. Bill Gates had Apple in a tight squeeze, and, in an early display of his ruthless business acumen, he exploited it to the hilt. He knew that Donn's Basic was way ahead of Microsoft's, so, as a condition for agreeing to renew Applesoft, he demanded that Apple abandon MacBasic, buying it from Apple for the price of $1, and then burying it. He also used the renewal of Applesoft, which would be obsolete in just a year or two as the Mac displaced the Apple II, to get a perpetual license to the Macintosh user interface, in what probably was the single worst deal in Apple's history, executed by John Sculley in November 1985.

source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

Make sure you're not blocking cookies - if you have cookies blocked, you'll get that error.

(Not that I agree that you should need to allow cookies to watch a video, but that seems to be the reality of the internet right now).