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retro64on Dr. Dobb's Developer Library DVD 6 (2010)

Interesting - would have thought they all would be uploaded by now. I feel like I bought the set years ago when Dr Dobbs folded but I can't seem to dig them up. However I did find my Verity Stob archive CD :) (which looks like it might already be on the archive - I can't be sure as mine is still sealed in the shipping packaged, never opened it)

retro64on Disney Eliminates Its Metaverse Division

I do anyway. I find the entire concept oddly compelling. To fabricate a completely immersive online world is just fascinating to me. I would love to see this work someday.

Unfortunately, today I can't even use VR for more than a few minutes before I'm ready to vomit and my eyes feel like they're being pulled out of my head.

retro64on Building a 100% New Commodore 64 [video]

Speaking of new Commodores, I just received word this morning that my mega65 has finally shipped from Germany. I think I tossed 5 bucks their way back in 2015 or so, got on a mailing list, been following quietly ever since and put in an order a couple years ago. And waited...and waited...and now it will soon be here!

retro64on Amiga Forever

The entire art department at my university used Amigas. They had a couple of video toasters as well. They kept them at least into the mid-90's too.

Otherwise, yeah, I can't recall ever seeing an Amiga in a US business (other than a computer repair shop). IBM dominated the "serious" market, and Apple was in the schools (with some Commodore).

retro64on Are You Ready for the Internet? (1994) [video]

Pity - I used your link and tried hunting for the Mother's Day bouquet she was looking at but it wasn't archived.

retro64on Confirmed the MOS 7600/7601 Pong chip is a true microcontroller

...which was the fashion back in the day.

Not sure if this was an intentional simpsons reference but it made me laugh anyway given the context.

(seriously though, thanks for taking the time to write this up - I find these firsthand experience ramblings fascinating).

retro64on How to Get into Tabletop RPGs

I have memories from this as well. I have a recording someplace (physical tape) that I made on one occasion. Hope I can find it again someday. Then all I need is some way to play it :)

retro64on How to Get into Tabletop RPGs

Start with stories where you sit down next to them on the couch and make them the main character. Just make it up as you go, doesn't have to be wild fantasy, can be anything. When you come to a decision point ask them "what do you do?". Then weave their decision into the story. Make it fun, make them the hero and never leave the story hanging at that age (they need to feel safe). You don't need dice and such yet, and even when they're older you can still keep it up. Builds fun memories too.

retro64on FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop

I use both. I've asked myself why I don't just streamline and standardize simply on Linux as overall it has more traction, but every time I have the opportunity to complete the switch I refuse to give up BSD. I think it boils down to control.

Thinking back I have had essentially the same experience/environment on BSD for years. Upgrading from one version to the next just works and is fairly painless, even across major releases (trying to think of the last time I've had issues). I keep my home directory on a separate physical disk, so upgrading the OS drive or moving to new hardware is a matter of installing the latest BSD and plugging my home drive back in and mapping it. After upgrading I can use pkg to reinstall the apps I need and the shortcuts all link back, and I'm done. Probably forgot a few steps in there but it doesn't take long. For example I upgraded from 11.x to 13.0 just a few months ago with a hard drive swap and it took me maybe 3 hours(?), including installing the physical drive.

I don't play a lot of games on it, other than complete source ports, or simple games that run on vanilla wine. Linux is for gaming and experimenting. On Linux I am far more free with what I install, and my experience has changed often over the years with different distros. Some of that was by my choice, but even at the most basic level I've found that distros tend to have a lot of flux between versions.

So, overall no real surprises with FreeBSD. Upgrade and keep chugging.

retro64on Spiders seem to have REM-like sleep and may even dream

I wonder if ants dream as well. I've spent some time watching common black ant types sleep and they will twitch at times, especially as they are waking up.

retro64on How much did VHS tapes cost in the 80s?

Oh, I know it. I came upon it rummaging and popped it in later that evening.

Honestly, I think in a single act I nearly destroyed my youngest son's interest in the series by having him watch the first one with me. I haven't seen those movies in years, but it really reminded me how big Star Trek was back then to be able make such bold assumptions of the audience on so many levels.

You know though, all this talk - I think I'm going to dig up another and watch it tonight. There's actually a couple I still haven't seen.

retro64on FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

Been using FreeBSD as my primary workstation since 2006, with a secondary Linux box for games. I’ve found FreeBSD to be a very viable and reliable alternative, but of course that depends on your personal needs.

retro64on How much did VHS tapes cost in the 80s?

I remember it being a big deal when Star Wars finally came to TV. I don’t understand why, but my kids laugh when I tell them for the big event we hauled my aunt’s large TV across the lawn (she lived next door) over to our house just so we could watch it in color instead of on the 15” BW that we had. We also made popcorn.

retro64on How much did VHS tapes cost in the 80s?

Agreed. I recently popped in Star Trek V for kicks and it worked flawlessly. However, I must say, while the physical tape may have aged well, the content surely did not - yeesh, what a stinker.

Anyway, it all depends on the storage - the best advice I ever heard was "store your things where you live" (in other words most of us don't live in the attic or the basement).

retro64on “I am literally losing sleep” over Java (1996)

"...thinking about smartphones."

Actually, people were, even the non-technical everyday Joe. I remember a sales guy commenting once at a beginning of a meeting as he pulled out his PDA and set his oversized cell on the table "I'm just waiting for the day they combine these together so I only have to carry one of these". I think this would have been 1998 or 99, but people talked about "PDA phones" for quite some time before the iPhone appeared on the scene. The technology just wasn't there, and the CE based PDAs were clunky, nearly useless.

retro64on Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

Flip phone. People laugh at mine, whatever. Honestly though I use a flip because it does what I need and it's tough as nails.

retro64on My life after quitting social media

A couple thoughts here. I was an adult before social media was a thing, or even the web, and I sometimes wonder if I would have even attempted much of the experimentation I did - doubtful, at least at that age. Why bother when now it takes only a few minutes searching to find someone who already solved the problem, and better than you (think) you could have. But now I understand I would have missed out on so much had I not even tried. Who knows what fresh angle you’ll bring to the table? It happens.

The second thought is at some point you come to terms with your own limitations (and strengths!), and you realize, yes this person is great at such and such, but am I able to do what I want in my life with my talents? Am I happy doing my thing, even if it’s not “as good” as them? Yep. So good for them. And good for you.

retro64on Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

This is very cool. Not knowing anything about it though it looks massive and overbuilt (with smallish wheels, but likely just fine for the time of year it's put to use). Anyone care to speculate why it needs such a large body? The width is a given because it needs to span the rows, but why a giant cube?

retro64on Venus could have been habitable for billions of years (2019)

There have been recent advancements in the hypothesis you may find interesting:

https://phys.org/news/2021-02-asteroid-crater-case-dinosaur-...

retro64on Snowflake Generator

Of all the stories posted today on HN, this is the only one I had any desire to click on.

Was more interesting than I expected too.

Thanks for posting.

retro64on Dungeon Magazine

As just a straight 1:1 translation to 5e, it isn't really hard. The monsters are roughly the same, so it isn't hard to run an AD&D adventure on 5e. I would argue a "novice" DM could read through an AD&D adventure and do the translation on the fly.

I would agree you should be able to run the module as-is and insert a monster of the same type from the 5e monster manual, but certainly not use the 1e stats straight up.

1e monsters wouldn't stand a chance against a 5e party otherwise.

retro64on Cyberpunk 2077 runs on Linux through the Proton compatibility layer

The latest version of Neverwinter Nights Enhanced runs without issue on Linux Mint 20.

The Beamdog Client no longer seems to work (pango lib issue), but GOG installs just fine. I like Beamdog and appreciate their ongoing support for Linux and have in turn purchased NWN gift keys for many people, but man - fix the Linux client please.

(Beamdog, feel free to contact me and I'll fix the broken client for free - seriously).

retro64on Ask HN: Essential skill needed to be a programmer?

Couldn't agree more. You might be highly intelligent and/or creative, and those things should help for sure, but if you don't have grit, nearly a masochistic attitude to keep striving when you're flat on the ground or when you're at a dead-end, you won't make it.

To me, writing solid code is like combat.

retro64on OpenZFS Merged to FreeBSD

Is it that easy now? I actually was in this situation about 3 years ago and found I could not simply mount the ZFS drive - and I cannot recall exactly why. I think it had something to do with the pool…configuration(?), and I went down a rabbit hole trying to sort it out. Fortunately in this case the tradeoff in time was more valuable than the data (it was a system drive on a small SSD) so I had the option to ditch my efforts with little to lose. But, I did spend a handful of hours on it with no traction.

retro64on OpenZFS Merged to FreeBSD

In all honesty I can't understand why would anyone use anything other than zfs nowadays for important data.

At a personal level, I opted out of it based on simplicity and familiarity. If I have a data drive where I need to move and mount in another box, I do not want to mess with the complexities of supporting ZFS to get at that data or the risk that the only OS I have available can't read it.

Again, this is a non-commercial environment, but I consider my data important as well. I've decided to go the route of keeping multiple backups of my data spread across multiple drives. I've already experienced bitrot several times over the years, but for me, this approach is more practical than relying on ZFS.

retro64on The GemRB project celebrates 20 year anniversary with a new release

I'm glad to see this still kicking, for awhile I was afraid it might get derailed when the enhanced editions were released along with Linux support.

I noticed that they only support a couple of chapters of Icewind Dale 2. Seems like IWD2 never gets any love, but honestly, I thought the adventure was garbage when it came out and still have never finished it. Ironically enough, I was inspired this past weekend to fire IWD2 up again but failed to get it to run in Wine (yet).

retro64on An Introduction to OpenBSD [video]

Not sure about today's CPUs, but back in the days of the 68000 I'm pretty certain there was a small advantage in both designs but for different reasons. I wouldn't normally write such a vapid post without supporting details (that I can't recall anyway), but I wanted to pipe up to encourage you to do more research if you're curious.

retro64on An Introduction to OpenBSD [video]

I have very little experience with the other BSD flavors, but FreeBSD will be different than Linux, for sure. I used to use Slackware and I would say FreeBSD is fairly comparable from a “clean slate” perspective (although now it’s gotten much more full featured). On the surface you will get the usual support for Firefox, your choice of windows manager (I use xfce) and so on, but expect to do some tweaking. Using xfce as an example, the basic install is very different and fundamental than what you might find on something like Linux Mint, but if you see something you like, once you know you can do it, it’s typically not too time consuming to figure out how. More of this will be on your shoulders though. Sometimes you’ll find small things like right clicking on an archive to trigger an unpack won’t work out of the box, you’ll need to add that yourself. But once you get things dialed in, they stay.

After some reflection, I think the number one reason I’ve stayed with FreeBSD all this time is it’s so dang stable and it just works. Historically speaking, I can’t think of anything radical ever happening since I’ve been using it. When it comes time to upgrade it’s been fairly painless which boils down to making a backup and running a couple commands (crossing your fingers is optional, but I think it helps).

TrueOS may be tempting but my experience with it was not very good. In fairness maybe it’s better now. I just use the vanilla release and chug along and won’t deviate again. No point.

But for you – not sure. I write code for my bread and butter and am steeped in technology – I most certainly have blinders regarding the complexity involved, but again, if you’ve been using Linux for 10 years this may not be an issue for you.

*Edited for ramble.

retro64on An Introduction to OpenBSD [video]

Yes, but maybe not 100%, depending. I have been using FreeBSD as my primary driver since 2006, and have been without a Windows box or partition since Win 10 was hatched. But, while I can accomplish 99% of what I want to do in BSD, I use Linux for the rest.

I’ll resist the fanboi post and just say the usual things you hear about BSD vs. Linux (good and bad) are true. Personally I appreciate the rock solid consistency (configuration, file system, runtime) I’ve gained from FreeBSD, but it’s not a commercially supported OS and there are times I’ve had to fall back to Linux (GOG games are one example).

retro64on Syncthing is everything I used to love about computers

As mine.

I'll just leave this here for any other disappointed folks. Mega65 is due to begin taking orders for dev kits next week. I am so stoked: https://mega65.org/

(note that dev kits do not include the final molded case, that should be coming later)