Post AxflzSLwnZLLU4intA by andrewault@twit.social
(DIR) More posts by andrewault@twit.social
(DIR) Post #AxfhaZtHEm1vnzC1OS by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-29T19:28:18Z
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The original Dick Pick (in the computer world) and PickOS. I'd always heard about it, but it was always somewhere else... PicOS is weird and interesting, and an evolutionary path that died off.It's early history, especially, is very manly and military (oh, the 60's... mil helicopter with racist name for a racist fascist war, also a boondoggle... honestly I'm so tired of reading this shit), as is most software, but there's enough interesting oddities in here to be worth watching.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWZBQMRmW7k
(DIR) Post #AxfjMMAzd6Cv7ppGuu by 144mb@mastodon.social
2025-08-29T19:48:06Z
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@tomjennings Dick Pick wrote routines directly in TTL CPU microcode. It made it faster, and Users could even have their own custom microcode routines. Sorry... can't find the reference now. The vid annoys me, so won't sit through it, but a scan doesn't show the microcode bit, which I figure you would groove on.
(DIR) Post #AxflzSLwnZLLU4intA by andrewault@twit.social
2025-08-29T20:17:34Z
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@tomjennings I remember reading about it in Byte. It really extracted the most value from a PC.
(DIR) Post #AxgJyfPm99ZC98J7ho by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-30T02:38:21Z
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@mos_8502And so many of those choices were *awful*! Lol. @petrillic
(DIR) Post #AxgfTjvNWm1u9CkOf2 by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-30T06:39:21Z
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@petrillic @mos_8502 Lol that is true! And often unique virtues. OMFG I just tonight read (skimmed some) of the mp/m II user manual. If it does half of what it says it's quite amazing. Each console ("terminal") can detach programs via controlD (unix shell: control Z then bg) and run in background, attach by name or controlD. Multiple consoles. Detach on one console attach on another -- transfers a running program to another shell! Up to 400k of ram. (The OS is 27k)Time stamped files (creation, last update). Search across all filesystems. File attributes. The console has a nicely rich if wordy syntax that allows multiple srgs and options. This is gonna be fun.
(DIR) Post #AxhSOL7pCNm1XXcjQ0 by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-30T15:47:25Z
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@petrillicYes! Today, the OS would not be the challenge it was then though not to underestimate it, digital Research wrote great code, very solid. The issue of course is application software. Theres tons of it for cp/m and most of it runs on mp/m. "Us" writing compilers and word processors is not practical. But really, in permacomputing terms, either the unix approach ("written in itself") and something like a standard API CPU (risc 5) are the basis for truly long lived systems. We mostly have that in Linux I think the problem for literally most people is the fantastic industrial complexity of Linux . It's just too much Nerds like to wield that power and complexity in and of itself. But a stripped down functional subset with 1% of the complexity, based on Linux or using components, would be great shit. @mos_8502
(DIR) Post #AxhShMIZ3puCgGiSLQ by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-30T15:50:51Z
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@petrillic*nix has networking as primacy. There not most peoples priority. That's server client ideology. We need a rethink. No one wants to rethink it. It threatens rank and file nerd power and the current network and fascist world likes what they've got. I want to though! @mos_8502
(DIR) Post #AxhrEPOcxi8UkDqP6u by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-30T20:25:45Z
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@fluidlogic The few people I've known that had worked with it all said good things. Id agree it was a quite notable thing in the history of computing. The corporate age has everything judged by quantity and money (and now, dominance) but it sure seems successful to me.
(DIR) Post #AxhrV2t5ty6nrH1nEm by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-30T20:28:45Z
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@spacehobo Lol. I noticed "hardwares" but not the other. If you add (back) the missing space it then sounds right, just wrong century.
(DIR) Post #AxiWakBOSH21hjQIBk by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-31T04:09:11Z
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@petrillicRight. Oh I'm not opposed to it, the opposite. But the agenda has been to push networking in so far to the computer everything you do is a risk. A fairly clear but easily permeable barrier is what I'd like. For non expert users, run all net stuff like browsers in a jail/container, and a sensible but conscious way to move things back and forth. Clean delineation between average junk on your computer, low risk stuff, music, casual photos. A solid reliable safe storage border or boundary. Needs some sort of social design, bottom to top, and inviolable paradigm, so that non nerd folk know their important stuff is safe and the dirt bag corporate Internet criminals are safely locked out c @mos_8502