16 Aug
2004
16 Aug
'04
12:23 p.m.
I realize that the 2 questions I have are NOT within the 10 year
rule, but I really could use some help!
While I have been using computers for over 40 years, I
have stayed with very old systems as far as programming
and writing programs is concerned. Thus, under Windows 98
SE and Netsacpe 4.78 (which is what I am using to access
the internet and this news group), I am ONLY able to use
the operating system and the application; I am NOT able to
make any modifications which is how I usually proceed when
I encounter any problems.
Last week, the web site that I usually access in a very standard
manner using Windows 98 SE / Netscape 4.78 no longer provides
the information I used to obtain. The reason is that the company
which controls access to the web site decided to add additional
features which require the use of at least Netscape 7.0 by the user.
And while I agree that the company has every legal right to do so,
at the very least some sort of warning could have been provided
which was much more apparent other than placing the information
under a link titled "required browsers" that I understand did provide
some advance notice. However, at the SAME time, the error page
which informed users that cookies were REQUIRED listed (and still
lists) Netscape 4.x and Netscape 6.x as the required browsers if
cookies were turned OFF.
Some more background information:
Because I ALWAYS run Netscape with cookies turned OFF,
except when I am required to have cookies enabled to access the
2 web pages that I normally use, I often encountered the error
page which listed Netscape 4.x as one of the required browsers.
Since EVERYTHING works when cookies were enabled, I never
bothered to access the "required browsers" link as the error page
certainly seemed to provide that information when I forgot to turn
cookies ON - which usually happened at least once a week.
ALSO, while I am not able to fully use the web site, I am able to
"log in" (with a userid and password) to get to the first level of
information that I request. It is only subsequent screens that I
am unable to FULLY access, i.e. when I request the next level
of information, the next screen is reached, but the changing
information is no longer displayed under Netscape 4.78, ONLY
the top portion with the headers, etc.
I have 2 questions:
Based on the information on the error page, would a normal user
be ALSO expected to look at the "required browsers" link when
the specific naming of Netscape 4.x was (and still was when this
post was made) displayed as an acceptable browser when I
forgot to turn cookies ON?
Could the company have continued to allow users access to the
web site under Netscape 4.78 by the expedient of NOT
providing those users the additional features that users of
Netscape 7.0 and later are provided? NAMELY, do the
fellows setting up the program have the ability to check as to
which version of Netscape is being used and could the program
have retained the old code for those users who stayed with
Netscape 4.78 and used to new code for those users who
shifted to Netscape 7.0 and later?
I realize this post is very long, but I hope it should be possible
to answer both questions with a simple YES or NO! If
you wish to add an explanation, that would also be VERY
MUCH appreciated!
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
16 Aug
16 Aug
1:27 p.m.
New subject: [OT] Help with question about web page access
Jerome H. Fine wrote, in part:
Last week, the web site that I usually access in a
very standard
manner using Windows 98 SE / Netscape 4.78 no longer provides
the information I used to obtain. The reason is that the company
which controls access to the web site decided to add additional
features which require the use of at least Netscape 7.0 by the user.
[...]
Based on the information on the error page, would a
normal user
be ALSO expected to look at the "required browsers" link when
the specific naming of Netscape 4.x was (and still was when this
post was made) displayed as an acceptable browser when I
forgot to turn cookies ON?
Hard to say without seeing the web-site in question, but at the least
(from your description) it sound like they haven't got their various
"what-browsers-are-acceptable" pages in sync. I'd be annoyed if I were
you. :)
Could the company have continued to allow users access
to the
web site under Netscape 4.78 by the expedient of NOT
providing those users the additional features that users of
Netscape 7.0 and later are provided? NAMELY, do the
fellows setting up the program have the ability to check as to
which version of Netscape is being used and could the program
have retained the old code for those users who stayed with
Netscape 4.78 and used to new code for those users who
shifted to Netscape 7.0 and later?
We're moving our library around, so my relevant books are hiding; but
from memory, yes, it's possible. HTTP requests are
sent with a handful of
environmental variables, including brand and version of the
browser
making the request. A server can read the $ENV info when the page request
is made, and reply appropriately (or, in your case, reply annoyingly). It
could, therefore, give you a version of the content laid out for older
browsers.
The problem, though, is that doing so is labor-intensive: it means more
of a workload on the server if it has to select or transform content based
on what version of browser is making the request; and more, it's a
significantly greater workload on the site maintainers if they have to
update, maintain and test differing versions of the same website.
<rant>
O'course, I've long held the opinion that - except in the cases of
multimedia-bells-and-whistles websites, which are by their nature heavily
dependent on what the receiving browser can handle - designing a site
that requires "Browser X" to be readable is both counterproductive and
against the site's own interest. Why put together a web presence at all
if you're going to bar a bunch of potential readers from seeing it at
the outset? Why make an effort to communicate your message to the world if
you're simultaneously going to put up a technology barrier to make sure
half the people you're trying to reach can't access it? If you're going to
write something, don't you want people to _read_ it?
</rant>
...Whew. I feel better now. Sorry, the fever will pass. :)
Anyway, it may be simplest to just bite the damnable lead bullet and get
a browser upgrade. Mozilla's Firefox may be the way to go:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
I've developed a great fondness for Phoenix, one of Firefox's recent
ancestors (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/0.5.html).
I agree that changing browsers so you can receive content is irritating,
but it's probably less irritating than trying to convince some site
manager to change their technology-drunk method of thinking. (O'course, it
may be most morally satisfying to just send them a hostile e-mail telling
them you'll nevber view their stupid site ever again until they change
their heinous ways. <g>)
-O.-
(...whose site is viewable with everything from Lynx
onward, thank you very much)
1:46 p.m.
New subject: [OT] Help with question about web page access
On Mon, 2004-08-16 at 22:27, O. Sharp wrote:
Jerome H. Fine wrote, in part:
Hard to say without seeing the web-site in question,
but at the least
(from your description) it sound like they haven't got their various
"what-browsers-are-acceptable" pages in sync. I'd be annoyed if I were
you. :)
I'd be annoyed if I were me, too. Wait - I *am* me! :-)
We're moving our library around, so my relevant
books are hiding; but
from memory, yes, it's possible. HTTP requests are sent with a handful of
environmental variables, including brand and version of the browser
making the request.
USER_AGENT rings a bell for some reason, but I could be making that up.
Somewhere on the web exists a site where when you visit the page it just
dumps out all the data sent by your browser to the server. Unfortunately
I never ever bookmark it because each time I need it I never think I'll
need it again - d'oh! Anyone?
<rant>
O'course, I've long held the opinion that - except in the cases of
multimedia-bells-and-whistles websites, which are by their nature heavily
dependent on what the receiving browser can handle - designing a site
that requires "Browser X" to be readable is both counterproductive and
against the site's own interest. Why put together a web presence at all
if you're going to bar a bunch of potential readers from seeing it at
the outset? Why make an effort to communicate your message to the world if
you're simultaneously going to put up a technology barrier to make sure
half the people you're trying to reach can't access it? If you're going to
write something, don't you want people to _read_ it?
</rant>
Yep, you and a huge amount of other people - unfortunately it hasn't
filtered through to the moron brigade it seems (who typically code for
and test on IE, probably using Frontpage in the process... ugh)
Anyway, it may be simplest to just bite the damnable
lead bullet and get
a browser upgrade. Mozilla's Firefox may be the way to go:
Didn't Jerome imply that he couldn't upgrade or install anything
different on this platform?
Otherwise, yes I agree. My personal favourite's Opera as the download is
tiny compared to other modern browsers, plus you can tell it to identify
itself to a remote server as a few different browsers which can help
access broken sites. And it's incredibly fast at page rendering.
By the way Jerome, are you sure that you haven't just got some junk left
in your browser's cache (cookies or content) that are causing problems?
The fact that you said you can authenticate against the site and bring
the initial page up but then not see any content beyond that could also
be down to a cache problem. Try shift-reload on an offending page and
see what it does if you haven't already; from memory with that version
of Netscape it should force a reload of the page from the server.
cheers
Jules
2:26 p.m.
New subject: [OT] Help with question about web page access
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 6:46 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: [OT] Help with question about web page access
On Mon, 2004-08-16 at 22:27, O. Sharp wrote:
The ServerVariables collection is part of the Request object that is sent
Jerome H. Fine wrote, in part:
Hard to say without seeing the web-site in
question, but at the least
(from your description) it sound like they haven't got their various
"what-browsers-are-acceptable" pages in sync. I'd be annoyed if I were
you. :)
I'd be annoyed if I were me, too. Wait - I *am* me! :-)
We're moving our library around, so my
relevant books are hiding; but
from memory, yes, it's possible. HTTP requests are sent with a
handful of
environmental variables, including brand and
version of the browser
making the request.
USER_AGENT rings a bell for some reason, but I could be making that up.
Somewhere on the web exists a site where when you visit the page it just
dumps out all the data sent by your browser to the server. Unfortunately
I never ever bookmark it because each time I need it I never think I'll
need it again - d'oh! Anyone? from the web browser client to the web server. It
contains a number of
variables that supply information about the user. Here are a
few sites
that supply a little intormation on the ServerVariables. I've used these
variables frequently on commercial sites that I've built for companies
like Ford, Sears, Schwab, etc., where they had much commercial red tape
and corporate rules about how to build a web site and what browsers
were to be supported, etc. These things come in handy when you need to
know the browser type, referring URL, client's IP address, etc. There
are also ways to tell the client's screen resolution, color depth,
whether they can run java script, use cookies, etc.
Take a look at the following sites, which explain in a little more
detail.....
http://www.newobjects.com/pages/alpdocs/ref-Request-ServerVariables.htm
http://www.w3schools.com/asp/coll_servervariables.asp
http://www.asp-help.com/objects/intr5vsj.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/server/iis/default.asp?url=/windows2
000/en/server/iis/htm/asp/vbob5vsj.htm
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/092298-3.shtml
This link will display the current ServerVariables collection, as
sent by your browser:
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/demos/servervariables.asp
..... Ashley
<rant>
O'course, I've long held the opinion that - except in the cases of
multimedia-bells-and-whistles websites, which are by their
nature heavily
dependent on what the receiving browser can
handle - designing a site
that requires "Browser X" to be readable is both counterproductive and
against the site's own interest. Why put together a web presence at all
if you're going to bar a bunch of potential readers from seeing it at
the outset? Why make an effort to communicate your message to
the world if
you're simultaneously going to put up a
technology barrier to make sure
half the people you're trying to reach can't access it? If
you're
going to
write something, don't you want people to
_read_ it?
</rant>
Yep, you and a huge amount of other people - unfortunately it hasn't
filtered through to the moron brigade it seems (who typically code for
and test on IE, probably using Frontpage in the process... ugh)
Anyway, it may be simplest to just bite the
damnable lead
bullet and get
a browser upgrade. Mozilla's Firefox may be
the way to go:
Didn't Jerome imply that he couldn't upgrade or install anything
different on this platform?
Otherwise, yes I agree. My personal favourite's Opera as the download is
tiny compared to other modern browsers, plus you can tell it to identify
itself to a remote server as a few different browsers which can help
access broken sites. And it's incredibly fast at page rendering.
By the way Jerome, are you sure that you haven't just got some junk left
in your browser's cache (cookies or content) that are causing problems?
The fact that you said you can authenticate against the site and bring
the initial page up but then not see any content beyond that could also
be down to a cache problem. Try shift-reload on an offending page and
see what it does if you haven't already; from memory with that version
of Netscape it should force a reload of the page from the server.
cheers
Jules
4:18 p.m.
New subject: [OT] Help with question about web page access
Somewhere on the web exists a site where when you
visit the page it
just dumps out all the data sent by your browser to the server.
Unfortunately I never ever bookmark it because each time I need it I
never think I'll need it again - d'oh!
http://privacy.net/analyze/ (linked to off their main webpage) is
something like that. Their "who registered your domain" test clearly
does not understand how .ca domains work; it went looking for qc.ca,
which does not exist in its own right any more than ac.uk does. But
otherwise, it looks fairly sane.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
5:39 p.m.
New subject: [OT] Help with question about web page access
Jules Richardson wrote:
On Mon,
2004-08-16 at 22:27, O. Sharp wrote:
Hard to say without seeing the web-site in question, but at the least
(from your description) it sound like they haven't got their various
"what-browsers-are-acceptable" pages in sync. I'd be annoyed if I were
you. :)
I'd be annoyed if I were me, too. Wait - I *am* me! :-) By the way Jerome, are you sure that you haven't
just got some junk left
in your browser's cache (cookies or content) that are causing problems?
The fact that you said you can authenticate against the site and bring
the initial page up but then not see any content beyond that could also
be down to a cache problem. Try shift-reload on an offending page and
see what it does if you haven't already; from memory with that version
of Netscape it should force a reload of the page from the server.
The bank definitely states that Netscape 7.0 is REQUIRED and even
though I can successfully provide my userid / password to obtain the
account balances, I can't get any further when I go to other pages to
obtain recent transactions.
As stated by others, Netscape is not used very much. BUT, I just
can't see that it would have cost the bank very much at all to at least
keep Netscape 4.78 users happy for a while by retaining the old code
along with the restrictions and provide the users who did upgrade
with the new features. After all, things were working with all
Netscape versions up until the end of August! If I can still access
my account balances, I can't see that the account details are no
longer available, just that under Netscape 4.78 they are not being
displayed when I get to the page with the new code that is used to
display those details with Netscape 7.0 and higher! So it very
likely would only have meant that the old code would have been
retained along with a check to see which version of Netscape
was being used. After all, if there is code to handle both IE 5.x,
IE 6.x, Netscape 4.x and Netscape 6.x to start with, it would take
very little more to just add Netscape 7.x, at least that seems to be
the answer to my original question.
Anyone who understands how things like bank records are accessed
and has read this far, PLEASE confirm that it would likely have been
possible to just include Netscape 7.x using the new features, but still
retain Netscape 4.78 with the old features - PLEASE!!!!!
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
2:48 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Jerome H. Fine once stated:
I have 2 questions:
Based on the information on the error page, would a normal user
be ALSO expected to look at the "required browsers" link when
the specific naming of Netscape 4.x was (and still was when this
post was made) displayed as an acceptable browser when I
forgot to turn cookies ON?
Sounds like they didn't keep all the pages up in sync, which is all too
easy to happen (happened with my site [1] and it's a relatively small site
of only a few hundred pages [2]); with larger sites it wouldn't surprise me
at all if there are whole sections "forgotten about" sitting there, for the
most part dorment except for the stray user or two. You'd think going
through the logs files would show them this, but that may be too much data
to process for such things [3].
Could the company have continued to allow users access
to the
web site under Netscape 4.78 by the expedient of NOT
providing those users the additional features that users of
Netscape 7.0 and later are provided? NAMELY, do the
fellows setting up the program have the ability to check as to
which version of Netscape is being used and could the program
have retained the old code for those users who stayed with
Netscape 4.78 and used to new code for those users who
shifted to Netscape 7.0 and later?
As mentioned elsewhere, this gets expensive. I know that I myself decided
not to support Netscape 4x anymore. Granted, I went out of my way to keep
Netscape 4x from crashing when visiting my site [5] but a Netscape 4x user
is going to have an experience right out of 1993 viewing my site [6]. If
Netscape 4 just had better support for CSS (or just plain wouldn't crash in
the presense of CSS) ...
-spc (Basically, the only thing claiming to be Netscape 4x are mostly web
crawlers ... )
[1] http://www.conman.org/
[2] Except for http://boston.conman.org/ and
http://literature.conman.org/bible/ which consist of several million
pages (theoretical) but they are dynamically generated from
templates so it's not that much of an issue.
[3] A friend of mine worked at a site (the second largest sports
oriented site behind ESPN) where it took over 20 hours to process
the web logs for the previous day. Not month; not week; *DAY!* I'm
sure cleaning up 404s [4] is not high on their priority list,
especially given the number of virii, worms and hack attempts that
inflate such figures.
[4] Page not found.
[5] Netscape 4x is notorious for its hideous support of CSS.
[6] http://www.flummux.org/screenshots/old.school.gif for Netscape 4x
http://www.flummux.org/screenshots/new.school.gif for Mozilla
4:26 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Sean 'Captain Napalm'
Conner
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 7:49 PM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Help with question about web page access
It was thus said that the Great Jerome H. Fine once stated:
About a year and a half ago, one of my higher volume sites (50,000 hits
per day, I think) showed that 95% of all users were Internet Explorer
and about 2 or 3 percent were Netscape. I still had to support Netscape,
though, and our staff spent many hours coding things so that web sites
would remain Netscape friendly.
I have 2 questions:
Based on the information on the error page, would a normal user
be ALSO expected to look at the "required browsers" link when
the specific naming of Netscape 4.x was (and still was when this
post was made) displayed as an acceptable browser when I
forgot to turn cookies ON?
Sounds like they didn't keep all the pages up in sync, which is all too
easy to happen (happened with my site [1] and it's a relatively small site
of only a few hundred pages [2]); with larger sites it wouldn't
surprise me
at all if there are whole sections "forgotten about" sitting
there, for the
most part dorment except for the stray user or two. You'd think going
through the logs files would show them this, but that may be too much data
to process for such things [3].
Could the company have continued to allow users
access to the
web site under Netscape 4.78 by the expedient of NOT
providing those users the additional features that users of
Netscape 7.0 and later are provided? NAMELY, do the
fellows setting up the program have the ability to check as to
which version of Netscape is being used and could the program
have retained the old code for those users who stayed with
Netscape 4.78 and used to new code for those users who
shifted to Netscape 7.0 and later?
As mentioned elsewhere, this gets expensive. I know that I
myself decided
not to support Netscape 4x anymore. Granted, I went out of my way to keep Netscape 4x from crashing when visiting my site [5]
but a Netscape 4x user
is going to have an experience right out of 1993 viewing my site [6]. If
Netscape 4 just had better support for CSS (or just plain
wouldn't crash in
the presense of CSS) ...
-spc (Basically, the only thing claiming to be Netscape 4x are
mostly web
crawlers ... )
[1] http://www.conman.org/
[2] Except for http://boston.conman.org/ and
http://literature.conman.org/bible/ which consist of several million
pages (theoretical) but they are dynamically generated from
templates so it's not that much of an issue.
[3] A friend of mine worked at a site (the second largest sports
oriented site behind ESPN) where it took over 20 hours to process
the web logs for the previous day. Not month; not week; *DAY!* I'm
sure cleaning up 404s [4] is not high on their priority list,
especially given the number of virii, worms and hack attempts that
inflate such figures.
[4] Page not found.
[5] Netscape 4x is notorious for its hideous support of CSS.
[6] http://www.flummux.org/screenshots/old.school.gif for Netscape 4x
http://www.flummux.org/screenshots/new.school.gif for Mozilla
5:02 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Ashley Carder once stated:
About a year and a half ago, one of my higher volume sites (50,000 hits
per day, I think) showed that 95% of all users were Internet Explorer
and about 2 or 3 percent were Netscape. I still had to support Netscape,
though, and our staff spent many hours coding things so that web sites
would remain Netscape friendly.
I would double check the hit patterns. My own experience with Netscape 4
counters yours. One site I just checked (for 12th of August) received
22,000 hits that day (about half your site from 18 months ago). Checking
for Mozilla/4 (Netscape 4x) and filtering out MSIE ended up with the
following:
28 Mozilla/4.77 [en] (Win98; U)
16 Mozilla/4.76 [en] (PalmOS; U; WebPro3.0; Palm-Arz1)
2 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)
Granted, the site "works" better in MSIE, so on the assumption it wasn't
a
valid sample, I then used the logs from one of my own personal sites [1]
that received 38,000 hits last month. The results there were:
945 Mozilla/4.0 compatible ZyBorg/1.0 (wn-2.zyborg(a)looksmart.net;
http://www.WISEnutbot.com)
669 Mozilla/4.08
109 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-2.3)
28 Mozilla/4.0
23 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-1.5.3; Crawl your own stuff with
http://grub.org)
18 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible)
16 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)
12 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-1.0.5; Crawl your own stuff with
http://grub.org)
8 Mozilla/4.5 [en] (Win98; I)
6 Mozilla/4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u)
6 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Win32; WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5)
5 Mozilla/4.07 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.39 i486; Nav)
4 Mozilla/4.75 [de] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
4 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; BorderManager 3.0)
3 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-1.4.3; Crawl your own stuff with
http://grub.org)
2 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MS FrontPage 6.0)
1 Mozilla/4.78 [en] (Win95; U)
1 Mozilla/4.77C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; U; PPC)
1 Mozilla/4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
1 Mozilla/4.73 [de]C-CCK-MCD DT (Win98; U)
1 Mozilla/4.61 [en] (Win98; I)
1 Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; U)
1 Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98)
1 Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 2.0x; Windows 98)
1 Mozilla/4.0 compatible ZyBorg/1.0 Dead Link Checker (wn.dlc(a)looksmart.net;
http://www.WISEnutbot.com)
1 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Netcraft Web Server Survey)
1 Mozilla/4.0 (Windows NT 4.0)
1 Mozilla/4.0 (Exotic Crawler)
So, about 31 true Netscape 4 users that I can tell, or about 0.08% of the
users to my site. I think it's probably safe to ignore Netscape 4 for the
most part.
-spc (at least, in my case ... )
[1] http://boston.conman.org
5:19 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Sean 'Captain Napalm'
Conner
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 10:03 PM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Help with question about web page access
It was thus said that the Great Ashley Carder once stated:
It may have been 2 years or more ago. I do recall that Netscape numbers
just seemed to go down, down, down as IE got more and more of the user base.
About a year and a half ago, one of my higher volume sites (50,000 hits
per day, I think) showed that 95% of all users were Internet Explorer
and about 2 or 3 percent were Netscape. I still had to support
Netscape,
though, and our staff spent many hours coding
things so that web sites
would remain Netscape friendly.
I would double check the hit patterns. My own experience with
Netscape 4
counters yours. One site I just checked (for 12th of August) received
22,000 hits that day (about half your site from 18 months ago). Checking
for Mozilla/4 (Netscape 4x) and filtering out MSIE ended up with the
following:
28 Mozilla/4.77 [en] (Win98; U)
16 Mozilla/4.76 [en] (PalmOS; U; WebPro3.0; Palm-Arz1)
2 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)
Granted, the site "works" better in MSIE, so on the assumption
it wasn't a
valid sample, I then used the logs from one of my own personal sites [1]
that received 38,000 hits last month. The results there were:
945 Mozilla/4.0 compatible ZyBorg/1.0
(wn-2.zyborg(a)looksmart.net; http://www.WISEnutbot.com)
669 Mozilla/4.08
109 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-2.3)
28 Mozilla/4.0
23 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-1.5.3; Crawl your
own stuff with http://grub.org)
18 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible)
16 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;)
12 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-1.0.5; Crawl your
own stuff with http://grub.org)
8 Mozilla/4.5 [en] (Win98; I)
6 Mozilla/4.7 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.8 sun4u)
6 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Win32; WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5)
5 Mozilla/4.07 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.39 i486; Nav)
4 Mozilla/4.75 [de] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
4 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; BorderManager 3.0)
3 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; grub-client-1.4.3; Crawl your
own stuff with http://grub.org)
2 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MS FrontPage 6.0)
1 Mozilla/4.78 [en] (Win95; U)
1 Mozilla/4.77C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; U; PPC)
1 Mozilla/4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
1 Mozilla/4.73 [de]C-CCK-MCD DT (Win98; U)
1 Mozilla/4.61 [en] (Win98; I)
1 Mozilla/4.61 [en] (OS/2; U)
1 Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98)
1 Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 2.0x; Windows 98)
1 Mozilla/4.0 compatible ZyBorg/1.0 Dead Link Checker
(wn.dlc(a)looksmart.net; http://www.WISEnutbot.com)
1 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Netcraft Web Server Survey)
1 Mozilla/4.0 (Windows NT 4.0)
1 Mozilla/4.0 (Exotic Crawler)
So, about 31 true Netscape 4 users that I can tell, or about
0.08% of the
users to my site. I think it's probably safe to ignore Netscape 4 for the
most part.
-spc (at least, in my case ... )
[1] http://boston.conman.org
17 Aug
17 Aug
3:21 a.m.
On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 02:02, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
I would double check the hit patterns. My own
experience with Netscape 4
counters yours. One site I just checked (for 12th of August) received
22,000 hits that day (about half your site from 18 months ago). Checking
for Mozilla/4 (Netscape 4x) and filtering out MSIE ended up with the
following:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp gives browser stats
by month.
cheers
Jules
5:22 a.m.
On Tuesday 17 August 2004 08:21, Jules Richardson wrote:
On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 02:02, Sean 'Captain
Napalm' Conner wrote:
One thing to watch for in the numbers is Konqueror allows you to set the
Browser identification so that you can deal with web sites that require a
certain browser to work. I have it set it IE6 for my bank.
--
Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600
Looking for: PICMG, Nabu CP/M disks
Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca
I would double check the hit patterns. My own
experience with
Netscape 4 counters yours. One site I just checked (for 12th of
August) received 22,000 hits that day (about half your site from 18
months ago). Checking for Mozilla/4 (Netscape 4x) and filtering out
MSIE ended up with the following:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp gives browser stats
by month. 
5:49 a.m.
Am 16 Aug 2004 19:48 meinte Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner:
> for those users who stayed with
> Netscape 4.78 and used to new code for those users who
> shifted to Netscape 7.0 and later?
As mentioned elsewhere, this gets expensive. I know
that I myself decided
not to support Netscape 4x anymore. Granted, I went out of my way to keep
Netscape 4x from crashing when visiting my site [5] but a Netscape 4x user
is going to have an experience right out of 1993 viewing my site [6]. If
Netscape 4 just had better support for CSS (or just plain wouldn't crash in
the presense of CSS) ...
Well, or just skip the stupid CSS (and it'S precessor, the
dreaded FONT tag). Why can't we just do HTML pages the way
they are ment to be? And more of all:
WHY DOES SOMEBODY HAS TO SLAP A TINY TINY UNREADABLE FONT
IN MY FACE?
Gruss
H.
P.S.: I know that you know that we have different opinions here :)
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
6:24 a.m.
....At least the last part is true.... [ Remember when it was illegal if you
"Flashed" somebody.... ]
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
>> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:05 AM
>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>> Subject: Re: Help with question about web page access
>>
>> On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 14:56, Ed Kelleher wrote:
>> > At 10:49 AM 8/17/2004, you wrote:
>> > >WHY DOES SOMEBODY HAS TO SLAP A TINY TINY UNREADABLE
>> FONT IN MY FACE?
>> >
>> > It takes less bandwidth and server space.
>> >
>> > :-)
>>
>> And leaves more screen space for big Flash animations... :-)
>>
>>
6:23 a.m.
Um...NO...not at all....
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
>> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ed Kelleher
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 10:57 AM
>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>> Subject: Re: Help with question about web page access
>>
>> At 10:49 AM 8/17/2004, you wrote:
>> >WHY DOES SOMEBODY HAS TO SLAP A TINY TINY UNREADABLE FONT
>> IN MY FACE?
>>
>> It takes less bandwidth and server space.
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Ed
>>
6:27 a.m.
WHY DOES
SOMEBODY HAS TO SLAP A TINY TINY UNREADABLE FONT
IN MY FACE?
It takes less bandwidth and server space.
:-)
Um...NO...not at all....
6:39 a.m.
Lets just leave my bodily fluids out of this discussion <grin>
What is wrong with my quotes? I have always liked "If it's not one thing,
it's another......"
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
>> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of meltie
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:27 AM
>> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
>> Subject: Re: Help with question about web page access
>>
>> >> WHY DOES SOMEBODY HAS TO SLAP A TINY TINY UNREADABLE
>> FONT IN MY FACE?
>> >>
>> >> It takes less bandwidth and server space.
>> >>
>> >> :-)
>> >
>> > Um...NO...not at all....
>>
>> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=humour
>>
>>
>> alex/melt
>>
>> p.s. The quote feature on your mailer's broken.
>>
12:39 p.m.
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:39:55 -0400
"David V. Corbin" <dvcorbin(a)optonline.net> wrote:
What is wrong with my quotes?
Typical Outlook
style: Full quote with headers, your text on top.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
6:15 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 16:49:33 +0200
"Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke(a)siemens.com> wrote:
WHY DOES SOMEBODY HAS TO SLAP A TINY TINY UNREADABLE
FONT
IN MY FACE?
Because Winblows likes to use a 50 dpi screen?
(Easy font scaling is one feature that I don't wane miss in Mozilla /
Firebird beside tabed browsing and real coockie management.)
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
12:07 a.m.
Jerome H. Fine said:
I realize that the 2 questions I have are NOT within
the 10 year
rule, but I really could use some help!
While I have been using computers for over 40 years, I
have stayed with very old systems as far as programming
and writing programs is concerned. Thus, under Windows 98
SE and Netsacpe 4.78 (which is what I am using to access
the internet and this news group), I am ONLY able to use
the operating system and the application; I am NOT able to
make any modifications which is how I usually proceed when
I encounter any problems.
Windows 98 is now six years old, and is really just a facelifted version
of Windows 95 - very nearly 10 years old. Win 98 is no longer supported
by Microsoft, so good luck patching for any vulnerabilities. You could
try using Windows 2000 - pretty much anything better than a PII-350 will
run it, if you've got enough memory (anything less than 256M is a waste of
time). As far as the browser is concerned, I thoroughly recommend
switching to Mozilla Firefox. Netscape 4.78 is possibly the most broken
web browser known to exist.
Have you thought about switching to Linux? One of the advantages of that,
is that you can specify nearly anything about your system to be just how
you want it. You can use the latest-and-greatest kernel, built with
support for your machine, nothing more and nothing less, thus saving a
fair bit of memory. You can choose an extremely shiny GUI if you've got
cycles to spare (antialiased text is pretty, but it fair hoovers up MIPs),
a really stripped down GUI (hey, you can make FVWM look really nice if you
work at it), or no GUI at all (I hardly ever start X on one of my
laptops).
Without wishing to seem disrespectful or unpleasant, you are basically
complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern motorway
traffic.
Because I ALWAYS run Netscape with cookies turned
OFF,
except when I am required to have cookies enabled to access the
2 web pages that I normally use, I often encountered the error
page which listed Netscape 4.x as one of the required browsers.
Why? I've never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
So an advert banner site knows that the same computer visited it twice.
Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
fix.
Gordon JC Pearce.
4:05 a.m.
Windows 98 is now six years old, and is really just a
facelifted version
of Windows 95 - very nearly 10 years old. Win 98 is no longer supported
by Microsoft, so good luck patching for any vulnerabilities.
This isn't true, actually -- Microsoft did try to kill Win 98, but they
received so many complaints from home and corporate users (Win98 is still
in use on a large segment of machines) that they still offer support
through windowsupdate for critical-level security patches (the most recent
PNG vulnerability, as well as the ADODB exploit, for example, were all
patched for 98 and ME as well).
While Microsoft will no longer sell you 98, they have extended the period
of time for which they will support it. I don't recall the official kill
off date, but it's still off in the future.
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- The best things in life are sold out. --------------------------------------
6:19 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
This isn't true, actually -- Microsoft did try to
kill Win 98, but they
received so many complaints from home and corporate users (Win98 is still
in use on a large segment of machines) that they still offer support
through windowsupdate for critical-level security patches (the most recent
PNG vulnerability, as well as the ADODB exploit, for example, were all
patched for 98 and ME as well).
While Microsoft will no longer sell you 98, they have extended the period
of time for which they will support it. I don't recall the official kill
off date, but it's still off in the future.
There is a big difference between
"supporting" an OS, and issuing
patches for critical flaws. Microsoft no longer supports W98 as
a product, meaning, the entire development process was stopped,
a long time ago. They d, however, provide patches for critical
problems, if and when they see fit, meaning, if the extra time
needed to do it for W98 isn't too much. Officially, it is no
longer supported, other than this "best effort" offer.
--f
12:30 p.m.
On Tue, Aug 17, 2004 at 06:05:45AM -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
This isn't true, actually -- Microsoft did try to
kill Win 98, but they
received so many complaints from home and corporate users (Win98 is still
in use on a large segment of machines)
I think more important than the home market was the developing nation
market. You might be able to convince a home user to get a new machine
after so many years, but in non-industrialized nations, the hardware
they have is the hardware they have. By killing support for Win98 (and
by consequence machines that can't run W2K or XP), they were going to
be pushing a lot of people in other countries towards some other OS
like Linux.
Any classic machine that will run W98 should have little problem running
a current or semi-current version of Linux. Trying to run a GUI and a
browser in 64MB is doable (but 256MB is more comfortable ;-), and there
are plenty of 486s, let alone early Pentia, that can take 64MB.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 17-Aug-2004 21:20 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -89.5 F (-67.5 C) Windchill -135.8 F (-93.2 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 14.3 kts Grid 079 Barometer 662.9 mb (11278. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
5:38 a.m.
Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Windows 98 is now six years old, and is really just a
facelifted version
of Windows 95 - very nearly 10 years old. Win 98 is no longer supported
by Microsoft, so good luck patching for any vulnerabilities. You could
try using Windows 2000 - pretty much anything better than a PII-350 will
run it, if you've got enough memory (anything less than 256M is a waste of
time). As far as the browser is concerned, I thoroughly recommend
switching to Mozilla Firefox. Netscape 4.78 is possibly the most broken
web browser known to exist.
Jerome Fine replies:
First, Microsoft still supports Windows 98 SE, although I must
admit that every time I accept patches, it crashes my system.
Second, the ONLY reason I stay with Windows 98 SE is because
Ersatz-11 runs correctly for me ONLY under Windows 98 SE.
I use MACRO-11 99% of the time to write programs and I
MUST have 132 character lines when I use the editor under RT-11.
None of the other Window OSs that I tested would support
132 character lines, although Ersatz-11 does mostly run under
those other OSs, just not quite as complete. Actually, I will
probably upgrade to a Pentium 4 by the end of this year, just
in time to obtain a motherboard that can handle a separate
AGP adapter with ATI firmware that supports 132 character
lines with Ersatz-11. The 750 MHz Pentium III is now just
2 1/2 years old, so I would have preferred to use it for at least
4 or 5 more years.
As for Netscape, I have saved all my e-mails and news groups
posts. Shifting to IE would be almost a disaster.
And since one bank still allows Netscape 4.78, I would
presume that the other bank would not really have a problem
continuing to support Netscape 4.78 if they chose to do so.
But since it is highly probable that, as a large organization, the
bank is infected with the same mentality as Microsoft, the bank
just does not care. It is not as if they are being asked to support
a new interface, just to continue to support the old one which until
the end of July was the case!
Without wishing to seem disrespectful or unpleasant,
you are basically
complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern motorway
traffic.
Actually, I would be quite happy to use a Morris Minor
if the spare parts were available. I don't drive on highway
often enough to matter!
I still find Netscape 4.78 more than competitive with IE on the
few times I need to use my wife's computer.
Because I
ALWAYS run Netscape with cookies turned OFF,
except when I am required to have cookies enabled to access the
2 web pages that I normally use, I often encountered the error
page which listed Netscape 4.x as one of the required browsers.
Why? I've
never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
So an advert banner site knows that the same computer visited it twice.
Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
fix. From my point of view, except for the 2 bank sites I
use
because I am helping my son, I refuse to use any other
sites where cookies are required. And more to the point,
I set Netscape to notify me when the doorbell is being
run even then. I just feel it is a good idea to know if the
doorbell is being rung and then to answer it myself rather
than allowing open door access, even to a web site that
is likely more reputable than most. For all other sites,
I just NEVER even listen when they ring the doorbell.
Actually, can you explain what advantage cookies provide?
Is there something about cookies which they do which can't
be done without cookies?????????????
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
5:55 a.m.
Jerome H. Fine said:
OK, fair enough, I thought it was EOL quite some time ago.
Heh. I do, so I drive a late-80s Citroen CX which keeps up with motorway
traffic but is only a little more complicated than a Moggy Minor. I'll
put my hands up to that...
Gordon JC
Pearce wrote:
Windows 98 is now six years old, and is really
just a facelifted version
of Windows 95 - very nearly 10 years old. Win 98 is no longer supported
by Microsoft, so good luck patching for any vulnerabilities. You could
try using Windows 2000 - pretty much anything better than a PII-350 will
run it, if you've got enough memory (anything less than 256M is a waste
of
time). As far as the browser is concerned, I thoroughly recommend
switching to Mozilla Firefox. Netscape 4.78 is possibly the most broken
web browser known to exist.
Jerome Fine replies:
First, Microsoft still supports Windows 98 SE, although I must
admit that every time I accept patches, it crashes my system. Second, the ONLY reason I stay with Windows 98 SE is
because
Ersatz-11 runs correctly for me ONLY under Windows 98 SE.
I use MACRO-11 99% of the time to write programs and I
MUST have 132 character lines when I use the editor under RT-11.
None of the other Window OSs that I tested would support
132 character lines, although Ersatz-11 does mostly run under
those other OSs, just not quite as complete. Actually, I will
probably upgrade to a Pentium 4 by the end of this year, just
in time to obtain a motherboard that can handle a separate
AGP adapter with ATI firmware that supports 132 character
lines with Ersatz-11. The 750 MHz Pentium III is now just
2 1/2 years old, so I would have preferred to use it for at least
4 or 5 more years.
I'm currently editing stuff in a 150-odd column window, using PuTTY on
Windows 2000 into my NetBSD machine at home. Now, I will freely admit I
know nothing at all about Windows, and I haven't played with Ersatz-11,
but I'm sure there are other emulations of the PDP-11 that will let you do
what you want.
As for Netscape, I have saved all my e-mails and news
groups
posts. Shifting to IE would be almost a disaster.
Did I even *mention* IE? The last version of IE I ever used was IE 3.odd
which is far, far worse than Netscape 4.78.
And since one bank still allows Netscape 4.78, I
would
presume that the other bank would not really have a problem
continuing to support Netscape 4.78 if they chose to do so.
But since it is highly probable that, as a large organization, the
bank is infected with the same mentality as Microsoft, the bank
just does not care. It is not as if they are being asked to support
a new interface, just to continue to support the old one which until
the end of July was the case!
As I said before, Netscape 4.78 is a really, really bad version of
Netscape. Why don't you upgrade to even a newer version? What's this
aversion to software less than five years old?
Without
wishing to seem disrespectful or unpleasant, you are basically
complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern
motorway
traffic.
Actually, I would be quite happy to use a Morris Minor
if the spare parts were available. I don't drive on highway
often enough to matter! I still find Netscape 4.78 more than competitive with
IE on the
few times I need to use my wife's computer.
Session tracking. It's really, really hard to provide session tracking
without using cookies. Sure, you can get away with using forms with a
hidden field, or using a big fugly md5sum in the URL, but for the most
part, you just send a cookie. That's what they were invented for.
In case you can't see why you'd want session tracking, ask yourself how
else you'd accept a user logging into a website, visiting pages tied
specifically to them, and logging out? Single-pixel gifs? That's even
nastier than cookies!
In any case, modern browsers like Mozilla Firefox allow you to specify
which sites you want to allow cookies from and which sites to block
cookies from. There is quite fine-grained control over this. I suggest
you download it and have a look.
Gordon.
Because I
ALWAYS run Netscape with cookies turned OFF,
except when I am required to have cookies enabled to access the
2 web pages that I normally use, I often encountered the error
page which listed Netscape 4.x as one of the required browsers.
Why? I've
never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
So an advert banner site knows that the same computer visited it twice.
Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
fix. From my point of view, except for the 2 bank sites
I use
because I am helping my son, I refuse to use any other
sites where cookies are required. And more to the point,
I set Netscape to notify me when the doorbell is being
run even then. I just feel it is a good idea to know if the
doorbell is being rung and then to answer it myself rather
than allowing open door access, even to a web site that
is likely more reputable than most. For all other sites,
I just NEVER even listen when they ring the doorbell.
Actually, can you explain what advantage cookies provide?
Is there something about cookies which they do which can't
be done without cookies?????????????
5:55 a.m.
Actually, can you explain what advantage cookies
provide?
Is there something about cookies which they do which can't
be done without cookies?????????????
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
Cookies can be used to maintain information about a user one THEIR
computer. This way the user does not have to re-enter the same
information each time they visit a web site. For example, I use cookies
on some of my personal sites so that a user can tell me his/her name when
they first visit, then I drop a cookie on their system that contains their
name and they never have to enter it again. On subsequent visits I just
read for the cookie rather than asking them for their name again. I use
this to identify a particular user on some sites where I like to know who
visits, but where the site's not sensitive enough to implement a user id
and password login process. This works fine in a "non-public" computer
environment.
Ashley
5:18 p.m.
Ashley Carder wrote:
Cookies can be used to maintain information about a
user one THEIR
computer. This way the user does not have to re-enter the same
information each time they visit a web site. For example, I use cookies
on some of my personal sites so that a user can tell me his/her name when
they first visit, then I drop a cookie on their system that contains their
name and they never have to enter it again. On subsequent visits I just
read for the cookie rather than asking them for their name again. I use
this to identify a particular user on some sites where I like to know who
visits, but where the site's not sensitive enough to implement a user id
and password login process. This works fine in a "non-public" computer
environment.
Jerome Fine replies:
Since I MUST always login with the userid / password (which is
the only data that stays the same), that can't be the use made of
cookies in this case. PLUS, I also did login from another system
(ONLY once) and accessed the account records after ONLY
the userid / password was supplied.
Could cookies have anything to do with what Netscape calls a
secure environment? The "LOCK" icon is "CLOSED" in the
lock position after start the login sequence.
In any case, cookies are REQUIRED and are used, though
I have no idea for what purpose! Can anyone who has used
cookies suggest a good reason for their use?
As for the environment, I would have to describe it as PUBLIC
since I suspect that I could login from anywhere in the world. Since
the ONLY things that can be done are to make sure that the expected
account entries are present PLUS I can transfer funds between
2 accounts, there doesn't (at least in my mind) seem to be a possible
way for anyone who might break the userid / password to steal any
funds - any actual withdrawal of funds MUST be done in person at
the bank. I even disabled (cut off the bottom half with the magnetic
stripe) the bank card, so I authorize withdrawals the old fashioned way -
I give the bank my signature on a piece of paper!
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
6:38 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jerome H. Fine
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 10:18 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Help with question about web page access
The above was just one example of a way to use cookies. There are *MANY*
other ways that they are used.
Ashley Carder wrote:
Cookies can be used to maintain information about
a user one THEIR
computer. This way the user does not have to re-enter the same
information each time they visit a web site. For example, I use cookies
on some of my personal sites so that a user can tell me his/her
name when
they first visit, then I drop a cookie on their
system that
contains their
name and they never have to enter it again. On
subsequent visits I just
read for the cookie rather than asking them for their name again. I use
this to identify a particular user on some sites where I like
to know who
> visits, but where the site's not sensitive enough to implement a user id
> and password login process. This works fine in a "non-public" computer
> environment. Jerome Fine replies:
Since I MUST always login with the userid / password (which is
the only data that stays the same), that can't be the use made of
cookies in this case. PLUS, I also did login from another system
(ONLY once) and accessed the account records after ONLY
the userid / password was supplied.
Cookies are used for lots of other things, such as storing other
session data rather than passing it from page to page via query
strings in the URL.
Could cookies have anything to do with what Netscape
calls a
secure environment? The "LOCK" icon is "CLOSED" in the
lock position after start the login sequence.
Nah, that's for https:, which uses port 443 and encrypts and
decrypts data as it travels back and forth between the server
and the client.
In any case, cookies are REQUIRED and are used,
though
I have no idea for what purpose! Can anyone who has used
cookies suggest a good reason for their use?
They're basically used to place a small piece of data on the user's
computer so that it can be retrieved later, possibly during the
same session or perhaps on subsequent visits to the site. They
can last only for the duration of the current web session, or can
be set to have an expiration date some time in the future. You
can delete them yourself if you the folders to look in.
Lots of people seem to be scared of cookies, but IMO they're harmless.
They just contain a little piece of data that can be written and
retrieved by the web site during the current session or in the
future. They have a multitude of uses.
As for the environment, I would have to describe it as
PUBLIC
since I suspect that I could login from anywhere in the world. Since
the ONLY things that can be done are to make sure that the expected
account entries are present PLUS I can transfer funds between
2 accounts, there doesn't (at least in my mind) seem to be a possible
way for anyone who might break the userid / password to steal any
funds - any actual withdrawal of funds MUST be done in person at
the bank. I even disabled (cut off the bottom half with the magnetic
stripe) the bank card, so I authorize withdrawals the old fashioned way -
I give the bank my signature on a piece of paper!
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.
18 Aug
18 Aug
3:52 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Ashley Carder wrote:
<much snippage>
The only (IMHO) valid reason to be concerned about cookies has to
do w/ advertising. Many (all?) of the banner ad sites aren't
just a image banner ad, they are a bit of HTML code that reads a
cookie, possibly stores a cookie, and displays the image.
The reason people get concerned about cookies, is now your
participating in a advertising study, without one's knowledge
nor consent.
Many of those cookies are unique identifiers too, so now the
advertising can collect your browsing habits, and sell them to
other marketing droids.
Frankly, I'm not too keen on someone else (effectivly) standing
over my shoulder while I surf the web, and watching the sites
I go to.
Granted those advertising/marketing droids can only watch your
browsing on "participating" sites, but w/ the prevalence of
adserver.com, advertising.com, 2o7.net, its still more than
I'd like.
IMHO/YMMV/Std. Disclaimers may apply/Etc.
David
> Jerome Fine replies:
<snip>
In any case, cookies are REQUIRED and are used,
though
I have no idea for what purpose! Can anyone who has used
cookies suggest a good reason for their use?
They're basically used to place a small piece of data on the user's
computer so that it can be retrieved later, possibly during the
same session or perhaps on subsequent visits to the site. They
can last only for the duration of the current web session, or can
be set to have an expiration date some time in the future. You
can delete them yourself if you the folders to look in.
Lots of people seem to be scared of cookies, but IMO they're harmless.
They just contain a little piece of data that can be written and
retrieved by the web site during the current session or in the
future. They have a multitude of uses.
4:29 a.m.
David Holland said:
<deletia
Frankly, I'm not too keen on someone else
(effectivly) standing
over my shoulder while I surf the web, and watching the sites
I go to.
So use a browser that allows you to block advertising sites. Or, use
something like Junkbuster Proxy. Either will do what you want.
Gordon.
17 Aug
17 Aug
6:20 a.m.
Am 17 Aug 2004 10:38 meinte Jerome H. Fine:
Gordon JC
Pearce wrote:
Windows 98 is now six years old, and is really
just a facelifted version
of Windows 95 - very nearly 10 years old. Win 98 is no longer supported
by Microsoft, so good luck patching for any vulnerabilities. You could
try using Windows 2000 - pretty much anything better than a PII-350 will
run it, if you've got enough memory (anything less than 256M is a waste of
time). As far as the browser is concerned, I thoroughly recommend
switching to Mozilla Firefox. Netscape 4.78 is possibly the most broken
web browser known to exist.
Jerome Fine replies: Second, the ONLY reason I stay with Windows 98 SE is
because
Ersatz-11 runs correctly for me ONLY under Windows 98 SE.
Now that's an interesting reasoning .. even more, it makes
the Win98 a perfect on topic item *G* like that.
As for Netscape, I have saved all my e-mails and news
groups
posts. Shifting to IE would be almost a disaster.
Serious, considere Mozilla. As for myself, I have been a
die hard Netscape 4.78 user until about half a year ago.
at that point I had to access some web sites which where
just pure crap (design wise) but needed for my work. So
I gave Mozilla a try (I didn't want to switch for IE).
And beside some minor details (The German translation is
made by some Austrian jokesters who put DE-AT - whatever
that is - as default language) I'm quite pleased by now.
Especialy the tabbed browsing got me. But most important
it is close enough to Netscape that the transition was
painless.
> Without wishing to seem disrespectful or
unpleasant, you are basically
> complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern motorway
> traffic.
Actually, I would be quite happy to use a Morris
Minor
if the spare parts were available. I don't drive on highway
often enough to matter!
Nobody is required to always drive high speed. Not even
on the autobahn. And a Morris Minor or a VW Beetle or
a 2CV is still a great car for every day.
> > Because I ALWAYS run Netscape with cookies
turned OFF,
> > except when I am required to have cookies enabled to access the
> > 2 web pages that I normally use, I often encountered the error
> > page which listed Netscape 4.x as one of the required browsers.
> Why? I've never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
> So an advert banner site knows that the same computer visited it twice.
> Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
> salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
> fix.
From my point of view, except for the 2 bank sites I
use
because I am helping my son, I refuse to use any other
sites where cookies are required. And more to the point,
I set Netscape to notify me when the doorbell is being
run even then. I just feel it is a good idea to know if the
doorbell is being rung and then to answer it myself rather
than allowing open door access, even to a web site that
is likely more reputable than most. For all other sites,
I just NEVER even listen when they ring the doorbell.
Now, here Mozilla is even better, it adds a finger print
sensor to your doorbell by giving you ways to manage them
and decide which site may set cookies on a site, and even
page specific setting.
Actually, can you explain what advantage cookies
provide?
Is there something about cookies which they do which can't
be done without cookies?????????????
It realy simplifies some site designs. Also keep in mind, it
needed Netscape to invent them :) Back when they started
to explore the ways of 'Webshops'.
I think by now, a switch from NS to Mozilla should be possible.
with your 750 PII and 98SE, you're perfectly within the specs.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/sysreq.html
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
6:27 a.m.
At 11:20 AM 8/17/2004, you wrote:
I gave Mozilla a try (I didn't want to switch for
IE).
And beside some minor details (The German translation is
made by some Austrian jokesters who put DE-AT - whatever
that is - as default language) I'm quite pleased by now.
Especialy the tabbed browsing got me. But most important
it is close enough to Netscape that the transition was
painless.
Big plus of Mozilla for me over IE is that it prints webpages intelligently.
Ed
6:32 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 10:38:25 -0400
"Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinexgs2(a)compsys.to> wrote:
Second, the ONLY reason I stay with Windows 98 SE is
because
Ersatz-11 runs correctly for me ONLY under Windows 98 SE.
[...]
Sounds odd. Well. This is M$. ;-)
As for Netscape, I have saved all my e-mails and news
groups
posts. Shifting to IE would be almost a disaster.
You should be able to export the
mails to a Unix style mbox file and
import it with an other Mail User Agent. IIRC Netscape uses mbox as its
"internal" file format to store all mails.
From my point of view, except for the 2 bank sites I
use
because I am helping my son, I refuse to use any other
sites where cookies are required.
Browseres like Mozilla and Firebird have a
cookie management system. You
can enable cookies, but you will be asked to accept a cookie when a web
site wants to set one. Then you can allow or disallow cookis for that
site permanently. A feature that I _really_ missed in Netscape 4.x.
\begin{daemons advocate}
Is there a *ix version of Ersatz-11 available? ;-)
\end{daemons advocate}
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
6:50 a.m.
>>>> "Jochen" == Jochen Kunz
<jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> writes:
Jochen> On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 10:38:25 -0400 "Jerome H. Fine"
Jochen> <jhfinexgs2(a)compsys.to> wrote:
> Second, the ONLY reason I stay with Windows 98 SE
is because
> Ersatz-11 runs correctly for me ONLY under Windows 98 SE.
Jochen> [...]
Sounds odd. Well. This is M$. ;-)
So run it under Linux, that's a far better choice.
> As for Netscape, I have saved all my e-mails and
news groups
> posts. Shifting to IE would be almost a disaster.
Jochen> You should be
able to export the mails to a Unix style mbox
Jochen> file and import it with an other Mail User Agent. IIRC
Jochen> Netscape uses mbox as its "internal" file format to store all
Jochen> mails.
I use vm under XEmacs, both on Windows and Linux. Works nicely.
Jochen> \begin{daemons advocate} Is there a *ix version of Ersatz-11
Jochen> available? ;-) \end{daemons advocate} --
Yes, it's been around for years, and it works very well indeed.
paul
1:10 p.m.
>>>> "Fred" == Fred N van Kempen
<waltje(a)pdp11.nl> writes:
Fred> On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Jochen Kunz wrote:
> \begin{daemons advocate} Is there a *ix version of
Ersatz-11
> available? ;-) \end{daemons advocate}
Fred> Yes, there's one for
Linsux, but, quite like the OS, it sux.
Nonsense.
paul
6:54 p.m.
On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Paul Koning wrote:
Complete and utter.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
>>>> "Fred" == Fred N van Kempen <waltje(a)pdp11.nl> writes:
Fred> On Tue, 17 Aug 2004, Jochen Kunz wrote:
> \begin{daemons advocate} Is there a *ix
version of Ersatz-11
> available? ;-) \end{daemons advocate}
Fred> Yes, there's one for
Linsux, but, quite like the OS, it sux.
Nonsense. 
11:57 a.m.
Jerome H. Fine wrote:
Actually, I would be quite happy to use a Morris
Minor
if the spare parts were available. I don't drive on highway
often enough to matter!
Might be a long trip to collect those parts, but:
http://www.morrisminor.org.uk/
I went on a trip to the Morris Minor Owners' Club rally in a
vehicle restored by this company. It was a recent one, though,
built in 1969.
--
John Honniball
coredump(a)gifford.co.uk
1:57 p.m.
While perfectly LEGAL, websites that won't work with last
week's browser are offensive.
Yes, I am exaggerating a bit. But, I do NOT need some asshole
to tell me "I use a browser that is almost 8 months old,
and that site runs just fine."
Why do some jerks make websites that have nothing but text
on them, that CARE about which release of the browser?
Why do some jerks take plain text and put it in a .PDF?
Without wishing to seem disrespectful or unpleasant,
you are basically
complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern motorway
traffic.
While it may not be very practical for high speed freeway,
where does one get off suggesting that it be banned from
city streets?
BTW, have you ever replaced the brake master cylinder on one?
Why? I've never understood this obsession with
cookies. I mean, *why*?
Because it is RUDE to store your crap on somebody
else's machine,
without identifying what is in it.
And some companies make browsers that are so demented that the
default settings permit "cookies" that are executable code!
So an advert banner site knows that the same computer
visited it twice.
Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
fix.
Some have had experiences that call for checking through a peephole
before opening the door.
2:28 p.m.
Rumor has it that Fred Cisin may have mentioned these words:
Turn 'em off. Problem solved.
[[ BTW, cookies were originally designed to store "the user's crap on their
own machine" -> preferences, settings, whatnot. Are cookies bad because of
doubleclick's perverted tracking scheme? ]]
While perfectly LEGAL, websites that won't work
with last
week's browser are offensive.
Yes, I am exaggerating a bit.
Yes, if a website doesn't support Nutscrape 2.0, I don't find that a big
problem... but websites that support Nutscrape 7.1, but don't support
Mozilla 1.9.3 (read: same damn core) I find *seriously offensive.* Yes, I
find Yahoo offensive!
That's like saying "Yes, we support the use of a 2002 Cadillac Escalade,
but not a 2002 Chevy Avalanche!
Other than the Escalade costs $10K more and you *have* to get the leather
interior, they're the same damn truck!
Why do some jerks make websites that have nothing but
text
on them, that CARE about which release of the browser?
Why do some jerks take plain text and put it in a .PDF?
Id10T Portability. Folks who can save a PDF by right-clicking and hitting
"Save Link" aren't smart enough to click "File" then "Save
As."
Why? I've
never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
Because it is RUDE to
store your crap on somebody else's machine,
without identifying what is in it. And some companies make browsers that are so demented
that the
default settings permit "cookies" that are executable code!
That's like saying "it's the '98 Jag's fault why you're '57
Morris Minor
can't keep up with modern traffic." You can't blame the cookies due to some
brain-dead program!
Is email bad because of Micro$haft's perverted viruses-spreading crapware?
ObClassiccmp: I used gotos all the time in my basic code. Am I now Evil
Incarnate? ;-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | JC: "Like those people in
Celeronville!"
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Me: "Don't you mean Silicon Valley???"
zmerch(a)30below.com | JC: "Yea, that's the place!"
| JC == Jeremy Christian
18 Aug
18 Aug
2:21 a.m.
Am 17 Aug 2004 19:28 meinte Roger Merchberger:
Rumor has it that Fred Cisin may have mentioned these
words:
>And some companies make browsers that are so demented that the
>default settings permit "cookies" that are executable code!
That's like saying "it's the '98
Jag's fault why you're '57 Morris Minor
can't keep up with modern traffic." You can't blame the cookies due to some
brain-dead program!
Is email bad because of Micro$haft's perverted
viruses-spreading crapware?
Yes!
(I had to jump this)
And realy yes, MS gave eMail a bad name, especialy with
their stupid way of quoteing. I mean, can this be called
quoteing at all? Adding the whole mail and just puting
the cursor at the beginning? I get often mails at work
that are the result of 10 or more such actions ...
Maybe the guy who invented the shit was a huge fan of
HP calculators ... reading previous mails in reverse order.
Of course always includeing all headers and footers.
And of course no way to act context orientated (aka
embedding responses together.
Serious, I hate it.
ObClassiccmp: I used gotos all the time in my basic
code. Am I now Evil
Incarnate? ;-)
YES! You could have tone the same with gosub and stack modification.
In Applesoft Basic, this would even be supportet by the language.
The POP command just removes one entry from the GOSUB stack :)
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
2:51 a.m.
New subject: E-Mail Quoting...
Hans,
I beg to differ on opinions on e-mail quoting. I really dislike having to
scroll past all of the stuff I have already read, or even scan through a mix
of old and new. To be honest I dislike the whole use of e-mails for
"conversations". I would much rather have the ability to organize the
information into something USEFUL.
If the ability existed to simply post a link to the previous mail that would
be helpful. If we were allowed things other than just text [although I
completely understand the reasons for keeping this pure text] I would
encapsulate the previous messages[s]. They should be there for reference, in
most cases they have alrady been read.
I offered to provide a site where the information could be better organized
and crosslinked, but there was opposition for a number of people here.
Perhaps I look at information a bit differently than some others. I would
like the ability to track a given topic without seeing repeat information
[regardless of how it is quoted], handle the information in topical,
originator and time based fashions.
Just my thoughts....
David.
3:02 a.m.
New subject: E-Mail Quoting...
I don't agree with your statement at all.
(And, this is the type of email I sometimes end up seeing from people
who use outlook. Good luck trying to figure out what part I was
disagreeing with.)
Anyhow, on discussion groups like this one, "conversations" over email
(exchanging email about a topic) is what the mailing list is all
about... It sucks when you end up seeing something 1/2 way through the
thread and can't determine what the people were talking about anymore,
from people either top-posting or deleting useful
quoted info.
Just my $0.02 ($0.03 CAN)
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
On Wednesday 18 August 2004 06:51, David V. Corbin wrote:
Hans,
I beg to differ on opinions on e-mail quoting. I really dislike
having to scroll past all of the stuff I have already read, or even
scan through a mix of old and new. To be honest I dislike the whole
use of e-mails for "conversations". I would much rather have the
ability to organize the information into something USEFUL.
If the ability existed to simply post a link to the previous mail
that would be helpful. If we were allowed things other than just text
[although I completely understand the reasons for keeping this pure
text] I would encapsulate the previous messages[s]. They should be
there for reference, in most cases they have alrady been read.
I offered to provide a site where the information could be better
organized and crosslinked, but there was opposition for a number of
people here. Perhaps I look at information a bit differently than
some others. I would like the ability to track a given topic without
seeing repeat information [regardless of how it is quoted], handle
the information in topical, originator and time based fashions.
Just my thoughts....
David.
8:58 a.m.
New subject: E-Mail Quoting...
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
Anyhow, on discussion groups like this one,
"conversations" over email
(exchanging email about a topic) is what the mailing list is all
about... It sucks when you end up seeing something 1/2 way through the
thread and can't determine what the people were talking about anymore,
from people either top-posting or deleting useful quoted info.
I wouldn't mind as much if they would learn to TRIM THEIR REPLIES!!!
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
4:47 a.m.
New subject: E-Mail Quoting...
Am 18 Aug 2004 7:51 meinte David V. Corbin:
I beg to differ on opinions on e-mail quoting. I
really dislike having to
scroll past all of the stuff I have already read, or even scan through a mix
of old and new. To be honest I dislike the whole use of e-mails for
"conversations". I would much rather have the ability to organize the
information into something USEFUL.
This requires even more discipline ... and worse: the same understanding
of structure (and usefulness) is needed for all parties involved.
If the ability existed to simply post a link to the
previous mail that would
be helpful. If we were allowed things other than just text [although I
completely understand the reasons for keeping this pure text] I would
encapsulate the previous messages[s]. They should be there for reference, in
most cases they have alrady been read.
Read, and remembering an exact argument to which a third person
is refering are two different issues. After all, a Mailing List
is not realy a dialogue between two people, but rather a group
doing a conference - with time delay. Now, while in a real meeting
you would directly answer, it already gets hard to answer one
person if you're the third in row to reply ... at least I have
always a hard time to remember my arguments and listen to the
speakers inbetween. Especialy when they come up with new and
good arguments.
Now adding the time delay is like having multiple meetings at the
same time, since the streams split up (and join again, maybe) into
threads of subdiscusions.
Instead of encapsulateing whole messages, which are then a mere
archive (that could be external), you need to be specific, what
you are addressing. Now, in a real meeting you would do something
like 'Fine, but coming back to what David said about usefulness
and ... I would like to add that ...'. Isn't it? Here comes the
great part of email communication and embedded quoteing. Instead
of giving a mere hint what topic you're answering, you quote all
parts that are _relevant_ to your statement. Thus setting an easy
to follow stage for furter understanding.
In my last Mail I did show my strong disregard for the MS-Style
of includeing a complete previous mail with all the technical
glibebrisch arround at the end of a mail. Part of that also goes
to people who use classic usenet style the microsoft way, by
just quoteing everything and then putting a mere line below.
If I answer a posting I try to quote only the parts that are
necersarry to understand the flow of arguments. In most cases
I remove old empty lines, and even shorten quotes (by adding
[...]) and of course, I get rid of headers and footers. To me
that's part of the communication. I try to state as specific
as possible what it is about
(A notable exception here are of course postings with a rather
funny background, where the sequence (and way it is written) are
part of the fun)
I offered to provide a site where the information
could be better organized
and crosslinked, but there was opposition for a number of people here.
Perhaps I look at information a bit differently than some others. I would
like the ability to track a given topic without seeing repeat information
[regardless of how it is quoted], handle the information in topical,
originator and time based fashions.
Well, nice, and a great idea - except that good information retrival
is 99% about how the information is prepared beforehand and only 1%
about how it is accessed ... and so we're back to the discipline part.
And usenet style of quoteing, if handled properly, is to me a way to
provide reuseable pices of information. If several people reply to
each other in a way of quoteing the necersary parts to create a final
summary, then this is the document to be accessed later. The documents
on the way there are merly drafts, and only usefull if you want to
explore the sidelines.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
5:16 a.m.
New subject: E-Mail Quoting...
Hans,
I Completely agree with wht you are saying....
>> Well, nice, and a great idea - except that
good information retrival is
99% about how the information is prepared beforehand
and only 1% about how
it is accessed ... and so we're back to the discipline part.
Therefore the work need to be done AS THE INFORMATION IS ADDED. Look back at
the Web and its original intention (Getting away from Linear information
flow). The "problem" is that the information was posted with no regard to
organization, structure, duplication, or in fact anything! Now what we have
is a vast repository of information that in many cases is entirely useless.
Forumulate almost any simple question... "What Year did....", "Who
Said....", "What is the maximum resolution of [fill-in] video card?". In
each of these cases I am sure the information is on some page of some site
somewhere. Any search engine will return tons of junk, due to their very
nature.
Going back to non-realtime communication...I am not sure if you use any of
the MOTERATED forums that exist on the web. Postings are organized into
topic, the moderators will move items that are misplaced, and edit content
that is not appropriate. I do the same for "non-structured" content that I
wish to track that originates from e-mails by having my e-mail integrated
with a CRM system. The only annoying part right now is deailng with the
"duality" of the from addresses.
Since I (usually) read my e-mail in the order it is received, it is quite
common to (want to ) respond to an issue that has already been addressed.
The alternaive of reading my most recently first has other issues and is not
really a solution. When I am in an environment that shows a TREE with
responses organized by who was responjding to which element of the topic, I
can easily see if that issue has a response, scane that (without reading all
of the responses in the entire discussion) and then decide if I want to
respond (to the person who originally raised the issue, or to the last
person who chimed in on the matter).
David
11:40 a.m.
> ObClassiccmp: I used gotos all the time in my
basic code. Am I now Evil
> Incarnate? ;-)
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004, Hans Franke wrote:
YES! You could have tone the same with gosub and stack
modification.
In Applesoft Basic, this would even be supportet by the language.
The POP command just removes one entry from the GOSUB stack :)
It is POSSIBLE to write structured code in BASIC.
But a REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language.
1:04 p.m.
[...]
And realy yes, MS gave eMail a bad name, especialy with
their stupid way of quoteing. I mean, can this be called
quoteing at all? Adding the whole mail and just puting
the cursor at the beginning? I get often mails at work
that are the result of 10 or more such actions ...
Maybe the guy who invented the shit was a huge fan of
HP calculators ... reading previous mails in reverse order.
Hey, I resemble that remark!
HP calculators are the only ones I use (I must have a few 10's of them
now) _becasue_ they're the only ones that do things in a logical order
(namely a function is executed when you press the key, there are no hidden
pending operations).
Infix notation is like M$. It only survives because people are used to
it. Once you've learnt something better (prefix or postfix notation), you
never go back.
-tony
6:12 p.m.
Infix notation is like M$. It only survives because
people are used
to it. Once you've learnt something better (prefix or postfix
notation), you never go back.
I disagree. Despite having used both prefix and postfix languages and
having become thoroughly acquainted with both paradigms, I still often
enough use infix notation by choice, such as when doing mathematics on
paper, and still use (and even write) calculator programs that use
infix notation - despite the additional code hair parsing it entails.
I'm not sure why; it's an interesting subject for thought. But I
certainly don't "never go back".
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
19 Aug
19 Aug
5:41 a.m.
Am 18 Aug 2004 23:04 meinte Tony Duell:
[...]
> And realy yes, MS gave eMail a bad name, especialy with
> their stupid way of quoteing. I mean, can this be called
> quoteing at all? Adding the whole mail and just puting
> the cursor at the beginning? I get often mails at work
> that are the result of 10 or more such actions ...
> Maybe the guy who invented the shit was a huge
fan of
> HP calculators ... reading previous mails in reverse order.
Hey, I resemble that remark!
No you don't. You can, at least differentiate between various
uses (at least you seam to me like someone able to do so).
HP calculators are the only ones I use (I must have a
few 10's of them
now) _becasue_ they're the only ones that do things in a logical order
(namely a function is executed when you press the key, there are no hidden
pending operations).
Jup, they are great. And no, I didn't want to compare UPN
with MS, I just tried to find a single reason why MS is
doing the default quotation the way it does.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
6:09 a.m.
>> Jup, they are great. And no, I didn't want
to compare UPN
>> with MS, I just tried to find a single reason why MS is
>> doing the default quotation the way it does.
Consider paper inter-office mail. If a person is goinf to reply/forward a
printed message, they will often [at least in the old days], type up a page
with their information [anyone have a Royal Typewriter handy], and attach
the original [or a copy] BEHIND it......
8:20 a.m.
On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, David V. Corbin wrote:
That's because they didn't have computers back then.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
>> Jup,
they are great. And no, I didn't want to compare UPN
>> with MS, I just tried to find a single reason why MS is
>> doing the default quotation the way it does.
Consider paper inter-office mail. If a person is goinf to reply/forward a
printed message, they will often [at least in the old days], type up a page
with their information [anyone have a Royal Typewriter handy], and attach
the original [or a copy] BEHIND it......
2:28 p.m.
Consider paper
inter-office mail. If a person is goinf to reply/forward a
printed message, they will often [at least in the old days], type up a page
with their information [anyone have a Royal Typewriter handy], and attach
the original [or a copy] BEHIND it......
That's because they didn't have computers back then.
4:17 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 12:28:47AM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
One of my co-workers here, her mother was a "computer" back in the day...
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Aug-2004 01:10 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -79 F (-61.7 C) Windchill -118.1 F (-83.40 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 11.2 kts Grid 061 Barometer 669.7 mb (11018 ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
That's
because they didn't have computers back then.
Yes they did. They were the people who operated the calculating machines :-) 
9:03 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
>That's because they didn't have computers
back then.
Yes they did. They were the people who operated the
calculating machines :-)
The current issue of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing has an
an interesting article on the origins of the word computer. It is
available for free at http://www.computer.org/annals/an2004/promo1.pdf
-- HansP
23 Aug
23 Aug
10:39 a.m.
Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words:
Yes they did. They were the people who operated the calculating machines :-)
Altho I'm certainly no exspurt on the Queen's English, at least as far as
"correct" American English goes, the spelling for the word defined as
"People who are operating the computing machines" would be:
Computors.
^
This even holds true for people who stick 2 pieces of metal together with a
hot stick - Welders are the devices used, Weldors are the people running
the devices.
Granted, most people don't use the "correct" terminology anymore, and when
people change the popular use of the word, it changes the word... (else
we'd still be spelling jail as Gaol... ;-) )
Just thought I'd throw in my $0.02 worth of useless trivia...
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch(a)30below.com
What do you do when Life gives you lemons,
and you don't *like* lemonade?????????????
> Consider
paper inter-office mail. If a person is goinf to reply/forward a
> printed message, they will often [at least in the old days], type up
a page
with
their information [anyone have a Royal Typewriter handy], and attach
the original [or a copy] BEHIND it......
That's because they didn't have computers back then. 
12:19 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC1248
Hi folks,
Had a mail from someone who has 2 of these 'boxed in new condition'. They're
pretty early BASIC calculators so they must be of interest to someone; he'd
like to know how much they're worth to collectors - it's the first time
someone's mailed me who doesn't want to stick things on ebay!
Cheers
--
Adrian/Witchy
Owner/Curator of Binary Dinosaurs, quite probably the UK's biggest private
home computer collection
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online museum
www.aaghverts.co.uk - *the* site for advert whinges!
www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - former gothic shenanigans :(
24 Aug
24 Aug
10:04 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC1248
Am 23 Aug 2004 22:19 meinte Adrian Graham:
Hi folks,
Had a mail from someone who has 2 of these 'boxed in new condition'. They're
pretty early BASIC calculators so they must be of interest to someone; he'd
like to know how much they're worth to collectors - it's the first time
someone's mailed me who doesn't want to stick things on ebay!
The black version, or silver.
New, originaly sealed, or just with everything?
Usualy they range from 5 to 30 Bucks ...
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
noon
New subject: Sharp PC1248
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Hans Franke
Sent: 24 August 2004 20:05
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Sharp PC1248
The black version, or silver.
New, originaly sealed, or just with everything?
It's the black one, boxed with all the accessories.
Usualy they range from 5 to 30 Bucks ...
I didn't think they'd be up to much; ta for that!
Cheers
w
10:26 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC1248
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Adrian Graham wrote:
Had a mail from someone who has 2 of these 'boxed
in new condition'. They're
pretty early BASIC calculators so they must be of interest to someone; he'd
like to know how much they're worth to collectors - it's the first time
someone's mailed me who doesn't want to stick things on ebay!
I'm a collector, and I'd pay US$1 each ;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
1:11 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC1248
At 22:19 23/08/2004, you wrote:
Hi folks,
Had a mail from someone who has 2 of these 'boxed in new condition'. They're
pretty early BASIC calculators so they must be of interest to someone; he'd
like to know how much they're worth to collectors - it's the first time
someone's mailed me who doesn't want to stick things on ebay!
Bugger all is the answer. You can still buy them new - google for "Merlin 2
navigation computer". Yours for AU$235, and that includes some useful software.
I have a bunch of them, although they're not NIB. I also have some PC1360s,
which are cooler IMHO. Also, somewhere, I have a super-rarity - a piece of
software called "Transfile PC" which - with the included cable - allows one
to write basic programs with your PC (c/w proper keyboard, obviously), then
transfer them to the Sharp PCxxxx (it supported a number of models,
including the PC1248) to be run. Dead handy, it was - I must root it out
again & make sure it still works...
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com
3:04 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC1248
I have a bunch of them, although they're not NIB.
I also have some PC1360s,
I still have my PC1500 complete with printer/plotter, RS232 interface
_and Technical Manual_ :-), although personally I prefer the HP71 (and
yes, I do haev the complete IDS with schematics and ROM source code,
along with most of the HPIL prripherals, ROM modules, etc).
One day I must get a Sharp PC1350 to go with the manuals I have for it (3
manuals, User/programming, Technical Reference, and Service. The last I
suspect is not common).
-tony
11:59 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC1248
I still have my PC1500 complete with printer/plotter,
RS232 interface
_and Technical Manual_ :-), although personally I prefer the HP71 (and
yes, I do haev the complete IDS with schematics and ROM source code,
along with most of the HPIL prripherals, ROM modules, etc).
One day I must get a Sharp PC1350 to go with the manuals I have for it (3
manuals, User/programming, Technical Reference, and Service. The last I
suspect is not common).
Why does that not surprise me at all :o)
--
adrian/witchy
Binary Dinosaurs owner/curator
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection?
25 Aug
25 Aug
5:24 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Am 24 Aug 2004 23:11 meinte Adrian Vickers:
At 22:19 23/08/2004, you wrote:
>Had a mail from someone who has 2 of these 'boxed in new condition'.
They're
>pretty early BASIC calculators so they must be of interest to someone; he'd
>like to know how much they're worth to collectors - it's the first time
>someone's mailed me who doesn't want to stick things on ebay!
I have a bunch of them, although they're not NIB.
I also have some PC1360s,
which are cooler IMHO.
Personaly I prefer the 125x Series, the ancessor of all of the 8Bit
12xx and 13xx Machines. The 13xx are just to big, without any real
advantage, but the big drawback that you could no longer use the
CE-125 docking station (cassette, printer, additional baterie and
serial). Also, IIRC, the display was again smaler (16 instead of
24 characters)
Still, the 126x with the two 2x24 character Display is the most
usefull. Of course, the 1500 is a great machine, but quite to
bulky. Insead I prefered the Panasonic HHC - about the same size
as the 1500, but a straight, plain 6502 computer!
Also, somewhere, I have a super-rarity - a piece of
software called "Transfile PC" which
Not so rare.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
9:02 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Hi,
"Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke(a)siemens.com> said:
Personaly I prefer the 125x Series, the ancessor of
all of the 8Bit
12xx and 13xx Machines. The 13xx are just to big, without any real
advantage, but the big drawback that you could no longer use the
CE-125 docking station (cassette, printer, additional baterie and
serial).
I have one of those, a 1251, docking station etc and even some paper
left for the printer! I remember finding the Basic keywords for the
serial port, but I don't recall coming across any info on the hardware.
It was a very useful machine which saw a lot of use in work.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
26 Aug
26 Aug
4:56 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Am 25 Aug 2004 19:02 meinte Stan Barr:
"Hans Franke"
<Hans.Franke(a)siemens.com> said:
> Personaly I prefer the 125x Series, the ancessor of all of the 8Bit
> 12xx and 13xx Machines. The 13xx are just to big, without any real
> advantage, but the big drawback that you could no longer use the
> CE-125 docking station (cassette, printer, additional baterie and
> serial).
I have one of those, a 1251, docking station etc and
even some paper
left for the printer! I remember finding the Basic keywords for the
serial port, but I don't recall coming across any info on the hardware.
It was a very useful machine which saw a lot of use in work.
Well, the serial Port on the CE125 was never an official thing.
You had to do assembly to use it.
This is also connected to my best memories about the 1251... At one
point - I was on a boreing ride home from Berlin - I started to play
explore the Basic. By accident I came across that it has a PEEK command,
which was not described in the manual... So I used the abrevaion feature
to learn more. You could speed up typing by only enter as many letters
until a keyword gots unique, and a fullstop ... P. -> PRINT, GOT. -> GOTO,
GOS. -> GOSUB and so on - it it wasn't unique, it picked the first
(GO.->GOSUB). I tried all 1,2 and some 3 letter combinations *G* But
all I found where the usual suspects: PEEK, POKE and CALL and one or
two realy strange ones.
From there on I tried to get more knowledge about the
structure. Well,
after several ways to haeng the machine, I figured the Programm
RAM,
and wrote a programm, writeing a programm line with all 255 possible
op-codes ... so seeing what was in there :) Also I found that the
display line was a memory mapped bitmap !!! Yeah, soon I had my first
high res demo ... two tanks comeing in (with SOUND!) and blowing up
each other, and a train passing by:)
Still I couldn'T figure out any way to figure out the machine language.
About half a year later Sharp finaly released a machine language manual.
Maybe there have been more people than just me writeing to Sharp (in
Japan) to ask for information :))
So finaly I figured out that the CPU distinguish between an internal
Memory on the CPU, and external, as the basic sees it.
Still, it's been a lot of fun.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
9:07 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Hi,
"Hans Franke" <Hans.Franke(a)siemens.com> said:
Well, the serial Port on the CE125 was never an
official thing.
You had to do assembly to use it.
Your message had me digging out my 1251 and the notes I made all those
yeasr ago! The Basic had the following keywords (in mine at least):
Code (dec.) 137 COM$
155 SETCOM
190 OUTSTAT
191 INSTAT
which are presumably to do with the serial port.
Naturally I switched it on, the internal computer batteries still work
but the cassette/printer battery was flat so I've plugged it in to
charge up...we'll see what happens.
While I was searching I also cam across my original (1978) Tandy/Radio
Shack cassette recorder from my TRS-80, seems I *never* throw anything
out :-)
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
2:38 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Well, the
serial Port on the CE125 was never an official thing.
You had to do assembly to use it.
Your message had me digging out my 1251 and the notes I made all those
yeasr ago! The Basic had the following keywords (in mine at least):
Code (dec.) 137 COM$
155 SETCOM
190 OUTSTAT
191 INSTAT
which are presumably to do with the serial port.
10:59 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Hi,
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
I have the official serial port add-on for the PC1500 with the user
manual -- somewhere (I know where the unit is, of course). I seem to
remember those keywords were used with it -- COM$ returend the current
RS232 parameters (baud/bits/parity/etc), SETCOM set them, INSTAT and
OUTSTAT were either something to do with the handshake lines or used to
determine if the port was ready (I forget which)
Character input and output was done with PRINT# and INPUT# (I think it
was channel 8 and channel 9 was the centronics port, but it's been many
years).
Thanks for that, I've saved the info and will have a play when I get time.
When that'll be I don't know, I've just received some old FigForth listings*
to scan in or, probably, re-type. (PDP11 and Z80 if anyone wants to know)
* Courtesy of the FigUK library who have a lot of old stuff.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
Well, the serial Port on the CE125 was never an
official thing.
You had to do assembly to use it.
Your message had me digging out my 1251 and the notes I made all those
yeasr ago! The Basic had the following keywords (in mine at least):
Code (dec.) 137 COM$
155 SETCOM
190 OUTSTAT
191 INSTAT
which are presumably to do with the serial port.
27 Aug
27 Aug
1:26 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Thanks for that, I've saved the info and will have
a play when I get time.
I will see if I can find the Sharp CE158 user manual (RS232/Centronics box
for the PC1500). If I can, I'll provide more details.
When that'll be I don't know, I've just
received some old FigForth listings*
to scan in or, probably, re-type. (PDP11 and Z80 if anyone wants to know)
Somewhere I have a printed version of the Z80 Fig lisitng -- it's clearly
a hack from the 8080 version. A friend of mine once ported it to the
Tatung Einstein -- I should still have that somewhere too...
Hunting around on this machine I've found what seems to be the Macro-11
source for PDP11 Fig-forth (RT11/RSX-11/standalone) and the 143K file of
blocks contianing things like the Forth assembler, etc. I believe them to
be public-domain and if anyone wants them (and can make them available
for download, etc) they're welcome to them.
* Courtesy of the FigUK library who have a lot of old stuff.
You would get the 2 versions that I already have :-). I'd like to see the
6809 fig forth (I assume it existed, and used the 2 hardware stack
pointers, etc).
-tony
11:06 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Hi,
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
Hunting around on this machine I've found what
seems to be the Macro-11
source for PDP11 Fig-forth (RT11/RSX-11/standalone) and the 143K file of
blocks contianing things like the Forth assembler, etc. I believe them to
be public-domain and if anyone wants them (and can make them available
for download, etc) they're welcome to them.
Yes, I've got that as well. Running it under RT-11 on simh atm as
I *still* haven't got round to persuading my Micro 11/73 to read
disks written with putr...or discovered which of the dozen or so
connectors on the back RT-11 thinks is DD: so I can connect a
TU58 emulator. So much to do...so little time :-)
You would get the 2 versions that I already have :-).
I'd like to see the
6809 fig forth (I assume it existed, and used the 2 hardware stack
pointers, etc).
I've always though the 6809 would make a fine Forth machine, but I never
got round to finding out. Yes there is a 6809 lising in the FigUK
library as well as things like 1802 9900 and VAX.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
28 Aug
28 Aug
2:11 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Hi,
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
How different is it from the FIG listing you've just obtained?
[...]
Hunting around on this machine I've found
what seems to be the Macro-11
source for PDP11 Fig-forth (RT11/RSX-11/standalone) and the 143K file of
blocks contianing things like the Forth assembler, etc. I believe them to
be public-domain and if anyone wants them (and can make them available
for download, etc) they're welcome to them.
Yes, I've got that as well. Running it under RT-11 on simh atm as I've always though the 6809 would make a fine
Forth machine, but I never
got round to finding out. Yes there is a 6809 lising in the FigUK
library as well as things like 1802 9900 and VAX.
Personally I'd have gone for the more obscure processors first ...
But that probably explains why I have some quite obscure machines in my
collection (PERQs, PDP11/45, Tiger, etc) but am missing some quite common
ones (Apple //c, Dragon 64, Acorn Electron, etc). I tend to ignore the
common stuff, assuming somebody else will have it.
-tony
11:27 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
hi,
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
I said:
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
How different is it from the FIG listing you've just obtained?
It appears to be the same with some minor layout differences.
I got the listing in case it was different, and also to have a look
at how much work was involved in getting this stuff digitally archived.
There is quite a bit of info in the FigUK library and it would be nice
to get it scanned and archived digitally as the original listings are
apparently getting a bit yellowed and fragile.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
Hunting
around on this machine I've found what seems to be the Macro-11
source for PDP11 Fig-forth (RT11/RSX-11/standalone) and the 143K file of
blocks contianing things like the Forth assembler, etc. I believe them to
be public-domain and if anyone wants them (and can make them available
for download, etc) they're welcome to them.
Yes, I've got that as well. Running it under RT-11 on simh atm as 
29 Aug
29 Aug
3:57 p.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I have the official serial port add-on for the PC1500 with the user
manual -- somewhere (I know where the unit is, of course).
The manuals are online as PDFs for the PC-1500 / TRS-80 PC-2.
http://www.pc1500.com
--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
It's ironic that people who are too smart to engage in politics
are governed by people who are not as smart.
26 Aug
26 Aug
10:06 a.m.
New subject: Sharp PC124x/5x/6x
Hi,
I said:
"Hans Franke"
<Hans.Franke(a)siemens.com> said:
> Well, the serial Port on the CE125 was never an
official thing.
> You had to do assembly to use it.
>
Your message had me digging out my 1251 and the notes
I made all those
yeasr ago!
Naturally I switched it on, the internal computer
batteries still work
but the cassette/printer battery was flat so I've plugged it in to
charge up...we'll see what happens.
A followup: when I looked, the last program I loaded (a collection of
utilities) was still in the memory. I last used the machine about ten
years ago, must be some kind of record :-)
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
23 Aug
23 Aug
1:46 p.m.
That's because they didn't have computers back
then.
Yes they did. They were the people who operated the calculating machines :-)
24 Aug
24 Aug
12:57 a.m.
On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 22:46, Tony Duell wrote:
I've just checked the Shorter Oxford Dictionary
(this is a 2-volume
English dictionary, mine is somewhat old). It doesn't contain Computor or
Weldor at all. A 'Welder' is one who welds, a Computer is a person who
calculates.
I always thought it came about with the arrival of the comptometer - a
computer being the person who operates the device. I've never come
across computor before, but as Tony says maybe it was different on the
other side of the pond...
cheers
Jules
6:36 a.m.
Rumor has it that Jules Richardson may have mentioned these words:
On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 22:46, Tony Duell wrote:
Well, at www.miriamwebster.com, I typed in weldor and got:
One entry found for welder.
Main Entry: weld?er
Pronunciation: 'wel-d&r
Function: noun
: one that welds : as a or wel?dor : one whose work is welding b : a
machine used in welding
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
When I searched for "computor" it didn't actually register anything, but
gave me a list of possible alternates, which included:
cor?rupt?er also cor?rup?tor /-'r&p-t&r/ noun
[[ altho in the list, it was corruptor, not corrupter, that was listed ]]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
But, alas, no Computor, from what I saw at that one website. I do know that
I've seen it in the distant past (i.e. high school, 20 years ago), but if
computers came in about the same time that the -or version of spelling was
on it's way out, I can see why it didn't gain "universal acceptance."
;-)
They want $30USD annually to use MiriamWebsterUnabridged.com, so I didn't
check there... ;-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | JC: "Like those people in
Celeronville!"
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Me: "Don't you mean Silicon Valley???"
zmerch(a)30below.com | JC: "Yea, that's the place!"
| JC == Jeremy Christian
I've just checked the Shorter Oxford
Dictionary (this is a 2-volume
English dictionary, mine is somewhat old). It doesn't contain Computor or
Weldor at all. A 'Welder' is one who welds, a Computer is a person who
calculates.
I always thought it came about with the arrival of the comptometer - a
computer being the person who operates the device. I've never come
across computor before, but as Tony says maybe it was different on the
other side of the pond...
7:16 a.m.
On Tue, 2004-08-24 at 15:36, Roger Merchberger wrote:
But, alas, no Computor, from what I saw at that one
website. I do know that
I've seen it in the distant past (i.e. high school, 20 years ago), but if
computers came in about the same time that the -or version of spelling was
on it's way out, I can see why it didn't gain "universal acceptance."
;-)
:-)
I just checked in the dictionary I have here from 1959, which is too
early to have computer in the modern sense in it - but it does contain
computer in the sense of "one employed to make calculations in an
observatory etc."
First recorded use of 'compute' is in 1631, incidentally.
No mention of 'computor', though.
cheers
J.
7:34 a.m.
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Roger Merchberger wrote:
But, alas, no Computor, from what I saw at that one
website. I do know that
I've seen it in the distant past (i.e. high school, 20 years ago), but if
computers came in about the same time that the -or version of spelling was
on it's way out, I can see why it didn't gain "universal acceptance."
;-)
I've seen it spelt that way also, though it was years ago (probably the
same time we were both in high school/junior high :) I even used to spell
it that way myself occasionally, being confused as to which was the more
proper spelling.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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8:40 a.m.
New subject: Spelling (was): Help with question about web page access
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
I've seen it spelt that way also, though it was years ago (probably the
same time we were both in high school/junior high :) I even used to spell
it that way myself occasionally, being confused as to which was the more
proper spelling.
If you had the proper spell-check carthridge in your 'puter, you'd know
these things... ^^^^^^^^^^
Cheerz
Miss Bundt
10:19 a.m.
New subject: Spelling (was): Help with question about web page access
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, John Lawson wrote:
If you had the proper spell-check carthridge in
your 'puter, you'd know
these things... ^^^^^^^^^^
Have you considered that perhaps the rest of the world spells carthridge
incorrectly?
Duh! :)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
10:30 a.m.
New subject: Spelling (was): Help with question about web page access
carthridge
Isn't that a town in indiana?
:^)
25 Aug
25 Aug
5:40 a.m.
New subject: Spelling (was): Help with question about web page access
Am 24 Aug 2004 16:14 meinte John Lawson:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Ron Hudson wrote:
> carthridge
> Isn't that a town in indiana?
People from a Biblical place.
Carthraginians
ouch!
No, not realy, beeing European gives the advantage to
learn in school abut modern history (aka less than 2500
years ago). Carthridge comes from Carthago, an ancient
greek colony (like Rome) who happened to form a quite
formidable empire in Northern Africa, the Middle East
and Spain - well, the small mediterean wasn't big enough
for two, so they had some little 'paece missions' with
Rome and vice versa. After Rome succeded in raiding
Cathago it became Carthride (short form for Carthago
has been raided).
Also, most notable, it's also the orgin for the modern
time word of Chargo ... 'cause that's what they called
all the valuables the romans took from Carthrige.
*G*
See, knowing your history is a plus, even in todays World.
Gruss
H.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
12:14 p.m.
New subject: Spelling (was): Help with question about web page access
Fred Cisin wrote:
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 5:06 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Spelling (was): Help with question about web page access
No, no. That's "Rock Ridge" must be destroyed... it's in the way
of the railroad.
carthridge
Isn't that a town in indiana?
:^)
Carthridge must be destroyed!
"Ceterum censeo Carthridge esse delendam."
18 Aug
18 Aug
2:47 a.m.
Fred Cisin said:
Didn't say it should be banned from city streets, did I?
Actually they're storing *your* crap on your machine.
As I have said previously, Firefox has got really good cookie management -
you can specify whether you want to block, allow or warn when a cookie
arrives, for each site that you visit. Great stuff.
I know we all like big, clunky, old computers, but does that mean that
every single piece of software we use has to meet the 10-year-rule too?
Gordon.
Without
wishing to seem disrespectful or unpleasant, you are basically
complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor can't keep up with modern
motorway
traffic.
While it may not be very practical for high speed freeway,
where does one get off suggesting that it be banned from
city streets? BTW, have you ever replaced the brake master cylinder
on one?
Yes. Very recently, in fact. The scratches in my forearm are still
stinging, and I suspect a blood test would reveal a fair proportion of
DOT-3 in my bloodstream. I just *love* how you need to be both inside the
car and underneath it at the same time...
Why? I've
never understood this obsession with cookies. I mean, *why*?
Because it is RUDE to
store your crap on somebody else's machine,
without identifying what is in it. And some companies make browsers that are so demented
that the
default settings permit "cookies" that are executable code!
Don't use them then. Use a proper browser like Firefox or Opera.
So an advert
banner site knows that the same computer visited it twice.
Big wow. Do you stop answering the doorbell in case it's a door-to-door
salesman? Well, you might, but it would break more things than it would
fix.
Some have had experiences that call for checking through a peephole
before opening the door.
10:54 a.m.
>> complaining that your 1957 Morris Minor
can't keep up with modern
>> motorway traffic.
> While it may not be very practical for high speed freeway,
> where does one get off suggesting that it be banned from
> city streets?
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Didn't say it should be banned from city streets,
did I?
You certainly didn't. Nor anything else objectionable.
But banning the Minor from city streets is an apt analogy
for websites that are for dissemination of text information
that will not permit last week's versions of the browsers.
[YES, that is exaggerated. But why should a textual information
website be inaccessible to TEN YEAR OLD browsers, either?]
Some websites, for no apparent reason, are inaccessible with
"obsolete" versions of Netscrape and Internet Exploiter on Win2K
machines. That isn't old enough to have had a chance to become
"obsolete"!
BTW, have you
ever replaced the brake master cylinder on one?
Yes. Very recently, in fact. The
scratches in my forearm are still Why? I've never understood this obsession with
cookies. I mean, *why*?
Because it is RUDE to store your crap on somebody
else's machine,
without identifying what is in it. And some
companies make browsers that are so demented that the
default settings permit "cookies" that are executable code!
Don't
use them then. Use a proper browser like Firefox or Opera. I know we all like big, clunky, old computers, but
does that mean that
every single piece of software we use has to meet the 10-year-rule too?
The
objection is to websites that set an arbitrary and unreasonable
bar of recency.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
12:27 p.m.
On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 15:54, Fred Cisin wrote:
Actually they're storing *your* crap on
your machine.
These days, it seems that way too many sites want to store crap,
when there is NO rational reason to do so. Do certain
"web page creation for incompetents" programs have "store a cookie"
as the DEFAULT?
Does anyone have a MS FrontPage manual (and is willing to admit it) want
to check it out? :-D (No, I couldn't resist.)
David
Why? I've never understood this obsession with
cookies. I mean, *why*?
Because it is RUDE to store your crap on somebody
else's machine,
without identifying what is in it.
19 Aug
19 Aug
3:17 a.m.
Fred Cisin said:
Wasn't the finest example of service accessibility!
It's been 30 years since I did one.
The guy who designed that particular system went on to work for Citroen.
In particular, he designed the fuel system for the Citroen XM 2 litre
fuel-injected models, with the filter mounted on top of the rear subframe,
completely inaccessible without either removing the exhaust, or the whole
rear subframe. If you take off the spare wheel carrier, and jack the rear
of the car at least 3' off the ground *and* you've got long arms, you can
reach over the top of the back silencer box and remove it. The filter
*cannot* be depressurised, so it will spray petrol right into the
scratches in your arms when you remove the pipes.
He also designed the placement of the suspension centre spheres, the ones
that switch in and out under control of the ECU. They need replaced every
two years. If this is not done, the steel sphere welds itself to the
aluminium valve block. Removal involves taking the exhaust off for the
rear one (again! do the fuel filter while you're in there) and partially
removing the engine (undo the mountings, jack the car up 2' in the air,
then lift the engine up and forwards a little) to get the front one off...
<grumble>
Gordon.
BTW, have you ever replaced the brake master cylinder
on one?
Yes. Very recently, in fact. The scratches in my forearm are still
2:26 p.m.
Fred Cisin said:
Wasn't the finest example of service accessibility!
It's been 30 years since I did one.
The guy who designed that particular system went on to work for Citroen.
In particular, he designed the fuel system for the Citroen XM 2 litre
fuel-injected models, with the filter mounted on top of the rear subframe,
Or maybe the Citroen BX cooling system pipework? The idiot didn't put
drain plug on the radiator, the only way to drain the system is to take
off the bottom hose. And the only way to do that is with your head right
under it. I have had several face-fulls of antifreeze (it tastes
horrible!).
The BX clutch cable is painful too, on UK models. On the European ones,
it's easy, but on the UK ones (RH drive), it goes through the bulkhead at
the timing-case end of the engine. Which means there's almost no space to
get to the self-tapping screws that hold the plate/rubber gaiter in
place. When I did a clutch change on my father's BX, that was the part
that caused me the most problems -- removing the transmission, although a
fairly long job involving pulling the driveshafts, uncoupling some of the
hydraulics, etc) was straightforward.
BTW, have you ever replaced the brake master cylinder
on one?
Yes. Very recently, in fact. The scratches in my forearm are still He also designed the placement of the suspension
centre spheres, the ones
that switch in and out under control of the ECU. They need replaced every
The BX spehres (no electronics, so just the normal 5 spheres, one on each
suspension cylinder, one on the pressure regulator) are easy. The Front
ones come off from the top, the accumulator (at least on Diesel models)
comes out from under the front bumper (lift the car on the suspension as
hight as you can, put axle stands under the side members, then
depressurise the hydraulics), the rear ones come out from under the car
-- it's easiest if you take the wheels off first. The best tool I've
found for remocing them is a _good_ oil filter strap wrench -- the Facom
one with the screw tensioner, for example.
-tony
7241
days inactive
7254
days old
94 comments
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
coredump＠gifford.co.uk -
dholland＠woh.rr.com -
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