NuTek Mac comes

[Swift Griggs]

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
> Reminds me of horrible compatibility glitches with OS X in the early 
> days. E.g. one of my clients had Blue & White G3s on a Windows NT 4 
> network. (Later they pensioned them off, bought G5s, and gave the B&Ws 
> to me! :-) )

Woot! The benefits of working with small clients over time. 

> Never tried it. I only ever tried Linux on PowerPC once, and that was to 
> aid in the process of installing MorphOS on a G4 mini.

Well, if you ever put hands on another M68k, you might give it a shot. The 
key is to have an extra partition to setup with a BSD disklabel et al. If 
you have enough space (or a spare disk) it's pretty darn straightforward. 
It loads using a MacOS based loader program, so you don't have to ditch 
MacOS, either. However, the install is pretty raw (I like it, but I have a 
feeling you wouldn't). However, it's nowhere near as raw as, say, 
OpenBSD's installer. If you ever happen to install OpenBSD, Liam, please 
have a video camera rolling. I will be able to get all the choice British 
curse-phrases in one go that way.

Also, just as an aside, your ex-roomy who told you that you weren't liking 
parts of UNIX because you weren't a dyed-in-the-wool coder (not to say you 
aren't smart or technical or can't do what you need to do with coding) was 
right. It's a programmers OS and it panders to coders and admins, others 
will be grousing about weird things they don't need and don't see a reason 
for, items being over-minimized, too spartan, or downright bizzare and not 
enough in the way of well-integrated features for users with other goals 
besides coding. Fully 100% agree with that dude, and I totally acknowledge 
that there is a rusty tetanus side of that double edged sword. That's why 
I still dabble with the darkside and play with GUI-focused OSes, too. It's 
a whole different feel. When I want to code, I plant myself in front of 
NetBSD or FreeBSD. When I want to record/compose a song, I break out an 
SGI, Amiga, or maybe someday a Mac (I got a fancy audio rig for my 68k 
Quadra recently).

> Dear gods that was a hell of a job, and while it was fun, it wasn't 
> really worth the effort.

Hehe, I ran MorphOS, too. It was fun for a while, but I can't really 
handle a proprietary OS on a such a small scale. 

> I don't have "Amiga nostalgia" because I never owned one at the time. I 
> respect them -- I wanted one! -- but I went with RISC OS and that's what 
> I miss.

I got one way later, too. Well past when they were new/prime. I have the 
exact same feeling. For me SGIs were the biggest lust-target because I 
actually had played with them long enough to know what I was really 
missing (and I was younger and all that happy stuff).

> To my great surprise, the Mac could boot off the PC-formatted SSD and 
> Ubuntu loaded with no mess or fuss, detected both my screens, and went 
> straight online, no problems at all.

In my experience using tools like "ReEFIt" make multi-booting OSX and *ix 
or BSD on a Macs way easy, but yeah, they don't need much to "justwork" 
nowadays.

> I *must* run up A/UX some time. :-(

My experience with it is less than 6 months old. Without Macosgarden I'd 
have never got the chance because finding legit disk for it is *hard* if 
you want 3.1. I had all manner of weird install problems because I was 
doing it on a SCSI2SD that isn't an Apple disk so of course Disk tools was 
pissed. The disk tools under A/UX would play nice, actually, but I ended 
up having to do all kinds of CLI jiggery pokery, manually creating file 
systems and what not from an emergency shell, to get A/UX to give up and 
install on the darn thing. It was damn weird (in a cool and unique way) 
once I got it working. and I dd'd off the install images and boot record 
off the MicroSD card once it had finished. I found that they more or less 
worked with Shoebill, at that point, too.

> I was a DOS master, once. Probably knew the most about it from any OS 
> I've used!

I wouldn't call myself a master, but definitely an experienced power-user. 
I did quite a bit of coding using 386|VMM and other such things with 
mostly Borland tools. 

The thing I miss most about DOS was it's "standalone" mentality. You want 
to backup your word processor ? Zip the directory. You want to backup 
Deluxe Paint IIe? Zip the directory. You want to backup Lotus 1-2-3? Zip 
the directory. 

Everyone took a really long drag from the dynamic library joint and passed 
it around in the 90's, too. I took a hit, too, and I get that there are 
many advantages to them, but the big DISadvantage is now many binaries 
become version-specific to a library that may get deprecated in subsequent 
releases. On DOS, that wasn't a problem. Just keep running the old one. 
Sure you can still compile (most) things statically or include old 
libraries, but it's seldom done, fiddly for users, and oft overlooked. I 
often lament how most apps now want "merge" with your OS not simply run on 
their own in a super-self-contained way DOS apps did. I also tend to hate 
registries (not just on Windows, I despise AIX's ODM, too). DOS had no 
such BS, and it's one of the things I liked about it.
 
> 98, 98SE or ME? 3 different things.

ME was the one that pissed me off the most and seemed to understand my 
hatred and return it in kind. That OS seemed to me to crash for the 
smallest and most trivial of reasons. Windows didn't seem to get stable 
until the 3.x branch of NT matured into W2k in my opinion. However you are 
WAY more well versed in the M$ black arts, so I believe you when you say 
you could make it behave.

> It's why I collected so many later. All these shiny toys I couldn't 
> afford when they were new! 

Same here. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=345783926690&set=a.345781786690.162428.608866690&type=3&theater

Whoa. Czech! I love that place. I was there in my 20's for a while and I 
have never seen so many beautiful women in my life (and they will actually 
talk to you occasionally, even if you aren't Fabio). The people were super 
friendly and welcoming to me, too. I'll never forget it. Of course it was 
pre-USA-terror-freakout days when folks in Europe loved Americans. :-)

Nowadays when I go to Europe I pray people will think I'm from Canada. 
I've had some bad experiences when they found out otherwise :-(

> It's what I run on non-Ubuntu distros.

XFCE is a pretty solid workhorse that doesn't do to shabby at staying 
thin.

> True. But I think Android is going to be what gets the other 2 billion 
> humans online, by and large, and the implications of that will be 
> staggering.

I'm guessing you are going to be correct, and I try to keep that in mind 
as I bash on it.   :-)

To me it's a mole/privacy-invader, to others is a stepladder out of 
poverty. So, they win the relative importance comparison, for sure. I just 
wish we could both be satisfied.

> Well in a way, yes. But people use them to *communicate* and that's a 
> good thing.

Well, riding on trains a lot and seeing people constantly on the phones, 
I see essentially three archetypes of glued-to-their-phones:

1. Young women (and men to a slightly lesser extent) who can't overcome 
   their social drive and are just plain addicted to checking every 
   possible social media channel (SMS, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, 
   Instagram, rinse-repeat). That's pretty much all the do. I'm not sure 
   that communication is beneficial or just plain compulsive/addictive 
   behavior.

2. The I-have-a-million-apps-and-feel-empowered-by-technology hipster. 
   This is the guy with not only his smartphone out. He's got the Apple 
   Watch, two tablets, and an (unused) laptop in his bag behind him. He 
   feels like a ninja because in his world, no matter what, "there is an 
   app for that". He's wrong of course, and I'll eat him if we are ever 
   stranded in the wilderness.

3. Business-weasels who are surreptitiously glancing at the other weasels 
   to see if they have a more *expensive* phone, laptop, suit, or watch. 
   If not, all is well. Now, he can settle in and try to figure out how to 
   get this malware off his phone he got from surfing porn sites in Chrome 
   from his phone.

All humor and cynicism aside, I'm still on the fence when it comes to the 
benefit of phones in the first-world. The benefits come with some fairly 
heavy drawbacks, too.

> > Didn't Sergei Brin say they'd probably get merged? I seem to remember
> > that, but who knows.
> I don't think so.

No seriously, I found it. It's in the Wikipedia page for ChromeOS. He 
doesn't sound super-committed, though.

> I've seen both half-hearted "yes probably" statements and also flat-out 
> denials. Basically, I don't think they know.

ha! That sounds about right.

> No, me either, but I do kinda fancy a cheap light ChromeBook!

TBH, me too. However, the damn thing better run NetBSD. :-)

Ohh, I just had an idea... I wonder if they can be hacked to run RISCOS. 
That would be really cool. I'll have to Google it. They are mostly ARM 
boxes, IIRC. 

> Fair enough. I find it so useful, the amazing range of stuff you can do 
> now, all for free, that I'm deeply tied into it.

It's true. The panoply of online services offering for free things that 
would have cost thousands (or been impossible) 15 years ago is staggering.

> Recommended reading: Cory Doctorow, /Little Brother/
> Free ebook, from the author: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
> You'll appreciate "Paranoid Linux".

Ha! Yep, I've read it. Good reference: right on point.

> Buy mine? Please? :-D I'm serious, it's for sale.

I'd consider it if I hadn't just dropped $150 to buy a buddy's used Punkt 
phone. If you ain't sold it by this time next year, hit me up again ! :-)

> Oh dear gods. No no no. I use my phone for many hours a day.

I don't use mine for weeks at a time. When it rings it's never a good sign 
(it's work, someone has died, or someone is wanting something from me I'm 
not going to be happy about).

> I reckon I use it for *phone calls* about 2-3 times a month and SMS 
> about 2-3 times a week.  That's almost a legacy feature it happens to 
> have!

I probably would do the same, but I've always got that little bird on my 
shoulder saying "They are watching you and trying to screw you." I can't 
feel comfortable in what I consider to be such a user-hostile environment. 
So, I'm that Luddite on the train where there are 90 people in the train 
car and nobody under 60 is doing anything but staring at their phone... 
but me. I'm reading a some Stevens hardcover book or a trashy fantasy or 
SF novel. I might be tempted to use a laptop with a wireless 4G data card 
in there, but it's expensive and I get plenty of time on the metal anyway. 
Reading when I'm on the console helps me sharpen my mind (and it always 
needs sharpening, hehe).

> Cool, but no, I use Google Translate and Google Maps and Google Calendar 
> and things many times a day. A pocket device without them now is a 
> paperweight to me.

You'd have fun ridiculing my desk, then. I still have a Rolodex (paper 
one), a (very) old HP calculator, an At-a-glance paper calendar, and in my 
car I have a small bag with 4-5 books of maps. Yes, paper maps. In my 
pocket are a rinky-dink phone (as discussed), a 3" folding knife with 
screwdriver, a Fischer Space Pen, my leather wallet, and usually 4-5 3x5 
notecards in my opposite pocket. Also, I often carry an Sony NEX-7 digital 
camera, if I have my pack. Rarely do I carry a "real" computer et al. It's 
probably because I have a different kind of job and travel needs versus 
you. You sound like you bounce around a lot. I have a pretty static 
routine these days.

-Swift