Comments for Dan's Thoughts

Comment on Tuesday, January 1, 1980 by admin

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 01:40:00 +0000

Oops! Mea Culpa!

I knew that the TRS-80 and Pet outsold the Apple II at various points, but figured that 1980 was when the II+ took off. Thank you, Matthew, for checking the facts!

Comment on Tuesday, January 1, 1980 by Matthew Reed

Matthew Reed — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 01:31:42 +0000

Like you, I always set the time and date upon boot. But I was always surprised by the number of people who didn’t and didn’t seem to mind that all their files were dated 1980. Habits are hard to break; I still often glance at my watch as I start a computer just to have the date and time ready.

One minor quibble: the Apple II Plus wasn’t the top selling computer on January 1, 1980. According to Apple’s own numbers, they sold around 35,000 Apple II’s in 1979. That was five times the previous year, but not as many as the almost 200,000 TRS-80′s sold by Radio Shack in 1979, or even the 45,000 PET’s sold by Commodore. It wasn’t until 1981 that Apple II sales started taking off.

Comment on Numbers Numbers by The Gnome Whisperer

The Gnome Whisperer — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 06:21:21 +0000

I uploaded a video to You Tube “12 Hours Of Counting Numbers”, but I never knew how to tag it. Now, thanks to you, I can try “Natural Numbers”.

Comment on Numbers Numbers by admin

admin — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:42:59 +0000

No problem! I'm not a math guy, so I just ran through the list in my head, starting with ints and floats. i appreciate the additions.

Comment on Numbers Numbers by glennp

glennp — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:38:12 +0000

Umm you have not mentioned imaginary or complex numbers
(2+3j) for example, a fudge to get around the fact if you square root a negative number (like -4) you get E or Error on your calculator but if you take the square root of 4 (2) and times it by the square root of -1 which some people call i (or engineers call j) you get j2 (or i2) which you can use as get out jail free card to get the maths to work! (sorry Electrical Engineer…)

Comment on Windows 8 Official Sucks by admin

admin — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:17:46 +0000

I admire your thinking. You may be on to something, but only time will tell. It will be interesting to see how the stock market reacts.

For archiving I use ZIP or whatever the built-in utility for Mac OS X or Windows is. I’ve not tried anything else in a while. That free article needs updating!

Comment on Windows 8 Official Sucks by BradC

BradC — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:36:00 +0000

If you put your conspiracy theory cap on and look Microsoft’s strategy from a marketing point of view instead of a technical point of view, you see that everything you think is a mistake is actually a well planned success. For Microsoft’s business model to work they have to get all their users to switch to a new OS every 2 to 4 years. The NT kernel is state of the art, you cant really improve on it, so they have to give an improved user experience. Starting with Vista, lets just say for sake of argument that Vista was a huge improvement in stability and security over XP like a lot of people claimed. OK, whats next? You cant make another OS that is only an incremental improvement and expect everyone to switch. So I think they made Vista bloated on purpose knowing that they would provide win7 afterward. OK, now what? They cant keep making tiny improvements to win7, they need something entirely new. So they come up with win8 and hype it as a hybrid touchscreen/desktop. You can argue the loss of PC sales is a mistake, but MS doesnt sell hardware, they are only concerned about everyone getting new windows licenses. They also succeeded in muddling the water as to what a tablet OS is. Sorry Dan, but I think that Balmer is a diabolical genius who has you and everyone fooled and there is really no other way that MS could have made more profit under any other strategy.

Dan- I noticed your free article on zip archiving and I am wondering what archiving software you use? I cant believe more people dont use PowerArchiver on windows and continue to use winzip and winrar.

Comment on Graph-a-Bits Soup by admin

admin — Fri, 31 May 2013 15:07:50 +0000

Yeah, you nailed me on that one. It was CGA. I suppose my brain is too crowded with acronyms!

Comment on Graph-a-Bits Soup by linuxlove

linuxlove — Fri, 31 May 2013 13:42:51 +0000

Be thankful that wasn’t an IBM Professional Graphics Controller, which used three slots on the motherboard from all I’ve heard.

Also, just to nit-pick, the standard was Color Graphics Adapter, or CGA

Comment on Working Apple I Sells For $671,400 by admin

admin — Mon, 27 May 2013 21:41:37 +0000

I believe it. The article says the original owner was offered a trade-in, but refused it.

I’ve not seen any excitement about older TRS-80s or C-64s. I browsed for a working Model III or 4P, which I owned years ago. Nothing. Then again, I wouldn’t pay a ton of money for one of those. The Apple I has more of a legacy.