raudette

Joined 3 years ago

Karma
138
Submissions
68
Member since
May 5
https://www.hotelexistence.ca/ Toronto, Canada
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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
My fishing story - as a young teen, I "caught" a sturgeon on the Ottawa River (just outside of Pembroke) in a 12' aluminum boat. This was in an area where we'd typically expect to catch bass and northern pike - our fishing net was maybe the size of a large diner plate, and reeling the fish in might take a minute or two.

My father was in the boat with me. After hooking the fish, it took about 20 minutes before the fish was close enough that we could see it from the boat, and identified it as a sturgeon - it was the only time I'd ever caught one. This one was so much bigger than anything I'd caught before. I was using one of those jointed Rapala lures, and it had hooked the dorsal fin. I can confirm the sturgeon could definitely pull the two of us, and the boat, upstream - but not a great distance - just enough to move the boat around.

After about 25 minutes, my line snapped (it may have been 12 lbs test). We didn't really have a way of getting it in the boat in any case, and we would have released it anyway. This was probably the late 80s/early 90s - so nothing captured on a phone camera - it just lives on in my Dad's & my memories...

Comment · 1 month ago
Comment · 2 months ago
Sync on green could be done with the ATI Mach 64 as well. I picked up a 20" SGI monitor (if memory serves, it was made by Hitachi) on the "free" table around 1999 on my university campus.

I got it working, but the one I had was pretty limited - it did a specific resolution at 60 Hz (I may have the details wrong - it was a long time ago). I never ended up using it, as I had a newer 17" DEC Trinitron from an old Alpha 3000/300LX that I also got super cheap, and it was a much better screen.

Comment · 2 months ago
I did something similar as a kid on my Commodore 64. When my Quickshot joystick broke (after playing Summer Games and similar), I took it apart - it was then that I realised it was just simple switches - it was a metal dome over a circuit board. I'd re-bend/pop-up the metal dome which would make it work again for a little bit.

Understanding it was switches, with a wire, I worked out & documented the pinout of the DB-9 connector (afterwards, my father showed me it was documented in the C64 manual).

At some point, I took the remote from an cheap broken RC car, and soldered the switches from it to the cable of a broken joystick. I found a switch in my father's parts bin for the fire button. It worked, but it wore out pretty quick - the RC car controllers switches weren't built for gaming use!

I wish I had photos - its long gone.

Comment · 2 months ago
I remember it being the 90s :) the first generation AIBO was discontinued TWO decades ago.

(it does look like subsequent models were launched about a decade ago)

Comment · 2 months ago
and DEC Tulip!
Comment · 3 months ago
I wonder if any of the Apricot-era software is still going? If the services side became ACT, which was bought by Misys, Misys bought by Vista Equity and merged with Canada’s D+H to form Finastra - still a going concern in software for financial services. Or any former Apricot employees still at Finastra?
Comment · 4 months ago
The author writes: "I discovered the IBM Model M in 1993 ... It took me many years to find one. I vividly remember the Craigslist ad for a dilapidated computer shop in a Toronto suburb. Inside I found piles of them, stacked six feet high. All of them had some kind of damage so I picked a few for $20 apiece and rebuilt one that looked pristine."

My Model M story:

I'd heard of the famous Model M for years.

I found a Model M in storage at a place I worked in 2004-2005 and started using it, loved it.

In 2006, I found one for my home PC at the Salvation Army Thrift Store on St Clair W at Christie in Toronto. I paid $20, and it worked!

I still have it, but stopped using it around 2010 - I was asked to use a quieter keyboard :(

Comment · 4 months ago
I agree - it's worth doing just for fun.

I did the same recently just for fun - I really enjoyed "Gravity Force" on the Amiga - itself a lunar lander variant.

Could a model build a Gravity Force like game I could run in-browser? Yep! (I never made it as good as Gravity Force - just got the basics down)

Comment · 4 months ago
Yeah, this is so bad - I struggled with this as well, why did they make it hard?
Comment · 4 months ago
this

It drives me nuts, I look at cumulative CPU time, and this is all my work laptop does.

Comment · 5 months ago
Agree - but even for the basic use case, it has not been trouble free for me. With a simple 1080p display on a desktop running LTS Ubuntu on an older 3060: - I've had updates where stuff just stopped working and I had to futz around with drivers - Just the fact that you have to 'pick' from a selection of drivers (which one won't you hit issues with for your use case?) - At least on mine, there have been display glitches on suspend/resume - as it's a desktop, I just leave it running

Just anecdotal, but I never had these issues with the desktop AMD APU I had before it or Intel on board graphics on numerous laptops.

Comment · 6 months ago
- IBM creates PC and its BIOS - Phoenix creates clone of BIOS - At some point, IBM/Lenovo stopped using its own BIOS - IBM spins out Lenovo - Lenovo buys Phoenix

In-house firmware, outsource, then in-house again.

Comment · 6 months ago
Same experience here. Was getting flats all the time on my commute, bike shop recommended Schwalbe Marathons, haven't had an issue since.
Comment · 6 months ago
Safari still supports MV2

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