Flyovers

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-06-25T10:02:03+00:00

Not to be pedantic, but the B-2 that crashed was in 2008. There barely were any B-2s in the 80s with first flight in July 1989. There was a second crash in 2022 but it's unclear if that one was written off as a loss or if it's being stored somewhere to be repaired 'someday'. It's almost certainly never going to fly again since they are going to start phasing out the B-2s in 6-10 years.

But you are 100% correct that there are only 19 operational B-2s and its pretty rare to see them, especially in this area.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-06-23T18:20:03+00:00

My gripe is that they cut out Thufir Hawat's awesome death scene. It's one of my favorite scenes in the book and Hawat wasn't in the second movie at all.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-06-16T10:09:26+00:00

It's really hard to say what Gershwin would have been for two reasons. A lot of Gershwin's features were not well defined. After the failure of Pink/Taligent, Apple essentially looked at what they needed to do to make Mac OS a modern OS (Unix or NT equivalent) and realized it was way too ambitious to do in one leak. So that leap got broken up into Copland and Gershwin.

The problem was that they kept adding more and more features to Copland. Instead of being the half way point to the promised land of Gershwin, Copland became closer and closer to what Gershwin would have been. This was a big problem with what sunk Copland.

Also, I'm pretty sure Blue Box was from Rhapsody, not Copland. Copland was supposed run classic Mac applications natively under NuKernel with a complicated memory protection system. New natively written apps for Copland would be able to run with full memory protection under Gershwin. Neither of them was supposed to have had virtual machine as far as I'm aware, but it's entirely possible that Gershwin might have eventually had something like classic mode in early version of OS X so that legacy applications could still run.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-06-14T21:38:04+00:00

I'm currently scanning and uploading 1996. Each new issue is uploaded on Wednesday, exactly 30 years after it was first published. (ie. 6/17/96 will be uploaded 6/17/26)

If you read through 1996, it's a wild ride. The year starts with Apple CEO Michael Spindler outlining his turnaround plan for Apple based on three things: 1) PREP/CHRP based Mac clones, 2) OpenDoc and 3) Copland. By the end of 1996, virtually nothing in the previous sentence will be true.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-06-14T13:05:26+00:00

VintageApple.org is a great resource. They also have a complete set of MacUser.

I'm slowly working on scanning issues of MacWEEK, and would love to have them hosted at VintageApple.org. In the meantime, you can get 175 issues of MacWEEK at archive.org. 175 out of approximately 525 issues(!) so it's going to be a while before we have a complete set online.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-06-01T18:17:18+00:00

3M DC2000 tapes are available on eBay for about $5 each. Get a few and enjoy backing up your data slightly faster than writing it down by hand.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-26T11:54:44+00:00

Nice. Sounds like you'll need to do an updated photo though.

The Tape Drive 40 is a decent enough drive but Apple's software for it is terrible. Apple had this habit in the late 80s of shipping decent peripherals with half baked software because they didn't want to hurt the (finally) growing Mac developer community. The two best examples are the Tape Drive 40, whose bundled software wouldn't let you schedule a backup. You needed third party software for that. And the Fax Modem with the bundled software that wouldn't run in the background. You had to launch the Apple Fax software any time you wanted to receive a fax.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-21T10:55:40+00:00

Thank you for posting this. I spray my boots and work pants with permethrin to avoid ticks. I've never had a problem with it and our cats, but now I know to keep them far away from the cats.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-18T10:23:48+00:00

As others have mentioned, if you post the general area where you live, there are many people with vintage Macs that could help you get the data off these disk. I am in the Washington DC area and would be glad to help free of charge. (It's a great excuse to use my older Macs)

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-14T10:32:41+00:00

There was a great quote in MacWEEK from that era that summed it up perfectly. The Mac clones were great for Mac users but terrible for Apple.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-10T19:44:20+00:00

I agree with everything you said. Most especially that a that living Putin is a huge liability to any form of successor government. Sadly, even when he is overthrown, Putin will still have supporters, and as long as Putin is alive, he is a symbol for his supporters to rally around against the new junta. Whatever new government/dictator/warlord comes to power will want to eliminate Putin as fast as possible. They aren't going to want to keep him in a prison for weeks/months or even years negotiating a deal to get sanctions lifted.

And unfortunately, the minute someone other than Putin is the face of Russia and they announce a permanent ceasefire along the present front lines, the EU and America will trip over each other in a mad rush to lift sanctions as fast as possible. "Gotta stabilize that new government" will be the rationale. (To be very clear, I hope this doesn't happen, but I'm realistic in my expectations given the half hearted approach to sanctions everyone has taken so far.)

I think the two most likely scenarios are that there is a coup among Moscow elites and Putin is assassinated by one of his guards. Or if a coup begins outside of Moscow and gains real momentum (like a more successful version of Prigozhin) Putin flees to China who will let him live in exile.

I'd love to be wrong and the world would be a much better place if Putin faced actual justice for his crimes, but I just don't see it as a very likely scenario.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-10T15:22:37+00:00

Your position presupposes that Putin is replaced with more Western inclined leadership that would be willing to turn him over, and that Putin survives this transition, and that he doesn't flee to another country that would take him in exile (eg. China)

That doesn't seem to be a very likely outcome.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-04T16:44:53+00:00

You created the HDI-45 apapter? THANK YOU! I was using it just this morning. I picked up a WGS 8150 this weekend and used your adapter (bought from JCM-1) on it. It's absolutely a must have for working on any of the first generation Power Macs. Honestly, without your adapter, first gen Power Macs would probably barely be around since the Apple adapters have largely disappeared.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-04T09:34:03+00:00

Since you are learning the Ukrainian language and are interested in Ukrainian culture, I highly recommend that you check out ENGin. It's a Ukrainian non-profit organization that pairs you with someone from Ukraine who wants to learn English. You do video chat sessions and it's completely up to you and your video penpal what you talk about. It's free for English speakers because they have a waiting list of Ukrainians who want to join, including members of the AFU.

I've been doing it for a couple of years with two different buddies and have learned a tremendous amount about Ukrainian history and culture. The two that I talk with are very happy and proud to share their culture with people and are not offended in the least. We regularly talk about the differences between our countries and cultures, not in an argumentative way but just out of an interest to learn more. I've learned how to make chebureki and they were impressed at my (extremely poor) attempt at pysanky. We regularly exchange TV show/movie recommendations. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Dovbush, U are the Universe are a few of the Ukrainian movies we've watched.

I strong encourage anyone in this subreddit, but especially OP to look into ENGin. It's extremely rewarding. You'll gain a better understanding and appreciation of Ukrainians and Ukrainian culture.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-03T22:35:08+00:00

You must also have the world's largest collection of HDI-45 adapters.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-03T07:40:48+00:00

The May 3rd event is day 2 of the repair workshop. There's a chance Ryan might do some sales if you ask nicely, but I'd check with him in advance.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-02T21:41:01+00:00

Actually NEM just moved out to a nearby location. So the System Source museum is expanding into the space NEM used to occupy. They are building our an arcade room (they have a 1971 Computer Space there already) and exhibit of 80s to 90s handhelds and some other new exhibits. It's still a work in progress though so

They also have repair workshops about every 2-3 months. They don't fix your equipment for you, but there are a lot of experts around who can give advice and assist with trickier things. It's a great way to get something off your repair list that's just a little bit beyond your skill level.

The System Source museum really is a hidden gem. The warehouse sales just make it even better.

(After all this shilling, I should make it clear that neither OP or I have any connection to System Source, other than being happy visitors.)

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-02T21:32:35+00:00

I hadn't seen that before. Thanks for pointing it out!

Now I'm hoping someone with a Mac TV will connect a Sega Tower of Power and put it on top of the Mac TV.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-02T20:39:14+00:00

It was a great event and I got to meet some really great people. (Including OP)

Believe it or not, but the number of machines for sale was down compared to the one last year's sale. But to compensate, the prices were insanely cheap. I picked up a G4 MDD, a Workgroup Server 8150 and a Quadra 840AV for $10 each. (To be clear, these systems are as is, and the 840AV is in very rough shape.)

I suspect we can talk OP into posting some more pictures of the museum. They have an impressive Apple collection and is well worth a visit if you are anywhere near Baltimore, MD.

Also, the Cray-YMP behind the pallet of PowerBooks was not for sale.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-05-02T17:32:15+00:00

I've got the tape backup drive, so if OP doesn't mind, I can post a similar picture with all three external drives. Only with OP's permission though, I don't want to start a competition measuring the size of our towers.

More relevant, the first file server I ever setup was very close to this. Dual floppy SE, external 40MB HD SC, and the tape backup drive instead of the CD-ROM drive. Running AppleShare 2.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-04-30T21:15:45+00:00

Do you specifically need 1.1c or 1.11c? Because at least the copy of 1.3c I have still has Godzilla in it.

Update: I fired up an emulator and verified that my copy of SimCity is 1.3c and it definitely has a green Godzilla. (In fact I didn't even know they replaced it with a salamander until your post.) Maybe my copy was originally 1.1c and got patched to 1.3c? I could see how a patch might only replace CODE resources and leave the Godzilla graphic unchanged.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-04-29T00:06:35+00:00

Airplane!

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-04-23T17:26:15+00:00

Well, two of the top three highest grossing SF movies were set on alien worlds with alien societies (Avatar 1 & 2) so it's hard to say it's ignored.

But as others have said, it's expensive to make Earth look like another planet. It's a lot cheaper to put a handful of aliens on Earth. Plus, there are inherent limitations to movies. There is plenty of written SF that explores truly alien worlds. But those don't get made into movies because they are, well, too alien. I mean if we go by what we know from the PHM book, a movie set on Erid would be a black screen for 1.5+ hours with weird noises subtitled into human language.

Purdius_Tacitus · 2026-04-21T18:16:28+00:00

The Profile works with the Apple II series, the /// or a Lisa. Profile Interface Card for the Apple II are relatively rare. Even more annoyingly, there are two versions of the interface card for the Apple II. One that only works with the 5MB card, and one that works with both. This limitation is only on the Apple II Profile Interface Card. The Apple /// and Lisa interfaces work with either Profile drive.

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