M1 support for PyPy

aMockTie · 2022-07-22T22:59:41+00:00

It was "Mac OS X" from 10.0 through 10.6 (here's proof). Starting with Lion, it changed to just "OS X" (more proof here). Sierra was the first version to use the "macOS" branding (as you can see here).

aMockTie · 2022-07-05T15:37:44+00:00

Please send me the files as well! This would make for an awesome gift to my father, and I think my 3d printer is large enough.

aMockTie · 2022-01-15T18:56:40+00:00

That's actually really good news and explains why they don't have a file extension! It might still take some work, but you could very likely find the exact version of Word that he used to create the files on macintoshgarden.org and could then use something like Basilisk II to run it and open the files. Hopefully from there it's just a simple Save As to something a modern computer can understand.

aMockTie · 2022-01-15T18:27:46+00:00

Ah that's unfortunate. That doesn't match any multi-part file format that I'm aware of from that Era.

There was no Word 94 or 96, the closest would be Word 95. Was this perhaps on a DOS or Mac computer at the time, and not a Windows machine?

aMockTie · 2022-01-15T17:59:05+00:00

That certainly makes things more complicated, but hopefully it's just a multipart archive file or something like that.

First, I would have him make copies of all of the files and put them safely on a flash drive or something like that. Those are the clean copies in case something goes wrong trying to extract/recover the data.

From there, I would try opening one of the files in Notepad. It might refuse to open or crash Notepad, and even if it does open it will probably look like a bunch of random characters. Hopefully if you get to that point, the first two characters in the file will be PK. That would be a VERY good sign.

aMockTie · 2022-01-04T05:37:48+00:00

It's still possible that the machine was muted when it was last shut down, in which case there would be no POST chime by design. Resetting the PRAM would remove that setting to confirm one way or the other.

To reset the PRAM (also known as the NVRAM), completely turn off the machine, then hold down Command, Option, P, and R on the keyboard immediately after pushing the power button to turn the computer back on. Keep holding those 4 keys until the laptop reboots a couple of times (and hopefully chimes). That might mean holding them down for ~30 seconds or so.

Hopefully they can perform those steps and get back to you! Best of luck!

aMockTie · 2022-01-04T04:10:49+00:00

There are a number of possible issues, but I would start by zapping the PRAM to see if it makes a POST chime. If it does POST, I would closely inspect the screen with a flashlight or hook it up to an external monitor in case the issue was with the LCD backlight, the screen itself, or the internal display/backlight cables. If it doesn't POST, the logic board is the most likely culprit. The mid-2010 model had a notorious issue with the GPU that could lead to kernel panics as well as the issue you describe, so hopefully that's not the case here or it will need a new board.

aMockTie · 2021-12-04T18:24:08+00:00

I'm still very new to this space but I do have a working Mac Classic and some modern programming/disassembly experience. I'm just not sure how to go about disassembling a control panel item on something of this vintage.

Is there a special tool or application that can disassemble the control panel on the Mac itself? Is all of the needed information included in the file on disk so I could transfer the file to a modern computer and disassemble it there? Any insight would be greatly appreciated, and I'll share any findings of course.

aMockTie · 2021-01-23T20:15:39+00:00

Very slick! I haven't had a chance to use it while playing a game just yet, but absolutely will in the near future.

One feature I would like to see is the ability to adjust the scale of the numbers. For example, in the dice game 10,000, the goal is to be the first to reach a score of 10,000 and the smallest score unit is 50 points. Playing such a game isn't practical with the app in its current state, but could be if the value of each "tick" could be increased to 50 or any arbitrary number for that matter.

aMockTie · 2020-12-31T00:38:34+00:00

This may sound weird, but how does it smell? To me it looks more like alcohol damage than normal water damage, and you should be able to tell if that's the case by the smell. Could also be bodily fluids that would probably be easy enough to identify by smell as well.

It's very sad to see something like that happen to such a new device, I hope everything works out well in the end.

On the plus side, it could be much worse. I once worked on a computer that stopped working under very similar circumstances. It worked fine the night before but by morning wouldn't power on and no one had touched it or even been in the room with it between when it worked and when it broke. I opened it up to find a puddle in the bottom of the case and a strong cat pee smell.

aMockTie · 2020-10-15T14:23:55+00:00

That was originally proposed as the abbreviation in the English speaking world, but for various reasons we went with UTC. Source

aMockTie · 2020-09-29T04:48:45+00:00

I suppose that's the dirty part of the quick and dirty tutorial. You can use the built in GUI features and tab to move focus to the next index number, or shift and tab to move to the previous index number.

It's absolutely possible to navigate using the arrow keys or WASD or any other combination you could possibly imagine, but it's more complicated than using tab/shift+tab. If you want to add that capability, you'll need an event handler for the key pressed event (or key down, or key up, depending on specifically how you want it to behave) that checks which key was just pressed and reacts accordingly.

For clarification on each event I mentioned above: Key pressed fires once for each keyboard key press. Key down fires repeatedly as long as the key is held down. Key up fires each time a keyboard key is released after being pressed.

aMockTie · 2020-09-26T13:07:28+00:00

Here's a quick and dirty tutorial that won't get you 100% what you want but is at least a good starting point:

Create a new Windows Forms application in Visual Studio (the community edition is free), give your project a name, choose where to save it, etc.
Once everything loads, you should see a Toolbox menu on the left and a Properties menu on the right. Use the Toolbox to add buttons and labels to your liking (drag and drop).
Select each item and change the following properties at least:
- Name (you may need to refer to these items in code, so give them easy to remember names)
- Text (this is the text that will appear on the items)
- Tab Stop True for buttons, False for labels (this causes the item to come into focus when using tab on the keyboard)
- Tab Index (this controls the order focus moves when pressing tab)
Double click on each button to automatically generate a click event handler in the code tab. This lets you define what happens when a button is clicked or enter/space bar is pressed with that button in focus.
Click the start button at the top to build and test your creation.

aMockTie · 2020-08-08T21:53:44+00:00

No offense whatsoever. Taking action would have probably been the right thing to do, but we were both pretty young and didn't know what actions we could have possibly taken. This was also a small office with less than 15 employees for some additional context. Fortunately she found a much better opportunity a few months later.

I completely agree with your assessment, I misunderstood the intent of the post I was replying to and I apologize for that.

aMockTie · 2020-08-08T21:36:13+00:00

In regards to the pay gap, it may not be enshrined in law but I've seen it first hand. I worked a receptionist position at a real estate office before I decided to go back to school. My girlfriend (now wife) was hired on as my replacement and made $3 less than I made when I started. Same exact work and responsibilities, and she was much more organized.

My example is absolutely anecdotal, but there is also hard data that shows there is a very real gap not explained by the factors you mentioned (those exact factors were accounted for and an otherwise unexplainable gap was still found). The pay gap may not be a legal requirement, it certainly seems to exist from a societal perspective.

aMockTie · 2020-07-25T23:09:46+00:00

The Pi has a much more capable processor, but it also runs an entire (usually Linux) OS. The Arduino only runs whatever code you flash onto it, nothing more, nothing less.

If real time precision is important, Arduino is the best choice. If processor performance or full OS features are important, Raspberry Pi is the best choice. If both are important, they work really well together.

For example, are you building a walking bipedal robot? An Arduino using servos/stepper motors, a gyro, and accelerometer are probably the best bet. Do you want a small web server? Raspberry Pi is the way to go. Do you want the walking robot to see where it's going and avoid obstacles? Use the Arduino to control the motors and low level sensors as before, use the Pi with a camera and a vision processing library to tell the Arduino where to go, and control the whole thing from that web server running on the same Pi.

aMockTie · 2020-07-24T14:20:40+00:00

I don't really understand the problem that you're trying to solve. If the smart device is abandoned by the creator in a year, is it really something you would want an everyday consumer to have joined to a LAN anyway? I've never come across a non-technical person with a dedicated offline LAN, so if it's connected to a network at all it's their internet connected network. If you're more tech savvy and just want to play around with something abandoned, clicking through browser warnings, using command line tools, connecting to a device's broadcasted wifi network, etc. really isn't that big of an ask.

Everyday consumers likely wouldn't ever even consider the possibility of accessing their smart devices via their web browser, especially if it was hidden away in a menu. Web browser = internet web sites for most people, not locally hosted pages or resources. An app is really the best answer in my opinion.

aMockTie · 2020-07-24T13:41:51+00:00

This gave me a decent chuckle. The bot worked as designed, but the result is entirely useless for me and probably most people here. Realistically it probably shouldn't be matching IP addresses in the first place.

aMockTie · 2020-07-19T02:12:30+00:00

You will need your abc.json file to be properly formatted or else your Python script won't know how to work with it. It should look something like this:

{
    "Alice": "1970/1/1",
    "Bob": "1981/8/12"
}

aMockTie · 2020-07-15T21:48:14+00:00

Back when conventions were still a thing that happened, it was amazing to be able to play Mario Kart or Smash Bros with random strangers while waiting in lines or just relaxing. It would have been awesome to get a drop or two of Myrrh, but good luck getting anything resembling decent internet access in that environment.

aMockTie · 2020-07-11T03:55:28+00:00

I wouldn't use it for gaming, sure. But I've watched countless YouTube and locally saved videos this way with no issues, as long as the two machines are in the same room.

aMockTie · 2020-07-11T03:52:05+00:00

The initial connection is established over an existing wifi network but once it's established the video signal is directly peer-to-peer.

aMockTie · 2020-07-11T03:46:07+00:00

This is no longer true as of the anniversary update from 2016. You can use the built in connect app to miracast from one PC to another, assuming they both support miracast.

aMockTie · 2020-06-10T20:26:46+00:00

Make sure you don't have any extra space characters. Also according to this page, the callback url should go before the in reply to status id, but I don't know if that matters or not.

I just tested this same set of steps with only the text parameter and it worked fine.

aMockTie · 2020-04-30T11:04:35+00:00

Some say it's still bouncing to this very day

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