Hacker News: TheAmazingRace

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Grand MS-DOS Gaming General MIDI Showdown"

TheAmazingRace — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 16:59:45 +0000

On most SB16s, yes! It really depends what you were rocking.

Also, some later DSP’d SB16 cards used CQM instead of OPL3 for the FM MIDI, so it could sound a touch harsher and raspier, if that makes any sense.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Grand MS-DOS Gaming General MIDI Showdown"

TheAmazingRace — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 18:58:38 +0000

Yep. Count me in as another fan of the AWE64 Gold. The DSP chip they used on that board, version 4.16, also patched the MIDI hanging note bug that was present since the SB16 era. As an aside, I believe the very earliest SB16s didn't have this hanging note bug, but they were incredibly noisy.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "macOS 27 Golden Gate – Review"

TheAmazingRace — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:11:22 +0000

I imagine the author saw this release as "macOS Tahoe but not sucky"

I liken it to Windows Vista and Windows 7. Although fundamentally similar operating systems under the hood, Windows 7 smoothed out Vista's kinks and brought forth additional polish.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "The Apple IIGS was introduced 40 years ago today"

TheAmazingRace — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:53:13 +0000

I have so many fond memories playing on an Apple IIGS from 1995 to 1997 at the Catholic grade school I attended before I was homeschooled. Yes, they used Apple IIs in some schools clear up to the early 2000s if you'd believe it!

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "What algorithm did Windows XP use to choose your initial user picture?"

TheAmazingRace — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:57:19 +0000

Only if you install the Shell Technology Preview from Microsoft. NT 3.51 came with the classic Win 3.x look and feel as well as Program Manager.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "GPT-6 Astra"

TheAmazingRace — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 06:01:27 +0000

I think we can safely assume that AGI is still a good ways out then.

These AI LLM products really do well on the illusion of seeming intelligent to regular folks, but I'm not fully convinced they can replace human brains... yet. ;)

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Sony makes bold claim about game ownership"

TheAmazingRace — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 05:44:20 +0000

Indeed. I find myself going back to older games anymore. Aside from maybe looking forward to GTA 6, I can't say I'm terribly interested in many modern titles. It's becoming more soulless.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Sony makes bold claim about game ownership"

TheAmazingRace — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:44:37 +0000

Lik Sang was awesome back in the day for procuring accessories like classic XBOX controller to USB adapters that weren't dodgy duct tape jobs. Hard to believe they were forced out of business by Sony two decades ago.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "RavynOS: Pre-alpha open-source OS based on Darwin, FreeBSD, Apple open-source"

TheAmazingRace — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 20:42:52 +0000

Tell me about it. Those OS X versions you mentioned for Tiger, Snow Leopard, and Mavericks were some of the best releases of OS X ever.

Thankfully, macOS Golden Gate is proving to be a decent release so far in my tests of the public betas, but I do yearn for the simplicity (and more power user friendly aspects) of the aforementioned OS X releases.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Amiga 1000: Ten years ahead of its time"

TheAmazingRace — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:19:07 +0000

Ah. I stand corrected then.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Amiga 1000: Ten years ahead of its time"

TheAmazingRace — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 03:21:30 +0000

The UI found in WorkBench 1.x was designed to be the way it was so that owners could plug their Amigas into television sets of the day and still be able to make out something without requiring a pristine purpose-built CRT monitor.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "John C. Dvorak has died"

TheAmazingRace — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 16:00:13 +0000

I'm late to the party with my comment here, but it should probably be said.

Experiencing my formative years in the 90s, and having a PC buff for a dad, we periodically paged through the PC Magazine issues that we would receive by mail, and it was always a fun time. John's articles were funny in a way, and I enjoyed his curmudgeon-y writing. He was also the person I found out about IBM's ill-fated OS/2 from and looked into it in my spare time.

Later on, I discovered he was on a podcast with Adam Curry called the No Agenda Show. I wouldn't say I particularly like the podcast these days, but in the mid 2010s, it got me through some rough times and was like a fun conversation I got to listen to for hours on roadtrips I'd take in California. I even donated a few times, though never quite made it to their roundtable of knights lol.

I'll try and tune into today's show to hear the eulogy.

RIP Mr. Dvorak.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation"

TheAmazingRace — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 07:08:28 +0000

Also, I’m impressed at some of the up scaling techniques that some players use to help improve the quality of DVD movies. Sure, it’s not native, but it’s certainly not bad looking either.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation"

TheAmazingRace — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 16:33:50 +0000

Hilariously, DVD production could potentially outlive Blu-Ray discs, since DVDs are still popular enough 30 years later, and surpass the sales of Blu-Ray movies.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Why I Stopped Arguing with People"

TheAmazingRace — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:15:37 +0000

Honestly, one of my colleagues said it best.

"Do you want friends? Or do you want to be right?"

Sometimes there really is no glory on those hills you die on.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Crypto firms have spent $189M so far on 2026 US election, report says"

TheAmazingRace — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 19:03:06 +0000

Ross Ulbricht being let go as part of some quid pro quo with crypto-libertarians was certainly a huge miscarriage of justice. He should not be walking free, but alas.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer"

TheAmazingRace — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:09:32 +0000

I think he was referring to Carmack's note on Burger Becky when she passed away.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "Making Graphics Like it's 1993"

TheAmazingRace — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:53:12 +0000

It doesn't say in the blog post, but will this be released for MS-DOS?

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building"

TheAmazingRace — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:28:46 +0000

Luckily, for gaming purposes in 2026, 32 GB of RAM is perfectly fine for the foreseeable future. I'd only consider 64 GB and up if you're using your system heavily for virtual machines or high end workstation level tasks.

New comment by TheAmazingRace in "32GB of DDR5 now costs $375 – AI shortage continues to squeeze PC building"

TheAmazingRace — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:22:42 +0000

In my humble opinion, 4K gaming is rather overrated. I find high refresh rates at 1440p to be the sweet spot and you don't have to get a top-end GPU to drive it at ultra settings in games.