Somewhat mirrors my experience with all those rubbish non-PDF formats for digital document publishing, e. g. ePub: Often terminally ugly and utterly useless on top of it (not properly citeable, et cetera).

He also mentioned that the idea of agentic computing was already 30 years old, and that he was busying himself with the topic for 15 years by then (1990). So... five years from taking interest (mid-70s) to his first practical implementations (1980).

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48396422

Points: 8

# Comments: 1

My experiences cover only Europe, mostly in sasec (safety and security, not infosec) shops, including sasec-related engineering and product development. The only Macs I see in any pro capacity are those of clients and rent-a-lecturer/instructor-types, the latter seldomly part of the industry. In my neck of the woods we run mostly on machines from Panasonic and Lenovo; in-house repair labs are a thing (some of them with expertise and equipment that makes the Rechenzentren at the local universities bow their heads in shame).

What a lot Apple people don't seem to get into their heads is that there's user segments to whom the virtues of Apple's "silicon" is utterly irrelevant; the small benefits you'd get out of it are completely negated by a litany of cons that makes their products completely undesirable.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48359807

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

Me too. But the tray table compatibility resonates. I had hoped someone would build a modern netbook as a detachable focused on productivity and light gaming (say, Steamdeck class), maintainability and (modular) expandability; a modern road warrior that's also a nice hobbyist machine that stands some abuse. Framework was/is positioned to put something out, but they decided to release the F-12 instead.

MUTOS 1835 was a UNIX port which we did under contract for an AT-compatible from Robotron. Since this machine was never produced, the whole thing must be seen as a flop."

Yeah, just about 20 EC 1835s were built (the "C" is the Russian "S"; they're ESER (ES EVM) machines, after all). But then again, there's MUTOS 1700 (for A 7100 and A 7150) and MUTOS 1834 (for EC 1834)... along with CP/M, CP/M-86 and DOS, of course. The 32-bit (386) follow-up to the 1835 was planned for 1993/94. Well, history had other plans. I remember my first programming lessons in my school's computer lab in 1991... on Amstrad 386DX/20 machines.

1. ES EVM (EN) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ES_EVM]

2. ESER/ES EVM (DE) [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einheitliches_System_Elektroni...]

3. ES EVM (RU) [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ЕС_ЭВМ]

4. A 7100 (DE) [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_7100]

5. A 7100 @ "Starring the Computer" [https://starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=630]

6. A 7150 (DE) [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_7150]

7. EC 1834 (DE) [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC_1834]

8. EC 1834 (EN) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC_1834]

9. EC 1835 (DE) [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC_1835]

→ [https://starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=144]

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48336092

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

In all fairness, most Apple users are technically illiterate (hardware-wise). And running upgradeable machines to optimum efficiency necessitates running a redundant setup, e. g. the main bird and a compatible support unit, usually an older one, but capable enough to take over relatively seamlessly for a while, enable diagnostics, facilitate maintenance, and so on.

Most Apple users have only one computer, with their secondary machine the iPhone, itself a neutered simulacrum of a pocket computer, just good enough to do some basic outsourcing of troubleshooting, and to place an order for the next computer of course.

People who gravitate to Frameworks offerings, or similar machines, are just of a completely different mindset than the typical Apple customer. As evidenced by threads like this one. That's also one of the reasons why the F-12 was a misfire. You don't "half-ass" machines built for long-term support. And in this climate, an entry-level LTS machine that's supposed to become popular needed and needs a different approach. Which begins with the form factor.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48315925

Points: 12

# Comments: 0

Interesting publication (history) [1].

1. [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Neue_Universum]

So much for needed. Packages that run without, but are only fully useful with an FPU, were relatively common.