Hacker News: themadturk

New comment by themadturk in "MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production"

themadturk — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 02:37:46 +0000

The MacBook Air is a better machine, but the Neo is far better than an iPad because MacOS isn't constrained like iPadOS is. The Neo can't really be compared to an iPad for that reason alone.

New comment by themadturk in "MacBook Neo is so popular that Apple doubled production"

themadturk — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 02:13:14 +0000

As a recent retiree from a Fortune 500 company...no, there's no such thing as an upgrade. We were virtually exclusively laptops on the desktop. It was full replacement every time.

New comment by themadturk in "Windows GOG DOS Games on M-Series Macs"

themadturk — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 21:50:50 +0000

I believe Dosbox-X had native Apple Silicon support…at least it has an Apple Silicon installer.

New comment by themadturk in "Microsoft degrades functionality of perpetually-licensed offline products"

themadturk — Sun, 31 May 2026 00:50:00 +0000

The last time I refreshed my Mac setup I didn't reinstall my standalone Microsoft Office, which I'd kept for the (very) occasional Word compatibility need.

Looks like I can trash the installer now, save a little drive space.

New comment by themadturk in "Google Hates You"

themadturk — Fri, 29 May 2026 00:24:28 +0000

They've already taken it; what are you going to do about it?

New comment by themadturk in "Google Hates You"

themadturk — Fri, 29 May 2026 00:23:25 +0000

But the writer is an end user. How does his perspective not regard the end user?

New comment by themadturk in "The two oldest printing presses"

themadturk — Wed, 20 May 2026 01:30:43 +0000

I don't think the Chinese had presses like Gutenberg invented. Type was set in a frame, inked, and the paper pressed over the inked type manually. Gutenberg's great innovation was coupling the screw press, already in use for pressing olives and grapes for oil and juice, with movable metal type. The Chinese didn't put the two together.

New comment by themadturk in "I’ve built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of"

themadturk — Tue, 19 May 2026 20:57:35 +0000

Mine as well. Felt like I imagined a Mac felt like (I was Mac-envious in those days).

New comment by themadturk in "Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes"

themadturk — Tue, 12 May 2026 23:36:15 +0000

That was my first GUI, on the Commodore 64 with RAM expansion (don't remember if I had the 128kb or 256kb expansion). I wrote and laid out my user group newsletter on GeoPublish. I felt like I was running a Mac.

New comment by themadturk in "Getting arrested in Japan"

themadturk — Sun, 10 May 2026 02:24:42 +0000

Probably the same thing you do in the states if you have high blood pressure: make do with lesser medications, pain killers, lots of liquids, and push through it.

New comment by themadturk in "Reviving the IBM Selectric Composer Fonts (2023)"

themadturk — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:26:59 +0000

I was school newspaper editor in high school, back in 1973-74. We didn't have a Composer, but one of the other high schools did, and they produced the output we pasted up. I went to their school to see the Composer in action once, it was amazing to see our copy typed in, then magically reappear as properly spaced and justified columns.

New comment by themadturk in "The Making of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (2012)"

themadturk — Sat, 09 May 2026 17:13:22 +0000

On Safari the type is almost too small to read and the page does not reflow when I increase the magnification. Fortunately I can (with some effort) save it to Instapaper to read outside the browser.

New comment by themadturk in "PipeDream on the Acorn Archimedes"

themadturk — Sat, 09 May 2026 16:29:56 +0000

The site is fine. Doesn't show up as anything bad on Firefox on Mac. I've been reading the site for months, never had a problem.

New comment by themadturk in "Tempest vs. Tempest: The Making and Remaking of Atari's Iconic Video Game"

themadturk — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:12:39 +0000

Kaboom! and Tempest...a perfect combination!

New comment by themadturk in "MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be"

themadturk — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:03:43 +0000

I don't use it (or need it) myself, but when I was working for a sporting equipment manufacturer a number of years ago, every salesman had a cellular dongle for their laptop. We had to remind them they had direct ethernet connections when they were in the office.

New comment by themadturk in "MacBook Neo and how the iPad should be"

themadturk — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:57:08 +0000

You're one of the (relatively) few who found the iPad useful for getting actual work done. There are others like you, just not that many. (I tried and failed to make the iPad + Magic Keyboard my only machine.)

New comment by themadturk in "I'm never buying another Kindle"

themadturk — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:18:03 +0000

Either I've gotten so used to lagginess on the Kobo that I don't notice it anymore, or it no longer is a problem. It seems to turn pages just fine, which is the only place I'm concerned about performance. I've got a Clara BW, so no page turn buttons (they make the device bigger than I liked).

New comment by themadturk in "I'm never buying another Kindle"

themadturk — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:13:13 +0000

Yes, it's not hard to do both.

New comment by themadturk in "I'm never buying another Kindle"

themadturk — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 17:55:51 +0000

Most, if not all, ebook stores have "issues" with DRM because publishers demand it (and authors too often simply go along with it). Amazon and Kobo (and other ebook stores as well) let authors of self-published books decide whether or not to put DRM on their books.

New comment by themadturk in "Amazon is discontinuing Kindle for PC on June 30th"

themadturk — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 20:16:21 +0000

Glad to have gotten off Kindle and onto Kobo years ago. Enshittification continues on. Now, we just have to wait for the publishers to put the screws to Rakuten...