Hacker News: unwiredben

New comment by unwiredben in "Mikeal Rogers has died"

unwiredben — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 20:22:58 +0000

I got to hang with him a little in the early 2010s when I was doing JavaScript work and found him nice and personable. I'm so sorry for his early passing.

New comment by unwiredben in "Nokia's internal presentation after iPhone was launched (2007) [pdf]"

unwiredben — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 15:44:53 +0000

I was at Palm when the iPhone launched, and one note from this analysis summed up Apple's new power in the market and how they really changed the landscape.

"Cingular has allowed Apple to launch a device with WLAN and inbuilt services"

At that time, the carriers controlled so much of the cell phone experience. We certainly would have loved to have launched Palm Treo phones with WiFi radios, but our carrier partners wanted the only way to get data in and out of the devices to be through their monetized data plans. They also wanted to control what you did with that data so they could charge for their own email or messaging systems or web portals. The same applied to app stores. Palm OS didn't have a unified app store at that time, just sideloading and some third-party methods, and some carriers had started making their own stores where you could buy apps billed through your cell phone bill. They hated the idea of a platform owning that, and I expect that was part of the reason Apple originally released it with no app store. They needed the phone to be a massive hit in order to gain the power to also bypass that wall that the cell companies put up.

Palm did benefit from the iPhone launch -- it had us uplevel our efforts away from the post-Palm OS phones that we were in the middle of developing that were aimed at the RIM market and instead try something radical with webOS, and when the Pre launched, it actually had WiFi on board, although the Sprint-exclusive Pixi phone lacked WiFi due to carrier request. There was some momentum there for a while, but then HP bought us, hit its own set of brick walls with carriers, and ditched the hardware business shortly after Apple started launching on other carriers.

New comment by unwiredben in "Linux/4004: booting Linux on Intel 4004 for fun, art, and no profit"

unwiredben — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 02:02:42 +0000

and also its Voja4, not Voya (my mistake in remembering name spellings)

New comment by unwiredben in "Linux/4004: booting Linux on Intel 4004 for fun, art, and no profit"

unwiredben — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 14:27:58 +0000

At Hackaday Supercon in 2002, the badge for attendees (https://hackaday.com/2022/10/12/the-2022-supercon-badge-is-a...) implemented a fictional 4-bit CPU along with control panel for directly entering instructions and running and stepping through code. I had a huge amount of fun implementing a space shooter video game on it, as the panel included a bit-by-bit view of one of its pages of memory. Comparing its Voya4 architecture with the 4004 was fascinating. Some similar tradeoffs, but the Voya4 has the benefit of 50 years of CPU instruction set exposure.

Alas, dimitygr's method wouldn't work on the badge, as the memory and RAM are all internal to the PIC24 that implements the CPU emulator.

BTW, 4-bit CPUs are still made and used. Many of the mass-produced IR remotes are programmed using a 4-bit MCU. See https://www.emmicroelectronic.com/sites/default/files/produc... for a datasheet.

Apple Arcade (again): late payments, stonewalled studios, terrible tech support

unwiredben — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 16:46:28 +0000

Article URL: https://mobilegamer.biz/inside-apple-arcade-again-late-payments-stonewalled-studios-terrible-tech-support-and-vision-pro-woes/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41140410

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Opus (audio codec) Patent Pool

unwiredben — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 23:36:41 +0000

Article URL: https://www.opuspool.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40972420

Points: 4

# Comments: 2

Texas will use computers to grade written answers on this year's STAAR tests

unwiredben — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 20:19:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/staar-artificial-intelligence-computer-grading-texas/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39983786

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Trying to Decode Lev-1

unwiredben — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 12:33:37 +0000

Article URL: https://destevez.net/2024/01/trying-to-decode-lev-1/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39491040

Points: 39

# Comments: 4

Trying to decode LEV-1

unwiredben — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 20:33:26 +0000

Article URL: https://destevez.net/2024/01/trying-to-decode-lev-1/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39233941

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by unwiredben in "Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day"

unwiredben — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 22:15:50 +0000

That's often a recently launched StarLink formation -- the bunch up in a line when deployed, and have to be maneuvered over several weeks to spread out and take different orbits.

The Radio Station That Bridge Built

unwiredben — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 21:31:37 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/the-radio-station-that-bridge-built

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37618055

Points: 38

# Comments: 9

New comment by unwiredben in "On Alchemy"

unwiredben — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 20:46:01 +0000

a visit to the research reactor in Hamilton, Canada

On Alchemy

unwiredben — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 20:46:01 +0000

Article URL: https://www.scopeofwork.net/on-alchemy/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37576285

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by unwiredben in "Obiturary for Don Lancaster"

unwiredben — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 13:40:43 +0000

I grew up reading his "Ask the Guru" columns in Computer Shopper and loves all the creative ways he came up to use PostScript. His hardware hacker articles were also great. He will be missed.

New comment by unwiredben in "Farewell American Computer Magazines"

unwiredben — Thu, 08 Jun 2023 15:49:01 +0000

Jerry Pournelle isn't up to much anymore, as he died in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle

How the Intel 8088 Got Its Bus (2022)

unwiredben — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 22:07:47 +0000

Article URL: https://www.eejournal.com/article/how-the-intel-8088-got-its-bus/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35446474

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by unwiredben in "Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?"

unwiredben — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 19:11:14 +0000

I've got USB-powered desk fans at home and the office. I've tried a fair number, and typically get ones that have a couple of different speed settings and good bearing that are mostly silent.

New comment by unwiredben in "[dead]"

unwiredben — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:39:41 +0000

As soon as it prompted for number, I was out of there. Kinda reminded me of the Dianetics commercials, though.

New comment by unwiredben in "Cobalt – a stripped down Chromium for apps, Linux and embedded systems"

unwiredben — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 17:20:50 +0000

Cobalt is the primary engine that's used for running YouTube and YouTube TV on set-top boxes and smart TVs. If you notice that it looks the same on a Roku device or a Fire TV stick or a Samsung TV, that's because all of those are running a port of Cobalt and a special version of the YouTube website.

Modern Network Transport Protocols

unwiredben — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 04:51:37 +0000

Article URL: https://engineering.roku.com/2022/09/29/modern-network-transport-protocols/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33199757

Points: 2

# Comments: 0