[NTLK] [ADMIN] Happy New Year! Happy New Server!

Fri Jan 15 00:54:40 PST 2021

Sorry to hijack the conversation, but this is something that strikes
close to home.

I kind of remember waiting for Leopard as something miraculous — the
new design, even the box itself was mesmerizing. Snow Leo was pretty
"how ya doin'", a minor update, but there were other things — Xcode 4
for one thing. Lion was pretty hyping, even Mountain Lion with it's
built in Growl clone, and Mavericks with the tags and other
integrations.

And then it all started going downhill, not sure if "it" being my
perception or the actual quality of the software — to the point I even
reverted to using a G4 with Tiger as my main computer in 2014. Even
there, back in the "comfort zone", the trend was noticeable.

I couldn't use iChat anymore, because AOL died off and all other major
platforms I was on decided supporting XMPP leeches off their sweet ad
display revenue. Reeder wasn't an option because Google decided to
shut down Reader, because once again — you can't control the user and
show them ads if they are using a custom API-based client.

These days I have a Windows laptop (let alone, a "gaming" one, yuck! —
not too bad looking in terms of exterior compared to the 2012 Macbooks
though) for the nature of work I do on a daily basis. Somehow I even
taught it not to install bloatware and updates when I don't want it
to! Still starts to whine whenever I don't touch the mouse or keyboard
for half an hour, though.

But for the time when I need some rest, I've found an island of
comfort in another machine — a Thinkpad X220 tablet with Linux.
Configured it to look like Mac OS 9 with Platinum and the Charcoal
font, top bar menu, Platinum sounds, a real bootscreen even (shameless
plugging: https://github.com/vladkorotnev/System8).
Wrote a bunch of scripts to connect all the media platforms I use over
RSS into Liferea, rebuilding everything with GTK2 to avoid the
non-platinum looks, Pale Moon and Claws Mail styled as OS 9 era
Netscape.
Youtube videos end up in RSS, opening any videos automatically pauses
music like on the iPhone. Menus click and pop like in the old days,
fonts aren't blurred and are easy to read. Full control over
everything that happens is in my hands, not whoever designed the
OS/Website/Platform.

It's a huge mess of scripts, took a few months to get right, and for
sure, one day code rot will kill it all — but for now, it's a great
reminder of how things could have gone if computers were still used to
*solve problems*, not *make apps*.

Maybe someday I'll do a writeup on how to set it up if there's enough
demand, but it's clearly not for the faint-hearted :/

On 1/15/21, Forrest <newton_phoenix at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Matthias:
>
> No I don’t blame or fault you at all for the transition. I honestly thought
> it was BECAUSE you could do more of what you want to do, on a Windows
> machine.
>
> I was talking to an old friend last Saturday—which is why I was not part of
> the Newton gathering—and had noticed in her text messages (they were green)
> that she was using a model other than an iPhone. I asked if she had an
> Android phone. This prompted a discussed as to whether she deliberately
> chose that OS, and she did. I have had several Android devices over the
> years for both personal and work use, and I am not fond of them. And, to be
> honest, I’m not all that crazy about my iPhone either, but I have gotten
> used to Apple’s “way” and how it operates.
>
> We discussed how Apple has changed since Jobs died—while Tim Cook is a great
> administrator, Apple seems more interested in making money than creating
> innovation. Many of us had to use two computers in the 80s and 90s—the Mac
> we loved for our own use and the PC we needed for our work. As the years
> went on, it became more and more possible to “do more” with the Mac, what
> with Office for Mac and Intel chips (I recall amazing a friend by starting
> up Windows 7 from my MacBook Pro years ago).
>
> Now as you said, it’s going the other way again.
>
> Sorry call me a nostalgic stick-in-the-mud, but I long for the day when a
> computer “just worked.”
>
> Mahalo,
> Forrest
>
> Sent from my T-Mobile iPhone 11
>
>> On Jan 14, 2021, at 5:55 PM, Matthias Melcher <mm at matthiasm.com> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> Hi Forrest,
>>
>> tl;dr Windows sucks, but macOS has become a moving target for me, and I
>> don;t like that.
>>
>> Still not sure if this was a good idea, but many "cross-platform" apps are
>> badly ported from whatever the original platform is. And since I do some
>> CAD work and some electronics, MacOS always gets the short end of the
>> stick.
>>
>> This was no big problem, because I could use Parallels to run Windows as a
>> VM on my MacBook. But then Apple threw out nVidia, and with it any chance
>> of accelerated AI. Now, Apple kicked out the Intel CPU, and Parallels no
>> longer runs. Yeah, they promised that it will eventually, but I remember
>> that Classic Mac emulation was a thing for a few years, then scrapped. So
>> was PowerPC support, and then 32 bit support. OpenGL support is as good as
>> gone. Intel support will be gone by 2023, latest.
>>
>> Apple just loves to scrap back-compatibility, because users must re-buy
>> their software, or use a subscription model. Just one example: I bought
>> Photoshop 6 many years ago, and it does everything I need. No longer works
>> on Mac, but it works just fine on Win10. Why in the world would I want to
>> move to Creative Suite?
>>
>> It also drives me nuts in OpenSource development. Einstein was originally
>> written to run in 32 bit, simply because it emulates a 32 bit machine.
>> Moving it to 64 bit was possible, but wasted time, because it does not
>> improve the app itself. I am pretty sure that we will never emulate a
>> Newton with more than 2GB of RAM.
>>
>> Newt/0 was much more complicated, and the current port is not optimal at
>> all. mosRun, my tool that runs the command-line Classic developer tools
>> for Newton, had to be ported. This is a lot of time for a one-man show.
>>
>> Now, will those apps run on the M1 CPU on new Macs? Honestly, I don't care
>> anymore. I don't want to sift through pages and pages of docs that tell
>> me, how simple the transition is. mosRun will work as long as Apple
>> support Intel binaries. And then probably die on MacOS.
>>
>> With all the problems that Win10 has, at least the software rot is not a
>> problem. Sure, Windows 98 tools barely still run, but all my stuff is just
>> happy in Win10 without recompiling.
>>
>> Oh, and my laptop has an SD card slot again! What a life saver when you do
>> a lot of 3D printing and camera work.
>>
>> - Matthias
>>
>>> On 1/15/2021 12:34 AM, Forrest wrote:
>>> Matthias, I am terribly sorry to hear that you had to leave the comfort
>>> and security of MacOS to enter the *^%#?!* Windows environment.
>>> Sorry, I seem to have had momentary keyboard issues there.
>>> I’m guessing there were no firearms involved that were pointed at you,
>>> and you made the choice voluntarily and with good reason.
>>> I wish you well.
>>> Mahalo,
>>> Forrest
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> http://newtontalk.net
>> http://twitter.com/newtontalk
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://newtontalk.net
> http://twitter.com/newtontalk

-- 
// Ak.R.

iOS/Mac/Windows & Web developer
Vaporwave/ambient producer, sound/video engineer

Genjitsu Gadget Lab Member 001
http://genjit.su
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fgenjit.su&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNE8x1vuqw3E4Hjfe9lA59Q23-z36Q>