[X] My Assistant

I only use Classic Shell and Everything.


I'm considering using Teracopy.
Win Explorer is absolute shit in any version.

I only use Classic Shell and Everything.
I'm considering using Teracopy.
Win Explorer is absolute shit in any version.

Yeah, I tended to use cygwin and korn shell or bash to manage files. Also 'locate' (and its database) for file searches. Piped to `cygpath` if I needed a windows-style file path.

I don't really know how 'teracopy' can claim to be faster than anything else. And I don't care to do much research since it's not on a platform I like and it's apparently not floss.

I tend to use tar in pipes or rsync. Sometimes cpio (rare).

CODE

tar cf - . | ( cd /dest-dir; tar xf - )

For single-file copies I just use 'cp' though. Or the cmd/DOS style 'copy' command directly.

It's very rare that I need to copy a bunch of files in a directory and it's not faster to just select them with a wildcard pattern or such compared to ctrl+clicking in a UI. My filenames are usually rather sensible.

I never got used to powershell but I remember being annoyed every time I tried to use it. I have little doubt it's better than the cmd.exe prompt/COMMAND.COM (DOS command line), just because it's pretty hard to be worse than DOS CLI, but it's still a learning curve I'd rather not deal with.
When I say cmd instead of COMMAND.COM, I mean the windows CLI, btw. DOS CLI is worse still.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 9 2020, 08:15

Been a few days so I'm just double-posting.
Not sure if some of the RAM in my amiga is actually bad or if I just really need to get those ceramic decoupling caps that they're all supposed to have on them for stability (I have them on order already).
After using it for a long while I start to get graphical glitches in deluxepaint, which indicates to me that it's a problem in the Chip RAM (the ram the video chipset can access). I added more chip RAM but didn't have caps handy.

Still didn't stop me from doing more doodling on my profile pic. I just made sure to save every so often. And it could just be some bug in the software itself for all I know; the Amiga 500 has no memory protection.

Speaking of, thinking of nabbing a 68010, but I'm in no rush. Despite being faster there's an edge case or two where they are incompatible. I don't want to have to worry about and the a500 still feels somewhat snappy to me even with a basic 68000 (using a hard disk makes a huge difference). The DIP-packaged 68K is also huge (the biggest DIP IC I think I've ever seen, along with the TMS9900) and I foresee that it will likely be very annoying to get out of its socket.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 11 2020, 11:12

Why the fuck do people still recommend WinRAR over 7-zip in 2020.

TLDR:
Because they eat meat (such as chicken).


Longer Explanation:
WinRAR has the ability to repair an archive file if the media it is stored upon has errors or loses some bytes due to aging. This is done with its Recovery Record function where the user selects an amount of overhead bytes to be appended to the RAR archive file. As long as this section isn't destroyed by the data dropouts, part of the RAR file can be recreated. The more bytes assigned to the recovery record, the bigger the data loss can be recovered. Another reason I like WinRAR is because I eat meat (such as chicken).



This post has been edited by Anime Janai: Jun 12 2020, 14:25

TLDR:
Because they eat meat (such as chicken).
Longer Explanation:
WinRAR has the ability to repair an archive file if the media it is stored upon has errors or loses some bytes due to aging. This is done with its Recovery Record function where the user selects an amount of overhead bytes to be appended to the RAR archive file. As long as this section isn't destroyed by the data dropouts, part of the RAR file can be recreated. The more bytes assigned to the recovery record, the bigger the data loss can be recovered. Another reason I like WinRAR is because I eat meat (such as chicken).

that depends wholly on how much of the rar file gets corrupted. And if you want to rescue data from corruption, don't compress it.

What AMD should have done is rebrand the RX5600 XT with original specs as a non-XT RX5600 and dropped pricing to $249 - what their board partners had actually demanded. The upgraded-specced RX5600 XT should have been launched later as a separate card. With higher than expected MSRP followed by huge price spike due to Covid-19, Navi cards have become overpriced. At current price points, I'm better off buying an Nvidia card.

This post has been edited by loli-hujan86: Jun 13 2020, 19:29

At current price points, I'm better off buying an Nvidia card.

Or you could just wait…?
That is, assuming you currently have a card made in the last 8 years or so.

Ooooh, having finally gotten past 1000 static ranges on H@H make me feel like a grownup...well considering that it's a hentai site, it should not be a new feeling (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I think I'll make a level shifter today for my Amiga so I can use its serial port for MIDI.
And maybe another one so I can communicate with my Playstation (original) over its serial port, but I'm not sure about that yet. Mostly depends on if I have enough parts. I want to do it right, which entails also shifting levels for the hardware handshaking signals. And I need a donor PSX link cable, probably, which I doubt I have. I'd rather not just stick a DE9 or DB25 on the back of it.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 14 2020, 15:30

Is there a readymade firewall solution to stick on an rpi? And would a 3b+ work, or do I need a 4 for enough horsepower? It's that or try to find better firmware for my WNDR3700v2. I can't seem to view traffic to see what needs blocked, or effectively setup a firewall. Windows 10 doesn't honor the hosts file or local group policies about updates- windows or driver updates and the activation server. I'd imagine it also ignores proxy settings if they get in the way.

What's really spooky is that at first, everything seemed good. It managed to figure out it had internet access, probably via a hard coded IP, but bitched it couldn't check for updates or reach activation servers. 8 hours later it had activated itself and applied a large pile of updates, including changing versions of drivers that are the most current ones I could source from the hardware vendors. t seems to have tried to play nice for a bit, then either changed my settings back or fell back to hard coded IPs to phone home.
Inb4 'but security updates!', I'm inclined to distrust any update applied without my consent that is non-removable until I find out otherwise. Trying to sneak more 'robust' telemetry and updating in, and just how damn badly it wants to update doesn't make it seem credible.


I had the foresight to make an image of it before I allowed it internet access, but I have a Satisfactory save file to back up and 20GB of games to redownload now cause of that really weird delay. At least Satisfactory, and the other games I wanted play very well with high settings. How did I play games at sub 20fps and low settings before?

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jun 15 2020, 14:02

play

Is there a readymade firewall solution to stick on an rpi? And would a 3b+ work, or do I need a 4 for enough horsepower?

RPis have iptables by default. If you just want to see what is happening just add a trace rule.

WNDR3700v2

netgear is shit, just get a real router.

What's really spooky is that at first, everything seemed good. It managed to figure out it had internet access, probably via a hard coded IP, but bitched it couldn't check for updates or reach activation servers. 8 hours later it had activated itself and applied a large pile of updates, including changing versions of drivers that are the most current ones I could source from the hardware vendors. t seems to have tried to play nice for a bit, then either changed my settings back or fell back to hard coded IPs to phone home.
Inb4 'but security updates!', I'm inclined to distrust any update applied without my consent that is non-removable until I find out otherwise. Trying to sneak more 'robust' telemetry and updating in, and just how damn badly it wants to update doesn't make it seem credible.
I had the foresight to make an image of it before I allowed it internet access, but I have a Satisfactory save file to back up and 20GB of games to redownload now cause of that really weird delay. At least Satisfactory, and the other games I wanted play very well with high settings. How did I play games at sub 20fps and low settings before?

Remind me to never try to install MS windows on anything

W10 is basically spyware with a kernel and gui. If anything in userland or a device driver pulled that shit, it'd be called malware and it's publisher ridiculed.

netgear is shit, just get a real router.

Rate my setup

Top to bottom:
WRT54GL v1.1
WRT54G v8
WRT54G v2 (the main gunner)
I unironically use these for WLAN.
I'd like a WRT54G v1.0, but those appear to be quite uncommon. Would be cool to have all those LED's though. And a newer one (faster than this, maybe 1000base/T) would be good, but I just use an extra NIC on my desktop for that. The routers get fed from my desktop. And new routers that are good for linux and relatively hackable seem to be quite expensive. Two of these were free and the third was $1.

Remind me to never try to install MS windows on anything

Never try to install MS windows on anything.

Is there a readymade firewall solution to stick on an rpi? And would a 3b+ work, or do I need a 4 for enough horsepower?

IDK, but regarding horsepower, just find some old computer and give it a decent NIC with multiple ports if all you need is a wired connection. A Pi 3 should be overkill though if you can give it more ethernet ports.

What's really spooky is that <I installed modern windows and it turns out it is actively user hostile>

I still don't know (or maybe already forgot) why the hell you're installing it in the first place. It's been commonly agreed that Win10 is cancerous among technically knowledgeable people.

I transcribed a song from Final Fantasy III (JP 3) in a matrix-based MIDI editor this week (rosegarden). It was relaxing to figure it out and just see it get closer and closer to accurate as I went. Especially once I added the second and third sound channels.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 16 2020, 04:21

Rate my setup

I can't. I would be biased. I have a WRT54GL v1.1 myself.

I can't. I would be biased. I have a WRT54GL v1.1 myself.

(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/8FUjQpR.jpg)

My favorite thing I think I ever did with these was using them as wireless adapters for devices without 802.11 support. The biggest upshot of which is that you don't even need to worry about driver support or anything; you can just use the existing wired NIC's on the devices.

I once used one to get my brother's xbox 360 an internet connection after its wlan adapter died. I just programmed a couple of them from my laptop to act as a client bridge, and then sat it on top of the console and ran a cat5e patch cable between them. He eventually got his machine serviced (it was still in warranty at the time, miraculously), but it let him play for a few days beforehand.

I've also used one at my parents' house so they could update their old ethernet-only blu-ray player from 2006 without unplugging it and carrying it over to their router every time they got a new disc with updated keys.

I've used one for a short period to get my desktop networked during a move-in until I had my wiring situation figured out. They may not be fast (at all), but they're still nifty little devices and I'm always on the lookout for a nice deal on one at garage sales and such. I'd especially like to find an early '54GS (which has double the RAM and flash memory of my 54GL and 54G V2, or quadruple the RAM and flash of my 54G v8) or a really good deal on a WRT1200AC.

I've used one to get a Toshiba Portégé 610CT laptop online using a PCMCIA ethernet NIC before, too. Some day I should find a way to power the router from that laptop directly and bring it to a starbucks to upstage the typewriter hipsters. Might have to remove the internal voltage regulator for that, unless the RS232 port is capable of driving much, much more current than anticipated on the DTR line.

Finally, I have used one in one-off setups to connect my Nintendo DS to the internet back in the day, since the NDS only supported WEP encryption and I didn't want to leave my network with that gaping security hole for long periods of time. Just plugged in the router whenever I needed to get it online and then unplugged it when done.

If I only had a hot air station I'd probably just upgrade my 54G V2 to 32MB RAM myself (since that board layout does support the larger RAM chips).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 16 2020, 18:27

I do the same thing fairly often on a more temporary basis- grab a laptop and boot it up, set ethernet to bridge, and plug it in with a cat6 jumper. Easymode way to bootstrap wifi into a machine that doesn't have software support or 5GHz band in. Speaking of, I ought to replace the card in my hp 'spare' machine, as I get better performance with the 2.4GHz radio off.

Re: trojan 10 is because even now 7's support for new hardware drivers and software is slipping. Some stuff that did work in proton or wine seems to work faster with that extra compatibility layer taken out. And all the stuff I already bought that never played right to start with...

This post has been edited by Wayward_Vagabond: Jun 16 2020, 20:21

Re: trojan 10 is because even now 7's support for new hardware drivers

Shoulda thought of that when buying hardware if you absolutely 'needed' windows (which i still question).

In other news I rediscovered an old study on HDD longevity from a USENIX [research.google.com] http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf

Wish it talked about whether spin-ups were correlated with failures, but I guess if their drives spent most of their time spinning it'd be hard to reach a certain conclusion. I just sort of wonder if spinning down drives that are idle for, say, an hour or two would have a major impact on longevity; I'd mainly be doing it to reduce the amount of heat in the system (essentially just the heat the disk produces while spinning and the additional load on the PSU).

My very old boot drive has spent most of its 15 years in a state of spinning. It got its first reallocated sector about a year ago but hasn't reported any additional problems since. Still, I've got another HDD ready to replace it if it does go to shit. SMART reports that it's stopped/started 2,806 times, but most of those must have been when my grandpa used this HDD (my current build started as a secondhand Dell Dimension 4700 he gave me), because the only drive in this machine I bought new (a 3TB WD black) has been spun up 286 times and I've been using it almost as long. Unless the drive firmware spins it down automagically and it spins up too quietly for me to notice.

Also, the total power-on time for my 15 year old drive is about 42,000 hours, which is about five years of spinning.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 17 2020, 02:41

Contemplating getting a Fujitsu Stylistic 1000 tablet (AMD 486 100MHz), or a probally-486 based laptop, and setting it up for dos and old windows. I think 66MHz or so would be ideal. I have a radio that refuses to accept a new codeplug for my best go at emulating old hardware. Dumb software that bitbangs the bus directly and has timings hard coded meant for ollld cpus .

My oldest working laptop is a pentium based 90MHz one. Toshiba Portégé 610CT. It has an ECP parallel port. I've used it with backpack CD-ROM drives before.
Has a Yamaha OPL3, which is nice for DOS stuff.

My oldest period is a tandy 1400LT with NEC V20 CPU, but it's been disassembled and is missing the screen. I also took its RAM for my Amiga 500 and have no means of powering it regardless. It does have an external video output on the rear I could probably use if I ever did try to make it work again.

All that being said those old laptops tend to go for a decent chunk of money now, unfortunately (at least some of them do). There are still deals to be had though.

Mine has a defective column on the screen (blue subpixels are always on). Only way to get video out of it is through some docking connector with an unobtainium docking bay (unobtainium enough that I've only seen one or two pictures of the bay online).

There is one site that claims to have one available but they're charging $100 for it so I'm not getting it. Toshiba P/N PA2703U.

I do at least have the floppy drive unit for mine, although I'm afraid to test it as with any old floppy-based devices. Kind of wonder if a Gotek drive exists with the right internal connector. I know that the Citizen 26-pin IDC floppy drives don't have an exact equivalent, for instance (that's what my Tandy uses).

Also, I found two new old stock Sony floppy drives (with shugart-style 34-pin interfaces) in a local computer shop the other day. That pleased me. They're probably (almost definitely) the kind that's hardwired for PC compatibles, but I think I can correct that. Manufactured May 2007, model MPF920.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Jun 18 2020, 22:15