Get a mix of old-school internet, hands-on tech advice, and deep thoughts from a systems engineer on topics ranging from pseudo-terminals to the latest tech. Also, you'll have fun reading it.
Page 3 of 4
Hello,
I hope you had a good January, and ready for the weekend and February. I’m certainly going to try to get as much rest as possible this weekend. It has been a busy few weeks, and the year has just started! We’ll see how everything goes from here.
Time seems to be going by super fast. I feel as if I just started the Newsletter, but this is issue #18. I hope there are many more to come, and that you are enjoying them as much as I am.
Read More...
Hello,
I hope you had a good weekend and are ready for the new week. How is January going for you? It feels like it’s going quite fast, but also excited about what the new year will bring.
Have you had time to view the General Magic documentary I recommended last week? If you haven’t, it’s ok. You can listen to the podcast that covers the story in The history of computing podcast’s - General Magic was almost magical.
Read More...
Hello,
I’m back, I took a small break last week, no writing and no newsletter. I hope you had a delightful end of the holiday season. I’m ready to get back to my usual routine.
I’ve been travelling across time zones lately and thinking about time. Also, it’s the end of a decade, so we should talk about that. I’m not sure if you remember the Y2K problem, it was caused by representing the year on a date using only the last two digits. That meant that 1997 was represented only as 97, all fine there, but when you get to 2,000 you’ll get 00, and you won’t know if you were talking about 1900 or 2000.
Read More...
Hello,
I hope that you had a good week, and if you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a good one. I’ve been enjoying this week playing with binaries.
I sometimes feel like keeping up with high-level languages like Swift and JavaScript is very tiring. There is always something “new” and not all the time easy to grasp the implications of the changes. Anyways, it’s fun to see that the old assembly languages are still there and I can jump back to them after a few years and find them familiar.
Read More...
Hello,
I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday season. I like this season, everyone seems to be in a good mood, and also, there is an excuse to get hot chocolate more often than in any other season.
Did you see everything that Apple released yesterday?
- Apple Platform Security (if you want the PDF link, it’s here) - The document describes security aspects for all of its platforms and services. It’s a must-read if you are into Apple security (and also if you own an Apple device).
- Apple Security Bounty Program - This is the most exciting news I’ve read in a long time. I’ll be having a look into this. I hope a good community of Bounty hunters come of this, I’ll love to be part of it.
The security platform document will keep you busy during the weekend (157 pages if you were wondering). Have a look and let me know what you think.
Read More...
Hello,
I found an interesting thread on Twitter explaining that when the Apple II early documentation was being written, they had to tell people to differentiate between how they type using typewriters and how they’ll type in the Apple II computer.
I don’t remember the typewriters I used missing the 0(zero) or 1(one) key, but I see how it was possible to use O(oh) and l(el) to replace 0 and 1 respectively. Or if you made a mistake typing -(dash) when you wanted to type = you could move your carriage back and put a _(underscore) under it :). I thought you might find it interesting.
Read More...
Hello,
Sorry for the delay this week with the newsletter, I got stuck in an airport for longer than I expected. So this week’s newsletter is going to be quick.
When I’m travelling, I always enjoy the time off in the airports. I enjoy visiting bookstores, getting some coffee and listening to podcasts. There are some podcasts that I enjoy for the storytelling and some for their content. Twenty thousand Hertz is the perfect example of storytelling and content. It’s a podcast about “The stories behind the world’s most recognisable and interesting sounds”. I’m not much of a graphics type of person, as you can tell I prefer to design beautiful command-line tools than beautiful GUI’s. But one thing I enjoy is sounds. For example, the sounds of different accents. Or the sounds on video games and even the sound when my computer boots up. Anyways, If you like to hear about the history of some of the sounds you know, you’ll probably enjoy the Twenty thousand hertz Podcast. Give it a go and let me know what you think.
Read More...
Hello,
Happy Thanksgiving, for the ones who celebrate it. It’s always important to be grateful for everything we have, so no matter if you don’t directly celebrate Thanksgiving. Maybe use it as an excuse and think of all the things that you have to be grateful for :).
Alright, in this week’s newsletter I want to share with you a podcast I’ve been enjoying a lot.
The name of the podcast is The History of Computing, you can add it to your favourite podcast player. I use Overcast, so here is the link to the latest episode.
Read More...
Hello,
Have you ever wondered why the home directory is mapped to ~? Or if you use vi, why use the letters H, J, K, and L to move?
These types of questions are the ones that keep me up at night. Not really :D, but I find them interesting.
I found answers to many of these questions in this article:
https://dave.cheney.net/2017/08/21/the-here-is-key
The author explains how the “Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal” influenced so much of our current computing. Check the keyboard for the terminal. See how most of the keys match some of the “conventions” we have today. It’s a fun read about computing history.
Read More...
Hello,
Are you excited for the new 16" MacBook Pro? For me, it’s much more than I would use. I’m happy with my 13" MBP, and I haven’t had any problems with the keyboard, so I’ll keep my current machine. But if I were to get one for free, I wouldn’t be mad at all.
Also, some people are excited about the return of the Esc key. It seems to be missed by many people. So much so that it even made it to the promotional video.
Read More...