Re: Moments in computing history when you felt that the future had arrived

Posted on 2024-12-04, 13:32

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

iPhone... finally decent responsive touchscreen with appropriate OS, which didn't have slow/ghosting (LCD) or had to use a stylus (Nintendo DS)... iPad... finally decent SIZED resposive touchscreeen with appropriate OS... starting to feel the StarTrek NG vibes in the home/hand... Incidentally this …

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Re: AI Generated Wallpapers Representing Retro Computing

Posted on 2024-10-24, 22:38

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

:) I'm not a hater, but not necessarily a fan.... it gives me the 'meh' vibes.... Maybe this is the crux of the discussion here? Does art have skill? As debatable as 'what is art' .... however randomness never implies skill. Although no doubt there is a someone around who would argue there's beauty …

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Re: AI Generated Wallpapers Representing Retro Computing

Posted on 2024-10-24, 21:16

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

Neural nets, specifically forward/back propagation, is a dertministic process. Assuming the same context window for a LLM with the same models, the same prompt will produce the same result. There is also a seed aspect to it, though. As I understand how it works the seed is randomized so you won't …

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Re: AI Generated Wallpapers Representing Retro Computing

Posted on 2024-10-24, 20:12

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

Neural nets, specifically forward/back propagation, is a dertministic process. Assuming the same context window for a LLM with the same models, the same prompt will produce the same result. Training can be stochastic, but inference is not. Thats why it's called prompt engineering . If it was random, …

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Re: AI Generated Wallpapers Representing Retro Computing

Posted on 2024-10-21, 22:58

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

I came across a research paper that found people were more likely to enjoy AI art if they were told it was made by a human. So you might as well forget the distinction if enjoyment of art is your goal. Indeed, preconception/bias do not do generative AI any favours unfortunately. A thread containing …

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Re: Thoughts on IT outage

Posted on 2024-07-23, 13:25

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAzEJxOo1ts A good technical explanation about what happened and who may be to blame...

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Re: Intel Pentium prototype?

Posted on 2024-06-04, 22:23

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Engineering sample (ES), not a prototype. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/suppo … processors.html

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Re: What is this adapter?

Posted on 2024-05-22, 11:51

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Old licensing dongle. Was used to run protected software with a valid licensing key... pretty useless now tbh.

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Re: (1991-2001) Oldest 1680x1050, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, 2048x1536, 2560x1600 VA/IPS LCD monitors you can think of ?

Posted on 2024-05-10, 13:08

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

SGI 1600SW (1600x1024) in 1998 IBM T220 (3840×2400) in 2001 Are the oldest two I can think of. Bear in mind though, the SGI uses OpenLDI (which hardly anyone used), and the T220 required 2x single link DVI... so in both cases you need special graphics hardware to run them. Also check out the …

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Re: What tool debugs a miscalculated area of memory in a game program written in C?

Posted on 2024-04-24, 21:02

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

Honestly, you need to learn some fundamentals before any of that stuff... you will be lost in no time at all. Do as megatron says, some simple programs to get you used to structures, processes and algorithms... hello world... file parser (tokeniser)... sort function... linked list... double linked …

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Re: What tool debugs a miscalculated area of memory in a game program written in C?

Posted on 2024-04-24, 13:08

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

I was specifying the compiler I had in mind so that you and other programmers would know which one I had in mind. I thought it might unearth insights about my situation and how to proceed. But otherwise your right that learning to program in c on a PC isn't important. Its just both windows and …

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Re: Why do the voodoo 4 and 5 not have hardware support for T&L?

Posted on 2024-04-24, 09:43

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

So in the end GLide had no relevance for the future because the APIs that lasted didn't take advantage of anything from Glide, I'm a little disappointed considering how much people talk about the wonders of GLide, what made GLide different from other APIs proprietary features of the time was the …

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Re: quick p4 question

Posted on 2024-02-16, 14:22

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From what I understand the early OSs like 2k and XP they didnt see a P4 HT as a one CPU with two cores but as two seperate CPUs. They both use a "per socket" licence, and if you put a quad core CPU into Win2k it will only see the first 2 CPUs (0,1) , Ive had Win2k on a dual xeon quad core and it …

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2023-12-12, 16:45

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

Building a 160 Terrabyte computer on the Cheap “Inexpensive NOT Cheap Quality components”. Add this to your HP z440 computer for better Cooling of Hard drives and air flow. Dual USB powered 180mm fans ( Very Quiet ) ( $15 on eBay ) Max Capacity = 160 Terrabytes ( 8 x 20gb drives ) You need 8000 x …

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Re: Decent used digital cameras Proconsumer-high end.

Posted on 2023-11-12, 00:31

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

When using adaptors, the rule of thumb is you need to ensure that the flange distance of the camera body mount is less than the flange distance of the lens mount, otherwise you need a correction lens in the adaptor (unless it can be recessed) and this would need to be uber quality glass (tolerances …

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Re: Mame, so it begins.......

Posted on 2023-09-28, 12:46

by

by spiroyster

in Console & Arcade Emulation

in Console & Arcade Emulation

I think most non-analog arcade sticks were microswitched due to robustness (these things were abused almost daily) and ease of replacement (in many cases operators were responsible for maintence and repair... especially due to ware and tare). Also note the buttons used the same microswitchs as the …

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Re: A Kick-Ass Dual 3.8GHz NetBurst Xeon Build

Posted on 2023-09-06, 10:17

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Greetings Irinikus! :) I'm definitely going to try a GTX Titan Z in this system when the opportunity to purchase one presents itself! (I'll set it up in the same way as I've setup the GTX 690!) The only thing that bothers me is that the Titan Z is clocked at a lower frequency than the GTX 690, and …

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Re: Local Ad: VFX1 for $20!

Posted on 2023-08-15, 08:09

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

The VFX1 is working but there's a major problem. One LCD is littered with stuck pixels starting about halfway going to the bottom, approximately 50-100 random RGB's are stuck on, it looks like a clown puked. tbf the displays are utter crap with a tiny resolution (although to be expected from 1995). …

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Re: What modern activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2023-08-11, 10:53

by

by spiroyster

in Milliways

in Milliways

I was helping my mate with some new PC components today and noticed right off the bat that Windows -- the Pro edition, no less -- activated itself as soon as we connected to the net! is this a thing now? Are motherboards aimed at DIYers shipping with Windows licenses baked into the UEFI? The …

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Re: Boards with cool graphics on them.

Posted on 2023-06-23, 22:22

by

by spiroyster

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

doublebuffer wrote on 2023-06-23, 22:19: spiroyster wrote on 2023-06-23, 22:10: And sometimes they wanted to make a point... I hope they just did shoddy job but are still alive! 😁 🤣... They didn't do a shoddy job, and afaik, they are both still alive 😀

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