Posted by jpluimers on 2019/05/20
Cool hardware: [WayBack] click-click-click-click-click-CHUNK… – Joe C. Hecht – Google+
Sources:
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/05/08
Interesting bits on the bias generator: [WayBack] Inside the die of Intel’s 8087 coprocessor chip, root of modern floating point.
Via
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/05/01
Eric Grange:
Actually it is not that assignments of function return values can happen “when the function raises an exception” but rather than they can happen before the function returns.
Note that this is not limited to large return types, it can also happen on reference counted types (string, dynamic array, variant and interface), though this is contextual as well…
Got bit by the interface thing a few months ago, an interface release was triggering an exception when the result was assigned, the call stack looked way out of synch with the code, so various compilation and and map file mismatch issues got investigated, before I dropped in asm view in the debugger, which made it all obvious.
I’ve quoted it in full as I’ve been bitten by this a few times as well, but never got to making a proper blog post on it.
Thanks Eric for phrasing this and David for bringing it up.
It actually has been the case since somewhere toward the end of the Turbo Pascal era.
Source: [WayBack] This program: {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} uses System.SysUtils; type TRec1 = r…
–jeroen
Posted in Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/29
[WayBack] 50 jaar na eerste maanlanding: ‘Het was magisch’ – Omroep West
Het is zo’n moment in de geschiedenis, waarvan iedereen nog precies weet waar hij of zij was: de landing van de eerste mens op de maan. Dit jaar is het het precies vijftig jaar geleden dat de wereld aan de buis gekluisterd zat om die eerste stappen live te zien. Space Expo in Noordwijk staat daarom het hele jaar in het teken van die eerste maanlanding, ook tijdens de voorjaarsvakantie.
…
Gratis toegang voor wie 50 wordt
Ze verwacht dat er over tien jaar misschien wel weer een missie naar de maan zal zijn. Om de eerste maanlanding te vieren, mag iedereen die dit jaar 50 wordt het hele jaar gratis naar binnen bij Space Expo.
Leuk verjaarsevenement (:
Via: [Archive.is] Omroep West on Twitter: “Iedereen dit jaar 50 wordt, mag het hele jaar gratis naar binnen bij @Spaceexpo https://t.co/7xQ6SO45Em”
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/19
Interesting bit of history: [WayBack] 4.2.2.2: The Story Behind a DNS Legend – tummy.com, ltd.
–jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/05
Back in my school days, this was the best Pascal book you could get: “Advanced Pascal Programming Techniques” – Google Search.
This is Apple Pasca, USD Pascal, first Turbo Pascal era.
Sadly, getting English books in The Netherlands was hard. So I had to do with books from Academic Press which not as good.
Via:
–jeroen
Posted in Apple Pascal, Borland Pascal, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/04/05
Some of those past products you’d loved are now at [Archive.is] Product Graveyard: Commemorating the most memorable dead products
It lists alternatives too at the bottom of each obituary, which might help you find a replacement for tools you had a crush on.
From their featured products list, I miss these the most:
Starting in august 2017, I’m curious to see how long the site itself lasts…
–jeroen
via: [WayBack] Product GraveyardWhat an interesting site. Obituary notices for products that at one time may have been famous and widely used. You can even find a… – Lars Fosdal – Google+
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/18
Periods of long drought can reveal historic changes in the landscape and soil.
One example was posted last year at [Archive.is] Je bent een Sassemer als … of the natural ice staking area in Sassenheim, The Netherlands, which is part of a polder.
Historically, creeks were running through it, and later on drainage tubes were laid into the ground:
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Posted by jpluimers on 2019/03/11
I always forget which colours the [WayBack] PS/2 port for keyboard and mouse have.
Some of my old (some call it classic or vintage) mice and keyboards don’t even have a coloured plug.
Luckily, Wikipedia has the answer File:Ps-2-ports.jpg – Wikipedia :
Color Description Purple Keyboard Green Mouse
–jeroen
Posted in History, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2019/02/19
Can you imagine MS-DOS 6.2 recognising an 8 gigabyte SD card and allowing it to format it with multiple 2 gigabyte partitions?
Keeping old stuff working: [WayBack] Insentricity :: Adding Solid-State Storage to an Original IBM PC :: with these nice links:
–jeroen
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The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
