The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

April 2026
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Some notes on OKI memory modules and toner cartridges for MC342 / C332, as toner cartridges physically seem compatible, but are not

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/14

I thought the C332 had the same engine as the MC342, as internally the printing part looks identical.

Boy, I was wrong. Toner cartridges, though fitting physically, are not compatible, despite having the same image drum part 44968301.

So the MC342 and C332 have different toners that are physically so similar that they fit, but electronically different.

While searching, I found the C332 by default has 1 gigabyte of memory and no upgrade option, but the MC342 only has 256 megabyte of memory and can be upgraded with one 512 megabyte module to 768 megabyte. This improves printing performance considerably.

The memory module part number is 01182908, which is horrendously expensive despite it being a PC4200 DDR2 SO-DIMM, which means PC5300 and higher should also work.

Historically between EUR 100 and EUR 350 ([Wayback] Oki 01182908 – Prijzen – Tweakers) or GBP 250 ([WayBack] OKI 512MB RAM Memory Upgrade for B721, B731, B840, C321, C330, C530, C531, C610, C612, C711, C712, C822, C823, C831, C833, C841, C843, MC332, MC342, MC351, MC352, MC361, MC362, MC561, MC562 printers)

So via [Archive.is] 512mb ddr2 sodimm – veilingkijker – nieuw en tweedehands I found [Wayback] ≥ Apple 512mb DDR2 667MHz SODIMM – Geheugens – Marktplaats.nl and tried it.

[Wayback/Archive.is] 512MB DDR2 144PIN for OKI Color Printers MC332dn, MC342 N MC332dn, MC342dn, MC342dnw, MC352dn MC352dn L: Amazon.de: Computers & Accessories

[Wayback] MC561 & C330 C711 C530 C610 512MB DDR2 SODIMM MEMORY RAM FOR OKI MC361 C831 C841 SERIES PRINTERS 70061901, 01182908 news9world.com

Installing the memory module is described at page 135 of [Wayback] 45002102EE7_MC562_UG_EN_29888.pdf

The models

[Wayback] MC342dn | DISCONTINUED PRODUCTS | Products | OKI Europe Ltd | Printers and Solutions

Default administrator credentials user admin, password aaaaaa.

[Wayback] Specification | C332 | C300 Series | OKI Europe Ltd

Default administrator credentials: user admin, password 999999.

The toners / accessories

[Wayback] MC342dn | Colour Multifunction Printers | Consumables, Accessories & Part Numbers | Printers, Printing Solutions and Managed Print Services

Options

Item Type Price Notes

256 MB RAM 01182907

512 MB RAM 01182908

Consumables

Item Type Price Notes

Black Small capacity toner cartridge 44973536 2,200 pages *1

Black Small capacity toner cartridge 44973544 2,200 pages *1

Yellow Small capacity toner cartridge 44973533 1,500 pages *1

Yellow Small capacity toner cartridge 44973541 1,500 pages *1

Magenta Small capacity toner cartridge 44973534 1,500 pages *1

Magenta Small capacity toner cartridge 44973542 1,500 pages *1

Cyan Small capacity toner cartridge 44973535 1,500 pages *1

Cyan Small capacity toner cartridge 44973543 1,500 pages *1

Rainbow Image Drum 44968301 30,000 pages *2 *3

*1 Number of A4 pages yield compliant with ISO/IEC 19798.

*2 Average A4 life based on a typical office environment.

*3 30,000 K 20,000 CMY

Item	Type	Notes
Black Small capacity toner cartridge	44973536	2,200 pages *1
Black Small capacity toner cartridge	44973544	2,200 pages *1
Yellow Small capacity toner cartridge	44973533	1,500 pages *1
Yellow Small capacity toner cartridge	44973541	1,500 pages *1
Magenta Small capacity toner cartridge	44973534	1,500 pages *1
Magenta Small capacity toner cartridge	44973542	1,500 pages *1
Cyan Small capacity toner cartridge	44973535	1,500 pages *1
Cyan Small capacity toner cartridge	44973543	1,500 pages *1
Rainbow Image Drum	44968301	30,000 pages 2 3

[Wayback] C332 | Colour Printers | Consumables, Accessories & Part Numbers | OKI Europe Ltd

Options

Item Type Price Notes

Additional Paper Tray 44472102 Capacity of 530 sheets of 80gsm.

Cabinet 01314101

WLAN Interface 45830202

Consumables

Item Type Price Notes

Black Toner cartridge 46508712 3,500 pages *1

Black Toner cartridge 46508716 1,500 pages *1

Yellow Toner cartridge 46508709 3,000 pages *1

Yellow Toner cartridge 46508713 1,500 pages *1

Magenta Toner cartridge 46508710 3,000 pages *1

Cyan Toner cartridge 46508711 3,000 pages *1

Cyan Toner cartridge 46508715 1,500 pages *1

CMYK Image Drum 44968301 30,000 pages *2 *3

Fuser unit 44472603 60,000 pages

Transfer Belt 44472202 60,000 pages

*1 Number of A4 pages yield compliant with ISO/IEC 19798.

*2 Average A4 life based on a typical office environment.

*3 30,000 K 20,000 CMY

Item	Type	Notes
Black Toner cartridge	46508712	3,500 pages *1
Black Toner cartridge	46508716	1,500 pages *1
Yellow Toner cartridge	46508709	3,000 pages *1
Yellow Toner cartridge	46508713	1,500 pages *1
Magenta Toner cartridge	46508710	3,000 pages *1
Cyan Toner cartridge	46508711	3,000 pages *1
Cyan Toner cartridge	46508715	1,500 pages *1
CMYK Image Drum	44968301	30,000 pages 2 3
Fuser unit	44472603	60,000 pages
Transfer Belt	44472202	60,000 pages

MC342 toner in C332 printer

As soon as you put a black MC342 toner in a C332 toner, you will get this error in the display: SERVICE CALL 231:ERROR 08 (see picture and [Wayback/Archive.is] oki service call 231 error 08 – Google Search)

This error only goes away when:

you re-insert the original toner cartridge
then power-down and power-up the printer

I could not find C332 specific information for this error, but similar models do have it (partially) listed (note the 08 error for the C332 means the black toner cartridge, not the cyan one):

[WayBack] Troubleshooting | OKI Data

231-05, 231-06, 231-07, 231-08, 231-23

Blinks

Reading the consumables information failed.

If the following number is displayed, replace the corresponding consumable.

231-05 to 231-08: Toner cartridge / Image drum

231-23: Fuser unit/ Belt unit

Turn off the printer and turn on again after a while.

If the error persists after rebooting, contact your dealer and tell them the number in the error message and how the machine works.

[Wayback/Archive.is] OKI | “231: Error xx occurred” is displayed. (C824, C834, C844)

Error code

Relevant part

231: Error 05

K toner cartridge / K image drum

231: Error 06

Y toner cartridge / Y image drum

231: Error 07

M toner cartridge / M image drum

231: Error 08

C toner cartridge / C image drum

[Wayback/Archive.is] OKI | “Inspection is required. XXX Error” is displayed.(C542)

231

Failed to read out the toner cartridge information.

Error code	Relevant part
231: Error 05	K toner cartridge / K image drum
231: Error 06	Y toner cartridge / Y image drum
231: Error 07	M toner cartridge / M image drum
231: Error 08	C toner cartridge / C image drum

Toner sensors

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Hardware, LifeHacker, MC342 printer/scanner, OKI C332, OKI Printers, Power User, Printers | Leave a Comment »

Google 2FA “Sorry, we can’t fulfill this request at this time. Please try again later or use a different phone number.”

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/14

A while ago while first securing a bunch of accounts with a phone number, then later replacing them with 2FA hardware, I got this error message:

Sorry, we can’t fulfill this request at this time. Please try again later or use a different phone number.

This seems to have to do with the fact that if have gotten about 10 2FA messages a day, then it cannot be used to add a new phone number to an account. The phone number still can be used to verify existing accounts where the phone number was already registered.

Retrying after 24 hours usually works.

–jeroen

Posted in Google, GoogleAccount, Power User | Leave a Comment »

On learning vi/vim

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/13

I saved below thread (if you cannot read German: try Google Translate on it [Archive.is]).

The part that – translated – strikes me most is this:

A mini-challenge where I want to spent 15 minutes per day on: when I need some functionality, instead of hacking around, research how it really is supposed to be done and internalise that way.

This totally aligns with me “learn new things every day” mantra.

Also some interesting vi/vim resources and approaches are mentioned:

Ditch those plugins
A 1.5 hour talk about vi/vim: vim + tmux – OMG!Code – YouTube.
Use mnemonics to remember the various vim commands (like “ciw” -> “change inner word”)
Use vimtutor:
- [Wayback/Archive.is] vimtutor/vimtutor at master · TheNaoX/vimtutor: source code
- [Wayback/Archive.is] vim – How to use vimtutor? – Super User
  
  Yes, vimtutor is literally the name of a program that runs you through a tutorial for vim. If installed on a Unix environment, that command should be sufficient. On windows, there’s an entry in the
- [Wayback/Archive.is] A Day with Vim Tutor (vimtutor). vimtutor is a very basic, clean and… | by Minh-Phuc Tran | Level Up Coding
  
  vimtutor is a very basic, clean, and cool application that teaches you how to use Vim. It’s the best place to get started using vim. Spending about 1 hour with vimtutor, you can pretty much get all major features of vim.
  
  However, 1 hour is somewhat too much for guys who aren’t that interested in vim. Therefore, I wrote this 3-min-read article summarizing what and how vimtutor can teach you, then you can decide to jump into it later.
  
  …
  - [Wayback/Archive.is] Interactive Vim tutorial
    - [Wayback/ Archive.is] Interactive Vim tutorial – sandbox

If you are better at reading tables or lists for commands, I can recommend [Wayback] Basic vi Commands (Computer Science Department, Colorado State University).

One of the hardest things for me to remember somehow is the search/replace syntax, though it is very similar to that of sed. Useful examples of most permutations are at [Wayback] Vi For Smarties – Lesson Eight under “Advanced Search and Replace”:

Use :s/foo/bar/ to replace the first occurrence of the word foo on the current line with the word bar.

Use :s/foo/bar/g to replace all occurrences of the word foo on the current line with the word bar.

Use :%s/foo/bar/g to replace all occurrences of the word foo in the current file with the word bar. Leaving off the g at the end only replaces the first occurrence of foo on each line of the current file.

Use :%s/foo//g to delete all occurrences of the word foo in the current file. Leaving off the percent sign (%), of course, only does this for the current line.

Use :%s/foo/bar/gc to have Vi query you before each attempt to replace the word foo with the word bar.

It is part of a series of tutorials starting at [Wayback] Vi For Smarties – Lesson One, and after the last lesson directs to the in-depth – as prose written – tutorial series [Archive.is] Wayback: The Vi/Ex Editor (which, despite marked by “[ Editor’s Note: . This tutorial series is a “work in progress” and will evolve over time. We’ll announce each new addition and expand this table of contents.]” got ditched shortly after January 2006)

https://web.archive.org/web/20160108053134/http://www.networkcomputin…

Note that like sed, you can use a different search/replace character than /: [Wayback] vim – / in vi Search and replace? – Stack Overflow

Escape the / with \ like this: \/.

Use different search character than /, for instance ., or #.

Back to the twitter thread

[Archive.is] Das königliche Wir on Twitter: “Ich lerne jetzt vi(m). Klingt beknackt, oder? Aber ich hab überlegt: ich möchte effizienter werden, meinen Kram stressfreier bewältigen. Und ich finde, es bietet sich an da an Baustellen anzusetzen, die täglich relevant sind. Und vi(m) nutze ich in der Tat täglich. 1/”

Ich lerne jetzt vi(m).

Klingt beknackt, oder? Aber ich hab überlegt: ich möchte effizienter werden, meinen Kram stressfreier bewältigen. Und ich finde, es bietet sich an da an Baustellen anzusetzen, die täglich relevant sind. Und vi(m) nutze ich in der Tat täglich.

Aber auch wenn ich ihn nutze und über den »Hilfe, wie komm ich aus dem Editor wieder raus?!«-Witz nur sehr müde die Augen rolle gehe ich davon aus, dass ich nicht mal einen Bruchteil der Möglichkeiten ausschöpfe, die er bietet (1. Release 1976, älter als ich!). Das ist spannend.

Das ist jetzt meine Mini-Challenge, auf die ich jeden Tag eine Viertelstunde verwenden will: wenn ich eine Funktion brauche mich nicht mehr drum herum zu hacken, sondern recherchieren wie es richtig geht und das dann gefälligst auch verinnerlichen. Mal sehen, ob das so klappt

In dem Zuge will ich auch wieder verstärkt (neo)mutt in Verbindung mit vim nutzen – das wäre ein wunderbares tägliches Training 😎 Mails schreiben muss man irgendwie immer.

neomutt bietet leider auch einen Eimer voll Funktionen, die ich noch nicht ordentlich nutze. Gnah.

An euren Replies erkenne ich, dass das mit dem »sich die Kürzel merken« echt heikel zu sein scheint 🤔 Wie handhabt ihr das im Alltag? Einfach ein paar Basics wie :u und CTRL+r und gut ist? Ich bin neugierig. Oder nutzt ihr alle nano? (Ich glaub, dann muss ich entfolgen) 😂

Nur als kleinen Zwischenstand: nach dem Lesen eurer Antworten schließe ich, dass ich mich mit meinem Kenntnisstand nicht verstecken muss 😂 Da hat mir der virtuelle Schulterblick schon weiter geholfen.

vi(m), weil ich Admin bin und dieses Tool auf jedem System und ohne X-Geraffels üblicherweise vorfinde (wenn auch bei neueren Installationen dieser absurde „visual mode“ der Default ist 😳). Auch unter (Open)Solaris, IRIX, was weiß ich.

Antworten:

Patrick Ben Koetter (@patrickbkoetter)

Ich habe diverse Plugins ausprobiert und lande immer wieder bei “normal“, weil ich einfach nicht die Disziplin aufbringe das Zeug richtig zu üben.

Marcel Weinberg (@winem_)

Denke so geht es vielen, die eben teilweise auch schon viele Jahre in der IT sind. Ist dir vimtutor bekannt? Den regelmäßig durchzutanzen hilft auch etwas, auch wenn man einiges immer mal vergisst oder einfach nicht nutzt.

Kristian Köhntopp (@isotopp)

vi movement Kommandos haben System. Erkenne und lerne das System. hjkl + prefix+hjkl, Marken, prefix+jump to mark und so weiter.

Und bleibe von den verblödeten Plugins weg. Die braucht kein Mensch und machen vim nur langsam im Start und kompliziert.

Boris (@k3rvyn)

Was mich so richtig weiter gebracht hat, war dieser Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6yzFEXajQ

winfreak (@winfreak)

Ich bilde mir kleine Merkphrasen für movements…
Aus „ciw“ wird „change inner word“, z.B.
Das kann ich mir deutlich besser merken.

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Development, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, vi/vim | Leave a Comment »

The Definitive T430 Modding Guide | by George Kushnir (https://n4ru.it) | Medium

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/13

Lots of ideas, also for the W530 model: [Wayback] The Definitive T430 Modding Guide | by George Kushnir (https://n4ru.it) | Medium.

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Hardware Development, Power User, ThinkPad | Leave a Comment »

Patching ESXi so you can boot a MacOS virtual machine from it

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/13

This is totally opposite to yesterday’s Secure Boot post: [Wayback/Archive.is] shanyungyang/esxi-unlocker: VMware ESXi macOS

macOS Unlocker V3.0.2 for VMware ESXi
=====================================

1. Introduction
---------------

Unlocker 3 for ESXi is designed for VMware ESXi 6.5, 6.7 and 7.0

The patch code carries out the following modifications dependent on the product
being patched:

* Fix vmware-vmx to allow macOS to boot
* Fix libvmkctl to allow vSphere to control the guest

The code is written in Python as it makes the Unlocker easier to run and
maintain on ESXi.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| IMPORTANT:                                                                  |
| ==========                                                                  |
|                                                                             |
| Always uninstall the previous version of the Unlocker before using a new    |
| version. Failure to do this could render VMware unusable.                   |
|                                                                             |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

2. Installation
---------------
Copy the distribution file to the ESXi host datastore using scp or some other
data transfer system. If you want to use the source version (i.e. from GIT) see
"5. Building" fist.

Decompress the file from the ESXi console or via SSH:

    tar xzvf esxi-unlocker-xxx.tgz

(xxx - will be the version number, for example, 300)

Run the command from the terminal:

    ./esxi-install.sh

Finally reboot the server.

3. Uninstallation
-----------------
Open the ESXi console or login via SSH and change to the folder where the files were extracted.

Run the command from the terminal:

    ./esxi-uninstall.sh

Finally reboot the server.

4. Notes
--------
A. There is a command added called esxi-smctest.sh which can show if the patch is successful. It must be run from a
terminal or SSH session. The output should be:

/bin/vmx
smcPresent = true
custom.vgz     false   32486592 B

Note: The uncompressed size reported for custom.vgz will vary depending on the ESXi version.

B. The unlocker can be temporarily disabled during boot by editing the boot options and adding "nounlocker".

5. Building
-----------
If you want to use a version which is not availbale as a distribution (e.g. the code from "master" branch)
you need to first build the package.

Checkout the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/shanyungyang/esxi-unlocker.git

(if you don't have git installed you can download ZIP archive from GitHub instead)

Enter the directory and build:
    
    cd esxi-unlocker
    ./esxi-build.py

If everything went correctly the ouput should be:

    ESXi-Build for macOS

    Timestamping files...

    Creating unlocker.tgz...
    etc/
    etc/rc.local.d/
    etc/rc.local.d/unlocker.py

    Creating esxi-unlocker-301.tgz...
    unlocker.tgz
    esxi-install.sh
    esxi-uninstall.sh
    esxi-smctest.sh
    readme.txt

The package you need to copy in the example above is esxi-unlocker-301.tgz (NOT unlocker.tgz!).

6. Thanks
---------

Thanks to Zenith432 for originally building the C++ unlocker and Mac Son of Knife
(MSoK) for all the testing and support.

Thanks also to Sam B for finding the solution for ESXi 6 and helping me with
debugging expertise. Sam also wrote the code for patching ESXi ELF files and
modified the unlocker code to run on Python 3 in the ESXi 6.5 environment.

History
-------
26/09/18 3.0.0 - First release
01/05/20 3.0.1 - Fix for ESXi 7.0
10/18/20 3.0.1 - Fix for ESXi 7.0 U1 (7.0.1)

(c) 2011-2018 Dave Parsons

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, ESXi6, ESXi6.5, ESXi6.7, ESXi7, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

A few tools on my list for research: fswatch, entr, ack and ag

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/12

Based on the below tweet and replies, these tools are not on my research list:

fswatch: file change monitor
- [Wayback/Archive.is] fswatch / [Wayback/Archive.is] emcrisostomo/fswatch: A cross-platform file change monitor with multiple backends: Apple OS X File System Events, *BSD kqueue, Solaris/Illumos File Events Notification, Linux inotify, Microsoft Windows and a stat()-based backend.
- [Wayback/Archive.is] How to Use fswatch · emcrisostomo/fswatch Wiki
entr: file change monitor that allows to run action
- [Wayback] entr(1) / [Wayback/Archive.is] eradman/entr: A utility for running arbitrary commands when files change
ack: a context aware find/grep replacement
- [Wayback] ack’s features / [Wayback/Archive.is] beyondgrep/ack3: ack is a grep-like search tool optimized for source code.
ag: a faster ack
- [Wayback/Archive.is] ggreer/the_silver_searcher: A code-searching tool similar to ack, but faster.

[Archive.is] Aaron Patterson on Twitter: “Here is my “autotest for lazy people”. It watches for changes in the lib or test directory, and runs rake test on change. There are definitely better, purpose built tools for this. But I am lazy…”

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Development, fgrep, find, grep, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

On my research list: “ESXi” “Secure Boot” – Google Search

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/12

On my research list: [Wayback] “ESXi” “Secure Boot” – Google Search.

Some links about it:

[Wayback] Using ESXi Kickstart %firstboot with Secure Boot
[Wayback] ESXi 6.7 – Secure Boot and startup script – VMware Technology Network VMTN
[Archive.is] Secure Boot for ESXi 6.5 – Hypervisor Assurance – VMware vSphere Blog
[Archive.is] Prepping an ESXi 6.7 host for Secure Boot – VMware vSphere Blog
[Wayback] virtualization – ESXi 7.X file permissions – how to buypass new security measures – Server Fault

Even in ESXi 7.0 some files can still be edited, e.g. /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh. This script will be executed by /etc/rc.local, so you can add your commands there.

You just need to be aware that this script will not be executed if you have UEFI Secure boot enabled on your host.
[Wayback UEFI Secure Boot for ESXi Hosts
Secure boot is part of the UEFI firmware standard. With secure boot enabled, a machine refuses to load any UEFI driver or app unless the operating system bootloader is cryptographically signed. Starting with vSphere 6.5, ESXi supports secure boot if it is enabled in the hardware.

…
UEFI Secure Boot Troubleshooting

If secure boot does not succeed at any level of the boot sequence, an error results.
The error message depends on the hardware vendor and on the level at which verification did not succeed.

If you attempt to boot with a bootloader that is unsigned or has been tampered with, an error during the boot sequence results. The exact message depends on the hardware vendor. It might look like the following error, but might look different.

UEFI0073: Unable to boot PXE Device…because of the Secure Boot policy

If the kernel has been tampered with, an error like the following results.

Fatal error: 39 (Secure Boot Failed)

If a package (VIB or driver) has been tampered with, a purple screen with the following message appears.

UEFI Secure Boot failed: Failed to verify signatures of the following vibs (XX)
To resolve issues with secure boot, follow these steps.
1. Reboot the host with secure boot disabled.
2. Run the secure boot verification script (see Run the Secure Boot Validation Script on an Upgraded ESXi Host).
3. Examine the information in the /var/log/esxupdate.log file.
- Run the Secure Boot Validation Script on an Upgraded ESXi Host
  After you upgrade an ESXi host from an older version of ESXi that did not support UEFI secure boot, you might be able to enable secure boot. Whether you can enable secure boot depends on how you performed the upgrade and whether the upgrade replaced all the existing VIBs or left some VIBs unchanged. You can run a validation script after you perform the upgrade to determine whether the upgraded installation supports secure boot. [Read more]

–jeroen

Posted in ESXi6, ESXi6.5, ESXi6.7, ESXi7, Power User, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | Leave a Comment »

Covid-19/Coronavirus – Mondneusmaskers en andere PBE: Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb | Publicatie | Rijksoverheid.nl

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/12

[Wayback/Archive Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb | Publicatie | Rijksoverheid.nl

Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb

Mantelzorgers en pgb-gefinancierde zorgverleners kunnen bij hun werk gebruikmaken van persoonlijke beschermingsmiddelen of mondneuskapjes. Cliënten kunnen onder voorwaarden gebruik maken van gratis zelftests. In deze instructie staat wanneer zorgverleners persoonlijke beschermingsmiddelen kunnen aanvragen. En wanneer cliënten zelftests kunnen aanvragen.

Download ‘Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb (staand, A3)’1/2

[Wayback] PDF document | 1 pagina | 95 kB

Publicatie | 08-10-2021

Download ‘Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb (liggend, A4)’2/2

[Wayback] PDF document | 2 pagina’s | 130 kB

Publicatie | 08-10-2021

Via:

–jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Het moment om Schiphol te laten krimpen is nu – Follow the Money – Platform voor onderzoeksjournalistiek

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/12

[Wayback/Archive] Het moment om Schiphol te laten krimpen is nu – Follow the Money – Platform voor onderzoeksjournalistiek

Via [Archive] Eric Smit on Twitter: “In Europa zijn boekwerken volgeschreven over de vraag hoe je een groeiende capaciteit tussen luchtvaartmaatschappijen verdeelt, maar is er nooit nagedacht over de consequenties van een afnemende capaciteit … via @ftm_nl” / Twitter

—jeroen

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Delphi SetRoundMode: gets sets part of the 8087 control word (related: GetRoundMode and TFPURoundingMode)

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/12

I thought I had written about this a long time ago, as Math.SetRoundMode (and now System.Math.SetRoundMode) has been introduced since at least Delphi 2007. There are also related GetRoundMode and TFPURoundingMode.

Delphi 2009 also introduced TFPUPrecisionMode, GetPrecisionMode and SetPrecisionMode.

Delphi 2010 also introduced TFPUException, TFPUExceptionMask, TFPUPrecisionMode, TFPURoundingMode, ClearExceptions, GetExceptionMask, and SetExceptionMask.

Delphi XE2 introduced namespaces, so prepended the unit Math with the namespace System. to become unit System.Math. It also introduced $EXCESSPRECISION (for x64), GetMXCSR, SetMXCSR, ResetMXCSR, ClearFPUExceptions, TSSEException, TSSEExceptionMask, GetSSEExceptionMask, SetSSEExceptionMask, ClearSSEExceptions, TSSERoundingMode, GetSSERoundMode, SetSSERoundMode.

The documentation basically only had formatting changes. This is the most important part of SetRoundMode:

function SetRoundMode(const RoundMode: TFPURoundingMode): TFPURoundingMode;
…

Call SetRoundingMode to specify how the FPU handles rounding issues. The rounding mode can be any of the following values:

Value

Meaning

rmNearest

Rounds to the closest value.

rmDown

Rounds toward negative infinity.

rmUp

Rounds toward positive infinity.

rmTruncate

Truncates the value, rounding positive numbers down and negative numbers up.

This is the most important bit of SetPrecisionMode:

function SetPrecisionMode(const Precision: TFPUPrecisionMode): TFPUPrecisionMode;
…

Call SetPrecisionMode to specify the level of precision that the FPU (floating-point unit) uses for floating-point calculations. The precision control mode can be any of the following values:

Value

Meaning

pmSingle

single precision

pmReserved

not used

pmDouble

double precision

pmExtended

extended precision

SetPrecisionMode returns the previous precision control mode.

Both are functions, so so they return the previous value which you can use to set it back later: this is important as it is a process wide. SetPrecisionMode documents this, but SetRoundMode does not!

Global side effects and avoiding them

Since SetRoundMode and SetPrecisionMode set the 8087 CW (and on XE2 and up SetMXCSR), it means all usual Set8087CW caveats apply: changing the global 8087 CW setting impacts all running code, which means that threads, DLLs (especially ones written in other languages), etc might malfunction. You can find some of the caveat effects on my bog by searching for [Wayback] Set8087CW site:wiert.me – Google Search.

If you want to avoid global side effects, you might try the solution in [Wayback] c# – What is the equivalent of Math.Round() with MidpointRounding.AwayFromZero in Delphi? – Stack Overflow by [Wayback] Andreas Rejbrand.

On MXCSR

[Wayback/Archive.is] SSE Instruction Set (not sure why Embarcadero used this as reference material from their docwiki, but hey, Intel documentation is likely outdated):

SSE — MXCSR

The MXCSR register is a 32-bit register containing flags for control and status information regarding SSE instructions. As of SSE3, only bits 0-15 have been defined.

Pnemonic Bit Location Description

FZ bit 15 Flush To Zero

R+ bit 14 Round Positive

R- bit 13 Round Negative

RZ bits 13 and 14 Round To Zero

RN bits 13 and 14 are 0 Round To Nearest

PM bit 12 Precision Mask

UM bit 11 Underflow Mask

OM bit 10 Overflow Mask

ZM bit 9 Divide By Zero Mask

DM bit 8 Denormal Mask

IM bit 7 Invalid Operation Mask

DAZ bit 6 Denormals Are Zero

PE bit 5 Precision Flag

UE bit 4 Underflow Flag

OE bit 3 Overflow Flag

ZE bit 2 Divide By Zero Flag

DE bit 1 Denormal Flag

IE bit 0 Invalid Operation Flag

FZ mode causes all underflowing operations to simply go to zero. This saves some processing time, but loses precision.

The R+, R-, RN, and RZ rounding modes determine how the lowest bit is generated. Normally, RN is used.

PM, UM, MM, ZM, DM, and IM are masks that tell the processor to ignore the exceptions that happen, if they do. This keeps the program from having to deal with problems, but might cause invalid results.

DAZ tells the CPU to force all Denormals to zero. A Denormal is a number that is so small that FPU can’t renormalize it due to limited exponent ranges. They’re just like normal numbers, but they take considerably longer to process. Note that not all processors support DAZ.

PE, UE, ME, ZE, DE, and IE are the exception flags that are set if they happen, and aren’t unmasked. Programs can check these to see if something interesting happened. These bits are “sticky”, which means that once they’re set, they stay set forever until the program clears them. This means that the indicated exception could have happened several operations ago, but nobody bothered to clear it.

DAZ wasn’t available in the first version of SSE. Since setting a reserved bit in MXCSR causes a general protection fault, we need to be able to check the availability of this feature without causing problems. To do this, one needs to set up a 512-byte area of memory to save the SSE state to, using fxsave, and then one needs to inspect bytes 28 through 31 for the MXCSR_MASK value. If bit 6 is set, DAZ is supported, otherwise, it isn’t.

Architectures Software Developer’s Manual: Intel® 64 and IA-32 includes supporting processors programming environment and architecture.

[Wayback] Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Developer’s Manual: Vol. 1

[Wayback]

https://web.archive.org/web/20130603170547/http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/manuals/64-ia-32-architectures-software-developer-vol-1-manual.pdf

Documentation links

Some of the documentation links (that regrettably do not explain what happens behind the scenes with the 8087 CW) are these:

Delphi 2007:
Delphi 2009:
Delphi 2010:
Delphi XE:
Delphi XE2: the System namespace got prepended, x64 support added and a rudimentary page [Wayback] Floating-Point Rounding Issues – RAD Studio XE2 added

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries

Next Entries »

	Attila Kovacs on Crowbarring Windows 95 into Wi…
	Jeroen Wiert Pluimer… on Does Odido (the old T-Mobile N…
	Lars Fosdal on Security alarm provider Woonve…
	Thomas Mueller on Question got closed in May 202…
	Thaddy de Koning on Formulier voor bewindvoerders…

Item	Type	Notes
Additional Paper Tray	44472102	Capacity of 530 sheets of 80gsm.
Cabinet	01314101
WLAN Interface	45830202

Value	Meaning
`rmNearest`	Rounds to the closest value.
`rmDown`	Rounds toward negative infinity.
`rmUp`	Rounds toward positive infinity.
`rmTruncate`	Truncates the value, rounding positive numbers down and negative numbers up.

Value	Meaning
`pmSingle`	single precision
`pmReserved`	not used
`pmDouble`	double precision
`pmExtended`	extended precision

Pnemonic	Bit Location	Description
FZ	bit 15	Flush To Zero
R+	bit 14	Round Positive
R-	bit 13	Round Negative
RZ	bits 13 and 14	Round To Zero
RN	bits 13 and 14 are 0	Round To Nearest
PM	bit 12	Precision Mask
UM	bit 11	Underflow Mask
OM	bit 10	Overflow Mask
ZM	bit 9	Divide By Zero Mask
DM	bit 8	Denormal Mask
IM	bit 7	Invalid Operation Mask
DAZ	bit 6	Denormals Are Zero
PE	bit 5	Precision Flag
UE	bit 4	Underflow Flag
OE	bit 3	Overflow Flag
ZE	bit 2	Divide By Zero Flag
DE	bit 1	Denormal Flag
IE	bit 0	Invalid Operation Flag

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

Subscribe

Archives

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Blog Stats

Meta title

Tag Cloud Title

Top Clicks

Top Posts

My badges

My Flickr Stream

Pages

All categories

Email Subscription

The models

The toners / accessories

Options

Consumables

Options

Consumables

MC342 toner in C332 printer

Toner sensors

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Back to the twitter thread

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

UEFI Secure Boot Troubleshooting

Rate this:

Share this:

Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb

Download ‘Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb (staand, A3)’1/2

Download ‘Instructie beschermingsmiddelen en zelftests mantelzorgers en pgb (liggend, A4)’2/2

Rate this:

Share this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Global side effects and avoiding them

On MXCSR

SSE — MXCSR

Documentation links

Rate this:

Share this: