April 06, 2008
daily UTC chat log for Anywherebb (Postline 6.1.30)
18:40, Duskesko> i wish i could. to random here as well. i'd just get booted.
18:56, Deanfrz> anyone think i should goto a (small) anime convention
18:56, Deanfrz> I mean, all I have to wear is my battle royale spatter shirt
19:25, Speeder> Briacro remembers me Briaco
19:41, Megagun prods people to IRC.
21:35, Speeder> There are a abb channel?
23:24, Duskesko> http://www.0x44.com/postline/posts.php?t=159
00:40, Deanfrz> some dosnt know god grammar!!!
00:41, Deanfrz> wow, that was a total abortion
00:43, Zjc92> WUT U R TAKEING ABOT HE DUS NOW GOD GRAMER HE DUS
00:45, Deanfrz is silent in his shame
00:48, Deanfrz> Oh yeah, Star Wars Episode II is on TV. I tried watching, but then the actors started talking.
01:19, Duskesko pats Deanfrz on the back.
01:19, Duskesko> ep 2 has some nice fighting, but gawd
01:20, Duskesko> the original trilogy is far better. george lucas lost his mind back when he started adding scenes to the originals
01:30, Cryoburner> I still haven't seen episodes 2 or 3. I heard they're better than 1, but that's not saying much. :P
01:30, Cryoburner whispers: Hi Alex!
01:31, Alex> Hello Cryo. Look... I was reading the wiki on kernels' classification and found mine's an "exokernel".
01:32, Alex> I've been calling it a microkernel until now because I couldn't think of a better definition, but a microkernel already does more than I need.
01:33, Cryoburner> Yes, it seems so.
01:33, Alex> Yeah, also, the fact that an exokernel approaches OS development via LIBRARIES really 100% describes my own kernel's design.
01:34, Alex> In fact, my next step (after release) will probably be writing a library to interface apps to the kernel (while simulating kernel function calls on existing OS's).
01:36, Alex> however, it HAS some abstraction, so it doesn't even fully qualify as an exokernel, while following its general design phylosophy.
01:37, Alex> for eg. it addresses mass memory in bytes, not sectors.. perhaps (laughs) an atypical exokernel. Or a "do what I mean" kernel :)
01:37, Cryoburner> Oh, by the way, I was meaning to ask whether the kernel itself would provide mouse support.
01:38, Alex> no, there isn't any way to fit it in (or fit anything more in those 8 KB)
01:39, Cryoburner> So I take it that would need to be provided through a driver interface then?
01:39, Alex> yes, definitely. And it will probably be one of the first drivers we'll want for it.
01:40, Cryoburner> Yes, that and support for PhysX cards. :P
01:40, Alex> which mostly means we'll need a PCI enumerator and USB stuff...
01:41, Cryoburner doesn't even have a PhysX card. :P
01:41, Alex doesn't even know what it is, and doesn't wonder.
01:42, Cryoburner> Hardware physics accelleration for games.
01:42, Cryoburner> They're like $100+ and don't really do much. :P
01:43, Alex> I said I wasn't wondering :P
01:44, Alex> acceleration makes me think sad things, unless it's that of a vehicle :p
01:44, Cryoburner> They were recently bought by NVidia though, so we'll probably start seeing the hardware integrated into video cards.
01:46, Cryoburner whispers: Not that it has much to do with the runtime kernel. :P
01:46, Alex> hm... I hope multi-core tech could in the future replace those things... I prefere by far to have a general-purpose CPU.
01:47, Cryoburner> There are multi-core GPUs already too. :P
01:49, Alex> about the RTK, for sure it can run the text reader, but it'd need er... a LITTLE bit more testing
01:49, Cryoburner> I'm thinking for the near future anyway, we're going to have dedicated 3D hardware.
01:49, Cryoburner> I don't think I ever did try that demo.
01:50, Cryoburner> It wasn't working on my Win98 system at the time.
01:51, Alex> the problem I have with dedicated hardware is that it... "fragments" execution, spreading it over pieces that can't communicate as efficiently as one or more CPUs of the same kind
01:51, Alex> you didn't lose much anyway :)
01:51, Cryoburner> Ahh! Bluescreen!
01:52, Cryoburner whispers: Well, the text reader has a blue screen anyway. :P
01:52, Alex> but I've successfully tested the text reader (reading from its stockfile, because of the absence of a file system) on both floppy and pendrive boot
01:53, Alex> well... I could provide the binary used on the pendrive, but it's not the easiest thing in the world to install ("dd" needed)
01:56, Cryoburner> I used DD to write the image to a floppy, but I didn't experiment with it enough to get it to write to a flash drive.
01:58, Alex> it's basically a matter of running "dd --list", then identify a "removable" block device that reflects the expected size of the flash drive
01:58, Cryoburner> It would be nice if someone made a good image writer for flash drives that had a decent user interface.
01:58, Alex> of eg. I had it on paths like "//?/Devices/Harddisk1/DR15" (with the number following DR being variable)
02:00, Duskesko reads the chat, becomes confused, passes out.
02:00, Cryoburner drives off with Duskesko's car, running him over in the process.
02:01, Cryoburner whispers: It was impressive too, considering he was indoors at his computer.
02:02, Alex> depends on which car was it... I still remember the one discovered by Chad.
02:02, Duskesko> OH SHI MY HOUSE!
02:04, Cryoburner whispers: You totally ruined our conversation about Jello, or whatever we were talking about.
02:05, Duskesko> Alex, Cryoburner just called your kernal Jello.
02:05, Xenomorph> You were talking about Windows-isms.
02:06, Cryoburner whispers: well does it jiggle?
02:07, Cryoburner> I choose you, Jigglykernel!
02:13, Cryoburner> The text reader looks nice, by the way. :P
02:15, Duskesko> nothing quite like a sexy text editor
02:17, Cryoburner whispers: even when you can't actually edit the test? :P
02:17, Cryoburner whispers: And by 'test' I mean the test stored in a text file that you loaded into the viewer. :)
02:22, Duskesko> nice save =)
02:36, Zjc92> Well played. <_<
02:50, Duskesko> My good man. >_>
02:54, Chad> Quite.
03:15, Cryoburner> Someone post a new good idea, all that red and yellow is painful to look at. :\
03:19, Duskesko> on it!
03:21, Duskesko> done, posted, uploaded, etc, whatever
03:37, Starchaser> Does anyone know where that thread about solid state drives Vs. Hard disk drives is? I can't seem to find it
03:41, Starchaser> maybe it only existed in a paralel dimension
03:43, Raptorjedi> Do you know what year it was posted?
03:43, Starchaser> I think it was last year
03:43, Raptorjedi> Ah
03:44, Raptorjedi> Couldn't tell you. It wasn't locked or trashed, I can tell you that much.
03:44, Starchaser> oh. ok thanks for tryin.
03:45, Starchaser> its just I cant quite seem to find an apriximate life expectancy for hdd's compared to ssd's
03:50, Starchaser> oh well
03:51, Chad> I don't remember that thread... Only talking about it in the chat.
04:05, Cryoburner> I believe modern SSDs should have good life expectancy.
04:06, Cryoburner> At least, it shouldn't be worse than disk based drives in most cases.
04:08, Cryoburner> If they're used in something that's moved around alot, like a portable device or laptop, than they should last longer in most cases.
04:09, Alex> But they're slow. They're perfect for on-the-fly backup of source code, though.
04:11, Cryoburner> I suppose that depends on the type of SSD.
04:11, Alex> Hmm... the one in the EEE PC looked slow, don't know the others.
04:12, Cryoburner> Ram-based SSDs are incredibly fast. :)
04:12, Duskesko> oh hell yes
04:12, Alex> However I like the idea a lot.
04:12, Cryoburner whispers: Of course, that type requires battery backup in case of power failure.
04:13, Alex whispers: no, not that idea, the non-volatile SSDs
04:13, Cryoburner> Yeah, the always-powered kind are probably not the most reliable form of storage. :)
04:14, Alex> Myself, I'm pretty happy to have found cheap 1GB pendrives for 9 euros each.
04:15, Alex> I'm looking forward to them as replacements for good old floppies. They operate quickly and can boot the machine. Enough for me.
04:15, Cryoburner> Plus, nonvolatile SSDs are still cost something like 30 times as much as standard hard drives for a comparable capacity. :P
04:16, Alex> er... my most recent 250GB HD, bought a couple years ago, still has only about 45 GB actually used. I don't know what to do with the rest...
04:16, Cryoburner> I have some 512 Meg SD cards that fold in half to plug directly into USB ports. :)
04:17, Alex whispers: really? O_O
04:18, Tom> yeah, those are cool...but they cost twice as much. It may be worth it, though.
04:19, Cryoburner> This kind... http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1096)-SanDisk_Ultra_II_SD_and_SDHC _Plus_Cards.aspx
04:19, Alex> wow, I definitely missed those.
04:19, Duskesko> so did i O.o
04:20, Cryoburner> They actually didn't cost much where I bought them.
04:20, Tom> Should I buy this: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Secure-Digital-Memory-Card/dp/B000J47W12/ref =pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1202520926&sr=8-1
04:20, Cryoburner whispers: Bah... frespych broke my link. :P
04:21, Tom> or this: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-SDSDPH-2048-901-Retail-Package/dp/B000 EWI8IK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_6?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1202520926&sr=8-6
04:21, Alex> not my fault if URLs keep having parentheses in... :p
04:21, Tom> Uh, ther are no parentheses in there...
04:21, Alex> how do I make Postline tell the difference between this link (http://0x44.com) and that? :p
04:21, Tom meant: there
04:22, Alex> there were in Cryo's link
04:22, Tom> ah, yeah, it already aged off the top
04:22, Cryoburner> Why would you need to put a URL in quotes? :P
04:23, Alex> want me to remove the parentheses filter then?
04:23, Chad> Make it so if the link is between parentheses it won't break if it has parentheses... :P
04:23, Cryoburner> One other thing to note are the write speeds though. The Sandisk Ultra cards are pretty fast.
04:24, Chad> (http://dontbreak.com/love(cheese).html)
04:24, Alex> yeah, my cheap pendrives are ideally for very small backups, like the Lino sources
04:24, Cryoburner> Well, there are lots of other characters that break Frespych links, so I suppose it doesn't matter that much. :P
04:24, Tom> True. Actually, I don't know if Pocket PC 2002 even supports 2gb SD cards. (I need it for my Toshiba e750 pocket pc.)
04:25, Tom> I know it doesn't support SDHC...
04:26, Alex> meh Chad, don't have enough will and time to heavily modify the URL highlighter
04:26, Chad> I was just playing... Its not that hard to highlight a link if needed.
04:27, Alex> heh, you see... I'm already late. Missed proposed date of release (end of March), trying to not miss "ealy April" as well :)
04:27, Cryoburner> It probably should support 2GB cards.
04:29, Tom> I have an 8 GB CF card, if it supports that, does that mean it probably supports large SD cards also? Or is the software completely different?
04:30, Tom> (I haven't actually tested the CF card.)
04:31, Cryoburner> Well, an 8GB card would definitely be SDHC, while the 2GB would be SD.
04:31, Alex> me, I wonder what happens with > 2 TB medias anyway. The partition table has 32-bit entries and 4 billion standard sectors are 2 TB.
04:31, Cryoburner> Oh... CF. :P
04:33, Tom> Alex: well, I think NTFS has a limit of 2TB, I guess that's why...
04:33, Cryoburner> Hmm... loking up some info about the E750, it might just detect the first 1GB of larger cards...
04:34, Cryoburner> http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/showthread.php?t=77947
04:34, Alex> yes, but I'll sure have to find if they have any plans for extending partition tables, they'll probably want.
04:35, Cryoburner> It might actually go up to 2GB... you could just get a 1GB card to be safe. :)
04:36, Alex> aaaah! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
04:36, Tom> Cryo: that particular thread says 2gb of his 4gb card is recognized, that's why I decided on 2gb (rather than 4), although price was a major factor.
04:37, Alex> hmmm... the article says "A single partition, encompassing the entire GPT drive, is indicated."
04:38, Alex> fact is, it cannot encompass the "entire" GPT drive if that drive is over 2 TB, unless there's some other trick.
04:40, Alex> lol... "one of the few remaining relics of the original IBM PC" (read: one of the few things that rarely cause troubles nowadays)
04:40, Tom> I don't know whether the user from the thread Cryo linked was using Pocket PC 2002 or 03, since both were available for the e750 series.
04:41, Tom> Alex, I thought programmers were always complaining about the limitations of x86, and wanted everyone to move to a "cleaner" architecture...?
04:43, Alex> I'd say more modern, not necessarily cleaner. But I was partly kidding anyway.
04:45, Alex> However, I'll leave it as a problem for the near future. Perhaps they'll use the old CHS geometry fields to hold extra bytes and enlarge the first LBA and LBA size fields of existing partition tables.
04:45, Tom> x86 will never die, because Windows is x86...I was kinda sad when Apple moved to Intel, even though I thought macs had too many compatibility problems.
04:46, Alex> Partition tables aren't concerning only x86 architectures anyway. They're everywhere. I'm very curious what they will do.
04:48, Tom> But if a new architecture were adopted, wouldn't that make it easier to change other things too? since backwards compatibility is already out the window.
04:49, Alex> Well, yes, I was speaking on the assumption that they wouldn't like people to repartition and reformat their HDs.
04:49, Tom> True, I didn't think of that...well, they'd have to install a new OS anyway.
04:50, Alex> I presume this GPT thing (GUID Partition Table) will operate in "compatible" mode with drives <= 2TB, while introducing...
04:50, Alex> ...a new 64-bit format for LBA fields.
04:51, Alex> But for now it's just a curiosity, nothing I'd like to implement in the next few days in any cases. ;)
04:52, Alex whispers: in my JelloKernel :p
05:06, Skinnymon whispers: leaving us with a "kernel of doubt"...
05:10, Duskesko> JELLOKERNEL!
05:25, Alex> wow, I'm printing something and it's like an earthquake strikes the desk :D
12:42, Dumbum> Shaketastic!
19:03, Raptorjedi> WOOT! Gauntlet for the DS http://www.dsfanboy.com/2008/04/06/ds-needs-hack-and-slash-badly/