0 Persons are tagged with #usenet

#usenet

claralistensprechen3rd@friendica.myportal.social
Clara Listensprechen Voted 4 Harris

No hardware failsafe system?

"If it's on fire, it's a hardware problem"
"The objective of electronics is to keep the smoke IN the wires"
Operating systems & software aside, there's no excuse for operating commercial machinery that don't have #OSHA required failsafes even if it's just for operator/employee safety. If the software was calling for increasing temperature because a sensor was saying 0 degrees, that's on the sensor, not the software.

Software that operates with proper machinery with failsafes would be monitoring sensor status AND failsafe status such that temperature increase would be called for ONLY...
IF (sensor=less than setpoint) AND (failsafe not tripped) THEN increase temperature ELSE shutdown with error message.

♲ 𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕒 🏳️‍⚧️🦋 - 2024-07-29 23:10:53 GMT

I want to tell a story. This is the story why I started using #Linux. And why I had no Microsoft products in my house since.That year was 1997. Computers on the manufacturing floor at work were mostly open hardware Z80 controlled GE/Fanuc PLC's... or PC's running a several kilobyte assembly language program connected to parallel port I/O boards. And that older stuff worked like a top 24/7/365 unless the power went out or someone accidentally blasted the steam seals near the desktop computer. They were controlling large production lines long as football fields.

Then some engineer who I will never forgive decided to rewrite all the production machine systems in Visual Basic for Windows 95. Windows and other proprietary systems were crashing like crazy. Remember, this is when Windows didn't use memory page protection and was filled with kernel bugs. It was unreal. If a machine had to be restarted, the production had to be restarted and that made a lot of scrap. There were about 30 active production lines running at one time, limited to the 1.6 megawatt agreement with the utilities. If all the Windows machines crashed, it took about 80,000 pounds of raw materials to restart the production lines. Forklifts would be filling up the dumpster on the back dock.

Every night at midnight, proprietary software known as BackupExec would start at midnight. After about half an hour, the load average would increase on the Oracle database and crash it. Every production machine would routinely push the production report and would crash the entire production line if it wasn't there to sync. The whole plant would shut down shortly after midnight, every night. After a week, this got old, fast.

One night, I had a life changing event with a Windows machine. An operator called on the radio that a plastic extruder was on fire. It was a 330,000 kilowatt PVC extruder and the Microsoft Visual Basic computer was showing zero degrees on every heat zone. Obviously with the fire from the barrel heaters, it was at least several hundred degrees. A few moments later was a loud explosion and the plant floor went dark with chlorine gas. I could see light to the right of me and that's where I ran. When smoke cleared, I could see the extruder barrel had shot the thousand pound head across the plant floor like a canon. Fortunately I was only several feet away from being in front of it, so I lived. Visual Basic had an interesting feature where malfunctions like that happened a lot.

That week, a copy of Redhat Linux 4.1 arrived in the mail. I installed it on my new laptop. It was crazy fast. It did everything I wanted. I compiled the kernel. I compiled everything. It could play mp3 music. And it was reliable. It was all fun and games until some years after the IPO. Google did the same thing. I would soon learn we had a term for this. #enshitification

So this is why I love free open source software and despise walled gardens of software companies. I remember #RMS on #UseNet was a bit crazy then, but he made the #GNU software license that made this possible.

That's my Linux story. And how #Microsoft almost killed me. Other people have #Microsoft horror stories, but this one was mine.

𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕒 🏳️‍⚧️🦋

diane_a@diasp.org
𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕖𝕒

I want to tell a story. This is the story why I started using #Linux. And why I had no Microsoft products in my house since.

That year was 1997. Computers on the manufacturing floor at work were mostly open hardware Z80 controlled GE/Fanuc PLC's... or PC's running a several kilobyte assembly language program connected to parallel port I/O boards. And that older stuff worked like a top 24/7/365 unless the power went out or someone accidentally blasted the steam seals near the desktop computer. They were controlling large production lines long as football fields.

Then some engineer who I will never forgive decided to rewrite all the production machine systems in Visual Basic for Windows 95. Windows and other proprietary systems were crashing like crazy. Remember, this is when Windows didn't use memory page protection and was filled with kernel bugs. It was unreal. If a machine had to be restarted, the production had to be restarted and that made a lot of scrap. There were about 30 active production lines running at one time, limited to the 1.6 megawatt agreement with the utilities. If all the Windows machines crashed, it took about 80,000 pounds of raw materials to restart the production lines. Forklifts would be filling up the dumpster on the back dock.

Every night at midnight, proprietary software known as BackupExec would start at midnight. After about half an hour, the load average would increase on the Oracle database and crash it. Every production machine would routinely push the production report and would crash the entire production line if it wasn't there to sync. The whole plant would shut down shortly after midnight, every night. After a week, this got old, fast.

One night, I had a life changing event with a Windows machine. An operator called on the radio that a plastic extruder was on fire. It was a 330,000 kilowatt PVC extruder and the Microsoft Visual Basic computer was showing zero degrees on every heat zone. Obviously with the fire from the barrel heaters, it was at least several hundred degrees. A few moments later was a loud explosion and the plant floor went dark with chlorine gas. I could see light to the right of me and that's where I ran. When smoke cleared, I could see the extruder barrel had shot the thousand pound head across the plant floor like a canon. Fortunately I was only several feet away from being in front of it, so I lived. Visual Basic had an interesting feature where malfunctions like that happened a lot.

That week, a copy of Redhat Linux 4.1 arrived in the mail. I installed it on my new laptop. It was crazy fast. It did everything I wanted. I compiled the kernel. I compiled everything. It could play mp3 music. And it was reliable. It was all fun and games until some years after the IPO. Google did the same thing. I would soon learn we had a term for this. #enshitification

So this is why I love free open source software and despise walled gardens of software companies. I remember #RMS on #UseNet was a bit crazy then, but he made the #GNU software license that made this possible.

That's my Linux story. And how #Microsoft almost killed me. Other people have #Microsoft horror stories, but this one was mine.

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harryhaller@diasp.eu
harry

this is is better than twitter a.s.o.

alive and well

I'm using tin
DON'T USE goggle groups - it's just a web interface
usenet has nothing to do with google

From: Paul Edwards mutazilah@gmail.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: pure C90 newsreader
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2023 14:14:28 -0000 (UTC)

The google groups ban finally caused me to prioritize my newsreader software.

Here is the pure C90 code used to post this message:

https://sourceforge.net/p/pdos/gitcode/ci/master/tree/src/pdpnntp.c

(and I can also read using that, but it's another level of pain).

So I'm still using google groups to read.

Replies are going to be difficult I guess.

I run this program under PDOS/386. With qemu
giving me a traditional serial port, and PDOS/386
giving the application a bog-standard C90 stream
to that serial port.

BFN. Paul.

#usenet #newsreader #newsgroups #c #c90 #tin #pdos

2 Likes
danie10@squeet.me
Danie

The rise and fall of Usenet: How the original social media platform came to be 50 years ago

Various smooth rounded white pebbles. In the centre is a yellow coloured pebble with a sad face on its front.
Long before Facebook existed, or even before the Internet, there was Usenet. Usenet was the first social network. Now, with Google Groups abandoning Usenet, this oldest of all social networks is doomed to disappear.

These days, Usenet’s content is almost entirely spam, but in its day, Usenet was everything that Twitter and Reddit would become and more.

These messages, also known as articles or posts, were submitted to topic categories, which became known as newsgroups. Within those groups, messages were bound together in threads and sub-threads.

Much of the vocabulary we use today to talk about using the net springs from Usenet. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) files, for example, started on Usenet as summaries of information about a newsgroup, so the members wouldn’t need to repeat the basics for newcomers. Flame and flame war, for instance, also started on Usenet.

In many ways, Usenet is a warning about how social networks can go bad. All the same, problems we see today on social networks appeared first on Usenet.

It is really not all unique to Usenet, though. Usenet, like most networks, was better in the beginning, but as more and more masses arrive, moderation is required to keep things civil and on track. As the moderators also move on, some groups/channels devolve into cesspits. All social networks seem to go through these lifecycle stages. And, of course, many people also move onto new networks.

What is fascinating is to see whether older networks have any potential for resuscitation. Can those who really care, if there are enough of them, revive it and rejuvenate the network? I’ve not really seen any old network come in any big way. Yes, Myspace is still around, but it is nothing like it was, and you don’t hear much about it at all. Back in the day, users often went to Usenet and IRC for technical support, but most of the tech organisations today moved to mainstream social networks.

I’m thinking more and more that a massive decentralised federation of networks is more the way to go today. Individual networks can come and go, but the overall federation continues onwards as far as the bigger picture goes.

With centralised individual social networks, their users live or die by the existence of that one network and whatever rules it applies. Usenet is decentralised, and probably explains why it is still around today. Today we all watch the slow demise of a “modern” social network such as X-Twitter.

You can still connect to Usenet today by using Mozilla’s Thunderbird E-mail client. The linked post does suggest some Usenet providers to try for accounts.

See https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-rise-and-fall-of-usenet-how-the-original-social-media-platform-came-to-be/
#Blog, #socialnetworks, #technology, #Usenet

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rainerhgw@diasp.org
Rainer Sokoll ✅

Apropos #früherwarallesbesser - ja, vieles, zumindest im Bereich soziale Netzwerkwerke. Es gab nur ein einziges: #Usenet.
Das war hierarchisch aufgebaut, wer also in Deutschland ein Problem mit NeXT-Hardware hatte, suchte in de.comp.sys.next.hardware um Hilfe (oder im englischsprachigen Pendant: comp.sys.next.hardware). Freizeitradler in de.rec.fahrrad, Pornofreunde in alt.binaries.erotica (was wegen der schieren Menge nur die wenigsten Newsserver hatten) Oder in einer der anderen tausenden Gruppen.
Gerade in den speziellen Gruppen gab es kaum Rauschen, fast jeder Beitrag war sachlich (gilt nicht für de.alt.flame). Jede(?) Gruppe hatte eine FAQ, die regelmäßig neu gepostet wurde; es wurde von Neulingen erwartet, daß sie die FAQ vor dem Posten gelesen haben. Wer sein Problem verständlich vorbringen konnte und auch beibrachte, was er schon alles zur Problemlösung versucht hat, der hatte gute Chancen auf kompetente Hilfe.
Themen waren threaded, das bedeutet: Ein neues Thema in derselben Gruppe kollidierte nicht mit anderen Themen dieser Gruppe. Ein Thread konnte Subthreads (Verzweigungen). Jeder Post hatte eine eindeutige ID, die in den Headern einer Antwort referenziert wurde, so war es eindeutig, auf welchen Beitrag sich eine Antwort bezieht.
Man konnte einen Beitrag in mehreren Gruppen posten (Crosspost) und die Antworten in nur eine Gruppe schicken lassen (Follow-up-to)
Jedermann konnte einen eigenen Newsserver betreiben, mußte aber nicht. Man brauchte für den eigenen dann jemanden, mit dem man Beiträge austauschen (peeren) konnte.
Man konnte eigene Beiträge überall löschen (na gut, eigentlich: Man konnte überall um Löschung des eigenen Beitrages bitten)
Es war nicht Echtzeit, d.h., der Druck, mit irgendwas Erster sein zu müssen, war gering, dafür haben sich die Leute mehr Gedanken um Formulierungen, Stil, Eindeutigkeit gemacht (meint mein rosaroter Rückspiegel jedenfalls)
Man konnte Beiträge hinterher(!!!) bearbeiten (superseden).
Es gab sehr spezielle Gruppen, zwei möchte ich hervorholen: de.alt.sysadmin,recovery und de.talk.bizarre. In dasr ging es nur um Spaß für Sysadmins. Ab und an tauchte ein Verlierer auf, der aus "recovery" schloß, daß es hier wohl um Backup-Software ginge. Der wurde dann genüßlich von allen Teilnehmern erlegt und filetiert.
detebe ist Legende, dazu sag' ich mal nix außer "Natursektspiele" ;-)

Usenet war (und ist natürlich immer noch) technisch allen Fediversen überlegen.
Sowas gibts in dieser technischen und sozialen Qualität nicht mehr, leider.
Wir haben uns zurück bewegt.

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