AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Sure, use unverified bootleg software if you wish:
LBB2 said:
A 3/36 chance of mis-jump or similar is not something I would risk without a very good reason.
embracing retro 'puters
- Thread starter BwapTED
- Start date
Sure, use unverified bootleg software if you wish:
A 3/36 chance of mis-jump or similar is not something I would risk without a very good reason.
We'll need a citation for that.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
I recall reading it long ago. It was not a rules source, it was a Q&A or Con panel or some such.
Nonetheless, my assertion stands. If the program has a chance to be successfully written, from scratch, in one week, it can't be that hard. Not seven days of desperate 12-16 hour labor, not a modest overtime of five tens, but a standard 40-hour week.
Debugging is a be-atch, and the odds are only 1 in 6. But that's a matter of debugging, not coding. If the math is known, the coding is equally known. In fact, there would almost certainly be a math function library that takes that problem out of your hands. It's the typos that get you, for the most part. Then it's properly conditioning variable/value passing (preventing overruns, overwrites, data type errors, and so on).
This 10+ roll for completion and the 11+ roll for manifesting a hidden bug is for programming from scratch and doesn't account for "cheats" such as decompiling the flawlessly working code to uncover its secrets.
I would only say that MM isn't a programmer and likely didn't have a good grasp of coding and debugging time requirements. If it can be written in a week at Comp-3, it can be written in two weeks at Comp-2, and a month at Comp-1. Overtime can compress that greatly, especially when stuck in a space ship for a week with nothing else to do.
Straybow
SOC-14 1K
Where is the source for this, now? Oh, it's your rationale for supporting the canon source, not the source itself. There's nothing about licensing, regulation, or any other extrinsic requirement. Only intrinsic requirement of the data and the processing of the math.
Single precision computing with a 4.77 MHz IBM PC would qualify. The original PC (with a 20 MB disk) was significantly faster and had more memory and disk (tape) space than the Apollo mission computers, both onboard and at mission control. Again, everyone was certain that controlling the Apollo mission could not be reliably done by hand. Yet that's what Apollo 13 had to do, and succeeded.
Note also, this is the control of the jump drives. Not the same as plotting the jump course, which the Generate program does. We've already been given the low threshold of a program that can be written in a week.
A project of N lines of code usually takes N/10 hours, and that includes testing, so that's about 400 lines of code in a 40-hour week. Naturally, the programmer isn't reinventing the wheel. He or she is using standard math libraries, blocks of prequalified code for boilerplate input/output, and so forth. The whole project is far more than 400 lines when you add in that stuff. Putting the parts together in a properly working structure takes that 400 lines, and that's the stuff you have to test.
So, you don't have citation?
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
That is why megacorp software cost millions and generally work.
When we hack things for our own use we can be vastly more productive. No-one said anything about regulated 40 h weeks.
Generate can be written by a highly skilled professional (Comp-3) with the help of an extremely skilled astrogator (Nav-4) in average between a month or two working for themselves. Without extremely skilled input you can't write the software at all. The requirements means that neither the code nor the underlying problem are simple, nor is it a trivial amount of code.
For a suitable definition of 'work'. Some might say that's a matter of opinion.
I liken enterprise software development to Otto von Bismarck's comment about laws and sausages.
I liken software development to that adage, period.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Nothing is perfect, but I actually find most major software to work rather well nowadays. It was much worse...
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
I can't argue against that...
Out of curiosity as I didn't remember exactly what von Bismark said about laws and sausages, I found this treatise that he may not have said it at all.
There are adverts on thge page and I have a popup blocker running.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/08/laws-sausages/
quoting from the page linked to:
The Daily Cleveland Herald, March 29, 1869, quoted lawyer-poet John Godfrey Saxe that “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made,” and this may be the true origin of the saying.
end quote.
There are adverts on thge page and I have a popup blocker running.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/07/08/laws-sausages/
quoting from the page linked to:
The Daily Cleveland Herald, March 29, 1869, quoted lawyer-poet John Godfrey Saxe that “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made,” and this may be the true origin of the saying.
end quote.
MS Word is 35 years old and track changes still makes large documents unstable. Multi-part documents are still unstable to the point of being unusable. The user experience of Windows 7 or Windows 10 is appreciably more temperamental than (say) Windows 2000.
That's true for many quotes attributed to famous people. In some cases, it sounded like something they might have said and so the link was created. In other cases, they repeated a bon mot which was current and, because they were the most famous person using it, they received the credit.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
That is not really my experience, but I have not tried to push the envelope of Windows or Office.
I've heard bad things about trying to use Word for books, which seems to agree with your experience.
I've had good experience with Win7 and OS X, but again nothing is perfect.
I've used track changes in a corporate environment without problems, but perhaps not with all that large documents (<100 pages?).
I've heard bad things about trying to use Word for books, which seems to agree with your experience.
In my limited experience Win2000 was fairly stable, but not as stable as later editions.
I've had good experience with Win7 and OS X, but again nothing is perfect.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
There is a saying from ~2--3 that still seems to be holding true - "Only use the odd-numbered versions of Windows".
W95 was OK, W98 was barely acceptable (salvaged by W98SE, which is sort of an extra version). WME & W2000 were crap, XP was good. Vista was garbage, W7 is good. W8/8.1 was crap, WX (10) is still awaiting the jury but early reports are unfavorable.
W95 was OK, W98 was barely acceptable (salvaged by W98SE, which is sort of an extra version). WME & W2000 were crap, XP was good. Vista was garbage, W7 is good. W8/8.1 was crap, WX (10) is still awaiting the jury but early reports are unfavorable.
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That would be hilarious to embrace with Starship computer models ... even numbers have a reputation for being a bit “glitchy”.
For Models 2, 4, 6 and 8 ... when swapping program modules, roll 6+ on 2d6 for the Computer to initialize the new software. On a fail, remove and reinsert the module to attempt to load in the next phase.
Models 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 are not known to suffer from this problem.
Word is not good for complex documents - I've had it shit a large spec document on more than one occasion. Recently I tried to make a composite document with sub-documents and had it produce six data corrupting crashes in the day or so I spent trying to get it working. We backed off trying to use it, although it is fairly well documented that this is not stable.
Neither of these bugs are ever likely to get fixed as they would require revisions to the file format to make them work. Word's only real selling feature at this point is the ability to open MS word documents. It is a deeply flawed product.
Peak Windows was IMO Windows 2003 R2 server, the last generation of the NT5 code base. It was by far the best 64 bit windows desktop environment available until Windows 7 matured. However, it was quite expensive as it was sold as a server O/S.
MS did a major rewrite of the Windows userspace when the went to make Windows Vista. Some bright spark convinced management that managed runtimes were the way forward and they set out on a programme of rebuilding the windows userspace with .Net. It took a few years to realise this wasn't going to produce a satisfactory result and they then went and did a hasty rewrite, producing Windows Vista. Windows 7 is essentially Vista with the wrinkles cleaned up a bit. However, it's not totally backward compatible with earlier versions of Windows. The UI tweaks are also a lot more senitive to fat-finger errors than previous versions of windows, which is somewhat annoying as I have mild OOS.
I think the best PC I ever owned was a HP XW9300 running Win 2k3R2. It was snappy and responsive, more stable than my current experience with Windows 7 and the fit and finish was reminiscent of old-school Compaq machines (probably because it was, in fact, an old-school Compaq machine). Really, I only stopped using them because I needed a laptop. At one point I gave a couple of them to a friend to use as gaming boxes. He put his gaming card in it, and was quite happily running heavily-modded Skyrim on a 10-year old PC.
I think that qualifies as 'Embracing Retro 'puters.'
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
This might have something to do with perceived stability. Good workstation hardware is more stable than the cheapest possible crap marketed to consumers.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Way back when, IBM created MCA, a proprietary backend standard and chipset that resulted in PCs/servers with accuracy improvement on the order of 1000s more accurate then the competing EISA standards. Economics and Intel's PCI won out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Channel_architecture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
If memory serves IBM tried to regain control of the PC platform with the proprietary MCA (to kill the clones), but by then everyone had got used to buying clones for half price, so it was too late.
PCI was much later.
