The people who make enhanced editions of old role-playing games like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment want to do the same thing for Icewind Dale II. There's just one problem: nobody knows where to find the code.
It's hard to believe that things like this happen - Icewind Dale II was released about 15 years ago, developed and published by big, popular companies. You'd think the source code would be properly protected and stored.
OneDrive users around the world have been upset to discover that with its latest update, Microsoft's cloud file syncing and storage system no longer works with anything other than disks formatted with the NTFS file system. Both older file systems, such as FAT32 and exFAT, and newer ones, such as ReFS, will now provoke an error message when OneDrive starts up.
While it's understandable that FAT-based filesystems are left behind - FAT needs to die a quick but horrible death - it seems weird that Microsoft's new ReFS isn't supported.
Back before MiNT became officially supported by Atari Corp, there were a few attempts at adding multitasking on the Atari ST. One of them was Geneva, a multitasking environment that was very light on resources and worked on a standard ST. NeoDesk is a desktop replacement that works well with Geneva.
Quite a long time ago there were some questions posed to the writer of these great software packages, Dan Wilga, in an attempt to see if the source could be opened. After a successful petition caught the attention of Wilga, he explained he still had his Atari TT030 sitting around, with the source code for a version that was never released.
Sadly, one of the hard drives with some of the required code to build everything was damaged, and it was too expensive to have the drive fixed. Thanks to a member of the Atari community, the drive has been fixed, and this should mean we're going to see open source releases of Geneva and NeoDesk soon. New builds are being tested, and they will be released soon - followed by the source code.
This is amazing news, and a fantastic example of software conservation. Thanks to OSNews reader Leech for pointing this story out and writing the first two paragraphs of this story so I had an idea of what was going on!
Fedora Workstation comes with two package managers by default: DNF and PackageKit. DNF has all the latest features and the best support, but PackageKit is put front and center in GNOME Software, KDE Plasma Discover, and as of Fedora 26 also in Cockpit’s new Software Update panel.
You may be better off sticking with the DNF package manager in the command line; even though PackageKit is the choice of all the graphical package managers. Here is some of the advantages DNF still gives you over PackageKit based applications.
"We must reinstate the reparability of all products put on the market," said Parliament's rapporteur Pascal Durand MEP: "We have to make sure that batteries are no longer glued into a product, but are screwed in so that we do not have to throw away a phone when the battery breaks down. We need to make sure that consumers are aware of how long the products last and how they can be repaired".
Parliament wants to promote a longer product lifespan, in particular by tackling programmed obsolescence for tangible goods and for software.
This is a very noble goal, but I am afraid that in many product segments, this ship has sailed. Does anybody honestly expect, for instance, smartphone makers to go back to screwed cases and removable batteries? I would love if they did, but I just don't see it happening.
Intel's latest 10-core, high-end desktop (HEDT) chip - the Core i9-7900X - costs £900/$1000. That's £500/$500 less than its predecessor, the i7-6950X. In previous years, such cost-cutting would have been regarded as generous. You might, at a stretch, even call it good value. But that was at a time when Intel's monopoly on the CPU market was as its strongest, before a resurgent AMD lay waste to the idea that a chip with more than four cores be reserved for those with the fattest wallets.
AMD's Ryzen is far from perfect. But when you can buy eight cores that serve even the heaviest of multitaskers and content creators for well under half the price of an Intel HEDT chip, i9 and X299 are a hard sell (except, perhaps, to fussy gamers that demand a no-compromises system).
The question is: Are you willing to pay a premium for the best performing silicon on the market? Or is Ryzen, gaming foibles and all, good enough?
I've said this countless times, but I want to keep bringing this one home: this is what competition does. It lowers prices, improves performance, and makes Intel looks like a stumbling fool. And what better day to celebrate the benefits of competition than today?
Cheers, America. Party safe!
Home of the world's biggest collection of classic text mode fonts, system fonts and BIOS fonts from DOS-era IBM PCs and compatibles
A great collection of classic DOS fonts.
AMD has reportedly gained 10.4 percentage points of CPU market share in the second quarter of 2017. This makes it the largest x86 CPU market share gain in the history of the Sunnyvale, California based chip maker against its much larger rival Intel.
The data is courtesy of PassMark's quarterly market share report, which is based on the thousands of submissions that go through the database in any given quarter. It's important to note that because PassMark's market share data is based on benchmark submissions it counts actual systems in use, rather than systems sold. It also does not include consoles or any computer systems running operating systems other than Windows.
I do dislike the fact that the chart only has two lines to show. We'd be better off with more than just two x86 chip makers, but alas.
In light of yesterday's post, here's a short look at the early days of Ethernet.
Nowadays, we take Ethernet for granted. We plug a cable jack into the wall or a switch and we get the network. What's to think about?
It didn't start that way. In the 1960s and 1970s, networks were ad hoc hodgepodges of technologies with little rhyme and less reason. But then Robert "Bob" Metcalfe was asked to create a local-area network (LAN) for Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). His creation, Ethernet, changed everything.
On a related note, in one of the recent Xerox Alto restoration videos, two of the people who worked on the invention of Ethernet, Dave Boggs and Ron Crane, helped out fixing the Alto Ethernet card - carrying some very old-fashioned Ethernet equipment and telling some great stories from the early '70s.
Sadly, Ron Crane passed away 19 June.
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