C has been the standard system language almost since the time of its creation. Teaching that standard is valuable even if we’re in the midst of a change.
As for why, a system designed to be pedantic will necessarily be different from one intending to be production ready.
Why i386 and BIOS? It is simple enough for the purpose of teaching. Inundating a student with modern x86-64, UEFI (where most implementations do not meet standards), and such is not a great idea. People just get overwhelmed and shut down. It may be worthwhile to start with something simpler honestly, like DOS and 8088, or even CP/M and 8080. Working one up through time exposes the individual to simpler things and then progressively more complex things. It is useful.
As a side benefit, teaching people about these older things instructs them on how and why things came to be the way they are which may help create better entrepreneurs.
Concerning C: C has obviously proven itself in countless system and embedded projects of all sizes. Nevertheless, C essentially represents the state of knowledge of the early seventies. Projects like the one discussed would be a good opportunity to test newer languages for their suitability for operating system and embedded development, without the pressure of a commercial project.
> Why i386 and BIOS? It is simple enough for the purpose of teaching.
Agree; that's also one of the reasons operating systems like xv6 dedicated for teaching do so; I'm therefore interested in how Fiwix positions itself in relation to xv6.
C was hardly seen as systems language in 8 and 16 bit home computers, just one more to chose from, as most compute intensive stuff was actually still written in Assembly.
The web as an app platform form was primarily pushed by Netscape to circumvent Microsoft’s monopoly. Sun tried the same with Java. Both of these efforts led directly to every problem the author is complaining about. There was no utopia. The world went from an expensive monopoly under IBM to an expensive monopoly under WinTel to an expensive duopoly under Microsoft and Apple.
If people dislike exploitative SaaS and content platforms, stop using them. No one is forcing anyone. Plenty of people use home servers and Linux. Go for it. There are also tools like Chris Titus’s UWU to make Windows more tolerable, and MS still sells an office suite that can be installed locally. You don’t even have to “sign in” with it, though you can.
I’ve lived through several distinct eras of computing. This one may not be the most exciting, but it’s by far the best. You can use SaaS or locally installed stuff, and emulators (both hardware and software) exist to keep the older stuff alive. Even better, I don’t have to panic save every 5 seconds, reboot my computer every hour, and my computer can come with me. I don’t get disconnected when someone places a call, and while some software is expensive, it’s cheaper than it used to be when inflation adjusted.
Go fire up an Apple II, an H89, a TRS-80, or a PET without any modern supplementation and tell me that those are preferable. You may groan about Google, but go back to purchasing tons of manuals that may or may not be specific to your machine, read through them only to find no answer and proceed to play detective for a few weeks. How much more productive is your time with a dang search engine?
I don’t think this would actually be too hard. Ladybird browser is making progress everyday. A browser is harder than an OS. As for market adoption, it would take someone with a ton of money to bribe device manufacturers and press the way that Microsoft used to do. So, I wouldn’t say it’s hard. Getting the right people involved would be the hard bit. How many S tier devs in the browser space are ready to gamble their futures? How many S tier OSdevs? How many completely batty billionaires are there?
Probably because Google, Facebook, Insta, and TikTok need to constantly observe where the phone is, what and who it’s near, what’s being said, what’s being done on device, and so on. That’s a lot sensor access, a lot of compute, and a lot of bandwidth relatively speaking. The average phone with Facebook and without has noticeable battery differences even if both phones are left untouched (personal testing, I don’t have formal numbers for that last bit).
ICBMs are not meant to go East or West, they go over the pole. A nuke passing from Russia over the North Pole toward D.C. or NYC would be detectable from Greenland. This is why there’s a radar station there. The island would also be a good spot for a naval base from which one could send ships on patrol between Greenland and Iceland or even the UK. This is useful in attempts to maintain control of the North Atlantic as Russia and China have increased their activity in the arctic and North Atlantic. Personally, I find all of the hostility between nations stupid. War drains wealth while trade increases it. However, politicians and governments become institutionally stupid as they attempt to hold on to power and their duties in government make them see enemies in every foreign government.
> ICBMs are not meant to go East or West, they go over the pole
Yes and No.
Most effective trajectory to reach Russia from US (or vice versa) is really over Arctic region.
But in USSR created ICBMs with capabilities to reach US over Antarctic region, and even semi-orbital ICBM R-36 orb (it is large and expensive and not in production now, but Russia have all drawings so could design modern remake).
And Israel created space rockets, which launched to west (usually space rockets, launched to east), because unfriendly countries on east side could make wrong considerations if Israel launch to east.
So, as I said, yes, most effective trajectory via North pole region, but years ago produced rockets, which could hit US from any direction.
Except worse because plastics are destroying ecosystems and recycling makes people feel better about it despite most recyclable statements being effectively false. Most people have no idea what cold fusion is, and they know even less about why it would be good.
>despite most recyclable statements being effectively false
I keep seeing these sort of statements but have yet to see one backed up by a link to some reputable evidence.
My local supermarket accepts clean soft plastics for recycling and when I investigated I found membership of schemes to ensure full transparency. Looking further I found the companies accepting the waste and financial statements indicating heavy investment in machinery to deal with it.
Plastic recycling, because of what plastics are, is basically impossible at cost. PET recycling might make you think "see, we can recycle plastics" but first and foremost, PET recycling isn't recycling, it's reuse (using the PET as a base material to make something else, like fleece, which cannot be recycled), and second: the majority of plastics aren't PET and literally have no recycling path.
Turns out you can fit a lot of papers in a youtube video when you have a degree in the field and you're doing investigative journalism that you present in a way that people might enjoy watching.
And the final message is definitely a little more nuanced than that =D
As for why, a system designed to be pedantic will necessarily be different from one intending to be production ready.
Why i386 and BIOS? It is simple enough for the purpose of teaching. Inundating a student with modern x86-64, UEFI (where most implementations do not meet standards), and such is not a great idea. People just get overwhelmed and shut down. It may be worthwhile to start with something simpler honestly, like DOS and 8088, or even CP/M and 8080. Working one up through time exposes the individual to simpler things and then progressively more complex things. It is useful.
As a side benefit, teaching people about these older things instructs them on how and why things came to be the way they are which may help create better entrepreneurs.
reply