Michal Hobot

@davepl1968 Btw, I could get rid of next_hyphen_pos and use hyphen_pos[k] instead, but I wanted to avoid dereferencing memory in each iteration.

@davepl1968 - I'd change the if (j == 8 || ...) to: if (j == next_hyphen_pos) { out[j++] = '-'; next_hyphen_pos = hyphen_pos[++k]; } That way there would be just one comparison in each iteration instead of four. (2/2)

Back in 1994, I removed printf() from Windows COM. Here's the story of why! Share if you enjoy! Thx!

@davepl1968 I stand corrected. Still, original thesis “Dave renamed ls to dir” is nonsensical

Nope! I'm still two years older than TOPS-10 :-)

@AutisticJW @davepl1968 But dir command is much older than Dave’s work at Microsoft, it’s older than Dave himself. Here’s full story: ohm.bearblog.dev/dir/

@davepl1968 I've always wondered who I should direct all that pent up anger, aggression, and outrage.. Glad you finally identified yourself.. is there a good reason you renamed ls .. dir?

There's old, and then there's "I worked on MS-DOS" old. It's the last time I got paid to write in assembly. I was fortunate to come in towards the last versions of MS-DOS. But I still expect it'll give me some serious riz down at the old tech folk's home in a few years ;-) Everything that I knew of in MS-DOS was written in hand-coded x86 assembler, which I had never coded in (I was a 6502/68000/PDP guy). I learned fast enough, but came to really hate segments! We used MASM 2 as our assembler, even though I think the product had reached v5 by then. At some point, when your code is the de facto standard, you can't just start using a new assembler... that would generate different code, a backward compatibility nightmare. I used EDIT.COM, the simple thing built into MS-DOS, as my code editor, nothing fancy. White on blue. I forget now what the debugger was, probably CodeView? You'll notice I religiously say "MS-DOS" and not just "DOS". There was literally a jar you had to deposit money in if you were caught just saying "DOS". Old habits die hard. There were some legendary brains on that team, and especially when you're a fresh college hire, I got to imprint on some of the best. But if there's one thing Bill Gates taught me, it was never to name-drop.

@davepl1968 Let’s face it: that whole open()/read()/seek() concept was meant for TAPE drives. For the disk drives, memory mapping is much more natural and for SSD it should be a no-brainer in any modern OS

Time to learn "memory-mapped files"! I'm processing 15,000 video game frames a second, doing inference to generate the next move, and storing them all in an array. I WAS using an in-memory vector, but I was pushing the limits of the 512GB in this system! So I switched over to memory mapped files (I'm using nmap on Linux, but it's the same as memory-mapped files on Windows). Memory-mapped files are one of those OS tricks that feel like cheating — in a good way. Instead of doing this: read(fd, buffer, 4096); process(buffer); You do this: ptr = mmap(file); process(ptr); That’s it. The file just appears in your address space. Your file is now in memory. Instantly. No explicit reads. No manual buffering. No memcpy gymnastics. Why it’s cool: • The OS handles paging automatically • You get zero-copy I/O (the page cache is your buffer) • Random access becomes trivial • Huge files become easy to work with • It enables super fast IPC like mine When you touch a byte, the CPU faults in just that page. If you never touch part of the file, it never loads. Demand paging does the heavy lifting. Even better: two processes can map the same file and share memory without explicit shared memory APIs. It’s basically “files as RAM.” Conceptually, this idea goes back to Multics, BSD mmap(), Mach, and eventually into Windows NT’s section objects. We used it in the Windows Shell to replace the shared segments in Win95. It allowed us to access the communal data without exposing one process's memory to another. Once you internalize it, normal file I/O starts to feel… primitive. Memory-mapped files are one of those “you’re thinking about the machine correctly now” moments.

@marcin_kedryna @andrewmichta @PiotrBajda To pewnie Wielkanocny

@andrewmichta @PiotrBajda Nie napisała na który poniedziałek.

Seriously…?

@GeorgeE34743660 @davepl1968 - Keyboard (din) - 2x serial (one to be used by a serial mouse) - parallel - VGA - sound card with game port - faxmodem, probably with voicemail option

@davepl1968 com lpt monitor miniscsi? phone keyboard scsi? IIRC SCSI was 50 pins.

When trying to identify which port is which, just remember that, like most serial killers, most serial ports are male.

@docphilgewd @norbert5150 @RetroMoviesDB Absolutely not. That was the time you could buy land for almost nothing, including the most attractive places close to the city centers and the most beautiful tourist places at the sea shore, lakes and mountains. In the next 15 years you’d build generational wealth

@norbert5150 @RetroMoviesDB You lived in a shithole then. Your plan should have been “move somewhere nice”

What do you do?

@geerlingguy Would it work wirelessly, powered eg by a phone charger?

One thing holding me back from adopting a mechanical keyboard was the lack of Touch ID. I fixed that problem and documented the whole process in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=tzB6m2… But now, I wonder: why doesn't Apple sell an external Touch ID sensor?

There is a new port of zx2040 to the PicoCalc! github.com/ohm69/zx-picoc…

@davepl1968 There was always a twin chip setup in Teslas, for refundancy. And I don’t remember edge connector. Is that AI5 board some dev kit?

How extensible was the edge connector in the older Teslas? ie: could they swap an AI5 board into a HW3 card? Or is a hardware update much more invasive?

Uproszczona, ale w wielu miejscach trafna diagnoza. Autor przeskakuje nad drugą połową krakowskiego IT, tą nie należącą do korporacji. Pomija też - żeby szybciej dobiec do założonej tezy - kwestię braku rodzimego kapitału, zwalczanego przez państwo (Kluska) i media (Filipiak). 4-

@TeslaBoomerMama ID.4, Enyaq and Q4 e-tron should be presented as one, getting over 95k sales in total. All these are built in the same factory, on the same line, with the same batteries, motors, software etc. Big success, taking into account how much better Model Y is

Top selling EVs in Europe first half of 2025. Who would have thought this, when reading MSM?

@EdLudlow Em dashes reveal true author of that post 🤖 Neither Starlink requires xAI nor vice versa. Low latency inference is either mission-critical and then it needs local computing like in FSD or it can do with any internet provider

xAI, SpaceX and Tesla Here’s how its been explained to me by investors and insiders: Musk’s companies are moving toward a vertically integrated AI infrastructure model, with clear strategic overlap. xAI needs global distribution and low-latency inference at scale; Starlink, via SpaceX, offers exactly that. So SpaceX funding xAI is less about external investment and more about securing a core customer for its satellite network. As space-based data infrastructure becomes more viable—through players like Relativity and StarCloud—early alignment between compute, distribution, and application becomes a competitive edge. The broader architecture combines distribution (Starlink), compute (Tesla/NVIDIA), models (xAI), and interface (X/Grok) into a loosely connected but purpose-driven stack. Importantly, this isn’t being executed through a single entity. Each business—SpaceX, Tesla, xAI, and X—remains structurally separate, partly for regulatory reasons. Combining them would trigger antitrust scrutiny and create compliance burdens across multiple jurisdictions. By keeping the companies distinct (X/XAI under X Holdings Corp.),there’s more flexibility for partnerships, spin-outs, or fundraising tailored to each domain. It’s a modular approach to control and capital—allowing for strategic collaboration without the rigidity or risk of full consolidation.

PicoCalc: A toy? Prototyping platform? Not sure yet ohm.bearblog.dev/picocalc-not-s…

@sambendett @grok, what’s EW?

Russians are testing a mobile UGV-based EW system t.me/JokerLab_W/196

@SawyerMerritt @grok Is that comma after “introducing” needed?

Apple: Introducing, transparent icons. Tesla: Introducing, Robotaxis.

@GrahamKingma @alex_avoigt Absolutely! Think about Red flag acts en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti…

@alex_avoigt I’m sure there were a very large percentage of people who rode horses who told everybody that these new-fangled cars were a terrible idea and very unsafe

Be prepared that after the launch of Tesla Robotaxis, the media will try everything to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt and report everything between unintentional misinformation and deliberate lies, but that doesn't change the fact that FSD will prevent accidents, saves many lifes, increase productivity and quality of life and change the world of transport for good. $tsla

@MarekGaski @PGerschmann Im dalej od miejsca pracy się wyniosę tym więcej zarobię za czas dojazdów. Sprytne

@PGerschmann Dojazd do pracy, to tez praca.

Mam pytanie do odważnych: wymień jedną rzecz, co do której masz rację, a reszta świata się myli