Me too, on the VIC-20.

I think something like the Commodore PET might qualify. Back in the day, I saw it used for everything from cash registers to accountants’ workstations, but rarely for anything else.

I think that the original IBM PC was conceived and marketed as a business machine and only grew beyond that because of Microsoft’s deep commitment to it as a platform and IBM’s uncharacteristicly open specifications and design.

If not for that combination, the PC might never have left the office and most of us would have stuck with the companies who were actually breaking new ground, Apple and Commodore.

That doesn’t surprise me. I have Haiku running in a VM, but haven’t looked at it in 2 years, despite the fact I used BeOS as a daily driver back in the day.

Well, if you want “compile something unstable yourself,” here is their official documentation for ARM64.

And here is someone’s progress report on porting to RISC-V. They seem to have started in 2021, so maybe they were successful.

I’m currently using the paid version to host my occasional writing and am very happy with it. It’s not perfect, but what is?

One thing I like about it is that it’s not just a blogging platform, but it’s own little slice of the web. The home page is a list of blog entries from all the blogs sorted by some combination of “toasts” (likes) and age. (And the trending algorithm is both simple and publicly viewable.) I don’t explicitly subscribe to anyone else’s blog, but enjoy just browsing “trending” and “recent”.

To answer the question a bit more directly, I would guess that demographics here skew a bit older than elsewhere. That is just a guess, based on the fact that sdf.org dates back to 1987.

Two big ones. I bought the VIC-20 shortly after introduction when I was 21.

Big memory 1: writing machine language programs without the aid of an assembler. I couldn’t afford the assembler cartridge, but I wanted to break out of the BASIC sandbox.

Big memory 2: finding a military surplus acoustic coupler modem and using the schematics to make my own connector, then writing a terminal program so I could dial in to these crazy things called BBSs.

Are you sure that rounding was broken? Many systems use “Gaussian” or “banker’s” rounding to reduce accumulation of rounding errors. Instead of always rounding to the next larger absolute value at .5, they round to the nearest even number. Although it introduces a bias toward even numbers in the result set, it reduces accumulation of error when .5 is as likely as as any other fraction and odd/even are equally likely in the source.

I was taught “banker’s” rounding in school (graduated 1974) and have had to implement it a few times to reduce error accumulation.

If you are looking for a rabbit hole, Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive article, including an example of how the wrong choice of rounding algorithm led to massive problems at the Vancouver Stock Exchange (Canada).

I agree. I have no idea what it takes to run publicly accessible services over the long haul. Hell, I can barely keep my sorry-ass website up!

I know that lemmy itself is pretty new, but I have to assume that the people who’ve been keeping SDF alive and functional for over 35 years know what they’re doing.

Did you try logging in anyway? Maybe their email notification glitched. I’ve signed up a few places without providing an email, then come back a day or two later to find an active account.

I mostly agree, but I’ve seen elsewhere that the fediverse (or some corners of it) were set up with the explicit intent to be ad-free and privacy respecting.

My opinion is that it all comes down to two things:

1. Will Threads respect that intent?
2. Given the difficulty of moderating content, can we handle the expected volume?

The answers to those questions can guide the admins (and us, I guess) in the decision.

Edit: this comment changed my mind. In a nutshell, if we can’t keep a large instance controlled by “the enemy” from destroying what we’ve got, then we just have to do better next time.

Yes, I would. Even if they are administered by people that have the best interests everyone at heart, sheer size means that they must be taken into account as the tools and clients evolve over time.

It’s not that the system itself should be unable to cope with large instances, it’s that the only reason for the system itself to gain that capability is in response to the rise or introduction of large instances. Some of what I’ve seen discussed is the need to change the development roadmap to accommodate the seemingly unexpected rise and possible introduction of very large instances. In other words, those instances are already controlling the direction taken.

Edit: this comment changed my mind. In a nutshell, if we can’t keep a large instance controlled by “the enemy” from destroying what we’ve got, then we just have to do better next time.

I have been making a related point that we should be concerned about any instance capturing too large a fraction of the space. I’m less concerned about the fact that it’s Meta than I am about any one instance having a critical mass that gives them a controlling interest.

History has shown that those with a controlling interest eventually use that control for their own benefit.

That’s why I joined a small collection of focused instances and try to subscribe to communities that are hosted in their “natural homes” instead of those on generic instances.

If you’ll accept early 20s as childhood (I do!) then me too! :)

I think it was 300 baud. I couldn’t afford it, so followed the schematics to figure out how to connect a military surplus acoustic coupler modem at 110 baud. I didn’t know any better, so I thought it was fantastic. Still, a few months later I got a good job and upgraded to an Apple//c clone and a 1200 baud modem.

My first modem was 110 baud acoustic coupler modem that I got from military surplus. I couldn’t afford the modem Commodore sold for the VIC-20, so I figured out how to wire this thing in.

I didn’t really do all that much with it, because not too much later I got a better job so upgraded to a Laser whatever clone of the Apple//c and a 1200 baud modem.