Writing Assemblers... What should a good assembler do?

[cjs]

And then we get Microsoft Windows, or Linux, running on a machine a million times faster than that era could provide, and they still take 30 seconds to 5 minutes to boot - highlights just how little progress has been made on such technologies and how incredibly bloated things have become on modern computer systems which require more than 4Gb of memory just to run up an operating system.

God, I hate complaints like this. You do realise that this is entirely your fault, right? You're the one who chose to boot Windows 10 rather than DOS 3.3 on your new computer.

Computers running programs super-fast and doing I/O super-fast are widely available today. For under $100 you can go buy an eZ80-based CP/M system that can run word processors, spreadsheets, assemblers and all sorts of other applications in the blink of an eye. If that's not good enough for you, then speed problem is not all those terrible programmers out there making "bloat" but that you are demanding the bloat.

 

[whartung]

For under $100 you can go buy an eZ80-based CP/M system that can run word processors, spreadsheets, assemblers and all sorts of other applications in the blink of an eye.

But he couldn't participate on a forum such as this with that kind of machine. i don't even know if you can participate with modern email on such a machine. I mean, I guess you can, I just don't know how long it takes to encrypt a modern TLS stream on that kind of hardware, and everything is encrypted today. So, I guess you can upload overnight to your mail provider assuming it doesn't time you out. Of course, you'll need a network connection, and I do believe there are still dialup ISPs out there (you can run PPP over the modem).

Any CP/M machines with ethernet cards?

I think a TCP stack needs about 32K to run, not counting any encryption.

Of course, you can't use a modern printer on such a machine, they're all USB (well, honestly, does OKIDATA still sell dot matrix printers?). I think if you can get the data to a modern printer, you'll find that old school HP or EPSON control codes likely still work. Though, I think all modern printers are using a shared "internet printing" protocol. I just don't know if the host computer is just sending bit maps, or you can send higher level codes that the printer renders.

Rendering a 300DPI image on a CP/M machine would be a lot of work, I think.

I don't know of any CP/M software that can make, say, PDFs so you can share your documents, though it would not surprise me if MS Word can still open Wordstar or Wordperfect documents. I'm pretty sure LibreOffice can.

Are there any CP/M programs that can create Postscript? Interestingly, the latest MacOS finally deprecated native support for Postscript. It can no longer open a PS file with the stock OS. It's considered too dangerous today, potential security threat. And that's just because there's no eyes on that code anymore, it has fallen into such disuse.

I actually put some thought in writing a document formatter (ala RUNOFF, troff, etc.) that produced native PDF for CP/M. PDF is actually a very friendly format for resource constrained systems (in terms of generating it). Rendering Wordstar to PDF likely wouldn't be a horrible task.

 

[WSM]

Although this thread has gotten off topic, I'll add my $0.02 on topic before responding to previous comments.

I've written a fair amount of Z80 and derivatives software in assembler. In order to make it available and useful for others, I choose to simply use very commonly available and documented assemblers / linkers ... namely M80/L80 and Zilog's ZDS for some eZ80 stuff. Since I also use Z180's and prefer to use structured logic like IF-THEN-ELSE, I have a preprocessor that converts these structures and Z180 mnemonics into M80 source. For distribution purposes, I include both the structured source and the M80 source which gives the user an option as to which they're more comfortable with.

That being said, I fully appreciate that hobbyists can use projects like this to further their learning, understanding and programming capabilities.

But he couldn't participate on a forum such as this with that kind of machine

I've just scanned a few of the various replies but I don't think anyone is trying to compare a CP/M system to a current Windows system. I choose to distinguish between hobby / development activities and my general purpose workhorse machine. Likewise there are hobbyists who enjoy software and/or hardware development in addition to those who simply want to freeload on the activities of others.

I agree that Windows has a lot of bloatware but there is also a humongous wealth of software, applications available for it.

I'm sorry if you feel that an eZ80 user isn't entitled to their choice of hobby machines simply because they might not be able to use it to access this forum. I've been developing 50 MHz eZ80's running CP/M for several years. Why wouldn't I want a Z80 compatible system that runs at the equivalent of a Z80 at up to about 200 MHz, has a large RAMdisk, SD & flash disks? Programs that used to take several minutes can now run in a few seconds.

Any CP/M machines with ethernet cards?

Like others, I've built Z180 systems that use the WizNET chips for ethernet connection. My Min-eZ system uses the eZ80F91's internal EMAC plus external PHY & RJ45 magnetics.

Of course, you can't use a modern printer on such a machine, they're all USB

Been there and done that on a Z180 using an FTDI Vinculum-II chip which acts as a USB host and can support thumb drives, printers, etc.

 

[cj7hawk]

You may also find it helpful to stop coding for a bit and write the manual for your assembler. I often find that writing documentation for the developers who are going to be using my system makes it clear to me when I've gone down some far-too-convoluted path for how something should work, and convinces me to redesign things to be a lot simpler.

It really does need the manual written, with clear examples and descriptions - Otherwise I doubt anyone would understand how to use the features from the posts I make here including myself.

Of course, that doesn't mean the manual will clear up everything - but it's better than me talking about features that, for all intents and purposes, don't exist outside of the emulator on my desk.

God, I hate complaints like this. You do realise that this is entirely your fault, right? You're the one who chose to boot Windows 10 rather than DOS 3.3 on your new computer.

Last I checked, I can't run DOS under Windows, or on modern machines at all. And more than once I've considered rolling back to Windows 7 but too much software that I do need just doesn't run on Windows 7 even. Running DOS would mean even more bloatware on a modern PC.

I run Linux too, but only for what Windows is absolutely hopeless at.

Besides, I'm not the *only* one who hates this about Microsoft Windows. Microsoft themselves hate this too.... Have you noticed just how hard it is to shut down their OS or their computers? Because they have gone crazy trying to address the slow boot times by making sure your computer will never shut down again and their bloatware will forever keep executing.

I don't hate Microsoft though - I absolutely love their Surface Books - and am using one now. But the OS no longer serves the user. It entirely servers the company and the user is just another product now, which I really don't like, because I'm paying for it. Well, admittedly I'm not paying much for it. I think each OS costs me around $15-$25 on average.

I live ever hopeful that one day we'll see a half-decent anti-trust case against Microsoft that forces them to open up the OS, and then maybe people will write Windows-Lite type OSs that can do most of what Windows does, but without the pain.

I had to build some C# code the other day, and it was a nightmare. I've never touched C# before and don't know C either but just getting the code itself to compile was a nightmare of whether or not the latest Microsoft development environment supported it. I eventually succeeded, but it was not something I'd want to go through again.

If that's not good enough for you, then speed problem is not all those terrible programmers out there making "bloat" but that you are demanding the bloat.

It's not the programmers fault. Programmers just do what programmers are paid to do. Rarely do they make those kinds of decisions. Programmers don't come up with ideas like Secure Boot that takes away choice. Even viruses and Malware have more privileges than most users.

But he couldn't participate on a forum such as this with that kind of machine. i don't even know if you can participate with modern email on such a machine.

One of the reasons why I keep using Windows... I could use Linux, but I can't honestly say it would be better to use Linux over Windows. I could also use a Chromebook, but I like applications running locally. I don't like Apple machines either. Windows 10 is still the best choice I can find ( Windows 11 grates on me too much, so I avoid upgrading ) but it doesn't mean I don't want more. It's just not available.

But that I'd write my own assemblers / dev environment / Emulators / OS etc for fun because I don't like the alternatives is probably pretty close to the reason. I still like the command line and still prefer CMD over Powershell.

The day I lose the CMD line is probably the day I'll have two computers. One to run the latest stuff I want to run, and a separate development system... Everything I do can still be ported to Linux. One day I'll probably become the hermit in the cave living off-grid and running a z80 based OS. Then I'll have to keep my Windows-15 "1984" edition machine hidden so no one realizes I still use forums.

 

[cjs]

But he couldn't participate on a forum such as this with that kind of machine.

Precisely. Note that it's not Microsoft forcing him to upgrade, but his desire for more features, so he can e.g. access forums like this, that's driving the whole "bloatware" thing.

MS would probably be truly happy if users had to this day simply continued to find DOS 3.3 an acceptable "OS" and they could coast on selling that forever rather than spending a billion dollars a year or more on programmers to make more features demanded by the users.

i don't even know if you can participate with modern email on such a machine. I mean, I guess you can, I just don't know how long it takes to encrypt a modern TLS stream on that kind of hardware, and everything is encrypted today.

That's actually the real kicker if you want to go back to an older style of system: you need a certain amount of speed to deal with stuff you pretty much have to have, such as encryption, decompression and large, high-res bitmap displays that are updated quickly for video. I've thought about this a bit, actually, and I think it could be done with a new, fairly simple CPU architecture (one much more auditable than current x86 stuff) and an OS focused very heavily on true simplicity, as opposed to what people think of as simple when they look at it. But that's likely to go nowhere; even just abandoning overlapping windows, the desktop metaphor, and WYSIWYG editing (i.e., you edit what looks like the final output) is surely a non-starter for most of the world.

Are there any CP/M programs that can create Postscript?

Yes, and it even comes with the base CP/M system. It's called ED.COM. :-P

In order to make it available and useful for others, I choose to simply use very commonly available and documented assemblers / linkers ... namely M80/L80 and Zilog's ZDS for some eZ80 stuff. Since I also use Z180's and prefer to use structured logic like IF-THEN-ELSE, I have a preprocessor that converts these structures and Z180 mnemonics into M80 source. For distribution purposes, I include both the structured source and the M80 source which gives the user an option as to which they're more comfortable with.

Not that this has anything to do with the topic, but I had just give you a big for this. I really appreciate people both making tools to increase usability and, where possible, giving options to those who don't want to go learning those tools (or who just want to read stuff without running the tools to generate that stuff). This really shows some attention to making your readers' lives easier.

Last I checked, I can't run DOS under Windows, or on modern machines at all.

Yeah, DOS 3.3 probably doesn't boot on modern systems. But you get the general idea.

And more than once I've considered rolling back to Windows 7 but too much software that I do need just doesn't run on Windows 7 even.

Well, again, this is about what you want to run. To you, it's more important to run that software than protest against bloated OSes by running older OSes. That's not uncommon (hell, I'm the same), and that's why we have bloatware. It's just not as important to avoid bloat as it is to run the latest software.

I run Linux too, but only for what Windows is absolutely hopeless at.

Well, you should perhaps consider reversing that and doing as much as you can on Linux, using Windows only for what Linux is absolutely hopeless at. Linux is in general less bloated from the start, and you have a lot of options for reducing your bloat even more. For example, I don't even use any of the standard desktop systems (Gnome, KDE, etc.); I use a much simpler (and much smaller) setup consisting of the FVWM2 window manager, xfce4-panel, and a small handful of other programs for input methods and so on. The whole desktop configuration/startup is literally fifteen lines of code, and it's clear exactly what's going on and what's being run.

Between that and being a heavy user of command-line utilities, pretty much the only real bloatware I run any more (on Linux, at least) is my web browser and, arguably, KiCad. (The other visual tools I use, such as Zathura for viewing PDFs, are pretty non-bloaty.)

I don't hate Microsoft though - I absolutely love their Surface Books - and am using one now. But the OS no longer serves the user.

Well, I'd disagree; Windows 10 is one of the best versions of Windows I've seen since I started seeing Windows back in 1990, and I think it's finally better than MacOS when it comes to usability. (It only took MS 30 years! ) But that's definitely a topic for another thread and, anyway, MS may be ruining this with Windows 11.

I live ever hopeful that one day we'll see a half-decent anti-trust case against Microsoft that forces them to open up the OS, and then maybe people will write Windows-Lite type OSs that can do most of what Windows does, but without the pain.

We have that; it's called "Linux" (plus your desktop system of choice). Though I suspect what you're looking for is compatibility with existing Windows applications, which basically by definition is never "lite" and the source of much (probably most) of the pain of Windows.

 

[wrljet]

Last I checked, I can't run DOS under Windows, or on modern machines at all.

FWIW, 32-bit Windows 10 will still run 16-bit DOS programs.

 

[Svenska]

Note that it's not Microsoft forcing him to upgrade, but his desire for more features, so he can e.g. access forums like this, that's driving the whole "bloatware" thing.

This is a strange take on the issue. These new features are not my desire. It is others who desire them and I simply have no choice in the matter, especially when the service in question is mandatory (e.g. banking services, tax handling, identity verification, etc).

Sure, nobody strictly needs this forum. Or Facebook. But being unable or unwilling to comply with legal requirements carries a whole separate weight.

MS would probably be truly happy if users had to this day simply continued to find DOS 3.3 an acceptable "OS" and they could coast on selling that forever rather than spending a billion dollars a year or more on programmers to make more features demanded by the users.

I strongly disagree. Look at the world around you. Microsoft doesn't want to coast on selling, they want to coast on leasing. Perpetual, continuous revenue streams is the name of the game; throw in an "alternate" for good measure. You are the product. And you do not get to choose.

Any CP/M machines with ethernet cards?

Most CP/M machines should be able to handle SLIP, but Ethernet cards for the RC2014 bus do exist. Adapting an NE2000-compatible ISA card to the bus shouldn't be too hard.

I think a TCP stack needs about 32K to run, not counting any encryption.

There is uIP, which is quite a bit smaller. Add in the mandatory encryption algorithms for TLS and you'll need a bit more. Performance on a fast eZ80 should be sufficient to connect at all.

Dealing with most content reliably is straight up impossible. The web is a Turing-complete environment requiring more memory than 8-bit systems can reasonably handle even with bank switching.

 

[cjs]

This is a strange take on the issue. These new features are not my desire. It is others who desire them and I simply have no choice in the matter, especially when the service in question is mandatory (e.g. banking services, tax handling, identity verification, etc).

Wow, that's very unusual, and I've never heard of that before. In what country do you live where Internet access is effectively mandatory? (Here in Japan, all the things you mention can still be done through the traditional means that people used thirty years ago, before the web started to be used for such things as well.)
I'm also curious as to what sort of things every citizen must do that can be done only over the Internet, and how those without a smartphone or computer deal with the situation.

I strongly disagree. Look at the world around you. Microsoft doesn't want to coast on selling, they want to coast on leasing. Perpetual, continuous revenue streams is the name of the game; throw in an "alternate" for good measure. You are the product. And you do not get to choose.

Ah. While I've seen this with other software, I'd missed the point where Windows licenses could no longer be "bought" outright (i.e., a perpetual license) but only "rented" month by month or year by year. Perhaps you can tell me at which version of Windows this started.

Dealing with most content reliably is straight up impossible. The web is a Turing-complete environment requiring more memory than 8-bit systems can reasonably handle even with bank switching.

This is certainly true, but again, this is a matter of desire, not need.You can simulate what it might be like to use the web from a CP/M machine by browsing a bit with Lynx; you might be surprised by how much useful stuff to which you still have access. DuckDuckGo works as well in Lynx as it does in Chrome, and Wikipedia isn't too bad. This site generates complaints that you should turn on JavaScript, but still at least displays the messages in a vaguely readable form.

I don't disagree with your implied claim that you, and actually a lot of people, want the fancy stuff that has driven the web to needing Turing-complete environments with sophisticated language interpreters and runtimes. I'm just saying that it's that very desire that is causing bloat: you can't both want that sort of thing and want less bloat.

(And if you really do want less bloat, start using Lynx instead of Chrome or whatever. If enough people do this, the bloat will start to go away. If everybody who claims that they don't like bloat just gives in and uses bloatware anyway, well, it's pretty obvious what vendors, not seeing any real objections to bloat and a lot of demand for it, are going to do.)

 

[whartung]

Like others, I've built Z180 systems that use the WizNET chips for ethernet connection. My Min-eZ system uses the eZ80F91's internal EMAC plus external PHY & RJ45 magnetics.

That F91 looks very cool. 24 bit address? Those are treated as banks? or does the CPU have special handling for that large of an address?

Been there and done that on a Z180 using an FTDI Vinculum-II chip which acts as a USB host and can support thumb drives, printers, etc.

Have you tried connecting to a USB printer? I'm curious if you can just connect and send text any more. I assume that they're not that different than they have been (i.e. if you send text, you get ... text -- 10 CPI, 66 lines per page. If you send HPGL or something similar, then Magic Happens).

It would be interesting to see a "modern" CP/M that leverages something like the facilities on this chip (i.e. a wget utility, USB disk block driver, printer driver).

That chip seems nice it that it can run SPI et al at "native" speeds, vs bit banging it (which, while SPI is simple, bit banging it just crushes performance on a legacy CPU).

I've put a little thought into a "minimal" system, and I just come back to an smaller machine running some variant of UNIX.

Multiprocessing, virtual memory, and memory protection are simply too powerful to give up, and the ready access to them through slapped together shell pipelines is just too handy.

Even something constrained like Xenix or Concurrent is just a leap above the DOSs and CP/Ms in terms of utility (IMHO).

On the other hand, just hard to get excited about. I remember bring up an old Sun Ultra 10. Got it all together, etc. Fired it up, got it working and what do you get?

$ _

A shell prompt. Like any other *nix.

Whee .

 

[cjs]

It would be interesting to see a "modern" CP/M that leverages something like the facilities on this chip (i.e. a wget utility, USB disk block driver, printer driver).

I've put a little thought into a "minimal" system, and I just come back to an smaller machine running some variant of UNIX.

Multiprocessing, virtual memory, and memory protection are simply too powerful to give up, and the ready access to them through slapped together shell pipelines is just too handy.

You might consider having a look at the later versions of OS-9. Level Two was originally introduced on the 6809, and did have memory management, though I don't know if any version had memory protection. Protection could certainly be added, though, and I hear it was in the Motorola 68000 version.

Unfortunately, the 6809's lifetime was much shorter than the Z80, and nobody ever made CPUs that ran faster than a few MHz, as far as I can tell. Still, there are always FPGAs....

A shell prompt. Like any other *nix.

But on an 8-bit, or even 16-bit, system I do find that pretty exciting.

 

[cj7hawk]

Precisely. Note that it's not Microsoft forcing him to upgrade, but his desire for more features, so he can e.g. access forums like this, that's driving the whole "bloatware" thing.

That's funny, because I swear every so often, roughly weekly, Microsoft reboots my computer intentionally to install Microsoft's latest upgrade patches for Windows 10, none of which I asked for, aside from intentionally trying to trick me into installing Windows 11 with a one-way accidental click. None of which I or others have asked for, and Microsoft is well aware how controversial this topic is, because they receive a lot of public criticism. That's not bad UI design - that's intentional UI design. At this point it's "Forced" not "Consent".

And @Svenska is correct about Microsoft's objectives - Microsoft themselves have said as much. They call Windows 10 WAAS - Windows As A Service. So while the rest of the world figure it was WAAS since Windows 7, Microsoft consider this to be true since Windows 10... But don't take my word for it.
ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-overview

So asking for a competing Windows product that isn't WAAS? There is no argument Microsoft make such a product available because they don't. Like most things, it's possible to misuse something. Trying to mis-use Windows 10 not as a service is not something it was designed to do.

Wow, that's very unusual, and I've never heard of that before. In what country do you live where Internet access is effectively mandatory? (Here in Japan, all the things you mention can still be done through the traditional means that people used thirty years ago, before the web started to be used for such things as well.)
I'm also curious as to what sort of things every citizen must do that can be done only over the Internet, and how those without a smartphone or computer deal with the situation.

@Svenska never said that and you should probably argue against his words rather than what you feel he inferred, but since you've mentioned "Effectively" rather than legislated, I'll point out that most mandatory schemes work by making the "mandatory" option so much more attractive than the alternative, functionally punishing the individual who chooses not to comply. This is how a country's laws work. That you have not heard of this is likely because you've never asked, but I'd say the corner was turned in recent years and it's gettings very difficult for people who choose not to use digital channels nowadays.

For example, you can no longer get an analog telephone in Australia any more. It's just not possible. If you want to make phone calls you need to either get an Internet connected mobile phone or have an internet service with an analog interface. Both mandate Internet access. This impacts my mother-in-law greatly as she does not want to use either the internet or modern devices. Her choice has left her isolated and vulnerable and without access to government services or even a telephone. It's not impossible for her to live, because she gets support from other who use the Internet on her behalf providing her the illusion she does not have to use the Internet, but in truth, she too is forced to have a digital identity, as is pretty much everyone in the modern world. In the end she relented and got a mobile phone and she hates it, but the requirement was effectively mandatory.

Japan is well known for it's anachronistic traits and it's people-centric government which functions well as such despite rumours of widespread corruption. From the outside, Japan appears to have a very different culture to the rest of the world. I read recently that Japan kept a train station open because just a single girl was using it to get to school and that you enacted an entire plan to keep it open until she finishes school. Honestly, that kind of dedication in government by public servants brings a tear to my eye. It would never happen here.

Most CP/M machines should be able to handle SLIP, but Ethernet cards for the RC2014 bus do exist. Adapting an NE2000-compatible ISA card to the bus shouldn't be too hard.

I implemented SLIP on a micro with 256 bytes of RAM. Long story, but it works well and carries the protocol.

You don't need much memory for an IP stack. Actually, you don't even need a stack to talk IP, and you can run a very limited IP system with just single byte transfer if you want under TCP by forcing the window down, but a small buffer makes sense. It's also nice to store the header in memory rather than assemble it every time you need it.

I was thinking to implement a minimal IP system using SLIP over a serial port into LokiOS as I work on Version 2, since by then I'll move entirely to the Loki architecture, which has 1Mb of memory and supports drivers and should even be capable of implementing preemptive multitasking if necessary, but I'll probably implement the IP into a slave z80 that handles comms and disk activity directly, since I want to combine them both to use simple IP to connect drives by serial, but extending this to include TCP and some basic TCP serial channels isn't a big task. Because it's a slave thing, I could still implement it locally on the main CPU, but that just means it would have to deal with disk and network I/O directly, and since making the main system multitasking by default is not the objective, it would be a poor choice to permanently do it that way.

How to achieve that is I'm going to make macros that hook a local system include into the code - Which is very very relevant to the thread. Though I don't mind it going offtopic. That too is relevant to the thread. It's a broad conversation that examines why someone would still write an assembler under an OS as a service in modern times, and has a lot of relevance to what such an assembler should include.

 

[cjs]

That's funny, because I swear every so often, roughly weekly, Microsoft reboots my computer intentionally to install Microsoft's latest upgrade patches for Windows 10, none of which I asked for, aside from intentionally trying to trick me into installing Windows 11 with a one-way accidental click. None of which I or others have asked for...

I have to admit I've not seen the "accidental click" Win 11 update. But I very much like the auto-updates in Win 10, so you're wrong that nobody likes it or asked for it. But in the end, you choose to use Windows over Linux despite all your complaints about not liking what they do. They take this as a vote of "people want this, or at least will put up with it," so you are part of the problem, not the solution. Stop supporting what you call "bloat" and, eventually, if enough others agree with you, the "bloat" will start going away.

And @Svenska is correct about Microsoft's objectives - Microsoft themselves have said as much. They call Windows 10 WAAS - Windows As A Service. So while the rest of the world figure it was WAAS since Windows 7, Microsoft consider this to be true since Windows 10... But don't take my word for it.
ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-overview

I've read that, and I see nothing in there about having to pay for it as a service, rather than buying perpetual licenses. That document looks to me like, "we're making are update process better," and indeed it is better (IMHO, anyway) than it used to be years ago.

@Svenska never said that and you should probably argue against his words rather than what you feel he inferred.....

Well, his actual words, via weasel-words like "effectively" and so on, are that you don't need Internet access; in which case he's agreeing with me. I don't think that's what he meant, though.

For example, you can no longer get an analog telephone in Australia any more. It's just not possible.

I'm not sure you can get an analogue telephone line here in Japan, either. But you don't need Internet access, though you do need an ISP. They come buy, plug in a router, and you plug your analogue telephone into that. I'm surprised they don't offer such services in Australia.

If you want to make phone calls you need to either get an Internet connected mobile phone or have an internet service with an analog interface. Both mandate Internet access.

Well, now we're getting into technicalities here. For the average consumer, having "Internet access" that they don't use is pretty much like not having it. Saying that you can't avoid it because of particular phone pricing plans is far from saying you have to have it and use it.

And note that the move to digital phone systems has been happening for decades. Back in the early '90s we started seeing "alarm lines" disappear due to more and more of the network going digital, and this is just a continuation of that trend.

Anyway, the original discussion was, what does your mother-in-law have to do that forces her to have an Internet connection and a modern computer?

Or rather, the original "bloat" discussion was all these people using the bloat-ware and complaining about it, but not taking steps available to them to avoid it.

 

[cj7hawk]

I have to admit I've not seen the "accidental click" Win 11 update. But I very much like the auto-updates in Win 10, so you're wrong that nobody likes it or asked for it. But in the end, you choose to use Windows over Linux despite all your complaints about not liking what they do. They take this as a vote of "people want this, or at least will put up with it," so you are part of the problem, not the solution. Stop supporting what you call "bloat" and, eventually, if enough others agree with you, the "bloat" will start going away.

You understand what the "Thin edge of the wedge" means don't you? That's what you're describing. Stopping from using something doesn't make commercial companies take notice, it emboldens them to harm society with even more egregious activities and if you're not a part of the problem, you can't be a part of the solution. I think we both agree Windows 11 sucks. That's because *not enough* existing users are complaining, and microsoft doesn't care about people who aren't their customers. If we complain enough we might get Windows 12 in a year or two. Monopolies aren't afraid of losing customers. They are afraid of criticism hurting their directors personally.

Complaining customers are a part of the self-regulatory feedback mechanism. A company should get a certain amount of criticism. This lets it know where the boundaries are, and unfortunately, microsoft has gone too far again with Windows 11. Just like it did with 98, Windows 6, Windows 8(.1), and Windows 11. It swings out as far as it thinks it can get away with doing the wrong thing for commercial gain, and each time it goes a little too far, then it comes back into addressing that with the next version.

It's no coincidence that every second windows sucks. It's a result of too few people complaining, or sometimes, too many complaints in the wrong direction causing it to abandon it's roots and it suffers as an example.
Windows 10 is great. They got a lot right. They got a lot wrong. Windows 11 sucks because not enough people complained.

I've read that, and I see nothing in there about having to pay for it as a service, rather than buying perpetual licenses. That document looks to me like, "we're making are update process better," and indeed it is better (IMHO, anyway) than it used to be years ago.

As I mentioned, Microsoft have made it clear it's "As A Service". Microsoft is the very definition of antitrust for a very good reason. This is why they are getting sued over teams. And if you think the license is perpetual, then you haven't realized you are the product and that is how you're paying them for the updates, just as @Svenska mentioned. Perpetual licenses have a key defining characteristic. One, you typically don't get ongoing updates and Two, if updates are provided, you don't have to update or change the version you got if you don't want to. Microsoft Windows fails on both accounts. But since Microsoft aren't claiming anything other than As A Service, you're position is out of step even with their public statements that reasonably seem to claim otherwise.

Which you're entirely welcome to do, but your argument lacks any evidence that would support your statement, which makes it difficult to agree with.

Well, his actual words, via weasel-words like "effectively" and so on, are that you don't need Internet access; in which case he's agreeing with me. I don't think that's what he meant, though.

I though @Svenska 's arguments were very insightful, except maybe the bit about the web being "Turing Complete" which I haven't heard before and need to think about some more.

I'm not sure you can get an analogue telephone line here in Japan, either. But you don't need Internet access, though you do need an ISP. They come buy, plug in a router, and you plug your analogue telephone into that. I'm surprised they don't offer such services in Australia.


Well, now we're getting into technicalities here. For the average consumer, having "Internet access" that they don't use is pretty much like not having it. Saying that you can't avoid it because of particular phone pricing plans is far from saying you have to have it and use it.

And note that the move to digital phone systems has been happening for decades. Back in the early '90s we started seeing "alarm lines" disappear due to more and more of the network going digital, and this is just a continuation of that trend.

We used to have analog and digital lines in Australia. They got rid of PDH and SDH entirely. No more analog, no more digital. Phone PABXs have to switch to SIP trunks now. It's all Internet. Then they got the NBN, and suddenly all of the crap equipment Telstra hadn't maintained for decades got forced back unto the taxpayers.

And no, sadly there is no commercial value in dealing with the 1% or so of people who don't want to change, and our whole NBN is a bit of a farce that is still holding Australia back. So they just leave them to suffer. It's not like they can call anyone to complain after their phone is cut off now can they? It's a self-fixing problem from that respect, hence why I was very impressed with the train station story in Japan I read about.

If you want to get a well balanced opinion on politics in Australia and how we look after the weak and vulnerable, I would recommend The Juice Media - https://www.thejuicemedia.com/ - Their skits crack me up... Now if only they would do one on Microsoft.

 

[cjs]

Stopping from using something doesn't make commercial companies take notice, it emboldens them to harm society with even more egregious activities and if you're not a part of the problem, you can't be a part of the solution.

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree about that, I suppose. That you think not buying a product encourages a company and buying it and complaining discourages them from making more products like that is certainly an interesting point of view. I don't recall the improvements in, e.g., Windows 10 coming from particularly high sales of Windows 8, however.

As for what Microsoft looks at, I suspect that this will make them sit up and take notice, though I guess you would disagree.

Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

Statcounter reports that Windows 11 continues to lose its market share for the second month in a row. Windows 10, meanwhile, is gaining more users and is now back above the 70% mark.

www.neowin.net

Monopolies aren't afraid of losing customers.

True enough. Fortunately Windows isn't a monopoly. This just goes back to the problem of, "There are less bloated desktop OSes and applications out there, and most people (including many of those complaining about bloat) prefer to use Microsoft's bloatware instead." That's what economists call an "expressed preference."

I though @Svenska 's arguments were very insightful, except maybe the bit about the web being "Turing Complete" which I haven't heard before and need to think about some more.

Well, that one seems pretty clear: there are a lot of sites on the web that don't work as nicely (and a fair number not at all) without JavaScript, which is a Turing-complete programming language. That has its good and bad points.

We used to have analog and digital lines in Australia. They got rid of PDH and SDH entirely. No more analog, no more digital. Phone PABXs have to switch to SIP trunks now. It's all Internet.

Are you absolutely sure it's Internet, and not just IP over private networks? I've worked on a number of telephony systems, and most of them use private IP. Which is pretty normal; it's just yet another change in the way telephone calls are routed. Nothing new there; various changes like this have been happening for decades. (That said, I probably agree with you about much about Aussie politics.)

 

[cj7hawk]

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree about that, I suppose. That you think not buying a product encourages a company and buying it and complaining discourages them from making more products like that is certainly an interesting point of view. I don't recall the improvements in, e.g., Windows 10 coming from particularly high sales of Windows 8, however.

As for what Microsoft looks at, I suspect that this will make them sit up and take notice, though I guess you would disagree.

Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

Statcounter reports that Windows 11 continues to lose its market share for the second month in a row. Windows 10, meanwhile, is gaining more users and is now back above the 70% mark.

www.neowin.net

It's kind of fascinating. Valve has a different take - https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/

Of course, Windows 11 will work better for games, and is newer and better supported, so yeah, this makes sense ( Games is why I went to Windows 10 ).

Interesting from that same survey - most gamers have terabytes of HDD, but consistently around 100Gb free- Just enough left to make sure the game doesn't crash from memory related issues and updates.

If windows trends further in that direction, they will just turn our PCs into XBOXs.

True enough. Fortunately Windows isn't a monopoly.

Hmmm. I can (and do) live without a Mac, but I can't live without a PC... Like I said, Microsoft is the definition of antitrust.

Well, that one seems pretty clear: there are a lot of sites on the web that don't work as nicely (and a fair number not at all) without JavaScript, which is a Turing-complete programming language. That has its good and bad points.

I missed that, though it makes sense from a perspective... I was more wondering if you could run an application across the internet native as turing complete, using comms lines as signals.

Are you absolutely sure it's Internet, and not just IP over private networks? I've worked on a number of telephony systems, and most of them use private IP. Which is pretty normal; it's just yet another change in the way telephone calls are routed. Nothing new there; various changes like this have been happening for decades. (That said, I probably agree with you about much about Aussie politics.)

Do you mean like RFC1918 private internets? Well, I can't rule them out entirely since it's possible, but mostly the telco's here use public IP space and connect these services to the Internet for good reason - their customers can reach them and almost nobody buys PLLs anymore. Especially so if they are with another carrier, and that carrier is usually the NBN, and that means there's a public IP address there somewhere. So yeah, there *might* be a telco offering a custom service over private IP space over MPLS or something like that, but I'm not aware of any that do. Certainly all the ones I've recently encountered, all all levels of enterprise, were Internet based.

About the only way to get an analog phone at all now is to go to a smaller ISP... They won't set it up for you, but will give you instructions and preconfigure the router, but even that's not enough for people who have no tech-savvy at all. Calls from mobiles to home phones were usually free here BTW, but from home phones to mobile are charged by the minute, and cost quite a lot even for a short call. Then after the holdouts held on too long, they just cut them all off and switched off the network.

 

[Svenska]

Well, his actual words, via weasel-words like "effectively" and so on, are that you don't need Internet access; in which case he's agreeing with me. I don't think that's what he meant, though.

Germany requires you to use a specific program to file your taxes. Which requires internet access. Not everyone needs to file taxes, though.

Sweden governs healthcare through a website. Alternatively, you can call in and talk to a robot. However, both approaches require you to identify yourself, which requires internet access and a smartphone app. Most stores stopped accepting cash at all, so you need a credit card - which, again, requires identification and internet access to get. Depending on the bank settings, you need internet and app access to pay as well.

Public libraries provide some internet access to people who otherwise don't have it. Good luck getting there, though. Local busses in my city require you to use an app to buy a ticket, or a card (with wireless payment enabled, which requires internet access to set up). Having a car requires setting up multiple things online, and parking require you to use either an app or a text message (which, surprisingly, requires you to have internet access to acquire in the first place). It all boils down to identification and payment.

Sure, you can live without touching the internet. But you won't get healthcare, a car, access to public transportation, a job, or even a place to live - and forget about shopping anywhere except for grocery stores (which do take cash) and older stores (which usually stop taking cash when they change their systems, which is mandated by their banks).

In my opinion, that situation makes internet access pretty much mandatory, don't you think? Surely you'll find ways to twist my words again.

I though @Svenska 's arguments were very insightful, except maybe the bit about the web being "Turing Complete" which I haven't heard before and need to think about some more.

I was referring to Javascript, which is a Turing-complete language. Many web sites - especially the ones offering services - are implement as web applications to be run client-side. Electron apps take that concept even further, by shipping a full browser engine to run a website in.

If windows trends further in that direction, they will just turn our PCs into XBOXs.

That is very much the intention. Vendor lock-in is what all big players go for right now, together with "as a service".

The EU had a few nasty words with Amazon, so that they eventually waived their explicit exit fees. They did not want you to leave their platform and made that a very expensive route to take... which goes against the market freedom the EU wants. There have been a few good things coming from that direction recently. For example, since the EU started setting fines based on global turnover, willfully violating the laws actually became expensive.

Do you mean like RFC1918 private internets?

The systems I see here use separate VLANs in your router to run telephony, TV and other services on. These use private IP address ranges. Doing so allows separating regular "internet traffic" for prioritization and accounting.

Just connecting a PC to these router ports does not work. The DHCP client needs to issue a few magic numbers to be assigned an IP in the first place, and it won't get internet access either. It's a private network.

 

[cj7hawk]

Just connecting a PC to these router ports does not work. The DHCP client needs to issue a few magic numbers to be assigned an IP in the first place, and it won't get internet access either. It's a private network.

I see private networks and vlans ( and DHCP options etc ) on the *inside* but once it hits the router here, it's all public IP address and Internet, usually through NAT/PAT until it hits the SIP server. The private addresses don't carry over the Internet, and there are usually no VLANs or separation once it hits the telco. I've seen some telco's provide 1q in 1q tunneling into these private internets, but then at some point it hits a router to convert IPv4 RFC1918 compliant address space into a public address and then it carries on over the internet still, even if it's a very small segment of the Internet that never leaves the provider's environment.

To support a private IP address on a SIP server isn't impossible, but I can't recall recently finding one like that in Australia. It just doesn't make sense to configure them that way here.

So while the phone networks often don't have access to the wider internet, due to firewalling etc, they usually still need to use it to get to the servers.

 

[cjs]

Of course, Windows 11 will work better for games, and is newer and better supported, so yeah, this makes sense ( Games is why I went to Windows 10 ).

Yup. Gaming is my primary use of Windows as well, and really the only thing that keeps me having a dedicated Windows system. No Win 11 for me though; I have only one (rather crap and slow) computer that can run it and, while I tried to preserve it, I finally got frustrated enough that I just wiped the disk to install Linux.

If windows trends further in that direction, they will just turn our PCs into XBOXs.

That would pretty much break Windows for gaming for me; it's the extensive ability to customise things that has kept me off console for the last decade or more. But who knows; that might be a good thing and finally just get me to switch to Linux gaming, limited as it is.

Hmmm. I can (and do) live without a Mac, but I can't live without a PC... Like I said, Microsoft is the definition of antitrust.

Oops, kinda forgot a non-Windows OS more popular that Mac, there? In fact, the #1 OS in the server space?

Do you mean like RFC1918 private internets?

Yes, like that, though they may not be using RFC-1918 addresses. It's almost certain that you can't access the IP address of your MiL's phone from the Internet, I reckon, though you could try it out. In fact, I doubt you can even do SIP from your own PBX directly to a server that will connect to that phone. Typically you need a contracted connection to a PSTN service.

Well, I can't rule them out entirely since it's possible, but mostly the telco's here use public IP space and connect these services to the Internet for good reason - their customers can reach them and almost nobody buys PLLs anymore.

Well, certainly. But it's still working the same way: you contract with a PSTN provider, connect only to them, and they provide all PSTN connectivity. The PSTN-over-SIP world might look like the wild west compared to the the ancient pre-Bell-split world, or even the '90s, but it is very, very far from the Internet.

Especially so if they are with another carrier, and that carrier is usually the NBN...

My understanding is that the NBN is very much not a PSTN service, but only a data service.

Germany requires you to use a specific program to file your taxes. Which requires internet access. Not everyone needs to file taxes, though.

Wow. So basically, if you have no access to a computer you can't file taxes? That's terrible. Even worse is that modern advice on the Internet (less than two months old!) still claims that you can file taxes with paper forms.

In my opinion, that situation makes internet access pretty much mandatory, don't you think? Surely you'll find ways to twist my words again.

I'm not clear on how I twisted your words. You said it's impossible to do certain things that virtually everyone must do, such as file taxes, without Internet access. I was surprised by this, but now that you've pointed out that it's impossible to file taxes using paper forms in Germany, I stand corrected.

 

[Bruce Tomlin]

Unfortunately, the 6809's lifetime was much shorter than the Z80, and nobody ever made CPUs that ran faster than a few MHz, as far as I can tell. Still, there are always FPGAs....

Why not both?

 

[cj7hawk]

That would pretty much break Windows for gaming for me; it's the extensive ability to customise things that has kept me off console for the last decade or more. But who knows; that might be a good thing and finally just get me to switch to Linux gaming, limited as it is.

Though as noted, until the world moves on to Linux gaming, there is limited value in shifting to it entirely as an individual. None of the games I play work on Linux. I remember reviewing games for windows when they first came up with the idea in 1996 when Microsoft sent me some games to review. I saw the future of gaming right then even if the games were far from the best around. I even got death threats for reviewing Microsoft stuff when I was a journalist around that time. It was crazy back then in 1996 even.

Oops, kinda forgot a non-Windows OS more popular that Mac, there? In fact, the #1 OS in the server space?

I do use Linux and have run my own Internet gateway since 1990. But I wouldn't have Linux as my first choice for a desktop environment... Well, I'd probably still choose it over a Mac. Macs rub me up the wrong way for some reason. And yeah, I use the Cholesterol Free environment too when I have to, but prefer CLI and the feel of the text... Mind you, I prefer it on a PC with a 4K window at 42" and text at about 12 point size, so I like hundreds of characters on my screen too. Not so easy to achieve in a text-only environment.

My understanding is that the NBN is very much not a PSTN service, but only a data service.

NBN is only an internet Data service. And currently the only way for millions of Australians to have a home non-cellular telephone service with a handset in Australia too. Unless you steal a payphone ( which, interestingly, still exist ) and drag the wires into your home. I still have a normal handset connected to mine. Mainly I've had one for years simply so my MIL could call my wife at local call rates.