Going Canadian: The Rise And Fall Of Novell

April 22, 2024 by 47 Comments

During the 1980s and 1990s Novell was one of those names that you could not avoid if you came even somewhat close to computers. Starting with selling computers and printers, they’d switch to producing networking hardware like the famous NE2000 and the inevitability that was Novell Netware software, which would cement its fortunes. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Novell began to face headwinds from a new giant: Microsoft, which along with the rest of the history of Novell is the topic of a recent article by [Bradford Morgan White], covering this rise, the competition from Microsoft’s Windows NT and its ultimate demise as it found itself unable to compete in the rapidly changing market around 2000, despite flirting with Linux.

Novell was founded by two experienced executives in 1980, with the name being reportedly the misspelled French word for ‘new’ (nouveau or nouvelle). With NetWare having cornered the networking market, there was still a dearth of networking equipment like Ethernet expansion cards. This led Novell to introduce the 8-bit ISA card NE1000 in 1987, later followed by the 16-bit NE2000. Lower priced than competing products, they became a market favorite. Then Windows NT rolled in during the 1990s and began to destroy NetWare’s marketshare, leaving Novell to flounder until it was snapped up by Attachmate in 2011, which was snapped up by Micro Focus International 2014, which got gobbled up by Canada-based OpenText in 2023. Here Novell’s technologies got distributed across its divisions, finally ending Novell’s story.

Microsoft Killed My Favorite Keyboard, And I’m Mad About It

April 16, 2024 by 66 Comments

As a professional writer, I rack up thousands of words a day. Too many in fact, to the point where it hurts my brain. To ease this burden, I choose my tools carefully to minimize obstructions as the words pour from my mind, spilling through my fingers on their way to the screen.

That’s a long-winded way of saying I’m pretty persnickety about my keyboard. Now, I’ve found out my favorite model has been discontinued, and I’ll never again know the pleasure of typing on its delicate keys. And I’m mad about it. Real mad. Because I shouldn’t be in this position to begin with!

Continue reading “Microsoft Killed My Favorite Keyboard, And I’m Mad About It” →

Dump A Code Repository As A Text File, For Easier Sharing With Chatbots

April 14, 2024 by 16 Comments

Some LLMs (Large Language Models) can act as useful programming assistants when provided with a project’s source code, but experimenting with this can get a little tricky if the chatbot has no way to download from the internet. In such cases, the code must be provided by either pasting it into the prompt or uploading a file manually. That’s acceptable for simple things, but for more complex projects, it gets awkward quickly.

To make this easier, [Eric Hartford] created github2file, a Python script that outputs a single text file containing the combined source code of a specified repository. This text file can be uploaded (or its contents pasted into the prompt) making it much easier to share code with chatbots.

Continue reading “Dump A Code Repository As A Text File, For Easier Sharing With Chatbots” →

A Slew Of AI Courses To Get Yourself Up To Speed

April 14, 2024 by 13 Comments

When there’s a new technology, there’s always a slew of people who want to educate you about it. Some want to teach you to use their tools, some want you to pay for training, and others will use free training to entice you to buy further training. Since AI is the new hot buzzword, there are plenty of free classes from reputable sources. The nice thing about a free class is that if you find it isn’t doing it for you, there’s no penalty to just quit.

We noticed NVIDIA — one of the companies that has most profited from the AI boom — has some courses (not all free, though). Generative AI Explained, and Augment your LLM Using Retrieval Augmented Generation caught our eye. There’s also Building a Brain in 10 Minutes, and Introduction to Physics-informed Machine Learning with Modulus. These are all quite short, though.

Continue reading “A Slew Of AI Courses To Get Yourself Up To Speed” →

Exploring The Bendix G-15’s Typewriter

April 10, 2024 by 3 Comments

The Bendix Corporation’s Bendix G-15 was introduced in 1956 as an affordable system for industrial and scientific markets. As with any computer system, a range of peripheral devices for input and output were available, which includes an electric typewriter. Produced by IBM, this typewriter was heavily modified by Bendix, with the version that [Usagi Electric] got their mittens on being equipped with a gigantic 28″ platen. With just power applied to the machine it will even still work as a regular electric typewriter, but it can do much more.

The bits that make an IBM electric typewriter into a Bendix G-15 accessory. (Credit: Usagi Electric)
The bits that make an IBM electric typewriter into a Bendix G-15 accessory. (Credit: Usagi Electric)

Most typewriters for the G-15 have a much smaller platen, as can be seen in the brochures for the system. The typewriter is connected together with other peripherals like plotters, card punches and tabulators via a coupler which uses a 5-bit interface. For the encoding on this interface no standard encoding is used, but rather 4 bits are used as data followed by 1 bit to indicate a command. In addition a number of other signal lines are used with the Bendix G-15, which allows control over the punch card reader and run status on the computer from the comfort of the typewriter’s desk.

In addition to the added electronics that communicate with the Bendix G-15, there are also solenoids and sensors which interface with the typewriter’s keyboard. This is what allows for command keys on the typewriter to be recorded separately along with the regular number and letter keys, in addition to the Bendix G-15 using the typewriter to automatically type on the paper. After a good cleaning session the typewriter’s basic functionality is restored, with the hope that once the Bendix G-15 over at the Usagi Farm can power up its DC circuit both will happily chat with each other. Color us excited.

Continue reading “Exploring The Bendix G-15’s Typewriter” →

The Rise And Fall Of Silicon Graphics

April 8, 2024 by 52 Comments

Maybe best known as the company which brought a splash of color to corporate and scientific computing with its Indigo range of computer systems, Silicon Graphics Inc. (later SGI) burst onto the market in 1981 with what was effectively one of the first commercial graphics operations accelerator with the Geometry Engine. SGI’s founder – James Henry Clark was quite possibly as colorful a character as the company’s products, with [Bradford Morgan White] covering the years leading up to SGI’s founding, its highlights and its eventual demise in 2009.

The story of SGI is typical of a start-up that sees itself become the market leader for years, even as this market gradually changes. For SGI it was the surge in commodity 3D graphics cards in the 1990s alongside affordable (and cluster-capable; insert Beowulf cluster jokes here) server hardware that posed a major problem. Eventually it’d start offering Windows NT workstations, drop its MIPS-based systems in a shift to Intel’s disastrous Itanium range of CPUs and fall to the last-ditch effort of any struggling company: a logo change.

None of this was effective, naturally, and ultimately SGI would file (again) for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, with Rackable Systems snapping up its assets and renaming itself to SGI, before getting bought out by HPE and sunsetting SGI as a brand name.

Ultimate Power: Lithium-Ion Packs Need Some Extra Circuitry

April 8, 2024 by 19 Comments

A LiIon pack might just be exactly what you need for powering a device of yours. Whether it’s a laptop, or a robot, or a custom e-scooter, a CPAP machine, there’s likely a LiIon cell configuration that would work perfectly for your needs. Last time, we talked quite a bit about the parameters you should know about when working with existing LiIon packs or building a new one – configurations, voltage notations, capacity and internal resistance, and things to watch out for if you’re just itching to put some cells together.

Now, you might be at the edge your seat, wondering what kind of configuration do you need? What target voltage would be best for your task? What’s the physical arrangement of the pack that you can afford? What are the safety considerations? And, given those, what kind of electronics do you need?

Picking The Pack Configuration

Pack configurations are well described by XsYp:X serial stages, each stage having Y cells in parallel. It’s important that every stage is the same as all the others in as many parameters as possible – unbalanced stages will bring you trouble.

To get the pack’s nominal voltage, you multiply X (number of stages) by 3.7 V, because this is where your pack will spend most of its time. For example, a 3s pack will have 11.1 V nominal voltage. Check your cell’s datasheet – it tends to have all sorts of nice graphs, so you can calculate the nominal voltage more exactly for the kind of current you’d expect to draw. For instance, the specific cells I use in a device of mine, will spend most of their time at 3.5 V, so I need to adjust my voltage expectations to 10.5 V accordingly if I’m to stack a few of them together.

Now, where do you want to fit your pack? This will determine the voltage. If you want to quickly power a device that expects 12 V, the 10.5 V to 11.1 V of a 3s config should work wonders. If your device detects undervoltage at 10.5V, however, you might want to consider adding one more stage.

How much current do you want to draw? For the cells you are using, open their spec sheet yet again, take the max current draw per cell, derate it by like 50%, and see how many cells you need to add to match your current draw. Then, add parallel cells as needed to get the capacity you desire and fit the physical footprint you’re aiming for. Continue reading “Ultimate Power: Lithium-Ion Packs Need Some Extra Circuitry” →