Laptops (Google)

[vinceASPECT]

Hello Forum,

Have kept a couple of Laptops here.   (AMD and Intel)
and just realized their worth via running Tinycore. 

Thererfor, they are usable technology .....for that end. Internet and Learning.

Recently, i got to realizing why Google was fined 5.06 billion dollars
not so far back, (For controlling the "planned obsolesce" Software
and hardware Loop )  ........for forcing "Google search engine" to be the
only default possible Engine on Handsets and the hardware devices of the world.

It is, in many respects, the same as the Msoft situation , whereby
we will never know what "could have been" had these corporations NOT
got hold of the Archictecture and x86.(via IBM)
(and ARM with google & "Android" which
they just acquired, and never wrote a single line of) 

many professionals predicted, that HAD THEY NOT got hold of the technology
and done what they did, we would be sat at machines tens of thousands
of times more powerful than a home PC is now......(than it is now in these times)

I am pretty sure Google just paid the fine on their European Tax evasion situation
alone. These corporations operate way way way above any Laws that bestow
enough punishment to hinder.


All the above said, it's AS important for the Enablers like Tinycore Linux.
So thanks for that.

V

[PDP-8]

Hi vince!

Corporate hi-jinks is nothing new.  When looking at your laptops, if you squint your eyes, you will see that they have a direct lineage to DEC PDP-11's in architecture.  Which Tinycore (look alike direct connection to ATT Unix) was built on.  Well, programmers who go down to bare metal will immediately recognize the similarity - on purpose.

So had the business types played their cards right, we *might* have been using DEC computers and all the searching through AltaVista.

Of course back then, Unix was an unsupported project to be avoided at all costs since it was not OEM, and Dec's own VMS (and others of theirs) would be pushed until finally they got into unix reluctantly due to market pressure and the support of one of their own insiders, Armando Stettner.

BUT, take it further and look into DEC's Ken Olson's view of Unix and later the involvement with Windows NT.  Interesting.

But not everything is bad.   Every time you use a virtual-terminal, you can thank a Xenix engineer for that.  Otherwise, you would be mastering your foreground/background techniques, or hooking up multiple real terminals.

Read "The Soul Of A New Machine" by Tracy Kidder to get an idea of how this world might look like had Data General played their cards right.  These guys played hard-ball back then.

Fortunately, like the original ATT Unix (which eventually proved the portability of the C language to non-DEC hardware like the Interdata 7/32 and 8/32), suddenly there was a no "lock-in" choice!

I could go on, but I think the point is that nobody is forcing us to use anything, and consumers have a choice if they don't like what's going on.  Much of the time, they don't take advantage of that freedom, and blame the corporations for giving them what they want (or don't truly care about sadly.)

I know what you're saying though, but who's to say that any one of the "IBM and the seven-dwarfs" (other comp manufacturers) would act any differently.

To be sure - separate the business practices from the individuals who may have no say in the matter.

Much of TinyCore's DNA traces back to our pioneering forefathers - who now work at Google.  They may or may not agree with the business policies, but it helps me to bite my tongue in regards to Google so I don't paint with too broad a brush.

Heh, I remember the day when "just GREP it", was the saying looong before "just Google it" was the norm.

[vinceASPECT]

Ahh Hello,

Right,  it's a long while since i used DEC terminals.


These topics can be involved..........considering a $14 dollar driod smartphone
holds considerably more computing power than what took man to the moon.

Really , we could agree, YES, that with virtual terminals or cross-platform technology, then at  least these giant CORPS aren't controlling the actual oceans of APPS............APPS designed for what the hardware's +OS's purpose is............that being to enjoy and run those applications.


How, astonishingly brilliantly technology has performed for  very little users efforts ........with platforms like Android. 

I remember SUN SPARK NETRA  which SUNN released as an internet "server" of full word wide desktop sessions to very very thin clients.   That  is computing on the world wide web.

i love the story of Intel .  Yes, it's a great read of "Robert Noyce" ...........he is in the top 10 most important people that have ever lived on earth.

In the top 10 is also,  "Sophie Wilson"  She is in the royal society alongside "Sir Issac Newton and Michael Faraday" ......................VERY WELL and living in Oxford. UK.   (Inventor of ---ARM instruction set and architecture.)

Yes, there is also "Tim Berners Lee", again at British..........at Oxford University who is close to TOP of the top 10 most important people that have ever lived on earth.
("Marconi" is in that list....."Tesla" too)

(you'd not see this post without him.......) .....ha ha


As for the others, there is "Jack Kilby",  who invented the most important invention of the 20th century (the Transistor).......... typical now, a new Deskop Home CPU contains 11 billion transistors.  (new AMD's contain that....)     also.........."Mr Moore"  was in that team at Intel. 

You could certainly do a lot of reading (of the above) references with your tinycore set-ups.   (Humour.....there are some good sections of humour on reddit. LOL)


You can work out who the others  from the top 10 list......

"Google" is so bizarre. It's literally unfathomable,........ since nobody had ever heard of the corp......since actually NOT that long ago.

By the way,  A "google" is the number 1 followed by 100 zero's.

Oh yeah DEC machines , i remember them at University.  Digital corp.

Thanks for publishing your information.

V

[vinceASPECT]

Yeah 

See below,

4,911,460,000 US Dollar


At the exchange rate, then it ($5.06 billion us dollars)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44858238

Thx

V