Checking it out as we 'speak'...

Yuppers! Our local "coop" electric utility is just like this. They tried hard to kill of net metering in the legislature. When they lost they announced it as a victory - fantastic spin. They keep raising our electric rates although we already pay some of the highest rates in the country. They have a monopoly and they abuse it. The times are a changing though... Soon we'll all be able to generate our own power and we need far less power because machinery is becoming more efficient. On our farm I've been designing things to use less and less power. My goal is to get it down to the point where I won't need the electric utility. Then we will have to deal with the phone company, another monopoly that abuses its power.

Interesting... I'm in the market for a new web host... Got my attention.

I have one that is very old. Exact age not known but I've had it since the early 1980's and it was old then. I have several others that are probably older based on the types. I know several people that have ones that are from their great grand parents. They last.

Speaking of manual transmission, I hear your pain, but I just bought one with manual transmission, and high-low as well. Nice machine.

Also, just because a machine is digital doesn't mean it has to have the nonsense monthly subscriptions and limitations. A counter example is Apple is becoming more open with their ecosystem with their latest OS and iOS and Google is even more open. Feel free to hack the core. There have always been people who do it and people who feel too intimidated. Pick which you want to be.

Yet the government (FBI) objects to our desires for privacy (Apple & Google on-phone encryption).

My cast iron frying pan has worked for nearly a century and will likely last several more centuries without any upgrades, fees, etc.

Personally I'm not all that interested in having a microprocessor in every device. Most things don't need them. However, virtually everything I own I can take apart, fix, hack and rebuild - yes, even "Smart" devices.

The original poster's comments say more about them than they do about technology. There have always been people who didn't know how to do more than turn the switch to get light.

"I'm not saying dealers don't provide a valuable service."

I am. Dealers provide a huge disservice. They are over priced, monopolistic and provide awful service because they can. Since they don't have competition they get away with this.

What you describe has nothing to do with the Z80 processor but rather the ZX81 kit you had.

I had a Exidy Sorcerer which had a Z80 in it also. A great computer. It was my third but not my final Z80 based machine. All of them were tops for their time and a lot better than you're describing. You merely had a poorly done implementation.

It is important to differentiate the OS (what you're really complaining about) from the processor.

"Either the author is an idiot, or his universe has more dimensions than mine."

The latter seems more likely.

I love this idea. Until the cooling system fails.

Spoken like a true coward that doesn't know how to do it and doesn't get it. I can't hire people to do what I do and we enjoy what we do. It's the journey. When you figure that out you'll be much happier.

1) Documentation.
2) We cross train. Not as in sports.
3) We're all family and our family is very engineering and math inclined. It seems to be a genetic trait. Some people have it. It makes machines, and even electronics and code, fairly obvious while to those without this trait things look too complex. Some people are born engineers. Training enhances it, yes. But there is an inclination. Just like starting out with good genetics in livestock or farm working dogs.

Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pork
Sold mainly in Vermont since we intend to stay small. One only needs to work so hard and one only needs so much money.

Problem is Apple is putting too much emphasis on glimmer and glitz. They need to focus on functionality, speed and legacy compatibility. A new OS should always be faster, less buggy, more stable, etc. It should also run smoothly and easily on the older hardware, gracefully falling back on functions the hardware won't support. Doing old things should always be the same or better, never worse.

Fail.

We are a small family farm.
We're building our own USDA/State inspected meat processing facility - almost done.
I designed the facility myself from scratch.
We have done all the construction of our building.
We will do all the work in the facility ourselves.
We built much of the equipment for our butcher shop, mostly out of stainless steel.
We built many of the tools to build the above equipment.
We invented techniques, tools and processes to do what we need to do.
More people need to innovate.
It is quite doable.

And in MacOSX 11 and iOS 9 Apple will officially abandon all previous file formats so you have to rebuy all your music in their new wonderful format.

8Track Tape...
Cassette Tapes...
CDs...
DVDs...
BlueRay... ...and all those other formats that never really made it but they suckered people into buying. The industry likes you to rebuy your entire data collection every few years. It's a cheaper way for them to make profits than actually producing great new products.

Et U2?