I'm looking at doing something similar, but with virtualization. I already know I can build out a box that can run the VMs, so the only thing I'm looking for is the hardware to run "play" the VMs on.

In fact this is not the 68000 but its crippled little brother the 68008, which uses an 8-bit external data bus (as the 8088 is to the 8086). That was also used in the Sinclair QL, which was Linus's first computer before he bought a 386 PC and got into Minix. Could Linux now be ported to run on the QL?

Anyone paid less than $100k/year will be forced to the fringes of the city,

I make that in Chicago. I interviewed with Amazon and was amazed at the rents for smaller places. You might want to revise that minimum up :-(

Don't SAP have their own RDBMS, called SAP DB or MaxDB? It was even released as free software a few years back (then they changed their mind and went back to proprietary). Do you mean that despite that, the only database backend that works well with large SAP installations is Oracle?

"noise during takeoffs and landings"? I've been on plenty of airplane flights, from a Cessna up to a 747, and on none of them have I ever noticed noise from flaps. I don't get the whole fuel-savings bit, either. That's kinda the point of flaps--increase lift at lower speeds, with a corresponding increase in drag. When you're landing, your engines are running at reduced power anyway, and when you're taking off, the flaps don't stay extended for very long--just the first few minutes of flight. Now, if you told me they were making wings that could alter the thickness of the airfoil or the length of the wing in-flight, I'd be interested.

>> It may surprise you to learn that most people in the U.S. today are not "offended" by simple nudity.

> Yet they still manage to be insufferable puritans. If they are not, they should fight against unconstitutional laws against public swearing, public nudity, FCC censorship, etc. But they don't.

I get it. Because MOST people don't fight YOUR cause, THEY are the insufferable ones. Gotcha.

11/11/11 was the release date for Skyrim.

In terms of sheer numbers, I'd guess you are right: more Win32 applications have been written since 1995 or so than there are apps for iOS. Especially if you include in-house software.

In terms of applications to do something most people want to do, which is a subjective measure I admit, iOS may have the lead. Particularly so if you look for software that's optimized for tablet use: there are a lot of very capable Windows programs which are rather less usable on a tablet than with a physical keyboard and mouse, whereas iOS apps are all designed around touchscreen use.

For example, I've been looking for a map program (similar to Google Maps) that runs on a handheld Windows 7 PC with attached GPS. It's surprising how few choices there are that do the basic function of showing your GPS position on a map, and aren't some crusty thing last updated in 2004. True, if I included Windows 8 "Metro" apps there would be a wider choice, but still it is dwarfed by what you get on Android or iOS. (FTR - in the end I went with Anquet Maps for hiking maps and Mapfactor PC-Navigator for city use.)

It's analogous to testing itself. Testing cannot prove the absence of bugs, though it can find them. Similarly a coverage check cannot show that your test suite is adequate, but it can show it to be inadequate (or perhaps reveal dead code to prune). Nobody is claiming that coverage is the be all and end all of testing. That does not mean it is useless to measure it.

There is a point that you have to accept that you are not in control of the situation; when there is nothing you can do,

The poor sister didn't want to believe that there was nothing she could do and so she accepted the lie that there was something she could do to make it better.

And so she spoke when she should have been silent.

Yup, the PC-AT keyboard has the one true enter key in the large reverse L shape. After that things went downhill: the US layout for the Model M chopped off the top part and made Enter a thin horizontal line like Shift, and the international or ISO layout (which I normally use) chopped off the left hand part and left Enter as a rectangle: better than the US version, but still too small for one of the most frequently used keys on the board.

The biggest annoyance with the AT keyboard is the lack of F11 and F12 keys, if your applications use those (e.g. to step into statements in a debugger). The Esc key being on the numeric keypad is also odd but you get used to that.

There's also the 122-key Model F 'aircraft carrier', which has a much more modern layout, close to the international Model M layout.

But if you do prefer the US Model M layout (de gustibus non est disputandum, after all), then here's a way to modify the PC-AT keyboard: http://geekhack.org/index.php?...

Do you mean the 122-key Model F 'aircraft carrier' (I have a couple of those, but they require Soarer's Converter) or something else? I haven't heard of a 138-key version.

I have never heard of a Model M keyboard damaging a computer when plugged into the PS/2 keyboard port. After all, the PS/2 keyboard port is specifically designed for PS/2 keyboards, and the Model M is like the reference implementation. When driven over USB using an adaptor, it is true that a Model M will require more current than a newer keyboard, but still within the USB spec.

Recycle them? Noooo! Please tell us you at least gave them to a thrift store or sold them on Ebay. FWIW, the recommended PS/2 to USB adaptor is called the 'blue cube' and works well with the Model M. There's also Soarer's Converter which you can build yourself with a Teensy programmable microcontroller, and handles a wide range of old keyboards including the M.