What you won't see in their documentary is the part where after digging the big hole, they accidentally fall in, and can't get the heck out!

Mod parent up. TFA made it sound like they did raw complex magnetic imaging similar to that Cray disk that was recovered while back.

Compared to that, using a Kryoflux is little more than "throwing it in a floppy drive".

> Then you'd miss stuff like 1-2-3 diskettes and unformatted blocks.

And that is why, like I said, you attach your floppy drive to a Kryoflux, SuperCard Pro, or Deluxe Option Board device.

I've recently read a number of floppies that are older than the ones in the TFA, and none of them have magically fallen apart.

Technically reading a disk will put some wear on it because the heads touch the surface, but if the disk was properly stored and was of a good brand (not Wabash), that wear is negligible.

Most serious software archivists would simply plop the disks in a floppy drive connected to a Kryoflux, or similar device, and be done with it.

Magnetic imaging is an overkill unless the disk is from a system where no compatible form drive exists any more.

The really interesting thing about DOS 1.1 (or actually very slightly later revisions) is that it was the first to be released to OEMs other than IBM. Early clone makers such as Zenith, Corona, Columbia Data Products, Eagle Computers, or Compaq (you might have heard of that last one), never would have gotten off the ground if Microsoft had not licensed it out to them.

Some of the early "MS-DOS" compatibles were not even hardware compatible with the IBM PC. All you could rely on was the presence of an 8088/8086 and MS-DOS provided I/O calls. And those OEMs had to customize MS-DOS to recognize their proprietary hardware.

I'm not so sure about the value of Word for Windows 1.x. It wasn't even the first word processor for Windows (Beaten by AMI and PageMaker).

Now, on the other hand I have heard some interesting things about the internals of Word 1.00 for DOS.

In other news, lobotomies are good for people. The less you think, the better you feel. See the full story on Fox News. :P

But seriously, If the results are really more about behaviors, then the REAL problem is that current society does not adequately provide similar social outlets or activities for people who don't happen to believe in imaginary sky beings.

Thing is, it started off trying to be fairly realistic. If they had started out from day 1 explaining that these nanites were implemented to collect and redistribute power with some not fully understood tech that might be supernatural or alien, then it would be easier to just sit back and enjoy. But instead they keep everything secret so they can pull out some new WTF whenever they feel like it.

Take the basic premise and characters, and stuff it in a mind-warping anime, and it would probably work well.

But as it is, they use real actors... who ironically seem to lack energy. And the plot seems to have no real direction (Turn the lights back on? How is that supposed to work after 15 years of neglected infrastructure?). Whoever writes this stuff just wants to yank around the audience. And it probably will get canceled without a proper ending.

From my perspective, half the fun of watching any sifi-ish show is exploring the universe they have created, and too much secrecy and inconstancy ruins it.

On the brighter side, they nuked Atlanta. :)

The only thing that spoiled it was that the same statement was missing a emi-colon

That was the ONLY thing that spoiled it?

In a show where power is magically inhibited by some fucking nanites, who can also bring back power to stuff that has 15-year old aged batteries or no other power source, can be used as weapons, while at the same time having the ability to heal people, that that have become sentient, that can bring the fucking dead back to life, are being worshiped, communicate through hallucinations, can re-create an entire world in a Matrix-ish type way, and who knows what kind of shit they are going to pull out of their asses next! (Don't know why I watch that piece of shit)

Are you sure that is the ONLY thing that spoiled it for you?

That site is really script heavy, here is a direct link to a clearer picture: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

Ah, the modern tech industry, creating solutions for problems that don't exist.

Such as Windows 8 or the Slashdot beta.

The beta site feels like the kind of place where one would expect hear "We only support Windows, Mac, and Linux with current IE, Chrome, or Firefox".

let's take a moment to reflect on what Slashdot HAS run on over the years.

Here are just a few screen shots I have handy:

Amiga
http://toastytech.com/guis/ami...

BreadBox (GeoWorks)
http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe...

BeOS
http://toastytech.com/guis/b5p...

QNX 1.44MB demo floppy:
http://toastytech.com/guis/qnx...

MacOS 7.5.5
http://toastytech.com/guis/mac...

OpenStep:
http://toastytech.com/guis/ope...

Lynx:
http://toastytech.com/guis/tex...

Windows NT 3.51 (this actually shows a version of SeaMonkey modified specifically to view current Slashdot correctly!)
http://toastytech.com/files/Se...

I've seen so many products and sites go in this direction over the years, it makes me sick. Something reaches near perfection and then someone decides to rewrite it in Java or .Net or XML or something, and totally ruins it.

Slashdot doesn't need some redesign. It just needs a few bugs fixed.

Where did they even get the idea that anyone wants any of that stuff on the beta site? Large fonts, huge pictures, HTML 9000 or whatever it is at today. What does Dice think this site is, I Can Has Cheezeburger? Actually, even THAT site went downhill after a bogged down redesign.

A real geek site would work great running on an Amiga using HTML 3. Oh, right, we had that:
http://toastytech.com/guis/ami...

One of the strengths (and simultaneous weakens) of Opera was that it used it's own unique rendering engine. That gave it an advantage in specialized situations where others would not quite fit.

Since they changed to using webkit, they are, in my opinion, basically irrelevant now. They might have well just become another one of those circa 2000 Microsoft Internet Explorer shells.

Say what you will about Presto not working on site x, y, or z, more diversity is good, and it helps keep real standard in check. There were once too many sites that were only viewable in IE, I do not look forward to a future internet that is only viewable in Google Chome.

Is there any hope at all that they might open source the Presto Rendering engine?

> How about a demo of Jay Miner demoing the Amiga 1000?

Or how about a video of the 1982 Comdex where supposedly VisiCorp showed off a development version of their brand new "GUI" environment Visi On? Doubt anyone recorded that, but it would be interesting to see.

And there is actually a video on Youtube of the fall 1983 Comdex with a demonstration of a brand new product in development from Microsoft called "Wiindows". Stole all the thunder from VisiCorp, but obviously didn't put a damper on Apple's Macintosh released shortly afterwards.