I also found that the portable players rarely ever had Dolby B (or even better C) which would really help with hiss. I managed to find a Dolby B, Chrome tape compatible unit back in the 80s which I used until it was stolen.

After reading the title I was trying to figure out if they were attempting to raise the state of Florida to increase its height above sea level.....

The problem with this is that with any antivirus software you have to keep the virus database and AV engine up to date for it to be effective.

So that means at any point in the future "backdoor.c" can be added and deployed automatically, and the users would be no wiser.

Also does this actually prove that the compiled binary blob is without a backdoor????

He meant to say Apple Pixie Dust!

I believe this is the reason... Bluetooth audio is also really bad and people still pay big $$$ for bluetooth
headphones.

Back in the day it was recording off FM onto cassette tape!!

All we need is 1.21 Jigawatts, any more is unnecessary.

I have thought the same thing.

Of course there are a few fundamental differences between then and now from my point of view:

1. I was a young teen and had tons of time (and energy) on my hands to play with these things.
2. Everything you learned you figured out on your own or as a group share with close friends, supplemented with a few manuals and magazines.
3. The hardware was finite enough you could basically learn everything from the low level access to the hardware to all the software features (basic or machine language). You could literally learn what every location in IO or memory did (53281 anyone??).
4. With a few days or at most weeks time with even modest skill levels you could put together something that could "wow" your friends and perhaps even non-computer family members.
5. Atari / TI / Commodore computer overnight parties where a bunch of us get together to compete to show off the best games etc. in an attempt to prove we had the best platform.

Today we have a lot more learning resources out there, and the hardware is much more powerful but in my mind it just isn't as fun. There is certainly no way to whip up something that would "wow" anyone. It's more a tool now than a fun hobby.

No the next step is the keyboard, since it takes up a ton of space!

Yeah what is with that?

I have seen those things, which are supposed to be used to heat up bath water. It isn't even a heating element, it is
just two plates connected to each terminal of the AC.

You might as well just throw a toaster in the bath instead.

I have been there and can confirm, even if it is a well known issue. My wife is now terrified of all GM vehicles.

Spinrite to the rescue!

Didn't they upgrade to RLL a few years ago?

Almost sounds to me like they have switched to multiple pass encoding, rather than a fixed quality/bandwidth setting.

"The new system will encode from the raw source material more intelligently, considering whether or not the material itself can really benefit from higher bit-rates, or whether identical quality can be maintained with less space and bandwidth."

I have a name for them, Google search programmers.