I did it. I landed my dream job in spring of 1993. After working at a convenience store for almost two years, I was ecstatic to be offered a salesperson position at RadioShack. I had heard we were in an economic recession, but I was too young to care what that even meant. I was at RadioShack; the pinnacle of where every computer nerd like me would want to work.
Read the rest of this entry »The Rise and Fall of RadioShack
Thursday, May 11th, 2023I haven’t had much of a chance to write about Google. I don’t like Google. Unfortunately, like most people, I don’t have much of a choice. You have some alternate options for search engines and there are other email services you can use. However, if you develop mobile apps, you have no choice. You could write solely for iOS (which has its own set of problems), but you would limit the scope of who you can serve.
Read the rest of this entry »The Kildall Chronicles
Thursday, January 5th, 2023I have created a website focusing on the life of Gary Kildall. My hope is to unravel the unfortunate urban legends around one of the greatest software innovators of all time. Visit the Kildall Chronicles at http://www.kildall.org.
Apple
Wednesday, October 19th, 2022I used to simply dislike the Apple computer company. It had less to do with their equipment and software and more to do with the overt and annoying fanboy worship from their most ardent followers. The comment that disgusts me the most is, “It just works” (as if that is an amazing standard that we should all strive to achieve). The issue now runs far deeper with me now as I have to deal with Apple and iOS on almost a daily basis whether I want to or not. The software, deployment, certificate and everything having to do with delivering an app to the App Store is one of the worst experiences of my life and it seems to get worse every time I try it.
Read the rest of this entry »Windows Phone
Thursday, August 1st, 2019When evaluating what I want to write on my blog, I typically write about things that personally upset me for some reason. If I don’t have an emotional attachment, I won’t care enough to write about it. Whether it was a game that I saved up for when I was a kid or some software program I needed to use, there was always a personal connection. The Windows Phone has that same connection for me. As of this writing, I still use a Nokia phone with Windows Phone 8. I never bought a Windows 10 Mobile phone because Microsoft was already showing signs they were giving up as soon as it was released.
The Max Headroom Hacker
Monday, December 10th, 20181987. Over thirty years ago. What was going on? Well, in the United States we were in the waning years of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. As a matter of fact, in the summer of this year, Reagan made an impassioned speech about tearing down the Berlin Wall, right in front of the Berlin Wall. The same year, Mike Tyson was knocking out every opponent that had the guts to challenge him. ALF hacked into the television ratings to make “Polka Jamboree” the number one television program in the nation. And, if that wasn’t enough excitement to keep everyone entertained, Chi-Town was introduced to…
Was MS-DOS copied from CP/M?
Wednesday, November 21st, 2018Even to this day, people are still talking about the CP/M vs. MS-DOS controversy. Did MS-DOS steal from CP/M? Why did they settle a lawsuit if they didn’t? The problem is, almost no one realizes what the actual argument is. People want to make the issue about Microsoft stealing code from CP/M and using it. I don’t deny that there is a rumor that Gary Kildall performed some secret keystroke combination that produced an Easter egg in CP/M that he duplicated in MS-DOS. But, the best I can tell, that is complete folklore that only added to the mystique and mystery. The real argument is more apparent.
Video Chess and the 10-hour Bug
Friday, November 16th, 2018Wow! Atari wrote a game that uses some pretty good artificial intelligence. It was fun to play and very challenging. So how could this one possibly be eligible for the Hall of Shame?
Online Degree or Complete Waste of Time?
Friday, December 22nd, 2017I just ended my first and last semester taking online classes at the prestigious Oklahoma University. Okay, that’s not entirely fair. I know that OU isn’t exactly ivy league, but it’s not a bad school. They just failed me. This could be seen as nothing more than a vendetta for getting a bad grade, but nothing could be further from the truth. I got an A in the class, but at the expense of almost killing me. Read the rest of this entry »
Why Did OS/2 Fail?
Monday, February 2nd, 2015Too many people have speculated why OS/2 faded into the sunset while Windows reigned supreme. I want to explore some of the bigger theories and then offer up one of my own. The fact remains that OS/2 was the operating system that should and could but never would. I wanted OS/2 to work. I remember the Visual Basic class I took all the way back in the summer of 1994. I remember the instructor going around the class having us introduce ourselves. I remember saying how much I hate Windows (it was 3.1 at the time) because it was such a hacked and slashed together operating system, and that I really wished we would’ve gone the “OS/2 route”. In my mind, Windows 3.x was nothing more than a glorified version of DOS Shell, although I later learned that Windows was a real operating system; an operating system you add to pay twice for because you couldn’t run it by itself. All kidding aside, even in my late teenage years I stayed loyal to the OS/2 brand. I even ran it on my PC at home, albeit in dual boot mode because there was a lot of stuff that Windows 95 could run that OS/2 could not. I owned two versions of OS/2, “OS/2 for Windows” which was OS/2 version 2.1 without a standalone copy of Windows where you used your own copy. I also purchased OS/2 Warp 4 in 1996 when I was sick and tired of Windows 95 and the constant reboots.
Grantster.com - The WORST In Computer History - Returns! 