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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Not a software one, but back when I was a teenager doing hardware modifications (or attempting to at least), I had a very valuable to me Atari 130XE computer (35 or so years ago) I wanted to solder in some extra RAM or some chip (I don’t recall now) but I had problems removing the old one so I called up my friend who did electronics repair the Mainboard. It was raining that night I took it to him so I did what I thought was best. Put it in a black garbage bag to protect it. Lets just say the next morning is when I found out that Static + circuit boards is a bad thing. Never more than a valuable less for me than at that time. He was a good friend though and out of the goodness of his heart, he gave me a replacement one so I wouldn’t be without. (Mind you, these were out of production and considered obsolete at the time maybe worth $40 at the time) and not yet vintage as they would be seen today where in some markets can fetch upward to a few hundred more as is.



  • node815@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlTinkering and Stability
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    23 days ago

    Instability you ask? This is like a slow creep to instability and freeze your system. It’s called the Bash Fork Bomb (look it up if you want), but it’s a copy/paste you put in and it slows your system down by consuming all the system resources and cause it to lock up HARD. It goes away after a system reboot, though.

    I was going to post the code here, but decided to play nice. But if you are curious:

    https://itsfoss.com/fork-bomb/

    (edit: Made ‘slow’ ‘slows’)


  • As a Gen X member who is 50 yrs old, a grandparent of two Grand kids, I never touched a computer until I was 12 years old (1986), this, I think gave me a head start into the computer world with an old Radio Shack Color Computer II (hooked up to my TV) with a Tape Drive to load programs with. With some of the older Gen X group starting to reach retirement age, I think we will probably have a larger portion of the population more adapted to computer than the Boomers before us. That’s not to say that during the 80’s and 90’s everyone was into computers though. The important thing was that schools had Timex Sinclair computers and mostly Apple II computers which were the workhorses even into my high school years in the early 90’s, so exposure to computer basics such as copy/paste and Word processing were certainly well know then!

    I say all of this to mention that while right now, some of the older generation generally knows how to copy/paste, isn’t scared of breaking the computer and pretty much get a long fine with them. I’m more skilled than my peers in a lot of areas but that’s because I’ve used them non stop for so long and the others used them only in school but never saw the value until around Windows 98 or Windows 2000.

    I believe there will be a shift of more computer literacy as the Millennials and Gen Z’s reach my age and older. The writers then may say that compared to the previous generation (ours), that they are miles ahead in their skills and literacy. Even my Grand kids are growing up with exposure to tablets and phones (VERY SPARINGLY), but also live out in the rural country so are getting great life exposure to great outdoors. :) (Ages 2 and 6). One can only dare to imagine what technology we may have 40-50 years from now when they reach my age range.