DRM in your light bulb! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: engineer_in_shorts
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2015, 02:30:48 pm
content: Thought i might drop this here:https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151214/07452133070/lightbulb-drm-philips-locks-purchasers-out-third-party-bulbs-with-firmware-update.shtmlFeel free to move to another section that may be more relevant.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2015, 05:35:27 pm
content: You know, a bog standard switch is starting to look like a really good option. Not that the Hue lamps are really low power when off, unlike the reasl physical switch, which is a true ZERO power option when off.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 15, 2015, 06:34:42 pm
content: I mentioned this in another thread, and I'll repeat it here...A smart home doesn't need to be full of gimmicky gadgets linked to smart phone applications, linked to the internet etc... The technology in a truly smart home just needs to be well thought out and implemented.For example, I recently moved into a new home. I thought about the "I can turn room lights on before I step into my dark house" issue and the answer is easily a yes: I installed motion sensors so as I drive into the driveway/garage, lights turn on. I also opted to use light switches throughout the house which glow dimly so they can easily be located in a pitch black room. No fancy tech needed and no need for me to get out my phone and piss about with some application......I guess my point is not everything has to be "smart" and not everything has to have an "app".

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2015, 11:41:46 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on December 15, 2015, 05:35:27 pmA wise engineer reminded me that there is no zero when measuring these sorts of things, you might have a few teraohms of impedance in the open position at DC if the switch assembly is clean and there will be several tens of picofarads coupling for the AC. Still a huge improvement over the alternative

author: skipjackrc4
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 12:33:15 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on December 15, 2015, 06:34:42 pmWords can't express how much I agree with you.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 01:18:12 am
content: If you're smart you'll keep your home dumbMy light switches work fine without any cloud based service, without internet and without a smart phone or tablet. The user interface is very intuitive and the switches are quite secure since you need physical access. KISS!

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 01:18:23 am
content: Quote from: skipjackrc4 on December 16, 2015, 12:33:15 amThere's no app for my hamburger?!?!

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 01:35:31 am
content: Quote from: skipjackrc4 on December 16, 2015, 12:33:15 amI even hate the term "app". It's APPLICATION people! The population is getting dumber and shit like this isn't helping.

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 02:01:05 am
content: At the risk of dragging this thread off topic, I had this exact conversation with my mechanic yesterday,It's odd that passionate engineers should be the ones putting the brakes on 'technology for the sake of technology!'I start asking when the nexus of efficiency, cost cutting, recalls, updates and feature complexity will converge to the point when manufacturers have to pay us to take their products!#BackToBicycles

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 07:21:44 am
content: Quote from: Someone on December 15, 2015, 11:41:46 pmZero power as measured on the AC wattmeter on the incoming feed to the house is the goal. A small capacitive current with a near 90 degree phase angle does not register at all. You might be able to drive a very low output high efficiency LED off it and not have it measure power use, but the light output would be below the light output of a glow worm.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 07:27:27 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on December 16, 2015, 01:35:31 amI hear you.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 11:49:32 am
content: Quote from: madires on December 16, 2015, 01:18:12 amWhy does alightbulbneed firmware anyway? This is a wholly ridiculous concept. 10+ years ago I remember joking about it, and now it's actually become reality.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 11:56:28 am
content: Quote from: amyk on December 16, 2015, 11:49:32 amWhy does a car need firmware, why do we need computers, why do you want to control things at home? Comfort!Lighting systems are being connected, has been going on for over 20 years now and it is finally reaching the home.What is stupid is controlling multiple lightbulbs with a mains dimmer, lots of EMC issues and flickering, while modern lights (led) are DC powered and can be perfectly controlled and dimmed individually by the lamp driver itself.Connecting it to the internet is a step to far personnally but for your homenetwork controlling your lighting activating when there is motion etc. could be a huge energy safer and comfort booster.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 12:39:40 pm
content: Its still stupid putting too much 'smarts' in a mains bulb. Its also rather un-green, and benefits no-one except the light bulb manufacturers and their component suppliers.The power supply electronics of a mains voltage LED bulb leads rather a hard life, premature failure is not unusual, and the light output of the LEDs themselves degrades with total usage time. Other types of bulb also have lifespan limits. The place to put the 'smarts' is in the socket, not the bulb. Existing sockets that cant be easily replaced can be retrofitted with an adapter.Then you have to consider future-proofing. The working life of a lighting system is likely to be in excess of 20 years. If it doesn't use a well documented open protocol, then getting spares will become very difficult. I would suggest DMX512 over <whatever> transport layer. Ethernet, wireless and powerline DMX512 bridges are already available.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 12:51:19 pm
content: ... after customers complaining about the new firmware Philips has withdrawn the update.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 01:10:52 pm
content: Other than not doing it in the first place, that was the only sensible thing to do - otherwise the result would be simple: People will stop buying the Philips product.The study topic is "How to shoot yourself in the foot in one easy lesson".

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 01:32:57 pm
content: Quote from: madires on December 16, 2015, 12:51:19 pm"We recently upgraded the software for Philips Hue to ensure the best seamless connected lighting experience for our customers. This change was made in good faith. However, we under estimated the impact this would have on a small number of customers who use lights from other brands which could not be controlled by the Philips Hue software. In view of the sentiment expressed by our customers, we have decided to reverse the software upgrade so that lights from other brands continue to work as they did before with the Philips Hue system."http://www.developers.meethue.com/documentation/friends-hue-update

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 01:37:46 pm
content: So, because smart home control is an emerging market, and no-one offers standard solution for all tasks, the good solution is to provide APIs, gateways and open-source everything that you can. So others can contol your system and synergy.Philips decided that they are not smart.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 03:30:20 pm
content: 3 million transistors, an operating system and 5 million lines of code, and ,maybe, if all goes well, and they let you , you can turn on the led

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 05:15:17 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on December 16, 2015, 03:30:20 pmThats exaggerated, besides you are in these smart cars, how many billion LOCs are there in your supercar just to drive a car?And how many lines are allowed to fail so you are NOT able to drive the car. Go figure.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 05:18:12 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on December 16, 2015, 12:39:40 pmGo tell the customers to drop all their mains based lighting fixtures and go for the led fixtures best centrally controlled by a DC system.Unfortunately the real world is that customers do not want to change anything (not even their fixtures) and just replace the mains bulb for a mains led bulb which indeed is not what is really needed to make the transition. New buildings, new homes are the place where the new systems end up in. The rest is retro

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2015, 05:28:48 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on December 16, 2015, 05:15:17 pma car is not a lightbulb ...

author: aon
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 17, 2015, 07:39:41 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on December 16, 2015, 12:39:40 pmDALIis a pretty commonly agreed-upon protocol for talking to light fittings. Doesn't work over existing wires though but nothing good ever does

author: edpalmer42
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 17, 2015, 07:49:04 pm
content: TheFAILin this mess is thatSomeone at Philips thought of the idea.The idea made it through their entire corporate process without being killed.The idea was inflicted upon the public.The fact that they backed off just proves how absolutely clueless they are.Ed

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 17, 2015, 08:31:01 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on December 16, 2015, 01:35:31 amIt's called an App because Mac OS X has always used the extension .app for the application bundles. This carried over into iOS.OS X users have always called them Apps, at least since 2001 when I started with OS X. So, it's nothing new. It's just become more widespread since the iPhone and App Store took off.Technically, people shouldn't refer to applications for Android and Windows Phone Mobile 10 CE as Apps, but it's become a generic name, so what the hell.Anyway, is it really that big of a deal to say App instead of Application? App flows a lot better in conversation (single syllable instead of four) and is much easier to write. We all know that it's short for Application, so what's the big deal? Do you go around calling .exe files "executables" as well?

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 17, 2015, 09:26:51 pm
content: Quote from: edpalmer42 on December 17, 2015, 07:49:04 pmor that they listened to the voice of their customers, and how many companies don't

author: Brutte
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 17, 2015, 10:27:14 pm
content: QuoteThe firmware isproprietaryand it is their choice of what to include in upgrades to reach their goal$. Does the EULA state differently? I doubt it, I bet buyers unconditionally agreed on everything Philips offer.Philips' mistake was that their upgrade trick was obvious to notice. They should have put a random number generator and delay to spread the un-interoperability in time (lets say in months of operation) or degrade the performance at some conditions (like VW does). That would have calmed down the whining so that the users would never conclude why their Osram or Cree bulbs work so poor while Philips bulbs have such splendid performance.Lets hope Philips/VW won't make such stupid mistake next time and leave deception to professionals.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2015, 06:37:48 am
content: Oh please don,t compare those two, VW hid their SW operation and did it to circumvent laws.The other clearly stated in their release notes they stopped support for 3rd parties, they broke no laws, hid nothing but under estimated the consumer reaction. When confronted they rolled it back immediately.VWs first reaction was denial.

author: bitseeker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2015, 07:13:47 am
content: Anything + Computer = Computerfor better or worse. Although my career has been in the software industry for decades, I'm quite happy with my dumb lights, dumb watch, dumb refrigerator, mostly dumb washer/drier, etc.I'm often irritated by my thinks-its-so-smart, nagging microwave oven. Beep!pauseBeep!pauseBeep! Yes, I know you still have 1:26 left on the timer. Keep your pantyhose on while I stir my food!

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2015, 10:53:26 am
content: Quote from: timb on December 17, 2015, 08:31:01 pmGEM used the .app extension before Apple even licensed it for the Lisa :/

author: Artlav
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2015, 10:20:23 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on December 16, 2015, 01:35:31 amWhy the heck is it "application"? It was always called a "program". To call it either a-word makes no sense.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2015, 07:34:40 am
content: An application is a program that runs on layer 7 on a networked connected device, OSI layer.Before there were networked devices or if the program does not use connectivity it is and and will be a programjust making this up on the MartyMcFly.

author: marber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2015, 10:11:53 am
content: Quote from: aon on December 17, 2015, 07:39:41 pmSo how does it improve upon the Zigbee LightLink based solution then, especially considering the intended market of existing homes?

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 03:32:25 am
content: Quote from: amyk on December 16, 2015, 11:49:32 amTotally agree. I think it's absolutely foolish to put the control system in the replaceable part. You want to automate the lighting in your house, do what I did - use controllable light switches. They are still switches that someone can walk up to and use just like a plain ordinary mechanical light switch, but they also have the ability to be controlled via ZigBee and ZWave protocols. So when people leave the basement light on after they come upstairs - I can still keep it from being on all night by automatically shutting it off when there is no human presence. Or if it's dark, at night, and I am coming home with an armload of groceries - the light will turn on without trying to simultaneously keep from dropping the eggs, flip the switch, and keep the dog from running out the door.None of this is really new - years ago I had a lot of automation built around X10. Talk about dodgy construction - try taking some of those modules apart! Hmm, has Dave done that yet? I have some stuff I could send him. The latest stuff is much nicer. But please, the 'smarts' do not belong in the bulb itself. I have ordinary 'dumb' LED bulbs pretty much everywhere in my house now, particularly in the ones that tend to get left on and forgotten, but I haven't really done a scientific comparison to see if my total energy consumption has gone down.--Randy

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 09:48:17 am
content: Great switch on and off, and how exactly do you dim any individual light? And how do you set the colourtemperature or colours of any individual light?Clearly there is a reason that Hue is the best sellling consumer light product of the last years and has won lots of prices. So clearly there is a market for lightbulbs lasting 25000 hours with firmware inside.Maybe it is time to realize we entered the 21st century and with the new micro electronics more is possible then last century.

author: marber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 09:55:22 am
content: Quote from: rrinker on December 20, 2015, 03:32:25 am

author: aon
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 10:06:38 am
content: Quote from: marber on December 19, 2015, 10:11:53 amIt doesn't, and I guess that's not a worse alternative for wireless control than any of them are - they do fill a certain niche. I was mainly commenting on the idea of using DMX512 for house lights, which isn't that commonly done.

author: marber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:55:23 am
content: Quote from: aon on December 20, 2015, 10:06:38 amFair enoughI see Osram is offering some products for DALI integration with their (Zigbee based) Lightify Pro line, and also has a push button coupler for bridging wall switches to Zigbee.At least the consumer targeted non-Pro Lightify line is largely compatible with Philips Hue (until the trigger event of this thread). Perhaps if manufacturers can refrain from building walled gardens around relatively open standards we can get anywhere.

author: marber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 02:27:30 pm
content: Quote from: marber on December 20, 2015, 11:55:23 amI see there's finally moremovement on that front.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 10:43:31 pm
content: Quote from: timb on December 17, 2015, 08:31:01 pmOS X uses the word "application", and the extension .app, because the word "application" has been used on the Mac from day one, in 1984. (Indeed, the file type code for applications on classic Mac OS was "APPL", for application.) We long-time Mac users have been calling applications "apps" for decades.Quote from: Artlav on December 18, 2015, 10:20:23 pmIn the software industry, "application" is short for "application program", in contrast with programs thataren'tapplications. Application means auser-facingprogram to accomplish a task in, as opposed to software that's involved in managing the system, the OS itself, utilities, scripts, developer environments, etc.No, it's not lost on me that the lines between these things blur, but the idea is that Photoshop is an application, a virus scanner is a utility. Both fall under the "program" or "software" umbrella.In historical Mac terminology, in addition to applications, there were also "desk accessories" (little programs like the calculator and notepad, which were allowed to multitask before the Mac officially supported multitasking), "extensions" ("terminate and stay resident" in DOS terminology of the time), and system files. All of those are technically "programs" (in that they are programmed computer code), but application programs are the things a user launches and does things in.Ironically, the modern word "app" tends more often than not to refer to things that probably align most with the old Mac "desk accessory" category!

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 10:57:27 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on December 20, 2015, 10:43:31 pmWell. There you go. Thanks for that! I was a diehard PC user that started using FreeBSD and Linux in early-2000. I didn't convert to Macs until the fall of 2001, when I realized, hey this has a *NIX core with a pretty GUI! Started out with an iBook (remember the white ones?) and by 2003 I had a seriously beefed up MDD G4 (Wind Tunnel). I only had a PC around for games at that point.So, I missed out on a lot of classic Mac stuff. Though, I do have a really cool classic Mac around here somewhere that had a PowerPC chip *and* i486 in it, circa 1995. You could switch from Mac OS to DOS via a hotkey combo. Picked it up at a thrift store about 10 years ago. So, I guess I've got one of the oldest Intel Macs.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:04:31 pm
content: Quote from: timb on December 17, 2015, 08:31:01 pmThe bundle suffix '.app' has been in use since NeXTStep was released in 1989. It was never used in ordinary speech to mean "application" until an iPhone marketing campaign in the late 2000s. It does not occur at all in Simson Garfinkle'sNeXTStep Programmingfrom 1992 or David Pogue'sOS X: The Missing Manual2ed from 2002 (both are online).QuoteAs a Unix user I rarely refer to them, but I would never use the suffix alone as it is ambiguous. Do you mean a MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, or VMS program?

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:15:27 pm
content: Quote from: helius on December 20, 2015, 11:04:31 pmIt might not be in those books, but I'm telling you what the common vernacular was. I spent a ton of time on IRC and various forums from 2001 to present, and OS X applications were always called Apps by pretty much everyone."Double-click the disk image to mount it, then drag the App to your Applications folder."Apple marketing didn't just come up with the term "App Store". They called it that because that's what people in the community called applications. Because that's what the extension was.In fact, remember after the first iPhone came out, you couldn't install third party apps. It wasn't until the first jailbreak and Cydia happened, that it was viable; I distinctly remember the "App Installer" that was basically a package manager.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:28:54 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on December 18, 2015, 10:53:26 amGEM was released in 1985, over two yearsafterthe Lisa was released, and a year after the Mac. I can find no reference to the Lisa using a ".app" extension — extensions were not required on Lisa (or classic Mac), though people often added them to documents for convenience. If the Lisa used file extensions for applications at all, then it kept them well-hidden from the user interface. From what I've read, though, it's more like the classic Mac, which used type and creator codes for all files.Type and creator codes are 32-bit integers, normally depicted as four 8-bit text characters, for example "APPL" and "MSWD" for the Microsoft Word application executable, "TEXT" and "ttxt" for a SimpleText plain text document, or "TIFF" and "GKON" for a GraphicConverter TIFF image.The type code told the OS whatkindof file it was (that is, the format), and the creator code told the OSwhichapplication a file belonged to. The system did not require a 1:1 mapping of filetypeto preferred application, as Windows requires, for example. (For example, a jpeg image could have the file type "JPEG" and the creator "8BIM" for Photoshop. This meant the file would open in Photoshop when double-clicked, but any other application that knew what to do with "JPEG" could still open it. Or if you double-clicked it on a system without the creator installed, it could still use the type code to see what applications can open it. And other applications could save files of the same type (for example, "JPEG" and "GKON" for GraphicConverter), but still open in the originating application. It was really slick.)The type and creator code system was, IMHO, one of the most elegant aspects of the classic Mac file system. Unfortunately, the Entire Rest Of The Industry had no concept of a "creator", and so it made round-trip file compatibility a pain. So in OS X, Apple moved to file extensions like everyone else, and supported the type and creator codes for legacy compatibility for a few versions before retiring them entirely. Much of the functionality was later added back in with extended file attributes, which include a preferred application, entirely analogous to the old creator code.</offtopic></big old-school mac nerd>

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:36:09 pm
content: Quote from: helius on December 20, 2015, 11:04:31 pmOh yeah, right, I almost forgot about that! Not at all surprising that Steve Jobs borrowed over the word "application" that was entrenched at Apple when he went and founded NeXT.Quote from: helius on December 20, 2015, 11:04:31 pmI'll have to dig up some old Macworld magazines — the Mac world has been abbreviating "application" to "app" for decades, so yes, it was definitely in common use long before the iPhone had even been conceived.Quote from: timb on December 20, 2015, 11:15:27 pmAbsolutely correct.Quote from: timb on December 20, 2015, 11:15:27 pmErrr… no. The extension was named after the colloquial "app", not the other way around. Remember that on OS X, extensions are hidden by default, so most users never even see the ".app" extension. (OS X remembers on a per-file basis whether to override the system default of hiding the extension, which is why a ".docx" extension sticks if you add it in, say, Word.)Quote from: timb on December 20, 2015, 11:15:27 pmCorrect.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:41:50 pm
content: P.S. The reason I know this, and in so much detail, is that I've been a Mac nerd since 1992, then from 1999-2006 was an administrator of what we believe was the biggest Mac forum on the Internet at the time, with some professional work as a Mac technician/system integrator (which by necessity requires a fair bit of Windows knowledge) followed by becoming a professional technical writer in the software industry. So both the technical side and the wording are both things I've studied rather intimately.

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:44:50 pm
content: QuoteRight. What I meant is, it found common use because of the .app extension.

author: Artlav
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:45:19 pm
content: Quote from: timb on December 20, 2015, 10:57:27 pmDoes it reboot from one to the other on the switch, or are there essentially two computers running at once in the same box?Sounds pretty unusual, do you have any background on what the machine is and what is it's history? I.e. is it something official, or a product of someone's hacking?Quote from: tooki on December 20, 2015, 10:43:31 pmThanks, i hear the terminology all the time, but i kinda missed how it came to be.It just kinda became, like the cold water turning to boiling over the hours the frog sat in it.Quote from: tooki on December 20, 2015, 10:43:31 pmOne more thing i don't get - what's with the apps like Facebook, or the Tapatalk thing this very forum nags to install when watched on a phone?The web browser does the jobs of all of these "apps", and does it better. So what's the point?

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2015, 11:49:24 pm
content: Quote from: Artlav on December 20, 2015, 11:45:19 pmIt was a real product! It runs both at the same time. You could run the PC stuff inside a Mac OS window or full screen.If I recall, it shared access to the drives and system hardware (sound card, etc.) between the two processors. I don't remember if you installed DOS on a second partition or it used a disk image.Let me dig the system out of storage and get a model number. Maybe I'll do a tear down and start a thread on it!

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2015, 12:16:06 am
content: Quote from: timb on December 20, 2015, 11:44:50 pmUmmmm… no, definitely not. You've got it backwards. The extension is named after the word, not the other way around.The .app extension is hidden by default, so almost nobody ever sees it. I would dispute your implication that the .app extension is well known — I very much doubt it is known to most users. In contrast, the Mac community at large had been using the word "app" for years and years before OS X even existed, before we even had the .app extension.My point is that the word "app" had already "found common use" long ago. That it became farmoreknown (though with a somewhat different connotation) thanks to iPhone apps is neither here nor there.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2015, 12:32:44 am
content: Quote from: Artlav on December 20, 2015, 11:45:19 pmApple sold a number of "DOS Compatible" versions of otherwise normal Macs during the early-mid 1990s. They used a daughtercard which was in essence an entire miniaturized PC motherboard with some flavor of 486 processor on them, with its own RAM and GPU, but sharing the disk somehow, as well as all the I/O (ADB keyboard and mouse, display output, etc). Both the Mac's own 680x0 or PowerPC CPU and the 486 ran their respective OS at the same time. I think their might have been magic to let you cut and paste between them. Maybe timb knows — I never owned one of those, and they were a bit too long before my time as a Mac tech (and too rare anyway) for me to encounter one in the wild!Now, the DOS Compatible option cost more than buying a whole 486 PC systemso obviously they were not super popular. Unless you were super tight on desk space, you'd just buy yourself some crappy Packard Bell or Gateway 2000 PC to run Windows on, alongside your Mac.Orange Micro sold similar PC-motherboard-on-an-expansion-card PC compatibility cards for Macs for years, both before and after Apple produced these models.As an aside, Apple produced an equivalent card in the early 1990s to give the Mac LC series Apple II compatibility (it was a whole Apple II system on an LC PDS expansion card).Quote from: Artlav on December 20, 2015, 11:45:19 pmExactly!Quote from: Artlav on December 20, 2015, 11:45:19 pmWell, you can't generalize whether the browser does it better or not. Sometimes the website is better, sometimes the app is. Often, the app uses less power, because it's a) running native code instead of JavaScript, and b) doesn't have to receive tons of JavaScript over the network all the time, just the actual data. And native apps generally offer far better user interface responsiveness, plus allow the developers to use features that the native OS allows, but aren't available in the browser. Sadly, some app developers screw things up and make an app that's inferior to the website, and truly there's no point to that. But that's an issue of implementation, not philosophy.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2015, 12:42:35 am
content: This old TidBits article has a lot of info on one of the DOS Compatible Macs:https://tidbits.com/article/1439It says the C drive was a file on the Mac hard drive, by the way.Oh yeah, and the first DOS Compatibility card's code name was Houdini (How did I forget this?!?):http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/faqs/source/houdini.html

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2015, 07:28:17 am
content: Quote from: tooki on December 21, 2015, 12:32:44 amYeah, if I recall you could cut and paste between them. It was basically like running VMWare, only with real hardware.The machine I have is a Performa 640CD. Which ran a Motorola 68LC040 33MHz processor, plus an Intel 486DX2 running at 66MHz.The whole thing surprisingly works very well. You can access the CD-ROM, mouse, keyboard, floppy, etc. from DOS. You can dynamically change the RAM split between DOS and Mac OS. They also somehow emulated a Sound Blaster 16 that was available under DOS. For network equipped models, there was also a packet driver available.It was a pretty great level of engineering and integration for 1995.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 09:30:14 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on December 20, 2015, 11:36:09 pmThe phrase "Killer App" appears in print around 1989:https://books.google.com/books?id=uTAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT83&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=falseThis type of word shortening is typical of fast-talking business types. The communities I was part of in the '90s rarely used it, and definitely never as the primary term. The folder created by a MacOS 8 or 9 installation for programs is named "Applications", not "Apps"; the folder used by OS X is also named "/Applications".Quote from: timb on December 20, 2015, 11:15:27 pmI have IRC logs from that period, so I did a comparison. Word counts include server chatter(wc -w).Code:> bunzip -dc IrclogXX-yy.bz | egrep -oiw "app(s)?" | wc -lYearApp(s)?Application(s)?App%Application%2000q143628261392000q213212751492000q323416858422000q473629771292001h158520974262001h251822170302002q12888278222002q2-332312173272002q4-2003h134915869312003h2-2004h189425378222004h2-200710373237624(results not sorted by meaning; both terms were used in other contexts, such as "mailing my app to Berkeley" or "immediate application of fellatio from a sexy italian man", both in programming channels)So it was used by many, not by everyone. IRC is also heavy on abbreviations that would not be spoken (afk,brb), and a significant percent of the "app" uses were the full name of the program, like "Console.app".Part of the reason is that there was already a specific development framework called MacApp, whichfor Macintosh API programmers was hugely important. Calling something else a "Mac app" would have been very confusing in speech, but not in text (by the 2000s it was no longer commonly spoken about).On the other hand, both terms were used in the same sentence: "the applications being described by this scenario are for this particular app". Having many ways to say things makes language more flexible, which is sadly lost when the official term for something is "an App".

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2015, 11:30:09 am
content: Quote from: helius on December 23, 2015, 09:30:14 pmCool, thanks for the research!Quote from: helius on December 23, 2015, 09:30:14 pmNah, not really. For one thing, MacApp didn't have strong name recognition — developers and power users knew the MPW (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop) name of the IDE it was used in. Furthermore, MPW was largely obsolete by 1990. Many developers who'd already started their apps on MPW stuck with it, but nearly all new development from the late 80s-early 90s was on Symantec's Think C development environment. And then with the release of the PowerPC in 1994, most development moved to Metrowerks CodeWarrior, since Symantec screwed up the 68K->PPC transition. CodeWarrior remained the dominant IDE for the Mac until the PPC->x86 transition required a move to Xcode (Metrowerks had sold its x86 compiler to Nokia just a year prior). In any case, MacApp was far, far, far less known than the "Mac app" phrase. MacApp would have been entirely unknown to ordinary users, who would definitely have known "Mac app".Secondly, there's a slight pronunciation difference between "MacApp" and "Mac app", and of course it would be obvious in context what is meant. (Think how "newspaper" and "news paper" are pronounced differently.)