Karl’s Asylum ... for the terminally deranged

That I’m an “old man” in computing terms these days. Why? Well…I was sat in the office earlier, watching a younger colleague play Lemmings for Dos.

Complaints about the graphics, how do I up the resolution, is this a Tandy or a high performance PC and so on were heard.

I had to laugh…Welcome to 1991 again. DOS. SVGA if you were lucky. VGA pixel based games. Command lines, dammit. No, it wasn’t friendly, but it was fast, and it was efficient. Welcome to bare-metal computing. Not your pretty picture based, pointing device driven, highly graphical idiot guide interface with the engaging colours and “wipe your arse” wizards, but the stripped out core of sheer power that was command line.

It was sleek, it was powerful, and it relied on a knowledge of the system and the effects of commands..not like the GUI systems now..it’s all got a bit “engineered by intelligent people, run by monkeys” in some respects.

What brought this on? We’ve been playing with Windows Server 2008 core, and Windows Powershell..and you know, I rather like it..command lines make a return! Reminds me of the DOS extenders of my teens. Kix32 was always my favourite..heh.

Mouse? Bum to that. Pictures? No. Wizards? No. Pure command line fun..something I feel I could get my teeth into. I like command lines. GUI are like web apps such as Dreamweaver..any monkey can use them and make them do things, but if it all goes a bit manky..they’re lost. Doing it is no longer understanding HOW it’s done. So what? You point and click this, and it works..where’s the issue?

The issue is a lot of people don’t understand the background processes of WHY it does what it does. How many times have I been asked questions about “why does my webpage do “x”?”, only to find that while the design view offers nothing, the code view is MUCH more useful to finding out a point of failure…

In servers and OS, “Administrators” have in my view got FAR too cushy with GUIs, Wizards and point and click…if it all goes wrong and you need to use commands in non-gui form..can you? More to the point, can you do it from memory, or do you have to go and fetch a book? I think command line driven servers are a great idea..less bloat, less crap, less idiots calling themselves “technical” even though they’re glorified point and click merchants..

Lets just say that Server08 and Powershell are on my “to play with in depth” list..I mean, I grew up with Vic20, BBC, IBM Model 5150s, PC1640s, PCWs…all command line. Some BASIC, Some DOS 1/2/3, some CP/M+ based…I worked on VAX/VMS, supervising 15 or so command line screens at once..I still used the command line extensively up to Windown NT4 in my server admin role at the time…and I’m sure the new generation of scripting languages can’t be that hard!

Getting a virus on the PC is NOT nice. What IS nice is being a techie.

Oh no..mad system tray warnings!! Popups!! Popups!! Porn!! Argh. Should I panic? Swear and curse? Ah, the hell with it.

Machine off, restart into second hard disk running Vista. Start Antivirus, update, set it on the other (XP) drive. Let it twat any nasties on that while I start up my shared (Between both OS) Virtual PC running XP, and VPN into work to do some forgotten task on my work PC and mail it off.

It’s a marvel, isn’t it…10 years ago, I had..probably the K6/300. A good machine. Windows 98. 56k Modems. Now, what do I have?

An AMD Dual core CPU..effectively 2 PCs in 1 chip. Memory coming out of my ears. CAVERNOUS hard disks. Enough speed, power and space to even be able to use a hypervisor application to create a virtual PC in software only, and yet use it alongside my “real” machine as if it’s a seperate box without even noticing. I catch myself sometimes forgetting that it’s not a “real” PC, that has no tangible existence..no “arse to kick” if you will. It exists in the digital world, and there alone.

We have 8mb DSL..I can work on my work PC and any of the 200 PCs inside the building without even leaving my home desk here, and it’s all done as effortlessly and simply as a couple of mouse clicks.

And in the space of 10 years, this is accepted as “normal”??? 10 years ago, I’d have laughed and said “impossible.” Now..it scares the hell out of me. Hardware is losing out in innovation to software..virtual PCs, virtual servers, virtual applications, Virtual Learning Environments - excuse me…*spits*..sorry..;) We truly live in interesting times…

Ah, I appear to have contracted : Win32:Zlob-BVQ [Trojan]

Begone, oh piffling annoyance..get thee hence off my computer or I shall kick thy digital arse so hard, you’ll be seeing virtual stars..

and yet…even though my machine would 10 years ago have been doomed to lost time and probable reinstallation, and loss of productivity for several hours etc, what effect has this virus had on me today? Nothing except a reboot, and a minor embuggerance known as “Using Windows Vista”. Total productive time lost? About 2 minutes.

Frightening..isn’t it..