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The Graphing Calculator Story

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The Graphing Calculator Story

Utterly delightful story from Ron Avitzur in 2004 about the origins of the Graphing Calculator app that shipped with many versions of macOS. Ron's contract with Apple had ended but his badge kept working so he kept on letting himself in to work on the project. He even grew a small team:

I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would start reporting to me. She didn't ask who I was and let him keep his office and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely productive

Via Kellan

Tags: apple, computer-history

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ChrisDL
24 days ago
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New York
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TypeScript types can run DOOM

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TypeScript types can run DOOM

This YouTube video (with excellent production values - "conservatively 200 hours dropped into that 7 minute video") describes an outlandishly absurd project: Dimitri Mitropoulos spent a full year getting DOOM to run entirely via the TypeScript compiler (TSC).

Along the way, he implemented a full WASM virtual machine within the type system, including implementing the 116 WebAssembly instructions needed by DOOM, starting with integer arithmetic and incorporating memory management, dynamic dispatch and more, all running on top of binary two's complement numbers stored as string literals.

The end result was 177TB of data representing 3.5 trillion lines of type definitions. Rendering the first frame of DOOM took 12 days running at 20 million type instantiations per second.

Here's the source code for the WASM runtime. The code for Add, Divide and ShiftLeft/ShiftRight provide a neat example of quite how much complexity is involved in this project.

The thing that delights me most about this project is the sheer variety of topics you would need to fully absorb in order to pull it off - not just TypeScript but WebAssembly, virtual machine implementations, TSC internals and the architecture of DOOM itself.

Via lobste.rs

Tags: typescript, webassembly

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ChrisDL
33 days ago
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New York
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Asahi Linux’s bespoke GPU driver is running Windows games on Apple Silicon Macs

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A few years ago, the idea of running PC games on a Mac, in Linux, or on Arm processors would have been laughable. But the developers behind Asahi Linux—the independent project that is getting Linux working on Apple Silicon Macs—have managed to do all three of these things at once.

The feat brings together a perfect storm of open source projects, according to Asahi Linux GPU lead Alyssa Rosenzweig: the FEX project to translate x86 CPU code to Arm, the Wine project to get Windows binaries running on Linux, DXVK and the Proton project to translate DirectX 12 API calls into Vulkan API calls, and of course the Asahi project's Vulkan-conformant driver for Apple's graphics hardware.

Games are technically run inside a virtual machine because of differences in how Apple Silicon and x86 systems address memory—Apple's systems use 16 KB memory pages, while x86 systems use 4 KB pages, something that causes issues for Asahi and some other Arm Linux distros on a regular basis and a gap that the VM bridges.

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ChrisDL
167 days ago
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awesome.
New York
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Setting Up a VPN Without an App on iPhone

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An important follow-up to yesterday’s item about Russia demanding Apple remove VPN apps from the Russian App Store: you can use a VPN on iOS without an app. It just requires some futzing in Settings and a VPN provider that supports it. Presumably, this technique remains available to iPhone users in Russia. Here are instructions from one such VPN provider, ForestVPN:

  1. Access Settings:
    • Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
    • Tap on General and scroll to VPN & Device Management.
  2. Add VPN Configuration:
    • Select Add VPN Configuration.
    • Choose your desired protocol, such as L2TP or IKEv2.
  3. Enter VPN Details:
    • Fill in the necessary fields like Description, Server, Remote ID, and Local ID. These details can be found on the ForestVPN website.
  4. Save and Connect:
    • Tap Done to save your configuration.
    • Enable the VPN by toggling the switch next to your newly created profile.

VPN apps remove complexity from this process, but it’s worth noting that VPN access doesn’t require an app.

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ChrisDL
180 days ago
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New York
174 days ago
Great follow-up! It’s good to know that VPN access on iOS is still possible without an app, especially with the current situation in Russia. While the process might seem a bit technical for some, having the ability to manually configure a VPN ensures more people can stay connected and maintain privacy. It’s also a reminder of how valuable VPNs are in protecting personal information and accessing restricted content. For those interested in exploring more tech solutions, I’ve shared helpful insights on my blog at getgbwa.in. Stay secure, everyone!
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Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Homemade

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Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
You could also do history by unboxing artifacts.


Today's News:
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ChrisDL
205 days ago
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New York
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Pascal's Wager Triangle

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In contrast to Pascal's Wager Triangle, Pascal's Triangle Wager argues that maybe God wants you to draw a triangle of numbers where each one is the sum of the two numbers above it, so you probably should, just in case.
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ChrisDL
287 days ago
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New York
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1 public comment
satadru
282 days ago
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*snort*
New York, NY
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