I was holding off on discussing this until I had all my machines upgraded, but I think the news is worthy enough to mention in the interim. Everyone’s favourite OS hit version 11 at the end of July, and it’s an awesome release.
These are the highlights from the release notes, emphasis added:
New port to the RISC-V processor architecture. NetBSD 11.0 is the first stable release to include support for 64-bit RISC-V platforms, including a range of StarFive JH71XX-based devices such as the VisionFive 2, PINE64 STAR64, as well as QEMU.
Enhanced compliance with POSIX.1-2024 and C23 programming interface standards.
Enhanced support for Linux system calls in compat_linux(8), including epoll (implemented around kqueue), POSIX message queues, statx, readahead, close_range, waitid, renameat2, clone3, sync_file_range, syncfs, and inotify.
Initial support for the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite platform.
Improvements to the npf(7) firewall, including layer 2 and user/group filtering.
New MICROVM kernel for x86, supporting both i386 and amd64, NetBSD 11.0 introduces a dedicated MICROVM kernel designed for extremely fast virtual machine boot, leveraging PVH boot, VirtIO MMIO, and multiple kernel optimizations, it can boot in about 10 ms on 2020-era x86 CPUs.
New virt68k port, for running the Motorola 68000 port in QEMU using paravirtualized devices.
I may dedicate a post to each one of these, there’s SO MUCH to talk about here. I use NetBSD as our home router, so npf(7) updates will likely be the most consequential in the short term. But I also have a VisionFive 2 board, and am interested in the MICROVM kernel, and the Motorola 68000!? Sorry, I know more level-headed people like to talk scientifically and rationally about changes like this, but to me I feel like a kid in a chocolate store. They also mention improved support for vintage hardware, because of course. ♡
Thank you so much to the developers, release engineers, documenters, supporters, and everyone else who keeps this OS going. I’ll be writing more about this in the coming weeks.
Clara and I were back in Sydney’s best suburb yesterday, stocking up on our various Japanese, Chinese, and Korean homewares, food, and other life essentials. I do sorely miss living there, but then I see the apartment prices are more than double what we bought ours for barely twenty minutes away by train. Damn our desire to want to travel and… eat!
The decor was lovely. Very light and airy, with lots of plants. The Muji-esque tables were arranged in small rows along the walls, and the open window that looks out into the shopping centre. This is by the main entrance, so there was plenty of natural light too, which I appreciate when I can get it in winter. This was the only view I could get on short notice, on account of the place being absolutely packed:
I wrote recently how I’ve switched to espresso after being a long black/Americano drinker for most of my life, and it’s places like this where I realise what a difference it makes. The double I had in the early afternoon here was among the best I’ve ever had. I lack the training to adequately describe flavours, but all I can say is that it was rich and juicy, with no trace of that dark-roasted bitterness. I’d have had another, if I weren’t already bouncing off the walls.
This might have been my favourite coffee this side of the Coathanger. Wow it was good. I’ll be back, maybe to try some of their filter brews as well.
This is one of those philosophical posts that’s as much a reminder for myself as it is for all you lovely people who read my ramblings. I mean, I’ve always written this blog assuming I’m the only person who reads it, partly because I think I very much should be the only person reading this. But I digress.
So much of modern consumer culture comes down to curating a sense of the following three things:
Scarcity.
Urgency.
Off by one errors.
I… wait, damn it.
They’re so ingrained, and such a part of our lives, that we’re easily blinded to their effects. But they’re almost always a lie.
Hurry! For a limited time only…
I’ve been suckered into this when it comes to retrocomputers and the second-hand market, surprising precisely none of you. I’ll notice something pop up where the seller is asking for more than its worth (to me), and I’ll feel this urge to buy it regardless. It’s scarce! It’s also urgent that I get it now, or someone else will.
Scarcity and urgency are cultivated specifically to make us behave irrationally. This isn’t conjecture, these attributes are literally designed and talked about in retail. Scarcity taps into our fear of missing out, and urgency places an artificial time pressure onto a decision, pushing us into a purchase before we’ve had a chance to think through it logically. As my late grandad used to say, be immediately suspicious of anyone encouraging you not to think too hard about something.
Alas, awareness is only half the battle. I’ve noticed I’m being manipulated like this, yet many a time my cursor has still sat there trembling over a BUY button, worried that it’ll be the one that got away, in the words of moral philosopher Katy Perry. The sense of impeding loss is real, even if the reason behind it is concocted, manufactured nonsense. On more the one occasion in the last few years, the regret has set in even before the device has arrived, and I’ve taken a haircut on resale as a penance just to rid myself of it… which makes even less sense. On the plus side, someone in Brisbane got a Gateway 2000 machine from their childhood, and paid a lot less in shipping than I did from Canada! But I digress.
Now granted, occasionally these feelings of scarcity and urgency are warranted. I had a saved search for a Commodore 116 for almost two decades before one popped up locally that didn’t cost as much as a light aircraft. But I had the money saved for that specific machine, so pouncing on it was already “pre-approved”. Other things that fly by though? Not so much.
This post is sounding suspiciously like a self-help guru in substance and tone. Maybe I’m subconsciously channelling them for dramatic and/or comedic effect. Point is: I’ve found something that works for me to break me out of this scarcity urgency pit. I call it the Scarce Urgency Pit. Wow Ruben, that’s inspired, and definitely didn’t just literally repeat what was in the preceding sentence. Are you sure you’re not Tony Robbins reincarnate? Or was that the ribs guy?
Whenever I’m about to get something, I ask myself this specific question:
Will there be another?
These four words cut right through.
First, they remind me that while something might not be ubiquitous or easy to source, it’s not scarce. Having saved searches has taught me many of the things I once thought were scarce are merely uncommon, and there’s almost always a regular cadence of them appearing and selling. Did I miss out? Yes, but there will be another. It’s done wonders for my patience.
Once you realise this, the urgency also melts away. It’s not urgent I get this Thing™ because there will always be another Thing™. And next time, it might be at a price you can stomach.
This unlocks the galaxy brain moment: you realise that if you can live without it now, you might be able to live without it indefinitely. I’d say I only get to this point half the time now, but half the time is better than none of the time.
I know right, sacrilege! The Americanos made with their “blond roast” could best be described as… inoffensive. But occasionally I do make the trip over with the laptop or a book.
There’s something about the experience. The wooden tables, that specific pastry smell, the music they play, the whirring sound of the blenders, the hushed Mandarin and Japanese being spoken. It’s as though I’m right back in KL or Singapore in 2008. It’s a trip.
It’s amazing to me how much the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has evolved over time, but that Starbucks remains so much the same. As I get older, it’s one of the only remaining things that still is.
(As an aside, this is why Clara and make a beeline for the nearest Doutor when we’re in Japan. Are they the best? No. But that’s not the point).
This is the fifth client I work with this week who’s auto-replied to an email I sent with this:
I am currently on leave returning on the 17th of August.
I don’t think I’ve ever had two clients from disparate companies share leave, at least outside popular holidays like Lunar New Year or Xmas. And now five people have? MAMBO NO. 5!?
What’s going on? Is there some awesome event going on now to which I wasn’t invited? Do they know something we don’t?
If a massive new zero day drops over the weekend, we’ll know who to blame. Lou Bega. Or Pérez Prado.
I was talking with Clara about the new Anthony Bourdain movie coming out, and it…
Wait, hold on a moment, Vim is telling me I misspelled the word “movie”. Really? Yeah, look at that, “movie” has a red box around it. Huh. Who’d have thunk it? Wait, Vim has “thunk” but not “movie”? Anyway, I digress.
I was talking with Clara about the new Anthony Bourdain movie coming out, and it went something like this:
Me: Did you see the news about the Anthony Bourdain bi-opic?
Her: I did yeah, we should see it. But also, I used to pronounce it “bi-opic” as well.
Me: Wait, used to?
Her: Yeah. Then I watched some film critics, and they were saying it as “bio-pic”.
Me: “Bio-pic”?
Her: Yeah, as in “biography” “picture”.
Me: …
Her: …
Me: I feel quite silly.
Her: You should in general, but not about this.
Me: Words you read but never say, amirite?
Her: You should try speaking English as a second language.
uBlock Origin also reported blocking 311 requests, which I found rather amusing. Perhaps the Australian Bureau of Statistics were attempting to perform a census of my browser as well.
I read another post recently that took it as given that the BSD operating systems were corporate friendly, with the implication that this was bad. They claimed that companies can lift code and lock it away in their proprietary software.
That’s true, they can. From a permissive perspective though, the GPL does the same thing. Importing permissive code into a GPL’d repository is a one-way street.
The BSDs are corporate friendly in the way bananas are friendly to people named Jeff. Aka, they’re friendly to everyone. Well, unless your name is Jeff and you’re allergic to bananas, which would suck.
On Monday I wrote about why I preferred light modes over dark ones. Light modes are bright, cheerful, and easy to read for me, whereas most dark modes dilate my pupils and “burn” text into my eyes that persist even after I turn away. Not fun!
But that leads to two questions. First, is a word with five letters. And second, are there any industry attempts to improve readability for all parties involved, not just weirdos like me? The answer is yes, kind of. Though based on my own lived experience, attempts to codify a set of accessibility standards around colour and contrast have proved lacklustre in practice. For example:
I’ll look at a theme like Solarised now, and find it difficult to read despite the mathematical proofs presented for why it’s harmonised and optimal for reading.
Sites compliant with well-meaning guidelines like the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines also aren’t ideal. WCAG attempts to codify a set of standards with the goal of making text clearer in a range of conditions. Thing is, I’ve read sites that plugins report aren’t WCAG compliant, and they’re easy to read. Conversely, WCAG-compliant sites have proved difficult. It’s weird. Is it just me?
The WCAG 2.x contrast formula is symmetric. The ratio formula (L1 + 0.05) / (L2 + 0.05) produces the same result whether the lighter color is in the numerator or denominator. White on black gives 21:1. Black on white gives 21:1. Mathematically, they’re identical.
But your retina doesn’t do math. It does biology. And the retinal response to light-on-dark is measurably different than dark-on-light at the same luminance difference.
This is the core limitation of the WCAG 2.x formula: it treats all contrast as luminance contrast, ignoring the perceptual asymmetry of polarity. It’s a physics model, not a vision science model.
There are attempts to fix this with WCAG 3.0, which will be implementing the Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA). It seems so blindingly (heh, thank you) obvious that our retinas would behave differently with light themes over dark, and that you can’t present the same contrast ratio on both. But that would explain why my eyes disagree with what a standard tells me I should find legible.
For the last few years I’ve been trying to source an IIɢꜱ, Apple’s last major hurrah for the Apple II platform, and the only 16-bit model in the lineup. I know I say this about every retrocomputer, but this was a fascinating machine.
Here’s the motherboard for my 1986 ROM1 unit, in all its dusty glory:
I’m missing more than a few components, as you can see. It doesn’t have a case. It has no input devices, like an ADB keyboard or mouse. It has no interface cards or memory expansion. The backup battery hasn’t leaked, but still requires urgent replacement. Most consequentially, it even lacks a power supply. Gulp. This is a static museum piece for now, though I was assured by the seller that it was fully tested prior to shipping.
I’ll save my detailed post about the history of this weird and wonderful machine for another time. Today, I want to ramble about just how improbable it was turning out that I would ever get this board, and why I’m so relieved to have this logic board even now.
Like the Apple //e Platinum I managed to get a few years ago, I first used the Apple IIɢꜱ in primary school in the 1990s. Apple had long stopped selling them by that point, but schools in Australia hung onto them for many more years. If it ain’t broke, why fix it? Their keyboards in particular imprinted on me.
During those initial Covid lockdowns, I learned more about the machine, how it didn’t run a 68000 like I always assumed, and how its GS/OS even beat the company’s own Macintosh to market with a colour GUI. Its sound capabilities were developed by some of the same team who worked on the Commodore 64, and its Integrated Woz Machine and Mega II chips made it integrated like the //c, and backwards compatible with other II peripherals and software. Again, I’ll save a detailed discussion of this for the next post in the series.
Finding a //e in good condition proved challenging, but the IIɢꜱ eluded me for almost five years. This makes sense to an extent; the //e sold in huge quantities even after later machines were introduced. I wouldn’t dare presume the universe cares enough about this random guy in Sydney to screw with him specifically, but it did feel as though it was conspiring against us.
Attempt number one came shortly after I got an //e, when a gracious reader contacted me to say they had a couple of IIɢꜱ units from, ironically, a school in NSW. If you’re reading this, thank you again for your kind words and effort! Unfortunately, as we agreed to meet up for coffee where he lived out Richmond way, he learned that the boxes stored at that school had been swept up and thrown away without his knowledge. If I thought I was disappointed, he was despondent. They had peripherals, disks, cables, and machines, and he had discussed how excited he was to spend his retirement hacking on them again.
Attempt number two came from a seller on a certain famed auction site. The Apple IIɢꜱ was far more common in their home country, but shipping costs to here entered silly territory in the last couple of years. I can buy a heavy Hi-Fi component from the UK, Germany, or Bulgaria that’s geographically further away than the US, and for half the price or less. I realised though I likely didn’t have much of a choice, so I sucked it up and bought a machine in beautiful condition, with shipping that was much dearer than the device itself. Unfortunately, a day later the seller sheepishly contacted me to say they’d still undercharged me for shipping. I couldn’t stomach the idea of spending nearly $600 for freight, even if it was one of the grail ROM3 units, so I declined. They were friendly and apologetic about it, so no hard feelings.
I harboured no such understanding for the person behind attempt number three who was either a scammer, or someone who’s actions were indistinguishable from one. As I blogged about recently, they took my money for the machine, then went AWOL for a month. Eventually they refunded me for shipping, but not for the machine itself, and continued to ignore any of my messages to their sales and support teams. I had to dispute a charge with the credit card company for only the second time in my life, which thankfully issued a chargeback against the merchant. The fact it came to that was silly. I’ve also raised a ticket with the shopping platform on which they ran their store to advise they have a rouge seller, which has also been an adventure.
Attempt number four wasn’t really an attempt, but it fits my silly narrative here, so I’m including it. I had subscribed to the RSS feed for searches on another auction site, and saw a hit when I read my feeds one morning before work. Our home internet went down almost immediately after, and in the time it took me to kick the router and bring it back up, it had sold. I blame this failed attempt on Malcolm Turnbull personally; his sabotaging of the NBN was specifically designed to thwart me getting a ROM3 IIɢꜱ. I hate him for it, but I respect his ability to play the long game.
Which gets us to attempt number five. I decided that if shipping an entire IIɢꜱ was too financially ridiculous, I’d instead source individual components. I would be replacing the power supply anyway, so that’s a lot of weight I could save. So I put in some saved searches specifically for logic boards, and scored a hit for a working ROM1 device. I contacted the seller directly to make sure they were fine shipping to the far-flung Antipodes, and confirmed the freight cost was accurate. They were prompt with their responses, and I suspect a little confused that I was asking so many rudimentary questions! But a week later, and I have the board here. Honestly, I was expecting it to get lost in shipping, or the seller to suddenly go AWOL themselves, or the board to arrive inexplicably in two pieces. It almost doesn’t seem real that it’s on the table next to me as I write this.
The next steps will be to wait for the PicoRC, do some basic testing, and think about what to do for a case. I have some silly ideas :).
