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What a sprite is

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software October 26, 2022March 17, 2025

What is a sprite? Sprites are a concept in computer programming, primarily gaming, or at least primarily thought of as gaming related. But if you are reading this on a desktop or laptop computer, you just used a sprite to click on this link.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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f strings in Python

Dave Farquhar Software April 11, 2022March 15, 2023

When you first encounter f strings in Python, they can seem like a dark art. And you can use them without understanding them. I’ve used f strings to get myself out of a bind, based on a code snippet I found on Stack Overflow or some other discussion board, with a comment saying not to ask me why it works. But here’s what they do and how they can help your code.

Dave Farquhar

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What is recursion in Python? Here’s an example

Dave Farquhar Software December 13, 2021March 26, 2023

Recursion in computer science is a subroutine that calls itself. So what is recursion in Python? The same thing. A function that calls itself.

Recursion is a concept that first or second semester computer science classes frequently cover, but it can be confusing. I will admit that I generally tried to avoid using it, but it can be useful. I especially find recursion in Python useful when working with APIs, which is a common Python use case.

Dave Farquhar

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ZIP vs RAR

Dave Farquhar Software March 24, 2021February 20, 2021

ZIP and RAR are two popular file formats in the Windows world. They have similarities, since both of them provide lossless file compression. But they have some fairly significant technical and philosophical differences too. Here’s a look at ZIP vs RAR and why the two file formats have coexisted side by side for decades.

Dave Farquhar

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json.loads vs json.dumps in Python

Dave Farquhar Software March 17, 2021May 17, 2023

Dealing with JSON is a common task when you’re coding in Python. Two functions you may use a lot without fully understanding them are json.loads and json.dumps. Let’s take a look at json.loads vs json.dumps in Python, what they do, and how they can help you, especially when wrangling complex JSON data from APIs.

json.loads and json.dumps are two functions in Python for converting JSON to and from simple strings. Sometimes one is better than the other, and being able to convert between them reduces the trade-offs you have to make.

Dave Farquhar

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Make a Word hyperlink UNC path

Dave Farquhar Office, Software, Windows February 20, 2021command prompt, Once Windows, UNC

I had an issue in a document with a hyperlink to an existing file. The file existed on a network drive, so the link worked fine… until someone with different drive mappings than me had to look at the document. Then the link didn’t resolve and the person got an error message. A confusing error message. It turns out it’s tricky to make a Word hyperlink UNC path.

Fixing it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Gzip vs Zip

Dave Farquhar Software February 17, 2021December 25, 2024

Zip and gzip are two similarly named utilities, and they perform similar functions, but they are unrelated. They also have slightly different use cases. Let’s take a look at gzip vs Zip.

Simply speaking, Zip and gzip are implementations of the same compression algorithm for different operating systems, so they are similar but the file formats aren’t compatible. Zip originated with MS-DOS, while gzip originated with Unix-like operating systems, notably Linux.

Dave Farquhar

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Can’t type in PyCharm? Try this first.

Dave Farquhar Software October 19, 2020September 12, 2023

PyCharm is a lifesaver for developing in Python, but it has a glitch. Sometimes, after you run a script, you lose the ability to type in the editor and make changes. Loads of web sites offer elaborate suggestions to fix the problem, when PyCharm doesn’t allow typing, but frequently, these complex solutions don’t work. Frequently they cause other problems. Try the easy solutions first.

The two easy solutions are to double-click on another file in your project, then double click on your script again. And if that doesn’t work, just exit PyCharm entirely and relaunch it.

Dave Farquhar

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Is Windows Unix based?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software June 9, 2020February 2, 2022

At least two of the most popular operating systems of today are based on Unix. But what about Windows? Is Windows Unix based?

While Windows has some Unix influences, it is not derived or based on Unix. At some points is has contained a small amount of BSD code but the majority of its design came from other operating systems.

Dave Farquhar

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RAM Doubler remembered

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Software May 11, 2020September 7, 2023

RAM Doubler was a fairly popular product for Macintosh computers in the 1990s. But you can’t buy it today, and if it seems like it’s been a while since you’ve seen or heard of it, there’s a reason for it. Ironically, it was a competing product that didn’t work that brought it down. Here’s what happened to RAM Doubler.

RAM Doubling products worked by setting aside an area of memory and compressing it, then decompressing it when you needed it. It was a form of virtual memory, theoretically faster than traditional virtual memory that used disk space, but less stable.

Dave Farquhar

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