Comments for The Silicon Underground

Comment on Adobe’s subscription model by Magnum

Magnum — Fri, 08 May 2026 05:47:46 +0000

Another way Adobe’s software practices suck is that PDFViewer which is free contains a whole lot of other functionality, maybe even unrelated to PDFs at all, which Adobe will unlock if you pay them. So you are forced to download a whole lot of extra crap wasting both bandwidth and disk space; and they’ve been doing this for nearly two decades, back when these issues were a much bigger deal.

According to some reports, as well as wasting bandwidth and space the extra code on your system increased its surface area to hacking vulnerabilities! Yay Adobe!

Comment on Intel Pentium II introduced May 7, 1997 by Magnum

Magnum — Fri, 08 May 2026 05:34:46 +0000

In reply to Magnum. I should have mentioned the reason I wanted dual CPUs was because I was running BeOS!

Comment on Intel Pentium II introduced May 7, 1997 by James

James — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:52:45 +0000

I remember learning that a particular stepping of PII-300 could be reliably overclocked to 450 MHz. I bought one along with an Abit BH6 motherboard and ended up with a screaming fast PC that I could afford on my burger flipping teenager wages. I ran that machine until I eventually upgraded to a 1.4GHz Athlon.

Comment on Adobe’s subscription model by Jim Grey

Jim Grey — Wed, 06 May 2026 17:01:54 +0000

I use Photoshop heavily as a hobbyist photographer. I’ve made peace with the monthly charge. I also have a license for CorelDraw 2023 because of one killer feature it has for me that isn’t nearly as awesome in Photoshop. I’ll transfer CorelDraw from machine to machine until it won’t install anymore because the hardware or OS doesn’t support it. Then I’ll buy whatever the latest CorelDraw is again. I’m at peace with this, too. Doesn’t mean I _like_ any of it!

Comment on Adobe’s subscription model by James

James — Wed, 06 May 2026 16:48:11 +0000

I refuse to rent software, this is not negotiable. If my old copy of MS Office ever becomes unusable I’ll move entirely to OpenOffice. If a software company wants a dime from me they’re going to have to offer a perpetual license.

Comment on Adobe’s subscription model by Shirley Marquez

Shirley Marquez — Wed, 06 May 2026 14:24:50 +0000

The subscription model is also challenging for non-profit organizations. It is much easier to get grants for software purchases, which are seen as a capital expense, than for subscriptions, which are seen as an operating expense. Buying subscriptions has to come out on unrestricted donations or other sources of revenue.

Comment on How Xerox invented the GUI and lost it by Xavier Talfumiere

Xavier Talfumiere — Sun, 03 May 2026 14:40:32 +0000

I can add some color. I used to work for a company which was purchased by Xerox in 2010 – when they decided they wanted to be like IBM and HP and pivot to business process outsourcing services. First, they were seeing themselves as innovators, as inventors. And even 10 years ago, they were one or the two largest patent applicants in the US. And Second, the standard way of presenting things in the company was that they had played their hand cleverly. Because laser printing was the real gem for them, a way to extend their presence and their virtual monopoly in office printing. The GUI was just a way to accelerate adoption of desktop publishing, and Xerox was better off letting other companies develop the office of the future, as long as they secured their position as the leading provider of laser printers.

Comment on Timex Sinclair 1000 computer: Revisiting its legacy by Jon

Jon — Fri, 01 May 2026 14:14:52 +0000

In reply to garyohuk.

Gary, the Spectrum wasn’t replaced in popular use by the BBC Micro. Sales of the Spectrum were five times higher than sales of the BBC; Sinclair’s machine targeted the mass market of home users very successfully and kept selling into the early 90s (by which time Amstrad owned the brand).

The BBC Micro did indeed dominate the UK schools market so almost every British person of a certain age, including me, will have experienced BBC Basic and the various educational titles published for the machine. However, Acorn’s computers made little impact in the home market because while they were great machines for the time, they were much more expensive – and frankly rather uncool.

Comment on Ad Lib bankruptcy: May 1, 1992 by Coz

Coz — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:18:50 +0000

Just like Tandem, or Nokia.
Failure to innovate, failure to adapt to adverse market conditions.

Comment on Why Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 by Jon

Jon — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:34:48 +0000

The demise of Commodore is one of the most fascinating topics in the history of the computer business. And as an Amiga owner at the height of that machine’s UK popularity in the late 80s/early 90s, I lived through it (OK, I was just a kid, but still…)

A few straws in the wind which haven’t been raised in the article – Commodore lost a ton of money on a succession of disastrous product launches at the start of the 90s. The CDTV we can excuse to some extent, because Philips made a similar bad bet on the CDi. But the Amiga 600 was poor in both concept and execution, and destroyed sales of the still-successful A500.

At root though, Commodore’s problem was that it wasn’t a computer company. It was a widget maker. Commodore sold typewriters, calculators and thermostats before computers. The company’s corporate leaders had no vision, ever, beyond selling stuff for a short-term profit. It never had a strategy, a business plan, a product roadmap, a mission statement. And because of this they never really capitalised on the success of the C64 or the capabilities of the Amiga.