unix Archives - The Silicon Underground

Commodore 64 operating system

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 11:00:40 +0000

The Commodore 64 didn’t have an operating system in the traditional sense that we now think of one. It most certainly did have a method of interacting with the user and handling I/O, including disk files. But the way it

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Why did IBM fail at PCs?

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 11:00:33 +0000

If you ask why did IBM fail, I assume you mean why did IBM ultimately fail in the personal computer market. IBM is still in business, after all. But its exit from the PC market after 24 years, including a

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Advantages and disadvantages of Windows NT 3.1

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 18 May 2017 11:00:38 +0000

I’ve talked a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of old milestone operating systems. But what were the advantages and disadvantages of Windows NT 3.1? That’s a fair question. Advantages of Windows NT 3.1 Windows NT 3.1 was a landmark

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Commodore 64 vs Amiga

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 12:00:14 +0000

Looking at the Commodore 64 vs Amiga seems a little odd, at least to me. After all, the machines were never intended to be rivals. The Amiga was supposed to succeed the 64. Commodore bought Amiga because they couldn’t make a

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Commodore 64 commands

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 11:00:06 +0000

People frequently ask me for a list of common or useful Commodore 64 commands, including disk drive commands. Since the C-64’s built in operating system is more of a combination command line/Basic interpreter, it takes some getting used to if you didn’t

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Common AmigaDOS commands

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 11:00:00 +0000

The Amiga had a command line, or CLI. It was a rather powerful CLI, especially for its time. But there are a number of differences between AmigaDOS and other operating systems you may be familiar with. These are the common

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Origin of CP/M’s PIP command

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:00:58 +0000

CP/M was, as you probably know, the first popular microcomputer operating system. It was good but imperfect, and its cryptic command for copying files, PIP, is often cited as an example. Copy makes sense. Even the Unix equivalent, cp, makes sense–it’s

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Find PHP malware in Linux

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 11:00:38 +0000

A lot of people seem to be looking for help cleaning up hacked or infected web sites lately, so here’s a trick I used in the past to find PHP malware in Linux and clean up the infected files. PHP

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Tricks for giving presentations at work

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 05 May 2015 11:00:39 +0000

One of my peers–he does exactly what I do at work, but for Unix machines while I cover Windows–asked me for some tips for giving presentations after he gave a presentation last week. I’ve presented a couple of times myself,

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Lenovo’s preinstalled Superfish spyware: A post-mortem

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 11:00:02 +0000

So, if you haven’t heard by now, last year Lenovo experimented with preloading its cheapest laptops with spyware that subverts HTTPS, allowing a third party to inject ads on any web page, and providing a convenient place for an attacker to

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