Then I thought, why does multiple websites loads slower like WordPress and stuff?
It actually turns out it was bloat.
To define bloat, bloat is something unnecessary that the user didn't want. For example those pre installed apps your laptop manufacturer installed in your laptop.
"But why do you talk about bloat?" you might asked, well, in the modern times, you can see websites with chock-full of unnecessary scripts and shit for a simple block of text. Lemme explain.
If you have a decent internet connection and you find out that your website you want to see was unusually loading for minutes, might be those unnecessary scripts.
For example, if you looked up a quote of your favorite show, you might notice why the content loads slower than expected. You only need that one quote to post on the bird app or in the metashit.
I gonna introduce you to soydevs, the people who behind the abomination. These soy milk drinking Silicon Valley developers usually code stuff in an unoptimized manner.
They oftentimes smash bunch of numbers and letters and expect them to work. If it was working, they didn't bother optimizing the code. They usually used Javascript, the worst language the humankind came up with.
Now, you might ask "Why you hate JS? You can actually make a game in that!" Well simple. It makes things slower to load. For example, this HTML file is just probably in a few kilobytes, most browsers can load this in under a second. But if I was your stereotypical soydev, you might be able to see this in few minutes.
Another culprit of this cesspool was Microsoft. They literally added advertisements inside Windows 11. Windows 10 is hella slow for hard drives, but I don't remember an average desktop computer having a solid state drive in 2015! The ads for Spotify, Candy Crush and doh! Microsoft services! They beg and beg to sell your fucking soul to them and use Microsoft Edge over and over again!
Hey soydevs, do you know about RSS? HTML5? EVEN FUCKING CSS?? You can like theme a website with HTML and CSS, like this one! Heck you don't need to learn Javascript to make a website! You might say this website is awfully ancient but 90s web design have more personality than the fucking Microsoft website! Like look at it. Too flat, too corporate, unlike early amateur web design, full of GIFs and buttons, web rings and too much eyecandy, you might ask for a doctor about "eye diabetes"!
Man, I never talked about Electron did I? Electron is the worst web platform I've heard. period.
If you want to make a website, learn HTML and CSS, one day you will be good enough. Find a domain name, find if self hosting is worth it, and most importantly, don't use Javascript. Ever. Even a year before the sun dies.
Oh, I forgot about people using Ubuntu or ManjarNO, please switch to either Arch, Void or Gentoo. I would recommend Void too.
Please stop using gNOme. Use suckless software like dwm and st. dwm is literally the quintessential window manager. It's lite, minimalist and you can customize it. All you need is some knowledge of how to patch suckless software and you can add things like transparency or gaps. You can add a start menu style program called dmenu, but I recommend building from source as packages in your favorite package manager can be outdated. If you want to have a machine that suck less, you might want to ditch bash and switch to zsh, and ditch sudo for doas. That's all my ranting. See you next time!
]]>That's right folks, we're talking about RSS feeds.
Here's a brief summary of RSS: RSS was created in 1999 after failed attempts for web syndication back then. At first it didn't get much traction, but when the new millennium turned, RSS started gaining traction. Famous outlets and websites started RSS feeds, that icon was everywhere you looked.
The format became more prevalent in around 2005 to 2007. Every website and blogs have RSS feeds as a way to deliver content to people. As YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms became prevalent, the art of RSS became obscured.
Now, talking about RSS in this day and age was like talking about what happened to the dinosaurs, but unlike dinosaurs, they still exists, just hidden like Luigi.
You can still access RSS feeds today, for example this website or TechCrunch or GMA News. Heck The New York Times still have RSS feeds.
Now you might say, why do you talk about RSS feeds, where you can access content in Twitter? Well, simply, it's much better.
Yes, it does have a disadvantage of having a separate RSS reader but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. First up, you can read stuff without ads floating around or soul being sold to Google and Meta. For example, I can still access Twitter feeds without the harassment. I also read a news article without the 90% of Javascript. Heck it's basically better to distribute podcasts here than waiting it for release in Spotify.
RSS is just better than looking for Twitter about blog posts and such. You can add your favorite websites to a RSS reader.
If you find scrolling into Twitter, looking for a new blog post and don't want to bother with Javascript, you can access it by going to a RSS feed, unless if the author doesn't maintain it anymore.
Accessing RSS feeds will also help people with a slow connection as they can also access content without the hassle of loading a full Javascript site and waiting for minutes.
You could also access podcasts too in RSS feeds! This format is too versatile for accessing content to the masses, although I'm not sure about how to access it in this day and age of social media and surveillance capitalism.
I honestly recommend using it because it's a good way to access content from your favorite websites. Now, you might ask, "How about looking at my favorite celebrity's Twitter feed? How about YouTube videos?", well it's simple, take a look:
If you want to access Twitter feeds via RSS, you can use https://nitter.net/username/rss
.
For example, you want to access content from your favorite WordPress website, you can do it by adding /feed
in the end of the website URL.
If you want checking out your favorite subreddit, you can use https://reddit.com/r/subreddit/rss.xml
For people who want to see the latest Scott the Woz episode or a new video on YouTube, you can use https://youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=channel_id
. You must use the channel ID of the channel itself. Searx for a channel ID grabber so you can add it.
You might ask how to do it, it's pretty simple actually. You need some basic understanding about HTML text formatting and XML. You can get a generator but I recommend making it yourself.
As for reading feeds, you can use Newsboat for Linux. This RSS reader is based on vim (based text editor) and can access feeds easily without the hassle of installing a window manager.
As for alternative to RSS, well there's Atom. Atom and RSS are somehow related because they both use XML but they are different platforms.
I might add an Atom feed soon so expect to see it later. See you!
]]>So a bit of history here, but here's a story on how was web created. It all starts in mid to late 1980s where software makes hyperlinks to certain things like help or documentation. One day, Sir Tim-Berners Lee was researching something. He was creating the first web server. Then in 1989, he actually made a HTTP server to connect to a client. Months followed and he laid the groundwork of what the Web would essentially become. In 1990, he created WorldWideWeb for NextSTEP (later renamed to Nexus to avoid confusion with the Web itself), which is the first ever browser, server program and a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Later, with an assist from an intern, they made Line Mode Browser. It was included into libwww, which gave foundations to other browsers to come. One of them is Lynx, as it is the oldest browser to still be maintained, and one of the popular text browsers.
The next step of the creation and sparking the WWW boom. Some guys at NCSA were seeing VoilaWWW, one of early browsers. Then two guys was interested into making something like it, so they made Mosaic. It was originally for the X Window System for Unix based systems but later ported to Mac OS and Windows. One of the creators left NCSA, asked some guy at Silicon Graphics, and four University students to make Netscape Navigator (originally called Mosaic, then Mosaic Netscape then simply Netscape after some treats from NCSA because they were using the Mosaic name), which is the intial foundation of Mozilla Firefox. The Mosaic browser was also licensed to Microsoft via Spyglass (which is more like a reseller), which became Internet Explorer. The rest is history.
Now back to the current times. The Web, just like I said before is constantly evolving every single day. More websites being created, more buying domains, more hosting their own website. This rapid evolution wasn't like having no consquences, no no no.
I'm introducing to you three things: hidden surveilance, Web3 and crypto, and what is Yesterweb.
Now, you might think, wait a minute, what do you mean in hidden surveilance?
Hidden surveilance in this context, is sneaky trackers hidden in cookies or the website itseof to gather more data from you, essentially making an almost complete profile of you. Your age, sexuality, interests, everything. The main bad guys of this was Google and Facebook (now called Meta). Google might be popular but the main source of it's revenue was Google Ads. Ads in todays world, is like an overattractive girlfiend, following your steps like what are doing, what purchases do you made, what searches do you made, what videos do watch etc. Facebook on the other hand is a social media platform as we know it, but nowadays it's more like a flytrap. You browse your Facebook feed, you might see ads for something they thinks you want.
Here's an example: You chatted your friend, asking about buying a SNES. Later on, you saw ads on Facebook for a SNES, and related stuff. Scary right? The problem is, that companies make it vague about their belief on your privacy, for example Apple. Apple do protect their user's privacy, but at what cost? The other problem is those big tech companies lobby hard to keep their scummy pratices. I could see a "US gov't vs. Microsoft" lawsuit again, but they would be not be put in jail. Google on the other hand, has a parent company, Alphabet Inc. They're the second largest internet company in the world and Google by itself is the largest and widely used search engine. But the things are looking bright, like the time FCC sees Meta's strange behavior, and more stuff.
Web3 was coined by the co founder of Ethereum, it is supposed to be a decentralized online ecosystem with the same tech as crypto and NFTs. Now the problem was this, they're going to restrict freedom in the current Web.
The problem was into enviromental suistainability, the problems with the crypto community itself and artificial scarity, among others.
Now we delve into a topic that is a buzzword since 2021: non fungible tokens. Non fungible tokens or NFTs in layman's terms was an unique photo of something (for example, apes), and trying to sell their digital signature. It's more like buying the deed for a land, not the land itself. The main problems of NFTs are the sheer enviromental impact. Mining crypto requires a lot of computential power, since mining crypto was mainly done into a graphics card. Mining crypto in general produces a lot of heat and it is a waste of electricity, some even bought power plants for mining crypto. The enviromental im,pact of NFTs and crypto in general is pretty massive.
The worser form of NFTs were NFT games. I must admit, people in my family does play them, but I can't do something to change their minds. NFT games are popular, due to the success of Axie Infinity months ago. Axie Infinity is a game where you strategically place cards, so your Axies can deal damage to the enemies. But the application process is a convoluted by itself, first you must get a "scholarship", wait for it to be approved, then set up your Ronin Wallet and Axie Infity account, with your starter Axies, after that download the game from the official website, then play. Initial hype was massive, it was featured in a local TV show called "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho". The initial price of SLP back then was staggering high, but nowadays, it's on rock bottom. That points to the next problem about NFTs.
My next point about NFTs is the early adopters and whales (note that keyword), since those people is the high priority in crypto projects. Those people has higher chances of being rich. It's like a Ponzi scheme in a way, where the top (early adopters abd whales) getting the most money out of crypto while people in the bottom will get no money to becoming almost bankrupt. It's like the economic ladder, and you wouldn't get into the top.
The other thing about crypto and NFTs in particular, is creating artificial scaricity. Artificial scaricity is the act of creating scaricity out of an infinite resource. Since a normal jpeg file can be downloaded, copied, and reuploaded, the crypto guys made some artificial scaricity by the "proof of work" concept, which in layman's term, just the digital signature of the original work. This line of random letters is important but there's a lot of exploits on that concept. The one thing NFT bros hate is screenshotting NFTs. This would make the image essentially worthless.
There's many projects those are attacking crypto and Web3. One of them is Extremely Fungible Tokens, which is made by the omotone guy and there's Yesterweb, which I'll talk about in a bit.
NFTs and Web3 was essentially making web private, like Nestle tries to privatize water, I mean web is more just a fad nowadays, as this is now essential in this pandemic situation, like for example, learning or work from home. This whole thing is the main fundemental of the metaverse, which is straight out 1984 itself because you will never know what happen to your data.
The Yesterweb community was comprised of average people who uses internet and make actually cool stuff than corporate shit. These guys believes the internet is community driven, That's what the internet is all about. creativity. Most websites by the 90s are full of crazy things like GIF animations and wacky buttons. The community on Discord is fun, the discussions are good enough and the community itself is pretty good. You can also make goo sites if you know some basic HTML and CSS! You might learn some ideas on your own website! If you want to join this community, check out their website!
They have a links directory, a radio, a zine and many, many interesting stuff! It is the community that you should join if you want the web to still be free!
That's all that I can talk about today, I might update my website and stuff but see you then!
]]>Now, I'm Grade 8 and here's what really happened during the first week of classes.
August 22, a.k.a the time I socialize with people again. (Man this is a very, very long time.) After a mishap of me almost falling to a river (luckily, I'm fine, with wounds), it's a nice day, we did an orientation, and elected our classmates, and also know them better. We also did a body map, but honestly, it's a pretty good day for me. The day continues like a normal school day but yeah, it's a fine day.
Heavy rains because of a typhoon really hits hard. The day startted fine as well, with us taking pre-tests in various subjects. We take an another activity about mental and social health, and the MAPEH class is really fun, and we came home by noon since it was announced that there wouldn't be classes later on the day and in the following day. Me and my neighbor got wet because we thought our service would be on the front gate but we later know that it would go the back gate. The day ends pretty roughly.
After a day of rain, I showed up in class again, and this time, we showed up our body maps. It was fun, especially with our classmate showing her body map and laughing out of shyness, and we have a good time, with pre-tests for the other subjects. It goes along pretty roughly, especially math, since what the heck is a x+y? The cases of kidnapping rises, and I am pretty, pretty worried about my wellbeing, so I waited to my service to arrive.
The last day of the week was pretty nice, with me being good at recessitations, and the news about a fight in Walter Mart (yes, the school was in a front of a mall), quickly being spread, which is unfortunate. The day was full of some lessons, with us going home at 4pm, since our Journalism class was canceled due to scheduling and room space reasons. But rain unexpectly came, with flooding almost reaching our classroom. It was a time of me socializing with my classmates, it's a really fun moment in the classroom.
And that's how the first week of face to face classes felt like to me. It was really refreshing, since we have modular learning for like the past 2 years. It's a fun time socializing with people again, instead of my little sister again and again. It was great seeing our country recovering from a pandemic, even with the imminent danger of Monkeypox. It was a real good time.
It's been a while after I wrote blog posts in my blog again. It was a long while, and I think It's the time I make one. The past months is pretty quiet, but I tried stuff like RISC OS and the ammount of GNU/Linux distributions and Unix based ones like FreeBSD. I hope this fills a gap, and yeah, I hope you're fine. See ya!
]]>As you've noticed, I overhauled my website's homepage for a few weeks now. I am actually thinking about the new homepage layout for months actually, the first version of the homepage actually used the original HTML file with modifications due to, one, it used outdated and/or nonexistent specifications, and the second one is the one you've been seeing now. If you want to see the first version, you can look up on the Wayback Machine, or via GitHub or BitBucket until I backed up my site again.
This is one of the things I was thinking about adding until like in the past 4 days, as it's officially here, a responsive layout, which sadly breaks browsers (which breaks my original intentions) but after using sadgrl's layout builder, recreating my layout manually, and doing stuff like making a pure CSS collapsible list that I found from Google (actually DigitalOcean), but who cares, less work tho. I was thinking of putting the old homepage sometime soon.
One of the most requested things on my site was add a dark mode, and now you can see my site in dark mode! Please note that I used media queries to do it, so set your whole browser to light mode to see it on the old color scheme. Dark mode is just basically the website but inverted, which surprisingly worked and looked good for me, also I'm still squashing bugs related to Dark Reader. That add-on will break the border's color for the most part and the *totally JS* commentbox, but I'm a maniac so, whatever.
Since the website is overhauled, most things would be deprecated until I put it again, such as the guestbook, the wall of infinite buttons, and so much more. I might even put KibiByte Updates back in the right sidebar, so no hope is lost.
As for the general reception? They generally liked it, but I want YOUR own opinion, so that's why there's a box at the top telling you to tell me a feedback in the Freedom Wall. I want you, I'm checking the feed once in a while, so it might take some time.
Well, I'm most likely to stick with it for years, I might change the CSS stylesheet but it's likely more minimal, unless some browser breaks support for some element. I'm also wanting to keep the vibe of being looking like pages in the late 90s, but I am just a regular teenager with a life to go on, but it's unlikely that I might change the vibe. I'm still looking forward to the future of this site, and Neocities as a whole, since I and more people who want to be more indie, relieving the GeoCities era, or both use this website. I might host it here forever, unless Neocities shut down which I might migrate it to something like a tilde community or I decided to host it on my own. Still, the future is looking bright for the website, as we're approaching the end of 2022.
I am working on this continuously for days, with one day not doing at all because of a recent typhoon. Still, I'm asking for your own feedback to the overhaul since I am totally unsure if I should keep it or not. Be serious about your feedbacks, and also I hope you are having a nice day. See ya!
]]>It's been a month after I daily drive this Linux distribution, with me using Windows, mainly for either gaming incompatible games or maintenance.
And yes, I use KDE. Now stop rallying because I mainly use it for integrating well into a normal Windows 10 desktop, and since I'm probably the sole user of Linux in my circle, it's also for familiarity. I might use dwm again, who knows but for now, KDE it is.
Also, please stop complaining bloat, like I mistakenly did a year ago. It's expected that application sizes would grow to have room for new features, and that's okay. Bloat in software terms is defined as unnecessary features inside a piece of software or the software itself. Examples include Norton or McAfee antivirus software.
Okay, I wanted that to cleared up. Now back to our post.
openSUSE is a (GNU/)Linux distribution made by the openSUSE project since 2005, replacing SUSE Linux (not Enterprise), after Novell (then parent of SUSE) discontinued the boxed Personal editions of said distribution. It started as a beta of SUSE Linux 10 but eventually evolved into a more refined distribution.
Since 2014, there are two primary variants of openSUSE aimed on Desktop users, Tumbleweed (the one I use) is a rolling release distribution, where bleeding edge software that passes OpenQA would eventually released almost daily, and Leap, following a more traditional 18-month release schedule and is the base for SUSE Linux Enterprise versions.
Tumbleweed is aimed on people who are technical enough, had strong and consistent internet, and for people who had at least an experience on Arch. Leap is aimed on servers where downtime isn't needed, a beginner, or a simple desktop.
For my experiences, I used openSUSE Tumbleweed, with a consistent update schedule.
For the most part, the YaST2 based installer setup is pretty straightforward, the disk partition tool is a bit of getting used to, with me double-checking if I installed this on the correct drive. After that, it's all smooth sailing. The process took me like 15-20 minutes in my setup.
After all's done, I immediately upgraded the system to get the latest available software and features in openSUSE. Everything's setup after that, I installed necessary programs via zypper
and it's done. Straightforward as that.
openSUSE for me is smooth, fast and also could do mundane tasks off everyday use. In my usecase, I use it similarly to Windows, a general workstation/gaming/education PC. Features are great, especially the ones exclusive to openSUSE itself, including zypper
, YaST2, and snapper
.
Overall, the system runs on high performance, it could handle Minecraft on default without stuttering unlike on Windows 10, and also given me the chance to run one thing, KVM.
I'll list my own opinions about the openSUSE features that isn't on Windows 10 or is a hassle to do so.
Btrfs is a file system, just like NTFS or APFS, but it's main selling point is the ability to create subvolumes inside of that drive. Let's say in Windows terms, C:\
is the root volume, while C:\Users
is the /home
subvolume, you should get the point.
This is where snapper
comes in. Snapper is an utility to snapshot drives after an event, such as changing settings on YaST2, updating or installing packages on zypper
. That means, if an update broke your system, it's a matter of a reboot, selecting "Show read-only snapshots" on grub, boot to the snapshot, open terminal and run snapper rollback xxx
. After a reboot, it's working back again!
By default, it only configures snapshotting on the /
partition, you could set up snapshotting on /home
if /home
is on the /
partition or if it's Btrfs formatted. It's also recommended to use 16GB to enable it by default on setup.
Most of the time, snapper
also cleans up the snapshots (except user generated ones) to avoid filling up space immediately, which is a cool feature too of snapper
.
Man, I wish we could have this on Windows too, instead of having huge backups, we could have such incremental backups officially, not using 3rd party applications.
The zypp package manager (zypper
) is a versatile package management tool. It could handle dependencies as well as, among others, could add OBS (Open Build Services) repos, 1-click install (in GUI), and more.
I have a semi-bad habit of using sudo zypper dup
which I should prolly avoid but the Update applet on KDE probably uses it.
It's basically just an another package management tool in the surface but it has some good features under the hood. The disadvantages, I think was the lack of an equivalent of apt autoremove
but it's working as advertised.
YaST2 is a beast, I admit. YaST2 centralizes many things a sysadmin would like to do in a nice interface, such as firewall, partitioning, software management and more.
It also powers the 1-click Install applet in GUI equipped systems, and also the installation setup whenever a fresh install is initiated. It's a powerful swiss-army tool for system administrators, and a good one at that.
I often do software management on that as it has a simple and straightforward interface. I do find the partitioning tool a bit confusing but it's okay if you get used to it.
Overall, YaST2 is a powerful tool, but most of the time in openSUSE, I use 2-3 tools on average, in a daily basis. It's a must-have on openSUSE systems.
Open Build Service or OBS, is an equivalent of Arch's AUR. It hosts programs that are unavailable on the main repos. You could package, manage, build or install packages on OBS. I wouldn't go too deep with how to create a package in OBS though.
OBS packages are different to the main repos, and might introduce conflict to other packages, but if the program you install actually needs a specific dependency, then you could install on the Open Build Service.
Personally, I use it whenever I need a specific program like Waydroid, or something else. Other than that, it's a cool perk on openSUSE.
The choices of desktops and window managers in openSUSE is diverse, with KDE being always the default (which I currently use). You could install other desktop environments like GNOME, Xfce, MATE, LXQT, LXDE, Budgie, Cinnammon or window managers such as IceWM, dwm, sway, hyprland and the like.
The desktop environment I use is KDE Plasma 5.27. It's sleek, modern, and also, especially in openSUSE, it's well integrated in the distribution. It reminds me of Windows 10 for a bit, with the default theme being switched to Breeze Dark. I also have fun customizing and adding more functionality to the system via widgets, such as a weather widget that could have precise locations (instead of having Manila or Cebu by default), a fork of the old kickoff (KDE equivalent for the Start menu), and more!
Of course we have our own pick, I respect it, I tried GNOME on other distributions and it isn't familiar but nice (also the "bloat" but I'll refrain to use that term anymore, also have a case of the "Control Panel syndrome" where a particular DE or operating system have two or more setting applications, just like Windows 8+)
Another nice thing it has was the ability to have more panels, something Windows 11 doesn't have, which means, you could remake either Windows or macOS.
Overall, KDE is a nice desktop environment. But you could choose others too via the setup process, which is kinda provided. By default, you could choose KDE, GNOME and Xfce, with others hidden under some options.
I could tell that openSUSE could run games well or better than my Windows installation. Granted, it varies on many variables, such as how old the installation is, as well as how many programs are there in Windows, among others.
But I could still compare some games, for example, Minecraft: Java Edition runs well within default settings inside Linux compared to Windows, which whenever an attempt is made to reset the default graphic settings would make the game stutter.
Other games, GTA San Andreas for example, is nearly identical to it running on Wine compared to it running on Windows. I tried native games such as SuperTuxKart and the Super Mario 64 decompilation port.
Proton is nice, being the backend of Steam Deck's ability to play Windows-only titles, and it's actually a nice lifesaver from overconfiguring Wine. I heard of Lutris too but it didn't work so, Proton it is.
There are downsides that I experienced during the duration of the month, some were outside of my own, some were my own fault. One of it was whenever the WiFi was down (which happened for 3 days) and so, updating it using mobile data. God it was slow. Luckily, I updated after the WiFi returned.
I also have recent problems with Packman and Mesa, prompting me to downgrade and switch vendors then do it again 2 days later.
I see the lack for Waydroid in the repos disappointing, with guides supplementing it. I happen to have issues with the prerequisites and so didn't do it further.
But overall, it's nice and stable most of the time.
Usually, I use VMWare, VirtualBox or 86Box whenever I need to try out an operating system, especially x86 based ones. But sometimes, some operating systems are picky about which virtualizer should it use.
For example, ChromeOS doesn't work on VMware on the latest versions, or something like an Android-based operating system would struggle under Windows.
For that, I need something like KVM. KVM is different to other virtualizer solutions, I wouldn't like to explain it deeply, but basically, it's a Linux kernel module to add the functionality of virtualizing different operating systems directly, with near-native speeds. It is commonly partnered with QEMU.
For managing those, I use Virtual Machine Manager that enables management of KVM machines, as well as others such as Linux Containers. It's a nice GUI to easily modify machines with it. Additionally, I have Boxes (from Flathub) for certain operating systems such as GNOME OS (which is a reference platform).
Honestly, having this on my arsenal would be a great help on starting the GUI page.
openSUSE is versatile at what it's worth as a distribution. The community is great (especially the Discord community), the distribution is stable, the added benefit of a traditional release schedule operating system really adds to the integrity of the distribution.
I hope I could use it in the long run for more general purpose tasks. I would like to switch completely eventually but since I would eventually need some applications (such as Adobe Creative Cloud) for school related tasks, I wouldn't make the jump immediately.
This might be my longest post yet, and I hope you didn't get bored. I got things to do, so we would end this blog post here. See ya, and be safe.
]]>As the anniversary of the original Macintosh approaches, I would tell a short story on how I found clean copies of the System 0.97 disk.
For the uninitiated, the original Macintosh 128K system shipped with System 1.0, internally System 0.97, since the launch of the model in January 24 to May of 1984, when it was replaced by System 1.1.
The version is essentially a public beta (see Real Artists Ship on folklore.org), but it also became instrumental in the formation of the most important computer line in history (alongside the IBM PC compatible and descendants). While the difference between 1.0 and 1.1 are mostly bug fixes and performance improvements, the disk itself is an important document in the history of the Macintosh line.
Unfortunately, the disks available on the internet are modified, have custom fonts, and other little oddities. Early copies that spread online are unclean, i.e modified so bad that it doesn’t resemble the original disk. Because of these, there are attempts on recreating the original experience, while others tried to improve them, but few actually searched for the clean dumps.
Usually, we would check existing archives such as the abundance of Apple Developer CDs, as well as the Legacy Recovery CDs, and few other sources. But lo and behold, the earliest dumps available are from System 1.1, and it’s incorrectly labeled, alongside Systems 2.0 to 5.1/4.3. (Further details on this unusual naming scheme is found in earlymacintosh.org.)
I found out about this issue in the middle of November 2023, while reading issues for the Infinite Mac, and been skeptical about it. I eventually found out this problem that no one, as in no one except a relative few tried to solved.
In this blog post, I would discuss how I did find it, and the experience, as well as what happened after I found it.
In the computers of the era, a hard drive was expensive, albeit large enough for their standards. But the consumer target computers of that particular era rely on different media to store data. Early microcomputer users (such as of Apple II, VIC-20, C64, among others) use audio cassettes to store data, while IBM PC users might be familiar with floppies (IBM PCjr actually does have a cassette drive, fun fact), and maybe a relative few use punch tape. In contrast of the 5.25" floppies that are common in that era, specifically 5.25" 360k disks for the IBM PC, the Macintosh uses a hard shell 3.5" 400k disks for storing data, which is one of it’s defining features (a Twiggy disk drive was planned for the Mac, just like the Lisa before it, but due to reliability issues, it was later replaced with a Sony drive).
Early versions of the system use Macintosh File System (MFS), a non-hierarchical file system, that was designed for the 400k disks, which was eventually replaced by the Hierarchical File System (HFS) introduced in System 2.1 (HardDisk 20 Boot). The file system have some weird quirks to it, such as how it handle folders, even if the design naturally doesn’t allow it. One of the interesting things about it was it could write a disk once it opens, if the write-protect notch doesn’t exist.
The System 0.97 disk is write-unprotected, which means a user could modify it and add new files such as MacWrite documents into the disk itself. While the properties didn’t cause problems initially, the decision hindered the preservation of those disks, as a user could also alter the whole system as a whole with a copy of ResEdit or with unusual personalization tools, which means modification of the disks. As I also found out, it could also mean transferring things that aren’t supposed in the clean disks (case in font (pun intended), Font Mover and Disk Copy.)
There are uncertain things about the initial spread of the now-infamous “Pastel font” disks that present System 0.97 with a pastel font, instead of the iconic Chicago font, but the earliest examples are the ones found in The Mac 512 Usergroup and Gamba’s software archive, with Gamba’s being the source of modified disks in various sites such as Macintosh Garden, Macintosh Repository and WinWorldPC, among others. Quirks of the disks are that it could load the right font under a Macintosh Plus or an emulator like Mini vMac, and my hypothesis is that the ROM might have a copy of the default font set, or parts of it (as seen by the increased ROM data capacity).
This spread later with YouTube videos, most using Mini vMac. While I don’t see the problem if I looked into a normal viewer’s perspective, it does feel off if you actually care about old operating systems. There’s a part of me that tells me that these creators didn’t do much digging, but in the end of the day, they worked hard enough with creating content, so I respect them.
What’s more unfortunate is the fact that the modified copy is prevalent, and somehow still is… until in the middle of November 2023.
I initiated the search sometime in November 20, or later. I tried searching through Google, digging through old forum sites and popular retro Mac sites, which turned out to be a grueling process. I asked Discord servers, forum sites and Reddit if they have it but I neither have something useful nor have a better answer. And that’s when it hit me. Why not make a list of the copies I found through the interwebs? In theory, that should help with the effort.
And then, that night of November 26, 2023, I started work on the gist of the same name, documenting each copy that I have. During that time, I cataloged many copies from different sites, some copies from the same site. I spent some more time to test if the disks are bootable. Some aren’t which I hypothesize the result of it being NDIF format Disk Copy images, as I looked retrospectively.
I also did try digging through shopping sites as well as bidding sites such as eBay but that turned out as not worth my time, as I live in the Philippines, and the conversion rates are high enough that I couldn’t afford both the disk itself and the shipping cost. Another problem with this approach is that I don’t have either an old Macintosh or a floppy disk drive that could handle 400k disks, or the necessary knowledge to image those disks, as well as where to store once done.
During the same time, I also emailed a few guys, such as ToastyTech (Nathan Lineback) and the webmaster of earlymacintosh.org. I’m initially shocked that the emails are still active. Nathan also told me that he doesn’t have a copy but happy to upload it on WinWorldPC once I find it. The webmaster of earlymacintosh.org however is where I finally found the end of the rabbit hole. It has been November 27 (the following day) when I sent that email, and he responded 2 days later. The disks are there, and to my surprise, it also includes the other disks in the 128K disk set.
Why a disk set? Well, the actual Macintosh 128K box and the models succeeding it actually contains other floppies: System Disk, Guided Tour Disk, MacWrite/MacPaint (bundled in a single floppy or separate) and Guided Tour of MacWrite/MacPaint. Later models omitted MacWrite, MacPaint and the Guided Tour disks as sufficient hard drive capacity became available to everyone, and the models improve performance, and the later transition to PowerPC. The four disks are instrumental to the later success of the Mac, specifically MacWrite and MacPaint.
When checking the disks, it is modified in January 18th, 1984, which is when the disks are printed in after the developers tirelessly pushed out the release (ref. Real Artists Ship), and also exactly 40 years before I even written the blog post in ghostwriter (markdown editing program). A deep look into the files, it has modified dates between the 18th and the 24th, confirming that it’s a clean dump.
As told in the Overview, which I further elaborate, Disk Copy is nowhere to be seen as that piece of application first appeared in System 1.1, initially to easily clone floppy disks, which later evolved into a program also capable of imaging the disks. Font Mover is also nowhere to be seen in the System disk but does appear under the MacWrite/MacPaint disk (disk 2). This is responsible in moving fonts to other systems, later adding the functionality to move disk accessories.
The information about the disk, as far as I was been told was it used to be owned by a developer, that doesn’t need the disk. The copies that webmaster had is imaged sometime in January, 2004, but 2 of the disks are redump sometime in June 2018, which is hidden in his private collection of Mac System disk images, mainly from the fear of copyright strikes in his website by Apple themselves, just like the other retro Mac sites from back in the day, but due to my reasoning in the gist, he eventually made it online.
It’s December. I uploaded the disks after getting his approval on Macintosh Garden and the Internet Archive, some few days later. The disk later made it’s way to WinWorld around the same time. I have to check Macintosh Repository if someone uploaded the updated disk sets there.
I only uploaded the System disk and MacWrite/MacPaint disks as the Guided Tour disks, albeit one of them have a never-before-seen betas of MacWrite and MacPaint, is not currently stable under the emulators I have tested, unless heavy modification is done.
On December 22, I filed an issue to Infinite Mac, mainly for adding DC42 support to the site’s Mini vMac port. As I was currently in my dad’s that time, I have some limitations to do stuff on my big bro’s fancier setup (mine is a hand-me-down with new parts), I was testing the Mac stuff while dabbling into emulating a Nintendo Switch game, because I got a collection of old Macintosh disk images while in a bus trip. Since normal Mini vMac 128K can’t run MacPaint 1.0 from the disk, DC42 was an easy fix. Then someone finds my research, and the images found their way into the website, both original and modified for Infinite Mac.
By then, I gradually stopped with messing with it as I slowly put Mac OS X into focus (at the time of writing, I’m tinkering with unmodified Tiger DVD booting into KVM via OpenCore and stuff) and more Mac OS X stuff.
The actual experience of the operating system is purely just the desktop and the desk accessories. Sure it’s revolutionary at the time, but the normal system disk is barren with applications as the disk space is quite limited. The Macintosh 128K’s real potential comes down to it’s killer applications. Just like how the Game Boy and Tetris is influential, the Macintosh and both MacWrite and MacPaint shows how the Macintosh can do much more than it’s contemporaries, possibly even the Lisa before it, as it shows it’s power in the desktop publishing industry.
MacWrite is what would you expect a basic word processor nowadays, but back then the program was much more advanced than the competition. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the first “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” or WYSIWYG word processor software, but it was a hit among users of the system, as it could effortlessly combine text, pictures and other elements without much complexity to the end-user.
MacPaint is a drawing program, which has a lot of features, and one of the earliest programs to be made for Macs. It could draw things, and more, such as goofy ahh memes of the highest caliber, It also features some fancy (at that time) editing tools, such as the selection tool (Lasso), shape tools, as well as interesting tools such as FatPixels, and others. Later on, the UI style of the program was copied, including, interestingly enough, the Apple II Mouse Card, which is based on a much earlier build of MacPaint (folklore.org), among others.
The desk accessories are basic enough, and are coded cleverly that it could run in background even if there’s applications opened, sort of an early attempt at multitasking. It’s useful on getting things calculated or copy and pasting stuff from the clipboard desk application or changing the system a bit.
In conclusion, the disk images are finally properly preserved, in a state that everyone could enjoy it. This is a story on how an oftenly ignored issue now solved mainly as I learned much about how to gather stuff, as well as using the search engines to their limits.
I’m sorry if I’m not that often to write stuff, it is what it is. I don’t care about the algorithm anymore, I care about doing what I think is the best of my work, and I like what I am doing, as well as the schedule also filled with other things to do such as in school.
Expect more content as well this year, this is only the start. I don’t know which topic to do next but I hope I could churn out content much more filled with important stuff and fascinating things about tech, gaming and more.
In the blog post, we discussed how short my finding process is, which is unusually short than most lost or partially found media duration between that status to being found, but I’m still glad that I put a case into rest now, as a pristine copy of System 0.97 is found.
And as always, see you next time!
(also special shout-out to M.D.)
]]>Hello there again! As you know, this site directory is now turned into it's own very site. Why? Because that's more cooler and somehow intuitive.
As I explain on the title, The Blue Pages serves as an old web counterpart to Yellow Pages, an item from the bygone era of traditional telephone where you open the book to find local businesses and services in your are to call in.
The Blue Pages serves as a much niche complement to both the White and Yellow Pages, instead of either providing a residential directory or a directory for local businesses, it's a directory of old web (and sometimes modern web) sites or platforms that you could visit or use nowadays.
Yes... and no. Yes, we are listing websites to search for just like Google, and no because I will do things differently.
See, even during it's 25 year old lifespan as a big tech company, Google slowly is becoming an advertising powerhouse and not only just only search engines. Google, Bing and other modern search engines rely too much on the algorithms, which is horribly being abused by mostly spammy websites, AI generated bullcrap and more than more often than not, Reddit is added to suffixes of most tech related search queries.
The Blue Pages differs by mimicking real life yellow pages. While yellow pages sites exists, it mimics the directories for something like hotels, so I decided to go with the same style as the physical yellow pages.
In this layout, while it is only alphabetical and categorized, it doesn't rely on algorithms, as it is already relevant to a particular audience. Much of the listings on the page are included by me or from submissions I saw on Mastodon, Discord or SpaceHey.
Easy! Go to the Blue Pages site, choose a category, and find which website do you want to visit!
Submit them to me! I'll review it myself and would put it there within days! You can send submissions on Mastodon, Discord, SpaceHey or Email, but I can't guarantee that I could read it immediately.
You can! But it's purely limited. I don't allow heavy use of JavaScript, server-side scripting or malicious code injected in the ad. Please send your code to me on a pastebin or in Codepen, as well as where to put it.
The Blue Pages is open source, in fact I made it a specification so everyone could use it.
I wanted everyone to embrace it, and adapt it for their communities. The Blue Pages will connect sites together as the directory is relevant to your niche interests, but without the invasive stuff in it.
If you are wondering about the old site directory, then it would be archived but unlinked except for the sitemap.
By this, I hope that you could reflect onto what the internet was in ye olden days, and also to have fun browsing.
With the Blue Pages, you can Let Your Fingers Walk on Water. Quite literally. Yes, we literally downgraded from actual search engines but, do you even mind that? You are in your own anyways, so why not check out the directory.
As for those curious, you can see the directory here.
And as always, see you next time!
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