Homeless encampment in Santa Cruz. Any effect upvalley?

[wb6...@gmail.com]

I've been following the evolution of the homeless encampment behind the Ross store in Santa Cruz.
(All not so far from Jeff's work place....getting any fallout from them, Jeff?)

I have this Pollyanna outlook that people should have places to hang out unmolested if they are temporarily on-the-ropes, but I've failed completely to take into account the drug/needle aspect and the like...so I'm left in a quandry. Life is not so 'Star Trek' happy future as I want to believe.
I guess I need this newsgroup to drag me back to reality.

Is the homeless problem is extending up the Valley to Felton and Boulder Creek? If so, are they mostly 'normal' people (you know...like usenet posters!) just looking for a place to exist cheaply or are they problamatic?

Pureheart in Aptos

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 09:28:37 -0800 (PST), wb6...@gmail.com wrote:

>Is the homeless problem is extending up the Valley to Felton
>and Boulder Creek?

Yes, but in a different manner. There are small encampments all
around the valley, but no big tent cities like in Santa Cruz. if you
fly over the valley in an airplane on a cold early evening, you'll see
large numbers of open camp fires in the hills. That's where they're
living.

>If so, are they mostly 'normal' people (you know...like usenet
>posters!) just looking for a place to exist cheaply or are they
>problamatic?

I talk to and yell at the homeless hanging around my office
occasionally. It's difficult to generalize, but I meet all types and
flavors. Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
users, drug abusers, and the handicapped. Most appear to have arrived
in Santa Cruz fairly within about a year. All of the lie about former
occupations, military service, financial status, and support received
by the city. A few are violent and destructive. It's really hard to
find a "solution" that will work for all these types of individual
problems.

Also, this might explain why we have so many homeless in California:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=shipping+homeless+to+california>

For example:
"Homeless 'Dumping' Settlement Impacts San Diego"
<https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Nevada-Settles-Homeless-Dumping-Lawsuit-369736411.html>
According to lawsuit recently settled, a Nevada mental
hospital was accused of sending 500 patients by Greyhound
bus to San Diego and other California cities.

The left coast is the end of the line for those being shipped out of
town by cities to the east. There's no other place further west for
them to go, so they stay here.

Maybe take the $10 million to address the homeless problem and ship
them all back to Nevada.
<https://www.ksbw.com/article/santa-cruz-receives-dollar10-million-in-funding-to-address-homelessness/25911209>

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[BCFD36]

There has always been a homeless population in Boulder Creek. They live
in tents back in the brush/forest, under bridges, wherever. Like Jeff L.
said, they are a mixed bunch but mostly not your everyday people. Lots
of money spent on them. Many fire calls for medical attention. MANY.
Fewer actual fire calls, but a few. One almost got me smashed flat from
a water drop from a helicopter. Maybe a story for another time.

--
Dave Scruggs
Captain, Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Sr. Software Engineer - Stellar Solutions

[wb6...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 11:42:01 AM UTC-8, BCFD36 wrote:

Well, gee. Now might be a good time for your story about "getting smashed" on the job.
When my daughter Gretta was volunteering at Felton fire (fire/paramedic) she said that they had these people called "frequent fliers", but it was unclear to me if they were 'imports' spilling over from Santa Cruz or not. She's w/ AMR down in Soledad and part time at Gonzales fire these days.

New topic: thanks for your fire service. What language(s) do you use for your programming? I took C and C++ at Cabrillo but was apparently too dumb to get hired anywhere (too old, now).

pH

[wb6...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 10:22:17 AM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

> On Sat, 26 Jan 2019 09:28:37 -0800 (PST), wb6...ail.com wrote:
>
> >Is the homeless problem is extending up the Valley to Felton
> >and Boulder Creek?
>
> Yes, but in a different manner. There are small encampments all
> around the valley, but no big tent cities like in Santa Cruz. if you
> fly over the valley in an airplane on a cold early evening, you'll see
> large numbers of open camp fires in the hills. That's where they're
> living.

Back when I was working for the County I came across a redwood shell that had a dying campfire filling its center. I called CDF when I got to a phone, but I was incredulous since it was late summer.

> >If so, are they mostly 'normal' people (you know...like usenet
> >posters!) just looking for a place to exist cheaply or are they
> >problamatic?
>
> I talk to and yell at the homeless hanging around my office
> occasionally. It's difficult to generalize, but I meet all types and
> flavors. Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
> users, drug abusers, and the handicapped.

Well, you never yell at *me* and I'm mentally challenged. Sounds like discrimination to me.

> Most appear to have arrived
> in Santa Cruz fairly within about a year. All of the lie about former
> occupations, military service, financial status, and support received
> by the city. A few are violent and destructive. It's really hard to
> find a "solution" that will work for all these types of individual
> problems.
>
> Also, this might explain why we have so many homeless in California:
> <https://www.google.com/search?q=shipping+homeless+to+california>
>

Checked the link. I wonder why Monterey, Carmel, Marina, Seaside, Sand City, Castroville, Moss Landing, Watsonville, Soquel and Capitola (and Davenport) all seem to escape the sheer numbers that choose to inhabit Santa Cruz?

> For example:
> "Homeless 'Dumping' Settlement Impacts San Diego"
> <https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Nevada-Settles-Homeless-Dumping-Lawsuit-369736411.html>
> According to lawsuit recently settled, a Nevada mental
> hospital was accused of sending 500 patients by Greyhound
> bus to San Diego and other California cities.

"A Nevada mental hospital sent all its Ham radio operators and Usenet posters to Santa Cruz....."

>
> The left coast is the end of the line for those being shipped out of
> town by cities to the east. There's no other place further west for
> them to go, so they stay here.
>
> Maybe take the $10 million to address the homeless problem and ship
> them all back to Nevada.
> <https://www.ksbw.com/article/santa-cruz-receives-dollar10-million-in-funding-to-address-homelessness/25911209>
>
> --

> Jeff Liebermann jefio.com

> 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
> Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
> Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

^^^what are these weird funny letters?

pH

[Andy Valencia]

wb6...@gmail.com writes:
> I have this Pollyanna outlook that people should have places to hang
> out unmolested if they are temporarily on-the-ropes, but I've failed
> completely to take into account the drug/needle aspect and the
> like...so I'm left in a quandry.

Yes, welcome to the club. We have ~18 acres around here, and I've had
to deal with multiple encampments over the years. Garbage and human
waste disposal are usually... informal. Hint: watch where you step.
It's indeed even worse when medical sharps are mixed into the same
hole. It could be very, very bad to get a skin puncture during an unwary
step. If you have a deputy by to take a report, their first question
is usually "where's the poop"?

And you just have to hope they don't cook meth on your property.

It's also a pretty much linear accumuluation function. The pounds and
pounds of stuff just accumulate--they bring in poster board, supplies
stolen from building sites, discarded consumer items. The latest cleanup
was almost 1,000 pounds as measured on the dump's scale.

I guess you can tell that I've come to the conclusion that all you're
doing is enabling a non-viable lifestyle. The people may need help,
but pleaes do keep looking for a better way.

Andy

[Julian Macassey]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2019 07:24:31 -0800, Andy Valencia <van...@vsta.org> wrote:
>
> I guess you can tell that I've come to the conclusion that all you're
> doing is enabling a non-viable lifestyle. The people may need help,
> but pleaes do keep looking for a better way.

Hoovervilles are a national problem, not just Santa Cruz,
it requires a national solution.

They are an idication that the economy is in a
depression, despite avoiding the word by saying "Econimic
crisis" or "Great Recession".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville

https://depts.washington.edu/depress/hooverville.shtml

As conditions worsen for the homeless, thing just get
worse. With no facilities people will just do what they need to
do t stay alive - Crap anywhere, gather shelter materials, beg,
steal and take drugs (Booze included) to get through the misery.

--
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

[wb6...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, January 27, 2019 at 7:30:26 AM UTC-8, Andy Valencia wrote:

> wb6...mail.com writes:
> > I have this Pollyanna outlook that people should have places to hang
> > out unmolested if they are temporarily on-the-ropes, but I've failed
> > completely to take into account the drug/needle aspect and the
> > like...so I'm left in a quandry.
>
> Yes, welcome to the club. We have ~18 acres around here, and I've had
> to deal with multiple encampments over the years. Garbage and human

> waste disposal ar> And you just have to hope they don't cook meth on your property.

>
> It's also a pretty much linear accumuluation function. The pounds and
> pounds of stuff just accumulate--they bring in poster board, supplies
> stolen from building sites, discarded consumer items. The latest cleanup
> was almost 1,000 pounds as measured on the dump's scale.
>
> I guess you can tell that I've come to the conclusion that all you're
> doing is enabling a non-viable lifestyle. The people may need help,

> but pleaes do keep looking for a better way.e usually... informal. Hint: watch where you step.

> It's indeed even worse when medical sharps are mixed into the same
> hole. It could be very, very bad to get a skin puncture during an unwary
> step. If you have a deputy by to take a report, their first question
> is usually "where's the poop"?
>

<snip>
>
> Andy

Yowza. Having to clean up *my own property* because of people like that would really torque my nut.
I understand barbed wire fences and "keep out" signs, now.
Sorry you have squatters, but hopefully you can enjoy your land once in a while, at least.
pH

[Andy Valencia]

wb6...@gmail.com writes:
> Yowza. Having to clean up *my own property* because of people like
> that would really torque my nut. I understand barbed wire fences and
> "keep out" signs, now. Sorry you have squatters, but hopefully you
> can enjoy your land once in a while, at least. pH

Thanks. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but comes with the territory.

Andy

[BCFD36]

Give me a day or two. I can address all of these issues. Time for bed.

[BCFD36]

Years ago, we responded to an overdose in for a guy who was living in a
school bus behind the Brookdale Lodge. He was a BIG guy. AS I went in
the emergency exit, the Chief hollered "Watch out for needles!" He was
partying that night because next day he was going to San Quinton. Or
Solidad, or someplace like that. He didn't make it.

I did CPR on his mother too, years before that. Same outcome.

[BCFD36]

Computers: over the years I have used - assembly (Rolm and others),
FORTRAN, C, C++, ADA, Perl, Python, some JCL, RPG, and COBOL once. Right
now I'm using python.

It took me 5 months to get a job and just lucked into this one. I had
planned on staying retired. Age discrimination is alive and well in
Silicon Valley.

Smashed: I had responded with two other guys in 2151 (or maybe 2136) to
a small brush fire up Bear Creek. A guy was living in a tent out in the
woods. We were on scene with CDF (now Cal Fire) working on containment.
I suddenly noticed CDF had disappeared and we were alone. I also heard
(when I could still hear) a helicopter and saw that it was flying right
at us. I told my guys to drop their tools and RUN. Which we did. The
helicopter made his drop right on the camp sight. We went back, I had a
quiet word with the CDF captain that I was rightly PISSED OFF that he
didn't tell us there was incoming aircraft. The whole area where we had
been working was flattened from the water drop.

Frequent Fliers - A sore subject. Some are homeless. Most are not. There
is one that is STILL calling several times a week and I've been gone
almost 3 years. And she was calling 5 years before that. She is actually
a nice lady. There were some drunks that were living in absolute filth
in Bracken Brae. There was this huge guy that needed help up and down
the stairs for his many appointments. They are actually a pretty mixed bag.

Homeless - Lots of them. Usually drunk or high. Not fun to deal with.
Usually in need of a bath.

I don't recognize your daughter's name, but my kids probably know her. I
might know her face. We didn't often work with Felton, but we would
occasionally drill with them.

[wb6...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 1:27:15 AM UTC-8, BCFD36 wrote:
> On 2/1/19 00:13, BCFD36 wrote:

> > On 1/26/19 19:33, wbom wrote:
> >> On Saturday, January 26, 2019 at 11:42:01 AM UTC-8, BCFD36 wrote:
> >>> On 1/26/19 09:28, wrote:
> >>>> I've been following the evolution of the homeless encampment behind
> >>>> the Ross store in Santa Cruz.
> >>>> (All not so far from Jeff's work place....getting any fallout from
> >>>> them, Jeff?)
> >>>>
> >>>> I have this Pollyanna outlook that people should have places to hang
> >>>> out unmolested if they are temporarily on-the-ropes, but I've failed
> >>>> completely to take into account the drug/needle aspect and the
> >>>> like...so I'm left in a quandry.  Life is not so 'Star Trek' happy
> >>>> future as I want to believe.

<snip>

> >>
> > Give me a day or two. I can address all of these issues. Time for bed.
> >
> Computers: over the years I have used - assembly (Rolm and others),
> FORTRAN, C, C++, ADA, Perl, Python, some JCL, RPG, and COBOL once. Right
> now I'm using python.

Wow, them's a lot of languages. You're a techo-genius as well as serving in the fire departmen? Man, I hate being reminded of what an underacheieer I am.

I used to use the CBASIC dialect of BASIC at my old job (no line numbers!) many many years ago. Took 'C' at Cabrillo college and never looked back.
(Took C++ there, too, but had a hard time with the object-orented mindset.

Python is C-like, no? So why not 'C'? It does seem to be a popular language these days, though.

>
> It took me 5 months to get a job and just lucked into this one. I had
> planned on staying retired. Age discrimination is alive and well in
> Silicon Valley.
>
> Smashed: I had responded with two other guys in 2151 (or maybe 2136) to
> a small brush fire up Bear Creek. A guy was living in a tent out in the
> woods. We were on scene with CDF (now Cal Fire)

It will *always* be CDF to me, curmudgeon that I am. Calfire sounds like an insurance company, for pete's sake.

working on containment.
> I suddenly noticed CDF had disappeared and we were alone. I also heard
> (when I could still hear) a helicopter and saw that it was flying right
> at us. I told my guys to drop their tools and RUN. Which we did. The
> helicopter made his drop right on the camp sight. We went back, I had a
> quiet word with the CDF captain that I was rightly PISSED OFF that he
> didn't tell us there was incoming aircraft. The whole area where we had
> been working was flattened from the water drop.
>
> Frequent Fliers - A sore subject. Some are homeless. Most are not. There
> is one that is STILL calling several times a week and I've been gone
> almost 3 years. And she was calling 5 years before that. She is actually
> a nice lady. There were some drunks that were living in absolute filth
> in Bracken Brae. There was this huge guy that needed help up and down
> the stairs for his many appointments. They are actually a pretty mixed bag.
>
> Homeless - Lots of them. Usually drunk or high. Not fun to deal with.
> Usually in need of a bath.

Yeah, I guess it would be tough to find a shower out in the wild. Perhaps the FD's could open their doors, taxpayer dollars, after all. Otherwise I guess you'd have to scrub up in the mighty San Lorenzo or the like.

>
> I don't recognize your daughter's name, but my kids probably know her. I
> might know her face. We didn't often work with Felton, but we would
> occasionally drill with them.
>
> --
> Dave Scruggs
> Captain, Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
> Sr. Software Engineer - Stellar Solutions

Well, you certainly can't know everybody.
Thanks for the reply. I can go long periods w/o checking in.

pH

[GymRat...@gmail.com]

On 01/26/2019 10:22 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
> users, drug abusers, and the handicapped.

Hi Jeff... Haven't seen you since you put MS-Dos on my NCR tablet when I
was KC6NFR in the 1990s

Want to know why so many seem to be "...mentally challenged, mental
patients, drug users, drug abusers..."?

Because the city and county prostitute themselves for federal grants for
TARGETED groups and those ARE the target groups, while making housing
completely un-affordable for anyone who actually works here serving you
coffee or bagging groceries and stocking shelves.

You got the kind of houseless people the city and county PLANNED FOR and
can milk for federal funds, while they consider low-wage workers, most
of whom they've displaced or chased away due to the fact most workers
don't care to live in doorways, as a net economic drain and a threat to
their "Flexible labor market" that, according to the City Council keeps
thwir Fitch Bond rating flush... ie. Cheap Disposable Labor, ie. college
student workers, who work downtown and then spend all their money earned
at the ever-increasing number of fern bars downtown.

Meanwhile, IF you're not the "Facework" type and don't have a
people-person personality looking for light industrial work, you...
are... fucked.


Ps. The DelMar theater is about to start selling BEER. Can you say
"Socio-economic shithole where on;y businesses that sell alcohol can
survive. I COULD go on but...

[pH]

On Sunday, December 29, 2019 at 10:34:25 AM UTC-8, GymRat...@gmail.com wrote:
> On 01/26/2019 10:22 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> > Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
> > users, drug abusers, and the handicapped.
>
>
> Hi Jeff... Haven't seen you since you put MS-Dos on my NCR tablet when I
> was KC6NFR in the 1990s

If it were me I would have insisted on DR-DOS, friend of CP/M that I was and am.

>
> Want to know why so many seem to be "...mentally challenged, mental
> patients, drug users, drug abusers..."?
>
> Because the city and county prostitute themselves for federal grants for
> TARGETED groups and those ARE the target groups, while making housing
> completely un-affordable for anyone who actually works here serving you
> coffee or bagging groceries and stocking shelves.

My wife and I had been talking about the recent 10 million dollar grant that
Santa Cruz received for something or other. We both kind of cynically agreed that the monies would probably end up going to hiring people to mange the funds and studies et. al. with very little going to serve the actual people for which
the grant was applied for.

The issue is insoluble.

The actual question at hand is: do *I* get to decide who to throw my money at
to help defray suffering or does *someone else* get to decide that I should
throw my money at a particular organization with the attendant layers of loss
every step of the way.

I'd rather I get to decide.

>
> You got the kind of houseless people the city and county PLANNED FOR and
> can milk for federal funds, while they consider low-wage workers, most
> of whom they've displaced or chased away due to the fact most workers
> don't care to live in doorways, as a net economic drain and a threat to
> their "Flexible labor market" that, according to the City Council keeps
> thwir Fitch Bond rating flush... ie. Cheap Disposable Labor, ie. college
> student workers, who work downtown and then spend all their money earned
> at the ever-increasing number of fern bars downtown.
>
> Meanwhile, IF you're not the "Facework" type and don't have a
> people-person personality looking for light industrial work, you...

> are... [out of luck].

>
>
> Ps. The DelMar theater is about to start selling BEER. Can you say
> "Socio-economic shithole where on;y businesses that sell alcohol can
> survive. I COULD go on but...

I think all we can do is try to ignore it, try to hold on to what we've got
and keep on keeping on. (Or leave for a cheaper state.)

Still have the HAM license?

pH
WB6DWP

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sun, 29 Dec 2019 20:50:07 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:
>My wife and I had been talking about the recent 10 million dollar grant that
>Santa Cruz received for something or other. We both kind of cynically
>agreed that the monies would probably end up going to hiring people to
>mange the funds and studies et. al. with very little going to serve the
>actual people for which the grant was applied for.

<https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/12/27/newsmaker-2019-santa-cruz-homeless-camp-takes-center-stage/>
This year’s camp began gaining steam at the same time as
government officials were deciding what to do with some
$10.6 million in one-time state emergency homelessness
grants. Santa Cruz County, the lead in the county’s
homelessness "continuum of care" collective of municipal
leaders and service providers distributed about $2
million for housing programs, $2.9 million for emergency
services, $133,000 for systems support, $3.4 million
in capital improvements, $1.5 million for youth services
and $700,000 qualifying as "other" or administration costs.

Notice that the $10.6 million is for the county, not just the city.

Capital improvements? Kinda looks like they're building a permanent
camping site. Yep...
Some $1.4 million of the total $10 million in state grant
funding was earmarked for the City of Santa Cruz’s
proposal to purchase a private Coral Street property to
build a new homeless shelter immediately adjacent to
the existing Housing Matters multi-shelter campus, in
addition to another $1.2 million to build a so-called
"navigation center" style year-round emergency shelter
program in the North County.

Navigation Center? Whazzat?
North County? I think that's Davenport, but I'm not sure.

>The issue is insoluble.

That means the issue doesn't dissolve in water. I suggest
"unsolvable" as a suitable replacement.

>The actual question at hand is: do *I* get to decide who
>to throw my money at
>to help defray suffering or does *someone else* get to decide that I should
>throw my money at a particular organization with the attendant layers of loss
>every step of the way.
>
>I'd rather I get to decide.

Sorry, but you're not qualified to decide how to spend your money.

[Julian Macassey]

On Sun, 29 Dec 2019 20:50:07 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, December 29, 2019 at 10:34:25 AM UTC-8, GymRat...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On 01/26/2019 10:22 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> > Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
>> > users, drug abusers, and the handicapped.
>>
>>
>> Hi Jeff... Haven't seen you since you put MS-Dos on my NCR tablet when I
>> was KC6NFR in the 1990s

> If it were me I would have insisted on DR-DOS, friend of CP/M
> that I was and am.

I still miss Gary Kildall.

--
"He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken
much from me and the industry." Gary Kildall speaking of Bill Gates

[GymRatHippie]

Marriage blew up in the mid-90s (XYL said she'd leave if I didn't get
off the radio... Over ;> but seriously ). I let it lapse and before I
realized it had lapsed it was past the grace period. Was a coded tech...
Wouldn't that make me an Extra nowadays?

>
> pH
> WB6DWP
>

[GymRatHippie]

On 12/30/19 12:12 PM, Julian Macassey wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Dec 2019 20:50:07 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sunday, December 29, 2019 at 10:34:25 AM UTC-8, GymRat...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On 01/26/2019 10:22 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>>> Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
>>>> users, drug abusers, and the handicapped.
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Jeff... Haven't seen you since you put MS-Dos on my NCR tablet when I
>>> was KC6NFR in the 1990s
>
>> If it were me I would have insisted on DR-DOS, friend of CP/M
>> that I was and am.


>
> I still miss Gary Kildall.
>

I liked DR-DOS, but it was, afaict, beta ms-dos. A CoCo 128 built up to
512k ram could multitask. None of the xx-dos oses could do that.

My first computer, which I bought at Habers furniture out of one of
their hutch shelves (Salesman didn't even know how they ended up with
it) was an Epson HX-20 CP/M laptop. Screen four lines tall.
Microcassette tape storage. Cash register tape pin printer. Used it on
packet radio with an alinco handi-talkie, PK-88 and 2 element quad from
the Pajaro Valley.

Ah... Nostalgia... when N0ARY was the hottest thing going. I actually
used that setup to make a digipeater contact via MIR with a ham up in
Bonny Doon... forget his name and call. I had written a terminal program
using the really Fubar Epson basic manual examples and anything that
came across the screen was also printed out on the tape, or else with
all the digital chatter blazing by on that 4 line screen I could have
never verified the contact.

Also used it on cruzio's old BBS system for a while, but it was NEVER
going to go faster than 1200 baud and eventually their modems stopped
talking to it.

Those were the days. One day I walked into Odyssey Records... at the
north end of what's now pacific wave. There was a commodore 128 in a
kiosk that was supposed to be running a primitive video game but had
crashed to a prompt. I typed Print "Hello"... the screen spit it back at
me. The clerks thought I was a computer genius! HAHAHAH!

--30-

[pH]

<snip>

> <https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/12/27/newsmaker-2019-santa-cruz-homeless-camp-takes-center-stage/>
> This year’s camp began gaining steam at the same time as
> government officials were deciding what to do with some
> $10.6 million in one-time state emergency homelessness
> grants. Santa Cruz County, the lead in the county’s
> homelessness "continuum of care" collective of municipal
> leaders and service providers distributed about $2
> million for housing programs, $2.9 million for emergency
> services, $133,000 for systems support, $3.4 million
> in capital improvements, $1.5 million for youth services
> and $700,000 qualifying as "other" or administration costs.
>
> Notice that the $10.6 million is for the county, not just the city.

You know how I hate it when people bring up facts when I'm busy hyperventilating
with innuendo. I wish you wouldn't do that.

Your numbers reveal that the situation was no where near as dire as I feared.
I had assumed that they would have found a way to pad "admin" costs to fully
1/2 the grant. Well...could have been a lot worse.

>
> Capital improvements? Kinda looks like they're building a permanent
> camping site. Yep...
> Some $1.4 million of the total $10 million in state grant
> funding was earmarked for the City of Santa Cruz’s
> proposal to purchase a private Coral Street property to
> build a new homeless shelter immediately adjacent to
> the existing Housing Matters multi-shelter campus, in
> addition to another $1.2 million to build a so-called
> "navigation center" style year-round emergency shelter
> program in the North County.
>
> Navigation Center? Whazzat?
> North County? I think that's Davenport, but I'm not sure.
>
> >The issue is insoluble.
>
> That means the issue doesn't dissolve in water. I suggest
> "unsolvable" as a suitable replacement.

Maybe it's soluble in acetone. Unsolvable is better, being correct and all.
My mind is rapidly going and the vocabulary seems to be leading the charge.

>
> >The actual question at hand is: do *I* get to decide who
> >to throw my money at
> >to help defray suffering or does *someone else* get to decide that I should
> >throw my money at a particular organization with the attendant layers of loss
> >every step of the way.
> >
> >I'd rather I get to decide.
>
> Sorry, but you're not qualified to decide how to spend your money.
>

Are you sure you don't work in gov't?

pH

[pH]

On Monday, December 30, 2019 at 12:12:24 PM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:

> On Sun, 29 Dec 2019 20:50:07 -0800 (PST), pH < wrote:
> > On Sunday, December 29, 2019 at 10:34:25 AM UTC-8, GymRat...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> On 01/26/2019 10:22 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> >> > Mostly, they're mentally challenged, mental patients, drug
> >> > users, drug abusers, and the handicapped.
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi Jeff... Haven't seen you since you put MS-Dos on my NCR tablet when I
> >> was KC6NFR in the 1990s
>
> > If it were me I would have insisted on DR-DOS, friend of CP/M
> > that I was and am.
>
> I still miss Gary Kildall.

Me too. I kept my Apple ][+ w/ CP/M card long after my brother tried to foist
his old IB'pc's on me until DR-DOS came along just because of the injustice that
happened to Gary.
But then again, if CP/M-86 had risen to its rightful place and its Concurrent descendents, of course, then maybe we would not have Linux now since there would
not have been a rotten product that needed replacing.

Only one of the alternate universes out there would know for sure, I guess.

pH

[pH]

Since there is no longer a code requirement I believe that you would be a General.

They've also dropped the Novice and Advanced class. Only Tech, General & Extra.

pH

[pH]

<snip>

>
>
> I liked DR-DOS, but it was, afaict, beta ms-dos. A CoCo 128 built up to
> 512k ram could multitask. None of the xx-dos oses could do that.

A CoCo? Was that the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer? I remember those.

>
> My first computer, which I bought at Habers furniture out of one of
> their hutch shelves (Salesman didn't even know how they ended up with
> it) was an Epson HX-20 CP/M laptop. Screen four lines tall.
> Microcassette tape storage. Cash register tape pin printer. Used it on
> packet radio with an alinco handi-talkie, PK-88 and 2 element quad from
> the Pajaro Valley.

I remember those Epsons, too. I always thought the display would be too small
to be useful. Speaking of small, remember the Kaypros?

At work in the '80's we had these Alspa brand computers. They were near Costco
in that area. They made this large shoebox computer that had 1 or 2 8" drives
64K and a 4Mhz Z80.
Kind of the generic Z80 computer that a lot of companies where making back then.

It came bundled w/ WordStar (still my fave keybindings...thankx jstar) and
CBASIC. We had the interpreter version and I later talked my boss into gettng the full compiler. What speed!

>
> Ah... Nostalgia... when N0ARY was the hottest thing going. I actually
> used that setup to make a digipeater contact via MIR with a ham up in
> Bonny Doon... forget his name and call.

Could'a been Bob, K6XX or Dave N6RZ or others...

I had written a terminal program
> using the really Fubar Epson basic manual examples and anything that
> came across the screen was also printed out on the tape, or else with
> all the digital chatter blazing by on that 4 line screen I could have
> never verified the contact.

Was the BASIC built-in?

>
> Also used it on cruzio's old BBS system for a while, but it was NEVER
> going to go faster than 1200 baud and eventually their modems stopped
> talking to it.

I had a shell account at a provider called Sasquatch for awhile. Don't recall
what happened to them.

>
> Those were the days. One day I walked into Odyssey Records... at the
> north end of what's now pacific wave. There was a commodore 128 in a
> kiosk that was supposed to be running a primitive video game but had
> crashed to a prompt. I typed Print "Hello"... the screen spit it back at
> me. The clerks thought I was a computer genius! HAHAHAH!
>
> --30-

Glad I'm not the only one who remembers this stuff. I thought that I was
pretty much the only one who was fond of CP/M. Most of my peers went the way
of the late Chuck Peddle--the 6502 and Apple.

pH

[Andy Valencia]

GymRatHippie <goody...@gmail.com> writes:
> Marriage blew up in the mid-90s (XYL said she'd leave if I didn't get
> off the radio... Over ;> but seriously ). I let it lapse and before I
> realized it had lapsed it was past the grace period. Was a coded tech...
> Wouldn't that make me an Extra nowadays?

Certainly, Extra is a walk in the park these days. No code, and
the question pool is public.

-----------------
Andy Valencia
Home page: https://vsta.org/andy/
Contact: https://vsta.org/contact/andy.html

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:32:07 -0800, GymRatHippie
<goody...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I let it lapse and before I
>realized it had lapsed it was past the grace period. Was a coded tech...
>Wouldn't that make me an Extra nowadays?

If you can prove that you held a Tech license before March 21, 1987,
you can get an upgrade to General without having to retake the exam.
Prior to at date, the theory part of the exams were the same for Tech
and General.

That was the plan when I arrived at the local VEC examination
location. I held the requisite Tech license and just wanted to get it
converted to a General. However, one of the examiners informed me
that I could take the Extra Class exam for the same price as the
instant upgrade. If I failed, I would still get the General license
as a consolation prize. Just one problem. I hadn't done any studying
for the Extra Class exam.

So, I plodded my way through the questions as best I could. I
probably missed all the rules and regulations questions because they
are sufficiently non-sensical that the answers need to be memorized.
The theory was comparatively easy. In the end, I passed and received
my Extra Class license. I also used the opportunty to obtain a new
call sign mostly because I was bored with the phonetics.

So, if you can find a copy of your old license, and it qualifies,
methinks it's worth your time to upgrade to General. If you don't
mind doing some extra studying, try your luck on the Extra Class
license.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 07:15:46 -0800, Andy Valencia <van...@vsta.org>
wrote:

>Certainly, Extra is a walk in the park these days. No code, and
>the question pool is public.

I beg to differ somewhat. The Extra exam is easy for anyone who has
worked in electronics perhaps 30 years ago or has experience with the
same vintage radios. To someone who was born and grew up in the
computah age, it's a bit more difficult. It's been like that ever
since I took my first ham radio and later Comerica exams. During the
mid 1970's, I recall questions involving tubes, dynamotors, and
Marconi antennas, all of which were thoroughly obsolete. I had no
trouble with these because I played and worked with these when I was
younger, but the technicians from the company where I worked, who made
the pilgrimage to San Francisco to take the exam, were totally lost
and failed badly.

There's also a problem with the question pool. Some of the multiple
choice answers are very similar to each other and are difficult to
distinguish unless you know which answer the FCC was expecting. This
was probably an attempt to insure that the applicant actually knew the
answer, but instead resulted in confusion because the "right" answer
was often not the "best" answer. About 25(?) years ago, I worked on
the question pool of the day with the ARRL. I pointed out a few
ambiguous answers, and a few wrong answers. All my recommendations
were rejected by the committee, so I quit. I'm told the situation has
been somewhat improved, especially since the question pool changes
roughly every 4 years. So, one doesn't need to worry about getting
questions about tubes and dynamotors.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:28:23 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:

><snip>
>
>> <https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/12/27/newsmaker-2019-santa-cruz-homeless-camp-takes-center-stage/>
>> This year’s camp began gaining steam at the same time as
>> government officials were deciding what to do with some
>> $10.6 million in one-time state emergency homelessness
>> grants. Santa Cruz County, the lead in the county’s
>> homelessness "continuum of care" collective of municipal
>> leaders and service providers distributed about $2
>> million for housing programs, $2.9 million for emergency
>> services, $133,000 for systems support, $3.4 million
>> in capital improvements, $1.5 million for youth services
>> and $700,000 qualifying as "other" or administration costs.
>>
>> Notice that the $10.6 million is for the county, not just the city.

>You know how I hate it when people bring up facts when I'm busy hyperventilating
>with innuendo. I wish you wouldn't do that.
>
>Your numbers reveal that the situation was no where near as dire as I feared.
>I had assumed that they would have found a way to pad "admin" costs to fully
>1/2 the grant. Well...could have been a lot worse.

Those are estimates, not allocations. Admin costs and overhead
usually grow inversely to services provided. I know of one long
forgotten program, that managed to suck up all the funding with admin,
overhead, legal costs, and travel expenses, and predictably, delivered
nothing for the funds expended.

>> >The issue is insoluble.
>>
>> That means the issue doesn't dissolve in water. I suggest
>> "unsolvable" as a suitable replacement.
>
>Maybe it's soluble in acetone.

That works, especially since acetone is somehow not considered a VoC
(volatile organic chemical) and can still be purchased by consumers.

>Unsolvable is better, being correct and all.
>My mind is rapidly going and the vocabulary seems to be leading the charge.

Actually, it seems that proper usage has changed since I learned the
distinction. Insoluble is now an acceptable description for problem
solving as well as chemistry.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=insoluble>
So Google has written, so it must be. Please ignore whatever I
pontificated.

>> Sorry, but you're not qualified to decide how to spend your money.
>
>Are you sure you don't work in gov't?

Nope. However, I am an SSI card carrying recipient of government
funds, and therefore have a vested interest in how such funds are
spent. I'll probably spend the rest of my life insuring that as much
funding as possible is directed towards me. I greatly appreciate the
time and effort my share of your employment compensation is going
towards my decadent and lavish lifestyle requirements.

[GymRatHippie]

On 12/31/19 7:55 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:32:07 -0800, GymRatHippie
> <goody...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I let it lapse and before I
>> realized it had lapsed it was past the grace period. Was a coded tech...
>> Wouldn't that make me an Extra nowadays?
>
> If you can prove that you held a Tech license before March 21, 1987,
> you can get an upgrade to General without having to retake the exam.
> Prior to at date, the theory part of the exams were the same for Tech
> and General.
>

Early 1990s... Last of the coded techs. No dice.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 08:45:25 -0800, GymRatHippie
<goody...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 12/31/19 7:55 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>> If you can prove that you held a Tech license before March 21, 1987,
>> you can get an upgrade to General without having to retake the exam.
>> Prior to at date, the theory part of the exams were the same for Tech
>> and General.
>
>Early 1990s... Last of the coded techs. No dice.

Don't give up quite yet. See:
<https://www.eham.net/forum/view?id=topic=74302.0>
Well, maybe give up now. Since you let your Tech license expire
beyond the grace period, the easy upgrade to General is no longer
possible. Sorry.
<http://www.arrl.org/exam-element-credit>

[Julian Macassey]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 18:51:17 -0800, GymRatHippie <goody...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/30/19 12:12 PM, Julian Macassey wrote:
>>
>> I still miss Gary Kildall.
>>
>
>
> I liked DR-DOS, but it was, afaict, beta ms-dos. A CoCo 128 built up to
> 512k ram could multitask. None of the xx-dos oses could do that.

Microsoft, bless their greedy hearts worked hard to sink
DR-DOS.

>
> My first computer, which I bought at Habers furniture out of one of
> their hutch shelves (Salesman didn't even know how they ended up with
> it) was an Epson HX-20 CP/M laptop. Screen four lines tall.
> Microcassette tape storage. Cash register tape pin printer. Used it on
> packet radio with an alinco handi-talkie, PK-88 and 2 element quad from
> the Pajaro Valley.

One of my first packet radio set-ups was a broken
walkie-talkie. My first packet radio terminal was my neighbours
ADM-3.


--
(Betsy De Vos) Meanwhile, her brother Erik Prince owns the Blackwater firm,
which essentially sells mercenaries. As we can see, we are not dealing with
nice people. - Kate Wagner "McMansion Hell"

[Julian Macassey]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:33:31 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, December 30, 2019 at 12:12:24 PM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
>>
>> I still miss Gary Kildall.

> Me too. I kept my Apple ][+ w/ CP/M card long after my brother
> tried to foist his old IB'pc's on me until DR-DOS came along
> just because of the injustice that happened to Gary.

Kildall was quite the innovator.

>
> But then again, if CP/M-86 had risen to its rightful place and
> its Concurrent descendents, of course, then maybe we would not
> have Linux now since there would not have been a rotten product
> that needed replacing.

Linux is basically Unix and that has been around for 50
years. When I was using CP/M-86, I was also using AT&T Unix
and Unix was better for networking and multi-tasking.

Ironically Microsoft distributed AT&T Unix at one time,
later becomming SCO. That was Gate's side bet, but rather than
doing that, he manipulated the market to get MS-DOS to the fore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix


--
"(Bill) Gates is more and opportunist than a technical type and
severely opinionated even when the opinion he holds is absurd."
- Gary Kildall "Computer Connections"

[pH]

On Tuesday, December 31, 2019 at 10:35:07 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:

> On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:33:31 -0800 (PST), pH wrote:
> > On Monday, December 30, 2019 at 12:12:24 PM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
> >>
> >> I still miss Gary Kildall.
>
> > Me too. I kept my Apple ][+ w/ CP/M card long after my brother
> > tried to foist his old IB'pc's on me until DR-DOS came along
> > just because of the injustice that happened to Gary.
>
> Kildall was quite the innovator.
> >
> > But then again, if CP/M-86 had risen to its rightful place and
> > its Concurrent descendents, of course, then maybe we would not
> > have Linux now since there would not have been a rotten product
> > that needed replacing.
>
> Linux is basically Unix and that has been around for 50
> years. When I was using CP/M-86, I was also using AT&T Unix
> and Unix was better for networking and multi-tasking.

What products did you use for CP/M-86? I know there was probably not a lot
ported over for it before MS took over the world.

pH

>
> Ironically Microsoft distributed AT&T Unix at one time,
> later becomming SCO. That was Gate's side bet, but rather than
> doing that, he manipulated the market to get MS-DOS to the fore.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
>
>
> --
> "(Bill) Gates is more and opportunist than a technical type and
> severely opinionated even when the opinion he holds is absurd."
> - Gary Kildall "Computer Connections"

Well, I'm that way, too. It's just one of the horrible lessons in
life that shrewd business tactics win over technical knowledge and niceness.
(Don't know how 'nice' Kildall was, but do know that nice does not do well in
business.)

[pH]

<snip>

>
> I still miss Gary Kildall.
>
> --
> "He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken
> much from me and the industry." Gary Kildall speaking of Bill Gates

Here is an interview with Gordon Eubanks (CBASIC author) about Kildall.
I guess Gary did not have the killer business gene. Tells more than most
Kildall blurbs.

https://www.digitalresearch.biz/EUBANKS.HTM

pH

[Julian Macassey]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 18:40:31 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, December 31, 2019 at 10:35:07 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
>> On Mon, 30 Dec 2019 21:33:31 -0800 (PST), pH wrote:
>> > On Monday, December 30, 2019 at 12:12:24 PM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I still miss Gary Kildall.
>>
>> > Me too. I kept my Apple ][+ w/ CP/M card long after my brother
>> > tried to foist his old IB'pc's on me until DR-DOS came along
>> > just because of the injustice that happened to Gary.
>>
>> Kildall was quite the innovator.
>> >
>> > But then again, if CP/M-86 had risen to its rightful place and
>> > its Concurrent descendents, of course, then maybe we would not
>> > have Linux now since there would not have been a rotten product
>> > that needed replacing.
>>
>> Linux is basically Unix and that has been around for 50
>> years. When I was using CP/M-86, I was also using AT&T Unix
>> and Unix was better for networking and multi-tasking.
>
> What products did you use for CP/M-86? I know there was probably not a lot
> ported over for it before MS took over the world.

It was an accounting programme. One thing I do recall was
no one knew how to format the floppy disks but me. Then they
fired me.

--
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves
not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed
millionaires.” - Ronald Wright

[Julian Macassey]

And here is a book about DR written by Gary Kildall.

http://s3data.computerhistory.org/kildall-p.1-78-publishable-lowres.pdf

In the world of technology better than Microsoft, there
was also the Amiga.

Then of course Apple who have lost the recipe since St
Steven of Cupertino died, but certainly had a great system.


--
"What I can't figure out is why he (Steve Jobs) is even trying
(to be the CEO of Apple)? He knows he can't win." - Bill Gates, June 1998

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 07:59:38 -0000 (UTC), Julian Macassey
<jul...@tele.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 18:40:31 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What products did you use for CP/M-86? I know there was probably not a lot
>> ported over for it before MS took over the world.

> It was an accounting programme. One thing I do recall was
>no one knew how to format the floppy disks but me. Then they
>fired me.

My father's business used an Altos 586 computah. Initially, it ran
MP/M-86, but was soon switched to Xenix. That's where I obtained my
initial introduction to Xenix.
<http://oldcomputers.net/altos-586.html>

We also had problems formatting the floppies. Every CP/M machine had
a unique floppy disk layout and associated cryptic format ceremony.
Fortunately, someone at Altos took pity on the users and included a
menu item for formatting floppies.

Altos 586/986 Xenix docs:
<http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/altos/586_986/690-13499-002_Altos_586_and_ACS_8600_Introduction_To_Xenix_2.5a_May1983.pdf>

I don't recall the exact name of the bundled integrated accounting
software. I think it was something like AOS (Altos Office System???).
My father ran it initially on a single user CP/M-80 system (name
forgotten), then the Altos 586 under MP/M-86, and finally switching to
Xenix because it seemed less likely to crash. Under MP/M-86, closing
the books for the month usually took about 8 hrs. Under Xenix, about
20 mins. The program was scribbled in some obscure and long dead
BASIC mutation, slowly plodding though a BASIC interpreter. That made
it easy for me to translate the menu system into Polish and later
Spanish.

[Julian Macassey]

On Wed, 01 Jan 2020 17:41:51 -0800, Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> wrote:

> Under Xenix, about 20 mins. The program was scribbled in some
> obscure and long dead BASIC mutation, slowly plodding though a
> BASIC interpreter. That made it easy for me to translate the
> menu system into Polish and later Spanish.
>
>

Nixdorf mini computers ran BASIC. No wonder Mr. Nixdorf
dropped dead at a trade show.


--
God save us from people who go through life being indifferent to
things. Being irritated is a sign you are noticing - Jeremy Paxman

[Andy Valencia]

Jeff Liebermann <je...@cruzio.com> writes:
> >Certainly, Extra is a walk in the park these days. No code, and
> >the question pool is public.

> I beg to differ somewhat. The Extra exam is easy for anyone who has
> worked in electronics perhaps 30 years ago or has experience with the
> same vintage radios.

Hah, I'll give you at least some points here. The one question I
missed was something to do with the signal to represent "black"
in SSTV (Slow Scan TV) encoding. As a wild understatement, let me say
that I doubt this bit of tech trivia will ever be helpful IRL.

Anyway, sounds like you passed the test? Congratulations! No
harm, no foul....

Andy

[pH]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 12:15:04 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 20:05:46 -0800 (PST), pH wrote:
> ><snip>
> >>
> >> I still miss Gary Kildall.
> >>
> >> --
> >> "He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken
> >> much from me and the industry." Gary Kildall speaking of Bill Gates
> >
> > Here is an interview with Gordon Eubanks (CBASIC author) about Kildall.
> > I guess Gary did not have the killer business gene. Tells more than most
> > Kildall blurbs.
> >
> > https://www.digitalresearch.biz/EUBANKS.HTM
>
> And here is a book about DR written by Gary Kildall.
>
> http://s3data.computerhistory.org/kildall-p.1-78-publishable-lowres.pdf
>
> In the world of technology better than Microsoft, there
> was also the Amiga.

I thought the Amiga was keen. Especially that it could run 4
task at once. I think they called their OS "TOS" --The Operating
System.

Thanks for the book link, I'll give it a look.

pH

[pH]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 5:41:52 PM UTC-8, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 07:59:38 -0000 (UTC), Julian Macassey

> < wrote:

Wow, that's a compelling speed difference!.
Still sprechen-sie Polish? I hear it's not an easy
lingo.
pH



> --
> Jeff Liebermann j

[pH]

Got me to read his wikipedia entry. I did not recall that brand at all.
It did mention his dropping dead at the cebit trade show. Bummer.

pH

[BCFD36]

On 1/1/20 17:41, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 07:59:38 -0000 (UTC), Julian Macassey
> <jul...@tele.com> wrote:
. Under MP/M-86, closing
> the books for the month usually took about 8 hrs. Under Xenix, about
> 20 mins.

When I worked at Condor Systems ("Picking at the carcass of the Military
Industrial Complex") there was a program running on a Sun system that
was sorting radar pulse characteristics. The guy who wrote the original
code was an RF engineer. When you are sorting a couple of million floats
and using a Bubble Sort, things take some time. I modified the algorithm
to use a Quicksort (actually a Quicksort with a Bubble Sort imbedded
when the partitions got to a certain size, it made a difference!) and
the increase in throughput was amazing. I got the code off the net
somewhere, added comments, fixed some variable names to make it readable
by the next schlub that had to look at it.

The RF guys were impressed. They were again impressed when I changed a
tokenizing algorithm to just strtok. Sped it up like 10 times or 100
times or something.

If you want software written, get a software guy to do it.



--
Dave Scruggs
Captain, Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Sr. Software Engineer - Stellar Solutions

[pH]

On Wednesday, January 1, 2020 at 12:15:04 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:

> On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 20:05:46 -0800 (PST), pH < wrote:
> ><snip>
> >>
> >> I still miss Gary Kildall.
> >>
> >> --
> >> "He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken
> >> much from me and the industry." Gary Kildall speaking of Bill Gates
> >
> > Here is an interview with Gordon Eubanks (CBASIC author) about Kildall.
> > I guess Gary did not have the killer business gene. Tells more than most
> > Kildall blurbs.
> >
> > https://www.digitalresearch.biz/EUBANKS.HTM
>
> And here is a book about DR written by Gary Kildall.
>
> http://s3data.computerhistory.org/kildall-p.1-78-publishable-lowres.pdf

I enjoyed reading that. Looks like there's more as Hector the dog never
made his promised re-appearance.
pH

[pH]

Condor Systems rings a bell.
RE:sorting.
We ran our old business off an Alspa Z80 box w/ 64K bundled w/ WordStar
and CBASIC.
The boss wrote a lot of his own programs that all worked fine for many
years, we even ported the programs over to IBClones when that happened
and continued to run the company off the same old programs.

But I did replace the bubble sort program he did for all our accounts (when
we did the occasional printout...but that's another story w/ our old Diablo
printers w/ their "dasiy wheel" as I called it.

I did a shell-metzner sort (got it out of a book) and what a dramatic
improvement that made.

You made me do a "man strtok". That's a useful function!

pH

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 08:15:03 -0000 (UTC), Julian Macassey
<jul...@tele.com> wrote:
> And here is a book about DR written by Gary Kildall.
>http://s3data.computerhistory.org/kildall-p.1-78-publishable-lowres.pdf

I just read it. 78 pages, somewhat disorganized, and stops in about
1980. It provided some details about the early days of personal
computing that I didn't know. Worth reading. Thanks.

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com

[Andy Valencia]

pH <wb6...@gmail.com> writes:
> > ... They were again impressed when I changed a

> > tokenizing algorithm to just strtok. Sped it up like 10 times or 100
> > times or something.

> You made me do a "man strtok". That's a useful function!

I sorta knew _of_ it, but having just looked at the man page, I'm
surprised I've never used it. Next time!

[Julian Macassey]

On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 18:58:19 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>

> But I did replace the bubble sort program he did for all our
> accounts (when we did the occasional printout...but that's
> another story w/ our old Diablo printers w/ their "dasiy wheel"
> as I called it.

Diablo printers, a bargain at $3,000. Using Wordstar,
you could have the printer pause so you could swap the wheel, to
say Italic and resume. I think you could do this with nroff too.

Yes, it was called a daisy wheel, the IBM typewriters
used type balls called "Elements", by IBM but golf balls by everyone who
used them. IBM have always been humourless squares.

[Julian Macassey]

On Sat, 04 Jan 2020 07:58:15 -0800, Andy Valencia <van...@vsta.org> wrote:
> pH <wb6...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > ... They were again impressed when I changed a
>> > tokenizing algorithm to just strtok. Sped it up like 10 times or 100
>> > times or something.
>> You made me do a "man strtok". That's a useful function!
>
> I sorta knew _of_ it, but having just looked at the man page, I'm
> surprised I've never used it. Next time!

From the man page:

DESCRIPTION
This interface is obsoleted by strsep(3)

--
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them
to choose from." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

[BCFD36]

Condor has since been bought out a couple of times. We/they made EW,
ECM, ECCM, etc. type systems. It was San Jose near Good Sam Hosp. until
it moved out to Morgan Hill. I could actually drive to Morgan Hill
faster than I could to Sunnyvale, except when Bear Creek was so backed
up for a couple of years.

I used strtok quite a lot over the years. It was great once you figured
out all the little nuances. I had to parse many different strings coming
in off of various IEEE-488 devices and whatnot.

[pH]

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:17:11 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:

> On Sat, 04 Jan 2020 07:58:15 -0800, Andy Valencia wrote:
> > pH writes:
> >> > ... They were again impressed when I changed a
> >> > tokenizing algorithm to just strtok. Sped it up like 10 times or 100
> >> > times or something.
> >> You made me do a "man strtok". That's a useful function!
> >
> > I sorta knew _of_ it, but having just looked at the man page, I'm
> > surprised I've never used it. Next time!
>
> From the man page:
>
> DESCRIPTION
> This interface is obsoleted by strsep(3)
>
> --
> "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them
> to choose from." - Andrew S. Tanenbaum

Back to the man page!..... What fun!
pH

[pH]

On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:13:58 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 18:58:19 -0800 (PST), pH

> wrote:
> >
> > But I did replace the bubble sort program he did for all our
> > accounts (when we did the occasional printout...but that's
> > another story w/ our old Diablo printers w/ their "dasiy wheel"
> > as I called it.
>
> Diablo printers, a bargain at $3,000. Using Wordstar,
> you could have the printer pause so you could swap the wheel, to
> say Italic and resume. I think you could do this with nroff too.

^PC -- but I never used this. Why can't I remember anything that happened
yesterday.
Isn't nroff where WordStar got it's 'dot commands' from?
Sounds like you've been around and here I thought that you might be a Milennial.
(but wait.....would millenials even *know* about Usenet?)

>
> Yes, it was called a daisy wheel, the IBM typewriters
> used type balls called "Elements", by IBM but golf balls by everyone who
> used them. IBM have always been humourless squares.
>
> --
> "(Bill) Gates is more and opportunist than a technical type and severely
> opinionated even when the opinion he holds is absurd."
> - Gary Kildall "Computer Connections"

I shortened that link you gave us for the Kildall manuscript by one directory
and got a whole lot of things to sift through. But got tired of looking through it all after awhile (hoping to find pg. 79 onward).

pH

[Julian Macassey]

On Sat, 4 Jan 2020 20:12:50 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:13:58 AM UTC-8, Julian
> Macassey wrote:
>>
>> Diablo printers, a bargain at $3,000. Using Wordstar, you
>> could have the printer pause so you could swap the wheel,
>> to say Italic and resume. I think you could do this with
>> nroff too.
>
> ^PC -- but I never used this. Why can't I remember anything
> that happened yesterday.

> Isn't nroff where WordStar got it's 'dot commands' from?
> Sounds like you've been around and here I thought that you
> might be a Milennial. (but wait.....would millenials even
> *know* about Usenet?)

I assume Wordstar was written by someone who was familiar
with nroff and added a bit of WYSIWYG.

I am far from a Milennial. I am endlessly amused by the
Bros who think they helped unearth Linux. Sometimes I get asked
if I know how to "Use the Command line". Sigh.


--
"That's not the way the world really works anymore, We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create our own reality." Karl Rove to Ron Suskind

[BCFD36]

On 1/4/20 21:04, Julian Macassey wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Jan 2020 20:12:50 -0800 (PST), pH <wb6...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:13:58 AM UTC-8, Julian
>> Macassey wrote:
>>>
>>> Diablo printers, a bargain at $3,000. Using Wordstar, you
>>> could have the printer pause so you could swap the wheel,
>>> to say Italic and resume. I think you could do this with
>>> nroff too.
>>
>> ^PC -- but I never used this. Why can't I remember anything
>> that happened yesterday.
>
>> Isn't nroff where WordStar got it's 'dot commands' from?
>> Sounds like you've been around and here I thought that you
>> might be a Milennial. (but wait.....would millenials even
>> *know* about Usenet?)
>
> I assume Wordstar was written by someone who was familiar
> with nroff and added a bit of WYSIWYG.
>
> I am far from a Milennial. I am endlessly amused by the
> Bros who think they helped unearth Linux. Sometimes I get asked
> if I know how to "Use the Command line". Sigh.
>
>

Didn't nroff come from roff and troff? If my buddy Marc (and one time
poster here) hadn't shuffled off the mortal coil, he would most likely know.

There was one Millennial that posted here once upon a time. He was run
out when he crossed a few lines.

Command line... I still use it on occasion. Bill Joy and Chuck Haley
were at Berkeley hanging around Cory Hall keeping the PDP-11 working.
They showed me a thing or two.

[BCFD36]

On 1/4/20 10:17, Julian Macassey wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Jan 2020 07:58:15 -0800, Andy Valencia <van...@vsta.org> wrote:
>> pH <wb6...@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> ... They were again impressed when I changed a
>>>> tokenizing algorithm to just strtok. Sped it up like 10 times or 100
>>>> times or something.
>>> You made me do a "man strtok". That's a useful function!
>>
>> I sorta knew _of_ it, but having just looked at the man page, I'm
>> surprised I've never used it. Next time!
>
> From the man page:
>
> DESCRIPTION
> This interface is obsoleted by strsep(3)
>

I gotta look that one up. I haven't run across it before. But it has
been awhile since I was parsing strings with C or C++. I find Perl much
better when that has to be done.

[Julian Macassey]

On Sun, 5 Jan 2020 12:06:16 -0800, BCFD36 <bcf...@cruzio.com> wrote:
> On 1/4/20 21:04, Julian Macassey wrote:
>>
>> I assume Wordstar was written by someone who was familiar
>> with nroff and added a bit of WYSIWYG.
>>
>> I am far from a Milennial. I am endlessly amused by the
>> Bros who think they helped unearth Linux. Sometimes I get asked
>> if I know how to "Use the Command line". Sigh.
>>
>>
>
> Didn't nroff come from roff and troff? If my buddy Marc (and one time
> poster here) hadn't shuffled off the mortal coil, he would most likely know.

From the roff man page:

$man roff
ROFF(7)
ROFF(7)

NAME
roff - concepts and history of roff typesetting

DESCRIPTION roff is the general name for a set of
type-setting programs, known under names like troff, nroff,
ditroff, groff, etc. A roff type-set- ting system consists
of an extensible text formatting language and a set of programs
for printing and converting to other text formats.
Traditionally, it is the main text processing system of Unix;
every Unix-like operating system still distributes a roff system
as a core package.

The most common roff system today is the free software
implementation GNU roff, groff(1). The pre-groff implementations
are referred to as classical (dating back as long as 1973).
groff implements the look- and-feel and functionality of its
classical ancestors, but has many extensions. As groff is
the only roff system that is available for every (or almost
every) computer system it is the de-facto roff stan- dard today.

more...

Note that man pages are written in nroff.

>
> Command line... I still use it on occasion. Bill Joy and Chuck
> Haley were at Berkeley hanging around Cory Hall keeping the
> PDP-11 working. They showed me a thing or two.
>

There is a recent book about Unix:
UNIX a History and a Memoir By Brian Kernighan.

It is self published. You can get a copy from that
warlike woman that sells books

"Camera-ready copy for this book was produced by the
author in Times Roman and Helvitica, using groff, ghostscript
and other open source Unix tools"

--
Cutting Libraries in a recession is like cutting hospitals in a
plague. - Eleanor Crumblehulme

[GymRatHippie]

On 1/4/20 8:12 PM, pH wrote:
> On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:13:58 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
>> On Fri, 3 Jan 2020 18:58:19 -0800 (PST), pH
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> But I did replace the bubble sort program he did for all our
>>> accounts (when we did the occasional printout...but that's
>>> another story w/ our old Diablo printers w/ their "dasiy wheel"
>>> as I called it.
>>
>> Diablo printers, a bargain at $3,000. Using Wordstar,
>> you could have the printer pause so you could swap the wheel, to
>> say Italic and resume. I think you could do this with nroff too.
>
> ^PC -- but I never used this. Why can't I remember anything that happened
> yesterday.
> Isn't nroff where WordStar got it's 'dot commands' from?
> Sounds like you've been around and here I thought that you might be a Milennial.
> (but wait.....would millenials even *know* about Usenet?)
>
>>
>> Yes, it was called a daisy wheel, the IBM typewriters
>> used type balls called "Elements", by IBM but golf balls by everyone who
>> used them. IBM have always been humourless squares.
>>
>> --
>> "(Bill) Gates is more and opportunist than a technical type and severely
>> opinionated even when the opinion he holds is absurd."
>> - Gary Kildall "Computer Connections"

Bull. Bill Gates had top grade MIT technical skills, not that he was
required to exhibit them once MS got rolling with a ripped off copy of
SouthWest Technical's OS (if I recall correctly). Steve Jobs was a
Marketing Engineer and he was never really anything but a pos with nasty
disposition and a hipster persona that sold product well to hipsters.

[Julian Macassey]

On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 21:10:01 -0800, GymRatHippie <gymrat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:13:58 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
>>> --
>>> "(Bill) Gates is more and opportunist than a technical type and severely
>>> opinionated even when the opinion he holds is absurd."
>>> - Gary Kildall "Computer Connections"
>
>
>
> Bull. Bill Gates had top grade MIT technical skills, not that he was
> required to exhibit them once MS got rolling with a ripped off copy of
> SouthWest Technical's OS (if I recall correctly).

A pity his products never showed those top grade
technical skills, unless the mediocrity of Microsoft products is
an example of top grade MIT technical skills.

> Steve Jobs was a
> Marketing Engineer and he was never really anything but a pos with nasty
> disposition and a hipster persona that sold product well to hipsters.

Jobs understood industrial design, something that
previously was only seen in Olivetti computer products.

A good friend of mine worked alongside Jobs at Next, yes
Jobs was an arsehole, and new age hippy, but he knew what those
with taste wanted.

--
The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining
armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second rate
technology, led them into it in the first place, and continues to
do so today. - Douglas Adams, Guardian 1995

[Andy Valencia]

Julian Macassey <jul...@tele.com> writes:
> > Bull. Bill Gates had top grade MIT technical skills, not that he was
> > required to exhibit them once MS got rolling with a ripped off copy of
> > SouthWest Technical's OS (if I recall correctly).

> A pity his products never showed those top grade
> technical skills, unless the mediocrity of Microsoft products is
> an example of top grade MIT technical skills.

I did a presentation to him and his top dev managers once.
I came away very much with the impression that both he and his
managers were very, very sharp people. I'm no fan of Microsoft
products, but I doubt their mediocrity comes from a simple lack
of technical talent at the top levels.

> The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining
> armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
> neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second rate
> technology, led them into it in the first place, and continues to
> do so today. - Douglas Adams, Guardian 1995

Both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were very big steps forward. You
can claim that those steps would have been taken anyway, but--as it
turns out--it was Microsoft which pulled it off.

Andy

[Julian Macassey]

On Tue, 07 Jan 2020 06:32:58 -0800, Andy Valencia <van...@vsta.org> wrote:
> Julian Macassey <jul...@tele.com> writes:
>> > Bull. Bill Gates had top grade MIT technical skills, not that he was
>> > required to exhibit them once MS got rolling with a ripped off copy of
>> > SouthWest Technical's OS (if I recall correctly).
>> A pity his products never showed those top grade
>> technical skills, unless the mediocrity of Microsoft products is
>> an example of top grade MIT technical skills.
>
> I did a presentation to him and his top dev managers once.
> I came away very much with the impression that both he and his
> managers were very, very sharp people. I'm no fan of Microsoft
> products, but I doubt their mediocrity comes from a simple lack
> of technical talent at the top levels.

Well in organisations you will fomd that what is wrong at
the bottom is wrong at the top.

There is that hilarious memo from Gates about the
performance of his Windows box.

>
>> The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining
>> armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos
>> neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second rate
>> technology, led them into it in the first place, and continues to
>> do so today. - Douglas Adams, Guardian 1995
>
> Both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were very big steps forward. You
> can claim that those steps would have been taken anyway, but--as it
> turns out--it was Microsoft which pulled it off.

Windows 3.1 AKA "Windows for workhouses". Compared to
GEM, Amiga, X ?

Now when it comes to litigation and crafty sales,
Micrposoft leads. How they bullied manufacturers to pay Microsoft
for each CPU sold. I still recall a visit from a Microsoft goon
who thought the company I worked for wasn't giving Redmond enough
money. I ecorted him off the property.


--
"Every Hollywood film is a remake of a previous film or a TV series
everyone hated in the 1960s." - Alan Moore, Guardian, Dec 12, 2012

[GymRatHippie]

On 1/6/20 10:23 PM, Julian Macassey wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Jan 2020 21:10:01 -0800, GymRatHippie <gymrat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 10:13:58 AM UTC-8, Julian Macassey wrote:
>>>> --
>>>> "(Bill) Gates is more and opportunist than a technical type and severely
>>>> opinionated even when the opinion he holds is absurd."
>>>> - Gary Kildall "Computer Connections"
>>
>>
>>
>> Bull. Bill Gates had top grade MIT technical skills, not that he was
>> required to exhibit them once MS got rolling with a ripped off copy of
>> SouthWest Technical's OS (if I recall correctly).
>
> A pity his products never showed those top grade
> technical skills, unless the mediocrity of Microsoft products is
> an example of top grade MIT technical skills.

The goal was to sell an OS via a corporation. Corporations, by intent
and design, make things functional, but dumb. No exceptions.

>
>> Steve Jobs was a
>> Marketing Engineer and he was never really anything but a pos with nasty
>> disposition and a hipster persona that sold product well to hipsters.
>
> Jobs understood industrial design, something that
> previously was only seen in Olivetti computer products.
>
> A good friend of mine worked alongside Jobs at Next, yes
> Jobs was an arsehole, and new age hippy, but he knew what those
> with taste wanted.
>
>

"Taste". That's relative to something.

His taste and my weekend boho beatnik dad coincided.

Jobs was NEVER anything even remotely resembling 'new age' and CERTAINLY
not a Hippie. He and his friends hung out at the Albaross by KSCO
getting shitfaced drunk while the hippies were tripping at the Barnin SV
or living in a treehouse in the SLV. A wannabe who could never actually
be anything of the sort, because money was his god and culture was
secondary... a put-on that he wore like that stupid turtleneck. He was a
pitiful caricature of a junkie beatnik. He was to a 'new age hippie'
like a Mac is to computers... It looks like a computer but it's really
an internet appliance. He was really a marketer, and a NICHE marketer at
that.

GRH