Thank you. This is a spectacular amount of work and information.
As someone who is interested in similar old hardware that occasionally lacks any kind of documentation (specifically cameras), I sincerely wish I had this level of patience and determination (and also understanding, I'm not really a software guy).
Always a pleasure to read your articles Dimitry, ever since I discovered your "Running Linux on an 8-bit microcontroller" project, back when I was studying electrical engineering in university. Your low-level hobby work is insane, specially on the palmOS side.
I still follow Dimitry on twitter for his technical talent, as I've done some palmOS software reversing as well, but man every other post is something along the lines of "we should let X group fend for themselves in a rattlesnake pit because they don't produce value".
All to say it's a major bummer his cool work is tainted by his dehumanizing words and I wonder if he understands how he comes off to people.
Dmitry was interviewed on the Unnamed Reverse Engineering podcast[0] a few years ago. I didn't feel like he came off at all like that in that interview, at least.
I don't interact w/ Twitter so I can't speak to anything he's written there.
I had a stroll though his Twitter. It's just a grab bag of strawmen being summarily beaten mostly by the fact that no one is replying to challenge him.
Your parent comment gave a paraphrased example of discrimination against a group, not a person.
> you should not interpret it as aggressivity
Your parent comment didn’t describe it as aggressive, they described it as dehumanising. There is a colossal difference between the two. Patton Oswalt demonstrates:
Note: I don’t have a Twitter account nor have I ever encountered Dimitry’s writing, so I’m not commenting either way, but if you want to refute/contradict/disagree what your parent comment said, it’s important to respond to the point they made, not different ones.
I’m not actively following the saga, but that seems like a gross mischaracterisation in all directions. I haven’t seen anyone seriously call her a Nazi¹ and her comments aren’t harmless either.
¹ Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it has happened. But then again that’s not saying much on the internet. Doing a cursory search, I found a post² on her own website where she complains someone said she has “uphold [Nazi] ideology around gender”. “Nazi” is between brackets, presumably meaning it’s a substitute for another word, and even then that’s not calling her one.
> If that was not enough of crotch-punch, in a desire to cut more costs, they decided to save $0.000001 per device and used the cheaper BJTs instead of FETs.
Having had coworkers who worked for Fisher-Price, using worse components to save a fraction of a cent per device seems their general MO.
As someone who is interested in similar old hardware that occasionally lacks any kind of documentation (specifically cameras), I sincerely wish I had this level of patience and determination (and also understanding, I'm not really a software guy).
I was half expecting you to find the Pixter Color VM to be a Forth like interpreter ;)
All to say it's a major bummer his cool work is tainted by his dehumanizing words and I wonder if he understands how he comes off to people.
I don't interact w/ Twitter so I can't speak to anything he's written there.
[0] https://unnamedre.com/episode/2
I actually like his writing style. I think he just speaks his mind in full honesty and you should not interpret it as aggressivity.
Your parent comment gave a paraphrased example of discrimination against a group, not a person.
> you should not interpret it as aggressivity
Your parent comment didn’t describe it as aggressive, they described it as dehumanising. There is a colossal difference between the two. Patton Oswalt demonstrates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkKo1_RP_0c
Note: I don’t have a Twitter account nor have I ever encountered Dimitry’s writing, so I’m not commenting either way, but if you want to refute/contradict/disagree what your parent comment said, it’s important to respond to the point they made, not different ones.
¹ Though I wouldn’t be surprised if it has happened. But then again that’s not saying much on the internet. Doing a cursory search, I found a post² on her own website where she complains someone said she has “uphold [Nazi] ideology around gender”. “Nazi” is between brackets, presumably meaning it’s a substitute for another word, and even then that’s not calling her one.
² https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/statement-from-j-k-rowlin...
The whimsy of the PalmOS work really clashes with the incessant racism and hate.
Having had coworkers who worked for Fisher-Price, using worse components to save a fraction of a cent per device seems their general MO.