Preserving Fisher-Price Pixter

(dmitry.gr)

107 points | by dmitrygr 2 days ago

6 comments

  • MSFT_Edging 1 hour ago
    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.

    • harrouet 40 minutes ago
      Any part you are referring to? I can't find any personal attack.

      I actually like his writing style. I think he just speaks his mind in full honesty and you should not interpret it as aggressivity.

      • latexr 4 minutes ago
        > I can't find any personal attack.

        Not what your parent comment said. They gave a paraphrased example of discrimination against a group, not a person.

        > you should not interpret it as aggressivity

        Again, not what your parent comment said. They didn’t describe the writing as aggressive, they described it was dehumanising. There is a colossal difference between the two. Patton Oswalt demonstrates:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkKo1_RP_0c

      • joe_mamba 30 minutes ago
        Probably the same cohort of people who consider the extremely liberal JK Rowling a Nazi over some harmless comments. Best ignore them.
        • superxpro12 25 minutes ago
          Thats.... not right? She's becoming more and more anti-trans every day. Harmless is a mischaracterization of her stances.
        • latexr 17 minutes ago
          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.

          ² https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/statement-from-j-k-rowlin...

      • sjjsjsvdd 11 minutes ago
        [flagged]
    • xyzzy_plugh 52 minutes ago
      This puts it rather lightly. I stopped following him when he started posting incredibly racist memes.
      • MSFT_Edging 46 minutes ago
        Yeah I was trying to keep it civil for HN.

        The whimsy of the PalmOS work really clashes with the incessant racism and hate.

  • TruffleLabs 1 hour ago
    Thanks for the details :)

    I was half expecting you to find the Pixter Color VM to be a Forth like interpreter ;)

    • mghackerlady 59 minutes ago
      I was expecting either that or some lobotomised Java VM since everyone was crazy about it at the time
  • Uncle_Brumpus 1 hour ago
    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).

  • VladVladikoff 1 hour ago
    Wow great work and great post! love stuff like this on HN.
  • joe_mamba 1 hour ago
    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.
  • mcphage 1 hour ago
    > 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.