Preserving Fisher-Price Pixter

MSFT_Edging 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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EvanAnderson 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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.

[0] https://unnamedre.com/episode/2

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harrouet an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> I can't find any personal attack. 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.

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xyzzy_plugh an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This puts it rather lightly. I stopped following him when he started posting incredibly racist memes.

	▲	MSFT_Edging an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I was trying to keep it civil for HN. The whimsy of the PalmOS work really clashes with the incessant racism and hate.

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Uncle_Brumpus 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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).

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TruffleLabs 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks for the details :)

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

	▲	mghackerlady an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I was expecting either that or some lobotomised Java VM since everyone was crazy about it at the time

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joe_mamba 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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VladVladikoff 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wow great work and great post! love stuff like this on HN.

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mcphage 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.