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Quotes from 1992

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Re: Quotes from 1992

#21

Post by ForHackernews »

aeontech wrote: post #13
ForHackernews wrote: post #4

... has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? That Adobe DRM is the industry state-of-the-art.

Libby app makes it trivially easy. * not affiliated in any way, just a happy user. https://meet.libbyapp.com/

Does it run under wine?

https://help.libbyapp.com/6059.htm

> If you have an Adobe-compatible ereader (like a NOOK or Kobo), you can download Libby ebooks on a computer, then use Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) to transfer them to your device:

> 1) Open libbyapp.com on a computer and go to Shelf > Loans.

> 2) Select Send To A Device.

> 3) Click select your device, then choose Adobe-compatible ereader. Note: If you've sent books to Kindle in the past, you may need to click your Kindle device at the top of the screen instead of select your device.

> 4) Select Download DRM File.

> 5) Open the file in ADE and transfer the book to your ereader. (Learn how using this article from OverDrive Help.)

trivially easy

Re: Quotes from 1992

#22

Post by amelius »

> Big computers and little computers are completely different beasts created by radically different groups of people. It's logical, I know, to assume that the personal computer came from shrinking a mainframe, but that's not the way it happened.

This seems off. Those little computers in your phones run a flavor of Unix, just like the mainframes did (besides VMS, etc). Also, those little computers connect to the cloud, which is just like a mainframe. If anything, history is repeating itself.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#23

Post by bdsa »

rbanffy wrote: post #16
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In USA you have rights to format shift, so can libraries just 'rip' books in to an open format and lend those versions as long as they internally reserve a paper copy?

You can change formats, but they can't lend more than a single copy at any given time or they will be violating copyright (and making more copies of a book than they actually have).

Ha, so banks can have fractional reserves but libraries can't. Typical.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#24

Post by einr »

ilamont wrote: post #8

On the value of limiting yourself to standards: ...which was why the idea of 100 percent IBM compatibility took so long to be accepted. "Why be compatible when you could be better?" the smart guys asked on their way to bankruptcy court. It sounds a bit like a jab at Apple (or maybe even NeXT, which I believe was struggling in 1992 with its hardware releases). AFAIK neither company ever went bankrupt. Or was it referr…

It's referring to 8088/8086 machines that ran MS-DOS but were not 100% IBM PC compatible. Stuff like the Amstrad PC 1512 (an 8086 machine with proprietary graphics) and the DEC Rainbow 100 (a very expensive and versatile dual-CPU machine that could run both MS-DOS and CP/M)

Re: Quotes from 1992

#25

Post by ForHackernews »

dagw wrote: post #5
ForHackernews wrote: post #4

... has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? That Adobe DRM is the industry state-of-the-art.

has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? To be fair I don't know anybody who has either. I know it's possible and I know my local library offers this, but I've never met anybody who's actually used this service.

I'm surprised. To me it seems like the only reasonable way to use eBooks.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#26

Post by xondono »

amelius wrote: post #22

> Big computers and little computers are completely different beasts created by radically different groups of people. It's logical, I know, to assume that the personal computer came from shrinking a mainframe, but that's not the way it happened. This seems off. Those little computers in your phones run a flavor of Unix, just like the mainframes did (besides VMS, etc). Also, those little computers connect to the cloud…

By that standard there’s no difference between your computer and most of the consumer electronics market.

You’d be astonished of how mant things run flavors of unix

Re: Quotes from 1992

#27

Post by FroshKiller »

dagw wrote: post #5
ForHackernews wrote: post #4

... has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? That Adobe DRM is the industry state-of-the-art.

has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? To be fair I don't know anybody who has either. I know it's possible and I know my local library offers this, but I've never met anybody who's actually used this service.

My county library has a poor electronic collection. Still, I tried to check out a book and got put on a waiting list with 30 other people. That was before Christmas. I haven't heard anything else about it.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#30

Post by einr »

amelius wrote: post #22

> Big computers and little computers are completely different beasts created by radically different groups of people. It's logical, I know, to assume that the personal computer came from shrinking a mainframe, but that's not the way it happened. This seems off. Those little computers in your phones run a flavor of Unix, just like the mainframes did (besides VMS, etc). Also, those little computers connect to the cloud…

UNIX is not a mainframe OS. It was developed for minicomputers. As was VMS, by the way.
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