Where can I buy a large analogue meter?...

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:55:45 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr3y7nhmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:41:10 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:31:56 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1krxbi2lmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:01:30 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 13:56:39 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1krswpr1mvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

Indeed, my phone and (not that I have one) Raspberry Pis, and also GPUs are very power efficient but they lack the number
of
programs they can run.

Not so sure, maybe a few MS windows program
but the open source Unix / Linux world has likely an often better version, free at that, and a lot more choice.
https://howchoo.com/pi/run-windows-raspberry-pi
I never feel limited on Linux.
And what does not exist I can write.

Most people have trouble using Windows, nevermind Linux.

Anyway, I run a lot of science research programs (see Boinc) and I think out of about 40 projects, only 5 run on ARM. They
just
don\'t see the point in recoding everything.

Well, I have written loads of programs for x86 in C for Unix / Linux
Ported all I use to Raspberries..
The breaking point is sometimes the libraries,
I try to avoid linking in libraries anyways if possible, I had to port some existing ones and change those.

How much work is it? And can everything be ported? You could do a lot of good on the boinc projects.

Depends, I had problems with libforms, they dropped right and middle mouse, contacted the developer
but used an old version and recompiled that on raspi, renamed it libzorms.... (to avoid conflict with any newer version) works..
The gcc compiler is very very good, so its not that hard, it is more getting used to things.
Much has been ported to ARM / raspi for Debian, often all it needs is \'apt-get install library-name\'

So its work, but everything I normally use now also runs on raspis.
My PC is off these days, 5 raspberries in the room, 3 on 24/7, 1 on all day as router, and 1 for experiments.
Only time PC is on is for adjusting satellite dish and HAM radio QO100 stuff
that software has already been recompiled on the raspi, needs a new USB DVB-S2 tuner compatible with the Linux kernel.
Low priority.
Surviving WW3 comes first ?
Anyways one big EMP and all those cellphones and puters and electric power are no more.
Then you need an abacus

Some people backup to optical just in case.

http://panteltje.com/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Optical media last very very long in the dark, I also used some M_Discs
that box hold a thousand CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, Blu-ray discs and is full.
Now I backup daily to 3 TB USB drives... two, in case I drop one.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:56:59 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr309ibmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:51:47 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:46:46 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr0r8vvmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:


Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have
trouble
writing a calculator program to fit into 64KB.

What\'s a modern programmer? One that uses that snake language \'python\' or so?
I like to code in asm for Microchip PIC micros, there is a lot you can do with 256 bytes RAM and 16 kB ROM.
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/scope_pic/
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/index.html

from the eighties, CP/M clone:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/z80/index.html

You sound like a real programmer. As it happens I\'m having a lot of problems with Python. Some idiot managed to make the
program require AVX, when 50% of the users had CPUs predating that.

I have never written anything in Python, and have no intention to learn it.
C is <in my view> much simpler.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Monday, April 18, 2022 at 1:46:58 AM UTC+10, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <sc...@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
rbowman <bow...@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:

<snip>

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have trouble writing a calculator program to fit into 64KB.

Sounds like a discussion I heard at a software review meeting in the 1980\'s, except the target mentioned was 16k and the modern programmer pointed out that the traditional program didn\'t have comprehensive exception handling, and crashed from time to time in consequence.

Doing the job properly does require more code. As soon as you have got enough memory space to write looser code, you can write it in ways that make it easier to review, easier to debug or maybe even provably correct.

-
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 18:17:43 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:55:45 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr3y7nhmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:41:10 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:31:56 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1krxbi2lmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 15:01:30 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 13:56:39 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1krswpr1mvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

Indeed, my phone and (not that I have one) Raspberry Pis, and also GPUs are very power efficient but they lack the number
of
programs they can run.

Not so sure, maybe a few MS windows program
but the open source Unix / Linux world has likely an often better version, free at that, and a lot more choice.
https://howchoo.com/pi/run-windows-raspberry-pi
I never feel limited on Linux.
And what does not exist I can write.

Most people have trouble using Windows, nevermind Linux.

Anyway, I run a lot of science research programs (see Boinc) and I think out of about 40 projects, only 5 run on ARM. They
just
don\'t see the point in recoding everything.

Well, I have written loads of programs for x86 in C for Unix / Linux
Ported all I use to Raspberries..
The breaking point is sometimes the libraries,
I try to avoid linking in libraries anyways if possible, I had to port some existing ones and change those.

How much work is it? And can everything be ported? You could do a lot of good on the boinc projects.

Depends, I had problems with libforms, they dropped right and middle mouse, contacted the developer
but used an old version and recompiled that on raspi, renamed it libzorms.... (to avoid conflict with any newer version) works..
The gcc compiler is very very good, so its not that hard, it is more getting used to things.
Much has been ported to ARM / raspi for Debian, often all it needs is \'apt-get install library-name\'


So its work, but everything I normally use now also runs on raspis.
My PC is off these days, 5 raspberries in the room, 3 on 24/7, 1 on all day as router, and 1 for experiments.
Only time PC is on is for adjusting satellite dish and HAM radio QO100 stuff
that software has already been recompiled on the raspi, needs a new USB DVB-S2 tuner compatible with the Linux kernel.
Low priority.
Surviving WW3 comes first ?
Anyways one big EMP and all those cellphones and puters and electric power are no more.
Then you need an abacus

Some people backup to optical just in case.

http://panteltje.com/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Optical media last very very long in the dark, I also used some M_Discs
that box hold a thousand CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, Blu-ray discs and is full.
Now I backup daily to 3 TB USB drives... two, in case I drop one.

Just how much data have you got?! That is a lot of disks.

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 09:46 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home
wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:


Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give
them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have trouble writing a
calculator program to fit into 64KB.

One product I worked on was a handheld pH / ion concentration meter that
used an 8049.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-48

I did the pH meter and another programmer did the ion concentration.
Reading the electrode value from the A/D and driving the user interface
was the same for both products but the math was sufficiently different
that 2K wasn\'t enough to do both.

There was also a benchtop meter/auto-titrator that used a Z-80. 64K was
a real luxury.

In reply to Scott Lurndal, yeah the compiler guys have gotten really
good after 3 decades...

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 19:55:20 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 09:46 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home
wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:


Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give
them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have trouble writing a
calculator program to fit into 64KB.

One product I worked on was a handheld pH / ion concentration meter that
used an 8049.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_MCS-48

I did the pH meter and another programmer did the ion concentration.
Reading the electrode value from the A/D and driving the user interface
was the same for both products but the math was sufficiently different
that 2K wasn\'t enough to do both.

There was also a benchtop meter/auto-titrator that used a Z-80. 64K was
a real luxury.

In reply to Scott Lurndal, yeah the compiler guys have gotten really
good after 3 decades...

I have a mouse driver that\'s 130MB. WTF? That\'s over 3 times the size of the hard disk on a PC I had in 1991. What does the mouse driver do? Watch for left and right and a few button presses? In 1991 I think it was 30KB. 4000 times less efficient programming, we\'ve really come far.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 18:20:36 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:56:59 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr309ibmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:51:47 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:46:46 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr0r8vvmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:


Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have
trouble
writing a calculator program to fit into 64KB.

What\'s a modern programmer? One that uses that snake language \'python\' or so?
I like to code in asm for Microchip PIC micros, there is a lot you can do with 256 bytes RAM and 16 kB ROM.
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/scope_pic/
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/index.html

from the eighties, CP/M clone:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/z80/index.html

You sound like a real programmer. As it happens I\'m having a lot of problems with Python. Some idiot managed to make the
program require AVX, when 50% of the users had CPUs predating that.

I have never written anything in Python, and have no intention to learn it.
C is <in my view> much simpler.

I think it was Python somebody recently said in a newsgroup that a compiled \"hello world\" program was 60KB. Beyond a joke.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 18:42:23 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr54xtqmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

Some people backup to optical just in case.

http://panteltje.com/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Optical media last very very long in the dark, I also used some M_Discs
that box hold a thousand CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, Blu-ray discs and is full.
Now I backup daily to 3 TB USB drives... two, in case I drop one.

Just how much data have you got?! That is a lot of disks.

I dunno, many are CD-R from many many years ago, with all sort of things, even movies.
For more recent data this is sda2 from a Raspberry Pi4 with 4 GB RAM:
/dev/sda2 3844510712 3239539624 409610424 89% /mnt/sda2

so 89 % of a 4 TB Toshiba USB harddisk
That includes images of SDcard, some distros, what not.
Logs.. I have radiation logs that go back years for example.
Backups of the website... smartphone, legal stuff, financial stuff, all code I wrote,
security videos, all emails of the last 20 years or so, pictures I took and videos I made,
many Usenet postings I saved back over the last 20 years, easy with the newsreader I wrote
it has a search function, etc etc.., datasheets...
But even Linux \'locate\' will find things in seconds.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 20:11:05 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 18:42:23 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr54xtqmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

Some people backup to optical just in case.

http://panteltje.com/pub/CD_box_binnenkant_IXIMG_0549.JPG
Optical media last very very long in the dark, I also used some M_Discs
that box hold a thousand CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, Blu-ray discs and is full.
Now I backup daily to 3 TB USB drives... two, in case I drop one.

Just how much data have you got?! That is a lot of disks.

I dunno, many are CD-R from many many years ago, with all sort of things, even movies.
For more recent data this is sda2 from a Raspberry Pi4 with 4 GB RAM:
/dev/sda2 3844510712 3239539624 409610424 89% /mnt/sda2

so 89 % of a 4 TB Toshiba USB harddisk
That includes images of SDcard, some distros, what not.
Logs.. I have radiation logs that go back years for example.
Backups of the website... smartphone, legal stuff, financial stuff, all code I wrote,
security videos, all emails of the last 20 years or so, pictures I took and videos I made,
many Usenet postings I saved back over the last 20 years, easy with the newsreader I wrote
it has a search function, etc etc.., datasheets...
But even Linux \'locate\' will find things in seconds.

Security videos can be huge, I have two 4K cameras running continuously, but I have a core of a Ryzen 9 3900XT allocated to each which only records when it sees something suspicious. I\'ve even used it to locate my neighbour\'s cat, which she found confusing. But it auto deletes after a month unless I save it.

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 10:53 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:25:15 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 07:03 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 11:09:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 17/04/2022 01:38, rbowman wrote:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2022-04-16, Commander Kinsey <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:
On Sat, 16 Apr 2022 13:31:06 +0100, RJH <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

On 16 Apr 2022 at 11:52:08 BST, \"The Natural Philosopher\"
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 16/04/2022 11:35, RJH wrote:
On 16 Apr 2022 at 11:06:34 BST, \"The Natural Philosopher\"
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 15/04/2022 21:28, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On 2022-04-15, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid
wrote:

BEVs are very mature technology. There is only a bit left to
improve.
Like aircraft and cars in general.

Yeah, they keep saying that about computers, too. And they\'re
constantly proved wrong.

They are completely right about computers. They cant be clocked
any
faster, they cant be made to work with much less power - all
they
can do
is add more cores.


The new(ish) Apple processors use a fraction (between and half
and
a third) of
the power used by an Intel equivalent.

That by itself, says nothing
A Z80 uses way less power than a pentium
A motorcycle uses way less power than a ferrari.

It says everything. Less power for the same load - google Apple M1

I prefer things designed for adults.

I very much doubt Apple can beat Intel anyway.

It\'s not Apple vs Intel it\'s TSMC vs Intel.

True, but possibly not the way you meant it. AMD is partnered with
TSMC
and the Zen 3+ design on TSMC 6nm capabilities is currently kicking
Intel ass.

Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what
area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create
optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

RISC designed like Atmel\'s AVR products are a lot more fun to
program in
assembler even if it does take more lines.

I\'ve not found any ARM will beat a late model Intel yet, but there
is no
reason why ultimately it shouldn\'t. After all most CISC processors are
RISC processors with microcode.

But the point here is that Apple didn\'t \'design\' the chip any more than
it designed the 6502, 6800, power PC or Intel chips.

So the high speed is just magic then?

https://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-hires-apple-engineer-who-helped-develop-m1-mac-chips


There\'s a guy who must have NDA\'s up the wazoo...

So if he makes an Intel chip based on ideas in Apple, how do they prove
it? It\'s like saying that song sounds a bit like that one.

The whole IP thing is a mess. Stephen Kinsella makes a good argument
against patents and copyrights. That Oracle/Google debacle is a good
example. Java wasn\'t even Oracle\'s brainchild; they bought it when they
acquired Sun.

Earlier it had been Sun versus Microsoft when MS came out with Visual
J++. The agreement would have frozen J++ so MS discontinued it. There
was a brief fling with J# but MS used what it had learned to develop C#,
which is superior to Java and C++ imnsho. In a way Sun did the world a
favor.

Music is a good analogy. I was messing around with a guitar in a shop,
playing in C, but no specific song. Another customer asked what the tune
was and I said I didn\'t know.

Some employment contracts disallow working in the same industry for N
years after leaving. That makes more sense. More by chance rather than
planning I\'ve never worked in the same areas but if I did I don\'t know
how I would filter what I knew.

As for patents, one of my early mentors was an inventor who had launched
several products. He never patented anything and felt the patent process
disclosed too much. Bring the product to market, grab the money, and
move on to another. If it is a success it will be copied anyway but
there is no reason to give competitors a heads up.

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 10:54 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:39:40 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 07:03 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

I have Zen2 (an AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT) and that\'s also TSMC, but 7nm.

The equivalent CPU on Zen3 (Ryzen 9 5900X) is also 7nm.

Yes, very fast.

I\'ve got a 5500U in my laptop. It\'s a 7nm Zen2 unlike the 5600U Zen3 but
I have no complaints for a $700 laptop.

That\'s 0.4 of the speed of my desktop. Laptops suck.

Until the company upgraded my desktop I was using the laptop for some
projects. It beat the hell out of an elderly Core i5 with a hard drive.

I\'m not a real fan of laptops but they have their place. I\'m using a
company supplied laptop for remote work. Admittedly the HDMI is plugged
into my desktop monitor though a switch and I use a bluetooth mouse and
keyboard but it\'s good enough to VPN in to a real machine.

It\'s also difficult to travel with a desktop...

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 20:42:27 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 10:53 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:25:15 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 07:03 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 11:09:50 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 17/04/2022 01:38, rbowman wrote:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2022-04-16, Commander Kinsey <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:
On Sat, 16 Apr 2022 13:31:06 +0100, RJH <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:

On 16 Apr 2022 at 11:52:08 BST, \"The Natural Philosopher\"
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 16/04/2022 11:35, RJH wrote:
On 16 Apr 2022 at 11:06:34 BST, \"The Natural Philosopher\"
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 15/04/2022 21:28, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On 2022-04-15, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid
wrote:

BEVs are very mature technology. There is only a bit left to
improve.
Like aircraft and cars in general.

Yeah, they keep saying that about computers, too. And they\'re
constantly proved wrong.

They are completely right about computers. They cant be clocked
any
faster, they cant be made to work with much less power - all
they
can do
is add more cores.


The new(ish) Apple processors use a fraction (between and half
and
a third) of
the power used by an Intel equivalent.

That by itself, says nothing
A Z80 uses way less power than a pentium
A motorcycle uses way less power than a ferrari.

It says everything. Less power for the same load - google Apple M1

I prefer things designed for adults.

I very much doubt Apple can beat Intel anyway.

It\'s not Apple vs Intel it\'s TSMC vs Intel.

True, but possibly not the way you meant it. AMD is partnered with
TSMC
and the Zen 3+ design on TSMC 6nm capabilities is currently kicking
Intel ass.

Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what
area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create
optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

RISC designed like Atmel\'s AVR products are a lot more fun to
program in
assembler even if it does take more lines.

I\'ve not found any ARM will beat a late model Intel yet, but there
is no
reason why ultimately it shouldn\'t. After all most CISC processors are
RISC processors with microcode.

But the point here is that Apple didn\'t \'design\' the chip any more than
it designed the 6502, 6800, power PC or Intel chips.

So the high speed is just magic then?

https://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-hires-apple-engineer-who-helped-develop-m1-mac-chips


There\'s a guy who must have NDA\'s up the wazoo...

So if he makes an Intel chip based on ideas in Apple, how do they prove
it? It\'s like saying that song sounds a bit like that one.

The whole IP thing is a mess. Stephen Kinsella makes a good argument
against patents and copyrights. That Oracle/Google debacle is a good
example. Java wasn\'t even Oracle\'s brainchild; they bought it when they
acquired Sun.

Earlier it had been Sun versus Microsoft when MS came out with Visual
J++. The agreement would have frozen J++ so MS discontinued it. There
was a brief fling with J# but MS used what it had learned to develop C#,
which is superior to Java and C++ imnsho. In a way Sun did the world a
favor.

Music is a good analogy. I was messing around with a guitar in a shop,
playing in C, but no specific song. Another customer asked what the tune
was and I said I didn\'t know.

Some employment contracts disallow working in the same industry for N
years after leaving. That makes more sense. More by chance rather than
planning I\'ve never worked in the same areas but if I did I don\'t know
how I would filter what I knew.

As for patents, one of my early mentors was an inventor who had launched
several products. He never patented anything and felt the patent process
disclosed too much. Bring the product to market, grab the money, and
move on to another. If it is a success it will be copied anyway but
there is no reason to give competitors a heads up.

Agreed apart from \"disallow working in the same industry for N years after leaving\". Most people probably work in the same industry for most of their life. So such a job means if you ever choose to leave, you can\'t get another job. I would therefore never take a job with that in the contract.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 20:50:36 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 10:54 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:39:40 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 07:03 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

I have Zen2 (an AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT) and that\'s also TSMC, but 7nm.

The equivalent CPU on Zen3 (Ryzen 9 5900X) is also 7nm.

Yes, very fast.

I\'ve got a 5500U in my laptop. It\'s a 7nm Zen2 unlike the 5600U Zen3 but
I have no complaints for a $700 laptop.

That\'s 0.4 of the speed of my desktop. Laptops suck.

Until the company upgraded my desktop I was using the laptop for some
projects. It beat the hell out of an elderly Core i5 with a hard drive.

I\'m not a real fan of laptops but they have their place. I\'m using a
company supplied laptop for remote work. Admittedly the HDMI is plugged
into my desktop monitor though a switch and I use a bluetooth mouse and
keyboard but it\'s good enough to VPN in to a real machine.

It\'s also difficult to travel with a desktop...

I wonder what would happen if you tried to set up a desktop, keyboard, mouse, monitor on a table on a train?

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 10:41 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

Only time PC is on is for adjusting satellite dish and HAM radio QO100 stuff
that software has already been recompiled on the raspi, needs a new USB DVB-S2 tuner compatible with the Linux kernel.

Have you looked at DragonOS? I\'m running an old SuSE distro and have
thought about trying it. I\'ve been messing around with RTL-SDR on
Windows and it sounds like one stop shopping for Linux.

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 10:51 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

What\'s a modern programmer? One that uses that snake language \'python\' or so?
I like to code in asm for Microchip PIC micros, there is a lot you can do with 256 bytes RAM and 16 kB ROM.
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/scope_pic/
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/index.html

While I prefer the AVR series I definitely agree. My day job is C/C++/C#
and increasingly JavaScript with a new Angular product but when I get
home I like to keep in simple like when I could wire-wrap up a working
Z80 board.

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 10:56 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

You sound like a real programmer. As it happens I\'m having a lot of
problems with Python. Some idiot managed to make the program require
AVX, when 50% of the users had CPUs predating that.

I\'ve run into that a couple of times. In one case out of about 30
programming and QA machines I found two that could run the program. I
just happened to develop it on one of the two and was fat, dumb, and
happy until I tried to distribute it.

Python 3.x I assume? ESRI has been using 2.7 for some GIS scripting but
are moving to 3.x. I can hardly wait to rewrite my scripts.

 

[rbowman]

On 04/17/2022 11:20 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:56:59 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr309ibmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:51:47 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:46:46 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr0r8vvmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:


Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have
trouble
writing a calculator program to fit into 64KB.

What\'s a modern programmer? One that uses that snake language \'python\' or so?
I like to code in asm for Microchip PIC micros, there is a lot you can do with 256 bytes RAM and 16 kB ROM.
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/scope_pic/
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/index.html

from the eighties, CP/M clone:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/z80/index.html

You sound like a real programmer. As it happens I\'m having a lot of problems with Python. Some idiot managed to make the
program require AVX, when 50% of the users had CPUs predating that.

I have never written anything in Python, and have no intention to learn it.
C is <in my view> much simpler.

Agreed, but I do a lot of GIS work and ESRI went to Python for a
scripting language when VBA died. For quick and dirty jobs I can write
20 lines of Python or 200 lines of C++. (Their API uses COM. I have
used C with COM but life is too short...)

 

[Vir Campestris]

On 16/04/2022 11:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

They are completely right about computers. They cant be clocked any
faster, they cant be made to work with much less power - all they can do
is add more cores.

The only radical breakthrough in the last 20 years has been the solid
state disk.

Curiously not invented by Clive Sinclair or James Dyson, but by real
engineers working in large companies.

Coming in to this rather late - that turns out not to be the case.

The megahertz hasn\'t gone up much, but the instructions per clock has.

As an example of the reasons for this - do you know about speculative
execution?

Once upon a time a processor got to a branch, waited to find out which
way to go, then carried on with the correct instructions.

Then they started to decode the instructions on the non-branch path
early, because they might need them.

Then they added branch predictors, which take an increasingly good guess
as to which way the branch would go, and started on those.

The latest ones start running the instructions on _both_ paths, and
throw away the wrong ones.

All done without increasing the megahertz.

There are lots of other things going on too.

Andy

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 21:18:43 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 10:56 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
You sound like a real programmer. As it happens I\'m having a lot of
problems with Python. Some idiot managed to make the program require
AVX, when 50% of the users had CPUs predating that.

I\'ve run into that a couple of times. In one case out of about 30
programming and QA machines I found two that could run the program. I
just happened to develop it on one of the two and was fat, dumb, and
happy until I tried to distribute it.

Python 3.x I assume? ESRI has been using 2.7 for some GIS scripting but
are moving to 3.x. I can hardly wait to rewrite my scripts.

Not sure, they run on a Debian virtual machine using Oracle Virtualbox. This is the last log output I can find if it means anything to you:

<core_client_version>7.19.0</core_client_version>
<![CDATA[
<stderr_txt>
2022-04-17 09:28:54 (18912): Detected: vboxwrapper 26202
2022-04-17 09:28:54 (18912): Detected: BOINC client v7.19.0
2022-04-17 09:28:55 (18912): Detected: VirtualBox VboxManage Interface (Version: 5.2.44)
2022-04-17 09:28:55 (18912): Feature: Checkpoint interval offset (531 seconds)
2022-04-17 09:28:55 (18912): Detected: Minimum checkpoint interval (600.000000 seconds)
2022-04-17 09:28:56 (18912): Create VM. (boinc_b700ee8ebff8eb66, slot#8)
2022-04-17 09:28:57 (18912): Setting Memory Size for VM. (6144MB)
2022-04-17 09:28:57 (18912): Setting CPU Count for VM. (1)
2022-04-17 09:28:57 (18912): Setting Chipset Options for VM.
2022-04-17 09:28:57 (18912): Setting Boot Options for VM.
2022-04-17 09:28:58 (18912): Setting Network Configuration for NAT.
2022-04-17 09:28:58 (18912): Disabling VM Network Access.
2022-04-17 09:28:58 (18912): Disabling USB Support for VM.
2022-04-17 09:28:58 (18912): Disabling COM Port Support for VM.
2022-04-17 09:28:59 (18912): Disabling LPT Port Support for VM.
2022-04-17 09:28:59 (18912): Disabling Audio Support for VM.
2022-04-17 09:28:59 (18912): Disabling Clipboard Support for VM.
2022-04-17 09:29:00 (18912): Disabling Drag and Drop Support for VM.
2022-04-17 09:29:00 (18912): Adding storage controller(s) to VM.
2022-04-17 09:29:00 (18912): Adding virtual disk drive to VM. (vm_image.vdi)
2022-04-17 09:29:00 (18912): Adding VirtualBox Guest Additions to VM.
2022-04-17 09:29:01 (18912): Adding network bandwidth throttle group to VM. (Defaulting to 1024GB)
2022-04-17 09:29:01 (18912): Enabling shared directory for VM.
2022-04-17 09:29:01 (18912): Starting VM using VBoxManage interface. (boinc_b700ee8ebff8eb66, slot#8)
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Successfully started VM. (PID = \'10664\')
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Reporting VM Process ID to BOINC.
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Guest Log: BIOS: VirtualBox 5.2.44
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Guest Log: CPUID EDX: 0x078bfbff
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Guest Log: BIOS: ata0-0: PCHS=16383/16/63 LCHS=1024/255/63
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'poweredoff\', new = \'running\')
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Preference change detected
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Setting CPU throttle for VM. (100%)
2022-04-17 09:29:07 (18912): Setting checkpoint interval to 600 seconds. (Higher value of (Preference: 600 seconds) or (Vbox_job.xml: 600 seconds))
2022-04-17 09:29:09 (18912): Guest Log: BIOS: Boot : bseqnr=1, bootseq=0032
2022-04-17 09:29:09 (18912): Guest Log: BIOS: Booting from Hard Disk...
2022-04-17 09:29:13 (18912): Guest Log: vgdrvHeartbeatInit: Setting up heartbeat to trigger every 2000 milliseconds
2022-04-17 09:29:13 (18912): Guest Log: vboxguest: misc device minor 58, IRQ 20, I/O port d020, MMIO at 00000000f0400000 (size 0x400000)
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: VBoxService 5.2.42 r137960 (verbosity: 0) linux.amd64 (May 13 2020 21:45:13) release log
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000224 main Log opened 2022-04-17T09:29:15.965960000Z
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000365 main OS Product: Linux
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000400 main OS Release: 4.19.0-14-amd64
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000467 main OS Version: #1 SMP Debian 4.19.171-2 (2021-01-30)
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000487 main Executable: /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-5.2.42/sbin/VBoxService
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000487 main Process ID: 538
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.000488 main Package type: LINUX_64BITS_GENERIC
2022-04-17 09:29:17 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:00.001543 main 5.2.42 r137960 started. Verbose level = 0
2022-04-17 09:29:27 (18912): Guest Log: 00:00:10.014528 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical guest time change: -3 589 008 203 000ns (GuestNow=1 650 184 166 971 021 000 ns GuestLast=1 650 187 755 979 224 000 ns fSetTimeLastLoop=true )
2022-04-17 09:48:00 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 09:48:07 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 09:58:10 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 09:58:17 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 09:58:17 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 10:08:21 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 10:08:28 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 10:08:28 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 10:18:32 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 10:18:38 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 10:18:39 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 10:28:42 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 10:28:49 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 10:28:49 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 10:38:53 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 10:39:00 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 10:39:00 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 10:46:50 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'running\', new = \'paused\')
2022-04-17 13:15:24 (18912): Preference change detected
2022-04-17 13:15:24 (18912): Setting CPU throttle for VM. (100%)
2022-04-17 13:15:25 (18912): Setting checkpoint interval to 600 seconds. (Higher value of (Preference: 600 seconds) or (Vbox_job.xml: 600 seconds))
2022-04-17 13:15:25 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'paused\', new = \'running\')
2022-04-17 13:15:28 (18912): Guest Log: 01:17:00.201785 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical host time change: 8 924 587 000 000ns (HostNow=1 650 197 727 910 000 000 ns HostLast=1 650 188 803 323 000 000 ns)
2022-04-17 13:15:38 (18912): Guest Log: 01:17:10.202876 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical guest time change: 8 960 752 821 000ns (GuestNow=1 650 197 737 911 127 000 ns GuestLast=1 650 188 777 158 306 000 ns fSetTimeLastLoop=true )
2022-04-17 13:17:29 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 13:17:36 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 13:17:36 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 13:20:34 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'running\', new = \'paused\')
2022-04-17 14:39:02 (18912): Guest Log: 01:22:00.215576 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical host time change: 4 717 136 000 000ns (HostNow=1 650 202 741 159 000 000 ns HostLast=1 650 198 024 023 000 000 ns)
2022-04-17 14:39:02 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'paused\', new = \'running\')
2022-04-17 14:39:12 (18912): Guest Log: 01:22:10.215960 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical guest time change: 4 723 235 627 000ns (GuestNow=1 650 202 751 159 416 000 ns GuestLast=1 650 198 027 923 789 000 ns fSetTimeLastLoop=true )
2022-04-17 14:45:59 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 14:46:06 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 14:46:06 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 14:49:14 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'running\', new = \'paused\')
2022-04-17 16:08:06 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'paused\', new = \'running\')
2022-04-17 16:08:09 (18912): Guest Log: 01:32:10.240977 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical host time change: 4 741 447 000 000ns (HostNow=1 650 208 088 717 000 000 ns HostLast=1 650 203 347 270 000 000 ns)
2022-04-17 16:08:19 (18912): Guest Log: 01:32:20.241766 timesync vgsvcTimeSyncWorker: Radical guest time change: 4 747 533 387 000ns (GuestNow=1 650 208 098 717 800 000 ns GuestLast=1 650 203 351 184 413 000 ns fSetTimeLastLoop=true )
2022-04-17 16:14:53 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 16:15:00 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 16:15:00 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 16:15:10 (18912): Status Report: Elapsed Time: \'6000.292812\'
2022-04-17 16:15:10 (18912): Status Report: CPU Time: \'5995.921875\'
2022-04-17 16:25:04 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 16:25:12 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 16:25:13 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 16:35:16 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 16:35:23 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 16:35:23 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 16:45:27 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 16:45:34 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 16:45:34 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 16:55:38 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 16:55:45 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 16:55:46 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 17:05:49 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 17:05:55 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 17:05:56 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 17:15:59 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 17:16:07 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 17:16:08 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 17:26:12 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 17:26:21 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 17:26:21 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 17:36:25 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 17:36:32 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 17:36:32 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 17:46:35 (18912): Creating new snapshot for VM.
2022-04-17 17:46:43 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 17:46:44 (18912): Checkpoint completed.
2022-04-17 17:54:34 (18912): Guest Log: 03:17:28.089824 control Guest control service stopped
2022-04-17 17:54:34 (18912): Guest Log: 03:17:28.089898 control Guest control worker returned with rc=VINF_SUCCESS
2022-04-17 17:54:34 (18912): Guest Log: 03:17:28.090015 main Session 0 is about to close ...
2022-04-17 17:54:34 (18912): Guest Log: 03:17:28.090037 main Stopping all guest processes ...
2022-04-17 17:54:34 (18912): Guest Log: 03:17:28.090052 main Closing all guest files ...
2022-04-17 17:54:34 (18912): Guest Log: 03:17:28.251843 main Ended.
2022-04-17 17:54:35 (18912): VM is no longer is a running state. It is in \'poweredoff\'.
2022-04-17 17:54:35 (18912): VM state change detected. (old = \'running\', new = \'poweredoff\')
2022-04-17 17:54:35 (18912): Powering off VM.
2022-04-17 17:54:35 (18912): Deregistering VM. (boinc_b700ee8ebff8eb66, slot#8)
2022-04-17 17:54:35 (18912): Deleting stale snapshot.
2022-04-17 17:54:35 (18912): Removing network bandwidth throttle group from VM.
2022-04-17 17:54:36 (18912): Removing VM from VirtualBox.
2022-04-17 17:54:41 (18912): Virtual machine exited.
17:54:46 (18912): called boinc_finish(0)

</stderr_txt>
]]>

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 21:31:03 +0100, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On 04/17/2022 11:20 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:56:59 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr309ibmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 17:51:47 +0100, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:46:46 +0100) it happened \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in <op.1kr0r8vvmvhs6z@ryzen.lan>:

On Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:08:45 +0100, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On 04/16/2022 05:20 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:


Apple\'s processor is an ARM so it\'s going to be more efficient than
intels X86

When comparing RISC to CISC you have to be careful to specify what area
you\'re comparing for efficiency. Power consumption has been where RISC
has shone. It took a while for compilers to catch up to create optimized
code. Code size is necessarily greater, hence more RAM.

Come now, risc processors have been used for three decades now,
the compiler guys are really really good at generating quality code
for all of them.

No modern programmer is good at anything, especially tight coding. Give them a computer from the 80s and they\'d have
trouble
writing a calculator program to fit into 64KB.

What\'s a modern programmer? One that uses that snake language \'python\' or so?
I like to code in asm for Microchip PIC micros, there is a lot you can do with 256 bytes RAM and 16 kB ROM.
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/scope_pic/
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/index.html

from the eighties, CP/M clone:
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/z80/index.html

You sound like a real programmer. As it happens I\'m having a lot of problems with Python. Some idiot managed to make the
program require AVX, when 50% of the users had CPUs predating that.

I have never written anything in Python, and have no intention to learn it.
C is <in my view> much simpler.


Agreed, but I do a lot of GIS work and ESRI went to Python for a
scripting language when VBA died. For quick and dirty jobs I can write
20 lines of Python or 200 lines of C++. (Their API uses COM. I have
used C with COM but life is too short...)

Are you saying your 20 lines of Python is the same as 200 lines of C++? If so I wouldn\'t call C++ simpler.