Ethan Gates @The_BFOOL@digipres.club

Frankly not sure whether I ever did a proper #introduction post, so making one I can pin:

Hello, new and seasoned fediverse! My name's Ethan, I live in central Massachusetts in the U.S I'm also a struggling puzzle addict and I'm curious about tech. I post too much about work (as a digital archivist) so trying to post more about what I'm reading, watching, playing.

I keep several long-form blogs if that's your thing:
https://patchbay.tech
https://bestfilmofourlives.blog
https://ethan-gates.com/blog

2nd edition of SPN's Guide to the DMCA Exemption for Software Preservation is out! Updated to reflect the expanded exemption that went into place in 2021.

https://www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/a-preservationists-guide-to-the-dmca-exemption-for-software-preservation/

wow live editing/collaborating in Microsoft Word in Office 365 is just still so much worse than Google Docs, huh

What a fantastic list of proposals approved for CLIR's new "pocket burgundy" report series, I can't wait to see all of these!

(including some of our digipres.club friends here 😍 🤗 )

https://www.clir.org/2022/12/clir-announces-pocket-burgundy-awards/

Please don't forget with the looming rail strike that grad student employees in the UC system have been out on the picket line for 3 weeks now, with no response/bargaining from administration since the union's last proposal 12 days ago.

These folks are determined but hungry, please throw a few bucks their way for lunch

https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw

Anyone aware of a decent scholarly overview/consideration of the legality of emulators? (under U.S. law especially but will take whatever)

Like on the level of EFF, Harvard CyberLaw or the like commenting on this, not video game emulation sites summarizing common understanding/interpretation of Sony v. Connectix

idly wondering if I could write a browser extension that removes the pedantic gatekeeping from retrocomputing forums and keeps the useful information

So maybe this will get a little more traction on the expanded fediverse:

I'm working on a simple, cross-platform QEMU launcher using Python (Gooey) - the use case/focus is on emulation, legacy guests and introducing new/CLI-wary users to QEMU (opposed to things like virt-manager)

Feedback/thoughts/tests welcome!

https://gitlab.com/EG-tech/qiwi

OK Mac-heads:

What actually changed between Mac OS 9.0.4 to 9.1 re: memory management?

Emaculation forums and other sources frequently mention that SheepShaver can't run 9.1 and up because of lack of emulating an MMU.

But Apple's own system requirements for 9.1 say it could run on any PowerPC machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020602032424/http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106125

Am I correct assuming all PowerPC Macs had MMUs then? So if it like wasn't an actual hardware change, what happened here?

#emulation

wondering what emulation as a local community service would look like

I've often joked about needing a Home Floppy Day event on the level of Home Movie Days, and thinking that my goal for next year's WDPD should be to put something like that together

This is absolutely not a good "explainer" anymore, and it's missing some important milestones that came a bit after (like @misty truly taking on the brunt of hosting + maintenance), but thinking back to this blog post and my horrific failed first efforts with the digipres.club name:

https://patchbay.tech/blog/2018/02/22/mastodon-and-the-digipres-club/

I dunno, it is so crazy and cool to see you all here! Thanks for those who have been around for years and to those just giving it a shot ❤️

I think I can finally go properly wide with this news: EaaSI's Program Manager will be leaving at the end of this week. You can/should read in Seth's own words here:

https://forum.eaasi.cloud/t/my-departure-from-eaasi-and-yale/390

But the upshot is, we'll be hiring! Y'all know how slow academic hiring can move so I will blast again when the post is actually up, but if you've got any questions in the meantime, please reach out, I'm happy to chat more about it.

btw: Qiwi beta release 0.2.0 is out!

https://gitlab.com/EG-tech/qiwi/-/releases/0.2.0

major bump in functionality by incorporating qemu-img so you can make blank/new disk images to use as your system drive without leaving the Qiwi interface. also BitCurator-compatible executables bumped up to the latest 4.x (Ubuntu 22.04) releases!

#WDPD2022

Starting a thread for folks to post their File Format or Fake score!

I'll go first (and almost certainly lose 😂 ): 10/15

(If you're just playing the quiz by yourself, make sure to put the PPT right into presentation mode so you don't give away the answers to yourself!)

#WDPD2022

https://www.exploreyourarchive.org/archives/digital-preservation/

both GLAM-specific and general tech responses to this appreciated

Has anyone ever essentially added "product owner" to their already-existing job duties

(by which I mean, for a particular piece of software/platform perform tasks like:
- facilitate weekly meeting with dev team
- convey requirements to dev team
- update project management software with progress
- meeting with UX/UI designer and conveying requirements/feedback as-needed)

and if so: were you compensated extra and how much?