Recent posts

#31

Virtualization / Re: Emulators with BlueSCSI-co...

Last post by ZombiePhysicist - Sep 24, 2025, 02:31 PM

I had no idea about this history. Thanks for sharing it. Knowing ZuluSCSI is "the real thing", it being the original, will be the only one I recommend going forward.

Thanks for your contribution to the retro world!

[we write it ourselves]

#32

Virtualization / Re: Emulators with BlueSCSI-co...

Last post by rabbitholecomputing - Sep 24, 2025, 03:26 AM

Hiya,

One of the features of the fantastic Previous is that the hard drive images are compatible with BlueSCSI.

There's no such thing as a "BlueSCSI image" Both ZuluSCSI and BlueSCSI just use raw HDD images, like you would read from a mechanical HDD or SSD with DD or any other raw disk imaging utility.

For the record, the BlueSCSI V2 firmware is a knock-off "re-branded" ZuluSCSI. Back in early 2023, they took the ZuluSCSI firmware (which is GPLv3-licensed) and "re-branded" it, (mass search-and-replace), dropped non-RP2040 platform support, since they had no need for it, and then announced BlueSCSI V2 less than 70 days after I'd launched ZuluSCSI RP2040. This is not a coincidence.

They also did other shitty things in blatant violation of US Copyright Law, like attach copyright notices claiming copyright to dozens of source and header files they _knew_ they had not authored, and ended up learning the hard way that just because software is GPL-licensed, US copyright law still applies.

There's a reason why "Copyright <year> Rabbit Hole Computing" appears over 70 times in the current BlueSCSI V2 firmware repository. We wrote nearly all of it, including the SCSI initiator mode support, which they later added to a revision of BlueSCSI V2 hardware, and subsequently enabled in the BlueSCSI V2 firmware.

The initial BlueSCSI V2 (Pico/RP2040-based) public announcement was made on Jan 25, 2023, just a bit over two and a half years ago. Since then, we've merged in additional functionality that was developed for BlueSCSI, post-fork, as is our right to do. Multiple people have informed me that this did not go over well with the BlueSCSI maintainers, which comes across as an absurd double-standard from my perspective.

Over the course of the past ten months, my company, Rabbit Hole Computing:

* Ported ZuluSCSI to the RP2350 microcontroller (merged in more or less verbatim to the BlueSCSI V2 code base)
* Released ZuluSCSI Blaster (RP2350B-based) (code that's since been merged back in to the BlueSCSI V2 code base, naturally)
* Released ZuluSCSI Wide (16-bit single-ended Ultra Wide SCSI) and have continued to innovate on other fronts.

A couple of years ago, the BlueSCSI V2 maintainer had the audacity to claim the following, in a still-publicly-available thread on Reddit: "I think mainly the difference is BlueSCSI is not a commercial project, we just give away everything, hardware, designs, etc. We don't pay contractors to write the software, we write it ourselves." (emphasis mine)

Making statements like this when they know exactly where the majority of the BlueSCSI V2 source code came from is precisely the sort of grandstanding I've come to expect from the BlueSCSI maintainers.

The dig about contractors is a veiled reference to Rabbit Hole Computing, since the individual I hired to originally design the ZuluSCSI RP2040 hardware and firmware was and remains a contract developer. They don't seem to have a problem profiting off of the work of others, while at the same time shit-talking the concept of contract development work that they're directly benefiting (and profiting) from.

While it's cute that he claims that BlueSCSI is non-commercial, the reality is that he and his co-maintainer are both paid per-unit-sold royalties for every fully-assembled BlueSCSI sold by his authorized resellers. This is yet another disengenuous attempt to whitewash their shitty behavior in the eyes of their user base. Another example is when they chose to distribute

Claiming that BlueSCSI is "not commercial" because the hardware designs are open source, while at the same time collecting per-unit-sold royalties from a handful of different "makers" who re-sell the BlueSCSI V2 hardware designs that are commercially-licensed to them is ethically questionable at best, and I personally find it to just be a downright shitty thing to do. Multiple attempts were made to obfuscate the true origins of the BlueSCSI V2 code base, and despite claims to the contrary, the motive for doing so is highly questionable.  Every time someone buys a BlueSCSI, they're effectively rewarding/enabling shitty behavior, whether they realize it or not, and putting money in to the pockets of those who claim to not be operating a commercial enterpise.

Please consider purchasing a ZuluSCSI the next time you have need of a quality SCSI emulator. We have distributors/resellers in the EU, UK, Canada and Australia.  Without Rabbit Hole Computing and ZuluSCSI RP2040, there would be no BlueSCSI V2 as you currently know it. It cost me many tens of thousands of dollars to develop it, and Rabbit Hole Computing is a tiny two-person company, not some hugely-profitable enterprise. We put a lot more effort into our hardware designs (reviewed by actual Electrical Engineers), and yes, this costs real money, but it's worth it.

#33

General Discussion / Re: Logged in with Windows XP ...

Last post by jeffburg - Sep 24, 2025, 02:42 AM

@Rhetorica here is Tiger and Snow Leopard view. Not looking great, but not sure if its really possible to tbh

#34

Software / Re: Postgres95 SQL

Last post by Rhetorica - Sep 23, 2025, 07:01 PM

Save your money,

Oh, no, I just meant it was time to go raid them for goodies

[shebang]

#35

Software / Re: Nextanswer 1088 How to spe...

Last post by ptek - Sep 23, 2025, 01:07 AM

Def referred to as bang within NeXT. I recall being surprised at that as well.

  I guess Rob would know.

They're very peculiar to the US Northeast hacker culture. Both bang and twiddle are mentioned in the Jargon file:

http://catb.org/jargon/html/T/twiddle.html
http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bang.html

I would say bang is definitely the better-known one, used in such terms as "bang path" (UUCP path) and "shebang" (#! at the start of shell scripts)

  First I have ever heard of shebang for #!. But thanks for providing thos links Rhetorica. I was wondering if I should have put this in the general section near the rules but I guess you are talking about software...

#36

Software / Re: Postgres95 SQL

Last post by ptek - Sep 23, 2025, 01:01 AM

tl;dr the forum software uses [ list ] for both, but browsers use <ol> and <ul>, which the WYSIWYG editor is automatically converting into [ol] and [ul].

Both of those domains are new to me! Time to go shopping...

Save your money, you've already done more than enough. I just have to remind my lazy @$$ to use New Moon browser instead of Firefox.

#37

Software / Re: Postgres95 SQL

Last post by Rhetorica - Sep 22, 2025, 10:36 PM

tl;dr the forum software uses [ list ] for both, but browsers use <ol> and <ul>, which the WYSIWYG editor is automatically converting into [ol] and [ul].

Both of those domains are new to me! Time to go shopping...

#38

Software / Re: Nextanswer 1088 How to spe...

Last post by Rhetorica - Sep 22, 2025, 10:33 PM

They're very peculiar to the US Northeast hacker culture. Both bang and twiddle are mentioned in the Jargon file:

http://catb.org/jargon/html/T/twiddle.html
http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bang.html

I would say bang is definitely the better-known one, used in such terms as "bang path" (UUCP path) and "shebang" (#! at the start of shell scripts)

#39

Software / Re: Some archive.org chance IS...

Last post by Rhetorica - Sep 22, 2025, 09:22 PM

It should be noted that no working license keys for Andrew Stone's software have ever surfaced publicly—I think Andreas put one in the filename of a CD image once, but it didn't work. (Andreas in this case is the donor behind the commercial software directory at fsck.technology and many of the discs I obtained in the past few months for the CD-ROM Archive. Not to be confused with andreas_g, an entirely different Austrian!)

#40

General Discussion / Re: Logged in with Windows XP ...

Last post by Rhetorica - Sep 22, 2025, 09:17 PM

Alternatively we could retitle this thread to just cover the spectrum of all browsing experiences?

@jeffburg How does it look now? I think I have a few of the problems with table headers sorted out, and I'm pretty sure that's no longer the current board header.