Yes, the Fiat 500 Could Be an iCar
From Ian:
Charles,
I just read your
article [Fiat 500: Enough
Style to Be an iCar?] on the Fiat 500. I'd have to
agree that it is what we've been needing in the North American
automotive market for ages. In addition to being a techie, I've been
very into cars for many many years. In fact, I just finished riding out
the worst of the recession's impact in Pittsburgh by working as a
mechanic. I found that there are a great deal of similarities between
how people interact with their cars as they do with their computers.
These relationships vary from horribly dysfunctional to being
completely symbiotic.
Your views on the French, German, English, and Italian [automotive
design] are spot on. Despite having never had the opportunity to drive
an original Mini, I've found myself to be quite fond of the BMW
variants. Then again, I worked at a BMW dealer (and went to BMW
University - such a place does actually exist!), so I'm probably a
little biased by familiarity with the systems in the car.
The level of
complexity in the computers and networking in modern cars is nothing
short of amazing. In most modern cars, you'll find at minimum 4
different networks (depending on what kind of car) all with a shared
gateway module. Then you'll see a mix of different topologies and
transport medium (depending on the nature of the subsystem the network
is running on). All of these meet up with the gateway module which will
connect to the diagnostic connector, which on almost everything 2002
onwards is the standard 16 pin DLC.
Thank you for writing the
article; it's nice to know there are other car guys in this
arena.
Ian
Hi Ian,
My pleasure, believe me! I've been a car aficionado
all my life (I come from families of motorheads on both sides) and a
serious enthusiast for nearly 50 years. The changes in that span have
been massive, but the appeal endures.
Unlike many aspects of life, however, cars are
arguably better now than they've ever been - certainly
performance-wise. Concrete example: The original
Z28 Camaro, which was essentially a race car for the street
homologation special for the then current Firebird
Trans Am series, was considered really hot stuff back in 1968. A
friend of mine bought one and soon totaled it (fortunately without
badly hurting himself or anyone else). However, today a V-6 Toyota
Camry family sedan can beat the '68 Z28 in 0-60 acceleration.
Regarding Minis, as I noted in the article I drove
them quite a bit. They were amazing little boxes. I helped another
friend build up an original Mini Cooper (not a 1275cc Cooper S; this
one had a rare Cooper John Cooper works breathed-on 997cc mill, which
was different from the garden-variety 998cc version that powered the
later Mini 1000) for CASC (equivalent U.S. SCCA) club racing. The
racing Minis were awesome. Only things faster around the track here
were 427 Corvettes, an original Shelby Cobra 427, the 396 Camaros, and
a Porsche 911.
I don't dislike the BMW Mini. It's cool, but it lacks
the authenticity of the original and seems a bit of a caricature, as
well as being priced to appeal to a completely different class of
buyer. I don't have much hands-on experience with BMWs. A friend did
have a 6-cylinder Bavaria (can't recall the year or model number but I
think it was a 3.0 litre) that he let me wring out on some rural
twisties. Extremely impressive in a '70s context.
I also used to moonlight for intervals in the late
'60s and '70s as an auto mechanic, but there were no computers
then!
Charles
No, the Fiat 500 Is a Pile of Junk
From LMN:
No, its not enough. The Fiat 500 is a pile of junk; I've driven it
several times. It's weak, feels cheap, and is too small to fit anyone
in the back seats if the driver is over 5'9". They should have made it
a 2-seater and put a turbo on the engine, that would make it a
car worth considering.
Hi LMN,
I think that's a pretty harsh assessment. Of course
the 500c is built to a price, but that doesn't make it junk, and it is
a vary small car (albeit much bigger than the original Fiat 500), so
probably not a good ride for basketball players.
As for your turbo engine suggestion, that's coming.
Chrysler has released the specifications for the Abarth factory hot rod
version of the 500 that will be sold in North America with a 1.4L
MultiAir Turbo engine spec'd at 170 horsepower (128 kW) @ 6750 rpm and
170 lb.-ft. (231 Nm) of torque @ 3000 rpm. That calculates to 2.04
hp/cu in (124 hp/litre) and ranks the 1.4L MultiAir Turbo engine as
having one of the highest specific outputs among production cars.
It'll still have a back seat, though as far as I
know.
Charles
Loss of Rosetta Means Avoiding Lion for Now
From Seth in response to The
Implications of Losing Rosetta in OS X 10.7 Lion:
Hi Charles -
Apple may have lost me with this one, at least as far as purchasing
an OS upgrade goes. Between the absurd problems I've had with updating
software on my iOS devices - my week old iPad 2 is somehow "ineligible for the
selected build" when I try to move to 4.3.3 from 4.3.2 - and the
Rosetta business, I'm a little sour on Apple these days.
Too many little bits and pieces of things that just won't work -
sounds like a nightmare.
I keep a Cube up and
running at home so I've got Classic for the very few times I need it,
however it sounds as if the issues with updaters and (probably) print
drivers and etc. that are likely to ensue with Lion are more than I've
got a stomach for dealing with. I'll give it a year and see how it
sorts out.
Seth
Hi Seth,
That sounds fair. We all have to find the way that
suits our individual needs best in these transitions. I've settled for
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger being
the end of the road for my beloved old Pismo PowerBooks and am trying
to come to terms with the implications of Rosetta termination for my
core suite of production tools, looking for potential substitutes, and
so forth.
In a year's time you should be getting a good feel for
how things are going to play out.
Charles
No Rosetta? Use a Second, Older Mac
From Eric:
Hello Mr. Moore,
I enjoyed the article and ramblings about Rosetta no longer being a
part of the Apple OS. It's interesting to hear the solutions of others
to keep this software.
However, being that this is on LowEndMac.com, isn't it a simple,
viable option to have the user keep around or purchase an older Apple
computer for this purpose? Sure, the user would have to purchase a
separate keyboard, mouse, and monitor if they're not using a KVM
switch; but this is still cheaper than purchasing an entire new
Macintosh. On top of that, depending on the age of the machine, they
may still be able to run Classic Mac apps as well. No?
Eric
Hi Eric,
But of course you're absolutely right. I'm certainly
not planning to get rid of my two working Pismo PowerBooks or my old
604e SuperMac S900 tower anytime in
the foreseeable future, although I will also want to keep a Mac running
up-to-date system software as well.
Older Macs can be purchased so reasonably (and laptop
users like me don't even have the input peripherals and monitor issues
to contend with) that there's no reason not to maintain backwards
compatibility with older applications and document files.
Charles
Rosetta, Intuit, and Quicken 2007
From John:
Charles,
Another loss with Rosetta is Quicken 2007 for Mac. That is the
latest "full" version for Mac. The vastly inferior Quicken Essentials
runs without Rosetta but pales in comparison to the old full
version.
There hasn't been any news from Intuit regarding future Mac versions
as far as I know. I may have to use the Windoze version with Boot Camp.
I don't understand Intuit's plan, but it sure is making plenty of Mac
users angry.
Sincerely,\
John
Hi John,
Quicken is such an important program for so many
users, I find it hard to imagine that Intuit won't port a full version
with 64-bit native OS X support, but I have no hard knowledge to
back up that surmise.
Charles
PowerPC Installers for Intel Apps
From Greg:
One of your correspondents wrote:
"I don't own any recent edition of Office, so it's not something I
can look into myself. But it does seem strange that Office 2k8 is
throwing up a Rosetta installation request for Intel users under any
circumstances."
Mac OS X installer packages are mostly just "documents" for Apple's
installer app, as Adam Engst mentions. However, they can contain bits
of executable code used to prepare for, post-process, or validate the
installation. Those executables may be simple shell scripts, but they
can also be full applications, and in that case they may be
PowerPC-only. When Microsoft was building these installers three years
ago, it may have seemed reasonable to them to use non-Universal
installer utilities to reduce space consumption or testing needs. Now,
with the apparent info that Rosetta is going away, it's troublesome of
course.
Greg
Thanks for the explanation, Greg.
Charles
docXConverter Is Working Just Fine
From Lloyd, following up on Converting .docx Files for Mac OS 9 Versions
of Word:
Hello, Charles:
As a follow-up to our recent exchange about the end of Rosetta and
backward compatibility, etc., I wanted to let you know that Panergy's docXConverter is
working just fine. it's worth $19.95 to have fuller use of my $1.00
WallStreet, upon whose
keyboard these words are being typed. (I'm sending them via dial-up,
wirelessly, as the last barrier to daily OS 9 living is
encryption. With wireless dialup, my signal is not broadcast except
when I choose to go online, and the intermittent nature of its' use is
the best defense I can muster in the WPA era.)
Thanks for your always informative and entertaining writing.
Regards,
-Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for the kind words. If it helps make a $1.00
computer usably useful, $19.95 is cheap at the price.
And you're right, along with reliability and usually
lower cost, another point in dial-up's favor is enhanced security. It
sure is slow, though. Have you found Opera's Turbo compression
feature any help with that?
Charles
Hello, Charles:
Opera 5 is one of my backup browsers on the WallStreet, and I also
have it on my Intel MacBook and my work Dell laptop, which runs Win XP.
It's a noticeable help with speed, but page rendering, in all versions,
is not always accurate. (I have it on my iPod touch, as well, but the
tiny screen makes any browser nearly unusable for my 49 y/o eyes.) I
notice the speed of page loads even when using DSL, Charles. Opera is a
burner, and the page rendering issues do not detract from that. (Lynx
is very fast, too, but Opera is more like a 'normal' browser, and it is
my first choice for text-only Internet use.)
BTW, the dial-up service I use is the Genessee Freenet, at www.gfn.org, one of the
last of the nonprofit, community-based 'freenets' that helped midwife
Internet usage for early adapters back in the early 1990s. GFN has been
around since 1994, and they offer Telnet access, as well. I'd be
curious to know how many other freenets are active out there, and for
that matter, how many still visit Gopher servers, use Telnet and other
systems from the early days of connectivity.
Regards,
-Lloyd
Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for the Opera 5 report.
Regarding holdout freenets, I haven't a clue. There
are none in my neck of the woods any more.
Charles
A Free Way to Convert .docx to .doc
From Mark:
Charles:
This is an addendum to your recent missive from Lloyd about
"converting .docx files for Mac OS 9 versions of Word".
I cannot verify if the .doc files created are readable in OS 9, but
I have often used the free www.zamzar.com website to convert files
from some pretty esoteric formats . . . for free. Since Lloyd
is apparently a teacher, it probably makes more sense to have a
specific OS 9 software program to do his conversions when he gets
a lot of docx files, but for the occasional file it is nice to have a
free Web resource that does some file conversions, including word
processing, image formats, video formats, etc. The free is if
the files are under 100 MB. If you have to convert larger files, then
you have to upgrade to their paid service. I can vouch for converting
some horrible Microsoft Publisher files into PDFs with Zamzar, and
being able to compare the PDF version to a printed version of the
Publisher file. I could see no obvious difference.
Since you are sending a file to a website, I would not recommend
sending a business or personally sensitive document thru the Zamzar
system.
Mark
Thanks for the information, Mark.
Just did a quick checkout of the Zamzar site. Looks
like a very useful service.
Charles
Go to Charles Moore's Mailbag index.
