General Computing Randomness

[LordMortis]

I also took a basic programming course (basic BASIC)

I had a semester of basic programming in college, back in 1972. We used, no joke, punch cards to write our program which was compiled and run on a mainframe.

In high-school we didn't have BASIC. They taught assembly. I tjink our project was a pacman game.
I learned some BASIC in my DOS days. I also became REALLY good at bat files. Had a single bat file with a game menu to liad specific games with their specific settings.

Nice. Our Highschool only did BASIC and not much at that. I did *a lot* more at home learning how make BattleTech 'mech creation in a program and trying (and failing) to create a TELENGUARD clone as well as learning basic PEEK and POKE in ATARI BASIC than I did in Computers 1 and 2 in HS. Half the time the teacher would give me a pass to go off campus and run errands, and I wasn't the brightest cookie in the tooldrawer.

[Rumpy]

Computers in schools in Ontario were quite a different prospect if you were a child of the 80's and 90's. We had to use a government mandated server-based Unix system called the Unisys ICON. They were big sturdy computers (all-in-one units) with built-in trackballs, but incredibly slow. And it was an expensive government program, and limited as well, every application had to be specifically coded for the system, so it had a limited library for students to use. The government scrapped the project and destroyed most of the computers. I didn't personally get to use a PC in school until maybe 93-94, because part of the terms had to use the ICON computers before moving on to the PCs.

[GreenGoo]

I did grade school in the 70's and high school in the 80's, both in Ontario and we used PETs if I remember correctly. I don't recognize ICON at all. I had a vic20 and then a commodore64 and my dad brought home a TRS80 from work on occasion. By end of high school (and the 80's) I owned a ridiculously expensive Amiga with an 8088 card slotted, so I could run PC apps. It was not a great solution.

I didn't own a PC myself until about 1994ish.

[Rumpy]

They might have been after your time. The government would have started phasing them out in the 90's, at which point most of them disappeared. Some went to museums to be used in exhibits. At one point they were everywhere, impossible to ignore. But just as quickly, they went out of favor and they were deemed an expensive mistake. In that manner, they were fairly unique as they were designed from the ground-up for the classroom. Good writeup here https://vintagecomputer.ca/the-burroughs-icon-computer/

While early models had the monitor and keyboard as part of the same unit, later models had become more PC-like with the monitor separated from the keyboard, and I believe later ones also were able to run dos applications.

Oh yeah, they were also nicknamed the bionic beaver

[hitbyambulance]

They might have been after your time. The government would have started phasing them out in the 90's, at which point most of them disappeared. Some went to museums to be used in exhibits. At one point they were everywhere, impossible to ignore. But just as quickly, they went out of favor and they were deemed an expensive mistake. In that manner, they were fairly unique as they were designed from the ground-up for the classroom. Good writeup here https://vintagecomputer.ca/the-burroughs-icon-computer/

While early models had the monitor and keyboard as part of the same unit, later models had become more PC-like with the monitor separated from the keyboard, and I believe later ones also were able to run dos applications.

Oh yeah, they were also nicknamed the bionic beaver

also where QNX started (among other things, the OS for latter-day BlackBerries and Ford Motor Co.'s automotive head units)

[Rumpy]

They might have been after your time. The government would have started phasing them out in the 90's, at which point most of them disappeared. Some went to museums to be used in exhibits. At one point they were everywhere, impossible to ignore. But just as quickly, they went out of favor and they were deemed an expensive mistake. In that manner, they were fairly unique as they were designed from the ground-up for the classroom. Good writeup here https://vintagecomputer.ca/the-burroughs-icon-computer/

While early models had the monitor and keyboard as part of the same unit, later models had become more PC-like with the monitor separated from the keyboard, and I believe later ones also were able to run dos applications.

Oh yeah, they were also nicknamed the bionic beaver

also where QNX started (among other things, the OS for latter-day BlackBerries and Ford Motor Co.'s automotive head units)

And I do find that history fascinating. I mean, who would have thought that would be the origin to the Blackberries's OS? Let alone Ford's entertainment OS. When I remember those slow as molasses ICONs, it boggles my mind that the OS would be used for anything else.

[GreenGoo]

They might have been after your time.

Ouch.

Good point though.

[Rumpy]

They might have been after your time.

Ouch.

Good point though.

Heh, I don't even think we're that far apart age-wise. But these computers had a fairly narrow timeline. I find it amazing that the Ontario government put so much money into the program only to scrap them out of existence. There's still relatively little information about them online given the nature of how they worked, and the proprietary software.

[Isgrimnur]

I managed to cobble together a script using Violentmonkey to make my Steam posts easier by building the full line of information. Now I just have to work on how to get the Metacritic score to auto-pop, as it's an element that is not always there.

[GreenGoo]

Neat!

[Blackhawk]

Dear god...

He's becoming self-aware! Pull the plug. For god's sake, somebody pull the plug!

[Blackhawk]

Google sheets question.

How do I set it so that I can write the text, "+1 whatever" in a column without it changing the formatting/turning it into a formula? I just need the text, and I don't have a lot of room to write everything out.

Have I mentioned how much I despise spreadsheets?

[Isgrimnur]

Apostrophe before the text.

[Blackhawk]

Won't that print?

[Blackhawk]

And one line later, I need to start an entry with an apostrophe, which then disappears.

That's why I despise spreadsheets so much. If you're not someone who needs the elaborate calculations, you're probably using spreadsheets to chart and/or organize text. Most of them are so aggressive in their formulas that it breaks half of the text.

[Isgrimnur]

Double apostrophe.

[stessier]

If you just need text, you could insert tables into the word processor. But it's probably easier to just learn the spreadsheet language.

[Blackhawk]

What would be easier is Google realizing that not everyone uses spreadsheets for calculations, and providing an 'as entered' mode, or at least an option to format cells to leave the contents alone.

[disarm]

I think you can set the format of a cell (or group of cells) to plain text by selecting the desired cells, then select 'Format -> Number -> Plain Text' from the top menu bar. That should get rid of any auto-formatting of the selected cells done by Sheets.

[Carpet_pissr]

I think you can set the format of a cell (or group of cells) to plain text by selecting the desired cells, then select 'Format -> Number -> Plain Text' from the top menu bar. That should get rid of any auto-formatting of the selected cells done by Sheets.

This.

[Blackhawk]

I'd found that and applied it. It was still converting text ( ' and + ) to something else.

[GreenGoo]

Double apostrophe.

I feel like Izzy is being ignored here. I don't have Excel at home to test, but can't you just escape any special characters, and double escape the escape character?

Edit: I tried it in LibreOffice's Calc, and simply changing the cell format to plain text fixed it without needing to escape anything. However, before that a single quote escaped the + character so I was able to enter +1 without it being math, and simply displayed +1. That is to say I entered '+1 without changing cell format and it displayed +1.

Escaping the escape character resulted in a double single quote. i.e. ''+1. Which was unexpected.

You can also use ascii or unicode to display a character. Alt+39 (on the numberpad) should result in a single quote. This is also useful for foreign characters or accents. ï or è

[Isgrimnur]

∠ô

[Blackhawk]

Double apostrophe.

I feel like Izzy is being ignored here. I don't have Excel at home to test, but can't you just escape any special characters, and double escape the escape character?

Edit: I tried it in LibreOffice's Calc, and simply changing the cell format to plain text fixed it without needing to escape anything. However, before that a single quote escaped the + character so I was able to enter +1 without it being math, and simply displayed +1. That is to say I entered '+1 without changing cell format and it displayed +1.

Escaping the escape character resulted in a double single quote. i.e. ''+1. Which was unexpected.

You can also use ascii or unicode to display a character. Alt+39 (on the numberpad) should result in a single quote. This is also useful for foreign characters or accents. ï or è

Izzy isn't being ignored. I haven't worked on the project in a couple of days, and while it works to use the single quote to force it to ignore the +, I'm still not sure what that will do when printing.

And my other (non-question) point is still that workarounds shouldn't be necessary to begin with. Enough people use spreadsheets as a way to create charts and tables to organize text data that the option should exist to simply turn off functions that interfere with that.

[gilraen]

Enough people use spreadsheets as a way to create charts and tables to organize text data that the option should exist to simply turn off functions that interfere with that.

You know what most paying clients (e.g. businesses) use spreadsheets for? Calculations.

You know what Google, Microsoft et. al. don't care about? People using spreadsheets for random note taking.

[Blackhawk]

Perhaps.

I know that I have used piles and piles of Google Docs sheets that people have made for reference that wouldn't really work the same in any other format without the sorting, filtering, and tabbed functionality.

But you're probably right. If you're not pumping money into their pocket, you don't matter. I have reached a point where I absolutely despise modern business philosophy. As a person who is perpetually without money, not a day goes by that I'm not reminded how very little I (and people like me) matter compared to someone with cash to spend.

[stessier]

Izzy isn't being ignored. I haven't worked on the project in a couple of days, and while it works to use the single quote to force it to ignore the +, I'm still not sure what that will do when printing.

It's WYSIWYG when it comes to printing, so you'll be fine.

And my other (non-question) point is still that workarounds shouldn't be necessary to begin with. Enough people use spreadsheets as a way to create charts and tables to organize text data that the option should exist to simply turn off functions that interfere with that.

It's nice that spreadsheets are capable of more, but first and foremost they are for calculations. Making the data pretty it what PowerPoint or typesetting programs are for.

[LordMortis]

I haven't done this in forever and I don't know what program your spreadsheet is, but can't you just save as a CSV and then manually change delimiters and terminators? I remember having to do this for converting flat files to EDI and vise versa with Excel as well as to some database import/export conversions.

[GreenGoo]

And my other (non-question) point is still that workarounds shouldn't be necessary to begin with. Enough people use spreadsheets as a way to create charts and tables to organize text data that the option should exist to simply turn off functions that interfere with that.

As mentioned by others, and confirmed by myself in a different spreadsheet app, changing cell format to plain text should result in straight text without interpretation by the app. I don't consider that a workaround as it's specifically made to do what you want to do. I don't know why that isn't working for you.

[Blackhawk]

I responded to that earlier in the thread - I did try that, and had prior to bringing it up here. It didn't stop special characters from triggering whatever they're supposed to trigger. I also use LibreOffice and haven't tried it there, but I'm making something to share, so it's Google Sheets.

[LordMortis]

Tried the CSV import export in Sheets and it's pretty bad.

10 seconds on the Internet tells me there is no way to automatically turn off formulas on sheet in Google Sheets.

I saw this as a work around but I'm not a Sheets user beyond making squares for the Superbowl, so no idea or set up a conditional on a sheet nor if the conditional actually works. I have no need for collaborative spreadsheets beyond that and no need for Sheets beyond collaborative spreadsheets

=IF(X1=TRUE, your-formula-you-want-to-freeze(), )

Also the "answer" is five years old.

Ironic that a google search for turning off formulas in Sheets is a popular search for which there are lots of rabbit hole bad links to non answers.

The dominant answer is get used to using the apostrophe. Izzy bot nailed it on the first response.

For my purposes if it's not collaborative and you can keep replacing the sheet, use openoffice. Create and ODS sheet. Format the numbers to text. Upload the spread sheet into sheets. Works easy enough.

[Blackhawk]

I gave up OpenOffice for LibreOffice years ago - OpenOffice was discontinued, and LibreOffice took over.

I haven't actually used spreadsheets as spreadsheets since Lotus 1-2-3. The majority of the suggestions upthread were completely incomprehensible, and I'm not really looking to learn and entirely new form of software just for a single project. I'm just going to awkwardly rephrase things to work with what I've got. "Add one" vs "+1" isn't as appropriate, but it bypasses the issue. And apparently suggesting that spreadsheets could be tweaked to make them more useful for more users is a deeply offensive suggestion based on the reactions. I'm guessing that using spreadsheets for organizing text isn't serious enough for some.

[gbasden]

I gave up OpenOffice for LibreOffice years ago - OpenOffice was discontinued, and LibreOffice took over.

I haven't actually used spreadsheets as spreadsheets since Lotus 1-2-3. The majority of the suggestions upthread were completely incomprehensible, and I'm not really looking to learn and entirely new form of software just for a single project. I'm just going to awkwardly rephrase things to work with what I've got. "Add one" vs "+1" isn't as appropriate, but it bypasses the issue. And apparently suggesting that spreadsheets could be tweaked to make them more useful for more users is a deeply offensive suggestion based on the reactions. I'm guessing that using spreadsheets for organizing text isn't serious enough for some.

I tested the latest version of Excel and Issie's suggestion of the single apostrophe definitely works and makes the cell be treated as plain text, and it is not printed. I can get you a copy gratis if you would be open to using it? I have no help for Google sheets, unfortunately.

[Blackhawk]

Yeah, the problem is a Google Sheets problem. For regular use, LibreOffice is fine (and I use it regularly.) This was going to be something that was 'out there' for a community.

When it comes right down to it, it's not a huge deal. It's annoying, but it's a single, one-time project. It's not worth spending money or extensive time - my question was just whether there was an easy solution. Most of the discussion bloomed from reactions to my annoyance rather than the original question.

I appreciate it, though.

[GreenGoo]

I responded to that earlier in the thread - I did try that, and had prior to bringing it up here. It didn't stop special characters from triggering whatever they're supposed to trigger. I also use LibreOffice and haven't tried it there, but I'm making something to share, so it's Google Sheets.

Yeah. I will say that Google often has it's own way or doing things, and is stubborn about it.

[Jaymon]

I was able to get google sheets to show things like +7 +5 +1922 by making a custom number format and applying it to the column (customer number format is +0 ) and then putting in only the numbers. This doesn't solve for when the number may need to be negative, and also did not allow mixed number and word, like +5 widgets

[stessier]

The majority of the suggestions upthread were completely incomprehensible, and I'm not really looking to learn and entirely new form of software just for a single project. I'm just going to awkwardly rephrase things to work with what I've got. "Add one" vs "+1" isn't as appropriate, but it bypasses the issue.

I tried looking up above, but the only special characters is see mentioned were starting something with a + or - and the '. Were there others? Google Sheets works with Isgrimnur's answer for all of those - just stick an apostrophe before anything you want to be text. Think of it as the opening statement "everything after this is text".

So
+5+7 is entered as '+5+7
+8 widgets is entered as '+8 widgets
'my text' is entered as ''my text'

If there are others, I can take a look. That isn't really learning a whole new language - just the one escape character.

[Daehawk]

Intel Arc Battlemage X2 and X3 GPUs spotted: up to 448 EUs on a 256-bit memory bus

[hitbyambulance]

first order of business is to see what i can do to recover the Windows boot partition.

FWIW, I've previously found this Chris Titus walkthrough to be mighty effective for correctly repairing a Windows boot partition with a new system reserved partition, and booting from an existing Windows installation without necessarily reinstalling. Here's the accompanying video:

just wanted to say i finally got around to this (over a year later...) and yes, it turns out deleting/formatting the MBR partition _might_ be all that was needed. haven't booted into Windows yet - undergoing an automatic disk repair. this SSD may be in bad shape after the power surges. will update later...

UPDATE: 40 minutes later, it booted back to that same screen... and again... and again... then it booted into Windows?

[Anonymous Bosch]

just wanted to say i finally got around to this (over a year later...) and yes, it turns out deleting/formatting the MBR partition _might_ be all that was needed. haven't booted into Windows yet - undergoing an automatic disk repair. this SSD may be in bad shape after the power surges. will update later...

UPDATE: 40 minutes later, it booted back to that same screen... and again... and again... then it booted into Windows?

If you're concerned about your SSD potentially failing, consider using the free and open-source CrystalDiskInfo utility. It allows you to more closely examine the health of your SSD by accessing its S.M.A.R.T. data, including the critical TBW (TeraBytes Written) metric. The TBW value represents the total amount of data that can be written to the SSD over its lifetime before it reaches the end of its endurance. The video below explains this concept in more depth: