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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000">
<DIV>First of all, I am an equal opportunity OS hater. I don’t support
them professionally, but I DO often push them with my experimenting and heavy
usage.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have not had Pete’s experience with Windows 10. I regularly run my
Flex 6500 for days and days without rebooting the Win box. But, I don’t
usually multitask that box. It runs the ham station only.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have had SO MANY problems with Linux over the years, that my email tag
line is: “Linux has been deprecated from here”. Not quite true, but mostly
is. Throughout my time with Linux I have had so many problems with drivers
changing, libraries moving around, and things being “deprecated” that I prefer
NOT running Linux. Mel keeps telling me that I’m a rare user that pushes
the envelope, but I am what I am.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For example, a while back I tried to update an early SDR project (my own
SDR101) that used QT, eclipse, and something else. Well, I quickly found
that Ii t no longer compiled, with tons of errors. Turns out that Eclipse
and the “other” software it relied on had library locations change, and
everything was broken. Note that this wasn’t a problem with MY code, but
the supporting compiling stuff. I gave up trying to fix it after several
days. Too much time wasted falling down the rabbit hole.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Another Linux example is GNU Radio. Again, several years ago, I wrote
a bunch of GNU Radio projects for AM, FM, SSB, and other SDR projects, to use
with SoftRocks and the Charleston SDR. A couple of years ago, I tried to
use them again with the Charleston SDR. Lo and behold, almost EVERY SINGLE
module within GNU Radio had changed name and calling, my code called functions
that were “deprecated”. WHY? I’m not talking about problems with my
code, but the simple modules that come with GNU Radio. Again, it would
take so to fix it that I just went to another project. Most other support
code allows backward compatibility, but apparently not in the Linux world.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Linux use has drastically dropped here, partially due to the above.
It’s not really the “Linux” OS itself, rather the various distros that the
wizards keep changing. My time is valuable, so spending time to fix what
they broke is just wasted overhead. I can run Windows programs from many
years ago, not so with what I’ve tried with Linux. I’d rather play in the
occasional world of DLL Hell than the constantly deprecated Linux world.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And, don’t get me started on Apple. I tried that, got the t shirt,
coffee mug, and years of Apple Store bills just to make any software available
to the general public.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Anyway, back to my IMSAI running CP/M....</DIV>
<DIV>73, Terry, N4TLF</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=howardc@macrollc.com>Howard
F. Cunningham</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, June 29, 2020 11:14 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=kf4hcw@lifeatwarp9.com>kf4hcw</A> ; <A
title=tacos@amrad.org>tacos@amrad.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> RE: What could go wrong?</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>Hi
See my comments below<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN> </P>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>Howard
Cunningham, MCP<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><A><SPAN
style="COLOR: blue">howardc@macrollc.com</SPAN></A> -
personal<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #c00000'>For
technical support, send an email to</SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: red'>
</SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><A><SPAN
style="COLOR: blue">service@macrollc.com</SPAN></A> </SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #c00000'>or
call 703-359-9211 (24/7)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV>
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<P class=MsoNormal><B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</SPAN></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma","sans-serif"'> kf4hcw
[mailto:kf4hcw@lifeatwarp9.com] <BR><B>Sent:</B> Monday, June 29, 2020 10:20
AM<BR><B>To:</B> Howard F. Cunningham; tacos@amrad.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
What could go wrong?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV></DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p></o:p> </P>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal>On 6/29/20 9:54 AM, Howard F. Cunningham
wrote:<o:p></o:p></P></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5pt; MARGIN-TOP: 5pt">
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>Today’s
Windows rarely needs to be rebooted, if only Windows is running. What
you are running into is a program that is not playing nice and creating
problems.</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>I beg to differ -- I am in the position to directly and indirectly support
many systems on many different platforms and of all of them Windows is the most
misbehaved. As for requiring the restart -- this is my direct experience. If
left to run for more than about 30 hours, clock jitter creeps into the system
and the scheduler no longer keeps pace with the data up and down with the
flex6300 -- this causes missed samples which amount to wideband noise in the
channel. The only mitigation that has been successful is the reboot. (I tried
everything except for running dedicated hardware).<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
When you say clock jitter I think that you are saying that the clock drifts,
probably slower, over time. This tells me that the system is busy and
missing the clock timings. When Windows starts, it checks the BIOS clock
for its time. While running Windows does not check the BIOS clock but
rather updates a counter which is used for the time. I wonder if telling
Windows to use a ntp server would solve this problem.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>As for "Today's Windows" - For some things win 7 pro is still required (due
to driver and other support issues) and in any case Win10 is just as nightmarish
and unstable if not worse... again, direct experience, not a
myth.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
That is not our experience with Windows 7 and Windows 10. We have found
Windows 10 to be more stable than Windows 7.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>I work with systems that almost never need to be restarted most of the time
-- all of the win* boxen I must manage frequently have these and other issues
when compared with my lin* boxen. It's not a myth, it's an inescapable burden I
fight every day.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
I never said that Windows was more stable than Linux.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>It's my experience that most folks are so used to rebooting Windows on a
regular basis that they don't even notice they are doing it. As a result they
don't run into some of these issues simply because as a matter of course they
regularly reboot for all sorts of reasons (often enough not even their
choice).<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
My clients do not routinely reboot their computers. What usually happens
is that the systems are rebooted as part of the monthly patch process.
That most likely prevents us from seeing the need to reboot random Windows
10.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>Trying to support long-running timing critical software on Windows is
problematic and requires special care -- that's all I'm saying. I didn't make it
up.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
I never said that Windows never needs rebooting and I did not say that there are
never problems on some Windows systems. The problem has very muchly
improved today. What I should have said is that Windows should not need to
be rebooted daily or even weekly. Where we see this problem we are able to
track the need to reboot down to a specific program that causing the
problem.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 5pt; MARGIN-TOP: 5pt">
<P class=MsoNormal
style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto"><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>A
thought on the unlimited amount of data.. You could try running a
scheduled task to delete the data. Keep in mind that I do not know if
this data is needed or what happens if the data is deleted while wispr is
running. If wispr needs that data while running, you could try using a
scheduled task to shutdown wispr, delete the files, and restart wispr
(assuming that wispr does not require any keyboard interaction to
start)</SPAN><o:p></o:p></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>I don't think it's required by wspr -- wspr is simply generating the data as
some kind of log... given the unmitigatable bloat of win* 40G of disk space is
not enough after a few days and wspr will generate enough data to fill up the
remaining space; but since I have to reboot it in order to avoid the timing
problems it's a) not a problem to delete the data (there is indeed a menu option
for it in the program) and b) a scheduled task would not run reliably because of
the necessary reboot.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
We use a tool that allows to schedule things like deleting files like
this. We have also used it to reset the clock on a couple of systems that
has clock drift. That was years ago.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>It's not as terrible as it seems -- one should check in on these kinds of
systems periodically as a matter of course anyway; so handling the required
reboot and reset as part of that maintenance is easy enough to fit
in.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><B><I><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'>[HC:>]
We do monitor all of our client systems to hopefully catch problems before the
client sees them.</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style='FONT-SIZE: 11pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri","sans-serif"; COLOR: #1f497d'><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>_M<o:p></o:p></P>
<P><o:p></o:p> </P><PRE>-- <o:p></o:p></PRE><PRE>kf4hcw<o:p></o:p></PRE><PRE>Pete McNeil<o:p></o:p></PRE><PRE>lifeatwarp9.com/kf4hcw<o:p></o:p></PRE></DIV><BR><BR><BR><BR>
<P>
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