Re: The First Distro To Offer XLibre

On Tue, 1 Jul 2025 02:50:58 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Tue, 1 Jul 2025 07:59:31 +0530, Not Necessary wrote:
 

Plaintext is just human-readable information codified into a binary
format for the hardware to parse / store / transmit.

 
But you said “computers can’t understand plaintext, they understand
binaries”. But if they’re the same thing, then why would computers
understand one but not the other?

There is an interesting set of videos by a guy working with a 6502. It's a
current device that is static so you can single step it. Apply power and
the 6502 jumps to an address, fetches data, and executes it. He has the
data bus pulled up or down with resistors so that the pattern is a NOP.
The processor executes the NOP, increments the address, reads the data
bus, which of course is a NOP, ad infinitum.

So is it reading binary?

It's an interesting setup since he's using an Arduino for a logic
analyzer. Since the 6502 doesn't care he can either single step the
oscillator or run it slow enough for the Arduino to keep up.