We’ve had a lot of fun with VTech’s computers in the past on this blog. Usually, they’re relatively spartan computers with limited functionality, but they did make something very interesting in the late 80s. The Socrates is their hybrid video game console/computer design from 1988, and today we’ll start tearing into it.

↫ Leaded Solder web log

Now we’re in for the good stuff. A weird educational computer/game console/toy thing from the late ’80s, by VTech. I have a massive soft spot for these toy-like devices, because they’re always kind of a surprise – will it be a stupidly simple hardcoded device with zero input/output, or a weirdly capable computer with tons of hidden I/O and a full BASIC ROM? You won’t know until you crack it open and take a peek!

VTech still makes things like this, and I still find them ever as fascinating.

Apparently, the Bcachefs people are having problems with case-folding, and Linus Torvalds himself is not happy about it. Torvalds holds the only right opinion in this matter, which is that filesystems should obviously be case-sensitive.

Case-insensitive names are horribly wrong, and you shouldn’t have done them at all. The problem wasn’t the lack of testing, the problem was implementing it in the first place.

[…]

Dammit. Case [in]sensitivity is a BUG. The fact that filesystem people still think it’s a feature, I cannot understand. It’s like they revere the old FAT filesystem so much that they have to recreate it – badly.

↫ Linus Torvalds on the LKML

It boggles my mind that a modern operating system like macOS still defaults to being case-insensitive (but case-preserving), and opting to install macOS the correct way, i.e. with case-sensitivity, can still lead to issues and bugs because macOS isn’t used to it. In 2025. Windows’ NTFS is at least case-sensitive, but apparently Win32 applications get all weird about it; if you have several files with identical names save for the case used, Win32 applications will only allow you to open one of them. I’m not sure how up to date that information is, though.

Regardless, the notion that Readme.txt is considered the same as readme.txt is absolutely insane, and should be one of those weird relics we got rid of back in the ’90s.

The Steam store and desktop client will soon be able to help players find games that feature accessibility support. If your game has accessibility features, you can now enter that information in the Steamworks ‘edit store’ section for your app.

↫ Steam announcements page

I have a lot of criticism for the Steam client application – it’s a overly complex, unattractive, buggy, slow, top-heavy Chrome engine wrapped in an ugly user interface – but this is a great change and very welcome addition to Steam. Basically, with this, game developers can indicate which accessibility features their game has, allowing users to specifically search for those features, create filters, make sure they can play the game before buying, and so on.

The client-side part of the feature is not yet available – it seems Valve is giving developers some time to fill in the necessary information – but once it is, you’ll be able to tell at a glance what accessibility a game has. Such information on the store page of games tends to be a great marketing tool, with reviews quickly pointing out if certain expected features are not present. Any game that lacks support for the Steam Deck or Proton, for instance, will often have a few reviews at the top mentioning as such, and games with invasive DRM can’t get away with that either without reviews on Steam pointing it out. I wouldn’t be surprised if these accessibility feature listings well quickly become another thing users will simply expect to be there.

Regardless, this is great news for people who rely on such features, but even if you don’t specifically – accessibility features are often just useful features, period.

Welcome to a photo-driven tour of the IBM z17. I’ve scoured the image library to pull dig deep inside these machines that most people don’t get an opportunity to see inside, and I’ll share some of the specifications gleaned from the announcement and related Redbooks.

↫ Elizabeth K. Joseph at the IBM community website

These IBM mainframes don’t have to be beautiful, but they always are. I wish I could see a z17 up close – hopefully IBM will release a detailed video walkthrough of one of these at some point, including taking one apart and putting it back together.

TacOS is a UNIX-like kernel which is able to run DOOM, among various other smaller userspace programs. It has things like a VFS, scheduler, TempFS, devices, context switching, virtual memory management, physical page frame allocation, and a port of Doom. It runs both on real hardware (tested on my laptop) and in the Qemu emulator.

↫ TacOS GitHub page

TacOS – great name – is written in C, and explicitly a hobby and toy project. The code’s licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.

The headline sets the stage, and the article delivers.

This was the most interesting bug I’ve encountered for a while. I initially had a hard time believing that a bug like this would directly tie to a specific OS release, but I was proven completely wrong. At the end of the day, it was a simple bug in San Andreas and this function should have never worked right, and yet, at least on PC it hid itself for two decades.

This is an interesting lesson in compatibility: even changes to the stack layout of the internal implementations can have compatibility implications if an application is bugged and unintentionally relies on a specific behavior. This is also not the first time I encountered issues like this: regular visitors might remember Bully: Scholarship Edition which famously broke on Windows 10, for very similar reasons. Just like in this case, Bully should have never worked properly to begin with, but instead, it got away with making incorrect assumptions for years, before changes in Windows 10 finally made it run out of luck.

↫ Adrian Zdanowicz

Incredible story.

The fines weren’t the only Digital Markets Act news coming from this fine continent today. The European Commission also closed its investigation into Apple’s user choice obligations under the DMA, and while Apple has made good progress in a few areas, the EC states Apple is still acting illegally in a variety of others.

First, the good news for Apple: the European Commission is happy with Apple’s changes regarding browser choice, the ability to remove preinstalled iOS applications, and the ability to change a whole bunch of default settings that are all locked outside of the EU. These are valuable and welcome changes, and I’m glad the European Union, the European Parliament, and the Commission have forced Apple to become less hostile to European consumers.

Second, there’s the bad news for Apple. Under the DMA, Apple is obligated to allow for third-party application stores, and the ability for users to download and install applications directly from the internet. In this area, Apple is still breaking European Union law.

The Commission takes the preliminary view that Apple failed to comply with this obligation in view of the conditions it imposes on app (and app store) developers. Developers wanting to use alternative app distribution channels on iOS are disincentivised from doing so as this requires them to opt for business terms which include a new fee (Apple’s Core Technology Fee). Apple also introduced overly strict eligibility requirements, hampering developers’ ability to distribute their apps through alternative channels. Finally, Apple makes it overly burdensome and confusing for end users to install apps when using such alternative app distribution channels.

↫ European Commission press release

This outcome was entirely expected, and pretty much everyone – except Apple’s PR attack dogs – knew Apple’s malicious compliance, fees, and onerous hurdles were going to be a hard sell. I’m glad the European Commission seems unimpressed with Trump’s sabre-rattling about the EU’s consumer protection laws, and is continuing to whip US tech companies in line, making sure they stop violating our consumer protection laws.

Since these are the outcomes of a preliminary investigation, Apple now has the chance to argue its case.

The European Commission has levied fines against both Apple and Facebook for violating the Digital Markets Act. Apple has to pay a €500 million fine, and Facebook a €200 million fine. Apple is breaking EU law by not allowing application developers to inform users of other offers outside the App Store.

The Commission found that Apple fails to comply with this obligation. Due to a number of restrictions imposed by Apple, app developers cannot fully benefit from the advantages of alternative distribution channels outside the App Store. Similarly, consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers. The company has failed to demonstrate that these restrictions are objectively necessary and proportionate.

↫ European Commission press release

Not only is Apple ordered to pay the €500 million fine, they also have to remove any and all of the illegal restrictions they put in place.

Facebook, meanwhile, was fined for not offering an equally functional services but without combining user data from different services. The company did offer a choice between paying and not paying – whereby the latter involved data collection and combination – but this model violated the DMA.

The Commission found that this model is not compliant with the DMA, as it did not give users the required specific choice to opt for a service that uses less of their personal data but is otherwise equivalent to the ‘personalised ads’ service. Meta’s model also did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.

↫ European Commission press release

Facebook did later amend their model to make it compliant with the DMA, and so the fine only covers the few months Facebook was violating EU law. Fun additional note: the EC also mentions that the Facebook Marketplace is no longer a gatekeeper service under the DMA, since its user numbers has dropped below the threshold. Facebook seems to be having some engagement issues in Europe, and you love to hear it.

Both companies are required to pay and comply within 60 days, or further periodic penalty payments will be levied.

Remember the odd inetpub folder that seemingly randomly appeared on people’s root drives after installing a Windows 11 update? Everybody assumed it was something left over from an update script, and that the folder was safe to remove. Well, it turns out that’s not the case, as the empty folder is actually a crucial part of a security fix for a serious vulnerability.

Initially undocumented in the official release notes, the empty and seemingly inactive inetpub folder led to user speculation about whether it was a leftover artifact from development or a bug. Microsoft has since clarified that the folder is intentional and part of a critical security improvement.

The change addresses CVE-2025-21204, a vulnerability that allowed local attackers to exploit symbolic link (symlink) attacks via Windows Update, potentially granting unauthorized access to protected system files or directories. As part of the fix, the system pre-creates certain directories — including C:\inetpub — to harden the update process and mitigate such attacks.

↫ Cyberdom

If you’ve already removed the folder, you can reinstall the April 2025 cumulative update to restore the folder, or you can wait for next month’s update roll-up, which will also restore the folder.

This lone, empty folder at your Windows PC’s root is apparently a crucial part of the security of your computer, but since it took Microsoft a while to publish release notes, nobody knew where it was coming from. The idea that a random, empty folder usually associated with IIS could be part of a vulnerability mitigation didn’t cross anybody’s mind at the time, especially since random folders appearing at a Windows PC’s root aren’t exactly uncommon or out of the ordinary.

The consensus seems to be that creating this folder is a pretty clever form of mitigation, despite feeling so hacky. I’m assuming Microsoft’s engineers are capable, and that making the folder in question impossible to delete or somehow hidden is simply not an option and would break the vulnerability mitigation, but that doesn’t change the fact that this looks like a really crude hack that should be solved in a more elegant way.

Ars Technica took a look at how the current version of Windows Recall works, including the improvements Microsoft made since the initial security nightmare of a rollout, and concludes:

Recall continues to demand an extraordinary level of trust that Microsoft hasn’t earned. However secure and private it is—and, again, the version people will actually get is much better than the version that caused the original controversy—it just feels creepy to open up the app and see confidential work materials and pictures of your kid. You’re already trusting Microsoft with those things any time you use your PC, but there’s something viscerally unsettling about actually seeing evidence that your computer is tracking you, even if you’re not doing anything you’re worried about hiding, even if you’ve excluded certain apps or sites, and even if you “know” that part of the reason why Recall requires a Copilot+ PC is because it’s processing everything locally rather than on a server somewhere.

↫ Andrew Cunningham at Ars Technica

Way back in 1996, Mercedes-Benz unveiled the A-Class, a small, practical car that purported to be more premium than cheaper, similarly-sized cars from other brands. The car had a big problem, though – it was unusually narrow and tall, and because of it, it famously failed spectacularly at the “moose test”, in which a car has to suddenly swerve around a “moose” on the road. The car simply toppled over, and after initially denying the problem, Mercedes recalled every single A-Class sold and added a variety of mitigations like electronic stability control and suspension changes. As far as I can recall, it fixed the issue.

To this day, however, I cannot look at an A-Class, even the modern ones which look like normal hatchbacks and bear effectively zero resemblance to the original, quirky A-Class from 1996, and not think of the failed moose test and the recall. I know the modern A-Class won’t fail that test, and I know it’s an infinitely safer car than the original one, but my brain still makes that connection every time I see one. A lot of people my age, whether they’re into cars or not, seem to remember this recall, because the original A-Class was such a unique and recognisable vehicle at the time, especially coming from Mercedes.

My point is – Recall will face this same issue. No matter how secure Microsoft makes it, no matter how much they claim and prove it only runs locally, no matter how hard they try and hammer on the fact data never leaves your PC, people will always think of that initial botched rollout, and all the accurate reporting that Recall was a nightmare. And it just so happens that the skepticism is warranted, and hopefully keeps people from using this corporate Trojan horse.

Only a few weeks ago, I linked to Cameron Kaiser’s excellent deep dive into the DEC Professional 380 running PRO/VENIX, and now we have a follow-up.

Fortunately, today we have AI we have many more excellent and comprehensive documents on the subject, and more importantly, we’ve recently brought back up an oddball platform that doesn’t have networking either: our DEC Professional 380 running the System V-based PRO/VENIX V2.0, which you met a couple articles back. The DEC Professionals are a notoriously incompatible member of the PDP-11 family and, short of DECnet (DECNA) support in its unique Professional Operating System, there’s officially no other way you can get one on a network — let alone the modern Internet. Are we going to let that stop us?

↫ Cameron Kaiser

No. The answer is always no. If you’ve ever wanted to know what’s involved in setting up a custom TCP/IP stack using serial on a 40 year old UNIX workstation, your very specific desires are hereby met.

I love the Kate Text editor. I use it for pretty much all the programming projects I do. Kate has been around for long time now, about 20 years! At least earliest blog post for it I could find was written in 2004.

I wanted to go over my workflow with it, why I like it so much and hopefully get more people to try it out.

↫ Akseli Lahtinen

Programmers and developers tend to be very set in their ways and have their preferred workflows – which profession doesn’t, honestly – and since there’s such a wide variety of developer and programming tools out there, it feels like every single developer’s workflow and setup is entirely unique. Akseli Lahtinen, KDE developer and allround awesome person, details his setup using Kate, the venerable and feature-rich text editor from the KDE project.

As someone who can’t program, I can’t really compare his workflow to my own, but what I found interesting while reading his post is that there’s quite a bit of overlap between my previous work as a translator and his work as a developer. While the contents of each individual view inside his Kate window are obviously different, the setup of windows and tools I had when translating looked very similar.

This shouldn’t be surprising to me – after all, both translating and developing requires multiple work surfaces, language plugins, formatting tools, tons of keyboard shortcuts, and a whole load of browser tabs, PDF files, and other documents to find just the right translation or the perfect term, as well as a ton of background to make sure you understand the topic you’re translating about. Y’all have no idea how much I know about the deepest complex inner-workings and processes of some of the largest organisations in the world, just because I needed to study them and had access to their internal documentation and software.

I also read and studied way too many complex contracts, European law, and technical studies into medicine and healthcare treatments, and I guess developers and programmers do the same thing – just focusing on different subjects. What’s the best way to do this thing in the programming language I’m using? How does this library I want to integrate work? What are the API endpoints for this service I want to use?

It’s really not that different from translating, and that never really dawned on me until now.

Only a few weeks ago we talked about Blue95, a Fedora-based distribution focused on bringing the Windows 95 look to the Linux world by integrating a set of existing Windows 95 Xfce themes. Since Fedora 42 has just been released, the Blue95 project also pushed out a new release, called Blue95 Topanga. It brings with it all the improvements from Fedora 42, but also goes a step further be integrating new applications to further add to the Windows 95 vibe.

First, there’s Winblues Paint, a faithful recreation of Windows 95’s Paint, using jspaint.app. Second, they’ve recreated the classic Plus! experience with Chicago95 Plus!, a tool that allows you to take any existing Windows 95/98/ME/XP theme and apply it as-is on Xfce. Topanga also further improves the theming experience with custom Windows 95 icons for LibreOffice as well as custom themes for Audacious and Flatpost, a desktop-agnostic Flatpak client.

I adore that this project aims to be more than just a vessel for the existing Chicago95 theme, and in fact goes so far as to create its own applications. I hope this continues from here on out and doesn’t fizzle out.

LXQt, the Qt-based alternative to KDE as Xfce is the GTK-based alternative to GNOME, has released version 2.2.0. LXQt is in the middle of its transition to Wayland, and as such, this release brings a number of fixes and improvements for Wayland, like improved multi-display support and updated compatibility with Wayland compositors.

Beyond all the Wayland work, LXQt Power Management now supports power profiles, text rendering in QTerminal and QTermWidget has been improved, the file manager PCManFM-Qt has received a whole slew of new features, and there’s the usual smaller bug fixes and changes.