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Funny enough Ed.

I just took a break from my main two books to have a reread of Stroustrup’s “A Tour of C++”.

I just finished skimming the chapter on Concurrency and it is full of words like coroutine, future and promise but relating to separate threads rather than just separate functions.

If I ever do figure out what it all means ill let you know 😁

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And this is why i like forumite. Nice sensible answers 😃

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And hello again Bob 😃

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I find that for the REAL precision work that a dot of super glue works wonders. Insert the screw and then just snap the screwdriver off.

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“CppCoreGuidelines/gsl-intro.md at master · isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines · GitHub” https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuidelines/blob/master/docs/gsl-intro.md

More info about gsl:span above. It also turns out that made it into the C++20 standard library and its implementation makes use of the “byte” type that was introduced with C++17.

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Hmm. Found another aspect of C++ that I wasn’t previously aware of, the Core Programming Guidelines.

The CPG sets out rules and guidelines for writing good code using modern C++ facilities and they are all given a reference number.

The CPG is not a part of the standard but it may as well be because it comes with its own Guide Standard library (gsl::) that provides functions to make following the guidelines easier (gsl::span is notable) and the gsl is included with all recent compilers.

The other thing to note is that the VC++ code analysis tool is based on CPG rules by default and it will return a rule reference number if it thinks your code breaks the rules.

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The only thing with Patient Access seems to be getting signed up and staying signed up. I have had no trouble with the basic log in but I have had to reregister for the prescription ordering service twice.

Had my covid jab 3 days ago and haven’t noticed ANY side effects 😃

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On a side note, C++0x turned out to be C++11 because it took 3 years longer than expected to approve 😁

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http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2020/p2186r0.html

C++ has offered support for an external garbage collector since 2008 but the above paper to the ISO committee proposes removing it.

The sizeof() function is still alive and well and has been extended to support C++ types such as “class”.

VC++ supports inline assembly for x86 CPU’s and linking to external modules for ARM and others.

Even so, it is still possible to buy 8 bit micro controllers with only 4K of internal memory for code, ASM would be a must for them.

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I just read a rant on Quora by some bloke who said that C++ is useless for embedded systems and driver programming because it doesn’t support “malloc”.

Well first off C++ supports ALL the functions in C stdlib.h but it renames it cstdlib to avoid confusion with the C++ standard library.

Secondly, the C++ “new” function allocates arbitrary sized blocks of memory on the heap but it insists on being given a type.

I may be missing something here but all data is made up of bytes so if I don’t know the type I need then can’t I just allocate a block of unsigned characters and then cast them to whatever type I like later ?

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Lambda expressions today.

Why “Lambda” ? I think it has more to do with the sub atomic particle of that name than it does to do with Lambda calculus, a Lambda expression is a small callable object that is attached to a larger function.

This is my understanding.

A Lambda expression is an unnamed function that can be passed to a larger function as an argument. Lambda’s have a parameter list as usual but they also have a list of local variables that they can capture from the function they are passed to.

Why would you use a Lambda ? The main reason seems to be if you need to pass more parameters to a function than it supports. If you were writing the function yourself then you would just design it to take more arguments but you can’t do that with library functions. The biggest users of lambda’s seem to be the general purpose algorithms like “sort” provided in the stl < algorithm> header.

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If anything at all changes with an Epson printers connection I usually find it best to delete the printer from the PC in question and then run the Epson installation wizard again from scratch.

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I have been looking through the list and I don’t think I have ever seen as many PUP’s in one place before 🙄.

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Who knows Ed ? But at least now, as of this moment, the system is running a fresh, standard, install of Windows 10 😃

I will be getting called back because I made no attempt to setup things like the printer but there are no exclamation marks in device manager so standard Windows drivers will be in use.

One thing in my favour is that a Windows reset reinstalls all Microsoft store apps, including Office, and produces a list of any apps that were removed. I have a copy of the list and it is extensive !

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Well I had a cunning plan.

I downloaded the AVG removal tool and put it on a USB stick, then I took it round and attempted to use it, no go though.

I started the PC in safe mode by force shutting it down a couple of times and then changing the startup option in the recovery menu but guess what ? No mouse or keyboard in Safe mode either !

This PC has been in need of a Windows reset for a while now so I talked mum’s friend into it and everything now works as it should.

I am going to be the villan in this piece for months because ” Nothing looks like it did ” but I can live with that.

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Oh, just to mention.

The USB and PS/2 interfaces are both serial and electrically compatible but the data packets are very different so unless your device is marked as Universal USB/PS/2 then it won’t work with a passive adapter.

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I have PS/2 mice and keyboards but they are just not detected under Windows on this PC, PS/2 and other ISA type device support is just not installed on this PC, not just the drivers, none of it.

MS, and at one point Intel, have been trying for years to eliminate ISA type IRQ’s and to use only message signalled interrupts. At this point we are basically down to just the system timer and PS/2 devices. MS thought they saw a chance to eliminate PS/2 if the PC had no devices attached during installation and handle the timer as a special case, that meant they could drop support for the rest of the ISA IRQ structure and neaten things up, in their eyes at least.

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A news update is that the problem started after an AVG antivirus update asked if it was OK to install a filter driver. Nice to have all the information from the start 😆

Sounded like a keylogger and mouse input detection method detector gone wrong so I asked her to try a few key combinations on the keyboard and nothing at all happened, so keyboard input is stuffed too.

I managed to get her to the RE command prompt by force shutting down the PC 3 times and everything works from there so its most likely a driver issue.

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It sadly is the case with this PC and this installation of W10. About 2 years ago Microsoft had a mad half hour, which lasted about 2 months, where they thought it would be a good idea to save system resources by not installing PS/2 support on any system with no PS/2 devices connected. They patched that great idea away but it leaves any PC that was set up during that time in need of a Windows reinstall if PS/2 support is ever required.

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Sadly not, it’s a wired USB mouse and I asked her to try a spare she has too. I would have taken a PS/2 mouse around with me but I know they don’t work at all, her version of W10 was installed at the factory with no PS/2 devices attached so Windows did not install PS/2 support.

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