Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Content

https://youtu.be/q5M0TwnkWUMWell, this is it. This is not the last episode of Quick Start (oh man, not by far; we aren't even at the halfway point) but it is the reason I started the series.I began investigating instant-on OSes because of Asus Expressgate, but I'm not sure I actually would have made a video about it. On its own, it just didn't really rate a narrative - I mean, I ended up dragging a good solid one out of it, IMO, but only because I got fired up to depict this whole phenomenon. And the reason I got so fired up is because of all the other stuff I'd discovered after Expressgate, and particularly this specific product. Up until I cracked this code, the instant-on phenomenon was all a curiosity to me, and then once I did, it became extremely important that I tell you all what I had seen.The experience of learning how Hyperspace's boot-time trickery worked felt like discovering a new particle, mixed with uncovering evidence of the extinction of a species. As I wrote the initial article on my website about it - which I had to do, in order to just figure out how to tell the story - I had to grapple with the fact that, of everyone on this planet, I was probably one of a hundred people, total, who knew you could Do This with a PC.This video will be responsible for the number of people worldwide who know about this horrendous trick ballooning by literally four or five orders of magnitude. It will probably make it to all the hacker news sites again (it has already been there once.) It's incredible to me that this technique has flown under the radar, except insofar as I don't think anyone could successfully pull it off unless they were a BIOS vendor.On top of that, the design of the Hyperspace OS itself is actually quite clever. I almost feel bad that I had to bury the lede, if you will, behind a tour of the OS. It wouldn't have made sense to do it the other way around, but at the same time, I do feel a bit concerned that people won't stick it out long enough to find out what the horrifying secret is. I'm hoping the oddness of Hyperspace itself will keep folks interested, but it's moot; I gotta tell every story my way.Anyway, like I said, there are a half dozen more eps in the pipeline, if not more. I don't know that I'll try to get them all done in a row, I've been planning on taking a break and addressing other topics for a couple videos so I don't burn out, but either way, you have a lot more crappy Linuxes to look forward to.Here's a sneak peek of what's on the docket (order not guaranteed):- Dell Latitude-On- Asus Express Gate Cloud- Vaio P Instant Mode- Asus Transformer Trio (Android/Windows hybrid)- HTC Shift x9500 (Windows/WinCE hybrid)- Windows Sideshow- HP QuickLook/DayStarter- Toshiba Qosmio A/V mode- MSI WinkiI have specimens of all of nearly all of this, but if anyone out there has a known working MSI Winki board - especially one of the Winki Edition motherboards with the dedicated module - please get in touch.On a final note: I have not had anything like the time and energy to reply to everyone's messages individually, and I figure you all know the score anyway, but I just want to say: Thank you all so, so, so much, again, for supporting me in going fulltime. My mental health is already tremendously improved, and honestly I think you'll detect it immediately as soon as you start the video. I feel more alive than I have in months.While I have a few more days (at the end of the month) before I'm done with my old day job for good, I haven't been back there all this week, and it's been like finally getting my head above water. I feel like I can breathe for the first time in as long as I can remember. I've been getting out of bed before 8 o'clock. I think it's been... four, five years since I had the energy to do that, instead of just laying there feeling crushing dread until I finally drug myself onto my feet so I could stumble to my desk in time to not get nailed for lateness.There's actually a shot in this video already, that I legitimately would never have been able to get before now because I had to get up before sunrise to stage it. I'm only able to do that because of the freedom you've given me. I hope to deliver on a lot more of the ideas I see in my head from now on.

Files

The Unholy Saga of Phoenix Hyperspace

Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cathoderaydude Tip me: https://ko-fi.com/cathoderaydude

Comments

Ian

I've been wondering if there is another angle to the instant on thing that I don't think you have mentioned yet. While few of these computers booted slowly enough out of the box to justify it, the point of comparison may not have been the new computer's out of box experience. I doubt many people test a computer's boot time in the store or look up that information in a review before buying. Instead, I think the point of comparison was the customer's previous computer with years of crap on it. When someone unboxes a new computer with this feature, they discover that it actually boots fast enough and then forget about the instant on feature (as you have covered). Months or years later, the computer becomes slow. At this point the instant on feature might actually be useful. Looking back for things we missed or forgot is not in most people's nature, so rather than use it, they will likely buy a new computer, likely with another instant on mode.

Adam C.

That is an absolutely brilliant method for Hyperspace Dual.

Bulk Bogan

The biblical references were extremely apt in this episode, because unholy really is the perfect descriptor of how I felt as more details were revealed lol.

Funkmon

I appreciate that you recognize the weirdness of us versus normal people in regards to learning other operating systems and playing with them. One of my friends said to me about 20 years ago (!) "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing." And I appreciate it. I love that you recognize that we actually ENJOY learning this crap, and that it's genuinely dumb to do so. About 3 times a year I think about killing my Windows install and putting Linux on it and then thinking "wait that's stupid."

Sam Thompson

Dang this episode gave me chills. I'd been wondering where this series was going, but it's obvious now why you started it. And you're just on it for this one. The rapid-fire meme references, the writing in general, just inspired. If this is the new you with the weight of the soul-crushing job lifted, I can't wait to see where you go next.

Penny Unwise

You explained the smoke and mirrors Phoenix did to do......whatever this is really well. It just seems like a LOT of work for objectively very little payoff. There's no reason to do it. But it works. Awesome episode man, it's great to see.

Lucie Tronvert

This thing. Is. Cursed. And weird. As much as possible. I love it !! I love the energy you have on this video. Its very communicative 🖤

Drew Hoffman

A quarter of the RAM on a 1gb machine is sure a heavy price to pay for the switching feature.

sqwyd

This is genuinely one of the best tech videos I've ever watched. Thank you, Gravis, this video was amazing and made me laugh a lot and I learned a lot too. Amazing!

Kris Asick

Knowing some of the inner details about ACPI myself and seeing the telltale signs, as soon as I noticed Windows was resuming from Sleep Mode, not hibernation, I was like, "Oh sweet merciful crap... The ONLY way that could work is reserving RAM chunks and abusing ACPI and that's terrifying" and that is EXACTLY what happened! D8

stuckforever

Very curious what they thought the *point* would be to all this madness... why would a normal end user need to swap between Hyperspace and Windows once you were booted into Windows?!?! All this genius for something literally nobody would use

OPAL

awesome! i can't wait to watch! Is this a Patreon early sneak peek and then it will become public later on? I'd just hate for others to miss this epic saga.

George

This is brilliant. Lived up to the hype!

Vinpupx

Man, while sinful, I kinda dig this sort of multi-boot. It would make modern dual-booting much more convenient though who knows how modern OSes would react to this sort of tom-foolery.

kargaroc

sneaky sneaky thumbnail update

Sam Jordan

The line at 58 minutes was art.

zephyrmo

Scripting on this was truly excellent. Like, really wonderful.