Show Notes
This week’s Shop Talk is built entirely from your questions — pulled from the latest episodes on Dave’s Garage and Shop Talk on Dave’s Attic.
From debugging “almost working” systems to figuring out when you can actually trust a result, we dig into the messy middle where things seem fine… but aren’t.
If you’ve ever said “well, it works…” — this one’s for you.
👇 Got a question for a future episode? Drop it in the comments — we pull directly from them.
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Shop Talk is our weekly show where we answer viewer questions from: • Dave’s Garage • Shop Talk on Dave’s Attic
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00:00 - Intro 00:41 - Question of the Week: When is it Fixed? 07:44 - Knowing When It Actually Works 15:33 - Proving It 20:35 - What Counts as Fair? 26:46 - Workflow 33:34 - FUN
More from Dave’s Garage: Shop Talk
What would 1996 Dave think of rebuilding Task Manager with AI? Dave and Glen celebrate 100 episodes of Shop Talk with Windows stories, retro computing, fresh viewer questions, and a look at the community behind the show.Across the first 99 episodes, our comment archive contains more than 23,000 comments. We recognize some familiar contributors, revisit the rebuilt Task Manager episode’s response, and share the most-liked comment in the archive.Then it’s back to your questions: how overlays helped programs fit into limited memory, porting Colossal Cave to a PDP-11, getting started with AI, checking AI-generated code, and using AI for business strategy.Plus: a difficult day at Microsoft, whether Spy++ deserves a modern makeover, TMOG follow-ups, missing hard-drive activity lights, and Deluxe Asteroids.Thank you to everyone who has watched, commented, and kept the conversation going.
Windows war stories meet AI-assisted retro computing in this week’s Shop Talk. Dave and Glen explore AI development on the PDP-11, how they prompt and review generated code, and what older computers can still teach us.Dave discusses improving top for BSD, compiler changes for ksh, and getting Samba running on a 16-bit machine. Viewer questions cover detailed specifications, native apps versus Electron, ownership of AI-generated code, and improving PDP Gary.We also revisit Microsoft Bob’s connection to the Windows XP disc, instant shutdown shortcuts, and a CHKDSK job that could run for days. Plus: TMOG memory usage and temperature graphs, lessons from the TRS-80, Windows 3.1 on modern hardware, and Tempest with a joystick.
PDP Gary has a personality—but how did Dave define it? This week on Shop Talk, Dave and Glen start with Gary, then explore Dave’s recent work using AI on BSD, the PDP kernel, and its peripherals.
What happens when AI stops being a useful tool and starts becoming a crutch?
Can autonomous AI agents cause serious harm without being conscious, sentient or malicious?