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RLoew (1952 - 2019) has passed away.


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On 10/20/2019 at 4:53 PM, dencorso said:

Thanks a lot! :thumbup
BTW, you're right: it's not it. I guess the best way would be to serch by date 1st, starting not earlier than July the 1st... he sure edited that source along the way, so probably the last version was modified and compiled after July the 17th or around it...
I have no hurry at all, do take your time, and thanks for your help! You do rock! :yes:

I think I'll have to set up one of his computers to find it. I have a feeling it isn't in the "active" set of stuff I'm looking at.

On 10/20/2019 at 10:09 PM, i430VX said:

You're progressing towards covering what i wanted to do, so:
I've set his previous site (rloew1.x10host.com) to redirect to yours.
Hopefully that should catch any stragglers.

Thanks again for setting yours up. ;)

Thanks!

On 10/21/2019 at 7:42 AM, MERCURY127 said:

Rloew, I think, it will better, if u grab all source folders ur dad's and upload it as one full archive, instead greping file by file... Also, more better if someone with programming knowledge from msfn can go to ur house and make good public repository on github, for example... 

Just uploading sources by file is not very good idea, as for compiling needed not only c files, but many other files, and as I know from private, ur dad even use own debugger... 

Between, me also want know, who was ur dad in real life, where work... Maybe he work in big hardware company for drivers? :)

Uploading them without going through them would not be a good idea. Right off the bat, there is customer information scattered in there. I already seen some family photos in the mix and even some code that I know is not relevant. I wouldn't want to just throw it out there. I can hold my own in regards to programming knowledge so that isn't a concern. A repo can be made at any point and anyone here could do it if they felt inclined to do so. I can't offer support for it anyway - I just don't have the time. 

My option was to upload source without a build system or to not upload source. I would like to think you can see what the better option is. In any case, the logic in the code is more important for anyone to try to learn or extend his work. 

Regarding who my dad was, I'm uploading his resumes so you get an idea of what he felt was appropriate to say he did. He did a bit of consulting work for Aerospace Avionics (I think that is the name, I have a pile of hardware schematics from them but they were absorbed into another company) but pretty much was consulting for the last 30 years and living off investments and tax liens. My dad was phone phreaker in his youth and actually got arrested for it (I'm quite proud of him for that) and was forced to write a public apology to avoid jail time. He was also responsible for this article: http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx0431.pdf 

 

On 10/21/2019 at 11:03 AM, siria said:

Just my personal opinion, but if anything would happen to myself and then all my private stuff and belongings, incl. all unfinished stuff with scribbled notes inside that regard only myself, would be thrown out there publicly on the street, fully open to every passing id*** to do and abuse whatever he wants with it, I'd absolutely hate that.
Would find it much better if instead just a few selected, trustworthy people would get the unsorted stuff to manage it responsibly.

I'm pretty sure that I'm about the only person he would trust with this. Although, he would not be pleased that I'm just giving away his work and that is a point where we differed in opinion, I think it is the best option for me to preserve his legacy.

23 hours ago, LoneCrusader said:

I believe we can rest easy. Rudy's son does have plenty of experience of his own in programming and other matters even if they aren't directly related to our beloved older versions of Windows. It's just a major task to organize another person's work who doesn't work the same way you do or work in the same subjects you do.. which of any of us would know where to begin? I've been trying to decide how to handle some of the things I have that we worked on and I'm having trouble figuring that out myself. I'm confident everything will eventually be sorted out.

I've been working on some webpages dedicated to Rudy's work, but it's slow going for this old dinosaur whose HTML knowledge is 20 years old and who writes all of his HTML by hand in Notepad. I would like to eventually have more than just file links and the text of README files.. I've been adding screenshots of Rudy's work in action as I have them but it would be a major time consuming task to stop and create such content for everything. Here's what I have up so far.. some of the pages are just placeholders, and most of the file links go to the archive.org collection for the moment although I do plan to host them myself eventually. I have also added a couple of small projects that we had worked on that were never released. I'm dreading the writeup on WDMEX when the time comes, lol. :angel

I never got into Windows like my dad did but I do take after him quite a bit. I wish my dad followed more modern standards for organization and such but the major issue is that there is just a massive amount of data. I brought about 60TB of stuff back home with me and that might only be half of his recent stuff (last few years). He has tape archives going back at least 20 years but I am pretty confident that stuff isn't related to his Windows endeavors. 

HTML by hand fits my dad so well. But I'm thinking about using React for the long-term of the page.

 

Newspaper Article for Rudy.pdf resume.txt RESUME.DOC

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On 10/13/2019 at 11:03 PM, dencorso said:

:angel   Well, since you kindly located the TRIM sources for @xrayer, I do have a request, too, in case you can find a little time to spare: on July the 17th, RLoew reported he had found out the SCSI commands for changing the apparent sector size of WDC external USB disks (in the thread quoted below, from the quoted post onwards)...

Since you mentioned this;

3 hours ago, rloew said:

I think I'll have to set up one of his computers to find it. I have a feeling it isn't in the "active" set of stuff I'm looking at.

Around that same time (little earlier; May 22) Rudy told me something interesting in an email that I don't think was mentioned publicly or expanded on elsewhere.

Quote

4Kn Drives

I finally was able to boot DOS and Windows 98SE on a 4Kn Drive.
When I bought the Drive, I found that none of my BIOSes could read the drive, making it unbootable. Only an UEFI BIOS supported it. But that doesn't support DOS or 9x.
Recently I discovered that three of my Computers could read the Drive in AHCI Mode.
They let me Boot DOS but DOS would hang while processing CONFIG.SYS. I discovered that the BIOS Driver failed when using odd addresses.
I had to develop a 4K Version of my BUFFODD TSR and make it into a RFDISK Overlay. This got DOS working.
Then I found a problem with my Windows 9x AHCI Driver when using 4Kn Drives that had to be fixed. Fortunately, being derived from my TBPLUS ESDI_506 Driver, it already had support for 4Kn.

I made an IO.SYS File with the BUFFODD TSR built in. This can be used as an alternative to using a RFDISK Overlay.

So we have yet another interesting bit of work from close to the same period. Hopefully this will turn up as well.

3 hours ago, rloew said:

I never got into Windows like my dad did but I do take after him quite a bit. I wish my dad followed more modern standards for organization and such but the major issue is that there is just a massive amount of data. I brought about 60TB of stuff back home with me and that might only be half of his recent stuff (last few years). He has tape archives going back at least 20 years but I am pretty confident that stuff isn't related to his Windows endeavors. 

HTML by hand fits my dad so well. But I'm thinking about using React for the long-term of the page.

I know he collected a lot of data. Most recently we were both working on backing up the content of Windows Update for XP as there was a rumor that it would shut down. Too many things for the older systems have been lost over the years, and he was well aware of it. I know he also had an archive of HP's entire printer drivers library before they disappeared all of the 9x files. Who would have ever thought a drivers CD would be valuable.. but now in many cases they are for us dinosaurs.

Whatever makes setting up the page and getting everything uploaded easier for you works for us. We're just glad you're doing it. (Although it would be nice to not use anything that doesn't work properly with XP compatible browsers, lol.. :angel)

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On 9/25/2019 at 9:33 PM, rloew said:

I didn't realize that people would find out so soon about my father's passing. I wanted to express my appreciation of the impact he has had for many of you with all his work on Windows. I got to hear about it for years over meals and I never realized how many people found value in his patches.

It is a busy time right now but I did want to clear the air regarding the patches. I would like them to continue to be distributed, for his work to be remembered and to be beneficial to others. So, please, freely distribute what you may have in terms of the work my dad did. When things are more settled, I will see what I can do regarding anything missing he might have had available and whatever relevant material there might be that someone could use to further pursue his work.

i am ... So sorry for your Loss i just now found out when i recommended your father's Work to a Youtuber i watch trying to build a Windows 98 PC. my one Windows 98 PC (minus its current issues) wouldnt be here if it wasn't for your father's work, i wish i could of supported him more. understand you have a big family on these forums and many others out there, if you feel the need to help i wouldnt doubt that there wouldnt be a person who wouldnt mind helping where they could.

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@rloew hi , do you mind if i upload some of your father code which i own ? Like one from his api wrapper generator .

Last time i talked with Rudy , We are talking about some of his cool tools like a patch generator . His  knowledge on reverse engineering was awesome . I personally use lot of his tool which are never discussed in public including his amazing disassembler . I guess their are many such never released tools which he never talked in public .

Quote

I have a tool that can extract the differences between the original file and the modified file and create a difference file that can be used to patch the original file again.

I think LoneCrusader will love to short his code . I will love to have his CPP version of his MAKEWRAP tool whose assembly only version is with me ( Assembly only version was requested personally by me , and he made it just for me ) .

Figuring out coding style of Rudy will be tough since as far as i know he used to use his own debugger so i may guess he might have used his own compiler in some cases . I will love to make and maintain a github repo for his work

@LoneCrusader

Edited by Dibya
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On 9/25/2019 at 10:33 PM, rloew said:

I didn't realize that people would find out so soon about my father's passing. I wanted to express my appreciation of the impact he has had for many of you with all his work on Windows. I got to hear about it for years over meals and I never realized how many people found value in his patches.

It is a busy time right now but I did want to clear the air regarding the patches. I would like them to continue to be distributed, for his work to be remembered and to be beneficial to others. So, please, freely distribute what you may have in terms of the work my dad did. When things are more settled, I will see what I can do regarding anything missing he might have had available and whatever relevant material there might be that someone could use to further pursue his work.

and

On 10/22/2019 at 11:30 PM, rloew said:

I'm pretty sure that I'm about the only person he would trust with this. Although, he would not be pleased that I'm just giving away his work and that is a point where we differed in opinion, I think it is the best option for me to preserve his legacy.

 

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I'm pretty sure that I'm about the only person he would trust with this. Although, he would not be pleased that I'm just giving away his work and that is a point where we differed in opinion, I think it is the best option for me to preserve his legacy.



Am glad the binaries will still be available, and even as freeware, thank you. That's great and for normal users the only thing that matters. Just for clarifying, do you have a license in mind? Additionally to "freeware" all source codes published and declared as "OpenSource"? Or source code even as "public domain"?

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On 10/23/2019 at 2:21 AM, LoneCrusader said:

Since you mentioned this;

Around that same time (little earlier; May 22) Rudy told me something interesting in an email that I don't think was mentioned publicly or expanded on elsewhere.

So we have yet another interesting bit of work from close to the same period. Hopefully this will turn up as well.

I know he collected a lot of data. Most recently we were both working on backing up the content of Windows Update for XP as there was a rumor that it would shut down. Too many things for the older systems have been lost over the years, and he was well aware of it. I know he also had an archive of HP's entire printer drivers library before they disappeared all of the 9x files. Who would have ever thought a drivers CD would be valuable.. but now in many cases they are for us dinosaurs.

Whatever makes setting up the page and getting everything uploaded easier for you works for us. We're just glad you're doing it. (Although it would be nice to not use anything that doesn't work properly with XP compatible browsers, lol.. :angel)

The biggest issue is that he just has so much data and replication of data. It's hard to find things.

I remember the HP drivers. He was a bit of a data hoarder!

Good point about the compatibility issue. It would suit him for everything to be as minimalist as possible. Makes me wonder if the SSL certificate is a problem or not.

On 10/23/2019 at 9:09 AM, CaelThunderwing said:

i am ... So sorry for your Loss i just now found out when i recommended your father's Work to a Youtuber i watch trying to build a Windows 98 PC. my one Windows 98 PC (minus its current issues) wouldnt be here if it wasn't for your father's work, i wish i could of supported him more. understand you have a big family on these forums and many others out there, if you feel the need to help i wouldnt doubt that there wouldnt be a person who wouldnt mind helping where they could.

Thank you for this.

6 hours ago, Dibya said:

@rloew hi , do you mind if i upload some of your father code which i own ? Like one from his api wrapper generator .

Last time i talked with Rudy , We are talking about some of his cool tools like a patch generator . His  knowledge on reverse engineering was awesome . I personally use lot of his tool which are never discussed in public including his amazing disassembler . I guess their are many such never released tools which he never talked in public .

I think LoneCrusader will love to short his code . I will love to have his CPP version of his MAKEWRAP tool whose assembly only version is with me ( Assembly only version was requested personally by me , and he made it just for me ) .

Figuring out coding style of Rudy will be tough since as far as i know he used to use his own debugger so i may guess he might have used his own compiler in some cases . I will love to make and maintain a github repo for his work

@LoneCrusader

Feel free to upload and spread around whatever materials of his you have. It's the only way to keep it alive. I attached makewrap.cpp, is that what you referred to?

He liked very simple tools for things like debugging. I'm honestly surprised I haven't found anything for debugging over serial yet. I found stuff related to two other compilers today. I haven't found out where he actually built his code though.

 

41 minutes ago, siria said:



Am glad the binaries will still be available, and even as freeware, thank you. That's great and for normal users the only thing that matters. Just for clarifying, do you have a license in mind? Additionally to "freeware" all source codes published and declared as "OpenSource"? Or source code even as "public domain"?

I haven't changed anything so my dad's license is still there. But, the intention is that the code is public. I would hope people who build off the code give some credit to my father but that is up to them.

makewrap.cpp

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5 hours ago, rloew said:

Good point about the compatibility issue. It would suit him for everything to be as minimalist as possible. Makes me wonder if the SSL certificate is a problem or not.

I've not seen any issues with it using Firefox 52.9.0esr under XP x64, so most people should be able to access it fine. I've not tried to access it on a 9x machine though. I think most of us 9x'ers have been forced to use XP, Linux, or some later Windows for online activity for some time anyway, but there are probably still a few holdouts.

5 hours ago, rloew said:

He liked very simple tools for things like debugging. I'm honestly surprised I haven't found anything for debugging over serial yet. I found stuff related to two other compilers today. I haven't found out where he actually built his code though.

His debugger apparently was able to do kernel debugging on the target machine itself.. The only other debugger I know capable of this for 9x is SoftICE (although my knowledge of that entire subject is very limited). I know I kept trying to get him to try SoftICE when we were working on the HDA/USB3 projects so that we would be using a common tool but I don't think he ever tried.

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do correct me if im wrong @rloew but it looks like his son  is missing some versions atleast uploaded on the site... bless your heart for dealing with the grief while continuing to help out the community. , some things catching by eye, looks like your possibly missing just going by file names, 1.9 of RFORMAT and 3.1 of RFDISK, if this is true and anyone Has these, for sake of preservation, anyone able to help him w/ these versions?

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13 hours ago, CaelThunderwing said:

do correct me if im wrong @rloew but it looks like his son  is missing some versions atleast uploaded on the site... bless your heart for dealing with the grief while continuing to help out the community. , some things catching by eye, looks like your possibly missing just going by file names, 1.9 of RFORMAT and 3.1 of RFDISK, if this is true and anyone Has these, for sake of preservation, anyone able to help him w/ these versions?

I noticed those as well... if I were going to guess I would say that those files are Rudy's notes on changes he was making for an updated version. The question is whether or not these changes were pushed into the "current" source code; whether or not these versions were ever actually built; whether or not they exist anywhere stand-alone, or whether they may only exist in use on his testing machine(s). :unsure:

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This is sad news indeed. RIP Rudolph; and heartfelt condolences to his family.

I could not help it but remember a compatriot of mine who also passed away before his time a few years back. The guy was too an Win95/98 enthusiast, and did enormous favor to morons like myself by figuring out a way to bring out the Cyrillic phonetic keyboard in 95/98/XP. Until his aid, people were getting ripped off by commercial tools that not only did a p***-poor job in this regard, but also tended to totally mess up the Windows. Even today I still use this guy's tool on my two Win98 machines and my Win95 machine.

People like these are a blessing, and will be missed sorely.

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