Meet Pdp Gary: Ai Meets Old-school Computing | Shop Talk #98

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.

From there, we turn to viewer questions about AI control, trust, and why the same question can produce different answers.

We also dig into Task Manager OG: what it adds beyond Windows Task Manager, tracking down resource spikes, memory usage versus memory pressure, and using Flight Recorder to investigate crashes. Plus, cross-platform C++, AI-assisted development, and questions about licensing and TMOG’s future.

What would you ask PDP Gary? Leave your question in the comments.

00:00 - Hey I'm Dave...
00:33 - Defining PDP Gary’s Personality
02:10 - AI, BSD and PDP Kernel Work
08:10 - Stopping an Unstoppable AI Agent
09:23 - Proving Claims About AI Actions
11:17 - Would You Trust AI to Design Your House?
13:35 - Same AI Question, Different Answers
16:04 - TMOG vs. Task Manager
16:55 - Why Did It Take 40 Years?
17:39 - TMOG vs. Process Explorer
19:13 - Does TMOG Replace Task Manager?
19:57 - Which Process Caused the Spike?
21:35 - Memory Usage vs. Memory Pressure
22:28 - Does Monitoring Add Bloat?
23:08 - CPU Work vs. Overhead
24:16 - Tracking a Maxed-Out CPU Core
24:54 - Audio Glitches, Frame Drops and Core Scheduling
27:33 - What Caused the Throttling and Fan Activity?
28:26 - Diagnosing Crashes with Flight Recorder
29:40 - Threshold-Triggered Flight Recording
31:01 - One C++ Core Across Three Operating Systems
31:31 - How Much of TMOG Was AI-Coded?
33:20 - TMOG’s Windows UI and Phosphor Look
34:40 - TMOG Source Code and Microsoft Ownership
35:06 - Why Does TMOG Connect to the Internet?
35:47 - Licence Checks and Lifetime Updates
36:17 - Code Signing and Task Manager Shortcuts
38:42 - Portable Flight Recorder for Remote Diagnostics
39:34 - TMOG Business Licensing
40:31 - Would Dave Sell TMOG to Microsoft?
42:08 - TMOG for Servers and Data Centres
42:33 - Remote Monitoring on Headless Linux
43:03 - More System Tools After TMOG?
44:36 - Getting Lost in Winamp Skins
45:37 - Dave’s Norm Macdonald Resemblance
46:25 - Why Does Bobcat Goldthwait Owe Dave Money?
48:52 - Shenanigans and outtakes