Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2022 April 9

= April 9 =

How can you attach a lanyard to a smartphone?
I remember old-ish phones had a notch with a bar where you could thread a loop and connect it to a lanyard. Then came the phones with a removable cover, where you inserted a kind of thin film inside the phone and closed the cover. This provided an attachment point for the loop for the lanyard.

Nowadays smartphone manufacturers somehow design their products in a way that you cannot easily attach a lanyard to them. It looks almost as if they wanted us to drop and break our phones.

Besides cumbersome solutions like putting the phone in a case or pouch, how can I add some sort of minimalist ring to hang the phone? Would some strap+glue be enough?--Bumptump (talk) 00:52, 9 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Not sure if it's less cumbersome than a case, but maybe a PopSocket with a lanyard wrapped around the knob part, or with a hole to thread a lanyard through?
 * There's also some lanyards that have an adhesive part to stick on the phone, like this one. I'd be a bit concerned about just how good that adhesive sticks though, won't pocket lint foul it up? Sunmist (talk) 23:40, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * If the surface on to which the pad is stuck is properly cleaned (and dry) beforehand, no lint (etc.) should then be able to make its way under the pad. However, I do not speak from actual user experience. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.65.249 (talk) 17:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)


 * I realize that you don’t like this solution, but if you want to use a lanyard with a smartphone, there are cases for that purpose. In 2022, most cases are extremely thin and minimalist, so it’s really the best way to do it. Viriditas (talk) 00:09, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

How to expose an entire category tree in MediaWiki?
In MediaWiki 1.36.1 I use Extension:CategoryTree to view all categories in a tree fashion.

I can expose the entire tree by clicking the vertical arrow button representing each collapsed entry but I seek an automatic way to show everything.

What would be a JavaScript way to do so?

Things I've tried and failed:

Thanks, 79.180.118.152 (talk) 10:57, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You can look into the mediawiki code that actually does this. Ruslik_ Zero 18:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't mean to change the JavaScript currently used by the community. Just to act on the output in the personal level. 79.180.118.152 (talk) 18:18, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

PAL and NTSC
Does PAL and NTSC have to do with the DVD/Blu-ray player or television? 86.143.101.46 (talk) 21:48, 9 April 2022 (UTC)


 * They are colour encoding systems that enable the player to send a signal to the television. Wikipedia has articles on PAL and NTSC which will give you more information.--Shantavira|feed me 07:56, 10 April 2022 (UTC)


 * A video on a DVD disk or a Blu-ray disk will be recorded in either the PAL encoding or the NTSC encoding, which a player will convert into a video signal of the same kind. A television set will generally understand either PAL video signals or NTSC video signals, but not both. If there is a mismatch between the video encoding on the disk and the television, the television can only show the video if a video standards converter is used. --Lambiam 12:22, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I would assume PAL and NTSC mean the exact same thing when referring to video games? ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 14:22, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Why? --Lambiam 13:35, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Just curious. I hear the words "PAL region" or "NTSC version" a lot when talking about older video games (Mainly Super Mario World in which the Athletic theme apparently differs between the 2) and would like to know if it's the same thing. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 13:45, 12 April 2022 (UTC)


 * I think he means not "same as each other" but rather "same as they each do when referring to DVDs".  And the answer is yes.  PAL and NTSC (and SECAM) are audio/video encoding standards for old analog television systems.  This kind of thing is largely obsolete since the widespread, often mandatory, conversion to digital television formats, though legacy systems still have to deal with this.  As noted at that article, there are now 4 (rather than 3) such digital format standards, being  now DVB-T (replacing some of the PAL and SECAM systems), DTMB (replacing other PAL and SECAM systems), ATSC (replacing some of NTSC), and ISDB (replacing NTSC where they didn't adopt ATSC standards).  AFAIK, many TVs are now system neutral, as the adherence to the standards are now mostly firmware controlled, so each TV can recognize and adapt to any of the systems.  Under the old PAL/NTSC/SECAM days this wasn't possible, as analog TVs were physically built to adhere to a broadcast standard, with different refresh rates and scanning systems, all of which were "hardwired" in the TVs, and thus cross-compatibility was not possible.  -- Jayron 32 13:51, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah alright. That might explain why back in the day games were region locked. They were physically incapable of working on TVs in a different region. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 14:06, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * If you want some good videos explaining analog TV encoding This one by math communicator Matt Parker does a good job of explaining the differences between NTSC and PAL encoding. This video by Technology Connections also explains how analog TV worked in general.  That channel has an entire series on Analog video, if you have a few hours, it's quite detailed and good.  -- Jayron 32 14:39, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The reason why it was critical with video games was the that games used to use the refresh rate of the TV as a timer and bad conversions from NTSC to PAL often (nearly bloody always) left PAL gamers with slower games. - X201 (talk) 14:53, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Not a justification, but an explanation: the biggest video game developers were all in Japan and the U.S., both NTSC territories. Europe was often an afterthought as a market for these things.  -- Jayron 32 17:02, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Good point. Didn't realize Japan and the US were both NTSC. Doesn't really explain why back then you couldn't play a Japanese game on an American console (ignoring the fact that for some video game developers, such as Nintendo, they made 2 different versions of the same console, so for example NES and FAMICOM, which had 2 different cartridge shapes). Maybe it just made it easier for localization? ― Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 17:06, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * On that I am not sure. I know that most system that were essentially different casings with the same guts (NES/Famicom or Sega Mark III/Sega Master System, etc.) were fully software compatible, and often used even the same ROM types and connectors, but used different size/shape cartridges.  A quick google search turns up that some of these had after-market adapters which could allow cross-compatibility (ColecoVision for example, reverse-engineered the Atari 2600, and had an adapter to play actual Atari games), while most require some kind of home-brew adapter.  Many tinkerers have come up with adapters to play, for example, Japanese cartridges on the American systems.  As to why it wasn't standard; the designs were probably optimized for the local market, and in the mid 1980s, very few people probably thought that, say, English-speaking American customers would have thought it necessary to buy and play Japanese-language cartridges.  Remember that the design of the NES was specifically done to appeal to the American market, including the initial packaging of a loss leader in the form of R.O.B., that was designed to convince customers that the NES was a toy that played some video games, basically to trick them into not being worried about another Atari-like crash in the market that occurred just prior to the NES's North American release.  A lot of market research, even then, went into the form factor of the system, and it is very likely that negative reactions to existing Famicom-like designs (including the colors, shapes, and designs of the box, cartridges, and controllers) likely led to a different design for North America.  While the software would have been likely fully compatible, the outer designs had to appeal to a North American market, and no one really cared that cartridges in Japan couldn't be played on the North American system.  -- Jayron <b style="color:#090">32</b> 18:48, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Huh. Interesting. I never really thought of it that way. I always just accepted the fact that a FamiCom cartridge wouldn't fit in an NES and vice versa. I never really thought that the NES was designed to appeal to the non-Japanese market (I say non-Japanese because it was released outside of the US). I usually just look at the design and just think "yep that's the design" and never thought anything of it. But it does make sense because of how much unnecessary material there is when compared to the actual components. Yes they probably could just sell the components or even just design it to that the casing fits around the components without too much excess material, but then it wouldn't look all that appealing. You've actually helped me understand the reasoning behind certain design choices a lot more now, mainly because I've always just accepted them as fact. ― <b style="background:#0d1125;color:#51aeff;padding:1q;border-radius:5q;">Blaze Wolf</b>Talk<sub title="Discord Username" style="margin-left:-22q;">Blaze Wolf#6545 19:05, 12 April 2022 (UTC)
 * In one of the more famous stories of the 80's, the NES design with the cartridge inserted and pressed down, which eventually led to arguably the most famous hardware fault ever, was chosen to elicit comparisons to a VCR- a home entertainment device- and not the top loading Atari style. --50.234.188.27 (talk) 11:27, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The primary motive for region lockout has always been money, to keep people from importing cheaper media into a market where the local version is more expensive. This also makes sure that distributors, localizers, etc. get their cut from purchase of the local media. Region lockout has often been used on media where there is no technical incompatibility. The SNES/Super Famicom, for instance, was basically identical regardless of market, and Japan and North America both used NTSC, but it still had region locking. As mentioned, the technical issue was that games that used the TV refresh rate as a timer would run at the "wrong" speed on a system designed for a different TV standard—except as someone mentioned, some localizers didn't bother fixing this and PAL territories got games running at mistimed speeds in their official releases! A similar problem also happens with old PC games that use the CPU clock frequency as a timer. On modern systems, they have to be run under an emulator that controls the cycle frequency it runs software at, or else the game is unusable because modern systems have such higher clock frequencies. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 01:44, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * To go back to the replies to the original query, it's not actually correct that DVD-Video or Blu-Ray discs contain video "encoded in PAL or NTSC". These are analog, standard-definition formats. All video on the aforementioned discs is encoded digitally, in various choices of resolution but most commonly at least 720p (this being the lowest supported resolution for Blu-Ray). Vendors may misuse "PAL" and "NTSC" to refer to region encoding of these discs, which has substantial overlap with areas that use/used the standards. Disc players may only support producing PAL or NTSC video output, if they support either of these at all, as opposed to modern digital standards. Usually the latter is just referred to as HDMI, but that's actually just the thing that moves bits between devices; the devices negotiate over the HDMI link which codecs to use. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 01:44, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Just a note, no DVD supports 1280x720 resolution. PAL region discs will max out at PAL's 720x576 at 25 fps, and NTSC discs at 720x480 and 30 FPS. Blu-ray goes higher but DVD is a standard definition format and only supports MPEG 1 and 2. 50.234.188.27 (talk) 09:38, 15 April 2022 (UTC)