On Mar 7, 10:32, Geoff Roberts wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner" <spc(a)conman.org>
> > It was thus said that the Great FBA once stated:
> > >
> > > >Essentially, this means that 1 Litre of pure water weighs 1Kg and
> is
> > > >where the basic units came from.
> > >
> > > 1 Litre will also fit quite nicely in a cube 10cm a side.
> >
> > At 4 degrees Celcius at sea level, don't forget.
Since we're getting all accurate again, ..
The kilogram was defined in a way intended to represent the mass of one
cubic decimetre of water at its maximum density, and to this end a suitable
platinum-iridium cylinder was constructed to be "the standard". But it was
later found to be slightly inaccurate, so the definition of the standard
was redifined to be the mass of the cylinder. Thus 1 litre doesn't *quite*
fit into a cube 10cm a side, being 28 ppm too large :-)
In 1964 the litre was redefined for practical purposes to equal a cubic
decimetre, but not for work of high precision.
An imperial gallon is defined in terms of a mass of water (weighing 10
pounds at a density of 0.988859 grams per cc, ie at 20C, in air at a
certain density, against weight of a certain density, all stated in metric
units!).
> > -spc (Atmospheric presure is measured in millibars, right?)
>
> Correct. The ISA (International Standard Atmosphere) is 1013.2
> hectopascals (equiv - millibars) @ 20C (hmm or is it 15? been a while
> since I did Met.)
15C.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Hello i'm trying to write a embedded Sql program in C but i don't know how to
compile,link and run it. I know you have to write a makefile but i have never
done that
before and i've looked in books in the store and there is nothing that i've
seen to show you or describe how to create the makefile, and run the sql
embedded program.
Can you help or point me in the right direction to get some help.
Thanks,
Craig
On 2001-03-04 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org said:
>The Museums clearly serve several useful purposes, such
>that I think the "us vs. them" label is inappropriate.
Oh well. At least it got some attention. ;-) The "vs."
might just as well be thought of as "private collectors"
in *contrast* to "museum collections".
>1. They are higher profile that individual enthusiats
>and therefore a magnet for systems that might otherwise
>end up in the dumpster or with scrappers.
What do you mean by "higher profile"? There are some private
collectors, no doubt, with noble and intelligent motives
rivaling that of some museum staffs.
>2. They tend to be open to the general public making
>the machines accessible to anyone who wants to see
>them.
What would you suggest is the foremost reason for "seeing"
them?
>3. They educate the public about the value of
>preserving old computers, and introduce new people to
>the hobby. (I know some may not think this is
>necessarily a good thing.)
Would you suppose that there are other causes even more
significant than encouraging computers as a hobby through
museum displays?
>4. The curators tend to be schooled in preservation,
>and while they may not operate their machines, they
>usually keep them safe, dry, etc.
Private collectors can do the same, if they wish, although
I doubt that many private collectors would enjoy "dead"
machines as well as "live" ones.
>5. They can usually accommodate the very large
>machines that many collectors don't have the room for.
Yes, I have seen such a museum, which has ambitious plans
for doing just that.
>6. Museums can sometimes undertake restoration
>projects that require the coordination of people and
>resources that individuals would unlikely be able to
>accomplish on their own, such as those undertaken by
>The Computer Museum History Center located at Moffett
>Airfield.
Is there a URL for it?
>7. Museums don't sell on eBay (or sell at all for that
>matter); a number of "us" do.
Personally, I prefer to see what I'm buying first -- especially
when it's something like an old computer that I'd want to
examine closely for condition, etc..
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
>Essentially, this means that 1 Litre of pure water weighs 1Kg and is
>where the basic units came from.
1 Litre will also fit quite nicely in a cube 10cm a side.
For a person whom has used the metric for 2/3 of my life I still find it
very clear and precise.
I hate to have to remember all those weird numbers 5280 feet in a mile, 16
ounces to a can oh wait that's beer here...
It took me a while to get used to the units on this side of the pond and I
still strugglt when I need a pint and all I have to measure is a cup.
And I found the most people here don't even know all those psychoweirdo
stuff.
Hey the Nasdaq just dropped the fractional notation. That's another funky
stuff I had to deal with adding 3/32 of an inch to 3/8 of an inch does not
look like fun to me when I could be adding mm or cm.
Look what happened when one bonehead uses Imperial measurements instead of
the standard metric system for the mars smasher ^H^H^H^H^H^H lander.
I don't think the US will ever make it to the metric system. It is always
presented as a difficult system in schools. some kids always ooh aah when I
mention the metric stuff to them.
Wake up people of the United states it's 2001 and we don't need to know the
lenght of the thumb or foot or whatever appendage from some long dead ruler
of an old island.
Francois
I'm making a list of the processors and computers
that in one way or another tried to directly execute
a high-level programming language. Here's what I have
so far.
Algol60 - Burroughs 5500
Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq
Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others
Ada - Intel 432
Java - picoJava
Modula M-Code - Lilith
Additions and corrections are greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers, Scott
************************* Mobile-Mind, Inc *************************
Scott Guthery sguthery(a)mobile-mind.com
Voice:+1 617 926 6888 Mobile:+1 617 230 1346 FAX:+1 617 926 1611
******************** http://www.mobile-mind.com ********************
Hello, all:
I have an odd question. A chap from the Netherlands contacted me last week
based on an old posting to the list that he found through an Internet search
(from the list archives). He's restoring an LPS11 and would like to have
copies of the paper tapes I have for his project. Several years ago, I
picked-up several blue-boxes of PDP11 paper tapes, mostly diagnostic tapes.
Since I can't make tape images, I was going to ship them to him and let him
use them and then return them to me. I'm a bit concerned about the
trans-Atlantic trip, plus any stupid stuff, like export restrictions.
Any opinions? I would love to keep these things on this side of the
Atlantic if I could and just deliver to him image files and scans of the
tape ID label.
Rich
Collector of Classic Computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulator Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/*****************************************/
On 2001-03-06 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said:
>However, both private collectors and museums often have space
>limitations. I can't save everything I would like (although IMHO I
>certainly try). And as somebody said yesterday, %computer_museum no
>longer accepts donations of 'common' machines, for all they could
>be used as spare parts, or to allow others to learn about them, or
>whatever. I would asseme the reason they no longer accept such
>donations is lack of space.
Agreed.
>> I'm not an authority on distinctions, just a visitor offering my
>> concern to preserve what's best for learning purposes.
>OK, in your opinion, what machines are important to preserve for
>learning purposes (or for any other purpose you'd care to suggest).
>I am seriously interested....
If we could say that classic computers have a valuable *object lesson*
for future generations, I wouldn't be quick to label this or that
machine as the best example. There are several categories of machines
for various services, personal, desktop, portable, scientific, etc.,
and to elevate this or that one above the other might needlessly bait
others into unproductive discussion of personal preferences. Let's
have our personal preferences. But let's also determine (at least
for ourselves) a general principle or two that points to the value
of classic computers -- more specifically -- their purpose and our
realistic expectations of them beyond mere entertainment value.
>Of course, both groups might get a machine that is original and
>which still works. In which case both enthusiasts and musuems will
>preserve it in much the same state.
I completely agree.
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
On Mar 5, 18:51, Tony Duell wrote:
> > If you think all that's bad, I still haven't figured out the
measurements
> > for cooking...like how many tablespoons in a cup, and how many cups in
a
> > quart and all that nonsense. Who came up with this crap anyway?
>
> I knew the HP49G was useful for something :-). It has all those units in
> the unit management system..
>
> According to that machine :
>
> 1 cup = 16 tablespoons
>
> 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
Except that, traditionally, there are two teaspoons in a dessertspoon and
two dessertspoons in a tablespoon. It doesn't add up :-)
> 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces
>
> 1 quart = 4 cups
>
> 1 cup = 236.5882365 ml
And those are U.S. measures, I think. A cup is half a pint; an imperial
pint is 20 fluid ounces, not 16. An imperial quart = 2 imperial pints =
1.136523 litres (1136 ml); 4 U.S. cups = 946 ml.
A tablespoon is supposedly 15ml (mine aren't but that's another story :-))
So 16 tbsp (1 U.S. cup) would be 240ml. Close enough for cookery, I
suppose.
And of course that only applies to liquid measure. When you're measuring
dry materials, you're supposed to use a rounded (not heaped! that's
different) spoonful -- an allowance for the hypothetical meniscus, of
course.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 Jeff Hellige wrote:
> I actually found a couple of Sony EDM-1DA1 MO disks with
>512-byte sectors and are formatted out to approximately 281meg/side.
>Connected to 3 different Mac's, they will all read the disks fine but
>they all error out when I attempt to reformat the disks, either using
>the Pinnacle-supplied software or using FWB HDtoolbox. This version
>of HDtoolbox states that it supports this drive too. The drive acts
>like thier's a SCSI-bus problem at times but changing terminators and
>such have had no effect on it.
Hmm. What error messages does the software give when you try to format the
disks? Can you successfully write data to the already-formatted disks?
Try disabling blind reads and writes and enabling write verification, if
possible (the Pinnacle software has per-partition options for that). Also, if
you want to try formatting using Hard Disk Toolbox (say), don't power up the
Mac with a Pinnacle-formatted disk in the drive. Insert the disk after
booting; that way, the FWB driver will be used to access the disk, not
whatever driver happens to be on the disk at the moment.
Using a SCSI utility/diagnostic program, see how many sectors are in the
primary and secondary defect lists. If there are many more in the secondary,
that suggests that the drive lens and/or disk surface may be dirty.
Cleaning the disk surface is easy (remember, with disk side A up, the surface
for side A is underneath), so you may as well try that before attempting to
open the drive. If you don't want to buy a purpose-designed disk cleaning kit
you can use a lint-free cloth. Breathe on the disk and carefully wipe
radially, rotate the disk slightly and repeat. Preferably wear some plastic
gloves to prevent skin oils from touching the disk.
For what it's worth, the Pinnacle Micro Mac driver is one of the few Mac SCSI
packages that works on my Amiga with the ShapeShifter Mac emulator (even with
ShapeShifter's I-can't-believe-the-bugs-in-that SCSI emulation).
-- Mark
Has anyone ever heard of a CPM computer made by National Industries Inc
of Montgomery Alabama? I found one recently. It looks similar to a Morrow
MD-2 and has two 5 1/4" floppy drives. It also has a Z-80A CPU. There were
a couple of floppy disks in the drives. I tried to read them using 22disk
but no luck. I haven't checked it beyond that.
Joe
