<I suppose it depends on the assembly language. I can write PDP-11 assemble
<in C (knowing nearly exactly how the code generator works), but I can't
<write VAX assembler in C since there are VAX instructions that don't
<represent well. SPARC code is also easy to write C code with as there are
<few instructions.
An interesting contardiction as VAX is a extreme superset of PDP-11.
<The place where this really comes home is in one of my other hobbies where
<I write embedded robotics code in C for microprocessors like the 68HC11.
C is ok, but I've felt strongly for years it was better for tasks that
wanted you to be closer to the hardware. I like the control structures
of C. Pascal has been a favorite for years when I really don't want to
know the hardware. I prefer the data structures of Pascal.
Allison
<I have to question. I was once asked by a friend to
<help with some math homework. After looking over the
<questions, I found that I couldn't answer any of them.
<It wasn't that they were too hard, it was that they
<were too ambiguous. After some more talking with the
<student, I found that these were some of the "don't
<make the student feel bad by having the wrong answer"
<type questions. They were designed so that almost any
<answer could be considered correct.
I used to call them "Hobsons choice" If no, why. If Yes, Why.
Great for the debaters but a quandry for those that were more
interested in facts or testable theory. Your grade was based on
the why portion. Now who knows whats important.
Allison
<Allison, I believe you've been sold a bill of goods.
Looked for myself in my locale.
<First of all, look at what a teacher has to do for his/her education and
>>>>snipped/
I know far to many doing the real thing...
Like someone else said but I'll say differently: Like cream that rises to
the top, so does the scum. We see the exceptional asses and heros, the
average teacher is more in the world of trying not to be disenchanted with
to many rules, too few resources and an overabundance of students.
<didn't do so well in high school, mainly due to lack of ambition and
<diligence, didn't want to work too hard in college, and, of course, couldn'
<get into a good college. Fortunately, a good college isn't required. On
<top of that, he's chosen a niche in which he only has to work a 6-hour day
<and he only has to do that 183 days a year to get full salary and,
<ultimately a generous pension.
Well your experience is different. You wish to see the scum and you do,
those that do the job are missed and those that exceed the mark are
ignored.
I don't for one second believe that our educational system is up to stuff.
If anything I'd be glad to post my parting address to my HS class, it
wasn't complmetary to skills taught in 1971. The briefest words I'd still
say is I knew Algebra, trig and could write a term paper that would knock
your socks off but... income tax preparation and employment paperwork
(W4, resume, applications) were a mystery. I was trained to go to college.
Thankfully I persued both academic and vocational path in parallel.
Allison
In reverse order: This is a final reminder that the annual Mike & Key ARC
Electronics/Ham Radio/Computer swap meet takes place TOMORROW (Saturday the
11th) at the Western Washington Fairgrounds from 09:00 - 16:00 (most
sellers pack up and go shortly before or after 15:00).
Buyer admission is USD $6.00. Kids 12 or under are free with
parent/guardian/similar adult guidance figure. Parking is free.
If you get lost, just ask any local for directions to the 'Puyallup
Fairgrounds.' Pronunciation, BTW, is "Pew-All-Up" for the WA-state impaired.
;-)
Now, the update: As I usually do, I will be selling this year. However,
the list of stuff I posted that I was bringing earlier has changed as follows.
BOTH Exabyte 8500 drives have been sold to early interest. I still have
THREE EXB-8200 drives available. Also, the DSD's and other chassis I
mentioned have been spoken for (Eric Smith contacted me last week to
confirm his visit), and will not be showing up.
Still, I've got plenty of other bits and pieces, including a VT220 and KB
(works), a small UPS (600VA or so), and more bits and pieces than I care to
think about at the moment (no Q-bus boards, sorry).
I'll hope to see at least a couple of you there!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our
own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
For our list members on the northeastern coast, I present this as received
>from the NetBSD port-VAX mailing list...
-=-=-=-=- <snip> -=-=-=-=-
X-From_: port-vax-owner-kyrrin=bluefeathertech.com(a)netbsd.org Fri Mar 10
11:50:49 2000
X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.2
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 14:49:25 -0500
From: "Matt Dobush" <DOBUSM(a)torrington.com>
To: port-vax(a)netbsd.org
Subject: Free TU81 Plus 9 track tape drive !
Sender: port-vax-owner(a)netbsd.org
Delivered-To: port-vax(a)netbsd.org
I have a TU-81 tape drive that worked the last time I used it a few years ago.
It is free to a good home. Actually, free to anybody willing to come to my
work and pick it up !
No strings attached. I really don't want to get into shipping this sucker,
so you have to come to Northwestern Connecticut to pick it up. I can meet
after hours or on a weekend if needed.
Please E-Mail me directly with any questions or offers since I'm not a
regular subscriber to your list.
-Matt Dobush
Systems Administrator
dobusm(a)torrington.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
If interested, please contact Matt directly. Thanks!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our
own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
OK, here's something that's (much) more on topic that talking about spoken
language...
Anyone listen to NPR's all things considered today? (friday) They had a short
story about a commodore 64 user group in oregon. It basically profiled a
group of mostly older people who still use and enjoy them for what they can
still do. It also mentioned their scarcity and having to scrouge secondhand
stores to find parts.
DB Young ICQ: 29427634
view the computers of yesteryear at
http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/museum.htm
--You can lead a whore to Vassar, but you can't make her think--
Another thing to keep in mind about these jobs is that not only is the
summer vacation long, but there are plenty of days without kids in the
building, when most teachers go skiing or golfing, or hot-tubbing, and the
workday for most of them is less than 6 hours.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 8:13 AM
Subject: OT: Re: languages
>At 04:20 PM 3/9/00 -0500, Carlos Murillo-Sanchez wrote:
>>What other profession is there with an entry salary of
>>about $28K, and a top salary (after 20+ years) of less than $70K ?
>
>Actually, there are lots of jobs like that. Also, have you
>forgotten the nice long summer vacation?
>
>- John
>
I didn't see Seth's remarks. I'm sure he makes a good point, and the
remarks I've put forth certainly don't apply to every teacher. However,
I've had ample oppurtunity to sample what's out there, and it's a dreadful
shame that there's so much evidence of what I've said. The extreme cases
are the ones that catch the most attention, and that applies to my attention
as well as anyone else's. I'm as sorry as anyone that this is what we see
when we take a long look, though. I certainly had hoped, when I ventured
into this territory, that I'd find something different. It has not
encouraged me to be optimistic.
My elder son, by the way, has gotten the message that this is an easy and
fun profession. He's dropped out of Harvard and attends a state teachers'
college, having declared that he didn't really want to work so hard and
didn't want to spend as much time working as he observed that I did. I'm
not proud of that, but it certainly fits, both with my observations and my
conclusions about them.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Smith <ip500(a)roanoke.infi.net>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: languages (Teachers)
>Bravo Seth,
>Dick's comment just went too far. my neighbor is an Art teacher in a
>local High School and believe me---if she's not at work, she's either
>grading papers, planning next weeks work or staying after class to work
>with other kids. SOME are really dedicated to the profession!
>
>sjm wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 10, 2000 at 08:58:43AM -0700, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>> > Another thing to keep in mind about these jobs is that not only is the
>> > summer vacation long, but there are plenty of days without kids in the
>> > building, when most teachers go skiing or golfing, or hot-tubbing, and
the
>> > workday for most of them is less than 6 hours.
>> >
>> > Dick
>>
>> I think it's extremely unfair to label all teachers like this.
>> You make them sound lazy. I know only one highschool teacher today,
>> but I do know he works his ass off. He does NOT take the summer off,
>> he takes summer teaching contracts to make ends meet. After teaching
>> his classes he has, further courses of his own to attend, papers to
>> grade, lesson plans to work out, staff meetings, conference meetings,
>> parent-teacher meetings, and inbetween tons of shit none of us
>> would want to deal with dumped on him. Sometimes he doesn't get
>> home until 11:00 -- and neither do I, but at least I get paid for it.
>>
>> I attended public school between 1979 and 1992, in both California
>> and Connecticut. We moved around frequently, and I was in 8
>> different schools during that time. That's a lot of different school
>> systems, and a lot of different teachers. Yes, I had some that were
>> merely doing their job, not going the extra mile. And I think I
>> can probably put my finger on exactly one who I would honestly call
>> lazy (everybody has a teacher horror story to tell). But those who
>> stand out in my mind were the genuine heros. They were IN to what
>> they did. They LOVED the kids. They latched on to us and energized
>> us and really taught us. They made us solve problems, they made us
>> work together, they made us look forward to their classes every day.
>> They had a passion for what they did, and God bless them for it.
>>
>> I can't think of a more honorable profession.
>>
>> -Seth
I've got little sympathy for the teachers in in our school system. Many of
them may be honest and hard-working, but during the six years during which I
spent on the order of 12-15 hours a week in the school building, observing
the goings-on and attending various meetings, I saw what I feel is a
better-than-average sample of what the teachers themselves, school system
issues aside, are all about.
First of all, during my second year in this close-up of the system, I had
occasion to visit one gym teacher. He had a 5-bedroom, 2-story house with a
3-car attached garage, and a car parked in the driveway because the garage
was full of cars. That particular teacher was always complaining about the
low pay. He and I met in the context of an accusation made by a number of
the gym students, that he spent his time reading the newspaper, while he
should have been supervising the locker room in order to help prevent the
thefts and violence that had been brought to the steering committee's
attention. When he told me what he earned, which I already knew, I pointed
out to him that I had paid more than that in state taxes that year. He
simply lived beyond his means. I, on the other hand, lived in a 3-bedroom
ranch-style house with merely a carport. There were no extra vehicles in my
driveway, either.
One 6th-grade math teacher openly declared that he didn't have time to look
outside while the children were leaving the school premises to help prevent
violent incidents and harrassment as had been brought to the steering
committee's attention. I observed that he was always one of the last
teacher to arrive in the morning, though he was always out of the parking
lot before the first 10% of the student body was leaving the building.
On one occasion, I protested the frivolous activity that was being pursued
in the social studies classes, which was clearly an art project. After the
social studies department spent 10 weeks of the semester on this activity, I
was accused, perhaps justifiably, of throwing my weight around. The entire
social studies department made an appearance at a committee meeting, to
register their complaint, and I challenged them to indicate even a hint of
how this artsy-project had tied into the curriculum, first by asking what
the cultural significance of the item being mimicked was to the
Native-Americans of whose history these were a component, and second, by
challenging them to (a) show some connection to the curriculum that was
worth over half a semester and (b) to show how they had taught the
significance of this item to the current cultural environment. They could
answer neither question between them. I asked them a few other
social-studies-related questions along the way, only to demonstrate the
depth of knowledge of our social studies department.
This matter had risen not from my concern over the quality of teaching,
since I already knew where that was, but over my concern that all 7th grade
students were required to carry, among other things, a pair of scissors,
which were, by school district policy included among contraband items. The
Social Studies department could not justify this breach of policy. The
following fall, 4 of the 7 teacher were assigned to different schools and
the one's contract was not renewed.
I was as disappointed as anyone could be after my public school experience.
When I was in these schools (the same ones, by the way) teachers lived in
the neighborhood, and I walked to school with a couple of them every
morning. The teacher not only knew their respective subjects, but the
English teachers could help with questions about math or science, and the
principal spoke very elegant Engish. Even the gym teachers were up to date
on world events and could tell you what city was the capitol of Burma.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: sjm <sethm(a)loomcom.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, March 10, 2000 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: Re: languages (Teachers)
>
>On Fri, Mar 10, 2000 at 08:58:43AM -0700, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>> Another thing to keep in mind about these jobs is that not only is the
>> summer vacation long, but there are plenty of days without kids in the
>> building, when most teachers go skiing or golfing, or hot-tubbing, and
the
>> workday for most of them is less than 6 hours.
>>
>> Dick
>
>I think it's extremely unfair to label all teachers like this.
>You make them sound lazy. I know only one highschool teacher today,
>but I do know he works his ass off. He does NOT take the summer off,
>he takes summer teaching contracts to make ends meet. After teaching
>his classes he has, further courses of his own to attend, papers to
>grade, lesson plans to work out, staff meetings, conference meetings,
>parent-teacher meetings, and inbetween tons of shit none of us
>would want to deal with dumped on him. Sometimes he doesn't get
>home until 11:00 -- and neither do I, but at least I get paid for it.
>
>I attended public school between 1979 and 1992, in both California
>and Connecticut. We moved around frequently, and I was in 8
>different schools during that time. That's a lot of different school
>systems, and a lot of different teachers. Yes, I had some that were
>merely doing their job, not going the extra mile. And I think I
>can probably put my finger on exactly one who I would honestly call
>lazy (everybody has a teacher horror story to tell). But those who
>stand out in my mind were the genuine heros. They were IN to what
>they did. They LOVED the kids. They latched on to us and energized
>us and really taught us. They made us solve problems, they made us
>work together, they made us look forward to their classes every day.
>They had a passion for what they did, and God bless them for it.
>
>I can't think of a more honorable profession.
>
>-Seth
-----Original Message-----
From: thomas.h.lindberg(a)se.abb.com <thomas.h.lindberg(a)se.abb.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, February 10, 2000 6:37 AM
Subject: Re: Dumpster stories!
>
>
>A coule of years ago we had two very tragic dumpster stories in Sweden,
>three kids vere killed while reading magazines in covered
>newspaper/magazine dumpsters.
>The kids had seaked in through the narrow opening where we dump our old
>newspapers/magazines and sat there while the truck came to pick up the
>dumpster content. The dumpster was automatically emptied into a compacter
>at the truck and all taken to the fragmentation site where the kids wer
>found crushed.
>The dumpster openings are now just about the size of a mail box.
>
I can't believe some list members here dive into dumpsters for computers.
That's dangerous. There could be dangerous,sharp items inside some. Toxic
residues (not all companies respect the environment), Legal reasons (maybe?)
not to enter one.
There are so many better ways to find old computers in much better condition
than something thrown into a dumpster with everything else piled on top.
john
PDP-8 and other rare mini computers
http://www.pdp8.com
>Thomas
>
>
>
