17 Jun
1998
17 Jun
'98
2:12 p.m.
<Stuff about stripped gears and mechanical computing engines SNIPped>
You've never had a marginal timing problem, or a pattern-related data
problem? I am suprised.
Put it this way. I had a 1793 that, when it was warm, would not gerenrate
a data request bit if (I think) the last 2 bytes loaded were both FF.
Something totally crazy like that. Took a long time (and a lot of
corrupted disks) to track that one down.
Ditto for marginal timing that fixes itself when the machine is cold, or
hot, or when you wave your hands over the CPU board, or whatever.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tony, Tony, Tony, don't you know? That's a free added option
that's built into many kinds of electronic equipment! It's called
the TPD (tm). A.k.a., the "Technician Proximity Detector".
There's a ton of them installed out there. Looks like one innovation
that goes back even to Babbage's time . . . .
Jeff
-tony