14 Jun
2011
14 Jun
'11
10:06 p.m.
So my wife wanted to show me a book tonight. Turned out it was one
of mine, she'd noticed something interesting.
System 360/370
Job Control Language
and the
Access Methods
by Reino Hannula
What's up with the Swastika on the spine of the book? It's made up
of little triangles, but it's definitely a swastika. Very strange.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
14 Jun
14 Jun
10:37 p.m.
On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:06:58 -0700
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
So my wife wanted to show me a book tonight. Turned
out it was one
of mine, she'd noticed something interesting.
System 360/370
Job Control Language
and the
Access Methods
by Reino Hannula
What's up with the Swastika on the spine of the book? It's made up
of little triangles, but it's definitely a swastika. Very strange.
Zane
I don't the history of the symbol itself but I have read in a few places it
was a sign of good luck (apparently not for everybody, though) before it
was used by the Nazis.
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Here are a couple of links:
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
http://edwinblack.com/
I have not seen Black's book itself or looked into the issue much. I did
see a few reviews on the book and they were very favorable.
It will be interesting to see what you find out about your particular book.
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Vintage Coder America Online ivagntrpbqre at nby.pbz <ROT13> |
| |
| Collecting: DOS assemblers, compilers, & books (Z80, M68K, 6502, 808X) |
| Software & doc for IBM S/360 through OS/390 |
| |
| Can't find: Ada 95 compilers for MVS/ESA & Solaris (Sparc) |
| PL/I X Optimizing Compiler for MVS, APL/SV for MVS |
|---------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| Powered by Slackware 64 & Solaris 10 | Powered by Hercules |
|=======================================+================================|
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| PGP Fingerprint 5C1C 3AEB A7B2 E6F7 34A0 2870 1CB8 4BEF C73A CB32 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
11:12 p.m.
ibm was tied in with the nazi's i though they were amarican not german...
gee they sure managed to keep this one quiet
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 12:37 AM, <vintagecoder at aol.com> wrote:
On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:06:58 -0700
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
So my wife wanted to show me a book tonight.
Turned out it was one
of mine, she'd noticed something interesting.
System 360/370
Job Control Language
and the
Access Methods
by Reino Hannula
What's up with the Swastika on the spine of the book? It's made up
of little triangles, but it's definitely a swastika. Very strange.
Zane
I don't the history of the symbol itself but I have read in a few places it
was a sign of good luck (apparently not for everybody, though) before it
was used by the Nazis.
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Here are a couple of links:
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
http://edwinblack.com/
I have not seen Black's book itself or looked into the issue much. I did
see a few reviews on the book and they were very favorable.
It will be interesting to see what you find out about your particular book.
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Vintage Coder America Online ivagntrpbqre at nby.pbz <ROT13> |
| |
| Collecting: DOS assemblers, compilers, & books (Z80, M68K, 6502, 808X) |
| Software & doc for IBM S/360 through OS/390 |
| |
| Can't find: Ada 95 compilers for MVS/ESA & Solaris (Sparc) |
| PL/I X Optimizing Compiler for MVS, APL/SV for MVS |
|---------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| Powered by Slackware 64 & Solaris 10 | Powered by Hercules |
|=======================================+================================|
| PGP Key 4096R 0x1CB84BEFC73ACB32 Encrypted email preferred |
| PGP Fingerprint 5C1C 3AEB A7B2 E6F7 34A0 2870 1CB8 4BEF C73A CB32 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
11:59 p.m.
On 15 Jun 2011 at 5:37, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book
put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Excuse me? I'd always been given to believe that CTR was formed from
a merger of various operations, including meat processing, scales,
time clocks and punched card equipment and subsequently renamed IBM.
I recall from first seeing mention in the IEEE Annals of Computing (I
still have the issue) that the Reich Rassenamt made extensive use of
Hollerith card equipment from IBM's German subsidiary, Dehomag
(Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen GmbH). While correspondence shows that
the chairman of Dehomag was a deplorable sycophant; it's not clear to
me that T.J. Watson Sr. was interested in anything except the
Reich's money.
Indeed that attitude can be seen in the Prescott Bush and his
involvement in Union Banking Corporation, controlled by the Thyssen
family who used their banking connections to move Third Reich money
and gold around secretly in direct violation of U.S. law.
From my reading, it's not entirely clear how much
direct effect IBM's
involvement in the Rassenamt figured in the crimes against
humanity
carried out by the Third Reich.
Here is a (rather bad) reproduction of a poster that was also part of
the Annals article:
http://soup.tomster.org/post/7762021/bersicht-mit-Hollerith-
Lochkarten-The-graphics-artist
Somehow, the poster seems to be in the same vein of some of the of
materials pitched to various Federal agencies today. The
wiretapping, data-mining, profiling, etc. capabilities of today would
have seemed like a fantastic dream to an SS boss.
--Chuck
15 Jun
15 Jun
12:38 a.m.
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book
put out after
> research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
> apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
> identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Excuse me? I'd always been given to believe that
CTR was formed from a
merger of various operations, including meat processing, scales, time
clocks and punched card equipment and subsequently renamed IBM.
Yeah, keep reading. CTR bought out Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Groupe
(Dehomag) in 1923 and in 1924 they became IBM. The Hollerith machines are
what made IBM all those millions/billions after that and during the war
years. Without the Hollerith machine IBM would have been JATC (Just Another
Timecard Company).
I recall from first seeing mention in the IEEE Annals
of Computing (I
still have the issue) that the Reich Rassenamt made extensive use of
Hollerith card equipment from IBM's German subsidiary, Dehomag (Deutsche
Hollerith-Maschinen GmbH). While correspondence shows that the chairman
of Dehomag was a deplorable sycophant; it's not clear to me that T.J.
Watson Sr. was interested in anything except the Reich's money.
So what? How does that take away from the author's research or position,
that seems to be supported by all the historians? IBM did make money off the
machines and programs used to kill 15 or 20 million people. Is that ok, as
long as it was just for the money? Is that what you meant, or did I
misunderstand you?
And Watson didn't mind receiving a medal of honor from the 3rd Reich. All
that stuff is beyond dispute. Yes, later he gave it back. But at the time
he accepted it.
Somehow, the poster seems to be in the same vein of
some of the of
materials pitched to various Federal agencies today. The wiretapping,
data-mining, profiling, etc. capabilities of today would have seemed like
a fantastic dream to an SS boss.
No doubt!
Anyway like I said I haven't looked into it much (except just now after the
2 responses) but the documentation about the major facts- the acquisition of
Dehomag, IBM's admission in 2001 that their machines were extensively used
by the Nazis, etc. are all easily found online.
I didn't write the book, but like I said I have seen some reviews including
one that Harvard University put out, and nobody seems to be arguing with
what Black has written. My post is to answer Zane, not to debate stuff I'm
not equipped to debate about, I'm not a historian or history buff and I
don't sell books. But if you want to argue with what the book says I would
say first read it and then check what the academics have said about it
before you start writing your own papers on the topic ;-) Because I think
Black has his sources lined up and I'm quite sure you and I dont.
1:09 a.m.
On 2011 Jun 15, at 12:38 AM, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
?!!!?
Hollerith cards and equipment were invented by Herman Hollerith (b.
Buffalo, NY) in the US and were used in the 1890 US Census. He formed
the "Tabulating Machine Company" which amalgamated with others to
become CTR in 1911.
If CTR bought out Dehomag in 1923, I would guess that Dehomag had
earlier spun off or acquired rights from the initial US Hollerith
company.
IBM started
out as a German company. There was a book put out after
> research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
> apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
> identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Excuse me? I'd always been given to believe
that CTR was formed from
a
merger of various operations, including meat processing, scales, time
clocks and punched card equipment and subsequently renamed IBM.
Yeah, keep reading. CTR bought out Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Groupe
(Dehomag) in 1923 and in 1924 they became IBM. The Hollerith machines
are
what made IBM all those millions/billions after that and during the war
years. Without the Hollerith machine IBM would have been JATC (Just
Another
Timecard Company).
1:28 a.m.
If CTR bought out Dehomag in 1923, I would guess that
Dehomag had earlier
spun off or acquired rights from the initial US Hollerith company.
That's exactly what happened. I had the same reaction as you: why would
IBM have to buy a German Hollerith machine company when the inventor
himself was already part of the company that would become IBM? On the face
of it, it sounds like a big circle.
I guess it was because the Germans developed a better hardware
implementation of the machines and the Americans wanted the business in
German and the rest of Europe, which Dehomag had bought the rights to.
Wikipedia has a little bit on it, not much, and I found an interesting
article on the IBM site about a restoration of one of the very early
machines from Dehomag.
http://www.ibm.com/ibm/greateribm/connections/connections_article26.shtml
I don't know if you've ever seen an IBM check sorter, but they are amazing
pieces of engineering. I can't see the picture too well in the IBM article
but they do mention the check sorters are related to these early machines.
2:04 a.m.
On 2011 Jun 15, at 1:28 AM, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
It's not surprising in the realm of international corporate structures.
The problem in all this started with your statement that "IBM started
out as a German company".
That flies in the face of all the well-known history.
If CTR bought
out Dehomag in 1923, I would guess that Dehomag had
earlier
spun off or acquired rights from the initial US Hollerith company.
That's exactly what happened. I had the same reaction as you: why would
IBM have to buy a German Hollerith machine company when the inventor
himself was already part of the company that would become IBM? On the
face
of it, it sounds like a big circle. I guess it was because the Germans developed a better
hardware
implementation of the machines and the Americans wanted the business in
German and the rest of Europe, which Dehomag had bought the rights to.
Wikipedia has a little bit on it, not much, and I found an interesting
article on the IBM site about a restoration of one of the very early
machines from Dehomag.
http://www.ibm.com/ibm/greateribm/connections/
connections_article26.shtml
2:37 a.m.
The problem in all this started with your statement
that "IBM started out
as a German company". That flies in the face of all the well-known
history.
If you go by this thread the "well-known" history isn't.
IBM didn't exist before they bought the company that turned out to be their
main business and source of income over the next 2 decades. They weren't
IBM before they bought Dehomag, the next year they became IBM. There, does
that mean we can all be friends again?
10:06 a.m.
On 2011 Jun 15, at 2:37 AM, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
I haven't seen anything in this thread that would counter that
well-known history.
CTR, an American company (with its foreign acquisition Dehomag) became
IBM, an American (headquartered) company.
The Hollerith-card technology and equipment originated in America, well
before Dehomag existed.
According to one of your wiki refs Dehomag provided some patents or
intellectual property to IBM, but I have never seen anything to suggest
that was a majority or even significant portion of the Hollerith-card
technology.
I don't know how you would get from all that to "IBM started out as a
German company".
The problem in
all this started with your statement that "IBM started
out
as a German company". That flies in the face of all the well-known
history.
If you go by this thread the "well-known" history isn't.
IBM didn't exist before they bought the company that turned out to be
their
main business and source of income over the next 2 decades. They
weren't
IBM before they bought Dehomag, the next year they became IBM. There,
does
that mean we can all be friends again? 
1:33 a.m.
vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
Yeah, keep reading. CTR bought out Deutsche Hollerith
Maschinen Groupe
(Dehomag) in 1923 and in 1924 they became IBM. The Hollerith machines are
what made IBM all those millions/billions after that and during the war
years. Without the Hollerith machine IBM would have been JATC (Just Another
Timecard Company).
Uhh. No.
Dehomag was *founded* as a subsidiary and was reabsorbed.
IBM did cooperate with the Nazis (there's a long tradition of American
companies supplying both sides during wars), but they were *never* a
German company.
Hollerith founded one of IBM's antecedent companies in 1896, **in the
United States**. Specifically, in Washington, DC. Hollerith was of
German descent, but was born in Buffalo, NY, and was decidedly American.
Peace... Sridhar
1:45 a.m.
Uhh. No.
Dehomag was *founded* as a subsidiary and was reabsorbed.
Uhh, citation please. Because here it says Dehomag was acquired by CTR in
1923. I have not found anything that says any American company created
Dehomag as a subsidiary and reabsorbed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehomag
Maybe you are referring to the fact that IBM had to distance themselves
from the Nazis during the war years and spun off some
of their operations
which they subsequently reabsorbed after the War? That does not
mean
Dehomag was *founded* as a subsidiary and was reabsorbed.
2:58 a.m.
vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
Even if you accept the point that Dehomag was a truly independent
company before 1923, the first paragraph of the above article is enough
to disprove your point that IBM was ever a German company.
Peace... Sridhar
Uhh. No.
Dehomag was *founded* as a subsidiary and was reabsorbed.
Uhh, citation please. Because here it says Dehomag was acquired by CTR in
1923. I have not found anything that says any American company created
Dehomag as a subsidiary and reabsorbed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM
3:42 a.m.
Uhh. No.
Dehomag was *founded* as a subsidiary and was reabsorbed.
Uhh, citation please. Because here it says Dehomag was acquired by CTR in
1923. I have not found anything that says any American company created
Dehomag as a subsidiary and reabsorbed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM Even if you accept the point that Dehomag was a truly
independent company
before 1923, the first paragraph of the above article is enough to
disprove your point that IBM was ever a German company.
That's already been addressed since I tried to clarify what I said.
While you're taking issue with what I said, you can't support what you
said: "Uhh. No. Dehomag was *founded* as a subsidiary and was reabsorbed."
since I asked for a citation and you haven't provided one.
How many brain surgeons does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
6:35 a.m.
Hollerith founded one of IBM's antecedent
companies in 1896, **in the United
States**. ?Specifically, in Washington, DC. ? Hollerith was of German
descent, but was born in Buffalo, NY, and was decidedly American.
And most of those machines from the interwar years were engineered in
Endicott, NY.
I do not think the German use of unit record equipment was all that
important. When IBM severed ties, the Germans ran out of spare parts
quickly, and apparently made no real attempt to self supply them.
There are just-postwar reports - probably from the Operation Paperclip
and/or EEIS guys - of seeing lots of busted card machines left outside
in the rain, for lack of spare parts.
--
Will
3:22 a.m.
IBM and the Holocaust is a very good read if you're interested in finding
out about some "other" sides of IBM history. But I'd also recommend you
read
The Maverick and His Machine by Kevin Maney - it's the story of Thomas
Watson - once you get some insight into the man it's easier to understand
Watson's business style and how he "thinked" and the drivers behind
IBM's
relatioship with Hollerith and Germany.
++++++++++
Kevin Parker
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of vintagecoder at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, 15 June 2011 15:38
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:06:58 -0700
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
So my wife wanted to show me a book tonight. Turned
out it was one
of mine, she'd noticed something interesting.
System 360/370
Job Control Language
and the
Access Methods
by Reino Hannula
What's up with the Swastika on the spine of the book? It's made up
of little triangles, but it's definitely a swastika. Very strange.
Zane
I don't the history of the symbol itself but I have read in a few places it
was a sign of good luck (apparently not for everybody, though) before it
was used by the Nazis.
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Here are a couple of links:
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
http://edwinblack.com/
I have not seen Black's book itself or looked into the issue much. I did
see a few reviews on the book and they were very favorable.
It will be interesting to see what you find out about your particular book.
--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Vintage Coder America Online ivagntrpbqre at nby.pbz <ROT13> |
| |
| Collecting: DOS assemblers, compilers, & books (Z80, M68K, 6502, 808X) |
| Software & doc for IBM S/360 through OS/390 |
| |
| Can't find: Ada 95 compilers for MVS/ESA & Solaris (Sparc) |
| PL/I X Optimizing Compiler for MVS, APL/SV for MVS |
|---------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| Powered by Slackware 64 & Solaris 10 | Powered by Hercules |
|=======================================+================================|
| PGP Key 4096R 0x1CB84BEFC73ACB32 Encrypted email preferred |
| PGP Fingerprint 5C1C 3AEB A7B2 E6F7 34A0 2870 1CB8 4BEF C73A CB32 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
6:16 a.m.
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book
put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
I don't think there are too many historians that take this book seriously.
--
Will
6:23 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:16:40AM -0400, William Donzelli wrote:
Can I call Godwin on this thread? Please? ;-)
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
IBM started
out as a German company. There was a book put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
I don't think there are too many historians that take this book seriously. 
1:17 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Diane Bruce wrote:
Can I call Godwin on this thread? Please? ;-)
Sure
But, Mike explicitly makes an exception to his law when the discussion is
actually about Nazis, not just a simile or metaphor.
I don't understand, . . .
Hollerith (it's too bad that he didn't make it to his 30th birthday :-),
was of German ancestry, born in Buffalo, developed the hardware for
the 1890 census, . . .
but, the GERMAN "HOLLERITH" company was the foundation and technology of
IBM?? Wars sure seem to be economically advantageous for big
amoral corporations!
Hypotheses:
The GERMAN Hollerith company had in some way been a spinoff of the
american Hollerith company?
Watson's company changed name to INTERNATIONAL Business Machines when they
mad their first NON-AMERICAN acquisition, not necessarily that that was
the most important technology acquisition? (and/or coincidence that the
name change was 1 year after the Dehomag acquisition?)
mathematical algorithms:
Q: When is Hollerith's next birthday?
Q: How many is that?
Q: Why is 1900 especially important to that calculation?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:02 p.m.
New subject: Hollerith birthdays / scratch Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 15, at 1:17 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
Hollerith (it's too bad that he didn't make it to his 30th birthday
:-),
mathematical algorithms:
Q1: When is Hollerith's next birthday?
Q2: How many is that?
Q3: Why is 1900 especially important to that calculation?
He didn't even make it to his 20th birthday, no?
A3: Century years are not leap years even though divisible by 4, unless
divisible by 400 (..the arcane things one remembers).
2:16 p.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms (Was: Hollerith birthdays / scratch Re:
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Brent Hilpert wrote:
He didn't even make it to his 20th birthday, no?
As you might have guessed, I was too lazy to look it up
A3: Century years are not leap years even though
divisible by 4, unless
divisible by 400 (..the arcane things one remembers).
As a "Computer Math" problem, I gave different levels of credit for the
answers on whether they took 1900 into account, and whether they took 2000
into account.
I'm not sure, but I assume that 1900 leap-year exception was why some
Apple time/date data structures start counting in 1904.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:38 p.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms (Was: Hollerith birthdays / scratch Re:
On 2011 Jun 15, at 2:16 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
.. ok for another 89 years then.
I remember learning about this ca. 1982 when I was revising some code.
There we go:
int
t_isleap( year )
int year;
{
return( year%4==0 && (year%100!=0 || year%400==0) );
}
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Brent Hilpert wrote:
.. and I was too lazy to do the calculations of your other questions.
He didn't even make it to his 20th birthday,
no?
As you might have guessed, I was too lazy to look it up A3: Century
years are not leap years even though divisible by 4,
unless
divisible by 400 (..the arcane things one remembers).
As a "Computer Math" problem, I gave different levels of credit for the
answers on whether they took 1900 into account, and whether they took
2000
into account.
I'm not sure, but I assume that 1900 leap-year exception was why some
Apple time/date data structures start counting in 1904.
3:23 p.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms (Was: Hollerith birthdays / scratch Re:
On 15 Jun 2011 at 14:16, Fred Cisin wrote:
As a "Computer Math" problem, I gave
different levels of credit for
the answers on whether they took 1900 into account, and whether they
took 2000 into account.
I guess I would have asked "what country" and "in what context"?
Remember that many eastern European Churches didn't change until
1923. (Turkey adopted the Gregorian only in 1926; Ethiopia still uses
a calendar with no exceptions to the 4-year leap year rule, so it's
only 2003 there.). And some adopted the "New Julian Calendar", which
is a bit more accurate than the one we in the west use. Then there's
the Juche calendar used by the PRK, where our 1997 is the year 1 (the
year of Kim Il Sung's birth)
The algorithm for leap years is this in the New Julian:
isLeapYear = (year MOD 4 = 0)
IF isLeapYear THEN
IF year MOD 100 = 0 THEN
Century = (year / 100) MOD 9
isLeapYear = (Century=2) OR (Century=6)
END IF
END IF
Thus, the Gregorianr and New Julian calendars will be out of whack in
2800, where that year will be a leap year in the NJ, but not in the
Gregorian.
--Chuck
6:59 p.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms (Was: Hollerith birthdays / scratch Re:
On 15 Jun 2011 at 15:23, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Then there's the Juche calendar used by the PRK,
where our 1997 is the
year 1 (the year of Kim Il Sung's birth)
Now that's just plain stupid.
Kim Il Sung was born April 15, 1912--and that's where year 1 of the
Juche calendar starts. The calendar was adopted in 1997. AFAIK, the
division into months and rules for leap years follow that of the
Gregorian calendar.
--Chuck
16 Jun
16 Jun
10:39 a.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms
From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 3:24 PM
The algorithm for leap years is this in the New
Julian:
isLeapYear = (year MOD 4 = 0)
IF isLeapYear THEN
IF year MOD 100 = 0 THEN
Century = (year / 100) MOD 9
isLeapYear = (Century=2) OR (Century=6)
END IF
END IF
Thus, the Gregorianr and New Julian calendars will be
out of whack in
2800, where that year will be a leap year in the NJ, but not in the
Gregorian.
Umm, that's backwards. 28 % 9 = 1. It will be a leap year in the
Gregorian and NOT in the New Julian.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
11:10 a.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms
On 16 Jun 2011 at 10:39, Rich Alderson wrote:
Umm, that's backwards. 28 % 9 = 1. It will be a
leap year in the
Gregorian and NOT in the New Julian.
Yes, you're correct. When I wrote that, I was kind of fuzzy around
my mental edges (as evidenced by my stupid Juche calendar posting).
--Chuck
12:27 p.m.
New subject: Leap Years algorithms (Was: Hollerith birthdays / scratch Re:
A3: Century
years are not leap years even though divisible by 4, unless
divisible by 400 (..the arcane things one remembers).
As a "Computer Math" problem, I gave different levels of credit for the
answers on whether they took 1900 into account, and whether they took 2000
into account. 
15 Jun
15 Jun
9:58 a.m.
IBM started
out as a German company. There was a book put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
I
don't think there are too many historians that take this book seriously.
--
Will
8:09 a.m.
At 5:37 AM +0000 6/15/11, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
I don't the history of the symbol itself but I have
read in a few places it
was a sign of good luck (apparently not for everybody, though) before it
was used by the Nazis.
There is that, there is also the possibility that no one really
thought anything of it. I've had the book sitting on a shelf for
years, and my wife just noticed it. Of course the shelf has only
been visable for about 2 years, but...
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
8:45 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 08:09:24AM -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 5:37 AM +0000 6/15/11, vintagecoder at aol.com
wrote:
>I don't the history of the symbol itself but I have read in a few places it
>was a sign of good luck (apparently not for everybody, though) before it
>was used by the Nazis.
http://www.floridashootersnetwork.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=39102&st…
It's not something anyone would want to remember after WWII.
There is that, there is also the possibility that no
one really
thought anything of it. I've had the book sitting on a shelf for
http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvery/143053448/
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
Can we move on to the next weird offbeat conspiracy theory? This one is
boring.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
9:16 a.m.
Diane Bruce wrote:
Can we move on to the next weird offbeat conspiracy
theory? This one is
boring.
OTOH, there is no conspiracy, but I find reading about potential meanings /
sources of this particular book's symbol* interesting (Zane, do you have a
photo?)
* and that includes the possibility that it's entirely random and intended
for decorative purposes only, of course :-)
cheers
Jules
9:56 a.m.
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Jules Richardson wrote:
Diane Bruce wrote:
I'll have to see about taking a photo of it tonight. Due to the time frame
of when the book would have been published, I'm inclined to think it is just some
random design, and someone not
thinking. Still it's strange. It's also strange to have something like
that on the spine of the book given that it's from a publisher I recognized.
Zane
Can we move on to the next weird offbeat
conspiracy theory? This one is
boring.
OTOH, there is no conspiracy, but I find reading about potential meanings /
sources of this particular book's symbol* interesting (Zane, do you have a
photo?)
* and that includes the possibility that it's entirely random and intended
for decorative purposes only, of course :-) 
1:20 p.m.
there are swastikas (some blatant, some stylized or not easily seen) all
over the place, people find them in everything from old hardwood floors to
old brick buildings, a lot of them in new york. people have also claimed the
"columbia" logo on jackets and such has a clear swastika in it. there are
even buildings shaped like them on iirc a naval academy somewhere, google
earth found it. I know I have seen quite a few of them when I worked as a
cable installer, many middle eastern and eastern cultures use it as a sign
of peace and happiness, they paint them in the corner of door threshholds, I
remember one customer was pissed because they had just bought the house and
had to scrub off all the swastikas from the doors.
not trying to start a flamewar, but believe it or not IBM was in with the
nazis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
I am surprised they don't throw that in with their "we sent a computer into
space" and other "we did this first" commericals...
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Jules Richardson wrote:
Diane Bruce wrote:
I'll have to see about taking a photo of it tonight. Due to the time frame
of when the book would have been published, I'm inclined to think it is
just some random design, and someone not
thinking. Still it's strange. It's also strange to have something like
that on the spine of the book given that it's from a publisher I
recognized.
Zane
Can we move on to the next weird offbeat
conspiracy theory? This one is
boring.
OTOH, there is no conspiracy, but I find reading about potential meanings
/ sources of this particular book's symbol* interesting (Zane, do you have a
photo?)
* and that includes the possibility that it's entirely random and intended
for decorative purposes only, of course :-)
11:38 p.m.
On 15 Jun 2011 at 15:20, joe lobocki wrote:
not trying to start a flamewar, but believe it or not
IBM was in with
the nazis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
That book (as well as the Annals article that preceded it) has been
duly noted.
But then, so was Prescott Bush (the father of George HW Bush), Henry
Ford, and a whole host of others doing business with the Nazis. Some
Americans considered it good business.
Can we please kill the thread now?
--Chuck
9:31 a.m.
On 15 Jun 2011 at 11:45, Diane Bruce wrote:
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 08:09:24AM -0700, Zane H.
Healy wrote:
Well, things and their meanings change. For instance, you might
Google "Bellamy Salute".
--Chuck
At 5:37 AM +0000 6/15/11, vintagecoder at aol.com
wrote:
>I don't the history of the symbol itself but I have read in a few
>places it was a sign of good luck (apparently not for everybody,
>though) before it was used by the Nazis.
http://www.floridashootersnetwork.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=39102&st…
=0
It's not something anyone would want to remember after WWII.
9:53 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:31:38AM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 15 Jun 2011 at 11:45, Diane Bruce wrote:
i...
Well, things and their meanings change. For instance, you might
Google "Bellamy Salute".
I knew about that one already. I was rather hoping I could avoid mentioning
it on this list tbh.
--Chuck
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
1:50 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Zane H. Healy wrote:
There is that, there is also the possibility that no
one really
thought anything of it. I've had the book sitting on a shelf for
years, and my wife just noticed it. Of course the shelf has only
been visable for about 2 years, but...
There are many "whirligig" patterns, that are not necessarily affiliated
with the logos of WW2.
If you draw a square, then draw both diagonals, then color in every other
created triangle, . . . (then put that logo design on the spine of an IBM
360/370 book, . . .
A devoutly Jewish friend was designing and building a rotating bookcase, .
. . until he glanced at the TOP view of it.
Somebody needs to warn the world that all four bladed windmills , . . .
With some careful selection of fonts and line lengths, you can find
warning messages about Microsoft in vertical columns of the bible!
Not to mention, that if you pick an appropriate character representation
(5 bits works better than 8), you can follow the characters of PI out
zillions of digits and find a Microsoft copyright message!
'course, where _I_ work, the question isn't "Are you paranoid?",
it's "Are
you paranoid enough?".
9:33 a.m.
On 6/15/11 1:37 AM, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote:
IBM started out as a German company. There was a book
put out after
research done by Edwin Black showing IBM was part of the Nazi war
apparatus, since they needed information processing capabilities to
identify "enemies of the state" and round them up for execution.
Whether the above is a crock or not, this thread happening today is
an interesting coincidence for me. My lady and I were at our new
building on Monday sweeping and cleaning up stuff. I took a fresh air
break (no power there yet, ugh) and was hanging out outside the front
door, when a guy who was walking by stopped and chatted me up.
He was a very nice guy, but apparently he's the neighborhood bible
thumper (ugh) and conspiracy theorist (ugh again). He talked about how
IBM was originally a German company and supplied card equipment to the
Germans and was "partially responsible" for the Holocaust. Obviously he
had read Black's book...with a very active imagination.
And obviously, being interested in good stuff like technology and not
bullshit like war and people being dicks to each other, I really didn't
give a rat's ass. ;) But, as he was very friendly, I listened to what
he had to say as his point of view was so very bizarre.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10:59 a.m.
On 6/15/2011 12:33 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
He was a very nice guy, but apparently he's the
neighborhood bible
thumper (ugh) and conspiracy theorist (ugh again).
<snip>
But, as he was very friendly, I listened to what he
had to say as his point of view was so very bizarre.
I have a habit of entertaining "crazy" people longer than most people
have the patience for. I try to have an open mind, and I think there's
not much harm in listening to other people's viewpoints, even if the
average joe might dismiss them (much sooner than I) as crazy.
I often try to do a couple things:
1> try to understand how they came to believe this type of thing
2> to fully understand what their beliefs are
3> get them to tell me the most extreme thing about their subject that
they fully believe in.
Most of the time I spend time trying to understand why an otherwise
intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions about some
things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer
around when faith steps into the room. Mind you, I'm not necessarily
linking religion with faith, but rather faith in the context of "belief
w/o adequate scientific proof"
Keith
11:34 a.m.
Most of the time I spend time trying to understand why
an otherwise
intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions about
some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no
longer around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their
common sense to believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s)
is somehow "different".
11:39 a.m.
On Jun 15, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I believe in God because saying "Nobody Dammit!" sounds dumb.
Most of the time I spend time trying to
understand why an otherwise intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions
about some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer
around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their common sense to
believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s) is somehow
"different". 
11:58 a.m.
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
On Jun 15, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I believe in God because saying "Nobody Dammit!" sounds dumb.
You are SO lucky I didn't have a mouthful of coffee just then.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
Most of the time I spend time trying to
understand why an otherwise intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions
about some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer
around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their common sense to
believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s) is somehow
"different". 
16 Jun
16 Jun
5:42 a.m.
On 15 June 2011 19:39, Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
On Jun 15, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I believe in God because saying "Nobody Dammit!" sounds dumb.
It does? Why? And do you seriously think "a magic sky-fairy did it and
ran away" is /less/ dumb?
I always liked this definition of christianity:
The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make
you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically
tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force
Most of the time I spend time trying to
understand why an otherwise intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions
about some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer
around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". ?I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their common sense to
believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s) is somehow
"different". from your soul that is present in humanity because a
rib-woman was
convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
6:55 a.m.
On Jun 16, 2011, at 7:42 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 15 June 2011 19:39, Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav
at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
Yes, seriously. Try to yell that out loud after you've smacked your fingers with a
hammer, burned yourself with a soldering iron,
or driven a pair of RM03s halfway across the continent without setting the head locks and
then attempted to mount a pack.
It's really long and unwieldy. "God Dammit!" is short and easy to say. I
think the winner here is clear.
For the sentence to make sense, God must exist. Therefore, God exists so that I can swear
out loud after I've done something dumb.
It makes me feel better than just sitting there thinking about what a dumbass I am, so it
serves a purpose.
It also seems to be just as good a reason as most of the other ones people have come up
with.
On Jun 15, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I believe in God because saying "Nobody Dammit!" sounds dumb.
It does? Why? And do you seriously think "a magic sky-fairy did it and
ran away" is /less/ dumb? Most of the time I spend time trying to
understand why an otherwise intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions
about some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer
around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their common sense to
believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s) is somehow
"different".
7:03 a.m.
On 16 June 2011 14:55, Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
On Jun 16, 2011, at 7:42 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Excellent. I like it.
I personally amended my curses to "gods damnit" (etc.) so the
christians don't pounce on me and tell me I do secretly believe every
time I lose my temper. Gods plural seems to instantly set one aside
On 15 June 2011 19:39, Daniel Seagraves
<dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
Yes, seriously. Try to yell that out loud after you've smacked your fingers with a
hammer, burned yourself with a soldering iron,
or driven a pair of RM03s halfway across the continent without setting the head locks and
then attempted to mount a pack.
It's really long and unwieldy. "God Dammit!" is short and easy to say. I
think the winner here is clear.
For the sentence to make sense, God must exist. Therefore, God exists so that I can swear
out loud after I've done something dumb.
It makes me feel better than just sitting there thinking about what a dumbass I am, so it
serves a purpose.
It also seems to be just as good a reason as most of the other ones people have come up
with.
On Jun 15, 2011, at 1:34 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
It does? Why? And do you seriously think "a magic sky-fairy did it and
ran away" is /less/ dumb?
> Most of the time I spend time trying to understand why an otherwise intelligent
person could come to such unsupported conclusions about some things. It's as if their
logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". ?I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their common sense to
believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s) is somehow
"different".
I believe in God because saying "Nobody Dammit!" sounds dumb. from almost every major religious group except the
Hindu.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
7:26 a.m.
On 06/16/2011 10:03 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
I personally amended my curses to "gods
damnit" (etc.) so the
christians don't pounce on me and tell me I do secretly believe every
time I lose my temper. Gods plural seems to instantly set one aside
from almost every major religious group except the Hindu.
"gods dammit" was used in the updated "Battlestar Galactica" series.
Barry
8 a.m.
On 16 June 2011 15:26, Barry L. Kline <blkline at attglobal.net> wrote:
On 06/16/2011 10:03 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Yes indeed. I was doing it first, though, honest! :?) I draw the line
at "frack", though.
ISTM that for a US series, the whole polytheist-mainstream and
heretical monotheistic underground must have been quite transgressive
over there. Is that so?
It doesn't have much cultural relevance in the rest of the
English-speaking world, which is fairly multicutural and
religion-free.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
I personally amended my curses to "gods
damnit" (etc.) so the
christians don't pounce on me and tell me I do secretly believe every
time I lose my temper. Gods plural seems to instantly set one aside
from almost every major religious group except the Hindu.
"gods dammit" was used in the updated "Battlestar Galactica" series.
15 Jun
15 Jun
11:42 a.m.
From Nazism to religion, didn't this thread Godwin
itself from the beginning?
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- I used to not finish sentences, but now I ----------------------------------
6:33 p.m.
At 2:34 PM -0400 6/15/11, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I can't grasp how otherwise intelligent, rational people, especially
techies, don't believe in God. The alternative is illogical, as we
understand better than most, just how complex things really are.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
Most of the
time I spend time trying to understand why an otherwise
intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions about
some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is
no longer around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their
common sense to believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in
god(s) is somehow "different".
8:49 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 2:34 PM -0400 6/15/11, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I can't grasp how otherwise intelligent, rational people, especially techies,
don't believe in God. The alternative is illogical, as we understand better
than most, just how complex things really are.
Because we're not gullible?
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
Most of
the time I spend time trying to understand why an otherwise
intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions about some
things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is no longer
around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their common
sense to believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in god(s) is
somehow "different". 
9:12 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb at deltasoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Zane H. Healy wrote:
I can't grasp how otherwise intelligent, rational people, especially
techies, don't believe in God. The alternative is illogical, as we
understand better than most, just how complex things really are.
Because we're not gullible?
g.
From my perspective believing in something greater then
yourself keeps most
people out of trouble (be it GOD, family, nation, etc). When
somebody starts
organizing that perspective into an infallible religion that makes all other
religions false you start to have problems (especially when those people use
the word of GOD for their own amusement, persecution of people they don't
like, and to make a shitload of tax free money).
From a techie standpoint you can't have a couple
dozen religions based on
the written infallible word of GOD that all contradict
each other and have
known incorrect teachings and believe it. Basically they can't all be
correct, but they can all be wrong.
Complexity is just a bunch of simple things going on at the same time and
interacting with each other. Anybody who knows complex math can simulate
something very complex with a relatively simple equation. To those without a
mathematical background its too hard to figure out so it must be magic! The
longer humankind keeps digging into how things work, the more we will turn
that magic into equations that don't look so complex after all.
16 Jun
16 Jun
1:07 a.m.
Zane
I think a logical person might first ask 'What is God'
Personally I am neutral, neither believing or disbelieving.
There are two quotes that come to mind.
"There is more evil done in the name of God than that of the Devil"
"God exists only in the mind of the believer. But to him he is real."
That said I return to my collection of DEC Computers.
Very much the work of men. Many of whom I knew.
Regards
?
Rod Smallwood
?
?
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy
Sent: 16 June 2011 02:34
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; General Discussion:
Subject: Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
At 2:34 PM -0400 6/15/11, Evan Koblentz wrote:
I can't grasp how otherwise intelligent, rational people, especially
techies, don't believe in God. The alternative is illogical, as we
understand better than most, just how complex things really are.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
Most of the
time I spend time trying to understand why an otherwise
intelligent person could come to such unsupported conclusions about
some things. It's as if their logical thinking breaks down, and is
no longer around when faith steps into the room.
That's exactly how I feel about "God". I cannot grasp why otherwise
intelligent, rational people -- especially techies -- suspend their
common sense to believe in an invisible man in the sky.
I welcome a debate with anyone here who claims that believing in
god(s) is somehow "different".
5:50 a.m.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 06:33:45PM -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 2:34 PM -0400 6/15/11, Evan Koblentz wrote:
>>Most of the time I spend time trying to understand why an otherwise
...
I can't grasp how otherwise intelligent, rational people, especially
techies, don't believe in God. The alternative is illogical, as we
understand better than most, just how complex things really are.
So, you are saying that because things are complex, something must
have created this complexity? So this thing whatever it is, would
have to be more complex to create the complexity we see. So what
created this thing that is even more complex than the universe?
Tell me this was a POE.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
5:56 a.m.
XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX X
X X X X X X X X X
XXXXX X X X XXXXX X X X
X X X X X X X
XXXXX X XXXXX X XXXXX X X
6:10 a.m.
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:56:43AM -0400, Mike Loewen wrote:
XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX X
X X X X X X X X X
XXXXX X X X XXXXX X X X
X X X X X X X
XXXXX X XXXXX X XXXXX X X
That would make a lot of noise on a asr-33. ;-)
But yes I agree.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
12:51 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:56:43AM -0400, Mike Loewen wrote:
Yes, it did. Next time, please use different characters, not all 'X's to
equalise the wear on my type cylinder.
Getting moderatly on-topic, does anyone remember doing graphgics with a
daisywheel printer? Most such printers allowed you to position the
carriage and feed the paper accurately, and you printed '.' charactes in
the appropraite places. IIRC, the ApplePlot progam for the Apple ][
included a high-res screen dump routing to a Qume Sprint 5 printer which
did this. Made a helluva racket.
I also remember (and may still have somewhere), plastic daisywheels with
a metal insert on the '.' character to extend the life of the wheel when
used like this.
I was amazed when reading the dcoumetaiton for the HP9871 daisywheel printer
(no, I don;t have one, which I did). that it had set of plotting
commands. Typical HP...
-tony
XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX X
X X X X X X X X X
XXXXX X X X XXXXX X X X
X X X X X X X
XXXXX X XXXXX X XXXXX X X
That would make a lot of noise on a asr-33. ;-)
6:47 a.m.
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Mike Loewen wrote:
XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX X
X X X X X X X X X
XXXXX X X X XXXXX X X X
X X X X X X X
XXXXX X XXXXX X XXXXX X X
With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND, bitches!" :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
8:17 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
8:29 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a
while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Commodore versus Spectrum. That's my kind of religious war.
Also, vi >>> emacs.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Light is faster than sound. Some folks look bright until you hear them speak.
8:30 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 Jun 2011 at 8:17, Christian Liendo wrote:
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a
while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
Ones' complement arithmetic vs. two's complement--or where to put the
apostrophe?
--Chuck
8:34 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 2011-06-16 at 08:30 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jun 2011 at 8:17, Christian Liendo wrote:
Endianess arguments are always amusing.
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread
in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
Ones' complement arithmetic vs. two's complement--or where to put the
apostrophe?
8:36 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Big Endian vs. Little Endian
8:50 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Big Endian vs. Little Endian
At the end of the credits for the original Connectix Virtual PC for Mac is
my favourite quip on the subject, "Endian Little Hate We."
That said, my two favourite architectures (PPC and 6502) are traditionally
big-endian and little-endian respectively, though in fairness PPC can be
bi-endian.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- If your happiness depends on anyone else, you've got a problem. -- R. Bach -
17 Jun
17 Jun
6:25 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 June 2011 20:53, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
-tony (Who can't use an infix calculator).
Really? So you can't read or write algebraic equations, either?
Because if you can type it, you have therefore shown that can press
buttons in that order - which is how calculators work.
Personally, at a wet-behind-the-ears 43y old, I've never used an RPN
calculator, but I know that I don't really understand RPN and trying
to unpack equations and rewrite them in RPN was extremely hard work
for me...
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
9 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Jun 17, 2011, at 6:25 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Personally, at a wet-behind-the-ears 43y old, I've
never used an RPN
calculator, but I know that I don't really understand RPN and trying
to unpack equations and rewrite them in RPN was extremely hard work
for me...
By comparison, I find RPN inherently makes sense.
Then I learned Forth as my first programming language in 1979 when I was a child. What
that says about me I'm not sure, but you can take from it what you will.
2:57 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
From: feedle at feedle.net
On Jun 17, 2011, at 6:25 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Hi
I always find it interesting that people mention unpacking an equation
as one of the reasons they don't like RPN. It is funny because that same
unpacking is exactly what is needed to solve the equation.
When building complex operations that require specific sequencing I always
find that RPN thinking makes sense. It is just telling the computer,
"Do this, then this and then this". No ambiguity and no interpretation just
do what I told you to do. Any interactions are fully understood because
the computer is not allowed to change any of the orders.
In equations, we put () in place to indicate order in programs, we are
supposed to describe things in the order we expect them handled.
It is a mixed and confusing system.
Dwight
Personally, at a wet-behind-the-ears 43y old,
I've never used an RPN
calculator, but I know that I don't really understand RPN and trying
to unpack equations and rewrite them in RPN was extremely hard work
for me...
By comparison, I find RPN inherently makes sense.
Then I learned Forth as my first programming language in 1979 when I was a child. What
that says about me I'm not sure, but you can take from it what you will.
18 Jun
18 Jun
10:32 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I always find it interesting that people mention
unpacking an equation
as one of the reasons they don't like RPN. It is funny because that same
unpacking is exactly what is needed to solve the equation.
My view exactrly (and a similar comment was made in the excellent user
manuals for HP RPN calcualtors 30-40 years ago). If you cna evaulate the
experession by hand -- that is if you can work out what operation to do
first, then what to do next, and so on, you cna turn it into RPN with no
more work. And if you can't work out how to do it by hand, I don;t think
you just just type it into a calcualtor or computer to get an answer that
you hope is the right one.
-tony
17 Jun
17 Jun
2:30 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 June 2011 20:53, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
YEs, I can. but actually, I find postfix notation a lot clearer and more
logical.
When it comes to using a calcualtor, I find that if I try to use an infix
one, I am forver prssign the keys in the wrong order (as in 'OK, I want
to halve that result' and will press the 2 before the divide key, thus
reasign the result on an infix machine).
With an infix machine, I have to think what I am doing all the time, with
an RPN machine, it's automatic.
And that's not to mention the fact that on an RPN machine I know exactly
what will happen when I press a key (the operaion will be executed there
and then, noting is stored for later use), wehreas on an infix machien I
have ot think 'does this machien obey the heirarchy rules, and if so,
which ones).
In otehr words, on an ifix machine, I have to think what '1+2*3' will
evaluate to, on an RPN machine I know exactly what 1 2 3 * + or
1 2 + 3 * will do.
-tony (Who can't use an infix calculator).
Really? So you can't read or write algebraic equations, either?
Because if you can type it, you have therefore shown that can press
buttons in that order - which is how calculators work.
Firsltym not it isn't (see above) amd secondly, it appears that you and I
use claculators in differnet ways. Very often I don't have an expression
to evaulate. It's more a matter of 'Let's work out the reactance of that
cpaactiro at this frequency. Now let's add on (in quadrature) the total
resistance of that chaim. Now let's work out...' That sort of thing is
much easier on an RPN machine, I can assure you.
Personally, at a wet-behind-the-ears 43y old, I've
never used an RPN
calculator, but I know that I don't really understand RPN and trying
to unpack equations and rewrite them in RPN was extremely hard work
for me...
Odd. It took me less than an afternoon to learn it about 30 years ago.
And I am darn glad I did.
-tony
18 Jun
18 Jun
5:19 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 June 2011 22:30, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Thanks for the serious answer!
I'm intrigued. I don't understand, but that's OK.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
On 16 June 2011 20:53, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
YEs, I can. but actually, I find postfix notation a lot clearer and more
logical.
When it comes to using a calcualtor, I find that if I try to use an infix
one, I am forver prssign the keys in the wrong order (as in 'OK, I want
to halve that result' and will press the 2 before the divide key, thus
reasign the result on an infix machine).
With an infix machine, I have to think what I am doing all the time, with
an RPN machine, it's automatic.
And that's not to mention the fact that on an RPN machine I know exactly
what will happen when I press a key (the operaion will be executed there
and then, noting is stored for later use), wehreas on an infix machien I
have ot think 'does this machien obey the heirarchy rules, and if so,
which ones).
In otehr words, on an ifix machine, I have to think what '1+2*3' will
evaluate to, on an RPN machine I know exactly what 1 2 3 * + or
1 2 + 3 * will do.
-tony (Who can't use an infix calculator).
Really? So you can't read or write algebraic equations, either?
Because if you can type it, you have therefore shown that can press
buttons in that order - which is how calculators work.
Firsltym not it isn't (see above) amd secondly, it appears that you and I
use claculators in differnet ways. Very often I don't have an expression
to evaulate. It's more a matter of 'Let's work out the reactance of that
cpaactiro at this frequency. Now let's add on (in quadrature) the total
resistance of that chaim. Now let's work out...' That sort of thing is
much easier on an RPN machine, I can assure you.
Personally, at a wet-behind-the-ears 43y old,
I've never used an RPN
calculator, but I know that I don't really understand RPN and trying
to unpack equations and rewrite them in RPN was extremely hard work
for me...
Odd. It took me less than an afternoon to learn it about 30 years ago.
And I am darn glad I did.
5:53 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 19 Jun 2011 at 1:19, Liam Proven wrote:
I'm intrigued. I don't understand, but
that's OK.
After having used both infix and postfix calculators, I think postfix
is far more natural to my way of thinking. But that might also be
because of too much time spent with the HP16C.
--Chuck
6:25 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/18/11 8:53 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
After having used both infix and postfix calculators,
I think postfix
is far more natural to my way of thinking. But that might also be
because of too much time spent with the HP16C.
Or just enough. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
19 Jun
19 Jun
11:21 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
[Reasons why I use an RPN calculator snipped]
I'm intrigued. I don't understand, but
that's OK.
What don;'t you understand ? RPN, or why I prefer to use it?
For the former, I assume you are happy with the ideal of a stack. You
read an RPN expression left to right. When you come to a number, push it
onto the stack. One-argument functions (SIN, SQRT, etc) take the number
of the top of stack, perforem the operation on it, and push the result
(so the sizxe of the stack is unchanged). Two-argument fucntions take 2
numbers off the stack, combine them, and push the result (so the stack is
reduced in size by oen item).
Some RPN-based languages and machines allow you to push other things onto
th stack (strings, expressions, complex numbers, arrays, etc) and have
functions that take more than 2 arguments and, indeed return more htan
one reuslt. But the rules are the same. Data is pushed onto the stack,
functions thak the arguemtns they need (and remove them from the stack)
and push the reuslt.
And that's really all there is to RPN.
As to why I like it, I prefer tools (in the genral sense) that willalways
do what I expect. I want to think about the problem I am trying to solve,
not have to worry about what the calcualtor (or whatever) is going to do.
RPN has 2 main advntages here. The first is that the above rules are all
you need. There are no rules of heirarchy. no brackets, nothing like
that. FUcntions are evaluated as you come to them rreading the expresion.
I don't ahve to think about what the machine is goign to do.
The second is that it's very easy to 'chain' calculations together,
partuclarly on a machine with an arbitrarily large stack (such as HP's
RPL calcualtors). For example I can do things like :
4700 2200 + 10000 + (That's the total resistanec of a 4.7k, 2.2k and 10k
resiutor in series)
3300 3900 + (that's a 3.3k and a 3.9k in series), not that the previous
result is not cleared, it's sitting in the sxcond stack level
INV SWAP INV + INV (where INV is the reciprocal function, and SWAP
exchanges the top 2 stack levels) to work out what the resistance of
those 2 resistor chains in parallel is.
It's possible to do that sort of thing on some infix calculators, but uou
normally have to plan it out rather more, store results in a memory
register by hand, etc. RPN does that sort of thing automatcially.
RPN is, I suppose rather differnt to many modern computer products. The
latter seem to be designed to make simple problems trivial, but
unfortunately, they make complex problems very difficult or impossible.
RPN (and in gnerally the tools I prefer) makes simple problems pehaps a
little more dififcult (but is it really harder to type 2 2 + rahter than
2 + 2?) but make dififuclt problems a lot easier. Since generally I sue
calcualtors and computers for difficult problems that I can't solve in my
head, I prefer such tools.
-tony
3:58 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
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On 06/19/2011 02:21 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
but is it really harder to type 2 2 + rahter than
2 + 2?
Actually, that would be 2 + 2 =
I prefer RPN myself. RPN is never having to press =
Barry
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20 Jun
20 Jun
1 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 06/19/2011 02:21 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Yes, and I suppose on older RPN calculaotrs the first is 2 ENTER 2 + .
Spo the same numebr of keystrokes.
For simple calcu;lations, RPN and Infix are about equal in number of
keystrokes and ease of use. For complex calcualtors, RPN is a lot quicker
and easier.
but is it really harder to type 2 2 + rahter than
2 + 2?
Actually, that would be 2 + 2 = I prefer RPN myself. RPN is never having to press =
Well, unless ou want to compare 2 values :-)
It's the lack of brackets and having to think what they mean that makes
RPN a big win. actually.
The conventional infix ntoation is silly. The person who generates the
expresson to evaluate has to add brackets to ensure it's evaulated in the
ordr he wants. And the person evaulating it has to then work out which
operation (in the inntermost brackets) to do first. With RPN the person
genrating the expression simply ptus down the operations in the order
they are to be performed, and th eperson evaulating it just reads it
left-to-rigth and does said operations.
-tony
3:25 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 20 Jun 2011 at 21:00, Tony Duell wrote:
The conventional infix ntoation is silly. The person
who generates the
expresson to evaluate has to add brackets to ensure it's evaulated in
the ordr he wants. And the person evaulating it has to then work out
which operation (in the inntermost brackets) to do first. With RPN the
person genrating the expression simply ptus down the operations in the
order they are to be performed, and th eperson evaulating it just
reads it left-to-rigth and does said operations.
I suppose a calculator with infix entry wouldn't be so bad if it
would store the entire entry until the = key is pressed, then
evaluate it observing rules of operator precedence.
But none AFAIK do, so an infix calculator really isn't.
--Chuck
7:14 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I suppose a calculator with infix entry wouldn't
be so bad if it
would store the entire entry until the = key is pressed, then
evaluate it observing rules of operator precedence.
But none AFAIK do, so an infix calculator really isn't.
I take it you've never used a 'graphing calculator'? The TI-82, TI-83,
TI-85 and probably other models all do exactly what you describe, and have
been selling 1 per high school student in the USA for some time now...
Alexey
7:27 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 21 Jun 2011 at 2:14, Alexey Toptygin wrote:
I take it you've never used a 'graphing
calculator'? The TI-82, TI-83,
TI-85 and probably other models all do exactly what you describe, and
have been selling 1 per high school student in the USA for some time
now...
No, when I was in high school, if you brought a calculator, it
probably meant something like a Victor Comptometer.
In college, it was a slide rule, although I did know a rich kid with
a Curta. Wonder if that was the last advanced technical product to
come out of Liechtenstein...
--Chuck
7:44 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/20/11 7:27 PM, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 21 Jun 2011 at 2:14, Alexey Toptygin wrote:
It's been so long sine I have HAD to use one, I cannot, for the life of me
remember how to use my slide rule :(
I take it you've never used a 'graphing
calculator'? The TI-82, TI-83,
TI-85 and probably other models all do exactly what you describe, and
have been selling 1 per high school student in the USA for some time
now...
No, when I was in high school, if you brought a calculator, it
probably meant something like a Victor Comptometer.
In college, it was a slide rule, although I did know a rich kid with
a Curta. Wonder if that was the last advanced technical product to
come out of Liechtenstein...
--Chuck
21 Jun
21 Jun
11:56 a.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
> In college, it was a slide rule, although I did
know a rich kid with
> a Curta. Wonder if that was the last advanced technical product to
I'd lovea Curta. but not at the price they now sell for :-). They really
are fun to frob about with...
> come out of Liechtenstein...
Isn';t that where Nutrik connectors (haigh quality audoo connectors)
claim to come from? Althought I doubt they're made there.
--Chuck
It's been so long sine I have HAD to use one, I cannot, for the life of me
remember how to use my slide rule :(
1:11 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
> It's been so long sine I have HAD to use one,
I cannot, for the life of me
> remember how to use my slide rule :(
On Tue, 21 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
Eh? If you undersnad what a slide rule really does (it
add lengths
essentially) and know what a logarithm is, you don;t need to remember
hgow to sue one.
In addition to using scales C & D to add logarithms (multiply!),
scales A & D (or B & C) give you squares and square roots.
A decent slide rule usually had half a dozen other useful scales.
In 1966?, for the SATs?, slide rules were not permitted, and, for obvious
historical reasons, they didn't need to write calculators in the rules. I
couldn't afford to test their reaction to a Curta.
But they encouraged us to bring scratch paper! Even log paper! It did
not require any serious origami skill to make a quite usable slide rule.
The next year, THEY supplied blank unlined scratch paper.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
1:34 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
> It's been so long sine I have HAD to use
one, I cannot, for the life of me
> remember how to use my slide rule :(
On Tue, 21 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
Eh? If you undersnad what a slide rule really
does (it add lengths
essentially) and know what a logarithm is, you don;t need to remember
hgow to sue one.
In addition to using scales C & D to add logarithms (multiply!),
scales A & D (or B & C) give you squares and square roots.
A decent slide rule usually had half a dozen other useful scales.
I've always wanted a slide rule with the C and D scaled marked with the
E48 (or at least E24 resisotr values). Then if I want a particular ratio
in potential divider, I can sert the slide and see which values line up
(or at least are close to lining up).
In 1966?, for the SATs?, slide rules were not
permitted, and, for obvious
FWIW, I've always felt that uou shpuld be able to birng anything you like
into an exam, apart from another person or a communicatin device to
another person. It's a more realistic test of your abilities (If I am
asked to desing or make soemthing, I use whatever books, calculators,
tools, tc I can that will help me do so) and if the exam was properly
written it would not mean idiots would pass.
historical reasons, they didn't need to write
calculators in the rules. I
couldn't afford to test their reaction to a Curta.
But they encouraged us to bring scratch paper! Even log paper! It did
not require any serious origami skill to make a quite usable slide rule.
Hmm. I think that anybosy who makes their own slide rule in this way
deserves to pass. With flying colours.
-tony
2:03 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
Tony Duell wrote:
FWIW, I've always felt that uou shpuld be able to
birng anything you
like
into an exam, apart from another person or a
communicatin device to
another person.
I was in an undergrad math class in the early 1980s, and the students
kept pestering the instructor about whether they could use this, that,
or the other thing on the exam. The instructor finally said that they
could use anything that they could carry into the room. One guy carried
in a grad student.
2:32 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
On 21 Jun 2011 at 14:03, Eric Smith wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
I was in an undergrad math class in the early 1980s,
and the students
kept pestering the instructor about whether they could use this, that,
or the other thing on the exam. The instructor finally said that they
could use anything that they could carry into the room. One guy
carried in a grad student.
I remember that Sam Conte would lug in a big Monroe(ISTR) adding
machine to the first session of his Numerical Analysis classes at
Purdue to demonstrate the idea of significance and error.
Isn't there a little project on the web that uses a SDHC and a small
microcontroller to render the entire contents of Wikipeida (sans
images) as a nice iPod-sized gizmo?
--Chuck
22 Jun
22 Jun
11:14 a.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
Tony Duell wrote:
There are sevral (apocryphal) stories of students being told they can
'bring Feynman to the exam' (meaning, of course, the 3 read books or
equivalent) and somebody turning up with the Porfessor himself. Fromwhat
I've read, I could well believe that Feynman would go along with such a
stunt :-)
-tony
FWIW, I've always felt that uou shpuld be
able to birng anything you
like
into an exam, apart from another person or a
communicatin device to
another person.
I was in an undergrad math class in the early 1980s, and the students
kept pestering the instructor about whether they could use this, that,
or the other thing on the exam. The instructor finally said that they
could use anything that they could carry into the room. One guy carried
in a grad student.
12:28 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
After reading, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" I would agree.
:)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
Tony Duell wrote:
There are sevral (apocryphal) stories of students being told they can
'bring Feynman to the exam' (meaning, of course, the 3 read books or
equivalent) and somebody turning up with the Porfessor himself. Fromwhat
I've read, I could well believe that Feynman would go along with such a
stunt :-)
FWIW, I've always felt that uou shpuld be
able to birng anything you
like
into an exam, apart from another person or a
communicatin device to
another person.
I was in an undergrad math class in the early 1980s, and the students
kept pestering the instructor about whether they could use this, that,
or the other thing on the exam. The instructor finally said that they
could use anything that they could carry into the room. One guy carried
in a grad student.
3:57 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
On 6/22/11 12:28 PM, "Gene Buckle" <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
One of may favorite reads. A shame he passed before his time.
On Wed, 22 Jun
2011, Tony Duell wrote:
There are sevral (apocryphal) stories of students being told they can
'bring Feynman to the exam' (meaning, of course, the 3 read books or
equivalent) and somebody turning up with the Porfessor himself. Fromwhat
I've read, I could well believe that Feynman would go along with such a
stunt :-)
After reading, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" I would agree.
:)
g.
7:24 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, Geoffrey Reed wrote:
On 6/22/11 12:28 PM, "Gene Buckle" <geneb
at deltasoft.com> wrote:
One of may favorite reads. A shame he passed before his time.
Agreed. I'm a
complete hamster when it comes to math, but I could listen
to him talk for hours, even if I didn't half of what he was saying.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
On Wed,
22 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
There are sevral (apocryphal) stories of students being told they can
'bring Feynman to the exam' (meaning, of course, the 3 read books or
equivalent) and somebody turning up with the Porfessor himself. Fromwhat
I've read, I could well believe that Feynman would go along with such a
stunt :-)
After reading, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" I would agree.
:)
g. 
23 Jun
23 Jun
10 a.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gene Buckle
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 7:24 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, Geoffrey Reed wrote:
I too enjoyed Feynman's biographical books, as well as his Lectures on Physics. He
also wrote about computation, another book I have in my collection. -- Ian
On 6/22/11 12:28 PM, "Gene Buckle"
<geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
One of may favorite reads. A shame he passed before his time.
Agreed. I'm a
complete hamster when it comes to math, but I could listen to
him talk for hours, even if I didn't half of what he was saying.
On Wed,
22 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
There are sevral (apocryphal) stories of students being told they
can 'bring Feynman to the exam' (meaning, of course, the 3 read
books or
equivalent) and somebody turning up with the Porfessor himself.
Fromwhat I've read, I could well believe that Feynman would go
along with such a stunt :-)
After reading, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" I would agree.
:)
g.
22 Jun
22 Jun
12:36 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Duell" <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
Back in the late 80's in engineering school we had issues with the ever
expanding memory on scientific calculators (I used a Tandy PC-6) and how
people could dump enough information and equations to cheat on tests.
Professors at the time (some using very old HP calcs that were pre LCD) had
no idea you could dump lots of text and full equations into current models
of calculators.
Tony Duell wrote:
There are sevral (apocryphal) stories of students being told they can
'bring Feynman to the exam' (meaning, of course, the 3 read books or
equivalent) and somebody turning up with the Porfessor himself. Fromwhat
I've read, I could well believe that Feynman would go along with such a
stunt :-)
-tony FWIW, I've always felt that uou shpuld be
able to birng anything you
like
into an exam, apart from another person or a
communicatin device to
another person.
I was in an undergrad math class in the early 1980s, and the students
kept pestering the instructor about whether they could use this, that,
or the other thing on the exam. The instructor finally said that they
could use anything that they could carry into the room. One guy carried
in a grad student.
21 Jun
21 Jun
11:36 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
On 2011 Jun 21, at 1:11 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
As a kid ca. 1974, I received one slide rule for a high school honours
award, and another (a sophisticated, 21 scales, 'professional' Faber
Castell) as a gift. Not to say I didn't learn something from them, but
they were both just in time to be useless in practice as scientific
calculators took over.
While I much prefer RPN for execution on a key-press calculator, I'd
rather read and write infix for textual presentation and programming.
I'm not really that fond of Forth as one has to mentally track the
stack state as you read the code, but it may be a lack of familiarity
as I haven't used really use it extensively.
Does anyone actually prefer RPN for textual presentation?
> It's
been so long sine I have HAD to use one, I cannot, for the life
> of me
> remember how to use my slide rule :(
On Tue, 21 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
Eh? If you undersnad what a slide rule really
does (it add lengths
essentially) and know what a logarithm is, you don;t need to remember
hgow to sue one.
In addition to using scales C & D to add logarithms (multiply!),
scales A & D (or B & C) give you squares and square roots.
A decent slide rule usually had half a dozen other useful scales.
22 Jun
22 Jun
6:33 a.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca
---snip---
I'm not really that fond of Forth as one has to mentally track the
stack state as you read the code, but it may be a lack of familiarity
as I haven't used really use it extensively.
Does anyone actually prefer RPN for textual presentation?
Hi
As you probably know, I'm a great fan of Forth. If it is something
I'm doing for myself, I'll take Forth.
It is easier to write and debug.
As for RPN for equations, I don't think I've ever tried to do
algebra in RPN. I'm not sure it would be as intuitive.
Each has its purpose, I see. RPN is much better for description
of what to do. This is what we write programs to do. Describe
what to do to a computer. It just seem more natural for that
purpose.
Othe languages use mixed, like C. For math, it is infixed and
for everything else, it is post fixed. Surely, that can't be natural.
At least LISP is consistant, everything is postfixed. I just have
a problem debugging LISP because I can't follow the order of
operation as easily ( I suspose one does get used to it ).
So, I guess the answer to your question is that I do not
prefer RPN for testual presentation. Even when I comment
Forth code, I will use infixed notation. As an example, I might
write:
: + ( a b - a+b ) + ;
I'm not sure if that is because I was taught infixed first
or because it is better for presentation.
As for keeping track of the stack, I've always felt that what
Forth needed was a better editor that kept a stack picture
on the side showing state of the stack at the cursor. It
would substitute local comments when ever they were
there but otherwise would use the stack picture of that
operation with the current elements.
The only probem I never figured out was how to handle
the case were one intentionally had a variable number
of items returned on the stack. It isn't used often but
when used, it makes sense. Most times, an unbalanced
stack is an error but not always.
Dwight
10:55 a.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
From: dwight elvey
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 6:33 AM
At least LISP is consistant, everything is postfixed.
I just have
a problem debugging LISP because I can't follow the order of
operation as easily ( I suspose one does get used to it ).
"post" = "after". Lisp is *pre*fixed, i. e., it uses the original
Polish notation, rather than the reverse Polish notation foisted on
us by a calculator manufacturer.[1]
The order of evaluation of a Lisp expression is depth-first, both for
the operator position and for all arguments. Any decent editor will
format the code so that the flow is obvious; for that matter, Lisp has
had pretty-printer functions since the 1960s to take care of that for
you. Lisp is easy to debug.
[1] Yes, I know, RPN came into use before HP started making calculators.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
11:21 a.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
On 22 Jun 2011 at 10:55, Rich Alderson wrote:
"post" = "after". Lisp is
*pre*fixed, i. e., it uses the original
Polish notation, rather than the reverse Polish notation foisted on us
by a calculator manufacturer.[1]
Strictly speaking, it's not pure "reverse Polish" notation. Consider
that infix 3-2 in (forward) Polish notation is - 3 2. If we were
dealing with strictly reversed Polish, both the operators and
operands would be reversed, and thus 2 3 -. But only the operators
are reversed in what we call "Reverse Polish"; thus 3 2 -.
It's one thing that's always bugged me a bit.
--Chuck
11:40 a.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
From: cclist at sydex.com
On 22 Jun 2011 at 10:55, Rich Alderson wrote:
Hi Chuck
I know what you mean. The operators < and > always
confuse me a little for the same reason. I tend to try to think of
it like unrolling it backwards from the operation and that doesn't
work.
You could rewrite Forth easily enough and call it -Forth.
Dwight
"post" = "after". Lisp is
*pre*fixed, i. e., it uses the original
Polish notation, rather than the reverse Polish notation foisted on us
by a calculator manufacturer.[1]
Strictly speaking, it's not pure "reverse Polish" notation. Consider
that infix 3-2 in (forward) Polish notation is - 3 2. If we were
dealing with strictly reversed Polish, both the operators and
operands would be reversed, and thus 2 3 -. But only the operators
are reversed in what we call "Reverse Polish"; thus 3 2 -.
It's one thing that's always bugged me a bit.
--Chuck
11:35 a.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
From: RichA at vulcan.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:55:45 -0700
Subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
From: dwight elvey
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 6:33 AM
Oops!
Your right.It was early in the morning for me.
Dwight
At least LISP is consistant, everything is
postfixed. I just have
a problem debugging LISP because I can't follow the order of
operation as easily ( I suspose one does get used to it ).
"post" = "after". Lisp is *pre*fixed, i. e., it uses the original
Polish notation, rather than the reverse Polish notation foisted on
us by a calculator manufacturer.[1]
3:17 p.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators]
Rich Alderson wrote:
..rather than the reverse Polish notation foisted on
us by a calculator manufacturer.[1]
[1] Yes, I know, RPN came into use before HP started making
calculators.
A few calculators used RPN either internally (for evaluation of
algebraically-entered expressions), or as the means for expression entry
before HP came out with the 9100A.
The Friden 130 was the first calculator to use RPN entry.
The Mathatronics Mathatron used RPN internally. Some really complex
logic allowed it to evaluate algebraic expressions entered in "as
written" form. The algebraic expressions were converted to RPN
internally and evaluated on the fly.
The Monroe EPIC 2000/3000 calculators also used RPN entry.
All of these machines were implemented using discrete transistors and
(delay line|magnetic core) for memory.
The HP 9100A was implemented with the same technologies, but it was done
so elegantly, and in a package that was much smaller and so much more
capable than any of its predecessors. That's what made HP famous as the
"inventor" of RPN in the context of calculators.
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
4:05 p.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
On 6/22/2011 10:55 AM, Rich Alderson wrote:
From: dwight elvey
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 6:33 AM
As befits this conversation of RPN, Lisp, and calculators, I thought I'd
mention that at one point a couple of years back I hacked together a
Lisp "compiler" (really a translator) for the HP-48 series. It's just a
small set of RPL programs that translate Lisp code (written using
curly-braces in the place of parens, since that's what the HP-48 uses to
denote lists) into its RPL equivalent. The similarities between the two
languages is so slight (RPL does stand for "Reverse Polish Lisp" after
all) it only took an afternoon of doodling around to get a decent subset
of Lisp working. Really, it made me appreciate how flexible the HP-48
is -- RPL programs can generate other RPL programs!
As a very simple example,
{defun foo {a b} {+ a b}}
becomes a program named "foo" containing:
<< -> a b << a b + >> >>
Never found a good use for it, but it was a fun exercise :).
(If anyone wants the code, I can send it your way...)
- Josh
At least LISP is consistant, everything is
postfixed. I just have
a problem debugging LISP because I can't follow the order of
operation as easily ( I suspose one does get used to it ).
"post" =
"after". Lisp is *pre*fixed, i. e., it uses the original
Polish notation, rather than the reverse Polish notation foisted on
us by a calculator manufacturer.[1]
The order of evaluation of a Lisp expression is depth-first, both for
the operator position and for all arguments. Any decent editor will
format the code so that the flow is obvious; for that matter, Lisp has
had pretty-printer functions since the 1960s to take care of that for
you. Lisp is easy to debug.
[1] Yes, I know, RPN came into use before HP started making calculators.
4:11 p.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
On 6/22/2011 4:05 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
The similarities between the two languages is so
slight (RPL does
stand for "Reverse Polish Lisp" after all) it only took an afternoon
of doodling around to get a decent subset of Lisp working.
That should be "The *differences* between the two..." but I'm sure you
get the idea...
- Josh
4:21 p.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
On 6/22/11 7:05 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
As befits this conversation of RPN, Lisp, and
calculators, I thought I'd
mention that at one point a couple of years back I hacked together a
Lisp "compiler" (really a translator) for the HP-48 series. It's just a
small set of RPL programs that translate Lisp code (written using
curly-braces in the place of parens, since that's what the HP-48 uses to
denote lists) into its RPL equivalent. The similarities between the two
languages is so slight (RPL does stand for "Reverse Polish Lisp" after
all) it only took an afternoon of doodling around to get a decent subset
of Lisp working. Really, it made me appreciate how flexible the HP-48 is
-- RPL programs can generate other RPL programs!
As a very simple example,
{defun foo {a b} {+ a b}}
becomes a program named "foo" containing:
<< -> a b << a b + >> >>
Never found a good use for it, but it was a fun exercise :).
(If anyone wants the code, I can send it your way...)
Neat!! Hey, I'd love to hack around with that. I have an SX; will
it be ok on there?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
4:45 p.m.
New subject: Lisp and Polish notation [was RE: Calculators Re: Useless thread...]
On 6/22/2011 4:21 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 6/22/11 7:05 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:
Sure, it's up at http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/hplisp now. Just
grabbed it off of my HP-50G, I don't believe it uses anything specific
to any particular HP-4x series (as far as I know, it should work on the
28 as well if you find yourself with time enough to type it in manually).
'EVALUATE' is the main entrypoint, pass it a list representing a lisp
program. DEFUN, IF (named IFF so it doesn't collide with the RPN 'IF'),
LET, LOOP (a very tiny subset), SET, and QUOTE (QUO for brevity's sake)
are intrinsic.
Josh
(If anyone wants the code, I can send it your way...)
Neat!! Hey, I'd love to hack around with that. I have an SX; will
it be ok on there?
-Dave
11:53 a.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System
While I much prefer RPN for execution on a key-press
calculator, I'd
rather read and write infix for textual presentation and programming.
Which is simply an example of 'The right tool to use depends on the
circumstancs', a view that I do not disagree with (and I doubt anyone
else does either).
There are, I agree, some things that are easier to do with an infix
expression (althohgh to be honest, that may be because algebra is taught
using infix, I am certainy it's possible to come up with equivalent rules
to do the manipulations in RPN). In which case I will use infix.
Similarly, I don;t feel that one programming lanugage is the right one to
use for _all_ programs. Or that one piece of electornic test gear is the
best thing to use to find all possible faults.
I'm not really that fond of Forth as one has to mentally track the
stack state as you read the code, but it may be a lack of familiarity
as I haven't used really use it extensively.
It depends on what you are doing. I use Forth (and I use RPL even more),
but not for everything. And yes you do have to keep track of the stack,
but it gets easier with practice.
Does anyone actually prefer RPN for textual
presentation?
I am not sure what you are askingaobut here.
-tony
23 Jun
23 Jun
12:05 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 07:27:18PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 21 Jun 2011 at 2:14, Alexey Toptygin wrote:
Well, Hilti (famous for making proper power tools for serious users) is
a company from Liechtenstein.
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
I take it you've never used a 'graphing
calculator'? The TI-82, TI-83,
TI-85 and probably other models all do exactly what you describe, and
have been selling 1 per high school student in the USA for some time
now...
No, when I was in high school, if you brought a calculator, it
probably meant something like a Victor Comptometer.
In college, it was a slide rule, although I did know a rich kid with
a Curta. Wonder if that was the last advanced technical product to
come out of Liechtenstein...
2:25 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 23 Jun 2011 at 21:05, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
Well, Hilti (famous for making proper power tools for
serious users)
is a company from Liechtenstein.
Sure, that's where their headquarters are, but where are their
products made? This forum seems to indicate that the point of origin
is you-know-where:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81458
Perhaps Harbor Freight could incorporate in San Marino...
All the best,
Chuck
2:42 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/23/11 5:25 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Welcome to America, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of China.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Well, Hilti
(famous for making proper power tools for serious users)
is a company from Liechtenstein.
Sure, that's where their headquarters are, but where are their
products made? This forum seems to indicate that the point of origin
is you-know-where:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81458
5:05 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
On 06/23/2011 05:42 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
Welcome to America, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary
of China.
That's hilarious! Ha ha ha ha ha ha LOL LOL LOL.
Oh wait...... <shrug> damn.
BK
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)
iD4DBQFOA9S1CFu3bIiwtTARArKPAJYoptKHXNzIk2dJWdmsllw3ZTs4AJ9kvgr5
RMhIOFhiW5FNyOEveTviIA==
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2:46 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Sure, that's where their headquarters are, but
where are their
products made? ?This forum seems to indicate that the point of origin
is you-know-where:
I have some Hilti gear, and some is from China, some is from Poland.
Nice tools.
--
Will
3 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 23 Jun 2011 at 17:46, William Donzelli wrote:
I have some Hilti gear, and some is from China, some
is from Poland.
Nice tools.
...and neither is a high-tech product out of Liechtenstein.
In a way, it reminds me of what Fender is doing with their guitars.
Cheap Far East junk clones of their made-in-the-USA gear in stores;
real made-in-USA only for celebrities and rich collectors.
--Chuck
3:16 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
...and neither is a high-tech product out of
Liechtenstein.
There still are a few electronics manufacturers in the country. UV
lamps for the medical industry, and high tech ceramics. So there.
--
Will
5:01 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 23 Jun 2011 at 18:16, William Donzelli wrote:
There still are a few electronics manufacturers in the
country. UV
lamps for the medical industry, and high tech ceramics. So there.
I think it's still interesting that if you search for the phrase
"made in Liechtenstein", the Curta comes up several times in the top
10 returns; the remainder seems to be comprised of t-shirts and
hoodies...
--Chuck
20 Jun
20 Jun
7:27 p.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
~http://www.rogtronics.net
On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Alexey Toptygin <alexeyt at freeshell.org>wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I suppose a calculator with infix entry wouldn't be so bad if it
I always had fun with the Casio FX-7000G, the first graphing calculator from
'85. With a whopping 422 bytes of memory and holds 10 programs with a huge
96x64 pixels display. Mine's a littlle dusty now, but still works. I heard
some schools outlawed these in the beginning cause it was so easy to cheat
;)
=Dan
would store the entire entry until the = key is
pressed, then
evaluate it observing rules of operator precedence.
But none AFAIK do, so an infix calculator really isn't.
I take it you've never used a 'graphing calculator'? The TI-82, TI-83,
TI-85 and probably other models all do exactly what you describe, and have
been selling 1 per high school student in the USA for some time now...
21 Jun
21 Jun
5:25 a.m.
New subject: Calculators Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Dan Roganti wrote:
I always had fun with the Casio FX-7000G, the first
graphing calculator from
'85. With a whopping 422 bytes of memory and holds 10 programs with a huge
96x64 pixels display. Mine's a littlle dusty now, but still works. I heard
some schools outlawed these in the beginning cause it was so easy to cheat
;)
Hmm, I had one like that - not the original black model though, but the
grey one which came a little later. I don't remember the differences now
(more memory?) but it was basically the same thing, I think.
I still have mine in storage, and I remember I added some trailing wires
and a PP3 battery socket as I was fed up of it chewing its way through the
little coin-cell internal batteries.
There was a nice little Mandelbrot program for it, which would take several
hours to run.
cheers
Jules
11:30 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I suppose a calculator with infix entry wouldn't
be so bad if it
would store the entire entry until the = key is pressed, then
evaluate it observing rules of operator precedence.
But none AFAIK do, so an infix calculator really isn't.
Eh? A lot do, going back to the HP9830 (and I think the HP9820, but it's
been a few months since I used that machine). You can type in a long
expression and then evalulate it. You can also recall the expression,
change it and re-evalulate. Yes, these machines are almost 40 years old
now...
Many modern calculators from Casio, TI, Sharp, etc let you do much the
same thing. The HP49/50 series let you either work in algebraic mode
(where they behave like a TI/Casio roughly) or in RPN mode. In the latter
mode you can push an algebraic (infix) expression onto the stack and
evaluate it, or manipulate it.
Perhaps one of the nicest pure infix machines was the HP71B. That has a
'calc' mode where you cna type in an expression and evlauate it, recall
if for editing, etc. But it also has the feature that as soon as a
sub-expression cna be evaluated, it will do so. For example :
If you type 2*3, it remains as that on the display. If you then type +,
the dispaly changes to 6+ (since + hasa lower priortiy than *, the
multiplication cna be evaulated at that point, so that's what the machine
does). It's _almost_ as nice as RPN in that is shows you intermediate
answers too. But I still prefer RPN.
-tony
2:07 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 21 Jun 2011 at 19:30, Tony Duell wrote:
Eh? A lot do, going back to the HP9830 (and I think
the HP9820, but
it's been a few months since I used that machine). You can type in a
long expression and then evalulate it. You can also recall the
expression, change it and re-evalulate. Yes, these machines are almost
40 years old now...
I guess I've been brainwashed by too many cheap calculators. Looking
in my desk drawer, there are a bunch that I've used maybe once and
discarded. The latest is a solar-powered job with an all-but
invisible decimal point display, so to use it, you pretty much have
to keep track of the point mentally.
--Chuck
22 Jun
22 Jun
9:31 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 19 June 2011 19:21, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[Reasons why I use an RPN calculator snipped]
[Explanation cut]
Sorry, I missed this message until Jonas quoted it.
I understand RPN intellectually, but not at a "gut level" - as such I
find it a real pain to actually /use/ - & since there is no need to in
anything I use, that means I don't, and thus I never improve &
probably never will. A bit like binary or octal.
I'm intrigued. I don't understand, but
that's OK.
What don;'t you understand ? RPN, or why I prefer to use it? RPN is, I suppose rather differnt to many modern
computer products. The
latter seem to be designed to make simple problems trivial, but
unfortunately, they make complex problems very difficult or impossible.
RPN (and in gnerally the tools I prefer) makes simple problems pehaps a
little more dififcult (but is it really harder to type 2 2 + rahter than
2 + 2?) but make dififuclt problems a lot easier. Since generally I sue
calcualtors and computers for difficult problems that I can't solve in my
head, I prefer such tools.
Fair enough. I think you have a point there. There is some "dumbing
down" occurring in modern computers. Mostly, I'm strongly in favour of
making them simpler, easier & thus more accessible to more people -
but that does mean that sometimes, functionality is lost, & that's
obviously a damned shame. And occasionally enough to put experienced
users off upgrading altogether - as is currently happening with Ubuntu
and its new Unity desktop.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
12:21 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 19 June 2011 19:21, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I am sure different people think in differnet ways. For me, as soon as I
started learning RPN, I found it very natural, and I picked it up in
about an hour.
[Reasons why I use an RPN calculator snipped]
[Explanation
cut]
Sorry, I missed this message until Jonas quoted it.
I understand RPN intellectually, but not at a "gut level" - as such I
find it a real pain to actually /use/ - & since there is no need to in I'm intrigued. I don't understand, but
that's OK.
What don;'t you understand ? RPN, or why I prefer to use it? anything I use, that means I don't, and thus I
never improve &
probably never will. A bit like binary or octal.
I, of course, use binary and octal all the time...
RPN is, I suppose rather differnt to many modern
computer products. The
latter seem to be designed to make simple problems trivial, but
unfortunately, they make complex problems very difficult or impossible.
RPN (and in gnerally the tools I prefer) makes simple problems pehaps a
little more dififcult (but is it really harder to type 2 2 + rahter than
2 + 2?) but make dififuclt problems a lot easier. Since generally I sue
calcualtors and computers for difficult problems that I can't solve in my
head, I prefer such tools.
Fair enough. I think you have a point there. There is some "dumbing
down" occurring in modern computers. Mostly, I'm strongly in favour of making them simpler, easier & thus more accessible
to more people -
but that does mean that sometimes, functionality is lost, & that's
I am, of coruse, not in favour of making this difficult to use for no
good reason. For example, while I know many of the ASCII codes for common
characters in binary (I spend enough timinm,e repairing printers,
terminals, etc), I would not want to rplace this keyboard with a row of 7
or 8 toggle wrichs and a 'send character' betton.
The thing is, that while I use a computers -- a lot -- I don't _always_
use a computer. I use whatever tools I feel are most approrpatie to the
job (OK, somtimes I get it wrong).
Most of the time, when I am designing some bit of electronics, I sketch a
scheamtic on a bit of paper and do the calcualtions on a hand calcualtor.
You can argue that I only design simple stuff, which may well be true
(and to be honest, I probsably _wouldn't_ use this method for anything
very complicated), but for such simple designs, a CAD system would
actually slow me down. So I don't use one.
Nor do I use a word processor to record, say, the colours of wires I am
disconnectiong. I use a notebook. A paper notebook.
The other day I needed to make a new main bearing fro a rotary telephone
dial. I did a sketch in aid notbook and marked in the important
dimensions. I machines part of it, then tried it for it, and made
adjustments. This diagram would certain;t not have been suitable for
giving to a production departmetn, but for what I was doing, making a
1-off part that I could fit to the other parts by hamd, it was, IMHO, the
right solution
No, I use a computer when the job is too difficult to do by hand.
Normally this means a lot of repitition. I have better things to do than
do the same job over nad over again. Wht this means is that any computer
without a probgrammign language, or at least a scripting language, is
useless to me. Unforutantely, such things are the first to go when the
product is dumbed down.
It is also a common mistake to confuse 'easy to learn' with 'easy to
use'. I want the latter, which may not mean the former. In othre words, I
am happy to spend days/weeks/months learning how to use a tool if that is
going to mean I cna do something I couldn't do before, or will produce a
superior result, etc. I will not want to use soemthign that takes half an
hour to learn if it doesn't improve on what I could already do.
Unfortuantel, a lot of modern products seem to be in that category. Quick
to be able to get them to do something, but you can never get them to
really help you.
-tony
11:20 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Postifix
('RPN') .vs. Infix ('algebraic;) :-)
Manifest in the 70's as HP vs TI.
7:51 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 18, at 11:20 AM, Tony Duell wrote:
Interesting, do you know if TI didn't make much market effort over
there, or their calcs just weren't well-received in the market?
>> Postifix ('RPN') .vs. Infix
('algebraic;) :-)
Manifest in
the 70's as HP vs TI.
Over here, TI calcualtros were not particularly common. The common
brand
was (and is, I guess) Casio.
Of course those of us who prefer RPN bought HPs.
I never used them much, but the hidden state in infix calculators
didn't inspire confidence during a calculation.
There is state in an RPN calculator too, of course - the stack - but it
is reviewable at any time, you can check all the intermediate results
for saneness as you go.
I still love my little HP-21.
-tony [Mind you, when i saw a pristine TI59 with
magnetic cards,
stnadard
library module and hard and soft cases i na charity shop, I grabbed
it...]
19 Jun
19 Jun
11:28 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Manifest in the 70's as HP vs TI.
Over here, TI calcualtros were not particularly common. The common
brand
was (and is, I guess) Casio.
Of course those of us who prefer RPN bought HPs.
I never used them much, but the hidden state in infix calculators
didn't inspire confidence during a calculation.
There is state in an RPN calculator too, of course - the stack - but it
is reviewable at any time, you can check all the intermediate results
for saneness as you go.
Many more recent HPs has as large a stack as you want (limited by memory
only) and display the top 4 or 5 stack levels on a multi-line LCD. Yes
there can be 'hidden state' (Stakc levels beyond those) but (a) generally
it's the tope few levels you are interested in and (b) you can scroll up
and down the stack wit hthe arrow kleys anyway.
I still love my little HP-21.
I asusme that's the original Woodstock one (from 1975 or thereabouts). I
ahve one, I've repaired many more...
-tony
16 Jun
16 Jun
1:19 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:36:12AM -0700, Christian Liendo wrote:
Big Endian vs. Little Endian
Middle Endian vs. both Little and Big Endian.
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
1:24 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:19, Diane Bruce wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:36:12AM -0700, Christian
Liendo wrote: >
Big Endian vs. Little Endian
Middle Endian vs. both Little and Big Endian.
Binary vs. decimal (for those old enough to remember)
1:31 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 01:24:57PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:19, Diane Bruce wrote:
1401
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:36:12AM -0700,
Christian Liendo wrote: >
Big Endian vs. Little Endian
Middle Endian vs. both Little and Big Endian.
Binary vs. decimal (for those old enough to remember)
2:28 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:31, Diane Bruce wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 01:24:57PM -0700, Chuck Guzis
wrote:
Not precisely--the 1401 had a weird system of decimal+binary for
addressing. So decimal, sort-of.
1620 was all decimal (8421), however, as was the 7070. (2-of-5).
--Chuck
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:19, Diane Bruce wrote:
1401 On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:36:12AM -0700,
Christian Liendo wrote:
Binary vs. decimal (for those old enough to remember) Big Endian vs. Little Endian
Middle Endian vs. both Little and Big Endian.
1:39 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:19, Diane Bruce wrote:
1248 bcd .vs. 1242 bcd
1248 bcd .vs. XS3
decimal .vs. bi-quinary
And more recently
hex .vs. octal
-tony
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 08:36:12AM -0700,
Christian Liendo wrote: >
Big Endian vs. Little Endian
Middle Endian vs. both Little and Big Endian.
Binary vs. decimal (for those old enough to remember) 
5:47 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
RS232 vs Current Loop.
Serial vs. Parallel.
Delay lines vs CRTs.
Valves vs Transistors.
Relays vs Valves.
Simon
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh
6:02 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 16, at 5:47 PM, Simon Fryer wrote:
RS232 vs Current Loop.
Serial vs. Parallel.
Delay lines vs CRTs.
Valves vs Transistors.
I'll argue with the inclusion of that one in a listing of arguments.
In computing (not talking about audio here) I don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
Relays vs Valves.
7:10 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/16/2011 7:02 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote:
In computing (not talking about audio here) I
don't think there was much
debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty quickly
embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and reliability were
sufficient for the application.
But how soon one forgets, that with out the humble crystal diode
many of the electronic brains would never have been built.
> Relays vs Valves.
Also could not tube like a VFD been made to handle digital signals
with a non linear plate curve rather than as display device?
Ben.
PS. I'm out, all I have is two punched cards and a tribble.
7:12 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 Jun 2011 at 18:02, Brent Hilpert wrote:
In computing (not talking about audio here) I
don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
Did someone say AUDIO?
Zip cord vs. Monster Cable vs. solid silver speaker wire.
--Chuck
7:24 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 16 Jun 2011 at 18:02, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Vs $300/foot OCF power cables....
In computing (not talking about audio here) I
don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
Did someone say AUDIO?
Zip cord vs. Monster Cable vs. solid silver speaker wire.
7:26 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jun 2011 at 18:02, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Stretched out coathangers FTW. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
In computing (not talking about audio here) I
don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
Did someone say AUDIO?
Zip cord vs. Monster Cable vs. solid silver speaker wire.
17 Jun
17 Jun
1:43 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
In computing (not talking about audio here) I
don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
However, the last isvery important. Professor Wilkes told me (IIRC) that
the most unreliable components in EDSAC were the germanium diodes.
-tony
3:18 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk
Most germaniums were point contact. One is balancing on the
tip of that tiny point.
Dwight
In computing (not talking about audio here) I
don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
However, the last isvery important. Professor Wilkes told me (IIRC) that
the most unreliable components in EDSAC were the germanium diodes.
-tony 
18 Jun
18 Jun
9:39 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/17/2011 3:43 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Any idea if that was due to their mechanical construction? I recall a
computer system in the early 60's that was plagued with diodes that
would sometimes open up with the slightest vibration. Then in the mid
60's I worked on an optical character reader with many more diodes but
nary a problem with them. I seem to recall the latter ones being
referred to as having "unitrode" construction, which could be my faulty
memory, or perhaps that was a TI term as we were using their diodes
extensively in the OCR system.
Later,
Charlie C.
In computing
(not talking about audio here) I don't think there was
much debate about valves vs. transistors. Transistors were pretty
quickly embraced for computer hardware when manufacturing and
reliability were sufficient for the application.
However, the last isvery important. Professor Wilkes told me (IIRC) that
the most unreliable components in EDSAC were the germanium diodes.
-tony
10:19 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 18 Jun 2011 at 23:39, Charlie Carothers wrote:
Any idea if that was due to their mechanical
construction? I recall a
computer system in the early 60's that was plagued with diodes that
would sometimes open up with the slightest vibration. Then in the mid
60's I worked on an optical character reader with many more diodes but
nary a problem with them. I seem to recall the latter ones being
referred to as having "unitrode" construction, which could be my
faulty memory, or perhaps that was a TI term as we were using their
diodes extensively in the OCR system. Later, Charlie C.
1960's diodes were very different from 1950's. Here's a shot of a
1N34:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_1n34.html
You can see the "cat whisker" construction in the lower right corner.
You can see the construction quite a bit more clearly in this shot of
a 1N21 silicon microwave mixer diode:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_1n21a.html
Delicate mechanically, and with a current limit of 5 ma, very easy to
destroy. Also, the characteristics diode-to-diode were far from
uniform.
Still, for the postwar hobbyist, the 1N34/1N34A was "the" diode to
use.
--Chuck
16 Jun
16 Jun
7:11 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Calculator or Slide Ruler ;-)
Simon Fryer wrote:
RS232 vs Current Loop.
Serial vs. Parallel.
Delay lines vs CRTs.
Valves vs Transistors.
Relays vs Valves.
Simon
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh
11:27 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jun 2011 at 8:17, Christian Liendo wrote:
Where the sun don't shine? ;-)
Personally: CP/M just seemed more "accessible" to me than (MS) DOS, in the
same way that m68k did over x86 - not without their quirks, of course, but
better suited to the way my brain worked.
When comparing systems it's probably best to qualify things with a
timeframe, I always think. I lost faith in Apple quite some time ago, but
have always admired the early machines for their simplicity and
hackability. I liked the Amiga more than the ST, but don't know enough
about Atari's earlier machines to make a call there.
cheers
Jules
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread
in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
Ones' complement arithmetic vs. two's complement--or where to put the
apostrophe?
17 Jun
17 Jun
10:08 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 Jun 2011 at 2:41, Dan Roganti wrote:
Positive Logic Design vs. Negative Logic Design
Most moderately complex designs contain a mixture of both. What irks
me when reading a schematic is the idiot who assumes that a 7400 is
ALWAYS represented as a quad NAND gate. This sort of thinking, while
being bush-league, also obfuscates the actual circuit design.
<grumble>
--Chuck
12:21 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 17 Jun 2011 at 2:41, Dan Roganti wrote:
yes but in essence these are still only positive logic designs, only the
assertion levels(active state) of a signal changes, it still relies on
Pos.Voltage = Logic Hi.
Positive Logic Design vs. Negative Logic
Design
Most moderately complex designs contain a mixture of both. What irks me when reading a schematic is the idiot who
assumes that a 7400
is
ALWAYS represented as a quad NAND gate.
It depends on what the assertion levels(active states) are for the inputs in
the design. If the assertion levels are logic Lo, then it would be better to
view this using the negative logic symbol as a bubble input OR gate then.
I hope you don't expect all databooks past & present to be revised :) These
were always written in the context of positive logic.
This sort of thinking, while
being bush-league, also obfuscates the actual circuit
design.
Negative logic design is usually not for the faint hearted ;)
=Dan
12:40 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 Jun 2011 at 15:21, Dan Roganti wrote:
I hope you don't expect all databooks past &
present to be revised :)
These were always written in the context of positive logic.
No, but I do expect the knucklehead drawing the schematic to use the
symbol that best describes the function of the gate.
I'm still not following you--if you're referring to voltage levels
being positive or negative, e.g. ECL, I still consider that to be
positive logic (as expressed in the databooks), even though both
logic 1 and 0 are more negative that 0V, but 1 is more positive than
0. But that's just a convention.
If you're talking about designing in DeMorgan equivalents, I don't
see the issue, unless one is unpracticed. One should be as natural
as the other--looking at a truth table, one should see it in both
senses.
But I don't know how logic design is taught nowadays...
--Chuck
18 Jun
18 Jun
6:45 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Dan Roganti <ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
yes but in essence these are still only positive logic
designs, only the
assertion levels(active state) of a signal changes, it still relies on
Pos.Voltage = Logic Hi.
?Negative logic design is usually not for the faint hearted ;)
I've owned PDP-8s for 70% of my life and I still struggle to really
understand the R-series stuff.
-ethan
1:02 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
=A0Negative
logic design is usually not for the faint hearted ;)
I've owned PDP-8s for 70% of my life and I still struggle to really
understand the R-series stuff.
17 Jun
17 Jun
2:38 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 Jun 2011 at 2:41, Dan Roganti wrote:
This is going to be a holy war...
I find the 'assertion logic' symbols -- things like AND gates with
inverting bubbles on both inputsn and outputs (representing, say, a
quarter of a 7432 OR gate) -- jar somwhat when I look at a schemaitc. But
I have no problems realising thar ORing a couple of active-low signals
preforms a logical AND of them.
In other words :
This
IORQ/-----o|\
| >o------- I/ORd/
Rd/------o|/
'32
means I have to think for a milliseond
This
IORQ/------)\
) >------- I/ORd/
Rd/-------)/
'32
doesn;t
-tony
Positive Logic Design vs. Negative Logic
Design
Most moderately complex designs contain a mixture of both. What irks
me when reading a schematic is the idiot who assumes that a 7400 is
ALWAYS represented as a quad NAND gate. This sort of thinking, while
being bush-league, also obfuscates the actual circuit design.
3:13 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk
Hi
In most cases, it makes sense to try to show the demorganed symbol to match the designed
logical operation.
The only problem with that is that in some cases, it might be that one input doesn't
match the logical sense of the other inputs. Now that I've seen
this in real circuits and not someones RTL like diagram, I realize that I'd rather
just
see a nand gate look like a nand gate. I've found that I can't trust the
demorganed symbol
tell me what any upstream signal really has on that gate. I have to back trace it,
anyway, for all but the simplest circuits.
Dwight
On 17 Jun 2011 at 2:41, Dan Roganti wrote:
This is going to be a holy war...
I find the 'assertion logic' symbols -- things like AND gates with
inverting bubbles on both inputsn and outputs (representing, say, a
quarter of a 7432 OR gate) -- jar somwhat when I look at a schemaitc. But
I have no problems realising thar ORing a couple of active-low signals
preforms a logical AND of them.
In other words :
This
IORQ/-----o|\
| >o------- I/ORd/
Rd/------o|/
'32
means I have to think for a milliseond
This
IORQ/------)\
) >------- I/ORd/
Rd/-------)/
'32
doesn;t
-tony Positive Logic Design vs. Negative Logic Design
Most moderately complex designs contain a mixture of both. What irks
me when reading a schematic is the idiot who assumes that a 7400 is
ALWAYS represented as a quad NAND gate. This sort of thinking, while
being bush-league, also obfuscates the actual circuit design.
3:55 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 Jun 2011 at 15:13, dwight elvey wrote:
The only problem with that is that in some cases, it
might be that one
input doesn't match the logical sense of the other inputs. Now that
I've seen this in real circuits and not someones RTL like diagram, I
realize that I'd rather just see a nand gate look like a nand gate.
I've found that I can't trust the demorganed symbol tell me what any
upstream signal really has on that gate. I have to back trace it,
anyway, for all but the simplest circuits. Dwight
If I see a two input OR with bubbles on both inputs and the output, I
automatically (i.e. without a lot of conscious thought) say, "That's
a negative-logic OR that's masquerading as a positive-logic AND gate.
It's pretty much automatic, like resistor color code--you don't
mentally run the color chart or some inande mnemonic aid in your
head, you just grab a 47K resistor out of the pile because it looks
like a 47K resistor.
So give me the DeMorganed representation any day. I'll have more
confidence that the designer has his thought processes straight.
On the other hand, conventional logic symbols are weak in that they
shows the component units, but doesn't necessarily show what they're
supposed to do. For example, it may be expeditious to construct a
XOR gate from leftover NAND gates and inverters, but there's no good
way to show the intended function and still keep the components
identified.
--Chuck
8:07 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 6:55 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 17 Jun 2011 at 15:21, Dan Roganti wrote:
I guess a basic way to describe is Negative Logic design is using a
different frame of reference.
Maybe a good analogy is whether you use RPN or alebra for your math.
Whether you're using TTL or ECL, the voltage levels are relative.
With Positive Logic, the True state, Logic 1 is a positive voltage relative
to the off state.
With Negative Logic, the Tru state, Logic 0 is a positive voltage relative
to the off state.
So in the case of ECL, with a Vee of -5.2v the off state is -0.8v which is
more positive than -1.8v
I hope you don't expect all databooks past
& present to be revised :)
These were always written in the context of positive logic.
No, but I do expect the knucklehead drawing the schematic to use the
symbol that best describes the function of the gate.
I'm still not following you--if you're referring to voltage levels
being positive or negative, e.g. ECL, I still consider that to be
positive logic (as expressed in the databooks), even though both
logic 1 and 0 are more negative that 0V, but 1 is more positive than
0. But that's just a convention.
If you're talking about designing in DeMorgan equivalents, I don't
see the issue, unless one is unpracticed. One should be as natural
as the other--looking at a truth table, one should see it in both
senses.
I guess another basic way to describe is this way
A positive Logic AND gate is the equivalent to a Negative Logic OR gate.
It's not the bubble input/output OR gate that you see when using DeMorgan
theorem..
So the true state in a AND gate is inverted when you're using the OR gate.
Another example is the SR latch
These days you typically see the NAND gate SR latch.
Where the Q output is set to True state(logic1) using the low input - assert
logic O
This is still postive logic , but with inverted assertion level on the
inputs
Before when the first IC's came about 50yrs ago, you typically see NOR gate
SR latches.
Where the Q output is set to True state(logic 0) using a True state/low
input - logic 0 again
So the NOR SR latch is really a Negative Logic SR latch
A very good example of Negative Logic design is the NASA AGC.
.
.
.
On the other hand, conventional logic symbols are weak in that they
shows the component units, but doesn't necessarily show what they're
supposed to do. For example, it may be expeditious to construct a
XOR gate from leftover NAND gates and inverters, but there's no good
way to show the intended function and still keep the components
identified.
you can actually build a XOR gate from only just 4 NAND gates
I hope my skills in ascii schematics are still good (using courier font)
+-----\
+--------------------| \
| | O---+
A input | +-----\ +-----| / | +-----\
----+---| \ | +-----/ +-----| \
| O--| | O--> output
----+---| / | +-----\ +-----| /
B input | +-----/ +-----| \ | +-----/
| | O---+
+--------------------| /
+-----/
=Dan
8:13 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 11:07 PM, Dan Roganti <ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
I guess a basic way to describe is Negative Logic design is using a
different frame of reference.
Maybe a good analogy is whether you use RPN or alebra for your math.
Whether you're using TTL or ECL, the voltage levels are relative.
With Positive Logic, the True state, Logic 1 is a positive voltage relative
to the off state.
With Negative Logic, the Tru state, Logic 0 is a positive voltage relative
to the off state.
oops typo
So in the case of ECL, with a Vee of -5.2v the off
state is -0.8v which is
more positive than -1.8v
----------------------------------------------------------------^^^logic 0
level is
0.8v
9:55 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 Jun 2011 at 23:07, Dan Roganti wrote:
I guess another basic way to describe is this way
A positive Logic AND gate is the equivalent to a Negative Logic OR
gate. It's not the bubble input/output OR gate that you see when using
DeMorgan theorem.. So the true state in a AND gate is inverted when
you're using the OR gate.
It's *exactly* the DeMorgan equivalent. One assumes that all logic
levels have a bubble associated with them, so you don't make it
explicit. It's just a convention--"1" can be light off, with
"0"
light on. Or a given phase difference in an AC signal or "1"= tomato
soup and "0"=cream of mushroom. Some of the old databooks (I can't
recall which) used to show logic gates both ways for reference.
Heck, most decent buses (e.g. floppy, Multibus, GPIB) are negative
logic. The control lines on most RAM chips are negative (CS is
usually low-voltage=true along with WR = low, true). I don't see
EE's driving themselves to drink over it. If we'dve created TTL
using PNP transistors instead of NPN, would we be having the opposite
discussion?
Another example is the SR latch
These days you typically see the NAND gate SR latch.
Where the Q output is set to True state(logic1) using the low input -
assert logic O This is still postive logic , but with inverted
assertion level on the inputs Before when the first IC's came about
50yrs ago, you typically see NOR gate SR latches. Where the Q output
is set to True state(logic 0) using a True state/low input - logic 0
again So the NOR SR latch is really a Negative Logic SR latch A very
good example of Negative Logic design is the NASA AGC.
You see NOR logic SR latches in RTL and that doesn't require negative
logic (at least by your "high voltage = true" definition..
you can actually build a XOR gate from only just 4
NAND gates
I hope my skills in ascii schematics are still good (using courier
font)
Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with the thread. If you're
going to dedicate a whole quad NAND package to a single 2-input-XOR,
that's not terribly efficient. Although probably every undergrad
computer logic professor has pointed out this "neat trick" in class
for the last 40+ years, I don't believe it's glitchless, so it's not
a really good choice.
--Chuck
10:17 p.m.
New subject: Glitchless XOR gates (was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...)
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with the
thread. If you're
going to dedicate a whole quad NAND package to a single 2-input-XOR,
that's not terribly efficient. Although probably every undergrad
computer logic professor has pointed out this "neat trick" in class
for the last 40+ years, I don't believe it's glitchless, so it's not
a really good choice.
By 'not glitchless' do you mean that if you simultaneously change the
inputs from 00 to 11 you'll see an approx. 1 gate delay wide transient on
the output of the XOR due to some of the signals passing through 2 and
some through 3 NANDs?
Is there a way to build an XOR from other types of gates that won't glitch
on any of the input transitions 00 <-> 11 or 10 <-> 01 ? Even if you can't
guarantee that all the gate delays are the same?
Alexey
11 p.m.
New subject: Glitchless XOR gates (was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...)
~http://www.rogtronics.net
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 1:17 AM, Alexey Toptygin <alexeyt at freeshell.org>wrote:
It's still glitchless providing you don't abuse the gates timing, as
with
any logic can be made to glitch by abusing the timing. You can make a 7486
glitch too, just by abusing the setup time - it doesn't have an infinite
operating frequency.
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with the thread. If you're
it doesn't, I was just answering your "query" about XOR gates :) In fact,
it
relates to transistor logic, instead of SSI logic. Where the same transistor
circuit can be repeated and wired in a manner to produce a XOR gate - using
only 4 transistors - and a few diodes :) This is one of the things I showed
in my Transistor Logic workshop at VCF East.
Although probably every undergrad
going to dedicate a whole quad NAND package to a
single 2-input-XOR,
that's not terribly efficient.
computer logic
professor has pointed out this "neat trick" in class
for the last 40+ years, I don't believe it's glitchless, so it's not
a really good choice.
By 'not glitchless' do you mean that if you simultaneously change the
inputs from 00 to 11 you'll see an approx. 1 gate delay wide transient on
the output of the XOR due to some of the signals passing through 2 and some
through 3 NANDs?
no, that won't make it glitch. If you make a timing diagram , you can see
this(even with a liberal gate delay, say , 10nsec - that fits even on graph
paper) . Even though the 1st nand gate will change levels, the middle 2 nand
gates are still unchanged since they don't enter a true state. So the 4th
nand gate remains at a logic 0. This is also true if the states change from
00 -> 01 or 00->10. Even with 11->01 or 11->10. The 4th nand gate is always
the sum of both middle nand gates - including their gate delays.
Is there a way to build an XOR from other types of gates that won't glitch
on any of the input transitions 00 <-> 11 or 10 <-> 01 ? Even if you
can't
guarantee that all the gate delays are the same?
like I mentioned about the 7486, you can make that glitch or any other part
if you don't observe the timing parameters.
=Dan
11:12 p.m.
New subject: Glitchless XOR gates (was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...)
On 18 Jun 2011 at 5:17, Alexey Toptygin wrote:
By 'not glitchless' do you mean that if you
simultaneously change the
inputs from 00 to 11 you'll see an approx. 1 gate delay wide transient
on the output of the XOR due to some of the signals passing through 2
and some through 3 NANDs?
Yes.
Is there a way to build an XOR from other types of
gates that won't
glitch on any of the input transitions 00 <-> 11 or 10 <-> 01 ? Even
if you can't guarantee that all the gate delays are the same?
You could at the simplest, add a 1 unit delay (buffer) on the A and B
lines in parallel with the first NAND gate.
--Chuck
10:27 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 12:55 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 17 Jun 2011 at 23:07, Dan Roganti wrote:
hope my ascii schematics still works (using courier font)
DeMorgans Theorem
Positive Logic <----> Negative Logic
_______
+-----\ \ \
A >-------| \ A>----O\ \
| AND |-->C | AND O---->C
B >-------| / B>----O/ /
+-----/ /______/
(bubble inputs & outputs)
A B C A B C
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 1 0
1 0 0 1 0 0
1 1 1 True State <--SAME--> 1 1 1 True State
_______
+-----\ \ \
A >-------| \ A>----O\ \
| NAND O-->C | NAND ----->C
B >-------| / B>----O/ /
+-----/ /______/
(bubble inputs only)
A B C A B C
0 0 1 0 0 1
0 1 1 0 1 1
1 0 1 1 0 1
1 1 0 True State <--SAME--> 1 1 0 True State
======================================================
Negative Logic Design
Positive Logic <----> Negative Logic
_______
+-----\ \ \
A >-------| \ A >-----\ \
| AND |-->C | OR ---->C
B* * >-------| / B >-----/ /
+-----/ /______/
A B C A B C
0 0 0 1 1 1
0 1 0 1 0 1
1 0 0 0 1 1
1 1 1 True State <--INVERSE--> 0 0 0 True State
_______
+-----\ \ \
A >-------| \ A >-----\ \
| NAND O-->C | NOR O--->C
B* * >-------| / B >-----/ /
+-----/ /______/
A B C A B C
0 0 1 1 1 0
0 1 1 1 0 0
1 0 1 0 1 0
1 1 0 True State <--INVERSE--> 0 0 1 True State
=Dan
I guess another basic way to describe is this
way
A positive Logic AND gate is the equivalent to a Negative Logic OR
gate. It's not the bubble input/output OR gate that you see when using
DeMorgan theorem.. So the true state in a AND gate is inverted when
you're using the OR gate.
It's *exactly* the DeMorgan equivalent. One assumes that all logic
levels have a bubble associated with them, so you don't make it
explicit. It's just a convention--"1" can be light off, with
"0"
light on. Or a given phase difference in an AC signal or "1"= tomato
soup and "0"=cream of mushroom. Some of the old databooks (I can't
recall which) used to show logic gates both ways for reference.
10:59 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 18 Jun 2011 at 1:27, Dan Roganti wrote:
hope my ascii schematics still works (using courier
font)
Maybe we're saying the same thing and not seeing it.
Positive logic
AB --DeMorgan-> ~((~A) + (~B))
To negative logic, drop the bubbles on the DeMorgan equivalence on
inputs and outputs. To avoid confusion, we'll say that the logic
gates retain their same operation for high (H) and low (L) voltages:
AB (postive logic) = (A+B) negative logic
LL L LL L
LH L LH H
HL L HL H
HH H HH H
If, in the first colum, we take H = 1 and L = 0, and in the second
column, H = 0 and L = 1, the logic maps are identical.
--Chuck
11:04 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 1:59 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 18 Jun 2011 at 1:27, Dan Roganti wrote:
yes, that could be another way to describe it
you take the inverse of the logic gate.
Did my ascii schematics really come thru properly ?
I know sometimes they can get mangled since I'm using gmail
=Dan
hope my ascii schematics still works (using
courier font)
Maybe we're saying the same thing and not seeing it.
Positive logic
AB --DeMorgan-> ~((~A) + (~B))
To negative logic, drop the bubbles on the DeMorgan equivalence on
inputs and outputs. To avoid confusion, we'll say that the logic
gates retain their same operation for high (H) and low (L) voltages:
AB (postive logic) = (A+B) negative logic
LL L LL L
LH L LH H
HL L HL H
HH H HH H
If, in the first colum, we take H = 1 and L = 0, and in the second
column, H = 0 and L = 1, the logic maps are identical.
18 Jun
18 Jun
11:55 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 17, at 10:59 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 18 Jun 2011 at 1:27, Dan Roganti wrote:
When I reverse engineer old equipment (discrete or early SSI where the
ICs also have to be decoded) I have to decide whether some collection
of components or the object in some black-box IC is a (N)AND or (N)OR
gate. As I work through the system I assess what makes the most sense
for the overall design. Sometimes it is fairly obvious, for example
when the system is built from a lot of structures of the form
gateTypeA ==> gateTypeB ==> inverter
you can bet it's AND-OR-INVERT, not OR-AND-INVERT.
I then carefully specify the logic levels for the system, e.g.:
Gates are drawn with Logic 0/false = 0V, Logic 1/true = -10V.
I find that's really all that is needed.
I actually try to stay away from the terms negative and positive logic
as they have always struck me as somewhat ambiguous, I've never really
seen a rigorous description. Rhetorically, are we talking about:
- voltage levels? (+5 > 0)
- magnitude of voltage levels? ABS(-10) > 0.
- 'logic' level? (0 is 'more negative' than 1)?
- high vs low? (higher as it appears on a scope face? but
logic 1 is 'higher' than logic 0 even if 1=0V & 0=+5V)
- assertion level?
- what if signals are named using false assertion levels, where
false is a more positive voltage then true?
- etc.
I have a schematic from the 60's that used, in essence, 4 types of gate
symbols: one each for +/- AND/OR, but you still have to scratch your
head some when it comes to interpreting signal levels at the different
types of gates.
hope my ascii schematics still works (using
courier font)
Maybe we're saying the same thing and not seeing it.
Positive logic
AB --DeMorgan-> ~((~A) + (~B))
To negative logic, drop the bubbles on the DeMorgan equivalence on
inputs and outputs. To avoid confusion, we'll say that the logic
gates retain their same operation for high (H) and low (L) voltages:
AB (postive logic) = (A+B) negative logic
LL L LL L
LH L LH H
HL L HL H
HH H HH H
If, in the first colum, we take H = 1 and L = 0, and in the second
column, H = 0 and L = 1, the logic maps are identical.
12:26 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 18 Jun 2011 at 11:55, Brent Hilpert wrote:
I have a schematic from the 60's that used, in
essence, 4 types of
gate symbols: one each for +/- AND/OR, but you still have to scratch
your head some when it comes to interpreting signal levels at the
different types of gates.
Well, as I said, it's mostly a state of mind. I prefer a gate used
as an "AND" to be represented as such, regardless of the logic
polarity (a better term?). In fact, it's too bad that we can't use
colors to say "this stuff is negative polarity logic" and get rid of
the gratuitous bubbles. Like musical notation, there can be
problems in getting an idea across.
One thing that still throws me is the use of IEC symbols in
schematics. I really have to stop and pause over each symbol as I
read a schematic. Granted, the IEC symbols can represent logic that
would otherwise have to be drawn as a box with a number in the
distinctive-shape style (e.g. priority encoder, 3-of-5 gate, etc.),
but that doesn't make it any easier to parse.
However, I increasingly run across schematics where a number of
packages are drawn with tags on almost all leads. Somehow, to get
an idea of the logic flow, you're expected to map out the connections
in your head, or use colored ink to connect the points until a real
schematic emerges. About half of the time, I simply give up and draw
my own schematic.
Inevitably, these are the result of some CAD schematic-with-PCB EDA
tool. Curiously, I've never seen an EDA tool to convert this stuff
into more conventionally human-readable schematic form.
Maybe they're not intended to be read by people, but merely serve as
a reference from which to construct netlists, but I'd still like to
see the guy who figured it was a good thing get his come-uppance.
--Chuck
1:14 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 18, at 12:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 18 Jun 2011 at 11:55, Brent Hilpert wrote:
I'm not fond of the IEC symbols either, they seem as if they were
designed to accommadate primitive graphic rendering systems (no
curves), rather than human readability. With that said, the ANSI/MIL
symbols can be difficult at times to draw well (esp. when expanding for
more inputs).
Here are some old variations:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/gates/index.html
Old schematics with the circle/triangle form can look quite neat.
I have a schematic from the 60's that used,
in essence, 4 types of
gate symbols: one each for +/- AND/OR, but you still have to scratch
your head some when it comes to interpreting signal levels at the
different types of gates.
Well, as I said, it's mostly a state of mind. I prefer a gate used
as an "AND" to be represented as such, regardless of the logic
polarity (a better term?). In fact, it's too bad that we can't use
colors to say "this stuff is negative polarity logic" and get rid of
the gratuitous bubbles. Like musical notation, there can be
problems in getting an idea across.
One thing that still throws me is the use of IEC symbols in
schematics. I really have to stop and pause over each symbol as I
read a schematic. Granted, the IEC symbols can represent logic that
would otherwise have to be drawn as a box with a number in the
distinctive-shape style (e.g. priority encoder, 3-of-5 gate, etc.),
but that doesn't make it any easier to parse. However, I increasingly run across schematics where a
number of
packages are drawn with tags on almost all leads. Somehow, to get
an idea of the logic flow, you're expected to map out the connections
in your head, or use colored ink to connect the points until a real
schematic emerges. About half of the time, I simply give up and draw
my own schematic.
Inevitably, these are the result of some CAD schematic-with-PCB EDA
tool. Curiously, I've never seen an EDA tool to convert this stuff
into more conventionally human-readable schematic form.
Maybe they're not intended to be read by people, but merely serve as
a reference from which to construct netlists, but I'd still like to
see the guy who figured it was a good thing get his come-uppance.
Yes, tracing a signal becomes tedious. Seems again that human
readability was last on the list of objectives, might was well just
throw the netlist at someone.
1:50 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
However, I increasingly run across schematics where a
number of
packages are drawn with tags on almost all leads. Somehow, to get
an idea of the logic flow, you're expected to map out the connections
I find it quite helpful to have major funcional blocks (control
sequencer, accumualator input gating, etc) drawn essentially semarate
with named signals goin in and out. Provided those names are
well-chosing. A name like 'muClk' (Microcode clock) is fine. But when
some 'genius' decided to call the signals AA, AB, AC, ... AZ, BA, BB, BC
etc. it gets painful.
You can also go too far the otehr way. It often helps _not_ to draw in
all the pwoer and groudn rails, for example, but to have a marker for
each one like
+5V
---
|
Othwies the power and gorund lines clutter up the schematic. And I do
find that when you have many unlabbled lines running paralell to each
otehr across a large scheamtic it can be very hard to make sure you're
following the right one.
As with most things there's a balance between drawing i nthe connections
and breakign them and giving them sensible names.
in your head, or use colored ink to connect the points
until a real
schematic emerges. About half of the time, I simply give up and draw
my own schematic.
Inevitably, these are the result of some CAD schematic-with-PCB EDA
tool. Curiously, I've never seen an EDA tool to convert this stuff
into more conventionally human-readable schematic form.
Maybe they're not intended to be read by people, but merely serve as
a reference from which to construct netlists, but I'd still like to
see the guy who figured it was a good thing get his come-uppance.
I find virtually all CAD-prodsuced schematics to be very hard to follow.
I am not sure why, but I much prefer the scheamtics of the 1970s to those
produced today. And don't get me started on the multi-colour schematics
prosduced by some CAD systems where ICs are one colour, passives are
another colour, wires are a 3rd colour and so on.
-tony
17 Jun
17 Jun
11:18 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 18 Jun 2011 at 1:27, Dan Roganti wrote:
hope my ascii schematics still works (using courier
font)
I use fixedsys, but the line-to-line spacing makes reading still
difficult.
Bed for me,
Chuck
18 Jun
18 Jun
11:16 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 Jun 2011 at 23:07, Dan Roganti wrote:
I guess another basic way to describe is this
way
A positive Logic AND gate is the equivalent to a Negative Logic OR
gate. It's not the bubble input/output OR gate that you see when using
DeMorgan theorem.. So the true state in a AND gate is inverted when
you're using the OR gate.
It's *exactly* the DeMorgan equivalent. One assumes that all logic
levels have a bubble associated with them, so you don't make it
explicit. It's just a convention--"1" can be light off, with
"0"
light on. Or a given phase difference in an AC signal or "1"= tomato
soup and "0"=cream of mushroom. Some of the old databooks (I can't
recall which) used to show logic gates both ways for reference.
Heck, most decent buses (e.g. floppy, Multibus, GPIB) are negative
logic. The control lines on most RAM chips are negative (CS is
usually low-voltage=true along with WR = low, true). I don't see
EE's driving themselves to drink over it. If we'dve created TTL
using PNP transistors instead of NPN, would we be having the opposite
discussion?
Another example is the SR latch
These days you typically see the NAND gate SR latch.
Where the Q output is set to True state(logic1) using the low input -
assert logic O This is still postive logic , but with inverted
assertion level on the inputs Before when the first IC's came about
50yrs ago, you typically see NOR gate SR latches. Where the Q output
is set to True state(logic 0) using a True state/low input - logic 0
again So the NOR SR latch is really a Negative Logic SR latch A very
good example of Negative Logic design is the NASA AGC.
You see NOR logic SR latches in RTL and that doesn't require negative
logic (at least by your "high voltage = true" definition..
you can actually build a XOR gate from only just
4 NAND gates
I hope my skills in ascii schematics are still good (using courier
font)
Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with the thread. If you're
going to dedicate a whole quad NAND package to a single 2-input-XOR,
that's not terribly efficient. Although probably every undergrad
computer logic professor has pointed out this "neat trick" in class
for the last 40+ years, I don't believe it's glitchless, so it's not
a really good choice.
--Chuck
11:17 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Heck, most decent buses (e.g. floppy, Multibus, GPIB)
are negative
Unibus, Omnibus, Qbus, etc...
logic. The control lines on most RAM chips are
negative (CS is
usually low-voltage=true along with WR = low, true). I don't see
EE's driving themselves to drink over it. If we'dve created TTL
using PNP transistors instead of NPN, would we be having the opposite
discussion?
Gieen that an unconnected TTL input floats high (yes, I know you
shouldnever rely o nthat, but plenty of computer companies did :-(), and
that the output sinks a lot better than it sources, I often thought it
would ahve made more sense to fice the TTL '0' an high and the '1' as
low. So a 7400 becomes aNOR gate, etc.
I guess they wanted to keep the convetions establisehd with DTL, though
-tony
11:10 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Another example is the SR latch
These days you typically see the NAND gate SR latch.
Of course you van cross-couple 2 NOR gats to make an SR latch which has
activ-high set and reset inputs.
Something that's not often taught in introductory electronics courses is
that if you apply De Morgan's law to one of the gates in a cross-coupled
NAND SR latch, and then elimate unecessary inverters, you end up with a
cross-coupled AND and OR gate. This (a) is easy to understand in terms of
'an AND gate can force a signal to be 0, an OR gate can force it to be 1)
nad (b) is useful if you have to fit an SR flip-flop into a pAL or GAL
and don't have CAD tools available.
you can actually build a XOR gate from only just 4
NAND gates
Sure...
I hope my skills in ascii schematics are still good
(using courier font)
+-----\
+--------------------| \
| | O---+
A input | +-----\ +-----| / | +-----\
As I mentiondi n anothre mesage, the Modem 13A makes an XOR (aor maybe
XNOR) gat from the 4 NAND gates in a 74L03, but it doesn't use that
circuit. It does it something like :
+-|\ |
A>----+--| ||>o--+-----------|\
| +-|/ ||>o-----+
+-)----------------------|/ |
| | | |
| +---------------+ +-----+----->Output
| | |
| +------|\ |
| +-|\ | ||>o-----+
B>--+----| ||>o--+-----------|/
+-|/
|
Where ---+--- meaks attach a pull-up resisstor to that point (remember,
it's a 7403, so open-collector). As somebody at HPCC said when I shwoeed
them the schematic, 'It takes a certaint amount ot style to make an XOR
gate from 4 NANDs nad not use the stnadard cirucit'.
-tony
----+---| \ | +-----/ +-----|
\
| O--| | O--> output
----+---| / | +-----\ +-----|
/
B input | +-----/ +-----| \ | +-----/
| | O---+
+--------------------| /
+-----/
3:38 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 18, at 11:10 AM, Tony Duell wrote:
I have early calculators where flip-flops are built from a single
physical OR gate.
The output feeds back to one input so the gate will latch-up on itself.
The other inputs to the OR gate are SET inputs, sending one true will
latch true.
The gate is OC, so RESET inputs are created with simply diodes or
direct connections wire-ANDed to the output/loopback-input. Sending
such an input false will force the output false and it will latch in
that state.
So it's actually best described as a flip-flop built with an OR gate
and a diode-AND or wire-AND gate.
Another
example is the SR latch
These days you typically see the NAND gate SR latch.
Of course you van cross-couple 2 NOR gats to make an SR latch which has
activ-high set and reset inputs.
Something that's not often taught in introductory electronics courses
is
that if you apply De Morgan's law to one of the gates in a
cross-coupled
NAND SR latch, and then elimate unecessary inverters, you end up with a
cross-coupled AND and OR gate. This (a) is easy to understand in terms
of
'an AND gate can force a signal to be 0, an OR gate can force it to be
1)
nad (b) is useful if you have to fit an SR flip-flop into a pAL or GAL
and don't have CAD tools available.
5:20 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 18 Jun 2011 at 15:38, Brent Hilpert wrote:
I have early calculators where flip-flops are built
from a single
physical OR gate. The output feeds back to one input so the gate will
latch-up on itself.
I've seen that done with CMOS logic as well.
Or a neon lamp, biased just below firimg, with the trigger
capacitively coupled in. (I believe there were also some 3-lead neon
lamps (wire-lead) where the third electrode could be used for
triggering).
Whatever happened to AC-coupled (pulse) logic anyway?
--Chuck
19 Jun
19 Jun
11:03 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have early calculators where flip-flops are built
from a single
physical OR gate.
Now that's one I've not seen...
The output feeds back to one input so the gate will
latch-up on itself.
The other inputs to the OR gate are SET inputs, sending one true will
latch true.
The gate is OC, so RESET inputs are created with simply diodes or
direct connections wire-ANDed to the output/loopback-input. Sending
such an input false will force the output false and it will latch in
that state.
So it really has an AND gate too, albeint a wired AND of open-collector
signals. Makes sense.
I have an instrument which has flip-foops made from cross-coupled
open-collector inverters. The operation si obvious, it's stable in either
state nd you filp states by pulling one or other of the outputs,
What makes it slightly odd is that these flip-flops are linked to
backplane signals wwhich are effectively bidirections. For example, there
is a signle signals for 'Print Command/Complete'. Some boards inthe
backplane will briefly pull that signal low, it will be latched by such a
flip-flop on the pritner itnerface board, and thus the backplane signal
will remain low until the pritner interface board clears the flip-flop
(which it dos when the pritner has accepted the character). I've not seen
that trick done anywhere else.
-tony
18 Jun
18 Jun
10:48 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
If I see a two input OR with bubbles on both inputs and the output, I
automatically (i.e. without a lot of conscious thought) say, "That's
Sure, it dfoens;t take much thought. but it does jolt me for a couple of
milliseconds. I find I follow things more easily if I do the DeMorganing
in my head.
a negative-logic OR that's masquerading as a
positive-logic AND gate.
It's pretty much automatic, like resistor color code--you don't
mentally run the color chart or some inande mnemonic aid in your
head, you just grab a 47K resistor out of the pile because it looks
like a 47K resistor.
Sure... (Although I do have to think a little for some of the E96 series
still)
So give me the DeMorganed representation any day.
I'll have more
confidence that the designer has his thought processes straight.
On the other hand, conventional logic symbols are weak in that they
shows the component units, but doesn't necessarily show what they're
supposed to do. For example, it may be expeditious to construct a
XOR gate from leftover NAND gates and inverters, but there's no good
way to show the intended function and still keep the components
identified.
Well, tyou vcan label that as a block on the scheamtic, I guess.
Incidentally, I always liked the way that DEC drew a NAND gate symbol
rounf the juntionons on a wired-AND of open-colllector gates.
-tony
16 Jun
16 Jun
8:40 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Christian Liendo wrote:
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a
while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Commodore Rules! Atari Drools! :D
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
12:48 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/16/2011 11:40 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Christian Liendo wrote:
Hahaha.
Yup. I remember the Amiga vs 1040-ST arguments.
(the Amiga was so much better, I'm not sure even why there was an argument)
Keith
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread
in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Commodore Rules! Atari Drools! :D
g.
12:58 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Who is the knob that started this holy war thread anyway? We should be
arguing about which brand of cement we will pour down his throat.
__
Will
2:03 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more volatile time....
Ahhhhhh I miss the old BBS flamewar days... good times, good times....
Keith M wrote:
On 6/16/2011 11:40 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Christian Liendo wrote:
Hahaha.
Yup. I remember the Amiga vs 1040-ST arguments.
(the Amiga was so much better, I'm not sure even why there was an
argument)
Keith
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread
in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Commodore Rules! Atari Drools! :D
g.
2:31 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more
volatile time....
Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
2:56 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Says you... punk! ;-P
Gene Buckle wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
>
>> The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more volatile time....
>>
> Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
>
> g.
Bit words from a top-posting little weasel! :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
4:43 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I like being on top, only wiggly worms live at the bottom ;-)
Gene Buckle wrote:
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Says you... punk! ;-P
Gene Buckle wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
>
>> The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more volatile time....
>>
> Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
>
> g.
Bit words from a top-posting little weasel! :)
g.
4:46 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
:-)
Me
To
Sense
Makes
Posting
Top
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Curt @ Atari Museum
<curt at atarimuseum.com>wrote:
I like being on top, only wiggly worms live at the
bottom ;-)
Gene Buckle wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
>
> Says you... punk! ;-P
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Gene Buckle wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
>>>
>>> The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more volatile time....
>>>>
>>>> Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
>>>
>>> g.
>>>
>>
> Bit words from a top-posting little weasel! :)
>
> g.
>
>
--
Doug Jackson
VK1ZDJ
http://www.dougswordclock.com/ -< My clocks
http://www.vk1zdj.net -< My Amature Radio Activities
6:58 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Curt @ Atari Museum
<curt at atarimuseum.com> wrote:
Gene Buckle wrote:
Says my C-64 (after I load "Software Automatic Mouth" and tell it what to say).
;-)
-ethan
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Says you... punk! ;-P
The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more
volatile time....
Not really. ?Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
7:10 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Yeah yeah yeah.... Atari's had SAM too, along with the Alien Voice Box
and the free Votrax speech box that was detailed in an issue of Antic
that you could build yourself, then there was the Covox box, the Parrot
and blah blah blah :-P
;-)
Man, I'm itching to pull out my old Hayes 1200 and dial up a BBS right
now! :-) Flame on!!!
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Curt @ Atari Museum
<curt at atarimuseum.com> wrote:
Gene Buckle wrote:
Says my C-64 (after I load "Software Automatic Mouth" and tell it what to
say).
;-)
-ethan
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Says you... punk! ;-P
The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more
volatile time....
Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
7:21 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
100....... And - just playing with systems.
You would *never* guess what my day job is now :-)
Doug
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Curt @ Atari Museum
<curt at atarimuseum.com>wrote:
Yeah yeah yeah.... Atari's had SAM too, along with
the Alien Voice Box and
the free Votrax speech box that was detailed in an issue of Antic that you
could build yourself, then there was the Covox box, the Parrot and blah blah
blah :-P
;-)
Man, I'm itching to pull out my old Hayes 1200 and dial up a BBS right now!
:-) Flame on!!!
Ethan Dicks wrote:
--
Doug Jackson
VK1ZDJ
http://www.dougswordclock.com/ -< My clocks
http://www.vk1zdj.net -< My Amature Radio Activities
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:52 PM, Curt @ Atari
Museum
<curt at atarimuseum.com> wrote:
Gene Buckle wrote:
Says my C-64 (after I load "Software Automatic Mouth" and tell it what to
say).
;-)
-ethan
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
> The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more volatile time....
>
>
>
Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
Says you... punk! ;-P
17 Jun
17 Jun
6:32 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 9:21 PM, Doug Jackson <doug at doughq.com> wrote:
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on
the floor of a lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
100....... ?And - just playing with systems.
Why the lift? Quick getaway?
-ethan
2:11 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
100....... And - just playing with systems.
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for this.
-tony
2:56 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
> I have *many* fond memories associated with
sitting on the floor of a lift
> (elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
> 100....... And - just playing with systems.
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for
this.
The [emergency] phone installed in an elevator (lift) has no coin slot?
18 Jun
18 Jun
6:54 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
I was not aware that emergency phones in lifts in the UK were attached
to the PSTN in a way you could gain control of the line. My
understanding (which could be inaccurate, I admit) is that in the
States, either the phone rings an internal maintenance number (for
buildings that are staffed 24/7, and that may be an obsolete practice
by now anyway) or it autodials to some off-site service that may
eventually result in someone being sent to the site. You don't now
nor ever did have a way of getting a dial tone.
The closest to this that I'm aware of in my neck of the woods was an
acquaintance of mine who loaded the family Apple II into the station
wagon and parked by the garden center of the nearby K-Mart. It had a
payphone next to an accessible power outlet. I don't recall hearing
any tales of split-second getaways, but the arrangement did afford a
quick exit.
-ethan
> I have
*many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
> (elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
> 100....... ?And - just playing with systems.
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for
this.
The [emergency] phone installed in an elevator (lift) has no coin slot?
11:10 a.m.
New subject: elevator phones, was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion
On 6/18/11 9:54 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I was not aware that emergency phones in lifts in the
UK were attached
to the PSTN in a way you could gain control of the line. My
understanding (which could be inaccurate, I admit) is that in the
States, either the phone rings an internal maintenance number (for
buildings that are staffed 24/7, and that may be an obsolete practice
by now anyway) or it autodials to some off-site service that may
eventually result in someone being sent to the site. You don't now
nor ever did have a way of getting a dial tone.
No, you can easily get a dialtone. I've done it.
In 1993, my company (Digex) was in very stiff competition with UUnet
Technologies. It was outright war. At the time they had periodic "open
house" gatherings that only their customers were welcome to attend. We
purchased their cheapest service, a dialup UUCP news feed, which
afforded us the right to attend the next open house.
After eating a very large quantity of baked beans, ("fire for
effect!") a few of us, including our president Doug Humphrey, headed
over to Virginia to rub elbows with our mortal enemies.
It so happened that all of us were "men of mass", who were all quite
experienced in the art of elevator manipulation ('vator surfing, etc),
so we were sorely tempted to get into some mischief on our way out of
the building. We walked into an elevator, along with some random guy
leaving his workday from some other company in the building, and we
happened to notice that the elevator was particularly "bouncy"...so we
bounced it.
A lot.
The elevator control system noticed this and froze the elevator.
Between floors, as luck would have it. So we used the emergency phone,
which was configured to auto-dial the 24hr service number of the
elevator maintenance company, and told them what was up. They
dispatched a van, which we were told would take about 1.5hrs to get there.
I noticed that the random guy in the elevator with us was carrying an
HT (a handheld ham radio transceiver). It was, as I recall, a Yaesu
FT-470, a 2m/440MHz radio with a DTMF keypad.
I had an idea.
We picked up the elevator's emergency phone and immediately started
"flashing" the hook. If you do this with the right timing, you can get
a dialtone. I asked the stranger for his HT, tuned it to an unused
frequency, turned up the volume, keyed the transmitter, placed the
elevator emergency phone's microphone next to the radio's speaker, and
dialed "411". We got the number for the nearest Domino's (a crappy US
pizza delivery chain), called that using the same method, and ordered a
pizza. We requested that it be delivered to that address, "to the
northeast elevator, between floors 4 and 5". We described our situation
to the Domino's guy, he seemed to believe us, and said our pizza would
be on its way shortly.
Sadly, he obviously didn't believe us, and the pizza never arrived,
and we left the elevator when the service guy showed up and reset the
controller.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
2:55 p.m.
New subject: elevator phones, was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion
On Sat, 18 Jun 2011, Dave McGuire wrote:
dialed "411". We got the number for the
nearest Domino's (a crappy US
pizza delivery chain), called that using the same method, and ordered a
pizza. We requested that it be delivered to that address, "to the
northeast elevator, between floors 4 and 5". We described our situation
to the Domino's guy, he seemed to believe us, and said our pizza would
be on its way shortly.
Sadly, he obviously didn't believe us, and the pizza never arrived,
and we left the elevator when the service guy showed up and reset the
controller.
If he didn't deliver by the time the service guy showed up, then they owe
you a free one, and that needs to be published on WWW!
4:58 p.m.
New subject: elevator phones, was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion
On 6/18/11 5:55 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
ROFL! Yes, a great many of the stories from the early Digex days
really do need to be published, now that the statute of limitations has
run out. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
dialed
"411". We got the number for the nearest Domino's (a crappy US
pizza delivery chain), called that using the same method, and ordered a
pizza. We requested that it be delivered to that address, "to the
northeast elevator, between floors 4 and 5". We described our situation
to the Domino's guy, he seemed to believe us, and said our pizza would
be on its way shortly.
Sadly, he obviously didn't believe us, and the pizza never arrived,
and we left the elevator when the service guy showed up and reset the
controller.
If he didn't deliver by the time the service guy showed up, then they owe
you a free one, and that needs to be published on WWW!
1:08 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
The
[emergency] phone installed in an elevator (lift) has no coin slot?
I was not aware that emergency phones in lifts in the UK were attached
to the PSTN in a way you could gain control of the line. My The closest to this that I'm aware of in my neck
of the woods was an
acquaintance of mine who loaded the family Apple II into the station
wagon and parked by the garden center of the nearby K-Mart. It had a
payphone next to an accessible power outlet. I don't recall hearing
any tales of split-second getaways, but the arrangement did afford a
quick exit.
At one time public telephone boxes in the UK had a light in them which
used a normal mains filamnet bulb. There are stories of hackers/crackers
removing said bulb and pluging a BC plug into the lampholder to run a
terminal/modem. I do not know how reliable said storeis are...
[Even older telephone boxes had a mirror in them, for what reason
$deity-only-knows, and I've met a person who claimed to have removed the
bulb from such a telephone box to plug in an electric shaver which he
then used, along with the mirror, for the normal purpose]
-tony
2:38 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, 18 Jun 2011, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I was not aware that emergency phones in lifts in the
UK were attached
to the PSTN in a way you could gain control of the line. My
understanding (which could be inaccurate, I admit) is that in the
States, either the phone rings an internal maintenance number (for
buildings that are staffed 24/7, and that may be an obsolete practice
by now anyway) or it autodials to some off-site service that may
eventually result in someone being sent to the site. You don't now
nor ever did have a way of getting a dial tone.
No Personal Experience, but I have heard that,
not all autodial systems are completely secure. For example, could it be
possible to drop the party at the other end, without actually dropping the
connection?
"I know! Just tell whoever answers at the offsite service to press 90#"
:-)
10:29 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
> I have *many* fond memories associated with
sitting on the floor of a lift
> (elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
> 100....... And - just playing with systems.
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for
this.
The [emergency] phone installed in an elevator (lift) has no coin slot?
17 Jun
17 Jun
3:18 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:11:49PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
I was waiting to hear the rest of this, about the duct tape, the
whipped cream and the hamsters.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
100....... And - just playing with systems.
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for this.
18 Jun
18 Jun
10:41 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:11:49PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
I was waiting to hear the rest of this, about the duct tape, the
whipped cream and the hamsters.
Duct tape to hopd the accoustic coupler cups to the handset
Hamsters to run in lettle treadmill wheels to generate electricity to
charge a battery to run the M100
But I am wondering what on earth the whipped cream is for here?
[And the more normal (?) connotations of those objects are not suitable
for a family mailing list like this one :-)]
-tony
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
100....... And - just playing with systems.
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for this.
2:08 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 06:41:36PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:11:49PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
> > >
> > > I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
...
Hamsters to run in lettle treadmill wheels to generate
electricity to
charge a battery to run the M100
But I am wondering what on earth the whipped cream is for here?
Why to feed the hungry hamsters of course!
[And the more normal (?) connotations of those objects are not suitable
for a family mailing list like this one :-)]
You, have a dirty mind!
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
19 Jun
19 Jun
10:38 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
But I am
wondering what on earth the whipped cream is for here?
Why to feed the hungry hamsters of course!
[And the more normal (?) connotations of those objects are not suitable
for a family mailing list like this one :-)]
You, have a dirty mind!
5:02 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/18/11 7:58 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
Somebody mentioned Seven of Nine earlier..
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
But I am
wondering what on earth the whipped cream is for here?
To feed to the hamsters?
To cover the lens of the security camera?
5:25 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, 18 Jun 2011, Dave McGuire wrote:
Somebody mentioned Seven of Nine earlier..
Is that a "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass" reference?
But I am wondering what on earth the whipped cream is
for here?
To cover the lens of the security camera?
7:19 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
But I am
wondering what on earth the whipped cream is for here?
To cover the lens of the
security camera?
8:15 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
>>>> But I am wondering what on earth the
whipped cream is for here?
>> Somebody mentioned Seven of Nine earlier..
> Is that a "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass" reference?
On Sat, 18 Jun 2011, Dave McGuire wrote:
Ah, no. Star Trek: Voyager.
That part is a given. But,
You DIDN'T have a mental image of ST:V's 7of9 replacing Delores Ericson
on their album cover?
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/booth-reviews/2010/12/song-of-the-day---whi…
If you have 7of9 in the lift with you, you don't feed the whipcream to
the hamsters. Why didn't she make an 8 rating?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
8:49 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/18/11 11:15 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
Ahh, no I hadn't seen that. But yes, I see exactly what you mean. ;)
>>>> But I am wondering what on earth the whipped cream is for here?
>> Somebody mentioned Seven of Nine earlier..
> Is that a "Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass" reference?
Ah, no. Star Trek: Voyager.
That part is a given. But,
You DIDN'T have a mental image of ST:V's 7of9 replacing Delores Ericson
on their album cover?
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/booth-reviews/2010/12/song-of-the-day---whi…
If you have 7of9 in the lift with you, you don't
feed the whipcream to
the hamsters. Why didn't she make an 8 rating?
Oh so very true. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
19 Jun
19 Jun
11:04 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, 18 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
But I am wondering what on earth the whipped
cream is for here?
To feed to the hamsters? To cover the lens of the security camera?
I would think a bit omore of the duct tape would be better than whipped
cream for that.
-tony
17 Jun
17 Jun
3:24 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Tony Duell wrote:
...so he didn't become a guest of the State?
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic coupler, and my Model
100....... And - just playing with systems.
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for this.
19 Jun
19 Jun
4:08 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Because you were a pimply faced 13 year old, and you couldn't walk into an
office building and just use a phone.... And you wanted to not have calls
end up on your parents phone...
Yep - That was it.!
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 7:11 AM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
--
Doug Jackson
VK1ZDJ
http://www.dougswordclock.com/ -< My clocks
http://www.vk1zdj.net -< My Amature Radio Activities
I have *many* fond memories associated with sitting on the floor of a
lift
(elevator), with the phone, my 300 baud acoustic
coupler, and my Model
100....... And - just playing with systems.
I am wondering why you used a phone in a lift for this.
-tony
16 Jun
16 Jun
7:25 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Yeah yeah yeah.... Atari's had SAM too, along with
the Alien Voice Box and
the free Votrax speech box that was detailed in an issue of Antic that you
could build yourself, then there was the Covox box, the Parrot and blah blah
blah :-P
;-)
Man, I'm itching to pull out my old Hayes 1200 and dial up a BBS right now!
:-) Flame on!!!
Telnet to aor.retroarchive.org. It's not hooked up to a modem, but it IS
a real IIe. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
4:17 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb at deltasoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
I guess you need to put a time frame for that debate, game designers took
ages to get the most out of the C64 so early stuff was about the same for
both. I would suspect the early 800's were better built then the early C64's
but I could be wrong.
Mac OS 7 vs Windows 3.1 anybody?
The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more
volatile time....
Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
g.
6:44 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Teo Zenios wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb at
deltasoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Machine Always Crashes, If Not, The Operating System Hangs.
Oh wait. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
I guess you need to put a time frame for that debate, game designers took
ages to get the most out of the C64 so early stuff was about the same for
both. I would suspect the early 800's were better built then the early C64's
but I could be wrong.
Mac OS 7 vs Windows 3.1 anybody? The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more
volatile time....
Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
g.
17 Jun
17 Jun
1:07 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
I wasn't into home micros and games at that time (and am not now), but I
always thought the Atari400/800 (Etc0 video chips looked nice on paper.
The C64 one looked much more 'normal'.
Let the flames begin...
-tony
The Atari XL's vs C64's were a much more
volatile time....
Not really. Everyone knew the Atari was utter crap. :)
16 Jun
16 Jun
8:52 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
PERL vs. real programming languages :-p
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
Christian Liendo [christian_liendo at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:17 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
8:59 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
PERL vs. real programming languages :-p
If you capitalize Perl as an acronym, you don't use it much. ;)
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Some days you're the bug, and some days you're the windshield. -------------
9:56 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Dan Roganti <ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Cameron Kaiser
<spectre at floodgap.com>wrote:
DTL vs. TTL ?;)
Bronze vs Iron.
-ethan
PERL vs.
real programming languages ?:-p
10:35 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
apples vs oranges
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Dan Roganti
<ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Cameron Kaiser
<spectre at floodgap.com
wrote:
DTL vs. TTL ;)
Bronze vs Iron.
-ethan
PERL vs.
real programming languages :-p
10:54 a.m.
New subject: The ULTIMATE VS. Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Top Posting vs. Bottom Posting
11:41 a.m.
New subject: The ULTIMATE VS. Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I've really basically given up on this...
At 10:54 AM -0700 6/16/11, Christian Liendo wrote:
Top Posting vs. Bottom Posting
It's just not worth the effort of fighting, thanks to so many people
using broken products from Microsoft.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
12:55 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>wrote:
DTL vs. TTL ;)
TTL (or other MSI) .vs PLDs/FPGAs
Microcontrollers .vs. random logic
-tony
PERL vs.
real programming languages :-p
18 Jun
18 Jun
6:56 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 3:55 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
TTL (or other MSI) .vs PLDs/FPGAs
Microcontrollers .vs. random logic
ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing Fusemaps manually
=Dan
7:14 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Jun 18, 2011, at 9:56 PM, Dan Roganti <ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing Fusemaps manually
I use PALASM and I edit its input files with emacs. So there! ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
TTL (or other MSI) .vs PLDs/FPGAs
Microcontrollers .vs. random logic
7:25 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:14 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>wrote:
On Jun 18, 2011, at 9:56 PM, Dan Roganti <ragooman
at gmail.com> wrote:
ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing Fusemaps manually
I use PALASM and I edit its input files with emacs. So there! ;)
be a man, and edit the Fusemaps by hand ! ;)
TTL (or other MSI) .vs PLDs/FPGAs
Microcontrollers .vs. random logic
8:50 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/18/11 10:25 PM, Dan Roganti wrote:
>> ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing
Fusemaps manually
>
> I use PALASM and I edit its input files with emacs. So there! ;)
>
>
> be a man, and edit the Fusemaps by hand ! ;)
...with an X-Acto knife after de-capping the chip!
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
9:39 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 11:50 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>wrote:
On 6/18/11 10:25 PM, Dan Roganti wrote:
haha
Our first programmer at work would have a view of the fusemap on the CRT for
each given PAL and you had to fill in the worksheet for that fusemap and use
that as your guide as you scroll the cursor thru the screen to mark the
appropriate fuse for your design to program. I still can't recall who made
that programmer.
=Dan
ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing Fusemaps
manually
I use PALASM and I edit its input files with emacs. So there! ;)
be a man, and edit the Fusemaps by hand ! ;)
...with an X-Acto knife after de-capping the chip!
19 Jun
19 Jun
10:17 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/19/11 12:39 AM, Dan Roganti wrote:
haha
Our first programmer at work would have a view of the fusemap on the CRT for
each given PAL and you had to fill in the worksheet for that fusemap and use
that as your guide as you scroll the cursor thru the screen to mark the
appropriate fuse for your design to program. I still can't recall who made
that programmer.
That actually sounds pretty neat! Someone needs to write a fusemap
visualizer for JEDEC PAL fusemap files. Although one can usually
visualize it pretty well just by looking at the file. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing Fusemaps
manually
...with an X-Acto knife after de-capping the chip! >
I use PALASM and I edit its input files with emacs. So there! ;)
be a man, and edit the Fusemaps by hand ! ;)
10:34 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 19 Jun 2011 at 13:17, Dave McGuire wrote:
PAL? Whatever happened to burning your truth tables into bipolar
PROM?
--Chuck
Our first
programmer at work would have a view of the fusemap on the
CRT for each given PAL and you had to fill in the worksheet for that
fusemap and use that as your guide as you scroll the cursor thru the
screen to mark the appropriate fuse for your design to program. I
still can't recall who made that programmer.
That actually sounds pretty neat! Someone needs to write a fusemap
visualizer for JEDEC PAL fusemap files. Although one can usually
visualize it pretty well just by looking at the file. ;)
11:07 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/19/11 1:34 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
PAL? Whatever happened to burning your truth tables into bipolar
PROM?
You had PROMs? When I was young, all we had were diode arrays!! ;)
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Our first programmer at work would have a view of the
fusemap on the
CRT for each given PAL and you had to fill in the worksheet for that
fusemap and use that as your guide as you scroll the cursor thru the
screen to mark the appropriate fuse for your design to program. I
still can't recall who made that programmer.
That actually sounds pretty neat! Someone needs to write a fusemap
visualizer for JEDEC PAL fusemap files. Although one can usually
visualize it pretty well just by looking at the file. ;)
11:41 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 19 Jun 2011 at 14:07, Dave McGuire wrote:
You had PROMs? When I was young, all we had were
diode arrays!! ;)
When I was young, (semiconductor) diodes came in white ceramic
packages with metal endcaps and were usually germanium. No, the PROM
was for a production design, ca. 1983. It was expensive
(particularly if you goofed), but it eliminated quite a few
packages.
--Chuck
11:54 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/19/11 2:41 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
The earliest diodes I remember were packaged in glass. Not the
standard glass packages that we see 1N34s and similar diodes packaged
in, but about 50% longer and curved, so they bulge a bit in the middle.
I have no idea of what type they were, but they were germanium.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
You had
PROMs? When I was young, all we had were diode arrays!! ;)
When I was young, (semiconductor) diodes came in white ceramic
packages with metal endcaps and were usually germanium. No, the PROM
was for a production design, ca. 1983. It was expensive
(particularly if you goofed), but it eliminated quite a few
packages.
12:16 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 19 Jun 2011 at 13:17, Dave McGuire wrote:
PAL? Whatever happened to burning your truth tables into bipolar
PROM?
PROM's are too slooow ;)
=Dan
Our first
programmer at work would have a view of the fusemap on the
CRT for each given PAL and you had to fill in the worksheet for that
fusemap and use that as your guide as you scroll the cursor thru the
screen to mark the appropriate fuse for your design to program. I
still can't recall who made that programmer.
That actually sounds pretty neat! Someone needs to write a fusemap
visualizer for JEDEC PAL fusemap files. Although one can usually
visualize it pretty well just by looking at the file. ;)
12:54 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 1:17 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 6/19/11 12:39 AM, Dan Roganti wrote:
that programmer was pre-PALASM days. Your hardcopy worksheet was your only
reference - nobody had the urge to retype the fusemap into a text file. We
were all relieved the day PALASM was released in the early 80s.
=Dan
.
haha
Our first programmer at work would have a view of the fusemap on the CRT
for
each given PAL and you had to fill in the worksheet for that fusemap and
use
that as your guide as you scroll the cursor thru the screen to mark the
appropriate fuse for your design to program. I still can't recall who made
that programmer.
That actually sounds pretty neat! Someone needs to write a fusemap
visualizer for JEDEC PAL fusemap files. Although one can usually visualize
it pretty well just by looking at the file. ;)
6:36 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
From: mcguire at neurotica.com
On 6/18/11 10:25 PM, Dan Roganti wrote:
Hi
I wanted to create a 16R4 for my recreated Apple IIe Swift
card. I wrote a simple program to enter fuses from a
hand made map. It also blew unused fuse lines and crossed
to fuses on those lines to reduce power in the final chip.
I did it from the map. It wasn't that hard. I don't know
why it is suppose to be difficult. It is just logic circuits.
Dwight
>> ABEL vs CUPL vs PALASM vs. editing
Fusemaps manually
>
> I use PALASM and I edit its input files with emacs. So there! ;)
>
>
> be a man, and edit the Fusemaps by hand ! ;)
...with an X-Acto knife after de-capping the chip!
8:19 a.m.
New subject: PLEASE CHANGE THE SUBJECT LINE (was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...)
If you actually post something someone should read!
On 6/19/11 6:36 AM, dwight elvey wrote:
I wanted to create a 16R4 for my recreated Apple IIe
Swift
card. I wrote a simple program to enter fuses from a
hand made map. It also blew unused fuse lines and crossed
to fuses on those lines to reduce power in the final chip.
I did it from the map. It wasn't that hard. I don't know
why it is suppose to be difficult. It is just logic circuits.
Dwight
20 Jun
20 Jun
6:54 a.m.
New subject: Creating a 16R4 PAL to use on a recreated SwifCard for an Apple IIe
Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2011 08:19:18 -0700
From: aek at bitsavers.org
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: PLEASE CHANGE THE SUBJECT LINE (was Re: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi
System 360/370 book...)
If you actually post something someone should read!
On 6/19/11 6:36 AM, dwight elvey wrote:
> I wanted to create a 16R4 for my recreated Apple IIe Swift
> card. I wrote a simple program to enter fuses from a
> hand made map. It also blew unused fuse lines and crossed
> to fuses on those lines to reduce power in the final chip.
> I did it from the map. It wasn't that hard. I don't know
> why it is suppose to be difficult. It is just logic circuits.
> Dwight
Hi
I will have to admit, it took me a few iterations to get it right.
I've no excuse for that. Once I knew what I was doing wrong,
it all made perfect sense.
I paced a copy of the map in front of me and marked dots on
the connections I wanted. I wrote the numbers off the sheet
into my program at the end. It is generally missing comments
but I didn't write it for instructive purposes.
Bob R. has a Pal programmer and blew the PALs for me.
Since the code is relatively short, here it is:
\ Compiles a 16R4 design DKE
\ SWYFT vers 3 PAL hope this one works
decimal
create FuseLines 2048 allot
: Index ( FuseLine Increment - Index )
swap ( 32 * ) FuseLines + +
FuseLines 2047 + min FuseLines max ;
: InitFuse
FuseLines 2048 erase ;
InitFuse
: Connect ( FuseLine Increment - ) \ Used to place fuses to keep
Index -1 swap c! ;
: C Connect ;
create ones 64 allot
ones 64 erase
: one ( row - )
-1 swap 32 / ones + c! ;
: Clean ( - ) \ Unspecified fuse rows must be 0 so cross connect
\ something on each unused row.
64 0 do
i ones + c@ 0=
if
i 32 *
0
32 0 do
over i + FuseLines + c@ +
loop
0= if \ must be unused so need to blow something
dup dup 16 / 31 and 2dup Connect 1+ Connect
then
drop
then
loop ;
handle Swyft.PAL
create Return $0D c, $0A c,
: Transform ( - )
2048 0 do
i FuseLines + dup
c@ if ascii 0 else ascii 1 then
swap c!
loop ;
0 value ChkSum
: CalSum
0 =: ChkSum
256 0 do 0
8 0 do 2/
i j 8 * + FuseLines + c@
ascii 1 = if $80 + then
loop
\ +!> ChkSum
ChkSum + =: ChkSum
loop ;
create STX 2 c,
create ETX 3 c,
create Star ascii * c,
create LetC ascii C c,
0 value AsciiSum
: WR ( A C - )
2dup Swyft.PAL hwrite drop
0 do dup i + c@ +!> AsciiSum loop
drop
;
: WritePal ( - )
0 =: AsciiSum
Clean
Transform
CalSum
Swyft.PAL !HCB
Swyft.PAL hcreate drop
read-write
Swyft.PAL hopen drop
STX 1 WR
" SwyftCard PAL for Apple IIe" WR
Return 2 WR
" recreate by Dwight Elvey " WR
Return 2 WR
" Compile by my Forth program " WR
Star 1 WR
Return 2 WR
" L0000" WR
64 0 do
Return 2 WR
i 32 *
FuseLines + 32 WR
loop
Star 1 WR
Return 2 WR
LetC 1 WR
HEX ChkSum 0 <# # # # # #> WR
Star 1 WR
ETX 1 WR
Return 2 WR
AsciiSum 0 <# # # # # #> WR
Return 2 WR
Swyft.PAL hclose drop ;
\ SwyftCard PAL
0 one
192 11 c 192 25 c
224 24 c 224 29 c
256 one
448 16 c 448 20 c 448 23 c 448 25 c 448 28 c
480 16 c 480 20 c 480 23 c 480 24 c
672 0 c 672 11 c
704 1 c 704 9 c
736 5 c
1440 0 c 1440 23 c
1472 1 c 1472 13 c
1504 5 c
1536 7 c
1568 one
1792 5 c
1824 one
WritePal SWYFT3.PAL
7:50 a.m.
New subject: 1820-0092 1 of 10 nixie driver.
Hi
I needed to replace the nixie driver on one of my
HP counters. These are a real pain. They are hard to find
and if I want one, I have to buy 10 at $10+ each.
These are frustrating because there is a TTL part that
does exactly the same thing.
It blanks the display for values above 9 and takes a
TTL level input.
The part is the 74141. The only problem is that the
logic levels are inverted and wired differently. I piggy-backed
stacked a 7404, 74141 and a machine socket with some
wire and hot glue.
The 74141s are also hard to find but many can be found
on ebay at a resonable price.
I'm quite pleased with the result because I'd moved the
failed digit to the last location that rarely gets used.
It would only display even numbers for odd.
Now they all work :)
Dwight
11:45 a.m.
New subject: 1820-0092 1 of 10 nixie driver.
On 2011 Jun 20, at 7:50 AM, dwight elvey wrote:
Hi
I needed to replace the nixie driver on one of my
HP counters. These are a real pain. They are hard to find
and if I want one, I have to buy 10 at $10+ each.
These are frustrating because there is a TTL part that
does exactly the same thing.
It blanks the display for values above 9 and takes a
TTL level input.
The part is the 74141. The only problem is that the
logic levels are inverted and wired differently. I piggy-backed
stacked a 7404, 74141 and a machine socket with some
wire and hot glue.
The 74141s are also hard to find but many can be found
on ebay at a resonable price.
I'm quite pleased with the result because I'd moved the
failed digit to the last location that rarely gets used.
It would only display even numbers for odd.
Now they all work :)
I've had a couple of those ICs fail in an HP counter too. I had a junk
board from another HP counter that I was able to scavenge replacements
from.
Those were fairly early MSI ICs (1967). There were several NIXIE
drivers being made in that period until the 74141 finally 'settled the
argument'.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/nixieref/index.html
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/edte/HP5216A/index.html
The other funny parts HP made for use in those counters are the decade
counter chips (1820-0093 and 1820-0119) with an 11th state to represent
a blanked zero. When the counter is reset it is put into the
blanked-zero state. During the gate/count period, a given digit will be
unblanked if it sees any clock pulses, so at the end of the gate period
leading zeroes remain blanked while lower-order zeros are displayed.
1:05 p.m.
New subject: 1820-0092 1 of 10 nixie driver.
From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca
On 2011 Jun 20, at 7:50 AM, dwight elvey wrote:
Hi
I have two of the 5325Bs. These are the full two channel input,
frequency/period/counters. I have ideas how to deal with the leading
zero problem using preload counters. So far, I've not had any of
these go bad. I had one driver and one nixie tube fail.
The nixie driver was interesting in that the input lead failed open.
For a long time, I could get it to work by stressing the failing pin
but it eventually stopped working. It is interesting that these are not
ttl inputs. An open is zero not a one. On a active low, that makes
it always active.
I am looking for one more thing. I am missing a cover. If anyone in the
SF bay area has some junk HP stuff, I could use a cover.
I like having two because I tend to do long period measurments.
When in that mode one loses the programmable divider. I use the
other counter as a programmable reference.
Dwight
Hi
I needed to replace the nixie driver on one of my
HP counters. These are a real pain. They are hard to find
and if I want one, I have to buy 10 at $10+ each.
These are frustrating because there is a TTL part that
does exactly the same thing.
It blanks the display for values above 9 and takes a
TTL level input.
The part is the 74141. The only problem is that the
logic levels are inverted and wired differently. I piggy-backed
stacked a 7404, 74141 and a machine socket with some
wire and hot glue.
The 74141s are also hard to find but many can be found
on ebay at a resonable price.
I'm quite pleased with the result because I'd moved the
failed digit to the last location that rarely gets used.
It would only display even numbers for odd.
Now they all work :)
I've had a couple of those ICs fail in an HP counter too. I had a junk
board from another HP counter that I was able to scavenge replacements
from.
Those were fairly early MSI ICs (1967). There were several NIXIE
drivers being made in that period until the 74141 finally 'settled the
argument'.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/nixieref/index.html
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/edte/HP5216A/index.html
The other funny parts HP made for use in those counters are the decade
counter chips (1820-0093 and 1820-0119) with an 11th state to represent
a blanked zero. When the counter is reset it is put into the
blanked-zero state. During the gate/count period, a given digit will be
unblanked if it sees any clock pulses, so at the end of the gate period
leading zeroes remain blanked while lower-order zeros are displayed.
1:14 p.m.
New subject: Creating a 16R4 PAL to use on a recreated SwifCard for an Apple IIe
From: dkelvey at hotmail.com
---snip---
> I wanted to create a 16R4 for my recreated Apple IIe Swift
> card. I wrote a simple program to enter fuses from a
> hand made map. It also blew unused fuse lines and crossed
> to fuses on those lines to reduce power in the final chip.
> I did it from the map. It wasn't that hard. I don't know
> why it is suppose to be difficult. It is just logic circuits.
> Dwight
16 Jun
16 Jun
3:49 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
AC V DC
evolve in the ocean V evolve on land
plant V animal
17 Jun
17 Jun
4:53 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Jun 17, 2011, at 1:01 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 17 Jun 2011 at 0:56, Dan Roganti wrote:
What, no "Kirk vs. Picard"?
You guys disappoint me.
Warp Drive vs. Ion Propulsion
Fish vs. Fowl
Soup vs. Salad
6:32 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 June 2011 12:53, Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
On Jun 17, 2011, at 1:01 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
For amusement value, there's a clip of me & a friend discussing Lord
of the Rings versus Harry Potter in this video - 45sec in:
<http://www.asylum.co.uk/2011/05/26/pulp-debate-lord-of-the-rings-or-harry-potter-which-wizarding/>
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
On 17 Jun 2011 at 0:56, Dan Roganti wrote:
What, no "Kirk vs. Picard"?
You guys disappoint me. Warp Drive ?vs. ?Ion Propulsion
Fish vs. Fowl
Soup vs. Salad
7:05 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17/06/2011 14:34, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 6:53 AM, Daniel Seagraves
<dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
Which makes me wonder why did Picard always state "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot",
I mean do they not have macros or pre-programmed settings in the 24th
centuary so he could say "normal please" :) :) :) :)
Cheers.
Phill.
What, no "Kirk vs. Picard"?
You guys disappoint me.
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot v Romulan Ale.
7:10 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 17 June 2011 15:05, Phill Harvey-Smith <afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk> wrote:
On 17/06/2011 14:34, Ethan Dicks wrote:
You have to be /very/ careful with automation. It was tried once. It
wasn't good.
When the 'Drink' button is pressed it makes an instant but highly
detailed examination of the subject's taste buds, a spectroscopic
analysis of the subject's metabolism, and then sends tiny experimental
signals down the neural pathways to the taste centres of the subject's
brain to see what is likely to be well received. However, no-one knows
quite why it does this because it then invariably delivers a cupful of
liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 6:53 AM, Daniel Seagraves
<dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> ?wrote:
Which makes me wonder why did Picard always state "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot", I
mean do they not have macros or pre-programmed settings in the 24th centuary
so he could say "normal please" :) :) :) :)
What, no "Kirk vs. Picard"?
You guys disappoint me.
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot ?v ?Romulan Ale.
7:24 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:10 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
On 17 June 2011 15:05, Phill Harvey-Smith <afra at
aurigae.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Because it was made by Lucas?
-ethan
On 17/06/2011 14:34, Ethan Dicks wrote:
You have to be /very/ careful with automation. It was tried once. It
wasn't good.
When the 'Drink' button is pressed it makes an instant but highly
detailed examination of the subject's taste buds... no-one knows
quite why it does this because it then invariably delivers a cupful of
liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. Tea, Earl Grey, Hot ?v ?Romulan Ale.
Which makes me wonder why did Picard always state "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot", I
mean do they not have macros or pre-programmed settings in the 24th centuary
so he could say "normal please" :) :) :) :)
7:43 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
When the
'Drink' button is pressed it makes an instant but highly
detailed examination of the subject's taste buds... no-one knows
quite why it does this because it then invariably delivers a cupful of
liquid that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
Because it was made by Lucas?
1:15 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Ethan Dicks wrote:
WHOA!
Are you saying that the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is an ENGLISH
company??
liquid that is
almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
Because it was made by Lucas?
2:33 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Ethan Dicks wrote:
WHOA!
Are you saying that the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is an ENGLISH
company??
Surely you're not...serious.
*gd&r*
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
liquid
that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
Because it was made by Lucas?
3:10 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
> Are you saying that the Sirius Cybernetics
Corporation is an ENGLISH
> company??
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Gene Buckle wrote:
Surely you're not...serious.
*gd&r*
How long after the acquisition of Lucas was the name change and the
release of "Real Peopl Personalities"?
7:24 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Phill Harvey-Smith
<afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk> wrote:
On 17/06/2011 14:34, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Or just stand in front of the dispenser - the computer surely knows
who he is (tracking his communicator) and what time it is
(mid-morning, mid-afternoon, etc), so if he's such a creature of
habit, words are unnecessary. Of course, that doesn't make for good
television, so we get oft-repeated taglines.
-ethan
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot ?v ?Romulan Ale.
Which makes me wonder why did Picard always state "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot", I
mean do they not have macros or pre-programmed settings in the 24th centuary
so he could say "normal please" :) :) :) :)
1:10 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, 17 Jun 2011, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
Which makes me wonder why did Picard always state
"Tea, Earl Grey, Hot",
I mean do they not have macros or pre-programmed settings in the 24th
centuary so he could say "normal please" :) :) :) :)
5) The Nutri-Matic machine deeply analyzes the subject, and then proceeds
to provide him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that is almost, but
not quite, entirely unlike tea.
4) "normal, please"?? Do you say "please" to the ship's
computer??
Orak (sp?) would have a snide response.
3) "normal please" or "the usual" don't fill up as much time
between
commercials,
2) "normal please" could easily be misinterpreted by the ship's computer
to be a request for a more familiar reality, on a par with "stop turning
into a penquin".
1) That would not bring in the "product placement" revenue
9:34 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:34 AM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 6:53 AM, Daniel Seagraves
<dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> wrote:
eh-hem !!
Saurian brandy vs. Romulan Ale
What, no "Kirk vs. Picard"?
You guys disappoint me.
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot v Romulan Ale.
9:31 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Daniel Seagraves
<dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net>wrote:
On Jun 17, 2011, at 1:01 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
eh-hem,
Yeoman Janice Rand vs. Counsler Deanna Troi ;)
On 17 Jun 2011 at 0:56, Dan Roganti wrote:
What, no "Kirk vs. Picard"?
You guys disappoint me.
Warp Drive vs. Ion Propulsion
Fish vs. Fowl
Soup vs. Salad
18 Jun
18 Jun
11:19 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
--- On Fri, 6/17/11, Dan Roganti <ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
eh-hem,
Yeoman Janice Rand? vs.? Counsler Deanna Troi ;)
We never did get to see Spock and Kahn duke it out, did we? Or Spock and the Gorn. Was
just thinking to myself...
7 of 9 will kick all their collective butts!
16 Jun
16 Jun
10:49 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion
Perl roolz, Python droolz! ;->
(Seriously? syntactically significant white space??? Really??????)
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf
Of Ian King
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:53 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
PERL vs. real programming languages :-p
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
Christian Liendo [christian_liendo at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:17 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
11:16 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Rich Alderson wrote:
Perl roolz, Python droolz! ;->
(Seriously? syntactically significant white space??? Really??????)
That's not the worst part!
1) mutators for built-in objects don't return the object, so you can't do
more than one thing to an anonymous object; if you want to do 2 things you
need to assign it to a variable and then repeatedly do things via the
variable.
2) exceptions are not exceptional. You want to break out of a loop? That's
an exception. Even a loop from 1 to 10 will stop looping by throwing an
exception.
3) PyUnit tests are weaker than Test::More tests. A PyUnit test ends as
soon as the first assertion fails (whereas Test::More tests let you
continue with the rest of the test), and there is no way to declare the
number of assertions you expect to test.
Alexey
11:31 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Rich Alderson wrote:
> Perl roolz, Python droolz! ;->
>
> (Seriously? ?syntactically significant white space??? ?Really??????)
Yeah... that _really_ irks me.
I spent too much time in the 1980s chasing down lineprinter output
alignment issues because "X<tab>X" often renders differently than
"X<space><tab>X" on different terminals and printers. Why would I
want something invisible to me be meaningful to the
compiler/interpreter? (We often put terminals in the mode to display
glyphs for whitespace to track those issues down).
2) exceptions are not exceptional. You want to break
out of a loop? That's
an exception. Even a loop from 1 to 10 will stop looping by throwing an
exception.
That's merely annoying by comparison, but it is annoying.
-ethan
11:26 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Ian King wrote:
PERL vs. real programming languages :-p
________________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
Christian Liendo [christian_liendo at yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:17 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
Top posting vs. bottom posting ;-)
(did you do that on purpose?)
10:57 a.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
From: Christian Liendo
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:17 AM
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread in a
while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on technology.
I used to participate in the Emacs wars (the civil wars, GNU vs. XEmacs,
as well as denigrating the visual interface to ex), but the capper was a
comment in a keyboard flamefest on some newsgroup (alt.folklore.computers,
most likely, but it could have been an Emacs group) in which the winner
(as far as I'm concerned) noted:
"Keyboards are like assholes: Everybody's got one, but no one
wants to touch the other guy's."
As is said in the AI koans, "I was enlightened," and withdrew from all
flamewars. (But Perl vs. Python is so tempting... :-)
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
1:27 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:57:02AM -0700, Rich Alderson wrote:
From: Christian Liendo
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:17 AM
I remember when our system admin refused to load an editor, it was
way too bloated he said, it would slow down the system.
He was refusing to load up vi.
(PDP-11/45 Unix release 7)
So. Frankly, I just laugh at silly editor wars.
Remember kids,
emacs is for coding,
vi is for conf files,
ed is for freaking out unix n00bs.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
I have not seen a more useless off topic thread
in a while.
If we want to talk religion why not talk about
Commodore vs. Atari
Apple vs. IBM
CP/M vs. DOS
80x86 vx 68xxx
The good old days, where zealots ranted on
technology.
I used to participate in the Emacs wars (the civil wars, GNU vs. XEmacs,
2:31 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:27, Diane Bruce wrote:
I remember when our system admin refused to load an
editor, it was way
too bloated he said, it would slow down the system. He was refusing to
load up vi.
An editor--AN EDITOR?! You'd only use an editor if you were too lazy
to walk over to the keypunch. Besides, it's impolite to take control
of the system console to run an editor if there are other people on
the machine.
--Chuck
3:40 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 02:31:22PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 16 Jun 2011 at 16:27, Diane Bruce wrote:
> I remember when our system admin refused to load an editor, it was way
...
An editor--AN EDITOR?! You'd only use an editor
if you were too lazy
to walk over to the keypunch. Besides, it's impolite to take control
papertape vs. cards.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
3:46 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
papertape vs. cards.
I see your papertape vs. cards and raise you keyboard vs. toggles.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Anything that can be put into a nutshell belongs there. -- F. G. Brauer ----
4:12 p.m.
New subject: Useless thread, RE:Religion, Re: Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:46:09PM -0700, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
toggles vs. plugboard!
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
papertape vs.
cards.
I see your papertape vs. cards and raise you keyboard vs. toggles.
12:45 p.m.
Gene Buckle wrote:
0x207F (for the P800 crowd here...)
-tony
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Mike Loewen wrote:
Ctrl-S
:-)
XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX X
X X X X X X X X X
XXXXX X X X XXXXX X X X
X X X X X X X
XXXXX X XXXXX X XXXXX X X
With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND, bitches!" :)
1:59 p.m.
On Thu, 16 Jun 2011, Ethan Dicks wrote:
2011/6/16 Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk>:
0x207F (for the P800 crowd here...)
+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical
minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which
holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end.
With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND,
bitches!" :)
Ctrl-S
:-)
2 p.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:45:51PM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote:
And those of us who remember why this did not work on some modems but others?
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
2011/6/16 Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk>:
>> > With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND, bitches!" :)
...
0x207F (for
the P800 crowd here...)
+++ATH0
7:40 p.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM, Diane Bruce <db at db.net> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:45:51PM -0500, Ethan Dicks
wrote:
And those of us who remember why this did not work on some modems but others?
I had plenty of non-Hayes-compatible modems - Ventel comes to mind (it
was targeted for the dumb terminal crowd, not the
personal-computer-BBSer)... I think the model I had did *not* include
a dialer (it was an external accessory).
Or did you mean Hayes vs Hayes clones?
-ethan
2011/6/16 Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk>:
>> > With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND, bitches!" :)
...
0x207F
(for the P800 crowd here...)
+++ATH0 
17 Jun
17 Jun
5:41 a.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM, Diane Bruce <db at
db.net> wrote:
I believe the reason it didn't work on some modems is that Hayes had a
patent on the use of an escape sequence (+++) with guard time.
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:45:51PM -0500, Ethan
Dicks wrote:
And those of us who remember why this did not work on some modems but
others?
I had plenty of non-Hayes-compatible modems - Ventel comes to mind (it
was targeted for the dumb terminal crowd, not the
personal-computer-BBSer)... I think the model I had did *not* include
a dialer (it was an external accessory).
Or did you mean Hayes vs Hayes clones?
-ethan
2011/6/16 Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk>:
>> > With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND, bitches!" :)
...
0x207F
(for the P800 crowd here...)
+++ATH0
7:44 a.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/17/2011 8:41 AM, Michael Passer wrote:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Ethan
Dicks<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
I wasn't sure what Diane was getting at here.
Either, modems that weren't Hays compatible --- or didn't take commands
at all like my Radio Shack 300 baud direct connect.
or,
it was necessary to type + + + slowly, and then wait, and do ATH0.
Keith
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM, Diane
Bruce<db at db.net> wrote:
I believe the reason it didn't work on some modems is that Hayes had a
patent on the use of an escape sequence (+++) with guard time. On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:45:51PM -0500, Ethan
Dicks wrote:
others?
I had plenty of non-Hayes-compatible modems - Ventel comes to mind (it
was targeted for the dumb terminal crowd, not the
personal-computer-BBSer)... I think the model I had did *not* include
a dialer (it was an external accessory).
Or did you mean Hayes vs Hayes clones?
-ethan
2011/6/16 Tony Duell<ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk>:
>>> With this crowd, you should have tried "ABEND, bitches!" :)
...
> 0x207F (for the P800 crowd here...)
+++ATH0
And those of us who remember why this did not work on some modems but
8:57 a.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 08:41:38AM -0400, Michael Passer wrote:
Yep. stupid patent. Modem companies had to pay or not use it.
- Diane
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db
Why leave money to our children if we don't leave them the Earth?
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Ethan Dicks
<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM, Diane Bruce <db at db.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:45:51PM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote:
...
Or did you mean Hayes vs Hayes clones?
-ethan
I believe the reason it didn't work on some modems is that Hayes had a
patent on the use of an escape sequence (+++) with guard time.
9:35 a.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 2011 Jun 17, at 8:57 AM, Diane Bruce wrote:
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 08:41:38AM -0400, Michael
Passer wrote:
If it had the effect of limiting the use or propagation of that escape
sequence, the patent was a good thing.
I always found the delays annoying. How much cumulative time was wasted
while people waited for the computer to get control of the modem?
I believe the reason it didn't work on some modems is that Hayes had a
patent on the use of an escape sequence (+++) with guard time.
Yep. stupid patent. Modem companies had to pay or not use it.
11:26 a.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
On 6/17/2011 11:57 AM, Diane Bruce wrote:
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 08:41:38AM -0400, Michael
Passer wrote:
Yep. stupid patent. Modem companies had to pay or not use it.
- Diane
Patent is available here, for those interested.
http://bit.ly/kbM0AD
read someplace that the license was $1.
While this might not be worth anything, they did have a court decision
find in their (Hayes) favor.
Keith
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Ethan
Dicks<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM, Diane Bruce<db at db.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 03:45:51PM -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote:
...
Or did you mean Hayes vs Hayes clones?
-ethan
I believe the reason it didn't work on some modems is that Hayes had a
patent on the use of an escape sequence (+++) with guard time.
1:04 p.m.
New subject: Anything but Nazi System 360/370 book...
+++ATH0
And those of us who remember why this did not work on some modems but others?
15 Jun
15 Jun
3:40 a.m.
Very interesting!
1. The Swastika is a very old symbol.
2. There may be clue in the name of the author
3. If he is Finnish then there is one obscure possibility
4. At one point the Finns sided with the Germans against the Russians
5. The Finnish aircraft were marked with a blue Swastika.
6. IBM (Blue) book with triangles (aircraft symbol) by Finnish author?
Regards
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy
Sent: 15 June 2011 06:07
To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org
Subject: Nazi System 360/370 book...
So my wife wanted to show me a book tonight. Turned out it was one
of mine, she'd noticed something interesting.
System 360/370
Job Control Language
and the
Access Methods
by Reino Hannula
What's up with the Swastika on the spine of the book? It's made up
of little triangles, but it's definitely a swastika. Very strange.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
8:11 a.m.
A quick google seems to indicate he was in fact Finnish.
Zane
At 11:40 AM +0100 6/15/11, Rod Smallwood wrote:
Very interesting!
1. The Swastika is a very old symbol.
2. There may be clue in the name of the author
3. If he is Finnish then there is one obscure possibility
4. At one point the Finns sided with the Germans against the Russians
5. The Finnish aircraft were marked with a blue Swastika.
6. IBM (Blue) book with triangles (aircraft symbol) by Finnish author?
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
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