18 Apr
2002
18 Apr
'02
10:20 a.m.
From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de>
> How about calling it a Babbage?
An idea!
Well, I'd rather go for Zuse. Not only because he
is
German(*), but rather because there is still no basic
or derivated SI unit starting with Z, so Z would give
It's sufficiently obscure and I like it. Lessee a 400milliZuse
system... Yep rolls on the tongue nicely and sounds oh
so technical.
If this has to be successful we have to fit it into
the SI system :)
Go with it and we also need a "standard".
Now combine that with TCP/IP over morse and we have
something.
Allison
18 Apr
18 Apr
11:07 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Allison wrote:
Zuse gets my vote. Words like Gigazuse (GZ) sound really cool.
Peace... Sridhar
> How about
calling it a Babbage?
An idea!
Well, I'd rather go for Zuse. Not only because
he is
German(*), but rather because there is still no basic
or derivated SI unit starting with Z, so Z would give
It's sufficiently obscure and I like it. Lessee a 400milliZuse
system... Yep rolls on the tongue nicely and sounds oh
so technical. 
4:29 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Sridhar the POWERful wrote:
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Allison wrote:
Zuse gets my vote. Words like Gigazuse (GZ) sound really cool.
Are you pronouncing it correctly, i.e. "tsoo-zeh"? Or in the Greek
"Zeus"
fashion?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
> How
about calling it a Babbage?
An idea!
Well, I'd rather go for Zuse. Not only because
he is
German(*), but rather because there is still no basic
or derivated SI unit starting with Z, so Z would give
It's sufficiently obscure and I like it. Lessee a 400milliZuse
system... Yep rolls on the tongue nicely and sounds oh
so technical.
12:52 p.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
Zuse gets my vote. Words like Gigazuse (GZ) sound really cool.
Are you pronouncing it correctly, i.e. "tsoo-zeh"? Or in the Greek
"Zeus"
fashion?
I'm a fluent German speaker. 8-)
Peace... Sridhar
> How about
calling it a Babbage?
An idea!
Well, I'd rather go for Zuse. Not only because
he is
German(*), but rather because there is still no basic
or derivated SI unit starting with Z, so Z would give
It's sufficiently obscure and I like it. Lessee a 400milliZuse
system... Yep rolls on the tongue nicely and sounds oh
so technical.
6:19 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Sridhar the POWERful wrote:
You're excused :)
(And I'm jealous...time to re-enroll in my Goethe Institute classes.)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Are you
pronouncing it correctly, i.e. "tsoo-zeh"? Or in the Greek "Zeus"
fashion?
I'm a fluent German speaker. 8-) 
1:33 p.m.
Rumor has it that Sellam Ismail may have mentioned these words:
Are you pronouncing it correctly, i.e.
"tsoo-zeh"? Or in the Greek "Zeus"
fashion?
We could pull a Linus Torvalds and say "I don't care how it's said as long
as everyone uses it! ;-)
(provided, of course, everyone could at least recognize either enunciation,
and not bastardize it beyond that... I have a friend who's actually quite
good with computers still says he's got an 800 MegaHurt machine...
otherwise my vote is with the German enunciation; it still irks me to hear
people call those German sports cars a "porch")
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
3:15 p.m.
Roger Merchberger wrote:
Rumor has it that Sellam Ismail may have mentioned
these words:
Or even "porsch". Of course, that's better than what some people called
my 914, mit der ob-topical D-jetronic analog injection computer, before
I dusted them off in it. :-)
jbdigriz
Are you pronouncing it correctly, i.e.
"tsoo-zeh"? Or in the Greek "Zeus"
fashion?
We could pull a Linus Torvalds and say "I don't care how it's said as long
as everyone uses it! ;-)
(provided, of course, everyone could at least recognize either enunciation,
and not bastardize it beyond that... I have a friend who's actually quite
good with computers still says he's got an 800 MegaHurt machine...
otherwise my vote is with the German enunciation; it still irks me to hear
people call those German sports cars a "porch")
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
3:32 p.m.
--- Roger Merchberger <zmerch(a)30below.com> wrote:
Rumor has it that Sellam Ismail may have mentioned
these words:
Tomahto-Tomayto?
Are you pronouncing it correctly, i.e.
"tsoo-zeh"? Or in the Greek
"Zeus" fashion?
We could pull a Linus Torvalds and say "I don't care how it's said as
long as everyone uses it! ;-) ...I have a friend who's actually quite good with
computers still says
he's got an 800 MegaHurt machine...
Maybe he would learn how to pronounce it if you dropped his computer
on his foot 800 million times? :-)
otherwise my vote is with the German enunciation; it
still irks me to
hear people call those German sports cars a "porch")
One of my housemates loves to joke when being passed by one... "look
(in the mirror)... it's a back porch... now it's a side porch...
now, I guess it's a front porch".
And, of course, the punchline, "I'm all done with the painting, but I
gotta tell ya, Lady, that ain't no porch, that's a Ferrari."
-ethan
__________________________________________________
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2:41 p.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
I'm never going to hear the end of that, am I?
Peace... Sridhar
Zuse gets my
vote. Words like Gigazuse (GZ) sound really cool.
Wow! a mchine that is a billion (or would that be 2^30?) times as cool
as Zuse's machine?? For that, I'd sit in the dark in a storage
locker! 
1:16 p.m.
Jeks ... I just killed a real long description of what
could be the formula .... again...
>Well, I'd rather go for Zuse. Not only because
he is
>German(*), but rather because there is still no basic
>or derivated SI unit starting with Z, so Z would give
It's sufficiently obscure and I like it. Lessee a
400milliZuse
system... Yep rolls on the tongue nicely and sounds oh
so technical.
We need some Hollywood Germans to pronounce it ...
>If this has to be successful we have to fit it
into
>the SI system :)
Go with it and we also need a "standard".
Ok, I read suggestions for
a) size
b) weight
c) power consumption
d) memory
e) processing speed
a) Size
of course size - we all agree her size does matter,
and bigger is better - isn't it ? Now, size is a
measured in meters, we just have to decide if we go
for area (m^2) or volume (m^3). I'd rather like to
see area area included. Tree reasons: first (most
important to me), area numbers are usualy larger
than volume numbers for for similar machines.
Second, volume would give tall systems and advantage
over systems with a large footprint. Third by using
just the 2d footprint we can cover odd shaped machines
very easy. And a PET should get a higher value of Z
than any tower-PC :)
b) weight - no problem her - more is better.
BTW, the kg is the only unit where the base unit
inkludes a prefix ...
c) power consuption - Yea, raise my power bill and
switch of the neighborhood... Unit is Watts (w).
I would suggest to use the amount of input power,
so including all losses in Power supplies atc, which
belong directly to the system - and if you happen
to have an integrated steam engine to drive your
mechanical computer, the wats have to be calculated
from the amount of coal needed to run the engine ...
d) Memory. Most would go for bytes, or kilobytes, but
first, only units without a prefix are to be used, and
second, bytes are not realy applicable to all machines.
for example the early Zuse machines had only a storage
for floating point numbers ... I think bit may be an
apropriate number. The backside of this is that the
numbers get pretty soon very high - and the Z number
quite low. To be counted is all external Memory. I'd
exclude registers etc. Only real main memory. If there
is no memory at all, the number 1 is to be used (well,
sounds odd, I can't come up with a machine totaly without
memory). High numbers are bad.
e) processing speed - lower is better
The only measurement I know for that would be IPS
(instructions per second). Defined as whole instructions
to be executed within a second. Since this number is somewhat
fuzzy on most machines, we may have different Z numbers. One
can use a peek IPS rate, a average IPS, a median IPS or a
maximum IPS rate
Maximum: If the machine is only executing its fastest operation,
Peek: something like from a linpak
Average: like taken from an analyzer which traces the number of
instructions for some time over typical aplication or calculated
by an average instruction mix.
median: just the average over all instruction timeings.
Taking the above arguments we can come up with a formula
like:
m^2 * kg * w
------------
bits * IPS
So if we have a machine, lets say like a 4k PET, we get the
following numbers (rough estimations, I don't have one right
here
Area: 45x50 cm = 0,225 m^3
Weight: 17,5 kg
Power: 105W
Bits: 32768
IPS: 250 kips (assumption)
Result: 50,47 nZ (Nanozuse)
or a Kim 1
Area: 20x40 cm = 0,08 m^3
Weight: 1,5 kg (including power supply
Power: 15W
Bits: 9120
IPS: 250 kips (as above)
Result: 0,79 nZ
Well, the machine is a lightwight baby with the same processing
power than the PET .. only the large footprint helps
I think machines like a Northstar (or most S100 boxes)
have a big advantage ... lage footprint, superheavy
powersups and not to much processorpower ...
I like it.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
10:28 a.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Hans Franke wrote:
a) Size
of course size - we all agree her size does matter,
and bigger is better - isn't it ? Now, size is a
measured in meters, we just have to decide if we go
for area (m^2) or volume (m^3). I'd rather like to
see area area included. Tree reasons: first (most
important to me), area numbers are usualy larger
than volume numbers for for similar machines.
Second, volume would give tall systems and advantage
over systems with a large footprint. Third by using
just the 2d footprint we can cover odd shaped machines
very easy. And a PET should get a higher value of Z
than any tower-PC :)
I think a better way to make an older PC get a higher Z is to invert the
data bus width and RAM size.
c) power consuption - Yea, raise my power bill and
switch of the neighborhood... Unit is Watts (w).
I would suggest to use the amount of input power,
so including all losses in Power supplies atc, which
belong directly to the system - and if you happen
to have an integrated steam engine to drive your
mechanical computer, the wats have to be calculated
from the amount of coal needed to run the engine ...
What about peripherals? Do we add up all the power consumption of the
associated peripherals, like disk drives, printers, cassette records, tape
drives, core memory units, drum memory, etc.?
d) Memory. Most would go for bytes, or kilobytes, but
first, only units without a prefix are to be used, and
second, bytes are not realy applicable to all machines.
for example the early Zuse machines had only a storage
for floating point numbers ... I think bit may be an
apropriate number. The backside of this is that the
numbers get pretty soon very high - and the Z number
quite low. To be counted is all external Memory. I'd
exclude registers etc. Only real main memory. If there
is no memory at all, the number 1 is to be used (well,
sounds odd, I can't come up with a machine totaly without
memory). High numbers are bad.
Wait, are we trying to make the Z number high for older machines, or low?
I would imagine that we would want the number to be lower the more classic
the machine is (think of it as showing how far along from the beginning a
machine is).
Area: 45x50 cm = 0,225 m^3
Weight: 17,5 kg
Power: 105W
Bits: 32768
IPS: 250 kips (assumption)
Result: 50,47 nZ (Nanozuse)
or a Kim 1
Area: 20x40 cm = 0,08 m^3
Weight: 1,5 kg (including power supply
Power: 15W
Bits: 9120
IPS: 250 kips (as above)
Result: 0,79 nZ
Well, the machine is a lightwight baby with the same processing
power than the PET .. only the large footprint helps
Single-board computers will always result in an anomalous calculation.
I think machines like a Northstar (or most S100 boxes)
have a big
advantage ... lage footprint, superheavy powersups and not to much
processorpower ...
And more classic than a PET.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
1:43 p.m.
Soo, I looked around, here's the number for the Z1,
the first Zuse machine, 100% machanical.
area: ~ 4 m^2
weight: ~500 kg
power: ~1000w
memory: 220 bits (10 floating point words of 22 bits)
speed: 0,2 IPS (clockfrequency 1 Hz, and about 5 clocks for a multiplication)
this comes up to
45,45 kZ (kilozuse)
Quite an extraordinary number due the fact of real low storage and speed,
not so much of size and weight.
His next (real) Machine is quite different
Z3 electromechanical:
area: 6 m^3 (including operator desk)
weight: 1000 kg
power: 4000 w
memory 1408 bits (64 22 bit words)
speed: 0,33- 1,4 IPS (3 seconds per multiplication, 0,7 per addition)
51,7 kZ to 12,2 kZ
Nice numbers, but to much memory :)
His next machine, the Z4, although in size, weight and power
like the Z3 is already 30 times faster, barely gets around a
Kilozuse ...
Well, the rest ist History.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
12:50 p.m.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, Hans Franke wrote:
Soo, I looked around, here's the number for the
Z1,
the first Zuse machine, 100% machanical.
area: ~ 4 m^2
weight: ~500 kg
power: ~1000w
memory: 220 bits (10 floating point words of 22 bits)
speed: 0,2 IPS (clockfrequency 1 Hz, and about 5 clocks for a multiplication)
this comes up to
45,45 kZ (kilozuse)
Quite an extraordinary number due the fact of real low storage and speed,
not so much of size and weight.
His next (real) Machine is quite different
Z3 electromechanical:
area: 6 m^3 (including operator desk)
weight: 1000 kg
power: 4000 w
memory 1408 bits (64 22 bit words)
speed: 0,33- 1,4 IPS (3 seconds per multiplication, 0,7 per addition)
51,7 kZ to 12,2 kZ
Nice numbers, but to much memory :)
His next machine, the Z4, although in size, weight and power
like the Z3 is already 30 times faster, barely gets around a
Kilozuse ...
I think your formula needs some serious tinkering. I think the lowest
number should reflect the most classic machine.
The Zuse 1 should come out to 1 Zuse as others have suggested. So by
this measure, the Babbage Difference Engine should come out at something a
bit less than 1 Zuse.
The Pentium III with 256MB and 10GB hard disk sitting on my desk should be
something in the TerraZuse range (or much higher).
We should also factor in user I/O. Machines that used front panels and
blinkenlights should have much lower (i.e. more classic) scores than those
that have keyboards and 16MB bit-mapped displays with 24 million colors
and what not.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
19 Apr
19 Apr
8:09 a.m.
> His next machine, the Z4, although in size,
weight and power
> like the Z3 is already 30 times faster, barely gets around a
> Kilozuse ...
I think your formula needs some serious tinkering. I
think the lowest
number should reflect the most classic machine.
Naaa - never. Usualy one assumes 'better' with higer numbers,
and I think we agree that more classic is better.
The Zuse 1 should come out to 1 Zuse as others have
suggested. So by
this measure, the Babbage Difference Engine should come out at something a
bit less than 1 Zuse.
Naaa. The real relative value has to be determinated by the formula.
And tweeking the formula to give a 1 to a specific combination is
against the basic idea of nature defined values.
The Pentium III with 256MB and 10GB hard disk sitting
on my desk should be
something in the TerraZuse range (or much higher).
So this stupid Pentium is a 10^12 times more geeky then a Zuse ?
Come on. This is the geeknes factor. If the pentium gets a nanozuse
it's already way overrated.
We should also factor in user I/O. Machines that used
front panels and
blinkenlights should have much lower (i.e. more classic) scores than those
that have keyboards and 16MB bit-mapped displays with 24 million colors
and what not.
Machines with blikenlights are bigger and more heavy than modern
workstations, so you got this included. If we use to arbitrarily
citeria (like Display, MS ability, etc. pp. it looks less 'serious'.
Also someone suggested to include things like bus wide, data pathes
etc., but these are again measurements only true for some specific
architectures. Also, htey realy don't metter for the Boah Ey (*)
factor.
Gruss
H.
(*) Boah Ey, sound of an educated person when confrontated with
old hardware...
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
10:15 a.m.
On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Hans Franke wrote:
Ok, I see your point. I guess the thing to do then is make the Zuse
number be between 0 and 1. A zero would mean a computer fresh off the
assembly line.
So you're only counting the CPU "box" in the equation?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
The Pentium
III with 256MB and 10GB hard disk sitting on my desk should be
something in the TerraZuse range (or much higher).
So this stupid Pentium is a 10^12 times more geeky then a Zuse ?
Come on. This is the geeknes factor. If the pentium gets a nanozuse
it's already way overrated. We should also
factor in user I/O. Machines that used front panels and
blinkenlights should have much lower (i.e. more classic) scores than those
that have keyboards and 16MB bit-mapped displays with 24 million colors
and what not.
Machines with blikenlights are bigger and more heavy than modern
workstations, so you got this included. If we use to arbitrarily
citeria (like Display, MS ability, etc. pp. it looks less 'serious'.
10:32 a.m.
> > The Pentium III with 256MB and 10GB hard
disk sitting on my desk should be
> > something in the TerraZuse range (or much higher).
> So this stupid Pentium is a 10^12 times more
geeky then a Zuse ?
> Come on. This is the geeknes factor. If the pentium gets a nanozuse
> it's already way overrated.
Ok, I see your point. I guess the thing to do then is
make the Zuse
number be between 0 and 1. A zero would mean a computer fresh off the
assembly line.
I thought about including an age factor (ln2(age)) into
the formula, but then you never get a stable result.
Well, we might of course add a Z-eff value, which is
Z * ln2(age)
> > We should also factor in user I/O. Machines
that used front panels and
> > blinkenlights should have much lower (i.e. more classic) scores than those
> > that have keyboards and 16MB bit-mapped displays with 24 million colors
> > and what not.
> Machines with blikenlights are bigger and more
heavy than modern
> workstations, so you got this included. If we use to arbitrarily
> citeria (like Display, MS ability, etc. pp. it looks less 'serious'.
So you're only counting the CPU "box" in
the equation?
Well, for stand alone machines i'd say yes. Alas you may
include necersary perhipherals. Like operators desk and
so on. But only necersary - a Zuse doesn't work without
the operator desk, while a average unix box quite well
boots without console terminal.
Gruss
H.
BTW: who cares about PC boxes ?
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
11:04 a.m.
Hans Franke wrote:
Well, for stand alone machines i'd say yes. Alas
you may
include necersary perhipherals. Like operators desk and
so on. But only necersary - a Zuse doesn't work without
the operator desk, while a average unix box quite well
boots without console terminal.
BTW: who cares about PC boxes ?
My PC jumps up
and bites you in the LEG. Down BOY Down DOWN!
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
11:08 a.m.
On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Hans Franke wrote:
I thought about including an age factor (ln2(age))
into
the formula, but then you never get a stable result.
I'd argue against an age factor. Especially in backplane
architectures, a single computer might be 5 _and_ 15 years old....
I do agree that cooler should be a higher value.
Doc
1:17 p.m.
New subject: The Unit
Machines with blikenlights are bigger and more heavy
than modern
workstations, so you got this included. If we use to arbitrarily
citeria (like Display, MS ability, etc. pp. it looks less 'serious'.
I consider less common machines way cooler than boxes you can find at
the next corner, and I consider this a "serious" criterium.
So, why don't we take into account the number of units that were built
when rating the machine? This number should go into the denominator to
decrease the rating for use-once-and-throw-away computers, of course. A
Z1 rating would not be influenced too badly (only one original plus one
reconstruction, AFAIK, and I even doubt the reconstruction needs to be
counted), but those PeeCees will need their rating to be recomputed
daily...
--
Andreas Freiherr
Vishay Semiconductor GmbH, Heilbronn, Germany
http://www.vishay.com
2:48 p.m.
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18 Apr
18 Apr
6:28 p.m.
Hans Franke wrote:
Soo, I looked around, here's the number for the Z1,
the first Zuse machine, 100% machanical.
area: ~ 4 m^2
weight: ~500 kg
power: ~1000w
memory: 220 bits (10 floating point words of 22 bits)
speed: 0,2 IPS (clockfrequency 1 Hz, and about 5 clocks for a multiplication)
this comes up to
45,45 kZ (kilozuse)
Quite an extraordinary number due the fact of real low storage and speed,
not so much of size and weight.
His next (real) Machine is quite different
Z3 electromechanical:
area: 6 m^3 (including operator desk)
weight: 1000 kg
power: 4000 w
memory 1408 bits (64 22 bit words)
speed: 0,33- 1,4 IPS (3 seconds per multiplication, 0,7 per addition)
51,7 kZ to 12,2 kZ
Nice numbers, but to much memory :)
His next machine, the Z4, although in size, weight and power
like the Z3 is already 30 times faster, barely gets around a
Kilozuse ...
Well, the rest ist History.
Well what about the rest of the classic machines?
Lets not forget DA-Blinking-Lights some where in the UNIT.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
3:43 p.m.
New subject: Minimal RAM (was Re: The Unit)
--- Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de> wrote:
d) Memory. Most would go for bytes, or kilobytes...
Only real, main memory. If there is no memory at all,
the number 1 is to be used (well, sounds odd, I can't
come up with a machine totaly without memory).
I'd have to dig, but I found a Z-80-based digital clock
project on a web page recently that had an *empty* 6116
socket. There was ROM code, but no RAM. It ran by only
using "storage" in the registers.
Not quite "totally", but totally without what is normally
considered "main memory".
High numbers are bad.
Agreed. I have an Elf here - 256 bytes of RAM, 0 bytes ROM. What
has less than that? I suppose you could stick a 6810 in there
for 128 bytes, or even a pair of 74170s (4 bytes), but there's
not much you can do with an 1802 in 4 bytes. Load a register over
and over. Toggle the Q flag. Hey... I might just have to build
a 74170->1822 pin swabber and try to run the Elf on 4 bytes of RAM
(I have all the parts here already).
A new contest! Write a working program for the 1802 in 4 bytes.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
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8302
days inactive
8303
days old
22 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
ajp166＠bellatlantic.net -
Andreas.Freiherr＠Vishay.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
erd_6502＠yahoo.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
jbdigriz＠dragonsweb.org -
vance＠ikickass.org -
zmerch＠30below.com