14 Jan
1999
14 Jan
'99
10:59 a.m.
At 10:24 PM 1/12/99 -0500, you wrote:
What I meant was, in the early BASICs, you would have
to type out the FOR
loop with a variable, an increment, a conditional statement, and a goto.
Every BASIC I've ever used had a for-next construct as follows:
FOR variable = start TO end [BY inc]
commands
NEXT [variable]
No GOTO was ever needed. However, it is just a simplified version of a
combination IF and GOTO.
easier to understand that the NEXT X must be going back
to that FOR X= 1
TO 10 I saw a while ago, as opposed to scrolling incessantly trying to
find where each GOTO leads.
For-Next is pretty basic (pun intended). Do While/Do Until is not found in
earlier BASIC's; perhaps that's what you were thinking of? Nonetheless,
Using IF and GOTO to simulate a For-Next loop does not mean lots of
searching for GOTO destinations -- if you are a good programmer, it doesn't.
I don't know exactly at what point the FOR...NEXT
gets translated into its
components, but the point is, since it doesn't have to be typed out, it's
somewhat lower-level.
For-Next is interpreted when executed. It is at that point that the
relevant machine language instructions are generated and executed. Machine
language is low-level, C is slightly higher, BASIC is definitely
high-level, things like Powerhouse and other 4GL's are even higher levels
of extraction.
14 Jan
14 Jan
6:08 p.m.
New subject: 4GL's available???
On or about 03:59 PM 1/14/99 -0600, Uncle Roger was caught in a dark alley
speaking these words:
For-Next is interpreted when executed. It is at that
point that the
relevant machine language instructions are generated and executed. Machine
language is low-level, C is slightly higher, BASIC is definitely
high-level
And Perl is some of most of these - at times faster than C, yet sometimes
simpler than Basic, almost as powerful as APL, and runs on more machines
than Java! (of course, APL runs on more machines than Java...)
things like Powerhouse and other 4GL's are even
higher levels
of extraction.
Speaking of 4GL's, there was a 4GL available for the CoCo under OS-9 called
Sculptor from FHL (Frank Hogg Laboratories), IIRC. Anyone here have a copy
of it for sale? I've always wanted to play with it.
See ya,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
=====
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- zmerch(a)30below.com
SysAdmin - Iceberg Computers
===== Merch's Wild Wisdom of the Moment: =====
for (1..15) { print "Merry Christmas\n"; }
(from perl.1 man page, version 4.)
15 Jan
15 Jan
5:53 p.m.
New subject: OT: How can that be?
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14 Jan
14 Jan
6:45 p.m.
New subject: OT: How can that be?
Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
It was thus said that the Great Roger Merchberger once stated:
Now, how can Perl be faster than C when it's written in C?
-spc (Or is it now written in Perl? 8-)
Are we allowed to count coding (Hell, typing) time in speed tests?
If that's allowed _anything_ in Perl is faster than C if it can be
written in Perl. (I'll recompute if somebody writes a kernel in
Perl, that being one of the things I _think_ can't be written --
but I'd love it if it was.)
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
For-Next is interpreted when executed. It is at
that point that the
relevant machine language instructions are generated and executed. Machine
language is low-level, C is slightly higher, BASIC is definitely
high-level
And Perl is some of most of these - at times faster than C, yet sometimes
simpler than Basic, almost as powerful as APL, and runs on more machines
than Java! (of course, APL runs on more machines than Java...)
16 Jan
16 Jan
6:39 a.m.
New subject: OT: How can that be?
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14 Jan
14 Jan
7:21 p.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
On or about 11:53 PM 1/15/99 -0500, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner was caught
in a dark alley speaking these words:
It was thus said that the Great Roger Merchberger once
stated:
> And Perl is some of most of these - at times
faster than C, yet sometimes
> simpler than Basic, almost as powerful as APL, and runs on more machines
> than Java! (of course, APL runs on more machines than Java...)
First off, this isn't wholly off-topic... there *is* a Perl interpreter for
the Atari ST's... ;-)
Now, how can Perl be faster than C when it's
written in C?
Easy. 'Cause I said so!!! ;-)
Mind you, it's not a whopping lot faster, but how it can be faster (by a
few to five percent) is this: Larry Wall (who wrote Perl) optimized it in
such a way that any ol' schmuck (like me) says "I could do this in C!!!"
and does so, but not as efficiently as Larry did... therefore, code in Perl
is faster than the reworked version in C.
Oh, and when I called it an "interpreter," that's a misnomer. It may look,
walk, talk, and smell like an interpreter, but it's actually a JIT compiler
in disguise... that's why it's so darned fast in comparison to an interpreter.
Ever heard the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from a Perl script?" *That's* why. ;-)
Keep on Truckin',
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
=====
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- zmerch(a)30below.com
SysAdmin - Iceberg Computers
===== Merch's Wild Wisdom of the Moment: =====
for (1..15) { print "Merry Christmas\n"; }
(from perl.1 man page, version 4.)
7:24 p.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Roger Merchberger wrote:
Mind you, it's not a whopping lot faster, but how
it can be faster (by a
few to five percent) is this: Larry Wall (who wrote Perl) optimized it in
such a way that any ol' schmuck (like me) says "I could do this in C!!!"
and does so, but not as efficiently as Larry did... therefore, code in Perl
is faster than the reworked version in C.
This isn't always true. When I wrote a de-artifacter for images captured
from a video source, I wrote it first in PERL to prove
to myself the
algorithm I conceived would work; I used PERL because I am more
familiar
with it than any other language.
Later, I ported the program to C which netted me a dramatic performance
increase: 15 minute processing times dropped to around a minute, while
CPU usage during the processing dropped from 100% to about 30%.
This isn't to disparage PERL at all. I like PERL. There are some things
other languages are better suited for, though.
This is mildly on topic because I use the program to clean up the archive
images I create of items in my collection. (I wrote it in the first place
because I didn't want to have to pay to have fifty plus rolls of film
developed when I could use a video camera to make the pictures for free.)
--
ok
r. r e d @ b e a r s . o r g
===========================
[ urs longa | vita brevis ]
7:46 p.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
This is mildly on topic because I use the program to
clean up the archive
images I create of items in my collection. (I wrote it in the first place
because I didn't want to have to pay to have fifty plus rolls of film
developed when I could use a video camera to make the pictures for free.)
OK, so where can we see the images of the machines in your collection, and
where can we get the software that automagically cleans up our own images?
-- Doug
15 Jan
15 Jan
2:54 p.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Doug Yowza wrote:
OK, so where can we see the images of the machines in
your collection, and
With the rest of my site, when I finish it, which will probably be around
June 2007 at the rate I've been going.
where can we get the software that automagically
cleans up our own images?
Currently it only works with .rgb format images (SGI tools format). I'd
imagine this isn't too handy for too many people; what one or two image
formats (not JPEG) would you all recommend extending this to if I were to
make it more widely available? I'm terribly out of touch with what formats
are convenient for use with "mainstream" tools.
--
ok
r. r e d @ b e a r s . o r g
===========================
[ urs longa | vita brevis ]
3:28 a.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
> Mind you, it's not a whopping lot faster, but
how it can be faster (by a
> few to five percent) is this: Larry Wall (who wrote Perl) optimized it in
> such a way that any ol' schmuck (like me) says "I could do this in
C!!!"
> and does so, but not as efficiently as Larry did... therefore, code in Perl
> is faster than the reworked version in C.
This isn't always true. When I wrote a
de-artifacter for images captured
from a video source, I wrote it first in PERL to prove to myself the
algorithm I conceived would work; I used PERL because I am more familiar
with it than any other language.
Later, I ported the program to C which netted me a
dramatic performance
increase: 15 minute processing times dropped to around a minute, while
CPU usage during the processing dropped from 100% to about 30%.
I guess you used a lot of low level calculations for
your job - and the speed of PERL comes only thru when
you need the offered high level funcionality. As more
low level you need, as more C is interesting, since
it offers nothing beside low level funcionality - and
when it comes to over all functionality of course
nothing can beat an Assembler (within a sophisticated
programming environment :).
Servus
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
5:22 a.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
On 15 Jan 99 at 1:21, Roger Merchberger wrote:
I find it interesting that a CoCo guy is also
an ST devotee.
I seem to remember hearing that OS9 was also ported to the ST.
Any sources ?
First off, this isn't wholly off-topic... there
*is* a Perl interpreter for
the Atari ST's... ;-)
That I hadn't heard about. What is it's name and where is it available.
It seems that the ST is getting up from under it's dark days when it only had
the dreadful minux version from TAF to browse and now browsers and
mailers are coming thick and fast. Maybe time to get a Milan. Here's a
"classic" machine still kicking.
SNIP
Keep on Truckin',
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
=====
ciao larry
lwalker(a)interlog.com
8:30 p.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
On or about 04:22 PM 1/15/99 +0000, Lawrence Walker was caught in a dark
alley speaking these words:
That I hadn't heard about. What is it's name
and where is it available.
Name: Perl. (version 4.0.35, IIRC.) Available? Darnit--downloaded it over a
year ago... maybe www.perl.org???
I find it interesting that a CoCo guy is also an ST
devotee.
I seem to remember hearing that OS9 was also ported to the ST.
Any sources ?
Sources for free? Nope, lest not any legal ones. Also, as I've never run
OSK (short for OS-9/68K), I can't tell you much about it other than where
you might be able to purchase a (legal) copy fairly cheap.
The managing editor of "The world of '68 micros" who also runs "Farna
Systems" (Frank G. Swygert) sells OSK motherboards & such - they're pretty
expensive for the speed, but have some nice features to them nonetheless...
he may have an available copy of OSK for those machines for sale...
Warning: I can't tell you if it will run (unmodified or otherwise) on an ST
or an Amiga (which could also run OSK, IIRC.)
http://www.home.pon.net/kf6ntg/68micros/at306.html
email: dsrtfox(a)delphi.com
Also, the MM/1 was considered to be the best contender for the CoCo4 -
email Black Hawk Systems at nimitz(a)delphi.com
Anywho, gotta go to bed... long day ahead tomorrow.
Hope this helps,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
=====
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- zmerch(a)30below.com
SysAdmin - Iceberg Computers
===== Merch's Wild Wisdom of the Moment: =====
for (1..15) { print "Merry Christmas\n"; }
(from perl.1 man page, version 4.)
8:28 p.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
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3:28 a.m.
New subject: Almost OT: How can that be?
Perl, being a bit more abstract than C, does have
some better chances at
optimization, and I wouldn't hate it so much if Larry Wall hadn't decided to
put in the worse aspects of BASIC, /bin/sh, awk, grep and sendmail.cf, give
it a rather ambiguous grammar and unleashed it on the Great Undisciplined
Programmers (me? Bitter? Naaaaaah ... )
:)))))
> Oh, and when I called it an
"interpreter," that's a misnomer. It may look,
> walk, talk, and smell like an interpreter, but it's actually a JIT compiler
> in disguise... that's why it's so darned fast in comparison to an
interpreter.
Actually, it compiles to an internal byte code that
can be interpreted
faster than parsing text, much like Forth or even Java.
to be (more) OT again: just remember UCSD p-code - BTW: Hans, I
searched a bit, but couldn't find any picture, or any description
of a Pascal Microengine labeled/called Pascaline (I even found
3 different issues of the Microengine manual, and a (seems to be
complete set or errata sheets).
Gruss
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
3:28 a.m.
New subject: OT: How can that be?
> >For-Next is interpreted when executed. It is
at that point that the
> >relevant machine language instructions are generated and executed. Machine
> >language is low-level, C is slightly higher, BASIC is definitely
> >high-level
> And Perl is some of most of these - at times
faster than C, yet sometimes
> simpler than Basic, almost as powerful as APL, and runs on more machines
> than Java! (of course, APL runs on more machines than Java...)
Now, how can Perl be faster than C when it's
written in C?
Simple - lets assume you want to keep a list of key/value pairs.
you could do it simple in an unordered list of strings, add new
keys to the end and use linear search, or more sophisticated, sort
this list insert new key at the aprobiate place and search by halving
the index - or, againe better, use a B-tree structure and shorten
insert time (while adding maybe search time). Now, honest, if this
list you need is only a tool for some temporary data, would you build
up anything else than the linear list ? No, since you want to ro the
actual task (like the picture ting) instead, so your programm will be
slower when searching for a key than the same algorythm written in
PERL, where the more sophisticated funcion is alread build in and
optimized.
Gruss
H.
(I like PERL, but I never did any single programm with more than 150
lines (two maybe 3 screen pages), including comments and beautifying
empty lines - if I need more, I prefer a real language, like Assembler :)
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
16 Jan
16 Jan
8:07 a.m.
New subject: OT: How can that be?
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14 Jan
14 Jan
8:37 p.m.
On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Uncle Roger wrote:
Every BASIC I've ever used had a for-next
construct as follows:
FOR variable = start TO end [BY inc]
commands
NEXT [variable]
I've never seen a "BY" modifier although I wouldn't doubt that some
BASIC
could have been designed with it. But are you sure you didn't mean
"STEP"?
No GOTO was ever needed. However, it is just a
simplified version of a
combination IF and GOTO.
Remember, C has a goto statement, although I don't think in my nearly 10
years of C programming I've ever used it, although on certain rare
occasions it seemed the easy way out to a sticky coding problem. There is
certainly a sublime satisfaction in designing elegant code with do..while
and while loops (I rarely use for's), but C really suffers from a lack of
a general error trapping mechanism that one can invoke to break out of
loops as required. Sometimes I think goto's are the answer but I can
never find an appropriate way to implement it.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
8:51 p.m.
Sam Ismail wrote:
certainly a sublime satisfaction in designing elegant code with do..while
and while loops (I rarely use for's), but C really suffers from a lack of
a general error trapping mechanism that one can invoke to break out of
loops as required. Sometimes I think goto's are the answer but I can
never find an appropriate way to implement it.
I'm not sure if Fortran treats jumping out of a loop the same as C or not,
but when I was taking Fortran in college, I wrote a program for shuffling
and dealing out pseudo random bridge hamds. When writing it, for whatever
reason I jumped out of a For/Next loop. For some reason the program
crashed. I didn't know you couldn't do that and finally after stumping the
instructors, one of them took the time to again review the code and found
that "minor" glitch. Ah, the fun of learning!
11:20 p.m.
Marvin said...
|
|I'm not sure if Fortran treats jumping out of a loop the same as C or not,
|but when I was taking Fortran in college, I wrote a program for shuffling
|and dealing out pseudo random bridge hamds. When writing it, for whatever
|reason I jumped out of a For/Next loop. For some reason the program
|crashed. I didn't know you couldn't do that and finally after stumping the
|instructors, one of them took the time to again review the code and found
|that "minor" glitch. Ah, the fun of learning!
You have always been able to jump out of a DO loop in FORTRAN.
-Miles
11:31 p.m.
New subject: Powerbook Duo Help
OK, it's not strictly a classic, but it's collectible because it's a
prototype: an "AJ" or Duo 2300 prototype. I finally learned enough about
Macs to almost sort of get this thing working. Here's the current
problem, I can boot it up from a 7.6 disk, but as soon as it finishes the
start-up stuff, it says something like "reserve power is low, shutting
down in 10 seconds" and then proceeds to shutdown.
Problem is, it does this under AC power. It's confused. Where does the
confusion lie, do you think? If it's firmware, is there a way to flash
new firmware? Would I destory its "prototypeness" if I did that? If it's
hardware, where is the voltage sensing circuitry so I can probe to find
what it's seeing?
-- Doug
15 Jan
15 Jan
5:21 a.m.
New subject: Powerbook Duo Help
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18 Jan
18 Jan
7:20 a.m.
New subject: Powerbook Duo Help
OK, my initial response would be, yes, it is confused.
However, I don't
think that it is the Duo itself that is confused.
Might want to reconsider that. I
have a Duo 270c here, just an older
version with a 68030 CPU. You need to find a program that will reset the
power manager. Don't ask me, I just know it works... I had one around here
somewhere, but then it got deleted and I haven't been able to find it
again. The digging around in info-mac and AMUG archives, and whatever else
you can find. The problem is that the power manager gets confused if you
unplug the AC adapter from the wall before you unplug the computer. You can
also try shutting off the computer and then holding down the power button
on the back for a while, I think around 15-20 seconds, but if you can find
that program it's much easier.
You might need to simply get a new battery, but you
might also be able to
"Recondition" the battery. I know my 520c came with the software to do
this.
Battery reconditioning does nothing. Duo's(and I think all of the new
ones)
use NiMH(Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries, which do not have a memory effect
like NiCads, and don't do much of anything when you treat them like a
NiCad. although it's worth a try. Either the battery works or it doesn't,
if it doesn't there could be a lot of things wrong. If the battery is
fried, it needs to be replaced or reconditioned(in a different manner than
the NiCad type reconditioning you're thinking of). Check out
www.renewit.com for some more info on that. It's local to the Portland,
Oregon area, and I have nothing to do with them beyond sitting through a
presentation they gave at the local ham radio club meeting a few days ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------
| http://members.tripod.com/~jrollins/index.html - Computers |
| http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/1681/ - Star Trek |
| orham(a)qth.net list admin KD7BCY |
| ham-mac(a)qth.net Portland, OR |
--------------------------------------------------------------
20 Jan
20 Jan
2:13 a.m.
New subject: Powerbook Duo Help
Problem is, it does this under AC power. It's
confused. Where does the
confusion lie, do you think? If it's firmware, is there a way to flash
new firmware? Would I destory its "prototypeness" if I did that? If it's
hardware, where is the voltage sensing circuitry so I can probe to find
what it's seeing?
Might be far fetched, but if it _is_ a soft/firmware problem then you can
zap the PRAM by keeping the command/apple, alt/option, P and R keys pressed
simultaneously as the machine boots up. It'll get zapped and reboot (you'll
here the startup sound once more). Might not be it, but many times when
Macs act strangely and you just can't figure out why, that is the solution.
Nasos
15 Jan
15 Jan
9:05 p.m.
New subject: OT? On Programming (was: Re: Computers for children)
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3:49 a.m.
New subject: OT? On Programming (was: Re: Computers for children)
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8:29 a.m.
New subject: OT? On Programming (was: Re: Computers for children)
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17 Jan
17 Jan
9:39 a.m.
New subject: OT? On Programming (was: Re: Computers for children)
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16 Jan
16 Jan
12:32 p.m.
New subject: OT? On Programming (was: Re: Computers for children)
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a.kotsenos＠rca.ac.uk -
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