28 Jan
2003
28 Jan
'03
5:42 a.m.
I boat, therefore I follow navigation aids and GPS service interruptions
at :
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps/default.htm
There is an Active Notice for Cape Canaveral Area:
Cape Canaveral, FL - AFSPC 2002-236
For the Aviation Community
5 NM RADIUS OF N2828/W0835 (ORL100/042) FROM THE
SURFACE UP TO FL250.
REMARKS; INTERMITTENT DATES AND TIME; 14 DAYS
ADVANCE NOTICE WILL BE GIVEN PRIOR TO EACH EVENT.
IFR OPERATIONS BASED ON GPS NAVIGATION SHOULD
NOT BE PLANNED IN THE AFFECTED AREAS DURING THE
PERIODS INDICATED. THESE OPERATIONS INCLUDE DOMESTIC
RNAV OR LONG-RANGE NAVIGATION REQUIRING GPS. THESE
OPERATIONS ALSO INCLUDE GPS STANDALONE AND OVERLAY
INSTRUMENT APPROACH OPERATIONS.
ON THE FOLLOWING DATES AND TIMES:
REMARKS; INTERMITTENT DATES AND TIME; 14 DAYS
ADVANCE NOTICE WILL BE GIVEN PRIOR TO EACH EVENT.
Last Updated: 2002-12-23
It also Looks like they'll be testing A New Digital GPS beacon "build
out" at Angleton TX next week. I have no idea if thats a correction
beacon affecting Florida.
Sincerely
Larry Truthan
30 Jan
30 Jan
4:12 a.m.
It's 2003. Can't the government use some lowercase letters for fuck's
sake?
On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Truthan,Larry wrote:
I boat, therefore I follow navigation aids and GPS
service interruptions
at :
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/gps/default.htm
There is an Active Notice for Cape Canaveral Area:
Cape Canaveral, FL - AFSPC 2002-236
For the Aviation Community
5 NM RADIUS OF N2828/W0835 (ORL100/042) FROM THE
SURFACE UP TO FL250.
REMARKS; INTERMITTENT DATES AND TIME; 14 DAYS
ADVANCE NOTICE WILL BE GIVEN PRIOR TO EACH EVENT.
IFR OPERATIONS BASED ON GPS NAVIGATION SHOULD
NOT BE PLANNED IN THE AFFECTED AREAS DURING THE
PERIODS INDICATED. THESE OPERATIONS INCLUDE DOMESTIC
RNAV OR LONG-RANGE NAVIGATION REQUIRING GPS. THESE
OPERATIONS ALSO INCLUDE GPS STANDALONE AND OVERLAY
INSTRUMENT APPROACH OPERATIONS.
ON THE FOLLOWING DATES AND TIMES:
REMARKS; INTERMITTENT DATES AND TIME; 14 DAYS
ADVANCE NOTICE WILL BE GIVEN PRIOR TO EACH EVENT.
Last Updated: 2002-12-23
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 *
5:17 a.m.
New subject: OT: Location and GPS
Hi,
Sellam Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com> said:
It's 2003. Can't the government use some
lowercase letters for fuck's
sake?
I don't know about this particular message, but noticess of this sort
frequently have to be broadcast on HF and LF radio in RTTY, TOR or
NAVTEX which are 5-bit systems with no lower case. However they
could easily convert to all uppercase when they do the ASCII to Baudot
translation!
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
6:09 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Sellam Ismail wrote:
It's 2003. Can't the government use some
lowercase letters for
fuck's sake?
BUT THE ALL-UPPERCASE USED IN THESE MESSAGES IS A REMNANT
FROM THE DAWN OF THE COMPUTING AND THE USE OF
TELETYPES!
WHAT SORT OF CLASSIC COMPUTER HOBBYIST ARE YOU, ANYWAY!?
HEY JEFF, CAN YOU ADD A RULE TO YOUR DEMIME FILTER TO
MAKE IT SO THAT ALL OF THE MESSAGES ARE TRANSLATED INTO
UPPERCASE? WE'RE WASTING PRECIOUS BANDWIDTH WITH ALL OF
THIS BULKY 7 BIT ASCII CRAP.
DAMN KIDS THESE DAYS, WITH THEIR PANSY-ASS-KEY TERMINALS.
GET OFFA MY LAWN!
-BRIAN.
6:33 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Chase" <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Location and GPS
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Sellam Ismail wrote:
Brian,
How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG images of
the cards for you die-hard types to decode and enjoy? Alternatively, we
could post messages in Motorola or Intel paper tape format - that might be
fun for you too!
:-)
Stuart Johnson
// computer designer/builder since 1976, programmer since 1971
It's 2003. Can't the government use some
lowercase letters for
fuck's sake?
BUT THE ALL-UPPERCASE USED IN THESE MESSAGES IS A REMNANT
FROM THE DAWN OF THE COMPUTING AND THE USE OF TELETYPES!
WHAT SORT OF CLASSIC COMPUTER HOBBYIST ARE YOU, ANYWAY!?
HEY JEFF, CAN YOU ADD A RULE TO YOUR DEMIME FILTER TO
MAKE IT SO THAT ALL OF THE MESSAGES ARE TRANSLATED INTO
UPPERCASE? WE'RE WASTING PRECIOUS BANDWIDTH WITH ALL OF
THIS BULKY 7 BIT ASCII CRAP.
DAMN KIDS THESE DAYS, WITH THEIR PANSY-ASS-KEY TERMINALS.
GET OFFA MY LAWN!
-BRIAN. 
7 a.m.
Stuart Johnson wrote:
Brian,
How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG images of
the cards for you die-hard types to decode and enjoy? Alternatively, we
could post messages in Motorola or Intel paper tape format - that might be
fun for you too!
:-)
That actually sounds like an intresting project.
A program that will read in a text file, and create a PDF
file containing a series of card images.
Getting that faded-ribbon look for the text at the top of the cards
would probably be the hardest part.
7:29 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Handy" <kth(a)srv.net>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Location and GPS
That actually sounds like an intresting project.
A program that will read in a text file, and create a PDF
file containing a series of card images.
Getting that faded-ribbon look for the text at the top of the cards
would probably be the hardest part.
YES! You've got it! What a GREAT idea!!!
We could also include a "top view" image of the "virtual" deck with
the
diagonal "stripe" across the top (you DO remember how everyone - or at least
everyone that dropped a deck at least once - made a diagonal stripe across
the top of the deck so that if it was dropped it could be put back into
order easier?). That way, if they dropped the email...
:-)
Stuart Johnson
// old fart
Stuart Johnson wrote:
>
>
>Brian,
>
>How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG images of
<snip>
7:33 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Handy" <kth(a)srv.net>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 3:24 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Location and GPS
Stuart Johnson wrote:
>
>
>Brian,
>
>How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG images of
<snip>
That actually sounds like an intresting project.
A program that will read in a text file, and create a PDF
file containing a series of card images.
Getting that faded-ribbon look for the text at the top of the cards
would probably be the hardest part.
Another thought - leave the printing across the top of the cards off and let
the hard-core types write their own program to read the cards in and
"verify" them. This should bring back fond memories of using their
university dp center keypunch machines, or for those older programmers among
us, using the machines at work.
:-)
Stuart Johnson
9:19 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Stuart Johnson wrote:
Absolutely.
Except that the printing of text across the top is called "INTERPRET"ing.
"VERIFY"ing is, instead a process of typing the same text again, and
seeing if both tries matched. If so, the "VERIFY" machine would punch a
notch in the side of the card. It was done as a way to increase accuracy.
But we once caught a service bureau that had come up with the clever idea
of prepunching the notches. Then they would punch the data onto cards
that already had the "verify" notch, and save the effort of keying twice.
>How about
we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG images of
Another thought -
leave the printing across the top of the cards off and let
the hard-core types write their own program to read the cards in and
"verify" them. This should bring back fond memories of using their
university dp center keypunch machines, or for those older programmers among
us, using the machines at work.
9:44 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: OT: Location and GPS
I SIT corrected about the VERIFY. It has been a long time, and a lot of
miles :-) Thanks!
Pre-verification - HAHAHA ROFLMAO - I'll bet they were proud of themselves
too! Sounds like a management decision, right out of Dilbert. Trouble is, I
believe you - I worked with people like this. I guess most of us do/did.
Try this one on: when I was but a young man, and an electronics technician,
I was given a project to make an easy to use EPROM programmer for the
production folks in our factory. I used a Heath monitor and a STD-BUS Z80
card to control a STD-BUS prom burner card. I delivered it and the
manufacturing folks LOVED it. Menu driven, easy to use... Sometime later
(weeks) they reported it was broken and could I fix it? To make a long story
short, the manager complained in front of his folks that it took too long to
burn a set of EPROM's. One of the technicians, being a bright fellow, took
it upon himself to patch a copy of MY EPROM for the EPROM programmer and
shorten the timing so that it would go faster. The manager was proud of him
and thought that HE (the manager) had SHOWN those folks in ENGINEERING that
his folks had no flies on them... and it worked, barely, until they bought a
different lot of prom chips. This was the last time I delivered a package of
documentation w/source code, listings, floppy media, etc. to manufacturing!
Guess whose ass got chewed for this?
Stuart Johnson
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Stuart Johnson wrote:
> > >How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG
images of
<snip>
us, using the
machines at work.
Absolutely.
Except that the printing of text across the top is called "INTERPRET"ing.
"VERIFY"ing is, instead a process of typing the same text again, and
seeing if both tries matched. If so, the "VERIFY" machine would punch a
notch in the side of the card. It was done as a way to increase accuracy.
But we once caught a service bureau that had come up with the clever idea
of prepunching the notches. Then they would punch the data onto cards
that already had the "verify" notch, and save the effort of keying twice.
1:03 p.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Stuart Johnson wrote:
Pre-verification - HAHAHA ROFLMAO - I'll bet they
were proud of themselves
It seems as though their pre-verifications where nothing more than
prevarications.
Ha!
;)
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 *
5:35 p.m.
Stuart Johnson wrote:
To make a long story short, the manager complained in
front of
his folks that it took too long to burn a set of EPROM's. One of the
technicians, being a bright fellow, took it upon himself to patch a copy
of MY EPROM for the EPROM programmer and shorten the timing so that it
would go faster. The manager was proud of him and thought that HE (the
manager) had SHOWN those folks in ENGINEERING that his folks had no
flies on them... and it worked, barely, until they bought a different
lot of prom chips. This was the last time I delivered a package of
documentation w/source code, listings, floppy media, etc. to
manufacturing! Guess whose ass got chewed for this?
The real problem in this case isn't that some of the EPROMs failed to
verify; that was a GOOD thing because it alerted you to the situation.
The REAL problem is that you've now shipped a bunch of units to customers
that are marginal and are likely to fail much sooner than they should.
If that had happened to me, I would have asked the VP of Engineering
to raise hell and prop it up with a stick. If people in Manufacturing
want to modify the production tools or process, that needs to be approved
by Engineering, no exceptions.
I've seen similar stupidity where a bean counter authorized the use of
an alternate vendor's parts based solely on the vendor's salesman
claiming they were identical, without bothering to get Engineering to
qualify the alternate part. Similar result: it seemed to work for a
while, but with a later batch we had problems, and the RMA rate for
the units that had been shipped was very high. Turns out that though
some of the timing specs for the alternate part were actually better
than the original, one particular timing spec was not as good, and
proved to be critical. The bean counter got fired, because this fiasco
cost the company about $35K. (The supposed savings would have been
about $1K.)
31 Jan
31 Jan
11:14 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Eric Smith wrote:
proved to be critical. The bean counter got fired,
because this fiasco
cost the company about $35K. (The supposed savings would have been
about $1K.)
Geez Eric, I dunno what planet you were working on, but every company
I've been with, half the production staff and every one of the janitors
would have been abruputly shown the door on a Thurday afternoon, and the
Bean Counter in question would have been promoted to Exec VP at some
expensive off-site PR extravaganza... then the salry and hiring freeze,
coupled with telephone usage scrutiny and new draconian Corporate
Recycling Guidlines.
; {}
Cheers
John
11:37 a.m.
New subject: Server Delay, was Re: OT: Location and GPS
Interesting to note that I posted this at 11:00am PST, and it has just
now (along with another big 'burp' of posts) appeared on My Screen.
Cheerz
John
11:46 a.m.
> proved to be critical. The bean counter got
fired, because this fiasco
> cost the company about $35K. (The supposed savings would have been
> about $1K.)
Geez Eric, I dunno what planet you were working on,
but every company
I've been with, half the production staff and every one of the janitors
would have been abruputly shown the door on a Thurday afternoon, and the
Bean Counter in question would have been promoted to Exec VP at some
expensive off-site PR extravaganza... then the salry and hiring freeze,
coupled with telephone usage scrutiny and new draconian Corporate
Recycling Guidlines.
Sounds more what I experienced over the years, and I work at a
company which sole existance is to screw things up that way.
I mean, as in designing a nice low cost slim line ISDN phone,
just to find a 'manager' replaceing a 40 cent speaker by a
replacement part fo only 17 cents ... times 100.000 realy a
great improvement. And he even didn't need to ask engeneering,
because the chineese supplyer said it's in spec ... when the
stuff arived at the factory the base was just by 2/10th of a mm
to big ... no problem, have the PCBs redrilled and it works.
They even managed it to be cost neutral (well, using up most
of the 23 saved cents per pice). Several tousands got sold,
and a huge number of complains did come in. in hands free mode
the phone was basicly unusable. Not only because of the poor
speaker quality, but also due heavy coupling between mike and
speaker... Of course the next step was to blame the audio
calibration depatment for poor quality ckecks and bad design
(oh, did I mention that they stoped sending in samples for
audio checks after the irst few days of production - which of
course still had the original speaker, not the cost saveing
part). The audio engineer needed about 20 minutes to figure
that due tolerances in height of the speakers base at some
40% of all phones made the speaker contact to the upper case,
exactly the same plastic part where the hands free microphone
was mounted.
The result? The audio department are the bad guys, the manager
got promoted. You want more, what about saving a one time cost
of ca. 5000 Euro for molding tools for a case, just to be find
again that the original design did need additional structures
to avoide audio problems ... as a result a way more powerfull
(and expensive) DSP had to be used to calculate the systematic
noise out of the signal, and all, because a years production of
housings had already be made before the first phone was produced!
Hey, they could save a few bucks if they did it as one big order.
To me one of the most unbelivable things is that our over all
quality is still rated top notch ...
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 4.0 am 03./04. Mai 2003 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
30 Jan
30 Jan
8:51 a.m.
New subject: TEXT (WAS: Re: OT: Location and GPS
That actually sounds like an intresting project.
A program that will read in a text file, and create a PDF
file containing a series of card images.
Getting that faded-ribbon look for the text at the top of the cards
would probably be the hardest part.
ribbon?? text??
why should the cards be "INTERPRETED"?
Can't y'all read Hollerith?
9:14 a.m.
New subject: TEXT (WAS: Re: OT: Location and GPS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 4:54 PM
Subject: TEXT (WAS: Re: OT: Location and GPS
Back in the days when I punched cards, running them back though and having
the text printed across the top was called "verifying" them, as best as I
remember (Sperry - Univac computer), hence the info in my previous post. No,
never learned to sight-read Hollerith. Hated punched cards - swore I'd never
have anything to do with computes after college Fortran; famous last words -
I became a professional programmer in 1978 and worked until retirement in
1999. "So, Stuart, how DOES crow taste?" I loved playing / working with
computers as soon as terminals were available to me.
The only use I ever had for punched cards was to fold one double and clean
under my fingernails with it...
Stuart Johnson
That actually
sounds like an intresting project.
A program that will read in a text file, and create a PDF
file containing a series of card images.
Getting that faded-ribbon look for the text at the top of the cards
would probably be the hardest part.
ribbon?? text??
why should the cards be "INTERPRETED"?
Can't y'all read Hollerith?
8:05 a.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Stuart Johnson wrote:
How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and
post PNG images
of the cards for you die-hard types to decode and enjoy?
Alternatively, we could post messages in Motorola or Intel paper tape
format - that might be fun for you too!
___________
| o o. o|
| o . |
| o o.o |
| o o. o|
| o o. oo|
| o .o o|
| o . |
| o o. |
| o o.ooo|
| o o .ooo|
| o . |
| o oo. o|
| o o.ooo|
| o o .o o|
| o . |
| o o .o |
| o o. |
| o o. o|
| o o.oo |
| o o. oo|
| o o.o |
| o . |
| o o . oo|
| o o .o |
| o o .o o|
| o . o|
| o o . o |
| o o .o |
| o o.oo |
___________
___________
| o o.o o|
| o . o |
| o o . o |
| o o. o|
| o . o|
| o o.oo |
| o o.oo |
___________
11:57 p.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Brian Chase wrote:
Rubbish, real punchers don't leave chads. You'll
always need crappy hardware, very humid conditions
and especialy the influence of some notorious
politicians.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 4.0 am 03./04. Mai 2003 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
___________
| o o. o|
| o o. c| hanging chad 
1 Feb
1 Feb
7:27 p.m.
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Stuart Johnson wrote:
Brian,
How about we punch all of our messages on to cards and post PNG images of
the cards for you die-hard types to decode and enjoy? Alternatively, we
could post messages in Motorola or Intel paper tape format - that might be
fun for you too!
:-)
How about this: I'll just send my messages as usual, but instead of
ASCII, I'll encode in EBCDIC. It wouldn't be too hard to do. 8-)
Peace... Sridhar
It's 2003. Can't the government use some
lowercase letters for
fuck's sake?
BUT THE ALL-UPPERCASE USED IN THESE MESSAGES IS A REMNANT
FROM THE DAWN OF THE COMPUTING AND THE USE OF TELETYPES!
WHAT SORT OF CLASSIC COMPUTER HOBBYIST ARE YOU, ANYWAY!?
HEY JEFF, CAN YOU ADD A RULE TO YOUR DEMIME FILTER TO
MAKE IT SO THAT ALL OF THE MESSAGES ARE TRANSLATED INTO
UPPERCASE? WE'RE WASTING PRECIOUS BANDWIDTH WITH ALL OF
THIS BULKY 7 BIT ASCII CRAP.
DAMN KIDS THESE DAYS, WITH THEIR PANSY-ASS-KEY TERMINALS.
GET OFFA MY LAWN!
-BRIAN. 
7994
days inactive
7999
days old
21 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
jpl15＠panix.com -
kth＠srv.net -
mikeford＠socal.rr.com -
ssj152＠charter.net -
stanb＠dial.pipex.com -
truthanl＠oclc.org -
vance＠neurotica.com -
vaxzilla＠jarai.org