Hey, mythbusters busted that one!

My favorite computer myth is Apple invented PDAs. It is sooooo not true (nor HP, nor Psion...) -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:22 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Mythbusters (was: OT - Need fuse and jumpers from APC battery pack) In article <43E23E11.2020900 at brothom.nl>, Bert Thomas <bert at brothom.nl> writes: Maybe we should come up with a list of computing myths and submit them to mythbusters? I bet the old hands around here know quite a few! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>

I found out lots more stuff after that talk, such as Apple's * other * handheld skunkworks projects. The top engineers from those projects all left Apple in frustration when the inferior Newton was picked as the one to commercialize. This information came from first-person sources. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Pope Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:41 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Mythbusters (was: OT - Need fuse and jumpers from APC battery I remember your talk (and display!) at the last VCF east. You didn't hold back how you felt about Apple... ;) Cheers, Bryan

He's probably alluding to 'General Magic'. See http://www.byte.com/art/9402/sec3/art1.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic Richard wrote:

Actually I was at Apple and in the same group (ATG, Advanced Technology Group) at that time. I think you are being a lot more generous to the 'Smartifacts' project being 'real' than is my recollection. It was an interesting RESEARCH effort, but it never even got close to product status. Smartifacts was never even close to a competitor to Newton (or any kind of PDA) as a product. Don North Apple, 1982-1997 'Computer Collector Newsletter' wrote:

"You can't damage hardware by software"

On 02/02/06, Bert Thomas <bert at brothom.nl> wrote: This may be a false memory, but wasn't there a POKE on CBM Pets that would fry the video hardware? -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr

On 2/2/2006 at 5:29 PM Richard wrote: All you really had to do to fry the MDA on a PC was to program the horizontal frequency a few KHz too high. The display would keep sync, but eventually the HOT would get smoked. I fried a couple of HOTs while working on SIMGA--fortunately, the distributor for the monitors was about 6 blocks away and they had an ample supply of replacement parts. But heck, that isn't dramatic. The display just goes dark. I want a Star Trek-type "ERROR ER ROR MUST RE EVALUATE" type of smoke and sparks type of software failure ending in an explosion of thermonuclear proportions... Cheers, Chuck

On 2/2/2006 at 7:09 PM Richard wrote: Nah, think about it. That would be equivalent to unplugging the thing, which doesn't hurt at all. The failure with the higher-than-allowed frequency is almost always a short in the HV secondary. Cheers, Chuck

It's not a killer POKE, but... In the mid-80s, my roommate owned an Apple IIe. He lived in an out-of-the-way apartment complex in Austin, TX, right underneath the complex's power transformer block. Well, he was typing on the Apple IIe, and a neighbor decided to leave the complex. C-A-T-A-L-O-G-- At the same instant that the roommate hit ENTER, the car managed to back into the power transformer. There was a loud explosion outside, and inside a smaller one was accompanied by (as he described it) "the floppy drive flying right by my head and into the wall"! The accompanying surge blew out every electronic device in the complex that was directly attached to an outlet. Ironically enough, the Apple IIe (sans unfortunate disk drive) survived. It had a Kensington System Saver installed... According to the roommate, the System Saver saved itself... The spike was shunted to the power supply, which shunted it to the motherboard, which shunted it to the disk drive. Having nowhere to shunt the spike, the disk drive saved the computer by commiting suicide. The last part I had no faith in, until uncovering his Apple IIe in a store-room a few years ago. There was the system saver, the IIe, and two disk drives... The first ("Drive 2") was perfectly functional, if dirty... The second ("Drive 1") didn't work. On disassembly, a large scorched hole winked out from a place on the analog board that once housed a major IC. After swapping the analog board I still use his old drive, and his old IIe with system saver, to this day. Does that fit the description of "and sparks type of software failure ending in an explosion"? Granted, it was an organic software failure... My $0.02, Josef -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein

In the movies it does! 8-) <run> <duck> <hide> Cheers, Bryan (who hates disaster movies because somehow the disaster always targets the "hero")

Bert Thomas wrote: If you give a computer an impossible problem, it will explode.

some common misconceptions The larger the software company, the higher quality the software. It's impossible to write software that is completely bug free. Product CD's can only be installed on one computer. (may != can) PC's wear out*. Broadband only works with a new computer. Marketing erases genericism, as in, you can only use XYZ keyboards on a XYZ PC. A rising tide lifts all boats. John A. (* at a MTBF value much worse than reality)

John Allain wrote: Hell, even Time Warner's mouth-breathing contract technicians believe this one. I built a 90MHz PC firewall/NAT box for a friend a couple of years ago because he wanted it in before he got the cable modem, and the technician made him bypass it and attach his faster main system to do the installation. Michiel said the guy kept pointing at the system requirements on the software CD and telling him that "you can't set this up without Windows 98 or better". Although I'll grant that TW's Windows software might *need* a petahurtz computer to run right.... And we're NOT going to discuss AOL Broadband. Doc

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006, Bert Thomas wrote: ever try cycling through ALL of the possible modes of IBM MDA?

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006, Chris M wrote: Moving the head to cylinder #306 ("parking the head"), and then moving it to cylinder 0 won't damage anything on my machines. Howzbout: "reflashing" the BIOS? Although that does NOT actually damage any hardware, on some machines the BIOS would then have to be unsoldered, and then reflashed on a different (functioning) machine. a bit more hassle than an erased MBR, or a wiped CMOS on a machine without a "SETUP" in ROM.

On Saturday 04 February 2006 05:32 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: I used to see this fairly often when I was fixing commodore stuff, the head on the 1541 would get jammed to the inside, and one would have to open the case and manually move it out before the drive would work again. Done that one, too... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

I've seen something like this. The Epyx Vorpal Toolkit disk used a similar method of software auto-alignment which worked surprisingly effectively. I wrote a tool called Torquemada 1541 that could do this with "normal" disks (assuming the disk was written in God's Holy Pristinely Aligned 1541), but it was relatively blind without the special formatting Vorpal -- and the package you mention -- included, so it wasn't nearly as effective on as wide a range of alignment problems. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Well done is better than well said. -- Benjamin Franklin -------------------

In article <200602041432520778.5DE7196D at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> writes: Been there, done that with an LA-36 25+ years ago :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>

What harm does that do, unless done repeatedly for a long enough time (which would wear out the positioner beariongs, I suppose). -tony

Richard wrote: Yep! The kernel developers at MWC would tell me stories of "racing hard drives" across the data center floor and betting on who would win. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

Richard wrote: heh. you've never seen an IBM 370/158 running MVS page before, have you? I remember some of the those top loading drives shaking so hard I thought they would destroy themselves. but they never did. Easily +/- 1/2" of motion, constantly, for hours on end. Clearly we needed more core... Before I saw that I thought an RK05 paging for RSTS was bad, but that was only like 1/4" of sway. I never saw one walk, but it would be easy to imagine. I would worry they would fly apart first :-) simple walking would ok! -brad

Bert Thomas wrote: That is for sure. In my teens, I had a friend who got the IBM convertable (the luggable one with the monochrome monitor) from a Computerland. He was screwing around with POKE in basic and poke'd a value somewhere into CGA-land, saw some pretty squiggles for about 3 seconds, then >poof< and the smell of ozone. Went back to Computerland, but they told him that there was no way that could have happened and they weren't going to repair it. So my friend, with salesman watching with one eye from across the room, walks over to another one on display, takes the diskette out, boots into BASIC, writes a 1-line program, and Salesman grew extremely irate, got the attention of the manager, who said they'd honor the warranty if the kid would stop doing that. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

On 2/2/06, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote: You need something with a bit of a bigger bang and/or a higher level of danger. 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

Isn't it? (As long as you are not touching the metal part of the screwdriver!) Cheers, Bryan

terminals." ??? Assuming you could get close enough with a large enough screwdriver, discharging one of those high-voltage PFC capacitor banks ought to give you a real sense of your own mortality. And how about those ultracaps being touted as energy storage for EVs? Cheers, Chuck

Tony Duell wrote: For a large enough capaciter, it is also a good way to weld the screwdriver to the capaciter.

Make that voltage _sqyared_ * capacitance product (actually, divide it by 2 if you're using sane units). Energy stored goes up more quickly with the voltaeg than with the capacitance. -tony

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:22:30 -0700, Richard wrote: Like ... A good way to see if anode voltage is up, is to draw a nice ark with a screw driver, just watch what you are touching. or how about: Spark the battery with your keys or some kind of tool to see if it has a full charge yet. My favorite Darwin candidate: liberated thin wall electrical conduit from a construction sight and dragged it to a remote power substation, They could throw them at the big transformers and watch them arc and spark and sometimes blow up real nice like big fuses. They did not have to hit the wires just passing within a foot or two caused momentary arc over. By the third night the burnt remains of the pipe had been found and a guard had been posted. The fun ended quietly with only minor welding like spatter burns evident from the previous nights fun. Myth or Fact, I will never tell :) Bob at ibmcollectables.com

Tore S Bekkedal wrote: I have one of those, kind of plated springy bracelet thing with little balls with magnets in them at the ends. No way is it powerful enough to wipe credit cards, but what it's *great* for is catching falling circlips, washers and other such pingf**kits while working on the car, or LA36. Gordon.

On 2/2/2006 at 9:10 PM Jim Leonard wrote: That slide-out thingie on my PC is a cup holder.