HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What happened to "smart buildings"?  and three tangents
Date: 7 Jan 1993 16:25:13 -0500
Organization: UUNET Technologies Inc, Falls Church, VA
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In article <C0Hysr.4oD@NeoSoft.com> claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird) writes:
> The rhetoric that always accompanied these
>adventures in telecommunications was, "Well, The Phone
>Company doesn't want you using any equipment it hasn't ap-
>proved, because you might put a bad signal on the line,
>and hurt its switches."  Was there some technical reality
>behind this, or was it just polite language for AT&T to
>say, "Mine, all mine, and you can't do anything about it!"?

Exactly.  The exchange equipment is protected from everything
including the direct hit of lightning and you basically
can do noting to damage it (bombing the building maybe...)

--vadim
From: urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being disc
Date: 7 Jan 1993 09:52:09 +0100
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
NNTP-Posting-Host: 127.0.0.1

In alt.folklore.computers, article <19314@mindlink.bc.ca>,
  Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca (Charlie Gibbs) writes:
> In article <8456.168.uupcb@ssr.com> dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com
> (Dick Zeitlin) writes:
> 
> >What is it that you find offensive about software-controlled power, or
> >disk drives that can eject their contents automagically?
> 
>      As for me, nothing.  In fact, I think it's generally a Good
> Thing that the standard method of ejecting disks or shutting down
> contains safeguards to ensure that everything is cleaned up first.
> I think the only objection that many of us have is something that
> seems to be part of the Mac's (and Pascal's, for that matter)
> design philosophy:  THERE IS NO OVERRIDE.
> 
Well, there's this little hole on the disk drive which can be used to eject
the disk -- just use a pin or similar.

Shutdown without safeguards can be accomplished by pulling the plug.
Or, on older machines, by using the switch in the back. Or, on Powerbooks,
by pushing the switch in the back or by removing the battery.

-- 
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
                                        -- Bertrand Russell
-- 
Matthias Urlichs  --  urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de   /(o\
Humboldtstrasse 7 -- 7500 Karlsruhe 1 -- Germany  --  +49-721-9612521     \o)/
From: samuel@front.se
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Cor: My first computer
Date: 10 Jan 93 12:42:38 MET
Distribution: world
Organization: Samuel Gustaf Siren

In article <1993Jan10.104139.181@front.se>, I wrote:

>  1. Since it was possible to supply expressions to INPUT (please note 
>     that variables X and Y will be lost, so you only have 24 left !) :
                     ^^^^^^^ 
          Should be "Y and N", of course !
/SS
-- 
All opinions and questions are my own ! /SS
From: wingo@apple.com (Tony Wingo)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Date: 6 Jan 93 19:24:31 GMT
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: Apple Computer

In article <1iahrbINN6cg@life.ai.mit.edu>, daz@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (David A.
Z.) wrote:
> 
> In article <1992Dec31.084528.12526@telesoft.com> kst@telesoft.com 
> (Keith Thompson @pulsar) writes:
> 
> >Each integer can be described by a finite string of ASCII characters.
> 
> 	Huh?  You mean I can't have an integer with an infinite number of
> digits BEFORE the decimal point?

Right.  If you did, it wouldn't be a finite number and as such it wouldn't
be an integer.

> 
> 	If so, it would seem to infer (pardon the layman's terms) that there
> exists some integer so gosh-darn long, that it couldn't be multiplied by 10.

How does this follow?  If an integer is represented in N digits.  Then 10
times that integer is represented in N+1 digits.  If N is finite, so is
N+1.  It doesn't make any difference houw big N is.

-tony

>>usual disclaimer<<
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18731 sci.math:17821
From: samuel@front.se
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Date: 8 Jan 93 03:00:54 MET
Distribution: world
Organization: Samuel Gustaf Siren

In article <1993Jan6.062343.27050@sfu.ca>, erick@fraser.sfu.ca (Erick Bryce 
Wong) writes:

> This is from the rec.puzzles FAQ :
> [...]
> } A theorem of Mahler (1953) states that for all integers p, q > 1,
> }
> }               -42
> } |pi - p/q| > q
> } 
> } This says that pi cannot have a rational approximation that is
> } extremely tight.
> } 
> } Now suppose that the computer picks position N.  I know that the next
> } 41 * N digits cannot be all zero.   For if they were, then the first N
> } digits, treated as a fraction with denominator 10^N, satisfies:
> }  
> } |pi - p / 10^N| < 10^(-42 N)
> }  
> } which contradicts Mahler's theorem.

This was very interesting ! No strings of 10^100 (etc) zeroes in the 
decimals of PI...

Now, suppose that you encounter an '1' in place N of the decimal
expansin of PI. 
If there would be 42 (or something like that) '1's following the first 
'1', wouldnt this imply that

   |pi - p /9*10^(N-1)| < 9^-42 * 10(-42N + 42)

which also would contradict Mahler's theorem. I don't know if all
constants etc are correct, but I hope you get the idea of my 'gut
feeling' about this, which is that there is a limit (42 or something
determined by the digit itself ?) on how many decimals in a row that
may be the same digit.
(Last time I had a 'gut feeling' about PI in this newsgroup, I think
about 100 pepole explained how wrong I was :-) ) 

Now, IF this is correct, I have a question to all you gurus : 
Does this imply some other restrictions on what the decimal expansion
of PI may look like, for example something like "any given sequence of
N digits may not repeat itself more than M times in a row", where M 
would be a function of N and the digits themselves.

/SS
-- 
All opinions and questions are my own ! /SS
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dnichols@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols)
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Organization: D and D Data, Vienna VA
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 21:32:53 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.120206.19712@odin.diku.dk> torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen) writes:
>pjdm@chmeee.enet.dec.com (Peter Mayne) writes:
>
>
>>I'd like to know how many instructions some popular microprocessors have,
>>and this group would undoubtedly jump at the chance to pull out this kind
>>of trivia. :-) (Undoubtedly we'll also learn some other stuff along the way.)

	[ ... ]

>This brings me back to the question: how do you count the number of
>instructions? Do different addressing modes count as several
>isntructions? If the assembler uses different mnemonics for
>instructions that differ only in addressing mode (or which registers
>are used), do they then count as several instructions?

	[ ... ]

>Basically I think it is impossible to find a convention for counting
>instructions that is reasonable for all processors.

	Perhaps if we agree to count each binary opcode value that results
in a valid instruction (not counting immediate data or direct addresses,
which are parameters, but counting everything else.)  This would deal with
the case of assemblers which generate the same code from multiple
instruction formats, whether byte, word, and possibly longword addressing
was part of the instruction mnemonic or a parameter, you would still have a
count of excactly how many *valid* instructions could be formed for that CPU
and executed by it.  (However, this does *NOT* mean that I am volunteering
to wade through the documentation for each processor to dig this out. :-)

-- 
 Email:   <dnichols@d-and-d.com>  |  ...!uunet!ceilidh!dnichols 
		 <dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com>
 Donald Nichols (DoN.)  |   Voice (Days): (703) 704-2280 (Eves): (703) 938-4564
	--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: te@uwasa.fi (Tuomas Eerola)
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 13:16:42 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.010950.18950@spatula.rent.com> azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine) writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.061801.23114@kth.se> regebro@stacken.kth.se (Lennart Regebro) writes:
>
>As Im sure someone else will point out, there is a panic button on the
>Macs disk drives (or at least, used to be). You just needed a bent 
>paperclip and some nerve (people have fits when you stick metal objects
>into their computers. Me, I dont mind :-)
>
Restart with mouse button down also tries to eject disk.

>Your points regarding shutdown and the disks are valid, but not on a Mac.
>A Mac is (basiclly) a single-user system, so who else would be writing 
>to a disk but you? 
>
disk cache?

>As to shutdown, cant say for sure on a Mac, but since OS/2, and Windows
>are Mac-wannabes, doing a proper shutdown saves your current desktop.
>If I kill the power on my OS/2 machine without shutting down, any changes
>arent saved (plus, some other evilness might occur). On Windoze, who cares?
>There is no desktop to worry about.
>
but there is disk cache...

>(as an aside, someone please tell me this... on my Atari, pretty much 
>every command has a keyboard equivalant (in TOS 2.06). For instance, if
>I press ALT-C, Ill open a new window to drives C: root directory (file
>structure is similar to MS-DOS, with the lame limitation of 8.3 filenames).
>Pressing V will save the desktop, C close top window, etc. Even mouse
>movement have keyboard equvalent, pressing ALT (and ALT-SHIFT) moves the
>pointer, and ALT INSERT is a click). Anyways, all keyboard commands are
>definable. Under OS/2, Windows, and DECwindows (DECs mutation of X), theres
>nothing like this (yes, under MS-Windows, pressing ALT will pull down
>the menu bar, but it aint the same)
>
Mac's Easy Acsess does have keyboard equivalents for mouse movements.

I have mips rs2030, Mac Q700 and a couple PC:s on my desk...
Next room there is Next. Sorry never used Atari or Amiga.
I have started with a machine that booted from tape.

First impressions:

It took 'just five minutes' to crash Win 3.0 when it first came out...
And then complete re-installation....
WP for windows took 3 minutes... but no re-installation...
Sun4 took half an hour until system operator had to power it down....
(Year 1988, normal user priviledges - never used unix before)

Tuomas
From: Cannam@sc.ZIB-Berlin.de (Chris Cannam)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What happened to "smart buildings"? and three tangents
Date: 12 Jan 93 12:34:04
Organization: Konrad Zuse Zentrum fuer Informationstechnik Berlin
Distribution: alt
	<1iu8nkINN9l5@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM>
NNTP-Posting-Host: borodin.zib-berlin.de
In-reply-to: smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM's message of 12 Jan 1993 11:06:28 GMT


In article <1iu8nkINN9l5@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM> smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM (Steve McKinty - Sun ICNC) writes:

   In article <CANNAM.93Jan12100339@borodin.sc.ZIB-Berlin.de>, Cannam@sc.ZIB-Berlin.de (Chris Cannam) writes:

   > Perhaps more interesting are the arguments they get with people who
   > are thus nabbed, and then claim in court that they don't watch BBC --
   > their TVs are only capable of receiving independent TV, or they only
   > use them with a video or computer, or whatever.

   Its not a valid argument. You require the license to have the TV, not
   to use it. Whether the law is right is a different issue, but 'I only
   watch coronation street' isn't a defence.

There was a case a few years ago in which some guy in Wales
demonstrated to the satisfaction of all concerned that he couldn't
actually receive BBC in his area, and hence won his case against
paying the fee.  `I only watch Coronation Street' isn't a defence, but
`I can't watch East Enders even if I want to' can be.

   In any case, the last figures I saw showed that the average household
   pays about twice as much per year to the Independent companies (by way of
   advertising costs incorporated in things they buy) compared to the BBC
   licence fee. You could make an argument that that is even more unfair
   because even people who haven't got a TV still pay the advertising costs.

I'm sure that's true.  I wasn't trying to condemn the licence fee.

							Chris

--

           on sighting mathematicians it should unhook the algebra from their
           minds and replace it with with poetry; on sighting poets it should
               unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra
From: jimf@centerline.com (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Anyone care to brag?
Date: 11 Jan 1993 15:24:47 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.3.202

A couple of these bragging stories bring to mind some of the real
screw-ups that I've seen, caused by inexperienced (but often very
bright) people who bluffed their way through things.

I know a couple of sites whose administrators felt that an ethernet
was a fountain of free bandwidth.  You can keep hanging NFS-active
Suns off of a single ethernet and it'll just keep working.

Anybody out there know how many dataless Suns it takes to saturate an
ethernet?  I did, from watching administrators at BU attempt to hang
40 diskless 3/50's off of a single ethernet (something which almost
nobody had attempted at the time).  At about 25 the network started
thrashing.  If they're dataless you can get to about 35 -- then the
network falls apart.  Collisions start causing lots of retransmissions
which themselves exacerbate the problem, and you end up with packet
collision rates in the 50% range and throughput way, way down.

I warned the administrator(*) at one site that you cannot hang that
many machines off of a single network and expect it to operate.  He
ignored my advice, providing MIT's network as an example even though
MIT makes almost no use of Suns and virtually no use of NFS.  Shortly
thereafter they saturated their ethernet and it took eight months to
push a router PO through the bureacracy and to establish subnets --
during which time throughput was down dramatically and everyone
suffered.

I see too many people bluff their way into positions they can't
handle.  Some of them grow into the position, but many of them just
make life hell for the rest of us and then, mercifully, leave --
presumably making someone else's life miserable.

If you don't know about a job, particularly one that affects a lot of
people, don't bluff your way into it.  You may get the job but there's
a good chance you'll adversely affect a lot of people while you learn
the trade.  You can wreck careers that way, not only yours but those
of people who depend on you.

(*) This particular administrator was such by circumstance more than
as a job description, at least at that time.  He's damned good now --
but there were growing pains.

jim frost
jimf@centerline.com
From: azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Date: 9 Jan 93 17:17:33 GMT
Organization: A kitchen utensil somewhere in central New Jersey

In article <30004@castle.ed.ac.uk> gk@castle.ed.ac.uk (G Kerr) writes:
>In article <C0JJC1.LGu@news.cecer.army.mil> rnorth@max.cecer.army.mil writes:
>>pjdm@chmeee.enet.dec.com (Peter Mayne) writes:
>>Just an aside on the topic of RISC, when I took a class in advanced 
>>computer archetecture (sp?) the professor said that RISC was 
>>a useless term.  For the purpose of the class, he defined RISC as 
>>any microprocessor designed since 1985.  Appearently, this opinion has
>>appeared in journals as well. 
>>
>>r-northrup@cecer.army.mil
>>systems admin. 
>
>Correct me if Im wrong,but the 80386 is post 1985 innit?
>
>If thats RISC, Im a pineapple
>
>Gav.

I dunno, I bet that the acronym RISC is a marketing ploy, execpt in some
cases.

I think you need to take several things into consideration. First, is
the cycles needed to complete instructions. The 6502 ranges from 1
cycle for NOP and 7 for some (forget, but I think that JSR was one?
Such a range is seemingly not RISC, even given the low count.

And take the robustness of the set itself. The VAX has a billion instructions.
Some of these are pretty intense, such as G and H floating (64 and 128
bits respectively, but I forget the breakdown), and POLY, which evaluates
polynomials! (emulated in later machines)...

Instruction cycles should be uniform across the set, or as much as possible.
Then there should not be redundant instructions. For me, ideally, if
you can add, you can multiply, so you dont need both...

>
>BTW: How do you count something like a Z80's instructions?
>     ld (HL),5 and ld (IX+00),5 have the same main instruction base, but the IX
>     version has two extra bytes.
>     Two instructions or two variations on one? *8^>

I would count such things into groups... Take again the VAX (since thats
the one I am most familiar with). There are 7 different 'add, compare,
and branch' instructions, one for each data type (byte, word, etc). Have
to discount G and H instructions, tho, since their opcodes are twice
the size as others.     

Please note... I am not an engineer, nor have any training in any of this
stuff, these are just my personal thoughts. If you see something blatently
wrong, please be nice and correct me...

-- 
Billy D'Augustine 
azog@spatula.rent.com

Evil walks behind me.
From: pjdm@chmeee.enet.dec.com (Peter Mayne)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Date: 5 Jan 93 00:54:19 GMT
Reply-To: Peter.Mayne@cao.mts.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


I'd like to know how many instructions some popular microprocessors have,
and this group would undoubtedly jump at the chance to pull out this kind
of trivia. :-) (Undoubtedly we'll also learn some other stuff along the way.)

I'll start:

ARM (RISC):		<30
6502 (RISC?):		55
8086 (non-RISC):	90+
Alpha (RISC):		150 (approx)
VAX (non-RISC):		>400

PJDM
--
Peter Mayne                     | My statements, not Digital's.
Digital Equipment Corporation   |
Canberra, ACT, Australia        | "AXP!": Bill the Cat
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18620 sci.math:17727
From: markz@ssc.com (Mark Zenier)
Subject: Re: 110 BAUD TELETYPE WANTED (WITH OR WITHOUT TAKE PUNCH)
Organization: SSC, Inc.,  Seattle, WA
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 00:41:54 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Tony Duell (Tony.Duell@launchpad.unc.edu) wrote:
:   Trivia for you... The ASR33 has a related machine, the ASR32, which is
: 5-level baudot coded, not ASCII. 

Also the [AK]SR-38, a wide platen ASCII machine with lower case. 

Not to be confused with the ASR-37 which used a type box like a
model 28 or 35.  The 38 had a corncob type printhead.  

Mark Zenier  markz@ssc.wa.com  

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: CLI/GUI wars (was Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued...)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 01:48:30 GMT

In article <9301040835.57@rmkhome.UUCP> rmkhome!rmk@merk.com (Rick Kelly) writes:
>
>Brooklyn Bridge does it by have a slave and a master mode.  You run it
>directly on one machine to have it become a slave, and you boot the
>other side with a special device entered in config.sys.  When it boots
>up, the device configures the serial port for 115,000 baud, and then goes
>out over the serial line and seeks out the devices on the other side.  It
>then allocates appropriate device letters.

LAPLINK is craftier/cruftier, since it starts at a slow rate like 9600 and
then sends in enough of itself as one of those executable files you can
describe in ASCII and save as a .COM file, such as the one I posted a few
months back, etc.  Then they run that executable, and it and the other side
test the line reliability, raising it up to 115,200 baud if the line is
worthy of it, etc.  You need not modify anything, and after the fact, you
now have a replicated \ll3 directory on the end where you typed the CTTY
command.

>>DR-DOS can do this as a standard option if enabled.  BTW, DR-DOS is totally
>>compatible and is a replacement system for all *documented* features.
>
>Except for certain nasty things that Microsoft has done with Windows 3.x.

What things?  DR-DOS was upgraded in April 92.  You could get the update
from many places as a .ZIP file, and registered users and VARs (like me)
were quickly sent the "commercial" patch disk to make it official.  Since
then, newer releases, unofficially known as "6.01" have come out that are
identical to a system patched up the old way.  As far as I know, there is
no Windows 3.1 problem with this newer DR-DOS.  If you have anything specific,
I can call the 800 number and inform Novell/DRI of the specific problem, which
they will respond to.  They even send out Beta-test disks to vars/developers, 
unlike Microsoft whose update process consists of literally nothing for 2.5
years between 4.01 and 5.0, etc.  (End users can't use the 800 number generally
but vars can :-).)

I have heard of a problem with Daceasy as an application running under
Netware Lite under DR-DOS 6.0 that is apparently an undocumented feature of
MS-DOS 5.0, but this has zilch to do with Windows.  Anyone with any knowledge
of any of these MS zingers is encouraged to contact DRI, as a better O/S will
be the result.  I can pass it along personally if the 800 number is an issue.

BTW, the PC-GEOS people seem to prefer DR-DOS also, and of course they are
yet another anti-Windoze faction.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pw@panix.com (Paul Wallich)
Subject: Re: Game machine processors (was Re: Is 4004 the first microprocessor ?)
Organization: Trivializers R Us
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 13:49:12 GMT

In <1993Jan4.021047.4690@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:

>In article <C0Aq5H.4K0@panix.com> pw@panix.com (Paul Wallich) writes:

>>>>  As a semi related thread, does anyone know what processors were used
>>>>  in home video game systems? (Atari VCS, Magnavox Odysessy, Intelevision,
>>>>  etc.)  Past and present?
>>

>>The Odyssey may have used an F-8 at one point (earliest ones were
>>hardwired) but the VCS CPU was a 6502 variant, with 128 bytes of

>The Odyssey was *not* a digital device, much less a processor.  It is a
>non-extensible analog hack that plays rounds of ping-pong; it even lacked
>the concept of keeping score, much less displaying it.

That was the first one. Magnavox, bless their dimwitted little souls,
marketed a series of models, including one very late one that definitely
had a cpu because they want to offer a keyboard for it. And btw, even
the earliest version played several games, including something like
slalom, because I recall being shown the overlays you were supposed
to stick to your tv screen. Sigh.

paul