HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: What is so greate about the PDP 10?
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:45:22 GMT

lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>In article <BzJ8s9.n0C@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec18.111917.27380@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>>> Successful companies make *many* products, and divisions don't backstab each
>>> other.
>>
>>You mean, like the way IBM kept crippling their PCs to maintain an artificial
>>market for the Series 3?

>Please elaborate; As far as I know, there are quite a few PS/2 models clearly
>superior to system 3 (aka AS-400, 38, 36, 34, 32 and Mikey).

The man said PC, not PS/2.  He was probably referring to the way the 6MHz
ATs could be upgraded to 8MHz by users, so IBM changed the ROM to put in a
timing check so it would crash if users upgraded the clock.  (Can't have
those 8MHz ATs out there before we decide we need a ``mid life kicker''), or
the PC-RT, the worlds slowest RISC computer, or the way they tried to keep
the market away from 386s.  Or the internal memos that have been leaked
forbidding RS/6000 sales from trying to bid in established System 3 shops.
(Since rescinded, I believe)

I might also mention the software side - like no CICS or RPG on ``Entry Level
Division'' or ``Workstation Division'' machines - PC, PS/2 or RS/6000 until
the company saw the red ink on the wall.  (Too little, too late if you ask
me)

-- 
Paul Tomblin (pt@compass.gvc.com) I don't make or state policy for GeoVision.
Usenet, n:
An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making
a disagreeable person keep his distance. -- Paraphrased from Ambrose Bierce.
From: jmpierce@whale.st.usm.edu (Jimmy Malcolm Pierce)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
Date: 2 Jan 93 05:33:41 GMT
Organization: University of Southern Mississippi


 (P. J. Remner) writes:
>And then a madman runs into the room with a megaphone and yells, "ERASE
>HARD DISK!!!!!"....

   Of course the computers are set to recognize the peoples' voices
who work in only that room { And selected supervisors, so the machines 
can be reset }. And those who work there do a 'hangup' on their
microphones, laugh at the idiot who provided them with a moments 
entertainment, call security, and after security removes the idiot, 
resumes work. No big deal.

-- 
         Jim Pierce Bach. of Sci. in Applied Computer Science USM 
             jmpierce@whale.st.usm.edu  Disclaimer: Standard.
                   Video. Cher: Love and Understanding.
          'Rush Limbaugh is the 'Chia Pet' of TV talk shows !'
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18499 sci.math:17592
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
Subject: Re: Alephs (Was Re: Number of numbers)
Date: 2 Jan 93 10:00:32 GMT
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden

In article <1992Dec30.091130.2068@pollux.lu.se>, I wrote:

> Actually, I believe Cantor defined it as the cardinality of the set of
> all subsets of a set of cardinality aleph-0, and then went on to prove
> that there can't exist any cardinal number between aleph-0 and aleph-1.

As has been pointed out to me via email, this is of course wrong, since
proving that would be equivalent to proving the continuum hypothesis.


Some references to the theory of transfinite numbers and the continuum
hypothesis: 

Cohen & Hersh: Non-Cantorian Set Theory, Scientific American, Dec. 1967

Dauben: Georg Cantor and the Origins of Transfinite Set Theory,
	Sci. Am., June 1983

These two articles are elementary. The first one describes how one can
construct different set theories in which the continuum hypothesis is
true or false, respectively. The second one tells not only about
Cantor's theory of transfinite ("greater than infinity") cardinal
numbers, but also (rather movingly) about the tragic consequences the
theory (or rather it's reception) had for Cantor himself.


Cantor: Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite
Numbers, Dover Publications

A reprint of some of Cantor's original articles. Still in print from
Dover. Requires some familiarity with mathematical notation, but no
special knowledge about set theory.

              Magnus Olsson                | \e+      /_
    Department of Theoretical Physics      |  \  Z   / q
        University of Lund, Sweden         |   >----<           
 magnus@thep.lu.se, thepmo@seldc52.bitnet  |  /      \===== g
PGP key available via finger or on request | /e-      \q
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: markz@ssc.com (Mark Zenier)
Subject: Re: Is 4004 the first microprocessor ?
Organization: SSC, Inc.,  Seattle, WA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:11:51 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Peter da Silva (peter@NeoSoft.com) wrote:
: In article <BzqwGy.6AC@apollo.hp.com> gardner_c@apollo.hp.com (Cal Gardner) writes:
: > Seems to me that they went as follows:
: 
: >   4004 ==> 8008 ==> 8080 but why do I
: 
: > have '4040' in my mind?
: 
: I have the 4004 and 8008 manuals here, and the 8008 was pretty much unlike the
: 4004. There were followups to both, the 4040 and 8080, which were each like
: their respective predecessor. The 4040 was the end of the line in the 40xx
: series, but the 80xx is still going strong.

The 4004 and the 8008 were pretty much parallel developments, the 4004 only 
preceded the 8008 by a year or so (72? and 73?), and according to the chapter 
in "Computer Structures, Principles and Examples", the 8008 started 
development in 1969.

Mark Zenier  markz@ssc.wa.com
From: cogen@ll.mit.edu (David Cogen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: mean failure time vs power-to-weight ratio (was: Re: Sig file)
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:03:13 GMT
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington MA
Originator: cogen@ll.mit.edu (David Cogen)


|> >>Right -- higher power-to-weight decreases mean time to failure.  For
|> >
|> >Oh dear; does this mean that we should start to worry about the sun?
|> >
|> 
|> Silly Answer: No, the data is all taken from items of human
|> manufacture. Deities use a different and much more complicated
|> formula.
|> 
|> Very Silly Answer: Of course not! The sun has no weight - see how it
|> floats up there in the sky? - therefore it will last forever.

Serious answer: No. I think I remember reading that the power to weight ratio
of the sun is not high at all. Something in the range of a few hundred watts per cubic meter. What's the weight density? Then we could translate
watts per cubic meter to watts per kilogram. I think it's significantly less
than a gasoline engine.

David Cogen.
 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: thayne@unislc.uucp (Thayne Forbes)
Subject: Re: PI
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Organization: HomeVax
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 03:32:05 GMT

David Sibley (sibley@math.psu.edu) wrote:
: In article <BzL5KM.4Ax@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> bjackson@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Ben Jackson) writes:
:   [stuff deleted]
: >I read an article which made fun of people seeking large numbers of PI digits,
: >as a circle with the radius of earth's orbit can be approximated to within 2cm
: >with only 7(?) digits.  Can anyone cite an exact source?  (what? here in the
: >alt.folklore heirarchy?  heh)
: 
: Well, I hope there's no source for this.  It's badly wrong.
: 
: Presuming you mean to compute the circumference of such a circle from
: its radius, using pi to only 7 digits (after the decimal point, 8 digits
: total) yields an error of over 1 million centimeters.  That's a lot more
: than 2 centimeters.
: 
: When readers don't know enough to check, I suppose a writer can say
: anything in an article.  Sigh.
: 
No less an authority than Isaac Asimov (gasp) wrote one of his monthly
articles on this subject for (I believe) Fantasy and Science Fiction 
magazine, later republished in one of his collections.  He was however 
showing the silliness of this by showing the delta in a circle equal to 
the diameter of the earth, rather than the orbit.  It seems to me that 
the correct number of digits for this exercise is 7-9 digits.  (Yes, I 
could check, but I am just too lazy).

-- 
Thayne Forbes
thayne@unislc.slc.unisys.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: schoenfr@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de (Erik Schoenfelder)
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
X-Pi: 3
Organization: TU Braunschweig, Informatik, Bueltenweg, Germany
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 14:31:52 GMT

Hi!

uzun@crash.cts.com (Roger Uzun) writes:

RU>  On a lighter note, my Amiga 4000 can calculate pi to
RU>  3000 digits in 46 seconds. ...

Inspired by all these postings i tred it with the multiple
precision un*x library. The formula i found (and use) is

	pi = 16 * atan (1/5) - 4 * atan (1/239)		(???)
with
	atan(x) = x - x^3/3 + x^5/5 - x^7/7 + ...	(Taylor)

on a sparc 2 computing 3000 digits took between 6 seconds (GNU mp
package) and 20 seconds (sun mp package) spending most of the time
in the divisions.

Are there other easy formulas ? (sure, but which ones ...)

NB: If anyone says pi to 3000 digits, do you assume the 3 is still
    counted, or only the digits behind the decimal point are meant ?
    (The classic off-by-one ;-)

Erik
From: urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Worlds wierdest system crash!
Date: 29 Dec 1992 12:52:33 +0100
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
NNTP-Posting-Host: 127.0.0.1

In alt.folklore.computers, article <1992Dec24.141124.8088@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>,
  slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth "the Lesser") writes:
> 
> No, I didn't encounter that bug, because I knew the First Law of C=64 Hacking,
> which is:
> 
> 	NEVER DO "SERIAL BUS" I/O AND *ANYTHING* ELSE AT THE SAME TIME!
> 
I once built a BBS system on the C=64 and got hit by that one.
So I bought a parallel disk interface -- the IEEE bus has static signals,
thus isn't dependent on any timing problems.

Next: file system. No random access? Write your own...

Next: serial I/O. One of the "real" serial chips had a programming interface
which was almost identical to the stuff a C-64 program used to open the
serial port and the code fits comfortably into the place where the old
bit-serial code was.

Next: BASIC. The BBS source fit into memory ... with about 250 bytes to
spare, as I recall. One of the myriads of compilers I tried was actually
able to compile the thing correctly.

Pure history... If somebody had told me then that one day I'd have this 
direct Internet connection and 50 MBytes of traffic per day in 3000
newsgroups, I'd called them crazy -- we all know that nobody can read
50 MB per day.  ;-)

-- 
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death,
  To break the shock blind nature cannot shun,
  And lands thought smoothly on the further shore.
                                -- Young
-- 
Matthias Urlichs  --  urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de   /(o\
Humboldtstrasse 7 -- 7500 Karlsruhe 1 -- Germany  --  +49-721-9612521     \o)/
From: azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What is so greate about the PDP 10?
Date: 23 Dec 92 00:26:56 GMT
Organization: A kitchen utensil somewhere in central New Jersey

In article <BznoF1.Bwo@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <1992Dec21.134957.15696@spatula.rent.com> azog@spatula.rent.com (Billy D'Augustine) writes:
>
>> (sad story, but they used to take hammers to such 
>> wonders as PDP-8s, because they had no 'value'...).
>
>Sounds like time to take hammers to the owners.

Yea. I no longer work there, but was there for about 9 months. I got some
neato stuff while I was at it. Me and a friend of mine (another avid computer
collector), used to wander in the warehouse, which was quite large, and
find all sorts of fun stuff. 

Some of the more 'dull' stuff I myself picked up included an almost working,
yet totally complete VAX 730 for $100. The RA80 is hammered. But the
card cage is stock full. Even has an FP730. I got a DECmate III for
free, once a Pro-350 for spare parts. An Altos 68000 that worked...
A MicroPDP-11 pretty well stocked (RSX-11M-Plus 2.1, 40mb drive,
1mb RAM, CIS (?) chipset, etc...)

I had a chance to pick up a PDP-8, unknown model, probably an E. I 
didnt get it at the time cause it was in sad shape. All the cards 
were yanked out of the backplane, and the power cord was lopped off.
I know zero about 8s, but am sure someone could help me get it working.
I dont play with cards in a backplane like this, cause with my luck,
they never work again. (I think cjl mentioned that an Omnibuss is
quite similar to an Unibuss...).

Waaaay in the back, buried, was an IBM 360, again unknown model number.
Looked like most of a 360 installation, too, with tapes, communications
front ends, etc. 

Not only is the bummer that they outright destroy the stuff (for reasons
of money. They think that its worthless, who would want it, when a 
well equiped 386 clone is much faster, and cheaper... I tried to explain
the idea, but it never sunk thru...). A big bummer is that they refused
to sell stuff to me, outright. Im mostly into VAXen and -11s (too 
young to remember much else), and many times, Ive seen TU80s (which I
need), various RAxx drives... The reason? None given, execpt that they
have a buyer who will buy bulk. They would rather sell a lot of
stuff for, say, $1000, then sell me a singular peice...

I even remember a complete PDP-11/70 system, in about 4 or 5 19"
racks. Had a lot of BA11 expansion boxes, and a TU16... Was there
such a thing as an -11/60? Also (youll cry), at least one genuine
11/20. All gone :-(

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

Gentlemen, shall we manufacture salsa, or oven mitts?
From: jimkirk@news.uwyo.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math,comp.compression
Subject: Re: Compressing decimal expansion of pi
Date: 22 Dec 92 22:47:41 GMT
Organization: University of Wyoming - Laramie, WY

In article <Bzo3p1.6I7.2@cs.cmu.edu>, tgl+@cs.cmu.edu (Tom Lane) writes:
> 
> Why not just convert the decimal representation to binary, and store the
> binary expansion of pi?  That gives you log2(10) = 3.322 bits per decimal
> digit.  Assuming that the digits of pi are actually random, this is the best
> that can be done.

I remember reading in some mailing list that given modern methods to
compute pi, it actually took longer to convert the internal binary
representation from base 2 to base 10, than it took to compute pi
up to that point.  Thus, it would be better to never represent it
in base 10 in the first place, unless you *must* look at it.  Why
would you even be interested in looking at it?  (Northern Exposure
plot-lines notwithstanding).

Best of all, as another writer pointed out, "encode" pi as the program
to generate it, and just regenerate it as needed.

J.K.
From: d40937@aiken (Jean Yves Desbiens)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Famous Flame Wars Archive?
Date: 27 Dec 92 08:56:46 GMT
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Michael Hauben (hauben@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu) wrote:
: Have the earlier discussions on famous flame wars been archived
: anywhere or can someone make the files available to me? I have
: been doing some research on the history of the Arpanet and Usenet
: News and sadly missed the earlier discussion. I would like to be
: able to see the earlier discussion that took place.
: 

I am the one who initiated the thread, I was curious being an avid
flamer myself, so I saved most of them. If I get some time I'll
put some order in the whole mess and summarize for the viewing pleasure
of AFC. Bizarely, we are upgrading our whole system and for some reason 
I haven't been able to send or receive any mail for a couple of days. 
I really don't want to go back to school to see what it is all about,
but if this continues, I'll have to. I can still post though :-).
I'll try to post the summary before the new year.

--
SEIZE THE DAY, MAKE YOUR LIFE EXTRAORDINARY .  "Dead Poets Society"

Jean-Yves Desbiens                  | d40937@info.polymtl.ca
Etudiant en genie informatique      | 
Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal Can | To indeed be a god ...,
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math,comp.compression
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: Compressing decimal expansion of pi (was Re: PI)
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:13:24 GMT

In article <1h7f7sINNkp9@function.mps.ohio-state.edu> edgar@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) writes:
>In article <Bzo3p1.6I7.2@cs.cmu.edu> tgl+@cs.cmu.edu (Tom Lane) writes:
>>Why not just convert the decimal representation to binary, and store the
>>binary expansion of pi?  That gives you log2(10) = 3.322 bits per decimal
>>digit.  Assuming that the digits of pi are actually random, this is the best
>>that can be done.
>
>But since they are not random, we can do much better.  Write a program
>for computation of the digits of pi (even an inefficient one),
>and use that as your "encoded" version of pi.

But surely _that_ is cheating! :-) This last method presupposes knowledge
that the number being compressed actually *is* pi to N decimals, and 
with that knowledge the entire 1 Mb+ file can be compressed to the
string "pi to N decimals". But what if 69 random digits were changed? 

Converting the entire decimal fraction to binary is of course more
"honest", but it's non-local: converting a million-digit decimal
fraction to binary involves manipulating 3 million-bit binary
fractions. Huffman encoding, in contrast, is a local operation.

              Magnus Olsson                | \e+      /_
    Department of Theoretical Physics      |  \  Z   / q
        University of Lund, Sweden         |   >----<           
 magnus@thep.lu.se, thepmo@seldc52.bitnet  |  /      \===== g
PGP key available via finger or on request | /e-      \q
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18480 alt.conspiracy:13601
From: hfreeman@netcom.com (Harris S. Freeman)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.conspiracy,rec.arts.sf-written
Subject: Re: The Net achieves major-conspiracy status!
Date: 1 Jan 93 19:25:31 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

Yes!  I was wondering how big the intersection of Economist readers and
Internet users was, so am fascinated to see this posting.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Harris S. Freeman	e-mail:	hfreeman@netcom.com
			phone:  415 365 4749 
			other:	415 298 0785
From: df@sdf.lonestar.org (daniel finster)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: TX-0 code
Date: 25 Dec 92 14:19:33 GMT
Organization: sdf public access unix -- Dallas, Tx. 214-436-3281


  Reading in _Hackers_ a while back, i remember seeing that the TX-0 had 18-bit words,
the first two bits of which were instructions.  Now, that comes out to
4 instructions (assuming Levy got it right); I've been racking my brain
off and on over the past year or so trying to figure out WHICH 4 instructions
that the TX-0 included (Since i'm not a wizard at machine architecture
possibilities this is even harder).  _Hackers_ talks about programs running
on the TX-0 with loops in them, so there has to be a looping construct..
(1 instruction), i would think there would HAVE to be a move, so that's
another instruction.  Subtract you could do by adding a negative number to
a positive number, so you can do without that.. but you need an add, so thats
another instruction.  And for number four, i'd put in a jump.  All you
TX-0 wizards out there (all 5 of you, i'd guess), is this lineup close
to what the machine actually had?  Could you possibly post some more tidbits
about the machine, such as how many registers it had, if it was really
limited to 4 instructions, and which they were (assuming my linup is
incorrect).  How much memory it had, and other trivia?  I would (and i'm
sure many others would) be quite interested in seeing this information.
Thanks in advance!
-- 
daniel finster   df@sdf.lonestar.org  ...!seas.smu.edu!letni!sdf!df
From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Date: 3 Jan 93 01:50:32 GMT
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam

In article <sourada.726020676@vincent1.iastate.edu> sourada@iastate.edu (Steven D Ourada) writes:
 > In <1993Jan2.180042.1@kean.ucs.mun.ca> jbridson@kean.ucs.mun.ca writes:
 > 
 > >I forget the name of the VCS's CPU, but I do remember it was 6-bit, with 12
 > >-bit address.  Those cartridges had to fit in its 4KB address space!
 > 
 > I remember reading the name F-8, but I can't find the reference...
 > 
These two can not be both correct.  The F-8 (aka 3870) is a 8-bit processor.
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; e-mail: dik@cwi.nl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dogo@pcuf.fi (Mikko Rantanen)
Subject: Re: Worlds wierdest system crash!
Organization: The PC-users of Finland
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 02:16:59 GMT

Hnmmh. I'm just wondering... since I had my old, trusty '64 running for days,
if not for weeks, and nothing special happened. But then, once, when I was
making kinda kludge to keep the data in the memory by supplying power to it
no matter what was the position of the power switch, I managed to burn all
the memory chips. After I had replaced them, The machine started to behave
kinda strangely; there seemed to be lot of data almost intact after turning
power off for even several minutes and the back on. The only reason I could
figure for this was, that the chips or the whole machine was somehow drawing
current through either the disk-drive cable (yes, non-cbm drive) or the
modem cable. Dunno, I never figured it out back then.
From: Edward.Rice@p4214.f70.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Edward Rice)
Sender: Uucp@blkcat.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: alt.fan.multics, any interest in a Multics (OS) newsgroup?
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 13:42:50 -0500

Magnus Olsson said to All: 

  MO> In article <bdp21_@rpi.edu> multics@lachesis.acm.rpi.edu (Multics)
  MO> writes:
  > I'd like to know it there is enough interest out there to warrant the
  > creation of an alt.fan.multics newsgroup where us past and present
  > Multics people can discuss the Multics OS and anything Multics oriented
  > that comes to mind, including the current status of Multics.
 
Certainly at this Point.  Color me interested.