HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cstockwe@orion.oac.uci.edu (Craig Stockwell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Anyone care to brag?
Date: 9 Jan 93 15:47:30 GMT

Well, my *first* job in the area was as "Network Administrator" for my college newspaper. About 15 nodes, two printers, and a server, all Macs.
Now, in all fairness, I started playing with computers in 1977, running punchcards, at the age of eight!! (thanks to the DoD and The Defense Language Institute at Monterey for allowing very young military dependents to "play" .. !!)

The kicker: my previous experience with networks: none
	with Macs: I had written *TWO* stories for the paper. That's all!
	(that is, all the _MAC_ experience I'd had ... !!

'Course, now I work for the Office of Academic Computing at our school (and still work, in graphics/layout for the paper) -- In fact, I'm sitting in 
Operations, in the Machine Room right now. In charge of a goodly deal of equipment, making sure backups happen ,printing (queues) get done, &tc.
Sequents, Cube, Convex, MasPar, VMS/VAX Cluster, digital SA482, Sun servers, &tc.

Previous experience: my _other_ network admin. job.

Chutzpah!    And the ability to improvise, adapt, and overcome ...


		- M. Craig Stockwell
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
From: hansm@cs.kun.nl (Hans Mulder)
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:26:55 GMT

In <1993Jan5.020509.18268@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.232723.3685@smsc.sony.com> markc@smsc.sony.com (Mark Corscadden) writes:
>>Suppose you define a real number to be "primitive recursive" if there is
>>a primitive recursive function which computes the Nth decimal digit as
>>a function of N.  Same for a "total recursive" real number.

[but...]

>Incidentally, one point no one's mentioned with regard to the definition
>of computable numbers: suppose you have an algorithm for approximating a
>number x, which gives you upper and lower bounds for x which are arbitrarily
>close together. I would then say that x is computable; but this would not
>necessarily enable you to get the decimal digits of x. Suppose, for instance,
>that the bounds the program gives for x are of the form 1/2+h, 1/2-h; then
>you can't tell whether it should start .500000 or .499999, so with the defns
>given already the program wouldn't make x computable...

Last time this subject came up, somebody proposed to define a "primitive
recursive" real number as a number such that there is a primitive recursive
function that computes, as a function of N, the decimal representation
*rounded* to either N or N+1 digits.

Thus, if you ask for 4 digits and your program finds that the number is
between .499999 and .500001, it prints 5000.  If OTOH, the program finds
that the number it's approximating is between .456749 and .456751 (so
that it can't choose between printing 4567 or 4568), it will use the
option the print and extra digit, and output 45675.

>But it's worth bearing in mind: decimals are a bit artificial.

Definitely.

--
Hope this helps,

Hans Mulder			hansm@cs.kun.nl
From: kimcm@login.dkuug.dk (Kim Chr. Madsen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Acronym ISDN
Date: 10 Jan 93 02:45:42 GMT
Organization: DKnet

esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:

>You forgot my favorite: It Still Dotes Nothing.

or: It Still Drives you Nuts
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,comp.sys.intel
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: NeXTstep not running on Cyrix 486DLC (was Re: Apple IIGS...)
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 15:42:36 GMT

In article <%t#@byu.edu> kelly@baloo.ee.byu.edu (J. Kelly Flanagan) writes:
>
>
>	Why so much conversation over so little??????????
>
>	The difference in cost of the 486DLC and a real processor
>	(486DX 25, 33, or 50 MHz) is very little when the cost of the
>	entire system is considered.
>
>	Lets get back to discussing important, interesting
>	architectures and not the differences between toys.

Not true.  A lot of us don't just buy IBM which I've been told means:

You can get better anywhere, but you can't pay more.

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: mcdowell@exlog.com (Steve McDowell)
Subject: Re: bellcore documents?
Organization: EXLOG, Inc.
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 19:35:44 GMT

In article <aXBowB1w165w@mertwig.uucp> daniel@mertwig.uucp (Daniel Drucker) asks:
> I was just reading _The Hacker Crackdown_ (Bruce Sterling), and it
> mentions an 800 number where you can purchase Bell technical
> documents. Does anyone know the number?

You *could* call 1-800-555-1212 and ask for the BellCore number, or 
you could simply call BellCore at 1-800-521-2673. 


-- 
Steve McDowell             . . . . o o o o o 		Opinions are 
Exlog, Inc.	                  _____      o     	mine, not my 
mcdowell@exlog.com      _____====  ]OO|_n_n__][.    	employers..
		       [_________]_|__|________)<
From: dnichols@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols)
Subject: Re: Adobe and adobe
Organization: D and D Data, Vienna VA
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 23:26:14 GMT

In article <930110024422_75230.1437_DHE36-1@CompuServe.COM> 75230.1437@CompuServe.COM writes:
>In my dictionary, "adobe" is defined as sun-dried building brick. Was
>that how Adobe Type for Windows was named?

	I suspect that it is from the company "Adobe" which developed the
PostScript page-description language.

-- 
 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 ---
From: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being disc
Date: 5 Jan 93 10:04:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Advanced Computer Concepts BBS, New Rochelle, NY 914-654-1981
Reply-To: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 

CL = Charles Lasner

CL> .>It sounds like Apple has done something right.  Making a computer easy en
  > .>to be used by the average layman isn't wimpy, it should be the goal of al
  > .>us.

CL> .I totally disagree that this is the purpose of a computer or a goal
  > .of *any* of us.  Applications some dipstick can use is one thing,
  > .but making *our* task of using the computer for the *process of
  > .creating* the means for the dipsticks of this world to use
  > .their applications is a totally different matter.  I profoundly
  > .wish that various groups would stop "helping" me in the creative
  > .process.

What is it that you find offensive about software-controlled power, or
disk drives that can eject their contents automagically?  Is it more
sensible to grope the case of the computer for a widget to shut down the
computer?  Why isn't it a better idea to start a shutdown process that
saves files, machine state, or whatever, and then kills power?  This is
closely analogous to Toshiba's "resume" mode, and I find it highly
beneficial.  Wish I had it on _all_ my machines.

Why, if it's appropriate to remove or change a diskette, shouldn't the
software be able to eject the current contents of the drive?  What does
this hurt?

What is it that you find offensive about the concept that a machine
should be easier to use for EVERYONE.  Why are developers a special
(apparently non-human) breed that doesn't need to take advantage of any
technology newer than the PDP-8?

CL> .cj "probably more productive as a programmer with a card punch than with a
  > .GUI" l (but prefer a CLI and an editor!)

At least you said "probably", implying that you haven't spent much time
developing under a GUI.  'Taint so, Mr. Lasner.  A GUI is not an evil
device to frustrate developers.  It's a tool that can be used properly
or improperly.

Consumer computers should be designed for consumers.  They should be
easy for the average person to use.  If it offends you to use a
"friendly" environment, use EMACS and a cross-compiler on your PDP-8 for
development.  I'll continue to take advantage of multi-window
environments which have indeed increased my productivity.

        D/
---
 . QMPro 1.0 41-3345 . Bring back A-N airways!!    Dick.Zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com
                                 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 13:44:04 GMT

john@gu.uwa.edu.au (John West) writes:

>Any other evil hardware hacks in production machines? Things that really
>should never have been done?

I heard a rumour that the evil screen memory addressing scheme on Apple ][
in Hires mode was due to Steve Wosniak trying to save a couple of chips per
machine - save a couple of cents per machine, and cause programmers
sleepless nights trying to write routines to put dots where you want them.
I also heard that the disk drives on the Apple ][ used way too
much software in order to save hardware - but then that might just have been
a Commodore-bigot's point of view.  (My disk drive was smarter than my
computer - it had 3 6502s in it!)  (Sort of reminiscent of the time when the
most powerful computer Apple made was the Laserwriter)


-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@compass.gvc.com
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
I've always wanted to know what's around the next bend
   - Herman Smith (Jackrabbit) Johansen. 1875-1983
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dp@world.std.com (Jeff DelPapa)
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 03:27:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.215826.668@ceilidh.d-and-d.com> dnichols@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) writes:
>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
>                     ^^^^^^^^

>	The term above was "designed".  The basic architecture is still that
>of the 8080, expanded many times, but I believe, still capable of running
>code assembled from 8080 mnemonics.  The 8086 crippled itself with the
>segmentation to maintain compatability with it's parents.  All subsequent
>versions have not been new designs, but simply growth paths of more kluges
>hung on the basic architecture.
>
For 8080 in the above paragraph, substitute 8008 - the big reason it
won over the 6800 (as I remember, the order of release was 8008 then
6800 then shortly after that, the 8080) was that 8008 roms could be
used on the thing. So it is even more of a code archive than you
thought.

<dp>
From: stevev@miser.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: let's start this off on the right bodily appendage...
Date: 6 Jan 93 09:56:11
Organization: University of Oregon Chemistry Stores
NNTP-Posting-Host: miser.uoregon.edu
In-reply-to: shevett@pilot.njin.net's message of 5 Jan 93 21:44:17 GMT

In article <Jan.5.16.44.16.1993.18376@pilot.njin.net>
shevett@pilot.njin.net (Shayde) writes:

   In my early days of Usenetting, I was overawed by the witty response from
   the Usenet Oracle.  I never did get a full answer on what exactly the
   oracle is/was, but some of the responses that came from questions to
   him/her/it made my week...

The Usenet Oracle is not any one him, her or it.  The Oracle is them.

Thou art the Usenet Oracle.  All that groks is the Usenet Oracle.
--
Steve VanDevender 	stevev@greylady.uoregon.edu
"Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population.
Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the
classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu (Matt Healy)
Subject: Re: What happened to "smart buildings"?  and three tangents
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: Yale U. - Genetics
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:24:06 GMT

In article <1ii73pINNkoe@rodan.UU.NET>, avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov)
wrote:
> 
> 
> 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...)
>

As I recall, there was a famous court case (I think it was
called "Carterfone vs AT&T" or some such) on this issue.

Bell claimed the burden of proving safety must fall on the
person connecting something to their lines; since nobody had
the resources to do this that effectively meant nobody could
hook non-bell stuff up.  In this court case, the court ruled
that the burden of proof fell on Bell -- they had to prove
that the devices in question could damage their equipment.

This decision led to the "interconnect" industry, a lot of
companies making gizmos for hooking up to phones.

I understand that in many European countries you still have
to get telcom's permission to hook up answering machines!

Matt Healy
"I pretend to be a network administrator;
 the lab net pretends to work"

matt@wardsgi.med.yale.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: pyotr@halcyon.com (Peter D. Hampe)
Subject: p_Hungarian Notation
Summary: where's his article
Keywords: programing style, var names, Charles Samoyi, Hungarian Notation, C Style
Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. (206) 455-3505
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 15:55:43 GMT

can any one out there in radio land (whoops - wrong movie)

I'm looking for Charles Samoyi's article on "Hungarian Notation"
from about 4 years back.  Its the one where in he 'codified' the
variable naming convention that has us starting variables
with mnemonics of the type (e.g. pointers start pVarName, strings
are sVarName, handles are hVarName, and so on).

Teacher has recomended this for the betterment of our
programing lives - but she can't find it, or a reference, so
she has put out a Quest.  If any one can send/post pointers,
references, the entire article, I'll be grateful and attempt
to post a summation.

chus
pyotr

-- 
Pyotr aka Peter D. Hampe : eka pyotr@halcyon.com
Next Month's Panel: Us and Them - Eliminating Them.
EOF
-- 
Pyotr aka Peter D. Hampe : eka pyotr@halcyon.com
Next Month's Panel: Us and Them - Eliminating Them.
EOF
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: petel@sequent.com (Pete Lancashire)
Subject: Re: 110 BAUD TELETYPE WANTED (WITH OR WITHOUT TAKE PUNCH)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 00:10:21 GMT

faught@berserk.ssc.gov (Ed Faught) writes:

>In article <1993Jan8.102055.23469@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>  writes:
>>In <2B4C83F4.7974@ics.uci.edu> gshouse@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (George H. Iii  
>Shouse) writes:
>>
>>>I still have an old KSR-33 w/tape AND modem (rotary dial).

>model 37 ( not many of these made, but I consider it Teletype Corporation's  
>highest achievement ) about three years ago. They were all in working order and  
>belonged in a museum. I couldn't justify the cost of freighting them to Texas.
>--
>Ed Faught  WA9WDM  faught@berserk.ssc.gov
> Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory

YES YES THE 37, When I was interested in collecting one, they were all
gone, had to settle for a ASR35, the 37 had to be as you put it the
highest achievement of the mechanical era. One thing I did to demo the
35 was to sync a strobe to the start bit. Even to this day the many Mech.
Engs.  I showed it to were how can I say it,... humbled.

(PS I the guy trying to give the 35 a good home)

-pete
Pete Lancashire
petel@sequent.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 19:15:06 GMT

pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin) writes:
>I heard a rumour that the evil screen memory addressing scheme on Apple ][
>in Hires mode was due to Steve Wosniak trying to save a couple of chips per
>machine - save a couple of cents per machine

A little more than that, actually.  And it also had the nice benefit
of automatically taking care of the DRAM refresh.

>, and cause programmers
>sleepless nights trying to write routines to put dots where you want them.

Only the bad ones.  Any with any brains had a lookup table per line if
they needed to do direct screen access.  A bit of a pain, yes, but on
a CPU without a built in multiply, it was also much faster than doing
a multiply on the line number to find the starting address of any
particular line.

>I also heard that the disk drives on the Apple ][ used way too
>much software in order to save hardware

Remember the time frame we're talking about here...  Even with all the
hardware savings it was pretty damned expensive.  It was sort of a
pain in the ass a couple years down the road, but on a
non-multitasking machine I don't see where having more of it in
hardware would have helped unless that gave more speed or more
capacity.  As long as you were just waiting for the disk accesses to
finish you might as well have the CPU do it.  And, of course, the
level of control let you do some really nice things, such as a spiral
track layout and half-tracks.



> - but then that might just have been
>a Commodore-bigot's point of view.  (My disk drive was smarter than my
>computer - it had 3 6502s in it!)  (Sort of reminiscent of the time when the
>most powerful computer Apple made was the Laserwriter)

Yeah, it was cool on the C-64 how you could detach the drives from the
machine and let them copy by themselves.  I also remember that because
the drive was so smart Commodore decided that it wasn't really
necessary for the computer to talk to the disk drive with any speed.
Ouch.  Thank gawd for the fastload cartridges that came out later!
-- 
And now a word for dog lovers: kinky!
From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Acronym ISDN
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:29:23 GMT
Distribution: world

In <1993Jan7.144043.10372@bnr.uk> Alan Carter wrote:
> icts1@cec2.wustl.edu (Christopher T. Schuster) writes:
> > Also, what is ISDN?  I haven't quite gotten that one yet, either!
> 
> It used to be "Innovations Subscribers Don't Need", but latterly it is
> "I Smell Dollars Now".
> 
> I think Marshall T. Rose is responsible...

You forgot my favorite: It Still Dotes Nothing.
-- 
					Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 00:19:36 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.192626.10661@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.020509.18268@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:

      [claim that pi is primitive recursive]

>Is this really true?  After all, we know that there are arbitrarily
>long strings of consecutive 0s and 9s in the decimal expansion of PI.
>What precision to I need to compute the Nth digit of PI if that Nth
>digit is at teh beginning of such a sequence?  After all, you can
>change the value of digit N by adding (for 9s) or subtracting (for 0s)
>and arbitrarily small value if the string of identical digits is long
>enough.

Yeah, someone else pointed this out. The answer is sort of hinted at in the
last paragraph of the posting you quote: namely, that decimal expansions
aren't really the right way to define "primitive recursive", and one should
ask instead whether there's a p.r. program that gives arbitrarily close
approximations.

Incidentally, I don't think it *is* known that there are arbitrarily long
strings of 0s and 9s in the decimal expansion of pi. Nor do I expect it to
be for ages; this sort of property is not easy to prove...

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
From: tomk@pyton.world (Tom F Karlsson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Digigal Rainbow 100?
Date: 5 Jan 93 13:50:58 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University, Sweden.
NNTP-Posting-Host: pyton.csd.uu.se
In-reply-to: sjm1@crux2.cit.cornell.edu's message of 4 Jan 93 18:20:34 GMT


As far as i know there are two types of Rainbows, 100A and 100B. Sometimes also
called 100 and 100+ (don't hit me if I'm wrong :-).

The 100A has a 64Kb on board memory, but the 100B has 128Kb. The 100B has
also some improvements made in the BIOS. Often the 100B came with a harddisk
(5Mb or 10Mb).

Both machines have the ability to use extra memory cards, which will give you
768Kb + the original memory. That is if you have 41256 IC's on the memory card
(could also be 4164). On a 100B that makes the total memory 896Kb and for the
100A 832Kb.

Then there are options like harddisk controller, grafics card, floating point
processor (makes the machine 1.5 to 6 times faster depending on what you are doing),
mouse and other stuff.

I have 5 Rainbows for the time being and the one that I use most frequently have;
896Kb memory, grafics card, fp-processor, 40Mb HD, CP/M 2.2, MS-DOS 3.10b and
lots of programs like Lotus 1-2-3, AutoCAD, TeX, Wordstar and PD-programs from
the net.

/Tom
--
|  Tom Karlsson    email: tomk@meryl.csd.uu.se    phone: +46 18 260097  |
|  student of computer science @ Uppsala University                     |
|                                                                       |
| "At least it's something, said the mosquito and pissed in the sea..." |
From: daz@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (David A. Z.)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Date: 10 Jan 1993 23:08:51 GMT
Organization: /etc/organization
NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu

In article <19223@mindlink.bc.ca> Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.bc.ca (Charlie Gibbs) 
writes:
>In article <1i63h4INN7tu@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> john@gu.uwa.edu.au
>(John West) writes:

>>Any other evil hardware hacks in production machines? Things that really
>>should never have been done?

>     How about the 80x86 family?  :-)
      ^^^^^^^^^                 ^^^^^^

	Ummm... I'm confused.  Doesn't the "How about", the "?" and the
":-)" mean that you're unsure or kidding?   

	Oh... I see.  The ":-)" applies to the "How about" and the "?" meaning
that you were kidding about the "How about" and the "?".   Now THAT makes 
sense.

	Would have saved some confusion if you just wrote "The 80x86 family!"
the first time though!  (Although it would be stating the obvious.)

	-daz@gnu.ai.mit.edu
From: 75230.1437@CompuServe.COM
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Adobe and adobe
Date: 9 Jan 1993 20:52:11 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

In my dictionary, "adobe" is defined as sun-dried building brick. Was
that how Adobe Type for Windows was named?



Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers