HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: reg@sdchemw2.ucsd.edu (Richard E. Gillilan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.3d
Subject: Re: 'Movement' on light and dark screen background.
Date: 17 Aug 92 00:32:43 GMT
Organization: UC San Diego Chemistry
NNTP-Posting-Host: sdchemw2.ucsd.edu

In article <Bt0EG2.5Hu@pix.com> hsu@pix.com (Dagwood Splits the Atom) writes:
>In article <1992Aug14.201730.8489@ccu.umanitoba.ca> grnbrg@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Brian Greenberg) writes:
>>In <BswnIE.Dpt@world.std.com> bmarcum@world.std.com (Bill Marcum) writes:
>>>...  The screen display has alternating lines of red and light-blue
>>>text on a dark-blue background.  I wear very thick glasses, and as I move my
>>>head, the red letters seem to move around while the light blue letters stand
>>>still.
>
>>This is probably caused by the fact that the human eye perceives the red
>>wavelengths slightly [faster|slower] than the blue.  This may cause apparent
>>movement if you shake your head.
...

Sounds to me like his glasses are simply acting as a prism.
I get quite a nice (sometimes annoying) spectrum out of the
corner of mine at times. Red light is refracted by a lesser
angle than blue light. As his head moves, the angle of dispersion
between the two colors changes. Because the background is also blue,
it is the red letters that appear to move.


-------
Richard
From: david@dragon (David SHERMAN)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mad drums
Date: 19 Aug 92 20:34:37 GMT
Organization: Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique

tvv@tandem.com (Tom Van Vleck) writes:
: I first heard it from a Bryant salesman in 1959 thus: An experimental
: drum, half a ton of machined aluminum in a vacuum box at 14K rpm.
: Somebody opened the door & the drum hopped its bearings and began
: wandering like a top through the lab, smashing everything.

In a physically-related but otherwise unconnected vein, this sort
of problem is common enough in bio labs with high-speed centrifuges.
I remember a Beckman ultracentrifuge that did this because the samples 
weren't balanced.  By the time it had finished, the rotor, or rather 
pieces of the rotor, had buried themselves in the centimeters-thick 
steel wall of the chamber.  You could see bits poking through.

We were told, though it may not be true, that the chassis was designed 
to blow outward if necessary...the excuse was that these machines were
often mounted in long rows along the wall of a lab, and the risk of
hitting one operator was lower than setting off a chain reaction.

What self-respecting computer operator would work under conditions
like this?

ObFolklore:
    Anyone remember the HP 9815 programmable calculator?
    Pretty much the same size as a pizza-box sparcstation.
    Surprisingly useful beast (especially if nothing else was 
    available!); we used them do statistical analysis and to drive 
    a pre-HPGL plotter.  I think they were still in wide use running 
    diagnostic equipment in blood-screening labs well into the 1980's.

--

djs                        David J. Sherman      (david@geocub.greco-prog.fr)
			   Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique

                  De l'incertitude profonde des desseins nai^t une e'tonnante 
                  liberte' de manoeuvre.        --Anouilh, /Becket/, Acte III
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: CASIO watch display question
From: dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz (dogbowl)
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 23:50:20 NZT
Organization: The Dawghaus BBS
Keywords: reseting
Summary: try pushing all four buttons

Pat_Barron@transarc.com writes:

> wolff@zen.et.tudelft.nl (Rogier Wolff) writes:
> > Which means that a hard reset (pull the bateries out for about a second)
> > will fix the problem. (A watch uses about 0.5 uA, the light on the order of
> > mA (I guess about 1 to 10.) The light could have a very big influence on
> > the battery power.....)
> 
> The light does draw a lot of power - almost certainly enough to
> confuse the watch if it's already got an almost-dead battery.
> 
> A "hard reset" on one of these watches, though, is somewhat more
> involved than simply pulling the battery for a few seconds.  On mine
> (a CASIO DBC-60 "Data Bank"), after pulling the battery (or replacing
> a dead battery with a new one), there is a set of "reset contacts"
> that you have to short momentarily to reset the watch.  I recently had
> to replace my battery, and until I did the reset, the watch was in
> "nonsense display; buttons don't do anything" mode, even with a brand
> new battery.  Resetting it woke it up right away.
> 


Something which was mentioned a while back here, ( and which works )      
 is to push all four watch function buttons at once.
( ie: adjust, mode, light, start/stop )
I have a Casio w-750, and it works on that. At least you don't have to 
rip the back off to try it.(thus ruining the water seal)


dogbowl at The Dawghaus BBS  ( +64 6 357-9245 )


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au (Paul Repacholi)
Subject: Re: Horizontal Tabs
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 15:35:53 GMT

In article <1992Aug4.185509.21311@news.columbia.edu>, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
...
> I just want a historical perspective on where this convention started in
> common practical usage on an existent computer system.  My earliest usage
> is on a customer TOPS10 system running on a small KA-10 circa 1970.  Can
> someone find something earlier where the Tabs 'R 8 (gee, I couldn't get the 
> "R" backwards :-)) convention existed?
> cjl (what computer, not terminal, did Tabs 'r 8 first?)
Take it back to at least the first 6 DEC shipped. The mod-8 code is from
the "PDP-8 terminal line driver for the PDP-6 ( as modified for the university
of Western Australia.)" manual.

I suspect ( Fortran Card layout ) that this is near the begining.

~Paul
From: hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Non Unix-OS's
Date: 19 Aug 92 22:20:46 GMT
Organization: The Cat Factory

In article <20064@nntp_server.ems.cdc.com> tbruseha@kafka.ems.cdc.com (Tom Brusehaver) writes:
}>
}>You can't get anything from Osborne.  They went belly-up years ago (and
}>deservedly so, IMHO).
}>
}I don't think Osborne (nor Sol, nor ...) deserved to go belly up.  If
}you think about it, the IBM PC was an Osborne clone.  They both are
}from the same era (early 80's).  A quick comparison:
}
}    Osborne         IBM-PC (no XT's or AT's)
}    -------         ------------------------
}    8-Bit CPU       8-Bit CPU                   (the Z-80 had 16bit reg's too.)
}    64K RAM         64K RAM
}    Single Task     Single Task                 (Ask Mr. Gates DOS was a 
}        OS              OS                       CP/M clone)

						  And a bad one, at that.

}    2 floppiess     2 floppies

     90K capacity    ?

}    Text display    Text display

     5" screen       11" screen
     54 characters   80x25
      across

}    Detach keyboard Detach keyboard

     Cheap membrane


}                    Cassette Port               (almost forgot about that)
}    
}So although IBM might have come up with a different implementation, it
}wasn't better.  Remember CP/M 3.0 can deal with 1.0 Megabytes of
}memory, and DOS (all versions) can only deal with 640K.  There are
}many arguments that IBM did it with a system with a future, but lets
}face it, if IBM wasn't the name on the box, the PC would have been an
}also ran, and we would have something better on the desktop today.

Maybe, but it wouldn't have been an Osborne.  I still have my original,
tan case O1.  I can testify that dealing with Osborne Computer Corporation
at any time, on any level was not fun.  I think their staff was
deliberately chosen and encouraged to be customer-hostile.  They outright
lied in their advertising and spec sheets.  They even had the gall to
boast about it in the User's Manual ("Fooled you, didn't we?" is a direct
quote).  A larger, more concentrated collection of *ssholes I never hope
to meet.

BTW, the O1 was no technical prize, either.  The concept was interesting,
but the execution left much to be desired.  I replaced 8 disk drives under
the extended warranty before I finally gave up and stopped carrying it
into my office.  Once I declared it an immovable desk top system, it began
to behave -- mostly.  I did open it up once to try and fix something
myself.  I found mounting screws missing all over the place.  Their idea
of shielding was to slap conductive paint on the inside of the case.

IBM had no part in Osborne's downfall.  They went belly-up through sheer,
gross mismanagement and were probably just this side of a class-action suit
by the customers when it happened.  Good riddance, IMHO.

The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@polymath.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp                   Turn the rascals out!
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (310) 450-9111, x2483     No incumbents in '92!
Santa Monica, CA  90405
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:12816 comp.unix.misc:3305
From: davgot@auto-trol.com (David Gottner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: The need for an assembler (was: Favorite CPU)
Date: 20 Aug 92 16:04:12 GMT
Organization: Auto-trol Technology Corporation

In article <1992Aug19.205606.4808@ecl.psu.edu> bjj@ecl.psu.edu (Bryan J. Jensen) writes:
>
>Politically Correct applies to languages too I guess.  The democrats
>would be proud of you.  You are claiming that no aspect of a language
>affects code reliability.  So the ADA people were just wasting their time.
>
I was just pointing out that any language can be abused.  For example, Pascal
has a goto statement, so a person could write a Pascal program with no control
structure except the goto.

I do admit, however, that few programmers willingly subject languages to such
abuse, so perhaps this statement could be retracted somewhat.
-- 
Amrit Prem			|
davgot@auto-trol.com		| This area is intentionally left blank
{...}ncar!ico!auto-trol!younam 	|
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:12550 comp.human-factors:1779 comp.misc:3228 comp.programming:2320
From: ms@lehre2.informatik.Uni-Bremen.DE (Martin Schroeder)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.misc,comp.programming
Subject: Indentation
Date: 14 Aug 92 17:26:56 GMT
Organization: Universitaet Bremen

When did it start that programs were indented?
I want to know:
 - Which was the first language that mentioned indentation? Algol60 says 
   something, but it isn't very much.
 - What studies have been made about the effects of different levels of 
   indentation?

I would be grateful for any answer, to this group or as mail to me.

Thank you
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Schr"oder		EMail:  ms@informatik.Uni-Bremen.de
FB 3, Informatik		UUCP:   unido!ubrinf!ms
Univ. Bremen			
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:12674 comp.lang.misc:2733
From: bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Indentation
Date: 17 Aug 92 12:39:29 GMT
	<7043@charon.cwi.nl> <1992Aug16.045245.9912@smds.com>
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester
In-reply-to: rh@smds.com's message of 16 Aug 92 04:52:45 GMT

In article <1992Aug16.045245.9912@smds.com> rh@smds.com (Richard Harter) writes:
   If my understanding is correct the off-side rule is not at all the same
   as using indentation as the loop/if scope indicator.  The off-side rule
   really controls the circumstances for continuing a statement from one
   line to the next.

Haskell has an "off-side" rule, but I don't think that it strictly
fits in with the above definition.  Consider the following, completely
useless, program :-

>foo a = b + x + a
>  where
>    b = bar t
>      where
>        bar = id
>        t = 10
>    x = 10

The indentation here indicates the scope.  If 3 more spaces where
added to the last line, it would be scoped by "b" rather than by
"foo".  Consequently, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with
continuation lines to me.

bevan
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: iisakkil@vipunen.hut.fi (Mika Iisakkila)
Subject: Smallest computer (Re: CASIO watch display question)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology
	<ZOWIE.92Aug16124338@daedalus.stanford.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 92 00:16:19

zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu (Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest) writes:

>Actually, this is a big problem for the Casio data banks and large
>calculators.  The light is controlled through *software*.

OK, time for another thread. What was the _smallest_ computer
(embedded controllers included in definition) you have ever
programmed? Anyone ever done a program for a watch?

My record is a hand-held terminal for a sort of data acquisition
system with 3 push-buttons and a 7-segment display. Size about
30x60x15 mm. It had a 80C31 inside, so it fits the definition of
"computer" quite easily. It had a back-up battery and could work as a
stand-alone system, although not for very long.

--
Segmented Memory Helps Structure Software
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.misc,comp.programming
From: chris@state.COM.AU (Chris Keane)
Subject: Re: Indentation
Organization: Group Treasury, State Bank of NSW
Date: 20 Aug 92 22:22:17 GMT

pat@bnrmtl.bnr.ca (Patrick Smith) writes:

>In article <1992Aug14.170444.1576@tandem.com>, tvv@tandem.com (Tom Van Vleck) writes:
>|BTI computer systems had an implementation language called DRAGON, in
>|which the indentation WAS the loop/if scope indicator.  Pat Helland
>|worked on the language there and told me about it after he left.

>An interesting idea.
>Does anyone know how well this worked in practice?

Sounds like Occam (the native language of the Inmos Transputer), where
scope is defined by indentation. It works well, but two spaces is just
a little unreadable for someone like me who is very free with the Tabs.

Oh, but if you forget to indent, or forget AND indent, debugging can be
a real bastard.


regards...                                                 
Chris Keane.                  State Bank NSW            ph. +61 2 259 4459
Unix Systems Administrator   (Group Treasury)     chris@rufus.state.COM.AU
Famous Gravitational Joke: It must have been density that brought us together
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: 1401
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 18:09:29 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.050514.264@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM> rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Robert Bernecky) writes:
>>
>YES!
>A delight! 
>I didn't think so at the time of course, but I didn't then realize that
>all newer machines would be even MORE tasteless.
>
>The 1041 allowed stuff like:

>d. Write entire systems that fit into 4k, including the nonexistent
>   operating system.

My proprietary O/S for the PDP-8 is existent, and it and the applications that
run under it routinely fit in 4K.  The "standard" PDP-8 O/S from DEC runs in
a "huge" 8K.  Standard memory extension goes to 32K.  (Some non-standard
extensions exist to raise that to either 128K or 512K.  All numbers are
12-bit words.)

About 15 years ago I wrote a 50,000 line real-time system for a 32K machine
with 40 active tasks.  Parts of the code were swappable utilities, but most
of it ran in core.  Various people have attempted to spec out how to replace
this system today; they can't quite agree on how many Megabytes it needs to
do it :-).

cjl

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: dylan@ibmpcug.co.uk (Matthew Farwell)
Subject: Removing bugs but deleteing code
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 08:21:24 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.190508.18787@digibd.com> merlyn@digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy) writes:
>ivie@cc.usu.edu (CP/M lives!) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug15.215427.5726@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>, rbe@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM (Robert Bernecky) writes:
>>> a. Non-code can't have any bugs in it.
>>I'll disagree with this one. When's the last time you had to fix a bug by
>>_removing_ code. Obviously, most bugs are in the code that isn't there...
>I have fixed bugs by only removing code; found one in rogue once -- the
>potion of object detection would show objects on the ground and objects
>carried by monsters, but failed to show anything if only monsters had
>objects.  The routine had a quick-fail test for an empty list of objects
>on the ground (in which case it showed nothing); removing this test
>fixed it, as the objects-on-ground loop would exit immediately when given
>an empty list and go on to the objects-held-by-monsters loop, instead of
>skipping both loops.  I'd guess that originally monsters couldn't carry
>objects, so the quick-fail test used to be valid.

I don't know about you but I do this every time I see a new bit of code.
I try to simplify it and see what I can remove.  If you counted all the
lines of code that I've written, it'd probably be negative.

Dylan.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.misc
From: peter@ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Indentation
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 16:23:23 GMT

In article <1992Aug18.065110.20337@smds.com> rh@ishmael.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
> One can argue that this freedom of decision is actually undesirable,
> that a language which eliminates irrelevant decisions is better.

Certainly. That's the whole point of higher level languages after all.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                               `-_-'
$ EDIT/TECO LOVE                                              'U` 
%TECO-W-OLDJOKE Not war?                        Have you hugged your wolf today?
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.      Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012       +1 713 274 5180
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Non Unix-OS's
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 05:31:38 GMT

In article <LJT3.92Aug17224607@CS1.CC.Lehigh.EDU> ljt3@CS1.CC.Lehigh.EDU (Lewis) writes:
>In article <20064@nntp_server.ems.cdc.com> tbruseha@kafka.ems.cdc.com (Tom Brusehaver) writes:
>
>This is not a flame of Tom, but of the concept in general.
>
>>...DOS (all versions) can only deal with 640K.

This is not completely true, just the IBM version, and not completely true
there either.  The Rainbow and Victor 9000 can do 896K.  Various versions
of DOS can use 736K if you are willing to get rid of extended video functions.
In DR-DOS, I have a system that successfully gives back fully 724K of that 
space.

To join the other thread, the reasons for all of this is that the resident
portion of DOS is written in assembler.  The sloppy transient portions of
the system sometimes are expediently written in C, but they are in the minority
especially if you count statistically (meaning seldom-used code doesn't count
as much as important non-resident utilities often used).

cjl




Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Subject: DataPoint (Was: Non Unix-OS's)
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:19:27 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

From article <1hTOHP#7MbRfj=bruno@broue.rot.qc.ca>,
by bruno@broue.rot.qc.ca (Bruno Majewski):
>
> 2) DataPoint's RMS/XA (has a TRS-80ish flavor to it, actually...)
>
> I am surprised no one remembered these two (OK, who would remember
> DataPoint?)

We shouldn't forget DataPoint!  Anyone who's ever cursed Intel's 80xx
architecture is really cursing something that came from Datapoint!

The story, as I recall:  In the beginning, there was DataPoint, a
manufacturer of small business minicomputers.  Intel came out with
the 4004 and 8008 generations of machines, and DataPoint noticed that
the Intel 8008 architecture wasn't a long step from the 8 bit
architecture of their little minicomputers.  So, DataPoint asked
Intel to see if they could put the DataPoint architecture on a chip.

Intel didn't quite manage to do it, but the result was the 8080, on
which was founded a dynasty of successful microprocessor architectures.
As I remember the story, DataPoint actually rejected the 8080 as being
inadequate; they apparently continued to build machines using SSI and
MSI chips for a while longer.

Under these circumstances, it wouldn't surprise me if Radio Shack's
TRS-80 operating system wasn't a descendant of the DataPoint RMS
system.

Is DataPoint still out there?  How are they doing?  Is there a
relationship between the TRS-80's operating system and the DataPoint
RMS system?
					Doug Jones
					jones@cs.uiowa.edu
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:12601 comp.human-factors:1792 comp.misc:3244 comp.programming:2342
From: dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com (Don Nichols (DoN.))
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.misc,comp.programming
Subject: Re: Indentation
Date: 16 Aug 92 00:13:22 GMT
Organization: D and D Data, Vienna Virginia

In article <1992Aug14.202800.25160@news.uiowa.edu> jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) writes:
>From article <1992Aug14.201914.24443@news.uiowa.edu>,
>by jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879):
>
>> if	not(termset)
>> ..	at	707
>> ..	write	1) Press NEXT if your PPT is correctly
>
>Dumb news system!  It doubled all my dots in column 1.  TUTOR on PLATO used
>only a single dot, as it was when I posted the original of this thing!

	It made it here (two hops from uunet) with only a single dot.  It
must be your newsreader, so only those with the same newsreader will see
that problem.

-- 
Donald Nichols (DoN.)     | Voice (Days): (703) 704-2280 (Eves): (703) 938-4564
D&D Data                  |  Email: <dnichols@ceilidh.beartrack.com>
I said it - no one else   |         <nichols@nvl.army.mil>
	--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---
From: kjell@elixir.e.kth.se (Kjell Rilbe)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been hacking too long...
Date: 19 Aug 92 11:37:59 GMT
Organization: Dept. of EE, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

In article <gate.7D0PPB1w164w@kzdoos.hacktic.nl> koos@kzdoos.hacktic.nl (Koos van den Hout) writes:
>>And the walkman did not appear to stay in place! We could all see both
>>the LED and the walkman move around, only the LED wasn't moving the same way
>>the walkman was.....
>>
>>Please, TRY THIS YOURSELVES! I can understand that it seems unbeleivable,
>>but if you just switch off all lights, and try this, you will see what I'm
>>talking about! (I hope. If not, I'm going crazy. Along with three of my
>>friends.....)
>
>I know that effect, it seems to have something to do with a different 'fadeout'
>of your eyes for different amounts of light. I get it with looking at the
>computerscreen and moving my head or looking at a stereoset with a whole set
>of indicators in the dark (and moving my head).
>
>Are you by any chance wearing glasses ? Maybe it has to do something with
>wearing glasses or the associated state of the eyes. I do wear glasses all day.

Yes, I'm wearing glasses, but one of my firends, who was there "when it
happened" does NOT wear glasses. 

/Kjell Rilbe