HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mdw@db.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: Proper pronounciation of 'Kibo'
Organization: Jim's Burger Hut 
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 02:59:24 GMT

In article <C0pLIv.K41@geovision.gvc.com> pt@geovision.gvc.com writes:
>bdd@onion.eng.hou.compaq.com (Bruce D. Davis) writes:
>
>>what's the difference between a band of pygmies and a girl's track team???
>[very lame punchline deleted]
>
><<<PLONK>>>
>
>(With extreme prejudice)

What? Did the original joke have anything to do with Morris Dancers?

mdw
-- 
Matt Welsh     mdw@tc.cornell.edu     Cornell Theory Center
  "It's a Katana, ya Midwestern computer geek." --Tom Payne
From: kby@cco.caltech.edu (Kimo B. Yap)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Operating Systems; retrocomputing
Date: 8 Jan 1993 16:39:27 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: alumni.caltech.edu

Well, there's always OS/360 which is still alive todayas MVS or whatever...;-)
								-kby
From: matthews@oberon.umd.edu (Mike Matthews)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
Date: 10 Jan 93 15:51:29 GMT
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM

The Mac file system was originally run on a 128K Mac (you remember, the
original one?).  They had to squeeze every bit of performance out of such a
slow system, and one of the things was to not write out all the disk buffers
until the disk was ejected; this is why you must eject the disk through
software.

[my terms may be incorrect but the theory isn't.]

So the Mac file system can indeed be corrupted if you take a disk out
prematurely.
------
Mike Matthews, matthews@oberon.umd.edu (NeXTmail accepted)
------
"Stan and I thought that this experiment was so stupid, we decided to finance 
 it ourselves."
-- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?)
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18825 comp.arch:12215 comp.sys.intel:2985
From: 9999sc01@uhdvx3.dt.uh.edu (Alexandre Khalil)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: NeXTstep not running on Cyrix 486DLC (was Re: Apple IIGS...)
Date: 10 Jan 1993 23:32 CST
Organization: University of Houston-Downtown
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: uhdvx3.dt.uh.edu
X-Lunar-Date: 0 days, 7 hours, 26 minutes since the full moon
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41A   

In article <C0o5wq.4ox@ddsw1.mcs.com>, karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger) writes...

>					Buy a clone machine which has
>the universal socket complement (386/486SX/486DX/Overdrive).  They're out
>there.  I have one in my PC, and the flexibility for the future I have is
>well worth the extra (~$10.00) cost that I had to put up front.  The board I
>have can run up to 50Mhz clock rates and use any of the processors named
>above.  Move a few jumpers and put the chip in the appropriate socket.
>There is also a Weitek 4167 socket on the board.

  What brands of boards would allow you to do that:

   -  Upgrade the CPU from 386 DX to 486 DX
   -  Allow  CPU clocks of up to 50 MHz

>Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
>Data Line: [+1 312 248-0900]

alex khalil
alex@dt.uh.edu
From: lemieux@spezko.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Help with old FORTUNE SYTSEMS 32:16
Date: 12 Jan 93 13:03:16 GMT
Reply-To: lemieux@spezko.enet.dec.com ()
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation



	Does anybody know where I can get some documentation and software
	for a Fortune Systems 32:16 M86k based machine. Its running a 
	proprietary UNIX operating system from Fortune right now. I'd like
	to get a more complete UNIX running on it if possible. As far as
	I can tell Fortune Systems is no longer, at least I couldn't find
	any phone numbers for them in California. The tag on the system
	gives an address....Thanks in advance
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,comp.sys.intel
From: chans@cs.curtin.edu.au (Sean Chan)
Subject: Re: 486SX vs. 386DX (Was: NeXTstep not running ...)
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 23:17:23 GMT

lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson) writes:

>aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner) writes:
>>It should.  A 486 is much faster than a 386 of the same speed.  Case in
>>point: The 486SX/25 (like the one I'm using now) is a little faster than
>>an AMD 386/40, but the 486SX is upgradeable for $450.

>What?  I have seen two benchmarks that put the 386/40 at a faster
>cpu speed than the 486SX/25.
>I think that anyone who buys either is crazy right now.  Buy at
>least a 486DX/33, or you are throwing your money away if you ever
>intend to need full-blown 486 power.
>-- 
>David Lemson                                                (217) 244-1205

I've only *heard* that the 386DX-40 is faster than the 486SX-25, but
after testing quite a few systems, I haven't come across a 386DX-40 that
beats the 486SX-25. Note that I'm just comparing the raw power of the
486SX-25 and the 486DX-40. With Norton SI (6.xx), my 486SX-25 came up
with a 54.0...I also posted up a question on benchmark readings for
386DX-40 and received various responses ranging from 43.0 to 49. Oh,
yes, I did receive one reply from a chap whose SI gave his 386DX-40 a
reading of 57.0, but that was the only one that was far off from the
others. Since I wasn't satisfied, I modified one of my assignment
programs to time itself (the program basically does some calculations
given a 98x98 sized array of integers). From the results, the 486SX-25
was still faster :-

386DX-33 64KCache        -- 23.6 sec  (my nameless chipset DX-33)
386DX-40 64K->128K Cache -- 17->20 sec (from 5 different DX-40's I've 
                                       tested)
486SX-25 0K Cache        -- 14.7 sec (my UMC chipset SX-25)
486DX-33 256K Cache      -- 8.2 sec (friend's OPTi DX-33)
486DX2-50 0K Cache       -- 4.2 sec (same m/b as the SX-25 except I had
                                     the CPU replaced)

As for the overall performance (ie. like running applications, etc.), 
they appear to be about the same. I was very happy with my 486SX-25,
until someone decided to sell me a 2nd hand 486DX2-50 for US$175
(Aus$250), so I grabbed it.

In my opinion, the 486SX-25 and SX-33 are very good chips. Maybe, the
487's are the scams, but the 486's. 

Sean Chan           Curtin University of Technology 
                    Bentley, Western Australia.  
E-Mail : chans@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au
         pchans@cc.curtin.edu.au
From: gk@castle.ed.ac.uk (G Kerr)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Date: 8 Jan 93 18:45:22 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

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.

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^>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: Whatever happened to ... SC/MP
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 13:38:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.210443.1332@newsgate.sps.mot.com> rhca80@melton.sps.mot.com (Henry Melton) writes:
>I wrote the system up in an article
>for BYTE.  They sat on it for a couple of years and then paid me the
>kill fee for the article after SC/MP had already been eclipsed by
>other more powerful systems.  If memory serves, none of my SC/MP
>articles were published :-{.

If you still have these articles in machine-readable form, would it be
possible for you to post selected parts of them here? 

              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,sci.math
From: rgep@emu.pmms.cam.ac.uk (Richard Pinch)
Subject: Re: Normal numbers (was Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI))
Organization: Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Cambridge
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 15:06:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.131015.4890@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>
>If you go back and read what I wrote [...]
>it says that all N-digit sequences, not just all digits, have
>the same probability of appearing. [...]
>
>However, now that I've come to think of it, I'm not 100% sure that
>even that condition is sufficient for pseudo-randomness. Does anybody
>have a counterexample - a number where the decimal expansion
>follows some simple rule, but all N-digit sequences have the same
>probability of appearing?
>[...]

According to Hardy and Wright:
"the number . 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ...
 formed by writing down all the positive integers in order,
 in decimal notation, is normal.  But the proof that this 
 is so is more troublesome than might be expected."

They refer to Champernowne, Journal London Math. Soc. 8 (1933) 254--60
and to Copeland and Erdos (Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 52 (1946) 857--60)
who prove that if a_n is an increasing sequence of integers with 
a_n < n^{1+\epsilon} for all \epsilon > 0 and n > N(\epsilon) then
the decimal . a_1 a_2 a_3 ... formed by writing out the digits of
the a_n in order in any scale is normal in that scale.

Richard Pinch

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Subject: Re: Retrocomputing Backwards
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:33:17 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

From article <1993Jan11.154106.21109@ozrout.uucp>,
by stirling@ozrout.uucp (Stirling Westrup):
> 
> If a competant engineer was transported back to 1950 with a 486 chip
> (or a 68040), could he build a working computer with it?

You might enjoy reading a book that's fairly new on the market, "The
Guns of the South," in which a strange invasion from the future tries
to change the course of the American Civil War.  In that book, you
find such scenes as Robert E. Lee contemplating the contents of a
captured office belonging to the invaders.  The office includes such
goodies as a stark looking box with one gently curved face, decorated
only with a stylized picture of an apple, in rainbow colors, with a
bite taken out of it.  The book, of course, centers not on the
computers from the future, but on the guns, particularly a strange
but rugged repeating rifle called the AK47.

				Doug Jones
				jones@cs.uiowa.edu
From: jeffj@panix.com (Jeff Jonas)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Summary: branch on sense, dear lord I miss that
Date: 11 Jan 93 04:15:06 GMT
Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts

In article <1993Jan7.094705.14127@sol.ctr.columbia.edu>
slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth "the Lesser") writes:
>markz@ssc.wa.com (Mark Zenier) writes:
>the CP-1600 ...
>Among other odd features, it had five pins dedicated to a
>single instruction, which outputted a four-bit immediate on four dedicated
>pins, presumably intended to drive an external mux,
>and branched conditional on a dedicated input pin

Branch On sense switch - dear lord, I have not had
a machine with that since single chip CPUs came into vogue.
One summer I played with a General Precision LGP21.
It was ALL discrete transistors.  No core - just a rotating magnetic
disk with fixed heads, used in a drum like manner.
The instruction address register, instrustion register,
accumulator and accumulator extension were recirculated on the outermost
track of the disk.  The optional OSCILLOSCOPE displayed the
registers as square waves.

It had the most adorable little toggle switches for sense switches.
I took them when I pulled the machine apart later since it was
thoroughly obsolete and I didn't want anybody wasting their time
with it (particularly when Francis Lewis High School already had a PDP8/E).
Oh yes, it used BAUDOT Flexowriters for I/O.
I still have spools of paper tape in the pretty colors
(pink, black and green) but it's only 5 level tape.

Does FORTRAN still have set SENSE light and test sense light?
I recall being so heartfallen that running my FORTRAN program
with the alternating set all lights and clear all lights didn't
cause any real bulbs to blink, only virtual ones.

I suppose using NMI (non maskable interrupt) is a reasonable
way to grab the cpu's attention now.
And now that interrupt controllers are so cheap, why not use a few?

-- Jeffrey Jonas
jeffj@panix.com
From: ercm20@festival.ed.ac.uk (Sam Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Date: 5 Jan 93 13:26:15 GMT

peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> .... Then there was the Jupiter ACE: a Spectrum with Forth instead of Basic.
> I thought that quite a smart idea at the time, but people looking for CHEAP
> computer were unlikely to think Forth so cool.

The Ace wasn't actually a Spectrum: the innards were more like the ZX-81
(monchrome screen, at least and 1K? 2K? of RAM) but it had the
Spectrum-style 'dead flesh' keyboard.  What was much more impressive was
a ROM (you soldered it in instead of the Sinclair BASIC ROM) produced by
a one-man outfit called Skywave Software which gave you a real-time,
multitasking FORTH for the ZX-81 (Timex TS-1000 in the US?).  It had
independent virtual screens, no less - can't remember if they were
overlapped or tiled - I suspect they just overwrote each other if you
got the dimensions wrong, but what the heck.  The guy, whose name I've
forgotten (are you out there anywhere?) was trying to sell cheap, out of
date, ZX-81s to the military as microcontrollers.  You needed the
infamous wobbly 16K RAM pack though... 

I had one of these things for experimenting at my last job (as well as a
Jupiter Ace) - I have always regretted not offering #10 for it when I
left...  :-(

Sam
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: "Stringy Floppy"
From: pgut1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 01:33:14 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

In <FRANK.93Jan9145102@sundance.twg.com> frank@twg.com (Frank McConnell) writes:

>In article <1993Jan9.201706.27670@EE.Stanford.EDU> siegman@EE.Stanford.EDU 
>(Anthony E. Siegman) writes:
>>   Among the collection of bizarre early computer artifacts is the
>>"Stringy Floppy" (that was its product name) that was once marketed in
>>the Northern California area.  

>>   I had one; does anyone else recall this?

>Vaguely, which means it wasn't just a Northern California thing (I
>lived in Maryland at the time).  Didn't _Creative Computing_ magazine
>push these things for a while, for several platforms?  The phrase
>"Exatron Stringy Floppy" comes to mind, and I also recall that it
>could be made to work on other then-popular micros (e.g. Apple ][,
>Commodore PET, maybe others).  Or maybe Exatron just ran a lot of
>full-page ads in _Creative Computing_?

>This must have been sometime in or before 1980.  I don't recall seeing
>an actual working unit.

There were full-page Exatron ads on the back of _80 Micro_ up until
August '82, and ads inside well into 1983 (I'm too lazy to look through
them all to find out when they stopped :-), so they were around for quite
a while after 1980.

Peter.
--
 pgut1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz||p_gutmann@cs.aukuni.ac.nz||gutmann_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
peterg@kcbbs.gen.nz||peter@nacjack.gen.nz||peter@phlarnschlorpht.nacjack.gen.nz
              (In order of preference - one of 'ems bound to work)
           -- Whoever dies with the most email addresses ... wins --

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 21:47:14 GMT

In article <3599007@zl2tnm.gen.nz> don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes) writes:
>pjdm@chmeee.enet.dec.com (Peter Mayne) writes:
>> ARM (RISC):		<30
>> 6502 (RISC?):		55
>> 8086 (non-RISC):	90+
>> Alpha (RISC):		150 (approx)
>> VAX (non-RISC):		>400
>
	[ ... ]

>I could produce an assembler which had a structure like:
>
>	"New" assembler	   Standard 6502 assembler
>	MOV A,X		-> TAX
>	MOV #1, A	-> LDA #1
>	BR CC, target	-> BCC target
>	BR EQ, target	-> BEQ target
>	BR A, target	-> JMP target
>	PUSH A		-> PHA
>	PUSH P		-> PHP
>	INC X		-> INX
>	INC address	-> INC address
>
>Thus, BR would cover JMP and the Bcc instructions,

	However, to pick a small nit, didn't the BR? series have a limited
range of +/-128 bytes relative, while the JMP could go to any absolute
address, but could not specify relative addresses?  (I'm not experienced on
the 6502, but this is certainly the case on the Motorola 6800 CPU, and I
believe that the 6502 was derived from the 6800.

>                                                   PUSH and POP would
>cover PHA, PHP, PLA & PLP.  MOV would cover a multitude of sins.  The same 
>could be done for the set/clear flags, compares etc.  You could halve the
>number of "instructions".

>Or you could push the number to over a hundred by calling each addressing 
>mode an "instruction".  After all, LDA #1 and LDA 1 are different opcodes.
>I could call the first LDAI (LoaD A Immediate) and the second LDAZ (LoaD
>A from Zero page).  In fact, the standard assemblers assemble LDA 1 and 
>LDA 257 as different opcodes (the former is a zero page absolute reference
>requiring only eight bits of operand, the latter's operand is a 16 bit
>absolute reference). 

	This is why I suggested (in another branch of this thread) an
absolute opcode count as being the only relevant form.  This would include
the extended opcodes in the 6809, accessed by a prefix opcode to switch
interperetation of the following opcode.  (I wouldn't include the prefix
opcode itself, but would include each instrction starting with the prefix
opcode as a separate instruction.  I would also *not* count variations of
immediate data in the opcodes as is possible for small operands in the
6809.  However, since direct-page memory access results in a different
opcode than absolute access to a non-direct page, that would count
separately.

>Will someone refresh my failing memory?  For the 6502 mnemonics, I get:

	Sorry, as I mentioned above, my experience was with the 6800 and
later 6809 CPUs.


-- 
 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: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Digigal Rainbow 100?
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 15:48:50 GMT

In article <1ihr7bINNln@c3po.jvnc.net> fogelinc@nmr1.Cyanamid.COM writes:

>Side note: a few years ago I was talking with a DEC engineer who was on the Rainbow's
>design team.  According to him, the original design of of the floppy sub-system would
>have let the Users format their own disks.  It was a marketing decision to skew the
>heads on the RX-50s, thus reducing their tolerance.  This would make customers have
>to buy DEC pre-formatted floppies...  

There is in fact a Rainbow formatting program.  If you attempt to format
an RX50 on an early rev drive, it likely will be problematic.  DEC's drives
are not spec'd to be aligned all that well, so the problem is that if you
format for your own drive, you might be out of spec for someone else's
machine.  So DEC wants everyone to buy preformatted media for interchange
sake.  Yes, those expensive media will read/write on anyone's machine no
matter how far off-center their local alignment is (within reason).  But
ultimately, you could still get data errors if the alignment is really that
far off, etc.

These days, we format RX50's on TEAC drives on PC's.  The alignment spec
for AT-style HD drives is much better, so these disks are always fine for
DEC RX50 read/writes, etc.

cjl

Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18605 sci.math:17693
From: gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Date: 5 Jan 93 14:35:17 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <1993Jan5.052402.27015@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.020509.18268@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
>>
>>Sorry; pi is primitive recursive. [...]
>
>How do you reconcile this with:
>
>>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...
>>Actually, this doesn't matter because for any irrational number you can get
>>arbitrarily many decimals if you can get arbitrarily good approximations,
>>and all rational numbers are computable anyway.
>
>The argument in the last sentence isn't enough to show that pi is
>primitive recursive as defined above.  If for every primitive recursive
>f there exists n such that digits n through n+f(n) of pi are either all
>9's or all 0's, then your precision argument isn't enough as it stands.

That's true, I suppose: which means (in my opinion) that when you're dealing
with primitive recursive numbers, rather than computable numbers, the defn.
in terms of decimal expansions is the wrong one. :-)

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
From: erd@kumiss.cmhnet.org (Ethan Dicks)
Subject: Help needed identifying old Intel chips (4004?)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Summary: 
Keywords: Intel 4004 4002 4001
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: 3 Jan 93 17:50:39 EDT
Organization: Not an Organization

In message <erd.05jd@kumiss.cmhnet.org>, I wrote:

>I have some chips on a static mat that I have had for as long as I
>can remember.

>1)	C4004  N5832
>2)	C4001  0328	148783
>3)	C4001  0690	178137
>4)	C4001  0691	178145
>5)	C4001  0327	146456
>6)	P4001  0226	146480
>7)	P4002-1	N8656

Given that the 4001 is a ROM and I/O combo, it appears that the 4 digit
number (0xxx) is probably a firmware id number and the 6 digit number
is probably a ROM checksum.  Does this sound reasonable?

>Things that are not obvious...
>
>	o How rare are 4004 processors?
>	o Is it possible to get specifications for any of these parts?
	o What are the Nxxxx numbers on the P4002 and C4004?
	o Are these parts good for anything but props/window dressing?

Thanks,
-ethan


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers