HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Whatever happened to ... SC/MP
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 07:15:43 GMT

In article <7123@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> mark-r@spec0.ee.man.ac.uk (Mark Robinson (JO PhD)) writes:
> 1. What was the proper numeric title of the SC/MP (Single
> Chip / Microprocessor - often called SCaMP, SCaMPy, SCruMPy, etc).

"SC/MP"

If you want the part numbers:
	PMOS : ISP-8A/500
	NMOS : ISP-8A/600

> Was it the 1802?

Heavens no!

> 2. Why was it so popular in hobbyist SBC kits and evaluation
> boards in the mid-late 70's, but then died such an abrupt death?

It was cheap, and there were zillions of support chips. In fact, it was
designed to be used as one: had bit-banger parallel port and everything.
Problem was, you ran out of oomph pretty quick.

> 3. Any details about architecture/instruction set/idiosyncracies
> would be interesting.

8-bit Accumulator
8-bit I/O register
4 16-bit index registers. The PC was an index register.

Memory was 16 pages of 4K each. You needed to execute a special instruction
to jump to a new page, and indexing wrapped. Interrupts swapped P0 (PC)
and P3.

Not a bad instruction set at all for the time.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: The Usenet Oracle (was Re: let's start this off on the right bodily appendage...)
Date: 7 Jan 93 12:38:40 GMT
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden

In article <19334@mindlink.bc.ca> Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer) writes:
>I recall reading a whole batch of insightful stuff from the Usenet Oracle
>that was posted to rec.humor.funny (this was over a year ago)  How does/did
>one contact the Oracle directly?  (Email address, newsgroup, etc.)

Well, since then the Oracle has moved Its postings to rec.humor.oracle
(there's also rec.humor.oracle.d for discussion and interpretation of
Its utterances).

To contact the Oracle directly, send a message with "Subject: help" to
oracle@moose.cs.indiana.edu. 

              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,comp.arch,comp.sys.intel
From: bhenning@wimsey.bc.ca (Bill Henning)
Subject: Re: NeXTstep not running on Cyrix 486DLC (was Re: Apple IIGS...)
Organization: Wimsey Information Services
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 05:59:35 GMT

>  It depends on what you do (it may be disk or video performance
>limited) but running actual programs which are CPU intensive I see
>almost 2x faster performance on the 486. Some DOS benchmarks may show
>funny things, but the time to run real programs is what I usually care
>about.

I guess we just run a different code mix - when compiling/debugging
code, or running OS/2 2.0 I don't really notice a difference.

On code that can run mostly in the 486's 8k on-chip cache, and/or uses
mostly FLOAD/FADD/FSTORE instructions a 486/33 would be faster, however
FMUL/FDIV and especially the trig functions are *MUCH* faster on Cyrix
FasMath copro's than on a 486DX.

I find my biggest bottleneck to be the TSENG4000 based SVGA cards I use-
I hope to go to a localbus UltraPro or 89C928/VRAM display board later
this year to eliminate that bottleneck, probably on a 486DX2/66 or
whatever faster chip AMD/Cyrix/Intel bring out by late 93.

>  The 386-40 is certainly a very pleasant machine to use, though, and
>I'm pretty happy with the one I use for testing things.
>-- 
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
>    Keyboard controller has been disabled, press F1 to continue.

The 386/40 is probably the best bang/buck right now, motherboards with
64k cache are available locally for less than $250Cdn.

Bill


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: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 09:15:13 GMT

In article <1ide2jINNru@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner) writes:
>
>In a previous article, rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) says:
>>
>>Just remember that this is the first commercial OS package that is meant
>>to only run on a 486.  It won't run on a 386, as a 386 doesn't have bswap.
>>
>
>No wonder.  The 486DLC is just a 386 with a 1k cache and a coprocessor.

No, it identifies as a 486.  You are confusing hardware with architecture.

Moreover, it doesn't have a co-processor, it sits in a 386 socket and
allows a 387 to plug into an available 387 socket.

Actually, Intel is the one with the "cheat" since the 486SX is the chip
that can't have a coprocessor/has it brain-dead.  The socalled 487 chip
is actually a complete DX CPU with FPU function all sitting in the 487
socket which disables the 486SX chip.  Some have reported ways of eliminating
the 486SX althogether, but the official Intel word is that the 487 requires
the 486SX be present in order to function (even though it kills the 486SX
in the process)

So, the 487 is the chip for those that want to pay for changing their minds
about the need for the FPU, and can spend more money to have two CPU's and
one FPU when one of each would do, etc.  The Cyrix method continues the
wisdom of sane options that was started in 8088 and 8087 and is available
everywhere other than 486.

Here's a thought: If a system is designed to require a 486SX and a 487 is
added to get back the FPU functionality, and the 487 requires the 486SX
be present to be disabled in order for the 487 to function, would the machine
still work if a 486DX and 487 were both installed?

Admittedly, the packaged 486DX allows for better overall performance than
the 386 and separate 387, but this has nothing to do with architectural
compatibility.  To the software, the Cyrix chip *is* a 486, unless there is
either:

1)	An undocumented difference that the software depends on, which is
defective for all but ID'ing programs.

2)	A defective algorithm is being used that counts machine cycles and
assumes things about (perhaps relative) timing.

BTW, there is also a 16-bit version of the Cyrix chip, so that boards
designed for 386SX can also run 486-only software.  And of course it
allows 387SX-type FPU's to be used.  Since this is a 16-bit system, maximum
RAM is 16 MBytes, and performance will be much lower, but it should still
be compatible in every meaningful way.

cjl
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: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 02:05:09 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.232723.3685@smsc.sony.com> markc@smsc.sony.com (Mark Corscadden) writes:
>1)  ========== primitive recursive functions
>    The are the functions which you can compute in a typical general-
>    purpose computer language, except that before you enter any loop
>    you must first compute an upper bound on the maximum number of
>    times you will be allowed to pass through the loop, and must not
>    exceed this pre-computed upper bound.

  [description of "partial recursive", "total recursive"]

>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.

>Does anyone know whether PI is primitive recursive by the definition above?
>If not, this fact seems to capture a bit of Samuel's "gut feeling" that
>his example SUM(10^-(n!)) is "much simplier to calculate" than PI, since
>SUM(10^-(n!)) is clearly primitive recursive.

Sorry; pi is primitive recursive. Take any of the squillions of formulas
for pi which give error terms which actually give bounds on how far wrong
a given approximation is. (For instance, though I wouldn't dream of
actually computing pi with this, pi=4(1-1/3+1/5-1/7+1/9...) where the
error incurred by stopping at any given point is at most equal to the
size of the next term.) Then compute how many terms you need to take to
get the first N decimal places, and what sort of precision you need to
use; and run the algorithm that far. No unbounded loops in sight.

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. But it's worth bearing in
mind: decimals are a bit artificial.
(I never thought of this till someone pointed it out to me on the 'net
after I'd been taking part in a discussion of computable numbers and had
given the same definition in terms of decimals...)

-- 
Gareth McCaughan     Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk  Cambridge University, England.    [Research student]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: awpaeth@watpix.uwaterloo.ca (Alan Wm Paeth)
Subject: Re: Adobe and adobe
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 16:27:11 GMT

In article <1993Jan11.101824.1@emu.insted.unimelb.edu.au> s342046@emu.insted.unimelb.edu.au writes:
>In <930110024422_75230.1437_DHE36-1@CompuServe.COM>,75230.1437@CompuServe.COM:
>
>Incredibly enough, no.  Adobe is the name of a creek that ran past Adobe's
>HQ when they started out.
>

Close -- the creek ran close to co-founder John Warnock's SI Valley house; he
and Chuck Geschke chose the name when both were still at Xerox PARC working on
Interpress and planning their spinoff.

   /Alan "previously of Palo Alto" Paeth
From: aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
Date: 6 Jan 93 01:46:18 GMT
Reply-To: aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, Daryl_Spitzer@mindlink.bc.ca (Daryl Spitzer) says:

>P. J. Remner (aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) writes:
>
>> You mean that the disk drives and the power is SOFTWARE controlled, too?
>> Jeez, no WONDER my aunt, why can't even find the brights switch on the car
>> she's owned for 9 years, can use a Mac.  Sheesh!  How wimpy can you get?
>
>It sounds like Apple has done something right.  Making a computer easy enough
>to be used by the average layman isn't wimpy, it should be the goal of all of
>us.  And as far as I can tell, Apple has come closer to this goal than anyone
>else.  (But yes, there's still a LONG way to go.  I'm looking forward to
>document oriented interfaces.)
>

I would hate to have to use an interface like that.  I can see a "Copy"
command, a "Move" command, a "Rename" command, and other basic commands,
but NOT something like "Eject disk" or "Shut off computer".  Dumb little
things like that aren't beneficial for powerusers like myself.  For
chrissake, the power switch and disk button are right there! 

Maybe, instead of shoving all of that bullhockey at experienced users,
they should try a multi-talent interface, with different levels of
expertise, so some of us can have our little cutesy "Eject Disk" icons,
and some of us won't, like WordPerfect's help levels.

-- 
aj923@cleveland.freenet.edu (So now you listen, 'cause I'm omniscient)
			      _______________________							     /  ___________________(_)				
			    /  /\__________________							   /  /_/________________(_)				
			  /______________________							  \____________________(_)
From: rnorth@news.cecer.army.mil (Russ Northrup)
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Reply-To: rnorth@max.cecer.army.mil
Organization: US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Labs
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 15:07:13 GMT

pjdm@chmeee.enet.dec.com (Peter Mayne) writes:

>I'd like to know how many instructions some popular microprocessors have,
>  [stuff gone]
>I'll start:
>
>ARM (RISC):		<30
>6502 (RISC?):		55
>8086 (non-RISC):	90+
>Alpha (RISC):		150 (approx)
>VAX (non-RISC):		>400
>

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.
From: Blake_Lewis@transarc.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Date: 8 Jan 93 05:50:41 GMT
	<C0HspG.GKH@knot.ccs.queensu.ca>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

hausner@qucis.queensu.ca (Alejo Hausner) writes:
> If all you want is PI in binary form, then you're right.  However, if
> you want to print it, you might as well work in a decimal
> representation all along.

Yes, the usual trick is to calculate in radix 10^N, for some N
such that 10^N fits into a word.

>  In that case, using terms lik 1/50 and
> 72/50000 are going to give you a big advantage.

They let you replace a division with a multiply.  You still need
a division for the term in the denominator, right?  So you will
need a multiply and a division per term, whereas the ordinary
Taylor series uses two divisions.  This will probably outweigh
the slower convergence of the series on most machines.
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18570 sci.math:17660
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: Normal numbers (was Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI))
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:57:23 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <1993Jan4.134418.25602@infodev.cam.ac.uk> gjm11@cus.cam.ac.uk (G.J. McCaughan) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.131015.4890@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:

>>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?

>Yes. 0.12345678910111213141516171819202122...100101102103104105106...
>(write down all the positive integers in order and stick 'em together).

Not true.  Randomly chosen segments will be more than 10% ones.




-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am not an official Oracle spokesman.  I speak for myself and no one else.
From: jig1@inode.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: HISTORY OF WORD PROCESSIN
Date: 12 Jan 93 08:45:00 EST
Reply-To: jig1@inode.com
Distribution: world
Organization: inode BBS, Usenet Access for NYC (212-679-9146)

Everyone knows the history of Spreadsheets with VisiCalc, but what about
wordprocessing?  Who started the concept (with computers that is, don't
talk about pencils and pens and such)?

On another note, who started the concept of databases as in dBASE,
Clipper, etc.

E-mail replies to:

jig1@cornell.edu                           mullish@acfcluster.nyu.edu
---
  QMPro 1.01 41-3274  GUI: A set of pretty pictures to entertain the illiterate
#! rnews 3
From: deand@bmerh404.BNR.CA (Dean Dillabough)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Acronym ISDN
Date: 12 Jan 93 23:20:10 GMT
Reply-To: deand@bmerh404.BNR.CA (Dean Dillabough)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.

In article <doctor.06sw@k9.UUCP>, doctor@k9.UUCP (Paul Broe) writes:
|>In article <1993Jan7.144043.10372@bnr.uk> agc@bmdhh286.bnr.ca (Alan
Carter) writes:
|>> 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".
|>> 
|>
|>Or the ever popular 'It Still Does Nothing'.
|>

 Or, from the Strowger World handbook: "Instant Strowger Dialling Now".



                               Dean Dillabough (No shoes, no shirt, no sig)


                
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: tjhendry@queen.mcs.drexel.edu
Subject: Re: CLI/GUI wars (was Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued...)
Reply-To: tjhendry@queen.mcs.drexel.edu
Distribution: USA
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:15:26 GMT

In article <19096@mindlink.bc.ca> Jeremy_Reimer@mindlink.bc.ca (Jeremy Reimer)  
writes:
> NeXT:
> 
> CLI: See Unix.
> 
> GUI: Nice.  Flexible, fairly powerful.  Too monochrome for my taste :)  Still
> too slow on anything but the fastest model IMO.  Takes a while to get used
> to, but urge to use CLI instead minimal when doing ordinary tasks.
> 

NeXTSTEP 3.0 uses quite a bit more color. (On a color machine, of course). And it is quite simple to give folders your own custom icons, which can be color or grayscale. Just make a tiff file, name it ".dir.tiff", and drop it in a folder. The folder's icon turns into the new one. I like the Mac's technique better, though.

Also, I consider my 16MB 25MHz 040 cube to be adequately fast. I'd like to raise the RAM to 28MB. Faster compiles would be nice, but in general operation it seems faster than a comparable Mac Quadra. (Don't flame me, I admit I don't have much experience using a Quadra). My NeXT Mac Emulator runs pretty quick.

Not that I wouldn't want one of the multi-processor Risc-based NeXT's which are expected this year. :)

With NeXTSTEP486, it will be possible to run Windows or DOS in a NeXTSTEP window. I wonder whether people will use DOS or Unix, in that case?


--
Jonathan Hendry  Anderson Financial Systems
jon@afs.com  (Nextmail Welcome!) or hendryjw@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: kst@telesoft.com (Keith Thompson @pulsar)
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Organization: TeleSoft, San Diego, CA, USA
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 07:32:28 GMT
Nit-Pick: imply, not infer

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

That's right, you can't (assuming no leading 0's, of course).

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

Any finite number multiplied by 10 is still finite.  There are infinitely
many integers, but each integer is finite.
-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith)  kst@telesoft.com
TeleSoft, 5959 Cornerstone Court West, San Diego, CA, 92121-9891
"Listen to me, people!  We must stick them with quills -- it's the only way!"
From: jmpierce@whale.st.usm.edu (Jimmy Malcolm Pierce)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Date: 5 Jan 93 13:47:58 GMT
Organization: University of Southern Mississippi

ercm20@festival.ed.ac.uk (Sam Wilson) writes:
>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
  
    I bought the ZX-81 mail-order for $100.00. It had 1 KB in it. Later
  the Timex Sinclair 1000 came out. It had 2 Kb on it. The same place I
  bought the ZX-81 later sold the 16 KB expansion { Cost about $45.00}.
  I had to use a large rubber band to hold the 16 KB ram box in place, 
  or it would wobble and there went the program... The expansion had an 
  actual connector on it, but the board in the ZX-81 had only strips
  on the motherboard, hence it easily wobbled. The cassette interface 
  took about 7 minutes to load a 16 Kb program. I hooked it up to a 
  B&W TV. It couldn't both display and calculate at the same time. So
  it would blank the screen during calculations. 

>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... 

  One of the catalogs I got in mail, had 64 Kb expansions you could stack
 via the connector on each expansion for a total of 16 - 64 Kb 'pages'
 for a total ram of 1 meg. The ZX-81 I used had a Z-80A for a CPU. Later, DJ.

-- 
         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:18830 comp.arch:12218 comp.sys.intel:2987
From: kholland@hydra.unm.edu (Kiernan Holland)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,comp.sys.intel
Subject: Re: NeXTstep not running on Cyrix 486DLC (was Re: Apple IIGS...)
Date: 11 Jan 1993 08:55:41 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
NNTP-Posting-Host: hydra.unm.edu

In article <1993Jan6.133705.23473@crd.ge.com> davidsen@crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <1ide2jINNru@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, aj923@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (P. J. Remner) writes:
>
>| No wonder.  The 486DLC is just a 386 with a 1k cache and a coprocessor.
>
>  Wrong on both counts. The 486SLC has the added 486 instructions, like
>bswap, and does not have a coprocessor (on chip). It does report status
>on some "not used" bits in the CPU, so someone checking bits which don't
>matter could find a difference. I believe there actually is a defained
>status bit which behaves differently, but I don't have the ref info
>here, so take that as a possibility only.
>-- 
>bill davidsen, GE Corp. R&D Center; Box 8; Schenectady NY 12345
>    Keyboard controller has been disabled, press F1 to continue.

There is another thing, I forgot to mention, the 486 DLC (as 
said in Computer SHopper) does multiplications in 5 operations
rather than 28 like the Intel chips. Cyrix makes the DLC's and the 
SLC's. The SLC's are used only in laptop's and the DLC's 
are used in the deaktops. The SLC's are supposed to be 
better than Intel laptop chips becuase of the lower-power consumption.