HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: doerfler@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (ronald.w.doerfler)
Subject: Re: mean failure time vs power-to-weight ratio (was: Re: Sig file)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 16:57:46 GMT

>said:
>>He plotted power-to-weight ratio vs. mean time to failure for
>>all sorts of things -- alarm clocks, cars, gas turbines,
>>Saturn V's, etc. on log-log paper.  You guessed it -- it's a
>>line.
>

I might add here that plotting scattered data on a log-log graph
has the unique advantage to the experimenter of smoothing out the 
data quite significantly, so it looks much better.  I first heard
of this when I was a summer intern at NASA Lewis Research Center,
where this technique was used quite a lot.

Ron Doerfler
From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mystery House wanted
Date: 14 Dec 92 20:52:19 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Dec13.190026.5149@spatula.rent.com> ahm@spatula.rent.com (Andreas Meyer) writes:
>dsdd@okcforum.osrhe.uoknor.edu (Roy Barrett) writes:
>> Actually, Mystery House was made by Sierra for the Apple *I* (Yep, the Apple)
>                                                     ^^^^^  ^
>What came to be known as the Apple I had a production run of 200 hand-built
>machines, and marked the birth of that company. So I can't imagine Sierra 
>would have been in business that soon.

More importantly, did the Apple I have hires graphics..?

> Andreas Meyer, N2FYE                          ahm@spatula.rent.com

-- 
fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
[ Above opinions are mine, Amdahl has nothing to do with them, etc, etc. ]
From: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Proper pronounciation
Date: 12 Dec 92 22:45:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Advanced Computer Concepts BBS, New Rochelle, NY 914-654-1981
Reply-To: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 

CL> .You mean that if I progress as a hacker for another 22 years, I will event
  > .hack up people?

No, YOU will probably end your love affair with the PDP-8 and start
implementing Kermit on an LGP-30.  <~>

        D/
---
 . QMPro 1.0 41-3345 . Bring back A-N airways!!    Dick.Zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com
From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Is this a funky protocol - or am I ignorant? :-)
Date: 11 Dec 92 19:14:27 GMT
Reply-To: lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA

In article <erd.0584@kumiss.cmhnet.org> erd@kumiss.cmhnet.org (Ethan Dicks) writes:
>
   
>At least 3780
>is simple enough that very few people screw up the implementation.
  
     I profoundly beg to differ with that statement.   


>
>HASP (Houston Automatic Spooling (Protocol | Program) dates from 1965.
>2780/3780 dates back to the late '50s, I think.  HASP is more robust
>and supports multileaving (multiple simultaneous communication streams)
>with 4 line printers, 4 card punches, 4 card readers and an operator
>console.  2780/3780 is a half-duplex protocol that supports only one
>active communication stream and only 1 printer, 1 punch and 1 reader.
>The printer and reader double as the console.
>
    HASP was developed to find a useful function for the 360/20.
    >:-)

    HASP can support more than 4 punches, printers, etc.  Most
    implementations, including ours, can support up to 7 printers,
    punches and readers.   

    Console is an optional separate device on 2780/3780.  You could
    use your reader/punch combination as a "console" or you could
    have a real console device.  

    About the only difference I can remember between 2780 and 3780
    is that 3780 offers Space Compression.  HASP is sufficiently
    different that you'd need a different emulator.
From: ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: interesting thread in comp.lang.fortran
Date: 16 Dec 1992 19:49:38 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Reply-To: ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
NNTP-Posting-Host: fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de

For those who like such things, the "real programmers" thread in
comp.lang.fortran is quite, eh, amusing :-)
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8
From: jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Subject: Hammers (Was: The NOVA and the PDP-11)
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 21:05:42 GMT
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

From article <1992Dec13.190931.18700@iecc.cambridge.ma.us>,
by johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine):
> 
> Actually, there was a sensible reason that DEC used small cards.  The
> PDP-6 (the machine that the PDP-10 was almost as good as) used great big
> cards with lots of pins per connector.  Unfortunately, the connectors
> didn't work very well.  A standard diagnostic technique when a PDP-6 was
> flaking was to open the back and hit all the modules with a rubber mallet.

The PDP-11/20 may have been made with small cards, but this didn't fix
the problem.  We had an 11/20 at the University of Illinois, and as it
aged, cards began to get loose, and the common fix was to gently kick
the underside of the machine to reseat the cards.  On failure, you'd
kick it and reboot, and only if that failed was it worth trying anything
more impressive.  Kicking seemed to work about 90% of the time.

The machine was rack-mounted, but there was nothing under the CPU, and
the blank panels had long since been removed from that space by 1973
when this story takes place.

To understand why it worked, you have to know that the PDP-11/20 was
mounted with the wire-wrapped backplane on top and the cards pushed in
from the bottom.  The mounting slides were tiltable, so you could pull
the box out of the rack and tilt it up to face the boards towards you,
or tilt it down to face the backplane towards you.

The boards were retained in their slots by the foam lining on the inside
of the bottom cover of the CPU.  This foam was stiff grey stuff, a type
still commonly used for padding electronics.  The problem is, the stuff
ages, particularly in a warm environment, and as it ages, it looses its
spring and becomes mushy.  The CPU was in a high noise environment
(a card reader and line printer were right there), and I gather that the
vibrarion was enough to work cards loose after the foam lost its spring.

				Doug Jones
				jones@cs.uiowa.edu
From: rhg@cpsolv.CPS.COM (Richard H. Gumpertz)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PI
Date: 19 Dec 92 19:39:24 GMT
Organization: Computer Problem Solving, Leawood, Kansas, USA

In article <1992Dec15.134732.3739@piccolo.cit.cornell.edu> smr2@cornell.edu (Szymon Rusinkiewicz) writes:
>BTW, you can get the first few million digits of pi by anon FTP from
>wuarchive.wustl.edu in /doc/misc/pi/pi.dat.Z

I am curious: how well does the decimal representation of PI compress using
standard Unix compress?  (I really don't want to fetch the file just to run
zcat|wc)

-- 
  ==========================================================================
  | Richard H. Gumpertz      rhg@CPS.COM       VOICE & FAX: (913) 642-1777 |
  | Computer Problem Solving, 8905 Mohawk Lane, Leawood, Kansas 66206-1749 |
  ==========================================================================
From: Edward.Rice@p4214.f70.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Edward Rice)
Sender: Uucp@blkcat.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 04:22:27 -0500

Nicholas C. Weaver said to All: 

  NC> From: nweaver@soda.berkeley.edu (Nicholas C. Weaver)

  NC> example, try moving all files starting with Let to the directory
  NC> Letters.  How do you do this easily in a GUI?  A CLI for some purposes
  NC> is superior, because of it's higher level of abstraction.

Actually, I just had to do a 26-letter split of several thousand files, and did
it just fine on a GUI (Macintosh System 7, but System 6 or 4.2 would have
worked
okay, also).  FYI, in case your question was a serious challenge -- I defined
26
folders starting with the right letter (A Folder, B Folder, etc.), and then
told
the system to re-organize the folder by name, using the iconic view.  That gave
me a list about five icons wide, with a given folder followed by all the files
starting with the same letter.  Then I just did a lot (and admittedly, it was a
LOT) of moving.  Because it was a GUI, I could easily select multiple files,
though, and it wasn't too hard to grab a few dozen at a time.

It took a while, and I would rather have done it with a CLI.  But I didn't have
to do N-thousand individual moves, and it only took me fifteen or twenty
minutes
for the moves.  That timing is a precise geometric mean between fast enough and
not fast enough, by the way.


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: sourada@iastate.edu (Steven D Ourada)
Subject: Re: PI
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 19:17:13 GMT

In <1992Dec15.134732.3739@piccolo.cit.cornell.edu> smr2@cornell.edu (Szymon Rusinkiewicz) writes:

>Daniel Drucker (daniel@mertwig.uucp) writes:
>>A while back people were asking for the 50000 digits of pi; if anyone is 
>>still looking for it, please mail me with a subject of "send pi".

>>If I get more than 15 requests in the first day, I will post it.

>For THE 50000 digits of pi? Since when is pi finite?   :-)

Pi has always been finite. The number of digits in it's decimal representation
is another matter, though :-)


               Later,
                  Steven Ourada

-- 
-------
Steven Ourada -- sourada@iastate.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: mdw@db.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: Our friend, R. Morris.  was: Re: Famous flame wars, examples please?
Organization: The Linux Inquisition, Propaganda Division
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 07:35:42 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.143045.19044@dmp.csiro.au> lachlan@dmp.csiro.au (Lachlan Cranswick) writes:
>Does anyone have an article on the history of internet worm?

There's an EXCELLENT article out there on the Internet worm. And yes, it's 
by Gene Spafford (who else?). Here's the specs:
  "The Internet Worm: An Analysis" 
  Purdue Technical Report CSD-TR-823
  Eugene H. Spafford
  spaf@cs.purdue.edu

Sure enough, there it is on cs.purdue.edu, /pub/reports/TR823.PS. 
Looks like some other stuff is there in /pub/spaf/security.
The files there look very cool; see the README there.

mdw

-- 
Matt Welsh     mdw@tc.cornell.edu     Cornell Theory Center
  "Go on, emote! I was raised on thought balloons!"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
Subject: Re: The puppy is dead - alt.folklore.computers will not change
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:46:36 GMT

jdavis@bordeaux.kpno.noao.edu (Jim Davis) writes:
>I also heard an amazing amount of nasty nonsense.  I wonder what the more
>vitriolic debaters would do over an issue that REALLY MATTERED...

No problem.  The amount of natering and nastygrams is directly
proportional to the triviality of the issue.
-- 
The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights. -- J Paul Getty
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban,alt.religion.kibology
From: pratta@rpi.edu (Anthony Edward Prattico)
Subject: Re: Proper pronounciation of 'Kibo'
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
	<1go3neINN2vp@gap.caltech.edu> <BzDyqo.1oD@world.std.com>
	<BzEs9s.97w@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:37:13 GMT

In article <BzEs9s.97w@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> treincke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Tim Reincke) writes:

>What is a "pronounciation"?  Pronunciation is spelled just like it is
>pronounced.  :)

Oh, that's an easy one. It's the act of creating a pronoun.

-Anthony

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't ever want to be caught representing RPI in my opinions. It's bad
enough I've been here so long.

pratta@rpi.edu		Anthony_Prattico@mts.rpi.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 02:31:10 GMT
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)

In article <Bz6rKH.Ln2@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> kodak@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Jason 'KodaK' Balicki) writes:
>In article <5VJoVB1w165w@bluemoon.use.com> cmcurtin@bluemoon.use.com (Matthew Curtin) writes:
>>Macintosh? They just don't come much more proprietary than the Mac...
>
>Argh!  Why does EVERYONE ignore the Amiga.  :)

Probably because there is no one here from Commodore claiming that the
Amiga is an open system.

Also, this is a group where many people would consider the Mac to be
an open cistern.

-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	unixland!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Non-English-based computer languages (was: I don't understand this either (was: Another one for the s.c.n. ...))
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 00:53:34 GMT

I just picked up a PostScript program that started off by redefining all
the PostScript commands the author was using into his own language. I guess
when all the syntax is in the punctuation that would work better than in a
language that has keywords.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: wolff@liberator.et.tudelft.nl (Rogier Wolff)
Subject: Re: PI
Organization: Delft University of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 08:10:04 GMT

Szymon Rusinkiewicz <smr2@cornell.edu> writes:

>>If I get more than 15 requests in the first day, I will post it.

>For THE 50000 digits of pi? Since when is pi finite?   :-)

Since about the beginning of time. (There is some disagreement about the
first 1e-30 seconds of the universe). Many cultures before us knew 
already that pi was somewhere between 3 and 4.  :-)


					Roger

-- 
****   a 486 in V86 mode is like a VW buggy with a 6 litre V12 motor.  ****
EMail:  wolff@duteca.et.tudelft.nl   ** Tel  +31-15-783644 or +31-15-142371
From: kenh@leps5.phys.psu.edu (Ken Hornstein)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Famous flame wars, examples please?
Date: 12 Dec 1992 17:00:08 GMT
Organization: Penn State, Laboratory for Elementary Particle Science
NNTP-Posting-Host: leps5.phys.psu.edu

In article <1992Dec12.024809.21678@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> dougmc@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Doug McLaren) writes:
>Famous flame war?  How about the one that used to pop up on alt.binaries.
>pictures.erotica (formerly alt.sex.pictures)  (it may still -- I grew tired
>of it after a while ...)
>
>  Should they split into alt.sex.pictures.male and female?
>  ... alt.sex.pictures.straight or gay ?
>  ... etc.

I liked the one where someone posted and said:

	"I have this really cool site for X-rated GIFs.  It's not in the
nameserver yet, you'll have to use the IP address.  Just ftp to 127.0.0.1.
You might have to logon as yourself, however".

:-)

--Ken
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: Non-English-based computer languages (was: I don't understand this either (was: Another one for the s.c.n. ...))
Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:08:40 GMT

In article <18169@bcars664.bnr.ca> Henry.Troup@BNR.CA writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.112245.5728@pollux.lu.se>, magnus@thep.lu.se
>(Magnus Olsson) writes:
>|>keywords in Swedish. It was a very funny feeling to write programs in
>|>this language; it just felt so wrong to have the keywords in one's own
>|>language, and the results looked more like jokes than like real
>
>Interesting; us English speakers have been so lucky, I guess.  Any idea
>why it felt wrong?

I don't really know (I don't have the inclination to analyze myself
that deeply on such a relatively unimportant subject), but I'd guess
it has something to do with me being so used to using English when
dealing with computers (I generally write all comments and identifier
names in English, even if the program's output is in Swedish) that
I've even started to think in English when programming. Going back to
Swedish again feels strange.

Also, I think I tend to see the reserved words of a programming
language as symbols, or tokens, on the word level. I don't really
pause to reflect about what "begin" means in a Pascal program, it's
just a parenthesis like the "{" in C. But if the reserved words are in
Swedish one suddenly starts seeing them as _words_, not symbols, and
starts interpreting the program as a natural-language sentence. And
then it sounds sooo ridiculous.

              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
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
From: liam@durie.amigans.gen.nz (Liam Greenwood)
Date: 13 Dec 92 20:03:29 GMT+12
Organization: It's Home, really...
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Matthew Curtin (cmcurtin@bluemoon.use.com) wrote:
>         c) "What do you get when you cross Apple and IBM? IBM."
Windows
--
 Liam Greenwood ------ liam@durie.amigans.gen.nz ------ Wanganui, N.Z.
                 Don't tell my Mother I'm a programmer,
               she thinks I'm a piano player in a brothel

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: delusion@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Albert Schmezer)
Subject: Re: Worlds wierdest system crash!
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 18:32:26 GMT

In article <BzI8CB.JrL@wimsey.bc.ca> chrisp@wimsey.bc.ca (Chris Phillips) writes:
>I used to work in a video store that was using a Commodore XT clone running
>an archaic point of sale program. It was possible to crash the machine in
>such a way as to disable the power switch(No lie).You had to pull the plug
>to bring it back. I took the machine apart and looked, t was a mechanical 
>switch and to this day I have no idea how it was able to do that. But the
>crash was repeatable.
>
>	Any like stories?
>		Chris

	Perhaps it was connected in a wierd way parallel-wise to the power
supply? And maybe a wierd internal configuration could bypass that switch? Who
knows! I was able to bypass the power supply on the C64 by just leaving it on
for about 5 hours. The entire SYSTEM malfunctioned. It was pretty funny.

<<delusion

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: octal to decimal converter?
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 12:08:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.030730.20175@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> In many instances, the PDP-8 wins hands down on programming for the shortest
> number of instructions to solve a particular problem,

It better, considering you've only got 12 bits of address space to shove those
instructions into.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Apple IIGS being discontinued Dec 1992
From: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)
Organization: The Man With Ten Cats
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 03:36:14 GMT
Reply-To: rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly)

In article <1992Dec17.181548.1359@gallant.apple.com> cheryl@gallant.apple.com (Cheryl Lins) writes:
>In article <BzDL1u.2rx@world.std.com> jeffb@world.std.com (Jeffrey T Berntsen) writes:
>>
>>I beg to differ.  That "new personal computer running a brand new computer
>>chip and new OS and no S/W" bit is _exactly_ what Apple did when they 
>>introduced the Mac in the first place when they already had a thriving
>>platform out there.  Based on my experiences with Apple, I could easily seem
>>doing the same thing again...  Just my $.03
>
>Wake up Jeff. That was nearly 10 years ago. Remember the Commodore PET, the
>Tandy TRS-80, and the other wonderful 8-bit so-called personal computers
>circa 1982-3? And where are they now? They are on the dustbin of history.
>Technology has outpaced their capabilities.
>
>Apple could do what you describe above in 1984 for 2 reasons:
>  1. the introduction of the IBM PC which made personal computers acceptable
>     to business,
>  2. a radically new user interface paradigm beyond the command line making
>     it easier to train and use a computer by the computer-illerate.

And the Lisa paved the way.  Many people looked at the original Mac as a
mini-Lisa for 1/3 the price.  The Mac design group had a benchmark to
design against, and they had Quickdraw from the Lisa project.

The Lisa was a great machine.  Graphics, multitasking, and it could run
Unix many years before the Mac II came to exist.

>(The 2nd point is not to say anything about who invented GUI's. But it is
>obvious that the Macintosh was the first commerically successful machine
>incorporating such an interface.)
>
>Today there are say 30+ million personal computers out there. The Apple II is
>a very small percentage of this total. I like the idea of working for a
>computer company that isn't laying off n% of its workforce (including
>engineers) as are DEC, IBM, etc. Even the clone-makers are cutting everything
>possible simply to stay in business.

Apple has had it's share of layoffs.

There are probably 60-70 million Intel clones out there.

And Apple has been madly cutting prices, and coming out with this new
Performa line of the same but different computers.

>I doubt very seriously that Apple would be a 7+ BILLION dollar company today
>on the merits of the Apple II. This doesn't mean that there isn't a very nice
>niche business for the Apple II. But it certainly isn't going to take Apple
>Computer into the 21st century.

If there had never been an Apple II, there wouldn't be any Apple now.

-- 

Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.UUCP	unixland!rmkhome!rmk	rmk@frog.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: What is so greate about the PDP 10?
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:37:16 GMT

In article <1g8bviINN14p@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (Jim Haynes) writes:
> DEC could have advertised it as "not the kind of computer your banker
> would buy" and the people who would buy it would understand perfectly.

"This is not your father's Oldsmobile"
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tnn?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tm ateria el viel.