omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Gekko (processor). Gekko is a superscalar out-of-order 32-bit PowerPC microprocessor custom-made by IBM in 2000 for Nintendo to use as the CPU in their sixth generation game console, the GameCube, and later the Triforce Arcade Board.

Development
Gekko's role in the game system was to facilitate game scripting, artificial intelligence, physics and collision detection, custom graphics lighting effects and geometry such as smooth transformations, and moving graphics data through the system.

The project was announced in 1999 when IBM and Nintendo agreed to a  dollar contract (IBM's largest ever single order) for a CPU running at approximately 400 MHz. IBM chose to modify their existing PowerPC 750CXe processor to suit Nintendo's needs, such as tight and balanced operation alongside the "Flipper" graphics processor. The customization was to the bus architecture, DMA, compression and floating point unit which support a special set of SIMD instructions. The CPU made ground work for custom lighting and geometry effects and could burst compressed data directly to the GPU.

The Gekko is considered to be the direct ancestor to the Broadway processor, also designed and manufactured by IBM, that powers the Wii console.

Features
 Customized PowerPC 750CXe core
 Clockrate – 486 MHz
 Superscalar Out-of-order execution
 4 stages long two-integer ALUs (IU1 and IU2) – 32 bit
 7 stages long Floating Point Unit – 64-bit double-precision FPU, usable as 2 × 32-bit SIMD for 1.9 single-precision GFLOPS performance using the Multiply–accumulate operation. The SIMD is often found under the denomination "paired singles."
 Branch Prediction Unit (BPU)
 Load-Store Unit (LSU)
 System Register Unit (SRU)
 Memory Management Unit (MMU)
 Branch Target Instruction Cache (BTIC)
 SIMD Instructions – PowerPC750 + roughly 50 new SIMD instructions, geared toward 3D graphics
 Front-side Bus – 64-bit enhanced 60x bus to GPU/chipset at 162 MHz clock with 1.3 GB/s peak bandwidth
 On-chip Cache – 64 KB 8-way associative L1 cache (32/32 KB instruction/data). 256 KB on-die, 2-way associative L2 cache
 DMIPS – 1125 (dhrystone 2.1)
 180 nm IBM six-layer, copper-wire process. 43 mm² die
 1.8 V for logic and I/O. 4.9 W dissipation
 27 × 27 mm PBGA package with 256 contacts
 6.35 million logic transistors and 18.6 million transistors total

See also
 Broadway (microprocessor), the processor in the Wii
 MIPS R4300, the processor in the Nintendo 64

References

A PowerPC compatible processor supporting high-performance 3-D graphics

GameCube
IBM microprocessors
Nintendo chips
PowerPC microprocessors
Epson Equity. The Epson Equity series of IBM Compatible Personal Computers was manufactured from 1985 until the early '90s by Epson Inc. Epson was well known for its dot matrix printers at the time and the Equity series represents their entry into the growing PC compatible market. The Equity I was the first system introduced, equipped with an Intel 8088 CPU and one or two 5.25" floppy disk drives.

The original Equity I was a no-frills offering. It ran at the PC's standard 4.77 MHz clock rate, came with 256 KB RAM, expansion above 512 KB required an expansion board, displayed CGA video, had few available expansion slots, only two half-height drive bays, and lacked a socket for an 8087 math chip. 

Subsequent versions, the Equity I+ and Apex 100, upped the clock rate to 10 MHz, the standard RAM to 640 KB, supported 3.5-inch floppy drives and hard disks, sported an 8087 socket, and had a "MGA - Multi-Graphics Adapter" card, offering an Hercules compatible monochrome mode, and a new 160x200 eight colors mode. Epson bundled some utility programs that offered decent turnkey functionality for novice users.

The Equity was a reliable and compatible design for half the price of a similarly-configured IBM PC. Epson often promoted sales by bundling one of their printers with it at cost. The Equity I sold well enough to warrant the furtherance of the Equity line with the follow-on Equity II, Equity III, and others based on the i386SX.

Models
Equity I (8088)
Equity Ie (8086, only known IBM clone with MCGA video alongside its European model PSE-30)
Equity I+, Equity Apex 100
Equity II (V30)
Equity II+ (80286)
Equity III (80286)
Equity IIe (80286)
Equity III+ (80286)
Equity LT (V30)
Equity 286
Equity 386SX
Equity 386DX

See also
 Epson ActionNote

References

External links
 Equity I+ User Guide and Diagnostics
 Equity II User Guide
 Equity 386SX User's Guide
 

IBM PC compatibles
Equity
Cosmic Engineers. Cosmic Engineers is a science fiction novel by American author Clifford D. Simak. It was published in 1950 by Gnome Press in an edition of 6,000 copies, of which 1,000 were bound in paperback for an armed forces edition.  The novel was originally serialized in the magazine Astounding in 1939.

Plot introduction
The novel concerns a group of earthmen and a girl, who is awakened from suspended animation, being contacted by aliens with whom they join to prevent the collision of one universe with another.

Reception
Groff Conklin found the 1950 text "has an old-fashioned and somewhat frenetic ring to it which, nevertheless, is rather pleasant." Damon Knight, however, panned the same edition as "a pot-boiler [which] should have been left interred" and noted that the 70th-century's inhabitants "talk, think, and act exactly like middle-class, middle-intellect 1930s Americans." P. Schuyler Miller reported the novel was "good fun, but nothing to weight you down with ideas."

Stephen King mentions Cosmic Engineers in Hearts in Atlantis, and also in his memoir On Writing, describing Simak's novel as "a terrific read".

References

Sources

External links
 

1950 American novels
1950 science fiction novels
American science fiction novels
Novels by Clifford D. Simak
Novels first published in serial form
Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Gnome Press books
List of Royal Flying Corps squadrons. A list of Royal Flying Corps squadrons with date and location of foundation.

The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the aviation arm of the British Army. Squadrons were the main form of flying unit from its foundation on 13 April 1912, until its merging with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) to form the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918.

In June 1914, the RFC consisted of five aircraft squadrons; No. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. No. 1 Squadron was in the process of converting from balloons, while No. 7 was still being formed. On the outbreak of the First World War on 4 August 1914, the Military Wing of the RFC comprised 147 officers and 1,097 men with 179 aircraft. During the war the RFC underwent a rapid expansion, and by the end of 1916 had 46,000 personnel, and 2,712 aircraft in 64 operational and 33 reserve squadrons. A year later there were 10,938 aircraft in 115 operational and 109 training squadrons.

Squadrons

Reserve/Training Squadrons
Originally named Reserve Aeroplane Squadrons when formed, these were renamed to Reserve Squadrons on 13 January 1916, and then again to Training Squadrons on 31 May 1917 for the RFC or a little later for Royal Flying Corps Canada units.

NB: This number sequence was not linked to the operational squadrons; No. 1 Squadron RFC is not the same unit as No. 1 Training Squadron RFC.

Schools

See also
 List of Royal Air Force aircraft squadrons

References

Citations

Bibliography
 Castle, Ian. London 1914-17: The Zeppelin Menace. Osprey Publishing, 2008. 
 Cooksley, Peter G. The Royal Flying Corps Handbook, The History Press, England, 1 May 2013 
 Sturtivant. R, RAF Flying Training and Support Units since 1912, Air-Britain (Historians), England, 2007, 

Royal F
King Review. The King Review of low-carbon cars was launched in 2007 by the British Government to examine the vehicle and fuel technologies which could help to decarbonise road transport over the next 25 years.

The Review was led by Professor Julia King CBE FREng, Vice-Chancellor of Aston University and former Director of Advanced Engineering at Rolls-Royce plc.

The interim analytical report was published in October 2007, and focused on the potential for the reduction of  emissions from road transport. It concluded:

 Urgent progress is needed from road transport to help meet emission cuts for the developed world of 60-80 per cent by 2050 outlined in the Stern Review.
 At low cost and by 2030, per-kilometre emissions from road transport could be reduced by 50 per cent.
 Electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles have the potential to make near complete decarbonisation of road transport a realistic long-term objective.
 Biofuels have a role in the future UK fuel market, though demand must not be allowed to grow too quickly without robust environmental safeguards in place. 

The final stage of the Review was published in March 2008, and gave recommendations on how the Government can play a role in decarbonising transport.

References

Transport in the United Kingdom
Climate change in the United Kingdom
Transport policy in the United Kingdom
Tara Tiny. Tara Tiny is an electric car manufactured by India's Tara International, an arm of Bengal Enamel, in association with China's Aucma.

Its assembly line is located in Kolkata, West Bengal. Production started in 2008, and is still operating.

The Tiny is rumoured to be the world's least expensive car, priced at ₹ 99,999 (approx US$2,450), which is less than that of Tata Nano. However, due to new models in the market it is possible that this information may be incorrect.

The Tiny is battery operated, providing  at 50-70 paise (₹ .50-.70).

Tara International projects the launch of three other versions of the car: Tara Titu, Tara Micro and Tara Mini., proposes to import 60-70% components from China and manufacture the remainder in India.

Specifications of Tara Tiny are as follows:

No of seats: 4 
Net weight:  
Wheelbase:  
Maximum speed:  
Maximum grade ability: 15% 
Motor power:  
Battery voltage: 6V*10 
Recharge duration: 8 hours 
Driving charge: 120 km 
Ground clearance: 150 mm 
Running cost: 40 paise/km 
Battery capacity: 200 Ah

See also 
Tata Nano
REVAi

References 

City cars
Electric concept cars
Cars introduced in 2008
Microcars
Alexandre Horowitz. Alexandre "Sacha" Horowitz (24 March 1904 – 1982) was a Belgian-born Dutch mechanical engineer and inventor.

Alexandre "Sacha" Horowitz was born in 1904 in Antwerp, (Belgium) to parents of East-European Jewish heritage, and lived from 1914 in The Netherlands until his death in 1982. He has 136 patents awarded to his name over a period of 50 years, covering a wide variety of products including prefab housing, farm machinery (e.g. Vicon, see below) and oil industry equipment. His most well-known invention, however, is the Philishave rotary electric razor, one of the first rotary electric razors.

From 1958 to 1974, he was the first professor of product design and Production engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology. In 1980, Horowitz was elected Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He died in 1982 in Switzerland.

References 

Hans Schippers, Vader van de Philishave, Dutch periodical De Ingenieur nr. 3–16 February 2000, p. 49

External links  

Philishave collectors Club, see history
Picture of a Vicon rotary plough
Horowitz, Alexandre (Sacha) 1904 - 1982 at the Database Joods Biografisch Woordenboek

1904 births
1982 deaths
20th-century Dutch inventors
Dutch Jews
Dutch mechanical engineers
Dutch electrical engineers
Delft University of Technology alumni
Philips employees
Academic staff of the Eindhoven University of Technology
Engineers from Antwerp
20th-century Dutch engineers
Belgian emigrants to the Netherlands
Centre stick. A centre stick (or center stick in the United States), or simply control stick, is an aircraft cockpit arrangement where the control column (or joystick) is located in the center of the cockpit either between the pilot's legs or between the pilots' positions. Since the throttle controls are typically located to the left of the pilot, the right hand is used for the stick, although left-hand or both-hands operation is possible if required.

The centre stick is a part of an aircraft's flight control system and is typically linked to its ailerons and elevators, or alternatively to its elevons, by control rods or control cables on basic aircraft. On heavier, faster, more advanced aircraft the centre stick may also control power-assist modules. Modern aircraft centre sticks are also usually equipped with a number of electrical control switches within easy finger reach, in order to reduce the pilot's workload.

History
The centre stick originated at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1900, Wilhelm Kress of Austria developed a control stick for aircraft, but did not apply for a patent. Instead, a patent was awarded to the French aviator, Robert Esnault-Pelterie who applied for it in 1907.

Split stick
A two-handed variation of the centre stick has existed as a split stick, with a similar arrangement to a yoke as it is bifurcated for the pilot to operate with both hands. This is not only used to operate the aircraft but for the pilot to also use radar controls. The F-8 Crusader is an example of an aircraft that used a split stick.

Popularity 
The centre stick is used in many military fighter jets such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Mirage III, but also in light aircraft such as Piper Cubs and the Diamond Aircraft line of products such as the DA20, DA40 and DA42.

This arrangement contrasts with the more recently developed "side-stick", which is used in such military fighter jets as the F-16, the F-35 Lightning II and Rafale and also on civil aircraft such as the Airbus A320.

See also
 Index of aviation articles
 Aircraft flight control system
 Dual control (aviation)
 HOTAS
 Rudder pedals
 Side-stick
 Yoke (aeronautics)

References 

Design
Aircraft controls
IFA F9. The IFA F9, subsequently rebadged as the EMW 309, is a compact saloon manufactured under the auspices of the Russian and East German states between 1949 or 1950 and 1956. It was initially built at Zwickau at the plant previously owned by Auto Union. In 1953 production was transferred to the EMW, former BMW manufacturing plant at Eisenach under the name EMW 309 until 1956 where its underpinnings subsequently found their way into the Wartburg 311.

Origins
Mechanically the F9 derived from the DKW F8 which had been available between 1939 and 1942. The body closely followed the design of the DKW F9, a prototype with which Auto Union would have replaced the F8 on the Zwickau production lines earlier, had the war not intervened. After the war, the first car assembled at Zwickau was the prewar DKW F8, but the more modern F9 started to appear in 1949 or 1950 (sources differ). Materials shortages probably delayed introduction in both German states, but the eastern car beat the western to the market, and certainly featured the three-cylinder motor from the 1938 F9 prototype (rather than the two-cylinder motor that had been in serial production in 1942) at least three years before Auto Union in Düsseldorf were installing it in their F91. The Western group, however, had access to the original F9 body tooling which had been ordered before the war and had been produced but neither delivered to Zwickau nor scrapped, instead remaining at supplier Allgaier's facility in Uhingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The bodies

Surviving F9s appear  largely restricted to saloon versions, but various sports and cabriolet versions were also produced. Steel for consumer industries was in short supply across many parts of Europe during this period, and the F9’s body construction increasingly involved plastic panels, especially after production was moved to Eisenach in 1953. The car was accordingly usefully lighter than its western built Auto Union equivalent.

Technical
The F9 featured a three-cylinder two-stroke water-cooled engine of 910 cc with a claimed output, at launch, of .   The engine was water-cooled, the radiator being located behind the engine, an unusual configuration but one also found on the DKW F91. The front wheels were driven via a four-speed manual gear box with a free wheel.

References

IFA vehicles
Compact cars
Front-wheel-drive vehicles
1950s cars
Cars introduced in 1949
X386. X386 was an implementation of the X Window System for IBM PC compatible computers. It ran on systems with Intel 386 or later processors, running Unix System V-based operating systems, and supported a variety of VGA-compatible graphics cards. X386 was created by Thomas Roell while at Technische Universität München and first released (as X386 1.1, based on X11R4) in 1991. X386 1.2 was incorporated in the X11R5 release later the same year.

Further X386 development was funded by Snitily Graphics Consulting Services, which released enhanced versions commercially. SGCS later became Xi Graphics and X386 evolved into the Accelerated-X product.

In September 1992, the XFree86  project was created to continue development of X386 as open source software, the name being a pun on "X386", distinguishing it from the proprietary SGCS version.

References 

X servers
Mission Data Interface. Mission Data Interface (MDI) is a framework designed by the US Navy to allow mission data to be exchanged between systems within a battle group. MDI implements the FORCEnet (Fn) Functional Concept in accordance with the Navy Open architecture computing environment (OACE) specifications, with an emphasis on Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) design.

History 
Mission Data Interface (MDI) is a spin-off project from the Aircraft Carrier Tactical Support System (CVTSC) system – which is installed on all current deployed US aircraft carriers. MDI was originally intended to extend the CVTSC/SSDS interfaces to share mission data with other remote battle group and theater-level (WAN internet scale) participants configured with the MDI capability. Mission data are all data generated during a mission, including electrical notes, commands, and even operator views. These data can be share among all systems within the battle space in near real-time; as well as recorded for post-mission analysis and training. The proposal to establish the MDI project was submitted to Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Keyport management sometime in late 2004. The project was approved by IWS5 Program Office and work started sometime in 2005.

MDI contains 2 major API libraries: RMI-based API and web services-based API.

References 

 NUWC Keyport MDI SRD/SDD document
 NUWC Keyport CV-TSC SARAD document
 FORCEnet. 

Equipment of the United States Navy
DialogOS. DialogOS is a graphical programming environment to design computer system which can converse through voice with the user.  Dialogs are clicked together in a Flowchart. DialogOS includes bindings to control Lego Mindstorms robots by voice and has bindings to SQL databases, as well as a generic plugin architecture to integrate with other types of backends.

DialogOS is used in computer science courses in schools and universities to teach programming and to introduce beginners in the basic principles of human/computer interaction and dialog design. It has also been used in research systems.

DialogOS was initially developed commercially by CLT Sprachtechnologie GmbH until its liquidation in 2017. The rights were then acquired by Saarland University and the software was released as open-source.

Bindings to Lego Mindstorms NXT 
DialogOS can control the LEGO Mindstorms NXT Series. It uses sensor-nodes to obtain values for the following sensors:
 noise sensor
 ultrasonic sensor
 touch sensor
 luminosity sensor

References

External links 
 

User interfaces
Speech synthesis
Applications of artificial intelligence
Computational linguistics
Robotics suites
Pedagogic integrated development environments
Forestry in Bangladesh. Wood is the main fuel for cooking and other domestic requirements. It is not surprising that population pressure has had an adverse effect on the indigenous forests. By 1980 only about 16 percent of the land was forested, and forests had all but disappeared from the densely populated and intensively cultivated deltaic plain. Aid organizations in the mid-1980s began looking into the possibility of stimulating small-scale forestry to restore a resource for which there was no affordable substitute. Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI) is the government organization under Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for research in this sector which was established in 1955 at Sholoshahar, Chittagong city.

The largest areas of forest are in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Sundarbans. The evergreen and deciduous forests of the Chittagong Hills cover more than  and are the source of teak for heavy construction and boat building, as well as other forest products. Domesticated elephants are still used to haul logs. The Sundarbans, a tidal mangrove forest covering nearly  along the Bay of Bengal, is the source of timber used for a variety of purposes, including pulp for the domestic paper industry, poles for electric power distribution, and leaves for thatching for dwellings. The total percentage of forests are 10.98%.

Forestry universities 
There are three universities in Bangladesh where a student can enroll for an undergraduate degree in forestry. Among them the Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences under Chittagong University offers undergraduate and graduate degrees both in Forestry and in Environmental Sciences. This is the premier institute for Forestry education in Bangladesh. The three universities of Bangladesh offering undergraduate and graduate degree in Forestry are:

References

 
Economy of Bangladesh
Shaft passer. A shaft passer is a  device that allows a spoked wheel to rotate despite having a shaft (such as the axle of another wheel) passing between its spokes. The device is usually mentioned as a joke between nerds, in the manner of a fool's errand, however, examples do exist. In ~100 C.E. Heron describes a horse statue with the neck connected to its body with a shaft passer. A sword (acting as the "shaft") could slice through the neck but the head would not detach. In 2023 Blonder created a two and three dimensional shaft passer that allows a wire mesh cube to penetrate a mesh screen under its own weight.

One of the earliest modern references to these devices was made by Richard Feynman, who was told by a colleague at Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia that the cable-passing version of the device had been used during both world wars on German naval mine mooring cables, to prevent the mines from being caught by British cables swept along the sea bottom.

The device was supposed to work using a spoked, rimless wheel that allows cables to pass through as it rotates. The ends of the spokes are widened, and the cable is held together by a short curved sleeve through which these spoke ends slide.

External links
 , with diagram of the device.
 
 
 Tesseract cube, Blonder, 2023

References

Practical jokes
Wheels
Mechanisms (engineering)