On 27/10/2015 07:53 PM, Stephen wrote:
> http://www.righto.com/2015/03/12-minute-mandelbrot-fractals-on-50.html

Qui-binary...?

My mind is blown.



As an aside, Hackaday.io seems to be full of people building computers 
"from scratch", using only individual logic gates. One guy claimed to be 
building a computer from nothing but 7400s...

...until you realise that he means the members of the 7400 family that 
implement entire counters, encoders, decoders, latches, etc.

Another guy claimed to by building a computer from discrete 
transistors... until you realise that he's using an Arduino to control 
it. Wuh??

It's interesting to me that the IBM 1401 appears to be a *real* computer 
made only from discrete transistors. I'd always assumed that such a 
thing would fill an entire warehouse. But it doesn't actually look all 
that big...

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On 27/10/2015 07:50 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 10/27/2015 6:58 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> I think there's a lot you can do that's interesting without any video at
>>> all.
>>
>> Oh, really?
>>
>> [That maybe sounded sarcastic. It wasn't meant to.]
>>
>> Clearly you've got different ideas to me... What kinda thing are you
>> thinking?
>>
>> [Genuinely interested here.]
>
> Break codes, calculate ballistic trajectories, solve engineering
> problems. Run the finances for Lyons tea house.

Not sure too many children would be interested in any of those.

> Text processing and games.

Interesting without display capabilities. ;-)

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On 27/10/2015 07:53 PM, Stephen wrote:
> http://www.righto.com/2015/03/12-minute-mandelbrot-fractals-on-50.html

Only just finished reading this.

Man, that is some special brand of craziness, right there. Mental stuff.

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On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 18:58:19 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>> Nothing else really plugged in, either.  HDMI, external hard drive,
>> power.  Wireless keyboard/mouse combo that I generally don't use.
> 
> At that point, doesn't it kinda make it look like *the screen* is all
> the smarts? Not the inconspicuous little box in the corner?

Not really, but then again, I connect the HDMI to a receiver that then 
sends the output to a projector.  So my "screen" is a 10' diagonal image 
projected on a white wall.

But it doesn't really matter.

> Oh, I *totally* agree with what you're saying. My question is how you
> keep the kids from just glancing at it and going "this is lame!" and
> going back to playing Angry Birds or something.

By making it interesting, which is done by making it relevant.  A lot of 
kids are curious about stuff like that.

>> Yes, but that's true on a lot of PCs that run Linux as well.  That
>> doesn't mean you can't do system-level programming on it.
> 
> Thanks to backwards compatibility, every IBM PC-compatible starts up in
> 8080 emulation mode, and has a BIOS that lets you do stuff without even
> knowing what model of video card you have. Even then, it surely has 100%
> VGA register compatibility, so you can program it that way.
> 
> On the Pi, until you poke the GPU, the CPU isn't even *turned on*...

Mine turns on when I plug it in, before the OS is done.  That's firmware-
level stuff, generally not the sort of thing I think of with "system-
level" programming.

>> I think there's a lot you can do that's interesting without any video
>> at all.
> 
> Oh, really?
> 
> [That maybe sounded sarcastic. It wasn't meant to.]
> 
> Clearly you've got different ideas to me... What kinda thing are you
> thinking?
> 
> [Genuinely interested here.]

Web hosting is the most obvious example.  Music streaming, controlling 
home automation - lots of IoT-related things, actually.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 10/27/2015 8:31 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 27/10/2015 07:53 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> http://www.righto.com/2015/03/12-minute-mandelbrot-fractals-on-50.html
>
> Qui-binary...?
>
> My mind is blown.
>
I know and I thought BCD was strange.

>
> As an aside, Hackaday.io seems to be full of people building computers
> "from scratch", using only individual logic gates. One guy claimed to be
> building a computer from nothing but 7400s...
>
> ....until you realise that he means the members of the 7400 family that
> implement entire counters, encoders, decoders, latches, etc.
>

I hope he has a big power supply and lots of fans.
In the mid 70's I built a digital clock out of TTL. It needed 25 amps at 
5 volts to drive the logic. A couple of years later I built one out of 
CMOS and that would run for an hour on a PP3 battery. (It was mains 
powered the battery was for backup.)

> Another guy claimed to by building a computer from discrete
> transistors... until you realise that he's using an Arduino to control
> it. Wuh??
>
The first machine I worked on was the Honeywell H516. It used discrete 
components not ICs.

> It's interesting to me that the IBM 1401 appears to be a *real* computer
> made only from discrete transistors. I'd always assumed that such a
> thing would fill an entire warehouse. But it doesn't actually look all
> that big...

That is a media exaggeration. They were forever showing images of 
computer systems in enormous clean rooms with technicians in white coats.
One company I worked for had an old PDP 8. It fitted inside a 19 inch 
cabinet. I only once opened the door to look at the guts. I then prayed 
it would never break. ;-)

> Only just finished reading this.
>
> Man, that is some special brand of craziness, right there. Mental stuff.

Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write 
programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 10/27/2015 8:32 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 27/10/2015 07:50 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 10/27/2015 6:58 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>>> I think there's a lot you can do that's interesting without any
>>>> video at
>>>> all.
>>>
>>> Oh, really?
>>>
>>> [That maybe sounded sarcastic. It wasn't meant to.]
>>>
>>> Clearly you've got different ideas to me... What kinda thing are you
>>> thinking?
>>>
>>> [Genuinely interested here.]
>>
>> Break codes, calculate ballistic trajectories, solve engineering
>> problems. Run the finances for Lyons tea house.
>
> Not sure too many children would be interested in any of those.

Calculating ballistic trajectories and blowing up your target sounds 
like fun.

>
>> Text processing and games.
>
> Interesting without display capabilities. ;-)


Did not say that. You said without video.
The output was on a Teletype or a printer.
I played a graphical golf game that used a printer to show the hole and 
where the ball had landed.

Thinking about it and looking up Google. I think that many of these 
games were inhouse programs and not available to the public.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 10/27/2015 11:48 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Web hosting is the most obvious example.  Music streaming, controlling
> home automation - lots of IoT-related things, actually.

Disturbing. You are looking to the future and I looked to the past.
I must watch out for that.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Am 28.10.2015 um 08:56 schrieb Stephen:

>> As an aside, Hackaday.io seems to be full of people building computers
>> "from scratch", using only individual logic gates. One guy claimed to be
>> building a computer from nothing but 7400s...
>>
>> ....until you realise that he means the members of the 7400 family that
>> implement entire counters, encoders, decoders, latches, etc.

Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned.

> I hope he has a big power supply and lots of fans.
> In the mid 70's I built a digital clock out of TTL. It needed 25 amps at
> 5 volts to drive the logic. A couple of years later I built one out of
> CMOS and that would run for an hour on a PP3 battery. (It was mains
> powered the battery was for backup.)

I suspect the guy in question wouldn't be using classic TTL (where on
Earth would you get those nowadays, anyway), but rather LS-TTL, cutting
power consumption to 20%.

I for one wouldn't use 7400-family chips anyway, and instead go for a
CPLD (or, more likely, a collection thereof). Makes it much easier to
make minor design changes even after the circuitry has been wired.


> Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write
> programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?

PostScript is fun! Especially since it comes with high-resolution
graphics output fully integrated ;)

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On 10/28/2015 10:45 AM, clipka wrote:
> Am 28.10.2015 um 08:56 schrieb Stephen:
>
>>> As an aside, Hackaday.io seems to be full of people building computers
>>> "from scratch", using only individual logic gates. One guy claimed to be
>>> building a computer from nothing but 7400s...
>>>
>>> ....until you realise that he means the members of the 7400 family that
>>> implement entire counters, encoders, decoders, latches, etc.
>
> Fair enough, as far as I'm concerned.
>
Not worth mentioning unless it was built only using NAND gates. Now that 
would be something. ;-)

>> I hope he has a big power supply and lots of fans.
>> In the mid 70's I built a digital clock out of TTL. It needed 25 amps at
>> 5 volts to drive the logic. A couple of years later I built one out of
>> CMOS and that would run for an hour on a PP3 battery. (It was mains
>> powered the battery was for backup.)
>
> I suspect the guy in question wouldn't be using classic TTL (where on
> Earth would you get those nowadays, anyway), but rather LS-TTL, cutting
> power consumption to 20%.
>

This was about 40 years ago* and I was limited to what I could borrow 
from the production line. :-)
 From what I can remember of the circuit. It was mostly shift registers 
and divide-by counters built from D type flip Flops. Ending up driving 
Nixie Tubes for the display. (I worked for Boroughs at the time and 
there were a few lying around.)

*
I did not invent my Tardis until a few years later. ;-)

> I for one wouldn't use 7400-family chips anyway, and instead go for a
> CPLD (or, more likely, a collection thereof). Makes it much easier to
> make minor design changes even after the circuitry has been wired.
>
>

How about a LM8560? Or if you want to push the boat out and spend USD 4
http://www.ecyberspaces.com/productsview.asp?id=3179


>> Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write
>> programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?
>
> PostScript is fun! Especially since it comes with high-resolution
> graphics output fully integrated ;)
>

That raises the question. If Pov will not contemplate using a GPU. How 
about using a printer to do some calculations? :-P

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Am 28.10.2015 um 13:07 schrieb Stephen:

>> I for one wouldn't use 7400-family chips anyway, and instead go for a
>> CPLD (or, more likely, a collection thereof). Makes it much easier to
>> make minor design changes even after the circuitry has been wired.
> 
> How about a LM8560? Or if you want to push the boat out and spend USD 4
> http://www.ecyberspaces.com/productsview.asp?id=3179

Nah, I'm talking about re-inventing the computer here, not throwing
together a device intended to be mistaken for a suitcase bomb.


>>> Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write
>>> programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?
>>
>> PostScript is fun! Especially since it comes with high-resolution
>> graphics output fully integrated ;)
> 
> That raises the question. If Pov will not contemplate using a GPU. How
> about using a printer to do some calculations? :-P

Using the printer as a coprocessor is a rather moot idea, unless you
also include a scanner in the system design; there's no other way to get
data from the printer back into the computer.

You /could/ of course make a PostScript printer do some raytracing
entirely on its own. But I was a bit disappointed by the computing
performance of the printer I once used for generating a printout of the
Mandelbrot set, so I'll probably not pursue this project any further...

Also, I guess we won't get real-time raytracing capabilities out of a
printer anytime soon ;)

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On 10/28/2015 1:11 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 28.10.2015 um 13:07 schrieb Stephen:
>
>>> I for one wouldn't use 7400-family chips anyway, and instead go for a
>>> CPLD (or, more likely, a collection thereof). Makes it much easier to
>>> make minor design changes even after the circuitry has been wired.
>>
>> How about a LM8560? Or if you want to push the boat out and spend USD 4
>> http://www.ecyberspaces.com/productsview.asp?id=3179
>
> Nah, I'm talking about re-inventing the computer here, not throwing
> together a device intended to be mistaken for a suitcase bomb.
>
>
That thought had crossed my mind too. When I worked on the rigs I got 
the job of replacing all the batteries in the Bed Head Units every year. 
(A bad job given to me by a small minded boss. Little did he think that 
it gave me carte blanche to order hundreds of AA batteries and the 
opportunity to skive in the accommodation module for days on end. That 
showed me who was boss. :-) )


>>
>> That raises the question. If Pov will not contemplate using a GPU. How
>> about using a printer to do some calculations? :-P
>
> Using the printer as a coprocessor is a rather moot idea, unless you
> also include a scanner in the system design; there's no other way to get
> data from the printer back into the computer.
>

No problem for me there. :-)

> You /could/ of course make a PostScript printer do some raytracing
> entirely on its own. But I was a bit disappointed by the computing
> performance of the printer I once used for generating a printout of the
> Mandelbrot set, so I'll probably not pursue this project any further...
>
> Also, I guess we won't get real-time raytracing capabilities out of a
> printer anytime soon ;)
>

I did not think that it would be a runner. ;)
It takes forever for my printer to start printing after I've sent a page 
over WiFi.

But good to know that the IoT will sometime be a rendering farm.


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 08:07:34 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 10/27/2015 11:48 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Web hosting is the most obvious example.  Music streaming, controlling
>> home automation - lots of IoT-related things, actually.
> 
> Disturbing. You are looking to the future and I looked to the past.
> I must watch out for that.

Hehehehehe.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 10/28/2015 4:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 08:07:34 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 10/27/2015 11:48 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Web hosting is the most obvious example.  Music streaming, controlling
>>> home automation - lots of IoT-related things, actually.
>>
>> Disturbing. You are looking to the future and I looked to the past.
>> I must watch out for that.
>
> Hehehehehe.
>

Just you wait. It comes to us all. :-P

Wait one.

Thinking about it. I'm glad that my time is when it is. I despair when I 
see the way the world is going.

If I am asked what I want to be on the next turn of the wheel. I will 
say. "A rock." And I don't mean St. Peter.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 16:36:08 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 10/28/2015 4:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 08:07:34 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/27/2015 11:48 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> Web hosting is the most obvious example.  Music streaming,
>>>> controlling home automation - lots of IoT-related things, actually.
>>>
>>> Disturbing. You are looking to the future and I looked to the past.
>>> I must watch out for that.
>>
>> Hehehehehe.
>>
>>
> Just you wait. It comes to us all. :-P
> 
> Wait one.

Waiting. ;)

But in technology, I see this all the time - IoT isn't a new thing, 
really - I remember seeing networked coffee makers, VCRs, and microwave 
ovens back in the 90's.  It didn't catch on then, but the demo was pretty 
cool.

The idea of on-demand programming was something I was first introduced to 
by someone who worked at NBC back in the mid 90's as well.  He described 
pretty much what we see now with Netflix and other streaming/on-demand 
video services.

> Thinking about it. I'm glad that my time is when it is. I despair when I
> see the way the world is going.

I think we all reach that point eventually.

> If I am asked what I want to be on the next turn of the wheel. I will
> say. "A rock." And I don't mean St. Peter.

I wouldn't have guessed that.  Or maybe I would have. ;)

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 28/10/2015 07:56 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 10/27/2015 8:31 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> Qui-binary...?
>>
>> My mind is blown.
>>
> I know and I thought BCD was strange.

BCD is one thing. LSD...?!

>> As an aside, Hackaday.io seems to be full of people building computers
>> "from scratch", using only individual logic gates. One guy claimed to be
>> building a computer from nothing but 7400s...
>>
>> ....until you realise that he means the members of the 7400 family that
>> implement entire counters, encoders, decoders, latches, etc.
>>
>
> I hope he has a big power supply and lots of fans.

Heh, yeah, well...

>> It's interesting to me that the IBM 1401 appears to be a *real* computer
>> made only from discrete transistors. I'd always assumed that such a
>> thing would fill an entire warehouse. But it doesn't actually look all
>> that big...
>
> That is a media exaggeration. They were forever showing images of
> computer systems in enormous clean rooms with technicians in white coats.
> One company I worked for had an old PDP 8. It fitted inside a 19 inch
> cabinet. I only once opened the door to look at the guts. I then prayed
> it would never break. ;-)

I often wonder... like, how much did [famous obsolete computer] actually 
cost? What did it physically look like? What were its technical 
capabilities? It's very hard to gather a general overview of this type 
of data.

For that matter, how many FLOPS can you get out of an Inter Core i7? I 
have absolutely no idea; it seems very hard to find data for this...

>> Only just finished reading this.
>>
>> Man, that is some special brand of craziness, right there. Mental stuff.
>
> Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write
> programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?

PostScript. And it wasn't *once*. ;-)

Actually, I did start trying to write a PostScript *interpreter*, to 
make debugging this stuff easier! It turns out the language has a lot 
more edge-cases than you'd think though...

Post a reply to this message

>> That raises the question. If Pov will not contemplate using a GPU. How
>> about using a printer to do some calculations? :-P

Oh God, think of the massacre...! O_O

> Using the printer as a coprocessor is a rather moot idea, unless you
> also include a scanner in the system design; there's no other way to get
> data from the printer back into the computer.

You know, PostScript does actually have file I/O capabilities. Sure, 
I've never seen any system that actually *implements* them... but it 
literally does have commands for reading and writing files, doing 
terminal access, etc.

> You /could/ of course make a PostScript printer do some raytracing
> entirely on its own. But I was a bit disappointed by the computing
> performance of the printer I once used for generating a printout of the
> Mandelbrot set, so I'll probably not pursue this project any further...

The last printer I looked at was powered by a 200 MHz Pentium II. This 
was in the days when the Pentium IV was considered obsolete... (We all 
know parts never stop being used, they just move down the food chain.)

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On 28/10/2015 06:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> But in technology, I see this all the time - IoT isn't a new thing,
> really - I remember seeing networked coffee makers, VCRs, and microwave
> ovens back in the 90's.  It didn't catch on then, but the demo was pretty
> cool.

HTTP 418: I'm a teapot.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324

Seriously. There is a defined HTTP status code for interacting with an 
IoT teapot.

> The idea of on-demand programming was something I was first introduced to
> by someone who worked at NBC back in the mid 90's as well.  He described
> pretty much what we see now with Netflix and other streaming/on-demand
> video services.

Some day, maybe I'll try that.

Ah, who am I kidding? I'll just sit here surfing YouTube...

(I'm still puzzled as to why YouTube can actually exist. But that's 
another story.)

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On 10/28/2015 6:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Just you wait. It comes to us all.:-P
>> >
>> >Wait one.
> Waiting.;)
>

Your custom is important to us.
Please listen to this elevator musak...

> But in technology, I see this all the time - IoT isn't a new thing,
> really - I remember seeing networked coffee makers, VCRs, and microwave
> ovens back in the 90's.  It didn't catch on then, but the demo was pretty
> cool.
>
> The idea of on-demand programming was something I was first introduced to
> by someone who worked at NBC back in the mid 90's as well.  He described
> pretty much what we see now with Netflix and other streaming/on-demand
> video services.
>

If you read any amount of SF the infinite monkeys got there first. 
Mobile (cell) phones excepted.

Strange how that got missed by everyone except Dick Tracy.

>> >Thinking about it. I'm glad that my time is when it is. I despair when I
>> >see the way the world is going.
> I think we all reach that point eventually.
>

So it seems. Just glad I'm normal in one aspect. ;-)

>> >If I am asked what I want to be on the next turn of the wheel. I will
>> >say. "A rock." And I don't mean St. Peter.
> I wouldn't have guessed that.  Or maybe I would have.;)

You have a head start. :-)

I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of 
Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 10/28/2015 6:08 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>
> I often wonder... like, how much did [famous obsolete computer] actually
> cost? What did it physically look like? What were its technical
> capabilities? It's very hard to gather a general overview of this type
> of data.
>
PDP-8	1965	$18,500	12 	~50,000	The smallest and least expensive PDP

http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/faqs/



> For that matter, how many FLOPS can you get out of an Inter Core i7? I
> have absolutely no idea; it seems very hard to find data for this...
>

So it is.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/262886-28-core-gflops-benchmark


>>
>> Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write
>> programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?
>
> PostScript. And it wasn't *once*. ;-)
>
> Actually, I did start trying to write a PostScript *interpreter*, to
> make debugging this stuff easier! It turns out the language has a lot
> more edge-cases than you'd think though...

One edge-case is more than I ken.
I would ask what an edge-case is but then you would say that I can't 
Google. :-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 10/28/2015 6:11 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> That raises the question. If Pov will not contemplate using a GPU. How
>>> about using a printer to do some calculations? :-P
>
> Oh God, think of the massacre...! O_O

Think of the Amazon Rain Forests devastated as it outputs its 
calculations to hardcopy.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:08:56 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> I often wonder... like, how much did [famous obsolete computer] actually
> cost? What did it physically look like? What were its technical
> capabilities? It's very hard to gather a general overview of this type
> of data.

Google is really useful.  I hear they have pictures and everything. ;)

> For that matter, how many FLOPS can you get out of an Inter Core i7? I
> have absolutely no idea; it seems very hard to find data for this...

Depends on the speed of the CPU and the number of cores, but a google 
search for "intel core i7 flops" turned up useful results.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:17:38 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 28/10/2015 06:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But in technology, I see this all the time - IoT isn't a new thing,
>> really - I remember seeing networked coffee makers, VCRs, and microwave
>> ovens back in the 90's.  It didn't catch on then, but the demo was
>> pretty cool.
> 
> HTTP 418: I'm a teapot.
> 
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324
> 
> Seriously. There is a defined HTTP status code for interacting with an
> IoT teapot.

It's funny, yeah - but the history of that error code isn't really IoT, 
more like RFC 1149.  418 was defined in the HTCPCP/1.0 protcool, defined 
in the referenced RFC as an April Fool's day joke in 1998.

It's a fun read.  (Did I mention that I work with a product that secures 
websites, and HTTP geek stuff is what I currently work with daily? ;) )

>> The idea of on-demand programming was something I was first introduced
>> to by someone who worked at NBC back in the mid 90's as well.  He
>> described pretty much what we see now with Netflix and other
>> streaming/on-demand video services.
> 
> Some day, maybe I'll try that.

Definitely worth it, IMHO.

> Ah, who am I kidding? I'll just sit here surfing YouTube...
> 
> (I'm still puzzled as to why YouTube can actually exist. But that's
> another story.)

People want to publish videos.  Youtube gives them a platform to do that.

And gives Google another platform to push advertising on.

It's about that simple, really. :)

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:40:04 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 10/28/2015 6:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Just you wait. It comes to us all.:-P
>>> >
>>> >Wait one.
>> Waiting.;)
>>
>>
> Your custom is important to us.
> Please listen to this elevator musak...

Only if it's good.  Then again, you said "musak", so it probably isn't. :P

>> The idea of on-demand programming was something I was first introduced
>> to by someone who worked at NBC back in the mid 90's as well.  He
>> described pretty much what we see now with Netflix and other
>> streaming/on-demand video services.
>>
> If you read any amount of SF the infinite monkeys got there first.
> Mobile (cell) phones excepted.

Star Trek communicators.  The design of the Motorola Flip phone allegedly 
was taken from Star Trek.

> Strange how that got missed by everyone except Dick Tracy.

More the Apple Watch, but yeah.

>>> >Thinking about it. I'm glad that my time is when it is. I despair
>>> >when I see the way the world is going.
>> I think we all reach that point eventually.
>>
>>
> So it seems. Just glad I'm normal in one aspect. ;-)

LOL

>>> >If I am asked what I want to be on the next turn of the wheel. I will
>>> >say. "A rock." And I don't mean St. Peter.
>> I wouldn't have guessed that.  Or maybe I would have.;)
> 
> You have a head start. :-)
> 
> I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of
> Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)

I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm talking with friends who 
live in Scotland.  Especially the ones who live in Edinburgh. ;)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 10/28/2015 7:06 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:40:04 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>

>>>
>>>
>> Your custom is important to us.
>> Please listen to this elevator musak...
>
> Only if it's good.  Then again, you said "musak", so it probably isn't. :P
>

Elevator music is another name for musak. Which is often heard when on 
hold. Or in a hotel foyer.


>> If you read any amount of SF the infinite monkeys got there first.
>> Mobile (cell) phones excepted.
>
> Star Trek communicators.  The design of the Motorola Flip phone allegedly
> was taken from Star Trek.
>

More a walkie talkie than a phone that everyone uses. I think.

>> Strange how that got missed by everyone except Dick Tracy.
>
> More the Apple Watch, but yeah.
>

Yip!


>>
>> I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of
>> Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)
>
> I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm talking with friends who
> live in Scotland.  Especially the ones who live in Edinburgh. ;)
>

It is a steal from Dr Johnson.


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 19:43:08 +0000, Stephen wrote:

>> Only if it's good.  Then again, you said "musak", so it probably isn't.
>> :P
>>
>>
> Elevator music is another name for musak. Which is often heard when on
> hold. Or in a hotel foyer.

So "elevator musak" is redundant. ;)

>>> If you read any amount of SF the infinite monkeys got there first.
>>> Mobile (cell) phones excepted.
>>
>> Star Trek communicators.  The design of the Motorola Flip phone
>> allegedly was taken from Star Trek.
>>
>>
> More a walkie talkie than a phone that everyone uses. I think.

Well, from a design standpoint, though, that's what inspired Motorola, I 
hear.

>>> I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of
>>> Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)
>>
>> I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm talking with friends
>> who live in Scotland.  Especially the ones who live in Edinburgh. ;)
>>
>>
> It is a steal from Dr Johnson.

Oh, sure, try and defer the credit. ;)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 28/10/2015 07:04 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 18:17:38 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> HTTP 418: I'm a teapot.
>> Seriously. There is a defined HTTP status code for interacting with an
>> IoT teapot.
>
> It's funny, yeah - but the history of that error code isn't really IoT,
> more like RFC 1149.  418 was defined in the HTCPCP/1.0 protcool, defined
> in the referenced RFC as an April Fool's day joke in 1998.
>
> It's a fun read.  (Did I mention that I work with a product that secures
> websites, and HTTP geek stuff is what I currently work with daily? ;) )

Wasn't the world's first "webcam" a camera in some university ward so 
they could watch the coffee pot?

>>> The idea of on-demand programming was something I was first introduced
>>> to by someone who worked at NBC back in the mid 90's as well.  He
>>> described pretty much what we see now with Netflix and other
>>> streaming/on-demand video services.
>>
>> Some day, maybe I'll try that.
>
> Definitely worth it, IMHO.

Even for somebody who doesn't watch TV?

>> (I'm still puzzled as to why YouTube can actually exist. But that's
>> another story.)
>
> People want to publish videos.  Youtube gives them a platform to do that.
>
> And gives Google another platform to push advertising on.
>
> It's about that simple, really. :)

No, I mean... why is it possible for one company to ever buy enough 
harddisks to store even 0.01% of the data that YouTube holds? It seems 
like there shouldn't be enough mass storage devices on Earth to hold 
this much data...

Post a reply to this message

On 28/10/2015 06:51 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 10/28/2015 6:08 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>>
>> I often wonder... like, how much did [famous obsolete computer] actually
>> cost? What did it physically look like? What were its technical
>> capabilities? It's very hard to gather a general overview of this type
>> of data.
>>
> PDP-8 1965 $18,500 12 ~50,000 The smallest and least expensive PDP

Interesting. Now how about the Cray 2, the VAX, UNIAC and all the other 
legendary systems?

To be clear, I'm sure all the data is out there. It's just rather a lot 
of effort to collate it all into a short summary.

>> PostScript. And it wasn't *once*. ;-)

Did I tell you about the time I wrote a text to PostScript converter as 
an MS-DOS batch script?

Actually, the script just concatenates the text file with some 
hand-written PostScript code; the text file itself becomes a giant text 
string in a PostScript program. The program itself is a semi-complete 
formatting engine, which adds a filename, page number and date of 
printing to each page, and scans the characters looking for line breaks. 
It even line-wraps the text and adds little arrows when it does so. (I 
think there *might* be a bug if it line-wraps on the last line on a page 
though...)

Damn, my talents are completely unappreciated! :-(

>> Actually, I did start trying to write a PostScript *interpreter*, to
>> make debugging this stuff easier! It turns out the language has a lot
>> more edge-cases than you'd think though...
>
> One edge-case is more than I ken.
> I would ask what an edge-case is but then you would say that I can't
> Google. :-)

It's simple. An edge-case is where a function is supposed to do XYZ, 
*except* in this one really obscure case where if A, B and C happen 
simultaneously, it does something totally different. Like when you 
configure how many pages you want to print, but if you put in -1 it 
prints *all* the pages. Not -1 pages.

PostScript does some slightly strange things with token parsing. You can 
take a text string and ask the PostScript interpreter to parse out the 
first token, giving you back the token and the remainder of the string. 
But the specification gives some really inconsistent rules for whether 
it should or shouldn't skip spaces...

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 21:27:17 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> Wasn't the world's first "webcam" a camera in some university ward so
> they could watch the coffee pot?

That sounds familiar.  Whether it's true or not, though, I've no idea 
offhand.

>> Definitely worth it, IMHO.
> 
> Even for somebody who doesn't watch TV?

Do you watch movies?  I hear they have those available as well. ;)

>>> (I'm still puzzled as to why YouTube can actually exist. But that's
>>> another story.)
>>
>> People want to publish videos.  Youtube gives them a platform to do
>> that.
>>
>> And gives Google another platform to push advertising on.
>>
>> It's about that simple, really. :)
> 
> No, I mean... why is it possible for one company to ever buy enough
> harddisks to store even 0.01% of the data that YouTube holds? It seems
> like there shouldn't be enough mass storage devices on Earth to hold
> this much data...

And yet there are, so maybe you're not aware either of the totality of 
mass storage available in the world, or the way in which the content is 
stored in order to account for the amount of data involved.

But that's just a guess. ;)

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 10/28/2015 8:13 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 19:43:08 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>>> Only if it's good.  Then again, you said "musak", so it probably isn't.
>>> :P
>>>
>>>
>> Elevator music is another name for musak. Which is often heard when on
>> hold. Or in a hotel foyer.
>
> So "elevator musak" is redundant. ;)
>
No it is an emphasiser like saying hot hot.


>> More a walkie talkie than a phone that everyone uses. I think.
>
> Well, from a design standpoint, though, that's what inspired Motorola, I
> hear.
>

Yes yes.

>>>> I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of
>>>> Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)
>>>
>>> I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm talking with friends
>>> who live in Scotland.  Especially the ones who live in Edinburgh. ;)
>>>
>>>
>> It is a steal from Dr Johnson.
>
> Oh, sure, try and defer the credit. ;)
>

Just trying to save you embarrassment. The phrase is very well known, by 
the educated. :P


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 10/28/2015 9:34 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 28/10/2015 06:51 PM, Stephen wrote:

>
> Interesting. Now how about the Cray 2, the VAX, UNIAC and all the other
> legendary systems?
>

What did your last slave die of?

> To be clear, I'm sure all the data is out there. It's just rather a lot
> of effort to collate it all into a short summary.
>

Dinkums! Too important to do a bit of work, are we? :P


>>> PostScript. And it wasn't *once*. ;-)
>
> Did I tell you about the time I wrote a text to PostScript converter as
> an MS-DOS batch script?
>

No but I am sure you will. ;)

> Actually, the script just concatenates the text file with some
> hand-written PostScript code; the text file itself becomes a giant text
> string in a PostScript program. The program itself is a semi-complete
> formatting engine, which adds a filename, page number and date of
> printing to each page, and scans the characters looking for line breaks.
> It even line-wraps the text and adds little arrows when it does so. (I
> think there *might* be a bug if it line-wraps on the last line on a page
> though...)
>
> Damn, my talents are completely unappreciated! :-(
>

Not completely, I'm sure.
Your mother loves you and your boss hasn't sacked you. :)

>>> Actually, I did start trying to write a PostScript *interpreter*, to
>>> make debugging this stuff easier! It turns out the language has a lot
>>> more edge-cases than you'd think though...
>>
>> One edge-case is more than I ken.
>> I would ask what an edge-case is but then you would say that I can't
>> Google. :-)
>
> It's simple. An edge-case is where a function is supposed to do XYZ,
> *except* in this one really obscure case where if A, B and C happen
> simultaneously, it does something totally different.


Are you sure about that?
Do all the cases (A,B & C) have to happen simultaneously?

My reading is when one of them is on the edge of the design parameters.

Like when you
> configure how many pages you want to print, but if you put in -1 it
> prints *all* the pages. Not -1 pages.
>
> PostScript does some slightly strange things with token parsing. You can
> take a text string and ask the PostScript interpreter to parse out the
> first token, giving you back the token and the remainder of the string.
> But the specification gives some really inconsistent rules for whether
> it should or shouldn't skip spaces...

Hit it with a shifting spanner then.
I can't stand uppity software. ;)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 21:52:48 +0000, Stephen wrote:

>>> Elevator music is another name for musak. Which is often heard when on
>>> hold. Or in a hotel foyer.
>>
>> So "elevator musak" is redundant. ;)
>>
> No it is an emphasiser like saying hot hot.

If you say so - it sounds more like "PIN Number" or "ATM Machine" to 
me. ;)

>>>>> I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of
>>>>> Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)
>>>>
>>>> I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm talking with friends
>>>> who live in Scotland.  Especially the ones who live in Edinburgh. ;)
>>>>
>>>>
>>> It is a steal from Dr Johnson.
>>
>> Oh, sure, try and defer the credit. ;)
>>
>>
> Just trying to save you embarrassment. The phrase is very well known, by
> the educated. :P

Oooh, them's fightin' words! ;)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 10/28/2015 10:26 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 21:52:48 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>>>> Elevator music is another name for musak. Which is often heard when on
>>>> hold. Or in a hotel foyer.
>>>
>>> So "elevator musak" is redundant. ;)
>>>
>> No it is an emphasiser like saying hot hot.
>
> If you say so - it sounds more like "PIN Number" or "ATM Machine" to
> me. ;)
>

Quite right. But the question, now is: Why did he do it?
Elevator Musak is not in common usage. I made it up especially for you.


>>>>>> I was talking about Edinburgh Rock. The best thing to come out of
>>>>>> Edinburgh, the road to Glasgow, excluded. ;-)
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll have to remember that one the next time I'm talking with friends
>>>>> who live in Scotland.  Especially the ones who live in Edinburgh. ;)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> It is a steal from Dr Johnson.
>>>
>>> Oh, sure, try and defer the credit. ;)
>>>
>>>
>> Just trying to save you embarrassment. The phrase is very well known, by
>> the educated. :P
>
> Oooh, them's fightin' words! ;)
>

Only amongst people who are not friends.


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 28 Oct 2015 22:44:47 +0000, Stephen wrote:

>>>> So "elevator musak" is redundant. ;)
>>>>
>>> No it is an emphasiser like saying hot hot.
>>
>> If you say so - it sounds more like "PIN Number" or "ATM Machine" to
>> me. ;)
>>
> Quite right. But the question, now is: Why did he do it?
> Elevator Musak is not in common usage. I made it up especially for you.

So many questions.  I think you did it for the points. ;)

>>> Just trying to save you embarrassment. The phrase is very well known,
>>> by the educated. :P
>>
>> Oooh, them's fightin' words! ;)
>>
>>
> Only amongst people who are not friends.

;)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 10/28/2015 11:25 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> So many questions.

Are we there yet?

> I think you did it for the points.;)

And points mean...?


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 26/10/2015 07:01 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Don't get me wrong, I think it's *way* easier to learn system-level
> programming on obsolete hardware. (It's how *I* did it!) But I doubt
> many kids these days would get out of bed to see some blocky 8-bit
> graphics.

https://hackaday.com/2015/10/19/diy-computer-1968-style/

"You can argue that times change and that the paperclip computer is a 
relic. Maybe. But I can’t help think if you built one of 
these–especially as a kid–you’d get a lot more insight into how a 
computer actually works than by only slinging some Javascript, or 
setting up a Web server on a Raspberry Pi."

Post a reply to this message

> On the Pi, until you poke the GPU, the CPU isn't even *turned on*...

Did you look here:

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/index.html

The benefit of the pi over IBM-compatible is that (IMHO) the assembler 
is much easier to learn and use.

I think if children could see their simple first creations running on 
their smartphone or tablet that would encourage them a lot. However you 
need a massive chunk of experience and knowledge to even *install* the 
Android SDK, let alone start writing a new app.

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 06:35:54 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 10/28/2015 11:25 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> So many questions.
> 
> Are we there yet?

On first. :)

>> I think you did it for the points.;)
> 
> And points mean...?

Junctions on railroad lines, naturally. ;)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 10/29/2015 5:15 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> And points mean...?
> Junctions on railroad lines, naturally.;)

Oh! I thought it was 1⁄72 of an inch.
Thanks for that. :-P

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 29/10/2015 11:37 AM, scott wrote:
> The benefit of the pi over IBM-compatible is that (IMHO) the assembler
> is much easier to learn and use.

Yeah, I haven't done a lot with x86 assembly, but with 40 years of 
backwards-compatibility, it's pretty complicated. And ugly to start 
with, it seems! (Well, it was originally designed for low-cost pocket 
calculators, not supercomputers!)

I often wished more stuff could be like the Motorola 68000. That seemed 
like a really nice architecture to work with.

> I think if children could see their simple first creations running on
> their smartphone or tablet that would encourage them a lot.

Agree.

> However you
> need a massive chunk of experience and knowledge to even *install* the
> Android SDK, let alone start writing a new app.

Also agree!

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 18:50:51 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 10/29/2015 5:15 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> And points mean...?
>> Junctions on railroad lines, naturally.;)
> 
> Oh! I thought it was 1⁄72 of an inch. Thanks for that. :-P

Always glad to be of service. :)

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 10/30/2015 12:05 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Always glad to be of service.:)

:-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

> Yeah, I haven't done a lot with x86 assembly, but with 40 years of
> backwards-compatibility, it's pretty complicated. And ugly to start
> with, it seems! (Well, it was originally designed for low-cost pocket
> calculators, not supercomputers!)

You could probably explain the vast majority of ARM assembler in a 
single newsgroup post. The syntax is very simple, and the mnemonics are 
mostly obvious or very easy to remember. You're free to use any register 
for source or either of the destinations, and all registers are the same 
bit-width.

>> However you
>> need a massive chunk of experience and knowledge to even *install* the
>> Android SDK, let alone start writing a new app.
>
> Also agree!

Someone needs to write a wrapper to go on top of the Android SDK that is 
a) easy to install and b) uses an easy language that allows you to just 
start writing commands to draw stuff without tons of boiler-plate code.

Post a reply to this message

On 30/10/2015 08:48 AM, scott wrote:
>> Yeah, I haven't done a lot with x86 assembly, but with 40 years of
>> backwards-compatibility, it's pretty complicated. And ugly to start
>> with, it seems! (Well, it was originally designed for low-cost pocket
>> calculators, not supercomputers!)
>
> You could probably explain the vast majority of ARM assembler in a
> single newsgroup post. The syntax is very simple, and the mnemonics are
> mostly obvious or very easy to remember. You're free to use any register
> for source or either of the destinations, and all registers are the same
> bit-width.

The M68k has 8 "data registers" and 8 "address registers", which you can 
freely use for any purpose (although the address registers are somewhat 
optimised for holding addresses).

x86 has... what... FOUR main registers? And the FPU register stack... 
which is also the MMX registers... but then a separate set of XMM 
registers added for the SSE instruction set?... but then SSE2 made them 
wider, so there's XMMX... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!

I gather ARM is quite a popular architecture. I don't know whether 
that's because there's readily available chips and IP-cores, because 
it's low-power, or because it's really easy to program...

> Someone needs to write a wrapper to go on top of the Android SDK that is
> a) easy to install and b) uses an easy language that allows you to just
> start writing commands to draw stuff without tons of boiler-plate code.

Meh. Just use Haskell. ;-)

(Seriously, people occasionally ask about cross-compiling to ARM. I 
can't think of any other reason why somebody would do that. Apparently 
it even *works*, vaguely...)

Post a reply to this message

> x86 has... what... FOUR main registers? And the FPU register stack...
> which is also the MMX registers... but then a separate set of XMM
> registers added for the SSE instruction set?... but then SSE2 made them
> wider, so there's XMMX... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!

Backwards compatibility is what's going on.

> I gather ARM is quite a popular architecture. I don't know whether
> that's because there's readily available chips and IP-cores, because
> it's low-power, or because it's really easy to program...

Low power.

Post a reply to this message

On 02/11/2015 08:25 AM, scott wrote:
>> x86 has... what... FOUR main registers? And the FPU register stack...
>> which is also the MMX registers... but then a separate set of XMM
>> registers added for the SSE instruction set?... but then SSE2 made them
>> wider, so there's XMMX... WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!
>
> Backwards compatibility is what's going on.

The root of all evil, right there.

But hey, Intel invented the Itanium to get away from all that... and 
nobody bought it.

>> I gather ARM is quite a popular architecture. I don't know whether
>> that's because there's readily available chips and IP-cores, because
>> it's low-power, or because it's really easy to program...
>
> Low power.

Why is that? It is because there's something particular about this 
instruction set which makes it especially suitable for low power? Or is 
it merely that a lot of people have spent R&D on making low-power 
implementations of it?

Post a reply to this message

>>> I gather ARM is quite a popular architecture. I don't know whether
>>> that's because there's readily available chips and IP-cores, because
>>> it's low-power, or because it's really easy to program...
>>
>> Low power.
>
> Why is that? It is because there's something particular about this
> instruction set which makes it especially suitable for low power? Or is
> it merely that a lot of people have spent R&D on making low-power
> implementations of it?

The former I would guess, as even the first versions used in the Acorn 
desktop machines were very low power when they probably didn't have any 
budget, time or real incentive to reduce it. I'm sure since then though 
there has been huge pressure and R&D expenditure to reduce it further.

This list is quite interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count

At each point in time the ARM CPU seems to have about 10x fewer 
transistors than its x86 equivalent. As a very rough I guess I'd say 
that means it used 10x less power. In thermal terms that is probably 
enough to make the difference between needing a heatsink and fan and 
working with just the bare chip.

What's also interesting is that the ARM2 had 25k transistors, yet 
further down the page it claims 21k transistors are needed for a 32-bit 
multiplier. Figure that one out. I think the answer is that on the ARM2 
the MUL instruction was the only one (apart from the load/store multiple 
register instruction) that took more than one clock cycle. As such it 
probably used a much smaller circuit to do it in chunks.

It also interesting to note that even on the earliest cores you could do 
an arbitrary bit-shift for free with every instruction on one of the 
source registers. So if you wanted to multiply by 320 (commonly needed 
in graphics algorithms of the day) you could do it with a single move 
and add instruction:

result = y << 8
result = result + y << 6

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 13:01:37 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> But hey, Intel invented the Itanium to get away from all that... and
> nobody bought it.

Heh, yeah, it turns out that people want to be able to use the software 
they've purchased.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

On 02/11/2015 05:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 13:01:37 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
>> But hey, Intel invented the Itanium to get away from all that... and
>> nobody bought it.
>
> Heh, yeah, it turns out that people want to be able to use the software
> they've purchased.

But all you need to do is run the source code through the other compiler...

...oh, wait. Somebody in marketing just realised we can charge the 
customer money to buy the software again. *sigh*

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 18:09:37 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> On 02/11/2015 05:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 02 Nov 2015 13:01:37 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>
>>> But hey, Intel invented the Itanium to get away from all that... and
>>> nobody bought it.
>>
>> Heh, yeah, it turns out that people want to be able to use the software
>> they've purchased.
> 
> But all you need to do is run the source code through the other
> compiler...
> 
> ...oh, wait. Somebody in marketing just realised we can charge the
> customer money to buy the software again. *sigh*

Like most software companies do.

And most software that people purchase doesn't come with source code.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message

•On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 00:43:59 +0200, Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnu
ll> wrote:

> On 26/10/2015 09:06 PM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
>> Only 2 colours per 8x8 pixels was the main drawback of the display.
>
> Oh yeah... I forgot about that! One time I wrote a program to draw  

> randomly positioned circles in random colours. After a few minutes of 
 

> drawing, most of the pixels were in the "on" state, but there were wei
rd  

> squares of colour that changed every time a new circle was started.
>
> I also remember saving several test patterns to tape, and eventually  

> discovering which colour provoked which tone from the speaker... Jesus
,  

> I was bored as a child!
>
> I've always wanted to know... why is the framebuffer arranged so  

> weirdly? Like, as you load a picture file, rather than filling from to
p  

> to bottom, it seems to fill every Nth line...

I remember

•Upgrading my 16K to a 48K
•Doing string-art type designs just to see the interesting desig
ns that  

aliasing resulted in.
•Designing my own fonts.
•Printing a school project on thermal paper. Bad idea.
•Making a 3d wireframe modeler that could only take 100 edges. T
he  

wireframe "render" could then further be coloured and textured with my  

custom paint program. Since I didn't have a joystick, I controlled the  

brush with 2 different systems: Angular (L & R arrows altered the angle 
of  

movement) an Normal.
•Dumping my Speccy in the bin because it died and you couldn't g
et parts  

anymore.

Now if I could just find the time to learn proper programming and contin
ue  

the 3d project on my pc.

-- 

-Nekar Xenos-

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