The IBM Systems Journal is a hard copy publication and can be purchased for $135 a year, currently. I also used to read this, and had my own subscription, back before the web really existed.
I wasn't thinking about the RIAA et al when I wrote the initial post. I was thinking along the lines of the way the DMCA is being used by business operations like some cults to harass critics by claiming they own the copyright to even words that are on a page. The law doesn't really give an ISP the chance to apply intelligent judgement, but really forces the ISP to act in a prescribed way that is not very fair. (c.f Section 512(g)(1))
Maybe, CowboyNeal (who posted the original) would be nice enough to go back and put an Update at the FRONT of the old story, as an act of good faith and fair reporting.:-)
If you look at the Business relationship you have with customers, then Open Source can be a very strong marketing tool.
Many larger contracts for systems require that either the (embeded) source either be provided or placed in escrow in case the company goes under, drops the product, etc. Such a requirement is simply being smart in a business relationship.
And, there is no assurance that just because your company is large, it is going to survive.
So, if you provide open source, your sales types can start hyping that very fact as a HUGE feature, that you want to step up to the plate and work with your business partners to protect THEIR business decisions, yada, yada, yada.
Make your money doing customization of the code. (Your customers won't want to, that's why they came to you in the first place rather than developing their own solution.)
Forget the "thousands of eyes" arguments, it means nothing to your customers from a business perspective. It may help convince a geek, but it wont fly with the guy who signs the PO.
Charter has great ads on TV saying how great their internet service is but the exact same attitude when support is talking about their services.
They tout a 2meg (down only) connection, but you are luckey to see 1/4th of that. They only provide mail service as an "extra." Forget having any sort of Perl script, PHP, etc. on your web pages.
Their attitude seems to be that you pay for the bandwidth and bow at their feet for anything else they provide. Like Usenet, Mail, IRC, Web pages, etc.
Connections drop all the time, DHCP servers get reset without causing the client address leases to expire, mail is slow most times, etc.
Forget them ever being pro-active and telling you of planned service outages.
The only difference I have seen, was that Charter screwed up their mail servers certificates and the servers couldnt exchange mail with SOME other servers for months. I had been complaining for a LONG time (as in being on a first name basis with three or folks in their top level tech support group), so they gave me three free months of access.
Charter is a Cable TV company, not an ISP, and it shows. But then again, it was started by Paul Allen, so maybe that explains a lot.
Seems like Cox is in the same boat when it comes to service.
I have worked for 6 or 7 different companies that build either comm boxes or control software, and each and every one has had built in backdoors.
It's not just Cisco, it's a common practice in the industry to give their field people a way to get into the box (or program) when the customer screws it up.
Backdoors that, often, have access to functions far beyond what the customer knows about, and in many cases, able of really messing up the device if used incorrectly by a tech who is not an expert.
On the flip side, I was working as a level 3 tech for one now out-of-business large computer company, and it was not uncommon to get a call from a customer asking if we could break into a box and reset passwords for them since they had "lost" the passwords. They need to get access without doing a full reset and losing the configuration information since the box is in a production environment.
So, they put a modem on the diagnostic port, I dial in, do the magic, and make the customer happy.
So, yes, it is a security hole, but it is also something that customers are happy about when they need it.
Having grown up in a family with a few cops, and having worked for a security company is a sure way to get off the jury. (Father, uncles, cousins, brother-in-law.)
Here in "Massachheeewwwssetts," they ask if any in your family are police, lawyers, work in the court system, etc.
Since it's true for me, I have NEVER had to sit thru a trial (in 30 years). I have been called to sit and made it to the jurors box a number of times, but I always get release. Of course, I never know if it is the prosecution or the defense that has me kicked, but I have a strong feeling it's the defense laywers doing every time.:=)
VAX/VMS (Ugh, a system I really hate, even more than Micro$oft) supported exactly the configuration you are talking about.
1 SCSI bus, and 5 devices shared between the two systems. (Tapes, disks, CDs, etc. with each systemn using a different SCSI ID.)
Of course, the systems had distributed locking (also done over the SCSI bus) allowing full access to all the devices at the (nearly) same time.
In terms of hardware, the only things you need to watch for is going over the allowed bus length and no extra terminators along the bus.
But, all of this is moot, as disk prices have fallen so fast and so far, that it doesn't make much sense to worry about all the operational problems you will have to solve. This was a reasonable solutin when a 1 gig drive was a few thousand dollars, but today a multi-gig disk can be had for pocket change.
You probably would be better off using some form of shadowing disk software between the two systems. Backup, operational simplicity and support are a lot more important today than the cost of just one extra drive.
A friend of mine wanted to do this with his car, but with three cameras. Rear view, left rear, and right rear. (The selection was controlled by the use of the directional signal.) The only problem was that drivers wanted to watch the LCD rather than driver the car.:-(
A quick search with YFSE returns places like Marshall Electronics that produce plug and play solutions. A 4" active LCD will set you back about $225, but, will draw 400mA at 12 volts.
That does not include the camera, but those will use only 100-200mA at 9V. The unfortunate part is the camera and a lens to get the ability to read the letters you want to read are going to cost about $400-500.
While Ethernet is one option, it might be a poor fit for your needs.
Some of the things you left out were the ability to survive in harsh environments, dirty power tolerance, price considerations, distance, etc.
There are a number of other bus systems that have made a few trade offs in these areas vs. total speed. Many of them are derived from work for the aerospace and automotive markets.
A few systems you might consider are:
LIN - very very low cost, but probably not fast enough for you.
CAN - up to 1 mb/Sec, lots of low cost off the shelf parts available, developed mostly by Bosch.
Flexray - faster yet, parts are more expensive, but it is faster
MOST - very fast, but targeted at moving multi-media data.
TTCAN - a modification of CAN for real time.
Most of these will support power on connects/disconnects, and are very fault tolerent.
Places to go:
www.flexray.com
www.can.bosch.com
www.ami-c.org/downloads1.htm
These are automotive focused (I'm NOT a "Car guy"), but that is because the industry is very cost aware and very big into reliability. What they tend to use is 10 year old technology that has been beat to death, has all the bugs worked out, has bunches of development tools, and all the hard parts (chips, in this case) are commodity items.
The cell management system is tightly coupled with the rest of the in-car electronics for a number of reasons. Changing the cell to a different "brand" would be far more complex that say, replacing that Jag V6 with a chevy V8. Cars, today, are so "engineered", that simply swaping engines even when staying in the same brand is often a complex task.
"George Tirebiter" is rather obvious.
Get out your Firesign Theater album and sing along....
"George-eee Tirebiter..."
What, you don't have any Firesigh Theaterver LP's?
Where were you in the drug induced cloud of the '60s?
If I had anything important to say, this.sig would say it.
Long time ago, an anonymous hacker where I worked did a fortran compiler in TECO. Someone else started to (re)write system utilities in Teco, as well (like SYSDPY on the PDP-10.)
Nice hack....
I posted this reply elsewhere, too, but it really belongs here.
One of the first MUDs was developed by (mostly) Mike Yoder at DEC. (Mike sat in an area of offices in the DEC10 group that was often refered to as "Middle Earth", btw.) It was a 36 user real time game that allowed users to interact. It was writen in about 1978 or 1979. I forget what it was called, but Mike was a big DnD fan back then. Mostly, it parsed english like statements and took actions based on what you typed. Mike worked on the parser (the harder job), while I did the multi-user communications and created much of the game space. It had a "world" kind of like Adventure. Ah, the power of Pascal.
I dont think it's the same MUD.
One of the first MUDs was developed by (mostly) Mike Yoder at DEC. It was a 36 user real time game that allowed users to interact. It was writen in about 1978 or 1979. I forget what it was called, but Mike was a big DnD fan back then.
Mostly, it parsed english like statements and took actions based on what you typed. It had a "world" kind of like Adventure. Ah, the power of Pascal.
Slashdot Mirror
The IBM Systems Journal is a hard copy publication and can be purchased for $135 a year, currently. I also used to read this, and had my own subscription, back before the web really existed.
Look here.
Also, IBM has a Journal of Research and Development which can be yours for the paultry sum of $299 a year.
Both were sometimes boring, but at other times had many really great papers in them.
Have you considered publications put out by folks like the ACM or IEEE?
When I was an active programmer, doing OS development and such, I used to read publications from both.
IEEE has many journals, conference proceedings, and standards.
ACM has just as much, but, IMHO, is somewhat more acedemic in slant. I'll leave the exploration of the ACM web site in your able hands.
I wasn't thinking about the RIAA et al when I wrote the initial post. I was thinking along the lines of the way the DMCA is being used by business operations like some cults to harass critics by claiming they own the copyright to even words that are on a page. The law doesn't really give an ISP the chance to apply intelligent judgement, but really forces the ISP to act in a prescribed way that is not very fair. (c.f Section 512(g)(1))
Well, I'm not the legal wizard, but the first thing I thought about was will these bills have unintended consequences like the DMCA?
I'm sure that Congress-critters didn't intend companies using the DMCA as an agressive legal weapon it has become.
What twists will these bill's be given to turn them into tools for the harassment of honest people?
Maybe, CowboyNeal (who posted the original) would be nice enough to go back and put an Update at the FRONT of the old story, as an act of good faith and fair reporting. :-)
If you look at the Business relationship you have with customers, then Open Source can be a very strong marketing tool.
Many larger contracts for systems require that either the (embeded) source either be provided or placed in escrow in case the company goes under, drops the product, etc. Such a requirement is simply being smart in a business relationship.
And, there is no assurance that just because your company is large, it is going to survive.
So, if you provide open source, your sales types can start hyping that very fact as a HUGE feature, that you want to step up to the plate and work with your business partners to protect THEIR business decisions, yada, yada, yada.
Make your money doing customization of the code. (Your customers won't want to, that's why they came to you in the first place rather than developing their own solution.)
Forget the "thousands of eyes" arguments, it means nothing to your customers from a business perspective. It may help convince a geek, but it wont fly with the guy who signs the PO.
Ah, if only the local CO was close enough to even get DSL....
Charter has great ads on TV saying how great their internet service is but the exact same attitude when support is talking about their services.
They tout a 2meg (down only) connection, but you are luckey to see 1/4th of that.
They only provide mail service as an "extra."
Forget having any sort of Perl script, PHP, etc. on your web pages.
Their attitude seems to be that you pay for the bandwidth and bow at their feet for anything else they provide. Like Usenet, Mail, IRC, Web pages, etc.
Connections drop all the time, DHCP servers get reset without causing the client address leases to expire, mail is slow most times, etc.
Forget them ever being pro-active and telling you of planned service outages.
The only difference I have seen, was that Charter screwed up their mail servers certificates and the servers couldnt exchange mail with SOME other servers for months. I had been complaining for a LONG time (as in being on a first name basis with three or folks in their top level tech support group), so they gave me three free months of access.
Charter is a Cable TV company, not an ISP, and it shows. But then again, it was started by Paul Allen, so maybe that explains a lot.
Seems like Cox is in the same boat when it comes to service.
I have worked for 6 or 7 different companies that build either comm boxes or control software, and each and every one has had built in backdoors.
It's not just Cisco, it's a common practice in the industry to give their field people a way to get into the box (or program) when the customer screws it up.
Backdoors that, often, have access to functions far beyond what the customer knows about, and in many cases, able of really messing up the device if used incorrectly by a tech who is not an expert.
On the flip side, I was working as a level 3 tech for one now out-of-business large computer company, and it was not uncommon to get a call from a customer asking if we could break into a box and reset passwords for them since they had "lost" the passwords. They need to get access without doing a full reset and losing the configuration information since the box is in a production environment.
So, they put a modem on the diagnostic port, I dial in, do the magic, and make the customer happy.
So, yes, it is a security hole, but it is also something that customers are happy about when they need it.
Same deal here, except for the Apple brand.
I don't play games that require killer refresh rates, so the display issue is for crispness and size.
The rest of the system is much the same. If parts need an upgrade that will actually help me, it gets done, else I'm happy with what is there.
Having grown up in a family with a few cops, and having worked for a security company is a sure way to get off the jury. (Father, uncles, cousins, brother-in-law.)
:=)
Here in "Massachheeewwwssetts," they ask if any in your family are police, lawyers, work in the court system, etc.
Since it's true for me, I have NEVER had to sit thru a trial (in 30 years). I have been called to sit and made it to the jurors box a number of times, but I always get release. Of course, I never know if it is the prosecution or the defense that has me kicked, but I have a strong feeling it's the defense laywers doing every time.
VAX/VMS (Ugh, a system I really hate, even more than Micro$oft) supported exactly the configuration you are talking about.
1 SCSI bus, and 5 devices shared between the two systems. (Tapes, disks, CDs, etc. with each systemn using a different SCSI ID.)
Of course, the systems had distributed locking (also done over the SCSI bus) allowing full access to all the devices at the (nearly) same time.
In terms of hardware, the only things you need to watch for is going over the allowed bus length and no extra terminators along the bus.
But, all of this is moot, as disk prices have fallen so fast and so far, that it doesn't make much sense to worry about all the operational problems you will have to solve. This was a reasonable solutin when a 1 gig drive was a few thousand dollars, but today a multi-gig disk can be had for pocket change.
You probably would be better off using some form of shadowing disk software between the two systems. Backup, operational simplicity and support are a lot more important today than the cost of just one extra drive.
A friend of mine wanted to do this with his car, but with three cameras. Rear view, left rear, and right rear. (The selection was controlled by the use of the directional signal.) The only problem was that drivers wanted to watch the LCD rather than driver the car. :-(
A quick search with YFSE returns places like Marshall Electronics that produce plug and play solutions. A 4" active LCD will set you back about $225, but, will draw 400mA at 12 volts.
That does not include the camera, but those will use only 100-200mA at 9V. The unfortunate part is the camera and a lens to get the ability to read the letters you want to read are going to cost about $400-500.
Try www.mars-cam.com for more info.
While Ethernet is one option, it might be a poor fit for your needs.
Some of the things you left out were the ability to survive in harsh environments, dirty power tolerance, price considerations, distance, etc.
There are a number of other bus systems that have made a few trade offs in these areas vs. total speed. Many of them are derived from work for the aerospace and automotive markets.
A few systems you might consider are:
LIN - very very low cost, but probably not fast enough for you.
CAN - up to 1 mb/Sec, lots of low cost off the shelf parts available, developed mostly by Bosch.
Flexray - faster yet, parts are more expensive, but it is faster
MOST - very fast, but targeted at moving multi-media data.
TTCAN - a modification of CAN for real time.
Most of these will support power on connects/disconnects, and are very fault tolerent.
Places to go:
www.flexray.com
www.can.bosch.com
www.ami-c.org/downloads1.htm
These are automotive focused (I'm NOT a "Car guy"), but that is because the industry is very cost aware and very big into reliability. What they tend to use is 10 year old technology that has been beat to death, has all the bugs worked out, has bunches of development tools, and all the hard parts (chips, in this case) are commodity items.
"When is the last time you spent your own money on a technical book for your own education?"
"Did you read it cover to cover?"
What was the most difficult technique to learn or lesson, for you, while you were at NECI?
Why NECI, rather than Johnson & Wales or the CIA?
The cell management system is tightly coupled with the rest of the in-car electronics for a number of reasons. Changing the cell to a different "brand" would be far more complex that say, replacing that Jag V6 with a chevy V8. Cars, today, are so "engineered", that simply swaping engines even when staying in the same brand is often a complex task.
"George Tirebiter" is rather obvious. Get out your Firesign Theater album and sing along.... "George-eee Tirebiter..." What, you don't have any Firesigh Theaterver LP's? Where were you in the drug induced cloud of the '60s? If I had anything important to say, this .sig would say it.
Long time ago, an anonymous hacker where I worked did a fortran compiler in TECO. Someone else started to (re)write system utilities in Teco, as well (like SYSDPY on the PDP-10.) Nice hack....
I posted this reply elsewhere, too, but it really belongs here. One of the first MUDs was developed by (mostly) Mike Yoder at DEC. (Mike sat in an area of offices in the DEC10 group that was often refered to as "Middle Earth", btw.) It was a 36 user real time game that allowed users to interact. It was writen in about 1978 or 1979. I forget what it was called, but Mike was a big DnD fan back then. Mostly, it parsed english like statements and took actions based on what you typed. Mike worked on the parser (the harder job), while I did the multi-user communications and created much of the game space. It had a "world" kind of like Adventure. Ah, the power of Pascal. I dont think it's the same MUD.
One of the first MUDs was developed by (mostly) Mike Yoder at DEC. It was a 36 user real time game that allowed users to interact. It was writen in about 1978 or 1979. I forget what it was called, but Mike was a big DnD fan back then. Mostly, it parsed english like statements and took actions based on what you typed. It had a "world" kind of like Adventure. Ah, the power of Pascal.