I don't think 16KB of RAM was a possible configuration for the T/S-1000. Either you had the onboard 2KB of RAM, or the 16KB RAM expander (which would have given you 18KB total IIRC).
It's easy to remember if you had a RAM expander, the screen would flip everytime you pushed enter from the BASIC interpreter, unless you were running the machine in SLOW mode.
The PCjr was pretty cool. I liked the Charlie Champlain ads.
You forgot 5 -- move really far away immediately after selling the gold, so that when your customers realize their gold has turned back into lead, they can't find and kill you.
I've noticed that in the vast majority of instances (but not all) programmers looking for this type of solution are trying to apply a band-aid to a poor design anyhow. I try not to think too hard about poor designs.:)
That's essentially the solution I would suggest. Note, I have good sockets background, but never needed to do something like this.
- disable nagle
- set blocking mode
- set tcp buffer to 0 bytes
- write 0 bytes
- put things back the way they were...I suspect this would have the fflush()-like functionality he's looking for, not that I've ever tried it!
Recall that fflush() blocks until the data makes it to disk; I expect he'd want to block until the socket buffers were empty, too.
Note 2 - this might also be OS-dependant. Read POSIX.1 for a better clue.
> This would expose the weak students, the obvious cheats. and give a clearer > picture of what's really going on in the classroom.
The question is -- do you want to punish students like me. Those who don't cheat, get A's on programming assignments, but also don't bother to even read the assignments until the night before they're due.
My whole pattern through computer science was to go to most ofthe lectures and party every night, except the day before the assignment was due. Then read the assignment, figure out what time of day I should start, and pull an all-nighter.
It was really good practice for coding in a bubble-type startup.
Note: This pattern only worked for interesting courses. Non-interesting courses yield extremely poor academic performance.. because I would also skip the lectures.
I don't know diddly about Mac OS X, and not much more about Linux, but I was reading the NFS docs on Solaris 9 the other day. Apparently, NFSv4 supports extended file attributes.
Does Mac OS X support NFSv4? If so, does it send the extended file attributes over it in a meaningful way?
I don't know if this is your answer, but it's definately worth investigating. 'specially now as NFS v4 is at least available under Solaris 10, open-source.
..I'm getting an old Compaq rackmount server with a boatload of disk for nothing. Apparently, it's not longer useful because it isn't a multi-gigahertz platform. LOL!
My plan is to slap Solaris 10/x86 on it, fire up SVM and do a RAID 10 disk set with two hot spares. Hopefully, that will last me long enough that Sun T3s will come into affordability for homeusers.
Why SVM? Well, simple -- I use it all the time at work, and it will require minimal effort to make work. Assuming, of course, that SVM on Solaris 10 x86 is works the same as it does on Solaris 9/SPARC. Last time I ran Solaris x86 (version 7), I don't think it had the option to run DiskSuite (now called SVM).
> Anyone remember how many years it was you could gain root access in Linux ? > without a password just by passing a parameter to LILO?
This is a total red herring. Unless you a running an encrypted filesystem, you can do it easily on *any* platform.
Solaris -> Boot from CD, mount the partition care about on/a (or) "STOP-A, boot -s" for single user mode [what you're talking about] Linux -> Boot from Knoppix, mount the partition on/dev/hda
See a pattern here? I'm sure the equivalent exists on Windows, but I'm no MS Guru.
If you know your vehicle well enough (there is a lot to be said for driver-vehicle intimacy!), you can get a really good guess as to just how much throttle you need to give it to match road speed. Just listen to the engine, adjust the engine speed to where it needs to be in the next gear, and go. (This is one reason, BTW, that you should turn off the radio when driving in trying conditions).
> When the brake pedal doesn't go any further I think that's pressing hard > enough on the brake pedal.
Then there is an another issue to look at. I would start with a complete braking system visual inspection (colour of fluid, whether there is pad material left on the pads), and go from there with driving tests in a safe place. If you have rear drum brakes, these may need to be serviced to validate correct operation. Which reminds -- panic braking exercises are valuable skill-builders. You should practice at least once every six months, and every time you get a major change made to the braking system (rotors, pads, fluid, hoses, tires) [after the new parts break-in].
> It's possible that ABS feels different on a slippery surface, and I didn't > notice the "studdering" because the difference in traction
You should still be able to feel the ABS solenoid tapping through the pedal.
> But considering the message someone posted above "in a panic situation > you do what you're acustomed to, not what you've been told that you > ought do."
Which is one reason why I regularly espouse the virtues of regularly practicing vehicular control (in particular, panic breaking) in safe conditions. I'm no safety nazi, but I tend to be very critical of anyone who does not have a very firm hand on how their vehicle will behave under foreseeable conditions. And panic stops in all weather are definately forseeable.
But -- that does raise the one big blemish on the face of ABS. Going from no-ABS to ABS (and vice-versa) means that the driving interface has changed subtly. The correct behaviour in a panic situation is the exact opposite. Car makers should be doing a better job of letting the public know
a) The ABS status of the vehicle and b) What it means
Also, the "ABS has turned off now!" warning light on most dashes is woefully inadequate. It should be a bright red light on the dash set up to reflect off the windshield. Because you really DO need to know it's status all the time.
> After this thread, I'm definitely finding out if my car has ABS... > Google says it should.
Sounds like a good excuse to go play in the parking lot late tonight.:)
Do some straight-line panic stops, do some swerves, do some corner-braking, do some swerve-braking, and try some serve-panic-stops (be careful, you may spin your car).
Not only is that kind of practice boat loads of fun, but it might very well save your life one day.
Wow... not to be an ass, but you don't really know how to drive, do you?
> So icey that while shifting gears the mere act of letting out the clutch would > cause a loss of traction
You need to "blip" or "chop" the throttle in order to match wheel speed with road speed. The reason you were sliding is that when you let the clutch out, there was a signficant difference between the two. Chop on upshift, blip on downshift. Blipping being the most important of the two because it usually happens while already decelerating, and hence "using up" some of your traction.
> No ABS kicked in, and I ended up stopping barely in time by using engine > breaking to help mitigate the lack of road traction.
Okay. If the ABS did not kick in, either the ABS system was not working correctly (do you ever test it?), you do not have ABS, or you did not push the brake pedal hard enough.
The fact that you were able to use engine braking suggests that, at the very least, your driving (rear) wheels were not locked -- otherwise, the engine would have stopped. Unless your clutch is slipping. In which case you would not have been engine braking.:)
Engine braking will NEVER help mitigate the lack of road traction. The only advantage engine braking offers is that it can be controlled on a particular pair of wheels (rear, in your case) -- it's like an auxilliary brake. The handbrake will also off similar functionality on some cars. It can't help mitigate the lack of road traction, because the engine doesn't touch the road. At least it shouldn't. The road/vehicle interface is still the tires, which are controlled directly by the brakes and/or engine. If you were able to slow more because of engine braking and ABS was not engaged, one of two things is true:
- Your brakes are substandard
- You were not pressing hard enough on the brake pedal
> My car rotated slightly laterally (maybe 10~20 degrees) to the right in the process.
This usually happens when more braking force is achieved on one left/right pair of wheels than the other. Like when two wheels are on ice and two are on snow. This is one thing ABS and is supposed to prevent.
> I barely stopped in time.
Well, your wheels weren't locked, and the ABS hadn't kicked in yet. You could have done a better job braking (assuming your truck is in good working order). The fact that engine braking helped on a pick-up truck is interesting, because as you brake, much of the vehicle's weight will transfer to the forward wheels, due to the CG rotating around as the suspension compresses in the front. Even more telling, the vehicle is a truck, which already has a light back end. This means that your rear wheels contribute a LOT less to braking than your front wheels, yet you say that engine braking helped. Conclusion: You were not pressing hard enough on the brake pedal.
> I'm forced to break hard in a Honda Accord '92 model, (a quick google says > that later models of my car should have anti-lock breaks)
If that car is equipped with ABS, it will have an ABS indicator on the dash which will light for a few seconds during power-up. Did you know whether the car had ABS or not? Knowing the capabilities of whatever vehicle you're driving is extremely important!
> but while breaking, the ABS did not engage, and I slid, quite frustratingly > to a stop just before hitting the car in front of me.
If your wheels locked, then you either did not have ABS, or the ABS was not working correctly. If you had been able to modulate the brakes so that your wheels were turning at ~90% of road speed, you would have been able to stop more quickly (note that this is a difficult skill and requires intimate familiarity with the vehicle). Locking the wheels in an unfamiliar vehicle while going perfectly straight is not a bad option. Otherwise, use locking feedback during panic braking to achieve minutely-less-than-locking force.
Sequential manual is not so bad. It's the same as a motorcycle. If you want to double-downshift, just click the gear selector twice while the clutch is engaged.
Sequential transmissions are also slightly more intutive. You don't need to think about gear number at all; just up/down shifting to achieve whatever ends are appropriate. The only time this becomes an issue is if there in one gear ratio which is spaced dramatically differently than all the others (like a super-super overdrive, going from, say, 1.1 in 4th to 1.0 in 5th to 0.75 in 6th -- a double-click from 6th then yields a very different RPM change than a double-click from 5th)
> I really thought there was something wrong with me finding > bugs during the sleep
You're not the only one. I used to this as a junior programmer. The primary difference being, I found the bugs while sleeping at my desk. Really, I got away with it too, 'cause it works!
I have an alarm clock with two alarms built-in. I can set it up exactly as you describe. It's truly marvellous, but it's still lousy at waking me up to perform system maintenance at 4:30 in the morning. I have to set all my cell phones and pagers to go off, too. Then, I hide them. By the time I've found them all, I'm awake enough to perform critical system work.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Your link implies that the content discusses his suffering. It does not, it's merely a long, biographical obituary.
I was hoping for the rantings of a half-crazed man who has just figured out that he's lost his mind.
I don't think 16KB of RAM was a possible configuration for the T/S-1000. Either you had the onboard 2KB of RAM, or the 16KB RAM expander (which would have given you 18KB total IIRC).
It's easy to remember if you had a RAM expander, the screen would flip everytime you pushed enter from the BASIC interpreter, unless you were running the machine in SLOW mode.
The PCjr was pretty cool. I liked the Charlie Champlain ads.
Lemme guess, you swapped the 5150 for an MBC-555?
If it makes you feel any better, my 5150 indeed outlived the 555, which eventually became home to external 360KB floppy disks (C&D).
> This device looks like it's a little bit simpler than the Farnsworth fusor
And significantly more useful than the Smell-O-Scope!
All I remember about that movie was that the protagonist had a Nokia Communicator 9000-series phone.
It was a really cool phone in its day.
You forgot 5 -- move really far away immediately after selling the gold, so that when your customers realize their gold has turned back into lead, they can't find and kill you.
To hell with the stress of having more hazardous jobs... what about the stress of having wives??
How can you spell "Craigslist" wrong three times in an article summary...about Craigslist????
AOL being a prime example here (unless they have changed in the last few years).
Also, persons infected with certain kinds of spyware. Which suits me just fine.
I also use cookies for display preferences which might reasonable change from browser-to-browser or host-to-host for the same user.
Nothing critical, though; worst case scenario, the attacker makes the screen look a little funny. Whoopie.
Either minus 68 or plus 22.
Assuming, of course, that the question is being asked by a meterologist from Environment Canada.
> so what would be the purpose is waiting?
:)
Beats the hell out of me!
I've noticed that in the vast majority of instances (but not all) programmers looking for this type of solution are trying to apply a band-aid to a poor design anyhow. I try not to think too hard about poor designs.
That's essentially the solution I would suggest. Note, I have good sockets background, but never needed to do something like this.
...I suspect this would have the fflush()-like functionality he's looking for, not that I've ever tried it!
- disable nagle
- set blocking mode
- set tcp buffer to 0 bytes
- write 0 bytes
- put things back the way they were
Recall that fflush() blocks until the data makes it to disk; I expect he'd want to block until the socket buffers were empty, too.
Note 2 - this might also be OS-dependant. Read POSIX.1 for a better clue.
> This would expose the weak students, the obvious cheats. and give a clearer
> picture of what's really going on in the classroom.
The question is -- do you want to punish students like me. Those who don't cheat, get A's on programming assignments, but also don't bother to even read the assignments until the night before they're due.
My whole pattern through computer science was to go to most ofthe lectures and party every night, except the day before the assignment was due. Then read the assignment, figure out what time of day I should start, and pull an all-nighter.
It was really good practice for coding in a bubble-type startup.
Note: This pattern only worked for interesting courses. Non-interesting courses yield extremely poor academic performance.. because I would also skip the lectures.
I don't know diddly about Mac OS X, and not much more about Linux, but I was reading the NFS docs on Solaris 9 the other day. Apparently, NFSv4 supports extended file attributes.
Does Mac OS X support NFSv4? If so, does it send the extended file attributes over it in a meaningful way?
I don't know if this is your answer, but it's definately worth investigating. 'specially now as NFS v4 is at least available under Solaris 10, open-source.
> If the coating is non bonding to the adhesive used, you don't want that tape!
If the coating IS bonding to the adhesive... just how do you get it off the roll?
..I'm getting an old Compaq rackmount server with a boatload of disk for nothing. Apparently, it's not longer useful because it isn't a multi-gigahertz platform. LOL!
My plan is to slap Solaris 10/x86 on it, fire up SVM and do a RAID 10 disk set with two hot spares. Hopefully, that will last me long enough that Sun T3s will come into affordability for homeusers.
Why SVM? Well, simple -- I use it all the time at work, and it will require minimal effort to make work. Assuming, of course, that SVM on Solaris 10 x86 is works the same as it does on Solaris 9/SPARC. Last time I ran Solaris x86 (version 7), I don't think it had the option to run DiskSuite (now called SVM).
> Anyone remember how many years it was you could gain root access in Linux ?
/a /dev/hda
> without a password just by passing a parameter to LILO?
This is a total red herring. Unless you a running an encrypted filesystem, you can do it easily on *any* platform.
Solaris -> Boot from CD, mount the partition care about on
(or) "STOP-A, boot -s" for single user mode [what you're talking about]
Linux -> Boot from Knoppix, mount the partition on
See a pattern here? I'm sure the equivalent exists on Windows, but I'm no MS Guru.
Wes
> I wonder how much arbitrary code could have been executed by UNIX
> or even Netware in those days?
Plenty. At one point, it was possible to hack a Sun box running sendmail using nothing more than telnet.
Yeah, baby, a root shell prompt without even logging. Now THAT was scary.
If you know your vehicle well enough (there is a lot to be said for driver-vehicle intimacy!), you can get a really good guess as to just how much throttle you need to give it to match road speed. Just listen to the engine, adjust the engine speed to where it needs to be in the next gear, and go. (This is one reason, BTW, that you should turn off the radio when driving in trying conditions).
:)
> When the brake pedal doesn't go any further I think that's pressing hard
> enough on the brake pedal.
Then there is an another issue to look at. I would start with a complete braking system visual inspection (colour of fluid, whether there is pad material left on the pads), and go from there with driving tests in a safe place. If you have rear drum brakes, these may need to be serviced to validate correct operation. Which reminds -- panic braking exercises are valuable skill-builders. You should practice at least once every six months, and every time you get a major change made to the braking system (rotors, pads, fluid, hoses, tires) [after the new parts break-in].
> It's possible that ABS feels different on a slippery surface, and I didn't
> notice the "studdering" because the difference in traction
You should still be able to feel the ABS solenoid tapping through the pedal.
> But considering the message someone posted above "in a panic situation
> you do what you're acustomed to, not what you've been told that you
> ought do."
Which is one reason why I regularly espouse the virtues of regularly practicing vehicular control (in particular, panic breaking) in safe conditions. I'm no safety nazi, but I tend to be very critical of anyone who does not have a very firm hand on how their vehicle will behave under foreseeable conditions. And panic stops in all weather are definately forseeable.
But -- that does raise the one big blemish on the face of ABS. Going from no-ABS to ABS (and vice-versa) means that the driving interface has changed subtly. The correct behaviour in a panic situation is the exact opposite. Car makers should be doing a better job of letting the public know
a) The ABS status of the vehicle
and
b) What it means
Also, the "ABS has turned off now!" warning light on most dashes is woefully inadequate. It should be a bright red light on the dash set up to reflect off the windshield. Because you really DO need to know it's status all the time.
> After this thread, I'm definitely finding out if my car has ABS...
> Google says it should.
Sounds like a good excuse to go play in the parking lot late tonight.
Do some straight-line panic stops, do some swerves, do some corner-braking, do some swerve-braking, and try some serve-panic-stops (be careful, you may spin your car).
Not only is that kind of practice boat loads of fun, but it might very well save your life one day.
Wow... not to be an ass, but you don't really know how to drive, do you?
:)
> So icey that while shifting gears the mere act of letting out the clutch would
> cause a loss of traction
You need to "blip" or "chop" the throttle in order to match wheel speed with road speed. The reason you were sliding is that when you let the clutch out, there was a signficant difference between the two. Chop on upshift, blip on downshift. Blipping being the most important of the two because it usually happens while already decelerating, and hence "using up" some of your traction.
> No ABS kicked in, and I ended up stopping barely in time by using engine
> breaking to help mitigate the lack of road traction.
Okay. If the ABS did not kick in, either the ABS system was not working correctly (do you ever test it?), you do not have ABS, or you did not push the brake pedal hard enough.
The fact that you were able to use engine braking suggests that, at the very least, your driving (rear) wheels were not locked -- otherwise, the engine would have stopped. Unless your clutch is slipping. In which case you would not have been engine braking.
Engine braking will NEVER help mitigate the lack of road traction. The only advantage engine braking offers is that it can be controlled on a particular pair of wheels (rear, in your case) -- it's like an auxilliary brake. The handbrake will also off similar functionality on some cars. It can't help mitigate the lack of road traction, because the engine doesn't touch the road. At least it shouldn't. The road/vehicle interface is still the tires, which are controlled directly by the brakes and/or engine. If you were able to slow more because of engine braking and ABS was not engaged, one of two things is true:
- Your brakes are substandard
- You were not pressing hard enough on the brake pedal
> My car rotated slightly laterally (maybe 10~20 degrees) to the right in the process.
This usually happens when more braking force is achieved on one left/right pair of wheels than the other. Like when two wheels are on ice and two are on snow. This is one thing ABS and is supposed to prevent.
> I barely stopped in time.
Well, your wheels weren't locked, and the ABS hadn't kicked in yet. You could have done a better job braking (assuming your truck is in good working order). The fact that engine braking helped on a pick-up truck is interesting, because as you brake, much of the vehicle's weight will transfer to the forward wheels, due to the CG rotating around as the suspension compresses in the front. Even more telling, the vehicle is a truck, which already has a light back end. This means that your rear wheels contribute a LOT less to braking than your front wheels, yet you say that engine braking helped. Conclusion: You were not pressing hard enough on the brake pedal.
> I'm forced to break hard in a Honda Accord '92 model, (a quick google says
> that later models of my car should have anti-lock breaks)
If that car is equipped with ABS, it will have an ABS indicator on the dash which will light for a few seconds during power-up. Did you know whether the car had ABS or not? Knowing the capabilities of whatever vehicle you're driving is extremely important!
> but while breaking, the ABS did not engage, and I slid, quite frustratingly
> to a stop just before hitting the car in front of me.
If your wheels locked, then you either did not have ABS, or the ABS was not working correctly. If you had been able to modulate the brakes so that your wheels were turning at ~90% of road speed, you would have been able to stop more quickly (note that this is a difficult skill and requires intimate familiarity with the vehicle). Locking the wheels in an unfamiliar vehicle while going perfectly straight is not a bad option. Otherwise, use locking feedback during panic braking to achieve minutely-less-than-locking force.
> I once again had ABS, it
Sequential manual is not so bad. It's the same as a motorcycle. If you want to double-downshift, just click the gear selector twice while the clutch is engaged.
Sequential transmissions are also slightly more intutive. You don't need to think about gear number at all; just up/down shifting to achieve whatever ends are appropriate. The only time this becomes an issue is if there in one gear ratio which is spaced dramatically differently than all the others (like a super-super overdrive, going from, say, 1.1 in 4th to 1.0 in 5th to 0.75 in 6th -- a double-click from 6th then yields a very different RPM change than a double-click from 5th)
> I really thought there was something wrong with me finding
> bugs during the sleep
You're not the only one. I used to this as a junior programmer. The primary difference being, I found the bugs while sleeping at my desk. Really, I got away with it too, 'cause it works!
I have an alarm clock with two alarms built-in. I can set it up exactly as you describe. It's truly marvellous, but it's still lousy at waking me up to perform system maintenance at 4:30 in the morning. I have to set all my cell phones and pagers to go off, too. Then, I hide them. By the time I've found them all, I'm awake enough to perform critical system work. :)
So, why are you posting this as AC when you posted it on Dec 30 to much critical acclaim? (+5, Insightful).
Or are you an AC just stealing someone else's posts?