I run a Win 2K Server and Professional time-shared on my laptop for myself. I only use them now for supporting some old stuff under Windows. Since these systems aren't so powerful, I would have to disable the XP eye-candy anyway - no point to upgrade, I'm happy just to keep it patched.
At work we do have XP and its ok, but really not any more stable.
A lot of corporate types got a little allergic to XP, even if the license came with the hardware and they still run 2K. Microsoft would love to get the desktops onto XP but many don't find the extra features of XP so interesting. It is always embarrassing when you have to compete against your own products.
Microsoft are sort-of obliged to keep rolling out security fixes for 2K, but is a popup blocker a fix or a feature? They surely would love to have a lever to get us all moved onto XP.
Please remember that the Japanese had WMD of their own. Look up the references to Unit 731, their 'chemical and biological research unit' of the Japanese Imperial Army. They were messing with plague amongst other things.
Although little was known about Unit 731 at the time, (even their human trials unit was the size of Auschwitz-Birkenau) - it was known that Japanese society was heavily militarised and the losses durring any invasion would have been terrible on both sides.
Nukes are bad, but so are CBWs. Experimenting on live subjects the way that was done is unforgiveable. However the US covered the whole thing in return for the 'medical research'.
were the way that people involved in the practical application of technology for hundreds of years. Not three years at school. It doesn't matter whether you were a blacksmith or a doctor, it was acknowledged that much of your learning must come from practical experience and working alongside those who already have experience.
Many professions have kept the experience element. A docyor or an architect needs formal study plus a number of years experience before they are considered fully qualified. Something similar applies for civil engineers.
You are right in that kids see that they have a degre and now say "So What?". Perhap if instead the experience and results of ongoing training could be formally recognised and that compensated.
No, I last worked at an OpenVMS site a few years ago and I started on DEC systems in the seventies. Digital engineers were always properly dressed and some could even fix things themselves rather than just swapping all the time.
Btw, that looked like a VAX 9000 that the guy was working on. A beautiful system but much slower than an Alpha.
The base time wasn't a poblem. However there were some issues with DCL and the RTL routines as well as with some firmware. This was all fixed at least a couple of years in advance. If you were running a cluster, you didn't notice reboots, even if for rolling-upgrades.
THe app that I know and have worked with over time (www.eurexchange.com) was mostly written in COBOL and C. There is even a critical file maintenance program written in FORTRAN. They got rid of the Pascal some time ago though, I didn't miss it.
The C is, of course, DEC C and it is full of stuff like descriptors, calls to SYS$QIO, SYS$ENQ (I really loved that one) and so on. Really protable, and unless you get to call the XP kernel directly, not easily to port. The fronte end is coded in Java amongst other things and runs on Suns and Win. needless to say it isn't so reliable.
I just hope that they can build the Itaniums to run VMS as well. However, the Alpha represented a peak of chip design.
Forking was a pain, but creating an independent subprocess was never so painful, even reading the output back from a mailbox wasn't too bad. One problem is that POSIX C doesn't really know about ASTs, a per process interrupt level thread. If you coded it in explicitly, then you ended up with some very responsive code.
Logicals were better than cool - they were god. CLI symbols provided the environment stuff, but logicals could span processes or even systems. I really miss them under modern systems.
Dave Cutler was a great find - but unfortunately they didn't get Andy Goldstein, Mr Files-11 who by extention was also reposnible for some very important bits of clustering and later for the security architecture.
OpenVMS on Alpha has been very successful. Unfortunatelz, HPaq, having signed their deal with the devil are committed to running it on an inferior chip, Itanium. Seriously the Digital chip architects went mostly over to AMD, but some of the patents went to Intel.
OpenVMS is still alive and well. The largest electronic financial futures and options exchange in the world still runs it, which is why generally speaking, it just works.
I am external and also work at a bank and I plugged in my PC (multi-boot but running Win2K). the first thing that happens is I get attacked by a worm in their system. Thank god that I use my own firewall (more so I could reassure the client that I couldn't infect them).
It tuens out that a manager had picked up the infection at home on his notebook and introduced it to the bank's net. Oh and no MAC checking there either.
Forget the 2w mobile phone. These are multi-kilowatt horns Even if you don't fry yourself directly, you can suffer from a lot of other problems even from an indirect blast.
It really depends on the kind of radar. The one I was thinking of was ground-control radar as it is downward looking and generally quite close. It has certainly been known to interfere with computers. Long range surface radar on ships tends to go from the top of masts and therefore doesn't affect very much that is close by unless the antenna has some serious problems with downward sidelobes. Further away the power shouldn't cause major problems.
Maybe the issue with aircraft carriers is that they have better radar coverage.
There was an incident at AT&T sometime ago involving people (riggers) working on the long distance microwave links. In those days, they weren't so careful about microwave radiation - the riggers had numerous problems ranging from eye problems through to sterility.
I am suprised at your story though. Navy procedure for radio links involved the fuses being put in control of the watch officer who ensures that they don'tr get returned until after everyone is down.
I rented a Merc over the weekend. Very nice, but there is no actual key. There is a keyhole on the door, but they didn't give me a key, just the electronic thingy. No thingy, and you can't get in the door or disarm the alarm.
Same for the ignition, but that is perhaps less vulnerable to interference as the key dongle must be placed inside a slot.
These cars do work in the vicinity of significant ground radar. Otherwise people at the airport would have problems. I really don't know how the lock receivers can be totally swamped. This would normally take a lot of power and proximity to the transmitter.
The whole bioweapon thing seems to be from a from a former Soviet weapons reseacher: Kanatjan Alibekov (Ken Alibek), who seems to have his own agenda within the bioweapon community. It is possible that the SS-18 was looked as a possible platform, but it is actually quite unlikely.
The thing is that an SS-18 launch would be looked upon by China or the West as an attempt to start a nuclear war. Whatever the missile carried, it would be looked upon as a worst-case scenario. Smallpox or Anthrax is as you point out, quite mild by comparison. The response would be nuclear according to the MAD policies.
Unless you have an irrational desire to have a lot of ground clearance that you'll probably never use.
Well,actually, many SUVs are toys and their ground clearance isn't worth a damn. I have driven in some interesting parts of the world, we had Jeeps, Toyota Land-Cruisers and occasionally Land-Rovers. The 'roads' often had serious pot holes and you really didn't want to crack your engine sump on something.
Not really. All BMW models have this and ever since electronic ignition, it is dead easy to get a consumption output from an engine management system now and many other cars have it as an option. What I liked is the range prediction (capacity*average consumption).
There are a lot of fundemental differences. However to generalise, a diesel engine is good for constant loads whereas gas is better for higher-rpm bursts. Physical differences tend to mean that a diesel will normally burn fuel more efficiently. For the engine though, this is negated by the need for a higher pressure in the cylinder head and thus heavier construction.
Engine weight is a factor with car design but less of one with trucks. However modern diesels perform reasonably well in cars although they may not accellerate as well as an equivalent gas model. They do consume less fuel though on average.
Pure diesel will thicken when you get to minus five C or so. At about minus twenty C it becomes waxy and essentially it gums up the injectors. However, wherever temeprature can drop a lot, diesel is sold with additives during winter which prevent the thickening.
I currently drive an Audi TDI so am familiar with the issues and wheer I live, the temperature can drop to minus 15C overnight during winter and we do not have a problem starting.
OTOH, if you live at Scott Base, then you probably really do want gasoline.
I used to see that a few years ago, but now, more often than not, they just disconnect the drives. Perhaps this is less of a problem than losing the keys!!! The boxes are usually unlocked, so it is quick to reconnect the drives when needed, but stops most of the atmpering.
The interesting thing is that in former times, many CD-players could still do audio when they have power but no data cable. You just hooked up headphones and the builtin volume control could be used. Regrettably, newer drives don't have this possibility.
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At work we do have XP and its ok, but really not any more stable.
Microsoft are sort-of obliged to keep rolling out security fixes for 2K, but is a popup blocker a fix or a feature? They surely would love to have a lever to get us all moved onto XP.
Although little was known about Unit 731 at the time, (even their human trials unit was the size of Auschwitz-Birkenau) - it was known that Japanese society was heavily militarised and the losses durring any invasion would have been terrible on both sides.
Nukes are bad, but so are CBWs. Experimenting on live subjects the way that was done is unforgiveable. However the US covered the whole thing in return for the 'medical research'.
Many professions have kept the experience element. A docyor or an architect needs formal study plus a number of years experience before they are considered fully qualified. Something similar applies for civil engineers.
You are right in that kids see that they have a degre and now say "So What?". Perhap if instead the experience and results of ongoing training could be formally recognised and that compensated.
Btw, that looked like a VAX 9000 that the guy was working on. A beautiful system but much slower than an Alpha.
The base time wasn't a poblem. However there were some issues with DCL and the RTL routines as well as with some firmware. This was all fixed at least a couple of years in advance. If you were running a cluster, you didn't notice reboots, even if for rolling-upgrades.
No, it is definitely 100ns ticks. The resolution for events may be less, but the timer itself is 100ns and based on the Smithsonian clanadar.
The C is, of course, DEC C and it is full of stuff like descriptors, calls to SYS$QIO, SYS$ENQ (I really loved that one) and so on. Really protable, and unless you get to call the XP kernel directly, not easily to port. The fronte end is coded in Java amongst other things and runs on Suns and Win. needless to say it isn't so reliable.
I just hope that they can build the Itaniums to run VMS as well. However, the Alpha represented a peak of chip design.
Logicals were better than cool - they were god. CLI symbols provided the environment stuff, but logicals could span processes or even systems. I really miss them under modern systems.
Dave Cutler was a great find - but unfortunately they didn't get Andy Goldstein, Mr Files-11 who by extention was also reposnible for some very important bits of clustering and later for the security architecture.
OpenVMS on Alpha has been very successful. Unfortunatelz, HPaq, having signed their deal with the devil are committed to running it on an inferior chip, Itanium. Seriously the Digital chip architects went mostly over to AMD, but some of the patents went to Intel.
OpenVMS is still alive and well. The largest electronic financial futures and options exchange in the world still runs it, which is why generally speaking, it just works.
It tuens out that a manager had picked up the infection at home on his notebook and introduced it to the bank's net. Oh and no MAC checking there either.
Forget the 2w mobile phone. These are multi-kilowatt horns Even if you don't fry yourself directly, you can suffer from a lot of other problems even from an indirect blast.
Interesting, but there is no key hole on the ignition. I don't know if they use RF or magnetics there for the plastic thingy.
Maybe the issue with aircraft carriers is that they have better radar coverage.
I am suprised at your story though. Navy procedure for radio links involved the fuses being put in control of the watch officer who ensures that they don'tr get returned until after everyone is down.
Are you working at a military airport? I can't understand anyone else using such powerful radar near the ground?
Same for the ignition, but that is perhaps less vulnerable to interference as the key dongle must be placed inside a slot.
These cars do work in the vicinity of significant ground radar. Otherwise people at the airport would have problems. I really don't know how the lock receivers can be totally swamped. This would normally take a lot of power and proximity to the transmitter.
The thing is that an SS-18 launch would be looked upon by China or the West as an attempt to start a nuclear war. Whatever the missile carried, it would be looked upon as a worst-case scenario. Smallpox or Anthrax is as you point out, quite mild by comparison. The response would be nuclear according to the MAD policies.
Not really. All BMW models have this and ever since electronic ignition, it is dead easy to get a consumption output from an engine management system now and many other cars have it as an option. What I liked is the range prediction (capacity*average consumption).
Engine weight is a factor with car design but less of one with trucks. However modern diesels perform reasonably well in cars although they may not accellerate as well as an equivalent gas model. They do consume less fuel though on average.
I currently drive an Audi TDI so am familiar with the issues and wheer I live, the temperature can drop to minus 15C overnight during winter and we do not have a problem starting.
OTOH, if you live at Scott Base, then you probably really do want gasoline.
The interesting thing is that in former times, many CD-players could still do audio when they have power but no data cable. You just hooked up headphones and the builtin volume control could be used. Regrettably, newer drives don't have this possibility.