Mr. Leadbeater's complaints about the current situation are a pretty good summary of what I find *desirable* in the Internet. The future he invokes is one that I do not want and will not pay for. There are sites approaching his specifications now, and I avoid them -- they make me ill.
I think that the market will choose not to decide, if we can keep it free enough to make that choice. People who want shiny toys will have them; people who want meat-and-potatoes information will have it. Everybody wins.
"It was also called RAD-50 ("50" being an octal or hex number -- can't remember).
Basically, squishing 3 characters into 2 (or 24 bits into 16) because the character set did not include lowercase.
It was commonly used to store passwords on RSTS/E
(boy, I remember this stuff like it was yesterday)."
Actually you don't. SIXBIT had six distinct 6-bit bytes per 36-bit word, and could be constructed using the byte operators. RADIX50 uses a 50-character charset and must be packed using arithmetic (multiply, add, multiply, add....)
SIXBIT was used by the TOPS-10 filesystem. RADIX50 was used *somewhere* in TOPS-10 but I misremember where; it was much more widely used in PDP-11 OSes (as you noted). TOPS-20 used ASCII throughout.
Try again. BBN sold an OS for the '10 called TENEX, and when TOPS-20 came out (looking quite like it in some respects) it was sometimes jocularly referred to as TWENEX.
Ewww! 6/12 Display Code! Yeah, the CDC 6000 series used 60-bit words, and normally you'd pack ten bytes/word. Several values were used to escape to a larger code set, so some characters were two bytes long (as with some Unicode packing schemes).
The Cyber 170 series were 64-bit machines, but they had a 60-bit compatibility mode. KRONOS and NOS/BE would use 6/12 code IIRC, and NOS/VE used 8-bit bytes full of ASCII on the same hardware (in native mode).
I see that the optical ROM vendors are up to their
old tricks, doling out tiny increments in speed
and capacity. 2x? 3? *yawn* wake me when they get to 10x, or 100x.
Unlike most Slashdot polls, *this* one already had a definitive list of possibilities, but some aren't listed. Where are the two Reform party candidates, for example? This is as bad as my local newspaper.:-(
"The United States looked into using nuclear devices for civil engineering in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, string a line of devices and you can make an instant shipping canal."
Gasoline has significantly more energy/cu. in. than the gaseous fuels that are best for fuel cells, and a lot of other liquid fuels as well. It's also a lot easier to handle safely with only 30 seconds' training, which is about what most people get.
Internal-combustion engines are ready to use in under 5 seconds, usually under one second if well maintained. External combustion takes longer to start up, and fuel cells take longer to shut down (and perhaps to start up -- some run at very high temperatures and have to be prewarmed).
Piston-engine mechanics are readily available everywhere.
The delivery system for gasoline is already in place. It'll cost billions to replace.
The car companies already know a *lot* about building piston engines, and the buyers trust those engines. Fear of the unknown holds back a lot of keen ideas.
1) Uneven as Unix documentation is, it's more complete and better organized than MS'. Unix folk aren't trying to hide anything. I've lost more time hunting for documentation of some obscure but necessary datum on Windows than it would have taken to research, design, code, test, debug, and package the whole app. on Unix.
2) It's not IDE vs. pile-of-tools, at least not exactly. I've also used DECset, a tightly integrated collection of editor/build manager/config. manager/test harness/static analysis tools. It accomplishes much the same things that MS' IDE does, but the interfaces between the different functions are exposed and documented. That made all the difference, for me. I could understand what the funcitional units were doing, and take command if I had to.
3) Another complaint I have about MS' tools is the one-size-fits-all fallacy. I write mostly noninteractive stuff and small tools, but the whole VC++ package assumes that you're developing an object-oriented, document-centric, OLE-ized monstrosity. (Come to think of it, much of what I write for Windows is meant to overcome the same sort of thinking embodied in the OS.)
Bottom line: to me, programming for Unix (or VMS, or even OS/360 and its descendants) is more like being part of a community, while programming for MS products is like being trapped in a Spy vs. Spy strip.
We actually turned up one of these odd little tape cartridges just a couple of years ago. It was hiding under a sheet of paper on someone's worktable. Nobody could recall what became of the drive.
As I read the article I was struck by a memory of an illustration of some result from dynamics. I'm *definitely* not an expert here, but that result said to me that there are ways that you can stir massive amounts of chaos into a system and yet the system is not destroyed, though it can be very effectively hidden in the noise. In some way, structure is very "stubborn".
It occurred to me that maybe the universe represents an ongoing tension between order and chaos. Maybe instead of New Scientist we should be reading Zelazny's _Chronicles of Amber_.:-)
"Too bad internet2 probably wont be that for home users for many years to come."
*sigh* You missed the point. If Internet2 gets clogged up with consumer junk like Internet1 did, the schools will start lobbying to build Internet3 so they can get some work done.
If you want public packet communication to be fast and efficient, tell your ISP how much you'd pay for fast and efficient. If enough people do this, they'll get it.
Sorry, but when I read "climb out of the vapor", I couldn't help but think of the legendary Mist Demons on Plateau. (Larry Niven, _A Gift from Earth_ IIRC)
Indiana's required Hoosiers to total up their out-of-state purchases and send in the appropriate sales tax since long before you *could* buy stuff online. And it's a yearly pain in the neck. (I'm one of the probably five or six citizens who actually do this.)
I'm now trying to figure out how it's burdensome to ask several thousand businesses to use the accounting systems they already have to figure state and local taxes along with all the other calculations they have to do anyway, but not to require millions of buyers to figure out which purchases are or are not taxable when they're already burnt out from hours spent decrypting income tax booklets.
We have a large roomful of boxes connected to Cybex Commander switches. They seem a bit tricky to set up (I don't do that so this is hearsay) but once set up they seem to work well. Documentation was awful last time I saw any, and there wasn't much of it, but this may have changed.
Processor magazine always has pages of ad.s for various brands of KVM switches.
"If you are gifted and on good terms with your parents, drop out."
Oh, I disagree most strenuously. Don't drop out. Milk the system for all the *real* education you can get out of it. Get the piece of paper and cash in. You can always throw out the useless conformity skills later on, and keep the useful ones to be employed as appropriate.
Slashdot Mirror
/\/\/\/\ They're older than that; many come from precomputing teleprinter usage.
Mr. Leadbeater's complaints about the current situation are a pretty good summary of what I find *desirable* in the Internet. The future he invokes is one that I do not want and will not pay for. There are sites approaching his specifications now, and I avoid them -- they make me ill.
I think that the market will choose not to decide, if we can keep it free enough to make that choice. People who want shiny toys will have them; people who want meat-and-potatoes information will have it. Everybody wins.
...is that they're being challenged with their own IP. Oracle acquired RDB/VMS from Digital, so the prior art is (nowadays) their own.
"It was also called RAD-50 ("50" being an octal or hex number -- can't remember).
Basically, squishing 3 characters into 2 (or 24 bits into 16) because the character set did not include lowercase.
It was commonly used to store passwords on RSTS/E
(boy, I remember this stuff like it was yesterday)."
Actually you don't. SIXBIT had six distinct 6-bit bytes per 36-bit word, and could be constructed using the byte operators. RADIX50 uses a 50-character charset and must be packed using arithmetic (multiply, add, multiply, add....)
SIXBIT was used by the TOPS-10 filesystem. RADIX50 was used *somewhere* in TOPS-10 but I misremember where; it was much more widely used in PDP-11 OSes (as you noted). TOPS-20 used ASCII throughout.
Try again. BBN sold an OS for the '10 called TENEX, and when TOPS-20 came out (looking quite like it in some respects) it was sometimes jocularly referred to as TWENEX.
It allowed DEC to make more use of those 18-bit PDP-1 memory planes they had lying around? :-)
Ewww! 6/12 Display Code! Yeah, the CDC 6000 series used 60-bit words, and normally you'd pack ten bytes/word. Several values were used to escape to a larger code set, so some characters were two bytes long (as with some Unicode packing schemes).
The Cyber 170 series were 64-bit machines, but they had a 60-bit compatibility mode. KRONOS and NOS/BE would use 6/12 code IIRC, and NOS/VE used 8-bit bytes full of ASCII on the same hardware (in native mode).
Correct: PDP-10 bytes may not cross word boundaries. Anything else is permitted.
I see that the optical ROM vendors are up to their
old tricks, doling out tiny increments in speed
and capacity. 2x? 3? *yawn* wake me when they get to 10x, or 100x.
Unlike most Slashdot polls, *this* one already had a definitive list of possibilities, but some aren't listed. Where are the two Reform party candidates, for example? This is as bad as my local newspaper. :-(
"The United States looked into using nuclear devices for civil engineering in the 1950s and 1960s. For example, string a line of devices and you can make an instant shipping canal."
See "Project Plowshare".
So YOU're the one!
Let's see:
Gasoline has significantly more energy/cu. in. than the gaseous fuels that are best for fuel cells, and a lot of other liquid fuels as well. It's also a lot easier to handle safely with only 30 seconds' training, which is about what most people get.
Internal-combustion engines are ready to use in under 5 seconds, usually under one second if well maintained. External combustion takes longer to start up, and fuel cells take longer to shut down (and perhaps to start up -- some run at very high temperatures and have to be prewarmed).
Piston-engine mechanics are readily available everywhere.
The delivery system for gasoline is already in place. It'll cost billions to replace.
The car companies already know a *lot* about building piston engines, and the buyers trust those engines. Fear of the unknown holds back a lot of keen ideas.
I think that this is confounding several issues.
1) Uneven as Unix documentation is, it's more
complete and better organized than MS'. Unix folk aren't trying to hide anything. I've lost more time hunting for documentation of some obscure but necessary datum on Windows than it would have taken to research, design, code, test, debug, and package the whole app. on Unix.
2) It's not IDE vs. pile-of-tools, at least not exactly. I've also used DECset, a tightly integrated collection of editor/build manager/config. manager/test harness/static analysis tools. It accomplishes much the same things that MS' IDE does, but the interfaces between the different functions are exposed and documented. That made all the difference, for me. I could understand what the funcitional units were doing, and take command if I had to.
3) Another complaint I have about MS' tools is the one-size-fits-all fallacy. I write mostly noninteractive stuff and small tools, but the whole VC++ package assumes that you're developing an object-oriented, document-centric, OLE-ized monstrosity. (Come to think of it, much of what I write for Windows is meant to overcome the same sort of thinking embodied in the OS.)
Bottom line: to me, programming for Unix (or VMS, or even OS/360 and its descendants) is more like being part of a community, while programming for MS products is like being trapped in a Spy vs. Spy strip.
We actually turned up one of these odd little tape cartridges just a couple of years ago. It was hiding under a sheet of paper on someone's worktable. Nobody could recall what became of the drive.
Indeed. Now I can stop trying to figure out how to copyright myself.
Ameritech.net
As I read the article I was struck by a memory of an illustration of some result from dynamics. I'm *definitely* not an expert here, but that result said to me that there are ways that you can stir massive amounts of chaos into a system and yet the system is not destroyed, though it can be very effectively hidden in the noise. In some way, structure is very "stubborn".
:-)
It occurred to me that maybe the universe represents an ongoing tension between order and chaos. Maybe instead of New Scientist we should be reading Zelazny's _Chronicles of Amber_.
Go ahead and show me how wrong I am.
Asimov pointed that out decades ago. Since nobody knows what it's like inside a black hole, we could be in one now.
(I think this was toward the end of _The Stars in Their Courses_ but my copy is at home now.)
"Too bad internet2 probably wont be that for home users for many years to come."
*sigh* You missed the point. If Internet2 gets clogged up with consumer junk like Internet1 did, the schools will start lobbying to build Internet3 so they can get some work done.
If you want public packet communication to be fast and efficient, tell your ISP how much you'd pay for fast and efficient. If enough people do this, they'll get it.
Sorry, but when I read "climb out of the vapor", I couldn't help but think of the legendary Mist Demons on Plateau. (Larry Niven, _A Gift from Earth_ IIRC)
Indiana's required Hoosiers to total up their out-of-state purchases and send in the appropriate sales tax since long before you *could* buy stuff online. And it's a yearly pain in the neck. (I'm one of the probably five or six citizens who actually do this.)
I'm now trying to figure out how it's burdensome to ask several thousand businesses to use the accounting systems they already have to figure state and local taxes along with all the other calculations they have to do anyway, but not to require millions of buyers to figure out which purchases are or are not taxable when they're already burnt out from hours spent decrypting income tax booklets.
I'd already given up on Amazon after they buried the books under a heap of stuff that's not books.
We have a large roomful of boxes connected to Cybex Commander switches. They seem a bit tricky to set up (I don't do that so this is hearsay) but once set up they seem to work well. Documentation was awful last time I saw any, and there wasn't much of it, but this may have changed.
Processor magazine always has pages of ad.s for various brands of KVM switches.
"If you are gifted and on good terms with your parents, drop out."
:-)
Oh, I disagree most strenuously. Don't drop out. Milk the system for all the *real* education you can get out of it. Get the piece of paper and cash in. You can always throw out the useless conformity skills later on, and keep the useful ones to be employed as appropriate.
Resistance *is* futile, but parasitism works.