This is really great, but I kinda wish it was version 5.0, and not 4.2. Since they only publish actual books corresponding with the major revisions (4.0, 5.0, etc), I'll have to wait a while longer until I see "The Jargon" on the shelves. I know I could order it, but I buy most books on impulse, it seems like...
I bought this old computer (an Intel Intelic). The Thing has an 8080 P, ?16k of main memory, dual 8" floppy drives, a hard drive that holds about 1 Meg, a 12 or 13 inch CRT (white) with keyboard, and a dual PROM burner. The thing also came with the manuals. The machine was originally bought in 1976! I originally was going to try to get the thing up and running, but I've never been able to find any 8" floppies, or the original OS (ISIS II if anyone actually has a copy).
Since I can't find the original OS, and since I can't run ELKS, I'm essentially stuck with almost a quarter ton of obselete hardware. However, the cases are in good shape, I've thought of retrofitting the beast with new hardware. I should easily be able to fit a new motherboard inside the processor housing, the dual floppy case could easily hold enough hardware to completely load a couple of SCSI boards, and the HD housing should be able to hold at least two fully assembled tower cases. With some work, I could probably build enough support to put a four-node cluster inside. As for the PROM burner, since I have the schematics, I should be able to divine enough hardware specs to allow someone to write a device driver for it.
The whole mess cost me $25US, but I think it would be awsome to make this thing into a REAL computer. Check around your local junk shops and maybe you can find some old piece of electronics just begging to become your next computer case. Maybe it might be an old shipboard radio (Oh boy... hook up all those blinkinlights!). The possibilities become much better when you stop thinking about your new cases' original use.
I think penicallian (sp?) should be on the top ten list. Sure, it's not a "gadgit"; hell, it's not even really an invention, but without this bit of bread mold, would the world population excede a billion today?
Also, I think this poor author is communication fixated. Granted, the computer is marvalous, but in it's present form, it is just the logical (20/20 hindsight) outgrowth of the transistor. Really, the quill pen (mentioned elsewhere) should replace the computer. And in all actually, phonetic writing should score higher than the pen, because without writing, the pen is not of much use (until you invent mathamatics, and I'm not sure that math could be invented without a written language).
Apparently, this movie is about as firmly rooted in reality as Hogan's Heros was.
Actually, not being able to drop the control rods wouldn't be the worst thing to happen if this occured. When a nuclear reactor is fed cold water (relative to the current water temperature), the reactor will produce more power. It has to do with the water's density, and the fact that denser water thermalizes more neutrons, causeing more energy to be released. The best thing to do would be to dump hot water on the reactor. Granted, all of my theory comes from Navel nuclear plants, but the temperature seemed to be off by an order of magnitude. Also, the reactor looked to be unpressureized. What happens to water at four thousand degrees at one atmoshere of pressure? The steam generated would probably cause a large enough explosion to level everything in the evacuated area (ten mile radius).
Oh well, I guess that it wasn't too bad of a movie-of-week. But then again, what does anyone actually expect from a movie-of-week?
I really don't see why it would be necessary to limit this thing to only six fans. If enough blades are used (per fan), they should be able to be made small enough to produce sufficient thrust. Granted, a dozen fans would tend to deplete the batteries faster than six would; but if power consumptionn is that big an issue, then why use six? Use four instead. Six fans tend to imply (at least to me) thinking in terms of up, down, forward, etc. In G, orientation as such ceases to exist as such. With four fans, the ball flys in its desired direction by first determineing it's desired direction, and then it calculates how much thrust is necessary by summing the vectors of the appropriate fans (technically, any number of fans would use the same method).
An easier method would be to use several dozen small, fixed compressed air jets. Only a few would be used at any one time, and things such as yaw, pitch, etc could be accomplished by jets set tangent to the sphere's surface.
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This is really great, but I kinda wish it was version 5.0, and not 4.2. Since they only publish actual books corresponding with the major revisions (4.0, 5.0, etc), I'll have to wait a while longer until I see "The Jargon" on the shelves. I know I could order it, but I buy most books on impulse, it seems like...
I thought we already had the stink tag.
It's "Composed by Microsoft Frontpage..."
I bought this old computer (an Intel Intelic). The Thing has an 8080 P, ?16k of main memory, dual 8" floppy drives, a hard drive that holds about 1 Meg, a 12 or 13 inch CRT (white) with keyboard, and a dual PROM burner. The thing also came with the manuals. The machine was originally bought in 1976! I originally was going to try to get the thing up and running, but I've never been able to find any 8" floppies, or the original OS (ISIS II if anyone actually has a copy).
Since I can't find the original OS, and since I can't run ELKS, I'm essentially stuck with almost a quarter ton of obselete hardware. However, the cases are in good shape, I've thought of retrofitting the beast with new hardware. I should easily be able to fit a new motherboard inside the processor housing, the dual floppy case could easily hold enough hardware to completely load a couple of SCSI boards, and the HD housing should be able to hold at least two fully assembled tower cases. With some work, I could probably build enough support to put a four-node cluster inside. As for the PROM burner, since I have the schematics, I should be able to divine enough hardware specs to allow someone to write a device driver for it.
The whole mess cost me $25US, but I think it would be awsome to make this thing into a REAL computer. Check around your local junk shops and maybe you can find some old piece of electronics just begging to become your next computer case. Maybe it might be an old shipboard radio (Oh boy... hook up all those blinkinlights!). The possibilities become much better when you stop thinking about your new cases' original use.
I think penicallian (sp?) should be on the top ten list. Sure, it's not a "gadgit"; hell, it's not even really an invention, but without this bit of bread mold, would the world population excede a billion today?
Also, I think this poor author is communication fixated. Granted, the computer is marvalous, but in it's present form, it is just the logical (20/20 hindsight) outgrowth of the transistor. Really, the quill pen (mentioned elsewhere) should replace the computer. And in all actually, phonetic writing should score higher than the pen, because without writing, the pen is not of much use (until you invent mathamatics, and I'm not sure that math could be invented without a written language).
Apparently, this movie is about as firmly rooted in reality as Hogan's Heros was.
Actually, not being able to drop the control rods wouldn't be the worst thing to happen if this occured. When a nuclear reactor is fed cold water (relative to the current water temperature), the reactor will produce more power. It has to do with the water's density, and the fact that denser water thermalizes more neutrons, causeing more energy to be released. The best thing to do would be to dump hot water on the reactor. Granted, all of my theory comes from Navel nuclear plants, but the temperature seemed to be off by an order of magnitude. Also, the reactor looked to be unpressureized. What happens to water at four thousand degrees at one atmoshere of pressure? The steam generated would probably cause a large enough explosion to level everything in the evacuated area (ten mile radius).
Oh well, I guess that it wasn't too bad of a movie-of-week. But then again, what does anyone actually expect from a movie-of-week?
I really don't see why it would be necessary to limit this thing to only six fans. If enough blades are used (per fan), they should be able to be made small enough to produce sufficient thrust. Granted, a dozen fans would tend to deplete the batteries faster than six would; but if power consumptionn is that big an issue, then why use six? Use four instead. Six fans tend to imply (at least to me) thinking in terms of up, down, forward, etc. In G, orientation as such ceases to exist as such. With four fans, the ball flys in its desired direction by first determineing it's desired direction, and then it calculates how much thrust is necessary by summing the vectors of the appropriate fans (technically, any number of fans would use the same method).
An easier method would be to use several dozen small, fixed compressed air jets. Only a few would be used at any one time, and things such as yaw, pitch, etc could be accomplished by jets set tangent to the sphere's surface.