You know, the ones where the character (usually a young, bright geek) rips the cover off the card swipe/keypad unit, shorts a few wires, and opens the door?..bruce..
I worked for Oasis Systems/FTL Games back in the early 1980s; we had software than ran on the Osborne 1 ("The Word Plus" spelling checker; "Punctuation + Style" grammar checker). In fact, if I remember correctly, we used a utility package running on the Osborne 1 to create most of our other 5.25" CP/M disk formats; there was no standard 5.25" disk format for CP/M, and so we had to create different disks for most different computers running CP/M.
Adam Osborne was actually a columnist for InfoWorld who, after complaining about the state of the personal computing market, decided to take action and start his own computer company. The Osborne 1 was a success (within the scope of the tiny nascent PC market at the time), but he pre-announced the Osborne II too far in advance of being able to ship it, saw his Osborne 1 sales dry up, and ended up having to shut down the company due to lack of cash flow. If you've ever heard anyone refer to "the Osborne effect", that's what they're talking about.
Not much nostalgia here, though -- I'll take my modern laptops, desktops, and digital devices (iPhone 4, iPad 1) over an Osborne any day...bruce..
The Atari port happened after I left FTL - and, I'll note, it was a great improvement over the Apple version - but I did do a fair amount of 68000 programming over the next few years. A great processor, and it's a shame that the IBM PC reference architecture wasn't based on it.
I have fond memories of the 6502. I co-designed and did most of the coding for a computer game for the Apple II (Sundog) and so did a lot of 6502 assembly coding. A few years later, I taught assembly language coding to CS students at BYU, and we use 6502-based systems there as well (which was a vast improvement over the IBM 360 assembly + JCL on punch cards that I had to learn on a decade earlier as an undergrad myself).
...I have to ask: doesn't NASA have anything better to do with its time (and our money)?..bruce..
Nice to see it revived, but...
on
BYTE Is Coming Back
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I wrote for BYTE back in the mid-1980s. Nowadays, if I mention that to most people, they look at me curiously -- probably get the same reaction if I told them I had published articles in Colliers.
And, no, any current incarnation won't be the same as back then, but the personal computing industry has changed massively since then; it's been through at least two crashes (1988-90 and, of course, 2000-2004), and the technology is on a whole different level now -- both the hardware and the system software is less accessible than it was back then. The real barrier, though, is the advertisers. BYTE in the mid-80s sometimes got up to 600 pages per issue total size, because there were so many advertisers willing to chase after its readers. (Cf. the 1988-90 tech crash.) Trying to create an updated version of that BYTE might be possible, but I'm not sure who would advertise in it...bruce..
There are already plenty of alternatives to the Mac Apps Store: Amazon, Best Buy, Fry's, and anywhere else you can buy Mac software. As the person says, get a grip.
Variations of this argument date back at least 25 years, when it was it was seriously proposed that the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) interface being popularized by the Macintosh would mentally cripple us, and that we should all stick with command-line interfaces. No, seriously. I strongly suspect a similar argument was made when the automatic transmission was introduced in cars, or the Dewey Decimal system and card catalogs into libraries. ("You should just read all the books and know what's where!")
It was bollocks then, and it's bollocks now. These are enabling technologies -- people get more done. I have 3000 books in 17 bookshelves (the vast majority non-fiction) and have new books from Amazon arrive almost weekly; I read heavily, but I also use Google and other on-line tools heavily...bruce..
Technology changes. I should know; it's been 40 years since I wrote my first program (in high school) using a limited form of BASIC by filling in ovals on computer cards. But logic and reasoning change much more slowly and underlie all of information technology. If the kids don't understand logic and reasoning, if they can't analyze and construct it, the rest won't matter...bruce..
Some years ago, I acted as an expert witness in a civil case that involved forged pages inserted into the only extant signed copy of a contract. I testified on the stand at length as to all the various evidences that these specific pages had been deliberately changed and had likely been retyped and then printed: they were printed on an ink-jet printer vs. a laser printer for the original pages; there were words misspelled that had been correctly spelled in the most recent electronic version of the document; there were three lines of text completely missing on one of the altered pages, likely due to similar line endings (i.e., the typist looked at the hard copy, typed the text in, then looked back and inadvertently skipped down three lines); and so on.
After I had testified, I was excused from the courtroom along with the alleged forger so that the lawyers could argue some motions before the judge. Out in the hallway, the alleged forger turned to me and said, "Your testimony was very interesting; I learned a lot." I thought, "Oh, great. Now he'll know what to avoid in the future.":-)..bruce..
...and ask yourself if you'd be surprised by these results. Most home computers (like TVs) are entertainment devices that are occasionally educational, rather than educational devices that are occasionally entertaining.
Beyond that, fundamental education (language, math, reasoning, general and specific knowledge) is hard and involves study, memorization, drill, and test. People have been hoping for 40 years or so that computers would somehow magically make that go away. Or to paraphrase South Park:
1) Computers in classrooms and homes 2) ? 3) Smart, well-educated kids!
It's been nearly 25 years since I taught CS (BYU, 1985-87), and I taught at the peak of CS enrollment, so I had large (200+ students) "Intro to Programming" courses; also, these same classes counted as general education. I'm sure a lot of 'sharing' went on as far as the programming assignments went, but I was never concerned, because (a) that's true in real-life programming as well, and (b) it wasn't going to help them (and actually hurt them) when it came to tests. As a side note, enrollment demand was so high at that time that if you wanted to be a CS major, you had to complete this class, apply to the CS department, and be accepted as a CS major. Ah, those were the days.
The other classes I taught (assembly language, data structures, computer and society) were for CS majors only. The first two required programming, and again I wasn't concerned due to the same programming vs. test performance check. I also wasn't concerned because I knew (from personal experience) how tough the upper-division classes were (compiler design, OS implementation, comparative languages, not to mention the lower-division 'algorithms' class taught using Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming: Fundamental Algorithms"), and I knew that if someone cheated their way through the earlier classes, they would crash and burn eventually...bruce..
The "spaghetti" coding I'm talking about is very specifically sections within the bill that refer to other sections within the bill, both ahead and behind. So, for example, Section 223 ("Payment Rates for Items and Services") makes three references to Section 224. Section 225 ("Provider Participation") makes two references back to Section 223. And so on. Spend more than a few minutes with the bill, and you'll see what I mean.
That's quite different from the modifications to various existing laws and regulations, which I largely address in a different paragraph.
I do touch upon references to existing legislation in the 'spaghetti coding' paragraph, but that's because of potential namespace issues: while HR 3200 generally tries to fully qualify section numbers belonging to pre-existing laws and regulations, in some places it relies upon context instead, and you have to scroll back up to figure out if the section reference is internal or external.
One thing I didn't touch is that many of the definitions of key words are pulled in from existing laws/regulations as well -- in effect, qualified import statements (a la Python)...bruce..
I've testified before Congress three times and have provided private technology briefings to US House and Senate staff members working on legislation, so I do have some experience with how legislation works. I've also worked with state legislators on technology-related legislation.
Not all legislation is like HR 3200, but that doesn't obviate my arguments one way or the other. I fully agree that a lot of legislation is like HR 3200, which is why we have a lot of the mess we do. Had I written this post several years ago, I could have (and probably would have) applied the same analysis to the Patriot Act or the effort to create the Department of Homeland Security (both of which I had and have serious qualms about).
Having done large scale systems evaluation and design for many years, I am a firm believer in Gall's Law: the only way to create a large, complex system that works is to evolve it from a small, simple system that works. The majority of large-scale system re-engineering efforts fail, are crippled, or underperform because they try to skip that step. In my observation, much the same happens with large-scale legislation.
Finally, I don'twant an argument on health care reform or HR 3200 at my website. What I'd like is thoughtful feedback on the general concept (legislation as systems architecture) from people who actually know what they're talking about...bruce..
P.S. A good book to read would be The Art of Systems Architecting (2nd ed) by Maier and Rechtin. They treat systems architecting as spanning many disciplines, including social systems (Chapter 5).
While I was living in DC (in the District itself, mind you) and working for PricewaterhouseCoopers, I met with the CIO of the DC Public Schools to see about doing some pro bono work to help with their information technology problems. She spent an hour describing just how wretched, disjoint, and underutilized their IT infrastructure was, and we came to the joint conclusion that there wasn't a lot that I could do to help.
This was about 10 years ago, and I was looking just as the DC Public Schools system, not the District as a whole. But as anyone (else) who has lived in the District for an extended period, particularly as a private citizen, can tell you, the District of Columbia is a profoundly dysfunctional government.
That said, I'm not sure Google should be going around touting their adoption in the District as a success story, since -- as per the original post above -- any effort to check out what's actually going on is likely to be quite disappointing...bruce..
Most software licensing agreements contain limitations of liability and monetary damages, usually limited to the amount paid by the customer. However, if the customer can demonstrate fraud, the customer has a chance to 'break' those limitation and go after additional damages (lost profits, cost of replacement, etc.). So if the demo exists and if it shows capabilities not found in the actual SAP implementation, WM might be able to use it to prove fraud -- assuming that the judge doesn't simply rule the demo as being "sales puffery" (i.e., salespersons are allowed a certain legal leeway in extolling the virtues of the product they're trying to sell).
Heh. That's almost too easy a slow pitch; I couldn't have phrased it better myself. And I'm not even Canadian (though I have tons of Canadian relatives -- pretty much everyone on my mother's side of the family.)..bruce..
Sounds like a waste of money. You should cancel the satellite and just rent from Amazon.
Well, my 'net connection is wide-area wireless, which gives me DSL speeds but less-than-DSL QOS. (We live in a semi-rural area about 25 miles from downtown Denver, and neither DSL nor cable are available at the house we rent). So streaming/downloading video isn't all that great.
That said, I really am moving towards your suggestion. I reeeally like watching football in HD, but I could live without it. And I suspect I'd get more work done...bruce..
If you've never read it, go read "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster. It was published 100 years ago and still remains remarkably relevant and prescient...bruce..
...somehow I think our society will survive the demise of analog TV broadcasting. In fact, it might actually be improved thereby.
ObDisc: I currently have satellite TV and a large-screen HD TV. On the other hand, I watch very little TV -- maybe 2-3 shows/week, if that much. Most of the rest of the time, I have one of the 24-hour cable news channels on and the sound off -- sort of a big-screen RSS feed in my living room...bruce..
Heh. I've only lived here in Denver (down in Parker, actually) for about 3 1/2 years, and I've always wondered why 470 isn't a closed loop like most beltways. Thanks for the information...bruce..
It's been done in the states for at least a decade. Toll tags and such are commonplace in the metro areas, and now there's even talk of turning some of our interstates into toll roads.
You're misreading the story. Toll roads -- with human collectors and/or electronic tags -- have been around for a very long time. This provides for fully automated toll roads without requiring either human collectors or electronic tags. Much as with red light cameras, they just take a photo of your car and then send you a bill...bruce..
While I think there were some plot holes and flaws in Spielberg's adaptation of "Minority Report", and I firmly believe he wussed out on the ending, the film has had a remarkable knack of pointing out realistic future technologies (witness how the midair-gesture-oriented UIs keep popping up). Of course, "Minority Report" had the public ads that not only recognized your gender, etc., but actually recognized you. Given advances in face and other biometric recognition systems, this part of "Minority Report" may be coming true sooner than we all think (and hope)...bruce..
Slashdot Mirror
You know, the ones where the character (usually a young, bright geek) rips the cover off the card swipe/keypad unit, shorts a few wires, and opens the door? ..bruce..
"...pick two."
If you're lucky or very good. In lots of projects, you get to pick just one. ..bruce..
I worked for Oasis Systems/FTL Games back in the early 1980s; we had software than ran on the Osborne 1 ("The Word Plus" spelling checker; "Punctuation + Style" grammar checker). In fact, if I remember correctly, we used a utility package running on the Osborne 1 to create most of our other 5.25" CP/M disk formats; there was no standard 5.25" disk format for CP/M, and so we had to create different disks for most different computers running CP/M.
Adam Osborne was actually a columnist for InfoWorld who, after complaining about the state of the personal computing market, decided to take action and start his own computer company. The Osborne 1 was a success (within the scope of the tiny nascent PC market at the time), but he pre-announced the Osborne II too far in advance of being able to ship it, saw his Osborne 1 sales dry up, and ended up having to shut down the company due to lack of cash flow. If you've ever heard anyone refer to "the Osborne effect", that's what they're talking about.
Not much nostalgia here, though -- I'll take my modern laptops, desktops, and digital devices (iPhone 4, iPad 1) over an Osborne any day. ..bruce..
The Atari port happened after I left FTL - and, I'll note, it was a great improvement over the Apple version - but I did do a fair amount of 68000 programming over the next few years. A great processor, and it's a shame that the IBM PC reference architecture wasn't based on it.
I have fond memories of the 6502. I co-designed and did most of the coding for a computer game for the Apple II (Sundog) and so did a lot of 6502 assembly coding. A few years later, I taught assembly language coding to CS students at BYU, and we use 6502-based systems there as well (which was a vast improvement over the IBM 360 assembly + JCL on punch cards that I had to learn on a decade earlier as an undergrad myself).
...I have to ask: doesn't NASA have anything better to do with its time (and our money)? ..bruce..
I wrote for BYTE back in the mid-1980s. Nowadays, if I mention that to most people, they look at me curiously -- probably get the same reaction if I told them I had published articles in Colliers.
And, no, any current incarnation won't be the same as back then, but the personal computing industry has changed massively since then; it's been through at least two crashes (1988-90 and, of course, 2000-2004), and the technology is on a whole different level now -- both the hardware and the system software is less accessible than it was back then. The real barrier, though, is the advertisers. BYTE in the mid-80s sometimes got up to 600 pages per issue total size, because there were so many advertisers willing to chase after its readers. (Cf. the 1988-90 tech crash.) Trying to create an updated version of that BYTE might be possible, but I'm not sure who would advertise in it. ..bruce..
There are already plenty of alternatives to the Mac Apps Store: Amazon, Best Buy, Fry's, and anywhere else you can buy Mac software. As the person says, get a grip.
Variations of this argument date back at least 25 years, when it was it was seriously proposed that the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) interface being popularized by the Macintosh would mentally cripple us, and that we should all stick with command-line interfaces. No, seriously. I strongly suspect a similar argument was made when the automatic transmission was introduced in cars, or the Dewey Decimal system and card catalogs into libraries. ("You should just read all the books and know what's where!")
It was bollocks then, and it's bollocks now. These are enabling technologies -- people get more done. I have 3000 books in 17 bookshelves (the vast majority non-fiction) and have new books from Amazon arrive almost weekly; I read heavily, but I also use Google and other on-line tools heavily. ..bruce..
Technology changes. I should know; it's been 40 years since I wrote my first program (in high school) using a limited form of BASIC by filling in ovals on computer cards. But logic and reasoning change much more slowly and underlie all of information technology. If the kids don't understand logic and reasoning, if they can't analyze and construct it, the rest won't matter. ..bruce..
Some years ago, I acted as an expert witness in a civil case that involved forged pages inserted into the only extant signed copy of a contract. I testified on the stand at length as to all the various evidences that these specific pages had been deliberately changed and had likely been retyped and then printed: they were printed on an ink-jet printer vs. a laser printer for the original pages; there were words misspelled that had been correctly spelled in the most recent electronic version of the document; there were three lines of text completely missing on one of the altered pages, likely due to similar line endings (i.e., the typist looked at the hard copy, typed the text in, then looked back and inadvertently skipped down three lines); and so on.
After I had testified, I was excused from the courtroom along with the alleged forger so that the lawyers could argue some motions before the judge. Out in the hallway, the alleged forger turned to me and said, "Your testimony was very interesting; I learned a lot." I thought, "Oh, great. Now he'll know what to avoid in the future." :-) ..bruce..
...and ask yourself if you'd be surprised by these results. Most home computers (like TVs) are entertainment devices that are occasionally educational, rather than educational devices that are occasionally entertaining.
Beyond that, fundamental education (language, math, reasoning, general and specific knowledge) is hard and involves study, memorization, drill, and test. People have been hoping for 40 years or so that computers would somehow magically make that go away. Or to paraphrase South Park:
1) Computers in classrooms and homes
2) ?
3) Smart, well-educated kids!
Sorry, doesn't work that way. ..bruce..
It's been nearly 25 years since I taught CS (BYU, 1985-87), and I taught at the peak of CS enrollment, so I had large (200+ students) "Intro to Programming" courses; also, these same classes counted as general education. I'm sure a lot of 'sharing' went on as far as the programming assignments went, but I was never concerned, because (a) that's true in real-life programming as well, and (b) it wasn't going to help them (and actually hurt them) when it came to tests. As a side note, enrollment demand was so high at that time that if you wanted to be a CS major, you had to complete this class, apply to the CS department, and be accepted as a CS major. Ah, those were the days.
The other classes I taught (assembly language, data structures, computer and society) were for CS majors only. The first two required programming, and again I wasn't concerned due to the same programming vs. test performance check. I also wasn't concerned because I knew (from personal experience) how tough the upper-division classes were (compiler design, OS implementation, comparative languages, not to mention the lower-division 'algorithms' class taught using Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming: Fundamental Algorithms"), and I knew that if someone cheated their way through the earlier classes, they would crash and burn eventually. ..bruce..
Kicked New England's butt, they did. ..bruce..
The "spaghetti" coding I'm talking about is very specifically sections within the bill that refer to other sections within the bill, both ahead and behind. So, for example, Section 223 ("Payment Rates for Items and Services") makes three references to Section 224. Section 225 ("Provider Participation") makes two references back to Section 223. And so on. Spend more than a few minutes with the bill, and you'll see what I mean.
That's quite different from the modifications to various existing laws and regulations, which I largely address in a different paragraph.
I do touch upon references to existing legislation in the 'spaghetti coding' paragraph, but that's because of potential namespace issues: while HR 3200 generally tries to fully qualify section numbers belonging to pre-existing laws and regulations, in some places it relies upon context instead, and you have to scroll back up to figure out if the section reference is internal or external.
One thing I didn't touch is that many of the definitions of key words are pulled in from existing laws/regulations as well -- in effect, qualified import statements (a la Python). ..bruce..
I've testified before Congress three times and have provided private technology briefings to US House and Senate staff members working on legislation, so I do have some experience with how legislation works. I've also worked with state legislators on technology-related legislation.
Not all legislation is like HR 3200, but that doesn't obviate my arguments one way or the other. I fully agree that a lot of legislation is like HR 3200, which is why we have a lot of the mess we do. Had I written this post several years ago, I could have (and probably would have) applied the same analysis to the Patriot Act or the effort to create the Department of Homeland Security (both of which I had and have serious qualms about).
Having done large scale systems evaluation and design for many years, I am a firm believer in Gall's Law: the only way to create a large, complex system that works is to evolve it from a small, simple system that works. The majority of large-scale system re-engineering efforts fail, are crippled, or underperform because they try to skip that step. In my observation, much the same happens with large-scale legislation.
Finally, I don'twant an argument on health care reform or HR 3200 at my website. What I'd like is thoughtful feedback on the general concept (legislation as systems architecture) from people who actually know what they're talking about. ..bruce..
P.S. A good book to read would be The Art of Systems Architecting (2nd ed) by Maier and Rechtin. They treat systems architecting as spanning many disciplines, including social systems (Chapter 5).
While I was living in DC (in the District itself, mind you) and working for PricewaterhouseCoopers, I met with the CIO of the DC Public Schools to see about doing some pro bono work to help with their information technology problems. She spent an hour describing just how wretched, disjoint, and underutilized their IT infrastructure was, and we came to the joint conclusion that there wasn't a lot that I could do to help.
This was about 10 years ago, and I was looking just as the DC Public Schools system, not the District as a whole. But as anyone (else) who has lived in the District for an extended period, particularly as a private citizen, can tell you, the District of Columbia is a profoundly dysfunctional government.
That said, I'm not sure Google should be going around touting their adoption in the District as a success story, since -- as per the original post above -- any effort to check out what's actually going on is likely to be quite disappointing. ..bruce..
I'm not a lawyer, but..
Most software licensing agreements contain limitations of liability and monetary damages, usually limited to the amount paid by the customer. However, if the customer can demonstrate fraud, the customer has a chance to 'break' those limitation and go after additional damages (lost profits, cost of replacement, etc.). So if the demo exists and if it shows capabilities not found in the actual SAP implementation, WM might be able to use it to prove fraud -- assuming that the judge doesn't simply rule the demo as being "sales puffery" (i.e., salespersons are allowed a certain legal leeway in extolling the virtues of the product they're trying to sell).
Should be interesting. ..bruce..
Heh. That's almost too easy a slow pitch; I couldn't have phrased it better myself. And I'm not even Canadian (though I have tons of Canadian relatives -- pretty much everyone on my mother's side of the family.) ..bruce..
Well, my 'net connection is wide-area wireless, which gives me DSL speeds but less-than-DSL QOS. (We live in a semi-rural area about 25 miles from downtown Denver, and neither DSL nor cable are available at the house we rent). So streaming/downloading video isn't all that great.
That said, I really am moving towards your suggestion. I reeeally like watching football in HD, but I could live without it. And I suspect I'd get more work done. ..bruce..
If you've never read it, go read "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster. It was published 100 years ago and still remains remarkably relevant and prescient. ..bruce..
...somehow I think our society will survive the demise of analog TV broadcasting. In fact, it might actually be improved thereby.
ObDisc: I currently have satellite TV and a large-screen HD TV. On the other hand, I watch very little TV -- maybe 2-3 shows/week, if that much. Most of the rest of the time, I have one of the 24-hour cable news channels on and the sound off -- sort of a big-screen RSS feed in my living room. ..bruce..
Heh. I've only lived here in Denver (down in Parker, actually) for about 3 1/2 years, and I've always wondered why 470 isn't a closed loop like most beltways. Thanks for the information. ..bruce..
You're misreading the story. Toll roads -- with human collectors and/or electronic tags -- have been around for a very long time. This provides for fully automated toll roads without requiring either human collectors or electronic tags. Much as with red light cameras, they just take a photo of your car and then send you a bill. ..bruce..
While I think there were some plot holes and flaws in Spielberg's adaptation of "Minority Report", and I firmly believe he wussed out on the ending, the film has had a remarkable knack of pointing out realistic future technologies (witness how the midair-gesture-oriented UIs keep popping up). Of course, "Minority Report" had the public ads that not only recognized your gender, etc., but actually recognized you. Given advances in face and other biometric recognition systems, this part of "Minority Report" may be coming true sooner than we all think (and hope). ..bruce..