I think you're confusing 'smarter' with 'more prone to compulsive grade and approval seeking.'
It's pretty dumb to suck up with someone, merely because you've been trained to believe that their 'credentials' make them superior to you.
In case you didn't know, Universities are where wallpaper enthusiasts naturally congregate. There are a lot of slope-heads everywhere, including the halls of 'intellect.'
That's the routine for later-generation 8-bit cards. The card in the original IBM PC-XT, however, was a Xebec card. There are registers you need to poke values into, again using DEBUG. It kicks off some code in the 'ROM' but it runs completely blind to the PC, i.e. the code runs entirely in the controller on the Xebec card. You only know that it's done when the LED on the hard drive eventually goes out. You can apply a stethoscope or listen closely to hear the drive stepping, to know that it's still doing real work. After you're satisfied that it's done, you use DEBUG to read the results from registers on the card to check the completion value in them.
I used to have a list of the command sequence to ll format with a Xebec card, but don't anymore. You can 'figure it out' by reading the list of commands, which are documented in the IBM Technical Reference Manual. The docs from IBM from that era are awesome, it lists all the register-based 'command formats' and you can easily figure out what you need to issue to kick off the formatting.
I agree. I am a little weirded out that this whole topic is about doing intricate testing and formatting of what is apparently terrible cheap junk hardware. Putting time into it is like throwing good money after bad.
However, the discussion does have value as an "Ask Slashdot" people are giving tips that will come in handy in other circumstances, i.e. in the case where a Flash drive that is integrated into some form of more expensive hardware goes funky and needs to be cleared and reformatted.
I thought the 's' in SD stood for 'secured' and the generic non-secured equivalent was the 'MMC' card. As such I always figured that 'hooks' were in place on SD media and just not activated (yet). I am no expert on any of this, I'm sure someone else might correct all or part of what I'm trying to say.
Wired was always just a crassly commercial clone of Mondo 2000 even in it's heyday. M2000 went away when it's function had been fulfilled. Wired carried on in it's banality. It was never, ever cool or with-it, but a lot of people never saw M2000, so have no frame of reference.
In common usage in the electronics industry, EEPROM memory is one particular thing. Flash memory is something totally different. We might as well go all pedantic, I guess, and say that it's all RAM memory, since you can access random locations arbitrarily.
The wear leveling algorithms of 99.9% of flash devices are not public.
When you're posting a comment where all the other numbers you're using are fairly meaningful, you shouldn't drop something like this in the middle of your post. It just looks dumb. There aren't 1000 different vendors of Flash Devices, and there isn't one vendor whose algorithms are published.
They're all pretty much considered trade secrets at this point. It's an area of technology still in it's infancy. Give it another decade. (it's refreshing that at least SOME areas of electronics don't 'roll over' every six months.)
Ramtron must have changed, then. I had F-RAM samples from them in the early to mid 90's that were in a DIP package. I suspect they're still available in that package if you ask...
At the time we went with EEPROM. The FRAM stuff was too new in 1994 to get into a medical device, at least where I worked at the time.
That brings to mind an old favorite of mine: the Light Emitting EPROM. The power pins on EPROM chips are in opposite corners. Plug in the EPROM chip backwards and you've hooked the power up backwards. Result: A light emitting EPROM, though one with a very limited service life.
Re:in other news, cementing the BP CEO has started
on
Gulf Oil Leak Plugged?
·
· Score: 1, Funny
Maybe Obama can join him down there for a beer or two.
If you want to look at an interactive 3-D online game written entirely in Flash, check out Faunasphere. It's one hell of an impressive piece of work. Sign up for a free account and walk around in the game a bit.
It really takes apart the notion that Flash is a 'movie player.' Apple only wishes that their QuickTime and VRML stuff was had evolved in that direction.
Ironically, Adobe owes its existence to Apple adopting PostScript as the standard for the Apple LaserWriter printer.
In a sense you're right, but in another sense that's irrelevant. Adobe just happens to be the name that has been retained by the Octopus Conglomerate that ate up a ton of the market players from that era. They now have Framemaker, Aldus, Macromedia, etc. under their umbrella. They're a mini-Microsoft that devours the competition.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're confusing 'smarter' with 'more prone to compulsive grade and approval seeking.'
It's pretty dumb to suck up with someone, merely because you've been trained to believe that their 'credentials' make them superior to you.
In case you didn't know, Universities are where wallpaper enthusiasts naturally congregate. There are a lot of slope-heads everywhere, including the halls of 'intellect.'
Now, go conform.
Poor Larry thought that was the deal he was making.
Worse yet, it's Anthrogenic Galactic Warming. It's all the fault of Western Civilization.
*pounds on bongo drum in protest*
You can buy coprolite (fossilized dinosaur shit) at rock shops. Put it in your rock tumbler.
That's the routine for later-generation 8-bit cards. The card in the original IBM PC-XT, however, was a Xebec card. There are registers you need to poke values into, again using DEBUG. It kicks off some code in the 'ROM' but it runs completely blind to the PC, i.e. the code runs entirely in the controller on the Xebec card. You only know that it's done when the LED on the hard drive eventually goes out. You can apply a stethoscope or listen closely to hear the drive stepping, to know that it's still doing real work. After you're satisfied that it's done, you use DEBUG to read the results from registers on the card to check the completion value in them.
I used to have a list of the command sequence to ll format with a Xebec card, but don't anymore. You can 'figure it out' by reading the list of commands, which are documented in the IBM Technical Reference Manual. The docs from IBM from that era are awesome, it lists all the register-based 'command formats' and you can easily figure out what you need to issue to kick off the formatting.
I agree. I am a little weirded out that this whole topic is about doing intricate testing and formatting of what is apparently terrible cheap junk hardware. Putting time into it is like throwing good money after bad.
However, the discussion does have value as an "Ask Slashdot" people are giving tips that will come in handy in other circumstances, i.e. in the case where a Flash drive that is integrated into some form of more expensive hardware goes funky and needs to be cleared and reformatted.
That sounds like a dreadful DOS exploit. Just hit the phone ten times with random codes and it's a brick.
I thought the 's' in SD stood for 'secured' and the generic non-secured equivalent was the 'MMC' card. As such I always figured that 'hooks' were in place on SD media and just not activated (yet). I am no expert on any of this, I'm sure someone else might correct all or part of what I'm trying to say.
Can't they just ramp up the fascism another notch by invoking the DMCA?
Wired was always just a crassly commercial clone of Mondo 2000 even in it's heyday. M2000 went away when it's function had been fulfilled. Wired carried on in it's banality. It was never, ever cool or with-it, but a lot of people never saw M2000, so have no frame of reference.
In common usage in the electronics industry, EEPROM memory is one particular thing. Flash memory is something totally different. We might as well go all pedantic, I guess, and say that it's all RAM memory, since you can access random locations arbitrarily.
The wear leveling algorithms of 99.9% of flash devices are not public.
When you're posting a comment where all the other numbers you're using are fairly meaningful, you shouldn't drop something like this in the middle of your post. It just looks dumb. There aren't 1000 different vendors of Flash Devices, and there isn't one vendor whose algorithms are published.
They're all pretty much considered trade secrets at this point. It's an area of technology still in it's infancy. Give it another decade. (it's refreshing that at least SOME areas of electronics don't 'roll over' every six months.)
Ramtron must have changed, then. I had F-RAM samples from them in the early to mid 90's that were in a DIP package. I suspect they're still available in that package if you ask...
At the time we went with EEPROM. The FRAM stuff was too new in 1994 to get into a medical device, at least where I worked at the time.
That brings to mind an old favorite of mine: the Light Emitting EPROM. The power pins on EPROM chips are in opposite corners. Plug in the EPROM chip backwards and you've hooked the power up backwards. Result: A light emitting EPROM, though one with a very limited service life.
Maybe Obama can join him down there for a beer or two.
I can't run it on my Macintosh SE/30 running NetBSD/mac68k either. And that's a current, supported OS.
Don't even get me started on the absence of Flash on my MicroVAX 3100, which runs NetBSD/vax!
will run any media in a supported format
For goodness sakes! So will my 33-1/3 rpm phonograph turntable. That's kind of a tautology.
Have you ever tried to browse the web using Amaya? I dare you to exclusively use Amaya as your browser for a 24 hour period.
Every unmodified Adobe installer that I have used has essentially been invisible to the user. So where's the beef?
If you want to look at an interactive 3-D online game written entirely in Flash, check out Faunasphere. It's one hell of an impressive piece of work. Sign up for a free account and walk around in the game a bit.
It really takes apart the notion that Flash is a 'movie player.' Apple only wishes that their QuickTime and VRML stuff was had evolved in that direction.
If you want your stipend from Apple, you need to log on before posting your comments.
"Free" as in: chain your balls to AT&T for several years.
OTOH, years ago I did look at (IIRC) Autocad's DXF file format... now that was really scary.
Just about any third party vendor out there supports import/export to DXF. So you're unraveling the 'obfuscated beyond use' case there.
I would guess that the Solaris build is 64 bit as well. The Sparc one, anyway.
Ironically, Adobe owes its existence to Apple adopting PostScript as the standard for the Apple LaserWriter printer.
In a sense you're right, but in another sense that's irrelevant. Adobe just happens to be the name that has been retained by the Octopus Conglomerate that ate up a ton of the market players from that era. They now have Framemaker, Aldus, Macromedia, etc. under their umbrella. They're a mini-Microsoft that devours the competition.