Favourite computer history books?
in [Mac Systems]
|
Prev: Scanning to a multipage pdf?
Next: Apple co-branding
From: Peter Flass on 5 May 2010 17:58 jmfbahciv wrote: > Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote: >> jmfbahciv wrote: >> >>> Nope. What remains of the work produced by DEC is all over the place; >>> it's simply not recognized. >> And their misdeeds too, for example, that stupid backwards memory model for >> storing data that was the exact opposite of everyone else's. > > I don't understand what you're talking about. You can store data any which > way you wanted to. If it's that stupid dump format, I understand. I don't particularly like little-endian in any of the various formats, but if the data is stored that way, then by gosh, print it that way too. I ran into a quirk of some x86 assemblers that print immediate operands in B-E format on the listing when they're actually stored L-E. Drove me crazy.
From: Peter Flass on 5 May 2010 18:01 jmfbahciv wrote: > Michelle Steiner wrote: >> In article <1b39y7n47b.fsf(a)snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net>, >> Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer(a)cs.nmsu.edu> wrote: >> >>> None of the three is remotely plausible. >> That's what "they" said about almost every innovation. >> > > You cannot innovate physical laws of nature. Human innovation > is merely taking advantage of those laws. > But there are always cases current knowledge doesn't cover. Newton's laws described the universe quite well until science began to accumulate a number of cases they didn't cover, then Einstein came along. I think we're beginning to hit situations that relativity and/or quantum physics dont't cover, and, by the way, how do you mesh those two anyway?
From: Warren Oates on 5 May 2010 18:19 In article <hrsp9s$fqh$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Peter Flass <Peter_Flass(a)Yahoo.com> wrote: > I had a summer job in a factory like that for a couple of years. I > believe it was electric and not steam, though I wouldn't swear to it, > but all the machinery was driven by a series of belts. And did you sing "Tail Toddle"? -- Very old woody beets will never cook tender. -- Fannie Farmer
From: Charlie Gibbs on 5 May 2010 18:52 In article <qNSdnVP8Qo-IAnzWnZ2dnUVZ_uydnZ2d(a)earthlink.com>, magiconinc(a)earthlink.net (Paul Magnussen) writes: > Michelle Steiner wrote: > >> In the Lensmen (or maybe the Skylark) series, FTL was >> accomplished by negating inertia, resulting in an inertialess drive. >> However, when regaining inertia, the ship (or other object) had its >> intrinsic velocity that it had at the moment it went inertialess. > > It was the Lensman series, but the trick was to neutralize inertia, > not negate it. The Boskonians apparently once attempted to negate > inertia by overdriving a Bergenholm, but even Kinnison couldn't > understand why :-) I just finished reading a story in the latest Analog where the protagonist is driving a car being chased by a flying saucer. As the saucer got close enough, its inertia-neutralizing field enveloped the car, so our hero hit the brakes and came to an instantaneous stop, causing the saucer to fly right past. What was even more fun was that he then fired at the saucer with a handgun; the bullet hit the saucer, which being inertialess was flicked off into the distance. -- /~\ cgibbs(a)kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs) \ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way. X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855. / \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
From: DRAMA QUEEN on 5 May 2010 18:23
On 05-05-2010 13:17, Charlie Gibbs wrote: > Every time I try to eat one of those long yellow fruit > I get a floating-point exception. > > ba + (na)^2 Standard Usenet nitpicking: Why is one syllable added and the others multiplied? -- Wes Groleau Daily lessons & activities & their assessment http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1413 |