Favourite computer history books?
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From: Peter Flass on 4 May 2010 07:20 Charles Richmond wrote: > > > And don't forget the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of > Minnesota: > > http://www.cbi.umn.edu/ > CBI is disappointing because they don't have anything online. They seem to have a good collection of stuff, but apparently no interest in scanning any of it.
From: jmfbahciv on 4 May 2010 08:28 Michelle Steiner wrote: > In article <4bdebe92$0$14781$c3e8da3(a)news.astraweb.com>, > Warren Oates <warren.oates(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> > I would say _Tiger, Tiger_ (Renamed _The Stars My Destination_ for the >> > US) is the best sci-fi book ever written. What is even more remarkable >> > is that is was written over 50 years ago during the early days of >> > Sci-Fi. It reads very much like a book from the early 80's in many >> > ways. >> >> Umm. Young man, are you really suggesting that 1956 was "the early days >> of Sci-Fi?" Now, I won't bring up the Epic of Gilgamesh, but I will >> suggest that in our more-or-less modern era, that Frankenstein counts as >> science fiction. >> >> Oh, and there was that Verne fellow ... > > Not to mention that Wells guy, or Gernsback, who is considered the father > of modern science fiction. > Did you know that Mark Twain wrote science fiction? I don't have the book unpacked so I can't give you the title. /BAH
From: Geoffrey S. Mendelson on 4 May 2010 08:44 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. It was picked up by Intel and we stuck with it today on the Mac. In comparison, the PPC used the saner model. Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm(a)mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.
From: Joe Pfeiffer on 4 May 2010 10:15 Lewis <g.kreme(a)gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes: > In message <1bocgwjn4l.fsf(a)snowball.wb.pfeifferfamily.net> Joe > Pfeiffer <pfeiffer(a)cs.nmsu.edu> wrote: >> Lewis <g.kreme(a)gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> writes: > >>> There is nothing that forbids traveling faster than light. The >>> prohibition is on traveling AT the speed of light. > >> And on accelerating to the speed of light -- you've used up all the >> energy in the universe before you hit the division by 0. No, I'm pointing out that "at" isn't the only impossibility. "Anywhere near" is forbidden too, for roughly the same reason. > As I said, the trick is getting beyond the speed of light without ever > moving AT the speed of light. It is only the speed c that is > forbidden. > >>> The trick is in figuring out how to jump from slower than light to >>> faster than light without ever moving AT the speed of light. > >> And since we don't have any way to change velocity instantaneously.... > > Whihc is why we don't have FLT. But there are plausible possibilities > which seem to fall into three main groups. > > 1) Warping space > 2) Wormholes > 3) Inertialess drives None of the three is remotely plausible. -- As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)
From: Joe Pfeiffer on 4 May 2010 12:23
Michelle Steiner <michelle(a)michelle.org> writes: > 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. That's a common response, but simply is not true. Nobody laughed at Copernicus and Galileo; Galileo wan't placed under house arrest because his ideas were regarded as crazy, it was because the Church was afraid of the theological implications of those ideas. Nobody laughed at Newton. Nobody laughed at Darwin (and, once again, the only real opposition to evolution is based on theology). Nobody laughed at the Wright Brothers or Edison. You can find a very few examples that resemble your claim. For instance, Lee de Forest was indicted for mail fraud -- but acquitted (and he didn't actually understand the theory behind his vacuum tubes himself). Einstein tried valiantly to disprove quantum mechanics, but he did it in terms of known physics and the field marched on in spite of him. Just about the only real example of a theory that was dismissed out of hand when new but well-accepted later is plate tectonics. Science works by creating theories based on observation or by following the math from current theories to new possibilities, and then conducting experiments to try to disprove the new theories. To say "this is a kewl idea because it lets me wave my hands and tell the science fiction story I want to" is not proposing a theory. We can enjoy the story without pretending it is. FTL travel through space warping is no more likely than the Great A'Tuin swimming through space with Discworld on his (her?) back. -- As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin) |