Trying to design low level hard disk manipulation program
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From: jmfbahciv on 12 Oct 2006 07:53 In article <HE8Xg.52266$QZ1.9928(a)bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, "Stephen Fuld" <s.fuld(a)PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote: > ><jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message >news:egftq3$8qk_009(a)s934.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com... >> In article <1000.508T2774T7266515(a)kltpzyxm.invalid>, >> "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs(a)kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote: >>>In article <egdco1$8qk_013(a)s891.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >>>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com (jmfbahciv) writes: >>> >>>> I still get culture shock when I think of that. I have a >>>> VAX in plastic that somebody gave JMF. I would have never >>>> thought that I could put a CPU on my fireplace mantle next >>>> to the liquid ball of snow. >>> >>>I had that happen when I built my IMSAI. The CPU chip that came >>>with the kit was defective. (But only slightly - conditional return >>>instructions were all unconditional, but aside from that it worked >>>fine.) I went to the local supplier and asked for a replacement. >>>The guy behind the counter went into the back and came out with a >>>tube of CPU chips, shook one out, and handed it to me. A tube full >>>of CPUs - now that was culture shock. >> >> Good grief, josephine. That one is worse. Instead of buying >> Tic-Tacs at the register, we'll be able to buy flip-flops. > >I heard yesterday that last year, the world produced more "transistors" than >grains of rice, and that each transistor costs less than a grain of rice. Yea, that sounds about right if they're talking about putting chips in packaging. I still can't believe it, though; this is serious culture shock :-). /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 12 Oct 2006 07:55 In article <452CFFFA.C4CDB339(a)comcast.net>, Charles Richmond <richchas(a)comcast.net> wrote: >FredK wrote: >> >> "David Wade" <g8mqw(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message >> news:d9-dncYD4srylLXYRVny3g(a)eclipse.net.uk... >> > >> > "Eric P." <eric_pattison(a)sympaticoREMOVE.ca> wrote in message >> > news:452806c6$0$1346$834e42db(a)reader.greatnowhere.com... >> > > prep(a)prep.synonet.com wrote: >> > > > >> > > > VMS has all of the above. >> > > > >> > > > Welcome to 1978. >> > > >> > > Yeah, its just that some aspects of WNT make me >> > > pine for the fjords of VMS. >> > > >> > >> > At the risk of getting black balled from this group, I would like to say >> > that I have never looked back to VMS with any thing other than a >> wonderment >> > on how clunky and user unfriendly it was. >> > >> >> Nah. I'd say while there are a few old-timers here with fond VMS memories, >> very few have even seen a VMS system in a decade. >> >At my PPoE in 1999, they were using a microvax in a soft realtime >transaction processing appication. They had a MicroVAX in house >to do development on, but only two or three developers using it >in timesharing mode. The lead programmer of this group had the >requisite "orange wall" of manuals. 1999 is a while ago, but *not* >quite a decade. Even at that time, the "orange wall" was available >on a pricey CD-ROM. > >The MicroVAX used the crappy TK-50 tape for backup. It was slow, >the cartridges were expensive, and even were difficult to find >sometimes. Who came up with this cartidge tape system in DEC??? This is an example of small computer thinking. Nobody, who had any sense of self-survival, would have foisted this on any operations group. /BAH
From: Del Cecchi on 12 Oct 2006 13:27 jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > In article <HE8Xg.52266$QZ1.9928(a)bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, > "Stephen Fuld" <s.fuld(a)PleaseRemove.att.net> wrote: > >><jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote in message >>news:egftq3$8qk_009(a)s934.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com... >> >>>In article <1000.508T2774T7266515(a)kltpzyxm.invalid>, >>> "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs(a)kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote: >>> >>>>In article <egdco1$8qk_013(a)s891.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >>>>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com (jmfbahciv) writes: >>>> >>>> >>>>>I still get culture shock when I think of that. I have a >>>>>VAX in plastic that somebody gave JMF. I would have never >>>>>thought that I could put a CPU on my fireplace mantle next >>>>>to the liquid ball of snow. >>>> >>>>I had that happen when I built my IMSAI. The CPU chip that came >>>>with the kit was defective. (But only slightly - conditional return >>>>instructions were all unconditional, but aside from that it worked >>>>fine.) I went to the local supplier and asked for a replacement. >>>>The guy behind the counter went into the back and came out with a >>>>tube of CPU chips, shook one out, and handed it to me. A tube full >>>>of CPUs - now that was culture shock. >>> >>>Good grief, josephine. That one is worse. Instead of buying >>>Tic-Tacs at the register, we'll be able to buy flip-flops. >> >>I heard yesterday that last year, the world produced more "transistors" than >>grains of rice, and that each transistor costs less than a grain of rice. > > > Yea, that sounds about right if they're talking about putting > chips in packaging. I still can't believe it, though; > this is serious culture shock :-). > > /BAH > A grain of rice is about 25mg. http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/tg_Size_and_Weight.htm At the local grocery store, a 25 pound bag of Jasamine rice is about 50 cents per pound, call it a dollar a kilo or 100millicents/gram. So that would make a grain of rice on the order of 2.5 millicents per grain. a million grains of rice would cost 2500 cents or 25 dollars. Since million bit dram hit that many years ago, and microprocessor with tens of millions to hundred millions of transistors are at that price, I would say that GWIZ WoW number is way out of date. Today one can buy two billion transistors (a 256MB dimm) for 32 dollars or 1.6 microcents per transistor. So you get about 1500 transistors for a grain of rice. -- Del Cecchi "This post is my own and doesn?t necessarily represent IBM?s positions, strategies or opinions.?
From: robertwessel2@yahoo.com on 12 Oct 2006 15:35 Del Cecchi wrote: > A grain of rice is about 25mg. > http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/tg_Size_and_Weight.htm > > At the local grocery store, a 25 pound bag of Jasamine rice is about 50 > cents per pound, call it a dollar a kilo or 100millicents/gram. So that > would make a grain of rice on the order of 2.5 millicents per grain. > > a million grains of rice would cost 2500 cents or 25 dollars. Since > million bit dram hit that many years ago, and microprocessor with tens > of millions to hundred millions of transistors are at that price, I > would say that GWIZ WoW number is way out of date. Today one can buy > two billion transistors (a 256MB dimm) for 32 dollars or 1.6 microcents > per transistor. So you get about 1500 transistors for a grain of rice. I actually heard the grains-of-rice vs. transistors things a number of years ago. At least five. Back of the envelope calculations would put global rice production at something on the order of 10**16 grains, and transistor production at 10**18. Your estimated cost for rice, however, is very high. Bulk export quality rice in Asia runs about $250/mt (1000kg), bagged and ready to ship. So even there it's $.25/kg. It's a bit higher in the west. A great deal of rice is grown and consumed internally in countries where the dollar cost are much lower, probably by at least another factor of three to five. In PPP terms, the cost is going to be closer to the $.25/kg market price. In dollar terms, I would expect that global rice production averages out to something on the order of $.10/kg. Still way more expensive than transistors, though...
From: Del Cecchi on 12 Oct 2006 15:45
robertwessel2(a)yahoo.com wrote: > Del Cecchi wrote: > >>A grain of rice is about 25mg. >>http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/tg_Size_and_Weight.htm >> >>At the local grocery store, a 25 pound bag of Jasamine rice is about 50 >>cents per pound, call it a dollar a kilo or 100millicents/gram. So that >>would make a grain of rice on the order of 2.5 millicents per grain. >> >>a million grains of rice would cost 2500 cents or 25 dollars. Since >>million bit dram hit that many years ago, and microprocessor with tens >>of millions to hundred millions of transistors are at that price, I >>would say that GWIZ WoW number is way out of date. Today one can buy >>two billion transistors (a 256MB dimm) for 32 dollars or 1.6 microcents >>per transistor. So you get about 1500 transistors for a grain of rice. > > > > I actually heard the grains-of-rice vs. transistors things a number of > years ago. At least five. > > Back of the envelope calculations would put global rice production at > something on the order of 10**16 grains, and transistor production at > 10**18. > > Your estimated cost for rice, however, is very high. Bulk export > quality rice in Asia runs about $250/mt (1000kg), bagged and ready to > ship. So even there it's $.25/kg. It's a bit higher in the west. A > great deal of rice is grown and consumed internally in countries where > the dollar cost are much lower, probably by at least another factor of > three to five. In PPP terms, the cost is going to be closer to the > $.25/kg market price. In dollar terms, I would expect that global rice > production averages out to something on the order of $.10/kg. Still > way more expensive than transistors, though... > Then those guys at the local Asian grocery store selling Lucky God of Fortune Jasmine Rice at 12.95 per 25 pound bag are making out like bandits. :-) Of course I could have used the bulk price for flash memory as a base for my cost/bit or cost/transistor too. I think it is 8GB for maybe 50 bucks. After all, the profit margin on a iPod mini is said to be pretty good. -- Del Cecchi "This post is my own and doesn?t necessarily represent IBM?s positions, strategies or opinions.? |