YKYBHTLW...
Tony Lima
problem with that, talk to my dentist.) While perusing the
short instruction manual I noticed that technology has
improved: the toothbrush now begins with gentle brushing,
gradually increasing speed over the first week or so until
it reaches full force.
Then came the clincher. You can start the cycle over again
by holding down the power button for five seconds. I
realized I had just read the instructions for re-booting my
toothbrush. I feel very old. - Tony
--
Tony Lima /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign
\ / against HTML mail
X and postings
/ \
Mensanator
>From: Tony Lima Tony...@att.net
>Date: 1/12/2003 5:23 PM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <chu32vcnf7vagsd5d...@4ax.com>
>
>I recently bought a new electric toothbrush. (If you have a
>problem with that, talk to my dentist.) While perusing the
>short instruction manual I noticed that technology has
>improved: the toothbrush now begins with gentle brushing,
>gradually increasing speed over the first week or so until
>it reaches full force.
>
>Then came the clincher. You can start the cycle over again
>by holding down the power button for five seconds. I
>realized I had just read the instructions for re-booting my
>toothbrush. I feel very old. - Tony
How do you get to the CMOS settings?
GrahamReid
Does it run under the FLOSS operating system?
Graham (Low puns a speciality!)
"Lionel" <n...@alt.net> wrote in message
news:1rc42vskard24u7jr...@4ax.com...
> Word has it that on 13 Jan 2003 02:04:40 GMT, in this august forum,
> mensa...@aol.com (Mensanator) said:
>
> [electric toothbrush]
> >>Then came the clincher. You can start the cycle over again
> >>by holding down the power button for five seconds. I
> >>realized I had just read the instructions for re-booting my
> >>toothbrush. I feel very old. - Tony
> >
> >How do you get to the CMOS settings?
>
> And where do you put the SIMM when you want to increase the amount of
> RAM?
>
> --
> W
> . | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
> \|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
> ---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------
George R. Gonzalez
> realized I had just read the instructions for re-booting my
> toothbrush. I feel very old. - Tony
Could be worse, I accidentally started up our breadmaker before setting all
the right options.
Thats when I realized there's no on/off switch or STOP button. I
frantically tried pushing all the buttons
and the thing just kept kneading away. I unplugged it for a few seconds,
plugged it in again, and it took up where it left off!!! The Break Maker
That Would Not Forget !! That's when I needed to know how to re-boot the
breadmaker.
Answer: unplug it for at least a minute.
Russ Holsclaw
amount of
> RAM?
It's probably not expandable... That would lead to excess
Over-Byte, you see.
Tony Lima
<gra...@hlr89.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>How many bytes of D-RAM (Dental RAM)?
We'll need the DOSDD (Dental Operating System Diagnostic
Disk) to figure that out.
>Does it run under the FLOSS operating system?
Yes, but that's not the GUI (Gum Underline Interface)
version. FLOSS is obsolete.
>Graham (Low puns a speciality!)
Back at ya. - T
Neil Franklin
> mensa...@aol.com (Mensanator) said:
>
> >>realized I had just read the instructions for re-booting my
> >>toothbrush. I feel very old. - Tony
> >
> >How do you get to the CMOS settings?
>
> And where do you put the SIMM when you want to increase the amount of
> RAM?
The battery case. Just put in higher voltage for more RAMming.
--
Neil Franklin, ne...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Programmer, Archer, Blacksmith
- hardware runs the world, software controls the hardware
code generates the software, have you coded today?
Brian Inglis
You need to get an appointment with Dr. Dobbs
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
--
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply
ab...@aol.com tos...@aol.com ab...@att.com ab...@earthlink.com
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ab...@ibsystems.com u...@ftc.gov spam traps
jmfb...@aol.com
Tony Lima <Tony...@att.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 07:22:45 -0000, "GrahamReid"
><gra...@hlr89.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>How many bytes of D-RAM (Dental RAM)?
>
>We'll need the DOSDD (Dental Operating System Diagnostic
>Disk) to figure that out.
>
>>Does it run under the FLOSS operating system?
>
>Yes, but that's not the GUI (Gum Underline Interface)
>version. FLOSS is obsolete.
>
>>Graham (Low puns a speciality!)
>
>Back at ya. - T
Now I understand why this is all so painful--no ether..net.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
jmfb...@aol.com
Russ Holsclaw
"Brian Inglis" <Brian....@SystematicSw.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:2sk72vk94499veofe...@4ax.com...
> >It's probably not expandable... That would lead to excess
> >Over-Byte, you see.
>
> You need to get an appointment with Dr. Dobbs
Very good, you win the trivia contest.
I don't imagine that Dr. Dobbs still uses that tag-line on the
masthead, do they?
Tony Miller
No, and in addition, they have been bought by a computer magazine
publishing company called CMP. Each issue gets thinner and has less
material in it.
--
Tony Miller
fam...@AlphaCharlieMike.org
Change from phonetic to regular alphabet to reply
Brian Inglis
They've dropped the whole "of Computer Calisthenics and
Orthodontia: Running Light without Overbyte" bit and the current
tag line is: "Software Tools for the Professional Programmer".
Brian Inglis
<fam...@AlphaCharlieMike.org> wrote:
>Russ Holsclaw wrote:
>> "Brian Inglis" <Brian....@SystematicSw.ab.ca> wrote in message
>> news:2sk72vk94499veofe...@4ax.com...
>>
>>>>It's probably not expandable... That would lead to excess
>>>>Over-Byte, you see.
>>>
>>>You need to get an appointment with Dr. Dobbs
>>
>>
>> Very good, you win the trivia contest.
>>
>> I don't imagine that Dr. Dobbs still uses that tag-line on the
>> masthead, do they?
>>
>>
>
>No, and in addition, they have been bought by a computer magazine
>publishing company called CMP. Each issue gets thinner and has less
>material in it.
recently, 33 journal pages from a total of 80 including covers
bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca
>>I don't imagine that Dr. Dobbs still uses that tag-line on the
>>masthead, do they?
> I really liked the original masthead. The whole 'medicine show' look
> seems even more appropriate for the computer industry now than it did at
> the time.
Still Dr Dobbs has to be I think on of the longer running publications
around. Where is BYTE for example? Ben.
Pete Fenelon
Where all magazines go to die - it's on the web - which leaves it in the
domain of 'zines and press releases.
(Actually, that's not strictly fair. The best motorsport magazine I read
is online-only...)
pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" HMHB
Brian Inglis
>Word has it that on Wed, 15 Jan 2003 09:23:53 -0700, in this august
>True. I still buy it on the very rare occasion that there's an article
>in it with something that interests me.
>
>When did Dr Dobbs start up, anyway? ISTR it being some time in the late
>70's, but wouldn't swear to it.
DDJ Started January 1976 -- January 2001 was 25th Anniversary
issue
>>Where is BYTE for example? Ben.
>
>They died years ago, sadly. Mind you, Byte pretty much lost my interest
>about the period when Circuit Cellar split off, & they started turning
>into yet another review magazine.
Another *PC* review magazine!
I liked it because it used to look around at what else was out
there and different from the run of the mill PC.
David Wade
"Pete Fenelon" <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote in message
news:v2b7lrc...@corp.supernews.com...
> bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
> > Lionel wrote:
> >>>I don't imagine that Dr. Dobbs still uses that tag-line on the
> >>>masthead, do they?
> >> Not for many, many years, sadly.
> >> I really liked the original masthead. The whole 'medicine show' look
> >> seems even more appropriate for the computer industry now than it did
at
> >> the time.
> >
> >
> > Still Dr Dobbs has to be I think on of the longer running publications
> > around. Where is BYTE for example? Ben.
> >
>
> Where all magazines go to die - it's on the web - which leaves it in the
> domain of 'zines and press releases.
>
But even that now looks like getting chopped. I see they are starting to ask
for subscriptions....
Pete Fenelon
>> Where all magazines go to die - it's on the web - which leaves it in the
>> domain of 'zines and press releases.
>>
>
> But even that now looks like getting chopped. I see they are starting to ask
> for subscriptions....
>
I just wandered over there for the first time in probably a couple of
years. It *looks* amateurish. And anything that puts an article by that
shambling computer-illiterate Pournelle top of the contents list really
must be scraping the barrel.
It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
Charles Richmond
>
> David Wade <g8...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Where all magazines go to die - it's on the web - which leaves it in the
> >> domain of 'zines and press releases.
> >>
> >
> > But even that now looks like getting chopped. I see they are starting to ask
> > for subscriptions....
> >
>
> I just wandered over there for the first time in probably a couple of
> years. It *looks* amateurish. And anything that puts an article by that
> shambling computer-illiterate Pournelle top of the contents list really
> must be scraping the barrel.
>
> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
>
computer listings in the magazine.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Howard S Shubs
Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
> I just wandered over there for the first time in probably a couple of
> years. It *looks* amateurish. And anything that puts an article by that
> shambling computer-illiterate Pournelle top of the contents list really
> must be scraping the barrel.
You can refer to Pournelle as a computer-illiterate?? I won't say much
-for- the man, but I won't say he's clueless. Or at least, not
completely.
> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
Yeah, and the editors knew it. They also knew what was desired by the
technical people who used to read the magazine, and specifically changed
it. More info on this if anyone is interested.
--
Today, on Paper-view: The World Origami Championship
Gene Wirchenko
[snip]
>They've dropped the whole "of Computer Calisthenics and
>Orthodontia: Running Light without Overbyte" bit and the current
>tag line is: "Software Tools for the Professional Programmer".
How professional. Also, how boring.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Charles Shannon Hendrix
> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
...who were all, as far as I know, forced to leave because their content
was no longer acceptable. Steve formed his own magazine, which was
still selling last time I was looking for it. Circuit Cellar, Ink or
something like that.
Charles Shannon Hendrix
> No, and in addition, they have been bought by a computer magazine
> publishing company called CMP. Each issue gets thinner and has less
> material in it.
...kind of like every computer magazine they buy. Nothing new here.
Byte is little more than a nibble these days, if that.
Charlie Gibbs
how...@shubs.net (Howard S Shubs) writes:
>In article <v2d2mon...@corp.supernews.com>,
> Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
>
>> I just wandered over there for the first time in probably a couple
>> of years. It *looks* amateurish. And anything that puts an article
>> by that shambling computer-illiterate Pournelle top of the contents
>> list really must be scraping the barrel.
>
>You can refer to Pournelle as a computer-illiterate?? I won't say
>much -for- the man, but I won't say he's clueless. Or at least, not
>completely.
I originally enjoyed his columns a lot. I cheered while reading his
howls of outrage at the original IBM PC keyboard layout, since they
echoed my own. But after a few years the columns turned into a
neverending series of horror stories resulting from his use of
Wintel boxes. I had already found my solution - just say no
to Microsoft - and his columns, while constantly vindicating
my position, started becoming boring.
As for the rest of the magazine, I gave up reading it when
I realized that it had turned into yet another Wintel rag.
When I heard of its folding I didn't mourn - I had already
done that when they got rid of the likes of Steve Ciarcia.
>> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
>> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
>> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
>
>Yeah, and the editors knew it. They also knew what was desired by
>the technical people who used to read the magazine, and specifically
>changed it. More info on this if anyone is interested.
It sounds as if you have an interesting story to tell. Please do.
--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at moc.subyks 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!
Howard S Shubs
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> I originally enjoyed his columns a lot. I cheered while reading his
> howls of outrage at the original IBM PC keyboard layout, since they
> echoed my own. But after a few years the columns turned into a
> neverending series of horror stories resulting from his use of
> Wintel boxes. I had already found my solution - just say no
> to Microsoft - and his columns, while constantly vindicating
> my position, started becoming boring.
Yep. I've met him, and I've read some of his writing both with and w/o
Niven. With Niven, he's okay. W/o Niven, I can't force myself through
his text. The man's got an ego, shall we say, that is well moderated by
his wife, who makes him bearable, in my experience.
> >Yeah, and the editors knew it. They also knew what was desired by
> >the technical people who used to read the magazine, and specifically
> >changed it. More info on this if anyone is interested.
>
> It sounds as if you have an interesting story to tell. Please do.
Fair enough.
I got on BIX, BYTE's on-line service, back in 1987. I was a long time
reader of BYTE by then, and wanted in on the fun I was seeing in Best Of
BIX.
The February 1988 issue of BYTE was tiny. And it was filled with crud.
Starting that month, I and another guy started posting
article-by-article critiques of the magazine in Bruce Webster's BIX
conference.
A few months later, a -single- article of the old type which -made- BYTE
appeared. I and the other guy said so, at length.
Fred Langa, the chief editor of the magazine at the time, was a
participant in that conference and had been reading our "reviews". I
don't recall exactly what was said, but it became clear that they knew
exactly what we'all wanted, but were specifically not giving it to us,
because they no longer saw techies as their primary audience.
At that point, I let my subscription lapse and I haven't missed it.
One of the other participants became the chief editor at Dr. Dobbs, and
asked me to do the same for that magazine. I asked him to send me a few
copies, which he did. It didn't work out, as I hadn't been reading DDJ
for years as I had been with BYTE. Still, I mention this to show that
there -was- a clearly acknowledged, positive feeling about this from the
other side of the screen, at the magazines.
Lars Duening
I'm all ears! (or should that be 'eyes'?)
My guess would be that techies are usually not the ones controlling the
budget, and that the editors changed Byte to address those who do. But
since I haven't read Byte in decades, that's just speculation.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> wrote:
HSS> You can refer to Pournelle as a computer-illiterate?? I won't say
HSS> much -for- the man, but I won't say he's clueless. Or at least, not
HSS> completely.
When his column first appeared in Byte he struck me as nearly completely
computer illiterate - in fact I thought that was the point of the column,
a light hearted look at the trials and tribulations of a non expert trying
to get some use out of computers. I never enjoyed it much.
--
C:>WIN | Directable Mirrors
The computer obeys and wins. |A Better Way To Focus The Sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licenses available - see:
| http://www.sohara.org/
J. Clarke
cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid says...
> In article <howard-44CCD7....@enews.newsguy.com>
> how...@shubs.net (Howard S Shubs) writes:
>
> >In article <v2d2mon...@corp.supernews.com>,
> > Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I just wandered over there for the first time in probably a couple
> >> of years. It *looks* amateurish. And anything that puts an article
> >> by that shambling computer-illiterate Pournelle top of the contents
> >> list really must be scraping the barrel.
> >
> >You can refer to Pournelle as a computer-illiterate?? I won't say
> >much -for- the man, but I won't say he's clueless. Or at least, not
> >completely.
>
> I originally enjoyed his columns a lot. I cheered while reading his
> howls of outrage at the original IBM PC keyboard layout, since they
> echoed my own. But after a few years the columns turned into a
> neverending series of horror stories resulting from his use of
> Wintel boxes. I had already found my solution - just say no
> to Microsoft - and his columns, while constantly vindicating
> my position, started becoming boring.
FWIW, did you notice that both the quality of his column and his
productivity as a writer went to Hell right about the time that he
returned the CompuPro to Bill Godbout for an upgrade that apparently
never happened?
He and Niven used to get out one novel every couple of years, and most
of them were pretty good. He promised that "The Moat Around Murcheson's
Eye" would be finished "real soon now" for at least a couple of years,
and since then their releases have been quite irregular.
I think he violated one of the cardinal rules of the technician game--if
it ain't broke, don't fix it. His writing system wasn't broke, but he
fixed it anyway and the result appears to have broken _him_.
> As for the rest of the magazine, I gave up reading it when
> I realized that it had turned into yet another Wintel rag.
> When I heard of its folding I didn't mourn - I had already
> done that when they got rid of the likes of Steve Ciarcia.
>
> >> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
> >> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
> >> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
> >
> >Yeah, and the editors knew it. They also knew what was desired by
> >the technical people who used to read the magazine, and specifically
> >changed it. More info on this if anyone is interested.
>
> It sounds as if you have an interesting story to tell. Please do.
>
> --
> /~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
> \ / I'm really at moc.subyks 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!
>
>
--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(used to be jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
jchausler
Pete Fenelon wrote:
> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
I thought it died in the early 80's. I let my subscription
lapse in 83. As I still have most issues prior to this time
I still occasionally refer to them although more now for
entertainment than not (although, even then, it was
primarily for "entertainment", just of a different kind).
Chris
AN HGETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE
$$
Rupert Pigott
news:20030119085000....@eircom.net...
> On Sat, 18 Jan 2003 12:48:46 -0500
> Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> wrote:
>
> HSS> You can refer to Pournelle as a computer-illiterate?? I won't say
> HSS> much -for- the man, but I won't say he's clueless. Or at least, not
> HSS> completely.
>
> When his column first appeared in Byte he struck me as nearly completely
> computer illiterate - in fact I thought that was the point of the column,
> a light hearted look at the trials and tribulations of a non expert trying
> to get some use out of computers. I never enjoyed it much.
I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this monsterous kit
and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically screaming at the pages
to run something more useful on them - like UNIX... Instead he'd fart
around with a zillion TSRs and bitch about his IRQ conflicts... I used to
read Byte for the broad view of the micro industry, but as everything else
did it became PC-centric (understandably, but it sucked just the same).
Cheers,
Rupert
Chris Hedley
> I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this monsterous kit
> and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically screaming at the pages
> to run something more useful on them - like UNIX... Instead he'd fart
> around with a zillion TSRs and bitch about his IRQ conflicts... I used to
> read Byte for the broad view of the micro industry, but as everything else
> did it became PC-centric (understandably, but it sucked just the same).
I witnessed what I think was the tail-end of its transition from "interesting"
to "dull PC-centric" in the late '80s when I started buying it. I persisted
for quite a while because of its reputation, expecting the groovy articles of
legend to eventually resurface but they never did. My personal view is that
the late '80s/early '90s weren't a terribly interesting chapter in computing
as those years seemed to show an obsession with Intel and the fledgeling
Microsoft Windows and it seemed that few journalists wanted to look further
than the rise and rise of the PC; but Byte did a surprisingly bad job, even
given the circumstances. Shame, I never did get to read those interesting
articles of old.
And Pournelle? I think I viewed him as just another aspect of that era, no
more or less.
Chris.
--
"If the world was an orange it would be like much too small, y'know?" Neil, '84
Currently playing: Stereolab - "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" ... RIP Mary Hansen.
http://www.chrishedley.com My stuff, including genealogy, other things, etc
Rupert Pigott
news:e25f0b...@teabag.cbhnet...
> According to Rupert Pigott <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com>:
> > I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this monsterous
kit
> > and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically screaming at the pages
> > to run something more useful on them - like UNIX... Instead he'd fart
> > around with a zillion TSRs and bitch about his IRQ conflicts... I used
to
> > read Byte for the broad view of the micro industry, but as everything
else
> > did it became PC-centric (understandably, but it sucked just the same).
>
> I witnessed what I think was the tail-end of its transition from
"interesting"
> to "dull PC-centric" in the late '80s when I started buying it. I
persisted
> for quite a while because of its reputation, expecting the groovy articles
of
> legend to eventually resurface but they never did. My personal view is
that
> the late '80s/early '90s weren't a terribly interesting chapter in
computing
From my POV the late 80s/90s were *FASCINATING*. Just that you
didn't get to see much of the interesting stuff in Byte. Examples : T800
Transputer, RS6000, MIPS R[346]000, DEC Alpha 21064 etc... Lots
of nifty stuff. You also had a few interesting big iron toys too like the
Cray C90, T3D etc... Cydra, Convex, Multiflow, Apollo (PRISM ?) etc.
When I look back on it I actually think that I am glad to have witnessed
the 80s and 90s first hand.
I could rave on.
Cheers,
Rupert
J. Clarke
this-ng.@hotmail.com says...
You came to Chaos Manor late then. When I first encountered it he was
using an S-100 CompuPro under CP/M.
I'm not really clear on why he went to MS-DOS. I suspect he and Xenix
would have had a lot of fun together.
Chris Hedley
> didn't get to see much of the interesting stuff in Byte. Examples : T800
> Transputer, RS6000, MIPS R[346]000, DEC Alpha 21064 etc... Lots
> of nifty stuff. You also had a few interesting big iron toys too like the
> Cray C90, T3D etc... Cydra, Convex, Multiflow, Apollo (PRISM ?) etc.
>
> When I look back on it I actually think that I am glad to have witnessed
> the 80s and 90s first hand.
I'm thinking of about 89 - 91 in particular as being bad years; pre
Alpha (or should I say AXP or VAXng?), post the latest round of "big"
stuff and nothing outside WinTel being reported in any of the journals.
A bit like the popular music scene at the time: good music really _was_
being recorded, it was just difficult to find under all the dross that
had a stranglehold back then. I probably also resented the passing of
the "home computer" craze of the late '70s and early '80s as I thought
that really did have a lot more vitality and diversity than what followed.
Pete Fenelon
> And Pournelle? I think I viewed him as just another aspect of that era, no
> more or less.
>
Pournelle reinvented himself as dumb. Read early/mid 80s Bytes and he
was sharp - he developed software, he understood his CP/M crates, he
solved problems. At some point he developed the "love me, I'm dumb"
persona - taking 6 months to install Windows 3.1, etc - and seemed to
revel in the "...and then I called my son Alex and he fixed all
this sh*t - how DARE they sell software that doesn't install on my
lashed-up prototype machines full of loaner hardware that I don't want
to give back" schtick. Just as unreadable as his later works of fiction.
Pete Fenelon
> I'm thinking of about 89 - 91 in particular as being bad years; pre
> Alpha (or should I say AXP or VAXng?), post the latest round of "big"
> stuff and nothing outside WinTel being reported in any of the journals.
> A bit like the popular music scene at the time: good music really _was_
> being recorded, it was just difficult to find under all the dross that
> had a stranglehold back then.
88-about 93 were certainly my peak gigging years. Throwing Muses.
Pixies. Sundays. Sisters of Mercy. Primitives. Flatmates. Heart
Throbs. Wedding Present. Curve. AC Temple. Bongwater. PJ Harvey.
Stereolab. James Ray. The Fall. Cud. Loads, loads more. There was
usually something worth seeing almost every night in either Leeds,
Sheffield or Newcastle.
I certainly seemed to be out and about somewhere round the North typically
a couple of nights a week - whether that's a function of age (probably
20-25 then) or the fact that music really *was* better back then I don't
know!
Charles Shannon Hendrix
O'Hara-Smith wrote:
> When his column first appeared in Byte he struck me as nearly completely
> computer illiterate - in fact I thought that was the point of the column,
> a light hearted look at the trials and tribulations of a non expert trying
> to get some use out of computers. I never enjoyed it much.
Pournelle seemed to give up on anything non-mainstream. He would talk
about how he wanted to get away from the mainstream (i.e. DOS/Windows)
but he never really put any effort into doing so.
He still talks about using other systems a little.
What always struck me is how he used to write about software which was
conducive to writing books, and how bad some ideas were. Yet, he know
uses Microsoft Word, one of the worst programs in the world to use if
you are trying to WRITE something.
Go figure.
Charles Shannon Hendrix
>
> FWIW, did you notice that both the quality of his column and his
> productivity as a writer went to Hell right about the time that he
> returned the CompuPro to Bill Godbout for an upgrade that apparently
> never happened?
I think it went down even worse later than that, especially when
he moved to the very word processors he said were so bad.
There is something else about his writing that has changed, that I don't
really have words for. It's just like it is repetive, vanilla, no meat.
When I was a kid, I thought his writing was much better, and he also
seemed to be more computer literate.
> He and Niven used to get out one novel every couple of years, and most
> of them were pretty good. He promised that "The Moat Around Murcheson's
> Eye" would be finished "real soon now" for at least a couple of years,
> and since then their releases have been quite irregular.
Murcheson's Eye? I thought it was God's eye... ?
> I think he violated one of the cardinal rules of the technician game--if
> it ain't broke, don't fix it. His writing system wasn't broke, but he
> fixed it anyway and the result appears to have broken _him_.
Sounds reasonable. I remember too, getting tired of hearing about his
wife's reading software.
I also seem to remember he used to be involved more in the science and
science fiction world than he is now.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Charles Shannon Hendrix <sha...@news.widomaker.com> wrote:
CSH> Murcheson's Eye? I thought it was God's eye... ?
It's the sequel, it is also crap.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
"Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
RP> I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this
RP> monsterous kit and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically
RP> screaming at the pages to run something more useful on them - like
RP> UNIX...
ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
Roland Hutchinson
> I witnessed what I think was the tail-end of its transition from
> "interesting"
> to "dull PC-centric" in the late '80s when I started buying it. I
> persisted for quite a while because of its reputation, expecting the
> groovy articles of
> legend to eventually resurface but they never did.
My undoubtedly fallible recollection is that it was all pretty much
downhill after the Smalltalk issue (August 1981; I just looked it up).
Of course, one could argue that that issue was so good, there was no
possible direction to go but down thereafter.
Here's a pretty picture for the kids:
http://nedkonz.dhs.org:8080/Ned/9
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my_sp...@eudoramail.com is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Rupert Pigott
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 20:27:28 -0000
> "Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> RP> I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this
> RP> monsterous kit and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically
> RP> screaming at the pages to run something more useful on them - like
> RP> UNIX...
>
> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
Probably because he couldn't run his TSRs on it.
Or maybe a -11 bit him once.
Cheers,
Rupert
Pete Fenelon
> Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
>
>> I just wandered over there for the first time in probably a couple of
>> years. It *looks* amateurish. And anything that puts an article by that
>> shambling computer-illiterate Pournelle top of the contents list really
>> must be scraping the barrel.
>
> You can refer to Pournelle as a computer-illiterate?? I won't say much
> -for- the man, but I won't say he's clueless. Or at least, not
> completely.
I will say that Pournelle deliberately tries to appear clueless.
Pete Fenelon
> exactly what we'all wanted, but were specifically not giving it to us,
> because they no longer saw techies as their primary audience.
It seemed to become a magazine for Wintel network admins and their
concerned managers - was *that* the target audience?
jmfb...@aol.com
>
>>
>> FWIW, did you notice that both the quality of his column and his
>> productivity as a writer went to Hell right about the time that he
>> returned the CompuPro to Bill Godbout for an upgrade that apparently
>> never happened?
>
>I think it went down even worse later than that, especially when
>he moved to the very word processors he said were so bad.
>
>There is something else about his writing that has changed, that I don't
>really have words for. It's just like it is repetive, vanilla, no meat.
>
>When I was a kid, I thought his writing was much better, and he also
>seemed to be more computer literate.
Didn't he have a close friend who would proof his technical detail
for accuracy? When that friend died, so went the sanity check.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
J. Clarke
sha...@news.widomaker.com says...
> In article <b0e7c...@enews4.newsguy.com>, J Clarke wrote:
>
> >
> > FWIW, did you notice that both the quality of his column and his
> > productivity as a writer went to Hell right about the time that he
> > returned the CompuPro to Bill Godbout for an upgrade that apparently
> > never happened?
>
> I think it went down even worse later than that, especially when
> he moved to the very word processors he said were so bad.
>
> There is something else about his writing that has changed, that I don't
> really have words for. It's just like it is repetive, vanilla, no meat.
>
> When I was a kid, I thought his writing was much better, and he also
> seemed to be more computer literate.
>
> > He and Niven used to get out one novel every couple of years, and most
> > of them were pretty good. He promised that "The Moat Around Murcheson's
> > Eye" would be finished "real soon now" for at least a couple of years,
> > and since then their releases have been quite irregular.
>
> Murcheson's Eye? I thought it was God's eye... ?
The Mote in God's Eye was great fun. The sequel, "The Moat Around
Murcheson's Eye" (that was the working title--in the US it was released
as "The Gripping Hand"), released almost 20 years later, was much less
so.
> > I think he violated one of the cardinal rules of the technician game--if
> > it ain't broke, don't fix it. His writing system wasn't broke, but he
> > fixed it anyway and the result appears to have broken _him_.
>
> Sounds reasonable. I remember too, getting tired of hearing about his
> wife's reading software.
>
> I also seem to remember he used to be involved more in the science and
> science fiction world than he is now.
>
>
>
--
Charlie Gibbs
sha...@news.widomaker.com (Charles Shannon Hendrix) writes:
>What always struck me is how he used to write about software which was
>conducive to writing books, and how bad some ideas were. Yet, he know
>uses Microsoft Word, one of the worst programs in the world to use if
>you are trying to WRITE something.
>
>Go figure.
Back in the days of his CP/M box he used to often mention how a
word processor should fill the screen with words, not all sorts
of extraneous junk. IIRC his favourite program had a single status
line at the bottom of the screen, leaving the remainder for writing.
It's truly ironic that he's gone over to software which follows the
modern paradigm of devoting half the screen to useless gadgets.
I guess I really did have good reasons for giving up on Byte.
Charlie Gibbs
my_sp...@eudoramail.com (Roland Hutchinson) writes:
>Chris Hedley wrote:
>
>> I witnessed what I think was the tail-end of its transition from
>> "interesting"
>> to "dull PC-centric" in the late '80s when I started buying it. I
>> persisted for quite a while because of its reputation, expecting the
>> groovy articles of legend to eventually resurface but they never did.
>
>My undoubtedly fallible recollection is that it was all pretty much
>downhill after the Smalltalk issue (August 1981; I just looked it up).
>
>Of course, one could argue that that issue was so good, there was no
>possible direction to go but down thereafter.
On the other hand, consider the date. It was that black month when
the IBM PC was introduced.
Howard S Shubs
Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
> Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> wrote:
> > don't recall exactly what was said, but it became clear that they knew
> > exactly what we'all wanted, but were specifically not giving it to us,
> > because they no longer saw techies as their primary audience.
>
> It seemed to become a magazine for Wintel network admins and their
> concerned managers - was *that* the target audience?
You're close: the managers part would be spot on. It became a magazine
for people who wanted to appear to be techies.
Charles Richmond
>
> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>
> My undoubtedly fallible recollection is that it was all pretty much
> downhill after the Smalltalk issue (August 1981; I just looked it up).
>
> Of course, one could argue that that issue was so good, there was no
> possible direction to go but down thereafter.
>
> Here's a pretty picture for the kids:
> http://nedkonz.dhs.org:8080/Ned/9
>
August 1984 (?). The Smalltalk cover echoed from a small
piece of the Pascal cover of 1979 ("Pascal's Triangle"). The
"Isle of Smalltalk" appeared as the only serene place on the
Pascal cover., although very aloof.
I thought that the 1983 C langauge issue was good too. IIRC,
the 1978 issue was for LISP, the 1982 issue was for Logo...
IMHO, the "language" issue of BYTE was a *great* idea.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Charles Shannon Hendrix
> Didn't he have a close friend who would proof his technical detail
> for accuracy? When that friend died, so went the sanity check.
Now that you mention it, I do remember something about an associate of
his dying.
It's been so long since I bothered reading Byte.
I could read the web site I guess, but I doubt it's any good.
Kelli Halliburton
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 20:27:28 -0000
> "Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this
>
> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
Crptc cmd ln? :)
No intergrated word processing program? For an author, that would be a
serious problem. Editing a book in vi and then having to go back and troff
it to give it any decent formatting is probably more steps than he wanted to
go to.
Rupert Pigott
news:9y0X9.96$6g1...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com...
Troff ?
What the hell is wrong with LaTeX ? Both Troff an LaTeX have been
used to format a lot of books (as has Troff for that matter). Oddly
whenever I have handed in LaTeX copy people have asked me how I
got Word to make those documents look so good... All these new-
fangled GUI WP doohickies just encourage people to fiddle with the
appearance rather than concentrate on the *content* of what they are
writing.
Sure LaTeX and Troff ain't everyone's cup of tea, but the former is well
known to produce excellent quality output with practically *zero* layout
skills required by the author... That has to be a good thing having seen the
results of people going berzerk with Word and clip-art libraries day in
and day out for the last decade. The results of the average Word output
makes you think that it's *harder* to use than an editor + formatter +
previewer combo.
Cheers,
Rupert
Brian Inglis
From what I've read by authors about word processing, they don't
care about formatting; they want: "don't get in my way" entry,
and easy ways to edit groups of words (sentences, paragraphs).
Authors seemed to like WordStar and XyWrite: the latter normally
because they had been journalists using Atex? equipment.
I suspect they would prefer Emacs over vi. And I am a vim user,
so that is not my own preference.
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
--
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply
ab...@aol.com tos...@aol.com ab...@att.com ab...@earthlink.com
ab...@hotmail.com ab...@mci.com ab...@msn.com ab...@sprint.com
ab...@yahoo.com ab...@cadvision.com ab...@shaw.ca ab...@telus.com
ab...@ibsystems.com u...@ftc.gov spam traps
Lars Duening
> On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 00:32:05 GMT, "Kelli Halliburton"
> <kell...@crosswinds.not> wrote:
>
> From what I've read by authors about word processing, they don't
> care about formatting; they want: "don't get in my way" entry,
> and easy ways to edit groups of words (sentences, paragraphs).
> Authors seemed to like WordStar and XyWrite: the latter normally
> because they had been journalists using Atex? equipment.
> I suspect they would prefer Emacs over vi. And I am a vim user,
> so that is not my own preference.
May I now start ranting about the editors supplied with these modernish
IDEs? :-)
Brian Inglis
Harder to use well, unless you learn enough to set up and use
styles consistently: the Word defaults are not great; most people
seem to just format chunks of paragraphs manually.
Brian Inglis
You can normally change the default editor to your preference,
and if you can't, you can normally set up a good editor to be
your IDE. I don't get as much out of an IDE as I can get out of
using {r,sc}cs, tags, make, grep output in an editor window, and
a debugger session in a separate window.
Charlie Gibbs
ng.@hotmail.com (Rupert Pigott) writes:
>What the hell is wrong with LaTeX ? Both Troff an LaTeX have been
>used to format a lot of books (as has Troff for that matter). Oddly
>whenever I have handed in LaTeX copy people have asked me how I
>got Word to make those documents look so good... All these new-
>fangled GUI WP doohickies just encourage people to fiddle with the
>appearance rather than concentrate on the *content* of what they are
>writing.
Back when the most commonly used GUI was still the Mac, someone
played on all the Mac<whatever> product names by coining the term
"Macdinking", which referred to the messing about people did with
their documents in a WYSIWY(almost)G environment. A study claimed
that documents produced on an IBM PC running MS-DOS tended to have
more solid content but looked rather plain, while documents produced
on Macs tended, as you said, to emphasize style over content.
>Sure LaTeX and Troff ain't everyone's cup of tea, but the former is
>well known to produce excellent quality output with practically *zero*
>layout skills required by the author... That has to be a good thing
>having seen the results of people going berzerk with Word and clip-art
>libraries day in and day out for the last decade. The results of the
>average Word output makes you think that it's *harder* to use than an
>editor + formatter + previewer combo.
It probably is. But people have so much fun playing with it that they
believe it's easier. It's painful to watch such people work; they're
constantly moving off the keyboard to the mouse, pushing it around
the screen, clicking here, clicking there, going back to type a word
or two, then back to the mouse to click on this and that... I have
to exercise great self-control to turn my back and walk away. The
alternative might start out innocently enough - "Wouldn't you find
it easier to do it _this_ way?" - but experience has taught me that
this just rubs people's fur backwards and in the worse case can
degenerate into a shouting match. It's far better that I just go
back to my own machine and grind out my own work three times as
fast as these lusers are doing theirs.
Roland Hutchinson
> May I now start ranting about the editors supplied with these
> modernish IDEs? :-)
By all means!
And crosspost to alt.religion.emacs while you're at it, why don't
you?
(I didn't say that. I really didn't say that. REALLY.)
Roland Hutchinson
> Back when the most commonly used GUI was still the Mac, someone
> played on all the Mac<whatever> product names by coining the term
> "Macdinking", which referred to the messing about people did with
> their documents in a WYSIWY(almost)G environment. A study claimed
> that documents produced on an IBM PC running MS-DOS tended to have
> more solid content but looked rather plain, while documents produced
> on Macs tended, as you said, to emphasize style over content.
FWIW, it was a seriously flawed study. As I recall, it dealt with
college-student writing assignments and did not control adequately for
other difference between the MS-DOS and the Mac groups. I think it
turned out that the two groups could have been largely self-selecting,
for example!
(This is not to say that macdinking wasn't a problem among college
students! I taught some fairly writing-intensive courses at just about
the height of the "novelty" of WYSIWIG wordprocessing software during
the Win 3.1/Mac System 6 era. Yikes!)
> It probably is. But people have so much fun playing with it that they
> believe it's easier. It's painful to watch such people work; they're
> constantly moving off the keyboard to the mouse, pushing it around
> the screen, clicking here, clicking there, going back to type a word
> or two, then back to the mouse to click on this and that... I have
> to exercise great self-control to turn my back and walk away. The
> alternative might start out innocently enough - "Wouldn't you find
> it easier to do it _this_ way?" - but experience has taught me that
> this just rubs people's fur backwards and in the worse case can
> degenerate into a shouting match. It's far better that I just go
> back to my own machine and grind out my own work three times as
> fast as these lusers are doing theirs.
Yes, but there's another study to consider (done or comissioned by
Apple as part of it's UI research, I think): it showed that people who
use the keyboard alone THOUGHT they are getting editing tasks done
faster than they would using the mouse, but they were in fact mistaken.
When the researchers actually measured how fast people did the editing
tasks, using the mouse was usually faster. (The documents being edited
were ordinary English prose, certainly not code, as I recall. The sort
of stuff that most end-users edit in things like term-papers, reports,
and business letters.)
The real big win (with respect to time-saving) of things like LaTeX is
of course not that they make individual tasks quicker, but that they
ELIMINATE repetitive formatting tasks altogether, as well as producing
more professional output than the normal MS-Word user can even conceive
of creating.
Mensanator
>From: Steve O'Hara-Smith ste...@eircom.net
>Date: 1/20/2003 12:39 AM Central Standard Time
>Message-id: <20030120073955....@eircom.net>
>
>On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 20:27:28 -0000
>"Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>RP> I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this
>RP> monsterous kit and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically
>RP> screaming at the pages to run something more useful on them - like
>RP> UNIX...
>
> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
Steve O'Hara-Smith
"Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
RP> Troff ?
RP>
RP> What the hell is wrong with LaTeX ?
It's too damned verbose next to troff :)
Lars Poulsen
> The real big win (with respect to time-saving) of things like LaTeX is
> of course not that they make individual tasks quicker, but that they
> ELIMINATE repetitive formatting tasks altogether, as well as producing
> more professional output than the normal MS-Word user can even conceive
> of creating.
When many years ago I migrated from MacWrite to Word (4.0 for Mac?)
I was quite impressed, once I had figured out how to use styles.
A well-designed MS-Word template can be used to force semantic
structure onto a document and let the layout flow from that.
Unfortunately, I have seen very few users of MS-Word who understand
the concept of styles in word, let alone figure out how to define
Heading 1, Heading 2, List Bullets etc and use them consistently.
I suspect that most of the ills of MS Word can be cured by proper
training of users. But then we all know that nobody ever gets any
training because "today's programs are so easy to use that no
training is required". Yeah, right :-(
--
/ Lars Poulsen +1-805-569-5277 http://www.beagle-ears.com/lars/
125 South Ontare Rd, Santa Barbara, CA 93105 USA la...@beagle-ears.com
Kelli Halliburton
>> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
>
> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
Right.
Then. Leave. It. Running.
Simple.
:)
Rupert Pigott
news:b0ik56$nc3eh$1...@ID-99522.news.dfncis.de...
> The real big win (with respect to time-saving) of things like LaTeX is
> of course not that they make individual tasks quicker, but that they
> ELIMINATE repetitive formatting tasks altogether, as well as producing
That's what a WP should do IMHO, afterall computers are good at
dumb repetitive tasks, people are not.
Cheers,
Rupert
Rupert Pigott
> On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 01:38:53 -0000
> "Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> RP> Troff ?
> RP>
> RP> What the hell is wrong with LaTeX ?
>
> It's too damned verbose next to troff :)
Err, but with Troff you need a dinky little command thing every bloody
line pretty much, with LaTeX you don't. :)
Ooooh, this could be my first TROFF vs LaTeX flamewar. :)
Cheers,
Rupert
Rupert Pigott
news:20030121005235...@mb-mr.aol.com...
> >Subject: Re: YKYBHTLW...
> >From: Steve O'Hara-Smith ste...@eircom.net
> >Date: 1/20/2003 12:39 AM Central Standard Time
> >Message-id: <20030120073955....@eircom.net>
> >
> >On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 20:27:28 -0000
> >"Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >RP> I'll tell you what I hated most about him... He had all this
> >RP> monsterous kit and he ran MS-DOS on them... I was practically
> >RP> screaming at the pages to run something more useful on them - like
> >RP> UNIX...
> >
> > ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
>
> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
Well the point with UNIX is that you don't need to reboot it every
30 seconds, but I suppose that an MS-DOS addict wouldn't know
that such systems existed. To be fair I don't think any UNIXen
started out bullet proof and I imagine that when he was pissing around
with TSRs some of the UNIXen were pretty hairy still.
Cheers,
Rupert
jmfb...@aol.com
What editor were they using? That's the difference. You get a
brain-dead editor that insists on typing out everything even if
you don't want it will slow any production by 70%.
>
>The real big win (with respect to time-saving) of things like LaTeX is
>of course not that they make individual tasks quicker, but that they
>ELIMINATE repetitive formatting tasks altogether, as well as producing
>more professional output than the normal MS-Word user can even conceive
>of creating.
And using a proper editor can also eliminate repetitive keystrokes.
jmfb...@aol.com
Rupert Pigott
> In article <wn7X9.410$Jw5...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com>,
> "Kelli Halliburton" <kell...@crosswinds.not> wrote:
> >Mensanator wrote:
> >
> >>> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
> >>
> >> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
> >
> >Right.
> >
> >Then. Leave. It. Running.
> >
> >Simple.
> >
> >:)
>
> That's a waste of power.
Oddly PCs *used* to be low power devices - the Amiga A1000
had a ~85W PSU for example. PCs rarely carried more than a
200W at one stage - that's a *PEAK* output of two whole light
bulbs, whoa boy... But I know you have dutch ancestry, so it
hurts to lose those pennies...
Now we have "Green PCs" of course so we can leave them in
vegetable power-saving states - and even have them do it for us
when they are feeling un-loved. As it happens I've actually just
moved my UNIX box from my ancient old not-very-green-m/b
to a AMD K7 board that understands green. I can power it
down the other end of the network cable... If I wired up wake
on LAN and persueded windows to stop broadcasting crap on
the LAN I could probably get it to wake-up again too.
Cheers,
Rupert
Pete Fenelon
Depends. With -ms (or -mm, -me or a similar macro package) a simple
document was pretty easy to put together. My fingers still itch to type
.TL, .AU, .AB/.AE, .NH, .PP and friends whenever I'm writing a document
- in fact, if you look at my early Word docs from about '92-3, they were
pretty much the names of my styles ;)
pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" HMHB
jmfb...@aol.com
"Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message news:b0jbnc$rb5$5...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>> In article <wn7X9.410$Jw5...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com>,
>> "Kelli Halliburton" <kell...@crosswinds.not> wrote:
>> >Mensanator wrote:
>> >
>> >>> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
>> >>
>> >> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
>> >
>> >Right.
>> >
>> >Then. Leave. It. Running.
>> >
>> >Simple.
>> >
>> >:)
>>
>> That's a waste of power.
>
>Oddly PCs *used* to be low power devices - the Amiga A1000
>had a ~85W PSU for example. PCs rarely carried more than a
>200W at one stage - that's a *PEAK* output of two whole light
>bulbs, whoa boy... But I know you have dutch ancestry, so it
>hurts to lose those pennies...
It sure does. The difference is about 75-100 Kw-hours on
my bill. That's five bucks..almost enough to buy two gallons
of milk.
>
>Now we have "Green PCs" of course so we can leave them in
>vegetable power-saving states - and even have them do it for us
>when they are feeling un-loved. As it happens I've actually just
>moved my UNIX box from my ancient old not-very-green-m/b
>to a AMD K7 board that understands green. I can power it
>down the other end of the network cable... If I wired up wake
>on LAN and persueded windows to stop broadcasting crap on
>the LAN I could probably get it to wake-up again too.
In this modern day and age of computers in everything but
the kitchen sink, I have a distrust of leaving gear on their
own; they don't seem to think very well for themselves.
Asher Hoskins
> ...who were all, as far as I know, forced to leave because their content
> was no longer acceptable. Steve formed his own magazine, which was
> still selling last time I was looking for it. Circuit Cellar, Ink or
> something like that.
"Circuit Cellar". Info from http://www.circuitcellar.com/.
A splendid magazine. By focussing on microcontrollers, embedded systems
and the like it has some of the feel of the 80's computer magazines
where one actually had to care about the efficiency of applications and
not just bung more processing power at problems.
Asher,
looking at the copy on his desk.
--
asher http://domestic1.sjc.ox.ac.uk/~ahoskins/
asher AT crumbly DOT
[life in plastic, it's fantastic!] freeserve DOT co DOT uk
Don Chiasson
"Roland Hutchinson" <my_sp...@eudoramail.com> wrote in message
news:b0ik56$nc3eh$1...@ID-99522.news.dfncis.de...
>
>
> Yes, but there's another study to consider (done or comissioned by
> Apple as part of it's UI research, I think): it showed that people who
> use the keyboard alone THOUGHT they are getting editing tasks
> done faster than they would using the mouse, but they were in fact
> did the editing tasks, using the mouse was usually faster. (The
> documents being edited were ordinary English prose, certainly
> not code, as I recall. The sort of stuff that most end-users edit
> in things like term-papers, reports, and business letters.)
>
Much of the keyboarding efficiency comes from having and using keyboard
shortcuts, where keyboard does not include function keys. Early editors
/ word processors (used in the Apple study?) used function keys, and I
had to stop and look to find them. A lot of keyboard operations are
based on mouse actions. For example, to do a file operation, press
<alt>F, then to save press S (the menu also indicates that the save can
be done by pressing <ctrl>S). The information is on the menus all you
have to do is move your eyes from the text to the menu bar, much quicker
than moving your hands. Keeping you hands on the keys is a huge win.
---Don
e-mail: it's not not, it's hot.
Mel Wilson
la...@bearnip.com (Lars Duening) wrote:
>Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> wrote:
>
>> In article <v2d2mon...@corp.supernews.com>,
>> Pete Fenelon <pe...@fenelon.com> wrote:
>>
>> > It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
>> > started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
>> > Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
>>
>> Yeah, and the editors knew it. They also knew what was desired by the
>> technical people who used to read the magazine, and specifically changed
>> it. More info on this if anyone is interested.
>
>I'm all ears! (or should that be 'eyes'?)
>
>My guess would be that techies are usually not the ones controlling the
>budget, and that the editors changed Byte to address those who do. But
>since I haven't read Byte in decades, that's just speculation.
BTW what happened to Unix Review, which I think was
going to wintel itself into Performance Computing and
then ... ???
Regards. Mel.
Charlie Gibbs
my_sp...@eudoramail.com (Roland Hutchinson) writes:
>Lars Duening wrote:
>
>> May I now start ranting about the editors supplied with these
>> modernish IDEs? :-)
>
>By all means!
>
>And crosspost to alt.religion.emacs while you're at it, why don't
>you?
>
>(I didn't say that. I really didn't say that. REALLY.)
Emacs? We don't need no steenkin' Emacs! And I have yet to find a
Windoze IDE that would let me use CygnusEd on my Amiga as an editor.
But I _like_ makefiles. I only wish that I had a stand-alone
symbolic debugger, like the one that came with my ancient MS-DOS
Lattice compiler.
Charlie Gibbs
kell...@crosswinds.not (Kelli Halliburton) writes:
>Mensanator wrote:
>
>>> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
>>
>> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
>
>Right.
Funny how people complain about the time it takes Unix to boot,
yet they'll sit patiently when Windoze takes at least as long.
>Then. Leave. It. Running.
>
>Simple.
That's not an option with Windoze.
>:)
Got your nose. :-)
bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca
> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
I guess he still must boot DOS too!
Ben.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
"Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
RP> "Steve O'Hara-Smith" <ste...@eircom.net> wrote in message
RP> news:20030121063720....@eircom.net...
RP> > On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 01:38:53 -0000
RP> > "Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
RP> >
RP> > RP> Troff ?
RP> > RP>
RP> > RP> What the hell is wrong with LaTeX ?
RP> >
RP> > It's too damned verbose next to troff :)
RP>
RP> Err, but with Troff you need a dinky little command thing every bloody
RP> line pretty much, with LaTeX you don't. :)
Nah my CV has about 50 lines with a leading . and 250 without.
Roland Hutchinson
>
> "Roland Hutchinson" <my_sp...@eudoramail.com> wrote in message
> news:b0ik56$nc3eh$1...@ID-99522.news.dfncis.de...
>>
> [snip re study of efficiency of mouse driven vs. keyboard editing]
>>
>> Yes, but there's another study to consider (done or comissioned by
>> Apple as part of it's UI research, I think): it showed that people
>> who use the keyboard alone THOUGHT they are getting editing tasks
>> done faster than they would using the mouse, but they were in fact
>> mistaken.When the researchers actually measured how fast people
>> did the editing tasks, using the mouse was usually faster. (The
>> documents being edited were ordinary English prose, certainly
>> not code, as I recall. The sort of stuff that most end-users edit
>> in things like term-papers, reports, and business letters.)
>>
> What do you expect an Apple Mac study to find?
It may be relevant to note that, IIRC, the study was done as part of
the design process, not to justify the Mac UI retrospectively.
> Much of the keyboarding efficiency comes from having and using
> keyboard shortcuts, where keyboard does not include function keys.
> Early editors / word processors (used in the Apple study?) used
> function keys, and I had to stop and look to find them. A lot of
> keyboard operations are based on mouse actions. For example, to do a
> file operation, press <alt>F, then to save press S (the menu also
> indicates that the save can be done by pressing <ctrl>S). The
> information is on the menus all you have to do is move your eyes from
> the text to the menu bar, much quicker than moving your hands. Keeping
> you hands on the keys is a huge win.
Thou sayest. Have you actually timed how much quicker it is? Have you
timed it on a system where the menu bar is in the correct place for
quick mouse-driven interaction (at the top of the screen, not the top
of the window), rather than where Microsoft Windows puts it, and there
aren't two clusters of unnecessary keys to hop over in order to grab
the mouse?
Roland Hutchinson
Yes, but the technology of using people to do dumb, repetitive tasks
has a longer history and ought to be more fully debugged. You can't
really blame businesses for sticking with proven, mature technology.
Dave Daniels
Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
> I thought that the 1983 C langauge issue was good too. IIRC,
> the 1978 issue was for LISP, the 1982 issue was for Logo...
> IMHO, the "language" issue of BYTE was a *great* idea.
They had one devoted to the 68000 during the mid 1980s as well.
Did they have any other issues where they focused on a type of
processor?
Dave Daniels
Stan Barr
>
>It sure does. The difference is about 75-100 Kw-hours on
>my bill. That's five bucks..almost enough to buy two gallons
>of milk.
Sheesh! Is that how much you pay for electricity?? 100KWh would cost
me 1.28 GBP, plus VAT at 17.5%, say around $2.36 total.
It makes a change for something to be cheaper over here :-)
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr sta...@dial.pipex.com
**Remove the digits from email address**
The future was never like this!
arargh...@not.at.enteract.com
<darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
>Now we have "Green PCs" of course so we can leave them in
>vegetable power-saving states - and even have them do it for us
>when they are feeling un-loved. As it happens I've actually just
>moved my UNIX box from my ancient old not-very-green-m/b
>to a AMD K7 board that understands green. I can power it
>down the other end of the network cable... If I wired up wake
>on LAN and persueded windows to stop broadcasting crap on
>the LAN I could probably get it to wake-up again too.
I would have thought that Wake On Lan would ignore all forms of
broadcast packets, otherwise, what's the point of even having it?
--
Arargh (at arargh dot com) http://www.arargh.com
To reply by email, change the domain name, and remove the garbage.
(Enteract can keep the spam, they are gone anyway)
Steve Burton
wrote:
>In article <b0i8bc$jkb$1$8302...@news.demon.co.uk> darkboo-remove-this-
>ng.@hotmail.com (Rupert Pigott) writes:
>
>>What the hell is wrong with LaTeX ? Both Troff an LaTeX have been
>>used to format a lot of books (as has Troff for that matter). Oddly
>>whenever I have handed in LaTeX copy people have asked me how I
>>got Word to make those documents look so good... All these new-
>>fangled GUI WP doohickies just encourage people to fiddle with the
>>appearance rather than concentrate on the *content* of what they are
>>writing.
>
>Back when the most commonly used GUI was still the Mac, someone
>played on all the Mac<whatever> product names by coining the term
>"Macdinking", which referred to the messing about people did with
>their documents in a WYSIWY(almost)G environment. A study claimed
>that documents produced on an IBM PC running MS-DOS tended to have
>more solid content but looked rather plain, while documents produced
>on Macs tended, as you said, to emphasize style over content.
>
>>Sure LaTeX and Troff ain't everyone's cup of tea, but the former is
>>well known to produce excellent quality output with practically *zero*
>>layout skills required by the author... That has to be a good thing
>>having seen the results of people going berzerk with Word and clip-art
>>libraries day in and day out for the last decade. The results of the
>>average Word output makes you think that it's *harder* to use than an
>>editor + formatter + previewer combo.
>
>It probably is. But people have so much fun playing with it that they
>believe it's easier. It's painful to watch such people work; they're
>constantly moving off the keyboard to the mouse, pushing it around
>the screen, clicking here, clicking there, going back to type a word
>or two, then back to the mouse to click on this and that... I have
>to exercise great self-control to turn my back and walk away. The
>alternative might start out innocently enough - "Wouldn't you find
>it easier to do it _this_ way?" - but experience has taught me that
>this just rubs people's fur backwards and in the worse case can
>degenerate into a shouting match. It's far better that I just go
>back to my own machine and grind out my own work three times as
>fast as these lusers are doing theirs.
Do you do three times the work or the same work with a third of the
effort? I suspect the former and then you're carrying the lusers. Have
I been there.....
Steve.
Alan T. Bowler
> The results of the average Word output
> makes you think that it's *harder* to use than an editor + formatter +
> previewer combo.
I for one find using the "what you see is all you get" (like Word)
systems much harder then a text editor + formatter.
bfra...@jetnet.ab.ca
> They had one devoted to the 68000 during the mid 1980s as well.
> Did they have any other issues where they focused on a type of
> processor?
The Latest PC's and windows/dos software all the time. :)
Hardware hacking really died with the 386 era, because
at that time you only closed source hardware and software.
Ben.
PS Some say Bill made $$$ on windows, I say it was the mice
instead!
Steve Burton
>In article <b0jcch$fjo$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk>,
> "Rupert Pigott" <darkboo-remove-this-ng.@hotmail.com> wrote:
>><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message news:b0jbnc$rb5$5...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>>> In article <wn7X9.410$Jw5...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com>,
>>> "Kelli Halliburton" <kell...@crosswinds.not> wrote:
>>> >Mensanator wrote:
>>> >
>>> >>> ISTR him sayng he didn't like UNIX, I forget the reasons.
>>> >>
>>> >> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
>>> >
>>> >Right.
>>> >
>>> >Then. Leave. It. Running.
>>> >
>>> >Simple.
>>> >
>>> >:)
>>>
>>> That's a waste of power.
>>
>>Oddly PCs *used* to be low power devices - the Amiga A1000
>>had a ~85W PSU for example. PCs rarely carried more than a
>>200W at one stage - that's a *PEAK* output of two whole light
>>bulbs, whoa boy... But I know you have dutch ancestry, so it
>>hurts to lose those pennies...
>
>It sure does. The difference is about 75-100 Kw-hours on
>my bill. That's five bucks..almost enough to buy two gallons
>of milk.
>
Are you planning a bath? But then asses milk is dearer.
:-):-):-)
[ and Hawk I really *need* your hiding place now ]
Steve.
>>
>>Now we have "Green PCs" of course so we can leave them in
>>vegetable power-saving states - and even have them do it for us
>>when they are feeling un-loved. As it happens I've actually just
>>moved my UNIX box from my ancient old not-very-green-m/b
>>to a AMD K7 board that understands green. I can power it
>>down the other end of the network cable... If I wired up wake
>>on LAN and persueded windows to stop broadcasting crap on
>>the LAN I could probably get it to wake-up again too.
I'm looking at building a mini-itx PC which only uses 55W flat out. I
can't decide whether to build it as a DVD player and general PC or
just to make it do DNS and network services. They can be made fanless
and so quiet so I could leave it on all of the time.
Steve.
Steve Burton
<sha...@news.widomaker.com> wrote:
>In article <b0gsa8$42l$7...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>
>> Didn't he have a close friend who would proof his technical detail
>> for accuracy? When that friend died, so went the sanity check.
>
>Now that you mention it, I do remember something about an associate of
>his dying.
>
IIRC his name was something along the lines of 'my mad friend McLean'
Steve.
>It's been so long since I bothered reading Byte.
>
>I could read the web site I guess, but I doubt it's any good.
Pete Fenelon
> But I _like_ makefiles. I only wish that I had a stand-alone
We're a dying breed. We used to ship GNU Make (with sources, so don't
worry) with some of our embedded products that were hosted on Windows
so that users could build examples the way we did. Turned out that
modern users just don't know, understand or like make - we had to
revert to batch files.
Most of them these days, of course, rarely see a command line - the IDE
shields them from it all. It's worrying how many less experienced embedded
developers have no clear idea of the different passes of a compiler,
the workings of a linker, how object files and executable images are
built... I've even seen some who didn't clearly understand the
difference between a compiler and an interpreter.
I assume things are even worse in mainstream IT. Fortunately I work in a
strange middle ground that's half deeply-embedded and baby micros and
half Unix and networking - I miss out on all the "commercial" stuff ;)
arargh...@not.at.enteract.com
>On Tue, 21 Jan 03 12:39:20 GMT, jmfb...@aol.com <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>It sure does. The difference is about 75-100 Kw-hours on
>>my bill. That's five bucks..almost enough to buy two gallons
>>of milk.
>
>Sheesh! Is that how much you pay for electricity?? 100KWh would cost
>me 1.28 GBP, plus VAT at 17.5%, say around $2.36 total.
>It makes a change for something to be cheaper over here :-)
In the Chicago, IL, USA area, for residental service:
The first 400 kWh are billed at $8.275 / 100 and after that $6.20 /
100 (from a November bill) plus all the assorted taxes.
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
>
> Emacs? We don't need no steenkin' Emacs! And I have yet to
> find a Windoze IDE that would let me use CygnusEd on my Amiga
> as an editor. But I _like_ makefiles. I only wish that I had
> a stand-alone symbolic debugger, like the one that came with
> my ancient MS-DOS Lattice compiler.
[1] c:\dnld\scratch>dir x:\symdeb.exe;mapsym.exe
Volume in drive X is WD30-PRI41 Serial number is 3CE4:239B
Directory of X:\symdeb.exe;mapsym.exe
10-16-85 4:00 18,028 MAPSYM.EXE
10-16-85 4:00 37,023 SYMDEB.EXE
55,051 bytes in 2 files and 0 dirs 61,440 bytes allocated
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
CBFalconer
In those days DOS booted much faster than UNIX, and cost a lot
less too. There was no Linux. Until the late '80s there was no
such thing as a practical Unix for PCs and those required at least
a 286.
CBFalconer
> Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
> > But I _like_ makefiles. I only wish that I had a stand-alone
>
> We're a dying breed. We used to ship GNU Make (with sources, so
> don't worry) with some of our embedded products that were hosted
> on Windows so that users could build examples the way we did.
> Turned out that modern users just don't know, understand or like
> make - we had to revert to batch files.
>
> Most of them these days, of course, rarely see a command line -
> the IDE shields them from it all. It's worrying how many less
> experienced embedded developers have no clear idea of the
> different passes of a compiler, the workings of a linker, how
> object files and executable images are built... I've even seen
> some who didn't clearly understand the difference between a
> compiler and an interpreter.
My windows boxes are always trained to bring up a command prompt
window in the startup directory. It uses 4dos, if possible, and
thus aliases (otherwise a herd of batch files is often needed) and
remains until shutdown time. The aliases launch most other
systems and the result is that I very rarely resort to the Start
menu.
CBFalconer
> jmfb...@aol.com <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >It sure does. The difference is about 75-100 Kw-hours on
> >my bill. That's five bucks..almost enough to buy two gallons
> >of milk.
>
> Sheesh! Is that how much you pay for electricity?? 100KWh would
> cost me 1.28 GBP, plus VAT at 17.5%, say around $2.36 total.
> It makes a change for something to be cheaper over here :-)
In Connecticut power costs about 0.14 per KWH. Are you sure you
haven't dropped an order of magnitude? Even Hydro-Quebec charges
more than your number.
Rsclient
<sha...@news.widomaker.com> writes:
>> It would be a mercy killing. Byte was a fantastic magazine when I
>> started reading it regularly in the mid 80s - Bruce Webster, Ezra
>> Shapiro, Steve Ciarcia etc...
>
>...who were all, as far as I know, forced to leave because their content
>was no longer acceptable. Steve formed his own magazine, which was
>still selling last time I was looking for it. Circuit Cellar, Ink or
>something like that.
>
>
But the real problem isn't that Byte turned to mush -- but
that all of the computing world turned dull, too. I've wondered
whether there's a sort of 'cambrian explosion' thing going on --
first computers are all different and wierd, and as time goes
by one or two archetypes start to dominate, sometimes for
good reasons, sometimes for random reasons.
Even worse, nowadays no computer architecture will be
accepted on the desktop if it doesn't run Microsoft's
office programs. Goodbye, neat new chips, and neat
new hardware.
Neil Franklin
> kell...@crosswinds.not (Kelli Halliburton) writes:
>
> >Mensanator wrote:
> >
> >> Something like "waiting for UNIX to boot makes my teeth itch".
> >
> >Right.
>
> Funny how people complain about the time it takes Unix to boot,
> yet they'll sit patiently when Windoze takes at least as long.
Pournelle did his "tried Unix and disliked it" thing in the 1980s.
That was 80286 (or even 8088?) with MS-DOS (2.x or 3.x). Windows
was just some obscure thing in BGs mental landscape.
PC Unix was Xenix, which took hellisch long to boot compared with
MS-DOS. And it did not even know about using cursor keys. Not even vi,
just ed as editor.
For "computer get out of the way" writers, who just wanted their
text an nothing else, DOS was way better. CP/M was even better still
(same abilities for less work).
--
Neil Franklin, ne...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Programmer, Archer, Blacksmith
- hardware runs the world, software controls the hardware
code generates the software, have you coded today?
jim
The Altos 586 used an 8086 ca 1981. It had vi, troff and about
anything (command line) that I use now. Except for Perl or Expect
of course. It was running Xenix and booted quite quickly, certainly
an order of magnitude faster than the Windows 2000 on my wife's
machine. Oh, and the arrow keys worked for vi.
Jim
Bernie Dwyer
>
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 23:01:10 -0500> CSH> Murcheson's Eye? I thought it was God's eye... ?
>
> It's the sequel, it is also crap.
>
> --
> C:>WIN | Directable Mirrors
> The computer obeys and wins. |A Better Way To Focus The Sun
> You lose and Bill collects. | licenses available - see:
> | http://www.sohara.org/
--
Oi! It's not crap - it's just not as good as its predecessor.
Bernie Dwyer
Dump the z to reply to me
*****************************