"Ask Dr. Internet". . .October, 1996
Michael S. Hart
This is "Ask Dr. Internet" for October, 1996
Responding to the questions we received during September
Q0. The Browser Wars!
A great deal of questions were asked about various browsers,
so many that we have decided to do a special edition of "Ask
Dr. Internet" over the holidays concentrating just on those.
Please send us your suggestions for how to download pictures
and text in various formats from your favorite browsers. In
addition, any suggestions you have for multiple bookmarking,
more than one bookmark file, and other configurations.
There are so many subjects we have been asked about on Pages
and Browsers, and their configurations that we will list the
lot of them here, and hope to compile all the responses.
Q1.
Benchmarks.
Various benchmarks on chips and the Internet.
Lots of them. If you aren't interested in it
just skip this section.
Q2.
Predictions.
We welcome Kevin Gilmore to the "Ask Dr. Internet" staff.
Q3.
Secret Guide To Computers, by Russ Walter
We welcome Len to our staff, from Russ Walter's Secret Guide to Computers.
Q4. Search Engines
Q5. More On the Email Virus
Q6.
Suppression of Internet Access In More Locations Than You Might Think
Q7.
RAM Upgrades
Q8.
Include Your Entire Email Address In Your Notes
Q9.
Setting Clocks For The Year 2000
Q10.
Book Reviews
***
A0.
For now, we will just report that NetScape still has a big lead over
Explorer, bigger than in the Presidential elections.
A1. Benchmarks.
Various benchmarks on chips and the Internet.
Lots of them. If you aren't interested in it
just skip this section.
Landmark 2.00 Speed Tests
NOTE: Landmark tests ONLY the internal CPU functions
Compares CPU performance to Megahertz of AT [80286]
These are all tests performed by the Dr. Internet Staff
on their own equipment. Math functions are compared to
80287 Megahertz. A Megahertz is a million clock ticks
per second.
CPU/Mhz ATMhz Math
8088/4.77 2
8088/9 4
286/6 6
286/10 10
286/12 12
286/16 16
386-7/25 28 68
486/16 54 141
486/25 84 220
486/33 111 293
486/50 168 441
486/66 223 588
586/50 300 680
486/99 334 879
P5/150 866 2541
PP/150 955 2806
PP/300 1927 4380
Here are some more benchmarks you might find useful.
These are from The Secret Guide to Computers, which
you can buy on paper, or get from Project Gutenberg.
These figures are so exact that we cannot guarantee
they are from individual tests as are those above.
Work = 1 per 486SX Mhz
We added the 1 per 8088[PC/XT] Column
We will eventually add a third column for AT speed,
to make this list more compatible with that above.
CPU/Mhz Work/486SX Work/PC/XT
8088/4.77 .2385 1
8088/10 .5 2.1
8086/10 .6 2.5
286/6 1.8 7.5
286/8 2.4 10.1
286/10 3 12.6
286/12 3.6 15.1
286/16 4.8 20.1
286/20 6 25.2
386SX/16 6.4 26.8
386SX/20 8 33.5
386SX/25 10 41.9
386SX/33 13.2 55.3
386SX/40 16 67.1
386DX/40 20 83.9
486SX/25 25 104.8
486SX/33 33 138.4
486DX/33 39.6 166.0
486DX/40 48 201.3
486DX2/50 55 230.6
486DX2/66 72.6 304.4
486DX4/75 81 339.6
486DX2/100 108 452.8
Pentium 60 132 553.5
Pentium 66 145.2 608.8
Pentium 90 198 830.2
Pentium 133 290.4* 1217.6
Pentium 150 330* 1383.6
***
You will notice a new chip comes out about every three years,
and that the early advances in chip size and speed made it so
easy to buy a new computer that was 10 times as fast as older
computers were. Recent advances have had more to do with the
advantages in caching and graphics capabilities, and so don't
show up much on tests of raw computing power. You may notice
that the Pentium 66 is only twice as fast as the 486/66 while
the Pentium Pro is hardly any faster [10%] than a Pentium, of
the same clock speed.
We have heard rumors that the P7 will be out in February 1997
but we don't believe them. We have no comments on how fast a
P7 will go at the same clock speed, or what clock speeds were
intended for the P7. We have noted an unofficial policy that
the slowest clock speed for a new chip should be at least the
fastest clock speed of the previous chip, and the fastest new
clock speed is usually about triple that of the initial clock
speed for that chip. The fastest release of the Pentium chip
is probably going to be around 200 MHz, triple the 66 speed--
the fastest releases of the 486's were 3 to 4 times the speed
of the initial 25MHz 486. Therefore we predict a possibility
of a 450MHz Pentium Pro [P6], which should shortly precede an
announcement of the P7. 386 speeds varied from about 16Mhz -
40Mhz, and 286 speeds varied from 6MHz - 20Mhz, thus still an
approximation of two to three times the clock speed during an
entire chip's lifespan.
***
Chip Transistors Pins Year
8088 29,000 40 1979
80286 134,000 68 1982
80386 275,000 132 1985
80486 1,200,000 168 1989
80586 3,100,000 273 1993
Several sizes: 290 & 320 also reported for 90Mhz and above.
80686 5,500,000 ??? 1995
[We haven't counted them yet.
Internet Hosts [surpassed 10 million in early 1996]
Date Hosts
----- ---------
05/69 4
10/69 5
04/71 23
06/74 62
03/77 111
08/81 213
08/83 562
10/84 1,024
10/85 1,961
02/86 2,308
11/86 5,089
12/87 28,174
07/88 33,000
10/88 56,000
01/89 80,000
07/89 130,000
10/89 159,000
10/90 313,000
01/91 376,000
07/91 535,000
10/91 617,000
01/92 727,000
04/92 890,000
07/92 992,000
10/92 1,136,000
01/93 1,313,000
04/93 1,486,000
07/93 1,776,000
10/93 2,056,000
01/94 2,217,000
01/95 5,000,000
01/96 10,000,000
***
A2.
Kevin Gilmore's Predictions for 1997
By February, 1997, 16mb ram modules will be less than
$43.00 wholesale
By June, 1997 4gb scsi hard disk drives will be down to
$350 wholesale
By February, 1997 pentium pro 200 cpu's will be down to
$400 retail
By July, 1997 32gb hard disk drives will be down to
$1995 retail
***
A3.
Secret Guide To Computers, by Russ Walter
We welcome Len to our staff, from Russ Walter's Secret Guide to Computers.
This is a pretty terrific book by a pretty terrific guy.
He includes his phone number, and you can call him 24 hours a day
for help with getting started with your computers.
He does with paper and the phone what we do with email and our
web pages.
Len, from his staff will also be working on "Ask Dr. Internet."
You can retrieve this book, and these others of interest from
most Project Gutenberg sites, as below:
Mon Year Title and Author [filename.ext] ###
A "C" following the Etext number indicates a copyrighted work.
Sep 1996 The Secret Guide to Computers, by Russ Walter WP51[sgcwpxxx.xxx] 672C
Sep 1996 The Secret Guide to Computers, by Russ Walter .txt[sgcpvxxx.xxx] 672C
Apr 1995 A Brief History of the Internet by Michael S. Hart[bhotixxx.xxx] 250C
Jul 1993 Email 101 by John Goodwin [email025.xxx] 75C
Sep 1992 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet, Ed Krol [hhgixxxx.xxx] 39C
Jun 1992 Zen & the Art of Internet, Brendan P. Kehoe [zenxxxxx.xxx] 34C
Aug 1992 The Hackers' Dictionary of Computer Jargon [jargnxxx.xxx] 38
You can find newer versions of some of these files in other locations.
A list of Project Gutenberg sites is appended at the end.
***
A4. Search Engines
Try an article in today's Philadelphia
Inquirer on "fine-tuning Web searches. Fri, 21 Jun 1996
Also see the Internet World Cover Story on Search Engines.
Here are a few we think you would enjoy trying:
in addition to Yahoo and Altavista
http://www.inference.com/
http://www.intersurf.com/~powerdan/duz/search/boolean.html
http://issfw.palomar.edu/Library/TGSEARCH.HTM
http://www.search.com
http://www.switchboard.com
To search for people:
http://206.129.166.101/people.html
http://four11.com
A5. More On the Email Virus [From Edupage]
E-MAIL VIRUS SCARE
Experts say that fears of e-mail-borne viruses appear to be overblown, and
are urging network users to stop their misguided efforts to warn others of
the "non-existent" threat. Panic over unfounded rumors causes another very
real problem -- floods of e-mail warnings that can slow Internet traffic to
a crawl. Security specialists say that plain electronic mail cannot carry a
virus, and that users can best protect themselves by not opening attachments
unless they have a good idea of what's inside. (Chronicle of Higher
Education 12 Jul 96 A19) Meanwhile, to be on the safe side, Trend Micro
Inc. offers a way to protect network servers from nasty surprises. Its
InterScan E-Mail VirusWall intercepts each e-mail message and attachment,
scanning them for any suspicious-looking code. If an infection is detected,
the message recipient and network manager are alerted to the problem before
it goes any further. The company claims it works with all popular e-mail
systems. (Investor's Business Daily 15 Jul 96 A6)
A6.
Suppression of Internet Access In More Locations Than You Might Think
INTERNET SUPPRESSION IN BURMA
In an attack on the country's political dissidents, the military regime in
Burma has outlawed the unauthorized possession of a computer with networking
capability, and prison terms of 7 to 15 years in prison may be imposed on
those who evade the law or who are found guilty of using a computer to send
or receive information on such topics as state security, the economy and
national culture. (Financial Times 5 Oct 96)
We also have many reports of less intensive suppression in colleges and
universities around the world, including the United States ranging from
severe time limits on access to severe subject limits on access.
An interesting over-reaction by many colleges restricts access to books
and other information on the Internet that is freely accessible for the
patrons of their libraries.
This is part of an emerging trend toward keeping information in what we
call a "bottlenecked" situation: in which not only can only one person
have access at any given time, but that person must make a request from
the library to get that information. Many times this information is in
a "Rare Book Room" just to deny access. For example, when looking up a
footnote in one of the University of Illinois library books I had to go
to the rare book room to get to it. . .not because it was old or rare--
but because the quotation was cited from a Playboy magazine interview.
A7. RAM Upgrades
Watch out when you buy your motherboards that you do know whether you
have to put in the smaller RAM modules first. Sometimes there is the
option to get either way. . .if all else is equal. . .do NOT put in a
RAM upgrade where the smaller RAM modules have to be in bank 0. . . .
The computer will usually run faster with the larger RAM modules as a
first line of access.
A8. Include Your Entire Email Address In Your Notes
Many of you are sending email to dr...@promo.net or directly to email
addresses from which you receive our messages. That is fine, but....
PLEASE INCLUDE ALL OF YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS[ES]
Many of you are using mailers you have not yet had time to configure,
and they are leaving off the domain names and our replies to you have
no way to get there. We try to answer EVERY message we receive, even
those that are blank, just to let you know we got them, and that they
arrived in a manner w could not read them.
We can't put EVERY answer in our monthly Newsletters, this would be a
LARGE file, and we try to keep our notes down to 10k to 20k.
A9. Setting Clocks For The Year 2000. . .A Hundred Billion Dollars!!
If this had been caused by pranksters, they would all be in jail now,
even though the year 2000 isn't here yet. But it was caused by great
amounts of ignorance and cheapness; remember when drunk driving was a
supposed "accidental" cause of death? I wonder if this kind of great
stupidity will ever be labeled as a cause. . .instead of an accident?
The latest estimate is that it will cost at least $100,000,000,000 to
set all the computer clocks on New Year's Day coming in three years.
This is all due to the rampant stupidity of the programmers who built
these clock and figured out that they could save a fraction of a cent
by not including all the digits of the date, but letting the computer
decide that the first two digits were, in fact, 19.
Of course, in three more years we will be approaching the end of time
. . .as far as having 4 digit years that start with 19. . . .
Hard to believe that such a short time ago people figure out the year
2000 was never really going to get here.
The figures below only reflect the tens of billions of dollars the US
is preparing to spend on the problem. Of course the US will actually
spend more, especially when massive shutdowns occur, both in computer
systems, and the systems relying on them.
GOV'T TAB FOR CENTURY DATE CHANGE COULD REACH $30 BILLION
The Year 2000 Interagency Committee is developing a database to help federal
agencies locate hardware and software to fix the "year 2000 problem," spread
throughout many different government computer systems. Each agency will be
responsible for identifying, documenting and prioritizing the lines of
computer code that will need to be changed, with estimates of such changes
running anywhere from $1 to $8 per line of code. The Year 2000 Home Page <
http://www.itpolicy.gsa.gov > includes information on best practices with
regard to code inventory and pilot projects. A best practices conference is
planned for next March. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 22 Aug 96 A8)
[From Edupage]
Dr. Internet suggests a trial run for a few days or weeks total time;
set your computer clock to several dates in the first few 2xxx years,
and see if all your programs run correctly. Run ends of month, year,
quarter, etc. programs during this test to make sure they will work.
You will be surprised at how many problems will pop up AFTER January,
2000, but there will be enough then, believe me.
***
Q10.
Book Reviews
1. Hackers, by Steven Levy
The best book we have read in quite a while, no matter what subject.
The most enlightening book about the computer revolution and how all
this got started. You won't find anything like these stories in the
currently advertise "Where Wizards Stay Up Late."
We are in touch with Levy and are trying to encourage him to do some
more writing on this subject.
2. Idoru, by William Gibson
Another PacRim [Pacific Rim] story of the culture of the future; the
story revolves around two groups of people who meet up in the end...
similarly to most of Gibson's and Stephenson's work, and imitators--
this time one group centers around a member of the future's longlife
rock band [such as today's Rolling Stones, but not derivative] and a
another group composed of their young female fans. A few cute looks
at VR [Virtual Reality] prospects for the future.
The characters are not as memorable as previous Gibson offerings nor
is the plot. I wanted to get in two readings before writing this as
I usually like Gibson's books more on the second reading. No so for
this one.
***
We still highly recommend Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson, it easily
is worthy of more than two readings. Some of our staff say it is in
the class of the best science fiction ever written.
***
We also challenge many or even most of the varous computer glossary,
dictionary, or encyclopedia type books out there. Don't take them a
bit seriously. . .they didn't. If you really want to have fun, look
up the same things in all of them. . .you will see what we mean.
***
Don't take "Ask Dr. Internet" too seriously either.
We try hard, but we are not perfect, and we don't want anyone to say
we are perfect, or that we are an authority, we aren't authoritarian
types. . .or can't you tell.
It used to be easy to tell, because we did this mainly for fun. . .
Now that we are on all the major maps of the Internet and Web, it is
harder for us to just to this for fun. . .but you just wait. . . ;=)
***
We challenge some of John C. Dvorak's fundamental concepts in PC Mag
Computer Buyer's Guides. . .especially the "Parts Is Parts" concept.
We strongly suggest that. . .unless you are buying "disposable PC's"
. . .that you check to see that all the parts you are buying now are
compatible with the parts you want to buy later. . .or even with the
other parts you are buying now. . .even if they are in the same box.
There are very famous historical horror stories about controllers in
conflict with motherboards or other controllers, and resistors which
have been replaced with other, supposedly identical resistors, which
were identical in one function but created a different sort of field
of magnetism and capacitance as a side effect, and all those sort of
things. . .these are NOT fairy tales. . .they have happened to every
person who has been in the computer field for any length of time. I
can tell you personal stories about the University of Illinois doing
a massive purchase of supposedly identical computers from one of the
huge mail order houses. One of the computers kept refusing to link,
wouldn't get on the LAN [Local Area Network].
It took hundreds and hundreds of dollars of consulting time to catch
on to the problem. Just ONE bit was different in that computer. . .
reversing the LAN login process from an errorlevel 1 to errorlevel 0
. . .two possible solutions. . .reverse one of the jumpers. . .of 79
on the motherboard [just finding it was a real chore] or reverse the
errorlevel choice in the batch file that loaded the LAN access.
Since we knew the machine would eventually be restored from backups,
made from the other computers, we could not rely on changing the bit
in the batch file. . .so we took off the jumper and left a post it--
always leave a post it when you change anything in a computer; leave
it on the power supply where it will stick well, and record what the
situation is BEFORE you make the change AND AFTER. . .you might have
some surprises in store if you think it they will never want changes
reversed at a later date.
Do the same thing when you edit your setup files.
Comment out the old lines by starting them with : or # or something,
something that makes the computer ignore that line, but leave an old
line in there when you replace it with a new one.
The first three rules of computing:
#1. Back up your data.
#2. Back Up Your Data!
#3. BACK UP YOUR DATA!
If this is the ONLY thing you ever learn from "Ask Dr. Internet" it
will still be very worthwhile that you have read this.
***
You can reach the Dr. Internet Web Sites as follows:
This page includes our disclaimer, has links to our PG site,
to all the issues and, for each issue, to ALL the
questions/answers, plus links to a page to submit question:
http://promo.net/drnet/feed.html
to a page to do searches about the issues contents:
http://www.promo.net/drnet/search.html
to our FTP site:
containing the original text of each isse plus a .zip
archive including all the texts so far.
The same general index page has a subscription form
to subscribe to the Drnet Newsletter.
***
You can get the Project Gutenberg books via FTP and the Web:
ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu or ftp 128.174.5.14
login: anonymous
password: your...@your.machine
cd pub
cd etext
cd gutenberg
cd etext95 [or 94, 93, 92, 91 or 90. 70's and 80's are in /etext90]
get filename (be sure to set bin, if you get the .zip files)
get more files
quit
get INDEX?00.GUT ? = 1,2,4,8
New files in etext96, of course.
***
ftp ftp.prairienet.org or ftp 192.17.3.4
username: anonymous
password: your...@your.machine.domain
[this is your email address where you are]
cd pub/providers/gutenberg/etext96 [etc, as above]
ls or dir for a listing of files
get filename.txt (ascii files)
get filename.zip (binary zipped files)
be sure to type "binary" before retrieving the .zip files!
Project Gutenberg Web Sites can now be reached at:
http://promo.net/pg/ [This is the definitive site for now]
ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/gutenberg/pg_home.html
http://www.prairienet.org/pg
The Gutenberg archive can also be accessed from Singapore at
http://www.sol.com.sg/pg
and from Silicon Valley at
ftp://cdrom.com/pub/gutenberg
and
ftp://archive.org/pub/gutenberg/etext/etext96
and etext95/94/93/92/91 and etext90, of course.
Please let me know if you need more information.
Michael S. Hart
Working Under Two Hats Today
Dr. Internet and Project Gutenberg