Obit - Sir Clive Sinclair, Computing Pioneer

[SevenOverSix]

It is reported that Sir Clive Sinclair has died at age 81.

Sinclair is best known for his "ZX" (I think that's "Zed-X" for
Brits) affordable computers. The rather crude ZX-80 (which could
also be bought cheaper as a kit) was followed by the somewhat
better ZX-81 and finally Sinclair Spectrum ... which was sort
of a Euro answer to the Commodore-64. Large numbers of people
initially got into computing because Sir Clive brought it into
their price range.

Somewhere near the bottom of The Heap I still have a ZX-81
that probably still works. May have to excavate in honor
of Sir Clive.

[AnonymousCoward]

I had a ZX Spectrum 128k + 3

It was my introduction to computers, though i only used it to play games :-D

It's floppy disks were much cooler than the 3'1/2 ones. They have two sides!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Maxell_Compact_Floppy_Disk_CF2-D_20050125.jpg


The last time i turned it on around 15 years ago, still worked.

[Carlos E. R.]

Requiescat in pace.

He deserves all the honours.

The ZX Spectrum was the first computer I could touch and write programs
on it, although in my case it was borrowed, not owned.

Previous to that I wrote programs on a Ti 57 and a TI-58C programmable
calculator, but not many consider those as computers.

Oh, at college there were computers, but as to touch them... It was a
VAX. I don't remember if that was before or after the Spectrum. Probably
after.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[SevenOverSix]

You could LOOK, but not TOUCH the mini-mainframes. Only
the Holy Elite were allowed in the Computer Room. You
could offer your sacrifice of punch-cards in the room
next door of course ............

Oh, FOUND my ZX-81 ... and it WORKS !!! I even found the
plug-in thermal PRINTER.

Need to find a compatible tape cassette unit now. Junk
store ? COULD cheat and record to a modern PC audio
capture, but it's just not the same somehow :-)

[Carlos E. R.]

Oh, we had our lab time on the terminals.

However, the machine got so busy with all the students compiling and
testing their Pascal assignments (specially in the last weeks), that the
editor would take seconds to respond to a keypress. So we counted: five
lines down, then 12 letters right, then three deletes, then replace
"tye" with "the", then wait :-D

It was then that I decided I needed my own computer and asked my father
to get me one. An Amstrad PC 1512, the student association had an
agreement with a vendor. A bit weird vendor... it was not a computer
shop, but a warehouse of some industrial thing... There no home PC
computer vendors by that time, they were starting.

Oh, before getting one I tried renting computer time at a place. You
paid by the hour. I think it was there where I met Turbo Pascal for the
first time.

The next problem was transferring my assignment in text on a floppy to
the Vax, with help from a teacher. We used... kermit, perhaps. And then,
edit the assignment to change the peculiarities of turbo pascal to
standard pascal.

>
>   Oh, FOUND my ZX-81 ... and it WORKS !!! I even found the
>   plug-in thermal PRINTER.

Wow :-)

>   Need to find a compatible tape cassette unit now. Junk
>   store ? COULD cheat and record to a modern PC audio
>   capture, but it's just not the same somehow  :-)

Might not work (a capture). Just a guess. If you do try, make sure to
not use mp3. Now that I think, I would try the experiment, to find out.

Old tape machines with cogs, not belts, will still work. It is the
rubber parts which spoil first. They (tape machines) are still made, saw
something somewhere I don't remember.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2021 09:13:12 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

>
> On 22/09/2021 06.11, SevenOverSix wrote:
>>
>>   You could LOOK, but not TOUCH the mini-mainframes. Only
>>   the Holy Elite were allowed in the Computer Room. You
>>   could offer your sacrifice of punch-cards in the room
>>   next door of course ............
>
> Oh, we had our lab time on the terminals.
>
> However, the machine got so busy with all the students compiling and
> testing their Pascal assignments (specially in the last weeks), that the
> editor would take seconds to respond to a keypress. So we counted: five
> lines down, then 12 letters right, then three deletes, then replace
> "tye" with "the", then wait :-D
>
> It was then that I decided I needed my own computer and asked my father
> to get me one. An Amstrad PC 1512, the student association had an
> agreement with a vendor. A bit weird vendor... it was not a computer
> shop, but a warehouse of some industrial thing... There no home PC
> computer vendors by that time, they were starting.

That was Spain at that time?

Similar in Germany. Dedicated computer shop chains only showed up later
in the 1980s and had their boom in the 1990s. Then most died.

Then you had general department stores which added home computers by the
early 1980s. Then you had hypermarkets (like Walmart or Carrefour today)
where you (in my case at least) only found products by Commodore. There I
got my C64 (1984) and Amiga 500 (1989) from.

[...]

>>   Need to find a compatible tape cassette unit now. Junk
>>   store ? COULD cheat and record to a modern PC audio
>>   capture, but it's just not the same somehow  :-)
>
> Might not work (a capture). Just a guess. If you do try, make sure to
> not use mp3. Now that I think, I would try the experiment, to find out.

There was a short lived [1] UK computer show "4 Computer Buffs"
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178499/> I never heard of before. They
sent program data via audio the audience record. When I found the show on
Youtube I tested that (extracted the audio at that position) and ran the
resulting WAV in an emulator fir that particular machine on my PC. It my
amazement it worked.

X'Post + F'up alt.folklore.computers

[1] So unknown the IMDB page has only little information and a Wikipedia
page not even exists.
--
Andreas

[Carlos E. R.]

On 22/09/2021 21.57, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Sep 2021 09:13:12 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>
>> On 22/09/2021 06.11, SevenOverSix wrote:
>>>
>>>   You could LOOK, but not TOUCH the mini-mainframes. Only
>>>   the Holy Elite were allowed in the Computer Room. You
>>>   could offer your sacrifice of punch-cards in the room
>>>   next door of course ............
>>
>> Oh, we had our lab time on the terminals.
>>
>> However, the machine got so busy with all the students compiling and
>> testing their Pascal assignments (specially in the last weeks), that the
>> editor would take seconds to respond to a keypress. So we counted: five
>> lines down, then 12 letters right, then three deletes, then replace
>> "tye" with "the", then wait :-D
>>
>> It was then that I decided I needed my own computer and asked my father
>> to get me one. An Amstrad PC 1512, the student association had an
>> agreement with a vendor. A bit weird vendor... it was not a computer
>> shop, but a warehouse of some industrial thing... There no home PC
>> computer vendors by that time, they were starting.
>
> That was Spain at that time?

More or less, dates are confusing. Well, the dates when the Amstrad
started selling is known, must be on wikipedia.

>
> Similar in Germany. Dedicated computer shop chains only showed up later
> in the 1980s and had their boom in the 1990s. Then most died.
>
> Then you had general department stores which added home computers by the
> early 1980s.

Yes indeed.

And electronic component shops that besides oscilloscopes could sell you
a computer. Ah, HAM stuff shops, too.

> Then you had hypermarkets (like Walmart or Carrefour today)
> where you (in my case at least) only found products by Commodore. There I
> got my C64 (1984) and Amiga 500 (1989) from.

:-D

>
> [...]
>
>>>   Need to find a compatible tape cassette unit now. Junk
>>>   store ? COULD cheat and record to a modern PC audio
>>>   capture, but it's just not the same somehow  :-)
>>
>> Might not work (a capture). Just a guess. If you do try, make sure to
>> not use mp3. Now that I think, I would try the experiment, to find out.
>
> There was a short lived [1] UK computer show "4 Computer Buffs"
> <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178499/> I never heard of before. They
> sent program data via audio the audience record. When I found the show on
> Youtube I tested that (extracted the audio at that position) and ran the
> resulting WAV in an emulator fir that particular machine on my PC. It my
> amazement it worked.

Wow.

> X'Post + F'up alt.folklore.computers

I don't have that one subscribed here, so I will keep comp.os.linux.misc.

>
> [1] So unknown the IMDB page has only little information and a Wikipedia
> page not even exists.
>


--

Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[SevenOverSix]

I came in just a little before terminals.

There was still the high holy Computer Room and,
next door, the temple where you bowed and scraped
and then offered up your stack of punch cards :-)

Minor bribes to the priests were not a bad idea.
Could make the diff between your stuff being done
by tomorrow, or next week.

An audio capture SHOULD work. The baud rate was SO slow
that even compression algos couldn't screw it up. Still,
I'd rather use an actual cassette deck For Originality.

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/22/21 7:40 PM, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:59:46 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

>>
>> On 22/09/2021 21.57, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>>
>>> X'Post + F'up alt.folklore.computers
>>
>> I don't have that one subscribed here, so I will keep
comp.os.linux.misc.
>

> If you are interested in vintage computers (as you are apparently) I
> highly recommend you do.
>
> Although many articles are about American history which might not be that
> interesting for us Europeans, there is for example another thread about
> Clive Sinclair, as well as other subjects like "British
> computers". Traffic is may be 10-20 articles a day with days of 0 in
> between.
>
> F'up poster (don't need to subscribe to "my group" ;-)
Now here's a good debate, did the Brits or Americans
build the first Real Computer ? :-)

*I* will pick Eniac.

The ENIGMA decoder unit was computer-LIKE, but it did
not share a lot of characteristics with how we now
define "computers".

[SevenOverSix]

WAV is uncompressed - and thus the files are HUGE.

But for tape cassette storage we're basically talking
saving an acoustic modem signal at 110-300 baud max.
MP3 and others may compress, but I doubt they could
screw up THAT slow a signal. There was a LARGE tolerance
range figured-in too, given the characteristics of
mechanical tape recorders.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:59:46 +0200

"Carlos E. R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> On 22/09/2021 21.57, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:

[]

> >
> > There was a short lived [1] UK computer show "4 Computer Buffs"
> > <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178499/> I never heard of before.
> > They sent program data via audio the audience record. When I found

I recall that happening; but wasn't it a BBC (Acorn) thing?

My googlfu is weak.

> > the show on Youtube I tested that (extracted the audio at that
> > position) and ran the resulting WAV in an emulator fir that
> > particular machine on my PC. It my amazement it worked.
>
>
> Wow.
>
> > X'Post + F'up alt.folklore.computers
>
> I don't have that one subscribed here, so I will keep
> comp.os.linux.misc.
>

Do it! Lot's of tales of yesteryear.

> >
> > [1] So unknown the IMDB page has only little information and a
> > Wikipedia page not even exists.
> >



> --
> Cheers,
> Carlos E.R.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Carlos E. R.]

On 23/09/2021 06.49, SevenOverSix wrote:
> On 9/22/21 6:59 PM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 22/09/2021 21.57, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
>>> On Wed, 22 Sep 2021 09:13:12 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 22/09/2021 06.11, SevenOverSix wrote:

...

Normal programs, maybe. Games with copy protection, I doubt it.

mp3 is lossy, information that the human ear does not detect is
destroyed. How much that will affect such a tape, I do not know. You
have to test it.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Carlos E. R.]

On 23/09/2021 11.14, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:59:46 +0200
> "Carlos E. R." <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 22/09/2021 21.57, Andreas Kohlbach wrote:
> []
>
>>>
>>> There was a short lived [1] UK computer show "4 Computer Buffs"
>>> <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178499/> I never heard of before.
>>> They sent program data via audio the audience record. When I found
>
> I recall that happening; but wasn't it a BBC (Acorn) thing?
>
> My googlfu is weak.
>
>>> the show on Youtube I tested that (extracted the audio at that
>>> position) and ran the resulting WAV in an emulator fir that
>>> particular machine on my PC. It my amazement it worked.
>>
>>
>> Wow.
>>
>>> X'Post + F'up alt.folklore.computers
>>
>> I don't have that one subscribed here, so I will keep
>> comp.os.linux.misc.
>>
> Do it! Lot's of tales of yesteryear.

I have it at home, but not in my laptop, which is ancient and already
too loaded. I may try.

As a general rule, I don't like moving a thread from one group to
another, as people can be left out. Adding another group is ok.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Carlos E. R.]

I missed cards by one year on another college, I moved. They were
already obsolete, but the university was not well funded.

It is not compression that matters, but that mp3 is lossy. Commercial
software exploited techniques on the fringe of what an audio tape
recorder could do.


--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Peter Flass]

Carlos E. R. <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

Systems that saved programs on cassette used an audio format. Due to the
sloppiness of the media, I think the recording format had to be pretty
robust.

>
>> X'Post + F'up alt.folklore.computers
>
> I don't have that one subscribed here, so I will keep comp.os.linux.misc.
>
>>
>> [1] So unknown the IMDB page has only little information and a Wikipedia
>> page not even exists.
>>
>
>



--

Pete

[SevenOverSix]

MP3 isn't THAT awful - think of how much music is encoded MP3.
In this case it just has to nail a couple of mid-range audio
tones, the 'warble' of old-tyme acoustic modems.

I'll give it a try and see. Meanwhile, I think you can still
buy brand-new compact cassette recorders. There are still a few
market niches. I think even reel-2-reel tape has made something
of a come-back lately, just like vinyl. R2R, run at a decent
speed, was GOOD. Most commercial music up until near the 90s
was still made on magtape, sometimes physically cut-n-pasted
to achieve the final result.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 23/09/2021 11:09, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> mp3 is lossy, information that the human ear does not detect is
> destroyed. How much that will affect such a tape, I do not know. You
> have to test it.
>

depends on encoding used. MP3 tends to squash the high frequencies which
represent most of the bandwith of an audo signal. i,e, half of the
20hz-20khz putative audio band is in the 10-20khz band which contains
very little information and is inaudible to many older people anyway.

The cassette tapes of that era had trouble getting anywhere near 10khz -
8Khz is a more likely cutoff. I doubt the data rate on an Uncle Clive
tape interface is even 1kbps

Should be fine on MP3


--
Canada is all right really, though not for the whole weekend.

"Saki"

[The Natural Philosopher]

But a cassette tape recorder was unbelievably bad.. Even using a single
make of tape, I had problems setting up the acknowledged 'best' studio
cassette recorder to get channel balance above 3 Khz.

The cassettes were designed for Dictaphones. And Sinclair users were all
cheapskates so wouldn't have anything better than a cheap recorder.

MP3 is probably better than most turntables and vinyl disks.Only full
end to end lossless digital/CDs beats it.


--
“Progress is precisely that which rules and regulations did not foresee,”

– Ludwig von Mises

[Rich]

At least in the case of the Atari 400/800 cassette format it was a very
simple format:

Format details are here: https://www.atariarchives.org/dere/chaptC.php

132 byte records, two start bytes for 'speed detection', a control
byte, 128 data bytes, and a single checksum byte (and the checksum is
just a simple endaround carry sum of the 131 other bytes in the record).

The physical byte encoding on the tape was frequency shift keying, with
5327 Hz for a mark and 3995 Hz for a space.

So it at least it had a simple checksum, but the packet format was
hardly "robust". Workable, but memory of those days was that the
cassette was quite flakey as a data storage format, sometimes it
worked, sometimes it did not. And when it did not rereading things all
over again sometimes magically had them work.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 23/09/2021 16:32, SevenOverSix wrote:
> MP3 isn't THAT awful - think of how much music is encoded MP3.
>   In this case it just has to nail a couple of mid-range audio
>   tones, the 'warble' of old-tyme acoustic modems.
>
>   I'll give it a try and see. Meanwhile, I think you can still
>   buy brand-new compact cassette recorders. There are still a few
>   market niches.

Ive got a barely used ttwin deck hifi cassette recorder going back to
the 1980s that hasn't been used in at least 30 years...heads in great
condition. Only the rubber bands might need replacing :-)

Offers on a postcard.,..

I think even reel-2-reel tape has made something
>   of a come-back lately, just like vinyl. R2R, run at a decent
>   speed, was GOOD. Most commercial music up until near the 90s
>   was still made on magtape, sometimes physically cut-n-pasted
>   to achieve the final result.

15 or 30 ips on 1/2" tape was as good as you need.

1 15/16" ips and 1/8" tape - not so much...

Vinyl has made a comeback within the touchy feely ArtStudent brigade who
have no idea what hi fidelity actually meant.

Years ago I bought a vinyl copy of Electric Ladyland. I was always
unhappy about distortion on one track. Eventually I bought the CD. To
my surprise, the distortion was on the master tape, and not the needle
chattering in the groove.

A good CD will give you 0-19khz with 90dB signal to noise and no actual
distortion beyond digitisation noise.

You would be lucky to do better than 65dB signal to noise on vinyl and
0.5% distortion.

Good analogue tape at 15ips can net you something up around 80dB or
better. Which is getting near better than the microphones. Of course
digital tape first and then digital disk recording has made the whole
recording process limited only by the microphones and their pre-amps

Sadly as the recording quality has improved immeasurably, the recorded
material and sound engineer quality has deteriorated to utter drivel

Many of the best classical orchestral recordings were done with a simple
crossed pair of stereo mics. Many hits of the 50s and 60s were done on 4
or 8 track recorders

128 track digitally mastered 'baby shark' just doesn't cut it. :-)

--
"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted
man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest
thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly
persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid
before him."

- Leo Tolstoy

[Rich]

In case MP3 does something bad with the frequency bands the interface
relies upon, there is always Flac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac
which is lossless.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-23, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 23/09/2021 16:32, SevenOverSix wrote:
>
>> MP3 isn't THAT awful - think of how much music is encoded MP3.
>>   In this case it just has to nail a couple of mid-range audio
>>   tones, the 'warble' of old-tyme acoustic modems.
>>
>>   I'll give it a try and see. Meanwhile, I think you can still
>>   buy brand-new compact cassette recorders. There are still a few
>>   market niches.
>
> Ive got a barely used ttwin deck hifi cassette recorder going back to
> the 1980s that hasn't been used in at least 30 years...heads in great
> condition. Only the rubber bands might need replacing :-)
>
> Offers on a postcard.,..
>
> I think even reel-2-reel tape has made something
>>   of a come-back lately, just like vinyl. R2R, run at a decent
>>   speed, was GOOD. Most commercial music up until near the 90s
>>   was still made on magtape, sometimes physically cut-n-pasted
>>   to achieve the final result.
>
> 15 or 30 ips on 1/2" tape was as good as you need.
>
> 1 15/16" ips and 1/8" tape - not so much...

1 7/8 ips, actually. But even a consumer-grade 1/4-inch 4-track
reel-to-reel deck running at 7 1/2 ips has an inherent 9dB advantage
in signal-to-noise ratio over a cassette - not to mention much better
high-frequency response. That's why I stuck with reel-to-reel when
the world went to cassettes.

> Vinyl has made a comeback within the touchy feely ArtStudent brigade
> who have no idea what hi fidelity actually meant.

If it rumbles it must be good, right? At least that's the message
I get from that guy in the boom car somewhere within 100 yards of me
in a traffic jam.

> Years ago I bought a vinyl copy of Electric Ladyland. I was always
> unhappy about distortion on one track. Eventually I bought the CD. To
> my surprise, the distortion was on the master tape, and not the needle
> chattering in the groove.

Wow.

> A good CD will give you 0-19khz with 90dB signal to noise and no actual
> distortion beyond digitisation noise.
>
> You would be lucky to do better than 65dB signal to noise on vinyl and
> 0.5% distortion.
>
> Good analogue tape at 15ips can net you something up around 80dB or
> better. Which is getting near better than the microphones. Of course
> digital tape first and then digital disk recording has made the whole
> recording process limited only by the microphones and their pre-amps
>
> Sadly as the recording quality has improved immeasurably, the recorded
> material and sound engineer quality has deteriorated to utter drivel
>
> Many of the best classical orchestral recordings were done with a simple
> crossed pair of stereo mics. Many hits of the 50s and 60s were done on 4
> or 8 track recorders
>
> 128 track digitally mastered 'baby shark' just doesn't cut it. :-)

I've read that CDs - including remixes of good vinyl recordings -
are often compressed down to something like a 12dB dynamic range.

I got my hands on an MP3 of a wonderful Joni Mitchell track that
I cherish on vinyl. It sounded so horrible that I deleted it -
and I don't delete _anything_.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

That's not to say that there weren't variations even on vinyl.
The labels in the WEA triumvirate (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic)
were arranged in decreasing order of recording quality.
If you turned up the volume on a Warner recording, the sound
would come out of the speakers and envelop you. If you turned
up the volume on an Atlantic recording, it just got loud.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

[Charlie Gibbs]

Ah yes, I remember the good old days with my IMSAI. I didn't have
cassette decks, but I had a couple of reel-to-reel decks, so I broke
into their motor circuits and built a control box that would use the
cassette motor control circuits to activate relays to switch 110-volt
motor power on and off.

I didn't have a real cassette interface in the beginning, but I did
have a Bell 202 modem (1200 bps async) that I picked up somewhere.
I recorded its output to tape and played it back in - it worked well
enough, although when I finally scraped up the bucks for a CUTS board
it was more reliable (but not much faster).

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.os.linux.misc, Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> 1 7/8 ips, actually. But even a consumer-grade 1/4-inch 4-track
> reel-to-reel deck running at 7 1/2 ips has an inherent 9dB advantage
> in signal-to-noise ratio over a cassette - not to mention much better
> high-frequency response. That's why I stuck with reel-to-reel when
> the world went to cassettes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NT_(cassette)

Tiny mag tape can work, but you have to be careful.

> I've read that CDs - including remixes of good vinyl recordings -
> are often compressed down to something like a 12dB dynamic range.

People who know more than me about audio have explained that as "a
make the CDs sound 'good' on car stereos" effort. In better
environments, you can hear how much worse it is, but competing with the
engine sounds and traffic sounds, the compressed audio seems better.

The proper fix would have been better car stereos, but...

> I got my hands on an MP3 of a wonderful Joni Mitchell track that
> I cherish on vinyl. It sounded so horrible that I deleted it -
> and I don't delete _anything_.

Vinyl also has the quirk that outer edge tracks have better quality than
center tracks. Most other media doesn't suffer that restriction.

Elijah
------
most other media doesn't let you drill an off-center hole for fun

[Peter Flass]

I was astonished when I got my first home computer with a cassette drive
that it didn’t do this!

>
> I didn't have a real cassette interface in the beginning, but I did
> have a Bell 202 modem (1200 bps async) that I picked up somewhere.
> I recorded its output to tape and played it back in - it worked well
> enough, although when I finally scraped up the bucks for a CUTS board
> it was more reliable (but not much faster).
>



--

Pete

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-23, Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:

> In comp.os.linux.misc, Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
>> 1 7/8 ips, actually. But even a consumer-grade 1/4-inch 4-track
>> reel-to-reel deck running at 7 1/2 ips has an inherent 9dB advantage
>> in signal-to-noise ratio over a cassette - not to mention much better
>> high-frequency response. That's why I stuck with reel-to-reel when
>> the world went to cassettes.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NT_(cassette)
>
> Tiny mag tape can work, but you have to be careful.

Interesting. I hadn't heard about that device.

I thought Sony gave up on proprietary media when the Elcaset flopped.

>> I've read that CDs - including remixes of good vinyl recordings -
>> are often compressed down to something like a 12dB dynamic range.
>
> People who know more than me about audio have explained that as
> "a make the CDs sound 'good' on car stereos" effort. In better
> environments, you can hear how much worse it is, but competing with the
> engine sounds and traffic sounds, the compressed audio seems better.
>
> The proper fix would have been better car stereos, but...

I doubt even that would work. Engine and road noise set a pretty high
noise floor - you probably couldn't get a car stereo loud enough to
get 80 dB above that. Nor would you want to - unless you like boom cars.
If you set the volume at a bearable level, the quiet bits on a recording
with good dynamic range will be well below the noise floor. So you're
stuck with the choice of compression if you want to hear those quiet bits
in your car, or no compression if you want a more natural sound at home.
The closest we could come to a fix would be better soundproofing in cars.

In the meantime, a recording that sounds good at home will sound lousy
in your car - and vice versa. I suppose we could have two mixes of
the same album - one compressed and one not - but I doubt enough people
would care enough to make it worthwhile for record companies to issue
two different versions.

However, a friend has a car that offers a great work-around -
switchable compression in the stereo system. That way you can
hear everything on the road, but if you're parked somewhere and
have no background noise to worry about, you can switch off the
compression and hear the recording in all its glory. Of course,
you have to have a recording with good dynamic range in the first
place.

>> I got my hands on an MP3 of a wonderful Joni Mitchell track that
>> I cherish on vinyl. It sounded so horrible that I deleted it -
>> and I don't delete _anything_.
>
> Vinyl also has the quirk that outer edge tracks have better quality than
> center tracks. Most other media doesn't suffer that restriction.

Sounds like the different zones on a hard disk...

[Eli the Bearded]

In comp.os.linux.misc, Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> However, a friend has a car that offers a great work-around -
> switchable compression in the stereo system. That way you can
> hear everything on the road, but if you're parked somewhere and
> have no background noise to worry about, you can switch off the
> compression and hear the recording in all its glory.

That sort of feature is what I meant by "better car stereos". I'm not an
audio guy and will be quite imprecise on such matters.

(Quoting me)

>> Vinyl also has the quirk that outer edge tracks have better quality than
>> center tracks. Most other media doesn't suffer that restriction.
> Sounds like the different zones on a hard disk...

Back to vintage computer reminiscence: I can remember when "where to put
your swap partition?" was one of those zones discussion points.

Elijah
------
slowly computers become less machines and more rocks

[Carlos E. R.]

I have a foggy memory that it used the switch on/off wires of the
microphone, which in some/all tape machines stopped the motor.

That would be the Sinclair Spectrum if any, but can't vouch for it.


--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Carlos E. R.]

Ow :-D

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Carlos E. R.]

I remember an electronics magazine describing a method to use video
tapes with computers to achieve greater data speed and capacity.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Carlos E. R.]

Certainly.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Carlos E. R.]

On 23/09/2021 23.29, Eli the Bearded wrote:

..

>>> Vinyl also has the quirk that outer edge tracks have better quality than
>>> center tracks. Most other media doesn't suffer that restriction.
>> Sounds like the different zones on a hard disk...
>
> Back to vintage computer reminiscence: I can remember when "where to put
> your swap partition?" was one of those zones discussion points.

Once or twice, I created a bunch of partitions (say a hundred) and
measured the speed on each of them. Turned out that the disk was faster
at about 1/3 of the way.


--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[SevenOverSix]

Cassettes were the MP3s of the era ... "good enough" for
the average consumer. They didn't (have to) sound THAT
bad. Many were used in car audio systems (the car I have
actually HAS a cassette slot).

But 1/4 or especially 1/2 inch - VASTLY better.

>> Vinyl has made a comeback within the touchy feely ArtStudent brigade
>> who have no idea what hi fidelity actually meant.
>
> If it rumbles it must be good, right? At least that's the message
> I get from that guy in the boom car somewhere within 100 yards of me
> in a traffic jam.

Most 'modern' music was never made with "high fidelity" in
mind. It's meant to be played LOUD, usually on a crap system
with 1000w bargain-basement class-D amps.

>> Years ago I bought a vinyl copy of Electric Ladyland. I was always
>> unhappy about distortion on one track. Eventually I bought the CD. To
>> my surprise, the distortion was on the master tape, and not the needle
>> chattering in the groove.
>
> Wow.
>
>> A good CD will give you 0-19khz with 90dB signal to noise and no actual
>> distortion beyond digitisation noise.
>>
>> You would be lucky to do better than 65dB signal to noise on vinyl and
>> 0.5% distortion.

Note that "sound" and "hearing" are not exactly the same things.
An absolutely "perfect" system might not SOUND so good. The ear
and brain have to be pleased. Certain harmonics and frequency
biases on vinyl "sound better". The old transistor amps were
technically "more perfect" than tubes/valves - but they sounded
harsh, brash. Odd harmonics -vs- even harmonics from the vac tubes,
emphasis in the wrong places, gaps in the wrong places.

So now people blow thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, on
vac tube amps/pre-amps and vinyl. Try :
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/
to see what the "budget unlimited" crowd craves.

>> Good analogue tape at 15ips can net you something up around 80dB or
>> better. Which is getting near better than the microphones. Of course
>> digital tape first and then digital disk recording has made the whole
>> recording process limited only by the microphones and their pre-amps
>>
>> Sadly as the recording quality has improved immeasurably, the recorded
>> material and sound engineer quality has deteriorated to utter drivel
>>
>> Many of the best classical orchestral recordings were done with a simple
>> crossed pair of stereo mics. Many hits of the 50s and 60s were done on 4
>> or 8 track recorders
>>
>> 128 track digitally mastered 'baby shark' just doesn't cut it. :-)
>
> I've read that CDs - including remixes of good vinyl recordings -
> are often compressed down to something like a 12dB dynamic range.

That'd be an AWFUL transfer. OK for boom-boom-boom I guess.

Now I have a CD, R.E.M., where one track opens with the sound
of someone using an old manual typewriter. With a decent amp
and magneplanar speakers (inefficient but utterly 'transparent')
I was almost shocked by it - sounded REALLY RIGHT IN THE ROOM.
The rest of the CD was top quality too - you could just hear
the bassists fingers sliding a bit on the strings, WAY down
the decibel ladder.

So CDs CAN be good. Thing is, almost nobody bothers. MP3 can
be good too - but you have to use VERY little compression
and crank the sample rate up a bit. There have been some
makers trying to push "super-CD" with a much higher sample
rate and A/D depth. Never got traction though. In theory
a DVD, properly purposed, could easily fit in the double
or triple-sized audio files.

> I got my hands on an MP3 of a wonderful Joni a track that

> I cherish on vinyl. It sounded so horrible that I deleted it -
> and I don't delete _anything_.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
>
> That's not to say that there weren't variations even on vinyl.
> The labels in the WEA triumvirate (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic)
> were arranged in decreasing order of recording quality.
> If you turned up the volume on a Warner recording, the sound
> would come out of the speakers and envelop you. If you turned
> up the volume on an Atlantic recording, it just got loud.

That's the sign of 'audiophile' quality - increasing the
volume simply makes it louder ... instead of adding that
distorted edge. But even that's not ALWAYS good. Got
some "re-mastered" Led Zep stuff. TERRIBLE sound. They
utterly ruined it. Thin bass and no distortions. Back
in the day we'd crank it up EXPECTING, WANTING, that
distortion. That's what it was SUPPOSED to sound like.
When The Levee Breaks is SUPPOSED to shake brain cells.

I may use Audacity "re-ruin" those discs :-)

[SevenOverSix]

Disks read from the inside out.

In any case, your swap really should be right next
to your system partition so minimal head movement
is required. Most people put them at the very end
of the disk, which is wrong unless your system
partition is next-2-last as well.

SDD's, well, doesn't matter - but SDDs just do not
have the dollar/capacity or the rewrite endurance of
magnetic HDDs yet. Not something you should use in
a busy database server that's constantly indexing
indexing indexing. Magnetics will still have a solid
niche a decade from now, though the price will creep
up as more "home" units switch to SDDs. Had good luck
with WD-Golds (basically re-labeled HGSTs) so maybe
I'll buy a few 6tbs before that price creep starts.

The old big video-disks came in two flavors - Constant
Linear Velocity and Constant Angular Velocity. Linear
meant the disc actually slowed down as you read towards
the outer edge - maintained the bits/sec ratio. Angular
spread the pits on the disk further apart as you got to
the edge - again preserving the bits/sec but wasting
surface area with progressively less-packed pits. Angular
was more like a sectored HDD, easier to random-access
and the platter speed never changed. HDDs, thanks to
the newer electronics, can pack the bits in better -
the heads are under-challenged on the inner tracks and
at the bleeding edge on the outer tracks.

Still have one of those machines and about two dozen disks.
Not exactly 4k quality, but for the day they were great.

[SevenOverSix]

Path:
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From: Carlos E. R. <robin_...@es.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Obit - Sir Clive Sinclair, Computing Pioneer
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:30:50 +0200
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Xref: number.nntp.giganews.com comp.os.linux.misc:773290

Yep.

Best compromise of data density and head-movement speed.
Takes a lot of work to fling the heads from one end of
the drive to the other - half of it wasted decellerating
and stabilizing the things as they near the outer edge.

Remember when disk drives used more mechanical means,
sometimes linear actuators or even worm screws and stepper
motors, to move the heads ? Few today have seen the old
removable-platter units, about the size of a dish washer,
where the arms (usually square tube-in-tube) moved straight
in and out. Took the better part of a second to move from
inner to outer tracks - and then there was some fine-tuning
to center perfectly over the desired track. Most could
move the heads independently, so there was an art to
placing your data on the platters so one head could pick
up for the other on the next platter and there'd be
minimal delay and head movement. Didn't always work out
in a multi-user/multi-tasking situation though. STILL
a lot faster than mag-tape reels. You'd store your
programs and bulk data on those :-)

So if you've got a dual+ boot setup, put your crappy Winders
stuff at the bottom and your Linux in the middle. Put your
swap partition right next to your system partition.

SDDs, irrelevant - but they cost WAY too much per TB and
have miserable re-write endurance at present. Great for
"home PCs/laptops" but NOT for hard-working servers.
Some DO set up their systems on a SDD and then go through
all the trouble to shift the data and such off to magnetics.
You can also RAID 1/5/6 SDDs so WHEN they burn out you can swap
in new ones without losing anything (if you don't wait too long).
Of course whatever your box is, NETWORK speed is the bottleneck
in getting said data out to the users. Even 10/g can be
"slow" in some circumstances.

Kept waiting for high-density ferroelectric memory chips, but it
never happened ... I think 512K are the biggest you can get.
A terabyte - a case bigger than a Flintstones lunch box
for sure and a LOT of wiring inside. Plus side, about four
or five times the speed of current SDDs and essentially
infinite rewrites. Static RAM also exists, with roughly
the same plusses and minuses.

[Carlos E. R.]

On 24/09/2021 06.16, SevenOverSix wrote:
>

...

>   So if you've got a dual+ boot setup, put your crappy Winders
>   stuff at the bottom and your Linux in the middle. Put your
>   swap partition right next to your system partition.
>
>   SDDs, irrelevant - but they cost WAY too much per TB and
>   have miserable re-write endurance at present. Great for
>   "home PCs/laptops" but NOT for hard-working servers.
>   Some DO set up their systems on a SDD and then go through
>   all the trouble to shift the data and such off to magnetics.
>   You can also RAID 1/5/6 SDDs so WHEN they burn out you can swap
>   in new ones without losing anything (if you don't wait too long).
>   Of course whatever your box is, NETWORK speed is the bottleneck
>   in getting said data out to the users. Even 10/g can be
>   "slow" in some circumstances.

No, SSD are quite durable nowdays (of course, with limits), and they are
indeed used in servers, when speed is important.

For example, crypto coin mining use them a lot.





--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:21:01 +0200

Drifting; the Amstrad early version (z80 based) CPC464 had a builtin cassette recorder.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Branimir Maksimovic]

I had CPC6128 2x64kb and FLOPPY! z80 CPU alright and CP/M OS.
Worked in bakershop in England to save money ti buy it.
Learned to program on z80.

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

Evil Sinner!

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:47:53 GMT
Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I had CPC6128 2x64kb and FLOPPY! z80 CPU alright and CP/M OS.
> Worked in bakershop in England to save money ti buy it.
> Learned to program on z80.
>
> --
> 7-77-777
> \|/
> ---
> /|\
>

Please adopt usenet convention and post your reply text at the bottom, there's a good chap. And some judicious snipping would help too. (Yup I didn't do it last time, mea culpa).

> On 2021-09-24, Kerr-Mudd, John <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> > On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:21:01 +0200

[]

> >
> > Drifting; the Amstrad early version (z80 based) CPC464 had a
> > builtin cassette recorder.
> >
>
>
> --
> Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
Top posting is what emphaises is on, and, if lot of text, they
will not even read what is written.
YES, CPC464 was very popular, and breaking SPEEDLOCK protections
as excercize :P
--
7-77-777
\|/
/|\

On 2021-09-24, Kerr-Mudd, John <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 11:47:53 GMT Branimir Maksimovic
> <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I had CPC6128 2x64kb and FLOPPY! z80 CPU alright and CP/M OS. Worked in
>> bakershop in England to save money ti buy it. Learned to program on z80.
>>
>> -- 7-77-777 \|/ --- /|\
>>
> Please adopt usenet convention and post your reply text at the bottom,
> there's a good chap. And some judicious snipping would help too. (Yup I
> didn't do it last time, mea culpa).
>
>
>
>> On 2021-09-24, Kerr-Mudd, John <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>> > On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:21:01 +0200
> []
>> >
>> > Drifting; the Amstrad early version (z80 based) CPC464 had a builtin
>> > cassette recorder.
>> >
>>
>>
>> -- Evil Sinner!
>
>


--

Evil Sinner!

[Andrea Croci]

Same here. I so much hate having to scroll down to read what I want to
read, that could be just there for me to see.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-24, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.

Or when you learn to spell "OK" properly... :-)

> Top posting is what emphaises is on, and, if lot of text, they
> will not even read what is written.

That only happens when people don't trim quoted text appropriately.

If you can't be bothered taking the time to make your message
easy to read, I can't be bothered taking the time to decipher it.

Just because Outlook[1] vict^H^H^H^Husers succumb to its pressure to
top-post doesn't make it a Good Thing.

[1] Properly pronounced "Look out!"

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | A: It messes up the flow of the thread.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | Q: Why is top-posting bad?
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | A: Top-posting.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | Q: What is an impediment to readability?

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-23, Carlos E. R. <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

> I remember an electronics magazine describing a method to use video
> tapes with computers to achieve greater data speed and capacity.

I read an article about a system from Ampex called TBM, for
"terabit memory". It used a bank of those huge VTRs that
used 2-inch tape, which were the mainstay of TV studios in
the '60s and '70s. I don't think it caught on...

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-24, SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> wrote:

> Remember when disk drives used more mechanical means,
> sometimes linear actuators or even worm screws and stepper
> motors, to move the heads ? Few today have seen the old
> removable-platter units, about the size of a dish washer,
> where the arms (usually square tube-in-tube) moved straight
> in and out. Took the better part of a second to move from
> inner to outer tracks - and then there was some fine-tuning
> to center perfectly over the desired track.

The first such drives I worked with were Univac's clones of
the IBM 2311 and 2314. They had hydraulic actuators; there
was a felt-lined drip pad under the actuator.

One time we left the air conditioning on over a weekend
when the machine was shut down, and when we came back in
our breath was condensing in the machine room. The oil
in the actuators had congealed; we had to let the disks
spin for half an hour or so before it warmed up enough
to let the heads load.

> Most could
> move the heads independently, so there was an art to
> placing your data on the platters so one head could pick
> up for the other on the next platter and there'd be
> minimal delay and head movement. Didn't always work out
> in a multi-user/multi-tasking situation though. STILL
> a lot faster than mag-tape reels. You'd store your
> programs and bulk data on those :-)

I never saw a drive with multiple actuators, although I
wouldn't be surprised if such a thing existed. I did hear
about drives that had fixed heads mounted on a few tracks
for rapid access.

Some systems allowed split-cylinder allocation; if you
did it right you could access two files without moving
the head assembly. It would take so much care in setting
up properly, though, that I never saw it actually used.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-23, Carlos E. R. <robin_...@es.invalid> wrote:

No, wow. :-)

[Jeff Gaines]

On 24/09/2021 in message <87wnn57...@usenet.ankman.de> Andreas
Kohlbach wrote:

>Outlook (Express) can be configured to put the cursor below the
>quote. Default is top posting thought. One of the countless annoying
>"features" of it. Am amazed, that people today still use Outlook.

The cursor is placed at the top so you can scroll down and trim before
replying.

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK
The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-24, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:16:55 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2021-09-24, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
>>
>> Or when you learn to spell "OK" properly... :-)
>

> ?

Both letters should be capitalized. That way you ensure that
it's pronounced "oh kay". It's not a word, but a concatenation
of letters, like "TCP/IP". If I see someone writing it "Ok",
I make sure to pronounce it "awk" just to piss them off.

Going back to the obligatory Microsoft-bashing, the first time
I saw "Ok" was the prompt from their BASIC interpreter for CP/M,
so I assign them the blame. It was carried over into GW-BASIC
on MS-DOS, which I still use from time to time; to keep my
blood pressure down I patched the .EXE file to display "OK".

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -

X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:16:55 GMT
Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> Just because Outlook[1] vict^H^H^H^Husers succumb to its pressure to
> top-post doesn't make it a Good Thing.

At work (the environment Outlook was designed for) top posting
above a full quote is exactly the right thing to do. This is because there
is no list and so the entire thread has to be in every message so that if
someone else is added to the discussion they get the entire context. It
just means that when one of these monsters lands in the inbox you have to
start reading from the bottom, but at least by the time you get to the top
you know what they're on about.

> [1] Properly pronounced "Look out!"

or "Out House".

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

[Charlie Gibbs]

My analogy to this is a memo that gets sent around the office.
When you receive it, you photocopy the whole thing, staple your
reply to the top, and pass it on. Each time it comes back to you
you have another copy of the whole damned thing, growing thicker
every time. And all of those copies would be filling up everyone's
filing cabinets. Worst of all, trying to read such a monstrosity
from the beginning (i.e. bottom up) is a nightmare. If books were
printed that way, they would start with the last chapter, followed
by the second-to-last one, all the way down to the first chapter,
which appears at the end. Reading such a book in order would be a
supreme pain in the ass.

I realize that this habit has gotten so ingrained that it'll
probably never be eradicated. But I don't have to like it.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -

X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

[Scott Lurndal]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> writes:
>On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:16:55 GMT
>Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Just because Outlook[1] vict^H^H^H^Husers succumb to its pressure to
>> top-post doesn't make it a Good Thing.
>
> At work (the environment Outlook was designed for) top posting
>above a full quote is exactly the right thing to do. This is because there
>is no list and so the entire thread has to be in every message so that if
>someone else is added to the discussion they get the entire context. It
>just means that when one of these monsters lands in the inbox you have to
>start reading from the bottom, but at least by the time you get to the top
>you know what they're on about.
>

Easily resolved if outlook would simply position the cursor at the
point of the new reply rather than at the start of the message when
reading new messages.

[Jeff Gaines]

On 24/09/2021 in message
<20210924190832.0e31...@eircom.net> Ahem A Rivet's Shot
wrote:

>At work (the environment Outlook was designed for) top posting
>above a full quote is exactly the right thing to do.

That's email, not Usenet posts. When you had to have some technical
knowledge to use a computer nobody top posted - email or Usenet - in fact
you would get chucked off mailing lists for top posting. It's only since
the hoi polloi started using email that top posting has been prevalent.

Some languages read left to right, some right to left, but they are all
read top to bottom.

--
Jeff Gaines Wiltshire UK

Those are my principles – and if you don’t like them, well, I have others.
(Groucho Marx)

[Carlos E. R.]

Me, I don't understand why modern disks don't have multiple actuators.
It would reduce the access time and increase i/o.

>
> Some systems allowed split-cylinder allocation; if you
> did it right you could access two files without moving
> the head assembly. It would take so much care in setting
> up properly, though, that I never saw it actually used.
>


--

Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Rich]

In comp.os.linux.misc Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
> Top posting is what emphaises is on, and, if lot of text, they
> will not even read what is written.

A: Because it reverses the normal top to bottom temporal order of
English language text.

Q: Why should one not top post?

[Rich]

SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> wrote:
> Disks read from the inside out.

CD/DVD disks read from the inside out.

Floppy disks numbered their track zeros at the outermost track and read
inward.

Hard drives, before internal sector remapping, also read from outside
in (track zero was outermost).

Modern SATA drives with internal sector remapping could read the
physical disk surface in any order their designers wished, and the OS
would be unaware.

[Aragorn]

On 24.09.2021 at 23:08, Carlos E. R. scribbled:

> On 24/09/2021 19.16, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
> > I never saw a drive with multiple actuators, although I
> > wouldn't be surprised if such a thing existed. I did hear
> > about drives that had fixed heads mounted on a few tracks
> > for rapid access.
>
> Me, I don't understand why modern disks don't have multiple actuators.
> It would reduce the access time and increase i/o.

I have recently read about a new hard disk design from one of the usual
manufacturers that had dual actuators.

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

[Branimir Maksimovic]

Ana He even didn't notice THAT I AM NOT TOP POSTING,
rateher put text on WHAT I AM REPLYING UNDER '--',
SIGNATURE :P

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\d

--
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

OK, I am learning, bit NOT TOP POSTING, NOTE '--' SIGNATURE :P

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

On 2021-09-24, Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> On 2021-09-24, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
>
> Or when you learn to spell "OK" properly... :-)
>
>> Top posting is what emphaises is on, and, if lot of text, they
>> will not even read what is written.
>
> That only happens when people don't trim quoted text appropriately.
>
> If you can't be bothered taking the time to make your message
> easy to read, I can't be bothered taking the time to decipher it.
>
> Just because Outlook[1] vict^H^H^H^Husers succumb to its pressure to
> top-post doesn't make it a Good Thing.
>
> [1] Properly pronounced "Look out!"
>


--

Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

I don;t top post, notice '--', SIGNATURE.

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

On 2021-09-24, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 13:05:37 GMT, Branimir Maksimovic wrote:
>>
>> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
>> Top posting is what emphaises is on, and, if lot of text, they
>> will not even read what is written.
>> YES, CPC464 was very popular, and breaking SPEEDLOCK protections
>> as excercize :P
>

> It's not only to (please) avoid top posting, regarding usenet conventions
> existing since the 1980s. It's also to trim unnecessary quotes. Like I
> just did. Isn't that easier to read?


--
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

Questions of topicallity are always ON TOPIC. Is it OK to quote
in SIGNATURE, or SHOULD I SNIP IT?

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

On 2021-09-24, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:16:55 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>

>> On 2021-09-24, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
>>
>> Or when you learn to spell "OK" properly... :-)
>

> ?

>
>>> Top posting is what emphaises is on, and, if lot of text, they
>>> will not even read what is written.
>>
>> That only happens when people don't trim quoted text appropriately.
>>
>> If you can't be bothered taking the time to make your message
>> easy to read, I can't be bothered taking the time to decipher it.
>>
>> Just because Outlook[1] vict^H^H^H^Husers succumb to its pressure to
>> top-post doesn't make it a Good Thing.
>

> Outlook (Express) can be configured to put the cursor below the
> quote. Default is top posting thought. One of the countless annoying
> "features" of it. Am amazed, that people today still use Outlook.
>

> F'up2 comp.os.linux.misc, although it's off topic in either group.


--
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

> On 2021-09-24, Scott Lurndal <sc...@slp53.sl.home> wrote: Ahem A Rivet's Shot
> <ste...@eircom.net> writes:
<...>

>
> Easily resolved if outlook would simply position the cursor at the point of
> the new reply rather than at the start of the message when reading new
> messages.

It is easy in VIM, just gq}, you have formated text and cursor position, BOTH.

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

--
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-24, Jeff Gaines <jgaines...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

<...>

>
> Some languages read left to right, some right to left, but they are all read
> top to bottom.
>

Sure, but to make people *THINK* on WHAT YOU ARE REPLYING is MORE IMPORTANT.

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

--
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-24, Rich <ri...@example.invalid> wrote:
<...>

> A: Because it reverses the normal top to bottom temporal order of English
> language text.
>
> Q: Why should one not top post?
>
>

Because you break automatism and MAKE people AWARE of TEXT, because they
HAVE TO READ ALL in order to FIGURE OUT what you are replying.

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

--
Evil Sinner!

[Carlos E. R.]

I have a feeling of having heard of that.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Aragorn]

On 25.09.2021 at 00:07, Branimir Maksimovic scribbled:

> Ana He even didn't notice THAT I AM NOT TOP POSTING,
> rateher put text on WHAT I AM REPLYING UNDER '--',
> SIGNATURE :P

1. Your signature delimiter is broken. It should be
"dash dash space", not "dash dash".

2. The signature should be no longer than four lines.

[Bobbie Sellers]

On 9/24/21 11:29, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-09-24, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 17:16:55 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> On 2021-09-24, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ok, I'll do that when you learn how to format text properly.
>>>
>>> Or when you learn to spell "OK" properly... :-)
>>
>> ?
>
> Both letters should be capitalized. That way you ensure that
> it's pronounced "oh kay". It's not a word, but a concatenation
> of letters, like "TCP/IP". If I see someone writing it "Ok",
> I make sure to pronounce it "awk" just to piss them off.
>
> Going back to the obligatory Microsoft-bashing, the first time
> I saw "Ok" was the prompt from their BASIC interpreter for CP/M,
> so I assign them the blame. It was carried over into GW-BASIC
> on MS-DOS, which I still use from time to time; to keep my
> blood pressure down I patched the .EXE file to display "OK".
>

Or "Okay, okay" from the Dutch I believe in New Amsterdam Oll Korrect.
So looked it up and now Dutch involved.
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-hilarious-history-of-ok-okay>
<https://expresswriters.com/the-bizarre-real-origins-of-the-word-okay/>

I was wrong but okay was in use when we had no word/text
processors. Frequently people would mark work sheets simply "OK"
back in the 1940s.

bliss - 'Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.' After all
here I am...

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On 24 Sep 2021 21:05:57 GMT

"Jeff Gaines" <jgaines...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On 24/09/2021 in message
> <20210924190832.0e31...@eircom.net> Ahem A Rivet's Shot
> wrote:
>
> >At work (the environment Outlook was designed for) top posting
> >above a full quote is exactly the right thing to do.
>
> That's email, not Usenet posts. When you had to have some technical

Correct, more to the point it is direct email not mailing list
email.

> knowledge to use a computer nobody top posted - email or Usenet - in fact

Mailing list or USENET correct. My point was that Outlook is not
designed for mailing lists or USENET it is designed for direct email in a
corporate setting where top posting and full quotes are appropriate in
complete contrast to USENET and mailing lists where they are not.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

You have missed the point - in this context you want the replies to
be at the top and you want a complete copy of the entire thread. Interleaved
replies and snipping in that context is completely wrong it destroys
essential information.

[Branimir Maksimovic]

Corrected.

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

Why just four lines?

--
7-77-777
\|/
---
/|\

On 2021-09-25, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be> wrote:

Evil Sinner!

[Aragorn]

On 25.09.2021 at 03:51, Branimir Maksimovic scribbled:

> Corrected.

Not really. Your "signature" contains more than four lines, and your
message body contains no reference whatsoever as to what you are
replying to.

Most people on Usenet are subscribed to more than one newsgroup. Your
style of quoting makes that into a nightmare every time they stumble
upon your posts.

Usenet netiquette and convention stipulate that you would sbip the
irrelevant quoted content from your replies and that you write your own
replies underneath the remaining paragraphs in an interleaved fashion.

Any deviation from that standard makes the Usenet experience only
harder for everyone else, and needlessly so, because it really doesn't
cost any effort to do it right.

[Aragorn]

On 25.09.2021 at 03:52, Branimir Maksimovic scribbled:

> Why just four lines?

Netiquette. It's supposed to be a signature, not the Encyclopedia
Britanica.

[J. Clarke]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 06:35:19 +0200, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be>
wrote:

>On 25.09.2021 at 03:52, Branimir Maksimovic scribbled:
>
>> Why just four lines?
>
>Netiquette. It's supposed to be a signature, not the Encyclopedia
>Britanica.

Geez, just plonk the twit.

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/24/21 5:48 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
> On 24/09/2021 06.16, SevenOverSix wrote:
>>
>
> ...
>
>>   So if you've got a dual+ boot setup, put your crappy Winders
>>   stuff at the bottom and your Linux in the middle. Put your
>>   swap partition right next to your system partition.
>>
>>   SDDs, irrelevant - but they cost WAY too much per TB and
>>   have miserable re-write endurance at present. Great for
>>   "home PCs/laptops" but NOT for hard-working servers.
>>   Some DO set up their systems on a SDD and then go through
>>   all the trouble to shift the data and such off to magnetics.
>>   You can also RAID 1/5/6 SDDs so WHEN they burn out you can swap
>>   in new ones without losing anything (if you don't wait too long).
>>   Of course whatever your box is, NETWORK speed is the bottleneck
>>   in getting said data out to the users. Even 10/g can be
>>   "slow" in some circumstances.
>
> No, SSD are quite durable nowdays (of course, with limits), and they are
> indeed used in servers, when speed is important.

They are "better" - but STILL not up to the mags in
terms of rewrite endurance, not even close.

When I do install SSDs, it's the Samsung Pro series - a
lot better than the other two offerings which trade
space for speed/endurance. There are charts out there.


> For example, crypto coin mining use them a lot.

Sure.

But a lot of them are de-facto criminals, and can
thus afford to swap 'em out all the time.

Actually, if you're keen to pay a lot of money,
consider big RAM-disks. A lot of boards will handle
32-64gb nowadays. Shove 99% of your system stuff
in there. Ten times the speed of any SSD for sure,
and vast endurance.

[SevenOverSix]

On 9/24/21 1:16 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-09-24, SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> wrote:
>
>> Remember when disk drives used more mechanical means,
>> sometimes linear actuators or even worm screws and stepper
>> motors, to move the heads ? Few today have seen the old
>> removable-platter units, about the size of a dish washer,
>> where the arms (usually square tube-in-tube) moved straight
>> in and out. Took the better part of a second to move from
>> inner to outer tracks - and then there was some fine-tuning
>> to center perfectly over the desired track.
>
> The first such drives I worked with were Univac's clones of
> the IBM 2311 and 2314. They had hydraulic actuators; there
> was a felt-lined drip pad under the actuator.

Wow - HYDRAULIC ????

And I thought the worm screws were bad !

> One time we left the air conditioning on over a weekend
> when the machine was shut down, and when we came back in
> our breath was condensing in the machine room. The oil
> in the actuators had congealed; we had to let the disks
> spin for half an hour or so before it warmed up enough
> to let the heads load.

I can believe it.

>> Most could
>> move the heads independently, so there was an art to
>> placing your data on the platters so one head could pick
>> up for the other on the next platter and there'd be
>> minimal delay and head movement. Didn't always work out
>> in a multi-user/multi-tasking situation though. STILL
>> a lot faster than mag-tape reels. You'd store your
>> programs and bulk data on those :-)
>

> I never saw a drive with multiple actuators, although I
> wouldn't be surprised if such a thing existed. I did hear
> about drives that had fixed heads mounted on a few tracks
> for rapid access.

There were plenty of removable-platter systems with
multiple heads/actuators. How else would you deal with
a stack of 4/6/8/10 platters ? They actuators DID
work independently, it was cool to watch, all those
little "fingers" probing.

MIGHT have been some design with ONE head - and moved
the entire platter set up and down. Don't remember.

In the latter 80s I got a tour of an attack sub. In the
sonar room there was a big box - mini-mainframe - and on
top of that there was one of those removable platter
decks. I already had vastly better Winchester drives
in my home PC. NEVER think the military has the latest
stuff. The contract process is SO slow that the tech
is often 5-10 years behind the curve.


> Some systems allowed split-cylinder a llocation; if you

[SevenOverSix]

Makes sense .. or MADE sense. The cost would be high.

I think SSDs have largely advanced far enough - neglecting
the $$$/gb and endurance issues - to negate the impetus
to speed up magnetics.

Expect one head-arm and SATA6 until they finally fade away.

Still though, PRICE 12tb in magnetic and SSD. If you have
a lot of data .....

[SevenOverSix]

Just documenting past tech.

Clearly todays designers can "hide" the track order.
The units are fast enough so few would ever notice
whether you started from the inside or outside.

There ARE a couple of disk areas normally to the
extreme outside of the "real" tracks. One holds
some config data, the other can hold any old data.
Some criminal types hide viruses or other nasties
in that track - and forensic people always check.
'hdparm' CAN get at them.

Actually though ... just thinking about head movement ...
it MIGHT be quicker to work with the innermost tracks.
The further out you go, the more 'fling', inertia', is
involved and finally getting the head exactly on target
might take longer.

But SSDs will 90% replace mechanical magnetics within
the next five years. No more heads, no more "tracks".

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 02:06:45 -0400
Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 03:35:28 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 24 Sep 2021 21:02:38 GMT
> > sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
> >
> >> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> writes:
> >
> >> Easily resolved if outlook would simply position the cursor at the
> >> point of the new reply rather than at the start of the message when
> >> reading new messages.
> >
> > You have missed the point - in this context you want the
> > replies to be at the top and you want a complete copy of the entire
> > thread. Interleaved replies and snipping in that context is completely
> > wrong it destroys essential information.
>

> This is IMO okay in business environments. But not in the usenet.

Of course. My point was that Outlook is designed for business
environments not for USENET.

[Richard Kettlewell]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> writes:

> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:

>> Easily resolved if outlook would simply position the cursor at the
>> point of the new reply rather than at the start of the message when
>> reading new messages.
>
> You have missed the point - in this context you want the replies to be
> at the top and you want a complete copy of the entire thread.

Anyone added to the discussion late has to read all the context
backwards. Speaking as someone is quite often added to discussions half
way through, that’s the opposite of what I want.

> Interleaved replies and snipping in that context is completely wrong
> it destroys essential information.

Interleaving and putting the new material at the top aren’t the only
options.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Stéphane CARPENTIER]

Le 25-09-2021, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> a écrit :
> On 2021-09-24, Rich <ri...@example.invalid> wrote:
><...>
>> A: Because it reverses the normal top to bottom temporal order of English
>> language text.
>>
>> Q: Why should one not top post?
>>
>>
> Because you break automatism and MAKE people AWARE of TEXT, because they
> HAVE TO READ ALL in order to FIGURE OUT what you are replying.

That's the purpose of removing everything out of context. Because usenet
is an asynchronous media, when you read the answer a week after, it can
be good to have a little context. It avoid the need to chose between
reading again the all message and reading nothing of it.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

[Carlos E. R.]

On 25/09/2021 07.32, SevenOverSix wrote:
> On 9/24/21 5:48 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>> On 24/09/2021 06.16, SevenOverSix wrote:
>>>
>>
>> ...
>>
>>>    So if you've got a dual+ boot setup, put your crappy Winders
>>>    stuff at the bottom and your Linux in the middle. Put your
>>>    swap partition right next to your system partition.
>>>
>>>    SDDs, irrelevant - but they cost WAY too much per TB and
>>>    have miserable re-write endurance at present. Great for
>>>    "home PCs/laptops" but NOT for hard-working servers.
>>>    Some DO set up their systems on a SDD and then go through
>>>    all the trouble to shift the data and such off to magnetics.
>>>    You can also RAID 1/5/6 SDDs so WHEN they burn out you can swap
>>>    in new ones without losing anything (if you don't wait too long).
>>>    Of course whatever your box is, NETWORK speed is the bottleneck
>>>    in getting said data out to the users. Even 10/g can be
>>>    "slow" in some circumstances.
>>
>> No, SSD are quite durable nowdays (of course, with limits), and they are
>> indeed used in servers, when speed is important.
>
>   They are "better" - but STILL not up to the mags in
>   terms of rewrite endurance, not even close.

So? As long as they can run the estimated life time of the computer,
there is no problem.

>
>   When I do install SSDs, it's the Samsung Pro series - a
>   lot better than the other two offerings which trade
>   space for speed/endurance. There are charts out there.
>
>
>> For example, crypto coin mining use them a lot.
>
>   Sure.
>
>   But a lot of them are de-facto criminals, and can
>   thus afford to swap 'em out all the time.

Not really.

First, they are not criminals, just entrepreneurs making a legal investment.

Second, they are after making a profit with crypto money mining, so that
operation has to be productive, not a black hole for money funded by
other operations.


That crypto money can be used and is liked by criminals doesn't mean
that the activity is criminal in itself.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-25, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be> wrote:

> On 25.09.2021 at 03:51, Branimir Maksimovic scribbled:
>
>> Corrected.
>
> Not really. Your "signature" contains more than four lines, and your
> message body contains no reference whatsoever as to what you are
> replying to.
>

Ok, I AM BACK TO SANITY.

--
7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-25, Aragorn <thor...@telenet.be> wrote:

> On 25.09.2021 at 03:52, Branimir Maksimovic scribbled:
>
>> Why just four lines?
>
> Netiquette. It's supposed to be a signature, not the Encyclopedia
> Britanica.
>
>

understood. Will just quote on what i am replying...

--
7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-25, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:
> If you reply in between the lines people can *easily* figure out what the
> previous poster relates to.
>
> When you otherwise have a large quote covering different topics but just
> top post a reply on top of it, it's hard to figure out what the reply
> refers to exactly.
OK. Learning, havent played with usenet for a while :P

--
7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-25, Stéphane CARPENTIER <s...@fiat-linux.fr> wrote:
>>> Q: Why should one not top post?
>>>
>>>
>> Because you break automatism and MAKE people AWARE of TEXT, because they
>> HAVE TO READ ALL in order to FIGURE OUT what you are replying.
>
> That's the purpose of removing everything out of context. Because usenet
> is an asynchronous media, when you read the answer a week after, it can
> be good to have a little context. It avoid the need to chose between
> reading again the all message and reading nothing of it.
>

OK. LEARNED.

--
7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

Score file or kill file or filter is for weak minded, ones that could
not stand what is written :P
Just don't reply and relax, it's much better exercize :P
--
7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 25/09/2021 12:04, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> On 25/09/2021 07.32, SevenOverSix wrote:

>>> No, SSD are quite durable nowdays (of course, with limits), and they are
>>> indeed used in servers, when speed is important.
>>
>>   They are "better" - but STILL not up to the mags in
>>   terms of rewrite endurance, not even close.
>
> So? As long as they can run the estimated life time of the computer,
> there is no problem.

In fact they seem to now be *better* on rewrites.

hard drives wear out because of long running hours causing mechanical
wear. On drive spindles and on head seek mechanisms.

SSDs do not suffer any of that. They suffer ONLY from writes.

If on average they can do more writes than a spinning rust can do seeks,
they are better in every way INCLUDING writes because you always have a
seek with a write



--
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid decision or more dangerous way of
making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people
who pay no price for being wrong.”

Thomas Sowell

[Stéphane CARPENTIER]

Le 25-09-2021, Branimir Maksimovic <branimir....@gmail.com> a écrit :

> On 2021-09-24, Jeff Gaines <jgaines...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
><...>
>>
>> Some languages read left to right, some right to left, but they are all read
>> top to bottom.
>>
> Sure, but to make people *THINK* on WHAT YOU ARE REPLYING is MORE IMPORTANT.

Yes, when I read a message, if if see I need a little bit context, I'll
read the short quotation above. I'll never read the long message bellow
and I'll consider the message as useless.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 10:27:01 -0400
Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:

> On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 07:50:21 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> >
> > Of course. My point was that Outlook is designed for business
> > environments not for USENET.
>

> Microsoft failed to mention this small detail that to its customers. ;-)

I think they shout it from the rooftops to their big customers, the
ones that buy the big fat support contracts. Microsoft don't really care
about the home users - the PC vendors are their customers there.

[D.J.]

On 24 Sep 2021 21:05:57 GMT, "Jeff Gaines"

<jgaines...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>On 24/09/2021 in message

><20210924190832.0e31...@eircom.net> Ahem A Rivet's Shot
>wrote:
>

>>At work (the environment Outlook was designed for) top posting
>>above a full quote is exactly the right thing to do.
>
>That's email, not Usenet posts. When you had to have some technical

>knowledge to use a computer nobody top posted - email or Usenet - in fact

>you would get chucked off mailing lists for top posting. It's only since
>the hoi polloi started using email that top posting has been prevalent.

>
>Some languages read left to right, some right to left, but they are all
>read top to bottom.

We had outlook at my last job, we all bottom posted. My boss, and the
head boss, preferred it that way.

[John-Paul Stewart]

On 2021-09-24 7:57 p.m., Aragorn wrote:
> On 24.09.2021 at 23:08, Carlos E. R. scribbled:
>>

>> Me, I don't understand why modern disks don't have multiple actuators.
>> It would reduce the access time and increase i/o.

Added cost is one big reason against it. Apparently it adds power
consumption, too. (Which is an important consideration in a data centre
with thousands of them running.)

> I have recently read about a new hard disk design from one of the usual
> manufacturers that had dual actuators.

The Seagate Exos 2X14 14TB drive has dual actuators. It presents itself
as a pair of 7TB drives. The "2" before the X in the name is indicative
of the dual actuator technology, which Seagate calls "Mach.2". (There's
also a plain "X14" single-actuator drive in their line-up. Don't mix
them up!)

[gareth evans]

Top and also bottom posting have always both been conventions on Usenet,
and if you encounter a pedant who is up his own fundamentum, then
post both at the top and also at the bottom, as this post, which
should make everybody happy.

On 24/09/2021 13:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>
> Please adopt usenet convention and post your reply text at the bottom, there's a good chap. And some judicious snipping would help too. (Yup I didn't do it last time, mea culpa).
>

Top and also bottom posting have always both been conventions on Usenet,
and if you encounter a pedant who is up his own fundamentum, then
post both at the top and also at the bottom, as this post, which
should make everybody happy.

[Branimir Maksimovic]

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.folklore.computers.]

On 2021-09-25, Andreas Kohlbach <a...@spamfence.net> wrote:
>> OK. Learning, havent played with usenet for a while :P
>

> Thanks, perfect. Thank you.
>
> Well, leave an empty line between the quote an your text.

Like this?

--

7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[Branimir Maksimovic]

On 2021-09-25, gareth evans <headst...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Top and also bottom posting have always both been conventions on Usenet, and
> if you encounter a pedant who is up his own fundamentum, then post both at
> the top and also at the bottom, as this post, which should make everybody
> happy.

great, but please reformat text, it looks ugly on terminal text readers.

>
> On 24/09/2021 13:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>>
>> Please adopt usenet convention and post your reply text at the bottom,
>> there's a good chap. And some judicious snipping would help too. (Yup I
>> didn't do it last time, mea culpa).
>>
>
> Top and also bottom posting have always both been conventions on Usenet, and
> if you encounter a pedant who is up his own fundamentum, then post both at
> the top and also at the bottom, as this post, which should make everybody
> happy.
>

great, but please reformat text, it looks ugly on terminal text readers.

--

7-77-777
Evil Sinner!

[Carlos E. R.]

On 25/09/2021 17.35, John-Paul Stewart wrote:
> On 2021-09-24 7:57 p.m., Aragorn wrote:
>> On 24.09.2021 at 23:08, Carlos E. R. scribbled:
>>>
>>> Me, I don't understand why modern disks don't have multiple actuators.
>>> It would reduce the access time and increase i/o.
>
> Added cost is one big reason against it. Apparently it adds power
> consumption, too. (Which is an important consideration in a data centre
> with thousands of them running.)

Sure, speed always need more power.

>
>> I have recently read about a new hard disk design from one of the usual
>> manufacturers that had dual actuators.
>
> The Seagate Exos 2X14 14TB drive has dual actuators. It presents itself
> as a pair of 7TB drives. The "2" before the X in the name is indicative
> of the dual actuator technology, which Seagate calls "Mach.2". (There's
> also a plain "X14" single-actuator drive in their line-up. Don't mix
> them up!)
>

If they are seen as two drives, then that is not what I call a dual
actuator disk.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

[Peter Flass]

I think I’m just going to have to ignore those posts. I really hope they
don’t contain anything interesting.

--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

Oh, it was *designed*?

--
Pete

[J. Clarke]

Did somebody add NNTP support to Outlook when I wasn't looking?

[Dave Garland]

Touché

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2021-09-25, SevenOverSix <hae274c.net> wrote:

> On 9/24/21 1:16 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> I never saw a drive with multiple actuators, although I
>> wouldn't be surprised if such a thing existed. I did hear
>> about drives that had fixed heads mounted on a few tracks
>> for rapid access.
>
> There were plenty of removable-platter systems with
> multiple heads/actuators. How else would you deal with
> a stack of 4/6/8/10 platters ? They actuators DID
> work independently, it was cool to watch, all those
> little "fingers" probing.

No, there was only one actuator. The head assembly consisted
of multiple heads (10 for the IBM 2311, 20 for the 2314, similar
numbers for later models) mounted on a single frame. All heads
moved across all platters simultaneously. Files were usually
organized in "cylinders"; once you accessed one track in the
cylinder, you could access all other tracks by simply switching
heads without having the actuator move.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

[Bobbie Sellers]

It even looks ugly on Thunderbird.
But even when we try, it is hard to get really properly formatted text
out of any sort of news-reader/mailer. To begin
to do a decent job the text must be checked from the saved draft
before letting it flutter out to the net.


bliss - Your tag lines (k) were stolen!
(more) There is a puff of smoke!

Quaff a potion of See Invisible.
Smeagol is at it again.
Quaff a potion of Speed.
Pretend you haven't eeen him.
Wait a turn until he tries for these lines.
The smite him with your enchanted dagger...

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com