🚀 go-pugleaf

One of my favourites was the blurb for a new compiler construction
text book. The publisher's copy writer had written:

... teaches the theory of compiler grammers ...

It was an excellent book though, but I won't mention names.

In article <22...@unix.cis.pitt.edu> dt...@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:
|I *think* this is the right place to post this, since there is no newsgroup
|"alt.computer.anecdotes"...
  [screwups in a Microsoft Word advertisement deleted]
|Anyone know of any other major advertising gaffes for famous products?

Not an ad, but close...

In the user's manual called "Macintosh" packed with the original 1984
128K Mac, there is a full color two page photograph with the chapter 1
title (pages 6-7) showing an earnest, handsome college student
(supposedly), concentrating on the screen of his Mac (facing away from
the camera).  If you look at the machine itself, the power switch is
clearly OFF.

	/JBL
=


Nets: le...@bbn.com  |  "There were sweetheart roses on Yancey Wilmerding's
 or {...}!bbn!levin  |  bureau that morning.  Wide-eyed and distraught, she
POTS: (617)873-3463  |  stood with all her faculties rooted to the floor."

In article <52...@bbn.COM> le...@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) writes:
>In the user's manual called "Macintosh" packed with the original 1984
>128K Mac, there is a full color two page photograph with the chapter 1
>title (pages 6-7) showing an earnest, handsome college student
>(supposedly), concentrating on the screen of his Mac (facing away from
>the camera).  If you look at the machine itself, the power switch is
>clearly OFF.

My favorites are the adds for "cordless" computers.  Everyone knows
that most computers have a big tangle of cords or cables behind them
(power, printer, lan, modem, etc...).  Photographers, however, don't
think they look nice in pictures that show a computer's backside, so
they remove them!

I think it was an add for Visicalc that had 3 people supposedly looking
at a spreadsheet (hiden from our view) on an Apple ][ with no power
cables.  I think the monitor and disk drive cables were missing too.

Of course, a more recent example is the cover for a recent issue of
MacUser showing a woman using a Mac Portable while lounging on a
swimming pool chair.  Insane enough as it is, I agree, but there was
no mouse or trackball on the machine!  Must have been getting a lot
of work done!

-- 
   /   George D. Nincehelser           \  uunet!swbatl!george       \
  / /   Southwestern Bell Telephone     \  Phone: (314) 235-6544     \
 / / /   Advanced Technology Laboratory  \  Fax:  (314) 235-5797      \
/ / / /\  1010 Pine, St. Louis, MO 63101  \  de asini umbra disceptare \

>My favorites are the adds for "cordless" computers.  Everyone knows
>that most computers have a big tangle of cords or cables behind them
>(power, printer, lan, modem, etc...).  Photographers, however, don't
>think they look nice in pictures that show a computer's backside, so
>they remove them!

The original AppleWorks package had a picture of a man sitting in
front of his Apple IIc which unfortunately was not connected to his
monitor.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Howard C. Huang                        Internet:  hu...@husc4.harvard.edu
Sophomore Computer Science Major       Bitnet:    huang@husc4.BITNET
Mather House 426, Harvard College      UUCP:      huang@husc4.UUCP (I think)
Cambridge, MA 02138                    Apple II:  ftp husc6.harvard.edu

T'ain't exactly computers, but I have an ad for flex circuit board material
from a sixties electronics magazine.  The ad shows a couple of happy female
production workers (in low cut dresses) allegedly soldering parts into flex
boards.  They are holding the soldering irons by the heating elements.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom  ...!tektronix.tek.com!vice.ico.tek.com!keithl
                                      kei...@vice.ICO.TEK.COM
MS 59-316, Tektronix, PO 500, Beaverton OR 97077  (503)-627-4052

In article <1193@swbatl.UUCP> george@swbatl.UUCP (George Nincehelser 5-6544) writes:
>Of course, a more recent example is the cover for a recent issue of
>MacUser showing a woman using a Mac Portable while lounging on a
>swimming pool chair.  Insane enough as it is, I agree, but there was
>no mouse or trackball on the machine!  Must have been getting a lot
>of work done!

I remember the cover, and I remember the pages of letters in a later issue
who said it was sexist, called it the "swimsuit issue," etc.  Someone else
said that she could not possibly be getting any work done because of the
lack of mouse or trackball.

What everyone seems to be forgetting is a little init included with the
system software called Easy Access.  It allows people (apparently especially
handicapped people) to use the Mac without having to mess around with a
mouse.  After you activate it, the the keys on the keypad act like a
mouse (the cursor moves in the direction that key seems to be pointing, with
the '5' serving as the button, as I recall).

I will agree that it's a bit clunky; however, I played around with it
for 15-20 minutes, and got rather good at it.  With enough practice,
it might become a usable alternative to the mouse (at least when you
want to Mac around in the pool :-)

-- 
Mike Jetzer
"Hack first, ask questions later."

In article <10...@studsys.mu.edu> jetzer@studsys.UUCP (Mike Jetzer) writes:

> What everyone seems to be forgetting is a little init included with the
> system software called Easy Access.  It allows people (apparently especially
> handicapped people) to use the Mac without having to mess around with a
> mouse.

I had the Carpal Tunnel operation on my right hand back in November, and wore
a giant surgical bandage on my hand for three days.  I had just bought my new
CX and was really bummed about not being able to use it.  I tried breaking out
Easy Access and using it, but gave up in frustration very soon.  It is not an
easy thing to use.

On the other hand (no pun intended...) I had never before been handicapped,
knew I would eventually heal, and was popping Tylenol 3 with Codeine every
six hours for the pain.  It is quite likely that somebody who had been
handicapped since birth, or was permanently handicapped, might muster the
patience to use EA effectively.

I seriously doubt anybody not in that position would actually use EA.


Actually, EA reminds me a great deal of some of the hardware High Kafaffian
(spelling undoutedly botched) was building here in Washington in the 1970s.
-- 
Sig     DS.L    ('ZBen')       ; Ben Cranston <zb...@Trantor.UMD.EDU>
* Network Infrastructures Group, Computer Science Center
* University of Maryland at College Park
* of Ulm

In article <61...@umd5.umd.edu> zb...@umd5.umd.edu (Ben Cranston) writes:
>In article <10...@studsys.mu.edu> jetzer@studsys.UUCP (Mike Jetzer) writes:
>
>> What everyone seems to be forgetting is a little init included with the
>> system software called Easy Access.  It allows people (apparently especially
>> handicapped people) to use the Mac without having to mess around with a
>> mouse.
>
>I had the Carpal Tunnel operation on my right hand back in November, and wore
>a giant surgical bandage on my hand for three days.  I had just bought my new
>CX and was really bummed about not being able to use it.  I tried breaking out
>Easy Access and using it, but gave up in frustration very soon.  It is not an
>easy thing to use.
>
>On the other hand (no pun intended...) I had never before been handicapped,
>knew I would eventually heal, and was popping Tylenol 3 with Codeine every
>six hours for the pain.  It is quite likely that somebody who had been
>handicapped since birth, or was permanently handicapped, might muster the
>patience to use EA effectively.
>
>I seriously doubt anybody not in that position would actually use EA.

Some of us tend to forget that some of the rest of us **REALLY HATE MICE.**
And trackballs and hamsters and lightpens and whatever else they'll invent
next ... because they make you take your hands off the keyboard.

I do have a little tendinitis but mostly I am a touch typist (yes, some
may consider this a handicap), and can tear along at quite a rate, my
eyes on the screen or the document I'm typing, so long as I can leave my
fingers on the keyboard.  If I have to take my hand away in order to move
a mouse around, I have to stop and look at the keyboard again to re-position
my hand, and it takes up time and is frustrating and annoying.

If I _had_ to use a Mac, I would probably get EA.  Fortunately, where I
work there are plenty of Unix machines and I can stick to vi -- which,
since it was designed for an ADM3A keyboard with no function keys, doesn't
use them.  All the commands are combinations of standard alpha characters
which I can find by spinal reflex.  I know many people find shortcomings
in vi, but for me it is like thinking directly into the machine at a
hundred and twenty words a minute.

Everybody to his own taste, said the old lady as she kissed her cow.

Dorothy J. Heydt
ki...@codon8.Berkeley.edu . . . . . . . I might be here another month or so;
w...@pbhya.PacBell.com . . . . . But my Lord Husband knows where to find me!
(I can no longer be reached at dorothy@cogsci.  The assignment's over.)

In article <1990Feb27.0...@agate.berkeley.edu> kiara@codon8.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Kiara Jordan) writes:
>[...]
>Some of us tend to forget that some of the rest of us **REALLY HATE MICE.**
>[...]  If I have to take my hand away in order to move
>a mouse around, I have to stop and look at the keyboard again to re-position
>my hand, and it takes up time and is frustrating and annoying.

For what it's worth, I don't think I usually look at the keyboard to put
my right hand back on--the D and K keys on Apple's (current) keyboards have
little bumps so you can tell that you're in the right place.

Speaking of those, I'm told when the Apple IIgs was first reviewed in the
magazines, one reviewer claimed the keyboard was manufactured poorly,
citing the bumps on two of the keys (on the unit he received).

He explained that it had taken him over an hour to file off those
annoying bumps.

The folks behind the design read this and are reported to have just stood
there with their mouths haning open for a while.
-- 
David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc.      |   DAL Systems
Apple II Developer Technical Support      |   P.O. Box 875
America Online: Dave Lyons                |   Cupertino, CA 95015-0875
GEnie: D.LYONS2 or DAVE.LYONS         CompuServe: 72177,3233
Internet/BITNET:  dly...@apple.com    UUCP:  ...!ames!apple!dlyons
   
My opinions are my own, not Apple's.

Back when 64K was a *huge* number, Radio Shack had a 65K machine
listed in their catalog.

I wasn't impressed.
--
					---Phil
(This is yet another self-referential .signature .)

One of the funniest blunders I every encountered was when I was flipping
through channels on my TV. When I came uppon CVN (The Cable Value
Network) I saw they were selling an IBM compatable computer. I decided to
watch for a moment (I had an idea something funny was going to happen).
They talked alot about stuff like "High Quality CGA Graphics", "Having 2
disk drives is like having 2 computers" and so on. They they started to
mention how much faster this computer was then other IBM Compatables.
Most only ran at 4.77, or 8, but this computer had a switch in the back
that let you run the computer at 50 or 60 Hz!!!
	Some how they had gotten the clock speed confused with the AC
cycle switch (US-Europe).

--
Nicholas Susch - University of Rochester
  nsus...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu	    "And when I have understanding
  nsus_ltd@uordbv.bitnet		     of computers, I will be the 
  !rochester!ur-cc!nsus_cif		     supreme being!"

In article <5492@ur-cc.UUCP> nsus...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Nicholas Leon Susch) writes:
+ disk drives is like having 2 computers" and so on. They they started to
+ mention how much faster this computer was then other IBM Compatables.
+ Most only ran at 4.77, or 8, but this computer had a switch in the back
+ that let you run the computer at 50 or 60 Hz!!!
+ 	Some how they had gotten the clock speed confused with the AC
+ cycle switch (US-Europe).

   No, It actually did run that fast.  It had 1/2 of the Chang Modification
installed...

   Geez, I hope someone remembers that (not too long ago, 2-3 years?) so
someone gets the joke...  arg...

-- 
David L. Newton                 |           uunet!marque!carroll1!dnewton 
(414) 524-7343 (work)           |              dne...@carroll1.cc.edu   
(414) 524-6809 (home)           |           100 NE Ave, Waukesha WI 53186

In article <5492@ur-cc.UUCP> nsus...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Nicholas Leon Susch) writes:
>	Some how they had gotten the clock speed confused with the AC
>cycle switch (US-Europe).

This reminds me of the time I got my printer back from the local
computer repair shop....When I got home, I happened to 
read the tag that contains all the vital info (customer name, item,
problem, etc).  I was really rolling when I read the serial number:

                     120 V AC

I always wonder what they would have done if I went back and said
that the most expensive piece of equipment in the shop was mine since
the "serial number" matched. :-)

-- 
   /   George D. Nincehelser           \  uunet!swbatl!george       \
  / /   Southwestern Bell Telephone     \  Phone: (314) 235-6544     \
 / / /   Advanced Technology Laboratory  \  Fax:  (314) 235-5797      \
/ / / /\  1010 Pine, St. Louis, MO 63101  \  de asini umbra disceptare \

If you're one of those unskilled, braindead morons who can't deal
with a mode-ful editor; or who think that holding down one key
while you press another key to move the cursor is a "good" way to
have an editor act, you should probably just hit "N" right fucking now. :-)


In article <1990Feb27.0...@agate.berkeley.edu> kiara@codon8.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Kiara Jordan) writes:
>I do have a little tendinitis but mostly I am a touch typist (yes, some
>may consider this a handicap), and can tear along at quite a rate, my

It shows your superiority.  I had to take a 3hr, college level typing
course before I could take my first COSC (well, DP really :-) class.
(Touchtyping 50wpm really helped me write COBOL code on a 30 user 11/750. :-)

>... Fortunately, where I
>work there are plenty of Unix machines and I can stick to vi -- which,
>since it was designed for an ADM3A keyboard with no function keys, doesn't
>use them.  All the commands are combinations of standard alpha characters
>which I can find by spinal reflex.  I know many people find shortcomings
>in vi, but for me it is like thinking directly into the machine at a
>hundred and twenty words a minute.

YES! YES! YES!

Now let's hear it for IBM, who in their *INFINITE* marketing wisdom
put the ESC key off in the north-west 40 acres so that you have to
take your fingers off of home-row just to go out of insert mode.

Of course, I've yet to meet an IBM field support/tech/whatever for
the RT that can actually *use* vi, they all want to use inED or
whatever the hell it's called.

IBM's continued antagonism of vi/unix users has almost surpassed
DEC's (now they're "Digital", sorry) introduction of the LK201 keyboard
that has *NO* ESC key (just a *suggestion* of ESC up on F11 or so.)

Our ULTRIX-based DECstation 3100 has no ESC key.  You have to go
into a terminal setup and map "~" as ESC, "<>" as "~", and "<>"
over ",.".  Basically, you have to put all the keys where they
are *SUPPOSED* to be in the first place.

And, as I approach the date when I trade my AT&T unix box for an Amiga,
I suddenly find out that CBM put the ESC key where IBM likes to put
it.

What *will* I do? (no :-)

-- 
       "what urge will save us now that sex won't" -- Jenny Holzer
J. Eric Townsend -- uunet!sugar!flatline!jet -- j...@flatline.lonestar.org
EastEnders mailing list -- east...@flatline.lonestar.org

In article <12...@carroll1.cc.edu> dne...@carroll1.cc.edu (Dave Newton the Late) writes:
>In article <5492@ur-cc.UUCP> nsus...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Nicholas Leon Susch) writes:
>+ disk drives is like having 2 computers" and so on. They they started to
>+ mention how much faster this computer was then other IBM Compatables.
>+ Most only ran at 4.77, or 8, but this computer had a switch in the back
>+ that let you run the computer at 50 or 60 Hz!!!
>+ 	Some how they had gotten the clock speed confused with the AC
>+ cycle switch (US-Europe).
>
>   No, It actually did run that fast.  It had 1/2 of the Chang Modification
>installed...
>
>   Geez, I hope someone remembers that (not too long ago, 2-3 years?) so
>someone gets the joke...  arg...
>



I remember that! I don't think it was that long ago. For those in the dark,
the Chang Modification came out in Taiwan (I believe). It was widely
trumpeted by certain computer columnists who shall remain nameless
(although a keyboard-named person at PC Mag comes to mind :-). Triple
the speed of your PC with a simple, do-it yourself modification! Get
40MHz ratings on Landmark Speed test! And what was that wonder? Basically,
someone had figured out that adding a capacitor could slow down the real-time
clock: thus any benchmarking program which relies on reading the clock
before and after execution to determine running time would be fooled
into thinking that the machine was much faster than it really was.
The part I remember the most is how some people ended up with egg
on their face once the truth came to be known. It seems to me that
it does not take much knowledge of computers to know that there
is no way you can make a computer run 3 times faster
without spending major bucks :-(.




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Francois Panisset                       "Oui Allo!"
INET: pani...@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu       Madame Brossard, 1988
UUCP: ...!mcgill-vision!panisset

Ever see a terminal that runs at 2 baud?  No kidding: a couple of
years ago I was working at a place with C. Itoh CIT-101 terminals.
They were settable to all the speeds you'd expect, but there was
one more at the low end.  Supposedly it was to aid troubleshooting
when "all you had was a voltmeter."
					-=EPS=-

In article <Eu_tp!@cs.psu.edu> okun...@shire.cs.psu.edu (Phil OKunewick) writes:
}Back when 64K was a *huge* number, Radio Shack had a 65K machine
}listed in their catalog.
}
}I wasn't impressed.

Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.  There was a period of confusion for a
while ...  I think my old Osborne 1 manual says something about it being a
65K CP/M system.  (It's inaccurate in many other ways as well).

-- 
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, holl...@ttidca.tti.com)  Illegitimis non
Citicorp(+)TTI                                                 Carborundum
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 450-9111, x2483
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe

In article <12...@carroll1.cc.edu>, dne...@carroll1.cc.edu (Dave Newton) says:
>
>In article <5492@ur-cc.UUCP> nsus...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Nicholas Leon
>Susch) writes:
>+ disk drives is like having 2 computers" and so on. They they started to
>+ mention how much faster this computer was then other IBM Compatables.
>+ Most only ran at 4.77, or 8, but this computer had a switch in the back
>+ that let you run the computer at 50 or 60 Hz!!!
>+       Some how they had gotten the clock speed confused with the AC
>+ cycle switch (US-Europe).
>
>   No, It actually did run that fast.  It had 1/2 of the Chang Modification
>installed...
>
>   Geez, I hope someone remembers that (not too long ago, 2-3 years?) so
>someone gets the joke...  arg...

Yeah, I remember.  Slowed down the timer so the benchmarks thought the
machine was running faster!  A lot of journalists and computer "experts"
ate crow over that one.


Virtually,
- Charles Martin Hannum II       "Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within."
    (That's Charles to you!)     "To life immortal!"
  cmh117@psuvm.{bitnet,psu.edu}  "No noozzzz izzz netzzzsnoozzzzz..."
  c9h@psuecl.{bitnet,psu.edu}    "Mem'ry, all alone in the moonlight ..."

In article <1990Feb28.1...@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> pani...@Moe.McRCIM.McGill.EDU (Jean-Francois Panisset) writes:
>...no way you can make a computer run 3 times faster
>without spending major bucks :-(.

Not strictly true.  A common modification on the old IBM PCs is
to replace the 8088 with a NEC V-20 or similar ship and the crystal
with a faster one.  Thus a 4.77MHz machine might clock up to 8Mhz or
more instead.  This modification costs about $20.  

A 386sx motherboard costing $300 for my $1600 (in 1987) clone will
boast it's present speed about ten times.

Does anyone want to start up the "cut a trace, triple the speed" folklore?
--
<-:(= Tony Stieber	asti...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu   att!uwm!uwmcsd4!astieber

asti...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) write:
>In article <1990Feb28.1...@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> pani...@Moe.McRCIM.McGill.EDU (Jean-Francois Panisset) writes:
>>...no way you can make a computer run 3 times faster
>>without spending major bucks :-(.
>
>Not strictly true.  A common modification on the old IBM PCs is
>to replace the 8088 with a NEC V-20 or similar ship and the crystal
>with a faster one.  Thus a 4.77MHz machine might clock up to 8Mhz or
>more instead.  This modification costs about $20.  
>
>A 386sx motherboard costing $300 for my $1600 (in 1987) clone will
>boast it's present speed about ten times.
>
>Does anyone want to start up the "cut a trace, triple the speed" folklore?
>--
><-:(= Tony Stieber	asti...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu   att!uwm!uwmcsd4!astieber

Well, actually, the V-20 did not make your IBM PC "clock up to 8MHz". This
is a common mistake due to too many people accepting the gospel of Norton SI.
It seems that in order to determine the speed of a machine, Norton SI (or
at least the old versions, I don't know how things are now) ran a loop of
MULs and DIVs. Now, one of the differences between the V20 and the 8088 was
that MUL and DIV ran much faster: hence a V20-equipped 4.77MHz PC might 
appear to get similar results than an 8MHz machine. The point is that the
benchmark is misleading, since overall the performance increase was only
on the order of 5% (of course, on a 477MHz machine, 5% is better than
nothing :-). Without falling into a heavy discussion on benchmarks (see
comp.arch for that), I get tired of seing systems advertised as "Our new
n MHz system", when what they quote you is the "MHz" rating from the
Landmark speed test rather than the speed of the machine itself...

As a general rule, you can't simply increase the speed of a machine 
significantly without running into all sorts of timing problems. Hence
back to my original point, that in general TANSTAAFL(tm). Of course,
when you have deliberately crippled hardware, there might be an exception.
For instance, when IBM came out with the original AT, it had originally
designed it to run at 8MHz. Unfortunately, it seems that 8MHz parts from
Intel were initially in short supply, so at first the machines shipped with
6MHz CPUs and a 6MHz clock (at least IBM won't ship a machine with parts
running over their rated speed, unlike some clone vendors :-( ). Well,
people found out that all you needed to do to run your system at 8MHz was
to change the crystal: since the system had been designed for 8MHz operation
to begin with, the only potential problem was over-heating of the CPU, and
most 6MHz 80286s did not seem to mind running at 8MHz. There was a company
that even sold a gadget to implement a variable clock rate (it came with
heat sinks for the CPU and 80287!). We ran our AT at up to 9.5MHz without
too much problem (OK, the 1.2Mb drive would time-out from time to time:
timing-dependant code in the BIOS I guess).

Then IBM came out with the "real" 8MHz AT, but decided to charge a hefty
premium over the price of the crippled 6MHz machine. Well, they soon found
out that people kept on purchasing the 6MHz machine and doing the crystal
change themselves. To prevent this, a loop was added to the BIOS of the
6MHz machine: it would test the speed, and if it found that it had been
"illegaly" boosted, it would refuse to boot :-(. Of course, the whole
issue disolved away when IBM dropped the 6MHz AT...

There was a trend a few weeeks ago about deliberately crippled machines 
which could be "upgraded" to the next higher model with little effort.

BTW, about upgrading your XT with a 386SX board: by the time you realize
that most 386 software will be very unhappy with your XT HD controller, that
you can't run high-density drives of your XT floppy controller, that 
full-height AT cards won't fit in an XT-size casing, you will have put
together a system costing about the same as a new 386SX close. Again,
TANSTAAFL(tm) :-(




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jean-Francois Panisset                       "Oui Allo!"
INET: pani...@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu       Madame Brossard, 1988
UUCP: ...!mcgill-vision!panisset

In article <10...@ttidca.TTI.COM>, hollombe@ttidca (The Polymath) writes:
| In article <Eu_tp!@cs.psu.edu> okun...@shire.cs.psu.edu (Phil OKunewick) writes:
| }Back when 64K was a *huge* number, Radio Shack had a 65K machine
| }listed in their catalog.
| }
| }I wasn't impressed.
| 
| Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
| still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.  There was a period of confusion for a
| while ...  I think my old Osborne 1 manual says something about it being a
| 65K CP/M system.  (It's inaccurate in many other ways as well).

And remember, Radio Shaft used to sell just a bunch of little parts,
like resistors (remember those? :-), for which 1K really is 10^3 (not
2^10) and 1M is 10^6 (not 2^20).

Just another resistor, :-)
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| mer...@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/

I don't know about doubling the speed, but the 370/145 had a "one wire"
field engineering change that enabled virtual memory: a single wirewrap
jumper was cut (or unwrapped, if the FE was fastidious).
-- 
Elliott Frank      ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00     (408) 746-6384
               or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00

[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]

Jerry Hollombe writes:
>Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
>still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.  There was a period of confusion for a
>while ...

Ah, but the confusion persists.  Some of us old fogeys still believe
that K retains its original meaning of 1,000.  Furthmore, the
International Standards Organization happens to agree with us.

It is unfortunate that so many people have muddled this issue -- they
apparently believe that K means 1,000 when applied to physical
measurements but suddenly gets larger when applied to bits.  This is
apparently attributable to arithmetic concepts introduced a few decades
ago as part of the "new math."

Many of us Konservatives also believe that a byte is a word segment of
no particular length and that memory size should be specified in bits,
though IBM succeeded in confusing the masses about that long ago.

--
Les Earnest                                  Phone:  415 941-3984
Internet: L...@Sail.Stanford.edu              USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr.
UUCP: . . . decwrl!Sail.Stanford.edu!Les         Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

l...@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) writes:

>Jerry Hollombe writes:
>>Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
>>still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.  There was a period of confusion for a
>>while ...

>Ah, but the confusion persists.  Some of us old fogeys still believe
>that K retains its original meaning of 1,000.  Furthmore, the
>International Standards Organization happens to agree with us.


But Lester, kilo is "k," not "K."  Leaving K unambiguously mappable
to 2^10. :-) :-).  This, of course, does not work with megabyte, sigh.

Of course there are those who abbreviate megahertz as mHz, or, just
as bad, as Mhz :-(


Kok Chen, AA6TY			kc...@apple.com
Apple Computer, Inc.

In article <1202@swbatl.UUCP>, george@swbatl.UUCP (6544) writes:
> This reminds me of the time I got my printer back from the local
> computer repair shop....When I got home, I happened to
> read the tag that contains all the vital info (customer name, item,
> problem, etc).  I was really rolling when I read the serial number:
>
>                      120 V AC

After I started working at USU, one of my jobs was to update the inventory list
for the department.  I found some printers that had been purchased the previous
year.  Under the SERIAL # header, they all had the same entry:

                       RS 232 C

What was bad, they were both PARALLEL (Centronics) daisywheel printers!

I sometimes wonder how they find things that have been stolen, or keep track of
what they really _DO_ have.

---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------M
     CRAIG MITTON          |  BITNET%"SLKLX@USU" or
 Utah State University     |  BITNET%"SIERRA@USU"
 Logan, UT  84322-0725     |
     801/750-2064          | "An Opinion?  We don't have those at USU"
---------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------

I have a wallchart from an Intel distributor which features 
High Intergration  chips and pheripheral interfaces
     ^^^^^^^                 ^^
in several places. I expect the technical data on the chart is equally
accurate.

Does anybody remember Andromeda Breakthrough by Fred Hoyle ? It featured an
evil multinational syndicate called `Intel'.

In article <39...@apple.Apple.COM> kc...@Apple.COM (Kok Chen) writes:
>But Lester, kilo is "k," not "K."  Leaving K unambiguously mappable
>to 2^10. :-) :-).  This, of course, does not work with megabyte, sigh.

	Unfortunately, K also stands for something in SI: kelvins, the
unit of temperature.  Since water boils at 373 kelvins, I guess that
makes a fully loaded 640K IBM PC a really hot machine!  :-)

	Sorry.

--
Mark Meyer          USENET: {ut-sally!im4u,convex!smu,sun!texsun}!ti-csl!mmeyer
Texas Instruments, Inc.                                   CSNET : mmeyer@TI-CSL
Every day, Jerry Junkins is grateful that I don't speak for TI.
          "To boost the British economy, I'd tax all foreigners living abroad."

In article <26...@uwm.edu> asti...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes:
>
>A 386sx motherboard costing $300 for my $1600 (in 1987) clone will
>boast it's present speed about ten times.
 ^^^^^
 Yes, but will it run any faster????

>
>Does anyone want to start up the "cut a trace, triple the speed" folklore?

You bet.  This is the old IBM trick, also used by every other computer mfgr.
But it should really be called:

		"Charge $25,000, cut a trace, triple the speed" 
		
		or, as we did at the old Four-Phase:

		"Charge $25,000, move a jumper, double physical memory"

Any other ex-Phasers out there?

-- 
David Harrington		                      internet: dgh@unify.UUCP
Unify Corporation		                ...!{csusac,pyramid}!unify!dgh
3870 Rosin Court                                         voice: (916) 920-9092
Sacramento, CA 95834                                       fax: (916) 921-5340

In article <10...@ttidca.TTI.COM> holl...@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>In article <Eu_tp!@cs.psu.edu> okun...@shire.cs.psu.edu (Phil OKunewick) writes:
>}Back when 64K was a *huge* number, Radio Shack had a 65K machine
>}listed in their catalog.
>}
>}I wasn't impressed.
>
>Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
>still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.  There was a period of confusion for a
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	     nope nope nope.

>while ...  I think my old Osborne 1 manual says something about it being a
>65K CP/M system.  (It's inaccurate in many other ways as well).
>
>-- 

Oh goodie!  Here we go!!!!!!!

K comes from kilo.  Kilo = 1000, Kilo != 1024.  1024 is as close as you can get to 1000 in binary (2**10).

Let the discussion begin.


-- 
David Harrington		                      internet: dgh@unify.UUCP
Unify Corporation		                ...!{csusac,pyramid}!unify!dgh
3870 Rosin Court                                         voice: (916) 920-9092
Sacramento, CA 95834                                       fax: (916) 921-5340

In article <5f27ek@unify.uucp> dgh@unify.UUCP (David Harrington) writes:
>>Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K

   2 raised to a power with a 5 in the ones place?  Wow.  65536 maybe? :-)

>K comes from kilo.  Kilo = 1000, Kilo != 1024.  1024 is as close as you can get to 1000 in binary (2**10).

   How about that 1024 is the closest you can get to 1000 by raising 2 to a
power?  Or maybe that's why my program that's supposed to count to 1010 always
executes 14 more times?  More :-)'s.

-- 
David L. Newton                 |           uunet!marque!carroll1!dnewton 
(414) 524-7343 (work)           |              dne...@carroll1.cc.edu   
(414) 524-6809 (home)           |           100 NE Ave, Waukesha WI 53186

In article <vg27zv@unify.uucp>, dgh@unify.uucp (David Harrington) writes:
> In article <26...@uwm.edu> asti...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes:
> >Does anyone want to start up the "cut a trace, triple the speed" folklore?
> You bet.  This is the old IBM trick, also used by every other computer mfgr.
> But it should really be called:
> 
> 		"Charge $25,000, cut a trace, triple the speed" 
> 		
> 		or, as we did at the old Four-Phase:
> 
> 		"Charge $25,000, move a jumper, double physical memory"
> 
> Any other ex-Phasers out there?

Yeah, but I'm pretty much rehabilitated by now.

------------
"...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise
anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear
and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..."   Plato, _Phaedrus_

In article <1990Mar2.0...@Neon.Stanford.EDU> l...@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) writes:
>Jerry Hollombe writes:
>>Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
>>still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.
>Ah, but the confusion persists.  Some of us old fogeys still believe
>that K retains its original meaning of 1,000.  Furthmore, the
>International Standards Organization happens to agree with us.
>
>It is unfortunate that so many people have muddled this issue -- they
>apparently believe that K means 1,000 when applied to physical
>measurements but suddenly gets larger when applied to bits.

The difference was once explained to me as k (as in "km") means "1000",
whereas "K" [note the case change] means (as in "Kbyte") means "1024".

An analogous case would be the difference between "Cal" and "cal" when
talking about calories; as in nutrition where 1 Cal = 1 kcal = 1000 cal.

NICHAEL

In article <5f27ek@unify.uucp> dgh@unify.UUCP (David Harrington) writes:
>Oh goodie!  Here we go!!!!!!!
>
>K comes from kilo.  Kilo = 1000, Kilo != 1024.  1024 is as close as you can get to 1000 in binary (2**10).
>
>Let the discussion begin.

Eh: 2^9 + 2^8 + 2^7 + 2^6 + 2^5 + 2^3 = 1000 (dec)

2^9	= 512	2^8	= 256	2^7	= 128
2^6	= 64	2^5	= 32	2^3	= 8

1000 is pretty close to 1000.

Jim
Jim Thompson - Network Engineering - Sun Microsystems -	jth...@central.sun.com
Charter Member - Fatalistic International Society for Hedonistic Youth (FISHY)
"Confusing yourself is a way to stay honest."	-Jenny Holzer

Nichael Cramer writes:
>The difference was once explained to me as k (as in "km") means "1000",
>whereas "K" [note the case change] means (as in "Kbyte") means "1024".

Only someone who grew up on a Un*x machine would believe that case
makes a DiFfErEnCe.

--
Les Earnest                                  Phone:  415 941-3984
Internet: L...@Sail.Stanford.edu              USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr.
UUCP: . . . decwrl!Sail.Stanford.edu!Les         Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

In article <53...@bbn.COM>, ncr...@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) writes:
> In article <1990Mar2.0...@Neon.Stanford.EDU> l...@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) writes:
> >Jerry Hollombe writes:
> >>Ah, but 64K is 65,535 decimal.  This was probably in the days when K
> >>still meant 1,000 instead of 1,024.
> >Ah, but the confusion persists.  Some of us old fogeys still believe
> >that K retains its original meaning of 1,000.  Furthmore, the
> >International Standards Organization happens to agree with us.
> >
> >It is unfortunate that so many people have muddled this issue -- they
> >apparently believe that K means 1,000 when applied to physical
> >measurements but suddenly gets larger when applied to bits.
> The difference was once explained to me as k (as in "km") means "1000",
> whereas "K" [note the case change] means (as in "Kbyte") means "1024".
> An analogous case would be the difference between "Cal" and "cal" when
> talking about calories; as in nutrition where 1 Cal = 1 kcal = 1000 cal.

The value implied by "K" is not an invariant constant -- it is a
context sensitive variable, as is "calorie" -- and notice that the
capitalization of many such terms is optional and carries no meaning!

In some contexts, K or k carry the 1000 meaning.  In others K or k
carries the 1024 meaning.  The fun comes in when someone uses a value
in the wrong context.  For example, if someone says that the car they
bought cost them $20K, it should be obvious that they mean $20000.  On
the other hand, a 64Kbyte memory is now understood to mean 64x1024
bytes, though, as Jerry points out, in the early days K was often
interpretted as 1000 in this context, leading to 65Kbyte memories.

					Rich Strebendt
					...!att!ihlpb!res
					r.str...@att.com

In article <1990Mar8.2...@Neon.Stanford.EDU> l...@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) writes:
>Nichael Cramer writes:
>>The difference was once explained to me as k (as in "km") means "1000",
>>whereas "K" [note the case change] means (as in "Kbyte") means "1024".
>
>Only someone who grew up on a Un*x machine would believe that case
>makes a DiFfErEnCe.

UNIX!!!?!

Them's fightin' words.

Son, I never wrote a line of UNIX in my life, and once I ever find out how
to read NEWS on a Real(tm) computer, I won't even be using for that!

NICHAEL

|       Nichael Lynn Cramer    |           UNIX??!?           |
|        --  Nic...@BBN.Com   | Wow!! And they say I'M stuck |
|        --  NCr...@BBN.Com   |in the sixties!  -- Wavy Gravy|

>In some contexts, K or k carry the 1000 meaning.  In others K or k
>carries the 1024 meaning.  The fun comes in when someone uses a value
>in the wrong context.  For example, if someone says that the car they
>bought cost them $20K, it should be obvious that they mean $20000.

I'll go along with that.

>..... On
>the other hand, a 64Kbyte memory is now understood to mean 64x1024
>bytes, though, as Jerry points out, in the early days K was often
>interpretted as 1000 in this context, leading to 65Kbyte memories.

I've been waiting for someone else to mention this, but since they
haven't so far, I will.  It is my understanding that in the context
of magnetic disks, 1K=1000 and 1M=1000000.  This fits in well with a
detailed examination of my trusty old 470Mbyte fuji eagles.

When talking core memory (or mos/bip for most things since the flood)
then 1K=1024 &c.

To the best of my knowledge, this dual use still holds.

-Iain..

In article <1990Mar8.2...@Neon.Stanford.EDU> l...@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) writes:
>Only someone who grew up on a Un*x machine would believe that case
>makes a DiFfErEnCe.

In that case, lES, why do you capitalize all those letters in your name
and your machine names?

The belief that case makes a difference originated in the English language
some centuries ago.
-- 
MSDOS, abbrev:  Maybe SomeDay |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
an Operating System.          | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry he...@zoo.toronto.edu

  Convenient that, when using rn, the "k" key has such an apt function.
Stop flaming.  Please.

-- Mark Wilkins

In article <27...@castle.ed.ac.uk> ia...@castle.ed.ac.uk (Iain Lindsay) writes:
>I've been waiting for someone else to mention this, but since they
>haven't so far, I will.  It is my understanding that in the context
>of magnetic disks, 1K=1000 and 1M=1000000.  This fits in well with a
>detailed examination of my trusty old 470Mbyte fuji eagles.

To a certain extent, this is true, but I've noticed that the
inaccuracy of the measurements is so large (i.e, an 80 "meg" hard
disk could be anywhere from 77,000,000 bytes to 83,000,000 bytes),
the distinction between 1M in these contexts being 1000^2 or 1024^2
is pretty irrelevant.
-- 
Christopher Pettus                   | "I used to think the mind was
Network Connectivity Development     | the most important part of a
Apple Computer, Inc. MS 35-K         | person.  Then I realized what
c...@apple.com   {nsc, sun}!apple!cep | part of me is telling me that."
AppleLink: PETTUS.C                  |

In article <21...@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> jth...@hosaka.Central.Sun.COM (Jim Thompson) writes:
>
>Eh: 2^9 + 2^8 + 2^7 + 2^6 + 2^5 + 2^3 = 1000 (dec)
>
>Jim
>Jim Thompson - Network Engineering - Sun Microsystems -	jth...@central.sun.com
                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

With arithmetic like this, I now understand what happened at Sun in 2Q89!
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
-- 
Elliott Frank      ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00     (408) 746-6384
               or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00

[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]

> > The difference was once explained to me as k (as in "km") means "1000",
> > whereas "K" [note the case change] means (as in "Kbyte") means "1024".

> Only someone who grew up on a Un*x machine would believe that case
> makes a DiFfErEnCe.

Then the people who designed the standard abbreviations for SI metric
measures must have "grown up on a Un*x machine".  M = mega = 1000000,
m = milli = 1/1000.  And k = kilo = 1000, and there is no SI multiplier
prefix abbreviated K.

However, I don't think it's reasonable to say that it's the capital-
ization that makes K = 1024, because we also want to use M = 1048576,
G = 1073741824, T = 1099511627776, and presumably in a few years
P = 1125899906842624, where in each case the nearby-valued SI metric
prefix abbreviations *are* capitalized.

What makes sense to me is to simply say that the symbols K,M,G,etc,
*and* the prefixes corresponding to them, refer to powers of 1024 when
the thing that they're measuring naturally comes in such units.
Thus a megabyte is 1048576 bytes on a binary computer, or 1000000 bytes
on a decimal computer.  (And I'll worry about ternary computers when
somebody builds one.)

-- 
Mark Brader			"You can do this in a number of ways.
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto		 IBM chose to do all of them...
utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com	 why do you find that funny?"	-- D. Taylor

This article is in the public domain.  Powers of 1024 courtesy of bc.

In article <4cOV024...@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> es...@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank) writes:
>In article <21...@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> jth...@hosaka.Central.Sun.COM (Jim Thompson) writes:
>>
>>Eh: 2^9 + 2^8 + 2^7 + 2^6 + 2^5 + 2^3 = 1000 (dec)
>>
>>Jim
>>Jim Thompson - Network Engineering - Sun Microsystems -	jth...@central.sun.com
>                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>With arithmetic like this, I now understand what happened at Sun in 2Q89!
>:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
>-- 
>Elliott Frank      ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00     (408) 746-6384
>               or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00
>

Ummm, what's wrong with the arithmetic?  It works out to exactly 1000 decimal
just fine.  The original poster claimed that one could not represent 1000 (decimal)
in binary, which is obviously false.

						-- Kevin --

------------------
Kevin-Neil Klop,						kevin@cbmvax
Commodore-Amiga			"The purpose of big business to to create
				playgrounds for engineers"

In article <21...@texsun.Central.Sun.COM> jth...@hosaka.Central.Sun.COM (Jim Thompson) writes:
>In article <5f27ek@unify.uucp> dgh@unify.UUCP (David Harrington) writes:
>>Oh goodie!  Here we go!!!!!!!
>>
>>K comes from kilo.  Kilo = 1000, Kilo != 1024.  1024 is as close as you can get to 1000 in binary (2**10).
>>
>>Let the discussion begin.
>
>Eh: 2^9 + 2^8 + 2^7 + 2^6 + 2^5 + 2^3 = 1000 (dec)
>
>1000 is pretty close to 1000.

Wow!  Jim has just proven that any number can be represented in binary.  Call
the papers.

The point of David's posting (And don't try to tell us you don't know what
he meant) is that 1024 is as close as you get with a power of two.  The
reason that is significant is because it describes an amount of memory that
can be accessed by a computer with a finite number of address lines.  With
1 line for example you can access 2**1 bytes(2).

If you had 10 lines you could access 1024 bytes of memory.  Rather than
saying "one thousand and twenty four" to describe it the shorthand of 1K
was used which was generally accepted as the closest power of 2 around
1000.

The upshot is that Radio Trash and others were a little dishonest when they
claimed to have 65K of memory.  Either they should have used the convention
and claimed 64K or else used decimal and claimed 65.536K  Using 65K sounds
deliberately misleading to me.  Not of course that anyone who understood the
technology had any trouble understanding exactly what was meant of course
but they were selling to many people who didn't understand and thought
they were getting something more.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid)     |   Thank goodness we don't get all 
D'Arcy Cain Consulting             |   the government we pay for.
West Hill, Ontario, Canada         |
(416) 281-6094                     |

D'Arcy J.M. Cain writes:
>If you had 10 lines you could access 1024 bytes of memory.  Rather than
>saying "one thousand and twenty four" to describe it the shorthand of 1K
>was used which was generally accepted as the closest power of 2 around
>1000.

This is an inversion of the actual historical development.  1K was
used originally in the traditional engineering sense to mean "some
number between 500 and 1,500."  Unfortunately a number of people with
binary brains and no scientific background assumed that it had a
precise meaning, namely 1024, and began using it that way.  Even
though this change makes little sense, I plan to switch to the new
notation as soon as I get rid of two fingers.

>The upshot is that Radio Trash and others were a little dishonest when they
>claimed to have 65K of memory.  Either they should have used the convention
>and claimed 64K or else used decimal and claimed 65.536K  Using 65K sounds
>deliberately misleading to me.  Not of course that anyone who understood the
>technology had any trouble understanding exactly what was meant of course
>but they were selling to many people who didn't understand and thought
>they were getting something more.

Yes, and many of those people probably thought that 65K meant some number
between 64,500 and 65,500, which it does.  In other words, Radio Shack
was among the few accurate and honest vendors.

--
Les Earnest                                  Phone:  415 941-3984
Internet: L...@Sail.Stanford.edu              USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr.
UUCP: . . . decwrl!Sail.Stanford.edu!Les         Los Altos Hills, CA 94022

In article <1990Mar10.151333.10076@druid.uucp>, darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy
J.M. Cain) writes:
> The upshot is that Radio Trash and others were a little dishonest when they
> claimed to have 65K of memory.  Either they should have used the convention
> and claimed 64K or else used decimal and claimed 65.536K  Using 65K sounds
> deliberately misleading to me.

Compare the Atari ST line: 260, 520 and 1040, with respectively 256K,
512K and 1M.  At least the meaning is opaque; they don't actually
claim that much K of memory.
-- 
David Brooks				dbr...@osf.org
Open Software Foundation		uunet!osf.org!dbrooks

In article <48...@paperboy.OSF.ORG>, dbrooks@osf (David Brooks) writes:
| In article <1990Mar10.151333.10076@druid.uucp>, darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy
| J.M. Cain) writes:
| > The upshot is that Radio Trash and others were a little dishonest when they
| > claimed to have 65K of memory.  Either they should have used the convention
| > and claimed 64K or else used decimal and claimed 65.536K  Using 65K sounds
| > deliberately misleading to me.
| 
| Compare the Atari ST line: 260, 520 and 1040, with respectively 256K,
| 512K and 1M.  At least the meaning is opaque; they don't actually
| claim that much K of memory.

(time to stick my foot in my mouth again... :-)

But, but, but... these are all based on the following:

The 65XE (their *real* low-end machine with a 6502 processor, mostly
compatible with the original Atari 400/800 series) had 64K (65536)
bytes of memory (yeah, not all RAM, 'cause some ROM was part of that).
The followon machine had twice the memory, so they called it the
130XE.  And, every machine after that has been scaled correspondingly.
(So to Atari, "65" is short for 65536... :-)

At least they got the "Mega" series right.  "Mega-2" and "Mega-4" have
2M and 4M of memory, respectively.

Just another Atari owner (nope... not tellin' how much mem I got...),
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| mer...@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/

In article <48...@paperboy.OSF.ORG> dbr...@osf.org (David Brooks) writes:
}In article <1990Mar10.151333.10076@druid.uucp>, darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy
}J.M. Cain) writes:
}> The upshot is that Radio Trash and others were a little dishonest when they
}> claimed to have 65K of memory.  Either they should have used the convention
}> and claimed 64K or else used decimal and claimed 65.536K  Using 65K sounds
}> deliberately misleading to me.
}
}Compare the Atari ST line: 260, 520 and 1040, with respectively 256K,
}512K and 1M.  At least the meaning is opaque; they don't actually
}claim that much K of memory.

Just to add to the confusion, and get back to the original premise of the
thread:

Fedco, Inc. (local membership discount chain) has an ad for a PC clone in
their latest catalog.  The ad claims the clone includes "... 1 MG [sic]
memory and a 40 MG [sic] hard disk."

They've sure got a lot of _something_ there (4 * 10^16 is a lot of almost
anything).  Too bad they don't say what. (-:

-- 
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, holl...@ttidca.tti.com)  Illegitimis non
Citicorp(+)TTI                                                 Carborundum
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 450-9111, x2483
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe

In article <10...@ttidca.TTI.COM> holl...@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>The ad claims the clone includes "... 1 MG [sic]
>memory and a 40 MG [sic] hard disk."

>They've sure got a lot of _something_ there (4 * 10^16 is a lot of almost
>anything).  Too bad they don't say what. (-:

Nanobytes.
-- 
			"Billions of nanoseconds later..."
cha...@C3.COM	{decuac.dec.com,cucstud}!c3pe!charles	ex::!echo Boo:

In article <10...@ttidca.TTI.COM> holl...@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>Just to add to the confusion, and get back to the original premise of the
>thread:

>Fedco, Inc. (local membership discount chain) has an ad for a PC clone in
>their latest catalog.  The ad claims the clone includes "... 1 MG [sic]
>memory and a 40 MG [sic] hard disk."

>They've sure got a lot of _something_ there (4 * 10^16 is a lot of almost
>anything).  Too bad they don't say what. (-:

	It seems to me that they do.  One never concatenates metric
prefixes, so the G must stand for the gauss, the cgs unit of magnetic
flux density.
	What I don't understand is the point in having 1 megagauss
memory and especially a 40 megagauss hard disk.  Wouldn't they have a
nasty habit of erasing themselves?  :-)

--
Mark Meyer          USENET: {ut-sally!im4u,convex!smu,sun!texsun}!ti-csl!mmeyer
Texas Instruments, Inc.                                   CSNET : mmeyer@TI-CSL
Every day, Jerry Junkins is grateful that I don't speak for TI.
    "There's nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can't prolong."