🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thursday, February 15, 2018 at 6:58:46 AM UTC-7, ma...@mail.com wrote:

> All the Raspberry needs is a largeish laptop case, in a corner of
> which it could nestle.

Well, there are videos on YouTube about building a laptop case, although not 
wastefully large, for a Raspberry Pi 2. Most of them, though, use a wireless 
keyboard, which seems silly to me.

John Savard

On 2018-02-15, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Gazing at my bookcase and noting a 1971 copy of the
> PDP8's Small Computer Handbook.
>
> That was 47 years ago, and then 47 years before then
> takes us back to 1924, well before the days of any
> working programmable machines (pace the Jacquard Loom)
>
> Now that the Raspberry Pi 3 gives us a quadcore 64 bit
> processor with 1GB of RAM for only a few £ / $, I realise
> that a lot of our nostalgia and folklore of those days is
> for something very primitive compare to today's offerings

Still, people did some amazing things with those very
primitive machines.  Put a man on the moon, for instance.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
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Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2018-02-15, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Gazing at my bookcase and noting a 1971 copy of the
>> PDP8's Small Computer Handbook.
>>
>> That was 47 years ago, and then 47 years before then
>> takes us back to 1924, well before the days of any
>> working programmable machines (pace the Jacquard Loom)
>>
>> Now that the Raspberry Pi 3 gives us a quadcore 64 bit
>> processor with 1GB of RAM for only a few £ / $, I realise
>> that a lot of our nostalgia and folklore of those days is
>> for something very primitive compare to today's offerings
>
> Still, people did some amazing things with those very
> primitive machines.  Put a man on the moon, for instance.
>
We couldn't afford bloat.

/BAH

On 2/15/2018 3:44 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2018-02-15, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> Gazing at my bookcase and noting a 1971 copy of the
>> PDP8's Small Computer Handbook.
>>
>> That was 47 years ago, and then 47 years before then
>> takes us back to 1924, well before the days of any
>> working programmable machines (pace the Jacquard Loom)
>>
>> Now that the Raspberry Pi 3 gives us a quadcore 64 bit
>> processor with 1GB of RAM for only a few £ / $, I realise
>> that a lot of our nostalgia and folklore of those days is
>> for something very primitive compare to today's offerings
> 
> Still, people did some amazing things with those very
> primitive machines.  Put a man on the moon, for instance.
> 

Sometimes people can get a lot more done... when they realize that they 
have to work harder with primitive tools and knowledge...

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On Fri, 16 Feb 2018 08:45:22 -0600
Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

> Sometimes people can get a lot more done... when they realize that they 
> have to work harder with primitive tools and knowledge...

	There is an old story about an experiment, I think by de Bono, in
which children were asked to cross a room without touching the floor -
prizes for doing it fastest.

	First they were given two planks and two pieces of rope, each
solved the problem the same way by fixing a rope to each plank at both ends
so that they could put a plank under each foot and lift it with the rope
as they walked.

	Then they were given just one plank and one piece of rope, again
they all came up with the same solution fix the rope as before but this
time jump and swing the plank forward. This method was much faster than
walking on two planks.

	The second solution could have been used the first time and would
have won the prize, but having more than they needed caused them to miss
seeing the best solution.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On 2018-02-16, Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

> On 2/15/2018 3:44 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2018-02-15, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Gazing at my bookcase and noting a 1971 copy of the
>>> PDP8's Small Computer Handbook.
>>>
>>> That was 47 years ago, and then 47 years before then
>>> takes us back to 1924, well before the days of any
>>> working programmable machines (pace the Jacquard Loom)
>>>
>>> Now that the Raspberry Pi 3 gives us a quadcore 64 bit
>>> processor with 1GB of RAM for only a few £ / $, I realise
>>> that a lot of our nostalgia and folklore of those days is
>>> for something very primitive compare to today's offerings
>> 
>> Still, people did some amazing things with those very
>> primitive machines.  Put a man on the moon, for instance.
>
> Sometimes people can get a lot more done... when they realize that
> they have to work harder with primitive tools and knowledge...

Or, as the saying goes, "work smarter, not harder."

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:45:13 AM UTC-5, Charles Richmond wrote:

> Sometimes people can get a lot more done... when they realize that they 
> have to work harder with primitive tools and knowledge...

True.

Yes, computers could do a massive amount of calculations very
quickly.  It really sped up accounting, payrolls, etc.

But on the flip side, the early computers had very little core
and peripheral memory.  As a result, messages had to be very
austere*, often coded and abbreviated.  Even a person's name
and address were abbreviated.  This austerity made computers
hard to use, especially for lay people not used to the 
coding requirements.  For large companies, instead of referring
to a customer's hard copy paper file, they referred to a computer
generated report or terse online screen.  The available information
was very limited.

Comedians and social critics of the 1960s and 1970s often
made mention of the austere all-caps printouts consumers
received, such as a computer generated letter or a punch
card.  The 'DO NOT SPINDLE FOLD OR MULTILATE' warning on
punch cards was frequently criticized as impersonal.

In the 1980s, computers had more memory (both core and disk).
However, that memory was used for more applications, not more
sophistication or user-friendly-ness.




* Previously posted was a link to a computerized reservation
system.  One letter codes, and two letter responses, fixed
position.   Very, very terse.  I'll post the link again if
there is interest.

On 2018-02-16, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:45:13 AM UTC-5, Charles Richmond wrote:
>
>> Sometimes people can get a lot more done... when they realize that they 
>> have to work harder with primitive tools and knowledge...
>
> True.
>
> Yes, computers could do a massive amount of calculations very
> quickly.  It really sped up accounting, payrolls, etc.
>
> But on the flip side, the early computers had very little core
> and peripheral memory.  As a result, messages had to be very
> austere*, often coded and abbreviated.  Even a person's name
> and address were abbreviated.  This austerity made computers
> hard to use, especially for lay people not used to the 
> coding requirements.  For large companies, instead of referring
> to a customer's hard copy paper file, they referred to a computer
> generated report or terse online screen.  The available information
> was very limited.
>
> Comedians and social critics of the 1960s and 1970s often
> made mention of the austere all-caps printouts consumers
> received, such as a computer generated letter or a punch
> card.  The 'DO NOT SPINDLE FOLD OR MULTILATE' warning on
> punch cards was frequently criticized as impersonal.
>
> In the 1980s, computers had more memory (both core and disk).
> However, that memory was used for more applications, not more
> sophistication or user-friendly-ness.

Besides, by then the meme had taken hold that if it wasn't terse,
in all caps, and had numbers with lots of leading zeros, it wasn't
"computerish" and therefore was unsophisticated.  Traces of that
meme survive to this day.

> * Previously posted was a link to a computerized reservation
> system.  One letter codes, and two letter responses, fixed
> position.   Very, very terse.  I'll post the link again if
> there is interest.

One thing that J. Random Luser forgets is that for experienced
users doing the same thing _many_ times, very, very terse is
also very, very fast.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Friday, February 16, 2018 at 9:45:13 AM UTC-5, Charles Richmond wrote:
> 
>> Sometimes people can get a lot more done... when they realize that they 
>> have to work harder with primitive tools and knowledge...
> 
> True.
> 
> Yes, computers could do a massive amount of calculations very
> quickly.  It really sped up accounting, payrolls, etc.
> 
> But on the flip side, the early computers had very little core
> and peripheral memory.  As a result, messages had to be very
> austere*, often coded and abbreviated.  Even a person's name
> and address were abbreviated.  This austerity made computers
> hard to use, especially for lay people not used to the 
> coding requirements.  For large companies, instead of referring
> to a customer's hard copy paper file, they referred to a computer
> generated report or terse online screen.  The available information
> was very limited.
> 
> Comedians and social critics of the 1960s and 1970s often
> made mention of the austere all-caps printouts consumers
> received, such as a computer generated letter or a punch
> card.  The 'DO NOT SPINDLE FOLD OR MULTILATE' warning on
> punch cards was frequently criticized as impersonal.
> 
> In the 1980s, computers had more memory (both core and disk).
> However, that memory was used for more applications, not more
> sophistication or user-friendly-ness.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> * Previously posted was a link to a computerized reservation
> system.  One letter codes, and two letter responses, fixed
> position.   Very, very terse.  I'll post the link again if
> there is interest.
> 

I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.

-- 
Pete

On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 7:59:52 AM UTC-7, Peter Flass wrote:

> I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
> guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
> Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.

"Human Being-Computer Interface", "Person-Computer Interface", or "Man/Woman-
Computer Interface" would all have been longer; that it was understood to 
include everyone, not just males, though, was entirely usual at the time.

John Savard

On 2018-02-17, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 7:59:52 AM UTC-7, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>> I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
>> guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
>> Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.
>
> "Human Being-Computer Interface", "Person-Computer Interface", or "Man/Woman-
> Computer Interface" would all have been longer; that it was understood to 
> include everyone, not just males, though, was entirely usual at the time.

HCI - Human-Computer Interface

On the other hand, an IBMism from the Good Old Days is
HDI - Head-Disk Interference
(known colloquially as a head crash)

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>On 2018-02-17, Quadibloc wrote:
>> Peter Flass wrote:

>>> I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
>>> guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
>>> Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.

>> "Human Being-Computer Interface", "Person-Computer Interface", or
>> "Man/Woman- Computer Interface" would all have been longer; that it was
>> understood to include everyone, not just males, though, was entirely usual
>> at the time.

>HCI - Human-Computer Interface

>On the other hand, an IBMism from the Good Old Days is
>HDI - Head-Disk Interference
>(known colloquially as a head crash)

Or Head-Desk Impacts
-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Somewhere in Western Australia
\ /  ASCII ribbon campaign | For every complex problem there is an
 X   against HTML mail     | answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
/ \  and postings          |  --HL Mencken

On 2/18/2018 8:46 AM, Bernd Felsche wrote:
> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2018-02-17, Quadibloc wrote:
>>> Peter Flass wrote:
> 
>>>> I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
>>>> guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
>>>> Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.
> 
>>> "Human Being-Computer Interface", "Person-Computer Interface", or
>>> "Man/Woman- Computer Interface" would all have been longer; that it was
>>> understood to include everyone, not just males, though, was entirely usual
>>> at the time.
> 
>> HCI - Human-Computer Interface
> 
>> On the other hand, an IBMism from the Good Old Days is
>> HDI - Head-Disk Interference
>> (known colloquially as a head crash)
> 
> Or Head-Desk Impacts
> 

On old Bryant hard disks, each disk platter spins in a vertical plane. 
The platters were 39 inches (0.99 m) in diameter, rotating at up to 
1,200 rpm. Sometimes a single disk platter would come loose, roll across 
the floor, and cut its way through the wall like a saw!  An early 
implementation of "removable media"!!!  ;-)

-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 16:21:22 -0600, Charles Richmond
<nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

>On 2/18/2018 8:46 AM, Bernd Felsche wrote:
>> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> On 2018-02-17, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>> Peter Flass wrote:
>> 
>>>>> I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
>>>>> guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
>>>>> Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.
>> 
>>>> "Human Being-Computer Interface", "Person-Computer Interface", or
>>>> "Man/Woman- Computer Interface" would all have been longer; that it was
>>>> understood to include everyone, not just males, though, was entirely usual
>>>> at the time.
>> 
>>> HCI - Human-Computer Interface
>> 
>>> On the other hand, an IBMism from the Good Old Days is
>>> HDI - Head-Disk Interference
>>> (known colloquially as a head crash)
>> 
>> Or Head-Desk Impacts
>> 
>
>On old Bryant hard disks, each disk platter spins in a vertical plane. 
>The platters were 39 inches (0.99 m) in diameter, rotating at up to 
>1,200 rpm. Sometimes a single disk platter would come loose, roll across 
>the floor, and cut its way through the wall like a saw!  An early 
>implementation of "removable media"!!!  ;-)

Could have been worse

<flashing on 54H60 propeller coming adrift from its 3000 horsepower
turbine in a test cell--13 foot diameter, about 600 pounds, it climbed
the wall, sawed a hole through the roof, and made its escape through a
line of parked cars in the parking lot.  Fortunately nobody was hurt.>

On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 19:05:20 -0500, J. Clarke
<jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 16:21:22 -0600, Charles Richmond
><nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2/18/2018 8:46 AM, Bernd Felsche wrote:
>>> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>>> On 2018-02-17, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>> Peter Flass wrote:
>>> 
>>>>>> I've got an early book by James Martin on "man-computer-interfaces" (I
>>>>>> guess no women need apply) that covers such things as of the early 70s.
>>>>>> Martin has a chapter covering Sabre.
>>> 
>>>>> "Human Being-Computer Interface", "Person-Computer Interface", or
>>>>> "Man/Woman- Computer Interface" would all have been longer; that it was
>>>>> understood to include everyone, not just males, though, was entirely usual
>>>>> at the time.
>>> 
>>>> HCI - Human-Computer Interface
>>> 
>>>> On the other hand, an IBMism from the Good Old Days is
>>>> HDI - Head-Disk Interference
>>>> (known colloquially as a head crash)
>>> 
>>> Or Head-Desk Impacts
>>> 
>>
>>On old Bryant hard disks, each disk platter spins in a vertical plane. 
>>The platters were 39 inches (0.99 m) in diameter, rotating at up to 
>>1,200 rpm. Sometimes a single disk platter would come loose, roll across 
>>the floor, and cut its way through the wall like a saw!  An early 
>>implementation of "removable media"!!!  ;-)
>
>Could have been worse
>
><flashing on 54H60 propeller coming adrift from its 3000 horsepower
>turbine in a test cell--13 foot diameter, about 600 pounds, it climbed
>the wall, sawed a hole through the roof, and made its escape through a
>line of parked cars in the parking lot.  Fortunately nobody was hurt.>

Didn't one of you around 10 years ago post about an early hard
drive... it was made of pipe with magnetic media on it. It was moved
and the people moving it didn't wait for it to stop spinning. Like a
good gyroscope, it refused to change direction as the turned it to put
it on the elevator. Flew out the window and did an auger job into the
ground. I know its not a hard drive, I just don't remember what it is
called.

On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 18:36:28 -0600, JimP wrote:

> Didn't one of you around 10 years ago post about an early hard drive...
> it was made of pipe with magnetic media on it. It was moved and the
> people moving it didn't wait for it to stop spinning. Like a good
> gyroscope, it refused to change direction as the turned it to put it on
> the elevator. Flew out the window and did an auger job into the ground.
> I know its not a hard drive, I just don't remember what it is called.

I remember a story about a rather precocious student who got into trouble 
on a number of occasions. He was surprised that anyone could ask 
operators to mount a disk pack, and they would do it without question as 
per their orders.

One day they threw out an old pack, and he salvaged it and took it away. 
He replaced the platters with gramophone records, labelled the pack 
(physically) and sneaked it back into the computer room.

Then he got the operators to mount it. The destruction was considerable.



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 7:05:23 PM UTC-5, John Clarke wrote:


> <flashing on 54H60 propeller coming adrift from its 3000 horsepower
> turbine in a test cell--13 foot diameter, about 600 pounds, it climbed
> the wall, sawed a hole through the roof, and made its escape through a
> line of parked cars in the parking lot.  Fortunately nobody was hurt.>

In Tom Watson Jr's IBM memoir, he mentioned a propeller detaching
from the engine on an airplane.  It did not end well.