Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[Bill Notfaded]

Also Pete Hand from LV designed a better FLW clock.  I have his original I 
bought from his family/friends after he passed on... RIP brother nixie neon 
lover!  You can see Michael's much "enhanced" version on 
badnixie:  http://www.badnixie.com/Acrylic_Nixie.html

I love this clock and it still works great today.

Bill

On Saturday, May 29, 2021 at 6:08:54 AM UTC-7 Tom Van Baak wrote:

> Ray Weisling went to extraordinary lengths to fit his code and all the 
> words into very limited memory. Today, because memory is plentiful and 
> cheap, one would simply create a large table of all FLW, each word using 
> 4 bytes. It would be so simple.
>
> But instead he resorted to bit tricks. For example he created an 
> alphabet consisting of only 16 letters (not 26). That way a single 
> letter would use not 8, or 5, but just 4 bits. Thus any 4 letter word 
> that was a member of that alphabet required only 16 bits to encode, a 2x 
> memory saving. Very clever.
>
> By creating several different sets of 16-letter alphabets he was able to 
> generate almost all the words you see. The remaining few exceptions were 
> done with a 4 byte table. To me it looked like a massive amount of 
> manual work, almost like a puzzle, but that's what you did as an 
> embedded programmer in the 90's when literally every byte counted.
>
> I've seen the source code. It might be on the web, I don't know. Ray hit 
> hard times (again) in 2013; we exchanged a lot of Nixie email that year; 
> he sold me his personal FLW and GEEK clock to cover bills. He died not 
> that long after. His clocks, of course, live on and work perfectly.
>
> /tvb
> www.LeapSecond.com
>
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[Tom Van Baak]

Ray Weisling went to extraordinary lengths to fit his code and all the 
words into very limited memory. Today, because memory is plentiful and 
cheap, one would simply create a large table of all FLW, each word using 
4 bytes. It would be so simple.


But instead he resorted to bit tricks. For example he created an 
alphabet consisting of only 16 letters (not 26). That way a single 
letter would use not 8, or 5, but just 4 bits. Thus any 4 letter word 
that was a member of that alphabet required only 16 bits to encode, a 2x 
memory saving. Very clever.


By creating several different sets of 16-letter alphabets he was able to 
generate almost all the words you see. The remaining few exceptions were 
done with a 4 byte table. To me it looked like a massive amount of 
manual work, almost like a puzzle, but that's what you did as an 
embedded programmer in the 90's when literally every byte counted.


I've seen the source code. It might be on the web, I don't know. Ray hit 
hard times (again) in 2013; we exchanged a lot of Nixie email that year; 
he sold me his personal FLW and GEEK clock to cover bills. He died not 
that long after. His clocks, of course, live on and work perfectly.


/tvb
www.LeapSecond.com

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[neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[Morris Odell]

That's an interesting site that I hadn't seen before. I never suspected the 
algorithm that RW used in the original FLW clock was so circuitous but 
taking the technology of the time into account it's not really surprising. 
I have made several FLW clocks over the years both with B7971 tubes and 
with CRT displays. By the time I got interested in them it was possible to 
download the entire Scrabble 4000 word four letter dictionary into a $5 
microcontroller and have enough memory left to run the clock,  generate 
random numbers (for indexing) and do vector graphics.  In my clocks the 
word changes every 5 or 10 seconds and there is a switch on the back to 
control whether or not "rude" words are shown. The grandkids love it as a 
word game.

Incidentally the price of US$195 in 1973 is equivalent to about US$1195 
today. Only a certain demographic could afford one!

Morris


On Friday, 28 May 2021 at 13:17:15 UTC+10 J Forbes wrote:

> A start here...but there is lots more if you delve deep into the old posts 
> on this group.
>
> https://www.oocities.org/tokyo/8908/fourletterword/index.html
>
> On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:54:48 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:
>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I am doing a Hackaday project on my enormous FLW build, and I would like 
>> to know the history of the FLW concept, I know Raymond Weisling invented 
>> them, is there an authoritative history of them? In particular, who came up 
>> with the idea of using a word association database to generate the words?
>>
>> Tom Harris 
>>
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[Dekatron42]

The first link I see when Googling "four letter word clock" is this one: 
https://pbxbook.com/clocks/B7971_flw.html

[image: FLW.jpg]

Is the original firmware available for download from somwehere or does 
anyone have any of the microprocessors for sale?

/Martin

On Friday, 28 May 2021 at 23:35:46 UTC+2 celephicus wrote:

> Ho Ho I don't often search for "playboy":)
>
> On Fri, 28 May 2021, 10:37 p.m. J Forbes,  wrote:
>
>> You're welcome. It took me well under a minute to find that site...but I 
>> did know to use the magic word "playboy" in my google search, since I was 
>> around this group 20 years ago when Ray was still active.
>>
>> On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 8:53:31 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:
>>
>>> Fascinating... Thank you, I've never seen that before. Into the 
>>> rabbit hole
>>>
>>> On Fri, 28 May 2021, 1:17 p.m. J Forbes,  wrote:
>>>
 A start here...but there is lots more if you delve deep into the old 
 posts on this group.

 https://www.oocities.org/tokyo/8908/fourletterword/index.html

 On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:54:48 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I am doing a Hackaday project on my enormous FLW build, and I would 
> like to know the history of the FLW concept, I know Raymond Weisling 
> invented them, is there an authoritative history of them? In particular, 
> who came up with the idea of using a word association database to 
> generate 
> the words?
>
> Tom Harris 
>
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 .

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>>  
>> 
>> .
>>
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[Tom Harris]

Ho Ho I don't often search for "playboy":)

On Fri, 28 May 2021, 10:37 p.m. J Forbes,  wrote:

> You're welcome. It took me well under a minute to find that site...but I
> did know to use the magic word "playboy" in my google search, since I was
> around this group 20 years ago when Ray was still active.
>
> On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 8:53:31 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:
>
>> Fascinating... Thank you, I've never seen that before. Into the
>> rabbit hole
>>
>> On Fri, 28 May 2021, 1:17 p.m. J Forbes,  wrote:
>>
>>> A start here...but there is lots more if you delve deep into the old
>>> posts on this group.
>>>
>>> https://www.oocities.org/tokyo/8908/fourletterword/index.html
>>>
>>> On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:54:48 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:
>>>
 Greetings,

 I am doing a Hackaday project on my enormous FLW build, and I would
 like to know the history of the FLW concept, I know Raymond Weisling
 invented them, is there an authoritative history of them? In particular,
 who came up with the idea of using a word association database to generate
 the words?

 Tom Harris 

>>> --
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>>> Groups "neonixie-l" group.
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>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/a7bd4465-d006-4b0f-a25b-53abb14079ddn%40googlegroups.com
>>> 
>>> .
>>>
>> --
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> 
> .
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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[J Forbes]

You're welcome. It took me well under a minute to find that site...but I 
did know to use the magic word "playboy" in my google search, since I was 
around this group 20 years ago when Ray was still active.

On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 8:53:31 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:

> Fascinating... Thank you, I've never seen that before. Into the 
> rabbit hole
>
> On Fri, 28 May 2021, 1:17 p.m. J Forbes,  wrote:
>
>> A start here...but there is lots more if you delve deep into the old 
>> posts on this group.
>>
>> https://www.oocities.org/tokyo/8908/fourletterword/index.html
>>
>> On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:54:48 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:
>>
>>> Greetings,
>>>
>>> I am doing a Hackaday project on my enormous FLW build, and I would like 
>>> to know the history of the FLW concept, I know Raymond Weisling 
>>> invented them, is there an authoritative history of them? In particular, 
>>> who came up with the idea of using a word association database to generate 
>>> the words?
>>>
>>> Tom Harris 
>>>
>> -- 
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
>> "neonixie-l" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
>> email to neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com.
>> To view this discussion on the web, visit 
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/a7bd4465-d006-4b0f-a25b-53abb14079ddn%40googlegroups.com
>>  
>> 
>> .
>>
>

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Re: [neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[Tom Harris]

Fascinating... Thank you, I've never seen that before. Into the
rabbit hole

On Fri, 28 May 2021, 1:17 p.m. J Forbes,  wrote:

> A start here...but there is lots more if you delve deep into the old posts
> on this group.
>
> https://www.oocities.org/tokyo/8908/fourletterword/index.html
>
> On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:54:48 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:
>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> I am doing a Hackaday project on my enormous FLW build, and I would like
>> to know the history of the FLW concept, I know Raymond Weisling invented
>> them, is there an authoritative history of them? In particular, who came up
>> with the idea of using a word association database to generate the words?
>>
>> Tom Harris 
>>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "neonixie-l" group.
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> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/a7bd4465-d006-4b0f-a25b-53abb14079ddn%40googlegroups.com
> 
> .
>

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[neonixie-l] Re: Four Letter Word Clocks

[J Forbes]

A start here...but there is lots more if you delve deep into the old posts 
on this group.

https://www.oocities.org/tokyo/8908/fourletterword/index.html

On Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 7:54:48 PM UTC-7 celephicus wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I am doing a Hackaday project on my enormous FLW build, and I would like 
> to know the history of the FLW concept, I know Raymond Weisling invented 
> them, is there an authoritative history of them? In particular, who came up 
> with the idea of using a word association database to generate the words?
>
> Tom Harris 
>

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