Re: [FRIAM] Theory of Nothing

On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 09:19:28PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote: > Russel - > > I only recently realized that *you* were the author of "Theory of > Nothing"... my wife brought home a copy (she is the consummate > hunter-gatherer of books) and I saw your name on it. I must have > read it when it was

[FRIAM] Theory of Nothing

Russel - I only recently realized that *you* were the author of "Theory of Nothing"... my wife brought home a copy (she is the consummate hunter-gatherer of books) and I saw your name on it. I must have read it when it was first published (6 years ago or so?) but lost track of the copy...

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

I've always had Cygwin installed on any Windows machine (or partition) just so I could utter things at a terminal window like "ls" and "cd" instead of "dir" and ???, and use stream pipes and redirects and even use the (completely natural '/' instead of '\' path separators!) On 2/5/13 8:52 PM,

Re: [FRIAM] Arcane Points

Three words: Rainbow, Word Perfect. On Feb 5, 2013 9:10 PM, "Steve Smith" wrote: > Nick - > > There have to be *some* APs in there for you... certainly your reference > to the old Dec RAINBOW kicked a few neurons loose. Samna rings a bell, > didn't they get bought up by Lotus? This kicks loose

Re: [FRIAM] Arcane Points

Nick - There have to be *some* APs in there for you... certainly your reference to the old Dec RAINBOW kicked a few neurons loose. Samna rings a bell, didn't they get bought up by Lotus? This kicks loose a cascade of neurons around the whole spreadsheet legacy of visicalc/123/improv! Thanks

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

On 2/5/13 8:52 PM, Russell Standish wrote: These days, you do far better using the open source Cygwin platform (created by RedHat), to get a (sort of) posix compliance on Windows. Its pretty good, and makes using Windows bearable, but still has numerous "gotchas". Cygwin has cross compiler pac

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 08:09:09PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote: > Oops... I'm remembering the revolutionary notion that MS would adopt > POSIX which was a nod or interfacing standard to Unix, though not > derived from. They did get some minimal posix compliance by means of an add-on environment, whi

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

Oops... I'm remembering the revolutionary notion that MS would adopt POSIX which was a nod or interfacing standard to Unix, though not derived from. I think the connection with VMS was entirely apocryphal? On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 03:53:08PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote: The only Unix derived OS I

Re: [FRIAM] Arcane Points

How about A.P.'s for a word processor called Samna running on cpm on a computer called a Rainbow? Had some features that Word has yet to introduce. N From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steve Smith Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 1:40 PM To: The Friday Mo

Re: [FRIAM] Rethinking Evil

Now don't go screwing around with my head, Nick. Not sure I could come to grips with being in agreement with you on anything. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Nicholas Thompson < nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: > I think the essence of evil is not owning up to error. Evil is craven. * > ***

Re: [FRIAM] Rethinking Evil

I think the essence of evil is not owning up to error. Evil is craven. From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Douglas Roberts Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2013 4:04 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: [FRIAM] Rethinking Evil Since 6:30am

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

Well, that certainly explains the *other* reason I hated NT. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Russell Standish wrote: > On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 03:53:08PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote: > > The only Unix derived OS I was never too impressed > > with was WindowsNT... go figure. > > Maybe because its n

Re: [FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 03:53:08PM -0700, Steve Smith wrote: > The only Unix derived OS I was never too impressed > with was WindowsNT... go figure. Maybe because its not Unix derived. Its ancestor was VMS, a competitor to unix put out by Digital, and popular in the 1980s. This can be seen in th

[FRIAM] Fwd: Re: Digital Ecology

OK.. this one got lost in the slush pile... I know the thread went stale, but it intrigued me (obviously)! Original Message Subject:Re: [FRIAM] Digital Ecology Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:03:08 -0700 From: Steve Smith To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Co

Re: [FRIAM] Arcane Points

I was amazed how much info there was in Wikipedia and had come across the Edinburgh Univ. materials earlier. Another cultural difference: we used punch tape not cards. Meditate on the pros and cons of that with a 256KB RAM KDF9 and overnight turnaround! Thanks Robert C PS and I'd forgotten a

Re: [FRIAM] Arcane Points

Robert! Even *I* think I can speak for the group giving this *Arcane Points*! I *was* aware of the Atlas, but didn't know of Autocode before this and didn't have a clue about the English Electric LEO Marconi KDF9 ... being a Yank (AKA Murrican) and a few y

[FRIAM] Arcane Points

Robert - Can I get some Arcane Points for writing my first _program_ in ISO coded Atlas Autocode on an EELM KDF9? Robert C I'm not sure what is required for granting Arcane Points... certainly, without help from Dr. Internet, I don't have a clue about these referencesI I suppose there is a "

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Can I get some Arcane Points for writing my first _program_ in ISO coded Atlas Autocode on an EELM KDF9? Robert C On 2/5/13 12:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: No, I actually meant it, Steve. Careful or I'll start waxing nostalgic for my old NorthStar Horizon CP/M machine. Or the Amdahl 470 tha

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Steve, It's actually my brooding fascination, but pretty much the same principle. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Doug - > > No, I actually meant it, Steve. Careful or I'll start waxing nostalgic >> for my old NorthStar Horizon CP/M machine. Or the Amdahl 470 that repl

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Doug - No, I actually meant it, Steve. Careful or I'll start waxing nostalgic for my old NorthStar Horizon CP/M machine. Or the Amdahl 470 that replaced the IBM 360 that ran my first APL programs. Now THAT is what I like to hear... and in fact it WAS a Northstar that I was thinking of when I

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Marcus - > P.S. Brush with greatness: I have a copy of Knuth's seminumerical algorithms which was once owned by Brosl Hasslacher. Grin... *I* knew Brosl back in the CNLS (mid-80s) days, everyone who played computers had the three volume (at the time) set of his books on their shelves. I ne

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

No, I actually meant it, Steve. Careful or I'll start waxing nostalgic for my old NorthStar Horizon CP/M machine. Or the Amdahl 470 that replaced the IBM 360 that ran my first APL programs. --Doug On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Roger/Sarbajit- > > Doug's comment that

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Roger/Sarbajit- Doug's comment that "this" is what keeps him on the FRIAM ist was probably only partially "tongue-in-cheek". This level of geekery is surely near and dear to half of our hearts if the other half naturally sit and puzzle at our arcane mumblings... but in defense of the other

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Steve wrote: "I recently found some curled faded sheets of dry-silver process paper (most likely FROM a 4631) in one of my stashes of nostalgic documents which I *think* were originally printouts of my junior project in computer graphics where I "invented" a cursive alphabet (stroke) which req

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

We call it chip-on-glass, and it actually improves the reliability of the device. When thiese devices first came out they used a Hitachi processor/IC. Then some Koreans made a clone (shifted around some control words), then the Chinese made their clone ICs (more control word shifts and incompatibil

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Another mystery of these displays was solved for me the other day when Bunnie took his Media Lab visitors to a direct chip bonding shop in Shenzhen. On the back of the bog standard LCD display there will often be a dome of black epoxy in place of a chip. I thought they were hiding the chip, but i

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Steve Being a devotee of ancient computing devices myself, I was responding to Doug's TRS-80 ascii comment here's what a 16x2 LCD module looks like http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hN2n9HggfCw/T2TOHEMIAsI/AAc/LrJ6uy2cNrs/s1600/lcd162b-yhy.jpg These critters are so ubiquitous that you fail to se

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

I just ordered another Google Nexus 4. LG is gearing up to produce a new batch, for which the estimated shipping date of 2 - 3 weeks matches the now-estimated release date of Android4.2.2, which is purported to contain a less-buggy Qualcomm wifi driver, and patches to the buggy 4.2.1 wifi and bl

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

You see, this is the kind of material that keeps me on FRIAM. --Doug On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > The interface to the bog standard LCD display can use either 8 or 4 bits > parallel, which only changes the number of outs you need to do to fill the > line buffer, wh

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

The interface to the bog standard LCD display can use either 8 or 4 bits parallel, which only changes the number of outs you need to do to fill the line buffer, which has an 8 bit byte for each character The 8 bit character ROM often has fascinating character sets in the high half depending on wh

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Marcus - Sadly, and this may make you choke on whatever you are drinking at the moment, so put it down, what prompted me to think of this (aside from Doug's reference to the Trash80 era) was that I recently found some curled faded sheets of dry-silver process paper (most likely FROM a 4631) i

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Sarbajit - Can you elaborate? I think this one just flew past me... 2 lines of 16 characters with only 4 bit indexing (alphabet of 16 characters?)... This sounds like (much) more than a digital watch (do those even exist anymore?) or even a calculator (only 1 line?). I feel like you hande

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

I'm usually happy with a close approximation of the current time. Such as: the current time is Wednesday. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 7:30 AM, Sarbajit Roy wrote: > A sundial only works consistently (sort of) between the tropics. > > On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 7:50 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > >> I pre

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

A sundial only works consistently (sort of) between the tropics. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 7:50 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > I prefer the sundial, myself. > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. Jo

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

I prefer the sundial, myself. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 7:18 AM, Sarbajit Roy wrote: > Just to update fellow FRIAMers. > > The most common standard display device in the world today is the 16x2 > character LCD display. The vast majority of installations use it in 4 bit > mode. > > > On Tue, Feb 5,

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Just to update fellow FRIAMers. The most common standard display device in the world today is the 16x2 character LCD display. The vast majority of installations use it in 4 bit mode. On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:08 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: > As a courtesy to our old-fashioned (to put it politely)

Re: [FRIAM] Massive, Indifferent, Brooding Silence

Well, the Parrot Farm is recovering nicely from the small neutron bomb detonation that temporarily knocked us off the air yesterday, mid-email. Fortunately, the WiFi on the GNB (Google Neutron Bomb) was defective, and so we only received a short burst. Oh, and thanks to the Android Police (and no