NASA, in the early '80s, used something called a 'mini-computer' produced by an outfit, MODCOMP out of Ft. Lauderdale. Armed with a 64KB store using magnetic core technology, a Winchester head per track disk subsystem packing a whopping 4MB of storage, a trio of MODCOMP II's controlled the launch sequence for the Space Shuttle. Using a common set of inputs, each computer voted on any given step in the launch procedure. The odd man out on any vote was prohibited from taking further part in the decision tree. The OS was written in assembly language. NASA was such a stickler for consistency and dependability that manufacturing was prohibited from making _any_ changes to the hardware design, including fixing any bugs whatsoever in the logic (discrete 7400 chips). Very little of the logic was embedded in firmware, it was all hardware, giving the beast tremendous performance, and to tell you the truth, it wouldn't surprise me to find those MCII's chugging away to this day.
... I have a devil of a time removing masking tape from the shaft when re-gripping. I looked at a tool designed to remove tape, a kind of scraper, but I can see myself gouging hell out of the graphite shaft on my driver. I haven't had a lot of luck using my butane torch and I tire of peeling the stuff off by hand. Any suggestions? Sam Martin C-SPAN 400 N. Capitol St, NW Suite 650 Washington DC, 20001 From: owner-shopt...@mail.msen.com [mailto:owner-shopt...@mail.msen.com] On Behalf Of Leo Noordhuizen Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 6:53 AM To: ShopTalk@mail.msen.com Subject: Re: ShopTalk: backups (was: Auditor software) Dave, You were slightly earlier and closer to the source I guess. When I started with computers in 1970, it was with a 4 KB computer, of course using magnetic core memory, and teletype and papertape as I/O devices. I very well remember having to key in about 12 instructions on the frontpanel as bootloader, to start the machine. Programming then was witchcraft in assembly language; a totally different activity compared to programming nowadays. But it was only 6 years later in 1976 that I was so lucky to visit Bell Labs and meet the likes of Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan, and hear about the UNIX operating system, which I used since then. Looking at my Android-based mobile phone, based on Linux/UNIX, it is sometimes difficult to really grasp the progress what has been made in 40 years. Leo Noordhuizen - The Netherlands On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 9:44 PM, Ed Reeder <e_ree...@mailup.net> wrote: Dave, I meant physical security in terms of protection from fire and other forms of destruction. These sites go to great lengths to ensure that your data is protected against these potential threats. /Ed On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:23 -0500, "Dave Tutelman" <dtutel...@optonline.net> wrote: <snip> > > >One thing to investigate is backing up over the Internet. It provides > >both physical security > >and general availability. > > Internet backup trades physical reliability (not security) against > data security. It is in fact LESS secure, even if more reliable. If > the backup is on my shelf and not connected to anything (especially > not the Internet), then it can't be hacked. -- Shoptalk ** Sponsored by the new Aldila Voodoo. Learn more at http://aldilavoodoo.com/
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