|
A friend sent me this picture, so I did a little digging: Delivery of an HDD in 1956[^]
This is before my time: IBM Archives: IBM 350 disk storage unit[^] but it illustrates how much things have changed.
5MB, 0.6s seek time (average), 2000lbs
Cost? $3200 per month lease ...
Now, who is complaining the keys on your keyboard are too small? 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
Does anyone over the age of two have fingers that are small enough for a Blackberry's keyboard?
Slogans aren't solutions.
|
|
|
|
|
My old HP phone had a full qwerty keyboard with similar sized keys, and I used to work that with my thumbs...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
OriginalGriff wrote: I used to work that with my thumbs
Impossible!
ms has dictated that every button on a computer/tablet/phone has to be big enough to hit blindfold with your elbows!
Get with the times, damnit!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
That's a fact.
Phone keyboards should be on a ribbon, with "keys" of hugely different sizes, arranged in what ms decides to be an intuitive order (e.g. letters with higher scrabble scores should only be accessible from a tiny drop-down arrow)!
The ribbon will, of course, have to be multi-row, to fill fit the screen, but it's worth any minor little inconvenience like not being able to see what you're doing -- after all, it's the way of the future!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
|
|
|
|
|
Mark_Wallace wrote: letters with higher scrabble scores should only be accessible from a tiny drop-down arrow
That could make asking a 'uestion difficult... Or sorting from A-' or '-A. But.. it might help in '&A.
|
|
|
|
|
I have very large hands but have no trouble with my Blackberry Passport's keyboard. I love it!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
|
|
|
|
|
There are over 7 billion people in this World. We do not care about problems of 7 blackberry users.
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
|
|
|
|
|
Yeah back in those days, I was really annoyed when airport security forced me to unpack those HDs...
... such stuff as dreams are made on
|
|
|
|
|
I once took a trip where I booked a seat for a torque reader gun. Think box the size of two desktops together. No stopping, no questions. Of course that was mid 1970's.
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
|
|
|
|
|
Is that a one of those airplanes with the dangerous cargo doors?
|
|
|
|
|
I know what a computer is, but what's a "disk storage unit"?
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
|
|
|
|
|
It's similar to one of these[^] - but bigger and smaller, both at the same time!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, I remember how excited my friends and I were when we bought a 10MB 14 inch hard disc unit from a PDP-11 at auction for just $75.00! Took me a month to wire-wrap a board for our IMSAI-8080 to interface with it, then another couple of weeks of assembly to get a working file system for the CP/M
|
|
|
|
|
Hah! We designed/built a 3MB ramdisk back in the early/mid 1980s.
It used 8 Mbit dram chips - the biggest that were available back then.
It was the size of a small suitcase and cost £30,000.
Yes, we sold a few...
|
|
|
|
|
Would you please repeat that speech when one of the youngsters starts ranting about how to write code again?
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
|
|
|
|
|
One of these youngsters could be the one that builds an AI to write code and puts us all out of a job.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
|
|
|
|
|
I doubt that. Up to now only Darwin (in proxy) was able to write something of this complexity. It took him a few million years.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
|
|
|
|
|
I would tend to agree with you there but when super computers can process in the exaflop and zettaflop range, simulating digital evolution from inception to intelligence might only take a few months.
Then the machines take over 
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
|
|
|
|
|
No. The proof for fitness is a successful life. Where will that take place? You can hardly use World of Warcraft to train AIs. This way you may eventually get the perfect WoW AI, but nothing that can face reality. What computer can run the Matrix? And how many millions of individuals must it keep going to the bitter end in this simulation? How long will it take until evolution finally goes down the intelligence path? And after that, how long will it take to get an acceptable AI?
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
|
|
|
|
|
At least there wasn't too much risk back then of losing your 64GB thumbdrive simply because it's so (physically) small.
|
|
|
|
|
Yeah ... I think Dij the Cat has decided mine is a cat toy. No idea where it is ... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
I know how you feel there. Thumb drives, dongles, phone charger cords, the USB cord to $140 headphones all become play toys for my cat. She is really spoiled. I even bought her a new house (it's her house, I just sleep there  ).
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
|
|
|
|
|
Only one way to go: Build your own.[^]
This is the Zwölf master processor with
- 32k extra RAM to run alone for now, will be replaced by an 8 meg banked RAM
- ROM for its BIOS
- 8k RAM for the stack and everything else that's better not switched away
- logic to interface to up to 8 processor cards
- Interrupt controller, just in case one of the subprocessors has some results
- software 'bit banged' RS232 for testing, will disappear later
I will (once again) check everything and may finally come to the point where I can have boards made and a (hopfully) working prototype. Most work now will go into finishing the BIOS.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
|
|
|
|
|
Ah those were the days, sales commissions were 40% and the clients had very little choice but to use your stuff.
IBM and Wang and NCR and ... really knew how to fleece the clientele.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
