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Today in 1878, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his newly invented telephone to none other than Queen Victoria.
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Was she amused?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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They became a twisted pair 
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Don't know. Slightly before my time. 
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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Before your time?
Surely you jest !
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I remember something that has even older roots: A technology for depositing lines of pigment onto thin sheets of a cellulose based material, using a metal tip mounted on a handle containing a pigment container. The lines were grouped together into standard shapes, and these shapes could be combined side by side, as a representation of the message.
Exchanging thoughts and opinions through such sequences of pigment patters was quite common. In fact, a generation or two ago, almost everyone in the Western world knew how to deposit such pattern on cellulose fibers, and to decode similar postings from others. In its days, this kind of social media was very widespread, one of the most important communication technologies.
The interesting side of these media is that they were non-volatile, so the message would be accessible long time after they were communicated - even several hundred years later - without requiring any power or regular refresh cycles. Also, for re-accessing already decoded and interpreted parts of the posting, the rewinding process was very simple; if the desired part of the posting was at the same cellulose fiber sheet, no physical operation was required. The interpretation could be made at any desired speed, and pausing interpretation did not require any specific operations to be performed.
Some aspects of this technology were so valuable that I think they should be considered for modern media. To some degree, they are available, but you cannot, say, tie red ribbon around a pile of FB postings and put in your private, locked chest as a dear memory from the old days. Using a database search function does not have the same romantic touch as untying that red ribbon when you are sitting in front of the fireplace, memorizing the days you were young.
How much is left of your phone conversations, when you dream yourself back to the old days, in front of the fireplace? Nothing.
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Before that came the Fax machine!
No, seriously: Alexander Bain (inventor) - Wikipedia[^] invented the fax in 1843. History does not relate if he sent pron, but most communications inventions seem to involve it ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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OriginalGriff wrote: History does not relate if he sent pron, but most communications inventions seem to involve it ...
What I want to know is who invented the plain brown wrapper. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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That was probably Ogg, and the wrapper was dinosaur skin ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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For a 1920s video technology with a lot in common with this fax, read Wikipedia: Mechanical television[^]. This is serious - there were broadcasts for this kind of TV receivers!
oo-O-oo
It reminds me of an article in a very early issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (a magazine for computer hobbyists and microcomputer users) - how to build a true 3D display: A rail where you can pull a LED right-left, a mechanism for lifting the rail up-down, and for moving it from back to front. There you have a mechanism for drawing wireframe models in a true 3D space.
Only that to give an illusion of lines, it must move at tremendous speed, right-left, up-down and back-front. You can avoid the left-right movement by lining up a horizontal row of LEDs that only needs to be moved up-down and back-front. You can even avoid the up-down movement by using a vertical stack of such LED rows; then you only need to move it back-front. Powering all those LEDs takes a tremendous number of wires, which must be very flexible. Rather than LEDs, why not use phosphor on the inside of a glass tube, excited by an electron beam - commonly known as a CRT? So, all that is required to build a true 3D display is to build a mechanism to flip a CRT screen back to front at least 25 times a second ...
In the late 1970s, computer display technology was at a level where wireframe models were the norm. On a Tektronix storage tube, you could follow the line be drawn, one after another (it did not use scanning techniques, but worked similar to a pen plotter), and the the image was retained until you cleared it by pushing a button on the terminal. So the initial description of how to create a 3D line drawing sounded sort of plausible. You might read halfway through the article before realizing that this was not a proposal for a DIY project, but a joke from the very first sentence.
The mechanical scanner for TV images, however, was not a joke but dead serious technology, which was actually in use.
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I guess it is even older. I tried my luck at U of Minn 1977-78 (failing miserably), I believe that is when and where I bought that copy of Dr.Dobbs. Somewhere deep in the piles of paper in my basement it can still be found, to get the details, but I am certainly not going to search for it tonight.
It appeared just a tad beyond a stencil copy: Pure black and white, no colors, and (I would have to dig it up to confirm this) no photos. Maybe it today could be sold as a collector's item at a high price, but I do not plan to sell it.
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trønderen wrote: eminds me of an article in a very early issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal
Wow! You remember that? It was one of my favorites, back when I owned an Epson QX-10 and belonged to a local computer club. Valdocs did everything I needed to do, in most ways as well as Microsoft Office does today, and TPM III was a pretty nifty solution to the problem of using 256k of RAM in a 64k address space. Dr. Dobbs taught me a ton, almost none of which I can remember. 
Will Rogers never met me.
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Save your changes before you play off board (9)
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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COMMITTEE
COMMIT save your changes
(pos) before
TEE you play off
(defn) board
modified 14-Jan-21 7:24am.
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And you are up tomorrow! 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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FreeBasic source code
n1 = mid( bits , a , 8 )
v1 = val( "&B" + mid( n1 , 1 , 4 ) )
v2 = val( "&B" + mid( n1 , 5 , 4 ) )
if v2 <= 9 then
outs+= chr( ( v1 * 10 ) + v2 )
else
outs+= chr( ( v1 * 16 ) + v2 )
end if
Is there a way to tell if v2 <= 9 or >= 10??
If i divide by 10 or 16 would it reveal v2??
The formula along with Zlib , compresses 5.5% on loop one and can be recursed to get 90+% after 100 lops.
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Wrong forum.
Read the paragraph at the top of this page.
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albert_redditt wrote: The formula along with Zlib , compresses 5.5% on loop one and can be recursed to get 90+% after 100 lops.
That alone should already tell you that there is a fundamental issue.
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You are using the wrong compression algorithm: just throw away all the zero bits - they mean "nothing" after all.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
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101010 - There are at least 3 non-padding-related zeroes that are critical to life, the universe, and everything
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Back in the 80's we had a senior hardware engineer who devised this compression algorithm.
He insisted that decompression was "just an implementation detail" and "should be handled in software".
Strangely, we didn't use his method.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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01000010 the answer to life and without 0s would be meaningless.
I'm not sure how many cookies it makes to be happy, but so far it's not 27.
JaxCoder.com
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Douglas Adams - Life, the Universe and Everything: Now the world has gone to bed,
Darkness won't engulf my head,
I can see in infrared,
How I hate the night.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
Try to count electric sheep,
Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
How I hate the night.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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