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In real life, I was a research chemist, and coded purely for pleasure. Even if it was work related (For PC e.g's: a/d converter or graphic driver for Fortran before they had them). Formatting floppies as interleaved, and to 81 tracks. Disassembling virus'.
Now, however, I do for money what I used to do for pleasure . . .
. . . rather like a hooker.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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Balboos wrote: Formatting floppies as interleaved
Interleaved? How does that work?
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I meant interlaced, and it worked like so:
Each sector on each track of a floppy disk has a sector header, which includes a sequencing value. The sequence value is the order in which the tracks are logically (not necessarily physically) accessed. Normally, floppys were formatted with the physical and logical sequences the same.
However . . .
If you created your own formatting routine, you could change the order so that the sectors (for example) skipped the adjacent sector. For a 5.25" 9 sector/track floppy (360Kb), that meant the order was 1,6,2,7,3,8,4,9,5 . Typically, you'd design your formatting app with various interlace schemes you think are useful (also, for other floppy types) as a set of arrays, and select whichever you wish at run-time. These floppies, once formatted, would read/write on any PC, without any special hardware/software requirement.
Why bother, and/or why haven't I bothered with this in years? These are the same question.
"Way Back When" PC's were a lot slower (12 Mhz 1 wait state), as each sector was read and processed, there was a short delay. During that delay, the read head may have already advanced passed the next sector, and had to wait for it to come around again. In a worst case scenario, with the above track, you had to go around nine times to read one track. I made disks with large .pcx files on them, both the same, except for the interleave. When reading and displaying the files from the disk, The difference was down right dramatic. For smaller files (and less intense CPU work, such as loading ascii text), it was noticably faster, but not earth-shaking. Note that the write-time for a 2:1 interlaceded floppy could be as much as twice of a normal (1:1) interlaced floppy, since it must go around at least twice to read a track - the non-interlaced version could potentially do that job in a single pass.
Nowadays, the CPU's are a bit faster, and the read-cacheing buffers so large, that you'd be hard pressed to notice a difference. Even many (most) hard drives are no longer interlaced.
Good technology for CD/DVD ?? I don't think so. As I recall (maybe I'm wrong?), these are not track/sector formatted media (i.e., the sliced onion look), but are spiral-formatted (like a phonograph record). This would make interlacing a very bad idea.
Balboos
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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Interesting
Pablo
while(1){DoTheDo();}
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Balboos wrote: Good technology for CD/DVD ?? I don't think so. As I recall (maybe I'm wrong?), these are not track/sector formatted media (i.e., the sliced onion look), but are spiral-formatted (like a phonograph record). This would make interlacing a very bad idea.
You're right. A CD/DVD is organized like a phonograph. And the CD-Drives are optimized for reading sequential data (that's what they were originally designed for - as a replacement for phonographs). To help this, CD Drives have usually the ability to adjust their speed to the required data rate (i.e you can play an audio CD in your very fast DVD reader, it will slow down to 1x speed). This has the nice side effect that the noise is significantly reduced.
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I use my computer at home for almost everything, from recipe-hunting when I feel like cooking, to watching DVDs, listening to music (which I do all the time)... I use it for everything EXCEPT work. Anything work-related stays at the office (with just a few, and very scarce, horrid exceptions). That way, I keep reasonably healthy and stress-free. I don't even have personal computer-related projects. I don't know it that is common in this profession, but despite how much I enjoy programming, I really don't do it on my private life and time (only at work).
Enhance the trance
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you are a rare breed !
but don't take it the wrong way, it can be a good thing that you keep it separate.
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Same here. Basically everything on that list except programming. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy programming. It used to be a primary hobby. But I have many interests outside of programming. I do enough of it for work so gotta leave room for them.
I do try to learn new programming things though. Just no coding pet projects and such, not anymore.
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Adrian Murillo wrote: from recipe-hunting when I feel like cooking,
Me too!
Adrian Murillo wrote: I don't even have personal computer-related projects. I don't know it that is common in this profession, but despite how much I enjoy programming, I really don't do it on my private life and time (only at work).
Only when I crossed the age of 30 did I realize there's more to computers...
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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There's too much ego in this profession. I don't do much programming at home for last little while or boast about programming as leisure. I think I get enough programming during the day.
Norman Fung
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use it for downloading music and video.... unless you count downloading shuttle launches and X-Prize videos. 
Outside of that, the rest of the list is all a true. I do the R&D work that work won't pay for at home, and occassionally come up with a gem that I pass back to work, or others.
_________________________
Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau.
Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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We breathe in and breathe out in bytes right? 
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My computers are my lifeline. I absolutely need a computer that is connected to the internet or else I may become lost and confused and die. I use my computer for everything...communication, job hunting, maps, information, banking, bill paying ... the list goes on and on. I couldn't imagine a life without a computer.
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Me too. 
<font=arial>Weiye Chen
Give me the Death Note, and I'll cleanse the world...
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Captain See Sharp wrote: My computers are my lifeline. I absolutely need a computer that is connected to the internet or else I may become lost and confused and die. I use my computer for everything...communication, job hunting, maps, information, banking, bill paying ... the list goes on and on. I couldn't imagine a life without a computer.
/me cuts power to you house........ 
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 Captain See Sharp wrote: I absolutely need a computer that is connected to the internet or else I may become lost and confused and die
Could be a good time to find a girlfriend
We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them. Steve Jobs
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Are there really so many people moonlighting? 
<font=arial>Weiye Chen
Give me the Death Note, and I'll cleanse the world...
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Its not so much as moonlighting, but most devs like to build their own projects for fun and for free.
I work on the Linux Kernel and Produce SOA application for free.
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Like those with colloborative computing efforts in GDN (GotDotNet) Workspaces or SourceForge.
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Except for the 'I don't' option, obviously. 
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Same here. I was actually clicking them and after the first five or so i checked them all and almost clicked submit. Then saw the "I don't" option.;P
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Haha i did the exact same thing !
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My mouse kept selecting all the options other than 'I don't'. When it encountered 'Others', since most of the optiosn were covered in the list, it was encountering an infinite recursion and System.StackOverFlowException.
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Same here - a bit silly for guys like us.
Well, I didn't click "Other" because I don't know what you guys think "the other thing" is 
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!
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Now that I've already voted and can't go back and change my vote (nudge), it occurs to me that I should have selected "Participating in online communities." Not only that, but that one should really be at 100%, because anyone who bothered to vote in the poll is doing exactly that.
Grim (aka Toby) MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB
SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue IS NOT NULL
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