Date: 23 Sep 98 14:02:29 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> Message-ID: <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 32 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.130 In article <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com (jmfbahciv) writes: >In the olden days when us gray-haired farts were young, foolish and >had more energy, the spelling also depended on the company one >worked for. Rivalries required that "things be different from >those guys" so that customers had a choice. For instance: >1. IBM spelled disk as disc; DEC spelled it disk. I remember huge >arguments about the correct spelling. Then there were the brand-new words that IBM cobbled together to further the cause of "product differentiation". :-p Some examples: IBM The rest of the world --- --------------------- planar circuit board data set file (or is it a modem?) pel pixel alphameric alphanumeric I find the last one particularly amusing because it makes me think of Kate Smith belting out a spirited rendition of "God Bless Alphamerica!" Note: I didn't include DASD as a synonym for disk, because it isn't. It also encompasses drums, for instance. I'll let someone else take up the discussion of the infamous 2321 data cell and its descendents. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906596525@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 36 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:05:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906598832 209.146.155.2 (Wed, 23 Sep 1998 21:00:32 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 21:00:32 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: JM>1. IBM spelled disk as disc; DEC spelled it disk. I remember huge >arguments about the correct spelling. In the early seventies, you >will find DEC documentation that has either spelling. The spelling >depended on the programmer who was doing the writing (this was before >we got professional editors). Just a thought... is mathematics, the geometric shape is spelled "disc", according to all sources I've grown up with. And wasn't the 5.25" floppy disk (disc?) called a "diskette"? So I'm wondering if perhaps "disk" was a short form of "diskette", which literally means "small disc". Another interesting note, is CD is always spelled "Compact Disc". For some reason, whenever I see a computer disk/disc spelled "disc", it just doesn't "look right", yet I never get that feeling when looking at a CD! I guess I was just brought up on "disk", not "disc" for magnetic media. JM>2. Another difference was that, if one was from IBM, one slashed >the letter O. If one was from DEC, one slashed the zero. The very >first task of breaking in a new hire at DEC was to unteach IBMisms. Isn't it ironic that IBM's PC is the most widely used personal computer system, and the slash through the number 0 is standard on all modern computers? Something like that would be very confusing though, because the slash was specifically to make it easy to determine the difference between a 0 and a O. Hey, and my character set I'm using right now makes them look exactly the same except for a little 1 pixel dot in the center of the 0. TTYL. * 1st 2.00 ~ AbleLINK - Help the kids help themselves..., by modem! ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 24 Sep 98 11:53:16 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 47 Message-ID: <6udg0f$rub$3@strato.ultra.net> References: <906596525@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: d16.dial-11.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 24 Sep 1998 13:04:15 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!uninett.no!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!209.244.253.199!newsfeed.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d16 In article <906596525@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: >JM>1. IBM spelled disk as disc; DEC spelled it disk. I remember huge > >arguments about the correct spelling. In the early seventies, you > >will find DEC documentation that has either spelling. The spelling > >depended on the programmer who was doing the writing (this was before > >we got professional editors). > >Just a thought... is mathematics, the geometric shape is spelled >"disc", according to all sources I've grown up with. And wasn't the >5.25" floppy disk (disc?) called a "diskette"? So I'm wondering if >perhaps "disk" was a short form of "diskette", which literally means >"small disc". Errmmm.....no. There weren't such things as floppies back then :-). There were DECtapes, paper tapes (fanfold and oiled), disk drives (fixed head and floating head), magtapes (yucko) and there were cards. But, people who bought DEC computers abandoned that card media first thing after exposure to DECtapes and disks. >JM>2. Another difference was that, if one was from IBM, one slashed > >the letter O. If one was from DEC, one slashed the zero. The very > >first task of breaking in a new hire at DEC was to unteach IBMisms. > >Isn't it ironic that IBM's PC is the most widely used personal computer >system, and the slash through the number 0 is standard on all modern >computers? ... Just shows that we were a good influence :-). > ... Something like that would be very confusing though, because >the slash was specifically to make it easy to determine the difference >between a 0 and a O. Hey, and my character set I'm using right now >makes them look exactly the same except for a little 1 pixel dot in the >center of the 0. And the font that I'm using doesn't distinguish them; I also can't tell the difference between a lower case I and the number one. I've been reading some novels where the font uses a capital I for the number one--talk about real confusion, for a while I could figure out if the author was talking about a highway or a year. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 24 Sep 98 12:00:33 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 44 Message-ID: <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d16.dial-11.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 24 Sep 1998 13:11:32 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!news.ultranet.com!d16 In article <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: >In article <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com (jmfbahciv) >writes: > >>In the olden days when us gray-haired farts were young, foolish and >>had more energy, the spelling also depended on the company one >>worked for. Rivalries required that "things be different from >>those guys" so that customers had a choice. For instance: > >>1. IBM spelled disk as disc; DEC spelled it disk. I remember huge >>arguments about the correct spelling. > >Then there were the brand-new words that IBM cobbled together to >further the cause of "product differentiation". :-p Some examples: > > IBM The rest of the world > --- --------------------- > planar circuit board > data set file (or is it a modem?) I always thought of a dataset as a modem. Documentation of a "data set" was usually changed to "set of data" because it was damn hard to proofread the presence or absence of a space (if you remember the print quality of the olden days; I remember being told to delete fly specks). > pel pixel > alphameric alphanumeric > >I find the last one particularly amusing because it makes >me think of Kate Smith belting out a spirited rendition of >"God Bless Alphamerica!" Chuckle. We used both alphameric and alphanumeric. The difference was one included numbers in the alphanumeric; the alphameric was strictly letters (and, back then, that didn't include lower case). Didn't the distinction between the two have something to do with FORTRAN? /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Date: 24 Sep 98 10:34:31 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> Message-ID: <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 22 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.121 In article <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com (jmfbahciv) writes: >Chuckle. We used both alphameric and alphanumeric. The difference >was one included numbers in the alphanumeric; the alphameric was >strictly letters (and, back then, that didn't include lower case). I never heard that one. Something that consisted purely of letters fell under the word "alphabetic", which is older than computers. The same goes for the term "numeric". "Alphanumeric" was a logical combination of the two, so I looked upon IBM's "alphameric" as a proprietary contraction of "alphanumeric". >Didn't the distinction between the two have something to do with >FORTRAN? Ah, good old variable names: six characters maximum, the first being alphabetic, the rest alphanumeric. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: eric@fudge.uchicago.edu (Eric Fischer) Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fudge.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test51 (15 Jan 97) Organization: The University of Chicago References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 14:28:55 GMT Lines: 17 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!128.174.5.49!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail Charlie Gibbs wrote: > Then there were the brand-new words that IBM cobbled together to > further the cause of "product differentiation". :-p Some examples: > > IBM The rest of the world > --- --------------------- > planar circuit board > data set file (or is it a modem?) > pel pixel > alphameric alphanumeric In their early 1980s advertising, they also couldn't decide whether they were going to refer to a hard disk as a "fixed disk" or as a "hard file". eric ###### From: genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 16:34:17 GMT Organization: http://www.supernews.com, The World's Usenet: Discussions Start Here Lines: 32 Message-ID: <3609f3f6.51903626@news.vip.net> References: <906596525@ablelink.org> Reply-To: genew@vip.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.209.212.44 X-Trace: 906654701 A01OARAUVD42CCCD1C usenet52.supernews.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.wli.net!Supernews73!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: [snip] >JM>2. Another difference was that, if one was from IBM, one slashed > >the letter O. If one was from DEC, one slashed the zero. The very > >first task of breaking in a new hire at DEC was to unteach IBMisms. > >Isn't it ironic that IBM's PC is the most widely used personal computer >system, and the slash through the number 0 is standard on all modern >computers? Something like that would be very confusing though, because >the slash was specifically to make it easy to determine the difference >between a 0 and a O. Hey, and my character set I'm using right now >makes them look exactly the same except for a little 1 pixel dot in the >center of the 0. I ran into the slashed zero with BASIC and it seemed to be associated with it, BUT I ran across one very old book on BASIC whose author was so determined to slash Os in program listings that he used phi instead. GOTO would be G phi T phi and looked quite odd. (Phi looks something like a lower case O with a slash through it.) Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### From: "George R. Gonzalez" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 12:05:03 -0500 Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus Lines: 53 Message-ID: <6uduap$3sm$1@news1.tc.umn.edu> References: <906596525@ablelink.org> <3609f3f6.51903626@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: grg1.micro.umn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!news-b.ais.net!ais.net!newshub.tc.umn.edu!news1.tc.umn.edu!not-for-mail Gene Wirchenko wrote in message <3609f3f6.51903626@news.vip.net>... >justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: > >>JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: > >[snip] > >>JM>2. Another difference was that, if one was from IBM, one slashed >> >the letter O. If one was from DEC, one slashed the zero. The very >> >first task of breaking in a new hire at DEC was to unteach IBMisms. >> >>Isn't it ironic that IBM's PC is the most widely used personal computer >>system, and the slash through the number 0 is standard on all modern >>computers? IIRC the old Model-33 tty's had several different type cylinders, some with the O slashed, some with the zero slashed. Many dot-matrix printers had the slash through the zero, and the better ones had a dip-switch setting to turn off the slash. The Dec VT-52 had a DOT in the middle of the zero. We could also get into the shift-O backarrow to underline crisis, or the shift-N uparrow to caret debacle, but this stuff probably seems silly to anyone under 40. Something like that would be very confusing though, because >>the slash was specifically to make it easy to determine the difference >>between a 0 and a O. Hey, and my character set I'm using right now >>makes them look exactly the same except for a little 1 pixel dot in the >>center of the 0. > > I ran into the slashed zero with BASIC and it seemed to be >associated with it, BUT I ran across one very old book on BASIC whose >author was so determined to slash Os in program listings that he used >phi instead. GOTO would be G phi T phi and looked quite odd. (Phi >looks something like a lower case O with a slash through it.) > >Sincerely, > >Gene Wirchenko > >Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: > I have preferences. > You have biases. > He/She has prejudices. ###### From: Shez Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 17:26:40 +0100 Organization: a thousand miles from home Message-ID: References: <906596525@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 906658904 nnrp-06:1807 NO-IDENT xerez.demon.co.uk:193.237.22.174 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike (32) Trial Version 3.05 Lines: 29 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!xerez.demon.co.uk!Gnus Justin Frim of Ability Online Support Network writes: >Just a thought... is mathematics, the geometric shape is spelled >"disc", according to all sources I've grown up with. I always assumed that "disk" was the US spelling of "disc". In the UK you get the useful distinction now that discs are just discs (or vinyl music recordings) whilst "disk" refers specifically to computer media. There are several cases where semantic distinctions have evolved between respellings of the same word, eg. "enquiry" and "inquiry" have distinct meanings in the UK, but not, I think, in the US. >Another interesting note, is CD is always spelled >"Compact Disc". Compact Disc is a trademark of Phillips, so the spelling is fixed, as is the logo , embossed onto every CD player and CDROM drive (but we've already had this particular discussion before on this newsgroup). -Shez. -- ____________________________________________________________ _____________ "To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System" ____________________________________________________________ _____________ Email to Gnus will be rejected: if replying by email, address it to Shez. (c)Shez asserts the moral rights of authorship under the Berne Convention Take a break at the Last Stop Cafe at ###### From: stevenss@freenet.msp.mn.us Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:37:51 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 49 Message-ID: <6uel4f$d91$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> References: <906596525@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.238.140.76 X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Sep 24 23:37:51 1998 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.06 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.34 i586) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x6.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 208.238.140.76 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail In article <906596525@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: > JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: > JM>1. IBM spelled disk as disc; DEC spelled it disk. I remember huge > >arguments about the correct spelling. In the early seventies, you > >will find DEC documentation that has either spelling. The spelling > >depended on the programmer who was doing the writing (this was before > >we got professional editors). > > Just a thought... is mathematics, the geometric shape is spelled > "disc", according to all sources I've grown up with. And wasn't the > 5.25" floppy disk (disc?) called a "diskette"? So I'm wondering if > perhaps "disk" was a short form of "diskette", which literally means > "small disc". Another interesting note, is CD is always spelled > "Compact Disc". > > For some reason, whenever I see a computer disk/disc spelled "disc", it > just doesn't "look right", yet I never get that feeling when looking at > a CD! I guess I was just brought up on "disk", not "disc" for magnetic > media. > > JM>2. Another difference was that, if one was from IBM, one slashed > >the letter O. If one was from DEC, one slashed the zero. The very > >first task of breaking in a new hire at DEC was to unteach IBMisms. > > Isn't it ironic that IBM's PC is the most widely used personal computer > system, and the slash through the number 0 is standard on all modern > computers? Something like that would be very confusing though, because > the slash was specifically to make it easy to determine the difference > between a 0 and a O. Hey, and my character set I'm using right now > makes them look exactly the same except for a little 1 pixel dot in the > center of the 0. > Actually, I remember very distinctly that one of the things I noticed right away when the first VGA cards and monitors came out was that the zero no longer had a slash, but instead had a dot in the middle of the zero. At the time, it was one of the most noticible differences between a VGA text display and earlier text displays (MDA, Hercules, EGA). This was of course only true in circumstances where one was displaying data using the internal character rom of the video card... > TTYL. > > * 1st 2.00 ~ AbleLINK - Help the kids help themselves..., by modem! > -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906681848@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 27 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:28:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906685209 209.146.155.2 (Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:09 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:09 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: JM>Errmmm.....no. There weren't such things as floppies back then :-). >There were DECtapes, paper tapes (fanfold and oiled), disk drives >(fixed head and floating head), magtapes (yucko) and there were >cards. But, people who bought DEC computers abandoned that card >media first thing after exposure to DECtapes and disks. My IBM 3742 Dual Data Entry Station was made in 73, and it used 8" disks. (I should check to see if they call them disks or discs) JM>And the font that I'm using doesn't distinguish them; I also can't >tell the difference between a lower case I and the number one. I've >been reading some novels where the font uses a capital I for the number >one--talk about real confusion, for a while I could figure out if >the author was talking about a highway or a year. I'm using a DOS mail program. This character set is in the default video card ROM. :) TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Fatal error: need routing information to send reply! ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906681849@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 14 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:32:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906685210 209.146.155.2 (Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:10 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:10 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim GRG@FOUNDSYS.COM wrote: GM>We could also get into the shift-O backarrow to underline crisis, or the >shift-N uparrow to caret debacle, but this stuff probably seems silly to >anyone under 40. What do you mean? TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ ###### [ from here on large subthread about one posters mail system snipped] ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906681851@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 23 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:49:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906685210 209.146.155.2 (Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:10 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:10 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-raspail.gip.net!news-dc.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.221.240.3!beaker.tor.sfl.net!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim CGIBBS@SKY.BUS.COM wrote: CM>Then there were the brand-new words that IBM cobbled together to >further the cause of "product differentiation". :-p Some examples: CM> IBM The rest of the world > --- --------------------- > planar circuit board > data set file (or is it a modem?) > pel pixel > alphameric alphanumeric "Pel" is still used by Microsucks in some of their stuff today. Ever seen the picture attributes thing in Microsucks Winblows Paintbrush? They call pixels "pels". TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906681852@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 19 Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 23:53:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906685211 209.146.155.2 (Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:11 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:00:11 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!btnet-peer!btnet!newshub.northeast.verio.net!news-b.ais.net!ais.net!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim CGIBBS@SKY.BUS.COM wrote: CM>I've heard this term a lot when referring to plastic sheeting. >When I was into reel-to-reel tape, it also referred to the >thickness of the tape. And in wire tables (relating gauge >to diameter, current-carrying capacity, etc.) I've often seen >cross-sectional area stated in "circular mils", where one >circular mil is the area of a circle .001" in diameter. Come to think of it, all my reel-to-reel tapes (which I still have the OEM boxes for) specify the thickness in "mil". Never seen the specs on cassette tapes though. TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Ability OnLine - Our Kids know how to XPRESS themselves. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Fri, 25 Sep 98 12:35:23 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 37 Message-ID: <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d9.dial-11.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 25 Sep 1998 13:46:31 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d9 In article <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: >In article <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com (jmfbahciv) >writes: > >>Chuckle. We used both alphameric and alphanumeric. The difference >>was one included numbers in the alphanumeric; the alphameric was >>strictly letters (and, back then, that didn't include lower case). > >I never heard that one. Something that consisted purely of >letters fell under the word "alphabetic", which is older than >computers. The same goes for the term "numeric". "Alphanumeric" >was a logical combination of the two, so I looked upon IBM's >"alphameric" as a proprietary contraction of "alphanumeric". I suspect I misspoke just a tad. Could alphameric be letters plus a few characters like dot and comma? I do remember it was a strange (to me) character set definition. On the other hand, my memory could be getting some ECC errors [grinning emoticon here]. > >>Didn't the distinction between the two have something to do with >>FORTRAN? > >Ah, good old variable names: six characters maximum, the first >being alphabetic, the rest alphanumeric. > Maybe it did have to do with the characters one was allowed to put on a source deck for the FORTRAN II compiler. So maybe there was a subset of the ASCII standard (was it a standard in those days?) that didn't include numbers. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Fri, 25 Sep 98 12:20:58 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 23 Message-ID: <6ug60m$ti4$2@strato.ultra.net> References: <906681848@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: d9.dial-11.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 25 Sep 1998 13:32:06 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-dc.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!news.ultranet.com!d9 In article <906681848@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: >JM>Errmmm.....no. There weren't such things as floppies back then :-). > >There were DECtapes, paper tapes (fanfold and oiled), disk drives > >(fixed head and floating head), magtapes (yucko) and there were > >cards. But, people who bought DEC computers abandoned that card > >media first thing after exposure to DECtapes and disks. > >My IBM 3742 Dual Data Entry Station was made in 73, and it used 8" >disks. (I should check to see if they call them disks or discs) Errmmm....I'm talking about 1968 or so :-). Yea, check it. It would be interesting if IBM made a spelling distinction between floppies and hard disk packs. I do remember huge arguments about the spelling. Interestingly, our diagnostics programmers always insisted on the spelling disc but I don't know where they came from. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu (Alexandre Pechtchanski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 20 Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 17:37:27 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 906745064 129.85.24.56 (Fri, 25 Sep 1998 13:37:44 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 13:37:44 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail On Fri, 25 Sep 98 12:35:23 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >In article <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com>, > "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: [ big snip ] >>Ah, good old variable names: six characters maximum, the first >>being alphabetic, the rest alphanumeric. > >Maybe it did have to do with the characters one was allowed to >put on a source deck for the FORTRAN II compiler. So maybe >there was a subset of the ASCII standard (was it a standard >in those days?) that didn't include numbers. FORTRAN without numbers? Now that's something to have nightmares about ;-) Standard du jour would be BCDIC or EBCDIC, not ASCII. I think FORTRAN II predates ASCII by quite comfortable margin. [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: jc@magi.com (John Coughlin) Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... References: <906681850@ablelink.org> X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3 Message-ID: <8CQO1.28$Gp6.271025@NewsRead.Toronto.iSTAR.net> Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 17:42:28 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: ts15-13.ott.istar.ca NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 13:42:28 EDT Lines: 12 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer!btnet!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.221.240.3!beaker.tor.sfl.net!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!NewsRead.Toronto.iSTAR.net!not-for-mail In article <906681850@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote:. > >We call vinyl music recordings "records", or better known as "our >parent's CD!!" *l* Although we still have the word "disco" here, >which I assume comes from the fact that back in the 70's when everyone >was doing them dances under the mirrored ball, the DJ would play >records, or "discs". > The word "disco" comes from the French "discothèque", which means a collection of vinyl records. By extension, a discotheque is also an establishment where such a collection is stored and played. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: eric@fudge.uchicago.edu (Eric Fischer) Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... X-Nntp-Posting-Host: fudge.uchicago.edu Message-ID: Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator) X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test51 (15 Jan 97) Organization: The University of Chicago References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:20:29 GMT Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!not-for-mail On Fri, 25 Sep 98 12:35:23 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > Maybe it did have to do with the characters one was allowed to > put on a source deck for the FORTRAN II compiler. So maybe > there was a subset of the ASCII standard (was it a standard > in those days?) that didn't include numbers. [following up to a followup, since the original didn't make it here] The original (uppercase-only) ASCII standard actually did define a 4-bit, non-alphabetic subset with these characters: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 * + , - . / The standard was published in a 1965 issue of the Communications of the ACM, which definitely postdates Fortran II, but it might have been in use before it was formally standardized. If anyone is really interested I can look up the exact reference later. The first proposed extension for lowercase, which would have eliminated the backslash in favor of a "not" sign and rearranged a few other things, is interesting reading too. eric ###### From: Michael-Dennis Biemans Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 25 Sep 1998 19:28:33 +0200 Organization: M.C.G.V. Stack - Eindhoven, the Netherlands Lines: 7 Sender: michaeld@turtle.stack.nl Message-ID: <6ugjs1$bo$1@turtle.stack.nl> References: <906596525@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: turtle.stack.nl User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980730 (UNIX) (FreeBSD/2.2.7-STABLE (i386)) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!surfnet.nl!news.tue.nl!not-for-mail Shez wrote: > Compact Disc is a trademark of Phillips, so the spelling is fixed, as is Philips has a fixed spelling: "Philips" :-) And it's pronounced Pheelips. MD ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906776091@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 13 Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 00:02:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906778828 209.146.155.2 (Fri, 25 Sep 1998 23:00:28 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 23:00:28 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim MICHAELD@STACK.NL wrote: ML>Philips has a fixed spelling: "Philips" :-) And it's pronounced Pheelips. ^^^^^^^^ That's news to me! I've always heard it pronounced as if it was spelled "Phillips", that is, the "i" would have a consonant sound. TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Stop searching forever, happiness is right beside you. ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <906776092@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 32 Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 00:03:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 906778828 209.146.155.2 (Fri, 25 Sep 1998 23:00:28 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 23:00:28 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim STEVENSS@FREENET.MSP.MN.U wrote: SU>Actually, I remember very distinctly that one of the things I noticed right >away when the first VGA cards and monitors came out was that the zero no >longer had a slash, but instead had a dot in the middle of the zero. At the >time, it was one of the most noticible differences between a VGA text displa >and earlier text displays (MDA, Hercules, EGA). This was of course only tru >in circumstances where one was displaying data using the internal character >rom of the video card... I'm using an EGA right now (the computer with my mail program). My v40 server displays slashed zeros with it's internal CGA, and my Zenith ZWL-80 8088 laptop (also with CGA) does slashed zeros. The first thing I noticed with the VGA character sets it characters 220 and 223 the ("Ü" and "ß" if you have the same character set as me and this is transmitted as 8-bit text), which are the bottom cell block and top cell block are not the same size. The VGA displays character 220, or the bottom cell block ("Ü") with more rasters than the top one. And I remember when playing Nibbles (the infamous Microsucks QBASIC game, NIBBLES.BAS), I looked at the thickness of "Sammy" the snake to determine if I would pass though the holes in the walls of level 10 (the level with the vertical walls with a hole in every character cell, or hole in every second block of the playing arena). ;) Now Winblows and graphics has killed the text-based game concept. TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Sat, 26 Sep 98 11:40:18 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 34 Message-ID: <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> NNTP-Posting-Host: d13.dial-14.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 26 Sep 1998 12:51:36 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.ultranet.com!d13 In article <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd>, alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu (Alexandre Pechtchanski) wrote: >On Fri, 25 Sep 98 12:35:23 GMT, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > >>In article <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com>, >> "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: >[ big snip ] >>>Ah, good old variable names: six characters maximum, the first >>>being alphabetic, the rest alphanumeric. >> >>Maybe it did have to do with the characters one was allowed to >>put on a source deck for the FORTRAN II compiler. So maybe >>there was a subset of the ASCII standard (was it a standard >>in those days?) that didn't include numbers. > >FORTRAN without numbers? Now that's something to have >nightmares about ;-) Chuckle. Yep. That sentence was written very clumsily :-). > >Standard du jour would be BCDIC or EBCDIC, not ASCII. I think FORTRAN II >predates ASCII by quite comfortable margin. I don't know. My very first encounter with computers and data was FORTRAN II on an IBM 1620 using keypunches. Most of my computer knowledge was gleaned from experience rather than training. Back then I wouldn't have known an EBCDIC from an ASCII unless it required a different pattern of holes in the cards. I'm pretty sure that I was using ASCII (7-bit) back then. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Jan van den Broek Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 26 Sep 1998 21:08:57 +0200 Organization: Inktpot & Ganzeveer Lines: 22 Message-ID: <6uje49$cv5$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> References: <906776091@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: xs2.xs4all.nl X-NNTP-Posting-Host: xs2.xs4all.nl [194.109.6.43] X-XS4ALL-Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 21:08:58 CEST X-No-Ahbou: yes X-Order: Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please. X-Question: never, never known not even by many to exist X-rays: Do not expose this message to X-rays. X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!xs4all!xs4all!not-for-mail justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) writes: >MICHAELD@STACK.NL wrote: >ML>Philips has a fixed spelling: "Philips" :-) And it's pronounced Pheelips. > ^^^^^^^^ >That's news to me! I've always heard it pronounced as if it was >spelled "Phillips", that is, the "i" would have a consonant sound. The mentioned pronunciation is the Dutch[1] one. [1] The language that is used in Eindhoven[2] [2] Were the Philips[3]-headquarters are[4] [3] This is how it's spelled on my PCD 315 (386sx) and on my Philishave also. [4] Still. +------------------------+ "Life is just a situation | Jan van den Broek | Life is just a game +------------------------+ Life is just a whirlpool | balglaas@xs4all.nl | And it's calling out my name" +------------------------+ - The Residents, Amber ###### From: William.Hamblen@nashville.com (William Hamblen) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1998 22:20:08 GMT Organization: Utterly Disorganized Lines: 20 Message-ID: <36113bfc.612338@news.nashville.com> References: <906596525@ablelink.org> Reply-To: William.Hamblen@nashville.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.65.180.148 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: 906848689 4TJCV727NB494CF41C usenet80.supernews.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newsfeed.wli.net!Supernews73!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail On Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:05:00 GMT, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >For some reason, whenever I see a computer disk/disc spelled "disc", it >just doesn't "look right", yet I never get that feeling when looking at >a CD! I guess I was just brought up on "disk", not "disc" for magnetic >media. If you look in US dictionaries you will see under disc "disc, n. v.t. disk." Compact Disc is that way for trademark purposes. IBM (I think) named 8" floppies diskettes. Shugart named 5-1/4" floppies minidiskettes. Don't remember if the 90mm/3.5" ones were subminidiskettes or microdiskettes or something else. "Floppy" seems to have driven out all other terms in every day conversation. ###### From: hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 04:52:17 -0700 Organization: ErsteSoft Lines: 61 Message-ID: References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-asok08--200.sirius.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.3.1 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!btnet-peer!btnet!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newshub.sirius.com!newsfiler.sirius.com!hnsngr In article <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > I don't know. My very first encounter with computers and data > was FORTRAN II on an IBM 1620 using keypunches. Most of my > computer knowledge was gleaned from experience rather than > training. Back then I wouldn't have known an EBCDIC from an > ASCII unless it required a different pattern of holes in the > cards. I'm pretty sure that I was using ASCII (7-bit) back > then. Not on an IBM 1620 you weren't. You weren't using EBCDIC either, but what the 1620 used was closer to EBCDIC than it was to ASCII. The big difference between ASCII and all the *BCD* codes is in whether there are gaps in the alphabet. In ASCII, the letters A-Z have consecutive numeric codes. In BCD, the letters A-I have consecutive values, then there's a gap before you get to J-R, then another gap before S-Z. The 1620 was a decimal machine. I cannot now remember what the codes were, even though I also started with an IBM 1620, but they might have been something like: A-I: 41-49 J-R: 51-59 S-Z: 62-69 0-9: 70-79 I do know that the real values differ from those by some multiple of 10 (and the digits may have preceded the letters rather than followed them). That is, I know I've got the ones-digits correct in the above, but I wouldn't swear to the tens-digits. EBCDIC is a binary code that follows the same pattern, but in hexadecimal: A-I: C1-C9 J-R: D1-D9 S-Z: E2-E9 0-9: F0-F9 In each case, the coding reflects the card codes: A-I: 12 + 1-9 J-R: 11 + 1-9 S-Z: 0 + 2-9 0-9: 0-9 The low-order digit reflects the numeric punch (1-9) and the high-order digit (usually called the "stick" for no particular reason) reflects the zone punches (12,11,0). To extend the character set on the card (so that all 256 possible EBCDIC codes can be punched), it becomes convenient to think of 8 and 9 as zone punches rather than numeric punches. You can get 256 valid card codes by allowing any combination of zones (12,11,0,8,9) with at most one numeric punch (1-7). The corresponding EBCDIC code always has the value of the numeric punch (or zero if none) in its three low-order bits, but the mapping between the zone punches and the other five bits can only be described as bizarre. (It depends on the numeric punch, in a highly irregular way.) -Ron Hunsinger ###### From: Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 11:31:52 -0400 Organization: Kettering University (formerly GMI E&MI) - Flint MI Lines: 33 Message-ID: References: <906596525@ablelink.org> <36113bfc.612338@news.nashville.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: nova.kettering.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: <36113bfc.612338@news.nashville.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!24.128.1.125!chnws03.mediaone.net!24.131.1.12!denws01.mw.mediaone.net!news.gmi.edu!nova.kettering.edu!lee1089 On Sat, 26 Sep 1998, William Hamblen wrote: > On Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:05:00 GMT, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin > Frim) wrote: > > >For some reason, whenever I see a computer disk/disc spelled "disc", it > >just doesn't "look right", yet I never get that feeling when looking at > >a CD! I guess I was just brought up on "disk", not "disc" for magnetic > >media. > > If you look in US dictionaries you will see under disc "disc, n. v.t. > disk." Compact Disc is that way for trademark purposes. > > IBM (I think) named 8" floppies diskettes. > > Shugart named 5-1/4" floppies minidiskettes. > > Don't remember if the 90mm/3.5" ones were subminidiskettes or > microdiskettes or something else. "Floppy" seems to have driven out > all other terms in every day conversation. I've always heard floppy/minifloppy/microfloppy for 8/5/3 inch floppies but I don't think microfloppy was used enough to become a defacto standard and terms vary from place to place. ____________________________________________________________________________ | "A little nonsense now and then, | "If it walks out of the fridge, let Is relished by the wisest men." | it go" -- John Dougherty --W.W. | "If it loves you it will come back." | -- Ian Davis __________________________________|_________________________________________ ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 28 Sep 1998 07:43:31 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 53 Message-ID: <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <906681849@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul7.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 906968611 21646 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <906681849@ablelink.org>, Justin Frim wrote: >GRG@FOUNDSYS.COM wrote: >GM>We could also get into the shift-O backarrow to underline crisis, or the > >shift-N uparrow to caret debacle, but this stuff probably seems silly to > >anyone under 40. > >What do you mean? You could be saying, "Why does it seem silly?" in which case I'm wasting my time. I assume you're saying, "What were the crisis/debacle?". I'm 24 (well under 40) and I understand this.... that's scary. 1) Teletype keyboards were designed so that the character produced by a key, and the character produced by Shift (or Control, or Control-Shift) and the same key, are the same in binary except for one bit. So we have: K L M N O <-- key alone produces 113 114 115 116 117 this character in base 8 [ \ ] ^ _ <-- Shift + key produces 133 134 135 136 137 this character in base 8 If you convert this to binary (which I'm too lazy to do right now) you'll see what I mean. So this explains the "Shift-N" and "Shift-O" part. 2) The debacle & crisis arose because some Teletypes follow an older version of ASCII, in which the underscore looks like a leftward-pointing arrow and the caret/circumflex looks like an upward-pointing arrow. (The designers apparently thought these would be useful for flow diagrams.) See "Flag Day" in the Jargon File. The leftward-pointing arrow is useful for representing the assignent operator (none of this = vs. == or := vs. = stuff!) but I don't see much use for the upward-pointing arrow. Unfortunately you lose the ability to underline things. Also, the first version of ASCII with the current characters (which is *not* necessarily the current version of ASCII -- I forget) specified that the characters " ' ^ ` ~ and possibly , could be used as accents. This is only useful if you have a typewriter terminal or a CRT that can overstrike. Obviously an upward-pointing arrow is not nearly as suitable as a caret. Smalltalk was designed on a machine with a bitmapped display. You could have any font you could make. Xerox decided to use the two arrows. (I actually think this is neat, especially since you can have underlining, bold, italics, and true accented characters.) -- Derek ###### Date: 28 Sep 98 12:57:12 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... References: <906681850@ablelink.org> Message-ID: <676.575T637T7774106@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 17 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.105 In article <906681850@ablelink.org> justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) writes: >We call vinyl music recordings "records", or better known as "our >parent's CD!!" *l* Although we still have the word "disco" here, >which I assume comes from the fact that back in the 70's when everyone >was doing them dances under the mirrored ball, the DJ would play >records, or "discs". It goes back farther than that - "disco" is a shortened form of "discotheque", which was pretty much the same thing in the '60s but with go-go girls instead of mirror balls and three-piece white suits. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: jc@magi.com (John Coughlin) Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... References: <906681849@ablelink.org> <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3 Lines: 10 Message-ID: <8VLP1.17$%z1.141336@NewsRead.Toronto.iSTAR.net> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 13:10:28 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.53.6.210 X-Trace: NewsRead.Toronto.iSTAR.net 906988228 198.53.6.210 (Mon, 28 Sep 1998 09:10:28 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 09:10:28 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!News.Vancouver.iSTAR.net!news.istar.net!NewsRead.Toronto.iSTAR.net!Default In article <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) wrote: > >The leftward-pointing arrow is useful for representing the assignent operator >(none of this = vs. == or := vs. = stuff!) but I don't see much use for the >upward-pointing arrow. Unfortunately you lose the ability to underline >things. The upward-pointing arrow could be used as the exponentiation operator. None of this = vs. == or * vs. ** stuff. ;-) ###### From: tph@longhorn.uucp (Tom Harrington) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 28 Sep 1998 16:33:56 GMT Organization: Mechanist Industries Lines: 26 Message-ID: <6uodpk$14b3@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <35FED25A.C001D7FC@erols.com> <905982083@ablelink.org> <1dfmtt1.1fcdj4nx47mxaN@n35-38.berlin.snafu.de> Reply-To: tph@rmi.net NNTP-Posting-Host: cs0053.eld.ford.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!longhorn!tph Bruce James Robert Linley (linley@netcom.com) wrote: : I think not. Some names are based on the number of bits, others on a : silly grade of eating synonyms. : Bit, nybble, byte for 1, 4, and 8 bits. : Nickles and Deckles for 5 and 10 bits. (mostly obsolete) tayste: 2 bits nybble: 4 bits byte: 8 bits playte: 16 bits dynner: 32 bits (thanks to the Jargon File for the above) : What is 64 bits called? A double word? A Quad word? Hmm, it's not covered. Let's see... "two-course meyl"? "feyst"? -- Tom Harrington --------- tph@rmii.com -------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph "I can't remember why I like this feeling when it always seems to let me down." - Gin Blossoms Cookie's Revenge: ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/tph/cookie/cookies-revenge.sit.hqx ###### Message-ID: <360FE431.3BC7@gazonk.del> Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 15:32:01 -0400 From: "Foobar T. Clown" Reply-To: foobar@gazonk.del Organization: Blurp X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... References: <35FED25A.C001D7FC@erols.com> <905982083@ablelink.org> <1dfmtt1.1fcdj4nx47mxaN@n35-38.berlin.snafu.de> <6uodpk$14b3@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.133.110.49 X-Trace: 28 Sep 1998 15:34:43 -0500, 198.133.110.49 Lines: 9 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!ix.netcom.com!zeus.nomos.com!198.133.110.49 Tom Harrington wrote: > tayste: 2 bits > nybble: 4 bits > byte: 8 bits > playte: 16 bits > dynner: 32 bits It's official: YBHTL. ###### From: "Paul Grayson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <906681849@ablelink.org> <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <8VLP1.17$%z1.141336@NewsRead.Toronto.iSTAR.net> Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 15:14:41 +0100 Lines: 13 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: 195.50.82.193 Message-ID: <360f959a.0@news.saqnet.co.uk> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!btnet-peer!btnet!insnet.net!backpost.satin.net!news.saqnet.co.uk!195.50.82.193 > >The upward-pointing arrow could be used as the exponentiation operator. None >of this = vs. == or * vs. ** stuff. ;-) The Sinclair ZX Spectrum 8-bit micro had an upward pointing arrow instead of the caret in its ASCII table, which was used in BASIC for the exponential operator. The underscore was in the correct position. The other anomaly is that the character 01111111 was a copyright symbol instead of the usual DEL character. First appearance of the copyright symbol in a character set?? ###### From: David Lichtman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 20:50:12 -0700 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Lines: 20 Message-ID: <361058F1.103B6BC8@earthlink.net> References: <35FED25A.C001D7FC@erols.com> <905982083@ablelink.org> <1dfmtt1.1fcdj4nx47mxaN@n35-38.berlin.snafu.de> <6uodpk$14b3@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> Reply-To: dlichtman@earthlink.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 1cust162.tnt10.sfo3.da.uu.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Posted-Path-Was: not-for-mail X-ELN-Date: Mon Sep 28 20:47:48 1998 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.idt.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!207.217.77.43!newsfeed1.earthlink.net!nntp.earthlink.net!posted-from-earthlink!not-for-mail Tom Harrington wrote: > tayste: 2 bits > nybble: 4 bits > byte: 8 bits > playte: 16 bits > dynner: 32 bits > > (thanks to the Jargon File for the above) > > : What is 64 bits called? A double word? A Quad word? > > Hmm, it's not covered. Let's see... "two-course meyl"? "feyst"? Buffey: 64 bits -- David Lichtman I want ni, I want ni, I want nitrosamines.... ###### From: jvarela@mind.spring.com (John Varela) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 29 Sep 1998 00:42:51 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Lines: 13 Message-ID: References: <906681849@ablelink.org> <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: jvarela@mind.spring.com NNTP-Posting-Host: user-38lc4bo.dialup.mindspring.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: ProNews/2 Version 1.00 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail On Mon, 28 Sep 1998 07:43:31, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) wrote: > 2) The debacle & crisis arose because some Teletypes follow an older version > of ASCII, in which the underscore looks like a leftward-pointing arrow and > the caret/circumflex looks like an upward-pointing arrow. (The designers > apparently thought these would be useful for flow diagrams.) ISTR Series 028 TTYs with eight arrows for indicating wind directions. This was for aviation use; I have no idea how standard/nonstandard they were. -- John Varela (delete . between mind and spring to e-mail me) ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 29 Sep 1998 03:03:31 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 18 Message-ID: <6upim3$39m$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <906681849@ablelink.org> <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul6.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 907038211 3382 (None) 140.142.17.39 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article , John Varela wrote: >ISTR Series 028 TTYs with eight arrows for indicating wind directions. This was >for aviation use; I have no idea how standard/nonstandard they were. There was a character set with eight arrows and various cloudiness amounts (scattered clouds, partly cloudy, overcast, etc. -- 4-5 total, I think). It was used for weather reports and is probably the one you're thinking of. I think it was a standard option on many of the 5-bit TTY's. There was also a stock-quote set with seven fractions from 1/8 to 7/8. Since these are 32-character sets, with about 6 positions used for control and another 10 for digits, most of the punctuation marks get eliminated. But it's still a neat idea, somehow. -- Derek ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <907119442@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 62 Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 03:15:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 907120823 209.146.155.2 (Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:00:23 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:00:23 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!newsfeed.nyu.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim DPESCHEL@U.WASHINGTON.EDU wrote: DU>1) Teletype keyboards were designed so that the character produced by a key, >and the character produced by Shift (or Control, or Control-Shift) and the >same key, are the same in binary except for one bit. DU>So we have: DU>K L M N O <-- key alone produces >113 114 115 116 117 this character in base 8 >[ \ ] ^ _ <-- Shift + key produces >133 134 135 136 137 this character in base 8 DU>If you convert this to binary (which I'm too lazy to do right now) you'll se >what I mean. DU>So this explains the "Shift-N" and "Shift-O" part. That's odd... the "standard" ASCII character set just adds 32 to the character code when pressing SHIFT, so "A" becomes "a", and "[" becomes "{", "\" becomes "|", etc. I've never used a non-ASCII terminal before, and I never used the only teleprinters I've ever seen (although one of my friends has a teleprinter). The only character set other than ASCII I have played around with is EBCDIC, but that was all on a computer... using a program to convert disk files. But it's been a long time, and I have no idea what the EBCDIC codes are anymore. And IMO, it's a rather useless system now that almost everything is ASCII, and ASCII also defines more characters using only 7 bits, leaving another set of 128 characters for accents, line-draw characters, mathematical symbols, etc. BTW, I'm 17 (almost 18), although I've had some exposure to old computer stuff. But I never heard of this weird character mapping on teletypes (I have heard of the Baudot code, which had two different "shift sets", but I never used it for anything) DU>The leftward-pointing arrow is useful for representing the assignent operato >(none of this = vs. == or := vs. = stuff!) but I don't see much use for the >upward-pointing arrow. Unfortunately you lose the ability to underline >things. Also, the first version of ASCII with the current characters (which >is *not* necessarily the current version of ASCII -- I forget) specified tha >the characters " ' ^ ` ~ and possibly , could be used as accents. This is >only useful if you have a typewriter terminal or a CRT that can overstrike. >Obviously an upward-pointing arrow is not nearly as suitable as a caret. I have a Centronics Printstation 351 printer and for some stupid reason a few of it's characters are not the same as ASCII devices for North America. For example, the "$" (which is the US / Canadian dollar symbol on my computer screen) end up being the British pound symbol when I print. And there's another character (I forget which one) which is mapped as the spanish "n" on that dumb printer! I haven't found a way to change that, and I don't know if it's even possible. Oh well. I don't suppose the printer is just using a different "country code" or something for those characters which you said can be used as accents? TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Ability OnLine - Our Teens know how to XPRESS themselves. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: bdb@GTS.Net (Hello Kittyhawk) Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: Organization: G.T.S., Toronto, Ontario X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test66 (4 June 1998) References: <35FED25A.C001D7FC@erols.com> <6uodpk$14b3@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <361058F1.103B6BC8@earthlink.net> Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 07:34:13 GMT Lines: 29 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!gts!bdb In article <361058F1.103B6BC8@earthlink.net>, David Lichtman wrote: |Tom Harrington wrote: |> tayste: 2 bits |> nybble: 4 bits |> byte: 8 bits |> playte: 16 bits |> dynner: 32 bits |> |> (thanks to the Jargon File for the above) |> |> : What is 64 bits called? A double word? A Quad word? |> |> Hmm, it's not covered. Let's see... "two-course meyl"? "feyst"? | |Buffey: 64 bits zylch: 0 bits pyttance: 1 bit pygout: 128 bits -- ,u, Bruce Becker Toronto, Ontario 1 416 699 1868 a /i/ Internet: bdb@gts.org Uucp: ...!gts!bdb `\o\-e "Somehow it seems difficult to distinguish the Ken Starr _< /_ Show from Jerry Springer's efforts" -- Elvis Rodham Presley ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Tue, 29 Sep 98 11:58:06 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 81 Message-ID: <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: d6.dial-15.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 29 Sep 1998 13:09:55 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.ultranet.com!d6 In article , hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) wrote: >In article <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > >> I don't know. My very first encounter with computers and data >> was FORTRAN II on an IBM 1620 using keypunches. Most of my >> computer knowledge was gleaned from experience rather than >> training. Back then I wouldn't have known an EBCDIC from an >> ASCII unless it required a different pattern of holes in the >> cards. I'm pretty sure that I was using ASCII (7-bit) back >> then. > >Not on an IBM 1620 you weren't. You weren't using EBCDIC either, but what >the 1620 used was closer to EBCDIC than it was to ASCII. Ah, you're right. The machine that replaced the 1620 was a PDP-10. That one was 7-bit ASCII, SIXBIT, etc. > >The big difference between ASCII and all the *BCD* codes is in whether >there are gaps in the alphabet. In ASCII, the letters A-Z have consecutive >numeric codes. In BCD, the letters A-I have consecutive values, then >there's a gap before you get to J-R, then another gap before S-Z. > >The 1620 was a decimal machine. I cannot now remember what the codes were, >even though I also started with an IBM 1620, but they might have been >something like: > > A-I: 41-49 > J-R: 51-59 > S-Z: 62-69 > 0-9: 70-79 > >I do know that the real values differ from those by some multiple of 10 >(and the digits may have preceded the letters rather than followed them). >That is, I know I've got the ones-digits correct in the above, but I >wouldn't swear to the tens-digits. > >EBCDIC is a binary code that follows the same pattern, but in hexadecimal: > > A-I: C1-C9 > J-R: D1-D9 > S-Z: E2-E9 > 0-9: F0-F9 > >In each case, the coding reflects the card codes: > > A-I: 12 + 1-9 > J-R: 11 + 1-9 > S-Z: 0 + 2-9 > 0-9: 0-9 > >The low-order digit reflects the numeric punch (1-9) and the high-order >digit (usually called the "stick" for no particular reason) reflects the >zone punches (12,11,0). I haven't checked this (I have a college-grown book) that I can use to check but I'm sure that somebody reading this has it on the tip of his fingers :-). > >To extend the character set on the card (so that all 256 possible EBCDIC >codes can be punched), it becomes convenient to think of 8 and 9 as zone >punches rather than numeric punches. You can get 256 valid card codes by >allowing any combination of zones (12,11,0,8,9) with at most one numeric >punch (1-7). The corresponding EBCDIC code always has the value of the >numeric punch (or zero if none) in its three low-order bits, but the >mapping between the zone punches and the other five bits can only be >described as bizarre. (It depends on the numeric punch, in a highly >irregular way.) I don't think I ever punched cards that used the 8, 9 zone unless I was compacting data for some college type. And then, the way I did it was by punching a deck of cards several times. Keypunches had way of jamming if I wanted to do it fast so putting the deck through twice or three times got the job done faster :-). Those jobs were real rare, though. People weren't that computer literate back then. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: dg@ (David Given) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 13:07:55 GMT Organization: I'm organised? Wow! Message-ID: <907074475.15655.0.nnrp-07.9e9878e0@news.demon.co.uk> References: <35FED25A.C001D7FC@erols.com> <6uodpk$14b3@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> <361058F1.103B6BC8@earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: taos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: taos.demon.co.uk:158.152.120.224 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 907074475 nnrp-07:15655 NO-IDENT taos.demon.co.uk:158.152.120.224 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net Lines: 15 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!ayres.ftech.net!news.ftech.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!taos.demon.co.uk!!dg In article <361058F1.103B6BC8@earthlink.net>, David Lichtman wrote: [...] >Buffey: 64 bits No, a buffey is a variable-sized word where the exact number of bits depends on the usage. You're thinking of a banquyt. -- +- David Given ----------------+ | Work: dg@tao.co.uk | I don't suffer from insanity. I revel | Play: dgiven@iname.com | in it. +- http://wiredsoc.ml.org/~dg -+ ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <907119443@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 16 Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 23:39:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 907120823 209.146.155.2 (Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:00:23 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:00:23 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!newsfeed.nyu.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim CGIBBS@SKY.BUS.COM wrote: CM>It goes back farther than that - "disco" is a shortened form of >"discotheque", which was pretty much the same thing in the '60s >but with go-go girls instead of mirror balls and three-piece white >suits. What are go-go girls?? That's just a little bit too far beyond my time... ;) TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Ability OnLine - Toronto Canada - (416) 650-5411 ###### From: "Joseph J. Ambrose" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 29 Sep 1998 23:45:27 GMT Organization: JJA & Associates Lines: 25 Message-ID: <6urren$2u4@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net> <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.160.239 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.191.82.231!rockie.attcanada.net!attcanada!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.225!attworldnet!newsadm jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote in message <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net>... >In article , > hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) wrote: >>In article <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > > jobs were real rare, though. People weren't that computer literate >back then. > >/BAH > >Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. How computer literate are they now? Joseph Ambrose NT Network Administrator / Open VMS System Manager The Conference Board ambrose@conference-board.org ICQ# 13652219 ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <907119443@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 16 Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 23:39:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 907120823 209.146.155.2 (Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:00:23 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:00:23 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!newsfeed.nyu.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim CGIBBS@SKY.BUS.COM wrote: CM>It goes back farther than that - "disco" is a shortened form of >"discotheque", which was pretty much the same thing in the '60s >but with go-go girls instead of mirror balls and three-piece white >suits. What are go-go girls?? That's just a little bit too far beyond my time... ;) TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Ability OnLine - Toronto Canada - (416) 650-5411 ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 30 Sep 1998 03:55:49 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 75 Message-ID: <6usa45$rh6$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <907119442@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul9.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 907127749 28198 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <907119442@ablelink.org>, Justin Frim wrote: >DPESCHEL@U.WASHINGTON.EDU wrote: >DU>1) Teletype keyboards were designed so that the character produced by a key, > >and the character produced by Shift (or Control, or Control-Shift) and the > >same key, are the same in binary except for one bit. > >DU>So we have: > >DU>K L M N O <-- key alone produces > >113 114 115 116 117 this character in base 8 > >[ \ ] ^ _ <-- Shift + key produces > >133 134 135 136 137 this character in base 8 > >That's odd... the "standard" ASCII character set just adds 32 to the >character code when pressing SHIFT, so "A" becomes "a", and "[" becomes >"{", "\" becomes "|", etc. I've never used a non-ASCII terminal >before, and I never used the only teleprinters I've ever seen (although >one of my friends has a teleprinter). The only character set other Wait a minute... the set I mentioned above *is* ASCII. Did you see the words "in base 8" that I wrote? Admittedly it's a limited form of ASCII (no lower case) and the keyboard mapping is a little different than modern keyboards (e.g., the Shift-K, L, M, N, O stuff). But the numerical codes for each character are the same as in modern ASCII. You should play with one if you can -- they're neat. For one thing, you'll understand why character 7 is called "bell". >long time, and I have no idea what the EBCDIC codes are anymore. And >IMO, it's a rather useless system now that almost everything is ASCII, >and ASCII also defines more characters using only 7 bits, leaving >another set of 128 characters for accents, line-draw characters, >mathematical symbols, etc. I agree that EBCDIC is useless. It's an attempt to shoehorn the 12 columns on a punched card into an 8-bit code. There's more than one version, too. Some people here would disagree. Note that the "other" 128 characters you refer to aren't ASCII, since ASCII is a 7-bit set only. >I have a Centronics Printstation 351 printer and for some stupid reason >a few of it's characters are not the same as ASCII devices for North >America. For example, the "$" (which is the US / Canadian dollar >symbol on my computer screen) end up being the British pound symbol >when I print. And there's another character (I forget which one) which >is mapped as the spanish "n" on that dumb printer! I haven't found a >way to change that, and I don't know if it's even possible. Oh well. >I don't suppose the printer is just using a different "country code" or >something for those characters which you said can be used as accents? Well, this isn't the same thing. The idea of the accent characters I mentioned is this. You print an "n", back up the print head again, and then print a "~". The "~" comes out above the "n". Making ~ ^ ` ' etc. available for accents just means making them print high up, so they will work as accents when overstruck. Your printer is probably using one of the international versions of ASCII, which eliminates some characters and puts true accented letters in instead. (What letters depends on what version of ASCII -- there are French, Danish, German, and Spanish versions and probably others.) By "true" I mean what you describe, where one character includes the letter and the accent. Check the DIP switches. Someone here may know the settings if you need them. European C programmers hate those sets because C uses a lot of brackets and braces, which show up as accented letters. -- Derek ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 30 Sep 1998 04:14:05 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 44 Message-ID: <6usb6d$7pg$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> References: <906681849@ablelink.org> <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <6upim3$39m$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul3.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp1.u.washington.edu 907128845 7984 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <6upim3$39m$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>, D. Peschel wrote: >There was a character set with eight arrows and various cloudiness amounts which I wrote down today, which is why I'm following up to myself. :) I'll have to fake the cool-looking symbols. Here goes: Letter Figure Figure Purpose (std.) (weather) Q 1 1 W 2 2 E 3 3 R 4 4 T 5 5 Y 6 6 U 7 7 I 8 8 O 9 9 P 0 0 A - ^ upward arrow -- wind from south S bell bell D $ / up-right arrow -- wind from southwest F ! -> rightward arrow -- wind from west G & \ down-right arrow -- wind from northwest H # | downward arrow -- wind from north J ' / down-left arrow -- wind from northeast K ( <- leftward arrow -- wind from east L ) \ up-left arrow -- wind from southeast Z " + ? X / / could be lightning bolt C : () open circle V ; (|) vertical line in circle B ? (+) cross in circle N , (||) two parallel lines in circle M . . centered dot? or period Sorry, no stock quotes today. -- Derek ###### From: "George R. Gonzalez" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 10:42:44 -0500 Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus Message-ID: <6utjob$8kc$1@news1.tc.umn.edu> References: <906681849@ablelink.org> <6unen3$l4e$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <6upim3$39m$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> <6usb6d$7pg$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: grg1.micro.umn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Lines: 69 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!195.200.0.51.MISMATCH!newshub.bart.net!ayres.ftech.net!news.ftech.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer!btnet!newshub.northeast.verio.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!chicago-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!uwm.edu!newsspool.sol.net!newshub.tc.umn.edu!news1.tc.umn.edu!not-for-mail D. Peschel wrote in message <6usb6d$7pg$1@nntp1.u.washington.edu>... Ahhhh... the old 5-bit Baudot codes... The memories: The first teletype I bought was in 1972. It was a Model 15 Teletype. A very sturdy beast that looked like it could run forever (as long as you tossed in a cup of 3-in-one oil every week). It came with the "normal" keycaps, with the punctuation symbols, but the typebars had the weather symbols. I hooked it up to a SW radio and a "modem" and was able to pick up various news and weather stations. At a blinding 60 words per minute. After a day or so of staring at the weather symbols, I sent off for some new typebar caps with the proper punctuation symbols ($12 for the set in those days). One problem then was that many of the international stations used a variant character set, with apostrophe for BELL, or vice-versa. Some more enlightened stations would send both characters, just to make sure they got the quote showing up. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of bell-sounds going off. And on the Model 15, the bell WAS A REAL, BIG BELL, about the size of half a grapefruit, and struck with a small ball-peen hammer-like lever. This was designed to get the attention of somebody in the newsroom. IIRC four-bells was the code for some earthshaking bit of news, like a presidential assasination. A few years later I noticed the UPI station would send a NUL (all zero bits) character before each letter that should be capitalized. Apparently they made up this de-facto way of overloading capitals on the 5-bit codes. It had the advantage of being backwardly compatible, if a bit slow when they had a whole line of capital text to print. >Letter Figure Figure Purpose > (std.) (weather) > >Q 1 1 >W 2 2 >E 3 3 >R 4 4 >T 5 5 >Y 6 6 >U 7 7 >I 8 8 >O 9 9 >P 0 0 > >A - ^ upward arrow -- wind from south >S bell bell >D $ / up-right arrow -- wind from southwest >F ! -> rightward arrow -- wind from west >G & \ down-right arrow -- wind from northwest >H # | downward arrow -- wind from north >J ' / down-left arrow -- wind from northeast >K ( <- leftward arrow -- wind from east >L ) \ up-left arrow -- wind from southeast > >Z " + ? >X / / could be lightning bolt >C : () open circle >V ; (|) vertical line in circle >B ? (+) cross in circle >N , (||) two parallel lines in circle >M . . centered dot? or period > >Sorry, no stock quotes today. > >-- Derek ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Wed, 30 Sep 98 11:14:06 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 17 Message-ID: <6ut80o$q77$4@strato.ultra.net> References: <907119443@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: d12.dial-12.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 30 Sep 1998 12:26:00 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!212.63.192.161.MISMATCH!newshub.bart.net!news.tele2.nl!newsfeed1.swip.net!swipnet!howland.erols.net!netnews.com!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.ultranet.com!d12 In article <907119443@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >CGIBBS@SKY.BUS.COM wrote: >CM>It goes back farther than that - "disco" is a shortened form of > >"discotheque", which was pretty much the same thing in the '60s > >but with go-go girls instead of mirror balls and three-piece white > >suits. > >What are go-go girls?? That's just a little bit too far beyond my >time... ;) Well, Charlie, I guess that puts some of us in our place [broadly grinning emoticon here]. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Wed, 30 Sep 98 11:23:57 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Message-ID: <6ut8j8$q77$5@strato.ultra.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net> <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net> <6urren$2u4@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: d12.dial-12.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 30 Sep 1998 12:35:52 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Lines: 33 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!195.200.0.51.MISMATCH!newshub.bart.net!ayres.ftech.net!news.ftech.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!btnet-peer!btnet!newsfeed.internetmci.com!18.24.4.11!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.ultranet.com!d12 In article <6urren$2u4@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, "Joseph J. Ambrose" wrote: > >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote in message <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net>... >>In article , >> hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) wrote: >>>In article <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >> > >> > jobs were real rare, though. People weren't that computer literate >>back then. >How computer literate are they now? Your point about computer literacy is valid. Let me put it this way...When someone asks me what I do and I tell them that I program computers, I no longer get looks as if I were from Mars or someplace out there. And it also doesn't take hours to get some computer-shy guy to sit down and play with the terminal. You wouldn't believe how long that could take (or the techniques I devised to reduce such stress). I have stories about physicists and football coaches and engineers who designed the damn things :-). So, yes, I would say there have been huge improvements. I would also say that there could be even more huge improvements. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: "Joseph J. Ambrose" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 1 Oct 1998 00:03:38 GMT Organization: JJA & Associates Lines: 75 Message-ID: <6uugsq$2d3@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <6udge4$rub$4@strato.ultra.net> <871.571T1565T6344790@sky.bus.com> <6ug6rn$ti4$3@strato.ultra.net> <360cd3df.73794644@Rockyd> <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net> <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net> <6urren$2u4@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> <6ut8j8$q77$5@strato.ultra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.79.160.77 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!135.173.83.225!attworldnet!newsadm jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote in message <6ut8j8$q77$5@strato.ultra.net>... >In article <6urren$2u4@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, > "Joseph J. Ambrose" wrote: >> >>jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote in message <6uqm73$60k$2@strato.ultra.net>... >>>In article , >>> hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) wrote: >>>>In article <6uio0o$lio$1@strato.ultra.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >>> >> >>> >> jobs were real rare, though. People weren't that computer literate >>>back then. > >>How computer literate are they now? > >Your point about computer literacy is valid. > >Let me put it this way...When someone asks me what I do and >I tell them that I program computers, I no longer get looks >as if I were from Mars or someplace out there. And it also >doesn't take hours to get some computer-shy guy to sit down >and play with the terminal. You wouldn't believe how long >that could take (or the techniques I devised to reduce such >stress). I have stories about physicists and football coaches >and engineers who designed the damn things :-). > >So, yes, I would say there have been huge improvements. > >I would also say that there could be even more huge improvements. > >/BAH > >Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. What I was thinking when I wrote that comment was this.... Computers have gotten so user friendly ( go ahead flame away if you must ! ) that the "ordinary" gal/guy is now able to ( and possible even willing ) to use a computer to get some work done. The thing that gets me, is their idea that ( "oh, if it's soooo easy to use, it can't be all that complex" ) so, I get people that just becuase they can change a shortcut icon, they think they can work in an IT department's PC support unit. What makes gals/guys good at the jobs we do is the fact that there are concepts and practical experiences "behind the curtain" that we constantly draw on. Case in point. Visual Basic..... This language has evolved from a procedural version of BASIC ( yes I know it still is ) to a version with event driven exensions. does the average wet-behind-the-ears VB programmer know what happens when a mouse is moved or a button ( kbd, or mouse ) is pushed? Of course I'm talking low level interrupts here........ What I would consider the mysteries and wonders of computing are taken for granted by those who are reaping the benefits of those of us who have gone before. Real time programming was fun, and I actually got paid for it! Joseph Ambrose NT Network Administrator / Open VMS System Manager The Conference Board ambrose@conference-board.org ICQ# 13652219 ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <907208750@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 81 Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 01:35:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 907210847 209.146.155.2 (Wed, 30 Sep 1998 23:00:47 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 23:00:47 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim DPESCHEL@U.WASHINGTON.EDU wrote: DU>Wait a minute... the set I mentioned above *is* ASCII. Did you see the >words "in base 8" that I wrote? Admittedly it's a limited form of ASCII >(no lower case) and the keyboard mapping is a little different than modern >keyboards (e.g., the Shift-K, L, M, N, O stuff). But the numerical codes >for each character are the same as in modern ASCII. Oh, that's right, some terminals didn't have upper/lower case! Bah! All those deviant systems that can't handle 8 bits! (BTW, I just hate it when I recieve "quoted-printable" encoded emails... people should just use 8-bit transmission for everything. The weird thing is, when I recieve qoated-printable emails, the =xx codes are used to replace punctuation and and symbolic characters that are still part of printable ASCII (32-126)!!) DU>You should play with one if you can -- they're neat. For one thing, you'll >understand why character 7 is called "bell". Yeah, I know, they've got a physical "bell" operated by a solenoid... I'd love to hear a genuine teleprinter bell. I'd love to record one too and use that sound file as a system sound on my computer! My IBM 3742 Dual Data Entry Station uses a "clicker". A little metal plate which is pulled towards a coil. It sounds like a loud relay. DU>The idea of the accent characters I mentioned is this. You print an "n", >back up the print head again, and then print a "~". The "~" comes out above >the "n". Making ~ ^ ` ' etc. available for accents just means making them >print high up, so they will work as accents when overstruck. Oh ya I've heard of that... a very common overstrike was to underline the text using the underscore character. There were 4 methods I learned: 1. send character, BKSP, "_" 2. send string, many BKSP, many "_" 3. send "_", BKSP, character 4. send many "_", many BKSP, string And the book stated that methods 2 or 4 are preferred because "glass teletypes" (video terminals) would still display your string of text. I also heard that old timesharing systems used to print a string of characters, backspace to the beginning of the text field, then print another string, and keep repeating this pattern with many characters until there were just black blops on the paper at the password prompt. Then you could type the password and people couldn't find out what it was. I guess this only applied to half-duplex systems which always echoed what you typed to the paper. DU>Your printer is probably using one of the international versions of ASCII, >which eliminates some characters and puts true accented letters in instead. >(What letters depends on what version of ASCII -- there are French, Danish, >German, and Spanish versions and probably others.) By "true" I mean what yo >describe, where one character includes the letter and the accent. If only the world could have agreed on 1 alphabet... and a base 16 number system, as I mentioned in a previous post! ;) DU>Check the DIP switches. Someone here may know the settings if you need them >European C programmers hate those sets because C uses a lot of brackets and >braces, which show up as accented letters. I think I tried a few, but I gave up because there are 20 (I think) on the front panel, and then IIRC there are either more DIP switches or jumpers inside the printer. Maybe I'll have a look inside it again some day, or go through 2^20 combinations with the front switches! (j/k). Actually, I remember now one bank was already labelled... it sets things like the form length, auto line feed, etc. One more thing, the printer also has a DB-25 female connector on the back... Is this an RS-232 port? Or perhaps a Centronics port using the same pinout convention as on PC computers? Still, it's a nice printer in that it's a wide-carriage (over 16"), and it has a nice paper loading system. TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ Laughter is internal jogging! ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Thu, 01 Oct 98 13:04:18 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 58 Message-ID: <6v02ro$bbk$2@strato.ultra.net> References: <907208750@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: d4.dial-14.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 1 Oct 1998 14:16:24 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newshub.northeast.verio.net!newsfeed.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d4 In article <907208750@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >DPESCHEL@U.WASHINGTON.EDU wrote: >DU>Wait a minute... the set I mentioned above *is* ASCII. Did you see the > >words "in base 8" that I wrote? Admittedly it's a limited form of ASCII > >(no lower case) and the keyboard mapping is a little different than modern > >keyboards (e.g., the Shift-K, L, M, N, O stuff). But the numerical codes > >for each character are the same as in modern ASCII. > >Oh, that's right, some terminals didn't have upper/lower case! Bah! >All those deviant systems that can't handle 8 bits! (BTW, I just hate >it when I recieve "quoted-printable" encoded emails... people should >just use 8-bit transmission for everything. The weird thing is, when I >recieve qoated-printable emails, the =xx codes are used to replace >punctuation and and symbolic characters that are still part of >printable ASCII (32-126)!!) There were even printers who didn't do lower case. I can't tell you the joy I had when we finally got access to upper/lower case printer (I was trying to get all the company's documentation in machine readable format at the time). Getting an upper/lower case printer helped that effort a lot. > > >DU>You should play with one if you can -- they're neat. For one thing, you'll > >understand why character 7 is called "bell". > >Yeah, I know, they've got a physical "bell" operated by a solenoid... >I'd love to hear a genuine teleprinter bell. I'd love to record one >too and use that sound file as a system sound on my computer! My IBM >3742 Dual Data Entry Station uses a "clicker". A little metal plate >which is pulled towards a coil. It sounds like a loud relay. Our operating systems indicated a crash by sounding the bell with a followed by crash information, a dump and a continue or restart (depending on the type of crash). IIRC, it took 5 monitor edits to get those bells into the ASCII source file. Our editor was TECO and there were all kinds of interpretations of the markup. TW finally did the edit himself. One of the edits inserted the characters $G$G$G. Another pass found the characters ^G^G^G in the text. The bells were used to get the attention of the operator or the developer or anybody who was around just in case humans were needed to comfort the computer (those were the mainframe days). /BAH /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: mww@microfocus.com (Michael Wojcik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 1 Oct 1998 18:22:31 GMT Organization: Micro Focus Inc. Lines: 29 Message-ID: <6v0h97$ou4@news3.newsguy.com> References: <907119442@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-277.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: xrn 9.00 Originator: mww@raederle.microfocus.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!isdnet!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!mww In article <907119442@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) writes: > ... and I have no idea what the EBCDIC codes are anymore. And > IMO, it's a rather useless system now that almost everything is ASCII, Actually, I understand that there are still a few IBM (and Amdahl, and Hitachi) mainframes and AS/400s in use. And that a fair proportion of commercial DP is still done with them. In EBCDIC. I'm willing to bet that a significant portion of your daily life involves EBCDIC. Not to mention Unicode and UTF and the various CJK encodings. > and ASCII also defines more characters using only 7 bits, leaving > another set of 128 characters for accents, line-draw characters, > mathematical symbols, etc. Which is a great consolation for all those folks who regularly want to use characters that aren't represented in the 95 glyphs ASCII defines. Michael Wojcik mww@microfocus.com AAI Development, Micro Focus Inc. Department of English, Miami University I will shoue the world one of the grate Wonders of the world in 15 months if Now man mourders me in Dors or out Dors -- "Lord" Timothy Dexter, _A Pickle for the Knowing Ones_ ###### From: justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Message-ID: <907299769@ablelink.org> Organization: Ability Online Support Network Lines: 56 Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 03:05:00 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.146.155.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@netcom.ca X-Trace: tor-nn1.netcom.ca 907300870 209.146.155.2 (Fri, 02 Oct 1998 00:01:10 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 00:01:10 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!tor-nn1.netcom.ca.POSTED!ntserv1!justin.frim JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: JM>There were even printers who didn't do lower case. I can't tell >you the joy I had when we finally got access to upper/lower case >printer (I was trying to get all the company's documentation >in machine readable format at the time). Getting an upper/lower >case printer helped that effort a lot. Speaking of printers, I have an old Texas Instruments thermal strip printer which you would mount a calculator for printing stuff. Sorry, I don't have it in front of me right now and I don't have the model number memorized, but it's a big beige square thing with a dark brown section on the top at the left where the paper is stored and the print heads are, and an the right the mounting stuff for the calculator. The mount has (I think) 13 pins, and two large contacts which I think supply the power. At the front edge (still on top, at the right) is a little compartment for storing a battery and charging a battery. Anyways, I don't have the calculator but I did borrow one to test the printer, and it does work. Now does anyone know if there's a way to interface it with a PC? JM>Our operating systems indicated a crash by sounding the bell with >a followed by crash information, a dump and >a continue or restart (depending on the type of crash). IIRC, >it took 5 monitor edits to get those bells into the ASCII source >file. Our editor was TECO and there were all kinds of interpretations >of the markup. TW finally did the edit himself. One of the edits >inserted the characters $G$G$G. Another pass found the characters > ^G^G^G in the text. JM>The bells were used to get the attention of the operator or >the developer or anybody who was around just in case humans >were needed to comfort the computer (those were the mainframe >days). Now either the computer simply locks up, you get a meaningless "General protection fault" (or equivalent useless information) in a dialog box, or if you're running Winblows 98, you can optionally view a list of the CPU registers. And as far as I know, Macs still just give you the "Like, dude, something went wrong" error message (just joking, but Macs tend to just display things like "An error of type x occured", and sometimes a "restart" and/or "resume" button(s) in the dialog box). Of course, a good very well designed OS and set of applications should never cause such a problem! But even I've left bugs in some programs before (which I ended up releasing causing a lot of embarassment. Ok, there, I said it, but none of you people have probably every come across these programs! And lets hope it stays that way, unless you still want to pay the shareware fee!) :) TTYL, Justin Frim justin.frim@ablelink.org * 1st 2.00 ~ ###### [from here on a very large subthread about charset bitwidth and HTML tag encoding "inefficiency" snipped] ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Fri, 02 Oct 98 12:30:17 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 31 Message-ID: <6v2l87$9at$7@strato.ultra.net> References: <907299769@ablelink.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: d14.dial-16.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 2 Oct 1998 13:42:31 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.wirehub.nl!newsfeed.ecrc.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!newsfeed.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d14 In article <907299769@ablelink.org>, justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) wrote: >JMFBAHCIV@AOL.COM wrote: >JM>The bells were used to get the attention of the operator or > >the developer or anybody who was around just in case humans > >were needed to comfort the computer (those were the mainframe > >days). > >Now either the computer simply locks up, you get a meaningless "General >protection fault" (or equivalent useless information) in a dialog box, >or if you're running Winblows 98, you can optionally view a list of the >CPU registers. And as far as I know, Macs still just give you the >"Like, dude, something went wrong" error message (just joking, but Macs >tend to just display things like "An error of type x occured", and >sometimes a "restart" and/or "resume" button(s) in the dialog box). >Of course, a good very well designed OS and set of applications should >never cause such a problem! Oh, phooey. Anybody who believes this also believes in fairy tales, virgins and inside straights :-). It's a _goal_ to not have problems. However, it's a fact of computing life that there will never be a perfect computer system. /BAH Sigh! - Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... From: riplin@kcbbs.gen.nz (Richard Plinston) Date: 3 Oct 98 05:10:11 GMT Message-ID: <3298275.18611.13797@kcbbs.gen.nz> References: <6v2l87$9at$7@strato.ultra.net> Organization: Kappa Crucis Unix BBS, Auckland, New Zealand Lines: 12 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!202.14.100.1!status.gen.nz!kcbbs!riplin In message <<6v2l87$9at$7@strato.ultra.net>> jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > > Oh, phooey. Anybody who believes this also believes in fairy > tales, virgins and inside straights :-). It's a _goal_ to not have > problems. However, it's a fact of computing life that there > will never be a perfect computer system. Oh, phooey, of course there is, for suitable values of 'perfection'. For some this definition includes such terms as 'made by Microsoft' and 'the next release', for others it requires the letters 'ix' or 'ux'. ###### From: Robert Billing Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Sat, 03 Oct 1998 17:16:20 +0000 Organization: Tanglewood Message-ID: <36165BE4.7D214C75@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> References: <6v2l87$9at$7@strato.ultra.net> <3298275.18611.13797@kcbbs.gen.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: tnglwood.demon.co.uk:158.152.132.30 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 907456025 nnrp-05:27034 NO-IDENT tnglwood.demon.co.uk:158.152.132.30 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.04 (X11; I; Linux 2.0.31 i586) Lines: 13 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!tnglwood.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Richard Plinston wrote: > 'perfection'. For some this definition includes such > terms as 'made by Microsoft' and 'the next release', > for others it requires the letters 'ix' or 'ux'. Well, that's only because I can't get VMS to run on this PC... -- I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/ "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three" ###### [below from the snipped subthread] ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 06 Oct 1998 00:25:12 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <907563135@ablelink.org> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 justin.frim@ablelink.org (Justin Frim) writes: > > FOOBAR@GAZONK.DEL wrote: > > FL>If you need to make it smaller, zip it up. > > That just gave me an idea... there are already excryption programs that > work with your TCP/IP stack, I wonder if anyone has explored the idea > of run-time compression using "drivers" and stuff for your TCP/IP > stack! That might be a good idea, especially for compressing things > like HTML and GIF graphics... That exists, at least for TCP/IP over Modems. It is called V.42bis. And every decent Modem made in the last 5 years has it in it. It is very effective on large HTML files. My 14400 (=1.4kBytes/s) on an 200k HTML will reach up to 3.2kByte/s. But GIFs are already compressed, the same also JPEGs, so they remain at 1.4kByte/s. -- *** New home Addresses Mail and Web *** home: neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ work: franklin@arch.ethz.ch.remove http://caad.arch.ethz.ch/~franklin/ Microsoft is Software Communism, Fight for GNU Freedom! ###### From: Tom E Arnold Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 16:19:55 -0500 Organization: Born to Raise Eyebrows Lines: 17 Message-ID: <6vlueg$gsu@newsops.execpc.com> References: <907119443@ablelink.org> Reply-To: tomea@execpc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: ferengal-1-157.mdm.mke.execpc.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: daily-bugle.newsops.execpc.com 907967760 17310 (None) 169.207.130.31 X-Complaints-To: abuse@execpc.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.03Gold (Win95; I) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeeds.sol.net!newsops.execpc.com!posts.execpc.com!daily-bugle.newsops.execpc.com!usenet Justin Frim wrote: > > CGIBBS@SKY.BUS.COM wrote: > CM>It goes back farther than that - "disco" is a shortened form of > >"discotheque", which was pretty much the same thing in the '60s > >but with go-go girls instead of mirror balls and three-piece white > >suits. > > What are go-go girls?? That's just a little bit too far beyond my > time... ;) > Sort of the modern equivalent of taxi dancers... -- TEA/ My current neighborhood: http://www.coldspringpark.org My next neighborhood: http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/9361 ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: kmw@ichtys.n-online.de () Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Sender: usenet@ichtys.n-online.de NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost Organization: /home, sweet /home Message-ID: <1998Oct10.151855.18881@ichtys.n-online.de> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 15:18:55 GMT Lines: 23 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!noris.net!ichtys.n-online.de!ichtys.n-online.de!kmw Charlie Gibbs (cgibbs@sky.bus.com) wrote: : In article <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com (jmfbahciv) : writes: ... : Then there were the brand-new words that IBM cobbled together to : further the cause of "product differentiation". :-p Some examples: : IBM The rest of the world : --- --------------------- : planar circuit board : data set file (or is it a modem?) : pel pixel : alphameric alphanumeric And of cause minidiscs, that still haunted early AIXes... Though I first encountered them on a 4361 (Yes, I'm a newbie ;) ) kmw -- Karsten M. Winkovics eMail (home):kmw@ichtys.n-online.de eMail (Work):kmw@adtranz.de ###### From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Date: 11 Oct 1998 06:36:01 GMT Organization: University of Michigan, College of Engineering Lines: 28 Message-ID: <6vpjkh$1r3@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> References: <906521339@ablelink.org> <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> <1257.570T1465T8425210@sky.bus.com> <1998Oct10.151855.18881@ichtys.n-online.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: ga.engin.umich.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!diablo.theplanet.net!london-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.xcom.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!205.231.236.10!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.eecs.umich.edu!srvr1.engin.umich.edu!ftit In article <1998Oct10.151855.18881@ichtys.n-online.de>, wrote: >Charlie Gibbs (cgibbs@sky.bus.com) wrote: >: In article <6uanr2$hhd$2@strato.ultra.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com (jmfbahciv) >: writes: > >... >: Then there were the brand-new words that IBM cobbled together to >: further the cause of "product differentiation". :-p Some examples: > >: IBM The rest of the world >: --- --------------------- >: planar circuit board >: data set file (or is it a modem?) >: pel pixel >: alphameric alphanumeric > >And of cause minidiscs, that still haunted early AIXes... Though I first >encountered them on a 4361 (Yes, I'm a newbie ;) ) DASD --> HD IPL --> boot PC --> poorly-designed load of crap running a myopic, crash-prone excuse for a program loader which calls itself an operating sys---hm, OK, I think I'll stop foaming at the mouth now -- Sergej Roytman ###### [and also from the snipped subthread] ###### From: David Wragg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: YKYBHTL... Organization: French Toast! Message-ID: References: <6vj9un$7qc@news3.newsguy.com> <6vqhcn$1jq$1@irk.zetnet.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.108) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/XEmacs 20.4 - "Emerald" Lines: 13 Date: 12 Oct 1998 20:45:55 +0000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.119.176.228 X-Complaints-To: news@u-net.net X-Trace: newsr2.u-net.net 908313248 194.119.176.228 (Tue, 13 Oct 1998 22:14:08 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 22:14:08 BST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!195.200.0.51.MISMATCH!newshub.bart.net!ayres.ftech.net!news.ftech.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!peer.news.bb.u-net.net!u-net!newsr2.u-net.net.POSTED!gatsby.u-net.com!not-for-mail lisard@zetnet.co.uk writes: > HTTP definitely fulfils those goals; it's simple > enough that I've done it using a telnet client when I've debugged > server-side scripts. I like that ability; I really don't want to see it > get much more complicated than that. Wow. That actually brings things back to the subject line: YKYBHTL when your favorite web browser is telnet (and mail client, and news client...) Dave Wragg