Wapsi Square Forum

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

devilqr.jpg

*snort*

That specific QR code doesn't really fit with the extra image...

Warrl wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

devilqr.jpg

*snort*

That specific QR code doesn't really fit with the extra image...

I was just playing around to see how much i could fit into a QR and how much of the middle i could knock out without defeating the redundancy, and Devil Emily was an easily available image that could be reduced to a fairly small size and still be recognisable...

And you probably didn't really expect someone to grab a barcode scanner and read it...

... that's just one more thing that a several-million-dollars-in-1980, off-the-shelf-in-2018 smartphone can do.

Warrl wrote:And you probably didn't really expect someone to grab a barcode scanner and read it...

... that's just one more thing that a several-million-dollars-in-1980, off-the-shelf-in-2018 smartphone can do.

Of course i did.

CRAY - 1:

Manufacturer Cray Research
Designer Seymour Cray
Release date 1975

Units sold Over 80

Price $7.9 million (1977)

Casing Dimensions Height : 196 cm (77 in)
Dia. (base) : 263 cm (104 in)
Dia. (columns) : 145 cm (57 in)
Weight 5.5 tons (Cray-1A)
Power 115 kW @ 208 V 400 Hz

System Front-end Data General Eclipse
Operating system COS & UNICOS
CPU 64-bit processor @ 80 MHz
Memory 8.39 Megabytes (up to 1 048 576 words)
Storage 303 Megabytes (DD19 Unit)
FLOPS 160 MFLOPS

In its time, it was indeed a god-like computer, feat of Cray.

(Dave places a CDC 6400 machine-language reference manual into the Pun Jar.)

(It was the first computer machine/assembly language I ever learned, back in high school in '71 or so. The CDC 6400 was a predecessor to the Cray. Its FORTRAN compiler could print out a listing of your FORTRAN program, with the resulting assembly language code interspersed... this was a wonderful tool for learning how machine language was actually used.)

Dave wrote: The CDC 6400 was a predecessor to the Cray.

Dave, I used to fix 6600s....back when fixing a computer required machinist's skills as well as electronic engineering.

*looks around in bewilderment*

Did I fall through time, again? Goddamnit, now I gotta find the crack... damn Heterodynes.

And it isn't just that an ordinary smartphone is a computer that would have blown minds in 1980...

It has a pretty impressive set of other equipment, and what that equipment can do with the appropriate software...

GlytchMeister wrote:*looks around in bewilderment*

Did I fall through time, again? Goddamnit, now I gotta find the crack... damn Heterodynes.

No, you just hang around with old techies...

In Bob Asprin's Phule's Company (the beginning of the series), Phule is an ultra-wealthy individual, probably one of the top dozen or so most wealthy individuals in a multi-system galactic civilization. He has a device he calls a 'port-a-brain' which can be used to remotely do research and contact companies and place orders, yet fits in the palm of your hand. However, this device was so fantastically expensive that they are only eight in current use, two of which are owned by him and his butler respectively.

“I have a device that can access the entirety of human knowledge and can fit in my pocket. I use it primarily to view moving pictures of cats.”

Just Old Al wrote:Dave, I used to fix 6600s....back when fixing a computer required machinist's skills as well as electronic engineering.

Neat! Some of those systems would have required that one be a plumber, as well... water cooling, or even Fluorinert.

The real challenge would have been to work at Bletchley Park, on the very early, very-special-purpose computers that were used to break the German Enigma cipher system. That job would have been the bombe!

GlytchMeister wrote:“I have a device that can access the entirety of human knowledge and can fit in my pocket. I use it primarily to view moving pictures of cats.”

It is good that a man pays proper attention to the behavior of our feline masters.

Dave wrote: The real challenge would have been to work at Bletchley Park, on the very early, very-special-purpose computers that were used to break the German Enigma cipher system. That job would have been the bombe!

Or been a baker - you could have been the bombe either way.

{Deposits several layer cakes in the Pun Jar to cover dave's true historical stinker}

Just Old Al wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:*looks around in bewilderment*

Did I fall through time, again? Goddamnit, now I gotta find the crack... damn Heterodynes.

No, you just hang around with old techies...

Dude.

Trying to explain the difference between a Kaypro & a Morrow computer to the general Berkeley populace, so you can sell them a used one & years later able to order discreet components from Apple, as an Authorized Service Vendor, and soldering directly on Apple IIe motherboards... And they would actually work after I was finished!

Them were da days...

(Oh and talking of Cell Phones; actually 'programming' the chip burner to set the new owner's phone number the day after the service had been payed for.)

"You'll be able to pick up your newly activated phone... Tomorrow!"

"So Soon?",

"yep! it's a brand new day in Technology!"

Watch Out! You might get cut by the Bleeding Edge!

Have you tried the Retr0bright formula?

Lovely! An Apple ][ (e?), a Apple 2c (right), and a Apple 2GS (back left). How well I remember avoiding the twin dual fail drives...

As for the lovely Cray beasties, back in the mid 80s, I worked at the Air Force Global Weather Center at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, south of Omaha. The computer center had glass walls to proudly show off their Cray, and the two IBM mainframes feeding it, and the 20 10MB disk drives(removable 5 platter stacks) shaking and wobbling like spin cycle washing machines (which is about their size) with a blinky light on top showing you they were READING or WRITING as they did their things.

Not exactly the control center of The Time Tunnel, but fun to watch.

*shudders*

Washing machine-sized drives that wobbled like washing machines.

*shakes head*