| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426140 is a reply to message #426128] |
Tue, 31 December 2024 21:31   |
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Originally posted by: Lawrence D'Oliveiro
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 02:17:51 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
> According to Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>:
>>>
>>> IBM PC had 3 available DMA channels which gave it more I/O bandwidth
>>> than 360/30.
>>
>> But did it ever run an OS that could take advantage of concurrent I/O?
>> MS-DOS certainly never could.
>
> PC/IX certainly did.
Ah. A proper multi-tasking OS, from the sound of it.
Was it a full Unix?
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426141 is a reply to message #426126] |
Tue, 31 December 2024 22:48 |
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Originally posted by: antispam
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 21:31:03 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>
>> I think this "amazingly slow" should be put in perspective:
>> 360/30 replaced machines that were slower. Later 8-bit micros
>> are probably faster at pure CPU operations but not much.
>
> The point of a mainframe was high I/O throughput. The CPU was considered a
> scarce and expensive resource that was to be conserved as much as
> possible. Hence the complex I/O channels with their own programmability,
> to go away and do long sequences of operation as independently as possible
> before coming back to ask the CPU what to do next.
Well, actually in 360/30 (and lower models) mutiplexer channel
operations were performed by the same microcode engine as main
program. IIUC selector channels had some dedicated hardware,
but this was very simple and all complex aspects of channel
programs were handled by microcode. So, fast 16-bit micro
should be able to get similar I/O performance and better CPU
performance. In 360/20 and 360/25 there were additional factor:
microcode engine had substantial number of registers, but almost
all were dedicated to I/O subsystem. 360/20 had 8 architectural
registers and they were 16-bit. IIRC microcode engine had
something like 56 or 64 16-bit registers, so it would be
natural to put 8 360 registers in microcode registers. But
no, 360 registers were in main core. There is some reason
for such allocation: dedicated registers allowed fast interrupt
handling at microcode level and without fast interrupts
channel code would be too slow to properly handle fast
peripherials. But given number of actual registers, cost
of adding extra 8 registers could not be very high. But
IBM did not do this.
So, I consider 360/20 and 360/25 as cutting too much on CPU
side. 360/30 is slowed down by 360 compatibility, but
otherwise strikes better balance.
BTW: IIRC in 360/20 and 360/25 microcode was stored in
core. For one of similar machines (probably 370/25) there
we report of experimental Fortrn compiler targeting microcode
level and resulting. Claim was that resulting Fortran run
40 times faster than Fortran targeting 360 instruction set.
360/30 had microcode in read-only memory, but I think that
that similar experiment with 360/30 microcode engine (say by
installing writable microcode store) would get factor closer
to 10.
> Interestingly, the Raspberry Pi Pico has something similar to this, with
> its custom programmable I/O controllers that can handle complex comms-
> related operations on their own with little or no CPU intervention. At
> about 6 orders of magnitude less cost than an old-style mainframe.
Well, small micros for many years have advanced DMA channels.
CPU has to re-program the channel between transmissions, but
that is not much different to 360/30: in 360/30 re-programming
is done by microcode interrupt handler, on micro this is done
by normal interrupt handler. Such a micro with several channels
is 10 cents if you buy in quantity. You get 2kB RAM, and
CPU wich is probably 100 times faster than 360/30 microcode
engine.
Raspberry Pi Pico allows you more than mainframe: IBM channel
within single transfer behaves like DMA channel in other
machines. Main extra thing is that one can chain several
transfers, say to have discontinuous buffers or when device
needs separate read/write commands. But if machine is good
at interrupt handling, then this does not add much (basicaly
this is shifting functionality between microcode/firmware and
OS).
>> IBM PC had 3 available DMA channels which gave it more I/O bandwidth
>> than 360/30.
>
> But did it ever run an OS that could take advantage of concurrent I/O? MS-
> DOS certainly never could.
MS-DOS allowed programs to take advantage of this and I think that
some programs used this capability. Minix ran on 8088 and used DMA,
but it was rather late and botched control so that in practice
system blocked in message handling (I think that other user programs
could run concurrently with I/O, but second system call would block).
In PC-AT programmed I/O had higher peek troughput than DMA, so on
AT most OS-es used programmed I/O for hard disc.
--
Waldek Hebisch
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426142 is a reply to message #426141] |
Wed, 01 January 2025 00:01 |
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Originally posted by: Lawrence D'Oliveiro
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 03:48:23 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> Well, actually in 360/30 (and lower models) mutiplexer channel
> operations were performed by the same microcode engine as main program.
Obviously this was for software compatibility with the higher-end machines
-- a key selling point of S/360.
>> But did it ever run an OS that could take advantage of concurrent I/O?
>> MS-DOS certainly never could.
>
> MS-DOS allowed programs to take advantage of this ...
I think it was more MS-DOS, being an unprotected OS, had no way to prevent
programs from bypassing it and accessing the hardware directly. Without
any assistance from the OS, of course.
> Minix ran on 8088 and used DMA, but it
> was rather late and botched control so that in practice system blocked
> in message handling ...
Ah, the joys of microkernels strike again ...
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426143 is a reply to message #426126] |
Wed, 01 January 2025 09:39 |
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Originally posted by: Carlos E.R.
On 2025-01-01 02:34, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 21:31:03 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>
>> I think this "amazingly slow" should be put in perspective:
>> 360/30 replaced machines that were slower. Later 8-bit micros
>> are probably faster at pure CPU operations but not much.
>
> The point of a mainframe was high I/O throughput. The CPU was considered a
> scarce and expensive resource that was to be conserved as much as
> possible. Hence the complex I/O channels with their own programmability,
> to go away and do long sequences of operation as independently as possible
> before coming back to ask the CPU what to do next.
>
> Interestingly, the Raspberry Pi Pico has something similar to this, with
> its custom programmable I/O controllers that can handle complex comms-
> related operations on their own with little or no CPU intervention. At
> about 6 orders of magnitude less cost than an old-style mainframe.
>
>> IBM PC had 3 available DMA channels which gave it more I/O bandwidth
>> than 360/30.
>
> But did it ever run an OS that could take advantage of concurrent I/O? MS-
> DOS certainly never could.
But applications could.
A typical application that did were oscilloscopes, using a data
acquisition card plugged into the PC. I worked in that sector, and the
card we used had three modes: polling, irq driven, or dma driven. In DMA
mode the card would be doing analog to digital conversions with a timer
and sending them to main memory via dma. When completed, the CPU would
process them, typically. I think, I'm not sure now, that while the cpu
processed one memory area, the card could be working on another. That
was long ago, and our needs were covered with polling or irq mode.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426146 is a reply to message #426143] |
Wed, 01 January 2025 14:34 |
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Originally posted by: Lawrence D'Oliveiro
On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 15:39:00 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> On 2025-01-01 02:34, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 21:31:03 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>>
>>> IBM PC had 3 available DMA channels which gave it more I/O bandwidth
>>> than 360/30.
>>
>> But did it ever run an OS that could take advantage of concurrent I/O?
>> MS-DOS certainly never could.
>
> But applications could.
They were doing that in spite of the OS, not with its help. MS-DOS, being
an unprotected OS, could not block applications from accessing the
hardware directly.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426147 is a reply to message #426146] |
Wed, 01 January 2025 14:48 |
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Originally posted by: Carlos E.R.
On 2025-01-01 20:34, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 15:39:00 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>> On 2025-01-01 02:34, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On Tue, 31 Dec 2024 21:31:03 -0000 (UTC), Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>>>
>>>> IBM PC had 3 available DMA channels which gave it more I/O bandwidth
>>>> than 360/30.
>>>
>>> But did it ever run an OS that could take advantage of concurrent I/O?
>>> MS-DOS certainly never could.
>>
>> But applications could.
>
> They were doing that in spite of the OS, not with its help. MS-DOS, being
> an unprotected OS, could not block applications from accessing the
> hardware directly.
Certainly, as intended.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426149 is a reply to message #426122] |
Thu, 02 January 2025 03:26 |
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Originally posted by: Chuck Martin
On 2024-12-31, Waldek Hebisch <antispam@fricas.org> wrote:
> Hardware, that is microcode engine was clearly more powerful than
> 6512 in Commodore 64. Namely, microcode was in ROM with 1us
The Commodore 64 didn't have a 6512 processor. It had the 6510, which
had an I/O port at address 0001, and a direction register controlling
that port at address 0000, sacrificing two bytes of storage for that
port, as compared to the 6502. I believe the 6512 had an external
clock, but the C=64 didn't have that.
--
To reply via e-mail, replace "YYMMDD" with the current date in the
appropriate format, or your mail will bounce. Removing the + and
everything that follows in my username will also cause your mail to
bounce. Details: https://nyx.net/~cmartin/HowToEmailMe
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426153 is a reply to message #426151] |
Thu, 02 January 2025 16:51 |
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Originally posted by: Carlos E.R.
On 2025-01-02 18:15, John Ames wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 19:34:59 -0000 (UTC)
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> They were doing that in spite of the OS, not with its help.
>
> "In spite of" would imply that the OS was impeding it in some way.
> MS-DOS neither made use of these resources nor prevented applications
> from doing so.
>
Yes, you are correct.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426155 is a reply to message #426154] |
Thu, 02 January 2025 19:04 |
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Originally posted by: Lawrence D'Oliveiro
On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 14:28:33 -0800, John Ames wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 21:51:23 -0000 (UTC)
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> "In spite of" would imply that the OS was impeding it in some way.
>>
>> Correct.
>
> Correct that that's what that would imply; not correct that it was
> impeding it.
You know the phrase “lead, follow or get out of the way”? Note that there
is no option to simply stay where you are. That’s called “not being
helpful”.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426196 is a reply to message #426155] |
Fri, 03 January 2025 12:10 |
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Originally posted by: John Ames
On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 00:04:20 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> You know the phrase “lead, follow or get out of the way”? Note that
> there is no option to simply stay where you are. That’s called “not
> being helpful”.
DOS is about as get-out-of-the-way as it's possible for an OS any more
complex than ROM BASIC to *be.*
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| Re: system/user modes, Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426197 is a reply to message #426196] |
Fri, 03 January 2025 14:02 |
John Levine
Messages: 1468
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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According to John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com>:
>> You know the phrase “lead, follow or get out of the way”? Note that
>> there is no option to simply stay where you are. That’s called “not
>> being helpful”.
>
> DOS is about as get-out-of-the-way as it's possible for an OS any more
> complex than ROM BASIC to *be.*
Back in the heroic era operating systems were all like that. IBSYS/IBJOB
on IBM mainframes was a program loader and some I/O libraries. There was
no hardware protection and if a program wanted to scribble all over memory
it could, although it was rather anti-social to do so unless the program
also reloaded the system from tape when it was done.
Programs often did their own I/O but when most of the I/O was to tapes
or cards, the layer between logical and physical I/O was quite thin.
What was the first machine with a system/user mode bit that kept user programs
from crashing the system? The IBM 7094 had one as an RPQ option used by CTSS,
and STRETCH had memory protection but no mode bit to trap dangerous instructions.
The PDP-6, GE 635, and IBM 360 were all designed starting in about 1963 and all
had what we would call a system mode that both trapped dangerous instructions
and provided memory protection. As far as I know none of them claimed that as
anything new, and they all needed it so they could run multiple programs at
once, so it must have been in the air by then.
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426198 is a reply to message #426196] |
Fri, 03 January 2025 14:52 |
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Originally posted by: rbowman
On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:10:18 -0800, John Ames wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 00:04:20 -0000 (UTC)
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> You know the phrase “lead, follow or get out of the way”? Note that
>> there is no option to simply stay where you are. That’s called “not
>> being helpful”.
>
> DOS is about as get-out-of-the-way as it's possible for an OS any more
> complex than ROM BASIC to *be.*
Life was more fun back then. I think it was one of Peter Norton's early
books where he described how to tweak the 8253 PIT to get the onboard
speaker to produce falling bomb or machine gun sounds. Then there were the
machinations to change the default 65,535 rollover interrupt to get
something better than a 55 msec tick, making sure you still handled the 55
msec stuff in your revised interrupt code so you didn't completely mess up
the system.
I also had devious uses for the parallel port. There were enough I/O lines
to drive a homegrown EPROM programmer.
Protected mode was no fun at all. It's been a long time but with DJGPPP
there was a 'thunk' to get from 32-bit protected back to 16-bit real.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426210 is a reply to message #426198] |
Fri, 03 January 2025 15:26 |
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Originally posted by: John Ames
On 3 Jan 2025 19:52:02 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> Life was more fun back then. I think it was one of Peter Norton's
> early books where he described how to tweak the 8253 PIT to get the
> onboard speaker to produce falling bomb or machine gun sounds.
Still remember the trick for playing sampled audio over the PC speaker.
'Course, it sounded like trash and ground everything else to a halt,
but it was a neat little novelty to hear a movie clip or the Win 3.1
chimes coming out of a machine with no Sound Blaster in it :)
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426240 is a reply to message #426210] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 02:29 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5547
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2025-01-03, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3 Jan 2025 19:52:02 GMT
> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>
>> Life was more fun back then. I think it was one of Peter Norton's
>> early books where he described how to tweak the 8253 PIT to get the
>> onboard speaker to produce falling bomb or machine gun sounds.
>
> Still remember the trick for playing sampled audio over the PC speaker.
> 'Course, it sounded like trash and ground everything else to a halt,
> but it was a neat little novelty to hear a movie clip or the Win 3.1
> chimes coming out of a machine with no Sound Blaster in it :)
Yup. I remember the program that said "Water detected in floppy drive"
followed by a gurgling sound. Then the program displayed "Initiating
spin cycle", followed by appropriate sounds. Impressive for a bit banger.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426241 is a reply to message #426240] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 03:51 |
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Originally posted by: rbowman
On Sat, 04 Jan 2025 07:29:47 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> Yup. I remember the program that said "Water detected in floppy drive"
> followed by a gurgling sound. Then the program displayed "Initiating
> spin cycle", followed by appropriate sounds. Impressive for a bit
> banger.
I think it was Windows 2000 that play a few bars of 'Für Elise' when the
CPU went over temperature. Somebody had a sense of humor.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426242 is a reply to message #426210] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 04:45 |
Andy Burns
Messages: 425
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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John Ames wrote:
> Still remember the trick for playing sampled audio over the PC speaker.
> 'Course, it sounded like trash
The speaker on an IBM PS/2 Model 80 was somewhat better than most, i
remember the 20th Century Fox theme and some Magic Mushroom air
freshener advert ...
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426243 is a reply to message #426240] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 06:37 |
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Originally posted by: Carlos E.R.
On 2025-01-04 08:29, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2025-01-03, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 3 Jan 2025 19:52:02 GMT
>> rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Life was more fun back then. I think it was one of Peter Norton's
>>> early books where he described how to tweak the 8253 PIT to get the
>>> onboard speaker to produce falling bomb or machine gun sounds.
>>
>> Still remember the trick for playing sampled audio over the PC speaker.
>> 'Course, it sounded like trash and ground everything else to a halt,
>> but it was a neat little novelty to hear a movie clip or the Win 3.1
>> chimes coming out of a machine with no Sound Blaster in it :)
>
> Yup. I remember the program that said "Water detected in floppy drive"
> followed by a gurgling sound. Then the program displayed "Initiating
> spin cycle", followed by appropriate sounds. Impressive for a bit banger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Abad%C3%ADa_del_Crimen
La Abadía del Crimen (The Abbey of Crime) is a video game written by
Paco Menéndez with graphics made by Juan Delcán and published in 1987 by
Opera Soft. It was conceived as a version of Umberto Eco's 1980 book The
Name of the Rose. Paco Menéndez and Opera Soft were unable to secure the
rights for the name, so the game was released as La abadía del crimen.
"The Abbey of the Crime" was the working title of the novel The Name of
the Rose.[1]
....
Features
The music played in the game corresponds to the Minuet in G major and
the sonata for flute BWV 1033 by Bach, and Crystal Palace from Gwendal.
The original PC version also featured "Ave Maria" from Schubert, in a
short chorus recording that played through the speaker when the player
went to the church.
There is also a form of copy protection: if an illegal copy of the game
was detected, then once the player entered the church, instead of "Ave
Maria" playing, a voice would cry "¡Pirata!" (Spanish for "pirate") ten
times in descending tones before the game crashed.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426244 is a reply to message #426242] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 12:42 |
John Levine
Messages: 1468
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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According to Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>:
> John Ames wrote:
>
>> Still remember the trick for playing sampled audio over the PC speaker.
>> 'Course, it sounded like trash
>
> The speaker on an IBM PS/2 Model 80 was somewhat better than most, i
> remember the 20th Century Fox theme and some Magic Mushroom air
> freshener advert ...
Back when computers had console lights a common trick was to put an AM radio
near them since the sounds gave you an idea what your program was doing.
We played lots of music that way. I have heard but not confirmed than on some
IBM electromechanical accounting machine there was card deck that would play the
Star Spangled Banner by making the type bars vibrate while printing a flag.
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426245 is a reply to message #426243] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 13:19 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5547
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2025-01-04, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> There is also a form of copy protection: if an illegal copy of the game
> was detected, then once the player entered the church, instead of "Ave
> Maria" playing, a voice would cry "¡Pirata!" (Spanish for "pirate") ten
> times in descending tones before the game crashed.
Drifting away from bit-banger sound for a moment, there was a utility
for the Amiga which would copy many copy-protected disks. When you
fired it up, it would sing "Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me"
from Disney's _Pirates of the Caribbean_.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426247 is a reply to message #426245] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 16:49 |
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Originally posted by: Carlos E.R.
On 2025-01-04 19:19, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2025-01-04, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> There is also a form of copy protection: if an illegal copy of the game
>> was detected, then once the player entered the church, instead of "Ave
>> Maria" playing, a voice would cry "¡Pirata!" (Spanish for "pirate") ten
>> times in descending tones before the game crashed.
>
> Drifting away from bit-banger sound for a moment, there was a utility
> for the Amiga which would copy many copy-protected disks. When you
> fired it up, it would sing "Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me"
> from Disney's _Pirates of the Caribbean_.
There was a popular utility like that in the PC world in the 80's, maybe
named "copyrite". It was amazing.
--
Cheers, Carlos.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426249 is a reply to message #426247] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 18:39 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5547
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2025-01-04, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
> On 2025-01-04 19:19, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2025-01-04, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> There is also a form of copy protection: if an illegal copy of the game
>>> was detected, then once the player entered the church, instead of "Ave
>>> Maria" playing, a voice would cry "¡Pirata!" (Spanish for "pirate") ten
>>> times in descending tones before the game crashed.
>>
>> Drifting away from bit-banger sound for a moment, there was a utility
>> for the Amiga which would copy many copy-protected disks. When you
>> fired it up, it would sing "Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me"
>> from Disney's _Pirates of the Caribbean_.
>
> There was a popular utility like that in the PC world in the 80's, maybe
> named "copyrite". It was amazing.
I remember that one. I think that was the one that could handle copy
protection in the form of a hole burned in the oxide of the disk, where
the program wouldn't run if it didn't get an error reading that sector.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426250 is a reply to message #426246] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 18:39 |
Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5547
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2025-01-04, Chris Narkiewicz <hello@ezaquarii.com> wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>> I can remember the fashion for naming products “XP”:
>>
>> * Windows XP
>> * Office XP
>> * Athlon XP
>
> Alpha AXP (for DEC Alpha CPUs).
>
> AXP didn't stand for anything.
I did a bit of with with a data-entry machine (several terminals
attached to a central unit with a tape drive to carry data to
the mainframe) that was made by a company called NBI. Again,
it didn't stand for anything, so we decided to say it stood for
"Nothing But Initials".
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426251 is a reply to message #426250] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 19:10 |
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Originally posted by: Lawrence D'Oliveiro
On Sat, 04 Jan 2025 23:39:27 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> I did a bit of with with a data-entry machine (several terminals
> attached to a central unit with a tape drive to carry data to the
> mainframe) that was made by a company called NBI. Again, it didn't
> stand for anything, so we decided to say it stood for "Nothing But
> Initials".
Wonder why no tape company though to call itself “BPI”. If MIPS could do
it as a CPU maker ...
Apparently IBM was so named as a one-up on NCR: “National Cash Registers”
were not as grandiose as “International Business Machines”.
Then when IBM set up its consulting arm, that was another step up, as
“Global Business Systems”.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426253 is a reply to message #426251] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 19:30 |
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Originally posted by: snipeco.2
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
[...]
> Apparently IBM was so named as a one-up on NCR: "National Cash Registers"
> were not as grandiose as "International Business Machines".
[...]
I worked as a hardware man for NCR* in the early '60s and the legend
was that IBM was founded by ex-NCR employees who had jumped ship.
* NCR 315 - second generation mainframe
--
^Ï^. Sn!pe, PTB, FIBS My pet rock Gordon just is.
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| Re: IBM history, Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426254 is a reply to message #426253] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 21:45 |
John Levine
Messages: 1468
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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According to Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com>:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Apparently IBM was so named as a one-up on NCR: "National Cash Registers"
>> were not as grandiose as "International Business Machines".
>
> I worked as a hardware man for NCR* in the early '60s and the legend
> was that IBM was founded by ex-NCR employees who had jumped ship.
The actual history is well known. In 1911 Charles Flint merged three
companies including Hollerith's punch card company into the
Computing-Tabulating-Recording company. In 1914 he hired T.J. Watson
away from NCR to be general manager, and in 1915 after resolving legal
problems from his days at NCR, Watson became president. He changed the
name to IBM in 1917 both because he thought C-T-R was a bad name and
because they had a Canadian subsidiary.
Read all about it in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM
--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426257 is a reply to message #426251] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 21:58 |
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Originally posted by: rbowman
On Sun, 5 Jan 2025 00:10:14 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> Then when IBM set up its consulting arm, that was another step up, as
> “Global Business Systems”.
The trend continued when they sold their fab lines to GlobalFoundries.
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| Re: IBM history, Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426258 is a reply to message #426254] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 22:05 |
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Originally posted by: snipeco.2
John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
> According to Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com>:
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Apparently IBM was so named as a one-up on NCR: "National Cash Registers"
>>> were not as grandiose as "International Business Machines".
>>>
>>
>> I worked as a hardware man for NCR* in the early '60s and the legend
>> was that IBM was founded by ex-NCR employees who had jumped ship.
>>
>
> The actual history is well known. In 1911 Charles Flint merged three
> companies including Hollerith's punch card company into the
> Computing-Tabulating-Recording company. In 1914 he hired T.J. Watson
> away from NCR to be general manager, and in 1915 after resolving legal
> problems from his days at NCR, Watson became president. He changed the
> name to IBM in 1917 both because he thought C-T-R was a bad name and
> because they had a Canadian subsidiary.
>
> Read all about it in Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM>
>
As it happens, it's never occurred to me to look up IBM's history;
perhaps I'll do so.
BTW, in the interests of accuracy, I misspoke about my time at NCR.
It was actually the early 1970s, not the '60s (not that that amounts to
a hill of beans...)
--
^Ï^. Sn!pe, PTB, FIBS My pet rock Gordon just is.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426259 is a reply to message #426244] |
Sat, 04 January 2025 22:16 |
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Originally posted by: rbowman
On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 17:42:57 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
> Back when computers had console lights a common trick was to put an AM
> radio near them since the sounds gave you an idea what your program was
> doing.
>
> We played lots of music that way. I have heard but not confirmed than
> on some IBM electromechanical accounting machine there was card deck
> that would play the Star Spangled Banner by making the type bars vibrate
> while printing a flag.
It's been a long time but I believe it was a card sorter that would play
Jingle Bells when fed an appropriate deck. I can't find the link but
somewhere on the web there is a video of a computer and AM radio.
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426261 is a reply to message #426256] |
Sun, 05 January 2025 03:29 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 1016
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
> On Sat, 04 Jan 2025 20:56:57 +0000, Chris Narkiewicz wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>
>>> I can remember the fashion for naming products XP:
>>>
>>> * Windows XP * Office XP * Athlon XP
>>
>> Alpha AXP (for DEC Alpha CPUs).
>>
>> AXP didn't stand for anything.
>
> At the time there were jokes about XP being Chi Rho in Latin rather than
> Greek characters.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi_Rho
And the follow-on joke that, in its drive to godhead, the next M$
system after XP was going to be YHWH.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: Creative Ways To Say How Old You Are [message #426262 is a reply to message #426247] |
Sun, 05 January 2025 06:01 |
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Originally posted by: Bob Eager
On Sat, 04 Jan 2025 22:49:41 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
> On 2025-01-04 19:19, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2025-01-04, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> There is also a form of copy protection: if an illegal copy of the
>>> game was detected, then once the player entered the church, instead of
>>> "Ave Maria" playing, a voice would cry "¡Pirata!" (Spanish for
>>> "pirate") ten times in descending tones before the game crashed.
>>
>> Drifting away from bit-banger sound for a moment, there was a utility
>> for the Amiga which would copy many copy-protected disks. When you
>> fired it up, it would sing "Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me" from
>> Disney's _Pirates of the Caribbean_.
>
> There was a popular utility like that in the PC world in the 80's, maybe
> named "copyrite". It was amazing.
For the sake of future searches ... pretty sure it was 'copywrite'. I
remember having that. Might even have it somewhere, still.
--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
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