On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Andrew Farnsworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Computer History Museum... you mean Sean's house? > > Andy (as he flees the Wrath of Sean!) > > On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 11:28 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Computer History Museum sounds like an interesting place to go to. I do >> not know what my plans are for vacation. However, California is a very nice >> place to go to for vacation. >> >> Kevin Eldridge >> >> Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: "Jason Orendorff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:49:25 >> To: <[email protected]> >> Subject: [nlug] Re: You just have to love math... >> >> >> >> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 5:50 PM, Jack Coats <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > It paged off of tape. >> >> This is the funniest thing I've read all week. Talk about thrashing. >> >> > You should have seen it run a big balanced sort using the >> > tape rives! >> >> Those algorithms live on in Knuth. He claims they're still relevant, >> something about memory access locality. I suspect that's pretty much >> nonsense, but they're fun to think about. >> >> I went to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA last month. >> They have a room full of old machines, everything from a slice of the >> ENIAC to a Speak & Spell. In between, nostalgia city. Also got to >> see some insane old devices for primary storage (what we use RAM for >> today). Like Williams tubes. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube >> >> The best was a long tube full of mercury. Data was stored in the >> tube, in the form of, wait for it... sound waves. You put your data >> in this end, and some time later it'll come out the other end. If >> you're not ready for it when it gets there, we'll just send it through >> again. Utterly absurd. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory >> >> But the coolest thing there, and the reason you should absolutely go >> if you get the chance, was the Babbage Difference Engine. Built from >> Charles Babbage's original plans with only trivial modifications, and >> machined out of brass and soft steel to the tolerances achievable in >> his day, it was the only thing there that actually ran. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine >> http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/ >> >> The engine belongs to a former Microsoft CTO and is only on display >> until May 2009. >> >> -j >> >> >> >> > > > > >
For those that dont know, and wish to: Australia has a couple intact 1st gen computers they are restoring to working condition http://museumvictoria.com.au/CSIRAC/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSIRAC http://members.iinet.net.au/~dgreen/ -- "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." --Martin Luther King Jr. I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. --Dwight D. Eisenhower "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." --Galileo Galilei "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." --Frank Zappa Bert Leston Taylor - "A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
