Conference thebay::joyoflex

>     This qualifiers defalts [sic] the current client to be the

>The term "Classic" as in "Coke Classic," meaning "original version" has a
>cultural context that could present problems to translators.
    
    Well, I guess it DID present a problem  :-)  but it shouldn't.
    The term "Classic" means "classic version" not "original version."
    Coke Classic[TM] carbonated beverage is not the same as the original
    Coke[TM] carbonated beverage.
    
    Classical music was not original music.  And in music, the word
    "classical" is translated to Japanese as ���饷�å� (kurashikku) and
    doesn't present a problem.  (But I have sometimes had problems with
    native English speakers in English-speaking countries, who don't
    understand what classical music is and play pieces of rock music that
    they consider "classics."  :-) but true.)
    
    -- Norman Diamond

Re .2,

I think this is a new usage.  As a native English speaker, although of
the British variety, the only way I understand the /CLASSIC qualifier
is by analogy with Coke Classic to mean, basically, old.  Otherwise the
word "classic" would imply something about the quality of the original
interface, which I don't think is the idea here. 

As 'New' is such a powerful word in advertising, the Coca-Cola
Corporation and Digital didn't dare to say "Old Formula Coke" and "the
Old VMS User Interface" so they used "Classic" as a euphemism for this instead.

Norman's mention of "classical music" triggered a thought.  "Classical
music" originally referred to a very specific period.  Nowadays, most
English speakers would use the word to also include Baroque music,
Romantic music and so on.  Does that make the former usage the classic
classical?

:-)

Jon

    
    I think this usage of "classic" is, well, classic. The very first entry
    for this word in my dictionary includes the meanings: traditional,
    enduring, and standard.
    
    JP

>    
>    I think this usage of "classic" is, well, classic. The very first entry
>    for this word in my dictionary includes the meanings: traditional,
>    enduring, and standard.
>    

Exactly !  This definition suits "classical music", "Coke Classic [tm]" and
so on.  I see nothing wrong with it!

Stuart

    There is also a Mac Classic II.

    >"Flames to /dev/null"
    
    The classic version is "Copy your complaints to NLA0:COMPLAINT.LIS;1"

    Re: .7

    Snort, haw, haw!

    Classic in VMS, maybe, but UN*X was around 8 years before VMS, and it
    is used by more people; hence, "flames to /dev/null" is the *real*
    classic version.

    -dick

    
    -dick,
    
    Yeah, but VMS lets you put an Access Control List on the null device.
    So you can direct people's complaints to the bit bucket and then lock
    them out...
    
    JP

    Ah, but John, UNIX� allows control of access to its null file; we can
    selectively change ownership and permissions on it.  And we've been
    able to do that since long before VMS ever existed, let alone thought
    of ACLs.
    
    -dick
    ----
    � UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX systems Laboratories.

But surely the concept of the bit bucket predates both VMS and UNIX.
Anybody have earlier recollections of the bit bucket/null device?

Around 1971, "Computer Decisions" magazine (long defunct) published an article
on the write-only memory module (WOM).  While describing its many amaxing 
qualities (including theoretically unlimited capacity), the author commented 
that it would be supetrbly adapted for use as a bit bucket (the place where 
all the bits go when you write over a chunk of memory).

Although many implementations were possible, the author claimed excellent 
results using a 5 mm. square of 1/16" balsa wood glued into a chip carrier.

-dave

    
    Geez, Dick. I finally come up with an instance of VMS being more
    brain-damaged than u*ix, and you make a liar out of me.
    
    And does anyone else remember dealing with chad buckets?
    
    JP

    Chad buckets come in many varieties.  Buckets for rectangular chad from
    card punches.  Buckets for round chad from paper-tape punches. In all
    cases, there were always a dozen or so pieces that had more stickiness
    than super glue.

    There were also bit buckets for data *not* being thrown away. If you
    were dealing with a looooong paper tape, running it through the reader
    from one bit bucket to another was a common practice.

    A couple of rather sadistic friends took a paper bag full of paper tape
    chad to a showing of Rocky Horror, and used it in the wedding scene. 
    Black paper tape...
    
    Remember the geared-up hand-crank paper tape winders?
    
    The bit buckets we usually used to run paper tape out of were the clear
    ones that came on ASR-33 teletypes.  We actually had a vacuum-formed
    tape bucket with a magnetic strip to stick on the cabinet's front
    panel, but those didn't stay around very long...

    
    Would you believe that at the National Security Agency, the cardpunch
    chad was classified top-secret crypto? It all had to be put in burn
    bags.
    
    Standard "new-guy" joke was to tell 'em that the 9s and 6s in the
    cardpunch chad had to be  sorted out separately.
    
    JP

Speaking of bit buckets, would you believe that it was reported that in one
of the early University PDP-10 installations in the UK, the maintenance 
contract included a clause that required Digital to regularly come in and
sweep up the bits that had been shifted off the ends of the accumulators ?

Stuart

Regarding the bits of chad tht accumualte, one of the great philosophical 
conundrums used to be "Are the individual pieces of chad ones or zeroes?"

Maybe this belongs in the Digital History Notesfile.

Larry

    Well, the computer reads a hole as a 1.
    So the bit of chad must be a 0. Right?
    
    On the other hand, a punch creates a bit of chad
    for each 1 in the output data.  Therefore the
    bit of chad is a 1.  Right?

    G'day,
    
    ... and in the same vein??
    
    does a computer weigh more ifthe memory is filled with 1s rather than
    if full of .s   ?
    
    Certainly, 111.11 _looks_ heavier than ...1..
    
    
    
    djw

    I think Einstein said that a core memory weighs more when more cores
    are magnetized, and a semiconductor memory weighs more when more cells
    are conducting.  But which are 1s and which are 0s, I don't know.
    
    Of course, old-fashioned memories, those from which chad was obtained,
    weighed more when they represented more 1s.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    	I once knew someone who had a Ph.D. in Astrophysics who pointed out
    that entropy has mass, so considering bugs as a form of disorder in a
    perfect programme you should be able to tell if a programme had bugs
    left in it by weighing it.
    
    	The same line of reasoning implies that a computer memory is
    heaviest when it contains random numbers.
    
    	A further consequence is that although encrypted data looks like
    random numbers it has the same entropy as the original since the
    operation is reversible. You can tell encrypted data from real random
    numbers by weighing it.

    .22 certainly has good news.  It implies that this company is in no
    danger of losing its heavyweight status in the industry.

    Re: .21
    
    The weight of a core memory can't be used to determine its proportion
    of 1 bits.
    
    Cores are magnetized whether they are storing 1s or 0s.  The direction
    of magnetization determines whether the data is a 1 or a 0.  To read a
    core in a 3D stack, both the X and Y wires passing through the core are
    energized in the same direction (to write a 0).  If the core's field
    flips, a pulse is generated in the sense wire, and the core is said to
    have contained a 1.  The core is then rewritten by energizing the X and
    Y wires in the appropriate direction, either to put back its original
    field (read-restore) or to write new data (read-modify-write).
    
    So there.  :-)
    
    -dick

    re: .25
    
    Everybody knows that "north" is heavier. Why do you think the earth
    tilts?
    
    Sheesh.
    
    -Tom

    North and south are indeed asymmetric.  Read Martin Gardner's book
    "The Ambidextrous Universe," in which he reports the discovery of,
    uh, dexterity? (non-ambidexterity).
    
    So if the north pole of a core is closer than the south pole, either
    to the earth (pointing down) then the weight varies.
    
    In fact, even without reading that book, intuition suggests that if
    the core's north pole is pointing somewhat north and the core's south
    pole is pointing somewhat south, then repulsion from the earth's
    magnetic field will make it weigh less than the opposite direction.
    So, unless all of the cores are VERY carefully aligned, the difference
    can be weighed.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    	A core doesn't really have a north pole unless you break it. It is
    a loop of magnetic material, arranged such that when it contains a "1"
    a solitary north pole would run round it clockwise while a solitary
    south pole would run round it anti-clockwise.
    
    	These directions are reversed in the Southern hemisphere, of
    course, so all "1"s become "0"s as you cross the equator.
    
    	Anyone else remember the ECO that DEC issued for the TD8E bootstrap
    ROM?  Using a needle and a piece of fine wire you had to change the
    path the wire took through a set of cores. Gone are the days when field
    service engineers had to be good at tapestry to correct a software bug.

    (well at least it isn't a RAThole)