On 10/24/2017 04:16 AM, Ben Dover wrote:

[snip]

Nope, he said $640k was how much the average schmuck would spend in a
lifetime on hardware upgrades and software upgrades and smartphones and
access points and routers and various other obsolete IoT toys.Â* Never
underestimate the spending of an Apple iDiot.

"$640k" reminds me of the way 6502 assembly language used "$" to
indicate hexadecimal numerals, as in 255 = $FF.

--
62 days until the winter celebration (Monday December 25, 2017 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue."

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:18:48 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/23/2017 05:09 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 23 Oct 2017 13:33:26 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2017 13:40:03 -0500, Terry Coombs
wrote:

Oh , and
it's an Intel dual core 1.8Ghz CPU , with a measly 512 Mb of memory .

Didn't Bill Gates say all you will need is 2 MB of RAM?

Nope, he said 640k (the limit in MS DOS)


You could get 704K with software that enabled the RAM at Axxxh (normally
unused unless you had A EGA or higher video card). That is, if your
system actually has RAM there.

Not on DOS 1.0

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:22:42 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/23/2017 05:15 PM, wrote:

[snip]]

The first mainframe I worked on had 4K and it cost as much as a new
Cadillac to get 4 more K. That was core storage tho.

I haven't used a machine with core memory, but I saw some in college. It
looked like a piece of heavy black cloth stretched on a frame.

I actually repaired a 16k core storage array in 1985 (3890 check
sorter)
The documentation was in the 360 theory of ops since the 60s when I
was in M25 school but I am the only person I have ever heard of that
actually tracked down the interplane connector that was bad and
soldered it. (they are welded in the factory)
We were 1600 miles from the nearest part and they had to get the
checks captured by 2100 or lose a big part of a million bucks. I
figured WTF have I got to lose trying it.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:14:52 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/23/2017 04:41 PM, wrote:

[snip]

My first comoter had 4K and I upgraded it to 16K at a cost of about
$64.


I was close. 5K and upgraded to 24K.
In over 30 years - 26 in the computer business, I've never seen a
computer come with 5K.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:06:46 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:14:52 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/23/2017 04:41 PM, wrote:

[snip]

My first comoter had 4K and I upgraded it to 16K at a cost of about
$64.


I was close. 5K and upgraded to 24K.
In over 30 years - 26 in the computer business, I've never seen a
computer come with 5K.

Yup, The only way it would be 5k is if some was gobbled up by the BIOS
or something.
The 360 M25 maxed out at 48K but it was really 64k and the rest was
used by the microcode.

On 10/24/2017 07:25 PM, wrote:

[snip]

You could get 704K with software that enabled the RAM at Axxxh (normally
unused unless you had A EGA or higher video card). That is, if your
system actually has RAM there.

Not on DOS 1.0


IIRC. with DOS 1.0, You'd have to modify the code itself.

Anyway, who said you had to be using DOS 1.0?

--
62 days until the winter celebration (Monday December 25, 2017 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue."

On 10/24/2017 09:06 PM, wrote:

[snip]

I was close. 5K and upgraded to 24K.
In over 30 years - 26 in the computer business, I've never seen a
computer come with 5K.


You haven't seen everything.

BTW, It was 5K bytes, and an additional 512 nybbles. All in 11 2114
(1K*4) RAM chips.

--
62 days until the winter celebration (Monday December 25, 2017 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue."

On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:31:47 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 07:25 PM, wrote:

[snip]

You could get 704K with software that enabled the RAM at Axxxh (normally
unused unless you had A EGA or higher video card). That is, if your
system actually has RAM there.

Not on DOS 1.0


IIRC. with DOS 1.0, You'd have to modify the code itself.

Anyway, who said you had to be using DOS 1.0?

That was what the Gates quote was referring to. The actual memory
architecture would address 1 meg but Gates decided the user only need
640k and he kept the rest for the OS.
The original PC1 maxed out at 576k, 512k expansion card + 64k on the
system board anyway with two 160k diskette drives and a cassette
drive. I suppose you could have put another expansion card in there
but you were running out of slots and that was a lot of money for 64
more k. I had a "first day ship" machine but I updated it as soon as I
could lay my hands on the 256k system board that supported a hard
drive and a 320k diskette.
By that time the "6 pack" cards were showing up with the fill in 384k,
diskette adapter, serial, parallel, game and clock. That freed up a
lot of slots and 5 was plenty.

On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:19:00 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:31:47 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 07:25 PM, wrote:

[snip]

You could get 704K with software that enabled the RAM at Axxxh (normally
unused unless you had A EGA or higher video card). That is, if your
system actually has RAM there.

Not on DOS 1.0


IIRC. with DOS 1.0, You'd have to modify the code itself.

Anyway, who said you had to be using DOS 1.0?

That was what the Gates quote was referring to. The actual memory
architecture would address 1 meg but Gates decided the user only need
640k and he kept the rest for the OS.

Actually, the OS code itself loaded in that 640K space too.
The address space above it was for video display RAM, Boot EPROM, etc.

On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 07:43:30 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:19:00 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:31:47 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 07:25 PM, wrote:

[snip]

You could get 704K with software that enabled the RAM at Axxxh (normally
unused unless you had A EGA or higher video card). That is, if your
system actually has RAM there.

Not on DOS 1.0


IIRC. with DOS 1.0, You'd have to modify the code itself.

Anyway, who said you had to be using DOS 1.0?

That was what the Gates quote was referring to. The actual memory
architecture would address 1 meg but Gates decided the user only need
640k and he kept the rest for the OS.

Actually, the OS code itself loaded in that 640K space too.
The address space above it was for video display RAM, Boot EPROM, etc.


Yes you are right, but that is still overhead for the OS.

On 10/24/2017 11:18 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 22:31:47 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 07:25 PM, wrote:

[snip]

You could get 704K with software that enabled the RAM at Axxxh (normally
unused unless you had A EGA or higher video card). That is, if your
system actually has RAM there.

Not on DOS 1.0


IIRC. with DOS 1.0, You'd have to modify the code itself.

Anyway, who said you had to be using DOS 1.0?

That was what the Gates quote was referring to. The actual memory
architecture would address 1 meg but Gates decided the user only need
640k and he kept the rest for the OS.

The 1M can be divided into 16 64K regions 0-F. 0 always contained RAM.
1-9 for RAM expansion (total 640K). A is reserved (later used for
expanded video cards, not the original MDA/HGC and CGA. B is used for
video (MDA in the lower half, CGA in the upper). C is used for add-on
ROM. D-E are reserved (used for cartridges on the PCjr), and some of it
was used for EMS (expanded memory). F is used for system ROM (BIOS at
the top).

Later machines often had 1M RAM, with upper memory switched out. It
could be switched in when there is no memory conflict, so you could
actually get as much as 96K immediately above the 640K. Even more with
the Upper Memory Blocks (non-contiguous RAM) later DOS allowed.

The original PC1 maxed out at 576k, 512k expansion card + 64k on the
system board anyway with two 160k diskette drives and a cassette
drive. I suppose you could have put another expansion card in there
but you were running out of slots and that was a lot of money for 64
more k. I had a "first day ship" machine but I updated it as soon as I
could lay my hands on the 256k system board that supported a hard
drive and a 320k diskette.

DOS 1.1 double-sided disk.

By that time the "6 pack" cards were showing up with the fill in 384k,
diskette adapter, serial, parallel, game and clock. That freed up a
lot of slots and 5 was plenty.


--
61 days until the winter celebration (Monday December 25, 2017 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought." [Graham Greene,
1981]

In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 23 Oct 2017 10:21:12 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2017 01:53:10 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sun, 22 Oct 2017 22:22:20 -0500, Terry Coombs
wrote:

* Got a ten year old iMac sittin' here , my d-i-l wants me to wipe it
and reset to as-new for my grandson . Problem is that I know nothing
about Apple comps and can't find much info online about one this old .
Any Apple users out there care to help ? This unit was apparently part
of a school network , wants to connect to a termunal server - but will
function independently , if slowly . Part of that will be cure by adding
more RAM , 512 Mb ain't near enough . Not planning on putting money into
it until I know if it can be reset though .

There are two mac newsgroups, comp.sys.mac.system , comp.sys.mac.apps,
and comp.sys.mac.hardware.misc. Hardware is very quiet and one of the
ot her two is better than the other, but they were very helpful to me
when my friend died and I had to get some of his data off his computer.

* Snag
That sounds like THREE groups?

When I saw you replied, I knew that was what you said. You pass
arithmetic.

In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 23 Oct 2017 17:24:05 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 10/23/2017 12:54 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 10/23/2017 09:22 AM, wrote:

[snip]

** People don't need Rolex watches and Ferraris either -

A cheap watch is likely to keep time just as well as a Rolex, and may
even be more readable (and less likely to be stolen). For me, that makes
the cheap watch better.

BTW, I notice that I don't wear a wris****ch much any more, since I have
my cell phone.


Watch sales and small camera sales are way down with cell phone use. I
was never without a watch since about the age of 16 until a couple of
years ago. I still have one and wore it to a wedding last month.

I gather it's not a plastic Casio watch?

Maybe silver or gold case?

In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 23 Oct 2017 18:13:36 -0400,
wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2017 17:24:05 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 10/23/2017 12:54 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 10/23/2017 09:22 AM, wrote:

[snip]

** People don't need Rolex watches and Ferraris either -

A cheap watch is likely to keep time just as well as a Rolex, and may
even be more readable (and less likely to be stolen). For me, that makes
the cheap watch better.

BTW, I notice that I don't wear a wris****ch much any more, since I have
my cell phone.


Watch sales and small camera sales are way down with cell phone use. I
was never without a watch since about the age of 16 until a couple of
years ago. I still have one and wore it to a wedding last month.

I haven't worn a watch since 1972 when my $100 red LED watch needed a
$40 battery. For you kids out there $100 used to be a lot of money, A
new Chevy was $3-4k.
I had already stopped wearing a ring after I saw one get across a 100a
power supply (at 1.5v) and damn near cook the guy's finger off.

Yes, I'm afraid of rings also.

I already was and then iirc, I read that Neil Armstrong had trouble with
a ring and a barn door?

After making it safely to the moon and back he had trouble driving,
maybe backing his tractor out of the barn??

I can't find it on the web but I'm pretty sure I heard that 20 years ago
on the radio.

Aha, it's there now, although I remembered the story wrong: "In November
1978, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped
off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring got caught in the
wheel, tearing off the tip of his left hand's ring finger. He collected
the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at
the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.[131]" from wikip

Here's 3 paragraphs on it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...armstrong1.htm

On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:30:46 -0400, micky wrote:



Aha, it's there now, although I remembered the story wrong: "In November
1978, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped
off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring got caught in the
wheel, tearing off the tip of his left hand's ring finger. He collected
the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at
the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.[131]" from wikip

Here's 3 paragraphs on it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...armstrong1.htm


IH (International Harvester) projected two photographic slides that I still remember from
their new employee "safety" session. That was in 1968, and they're still clear in my head.
One was a whole finger trailing about 18 inches of tendon stuck in a slot on a bulldozer.
Its former owner was a salesman who had simply jumped from down the dozer after
a sales pitch. Left his ring and finger in the slot.
The other slide was a finger and tendon wrapped around a drill chuck.
The pictures made it clear enough that rings fit perfectly in many slots.

On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:19:28 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 23 Oct 2017 17:24:05 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 10/23/2017 12:54 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 10/23/2017 09:22 AM, wrote:

[snip]

** People don't need Rolex watches and Ferraris either -

A cheap watch is likely to keep time just as well as a Rolex, and may
even be more readable (and less likely to be stolen). For me, that makes
the cheap watch better.

BTW, I notice that I don't wear a wris****ch much any more, since I have
my cell phone.


Watch sales and small camera sales are way down with cell phone use. I
was never without a watch since about the age of 16 until a couple of
years ago. I still have one and wore it to a wedding last month.

I gather it's not a plastic Casio watch?

Maybe silver or gold case?
No, it's a Micky Mouse watch

In alt.home.repair, on Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:21:55 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:30:46 -0400, micky wrote:



Aha, it's there now, although I remembered the story wrong: "In November
1978, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped
off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring got caught in the
wheel, tearing off the tip of his left hand's ring finger. He collected
the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at
the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.[131]" from wikip

Here's 3 paragraphs on it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...armstrong1.htm


IH (International Harvester) projected two photographic slides that I still remember from

Not about rings but about remembering: When I was sojourning in law
school, we had a small course called Medical Jurisprudence, taught by
the acting Medical Examiner of NYC. Later he was just ME, not "acting".
And he spent 2 1/2 days, 2 hours a day, showing slides of traffic
accidents. I got up and left after 20 minutes the first day, and right
away the other two days. I think I was the only one who left, which
sort of corresponds to my not graduating. The ones who were determined
to graduate probably tolerated anything.

Anyhow, I'm not going to describe it but one of the photos was so very
disgusting. It barely bothers me now but even though I want to, I still
haven't forgotten it 43 years later.

their new employee "safety" session. That was in 1968, and they're still clear in my head.
One was a whole finger trailing about 18 inches of tendon stuck in a slot on a bulldozer.
Its former owner was a salesman who had simply jumped from down the dozer after
a sales pitch. Left his ring and finger in the slot.
The other slide was a finger and tendon wrapped around a drill chuck.
The pictures made it clear enough that rings fit perfectly in many slots.

I volunteered for a research project about folks over 70, vitamin D, and
falling. They wanted me to wear an "accelerometer", a device the size
of wrist watch, that measures motion (and falling) and they wanted me to
wear it 24/7 for 7 days. I told them I had to take it off to work on
the car.

Would any of you work on a car wearing a wrist watch?

Anyhow, she said she'd have to call the Ph.D. in charge to see if it was
okay, so I said I'd postpone it until winter when I wouldn't be doing
that, but maybe I'll just forget the whole thing.

On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 23:38:39 -0400, micky
wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:21:55 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:30:46 -0400, micky wrote:



Aha, it's there now, although I remembered the story wrong: "In November
1978, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped
off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring got caught in the
wheel, tearing off the tip of his left hand's ring finger. He collected
the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at
the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.[131]" from wikip

Here's 3 paragraphs on it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...armstrong1.htm


IH (International Harvester) projected two photographic slides that I still remember from

Not about rings but about remembering: When I was sojourning in law
school, we had a small course called Medical Jurisprudence, taught by
the acting Medical Examiner of NYC. Later he was just ME, not "acting".
And he spent 2 1/2 days, 2 hours a day, showing slides of traffic
accidents. I got up and left after 20 minutes the first day, and right
away the other two days. I think I was the only one who left, which
sort of corresponds to my not graduating. The ones who were determined
to graduate probably tolerated anything.

Anyhow, I'm not going to describe it but one of the photos was so very
disgusting. It barely bothers me now but even though I want to, I still
haven't forgotten it 43 years later.

their new employee "safety" session. That was in 1968, and they're still clear in my head.
One was a whole finger trailing about 18 inches of tendon stuck in a slot on a bulldozer.
Its former owner was a salesman who had simply jumped from down the dozer after
a sales pitch. Left his ring and finger in the slot.
The other slide was a finger and tendon wrapped around a drill chuck.
The pictures made it clear enough that rings fit perfectly in many slots.

I volunteered for a research project about folks over 70, vitamin D, and
falling. They wanted me to wear an "accelerometer", a device the size
of wrist watch, that measures motion (and falling) and they wanted me to
wear it 24/7 for 7 days. I told them I had to take it off to work on
the car.

Would any of you work on a car wearing a wrist watch?

Anyhow, she said she'd have to call the Ph.D. in charge to see if it was
okay, so I said I'd postpone it until winter when I wouldn't be doing
that, but maybe I'll just forget the whole thing.
I sometimes wore my watch working on cars depending what I was doing.