On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 2:28:00 PM UTC-4, John W Kennedy wrote:
> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
> >
> >> On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >>> On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
> >>>> In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
> >>>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >>>>>> Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
> >>>>>> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> What could go wrong ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
> >>>>> be funnier.
> >>>>
> >>>> The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
> >>>>
> >>>> I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
> >>>
> >>> Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
> >>> inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
> >>> night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
> >>
> >> This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
> >> something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
> >> minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
> >
> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
> >> Hell, I can remember a time when it would have taken 24 hours. (I can
> >> also remember a time when only a one-off water-cooled supercomputer
> >> would meet the performance specs of a gawddam Apple Watch.)

The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978. I soon after got
a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200 baud model.
Then 14k, 28k, 56k, and finally cable Internet in the mid 2000s.

Pt

On 2021 Sep 25, John W Kennedy wrote
(in article<StSdnX9yYP6099L8nZ2dnUU7-enNnZ2d@giganews.com>):

> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8nZ2dnUU7-V3NnZ2d@giganews.com>):
> >
> > > On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > > > On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
> > > > > In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac-a954-9305dce8c3a1n@googlegroups.com>,
> > > > > Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > > > > > > Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
> > > > > > > https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > What could go wrong ?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
> > > > > > be funnier.
> > > > >
> > > > > The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
> > > > >
> > > > > I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
> > > >
> > > > Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
> > > > inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
> > > > night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
> > >
> > > This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
> > > something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
> > > minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
> >
> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>
> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)

when I started it was with a dedicated 33.6k modem, connecting to a First
Class BBS. Then a 56k network modem, connect at first to the BBS, then to the
FTP site. Getting an internet connection paid for itself in savings from
long-distance charges pretty much instantly. Then we got broadband; 1.5M.
What had taken hours now took minutes at most. After a bit the FTP site was
replaced by a website. We got a faster broadband connection, and didn’t
care that the downloads grew to 20+ and even 30+ MB, gigantic files which
would have taken most of a day to download from the BBS. And oh, our _file
server_ had two 4 GB drives, so you had to be careful that you didn’t use
up your allocated space. Fortunately I was also in charge of the network, so
I could up my allocation if necessary.

Nowadays I get more than 20 MB email in a morning and have allocated space on
the office system measured in tens or hundreds of GB; the office has a 300 M
connection, home has a 75 M connection. A 30 MB file would be both downloaded
in seconds and too small to be concerned about.

>
>
> > > Hell, I can remember a time when it would have taken 24 hours. (I can
> > > also remember a time when only a one-off water-cooled supercomputer
> > > would meet the performance specs of a gawddam Apple Watch.)
> >
> > oh, yes.

In article <7d6c1664-b52d-4494-8027-92b5d1efde19n@googlegroups.com>,
pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978.

I had one of those, around the same time.

>I soon after got
>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200 baud model.

Then I went to work for the Computer Center, and got a direct
line to UNIX [N], one of several PDP 1170s down in the basement.
One of those server rooms with a partition full of pigeonholes,
where you could pick up your printout once it was done.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Saturday, 25 September 2021 at 19:28:00 UTC+1, John W Kennedy wrote:
> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
> >
> >> On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >>> On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
> >>>> In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
> >>>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >>>>>> Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
> >>>>>> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> What could go wrong ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
> >>>>> be funnier.
> >>>>
> >>>> The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
> >>>>
> >>>> I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
> >>>
> >>> Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
> >>> inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
> >>> night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
> >>
> >> This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
> >> something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
> >> minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
> >
> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)

My recollection is that "56kbps" was a theoretical
data rate that only the best quality lines would get,
and only by eliminating the analogue stage at the
far end. And it was "only" the receive rate? Ah yes:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#56_kbit/s_technologies>

So I think I got around "40". (And is that 8 bits or
10 bits in a byte? I don't remember.)

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:35:43 -0400, Wolffan <akwolffan@zoho.com>
wrote:

>On 2021 Sep 25, John W Kennedy wrote
>(in article<StSdnX9yYP6099L8nZ2dnUU7-enNnZ2d@giganews.com>):
>
>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8nZ2dnUU7-V3NnZ2d@giganews.com>):
>> >
>> > > On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> > > > On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>> > > > > In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac-a954-9305dce8c3a1n@googlegroups.com>,
>> > > > > Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> > > > > > > Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>> > > > > > > https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>> > > > > > >
>> > > > > > > What could go wrong ?
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>> > > > > > be funnier.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>> > > > >
>> > > > > I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>> > > >
>> > > > Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>> > > > inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>> > > > night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>> > >
>> > > This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>> > > something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>> > > minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>> >
>> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>>
>> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>
>when I started it was with a dedicated 33.6k modem, connecting to a First
>Class BBS. Then a 56k network modem, connect at first to the BBS, then to the
>FTP site. Getting an internet connection paid for itself in savings from
>long-distance charges pretty much instantly. Then we got broadband; 1.5M.
>What had taken hours now took minutes at most. After a bit the FTP site was
>replaced by a website. We got a faster broadband connection, and didn’t
>care that the downloads grew to 20+ and even 30+ MB, gigantic files which
>would have taken most of a day to download from the BBS. And oh, our _file
>server_ had two 4 GB drives, so you had to be careful that you didn’t use
>up your allocated space. Fortunately I was also in charge of the network, so
>I could up my allocation if necessary.
>
>Nowadays I get more than 20 MB email in a morning and have allocated space on
>the office system measured in tens or hundreds of GB; the office has a 300 M
>connection, home has a 75 M connection. A 30 MB file would be both downloaded
>in seconds and too small to be concerned about.

It's taken a while but, with my 2GB hard drive and 2GB external, I've
finally reached the point where a 30 MB file is indeed, too small to
worry about.

Twenty years ago I was counting every byte!
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:54:12 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <7d6c1664-b52d-4494-8027-92b5d1efde19n@googlegroups.com>,
>pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978.
>
>I had one of those, around the same time.
>
>>I soon after got
>>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200 baud model.
>
>Then I went to work for the Computer Center, and got a direct
>line to UNIX [N], one of several PDP 1170s down in the basement.
>One of those server rooms with a partition full of pigeonholes,
>where you could pick up your printout once it was done.

The UW Computer Center was set up that way in the mid to late 60s.

Only the Holy Priesthood of the Mighty Computer could actually enter
the computer room.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 13:58:14 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 2:28:00 PM UTC-4, John W Kennedy wrote:
>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
>> >
>> >> On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >>> On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>> >>>> In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
>> >>>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >>>>>> Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>> >>>>>> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> What could go wrong ?
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>> >>>>> be funnier.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>> >>>
>> >>> Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>> >>> inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>> >>> night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>> >>
>> >> This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>> >> something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>> >> minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>> >
>> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>> >> Hell, I can remember a time when it would have taken 24 hours. (I can
>> >> also remember a time when only a one-off water-cooled supercomputer
>> >> would meet the performance specs of a gawddam Apple Watch.)
>
>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978. I soon after got
>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200 baud model.
>Then 14k, 28k, 56k, and finally cable Internet in the mid 2000s.

At one point I owned a Winmodem.

This worked really well under OS/2 -- at the slowest speed (1200?).

I finally got real Windows 3.1 and tried it at a higher speed.

It didn't work -- I got garbage when I downloaded.

Microsoft Innovation is always a force to be feared.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

In article <f7442ea1-5d57-4e73-bdfd-ec71e701ea07n@googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:
>On Saturday, 25 September 2021 at 19:28:00 UTC+1, John W Kennedy wrote:
>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
>> >
>> >> On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >>> On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>> >>>> In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
>> >>>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn
>McGuire wrote:
>> >>>>>> Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>> >>>>>> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> What could go wrong ?
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>> >>>>> be funnier.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>> >>>
>> >>> Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>> >>> inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>> >>> night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>> >>
>> >> This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>> >> something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>> >> minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>> >
>> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>
>My recollection is that "56kbps" was a theoretical
>data rate that only the best quality lines would get,
>and only by eliminating the analogue stage at the
>far end. And it was "only" the receive rate? Ah yes:
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#56_kbit/s_technologies>
>
>So I think I got around "40". (And is that 8 bits or
>10 bits in a byte? I don't remember.)

It depends. Are you on a C/70?
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article <qs51lgpd87abvjn8l5m1qhiv37ntq6potp@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:54:12 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <7d6c1664-b52d-4494-8027-92b5d1efde19n@googlegroups.com>,
>>pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978.
>>
>>I had one of those, around the same time.
>>
>>>I soon after got
>>>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200
>baud model.
>>
>>Then I went to work for the Computer Center, and got a direct
>>line to UNIX [N], one of several PDP 1170s down in the basement.
>>One of those server rooms with a partition full of pigeonholes,
>>where you could pick up your printout once it was done.
>
>The UW Computer Center was set up that way in the mid to late 60s.
>
>Only the Holy Priesthood of the Mighty Computer could actually enter
>the computer room.

Well, one can understand their reasoning.

This site on The Register,

https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call

which updates every Friday and whose history now reaches back
into twenty pages,

has anecdotes about clueless users, clueless trainees, terminally
clueless management, and even clueful expert help-desk wallahs who
sometimes can't see an obvious bug because it's too close to their nose.
Highly recommended.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:10:28 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <qs51lgpd87abvjn8l5m1qhiv37ntq6potp@4ax.com>,
>Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:54:12 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <7d6c1664-b52d-4494-8027-92b5d1efde19n@googlegroups.com>,
>>>pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978.
>>>
>>>I had one of those, around the same time.
>>>
>>>>I soon after got
>>>>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200
>>baud model.
>>>
>>>Then I went to work for the Computer Center, and got a direct
>>>line to UNIX [N], one of several PDP 1170s down in the basement.
>>>One of those server rooms with a partition full of pigeonholes,
>>>where you could pick up your printout once it was done.
>>
>>The UW Computer Center was set up that way in the mid to late 60s.
>>
>>Only the Holy Priesthood of the Mighty Computer could actually enter
>>the computer room.
>
>Well, one can understand their reasoning.
>
>This site on The Register,
>
>https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call
>
>which updates every Friday and whose history now reaches back
>into twenty pages,
>
>has anecdotes about clueless users, clueless trainees, terminally
>clueless management, and even clueful expert help-desk wallahs who
>sometimes can't see an obvious bug because it's too close to their nose.
>Highly recommended.

OTOH, I was sorely tempted to bust into the old computer center and
IPL the old mainframe a few weeks ago because the new mainframe
located in another state and not by us was not providing the same
performance as the "antiquated" system it was replacing.

In article <qbp1lghhjo59qhmgt32pfj2lndncff3hav@4ax.com>,
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:10:28 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>
>>This site on The Register,
>>
>>https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call
>>
>>which updates every Friday and whose history now reaches back
>>into twenty pages,
>>
>>has anecdotes about clueless users, clueless trainees, terminally
>>clueless management, and even clueful expert help-desk wallahs who
>>sometimes can't see an obvious bug because it's too close to their nose.
>>Highly recommended.
>
>OTOH, I was sorely tempted to bust into the old computer center and
>IPL the old mainframe a few weeks ago because the new mainframe
>located in another state and not by us was not providing the same
>performance as the "antiquated" system it was replacing.

So I googled IPL and got pages and pages about Indian Premier
League, who apparently play cricket in, yes, India.
So I had to ask Hal, who couldn't make out what I was talking
about (my speech has gotten slurred recently, I see a neurologist
about it in December), so he had to come over and read your post.

Whereupon he said, "Oh, Initial Program Load. He wants to boot
it up."

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 11:54:30 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:35:43 -0400, Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com>
> wrote:
> >On 2021 Sep 25, John W Kennedy wrote
> >(in article<StSdnX9yYP6099L8...@giganews.com>):
> >
> >> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
> >> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
> >> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
> >> >
> >> > > On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >> > > > On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
> >> > > > > In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
> >> > > > > Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > > > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> >> > > > > > > Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
> >> > > > > > > https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
> >> > > > > > >
> >> > > > > > > What could go wrong ?
> >> > > > > >
> >> > > > > > I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
> >> > > > > > be funnier.
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
> >> > > > >
> >> > > > > I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
> >> > > > inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
> >> > > > night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
> >> > >
> >> > > This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
> >> > > something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
> >> > > minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
> >> >
> >> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
> >>
> >> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
> >> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
> >> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
> >> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
> >> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
> >
> >when I started it was with a dedicated 33.6k modem, connecting to a First
> >Class BBS. Then a 56k network modem, connect at first to the BBS, then to the
> >FTP site. Getting an internet connection paid for itself in savings from
> >long-distance charges pretty much instantly. Then we got broadband; 1.5M..
> >What had taken hours now took minutes at most. After a bit the FTP site was
> >replaced by a website. We got a faster broadband connection, and didn’t
> >care that the downloads grew to 20+ and even 30+ MB, gigantic files which
> >would have taken most of a day to download from the BBS. And oh, our _file
> >server_ had two 4 GB drives, so you had to be careful that you didn’t use
> >up your allocated space. Fortunately I was also in charge of the network, so
> >I could up my allocation if necessary.
> >
> >Nowadays I get more than 20 MB email in a morning and have allocated space on
> >the office system measured in tens or hundreds of GB; the office has a 300 M
> >connection, home has a 75 M connection. A 30 MB file would be both downloaded
> >in seconds and too small to be concerned about.
> It's taken a while but, with my 2GB hard drive and 2GB external, I've
> finally reached the point where a 30 MB file is indeed, too small to
> worry about.
>
> Twenty years ago I was counting every byte!

Are those units correct?

My 6 year old phone came with 32 GB.

Pt

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:30:23 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 11:54:30 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:35:43 -0400, Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On 2021 Sep 25, John W Kennedy wrote
>> >(in article<StSdnX9yYP6099L8...@giganews.com>):
>> >
>> >> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>> >> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>> >> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
>> >> >
>> >> > > On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >> > > > On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>> >> > > > > In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
>> >> > > > > Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > > > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >> > > > > > > Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>> >> > > > > > > https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>> >> > > > > > >
>> >> > > > > > > What could go wrong ?
>> >> > > > > >
>> >> > > > > > I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>> >> > > > > > be funnier.
>> >> > > > >
>> >> > > > > The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>> >> > > > >
>> >> > > > > I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>> >> > > >
>> >> > > > Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>> >> > > > inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>> >> > > > night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>> >> > >
>> >> > > This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>> >> > > something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>> >> > > minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>> >> >
>> >> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>> >>
>> >> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>> >> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>> >> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>> >> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>> >> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>> >
>> >when I started it was with a dedicated 33.6k modem, connecting to a First
>> >Class BBS. Then a 56k network modem, connect at first to the BBS, then to the
>> >FTP site. Getting an internet connection paid for itself in savings from
>> >long-distance charges pretty much instantly. Then we got broadband; 1.5M.
>> >What had taken hours now took minutes at most. After a bit the FTP site was
>> >replaced by a website. We got a faster broadband connection, and didn’t
>> >care that the downloads grew to 20+ and even 30+ MB, gigantic files which
>> >would have taken most of a day to download from the BBS. And oh, our _file
>> >server_ had two 4 GB drives, so you had to be careful that you didn’t use
>> >up your allocated space. Fortunately I was also in charge of the network, so
>> >I could up my allocation if necessary.
>> >
>> >Nowadays I get more than 20 MB email in a morning and have allocated space on
>> >the office system measured in tens or hundreds of GB; the office has a 300 M
>> >connection, home has a 75 M connection. A 30 MB file would be both downloaded
>> >in seconds and too small to be concerned about.
>> It's taken a while but, with my 2GB hard drive and 2GB external, I've
>> finally reached the point where a 30 MB file is indeed, too small to
>> worry about.
>>
>> Twenty years ago I was counting every byte!
>
>Are those units correct?
>
>My 6 year old phone came with 32 GB.

I suspect he means 2 TB.

On 9/26/2021 10:56 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
> At one point I owned a Winmodem.
>
> This worked really well under OS/2 -- at the slowest speed (1200?).
>
> I finally got real Windows 3.1 and tried it at a higher speed.
>
> It didn't work -- I got garbage when I downloaded.
>
> Microsoft Innovation is always a force to be feared.

And they did the same thing with printers. Didn't call them WinPrinters
though. I bought a Canon inkjet one loaded with features and could
handle tabloid size (11x17) paper.

And then about a year later MS removed the capability. Someone wrote a
driver for it but it only had about half the features.

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:10:28 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <qs51lgpd87abvjn8l5m1qhiv37ntq6potp@4ax.com>,
>Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:54:12 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <7d6c1664-b52d-4494-8027-92b5d1efde19n@googlegroups.com>,
>>>pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978.
>>>
>>>I had one of those, around the same time.
>>>
>>>>I soon after got
>>>>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200
>>baud model.
>>>
>>>Then I went to work for the Computer Center, and got a direct
>>>line to UNIX [N], one of several PDP 1170s down in the basement.
>>>One of those server rooms with a partition full of pigeonholes,
>>>where you could pick up your printout once it was done.
>>
>>The UW Computer Center was set up that way in the mid to late 60s.
>>
>>Only the Holy Priesthood of the Mighty Computer could actually enter
>>the computer room.
>
>Well, one can understand their reasoning.

I think the /main/ concern was that Dust might enter the Holy
Precincts. Which were closed off from the rest of the world and air
conditioned -- and I don't mean just kept cool.

But fear of users running wild was probably also a factor.

>This site on The Register,
>
>https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call
>
>which updates every Friday and whose history now reaches back
>into twenty pages,
>
>has anecdotes about clueless users, clueless trainees, terminally
>clueless management, and even clueful expert help-desk wallahs who
>sometimes can't see an obvious bug because it's too close to their nose.
>Highly recommended.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 22:12:17 -0500, "Jay E. Morris"
<morrisj@epsilon3.comcon> wrote:

>On 9/26/2021 10:56 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
>> At one point I owned a Winmodem.
>>
>> This worked really well under OS/2 -- at the slowest speed (1200?).
>>
>> I finally got real Windows 3.1 and tried it at a higher speed.
>>
>> It didn't work -- I got garbage when I downloaded.
>>
>> Microsoft Innovation is always a force to be feared.
>
>And they did the same thing with printers. Didn't call them WinPrinters
>though. I bought a Canon inkjet one loaded with features and could
>handle tabloid size (11x17) paper.
>
>And then about a year later MS removed the capability. Someone wrote a
>driver for it but it only had about half the features.

In the case of the modem, it was Windows that did all the fancy stuff.
The modem itself was quite ... ordinary ... without Windows doing all
the heavy lifting.

Or, rather, failing to do the heavy lifting. It was /very/
disappointing.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 22:25:25 -0400, J. Clarke
<jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:30:23 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
><petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 11:54:30 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 17:35:43 -0400, Wolffan <akwo...@zoho.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >On 2021 Sep 25, John W Kennedy wrote
>>> >(in article<StSdnX9yYP6099L8...@giganews.com>):
>>> >
>>> >> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>>> >> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>>> >> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
>>> >> >
>>> >> > > On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> >> > > > On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>>> >> > > > > In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
>>> >> > > > > Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> > > > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> >> > > > > > > Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>>> >> > > > > > > https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>>> >> > > > > > >
>>> >> > > > > > > What could go wrong ?
>>> >> > > > > >
>>> >> > > > > > I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>>> >> > > > > > be funnier.
>>> >> > > > >
>>> >> > > > > The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>>> >> > > > >
>>> >> > > > > I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>>> >> > > >
>>> >> > > > Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>>> >> > > > inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>>> >> > > > night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>>> >> > >
>>> >> > > This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>>> >> > > something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>>> >> > > minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>>> >>
>>> >> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>>> >> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>>> >> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>>> >> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>>> >> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>>> >
>>> >when I started it was with a dedicated 33.6k modem, connecting to a First
>>> >Class BBS. Then a 56k network modem, connect at first to the BBS, then to the
>>> >FTP site. Getting an internet connection paid for itself in savings from
>>> >long-distance charges pretty much instantly. Then we got broadband; 1.5M.
>>> >What had taken hours now took minutes at most. After a bit the FTP site was
>>> >replaced by a website. We got a faster broadband connection, and didn’t
>>> >care that the downloads grew to 20+ and even 30+ MB, gigantic files which
>>> >would have taken most of a day to download from the BBS. And oh, our _file
>>> >server_ had two 4 GB drives, so you had to be careful that you didn’t use
>>> >up your allocated space. Fortunately I was also in charge of the network, so
>>> >I could up my allocation if necessary.
>>> >
>>> >Nowadays I get more than 20 MB email in a morning and have allocated space on
>>> >the office system measured in tens or hundreds of GB; the office has a 300 M
>>> >connection, home has a 75 M connection. A 30 MB file would be both downloaded
>>> >in seconds and too small to be concerned about.
>>> It's taken a while but, with my 2GB hard drive and 2GB external, I've
>>> finally reached the point where a 30 MB file is indeed, too small to
>>> worry about.
>>>
>>> Twenty years ago I was counting every byte!
>>
>>Are those units correct?
>>
>>My 6 year old phone came with 32 GB.
>
>I suspect he means 2 TB.

Good catch! You are correct.

I may have stopped obsessing about file sizes, but that doesn't mean
I'm used to measuring memory in terabytes!
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 03:11:04 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, 25 September 2021 at 19:28:00 UTC+1, John W Kennedy wrote:
>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>> > On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>> > (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
>> >
>> >> On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >>> On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>> >>>> In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
>> >>>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> >>>>>> Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>> >>>>>> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> What could go wrong ?
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>> >>>>> be funnier.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>> >>>
>> >>> Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>> >>> inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>> >>> night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>> >>
>> >> This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>> >> something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>> >> minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>> >
>> > it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>
>My recollection is that "56kbps" was a theoretical
>data rate that only the best quality lines would get,
>and only by eliminating the analogue stage at the
>far end. And it was "only" the receive rate? Ah yes:
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#56_kbit/s_technologies>
>
>So I think I got around "40". (And is that 8 bits or
>10 bits in a byte? I don't remember.)

Depends, among other things, on how the error correction works.

Anybody remember when some modems /dropped the 8th bit/ because "it
was always 0"? You had to be /very/ careful in transferring binary
files. Including WordStar (remember WordStar?) files, which uses the
8th bit for markup.

Of course, then they developed the concept of "data type", allowing
you to specify whether you wanted the 8th bit actually transferred or
not (among, no doubt, other things).
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

In article <dio3lg5ia19cjau84apukuv7q23dg1slqh@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 18:10:28 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <qs51lgpd87abvjn8l5m1qhiv37ntq6potp@4ax.com>,
>>Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>>On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:54:12 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>>Heydt) wrote:
>>>
>>>>In article <7d6c1664-b52d-4494-8027-92b5d1efde19n@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>The first modem I used was a 110 baud acoustic coupler, 1978.
>>>>
>>>>I had one of those, around the same time.
>>>>
>>>>>I soon after got
>>>>>a 300 baud DC Hayes Micromodem ][ for my Apple ][+, and later a 1200
>>>baud model.
>>>>
>>>>Then I went to work for the Computer Center, and got a direct
>>>>line to UNIX [N], one of several PDP 1170s down in the basement.
>>>>One of those server rooms with a partition full of pigeonholes,
>>>>where you could pick up your printout once it was done.
>>>
>>>The UW Computer Center was set up that way in the mid to late 60s.
>>>
>>>Only the Holy Priesthood of the Mighty Computer could actually enter
>>>the computer room.
>>
>>Well, one can understand their reasoning.
>
>I think the /main/ concern was that Dust might enter the Holy
>Precincts. Which were closed off from the rest of the world and air
>conditioned -- and I don't mean just kept cool.

Ah, yes. I had a short-term job keypunching as a graduate
student. This was in the mid-60s, and the keypunch room was kept
at maybe 60 Fahrenheit? maybe lower? /shiver
>
>But fear of users running wild was probably also a factor.
>

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 5:35:15 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <qbp1lghhjo59qhmgt...@4ax.com>,
> J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >OTOH, I was sorely tempted to bust into the old computer center and
> >IPL the old mainframe a few weeks ago because the new mainframe
> >located in another state and not by us was not providing the same
> >performance as the "antiquated" system it was replacing.

> So I googled IPL and got pages and pages about Indian Premier
> League, who apparently play cricket in, yes, India.
> So I had to ask Hal, who couldn't make out what I was talking
> about (my speech has gotten slurred recently, I see a neurologist
> about it in December), so he had to come over and read your post.

> Whereupon he said, "Oh, Initial Program Load. He wants to boot
> it up."

Oh dear.

IBM used a whole different vocabulary for its computers than the
rest of the computer industry.

Thus, what we call a "hard disk" is a DASD (direct-access storage
device) on an IBM mainframe.

Today, four-core computers are commonplace. In the days of the
IBM mainframe, you could also connect two computers to work
together, sharing memory and peripherals. This was called a
"parallel sysplex" configuration.

As for IPL on an IBM mainframe, there were differences between
it and booting up a computer today.

One of today's computers will usually boot from the hard disk.
If, when it's turned on, there's a CD-ROM in the CD drive, or a
USB stick inserted - and, at one point, a floppy disk in the floppy
drive - it might boot from that, or you might have to go into the
BIOS screen to enable booting from those places.

On an IBM mainframe, things were still automated to an
extent, but not in quite the same way. After all, it wasn't a
_consumer_ product. While IBM mainframes came in
different sizes, with front panels arranged in different ways,
the part of the front panel that did IPL was the same on all
of them. (It was the only part the customer would usually
use; the rest was for IBM technicians in case the computer
broke down.)

There was a set of three knobs, each of which contained the
digits 0 through F. Or the digits 0 through 9, followed by
the letters A through F - the dials were for entering a three-digit
hexadecimal number.

This was the port for whatever device the computer was going
to IPL *from*. It could be a magnetic tape drive, a card reader,
or a (usually removable disk) hard drive.

Usually what happened was that the knobs were set for the
card reader on first installation, and then left to the hard
drive setting ever after.

John Savard

On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 9:30:15 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> I may have stopped obsessing about file sizes, but that doesn't mean
> I'm used to measuring memory in terabytes!

Well, the size of a hard disk is usually in terabytes. RAM is still in
gigabytes on all but very large servers.

John Savard

On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 7:35:48 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 5:35:15 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <qbp1lghhjo59qhmgt...@4ax.com>,
> > J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >OTOH, I was sorely tempted to bust into the old computer center and
> > >IPL the old mainframe a few weeks ago because the new mainframe
> > >located in another state and not by us was not providing the same
> > >performance as the "antiquated" system it was replacing.
>
> > So I googled IPL and got pages and pages about Indian Premier
> > League, who apparently play cricket in, yes, India.
>
> > So I had to ask Hal, who couldn't make out what I was talking
> > about (my speech has gotten slurred recently, I see a neurologist
> > about it in December), so he had to come over and read your post.
>
> > Whereupon he said, "Oh, Initial Program Load. He wants to boot
> > it up."

> Oh dear.

Incidentally, after reading about your predicament, I went to Google,
and typed in

ipl computer

and the first result I got was about "Initial Program Load", as were
some of the subsequent ones.

I also got a result about "Information Processing Language", though,
so this isn't a perfect strategy. But this is the sort of thing you can
try, if it's _that_ awkward to ask Hal.

John Savard

On 28/09/2021 01:34, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 03:11:04 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:
>
>> On Saturday, 25 September 2021 at 19:28:00 UTC+1, John W Kennedy wrote:
>>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>>>> On 2021 Sep 23, John W Kennedy wrote
>>>> (in article<nd6dnaYQqowNfNH8...@giganews.com>):
>>>>
>>>>> On 9/23/21 3:33 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/23/2021 2:24 PM, Ted Nolan<tednolan> wrote:
>>>>>>> In article<94ab98c9-ba17-4bac...@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>>>> Ross Presser <rpre...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:54:36 PM UTC-4, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Pearls Before Swine: Strip Layout
>>>>>>>>> https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2021/09/23
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> What could go wrong ?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I think if he'd randomized the order instead of just reversing, it'd
>>>>>>>> be funnier.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The premise sounds false, just in there to set up the joke.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I can't imagine that a full comic strip actually taxes a modern upload.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Berkeley Breathed used to hire a charter jet to send his weeks worth of
>>>>>> inked Bloom County strips from Austin, TX to New York City on Saturday
>>>>>> night for the Sunday newspapers from 1980 to 1989.
>>>>>
>>>>> This very strip is 5.4 MB. In 1980, on home equipment, it would take
>>>>> something like ten hours to upload. In 1990, about 12 and a half
>>>>> minutes. Today, of course, the time is humanly negligible.
>>>>
>>>> it took literal hours to FTP down 6 to 9 MB files in the mid 1990s.
>>> That would, of course, depend on the modem—but I see I was a little off
>>> on the timeline. 57,600-bps home modems were nearer the turn of the
>>> century than 1990. (I’m old enough to remember when speeds like that
>>> could be achieved only by leasing eight lines to run in parallel, and
>>> 2000-bps dial-up modems were the size of a toaster oven.)
>>
>> My recollection is that "56kbps" was a theoretical
>> data rate that only the best quality lines would get,
>> and only by eliminating the analogue stage at the
>> far end. And it was "only" the receive rate? Ah yes:
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#56_kbit/s_technologies>
>>
>> So I think I got around "40". (And is that 8 bits or
>> 10 bits in a byte? I don't remember.)
>
> Depends, among other things, on how the error correction works.
>
> Anybody remember when some modems /dropped the 8th bit/ because "it
> was always 0"? You had to be /very/ careful in transferring binary
> files. Including WordStar (remember WordStar?) files, which uses the
> 8th bit for markup.
>
> Of course, then they developed the concept of "data type", allowing
> you to specify whether you wanted the 8th bit actually transferred or
> not (among, no doubt, other things).
>
No, that wasn't in the modem, that was in the software used to transfer
files, which allowed you to pack 9 bytes into one octet, so it was that
little bit faster to transfer, but, of course, only accurate if the file
was 7-bit ASCII.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 5:35:15 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> (my speech has gotten slurred recently, I see a neurologist
> about it in December),

It's a pity you will have to wait that long; as that is seeing a specialist
in his office, and not elective surgery, I don't know if the pandemic has
anything to do with the delay.

I hope you get good news - i.e., a minor stroke, which either is unlikely
to be repeated, or which might be prevented by a prescription of some
anti-coagulant - and not bad news - like a brain tumor. Of course, I
don't know all that much about medicine, so there may be many other
possibilities.

John Savard

In article <95dd30eb-03d1-484f-b608-3f059121bf9bn@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Monday, September 27, 2021 at 7:35:48 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 5:35:15 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> > In article <qbp1lghhjo59qhmgt...@4ax.com>,
>> > J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > >OTOH, I was sorely tempted to bust into the old computer center and
>> > >IPL the old mainframe a few weeks ago because the new mainframe
>> > >located in another state and not by us was not providing the same
>> > >performance as the "antiquated" system it was replacing.
>>
>> > So I googled IPL and got pages and pages about Indian Premier
>> > League, who apparently play cricket in, yes, India.
>>
>> > So I had to ask Hal, who couldn't make out what I was talking
>> > about (my speech has gotten slurred recently, I see a neurologist
>> > about it in December), so he had to come over and read your post.
>>
>> > Whereupon he said, "Oh, Initial Program Load. He wants to boot
>> > it up."
>
>> Oh dear.
>
>Incidentally, after reading about your predicament, I went to Google,
>and typed in
>
>ipl computer
>
>and the first result I got was about "Initial Program Load", as were
>some of the subsequent ones.
>
>I also got a result about "Information Processing Language", though,
>so this isn't a perfect strategy. But this is the sort of thing you can
>try, if it's _that_ awkward to ask Hal.
>
Not awkward at all: that's what I do when google lets me down.
Hal spends most of his waking hours at his computer. which is
about six meters from mine. We don't even need voicemail.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/