In article <64736edc-2e80-4ee7-b2bb-cf4229eec27en@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>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
^^^ her
>anything to do with the delay.

I get the impression that she is very, very good, and therefore
very, very busy.

>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

To the best of my knowledge, the closest thing I've ever had to a
stroke was a TIA on my right optic nerve, twenty years ao or
thereabouts. The vision out of that eye is pretty lousy.

Meg's friend Aldith suggested it might have been a series
of mini-strokes--which if it was, I never noticed them. Meg's
friend is not a doctor: she's a banker.

But my endocrinologist, who referred me to the neurologist, let
the phrase "myasthenis gravis" pass her lips, which if true would
be *good* news. There are treatments for MG, which so far there
aren't for CFS.

I would really like to get stronger: to be able to walk to the
bathroom without holding onto a piece of furniture with every
step, lest I fall. Then maybe I could start cataloguing and
boxing seventy zillion books, in preparation for moving out
of Vallejo next summer, which will also require cleaning the
house.

>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.

I once got shooting pains in my fingers and toes. Fearing a
brain tumor, I visited my doctor, who said calmly, "It's diabetic
neuropathy. I've been expecting you to develop diabetes, because
of your weight." It was a considerable relief. And I put the
incident into a story.

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

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 21:54:12 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) 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.
>
That definitely brings back memories as well as the DECwriter
terminal/printers.

Later as a graduate TA I had agonies when I was facing my own masters'
level projects taking forever due to 50+ undergrads submitting their
Waterloo Basic programs on the VAX 11/780.... to the point I found out
when their exam schedule was and insured I was in the data center the
entire period of their exams. Commands that were taking 1/2 hour to
execute the previous day were taking under a second.....

(we're talking early 1980s here)

On Sun, 26 Sep 2021 08:55:10 -0700, Paul S Person
<psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:

>Only the Holy Priesthood of the Mighty Computer could actually enter
>the computer room.

While they would never risk it during 9-5 the evening computer
operator commonly kept a case of beer under the floor tile directly
under the air conditioner during the summer months.

(Wink wink nudge nudge since booze was strictlly verboten on the
premises....)

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 1:15:25 AM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <64736edc-2e80-4ee7...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >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
> ^^^ her
> >anything to do with the delay.
> I get the impression that she is very, very good, and therefore
> very, very busy.
> >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
> To the best of my knowledge, the closest thing I've ever had to a
> stroke was a TIA on my right optic nerve, twenty years ao or
> thereabouts. The vision out of that eye is pretty lousy.
>
> Meg's friend Aldith suggested it might have been a series
> of mini-strokes--which if it was, I never noticed them. Meg's
> friend is not a doctor: she's a banker.
>
> But my endocrinologist, who referred me to the neurologist, let
> the phrase "myasthenis gravis" pass her lips, which if true would
> be *good* news. There are treatments for MG, which so far there
> aren't for CFS.
>
> I would really like to get stronger: to be able to walk to the
> bathroom without holding onto a piece of furniture with every
> step, lest I fall. Then maybe I could start cataloguing and
> boxing seventy zillion books, in preparation for moving out
> of Vallejo next summer, ....

....to your space habitat, like Heinlein's Waldo? :)

> which will also require cleaning the house.
> >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.
> I once got shooting pains in my fingers and toes. Fearing a
> brain tumor, I visited my doctor, who said calmly, "It's diabetic
> neuropathy. I've been expecting you to develop diabetes, because
> of your weight." It was a considerable relief. And I put the
> incident into a story.
> --
>

Seriously, I hope your specialist can ameliorate your problem
and improve your day-to-day health.

--
Kevin R

In article <7fd45582-a921-4f3e-89f7-c4f25ff04bf3n@googlegroups.com>,
Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 1:15:25 AM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> I would really like to get stronger: to be able to walk to the
>> bathroom without holding onto a piece of furniture with every
>> step, lest I fall. Then maybe I could start cataloguing and
>> boxing seventy zillion books, in preparation for moving out
>> of Vallejo next summer, ....
>
>...to your space habitat, like Heinlein's Waldo? :)

That story crosses my mind on a regular basis. But Waldo lived
in his space habitat because there was no treatment for MG in
1942, when Heinlein wrote the story (and I was born, so that I
read the story much later than that). I want to go back to the
East Bay and live on the flats. Vallejo has too damn many hills,
and we currently live atop one of them.

The ground-level of the house (an in-law apartment, where Hal and
I hang out) is ten concrete steps, with no hand-rail, and to get
down them I have to descent on my behind, one step at a time, and
then get into the wheelchair with the help of Hal, Meg, or
Walkyr.

To get back *up*, I have to ascend on my behind, with one of the
abovenamed sturdy adults lifting under each armpit.

So it's an ordeal, and I wish it would go away ... or failing
that, that we could get into a place on the flats, accessed by a
ramp.

>> which [living in zero-G, like Waldo] will also require cleaning
the house.

It would also require a lot of tech (which Waldo had) and a lot
of money (which he also had).

>Seriously, I hope your specialist can ameliorate your problem
>and improve your day-to-day health.

Thank you for the good wishes. I hope so too.

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

On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>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.

For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.

And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
time.

I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 13:31:06 +1000, "Gary R. Schmidt"
<grschmidt@acm.org> wrote:

>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.

Depending, I would suspect, on what bells and whistles a given modem
had.

But you are basically correct -- the modem at its most basic just
tranmitted/received the bits.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:37:51 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >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.
> For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.
>
> And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
> time.
>
> I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
> them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.

Ack around 1993, I was working at MITRE. One day an email was
sent around from the IT department to the effect they had filled
enough racks with HDs to amount to 2Tb of storage, and groups
were invited to submit proposals for projects which could benefit
from such an astronomical data store.

Today, that would fit in the palm of my hand, and cost under $200.

Pt

On 29/09/21 5:27 am, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:37:51 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> 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.
>> For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.
>>
>> And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
>> time.
>>
>> I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
>> them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.

That is like saying, "I don't actually own a lot of analog movies, but I
bet a /lot/ of them would fit just fine in a long tall bookcase.".
Digital movies vary in size* and are usually expressed in gigabytes so
the number that would fit into 2TB would be very small in such terms,
probably less than 2KB. Whether that is a /lot/ of bookcase is debatable
but probably not worthy of so being.

*Avatar was over a Terabyte.

> Ack around 1993, I was working at MITRE. One day an email was
> sent around from the IT department to the effect they had filled
> enough racks with HDs to amount to 2Tb of storage, and groups
> were invited to submit proposals for projects which could benefit
> from such an astronomical data store.
>
> Today, that would fit in the palm of my hand, and cost under $200.

I can reminisce about the good old newsgroup days when some of the
veterans would wonder at the seventeen Zettabyte capability of the new
zphone currently on special at ExploiterMart for $7.95c.
Oh, those were simpler times!
(And of course that was long before the medical miracle, since lost,
that gave our permanent leader, beloved Donald, immortality.)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:48:00 +1300, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote:

>On 29/09/21 5:27 am, pete...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:37:51 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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.
>>> For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.
>>>
>>> And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
>>> time.
>>>
>>> I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
>>> them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.
>
>That is like saying, "I don't actually own a lot of analog movies, but I
>bet a /lot/ of them would fit just fine in a long tall bookcase.".
>Digital movies vary in size* and are usually expressed in gigabytes so
>the number that would fit into 2TB would be very small in such terms,
>probably less than 2KB. Whether that is a /lot/ of bookcase is debatable
>but probably not worthy of so being.
>
>*Avatar was over a Terabyte.

I suspect that you are describing HD. I am thinking SD.

I download rentals onto my HD6 regularly. Most are (IIRC) under 1 GB.
Only a few have reached 1GB (the largest I recall was 1.1GB). Some
are half that.

Well, with a 2.5 Mbps DSL connection they couldn't download in a
reasonable time if they were really large, now could they. Note that
this are Amazon SD rentals, which stream just fine (except for the odd
bit of netword congestion). In fact, when I first checked streaming
from Amazon out, they were claiming 0.99 Mbps would work (for SD).

But, even at 1 GB, 2TB would be about 2048 movies. My current DVD
collection contains 1155 programs, so I suspect that would be more
than adequate.

And, if it weren't, I could always add another 2TB external drive!
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 09:27:38 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:37:51 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>> >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.
>> For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.
>>
>> And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
>> time.
>>
>> I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
>> them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.
>
> Ack around 1993, I was working at MITRE. One day an email was
>sent around from the IT department to the effect they had filled
>enough racks with HDs to amount to 2Tb of storage, and groups
>were invited to submit proposals for projects which could benefit
>from such an astronomical data store.
>
>Today, that would fit in the palm of my hand, and cost under $200.

Heck, in 2014 a 2TB My Passport Ultra external portable HD cost
$153.28 including tax.

OK, it uses a USB 3.0 cable to connect to its host.

For a movie library, I would probably want something more like a
network-connected device, so I could stream the film directly to the
player (or the TV -- speaking theoretically, as my current TV is far
too old for such things). That might pump the price up a bit.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at 11:59:30 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 09:27:38 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:37:51 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
> >> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> >> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> >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.
> >> For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.
> >>
> >> And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
> >> time.
> >>
> >> I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
> >> them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.
> >
> > Ack around 1993, I was working at MITRE. One day an email was
> >sent around from the IT department to the effect they had filled
> >enough racks with HDs to amount to 2Tb of storage, and groups
> >were invited to submit proposals for projects which could benefit
> >from such an astronomical data store.
> >
> >Today, that would fit in the palm of my hand, and cost under $200.
> Heck, in 2014 a 2TB My Passport Ultra external portable HD cost
> $153.28 including tax.
>
> OK, it uses a USB 3.0 cable to connect to its host.
>
> For a movie library, I would probably want something more like a
> network-connected device, so I could stream the film directly to the
> player (or the TV -- speaking theoretically, as my current TV is far
> too old for such things). That might pump the price up a bit.

I outsource that stuff to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.

pt

On 9/25/2021 1:27 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
> 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.)

Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
(University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
(no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.

Lynn

On Wed, 29 Sep 2021 15:49:25 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

>Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
>(University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
>Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
>(no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
>drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.
>
And then there was that FORTRAN StarTrek program I wasted hours and
hours on to the extent that the guy in the data center decided he
should gift me a printed source listing (it was about 1" thick) - not
even a tape or ticker tape version (which were used at the time for
transmitting source code - we're talking late 1970s here)

Am still trying to figure out what he was thinking of though I did
improve my FORTRAN skills by reading the code which at that time I
thought was quite well written.

I remember being SO impressed with how they implemented the Tholian
web.....

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>On 9/25/2021 1:27 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:

>> 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.)
>
>Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
>(University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
>Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
>(no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
>drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.

That device is typically referred to as a 'Remote Job Entry' (RJE) station;
not a terminal; an RJE station would multiplex the card reader and
line printer (and optionally an operator station)traffic over a single bisynchronous
data communications line.

An eight-line 4800 baud modem in 1975 seems a bit early (and would be
quite expensive, and only a single line would be required for the RJE
station).

On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 8:41:36 AM UTC-6, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> An eight-line 4800 baud modem in 1975 seems a bit early (and would be
> quite expensive, and only a single line would be required for the RJE
> station).

Maybe what is meant is eight phone lines, each with a 600-baud modem
on it, in order to obtain the total capacity of 4,800 baud which an RJE
station would require?

That would satisfy both the "early" and "excessive" objections.

John Savard

On Wed, 29 Sep 2021 10:07:47 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at 11:59:30 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Tue, 28 Sep 2021 09:27:38 -0700 (PDT), "pete...@gmail.com"
>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Tuesday, September 28, 2021 at 11:37:51 AM UTC-4, Paul S Person wrote:
>> >> On Mon, 27 Sep 2021 18:37:13 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> >> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >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.
>> >> For users, I suspect, only in the last decade or so.
>> >>
>> >> And my experience suggests that 2TB will do users for a long. long
>> >> time.
>> >>
>> >> I don't actually own a lot of digital movies, but I bet a /lot/ of
>> >> them would fit just fine on a 2TB external drive.
>> >
>> > Ack around 1993, I was working at MITRE. One day an email was
>> >sent around from the IT department to the effect they had filled
>> >enough racks with HDs to amount to 2Tb of storage, and groups
>> >were invited to submit proposals for projects which could benefit
>> >from such an astronomical data store.
>> >
>> >Today, that would fit in the palm of my hand, and cost under $200.
>> Heck, in 2014 a 2TB My Passport Ultra external portable HD cost
>> $153.28 including tax.
>>
>> OK, it uses a USB 3.0 cable to connect to its host.
>>
>> For a movie library, I would probably want something more like a
>> network-connected device, so I could stream the film directly to the
>> player (or the TV -- speaking theoretically, as my current TV is far
>> too old for such things). That might pump the price up a bit.
>
>I outsource that stuff to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.

Which is fine -- as long as you are satisfied with watching the movies
/they/ want to show you.

This is a perpetual conflict -- between those who want to see /their/
movies or hear /their/ music vs those who want to see movies or hear
music chosen by somebody else.

BTW, do any of those allow you to see each and every Bond film
(including the original /Casino Royale/ and /Never Say Never Again/)
or do they only have some of them at any one time?

The advantage to owning is that what you want is /always/ available.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Thursday, 30 September 2021 at 16:56:19 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 8:41:36 AM UTC-6, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
> > An eight-line 4800 baud modem in 1975 seems a bit early (and would be
> > quite expensive, and only a single line would be required for the RJE
> > station).
> Maybe what is meant is eight phone lines, each with a 600-baud modem
> on it, in order to obtain the total capacity of 4,800 baud which an RJE
> station would require?
>
> That would satisfy both the "early" and "excessive" objections.

There remains the quibble that "baud" is not
strictly equivalent to "bits per second".
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud>

For instance, if I play one keyboard note per second,
one white key in the range low C to high C, that's
1 baud but 3 bits per second, because one note
encodes three bits.

I think Lynn is claiming one modem using 8 phone
lines: I never heard of that but I would assume that
signals go down each line simultaneously, which
makes it one signal on eight lines.

On 9/29/21 4:49 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> On 9/25/2021 1:27 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
>> 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.)
>
> Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
> (University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
> Dallas (we were in Houston).  Our terminal had an integrated card reader
> (no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer.  No teletype or tape
> drive though (IIRC).  It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.

Technically, “baud” doesn’t translate into bps. “Baud” is the number of
boops and beeps per second. If, for example, there is a set of four
possible signals (boop, bop, bip, beep), then 100 baud carries 200 bps.

Not that people didn’t used to make the mistake all the time, including
yours truly.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

On 9/30/21 10:41 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>> On 9/25/2021 1:27 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
>>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>
>>> 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.)
>>
>> Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
>> (University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
>> Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
>> (no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
>> drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.
>
> That device is typically referred to as a 'Remote Job Entry' (RJE) station;
> not a terminal; an RJE station would multiplex the card reader and
> line printer (and optionally an operator station)traffic over a single bisynchronous
> data communications line.
>
> An eight-line 4800 baud modem in 1975 seems a bit early (and would be
> quite expensive, and only a single line would be required for the RJE
> station).

You could get as much as 57,600 over eight lines by the late 60s (and we
called it “broadband”). But such speeds were normally used only for
computer-to-computer links. What with space compression, other forms of
compression, and six-bit codes without lower case, RJE stations
generally needed only 9600 to keep running at capacity.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

On 9/28/2021 12:01 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <64736edc-2e80-4ee7-b2bb-cf4229eec27en@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> 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
> ^^^ her
>> anything to do with the delay.
>
> I get the impression that she is very, very good, and therefore
> very, very busy.
>
>> 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
>
> To the best of my knowledge, the closest thing I've ever had to a
> stroke was a TIA on my right optic nerve, twenty years ao or
> thereabouts. The vision out of that eye is pretty lousy.
>
> Meg's friend Aldith suggested it might have been a series
> of mini-strokes--which if it was, I never noticed them. Meg's
> friend is not a doctor: she's a banker.
>
> But my endocrinologist, who referred me to the neurologist, let
> the phrase "myasthenis gravis" pass her lips, which if true would
> be *good* news. There are treatments for MG, which so far there
> aren't for CFS.

My 81 year old uncle has MG. And Diabetes. The two do not mix very
well. The steroids used to treat the MG counteract his insulin shots.
My aunt took him into the ER when he lost his vision one weekend after a
MG treatment, his blood sugar was 600. So when he is taking steroids
for MG, they now double his thrice ??? daily insulin shots.

Lynn

On 9/30/2021 9:41 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>> On 9/25/2021 1:27 PM, John W Kennedy wrote:
>>> On 9/24/21 3:22 PM, Wolffan wrote:
>
>>> 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.)
>>
>> Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
>> (University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
>> Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
>> (no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
>> drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.
>
> That device is typically referred to as a 'Remote Job Entry' (RJE) station;
> not a terminal; an RJE station would multiplex the card reader and
> line printer (and optionally an operator station)traffic over a single bisynchronous
> data communications line.
>
> An eight-line 4800 baud modem in 1975 seems a bit early (and would be
> quite expensive, and only a single line would be required for the RJE
> station).

Thanks for the RJE nomenclature. I wish I could find a picture of the
device, it was impressive. I have no idea if it was made by Univac or not.

The 4800 baud modem was the size of a dorm refrigerator and weighed
about 80 lbs or so. It was connected to eight leased phone lines
between Houston and Dallas. We never turned it on/off, it was always
connected.

Lynn

On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 8:38:36 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> writes:

> >> Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
> >> (University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
> >> Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
> >> (no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
> >> drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.

> Thanks for the RJE nomenclature. I wish I could find a picture of the
> device, it was impressive. I have no idea if it was made by Univac or not.

I made an attempt to find an image of an RJE terminal made by Univac,
so that I could post a link, and you could say if it resembled what yo
remembered.

If it looked like "something straight out of Star Trek", then it is likely to
have been made by Univac, as the styling of their computer peripherals
was often quite futuristic-looking. One distinctive thing is that their
keyboards often had keys that had a white top with black printing on
a key that was black - the keys being spaced apart, going vertically
from their tops, instead of flaring out from the tops like common
typewriter keys, the way IBM did it.

John Savard

On 10/1/2021 2:11 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 8:38:36 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>>> Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
>>>> (University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
>>>> Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
>>>> (no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
>>>> drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.
>
>> Thanks for the RJE nomenclature. I wish I could find a picture of the
>> device, it was impressive. I have no idea if it was made by Univac or not.
>
> I made an attempt to find an image of an RJE terminal made by Univac,
> so that I could post a link, and you could say if it resembled what yo
> remembered.
>
> If it looked like "something straight out of Star Trek", then it is likely to
> have been made by Univac, as the styling of their computer peripherals
> was often quite futuristic-looking. One distinctive thing is that their
> keyboards often had keys that had a white top with black printing on
> a key that was black - the keys being spaced apart, going vertically
> from their tops, instead of flaring out from the tops like common
> typewriter keys, the way IBM did it.
>
> John Savard

You would think that a marketing brochure would have survived.

I need to ask Dad where he got the RJE terminal from. Probably UCC gave
it to us, we and our customers were their number one customer from 1975
? to 1979 or 1980. Dad bought a Prime 450 in 1978 ? with six user
terminals and our UCC usage dropped significantly. But our customers
used UCC for quite a while into the 1980s. Also UCS and another
mainframe time sharing service that I cannot remember.

Lynn

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:
>On 10/1/2021 2:11 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 8:38:36 PM UTC-6, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>>>> Dad had an eight line 4,800 baud (bps) modem in 1975 when UCC
>>>>> (University Computing Company) moved their Univac 1108 from Houston to
>>>>> Dallas (we were in Houston). Our terminal had an integrated card reader
>>>>> (no card punch) and a 100 line per minute printer. No teletype or tape
>>>>> drive though (IIRC). It looked like something straight out of Star Trek.
>>
>>> Thanks for the RJE nomenclature. I wish I could find a picture of the
>>> device, it was impressive. I have no idea if it was made by Univac or not.
>>
>> I made an attempt to find an image of an RJE terminal made by Univac,
>> so that I could post a link, and you could say if it resembled what yo
>> remembered.
>>
>> If it looked like "something straight out of Star Trek", then it is likely to
>> have been made by Univac, as the styling of their computer peripherals
>> was often quite futuristic-looking. One distinctive thing is that their
>> keyboards often had keys that had a white top with black printing on
>> a key that was black - the keys being spaced apart, going vertically
>> from their tops, instead of flaring out from the tops like common
>> typewriter keys, the way IBM did it.
>>
>> John Savard
>
>You would think that a marketing brochure would have survived.
>
>I need to ask Dad where he got the RJE terminal from. Probably UCC gave

I suspect it was one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDS_2400