On 2021-12-23 11:00, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 03:29:18PM +0000, Dr Iain Maoileoin wrote:
>>> Probably boomer doing math wrong.
>> I might get flamed for this comment, but is a number divided by a number not
>> arithmetic.?? I cant see any maths in there.
> That's just a language thing, lots of people in the US call arithmetic
> math. I'm 100% positive that that is not just me.
Classes in elementary grades are called "math classes" (but then there
is Serre's book).
N.
-tuhs +coff
On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 11:47 AM Dr Iain Maoileoin <
iain(a)csp-partnership.co.uk> wrote:
I totally agree. My question is about language use (or drift) - nothing
> else. In Scotland - amongst the young - "Arithmetic" is now referred
> to as "Maths". I am aware of the transition but cant understand what
> caused it to happen! I dont know if other countries had/have the same
> slide from a specific to a general - hence the questions - nothing deeper.
>
Language change is inexplicable in general. About all we know is that some
directions of change are more likely than others: we no more know *why*
language changes than we know *why* the laws of physics are what they are.
Both widening (_dog_ once meant 'mastiff') and narrowing (_deer_ once meant
'animal') are among the commonest forms of semantic change.
In particular, in the 19C _arithmetic_ meant 'number theory', and so the
part concerned with the computation of "ambition, distraction,
uglification, and derision" (Lewis Carroll) was _elementary arithmetic_.
(Before that it was _algorism_.) When _higher arithmetic_ got its own
name, the _elementary_ part was dropped in accordance with Grice's Maxim of
Quantity ("be as informative as you can, giving as much information as
necessary, but no more"). This did not happen to _algebra_, which still
can mean either elementary or abstract algebra, still less to _geometry_.
In addition, from the teacher's viewpoint school mathematics is a
continuum, including the elementary parts of arithmetic, algebra, geometry,
trigonometry, and in recent times probability theory and statistics, for
which there is no name other than _ mathematics_ when taken collectively.
> In lower secondary school we would go to both Arithmetic AND also to
> Maths classes.
>
What was taught in the latter?
-tuhs +coff
On Wed, Dec 22, 2021 at 1:30 AM <jason-tuhs(a)shalott.net> wrote:
> As a vendor or distributor, you would care. Anyone doing an OS or other
> software distribution (think the BSDs, of course;
There is no legal reason why the BSDs can't distribute GPLed software;
indeed, they did so for many years. Their objection is purely ideological.
> but also think Apple or
> Microsoft) needs to care.
Apple and Microsoft can buy up, outspend, out-lawyer, or just outwait
anyone suing them for infringement. Their only reasons for not doing so
are reputational.
> Anyone selling a hardware device with embedded
> software (think switches/routers; think IOT devices; think consumer
> devices like DVRs; etc) needs to care.
Only if they are determined to infringe. Obeying the GPL's rules (most
often for BusyBox) is straightforward, and the vast majority of infringers
(per the FSF's legal team) are not aware that they have done anything wrong
and are willing to comply once notified, which cures the defect (much less
of a penalty than for most infringements). The ex-infringers do not seem
to consider this a serious competitive disadvantage. GPL licensors are
generous sharers, but you have to be willing to share yourself.
I saw this dynamic in action while working for Reuters; we were licensing
our health-related news to websites, and I would occasionally google for
fragments of our articles. When I found one on a site I didn't recognize,
I'd pass the website to Sales, who would sweetly point out that
infringement could cost them up to $15,000 per article, and for a very
reasonable price.... They were happy to sign up once they were made aware
that just because something is available on the Internet doesn't mean you
can republish it on your site.
GPL (or similar "virally"
> licensed) software carries legal implications for anyone selling or
> distributing products that contain such software; and this can be a
> motivation to use software with less-restrictive license terms.
Only to the victims of FUD. Reusing source code is one thing: repackaging
programs is another.
I'll say no more about this here.
MacOS finally pushed me to zsh. So I went all the way and installed
oh-my-zsh. It makes me feel very dirty, and I have a two-line prompt (!!),
but I can't deny it's convenient.
tickets/DM-32983 ✗
adam@m1-wired:~/git/jenkins-dm-jobs$
(and in my terminal, the X glyph next to my git branch showing the status
is dirty is red while the branch name is green)
and if something doesn't exit with rc=0...
adam@m1-wired:~/git/jenkins-dm-jobs$ fart
zsh: command not found: fart
tickets/DM-32983 ✗127 ⚠️
adam@m1-wired:~/git/jenkins-dm-jobs$
Then I also get the little warning glyph and the rc of the last command in
my prompt.
But then I'm also now using Fira Code with ligatures in my terminal, so
I've pretty much gone full Red Lightsaber.
Adam
On Wed, Dec 22, 2021 at 7:41 AM Norman Wilson <norman(a)oclsc.org> wrote:
> Thomas Paulsen:
>
> bash is clearly more advanced. ksh is retro computing.
>
> ====
>
> Shell wars are, in the end, no more interesting than editor wars.
>
> I use bash on Linux systems because it's the least-poorly
> supported of the Bourne-family shells, besides which bash
> is there by default. Ksh isn't.
>
> I use ksh on OpenBSD systems because it's the least-poorly
> supported of the Bourne-family shells, besides which kh
> is there by default. Bash isn't.
>
> I don't actually care for most of the extra crap in either
> of those shells. I don't want my shell to do line editing
> or auto-completion, and I find the csh-derived history
> mechanisms more annoying than useful so I turn them off
> too. To my mind, the Research 10/e sh had it about right,
> including the simple way functions were exported and the
> whatis built-in that told you whether something was a
> variable or a shell function or an external executable,
> and printed the first two in forms easily edited on the
> screen and re-used.
>
> Terminal programs that don't let you easily edit input
> or output from the screen and re-send it, and programs
> that abet them by spouting gratuitous ANSI control
> sequences: now THAT's what I call retro-computing.
>
> Probably further discussion of any of this belongs in
> COFF.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>
Chalk this up to "pointless hack" but I know many COFF readers (and
presumably some multicians) are also ham radio enthusiasts, so perhaps some
folks will find this interesting. I have succeeded in what I suspect may be
a first: providing a direct interface from AX.25 amateur packet radio
connections to a Multics installation (and TOPS-20).
I've been interested in packet radio for a while and have run an AX.25
station at home for some time, and I have configured things so that
incoming radio connections to a particular SSID proxy into telnet to a Unix
machine on my AMPRNet subnet. I don't run the traditional AX.25 "node"
software, but can log directly into a timesharing machine in my basement,
which is pretty cool.
Some recent upgrades provided an opportunity for a project interfacing
"retro" computer instances with packet radio. AX.25 is a slow medium: 1200
BAUD (this is on 2m) packed switched over a high-loss, high-latency RF
path. While my Unix machine does all right, it occurs to me that systems
designed in the teletype era might actually be better suited to that kind
of communications channel.
So I set up a DPS8/M emulator and configured the packet node to forward an
SSID to Multics. After some tweaking to clean up a bizarre number of ASCII
NUL characters coming from the emulator (I suspect a bug there; I'm going
to email those folks about that), things are working pretty well: I can
connect into the system interactively and even use qedx to write PL/1
programs. To my knowledge, no one has done this with Multics before. A
small session transcript follows at the end of this message (sorry, no
PL/1). It's not fast, so one definitely comes to appreciate the brevity of
expression in the interface.
While I was at it, I also installed TOPS-20 on an emulated DECSYSTEM-20 and
got it talking over AX.25 as well. Now, I'd like to set up an interface
reminiscent of a PAD or TIP allowing access to all of these machines,
muxing a single SSID. Sadly I have no idea what the user interface for
those things looked like: if anyone has pointers I can use to craft some
software, I'd be happy to hear about it!
Pointless perhaps, but fun!
- Dan C.
PS: I'm happy to set folks up with accounts, if they'd like. Shoot me an
email with your call sign. If you're in the greater Boston area, try KZ2X-1
and KX2X-3 on 145.090 MHz.
###CONNECTED TO NODE BROCK(W1MV-7) CHANNEL A
Welcome to BROCK (W1MV-7) in Brockton, Mass
ENTER COMMAND: B,C,J,N, or Help ? C KZ2X-3
###LINK MADE
Trying 44.44.107.8...
Connected to sim.kz2x.ampr.org.
Escape character is 'off'.
HSLA Port
(d.h001,d.h002,d.h003,d.h004,d.h005,d.h006,d.h007,d.h008,d.h009,d.h010,d.h011,d.h012,d.h013,d.h014,d.h015,d.h016,d.h017,d.h018,d.h019,d.h020
,d.h021,d.h022,d.h023,d.h024,d.h025,d.h026,d.h027,d.h028,d.h029,d.h030,d.h031)?
Attached to line d.h001
Multics MR12.7: KZ2X Multics (Channel d.h001)
Load = 6.0 out of 90.0 units: users = 6, 12/21/21 1718.0 est Tue
login KZ2X
Password:
You are protected from preemption until 17:18.
KZ2X.Ham logged in 12/21/21 1718.6 est Tue from ASCII terminal "none".
Last login 12/21/21 1717.0 est Tue from ASCII terminal "none".
No mail.
r 17:18 0.376 54
ls
Segments = 5, Lengths = 4.
r w 1 KZ2X.profile
r w 1 start_up.ec
r w 1 hello.pl1
0 KZ2X.mbx
r w 1 KZ2X.value
r 17:19 0.022 0
who -a -lg
Multics MR12.7; KZ2X Multics
Load = 7.0 out of 90.0 units; users = 7, 2 interactive, 5 daemons.
Absentee users = 0 background; Max background absentee users = 3
System up since 12/21/21 0922.8 est Tue
Last shutdown was at 12/21/21 0917.8 est Tue
Login at TTY Load User ID
12/21/21 09:22 cord 1.0 IO.SysDaemon
09:22 bk 1.0 Backup.SysDaemon
09:22 prta 1.0 IO.SysDaemon
09:22 ut 1.0 Utility.SysDaemon
09:22 vinc 1.0 Volume_Dumper.Daemon
16:41 none 1.0 Cross.SysEng
17:18 none 1.0 KZ2X.Ham
r 17:19 0.036 0
logout
KZ2X.Ham logged out 12/21/21 1722.9 est Tue
CPU usage 0 sec, memory usage 0.2 units, cost $0.12.
###DISCONNECTED BY KZ2X-3 AT NODE BROCK
OK, this is my last _civil_ request to stop email-bombing both lists with
trafic. In the future, I will say publicly _exactly_ what I think - and if
screens still had phosphor, it would probably peel it off.
I can see that there are cases when one might validly want to post to both
lists - e.g. when starting a new discusson. However, one of the two should
_always_ be BCC'd, so that simple use of reply won't generate a copy to
both. I would suggest that one might say something like 'this discussion is
probably best continued on the <foo> list' - which could be seeded by BCCing
the _other_.
Thank you.
Noel
Probably time to move this to COFF, but
along the line of Fission for Program Comprehension....
I wonder how many of you don't know about Don Lancaster.
Pioneer in home computing back when that meant something, inventor of a
very low cost 1970s video terminal (the TV Typewriter), tremendously
skilled hacker, brilliant guy.
Also still alive, lives a couple hours away from me in Safford, AZ, and has
been doing fantastic research on Native American hanging canals for the
last couple decades.
Anyway: he wrote a magnificent piece on how to understand a (6502) program
from its disassembly, which reminded me of Gibbons's work:
https://www.tinaja.com/ebooks/tearing_rework.pdf
I don't think Don ever had a lot of crossover with the more academic world
of Unix people, but he's one of my heroes and I have learned a hell of a
lot from his works.
Adam
The ARPAnet reached four nodes on this day in 1969; at least one "history"
site reckoned the third node was connected in 1977 (and I'm still waiting
for a reply to my correction). Well, I can believe that perhaps there
were only three left by then...
According to my notes, the nodes were UCSB, UCLA, SRI, and Utah.
-- Dave
In keeping with the list charters, I'm moving this to COFF.
On Thursday, 2 December 2021 at 11:30:35 -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 2, 2021 at 12:45 AM Henry Bent <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Byte article (the scan of which I am very grateful for; not having to
>> go trawling through the stacks at the Oberlin College library is always a
>> plus) claims that the tools have been implemented on:
>>
>> Tandem
>
> That would be me; at least I registered it with Addison-Wesley,
> although someone else may have implemented it independently.
I recall something about this, but I didn't find very much in my
collection of old email messages. The most promising was:
Date: 87-11-06 09:47
From: LEHEY_GREG
To: ANDERSON_KEN @CTS
Subject: ?? Is there a "make"-like utility for Tandem ??
In Reply to: 87-11-05 18:59 FROM ANDERSON_KEN @CTS
3:?? Is there a "make"-like utility for Tandem ??
No, but I'd LOVE to have one. Ask Dick Thomas - in his spare time, he
converts software tools to Tandem.
Did you have contact with Dick?
Greg
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