Posts by Nigel 11

Implied do loops

Hmmm. Whats wrong with a clear syntax that avoids several extra lines of code, that lets you access data files that aren't in the natural order for the program in one concise line? e.g.

READ( 10,*) (A(I), B(I), I=N, 1, -1)

where you've got quantity N data pairs and you want them in two arrays in the opposite order to how some other program stored them?

A similar concept, properly generalised, was fairly recently added to Python. ("List Comprehensions")

Re: Showing my age ..

For added points, name the other signals on a full D25 modem cable. For Guru-hood, work out why the full 25-pin modem won't talk to the full 25-pin modem connector on the mainframe.

Re: Anderson connectors

Along those lines, does the 1000-amp-plus 12V car battery connector have a name? The modern one that goes around the post and tightens with a wrench? (It works). Or the ancient Lucas twelve-clawed one that was supposed to push on and tighten with a thumbwheel on top, which would corrode itself into an unfortunate combination of immovability and high resistance within a year of fitting a new battery?

Re: F---ing SCSI connectors

And for proper wake-in-the-night-sweating nightmares: SCSI

You're obviously too young to remember the connector on a Digital Massbus(TM) disk cable. SCSI was a sweet dream by comparison.

The aforesaid cable was about 40mm in diameter. I think one of them once featured in a Star Trek episode, strangling a crewman by telekinesis.

Re: Missing are

What about a vampire tap kit for an old thicknet Ethernet?

Re: #3 - terminal blocks

I raise you a well-cooked mouse that had inserted its head into the fan on an (old, hot) Opteron server.

I never could convince myself that there was any hole in the chassis large enough for that mouse to squeeze through. I do hope that the poor wee squeaker's neck was broken by the fan, otherwise it was a horrible death.

Re: Mumbai Multiway

Having electricity isn't the amazing thing. Not dying by it is!

Strip and twist

Would you believe 100Mbit server networking down a stripped and twisted cable? (and does it work with newfangled Gbit? I've never tried).

Well, what would you do at 4am, when you discover that you have to connect the server to a switch 13m away from the rack and you have only 10m cables and shorter?

It was working the next morning and the strip-twisted cable assembly was swapped as soon as possible the next day.

Re: Lost the plot

NUC isn't intended for embedded at all. If for anything, it's for the Mac Mini market. See my post above re GA-C1037UN-EU for details of a PC board that is easy to run off a vehicle 12V supply (or a 12V power brick) with far more interface options than an NUC. The board itself has a standard ATX power connector, the Pico-PSU range is the other half of the solution, and the C1307 CPU is 17W TDP and fanless.

Re: re: "I work in precisely this sort of market "

Just for completeness, one should perhaps add that it is possible to obtain a full PC for not a huge amount more. I recently purchased a Gigabye GA-C1037UN-EU ITX board. Add a Pico-PSU, DDR3 RAM, a disk device (a USB stick will boot for embedded) and you're away. The board is fanless (17 watt TDP), and to my surprise even comes with two COM ports (one with D9 on the back-panel), two Gbit Ethernets, a PCI slot and an LPT header. Also 3 x SATA (one of which 6Gb for SSD) and e-SATA on the back panel. Cost around £120 (for board, pico-PSU and RAM).

Agreed, it's rather more power-hungry and expensive than boards being discussed here. But it's also a LOT more powerful. I wanted mine for a silent always-on home server cum internet browser, but I immediately thought that if I wanted a computer to run off 12V in an automobile or boat, it would be a perfect starting point.

And I've discovered that I'm no longer using my core-i5 desktop for anything except gaming these days. This little beast is always on so no boot-up wait, and feels plenty fast enough for everything else.

Re: What bollocks

This is bad... the police won't know it is on until they stop someone, and then they will just turn it off. Police will get charged and just worn't stop anyone.

You mean like drivers who were texting or otherwise playing with their mobile, who turn it off just after they've killed someone?

If necessary, mandate that Google glasses and suchlike maintain an activity log, and that the police are entitled to check that log. Like mobile phones do, and the police can.

A time will probably come when N'th generation Google glasses will be good enough to provide full augmented reality, and it will then become safer to have your car's instrumentation relayed into your field of forward vision, than to have to take your eyes off the road to (for example) check your speed. Likewise traffic warnings, which if displayed on roadside devices can be missed due to (say) a high-sided vehicle on your nearside. At that future time, I imagine a certification process will be required, to separate the products of adequate quality from the cheap toys. Some decades later, they may even become compulsory.

Re: Next time ...

LOOK at them, a big bar down the right hand side of the glasses.. that WILL impede your peripheral vision,

Careful ... do you want to create a significant minority who are banned from driving? Some people don't have peripheral vision. They may need to wear very strong corrective lenses, which can correct only what's in front of them not what's to the side. Or they may have had certain eye diseases which have destroyed or damaged their peripheral vision before diagnosis and (in some cases) cure.

You'd also have to ban motor-cycles, since it's not legal to ride one without a helmet and helmets cut your peripheral vision.

It present (in the UK at least) peripheral vision is not a requirement for driving. Be careful what you wish!

Re: It's ironic really

PURE - the people who make DAB radios?

If DAB is your sound source and he doesn't think there's anything wrong with it, there's something wrong with his ears. It's already even more FUBAR than MP3, and no way could you notice any gain from using audiophile components downstream. (Though I'd agree that spending money on well-chosen electronics and speakers is a better use for it than fancy pieces of wire, if your source is FM, CD, or Vinyl. )

Re: Stereo sound

If the delay is completely constant, then I agree it's probably nor detectable, and otherwise equivalent to moving yourself or one of your speakers by less than a foot.

On the other hand, if it occasionally glitches (changes abruptly) that would be disconcerting, and if it glitches frequently or drifts continuously that would be horrible. There's a less serious reverse effect you can experience by wearing headphones. You move your head, and the soundstage moves with you. You get used to it, but in the first instance you are anticipating the sound being fixed when you move. The effect of your head moving when it wasn't would be worse. Like being drunk or motion-sick?

Re: No, it is not

Never ceases to amaze me what people will pay and do to avoid using a piece of wire. (Failing which, an analogue RF transmitter/receiver which will maintain coherence of 1us per quarter-kilometer, or thereabouts).

Of course if you are turning a typical MP3 file into sound, it's FUBAR whatever you do with it. The only decent audio file is one that's compressed losslessly, if at all.

Re: It's part of a bigger picture

still uses Imperial measurements or, perhaps more accurately, does not use the metric system

Perhaps the rest of the world could start (accurately) calling them British imperial units, to help the USA readjust?

Re: the Metro language is going to be fixed and "matured"?

They probably mean the Windows 8 tiles page will use a better pattern matcher, so that a dyslexic can also find his apps. Well, more often than at present. Xecel ... Cexle ... Exlec ...

@Quarky

People who have Windows phones hate Windows 8 on their desktop PC. People who have Windows tablets hate Windows 8 on their desktop PC. Apple understands this, and sells three different interfaces matched to three classes of devices: phones, tablets, and desktop computers.

The choices will be Windows 8, Windows 9, or migrate away (Apple? Android? Linux? )

It's make or break for Microsoft. If Businesses can see that they are going to have to migrate from XP/7 "Windows" to something that shares only a Microsoft Logo on the packaging and a kernel, the other alternatives won't look nearly so radical as they once did.

As already posted above, all Microsoft has to do is give businesses what they actually want. Otherwise, Microsoft will be signing its own corporate death warrant.

Re: Bring back Aero too

I'm conflicted about that one. True, Aero will run on any modern graphics including Intel on-chip. But is it worth the extra electricity cost the 3D effects will inflict on your organisation?

I'd say bring back XP-style windows. Neither Aero nor Notro desktop were improvements.

Re: There's a missing option on the list:

Other missing options are "none of the above" and "it all depends on who catches you".

Re: It can be enlightening

And Mao was the worst of the lot. Not only did he have even more people to kill, but he was also a paedophile.

(Or should one judge in percentage of population murdered, in which case Pol Pot is the worst)?

The lesson to learn is that the greater the concentration of power at the top, the worse the consequences. Or in a variant I once heard, "The best system of government is a benign dictatorship. Except that we've never worked out how to keep the dictator benign, and we never will, so don't go there".

Re: Worse, Dan Brown ?

Lighten up!

Dan Brown book not un-enjoyable if you picked up the book in a charity shop out of curiosity, and have time to kill at an airport and in a plane. You do have to park your critical facilities and intellect in neutral, maybe some people can't do that. But isn't that true of most fiction?

A week later gave it back to the charity shop to sell again.

Re: A lot of bored/dissapointed people out there @Tom Welsh

Agree mostly.

Nevertheless, people hold politicians in sufficiently low regard that politicians telling them what not to read may actually elevate the banned or merely deprecated material in certain people's minds. (Especially, I fear, in the minds of people who lack the intellectual capacity to read for themselves, anything longer than one column in a down-market newspaper).

So bans are counterproductive, even if well-intentioned.