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Today's Topics:
   1. Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80
      BASIC (Alexander Schreiber)
   2. Re: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching
      programming (Liam Proven)
   3. Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80
      BASIC (ben)
   4. Re: SuperBrain Disks (Chuck Guzis)
   5. Re: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D  (was OHIO-DOS) (Eric Smith)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:09:40 +0100
From: Alexander Schreiber <als at thangorodrim.de>
To: cctalk at 
classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80
        BASIC
Message-ID: <20120128170940.GA32005 at mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at 
bellsouth.net wrote:
   - and
then the place
 collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't
 expect a PhD to do such lowly work. 
 Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly
 normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the
 trash and... :) 
 
Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection
with the ground ;-)
Kind regards,
           Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:17:44 +0000
From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching
        programming
Message-ID:
        <CAMTenCGMm5dkiN1XoFr1pLZ4Ejt1-NKL-1UxuoRX7LxDb=4mHw at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
On 27 January 2012 21:50, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
   There are
many different kinds of tech journalism. For starters, there
 are the basic formal categories: news, news analysis, previews,
 reviews, comparative reviews, features & columns. Then there is the
 medium: daily/weekly/monthly. Then there is the audience:
 nonspecialist/specialist/trade/domain experts. 
 However, all of those should be accurate and as complete as possible. 
 
Accurate, yes, for technical stuff, although I'm not sure it applies
to things like comment columns.
  And
 alas many articles are neither. 
Well, true. Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crap.
  THis is not just a computer-related article/book
issue. My favourite is
 nothing to do with computer oe electronics. It's that old photographic
 chestnut that the focal length of your camera lens affects the
 perspective of the image... 
O_o
   It's
not all just one thing.
 As an outsider, or as a reader, I would not expect people to know or 
 Maybe not. But I do understand when an article is talking nonsense. 
 
Well, sure.
  Look, I am not expecting every article to contain
schematics and source
 code. But when I read that 'Uni is a programming language that...' I know
 that the author doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. 
Is this a specific example? I've not heard of a language called "Uni"
myself.
 
understand this, but it's as different as building a packing crate
 compared to a Chippendale chair. 
 Sure. But what annoys me is the equivelent of claiming to be making
 Chipendale chairs while actually you're making crates. 
 
Ah, well, that is a common problem.
   I am not
going to attempt to defend myself and say that I aim to 
 As I said, I wasn;t poining my finger at you, or anyone else. I've not
 read any of your articles, so I can't possibly comment on them. But Iv'e
 read a lot of rubbish for other authors... 
 
If you're curious:
http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Liam%20Proven
(Yes, you will need web access.)
   produce
the sort of in-depth technical piece you would want. I am not.
 I probably never will. But there is a need for things that are at a
 less formidable technical level than that. 
 I also feel it's possible to simplify things too much and thus make them
 incomprehensible.
 I am interested in telephones and related stuff [1]. ?I read several
 introductory books and found I couldn't understand them. I actually felt
 that the operation of a Storwger exchange was beyond me. And then, by
 chance, I got a copy of 'Telephony'. Volume 2 is about automatic
 echanfes, and it contains full schematics. I spent a couple of weeks
 reading it through, following the operation of overy relay. And it all
 made sense. Yes, it was heavy going, but it was worth it. The
 introductory books were useless.
 [1] No, I am not interestiend in gettign free calls, or in listening to
 other people's conversations. I am interesed in the electrical and
 electronic side. To me 'Telephone hacking' doesn't mean what it means in
 the gutter press (to listen to somebody else's calls(, it mans making
 parts for old rotary dial phones from scratch. 
 
I spent Yule Day at a friend's house in Edinburgh. He collects old
phones and phone equipment. The house - quite big and rambling with a
bunch of guys living there - has an internal switchboard and
extensions in every room, including the bathroom, just for fun. There
is a live, active Strowger exchange in the hall cupboard, and another
in bits in the hall.
I tried to persuade him to join ClassicCmp - I think he'd fit in well. :?)
Me, obviously, I'm a fake. I had to whip out my smartphone and look up
what a "strowger exchange" /was./
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: 
http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at 
hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:21:49 -0700
From: ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
To: cctalk at 
classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80
        BASIC
Message-ID: <4F242EAD.7080207 at jetnet.ab.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 1/28/2012 10:09 AM, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
  On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500,
blstuart at 
bellsouth.net wrote:
   - and
then the place
 collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't
 expect a PhD to do such lowly work. 
 Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly
 normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the
 trash and... :) 
 
 Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection
 with the ground ;-)
 
PhD  see:  Please help Dear
  Kind regards,
             Alex. 
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:35:52 -0800
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
        <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: SuperBrain Disks
Message-ID: <4F23C178.2905.150912 at cclist.sydex.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
On 27 Jan 2012 at 19:18, Dave Dunfield wrote:
  Unfortunately the Compustar is not currently
working, and will need
 significant work to repair - so I cannot try formatting disks on it.
 And I am unable to create anything on the SuperBrain which I can read
 on the PC.
 Which is why I cannot provide disk images for the SuperBrain. I've
 tried - I simply cannot make it happen. 
What I said--the Superbrain tends (evidently, not all revisions do)
to use FA as a DAM.  Either edit the raw track to use FBs or use a WD
17xx controller to get the data and rewrite your disk using FBs on a
NEC 765-type controller.
The Superbrain doesn't care which are used.
It's not rocket science.
--Chuck
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:54:42 -0800
From: Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
        <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D  (was OHIO-DOS)
Message-ID: <4F243662.9050002 at brouhaha.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Holger Veit wrote:
  Problem is of course that the Elektor OSI
computer uses a rather
 obscure floppy controller and formatting (some GCR emitted by an
 asynchronous 6850 that is hacked into a synchronous mode). 
It's FM, not GCR.
Of course, it's not IBM-standard FM.  Normally it can
only be read and written on an OSI (or Elektor) system.  Given how
expensive FDC chips were when OSI designed their floppy controller, I
suppose it can be considered a clever hack, though nowhere near as
clever as Woz's design for the Disk II controller.
End of cctalk Digest, Vol 101, Issue 87
***************************************