Bits and Bytes (1983)
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@connorsoliver we had one computer lab that had a bunch of Apple computers that used the disks in plastic. The majority of what we actually used them for was a typing class, pretty lame. I wish they offered more back then.
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@mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
Episode 6 done. I wish I was exposed to Logo as a kid. It actually looked fun.
You can still get it today. It's built into most Linux desktops. On yours it is likely called KTurtle. You'll need to install it.
sudo dnf install kturtle -
@mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
@scottalanmiller what happens when you go over the limit?
You can't. Imagine you have a 5 computer network...
To add a computer to the network, assign a number from 1 to 5.
What happens when you try to join the sixth machine? Nothing, because trying to use the number 6 is the same as "not trying to join it to the network". Conceptually you can't try to add too many machines, because the act of attempting to add can't happen.
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There are other kinds of limits, like trying to have too long of a cable. Unlike having "too many hosts", a "too long cable" is far more likely to not work or fail, but to have performance issues and get worse and worse as it gets longer.
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@scottalanmiller I thought signals move close to the speed of light? How does the length change that?
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@mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
@scottalanmiller I thought signals move close to the speed of light? How does the length change that?
They move at the speed of light. Since it is EM radiation whether light or not. So that speed is constant (although EM moves nominally faster in glass or air than in copper.) But the longer the cable, the more time it takes to travel the length of it and the more decibels of degradation are experienced. So if, for example, you can only handle a 10db drop and the cable gets too long and causes an 11db drop, you will start missing bits. Or if you have a 1ns relay time window and it starts taking 2ns, it might start ignoring packets.
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@scottalanmiller is there a way to give it a boost like half way?
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@connorsoliver said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
Episode 7 Complete. I'm curious at to how common it was to have computers in the classroom back then. Anyone who are up in the 80's know if it was a regular things to be dealing with computers in classes?
We had a single computer in the classroom in grade school. That would've been between 1985-1991.
Now stop reminding me how old I'm getting, dagnabit.
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@mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
@scottalanmiller is there a way to give it a boost like half way?
To get more power, sure, but boosting ads latency. So it is a tradeoff.
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@mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
Wondering if we still need compilers for translating program language to machine?
Yes, absolutely. Compilers are still used every day. The most famous compiler is GCC or the GNU C Compiler or, as it was later renamed, the GNU Compiler Collection. GCC is free and, like KTurtle, you can install easily...
sudo dnf install gccGCC compiles many languages and is available for nearly any computer.
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Episode 7 done. It's crazy to see that people were contemplating AI even back then. In a previous episode they equated a computer's speed to ours. We are like stone I think it said? Anyway, does anyone have an actual time reference.? Like 24 hours for us is how long for a potential AI with it's processing time?
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@scottalanmiller I'll be getting that
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@mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
Episode 7 done. It's crazy to see that people were contemplating AI even back then. In a previous episode they equated a computer's speed to ours. We are like stone I think it said? Anyway, does anyone have an actual time reference.? Like 24 hours for us is how long for a potential AI with it's processing time?
That's not really comparable. First, because AI isn't real yet. It's not like an AI would perceive time for real. So thinking of it that way is not useful.
Right now, no computers are close to the human brain in total processing power. So from a pure "intelligence speed" perspective, it is the computer that would seem slow to us (for now.)
The reason that they talk about old computers and speed is because a computer (no AI) would be looking for input a few million times per second. So it checks over and over... for us to do something. But humans would only check for new input from someone once a second or two.
So from a "speed of looking for input", computers blow us away. But from a "speed of processing" we beat them.
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Finished episode 8. This might be a dumb question, but is DOS still used today?
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@connorsoliver said in Bits and Bytes (1983):
Finished episode 8. This might be a dumb question, but is DOS still used today?
If "in use" means "as an operating system that anyone you know uses?" Then the answer is "no", the final release of DOS used in a mainstream operating system was Windows ME in 2001, and that was a terribly crappy system that was labeled "for entertainment purposes only." The last serious DOS release was Windows 98 in, not surprising, 1998. And the last truly good DOS release was Windows 95 OSR2 in 1997.
DOS was used with Novell Netware, too. Also long dead at this point.
Today DOS still exists, but basically no one uses it or its direct decendents. For years, it hasn't been the best DOS family product, that goes to FreeDOS, the only DOS-like system still developed. DOS systems are generally used only in utility systems like special "boot to this disk to check your hardware" kind of things. Very rare, but it is out there. DOS might be used in something like a microwave.
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We sometimes refer to "old" Windows as Windows/DOS to make it clear that it is not part of the same product family as Windows as you know it today, which is the Windows NT family (aka OS/2).
Tradition Windows wasn't an operating system, just a GUI layered on top of the real OS which was DOS. Specifically MS-DOS. MS-DOS being a clone of CP/M.
So until Windows 3.11, you had to install MS-DOS first, then Windows was an application that you installed on top. With Windows 95 and later (Windows 95 was the direct sequel to 3.11) they made the DOS installer install both DOS and Windows all at once so it didn't look like DOS was still underneath so much, but it was only the installer that changed.
So when people would run commands at the command line on Windows 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME, etc. you were literally just going down the DOS command shell underneath Windows and running the commands directly on the OS. THis is confusing because the command prompt in Windows NT like we have today looks just like this, but is totally unrelated and has no DOS whatsoever.
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The last DOS family member still in production after MS-DOS, PC-DOS and DR-DOS all died off, is FreeDOS. FreeDOS is, as the name implies, totally free and is also open source. It is way more modern than DOS as anyone remembers it. DOS 6.22 around 1993 or 1994 was the last popular DOS other than FreeDOS which came about later.
You can download FreeDOS today and install it.
FreeDOS just celebrated 25 years. Unlike other DOS products, FreeDOS supports modern hardware. Any other DOS is really just a novelty. But FreeDOS is a modern, usable OS that supports modern hardware, while still being DOS compatible.
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Episode 8 completed, just wondering if back in the 80's updated graphics cards existed to improve graphics.
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@connorsoliver *episode 9
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A little history... MS-DOS was Microsoft's iconic clone of CP/M. CP/M was the main operating system for Intel processor based machines before the PC (PC is a specific system design, Intel personal computers were around more than a decade before the first PC based on Intel came about.) DOS was the OS of choice for the standardized PC world. But for the non-standardized pre-PC business world that included things like Intel and Zilog processors, CP/M was king. One of the biggest CP/M machines was the Commodore 128!
Microsoft announced that DOS was dead in 1987. It took then fourteen years to actually phase it out, which is amazing considering it was first released in 1981, so that six years of momentum ended up carrying Microsoft forward and defining them for the next fourteen years at least and, in reality, tons of that 1981-1987 legacy is still making Microsoft do things today!
