Trivia
Birthdays this month
Name & Date
Amruta (d5) 3rdHari (d5) 3rd
Chetna Gupta (d5) 8th
Blesson George (d5) 19th
Ganesh Pai (d9) 20th
Amit Gambhir(d9) 22nd
Padmapriya R(d9) 28th
Nandhini(d9) 30th
Words well said!
" If General Motors had kept up with technology like the IT industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles per gallon."
— Bill Gates comparing the IT & auto industry
Eat your words!
" I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers."
- T.Watson Chairman IBM in 1943
" Telephones have too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
- Western Digital Corp. in 1876
" But..what is it good for?"
- Engineer at IBM in 1968 commenting on the microchip
Odd-Ends
Despite what pictures of the earth would have us believe, the earth is not perfectly round but bulges at the equator and is flat at the poles. When added to variations of height due to sea level, this presents a serious problem for GPS( global positioning systems). This will change, as experts are ready to slightly modify the shape of the earth( in theory of course!!). Britain has developed a new ‘geoid’ model to replace the current ‘ellipsoid’ model used in GPS. Ellipsoid is a good approximation for the planet but not for all areas due to geophysical diversity. Using the geoid model is necessary in Britain as it runs below the world’s average sea level by 60 metres. Using the geoid model has helped accurate readings of height in Britain in accordance with the geographical info.Jack Schulman, head of American Computer Co.(ACC) claims to have prototyped a capacitance-based, transistor like device;a transcapacitor that puts todays transistors to shame. He claims that it was designed from sketches from a UFO crash in Roswell,Texas ( maybe the one Will Smith left in ID4). ACC is a respected company and this does not appear to be a marketing strategy.They call the device a transcap or T-cap which uses a isotropic, bi crystalline substrate capable of bi-stable resonance and quantum storage.(Whew!) They claim that the device is too fast at storing charges to enable testing even by picosecond timer. They also claim that negligible heat is generated and multiple voltage states can be stored which could enable coupling of the devices into arrays like logic gates. They say that it can charged or discharged with no losses you couldn’t blame on the measuring process itself. Schulman visualizes a poker chip sized 100GB hard disk with no moving parts and a tiny battery to sustain internal memory for 10 years. He adds that a problem encountered is the drop off rate of the Tcap of 1 bit per hour whose cause is unknown. Schulman has formed a company to further research on this; which if true could make PIIs look foolish. For more info check out www.american-computer.com
Vintage Bits
In 1954, Gordon teal, a physicist who has moved from Bell Labs to Texas Instruments, and as a new entrant to the field of electronics manufacture; perfected a junction transistor of silicon instead of germanium. Silicon, which was available in vast quantities was very cheap whereas Germanium, in contrast is a rare element usually found in pure form only as a byproduct of zinc refining and coal mining. Though amounts of germanium used were miniscule, it was costlier than gold.( imagine stealing transistors). The use of silicon dramatically reduced the cost of manufacturing devices and paved the way for the electronics revolution.
An operating system called CP/M was once the ‘control system for microcomputers’ and was de riguer in more than hundred of the early computers. Every manufacturer from Xerox to Vector Graphics Corp. used this system. It was developed by Gary Kildall and his company called Digital Research Inc. It was poised to ‘own’ the industry after a period of time. IBM was a reason for it’s demise. IBM gave a lucrative deal to DRI but were rebuffed because success had gone to Gary’s head. The IBM executives cancelled the deal and the meeting; then approached Bill Gates who offered then QDOS later to be known as MS-DOS. DRI plummeted to nowhere after this and Kildal died an unknown being driven to alcoholism.Next Month
Look out for next month’s issue which will contain stuff about the Iridium consortium, great vignettes, ATM(Asynchronous Transfer Mode) networking and much much more. The online version will be put up on my website www.bitsmart.com/saumitra until the SFE website is completed.
Joke Bag
Computer Acronyms
: ISDN(It Still Does Nothing); APPLE (Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity); DOS (Defective Operating System); BASIC (Bill's Attempt to Seize Industry Control) ; IBM (I Blame Microsoft);( CD-ROM Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months); OS/2 (Obsolete Soon, Too);WWW (World Wide Wait); MACINTOSH (Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs); PENTIUM (Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics); COBOL (Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language); WINDOWS (Will Install Needless Data On Whole System); MICROSOFT (Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only (for) Fools (&) Teenagers.)* There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong. The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere. Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion, "Why don`t we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work !?" — Amit Gambhir (D9)
*I think men having pierced ears are better prepared for marriage.They've experienced pain and bought jewellery.
*If it weren't for electricity we'd all be watching television by candlelight.
