A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

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A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Chuckt » Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:30 am

A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns
Physically print your data or risk losing it to a digital dark age.
....as time goes on, these methods of accessing data can become outmoded. Try getting at the data in a floppy disc, or watching a VCR tape, or even loading up a three year old version of Photoshop on your computer now — it’s impossible. As technology advances, various methods of accessing and manipulating data get lost.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/photograph ... tor-warns/


I wouldn't say it is almost impossible but getting harder.

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Garth » Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:00 pm

Besides having multiple backups (preferably produced automatically on a regular schedule), it's good to have things on more than one type of medium. When I finish a software project though, I print it out on fanfold paper. That will survive the things that take out digital media. I'd rather copy and type it all back in than start from scratch. So far I've never needed to, and I probably won't; but I know that what the article is saying is true. Home-burnt CDs and DVDs are especially bad. I was looking at our son's wedding pictures on DVD only two years after the wedding, and the DVD was already losing data. I had to find another drive that could read more than mine, and transfer the pictures to hard disc.
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Chuckt » Sun Mar 01, 2015 1:45 pm

Garth,

When my Amiga stopped working, I lost 10 years of data. Commodore said they made their machines compatible with IBM and there were emulators for other systems like the Mac so even if Commodore went out of business, we wouldn't be stranded but no one said anything about being able to read their disks.

Dell stopped delivering computers with 3.5 inch floppy disks and now people are saying that current design of flash memory is obsolete because it is based on SATA and a PhD wrote a paper on why it is obsolete (because it is wasting CPU cycles). So unless people copy all of their information to the newest standard, a lot of information may be lost.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-ssds-are-obsolete/

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by brad » Wed Mar 04, 2015 8:12 pm

This is a little off topic, but I remember reading an article which was saying that the world is not making enough storage mediums at a fast enough rate to keep up with the amount of storage that we need. We're all taking photo's and video's and downloading all sorts from the internet but apparently we are all going to run out of space!

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Chuckt » Wed May 13, 2015 12:40 am

Another example is:
You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a working original Xbox in 25 years. I just think that’s terrible for the kids these days. I don’t know if they realize that."
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/05/r ... cartridge/

I don't think it is impossible but we are building things that break instead of the cartridges that lasted 30-40 years:
"You can still find Ataris at the swap meet, cartridges, 30 years later, plug them in and it all works," Kennedy told Venturebeat. "To me that’s the coolest technology out there, with that longevity. A lot of us grew up with it. The kids these days are going to miss out on that
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/05/r ... cartridge/

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Garth » Fri May 15, 2015 9:20 am

I have an open-reel tape of singer Frank Sinatra from the 1950's that still sounds really, really good. I have an intelligent (using FATs) high-speed digital microcassette drive for mass storage for my HP handheld computers of the 1980's, and I recently had to re-load a lot of files from 25 years earlier. Tape after tape, they performed flawlessly. Old floppy discs work flawlessly too. I've never had a problem with them unless the format was different. I have a lot of electronics stuff from the 1960's, 70's, and 80's that all still works except for some mechanical things like rubber belts that have rotted and mechanical switches that need to be shot with contact cleaner. The prevailing idea now is that electronics devices will be in the land fill in anywhere from six months to two years, so why make them last. I avoid that kind of stuff though.
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Chuckt » Fri May 15, 2015 1:12 pm

Granz from another forum recommended this link:

Ground System Planning for Long Duration Space Missions
Helped by Lessons Learned Resurrecting Obsolete Computers

http://www.cosmacelf.com/publications/b ... essors.pdf

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by brad » Sun May 24, 2015 8:03 am

Great discussion!

I have a collection of old video game systems from the 1970's through to the 90's which have floppy disks, cartridges, tapes etc. to store the games. It's not often that you find one that doesn't work! You're exactly right about todays technology, people even throw away working technology just because they have upgraded their laptop or monitor etc.

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by brad » Sun May 24, 2015 8:06 am

By the way Garth, what HP handheld computers do you have? I have some of the old Psions from the early 1990's which are still great to use.

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image reference: http://www.primrosebank.net/computers/p ... 3a_dkw.jpg

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Garth » Sun May 24, 2015 4:57 pm

brad wrote:By the way Garth, what HP handheld computers do you have? I have some of the old Psions from the early 1990's which are still great to use.
I remember the early Psions from the mid-1980's or so.

My HP handhelds are the HP-41cx and a couple of HP-71's. There are engineers still introducing new hardware and module images for the 41, and someone has a prototype FRAMs for the 71 out now, with production expected soon. I still use the 41cx every day, as a calculator, and running programs I've had in there continuously for 25 years without ever re-loading, plus keeping phone numbers, daytimer (to remind me of appointments), even my alarm clock. I have not used the 41 for controlling lab equipment in years, but the possibility is there to do so again at any time.

The 71 is more powerful than the 41, but not as practical as a calculator, so my 71's seldom get used. I did use the 71 for generating the huge look-up tables which are in Intel hex form in the look-up tables section of my website. (The link goes to the front page of that section, describing how so much can be done in scaled-integer math including things people tend to think require floating point, and telling what's in the tables and how to use them on a 6502 or 65816 computer. In some cases, looking up answers can be nearly a thousand times as fast as having to actually calculate them on an 8-bit computer with no math coprocessor, because every answer is there, pre-calculated, accurate to every last bit, so there's no interpolation involved.) Most tables are 16-bit and have 64K cells of two bytes each, or 128K per table. A few tables are other sizes.

For the 41cx, I have:
  • Advantage module, which is for matrix and complex-number operations, base conversions, financial calculations, roots of equations, boolean operations, polynomial solutions & evaluations, integration, differential equations, vector operations, coordinate transformation, and curve fitting
  • double module with HPIL (for interfacing to dozens of things at once) and
  • Extended I/O;
  • double extended memory module (for files)
  • ZENROM which is for synthetic and assembly-language programming. Synthetic programming is basically user language but lets you into registers and places the designers didn't originally intend for the user to go, plus lets you do several things much more efficiently, like if you want to embed an escape sequence in a string, or directly key in characters that aren't on the keyboard. Various areas suddenly have a lot more options.
The 41cx is like a 41c with (all built in):
  • main memory internally filled out
  • time module (real time clock, stopwatch, time & calendar functions, alarms to interrupt and take control, even waking the machine up if an alarm came due while it was sleeping, etc.)
  • Extended Functions
  • text editor
  • and a few other things you cannot get on the 41c or 41cv.
I also have:
  • two digital HPIL microcassette drives which are smart like a disc drive and use a FAT, and look up files in the fat and very quickly spin out to the file
  • HPIL-to-IEEE488 interface converter which I used when I was using the 41 to control a rack of lab equipment at work
  • HPIL-to-parallel interface converter
  • HPIL-to-RS232 interface converter
  • card reader which works but I've never used it because I only got it for the shell and connector, in order to build something else into it, which I've never actually done
  • bar-code reader which someone gave me recently in new condition, but I've never used that either. The neat thing about bar code, back in the day, was that when users' groups got together and you wanted to distribute programs, all you needed was a photocopier, and people could enter the program much faster than keying it in. Same thing with mailing someone a program, on paper, in an envelope, before the internet existed. (There were HPIL modems for direct connection without the internet, but they were more rare.) Photocopies were much cheaper than microcassettes and magnetic cards.
  • HP92198 80-column video interface
  • two HPIL printers, the miniature thermal one, and a Thinkjet that took standard-sized fanfold paper. Usually when I want to print something out though, I just go through an interface converter and use an Epson parallel printer.
Everything here can be used simultaneously. You don't have to remove one module or device to use another one.

A new hardware module I want to get is the NoV-64 which has 64KB of flash, and I want to load in at least the new 41z module image which gives the 41 a true 4-level complex stack and over 100 complex-number functions, all written in assembly for maximum performance (much faster than the Advantage module's complex-number functions, and more complete); plus the new Sandmath module image which has loads of math extensions; plus perhaps a couple more module images. I could put at least the ZENROM module image (4KB) in the NoV-64 to free up one of the four ports for it, if not also the Advantage ROM (12KB). There is now available the 41CL transplant logic board (see also this .pdf and this link) which makes the 41 up to 50 times as fast as the original, and also comes with over 200 modules built in; but it's pretty hard on battery life, and the stuff I do doesn't really require that much speed. I've been wanting to the the NoV-64 for some time, but every time I think I can justify the expense, my wife wants another upgrade to the house, or tax bill nearly wipes us out or something.

For my primary HP-71, I have the HPIL module (again for interfacing to loads of things at once), the Math module, the Forth & Assembler module, and 160KB of extra RAM. All the HPIL stuff mentioned above works with the 71 as well as the 41.

Here's a poor picture of the 41:

Image

and one of the 71:

Image
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by brad » Tue May 26, 2015 10:05 pm

Wow Garth, that is fantastic. It is wonderful to see that you still are able to use this technology on a daily basis!

I've not heard of the 41 or the 71 before. In-fact, I just had a little look on ebay just now and found that I can purchase one for about $400. They must be quite the collectors item I imagine. What programs do you use on a regular basis? How are you able to program the calculator, is it all assembly language?

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Garth » Wed May 27, 2015 5:53 am

brad wrote:I've not heard of the 41 or the 71 before. In-fact, I just had a little look on ebay just now and found that I can purchase one for about $400.
and that's just the "mainframe," ie, bare calculator, without any of the modules or accessories. If I were to sell all my HP-41cx and HP-71B hardware on eBay, I'd get thousnads of dollars.
What programs do you use on a regular basis?
  • My daytimer runs every time I turn the 41 on, without my telling it explicitly to do so. You can put in things you want it to remind you of. When you turn the 41 on, it looks for date matches in the DAYTIMR file and sees if there's anything it's supposed to remind you of. If there's not, the next thing it looks for is any pending alarms, and if there is at least one, it will tell how much longer before it's due. If there are no alarms either, the 41 just shows the time and date. The 41 takes a second or two to do all this as it's much slower than the 71.
  • my reactance program for calculating capacitors, inductors, reactances, resonant frequencies, etc.
  • alarms. There are different kinds, including ones that can take control when their time comes, to run a program to take data on a schedule for example, then return control to whatever the calc was running when the alarm hit. (This is discussed a bit in my article on simple multitasking methods.) The alarms I use it for these days though are pretty much just to wake me up in the morning or get me up from a nap with its beeps! :lol: If an alarm comes due while the calc is off, it will wake it up.
  • phone numbers, for use with my desk phone which until recently had no speed-dial capabilities
  • wire-gage converter to go from wire diameter to AWG and vice-versa
There are many programs I wrote for one particular project or another and used them intensively for a short time and then they sit there until I can't remember what they're for anymore and I delete them when I need to free up some memory. I regularly use the 41 for normal calculations too, plus things like hex-to-decimal and decimal-to-hex conversions.
How are you able to program the calculator, is it all assembly language?
I have a couple of books on programming it in assembly language, but I never actually learned that part, so I just program it in user language (including synthetic programming). The user language is RPN (stack-oriented, parenthesis-free), and uses keystroke programming which means there's a single operation per program line, instead of many operations on a line. (The rest of this is copied from something else I wrote, to make it quick.) For example, as you key in a program and need the cos function, you press the cos key and a line is added with that single instruction. Here's an example, a portion from an actual test program we used where my HP-41 calculator controlled the automated testing of headsets. I added profuse comments beyond the normal so you can better understand how a keystroke-programmed calculator can control external instruments. I hope your monitor doesn't wrap the lines (here or in any of the other code).

Code: Select all

 90  LBL 04        \ Numeric label.  Alphanumeric labels are allowed too, but they're less efficient in this case.
 91  FC? 10        \ If it was testing the right earphone before (indicated by Flag 10 being Clear),
 92  "0046"        \ then connect the left instead.  This text string of digits (as text) is a command to the Cytec relay box.
 93  "├01471145 "  \ Add to the string: Disconnect the +13V from the DMM line, and connect the microphone DC voltage line to the DMM line.
 94  7
 95  SELECT        \ Now select the Cytec relay unit to talk to (whose address is #7 on the IEEE-488 bus).  It has 128 relays.
 96  OUTA          \ OUTput the Alpha register (now containing the text string of digits formed above) to it.
 97  22
 98  SELECT        \ Now select the DMM (digital multimeter) to talk to (whose address is #22 on the bus),
 99  IND           \ and INput a Decimal number from it, which from previous set-up, makes it take a voltage reading and send it.
100  STO 17        \ STOre it in register 17.
101  FIX 02        \ Put the display mode in FIXed-point, showing two decimal places.
102  VIEW X        \ Put the resulting reading in the display.  It is also stored and will be printed later if the operator chooses.
103  "01451142"    \ Disconnect the mic DCV line from the DMM and connect the mic plug tip voltage (for push-to-talk test).
104  7             \                                                  (The string of digits is a command to the relay box.)
105  SELECT        \ As above, select the Cytec relay box to talk to.
106  OUTA          \ Like line 96.  The string in line 103 gets sent to the relay box.
107  22
108  SELECT        \ Select the DMM again.
109  IND           \ Like line 99.  Get mic plug tip voltage to check for shorts to center ring or ground.
110  STO 14        \ STOre the voltage in register 14.
111  9
112  X<Y?          \ Is 9V less than the tip voltage?  (ie, is the tip voltage over 9V?)
113  GTO 05        \ If so, skip the problem message and go down to label 05.  Normally it's at the voltage of the 13V power supply.
114  SF 08         \ Set Flag 08, signaling a problem.
115  FS? 09        \ Is Flag 09 Set?  If yes, it would mean it's in printout mode and should not stop with each problem but rather continue,
116  GTO 05        \ and skip the problem message in the display.  (Resume down at label 05, and print all test results at the end.)
   <snip>
137  22
138  SELECT        \ Get ready to talk to the DMM again.  (22 is the bus address of the DMM.)
139  "ACV;R,5,.02" \ Tell it to get ready to measure AC voltage with a maximum of 5V input and give .02% (1mV) precision
140  OUTA          \                                                         (This sets the range and number of digits.)
   <snip>
150  9
151  SELECT        \ Get ready to talk to the signal generator (which is at address 9 on the bus).
152  CLRDEV        \ CLeaR DEVice (like a software reset).
153  INSTAT        \ INput STATus to clear any error conditions that may exist.
154  "A.05P1I"     \ Set Amplitude of signal generator to .05V (50mV) and enable output.  The "I" makes it go ahead and execute
155  OUTA          \                                    the command string.  (Frequencies and amplitude adjustments come later.)
The program was 20 pages long and accessed a half-dozen files. Even from this little bit, you can see the workings of RPN keystroke programming controlling a rack of equipment. Each piece of equipment also has its own command language like you see in the quoted strings above. When people saw this in the 1980's, controlled by something that would fit in your pocket, they nearly needed a change of clothes! :D As alluded here, the HP-41 does not allow variables, flags, constants and local labels to have names, although global labels do, and programs and files always do. In most languages, you'll usually use names for variables, arrays, flags, constants, etc.. The equivalent above would be to say for example DMM SELECT instead of 22 SELECT, where DMM would return the address of the DMM; also something like TIP_VOLTAGE (a variable's name) would be used in place of 14 which is the register number I chose to store it in.

I suppose it's called "keystroke programming" because in the early days of programmable calculators, before they had way too many functions to give them all their own key (like my HP-41 with potentially thousands of functions), you'd just press the key (for example SIN, COS, LOG, etc.) giving the desired function when you're in program mode and it would be put in the program as a single step, without having to spell things out like you have to in other programming environments.
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by brad » Sat May 30, 2015 12:40 pm

Thanks for the great write up Garth and I apologise for my delayed reply. We have been moving house and have not had much free time!

I guess over time, you would get to know all the numbers that would have been represented by variables I.E. you would know off by heart that 22 is actually DMM etc... I had a Psion back in high school in the mid 1990's and its' programming language is called OPL, however I wasn't into programming back then so I didn't actually do a thing with it. It would have been great to have written some programs back then that I could still be using today, the reactance calculator that you wrote would be a perfect example of something that I could be using day-to-day!

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by Chuckt » Mon Jun 01, 2015 5:30 am

I saw this article on the history of calculators:

The Story of the Race to Develop the Pocket Electronic Calculator
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ ... _race.html

And their regular website address:

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/

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Re: A digital dark age may be coming, Google VP warns

Post by brad » Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:30 pm

That's fantastic :)

I have a number of old calculators from the 1970's. They each require 4AA batteries to operate and they have LED seven segment displays :)

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