dead brains don't dance

hirez reminded me of antediluvian digital computingnesses. I thought of Baby's First Hack, time back way back.

I was at Hull University then; they ran an ICL 1904S with 192K words of 24-bit core. Apart from the odd weekend when they fired up GEORGE 4, the behemoth under the Brynmore Jones library ran GEORGE 3: no VM. Because of this, MOP^[1] sessions were limited to loading programs of 2K words or less. MOPCORE limit it was called. Anything larger had to be submitted as a batch job.

There's not a lot you can do in 2K words. Certainly not run the Algol68R compiler.

However, you could run a few specially privileged interactive programs of significantly greater size. So, I wrote a little command script that loaded (but didn't run) one of those programs, then copied a little program loader into the registers (1900 computers addressed their registers as the first few words of memory, so you could run code written into them). Load a program of my choice into the (already authorised and allocated) memory; execute from its normal start address and... eventually I got caught by the ops, yes, running the Algol68R compiler online. They conceded that it was a nice hack, but banned me for a week anyhow.

Ahh... Them were the days. Kids now, got no idea.

^[1] Multiple Online Programming, otherwise known as a Teletype KSR33 (or 43, if you were lucky).

1. Why do the politicians with principles and integrity die, and the lying bastard slimebags like Blair, Clarke and Blears survive? Proof positive, if it were needed, that there is no benevolent $DEITY watching over us.

2. Through the usual sort of semi-random LJ-Markoff-chain-reading-process I just came across the phrase: "Demographics do not create community". This should be branded into the forehead of every fuckwit politician and meeja "commentator" who feels tempted to talk about the "Muslim community" or such. There are communities that contain Muslims; there likely are communities consisting only of Muslims; there is no "Muslim Community", any more than there's a "Christian Community" or an "Anarcho-geek catslave Community".

3. I'm going downstairs now, to convert a wodge of Steve Rawlings' Dexter mince, a shallot, a chilli and some coriander leaf into burgers, to be consumed by ramtops and me shortly afterwards.

That's it.

Do the days of the week have colours? yonmei asks in a poll: what do you think?

If you have a clear feeling either way, go over there and add your voice.

For those of you who don't read him, here are links to bradhicks's rather depressing, but very plausible, analysis of the US/NASA space programme post-Apollo.

Well worth a read if you're at all interested in the subject.

Parts one, two, three.

Well, that's the ID card bill passed then (I won't bother holding my breath for an explanation of how the things would have stopped one single "incident" in London though).

On the apo'strophe que'stion mentioned by ramtops, here ('since it didnt get po'sted) i's my re'sponse to the BBC.

Speech, writing and signing are distinct modes of expression; just because they have an overlap of (for want of a better word) vocabulary does not mean that they are homeomorphic.

Written language, in particular, requires clear punctuation to clarify meaning as it lacks the richness of nuance of either speech or signing. A linguist, of all people, should be aware of this.

'So there.

I was cleaning the cathair and grit from my mouse innards when ramtops offered me her USB optical rodent, as the Apple mouse will do her fine on the very rare occasions she doesn't use her artpad.

So. Time to venture under my desk for cable surgery.

This is what I found lurking in the far corner... For reference, the pillar is ¾" in diameter. Sorry about the blurredness; the Pro90's autofocus doesn't in low light (and neither does its LCD viewfinder), so this is the best of a bunch of full manual shots, prefocussed in relative daylight, pointed through the cable-strewn gap behind my computer, and with the flash partially blocked by my fingers else the image was overexposed.