And Your School. Were you Programmed?

[sleepy]

I woke up this morning with a terrible taste in my mouth. Years ago, my English Teachers taught us the Bradbury story, "The Flying Machine", and the poem, "Out, Out" by Robert Frost.

My Electronics class was text-only as the shop was being rebuilt not in the off-season Summer months, but smack in the middle of the semester.
And my New Math class, aka, "Computer Math", was taught by a teacher who relied on her teacher's manual to get through the course because she didn't know it herself.

Have you been Programmed? To fail?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I went to Catholic school... so, no. Not one single bit of programming.

 

[sleepy]

Oh Thank God!

 

[LeeVanCleef]

HA! Computer Math! Hey, that's pretty hip for what, late '60s early '70s? By the time I arrived in '81, Computer had kicked Math to the curb. She didn't need Math... she could be a star on her own! I remember very little about Intro to Computers. I do, however, remember showing up early to the computer lab to do "homework". That meant calling up my brother's server at his job and playing that Star Trek text game. Damn, that thing was addictive! And I found a version of it amidst all those Windows 3.1 programs the Internet Archive just uploaded! I forgot how much thinkin' this game took. I have a new appreciation for "PointGunShoot!" now.

https://archive.org/details/win3_WINTREKJ

You know, reading that over and reflecting on how long computer technology has been a part of my life (hey, no other 12-year-olds in my upper-white-trash neighborhood knew how to use a telephone/modem link), and yet I remain pretty close to computer illiterate. I'd say that, to put it in terms of "making things work", my computer literacy level is that of a 2nd grader. Not that smart, but not programmed yet, either.

 

[sleepy]

New Math, Computer Math, 01 + 01 = 10 (binary system). The very first year that the subject was taught in California public schools.
The Monkees were in the second half of their first season.
"Cherish"/The Association was in the top ten.
Texas Instruments released the first Pocket Calculator and the first L.A.S.E.R. Diode was produced, both products appearing the previous year, or in the first half of The Monkees' first season. In that same previous year, David Hemmings was chasing naked models in purple paper backdrop and seeing dead people in pictures.
And in that same year before...this got Top 40 Play:

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[StevOz]

Meh I programmed at school in 1978 on a Digital DEC PDP 11 on one of the 16 locally connected monitors to that 16 bit supercomputer in BASIC PLUS way before any apple. I even had a 1200 characters per minute connection and got banned for recreating/enhancing/making availiable Star Trek simulation games... :)

 

[sleepy]

And I was creating microchips and computers in 1959. Just more of your 'Fanticide'...

But you would rather believe the bullshitters with their money,
and curse their Copyrights for depriving You of your "Star Trekky Rip"?
I went to school with the children of the parents who made that t.v. series.
And I suggested the Trek series back in '62. I don't care what the press has to say about it. I was there. Sort of...

Hey.

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[sleepy]

eh. One more thing. Fanticide is the result of the need to destroy the object of the delusion due to personal investment that is not likely to work out.
I wasn't going to work there. Now, you might get "Fanticide" from an involuntary subject. But that is not the subject's delusion.

It is also Not Fanticide to consider how this town re-invests their money in billions annually. They are Monopolistic. And the power to pull industrial and political strings with that money is totally different from the intent of the audience to be entertained in exchange for their Hard Earned Dollars.

 

[Coil_Smoke]

I credit my Quaker schooling for learning to recognize and resist programming. It worked so well they had to kick me out after 9th grade.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

HA! That's the same grade that the Catlicks got rid of me! And it wasn't even my fault! Yes, I have a weird skin abnormality on my scalp that makes it look like three 6's joined together. But that's no cause to be rude!
We have a Quaker college in Wichita! Friends University. Expensive as fuck!

 

[sleepy]

I don't mean to be rude, but if you or I just go quiet and refuse to defend what you or I know to be the truth by one's own hard-earned experience,
then what are we?

 

[Coil_Smoke]

I don't mean to be rude, but if you or I just go quiet and refuse to defend what you or I know to be the truth by one's own hard-earned experience,
then what are we?

More likely to stay alive ...

 

[LeeVanCleef]

then what are we?

Q: Are we not men?

 

[GSGregg]

https://archive.org/details/win3_WINTREKJ

Blast from the past, huh? Thanks, Ruby.....for obvious reasons, Wintrek brought back memory of why I stayed away from computers for so long (first internet account in Sept. 2009)---Atari Star Raiders cost me huge blocks of time from release (1980 or so) to late '81 when Centaur came out and reprogrammed me. All I get now with my XP-SP3 and Radeon HD4670 1GB is chopped-up video and staccato sound that still sucked away two hours that were earmarked for pinball, while I tried to remember how to move the ship.....finally, DOH! This isn't Asteroids, dummy!

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Star Raiders! I remember that game! I passed on buying it. It looked like a home version of the Atari Star Wars arcade game (which, you know, it was... just without all those bothersome, costly trademarks) and that thing whupped my ass on a regular basis. My game was Galaga. I even turned over the score on a Galaga machine one time! I never saw a Centaur machine until VP, and that's a shame... it's still one of my favorites to play on Pinball Arcade.

 

[sleepy]

Hey GS. The stuttering videos. Check your Start > Right-Click on My Computer > choose Properties > the Hardware tab > the Device Manager button
Check for an IDE/Atapi Controller. If you only have one hard drive and one or no ROM drive (CD-ROM, DVD), and each of these only use One IDE Ribbon, then under the Controller tree, check both the IDE Primary Channel and the IDE Secondary Channel.
If you only have one Device on each and the menu display a "Device 1", then set Device 1 to NONE. This setting will disable the Device 1 slot on the Controller.
If you have a Device connected as Device 1, then this will Disable that drive, so choose wisely.

Disabling Device 1 when it is Not in Use (!) cuts down on the search time that Windows XP uses to find available devices (disks) to write data to, including video data. Else, when an empty Device slot is enabled, Windows assumes there is a Device and tries to write to it, then finds no Device present and then looks around again. With video data on disk, less foo is best practice.

And if you set IDE Primary Channel Device 0 to NONE, then in most cases you have just disabled your OS Drive. But XP usually greys that option out so you don't make that mistake.
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And if you have TWO INTERNAL HARD DRIVES, The Main OS Drive on the IDE Primary Channel and the other On IDE SECONDARY CHANNEL with the correct Master/Slave Jumper setting on Each Drive (Very Important!), then you can try Installing your browser to The Second Drive that Does Not Contain the OS. (very important!).
This is because the OS drive is still running tasks in the background.
Putting the browser or program on Drive Two (Use Only Internal Drives on separate IDE Ribbons with Duel IDE Enabled and set all Devices Not in USE ON THE IDE RIBBONS to NONE. Not for use with an external USB disk or Flash Drive. very important...) puts the program on a separate data channel from the channel in use by the OS (XP). This will speed up data access for the program.

It also works Very Well for Visual Pinball and VPinMame when they are installed to the second non-OS internal drive when lower end systems use the drives for Virtual Memory.

 

[GSGregg]

Thanks, sleepy, but I hope you didn't strain a cognitator dredging up that good ol' XP material, as I don't know whether it'll work for me. I'll tell you what I have and how I got here, and you can see if I got the right 'picture'.

Internal Sata 250GB HDD (Drive C), external IDE 60GB that was a previous Drive C until I tried to update my vidcard drivers and disabled the card without enabling my onboard first (VgaSave, due to prior accidental removal of what was either Mirage Gfx or Real256E [both SiS]). Something weird happened, and typing on a blank screen didn't work as it had before with Narrator surprisingly inoperative, so the HDD wouldn't boot and was decommissioned. It's now in a USB external enclosure as Drive F, with a fair chunk of available memory.

Device Manager shows two primary and two secondary IDE channels; first pri is 'working properly' with the Device Usage button greyed out, and the remaining three working with device enabled, so I guess that rules me out?

Later.....Grimm is coming on at 9:00, and I gotta grab a dead-cow sandwich. Thanks.

 

[sleepy]

No Man! If you only have One Internal HDD and No Internal ROM Drives, then set those other three Devices to NONE. But if you have any other Internal Drives, HDD or ROM or Burners, then leave those Devices Enabled.

If you only have that One Internal HDD, then check Device Manager > the Main Controller for the motherboard and Disable the Second Channel as well. Only if it's not in use.

 

[GSGregg]

If there is no HDD in the second slot, why does Device Usage say 'Use this device' (enable)? Also, I see no mention of a controller (Main or not) or channel for the System Board, which is located 'on Microsoft ACPI-Compliant system' and has no drivers required or installed.

In addition to a floppy disc drive I do have two CD-DVD Writers occupying bays, (A new writer replaced the original which was still just 'iffy', and on a lark I knocked out a panel and mounted both. I would probably have to open the tower to be sure what is going where and on which ribbon.

 

[sleepy]

If those CD-DVD Writers (HP, eh?) are installed internally, then leave it alone.

Yeah. For some reason XP enables IDE drive Device slots even when there is no drive connected.
This differs from USB hot plug devices that are external. But you still get the Windows "Safely Remove Hardware" for external USB-connected devices on the Taskbar. When I try to shut down XP without first using that feature, then it can take 5 minutes for the shutdown. But that's another topic.

 

[sleepy]

Back on topic.
So, was there any subversion in the halls of your school? Any stunts by the punks?
Retaliation? Cigarette lighters held under the fire sprinklers until wet with alarms sounding?

Were you mean to the retarded, or to the cafeteria lady?

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[Coil_Smoke]

SNAP ! CRACKLE ! POP !

My specialty, Nitrogen Triiodide crystals exploding in stairways and on railings. Purple stains everywhere.

 

[sleepy]

How does that work? Nitrogen Triiodide?

I am guessing the "iodide" is photo-reactive?

 

[Coil_Smoke]

Iodine crystals reacted with ammonia. The resulting precipitate is crazy unstable when it dries. It has no practical use...Only practical jokes. Lets try YouTube cause it has to be there.

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[sleepy]

Should we avoid the vapors?