RadioBanter - View Single Post - Is the code requirement really keeping good people out of ham radio?

[email protected] · October 15th 06, 09:48 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy

From: on Fri, Oct 13 2006 3:42pm

[...who, in a desperate effort to prove he is "right" - always -
mumbles on...]

"I can't find ANY relatively modern
computer that needs 6SN7s (a dual triode, octal base),
not even 12AU7s."

2002 is certainly "relatively modern" compared to 1946.

You made a mistake, Len.

Only under
whiny little REdefinition of the
word "mistake." :-)

Nope. You made a mistake, pure and simple. That is, unless you
deliberately wrote an untruth with the intent to deceive, in which case
it was a lie.

What happened, Jimmie, you see an old TV movie about
the glorious USMC heroes and are attempting to out-do
Robeson in the "YOU LIE, YOU LIE!" department? :-)

Are you trying to pull out a SINGLE exception (from
millions of PCs in use daily) which went DEFUNCT less
than two years from its announcement? Of course you
are! You HAVE to. Your ego depends on it.

The original IBM PC that debuted in 1980 (26 years ago)
did NOT have any vacuum tubes in it.

The display that came with it had a CRT.

It was NOT integral with the main unit. In 1980 one could
purchase the main box without the CRT display.

The portable IBM PC, with built-in display, had a CRT as well.

That "portable" didn't last long on the market, did it?

Can you name the CP/M-based PCs that preceded the
original IBM PC? No? Why not? Tens of thousands
were in use, including in businesses.

You wrote that you "can't find ANY relatively modern computer" with
vacuum tubes.

That's true, Jimmie. In row upon row of many makes and
models of personal computers at Frys in Burbank, CA,
(intersection of Hollywood Way and Van Owen street)
there isn't a single one with a vacuum tube in it.
The same thing happens at Best Buy at the Empire Center
(where the main Lockheed factory had been) in Burbank.
I can go to Office Depot or Office Max and see the
same...or Circuit City or Comp USA or PC Club (the one
on Victory Blvd in Burbank at one corner of the OSH
center)...or dozens of smaller shops handling computers.

Did IBM ever produce any AMATEUR RADIO products?

No? Then why do you go on and on and on and on
about this niche subject and the "glory" that was
ENIAC?

To prove a point, Len: That a thing can be practical in its time even
if it is considered impractical in other times, and even if it is never
repeated.

Tsk, tsk, more REdefinition of the word "practical." :-)

That's true whether the device is ENIAC, Fessenden's early AM voice
work with modulated alternators, or something completely different.

Only in Jimmieworld. :-)

Now you just hop on over to your nearest AM BC station
and convince the station manager and chief engineer that
sticking a high-power, special carbon microphone in
series with the antenna feedline is "PRACTICAL."

Then you run over to the nearest ACM group and tell them
that 10 KHz clock rates on computers is "better" and "more
PRACTICAL" than 1 GHz clock rates. Good luck on that.

Did ENIAC ever serve AMATEUR RADIO in any
way?

Yes.

HOW? Name the applications of ENIAC that served ham radio.

You wrote that you "can't find ANY relatively modern computer" with
vacuum tubes.

Absolutely right.

I've had a keen interest in personal computing (as well
as numerical calculation) for over a quarter century.
The ONLY exceptions to personal computers having vacuum
tubes involve the DISPLAY, NOT the "sound output."

Vacuum tubes are just TOO SLOW to be of value in either
computation or the memory sections of computers. The
Information Technology folks found that out a half
century ago and never looked on vacuum tubes as worthy
of computation technology.

Doesn't matter, Len. You could have found the link I provided with just
a few keystrokes.

Oh, my, ruler-spank from Mother Superior again! :-)

Yes, "a few keystrokes" could have brought up "new age-ism"
of "pyramid power" or "ancient astronauts" tales from
author Erich von Daniken, not to mention lots and lots of
PR dreck from all sorts of hustlers.

Are you a musician, Len?

Yes.

That "tube
sound" MYTH has been 'over-driven' to the point of
nausea, about like the "gold-coated speaker cable"
myth that is claimed to produce "golden sound" from
music amplifiers. :-)

Tell it to those who actually play the things.

I have. I get the same response as from morsemen who
believe in the myth that OOK CW telegraphy is the
"best" way to communicate.

It is impossible to communicate with the stone walls of
morsemen Believers.

Gee, Len, you're the one carrying on like an overtired two-year-old.
I'm calm, cool and collected. Not whining, foot stamping, or crying out
anything. I'm just correcting your mistakes with facts.

Tsk, tsk, the Robeson syndrome again. You are "always right"
and your challengers are "always wrong." :-)

You keep making mistakes and I keep correcting some of them.

Tsk, tsk, for years I've shown you YOUR mistakes and
you've never acknowledged them. Hypocrite.

ENIAC did something for RADIO? [I don't think so...]

Actually, it did.

NAME IT. This is the second time you've claimed something
and NOT followed through with specifics.

YOU never worked on ENIAC. You've never claimed to have
worked on ANY computer, main-frame, minicomputer, nor
personal computer.

You are mistaken.

"Mistaken" in WHAT?

You CANNOT have worked on ENIAC prior to 1955.

What mainframe computer did you work on or with?

What minicomputer did you work on or with?

That you USE a personal computer for message communication
isn't valid for "working on" a personal computer.

Are you a member of the ACM? [Association for Computing
Machinery, the first and still-existing professional
association for computing and information technology] I was
a voting member of the ACM for a few years.

And now you're not?

Yes.

Are YOU now, or have you ever been a member of the ACM?

Answer the question I posed. Directly. No misdirection.

Do you believe in democracy, Len?

So much so that I volunteered to serve in the military of
the United States to DEFEND that right guaranteed by the
Constitution of the United States.

YOU never volunteered to serve in the military. YOU haven't
even volunteered to join a civilian government agency to do
support of democracy.

The majority of those who expressed
an opinion on the Morse Code test to FCC want at least some Morse Code
testing to remain.

A very slim margin of "majority," Jimmie. *I* am the one
who bothered to read EVERY comment on FCC 05-235 *and* to
post the updated results in here. Remember? You should,
you were in there heckling me at every turn...:-)

In the first months of Comment on FCC 05-235 the MAJORITY
of respondents were AGAINST the morse code test. You
don't want to remember that, do you? Of course not, it
goes against your morseodist Beliefs.

You MUST have that code test in federal law. You MUST,
you MUST (whiny foot-stamping, arm-waving, and crying
by you against the 'evil' eliminators).

Why do you persist with your must-have-code-test
obsession? There's NOTHING stopping anyone from USING
OOK CW telegraphy, so why is the code test a requirement
for amateur privileges below 30 MHz? You can't give any
rational answer to that, only the EMOTIONAL one, the
personal one where YOU think all must take that test.

As of 2004 the US Census Bureau stated that 1 out of 5
Americans had SOME access to the Internet. That involves
access via a personal computer (or its cousin, the "work-
station"). That is roughly 50 to 60 MILLION Americans.

Old news.

The year 2004 is "relatively modern," isn't it? :-)

The Internet went public in 1991. Is 1991 "relatively
modern?"

The US government, all agencies and officers were on
the Internet since the mid-1990s. Even the US military
(that you never served in) was on the Internet.

Are you still tied to dialup?

No and yes.

The original (and only) ENIAC used an architecture that
is NOT common to present-day personal computers. About
the only term that IS common is that ENIAC used "digital
circuits." That's about the end of it for commonality
with MILLIONS and MILLIONS of personal computers in the
daily use worldwide.

Nope. Wrong.

Sorry, Jimmie, you made one HORRENDOUS technological ERROR!

Do your homework on IT technology, say from 1955 onwards.
Try some basic subjects like "Harvard Architecture" and
all-binary registers, fetch-and-carry, addressing and data.
Forget the old IBM plugboards and patch cords of pre-WW2
technology (what you think as "ROM"?) and all-machine-
language programming transition to "high-level" languages.
That's several HUNDRED specific technological areas that
lie between 1946 through 1980 and on to 2006. Big, big BIG
changes in ALL of them.

I don't claim any "expertise" on computers...but what I DO
know is way, Way, WAY ahead of your misconception of
"practical" computing technology being that of ENIAC.

Your whole tirade in here is tied to YOUR emotional state
about ONE of the first WORKING computers at the Moore
School of Engineering. Emotional infatuation that is
bordering on the religious belief akin to sects.

Sex is still better than sects.

btw, the "Ordnance Corps" are the nice folks who take care of things
like how to do artillery barrages....

No, the "ordnance" folks maintain the ammunition and weaponry.

Then who makes up the firing tables?

Little computers on or with the field pieces and anti-
aircraft weaponry.

The only exception is the field mortars which have been
using the same elementary "firing tables" in use prior to
any ENIAC...i.e., since before WW2.

You can begin by studying "TACFIRE" and its evolution but
RELATIVELY MODERN (since 1980) artillery aiming and firing
has been systemized with field computers doing the "on-line"
tasks of aiming, especially with moving targets. The Abrams
tank turret gun is computer-controlled as one example, that
one may be responsible for its very high "kill" ratio that
ranks among the best of the world's military. Try the AEGIS
missle cruiser fire control system, able to track several
targets simultaneously and direct gun fire as well as missle
firing. Try the modern aircraft fire control systems, in
everything from the old F-102 on up to the F-18 and F-22,
systems which are an integral part of the whole airframe's
control. Cruise missles (around since the 1970s) don't use
"firing tables" or even "sectional charts" to fly to a pre-
set target all by themselves. ALL of those are about as
"related" to ENIAC as the modern word processor-computer-
printer is to clay tablets and cuneiform writing, perhaps
what you would call "practical" writing-recording of data.

Jimmie, you REALLY need to get your head out of your ass
and into the modern world.

As ever to you, the ByteBrothers famous phrase is invoked.

What phrase is that, Len?

"Just a few keystrokes" will get you that phrase, Jimmie.

The late Jimmy Pearson coined it. Lots of us old
ByteBrothers remember it.