[11229] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
"Ask Dr. Internet" for April, 1997
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (PACS-L Moderator)
Thu Apr 17 20:17:57 1997
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 18:12:53 -0500 (CDT)
From: PACS-L Moderator <libpacs@UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
From: "Michael S. Hart" <hart@prairienet.org>
Subject: "Ask Dr. Internet" for April, 1997
This is Ask Dr. Internet for April, 1997
Answers to questions received from March 17th to April 16th:
A lot of the current buzz is about the new generation of CPU
[Central Processing Unit] chips now hitting the markets: so
we will start with those, and then some follow ups on issues
we have previously addressed.
Q0.
Prices Fall As New CPU Chips Hit The Market This Week.
As of this week, 200 Mhz MMX Pentium CPU's are $485.
Down $200 from Last Friday!
Q1.
The Pentium II Chips [P7] [Klamath], and PowerPC 603e
Now that the new generation of chips is out,
What are your predictions for the next generations?
Q2.
The MMX Chips
Q3.
The Cyrix Pentium Clones [M2]
Q4.
The AMD Pentium Clones [K6] 200Mhz
Q5.
More on Cookies
Q6.
Internet in Other Countries
Q7.
More on CyberCensors
Q8.
More on IntraNets
Q9.
More on Colors
Q10.
More on "Save Settings On Exit"
Q11.
More on Push Technology
Q12.
More on 12x and 16x CDROM drives.
Q13.
AOLers getting "Transfer Interrupted."
Q14.
Headlines from Edupage
Q15.
More on our Interview with St. Jude
***
Q0.
Prices Fall As New CPU Chips Hit The Market This Week.
As of this week, 200 Mhz MMX Pentium CPU's are $485.
Down $200 from Last Friday!
Most Intel CPU chips should be 25-30% less this week.
If you have been considering an upgrade, now is the
time to start doing your research. By the time you
have finished, these price drops should have reached
the shelves of your dealers. Do not buy anything at
last week's prices without serious reason behind it.
Q1.
Now that the new generation of chips is out,
what are your predictions for the next generations?
A1.
Up until the Pentium Pro [P6 or 80686] each generation of new
CPU chips could be expected to provide at least 3 times speed
performance of the previous generation, on the average. Thus
a person who wanted to upgrade when things could be done some
10 times faster could just buy every other generation; people
who moved from an 8086 to an 80386, or from a 68010 to 68030,
could each expect perhaps 10 times the performance in general
and were rarely disappointed; the same would be approximately
true for people moving from 80286 to 80486 or 68020 to 68040;
and also for 80386 to 80586 [Pentium/P5], or 68030 to PowerPC
chips of the earlier varieties.
However, the Pentium Pro was an exception to this thumb rule,
in that it provided much more noticeable improvements in some
areas than other.
Thus the benchmarks for the Pentium II [P7] have been made in
comparison to the Pentium, rather than the Pentium Pro, and a
sincere effort has been made to insure that the Pentium II is
significantly better than either the Pentium or Pentium Pro.
For the moment, it would appear the Pentium II will have only
one speed, 266Mhz, and that it will be about a 4 times faster
chip than the 166Mhz Pentium, which would give it an over-all
performance upgrade of 2.5 times Pentium with some comparable
clock speed [Mhz = million clock ticks per second].
The PowerPC 603e Chips are out at 375Mhz, and will apparently
provide approximately the same performance as the Pentium II,
even though they are running at a faster clock speed; we have
a Pentium II chip already, but we don't have a PowerPC 603e--
if you have one and can let us know how it works, please tell
us for the next issue[s].
These are all approximations, but we would not advise persons
to spend money on upgrades whose performance is not a visible
aspect of a hands on trial run of your own software. If your
trial runs do not indicate a worthy return for your money, do
NOT buy the upgraded systems no matter how good it benchmarks
on paper' as our Ask Dr. Internet Guru's Guru, Kevin Gilmore,
is fond of reminding us:
"A benchmark is just a benchmark."
The real test of performance is how it works for YOU.
Since it is now obvious that chip speeds are not going to get
faster and faster on the same scale they have been since they
were only a few Mhz 20 years ago while processing 8 or 16 bit
"words" per clock tick and are now processing 32 bit words or
larger. . .the resultant new processing technology is already
in place in many things we already take for granted.
All three generations of the Pentium chips [Pentium P5/80586,
Pentium Pro P6/80686, and the new Pentium II P7/80876] really
are more than one CPU [Central Processing Unit], and have new
multiple caches nowadays as well. . .they are really all more
than one single chip. . .and the new operating systems should
be getting more and more optimized to use all these at once--
and they are.
Most of our readers would not actually consider buying any of
the motherboards that support two Pentium chips, but truth is
that many people will be buying just such a thing without any
idea that is what they are doing, because the multiple chips,
such as they are, are still housed in what appears to be just
one single chip.
However, as these chips get larger and larger, and contain an
ever growing number of transistors [transfer resistors], this
is going to approach limits of size and temperature that will
probably eventually require splitting the whole processing in
two, or four, or more chips, as is currently being done in an
ever widening array of more and more powerful computers. The
heat problem was recently addressed by reducing some voltages
from around 5V to around 3V, but this is not likely to happen
again, as the minimum voltages necessary to separate 1s or 0s
is a couple volts, and the lowest voltage they can maintain a
reliable signal at is nearly 1 volt. So having one signal at
1 volt and the other at 3 volts is about as low as possible--
until some other major breakthrough is created.
Me. . .I am still waiting for the desktop computer you fill a
tank in with liquid nitrogen. . .a superconducting desktopper
is probably something that will never happen, they would be a
bit afraid of having liquid nitrogen around, even though this
is a much more common substance than most people realize. In
any college there is usually plenty of it, and the student is
likely to carry it around in a pretty ordinary thermos.
So, the Sgt. Preston idea of having 8 or so dog chips pulling
the CPU sled is still more likely to be the future of desktop
computing. [Sgt. Preston was a TV hero of the 50's just like
Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Hickok, and Sky King. . .only he was in
the Yukon, so his main means of transportation was a dogsled.
He was also old enough, along with the others, to have been a
radio hero, as well. "Video Killed The Radio Star."
For now, the only speed the Pentium II has is 266 Mhz.
There will be a Pentium Pro MMX: probably with 512K internal
cache. . .though we have heard there will be two cache sizes.
It will probably run at 375 Mhz, just like the PowerPC 603e--
and will probably provide comparable performance.
Q2.
The MMX Chips
A2.
A lot of hype has gone into the advertising of the MMX chips,
as well as lawsuits trying to keep other chip makers who paid
for MMX technology from actually using the name "MMX."
The lawsuits apparently failed.
From what we have heard, there are only two real differences,
MMX has twice the internal cache and some extra instructions.
Doubling the internal cache certainly makes a CPU chip go for
benchmark testing, but whether you could do as well with some
extra external cache for the same expenditure we haven't been
able to figure out yet. It might just be too dependent on an
individual's applications to make such a generalization.
The advertizing certainly make me think I am going to get far
more color, sound and movie performance with an MMX chip; but
our Guru's Guru says that MMX would not give you more colors,
or brighter colors, under any circumstances, and that videos,
if they already play at the right speed, will not be improved
by the addition of an MMX chip. However, if your videos were
performing in a jerky manner, then some MMX's cache certainly
could help. However, you might also try spending the dollars
on something like a Diamond Stealth video card, and keep your
old CPU. For the same dollars, you might get more colors and
also smoother videos.
Current sound card defaults are 44Khz sampling rates: unless
you have less than this, MMX is probably not going to give an
extra boost to your sound performance.
As for the extra instructions: there had been some arguments
as to how many there are, 36, 56 or 57, but this is semantics
and it just happens that some of the instructions have extras
in terms of certain modes they can be used in, which some are
calling extra instructions, and others call extra modes. Our
Guru's Guru says that most of them are instructions you would
never likely use, but that several of them, especially in the
area of fourier transforms, are very nice to have, and should
enhance possible video and audio speed, if they are not up to
speed with your current configuration.
As always, we recommend that you NOT take our word for any of
this, but test your own applications with the various maker's
products, and then, and only then, decide which way your buck
provides the best bang.
"You will still need a wizbang video card.
"If you already have a 16 bit soundcard that does 44Khz output
at whatever bits wide, it cannot get any better."
Q3.
The Cyrix Pentium Clones [M2]
A3.
Watch out for bad floating point performance.
IBM makes all Cyrix chips.
and also makes Intel's for themselves and limited others.
The M2 isn't really out yet, so there isn't much to say now--
we will review it in more detail when it is released.
Q4.
The AMD K6 Pentium Clones at 200Mhz
A4.
Faster then MMX Pentium, not as fast as the PII.
Like 200Mhz Pentium at $50 less, even counting new prices from Intel.
K5 133Mhz should still be half the price of Pentium 166Mhz.
$125 K5 133 versus $250 Pentium 166.
[The prices we quote are usually wholesale.]
[Expect to pay 10% to 20% more from a decent dealer.]
Q5.
More on Cookies
A5.
There is way too much to be said about cookies, which report info
about you to the Web sites you access; unless you go to !EXTREME!
measures to avoid it, you should presume your arrival at any site
is monitored, that they have your email address and various other
information about you.
We plan to append more info on cookies in coming Newsletters, the
current Newsletter is getting way too full, and there is probably
much more on "cookies" than most of you want to hear.
For now, you might look at:
http://www.helie.com/BrowserCheck/
http://www.13x.com/cgi-bin/cdt/snoop.pl
http://www.pinch.com/html/test.html
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~angus/Computing/Programming/Perl/Samples/
AboutCallerID.html
For we suggest you presume that you cannot really defeat "cookie"
technology, and that the big companies are going to "profile" you
and your habits.
Once again we remind you that you should presume that everything,
EVERYTHING, you do on a network computer or connection, is being
monitored by both governments and corporations.
Q6.
Internet in Other Countries
A6.
Our sources in other countries tell us there are now street signs
directing you to the nearest Internet connection, just as some do
for hospitals, libraries, etc. If you can send us picture[s], we
would love to see.
Q7.
More on CyberCensors
Some of our researchers have checked on the CyberCensors for
us during the last month, and we should warn you that it may
also be the case that your children are "protected" from the
sites that present the views of other political parties than
that of the particular CyberCensor.
"Readers should be aware that exactly what 'kid-filter' programs
filter out, and how much control they give you over the filtering,
can vary widely from program to program. If you're planning on using
a filter, I recommend researching thoroughly what it does.
"One filter that seems to be particularly problematic is [NameWitheld],
which apparently filters out not only filters out the usual 'indecencies'
but also political sites they don't like, and even sites whose only
'offense' seems to be that they criticize [NameWitheld]. For more
information, see http://www.peacefire.org/ (not viewable via NameWitheld).
That site also has critiques of some other filtering programs as well."
We don't want to get into any particular wars between the CyberCensors
and the rest of the world, so we have deleted the name of the specific
one[s] mentioned as particularly politically biased or refusing access
to the views of opposing political parties or positions.
It seems obvious to even the most casual observer which side is which,
and which side would prefer to keep the next generation in ignorance--
not only of particular "indecencies"--but also of the platforms of the
opposing political parties, thus removing "freedom of choice" from the
next generation.
More below in the Edupage section.
Q8.
More on IntraNets
Intranets ARE like small corporate versions of the Internet,
but they can still reach hundreds or even thousands of hosts
in a variety of countries. [WAN, Wide Area Network, is what
they used to be called before them spin doctors came up with
the buzzword name "Intranet."
Advertising strikes again.
Look up how the word "Tuna" came into our vocabulary.
No one wanted to eat it when it was "horse mackerel."
Q9.
More on Colors
We have a bug in one of our color programs, which we still haven't
found yet, but apparently our settings were one notch higher than
it actually said on the screen. You can determine the numbers of
colors on your systems by simply multiplying 2 times itself the
number of bits your color video card is using [ours was lying,
apparently]. Thus 8 bit color will give 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2 = 256,
16 bits multiplies twice as many 2's. . .256x256 = 65536 colors.
24 bits multiplies by another 256: 256x256x256 = 16,777,216.
Our color guru, Steve Weintz, says that 32 bit color has more
to do with how "transparent" the colors are, rather than just
what color they are.
Q10.
More on "Save Settings On Exit"
The easy way around this problem is to always leave your
"Save Settings On Exit" OFF, and use SHIFT with a double
click on the close windows box. That's the little minus
sign in the upper left hand corner. You should see your
hard drive light up as it registers the new information.
If you don't see this, it probably is not saving.
Just quit windows and come back to be sure.
Erratum:
The 10 second install from a 12x CDROM drive
was for Windows 3.1 not for Windows 95
Q11.
More on Push Technology
More and more people tell us it looks like advertising,
but others we know just love it. . .depends on how good
you are at ignoring little flashy things on your screen
. . .when the ads were always in the same corner, a few
post it notes were enough to reduce the flashiness to a
more acceptable level. . .but they figured out our post
it note strategy, and now they move the ads all over.
Just like TV trying to insure you actually watch ads by
disguising them, or insuring that all your channels are
going to have their ads at the same time.
Isn't that "anti-competitive?"
Shouldn't you be able to check out another show?
It also gets me how often different channels do exactly
the same thing at exactly the same time. My TV has the
three channels all live feature, so I can watch all the
major networks at the same time. . .and it is shocking,
freaky, actually, how often they are doing exactly same
commercial breaks [and sometimes exactly the same ads],
and exactly the same stories. Hard to get two opinions
on the weather if all the channels do the weather at an
exact same moment, or two opinions on other things that
might be more important. [Though around Tornado Alley,
at this time of year, the weather is VERY important.]
Here is a quote from one of our reader about "push."
"Well, I have a little experience with what might be called push technology.
I downloaded a beta program from http://www.pointcast.com/. It provides a
screensaver, very configurable, that gives news, sports, stocks, horoscope,
and some other info.
After watching it for a while, I decided that it really did look like
advertising.
After it crashed my system a couple of times and made some phone calls
to my ISP that I didn't expect (it likes to update itself, even though you
don't start it, but that's configurable, too), I took it off my system.
The PC version is full release, I believe, and much more stable than
the Mac version I used."
Q12.
More on 12x and 16x CDROM drives.
Our Guru's Guru has also run tests on these new "high"
speed CDROM drives, and based on the specifications of
the original CDROM drives [150K/second] has found that
under even optimal conditions that none of them really
perform at the speed they are labelled.
"The drive I got was a brandname 16x scsi drive. Not believing
their specs, I decided to rig a test to test this stuff.
I wrote a 20mb datafile to a cd 34 times (680mb), it just fit.
Naming each one a different name, but the same data.
When I read the first file, (the inside of the disk) transfer
at 750 kb/second. That's 5x. When I read the last datafile on
the disk (very outside of the disk) it reads at 1800 kb/sec.
That's 12x. Neither is anywhere near the 16x that the drive
is rated for. And all timings are on an Adaptec 2940uw set
for maximum synchronous speed. Although this is still better
than i expected its still a case of Liar Liar, pants on fire.
"By the way, 300 rpm on the inside and 150 rpm on the outside
are from Philips original specs..." [Philips of Europe did
all the inventing of Compact Cassettes and Compact Discs,
but SOME of our research on CDROM technology tried to point
to Sony, while NONE of the sources pointed to Philips. We
presume there is some political intrigue going on there.]
Q13.
AOLers getting "Transfer Interrupted."
We haven't figured out this bug yet, which popped up in many
of our Dr. Internet questions last week. We have recommended
changing back to older versions of browsers, but we don't know
if that has done the trick.
We should also report that MicroSoft Internet Explorer has been
apparently programmed to only let you view Web sites that could
be called "very picky" in their execution of HTML protocols. A
previous version of MSIE might read these or most other browser
programs in any version.
We recommend backing up every browser you already have before a
new browser is installed, as some of them apparently "eat" each
other up in some kind of dominance war.
Back up your bookmarks even more frequently. I would suggest a
"double entry" system, in which you enter each new bookmark two
times, once in your browser[s], and once in a separate file; it
might also be worthwhile to keep that file on a floppy, not the
hard drive, to try to preserve it from being "eaten." Name the
file something the dominating programs won't recognize.
Q14.
Headlines from Edupage [educom@eleanor.oit.unc.edu]
THE MOUSE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
Douglas Engelbart, the man who invented the computer mouse, accepted this
year's $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize. As he received the award, Engelbart was
described by economist Lester Thurow as "the father of the way we do the
Internet, videoconferencing, e-mail and most of our modern interactions with
computers. With his help, the computer has become a friendly servant rather
than a stern taskmaster." Nicknamed the mouse because connecting wire
resembled a tail, the device was patented as an X-Y position indicator for a
display system. Engelbart, now 72, says, "In 20 or 30 years, you'll be
able to hold in your hand as much computing knowledge as exists now in the
whole city, or even the whole world." (AP 9 Apr 97)
AOL IN LEGAL TANGLE OVER DISKETTE NUMBERS
America Online is fighting with PTP Industries, the packaging company that
helped AOL produce and mail all those little diskettes that flooded the
country last year. PTP says AOL owes it $2.1 million, but AOL refuses,
saying PTP has overstated the number of diskettes it shipped. PTP claims it
shipped 150 million diskettes in 1996. Provident Bank of Maryland is now
suing AOL for about $2.1 million, after PTP defaulted on a $3.5-million
loan, granted in part because of the contract with AOL. (Wall Street
Journal 21 Mar 97)
MAC RAMPS UP TO 300-MHZ
Apple has taken the wraps off its new Power Mac 6500 -- an "entry-level"
model boasting the first-ever 300-MHz PowerPC 603e microprocessor. Other
models use chips running at 225, 250 and 275 MHz. "We've been looking
forward to these models," says Mac retailer. The 300-MHz machine will run
about $2,999 and will come complete with 64 Mbytes of RAM, a 4-Gbyte hard
disk and a Zip drive. (MacWeek 4 Apr 97)
AOL RAMPS UP ITS SEARCH FOR NEW CUSTOMERS
After slowing down its customer recruitment efforts this winter after its
new unlimited-access rate caused heavy congestion and angered many of its 8
million existing customers, America Online is now again stepping up its
marketing efforts. AOL chief executive Steve Case says: "We will begin
marketing on a limited basis, slowly ramping up over time so we can measure
the impact of each incremental increase in marketing." (Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 10 Apr 97)
MORE PRICE CUTS FROM INTEL
Spurred by competition from Advanced Micro Devices and Cyrix, Intel is
expected to cut prices on its microprocessors even more than usual, as much
as 25% to 30% off on its popular Pentium chips. The company had cut its
prices only 10% to 20% last quarter, and not at all in the fourth quarter of
'96. AMD last week announced its K6 chip, which is nearly as fast as Intel's
Pentium II, fits into current Pentium system boards, and is priced 25% lower
than the Pentium II. Cyrix is expected to announce a comparable chip called
the M2 in June. (Wall Street Journal 11 Apr 97)
YOU'RE NOT AS SECURE AS YOU THINK YOU ARE
Platinum Technology CEO Andrew Filipowski doesn't think much of current
efforts to secure corporate networks: "Today, the entire scheme of security
can be characterized by two things: either you're making it a hassle to get
into your network so a thief will go over and steal from someone else;
and/or you just hope somebody has something more worthy to be stolen than
you do. Only stupid people are kept out of networks. There's plenty of
them, so that's the good news.... A firewall is a pretty crude,
fundamentally stupid idea. It often puts things that you would prefer get
stolen on one side and things you'd prefer not get stolen on the other side
-- with no real assurances that sensitive material is being protected....
The problem, in a nutshell, is there's no unified security scheme produced
by anyone that can cover all the holes simultaneously to present an
impenetrable barrier." (Investor's Business Daily 10 Apr 97)
DON'T ASK RESEARCH PEOPLE WHY NET WAS SUCCESSFUL
Microsoft chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold says the development of
Mosaic and similar Web-oriented products were social and commercial
breakthroughs (and "fine work"), but not technological breakthroughs. "If
you'd said up front, 'My research program is that I'm going to allow bitmaps
to get transferred over this simple protocol,' people would have said, 'That
isn't research.' It isn't!" And so what, exactly, has happened? "It
turned out that a low-tech social phenomenon called the Internet has
suddenly arisen and surprised people. But it's like asking people in
plastics research why the hula hoop was successful." (Upside Apr 97)
IBM PONDERS APPLE LAPTOP MARKET
IBM is eyeing the Apple laptop market, and is considering producing and
putting its name on a high-powered portable that would run Apple's MacOS
operating system. IBM Microelectronics makes PowerPC chips for Apple and is
the sole licensee of Apple's laptop version of MacOS. The companies are
working together on an Apple-branded sub-notebook, code-named Comet,
destined for the Japanese market. "IBM could easily take 30 to 40 percent
of market share away from Apple because Apple can't meet the demand," says a
Dataquest analyst. "This is a prime time to do it." IBM officials say,
"There has been no decision made. That's not a product that we've
announced." (TechWire 24 Mar 97)
NET RESULTS
Simmons Market Research Bureau's 1997 Study of Media and Markets indicates
that the use of online interactive services has increased to 20%, from 12.7%
in 1995. Another 10% of the 20,000-plus adults polled plan to go online
within the next 12 months. Meanwhile, the Electronic Information Report
says the number of online subscriptions hit 21 million in 1996, up 45% from
1995. Many of those subscriptions are a result of the migration of some
information services, such as Microsoft Network, Prodigy, Lexis-Nexis, Dow
Jones and Reuters, to the Web. Consumer services, such as America Online,
racked up the biggest gains. And finally, the Internet Advertising Bureau
says fourth quarter revenue for online advertising reached $109.5 million
last year, up 45% from the third quarter. Five industry categories
dominated: computer products (38%), consumer-related (20%), new media
(17%), telecommunications (9%), and business services (6%). (Investor's
Business Daily 26 Mar 97)
MAJOR EXPANSION OF INTERNET SHOPPING
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retail company, will more than double the
number of items (to about 80,000) that will be available to persons who shop
on the Internet, making it possible for online shoppers to find as many
items as they would find in any of Wal-Mart's 2,000 out-of-town discount
stores. (Financial Times 27 Mar 97)
SEVENTH-GRADERS TO GET LAPTOPS FOR "TOTAL IMMERSION"
The Kent, Connecticut, school district has bought every one of its 36
seventh graders a $1,855 laptop computer, purchased through a program set up
by Toshiba and Microsoft. A school administrator says: "It's like learning
French in France rather than in Connecticut. It's total immersion as
opposed to dabbling." Students will store their computers in locked
cabinets during lunch and other periods when the systems are not being used.
(New York Times 26 Mar 97)
FILTERING SOFTWARE REMAINS A WORK-IN-PROGRESS
The software packages designed to provide parents the ability to censor the
Internet sometimes produce curious results, such as the censoring of the
poet Anne Sexton because of the first syllable of her surname, and the
blocking of a search for information on the country Sri Lanka, which one
software package deemed, inexplicably, to be erotic. At the same time, some
sexually explicit Web pages are able to elude censorship by not using any of
the words or phrases considered to signal objectionable material.
(AP 26 Mar 97)
INTERNET 2 BACKERS BRIEF CONGRESS
Backers of the Internet 2 project promised "killer applications" that will
benefit researchers throughout academe if Congress decides to go ahead with
President Clinton's plan to spend $100 million on the next-generation
computer network. Only $30 million of that will be spent directly on
university networking, pointed out Pennsylvania State University Graham
Spanier in congressional testimony last week. The rest will go toward
upgrading the networks of several government agencies. "Some fear that the
Internet 2 might simply be an effort on the part of the most prestigious
higher-education institutions to create their own private network -- to
serve their own needs to the exclusion of others. Our goals are to rapidly
deploy our success to benefit others in the educational community and beyond
-- K-12, libraries, and institutions other than those top 100 or so, who
can't afford to take this first step." Educom VP Mike Roberts emphasized
that the Internet 2 project is just as much about applications and exploring
new ways to use networks in research and teaching as it is about hardware
acquisition. See http://www.internet2.edu for more information. (Chronicle
of Higher Education 18 Apr 97)
[Don't expect to see anything outside those "Top 100" institutions
for a long, long, time, esp. if you are a K-12 school. Dr. Net."]
And from our own news reporters:
TEACHING AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTS AT COLLEGE FINALLY UNIONIZE
After hundreds of years of working as what many have referred to
as "student slaves," Teaching and Research Assistants have voted
to unionize as a result of college and university policies that
have paid them a smaller and smaller percentage of tuition each
year since the beginning of the Internet. Most or all of the
early host computers on the Internet were operated nearly in
toto by these graduate students, who were getting paid $3,500
back in the 1960's when the Internet began. Tuition has gone
up by a factor of 10 since then, but the pay for these student
slaves has gone up only by a factor of about 3.
Q15.
Follow up questions on our Interview with St. Jude
A.
Comparing the past to the present in terms of computerism.
Q1.
As someone who undoubtedly grew up using interfaces that use a command line,
what do you think of GUI's?
A1.
GUIs can be good. When I come to an interface, my only concern is, How
easily can I get what I want? How much like hacking does this have to be?
Can i get it NOW, or do i have to read a damn manual? If i want to do
something complicated, can i extrapolate how, or do i have to
social-engineer it from the damn customer support? Plug and play is the
only way to go for casual access... by definition, jeez. Good GUIs are
transparent. Great GUIs are invisible. There are some clever people
designing interfaces that work, nowadays (hey, i'm one).
Q2.
Is the command line going the way of the dinosaur?
A2.
Outside your window many dinosaurs are chirping, with feathers.
The command line is always there. In a GUI it's conceptual,
managed, translated for you into impeccable syntax, perfectly
spelled, no typos.
[But, reminds drnet, simple things like FTPing into a hidden
FTP directory, even if you have the password and know what a
file's name it, is difficult or impossible, with many GUIs.]
Q3.
Without command lines where will our new programmers be coming from?
A3.
That's the real question. From the inevitable need for customization,
maybe? Your plug-in macros don't give you everything you need, so you're
forced to learn to program your own macros... And then every time a
delivered system doesn't do what you REALLY need, you feel better equipped
to jigger it/ make add-ons/ get in there and hack it?
But the real answer may be: the new programmers will be former video gamers,
by way of Computer Science/Electrical Engineer programs, aagh.
Q4.
Will object-oriented programming really work on those really fundamental
things at the bottom or top of the pyramid?
A4.
[Note: o-o is short for Object Oriented programming]
Sure enough. Where do you think o-o came from? It was a programmer's
strategy. Actually, it's how the mind wants to work: you assemble these
little simple things (which may be only a couple lines of code), which are
rigorously defined and work every time, and these can be assembled as tools
and components of a system, and every system can become an invisible
subsystem within a bigger system, until you can ride the bicycle without
thinking NOW I contract THOSE muscles to PUSH THE LEFT PEDAL DOWN... Every
time you learn something new you're doing object-oriented programming.
Q5.
Are we breeding a new generation of computer geeks that are to have "a 6th
grade reading level and an MTV attention span?"
A5.
These would not be computer geeks. They'd be game-boy players. Drones.
No-lifers. True computer geeks, by contrast, are the 3L1TE of the world.
[Note: 3L1TE is a hacker pun for ELITE]
Q6.
What is your favorite operating system, and why?
A6.
UNIX, for sure. Grandma's house. Roots, mon.
[So Jude, which do you really prefer, GUIs or UNIX?
Or do different things require different interfaces?]
Q7.
Favorite hardware?
A7.
You know, I don't care about hardware. If it works, it's fast, it's
easy, it's okay. I've been using a Macintosh for a long time because
I do graphics, and the Mac has done it for me.
[You CAN run UNIX [AUX] on a Mac, but I'll bet Jude doesn't do that.]
Q8.
Favorite programming language?
A9.
I guess I have a sentimental attachment to C. But I hope I never
have to program for a living again. I'd rather write English.
[This issue of drnet has just reached 30K, so we will continue on
the topics of Jude's books and her comments on movies next month]
Thanks Jude, and thanks to all of our other contributors!
