aoki@faerie.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki) (12/16/88)
>I don't know about now, but I've seen tongue-in-cheek stuff from Cray before. >(The less polite would call it bullsh*tting.) Like the way that the balance >of the signal propagation delays in the DIGITAL LOGIC in a Cray-1 causes a >a load with 0 power factor to be presented to the AC POWER LINE (think about >it; think about how power supplies are implemented; and think about the semi- >literate computer science hack who doesn't know much about electrical engi- >neering and eats that kind of stuff up like it was from Moses). Please, I am but a poor semi-literate computer science hack who doesn't know enough of electrical engineering to see the joke, can you explain it to me? (Really! Me, I *believed* all that about "presenting a purely resistive load to the power supply". [ Wait, "to the power supply"? ]) Can you also explain how two slides and a minute of this bullsh*t got past a big crowd at LLNL in '75, and then a paper with this bullsh*t got past the CACM reviewers in '78 (and then past Siewiorek Bell and Newell in '82)? Damn, Dave Patterson never explained the joke either. What a bunch of maroons! ---------------- Paul M. Aoki CS Division, Dept. of EECS // UCB // Berkeley, CA 94720 (415) 642-1863 aoki@postgres.Berkeley.EDU ...!ucbvax!aoki "Guards, beat this man brutally for daring to try to confuse me!" _Floyd Farland, Citizen of the Future_
levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (12/17/88)
In article <8342@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, aoki@faerie.Berkeley.EDU (Paul M. Aoki) writes: > Please, I am but a poor semi-literate computer science hack who doesn't > know enough of electrical engineering to see the joke, can you explain it > to me? (Really! Me, I *believed* all that about "presenting a purely > resistive load to the power supply". [ Wait, "to the power supply"? ]) Well, it looks like I've been the butt of my own obtuseness. When I read that, I thought "gee whiz, what OTHER kind of load could be presented to a DC power supply (in steady state)? Capacitive? Inductive? (none of which would matter to DC, right?)". So I wrote it off as B.S. I'm sorry I came down too hard because (as somebody else explained to me) I now know what he meant. But I still insist it was poorly worded. Had I had to phrase the description, I would have said "presented an UNVARYING load to the power supply." A resistive load could comprise a bank of resistors being switched on and off; it's still resistive, right? But it's not unvarying. -- |------------Dan Levy------------| THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE MINE ONLY | Bell Labs Area 61 (R.I.P., TTY)| AND ARE NOT TO BE IMPUTED TO AT&T. | Skokie, Illinois | |-----Path: att!ttbcad!levy-----|
karl@ficc.uu.net (karl lehenbauer #) (12/20/88)
If you're ever in Boston, check out the Boston Computer Museum. I think it's still the only permanent computer museum in the world. Anyway, they have this "shrine" to Seymour that's adorned with several great quotes by him and by others about him. The only one I can remember offhand is "Cost was never much of a consideration in the design of my machines." -- -- uunet!ficc!karl "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious -- karl@ficc.uu.net encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis O. Brandeis