Being Amber Rhea

All you need to know about networking with System 6

Now that we’ve all recovered from my attempt at video-making in 1998, it’s time for some 2009 video-making, which is actually less fancy – but, oddly, has editing! I guess it all evens out. Here, I talk about the PowerBook 145B and Farallon PhoneNet connectors, and mention the moon landing.

2 Responses to “All you need to know about networking with System 6”

1. 26 May 2009 at 9:32 am   SnowdropExplodes
   
   

   Wow, I used to have one of those!

   Well, maybe not that exact model, but a PowerBook that looked a lot like it. It was really my Dad’s, but I used it a lot since this was when i was still living at home during university holidays.

   Dad is one of those people who hears of a new fancy gadget, and without knowing anything about why it’s any better than what he already has, wants one. Consequently, I have benefited from his computer hand-me-downs quite a lot.

   The thing about how much more computing power we have, compared to what we actually need, is something I’ve noticed too. Most people do just a few basic things with their computers: email, interweb, word processor, maybe spreadsheet/database. These have been handled perfectly well since at least 1987! Even the image processing that most people do is just adding captions to photos (e.g. LOLcats). The processing power to handle these functions was available on the Amstrad PCW that was the family’s first computer (dedicated word processor, but with the other functions apart from image processing available; no hard drive, 512k RAM). These days you can practically get that processing capability in a mobile phone!

   Also – the thing about the moon landings: at least in the movie of Apollo 13, it was shown as a lot of the calculations wee being done on slide rules, not by computer: the slide rule was a more effective tool! (A geek friend once told me that when they asked how NASA had handled the 3-dimensional maths for the actual landing procedure, the NASA mathematician said “we just approximated it on a 2-d plane, and every time the ship deviated from that plane, we recalculated for the new plane” – they were basically just winging it!)

2. 26 May 2009 at 11:34 am   Amber
   
   

   (A geek friend once told me that when they asked how NASA had handled the 3-dimensional maths for the actual landing procedure, the NASA mathematician said “we just approximated it on a 2-d plane, and every time the ship deviated from that plane, we recalculated for the new plane” – they were basically just winging it!)

   Ha! Not sure whether to be amused or disturbed.