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Monday Links from the Still Point of the Turning World vol. DCLXXXX

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    Monday Links from the Still Point of the Turning World vol. DCLXXXX

    Happy vernal equinox!
    • India’s Urban Leopards - ”One day last May, Prakash Bhoir was preparing for his son’s wedding when an unexpected guest appeared before him and his neighbors. But instead of running for their lives, they bowed to him in reverence. The leopard gave them a direct glance before vanishing into the jungle. Later, they would conclude, the leopard had come to bless the newlyweds.” Puts my concerns the other day about a cat potentially hassling the blackbirds in the hedge outside into perspective
    • The Unpredictable Abilities Emerging From Large AI Models - ”Large language models like ChatGPT are now big enough that they’ve started to display startling, unpredictable behaviors.” Interesting thoughts on the possible problems of emergent behaviour in systems too big to understand.
    • Dizzy apes provide clues on human need for mind altering experiences - ”Great apes deliberately spin themselves in order make themselves dizzy, academics at the University of Warwick and the University of Birmingham have discovered.” I didn't realise they had that many apes in Warwick and Birmingham, spinning or otherwise
    • I disconnected from the electric grid for 8 months—in Manhattan - Is sustainable energy use possible in the heart of the city? ”On May 22, 2022, I began an experiment. I unplugged everything in my apartment, with the goal of drawing zero power from the electric grid for one month. I had no idea how I would make it past a few days… As I type these words in January, I’m in my eighth month. My Con-Ed bills continue to show zero kilowatt-hours.”
    • The college wrestlers who took on a grizzly bear - The headline sounds like they went looking for one, but it was the other way round: ”Up on the mountain, Brady and Kendell had waded into a deep brush, so dense that it was almost impossible to see the ground. Kendell was about 50 feet away when he heard Brady yell, ‘Hey, watch out for this big pile of bear s---.’ That's when they heard a loud cracking noise. Brady ended his sentence and was only able to blurt out ‘Bear!’ before a 500-pound grizzly hit him in the chest.”
    • Something Pretty Right: A History of Visual Basic - ”How Visual Basic became the world's most dominant programming environment, its sudden fall from grace, and why its influence is still shaping the future of software development.” A look back at Alan Cooper’s great invention.
    • The end of the A601(M) - ”One of the UK’s strangest little motorways, the A601(M) in Lancashire, has just been downgraded into oblivion.” Sic transit gloria mundi
    • Diaries of Note – On this day in diary entries - Shaun Usher, creator of Letters of Note, Speeches of Note and Lists of Note is back with a new project: ”Every day, beginning on 1st January 2023, a new (old) diary entry will be published on Diaries of Note, with each entry appearing on the same day and month as it was originally written. Every single diarist will be different—nobody will appear twice—which means that by 31st December 2023 you will have been transported back in time by 365 people… Countless hours have been spent obtaining permission to use the diary entries you will read on Diaries of Note—or at least, those that are still in copyright.”
    • Reverse-engineering the multiplication algorithm in the Intel 8086 processor - Ken Shirriff continues his exploration of the 8086: ”One of the nice features of the Intel 8086 processor (1978) was that it provided machine instructions for multiplication… Even so, multiplication was a slow operation, about 24 to 30 times slower than addition. In this blog post, I explain the multiplication process inside the 8086, analyze the microcode that it used, and discuss the hardware circuitry that helped it out.” And after the Intel guys had gone to all that trouble, ingrates like me barely used the instructions. It was quicker to, for example, multiply by 80 (to calculate the offset of the start of a row on the CGA adapter’s bitmap) by shifting and adding: assuming y was in AX, then ASL AX, 4; MOV DX, AX; ASL AX, 2; ADD AX, DX was about ten times faster than MUL AX, 80
    • Bonkers Reasons For Divorce That Made US Headlines Between 1910 And 1920 - ”This photo collection shows historic newspaper clippings that feature weird and, sometimes, funny reasons for divorce in the US that made local headlines in the early part of the 20th century.” This one is from the Harrisburg Telegraph, Pennsylvania, December 3, 1924.


    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    Originally posted by NickFitz View Post
    Reverse-engineering the multiplication algorithm in the Intel 8086 processor - Ken Shirriff continues his exploration of the 8086: ”One of the nice features of the Intel 8086 processor (1978) was that it provided machine instructions for multiplication… Even so, multiplication was a slow operation, about 24 to 30 times slower than addition. In this blog post, I explain the multiplication process inside the 8086, analyze the microcode that it used, and discuss the hardware circuitry that helped it out.” And after the Intel guys had gone to all that trouble, ingrates like me barely used the instructions. It was quicker to, for example, multiply by 80 (to calculate the offset of the start of a row on the CGA adapter’s bitmap) by shifting and adding: assuming y was in AX, then ASL AX, 4; MOV DX, AX; ASL AX, 2; ADD AX, DX was about ten times faster than MUL AX, 80
    Love these reverse engineering articles. I lose it about a third of the way in but still read the rest in amazement of his skills.
    Always strikes me if there is any way of completely re-engineering or recoding using the original hardware to make it much faster or more efficient or did they do a pretty good job of it in the first place. Is it too big a task to do this? I've read many articles where something was design and a feature, function, tweak or bug is exploited to improve it. I'd be intrigued to know if this is possible with the 8086.
    'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by northernladuk View Post

      Love these reverse engineering articles. I lose it about a third of the way in but still read the rest in amazement of his skills.
      Always strikes me if there is any way of completely re-engineering or recoding using the original hardware to make it much faster or more efficient or did they do a pretty good job of it in the first place. Is it too big a task to do this? I've read many articles where something was design and a feature, function, tweak or bug is exploited to improve it. I'd be intrigued to know if this is possible with the 8086.
      Have you had a look at the NEC V20 and V30? Reverse engineered and made more efficient.
      Old Greg - In search of acceptance since Mar 2007. Hoping each leap will be his last.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Zigenare View Post

        Have you had a look at the NEC V20 and V30? Reverse engineered and made more efficient.
        Yeah but that was back in the day when they were competing. I mean nowadays when our understanding of computing has moved on. Are there clever logic manipulations now that weren't understood back then or is any tinkering constrained by the architecture of the chip and fixed logic. You get me? For example, I think we had an article on the either the Spectrum or the Commodore where tricks were found in both display and sound to produce more colours and multi-tone sounds above what the actual hardware was designed to do.
        'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by northernladuk View Post

          Love these reverse engineering articles. I lose it about a third of the way in but still read the rest in amazement of his skills.
          Always strikes me if there is any way of completely re-engineering or recoding using the original hardware to make it much faster or more efficient or did they do a pretty good job of it in the first place. Is it too big a task to do this? I've read many articles where something was design and a feature, function, tweak or bug is exploited to improve it. I'd be intrigued to know if this is possible with the 8086.
          8086 assembler, flippin luxury, cut my teeth on this stuff Microsoft Word - Document2 (andrewjherbert.github.io) Yep machine code, not even a variable name, just addresses.
          But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition. Pliny the younger

          Comment


            #6
            real men (and women) use a Microprof, type your machine code back in every boot, it prepared me for windows 98!

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-Professor_MPF-I
            Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

            Comment


              #7
              Just noticed I got the Roman numerals in the title wrong. Those 9-related ones get me every time

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by NickFitz View Post
                Just noticed I got the Roman numerals in the title wrong. Those 9-related ones get me every time
                It was noticed when posted, don't worry.
                'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by northernladuk View Post

                  It was noticed when posted, don't worry.
                  now he is trying convince everyone he understands Roman numerals...
                  Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by vetran View Post

                    now he is trying convince everyone he understands Roman numerals...
                    I noticed the numerals. No idea if what they meant or if they were wrong.
                    'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

                    Comment

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