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Write-only Memory (joke)
Write-only memory (WOM), the opposite of read-only memory (ROM), began as a humorous reference to a memory device that could be written to but not read, as there seemed to be no practical use for a memory circuit from which data could not be retrieved. However, it was eventually recognized that write-only describes certain functionalities in microprocessor systems. The concept is still often used as a joke or euphemism for a failed memory device. The first use of the term is generally attributed to Signetics, whose ''write-only memory'' literature, created in 1972 as in-house practical joke, is frequently referenced within the electronics industry,. a staple of software engineering lexicons, and included in "best hoaxes" collections. Signetics A "Write-Only Memory" datasheet was created "as a lark" by Signetics engineer John G "Jack" Curtis,. inspired by a fictitious and humorous vacuum tube datasheet from the 1940s. Considered "an icebreaker", it was deliberately included in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Read-only Memory
Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing software that is rarely changed during the life of the system, also known as firmware. Software applications (like video games) for programmable devices can be distributed as plug-in cartridges containing ROM. Strictly speaking, ''read-only memory'' refers to memory that is hard-wired, such as diode matrix or a mask ROM integrated circuit (IC), which cannot be electronically changed after manufacture. Although discrete circuits can be altered in principle, through the addition of bodge wires and/or the removal or replacement of components, ICs cannot. Correction of errors, or updates to the software, require new devices to be manufactured and to replace the installed device. Floating-gate ROM semiconductor memory in the form of erasab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dollar
Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, United States dollar, Trinidad and Tobago Dollar and several others. The symbol for most of those currencies is the dollar sign $ in the same way as many countries using peso currencies. Economies that use a "dollar" Other territories that use a "dollar" * : Eastern Caribbean dollar * (Netherlands): US dollar * : US dollar (alongside the pound sterling) * : US dollar * : Eastern Caribbean dollar * (Netherlands): US dollar * (France): Canadian dollar (alongside the euro) * (Netherlands): US dollar * : US dollar Countries unofficially accepting "dollars" * Afghanistan: US dollar * Argentina: US dollar * Bolivia: US dollar * Cambodia: US dollar * Cuba: US dollar * Guatemala: US dollar * Lebanon: US dollar * Macau: Hong Kong d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Humor
Computer humour, also known as hacker humour, is humour on the subject of computers or their users. Examples Examples of computer humour include: *"Any key", taken to mean pressing the (non-existent) "Any" key rather than any key *April Fools' Day Request for Comments *Bastard Operator From Hell, a fictional rogue computer operator *Blinkenlights, a neologism for diagnostic lights *Bogosort, a portmanteau of the words bogus and sort *COMEFROM, an obscure programming language control flow structure, originally as a joke *"The Complexity of Songs", a journal article published by computer scientist Donald Knuth in 1977 as an in-joke about computational complexity theory *''The Computer Contradictionary'', a non-fiction book by Stan Kelly-Bootle that compiles a satirical list of definitions of computer industry terms *''The Daily WTF'', a humorous blog dedicated to "Curious Perversions in Information Technology" *''Dilbert'', an American comic strip *Easter egg (media), Easter egg, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Memory
In computing, memory is a device or system that is used to store information for immediate use in a computer or related computer hardware and digital electronic devices. The term ''memory'' is often synonymous with the term ''primary storage'' or '' main memory''. An archaic synonym for memory is store. Computer memory operates at a high speed compared to storage that is slower but less expensive and higher in capacity. Besides storing opened programs, computer memory serves as disk cache and write buffer to improve both reading and writing performance. Operating systems borrow RAM capacity for caching so long as not needed by running software. If needed, contents of the computer memory can be transferred to storage; a common way of doing this is through a memory management technique called ''virtual memory''. Modern memory is implemented as semiconductor memory, where data is stored within memory cells built from MOS transistors and other components on an integrated c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phantastron
A Phantastron is a type of electron tube oscillator or timer circuit. It was invented during radar development during World War 2. It was described in the Radiation Laboratory series of books, in particular the one on waveforms. Components * Resistors *Capacitors: determine the frequency of the oscillations and filters in the circuits. *Vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...s: provides a current of electrons being shot. *Top panel and turret board: the outside covers of electron tube oscillator or timer circuit. References External links *VideoPhantastron all vacuum tube synthesizer Vacuum tubes {{Electronics-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video Tape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram. Because video signals have a very high bandwidth, and stationary heads would require extremely high tape speeds, in most cases, a helical-scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions. Tape is a linear method of storing information and thus imposes delays to access a portion of the tape that is not already against the heads. The early 2000s saw the introduction and rise to prominence of high-quality random-access video recording media such as hard disks and flash memory. Since then, videotape has been increasingly relegated to archival and simi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EPROM
An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored data after a power supply has been turned off and back on is called non-volatile. It is an array of floating-gate transistors individually programmed by an electronic device that supplies higher voltages than those normally used in digital circuits. Once programmed, an EPROM can be erased by exposing it to strong ultraviolet light source (such as from a mercury-vapor lamp). EPROMs are easily recognizable by the transparent fused quartz (or on later models resin) window on the top of the package, through which the silicon chip is visible, and which permits exposure to ultraviolet light during erasing. Operation Development of the EPROM memory cell started with investigation of faulty integrated circuits where the gate connections of transistors had broken ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Contradictionary
''The Computer Contradictionary'' is a non-fiction book by Stan Kelly-Bootle that compiles a satirical list of definitions of computer industry terms. It is an example of "cynical lexicography" in the tradition of Ambrose Bierce's ''The Devil's Dictionary''. Rather than offering a factual account of usage, its definitions are largely made up by the author. The book was published in May 1995 by MIT Press and is an update of Kelly-Bootle's ''The Devil's DP Dictionary'' which appeared in 1981. Examples :Endless loop. See: ''Loop, endless'' :Loop, endless. See: ''Endless loop'' :Recursion. See: ''Recursion'' Reception The ''Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...'' panned the book, wrote that it was "smartly-titled" but was an "awfully stupid b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bruce Tognazzini
Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini (born 1945) is an American usability consultant and designer. He is a partner in the Nielsen Norman Group, which specializes in human-computer interaction. He was with Apple Computer for fourteen years, then with Sun Microsystems for four years, then WebMD for another four years. He has written two books, ''Tog on Interface'' and ''Tog on Software Design'', published by Addison-Wesley, and he publishes the webzine ''Asktog'', with the tagline "Interaction Design Solutions for the Real World". Background Tog (as he is widely known in computer circles) built his first electro-mechanical computer in 1957, landing a job in 1959 working with the world's first check-reading computer, NCR's ERMA (Electronic Recording Method of Accounting), at Bank of America, in San Francisco. Tog was an early and influential employee of Apple Computer, there from 1978 to 1992. In June 1978, Steve Jobs, having seen one of his early programs, The Great American Probabili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billion
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the long scale. This number, which is one thousand times larger than the short scale billion, is now referred to in English as one trillion. However, this number is the historical meaning in English for the word "billion" (with the exception of the United States), a meaning was still in official use in British English until some time after World War II. American English adopted the short scale definition from the French (it enjoyed usage in France at the time, alongside the long-scale definition). The United Kingdom used the long scale billion until 1974, when the government officially switched to the short scale, but since the 1950s the short scale had already been incre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boondoggle
A boondoggle is a project that is considered a waste of both time and money, yet is often continued due to extraneous policy or political motivations. Etymology "Boondoggle" was the name of the newspaper of the Roosevelt Troop of the Boy Scouts, based in Rochester, New York, and it first appeared in print in 1927. From there it passed into general use in scouting in the 1930s. It was attributed to a boy scout from Rochester who coined the term to describe "a new type of uniform decoration". After the presentation of honorific boondoggles at a World Jamboree, the use of the word spread to other troops and branches. An Oakland scout troop presented a "boondoggle" as an award for attendees who spent seven days and nights at Camp Dimond. That boondoggle was described as a "red leather strip which terminates in a red wooden diamond on which is painted the number 1930." The "boondoggle" was described in the Ogden ''Standard-Examiner'' in 1930 as a hand-made item crafted from brigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bit Bucket
In computing jargon, the bit bucket (or byte bucket) is where lost computerized data has gone, by any means; any data which does not end up where it is supposed to, being lost in transmission, a computer crash, or the like, is said to have gone to the bit bucket – that mysterious place on a computer where lost data goes, as in: History Originally, the bit bucket was the container on teletype machines or IBM key punch machines into which chad from the paper tape punch or card punch was deposited; the formal name is "chad box" or (at IBM) "chip box". The term was then generalized into any place where useless bits go, a useful computing concept known as the null device. The term bit bucket is also used in discussions of bit shift operations. The bit bucket is related to the first in never out buffer and write-only memory, in a joke datasheet issued by Signetics in 1972. In a 1988 April Fool's article in ''Compute!'' magazine, Atari BASIC author Bill Wilkinson pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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