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Munching Square
The Munching Square is a display hack dating back to the PDP-1 (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T for successive values of T) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing squares that devour the screen. The initial value of T is treated as a parameter, which, when well-chosen, can produce amazing effects. Some of these, later (re)discovered on the LISP machine, have been christened munching triangles (using bitwise AND instead of XOR, and toggling points instead of plotting them), munching w's, and munching mazes. More generally, suppose a graphics program produces an impressive and ever-changing display of some basic form, ''foo'', on a display terminal, and does it using a relatively simple program; then the program (or the resulting display) is likely to be referred to as munching ''foos''. References External links Video of the original Munching Squares demo runni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Display Hack
A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT or plasma computer monitors (hence the name). Though most modern monitors are not susceptible to this issue (with the notable exception of OLED technology, which has individual pixels vulnerable to burnout), screensaver programs are still used for other purposes. Screensavers are often set up to offer a basic layer of security by requiring a password to re-access the device. Some screensaver programs also use otherwise-idle computer resources to do useful work, such as processing for volunteer computing projects. As well as computers, modern television operating systems, media players, and other digital entertainment systems may include optional screensavers. Purpose Screen protection Before the advent of LCD screen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PDP-1
The PDP-1 (''Programmed Data Processor-1'') is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BBN and elsewhere. The PDP-1 is the original hardware for playing history's first game on a minicomputer, Steve Russell's ''Spacewar!'' Description The PDP-1 uses an 18-bit word size and has 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, though the system actually divides an 18-bit word into six-bit characters), upgradable to 65,536 words. The magnetic-core memory's cycle time is 5.35 microseconds (corresponding roughly to a clock speed of 187 kilohertz); consequently most arithmetic instructions take 10.7 microseconds (93,458 operations per second) because they use two memory cycles: the first to fetch the instruction, the second to fetch or store the data word. Signed numbers are r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackson Wright
Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson South, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson oil field in Durham, Shire of Bulloo, Queensland * Mount Jackson, Western Australia Canada * Jackson Inlet, Nunavut * Jackson Island (Nunavut) * Jackson, a small community southeast of London, Ontario United States * Jackson, Alabama * Jackson, California * Jackson, Georgia * Jackson, Idaho * Jackson, Indiana * Jackson, Ripley County, Indiana * Jackson, Kentucky * Jackson, Louisiana * Jackson, Maine * Jackson, Michigan * Jackson, Minnesota * Jackson, Mississippi, the state capital and most populous city of Mississippi * Jackson, Missouri * Jackson, Montana * Jackson, Nebraska * Jackson, New Hampshire * Jackson, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitwise AND
In computer programming, a bitwise operation operates on a bit string, a bit array or a binary numeral (considered as a bit string) at the level of its individual bits. It is a fast and simple action, basic to the higher-level arithmetic operations and directly supported by the processor. Most bitwise operations are presented as two-operand instructions where the result replaces one of the input operands. On simple low-cost processors, typically, bitwise operations are substantially faster than division, several times faster than multiplication, and sometimes significantly faster than addition. While modern processors usually perform addition and multiplication just as fast as bitwise operations due to their longer instruction pipelines and other architectural design choices, bitwise operations do commonly use less power because of the reduced use of resources. Bitwise operators In the explanations below, any indication of a bit's position is counted from the right (least signif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MathWorld
''MathWorld'' is an online mathematics reference work, created and largely written by Eric W. Weisstein. It is sponsored by and licensed to Wolfram Research, Inc. and was partially funded by the National Science Foundation's National Science Digital Library grant to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. History Eric W. Weisstein, the creator of the site, was a physics and astronomy student who got into the habit of writing notes on his mathematical readings. In 1995 he put his notes online and called it "Eric's Treasure Trove of Mathematics." It contained hundreds of pages/articles, covering a wide range of mathematical topics. The site became popular as an extensive single resource on mathematics on the web. Weisstein continuously improved the notes and accepted corrections and comments from online readers. In 1998, he made a contract with CRC Press and the contents of the site were published in print and CD-ROM form, titled "CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HAKMEM
HAKMEM, alternatively known as AI Memo 239, is a February 1972 "memo" (technical report) of the MIT AI Lab containing a wide variety of hacks, including useful and clever algorithms for mathematical computation, some number theory and schematic diagrams for hardware – in Guy L. Steele's words, "a bizarre and eclectic potpourri of technical trivia". Contributors included about two dozen members and associates of the AI Lab. The title of the report is short for "hacks memo", abbreviated to six upper case characters that would fit in a single PDP-10 machine word (using a six-bit character set). History HAKMEM is notable as an early compendium of algorithmic technique, particularly for its practical bent, and as an illustration of the wide-ranging interests of AI Lab people of the time, which included almost anything other than AI research. HAKMEM contains original work in some fields, notably continued fractions. Introduction :Compiled with the hope that a record of the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-source License
An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial companies to review and modify the source code, blueprint or design for their own customization, curiosity or troubleshooting needs. Open-source licensed software is mostly available free of charge, though this does not necessarily have to be the case. Licenses which only permit non-commercial redistribution or modification of the source code for personal use only are generally not considered as open-source licenses. However, open-source licenses may have some restrictions, particularly regarding the expression of respect to the origin of software, such as a requirement to preserve the name of the authors and a copyright statement within the code, or a requirement to redistribute the licensed software only under the same license (as in a copy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
XScreenSaver
XScreenSaver is a free and open-source collection of 240+ screensavers for Unix, macOS, iOS and Android operating systems. It was created by Jamie Zawinski in 1992 and is still maintained by him, with new releases coming out several times a year. Platforms The free software and open-source Unix-like operating systems running the X Window System (such as Linux and FreeBSD) use XScreenSaver almost exclusively. On those systems, there are several packages: one for the screen-saving and locking framework, and two or more for the display modes, divided somewhat arbitrarily. On Macintosh systems, XScreenSaver works with the built-in macOS screen saver. On iOS systems, XScreenSaver is a stand-alone app that can run any of the hacks full-screen. On Android systems, the XScreenSaver display modes work either as normal screen savers (which Android sometimes refers to as "Daydreams") or as live wallpapers. There is no official version for Microsoft Windows, and the developer d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Software
Software is a set of programmed instructions stored in the memory of stored-program digital computers for execution by the processor. Software is a recent development in human history, and it is fundamental to the Information Age. Ada Lovelace's programs for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine in the 19th century is often considered the founder of the discipline, though the mathematician's efforts remained theoretical only, as the technology of Lovelace and Babbage's day proved insufficient to build his computer. Alan Turing is credited with being the first person to come up with a theory for software in 1935, which led to the two academic fields of computer science and software engineering. The first generation of software for early stored-program digital computers in the late 1940s had its instructions written directly in binary code, generally written for mainframe computers. Later, the development of modern programming languages alongside the advancement of the home compute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screensavers
A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT or plasma computer monitors (hence the name). Though most modern monitors are not susceptible to this issue (with the notable exception of OLED technology, which has individual pixels vulnerable to burnout), screensaver programs are still used for other purposes. Screensavers are often set up to offer a basic layer of security by requiring a password to re-access the device. Some screensaver programs also use otherwise-idle computer resources to do useful work, such as processing for volunteer computing projects. As well as computers, modern television operating systems, media players, and other digital entertainment systems may include optional screensavers. Purpose Screen protection Before the advent of LCD screens, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
