The C. Gordon Bell obit and the story of DEC sure brought back some memories! My dad was an electronic engineer at a NASA subcontractor in Anaheim, CA (VERY close to Disneyland!), called Astrodata. Their gig was analog to digital conversion and data acquisition for the Apollo telemetry data. My dad designed circuits that were onboard the command modules of the moonshots. Anyways, when Apollo was over, he and his buddies started their own company, Western Peripherals, Inc. (later Wespercorp). They designed and built "controllers" that interfaced tape drives and VERY early disc drives with DEC's PDP-11 and Data General Nova 3 minicomputers. My first job in high school was electronic assembly, and later, test tech there. I tested the tape controllers for both types of mini's, but my dad had actually designed the disc controllers. I'd have to send commands thru the octal switches on the front. One command made the tape machine search for "beginning of tape" (BOT). Another command made it read the "bootstrap" program from the tape, which was a series of basic routine commands to the tape drive to make sure everything was talking properly - the "diagnostic" test program. If that passed, then I'd load another program that would write and then read back data on the tape, progressing until it found "end of tape" EOT, when it would automatically rewind the tape - the "reliability" test program. The disc drives we had at first took up an entire desktop, and they were over a foot tall. They sounded like about a dozen vacuum cleaners all running at once, and they had a whopping 10 MEGABYTES of storage! By the time I left there, they had new "tiny" Winchester disc drives that were in a little square-shaped drawer maybe 8 inches across, but quite a bit deeper front to back. They had gotten a contract from FAA to create a "mass storage system" that could integrate 100 of them in a cabinet that mounted them 10 by 10... A GIGABYTE! of storage so the FAA could begin to capture and store airport flight controller data. Unfortunately, electronics were way too slow at the time, and it was a terrible failure that pretty much ruined the company.
Big 73 to Bob Heil. A amateur radio legend. Luckily the family is keeping the company going. Over the last several years they had slowly been taking charge of the company as Bob gradually stepped away.
I drove through the last cicada " outbreak"....it sounded like a million of the old .049 Cox engines running at once. I guess that's why lots of battery compartments have screws holding them closed...to keep children from getting to the batteries. I like these " science news" videos.
On the cicada broods coinciding, I think most people don't realize that the periodic cicadas have distinct geographic areas. For 2024 there are some very small areas of potential overlap. But two things are left out of the media hype. These two broods are primarily in Illinois and Indiana. And most people outside of the Eastern US are seeing annual cicadas that emerge every year and have a 2 to 5 year life cycle.
14:33 so are these "super critical" states of matter? Then if someone sent a clump of something, like a robot spaceship, there, it could trigger star formation and suddenly light up? That would be really pretty!
I have bought lots of button batteries to repair and fix watches, calculators and computer boards. The packaging here in Scotland mentions nothing about it's toxicity. I do know that Lithium is very toxic though, and due to it's low internal resistance can short in the presence of water to produce high currents. These button batteries are sold here in supermarkets without markings to alert parents. Or to be fair myself. Thank you for pointing this out...and reminding me of its consequences if misused.
There was a big cicada party in Akron, Ohio around 1982. I remember playing golf in a densely wooded area. The combined sound of all those cicadas was like a gigantic Star Trek phaser from the original series. It was very loud yet didn't cause any pain in my ears.
Here in Europe, it is now impossible to get coin cells out of their blister packaging without shorting or damaging them. It's so utterly stupid. First of all, we should reduce the usage of coin cells wherever we can. Certain things don't need to be so small. For example remotes. AAA and AA cells always were okay. Why do we make flat remotes now that only take a coin cell? Why? For what? Secondly it's a matter of education the parents give their child. My sister and me never even had the idea to even try to swallow anything that doesn't look like food... So there's definitely something wrong in how parents raise their kids.
Yes, I've been taking a Science Snooze for a while now. I was doing other things like listening to " Awooawoooh! Cat Song - The Singing Cat Catchy Tune ".
I think there's a limit on the number of subscribed channels and if you exceed that it unsubscribes someone. I don't know what the rule is, and it probably changes from time to time.
Since we keep hearing about a helium shortage coming and how we need to stop wasting it on balloons and other entertainment, maybe the government should hold on to some of that helium.
Another nice video Fran! As far as ingestion injuries in children go, high powered (usually neodymium based) magnets remain a very big problem. Lacking any leading, responsible manufacturer (like Energizer) for these units its solely regulation that will abate this danger.
Hi Fran. TH-cam algorithm has blessed me with a few Challenger videos lately. I was an up and coming freshman at RPI when the disaster happened. To call it chilling would be an understatement. Since you and I are contemporaries, with similar technological mindsets, might I ask where you were when you heard and how did it impact you and your peers? Thanks if you reply. No worries if you don't. Take Care. RK
Great show, Fran. Although I love Fritz Zwicky I've never really been on board with the whole Dark Energy/Matter thing. My thought is that the speed of light has never really been measured precisely and is faster than what think it is. I'm afraid we'll have to do further research in interstellar space far away from sources of neutrinos.
The C. Gordon Bell obit and the story of DEC sure brought back some memories! My dad was an electronic engineer at a NASA subcontractor in Anaheim, CA (VERY close to Disneyland!), called Astrodata. Their gig was analog to digital conversion and data acquisition for the Apollo telemetry data. My dad designed circuits that were onboard the command modules of the moonshots. Anyways, when Apollo was over, he and his buddies started their own company, Western Peripherals, Inc. (later Wespercorp). They designed and built "controllers" that interfaced tape drives and VERY early disc drives with DEC's PDP-11 and Data General Nova 3 minicomputers. My first job in high school was electronic assembly, and later, test tech there. I tested the tape controllers for both types of mini's, but my dad had actually designed the disc controllers. I'd have to send commands thru the octal switches on the front. One command made the tape machine search for "beginning of tape" (BOT). Another command made it read the "bootstrap" program from the tape, which was a series of basic routine commands to the tape drive to make sure everything was talking properly - the "diagnostic" test program. If that passed, then I'd load another program that would write and then read back data on the tape, progressing until it found "end of tape" EOT, when it would automatically rewind the tape - the "reliability" test program.
The disc drives we had at first took up an entire desktop, and they were over a foot tall. They sounded like about a dozen vacuum cleaners all running at once, and they had a whopping 10 MEGABYTES of storage! By the time I left there, they had new "tiny" Winchester disc drives that were in a little square-shaped drawer maybe 8 inches across, but quite a bit deeper front to back. They had gotten a contract from FAA to create a "mass storage system" that could integrate 100 of them in a cabinet that mounted them 10 by 10... A GIGABYTE! of storage so the FAA could begin to capture and store airport flight controller data. Unfortunately, electronics were way too slow at the time, and it was a terrible failure that pretty much ruined the company.
Big 73 to Bob Heil. A amateur radio legend. Luckily the family is keeping the company going. Over the last several years they had slowly been taking charge of the company as Bob gradually stepped away.
Don't forget about Richard Tandy, the keyboard player for the Electric Light Orchestra, who died May 1st.
I drove through the last cicada " outbreak"....it sounded like a million of the old .049 Cox engines running at once.
I guess that's why lots of battery compartments have screws holding them closed...to keep children from getting to the batteries.
I like these " science news" videos.
On the cicada broods coinciding, I think most people don't realize that the periodic cicadas have distinct geographic areas. For 2024 there are some very small areas of potential overlap. But two things are left out of the media hype. These two broods are primarily in Illinois and Indiana. And most people outside of the Eastern US are seeing annual cicadas that emerge every year and have a 2 to 5 year life cycle.
I was gifted a membership! Thank you whoever did that!!!
I read another article saying the cat was in the box for 5-6 days without food or water, which makes it a minor miracle she survived.
Appreciate the the work, keep on keeping on.
"My God, it's full of stars". 💜💜💜My fav movie franchise since I saw it's premier at Grauman's Chinese theatre in 1968.
THAT is great intro music! Short, simple, and sticky!
♥️♥️♥️I love your Science-News!!♥️♥️♥️
Did the cat turn out to belong to Schrödinger? Sorry, couldn't help myself. Nerd jokes. 😁
The original inspiration for the new Dr. Seuss book “The Cat In The Box”😂
14:33 so are these "super critical" states of matter? Then if someone sent a clump of something, like a robot spaceship, there, it could trigger star formation and suddenly light up? That would be really pretty!
There may be a market for scissors with a motion detector built in, sounding an alarm if running is detected…
Do you scrapbook all those obituaries? Just wondering. I used to. After a while, there were too many to keep up with.
I have bought lots of button batteries to repair and fix watches, calculators and computer boards. The packaging here in Scotland mentions nothing about it's toxicity. I do know that Lithium is very toxic though, and due to it's low internal resistance can short in the presence of water to produce high currents. These button batteries are sold here in supermarkets without markings to alert parents. Or to be fair myself. Thank you for pointing this out...and reminding me of its consequences if misused.
I like this kind of segment. Keep it up.
0:00 This is the best use of the Casio "Bossa Nova" beat that I've ever heard hahaha!! I love it!
There was a big cicada party in Akron, Ohio around 1982. I remember playing golf in a densely wooded area. The combined sound of all those cicadas was like a gigantic Star Trek phaser from the original series. It was very loud yet didn't cause any pain in my ears.
I experienced that! They were everywhere and so loud I couldnt sleep with the window open.
Department of Defense was also a provider of innovation that apparently is less involved in that process now.
I've heard that if you make a square out of tape on the floor, cats will sit in it. That shape is just ingrained in their heads.
Here in Europe, it is now impossible to get coin cells out of their blister packaging without shorting or damaging them. It's so utterly stupid. First of all, we should reduce the usage of coin cells wherever we can. Certain things don't need to be so small. For example remotes. AAA and AA cells always were okay. Why do we make flat remotes now that only take a coin cell? Why? For what? Secondly it's a matter of education the parents give their child. My sister and me never even had the idea to even try to swallow anything that doesn't look like food... So there's definitely something wrong in how parents raise their kids.
Its kind of amazing consumers still put up with single use batteries. Maybe a ban like with incandescent lightbulbs is in order.
Another battery safety idea: built in fuses.
Yes, I've been taking a Science Snooze for a while now. I was doing other things like listening to " Awooawoooh! Cat Song - The Singing Cat Catchy Tune ".
I was unsubscribed from you... Why?
The Googlebot works in mysterious ways.
@@FranLab Glad I'm back. Let's never do this again!
I think there's a limit on the number of subscribed channels and if you exceed that it unsubscribes someone. I don't know what the rule is, and it probably changes from time to time.
Since we keep hearing about a helium shortage coming and how we need to stop wasting it on balloons and other entertainment, maybe the government should hold on to some of that helium.
I love your intros so god-damned much.
The new Dark Matter Galaxy
So...did they let the cat out of the box? *rimshot*
So the moon is a giant Eatch-a-sketch
Lack of pure research leads to stagnation. Systems that cannot change become extinct.
They should build an amusement park on the moon.
Art of noise made Duwayne eddys music
I love the sung lead-in.
Science in the news is awesome.
May The Fourth Be With You! ❤️
I second that. I enjoy these news pieces you do. ❤
❤️🔥
Another nice video Fran! As far as ingestion injuries in children go, high powered (usually neodymium based) magnets remain a very big problem. Lacking any leading, responsible manufacturer (like Energizer) for these units its solely regulation that will abate this danger.
Love your videos ❤️ :) always )
Just keep the button cells up out of children's reach! Common sense! Like guns and medicine.
Hi Fran. TH-cam algorithm has blessed me with a few Challenger videos lately. I was an up and coming freshman at RPI when the disaster happened. To call it chilling would be an understatement. Since you and I are contemporaries, with similar technological mindsets, might I ask where you were when you heard and how did it impact you and your peers? Thanks if you reply. No worries if you don't. Take Care. RK
Nope,,,the moon is cheese.!
Science and music history always interesting.
Casio SK-1 intro music. :)
Great show, Fran. Although I love Fritz Zwicky I've never really been on board with the whole Dark Energy/Matter thing. My thought is that the speed of light has never really been measured precisely and is faster than what think it is. I'm afraid we'll have to do further research in interstellar space far away from sources of neutrinos.