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Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

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Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#171

Post by wiredfool »

Someone wrote: post #59
elengyel wrote: post #19

I'd like to clarify that my code was running only on machines that were otherwise idle. Not many people were in the lab late in the evenings. MPQS processing nodes could be added and removed dynamically, so if somebody needed a computer that was part of my cluster, they could just quit my program and everything would go back to normal. Also, once the number theory professor learned of what I had implemented, he worke…

> I could enter that program in the system monitor, but I needed a way to run it. The simple way: in that mini debugger, the ‘G’ command (for ‘Go’) takes an optional address and jumps to it. “G 40F6D8”, for example, continued execution at address 40F6D8.

sm 0 a9f4 g 0

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#173

Post by wheybags »

jtms wrote: post #102
TchoBeer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was running counterstrike through two computers really faster than just using the wireless connection or did that one have weird filters too?

Wifi from those days wasn’t nearly as good as a hard wire. Also, it might have just not been available. It wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous 20 years ago as it is now.

This was more like 10 years ago, but yeah, WiFi was still crap (and still is :v). In particular, the signal in that room wasn't great.

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#174

Post by wiredfool »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

Ah yes, good memories. I'm having a really hard time right now remembering the name of that program that blocked access to the Finder; I think it was "Easy"-something. Google fails me on the name too. Breaking it was a hobby. Some school labs had left access to Hypercard available through that program, so you could just pull up Hypercard and make a new stack that would tell the program to quit. The other way to get a…

There was one security system that only white/black listed application names.

Leading to Control Panël or the entire disk of utilities called Word.

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#175

Post by SilasX »

elengyel wrote: post #24
SilasX wrote: post #12

> On these computers, I could factor a general number with around 70 decimal digits in a reasonable amount of time (like overnight). What’s the comparable figure you could get on typical hardware in today’s university computing clusters or computer labs?

I'd very much like to revive my old code (which I still have) at some point and see how well it runs on modern computers. My guess is that a typical 64-bit ~3 GHz quad-core machine could accomplish the same task in a few minutes today.

Hate to be the choosing beggar, and I appreciate all the answers, but ... everyone is answering about how long that 70 digit job would take now, when what I meant was, how big a number could you factor “overnight” with similar cost hardware.

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#176

Post by rvba »

grogenaut wrote: post #50
gambiting wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Opening the web inspector is such a normal moment of dealing with other people's websites, I have no clue how people manage without it. As a C++ programmer who has absolutely no idea how to even open the dev console in browser - I just close the website. If I can't scroll it, if it has stupid popups that I can't dismiss, if it lets me get halfway through checkout and then misteriously empties my basket? I'll maybe…

F12

On the phone?

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#177

Post by reasonabl_human »

Tepix wrote: post #134
munificent wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To youths with curious mindsets, an anti-authoritarian streak, and seemingly limitless amounts of free time, little restrictions like these only improved our skills. Systems with challenging but imperfect security are a great way to foster new young talent. I miss the days when the stakes for testing boundaries and experimenting were lower.

I setup a MAC based internet filter at home, secretly hoping my kids will figure out how to bypass it.

Love it. Could be fun to toss up a WEP ‘secured’ SSID in an untrusted DMZ VLAN that has doesn’t have filtering. Figuring out how to use the aircrack suite on an ancient thinkpad to bust an SSID was what really got me interested in computers as a kid.

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#178

Post by dreamcompiler »

WalterBright wrote: post #67
a3n wrote: post #45

In 19 and 82 or 3, I worked at Lockheed Shipyard in Seattle, in a sort of tech writing capacity on a Navy ship building project, based on my recent experience in the Navy. The business closed with completion of the ships. We had to fill out lots of forms that documented what we called "analysis," and we'd often have to change them based on some factor changing. One change could cascade through the whole form. Paper f…

In the same time frame, I worked at Boeing doing design work on the 757. I didn't know how to do complex numbers using drafting tools, but I knew how to use a computer. The only computer in the building was an '11 in a special locked room with raised floor and A/C. It was under the control of Boeing Computer Services, a totally separate division from Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, which I worked for. Anyhow, I b…

> hand them off to the secretary pool to type up

This brought back a memory. In the late 80s I got a job at a very high-tech science and engineering firm. A colleague told me to be careful about writing code. His supervisor had walked by his office one day and saw him writing code on a terminal. He chewed him out for "typing" because "typing is for secretaries." Apparently the correct procedure was to hand-write your code onto a paper form and hand it to a secretary for entry into the computer. I assumed my colleague was joking but checked out the official procedure and it was true.

After that, I shut my door when I wrote code.

Re: Back in 1993, I was taking a number theory class

#179

Post by Tainnor »

amenghra wrote: post #33
thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

Ah yes, good memories. I'm having a really hard time right now remembering the name of that program that blocked access to the Finder; I think it was "Easy"-something. Google fails me on the name too. Breaking it was a hobby. Some school labs had left access to Hypercard available through that program, so you could just pull up Hypercard and make a new stack that would tell the program to quit. The other way to get a…

AtEase?

I remember AtEase from when I was a kid. Somehow I discovered it on our Macintosh Performa at home and was totally fascinated by it. Kinda like Mouse Practice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_Practice), which I must have played a gazillion times.
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