Best Buy Computer Kit in Asia

hecta

LOL JohnnyCool, if you find a used Cray, I'll go halves!:icon_e_surprised:

JohnnyCool

[QUOTE]Am I correct to think that this comp I'm writing on has as much computation capability than the Argus 350 had?[/QUOTE] Yes - definitely. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) used during the Appolo 11 Moon landing had 64Kbytes of memory and operated at 0.043MHz. A cheap desktop PC these days will probably have 4 Mbytes of memory and a processor running at 1GHz (or more). A small USB memory stick today is more powerful than the computers that put man on the moon! An iPhone 6's clock is about 32,600 times faster than the AGC and can perform instructions 120 million times faster. Trying to compare the early Argus process-controller "computers" with what we have these days is complicated. During the 1960s, there wasn't even universal agreement on how many bits constituted a byte. (These days one byte usually means eight bits.) The 1960s Argus range were 24 "bit" systems. The Argus 300 had a clock speed of 1MHz (painfully slow by today's standards). Not sure what the clock speed of the Ferranti 3520B was. Converting the meaning of the size of one computer "word" from those days to the present is also confusing. Back then, a word [I]might[/I] have been 16 bits, 12 bits, 9 bits, 24 bits, etc. The Ferranti 3520B had 20k words (20,000 "words"). If one word was 24 bits, then 20,000 x 24 = 480,000 bits. 480,000 bits divided by 8 = 60,000 bytes (1 byte = 8 bits). 60,000 bytes divided by 1,000 = 60 Kilobytes (KB). 60 KB = 0.06 Megabytes (MB) An ordinary CD can store between 600-700 MB. That's roughly 10,500 more than the Ferranti of old. (And the Appolo 11's wasn't much better.) [ATTACH]2726.vB[/ATTACH]

davita

That's incredible J-C thanks for working that out. I must confess we were very excited to receive this Flight Simulator from Redifon and our technicians were sent on courses to learn how to maintain it. It was the first simulator I'd seen with a visual display...it was a map (the length of a room) which a camera traversed and adjusted its angle according to the angle of the moving platform...and therefore seen out the cockpit window as a runway and gave the perception of the Aircraft moving as the pilot adjusted his controls...all miracle stuff. Yougsters today would call it antique yet all this technology has been developed in my lifetime....and there is more magic to come. I remember a trip to see the Concorde being built in Bristol, UK. I was surprised at how old tech it was inside and now wonder...if the Americans and Europeans had collaberated on its future development I'd be flying Bali-Vancouver next week in about 5 hours instead of 20.

JohnnyCool

[b]Slight Correction[/b] [B]Correction:[/B] I wrote that: [QUOTE]...A cheap desktop PC these days will probably have 4 Mbytes of memory...[/QUOTE] That should be 4 [B]Gigabytes.[/B] The rest is OK, apart from the dividing by 1,000 (pretty normal usage). It [I]should[/I] be 1,024. That would make all the other figures even less (worse).

Markit

Saw that but didn't want to be a know-it-all and hey! what's in a zero or two or three?

Mark

JohnnyCool wroteYes - definitely. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) used during the Appolo 11 Moon landing had 64Kbytes of memory and operated at 0.043MHz. A cheap desktop PC these days will probably have 4 Mbytes of memory and a processor running at 1GHz (or more). A small USB memory stick today is more powerful than the computers that put man on the moon! An iPhone 6's clock is about 32,600 times faster than the AGC and can perform instructions 120 million times faster. Trying to compare the early Argus process-controller "computers" with what we have these days is complicated. During the 1960s, there wasn't even universal agreement on how many bits constituted a byte. (These days one byte usually means eight bits.) The 1960s Argus range were 24 "bit" systems. The Argus 300 had a clock speed of 1MHz (painfully slow by today's standards). Not sure what the clock speed of the Ferranti 3520B was. Converting the meaning of the size of one computer "word" from those days to the present is also confusing. Back then, a word [I]might[/I] have been 16 bits, 12 bits, 9 bits, 24 bits, etc. The Ferranti 3520B had 20k words (20,000 "words"). If one word was 24 bits, then 20,000 x 24 = 480,000 bits. 480,000 bits divided by 8 = 60,000 bytes (1 byte = 8 bits). 60,000 bytes divided by 1,000 = 60 Kilobytes (KB). 60 KB = 0.06 Megabytes (MB) An ordinary CD can store between 600-700 MB. That's roughly 10,500 more than the Ferranti of old. (And the Appolo 11's wasn't much better.) [ATTACH=CONFIG]2726[/ATTACH]

So I'm guessing that the Moon landing, which hasn't been done for almost 50 years and apparently happened with what seems to be incredibly minimal computer power, is the biggest miracle to ever happen in the history of mankind? Wow, amazing that no other country on Earth could have matched the feat since then, given the amazing advances in computer and rocket science. Hmmmm....

Steve Rossell

I remember vividly, as a kid, my whole school watching a delayed 'live' broadcast of the lunar landing. I didn't know what a computer was. Space rockets were all about power and explosions for me, not computation power and speed but physics. I don't think apple were around at that time....... Segway. I've had apple lap-tops for a while now and one thing that I've learned is that they don't haggle. As a result I've also learned that they are a minority player for day to day consumers all through Asia. i.e. Tidak mahal. and their back-up service arrogance is also too expensive.

davita

Mark wroteSo I'm guessing that the Moon landing, which hasn't been done for almost 50 years and apparently happened with what seems to be incredibly minimal computer power, is the biggest miracle to ever happen in the history of mankind? Wow, amazing that no other country on Earth could have matched the feat since then, given the amazing advances in computer and rocket science. Hmmmm....

Yeah! you're right. That's odd that nobody has since attempted to go to the moon...it's all about getting to Mars. I've scratched my head and concluded the Americans don't want as they've already been and found there ain't no Big Macs or KFC's. The Russians figured they couldn't distill vodka so it wasn't territory they'd want to recover their Golden Soviet Republic. The Canadians said it was too cold! The EU said they have too many members so they'll wait 'till they whittle that down with exiters first. Australians couldn't find a Wallaby smart enough to fly a rocket. The Chinese concluded there weren't enough consumers there to buy their shoddy products. The Saudis would need huge spaceships to fly all those Filipinos and S. Koreans to do any work that they cannot do for themselves. The Japanese wonder who will look after their old folks while the youth take a holiday there with a tour leader and an unfurling flag issue. Indonesia has rocket production potential but the factories in Bandung are too busy making knock-offs. New Zealand are still paying for their 'change the flag' fiasco so cannot afford. This leaves the N. Koreans and that's why they are developing their arsenal of space rockets...it isn't to nuke Seoul, Tokyo, Anchorage or Honolulu, it's to get to the moon to find the next Heavenly Leader as the current one doesn't have a male heir....and is so ugly...unlikely to breed one. There you go Mark...that must be the reason...QED....:icon_e_biggrin:

Markit

ronb wroteI have been using bhinneka.com for computers. Their prices are pretty good - maybe not the absolute lowest, but close enough. Their advantage is a wider range of offerings compared to RTC in Denspasar.

Thanks, as always, Ron how are they with deliveries having only received 2 letters (on the same day) since I built this place I'm kind of wary trusting the post to stuff that costs millions (GPU = IDR 10 million). Can have stuff sent to a more "civilized" addy but wonder if I need to be there to sign for it?

ronb

Markit wroteThanks, as always, Ron how are they with deliveries having only received 2 letters (on the same day) since I built this place I'm kind of wary trusting the post to stuff that costs millions (GPU = IDR 10 million). Can have stuff sent to a more "civilized" addy but wonder if I need to be there to sign for it?

Well our house is not marked and in a street where numbers mean nothing so just giving the street address leaves them with 5 Km to search. So I get it delivered to JNE office in Ubud, they ring, I go pick up. There can be odd outcomes. With a recent purchase from Lazada, who can be dsecribed as an e-market working with a number of affiliates, one affiliate sent via PT Pos Indonesia. When in Ubud the Post Office Courier took it to JNE, they ring, but I need to pay them 20,000 for this service. So that's OK. I have been planning to give the house a name and put up signs - but anonymity also seems to have advantages.

JohnnyCool

[QUOTE]Yeah! you're right. That's odd that nobody has since attempted to go to the moon...it's all about getting to Mars.[/QUOTE] That's not quite true. There were [B]five[/B] [I]more[/I] US Moon landings [B]after[/B] Apollo 11. Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17. I should add that even though the on-board computers appear paltry by today's standards, they were actually quite powerful for the time. They processed a variety of information from different sensors and communicated back on Earth with large IBM mainframe computers (eg, IBM 360, etc). All up - astonishing feats, unless you subscribe to conspiracy theories which claim they never happened. :icon_wink:

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