Pin (hardware)

“ Besides the common or toilet pins, there are today numerous special bank and desk pins which are made to meet special requirements.
Pin production in the United States has reached a high stage of development. The number of pins made in 1914 reached the tremendous total of 25,000,000,000. These figures are almost too great for comprehension. If all the pin wire used for these 25,000,000,000 pins were in one piece it would go around the earth fifteen times. Safety pins, hooks and eyes, and hairpins, are generally made by pin concerns. ”

“ Embedded software contained in EPROM or flash memory. It isn't quite hardware, but at least doesn't have to be loaded from a disk like regular software. Hacker usage differs from straight techspeak in that hackers don't normally apply it to stuff that you can't possibly get at, such as the program that runs a pocket calculator. Instead, it implies that the firmware could be changed, even if doing so would mean opening a box and plugging in a new chip. A computer's BIOS is the classic example, although nowadays there is firmware in disk controllers, modems, video cards and even CD-ROM drives. ”

“ However, significant advances in computer hardware and software have been made since that time. In particular, dramatic advances in large-scale integrated circuitry and microprocessor technology have permitted fabrication of mini-computers, micro-computers, and other special purpose devices, which are capable of duplicating many of the data-manipulative capabilities which were previously available only at centralized locations housing large scale general-purpose computers. ”

“ A wirehead can be a network software wizard too, but will always have the ability to deal with network hardware, down to the smallest component. Wireheads are known for their ability to lash up an Ethernet terminator from spare resistors, for example. ”

“ It is well to remember that the pin-machine is a purely American invention, and its immense advantage can be fully appreciated if we recall that it does the work that was required of eighteen distinct hands hardly more than fifty years ago.
Pins are made of either brass or iron wire. Those made of the latter are much cheaper, as the price of iron wire varies from three to five cents a pound, while brass wire is usually worth fourteen. ”

“ Not all hardware and software are compatible. In fact, hundreds of producers of computer equipment and computer programs are in the market, and there are few across-the-board standards. So it's important to get hardware and software that are compatible.
Software, or the computer programs themselves, are not like records that can be played on any record player. They have to be compatible with the hardware in terms of the programing language used, operating system, size, format, and other factors. ”

“ When you prefer an extra-large, extra-sharp screen and giant memory and when you can’t easily find micros of comparable quality. Here, too, I’m skeptical. The gap between micro hardware and the dedicateds is narrowing.
5. When you’re looking for a machine that will run special software that the micros won’t. Fondly, a Hollywood writer-director tells of a script-formating program “dreamed up by some lunatic in northern California.” Nowadays, however, moremore programmers are writing for micros than for dedicated word processors. ”

“ New computer hardware, unadorned with such snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or even assembler. Commonly used in the phrase `programming on the bare metal', which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing} needed to create these basic tools for a new machine. Real bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real development environment. ”

“ The system consists of an LSI-11, 28K of memory, 2 Diablo disks, an LA30 DECWRITER, a Diablo HYTYPE-I printer, a VDM-1 display, and dual floppy disk drives. Obtaining an operating system which would effectively utilize all of this hardware initially appeared to be much too expensive for an individual to buy, and far too complex to write from scratch. ”

“ The devices (e.g., a PDP-1 computer or a 1620 computer) will appear as input-output units, and a user, from his console, may request to have them logically attached to his program. For convenience each device can be considered by the programmer to consist of several logical subunits; in particular, for control purposes one of these subunits (e.g., the typewriter keyboard) can represent a user console, so that an auxiliary console is not needed. ”

“ A large proportion of the pins sold are stuck into paper by an automatic machine not less ingenious than the pin making machine itself. Mourning pins are made of iron wire, finished by immersing in black japan and drying in a stove. A considerable variety of pins, including the ingeniously coiled, bent and twisted nursery safety pin, ladies' hairpins, &c, are also made by automatic machinery. ”

“ Through a cable called a null modem, you can pipe valuable reports from your portable to a larger computer a few feet away. You may want to do this, anyhow. Your lap-sized computer simply may run out of storage room much more quickly than a bigger machine and may lack floppy disks to spread those bits and bytes around. So make sure your portable software lets you zip material back and forth between machines. ”

“ The composite consists of a high-speed general-purpose digital computer, an electronic analog computer, an analog-to-digital converter, a digital-to-analog and a suitable control for these two converters. The converters are called “transducers” and have the ability of changing the continuous analog signal into discrete pulses of energy, or vice versa.
Sometimes called digital differential analyzers, the hybrid computers feature the ease of programming of the analog, plus its speed, and the accuracy and much broader range of the digital machine. ”

“ A gear can have a finite number of teeth; when we deal with electrons flowing through a wire we leave the discrete and enter the continuous world. A tiny change in voltage or current, or magnetic flux, compounded several hundred times in a complex computer, can change the final result appreciably if the errors are cumulative, that is, if they are allowed to pile up. This is what happens in the analog computer using electrical and electronic components instead of precisely machined cams and gears. ”

“ On left is an array of 16 analog computers; at right is a large digital data-processing system.
The facility can perform scientific and business tasks simultaneously.
The dictionary also gives us a good clue to the digital computer: “Digital.—Of the fingers or digits.” A digital machine deals in digits, or discrete units, in its calculations. For instance, if we ask it to multiply 2 times 2, it answers that the product is exactly 4. A slide rule, which we have said is an analog device, might yield an answer of 3.98 or 4.02, depending on the quality of its workmanship and our eyesight. ”

“ Linux is loaded by a program called LILO, or LInux LOader. LILO can also load other operating systems and ask you which system you’d like to load.
The first thing that happens when you turn on an Intel PC is that the BIOS executes. BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. It’s a program permanently stored in the computer on read-only chips. It performs some minimal tests and then looks for a floppy disk in the first disk drive. If it finds one, it looks for a “boot sector” on that disk and starts executing code from it, if there is any. ”

“ Two small binding-posts mounted at the lower right-hand corner of the box are connected directly across the terminals of the switch, so that a flexible wire and a push-button can be connected, and the light operated from a distance.
An Electric Scarf-Pin can be made by almost any boy who is skillful with a pocket-knife. The material from which the pin is made may be a piece of bone, ivory, or meerschaum. It is carved into shape with the sharp point of a penknife and may be made to represent a skull, dog’s head, an owl, or some other simple figure. ”

“ It consists of a head revolved in a suitable machine, and having a hole passing endways through it. In the middle is a slot and through the body pass the pins a, being so located that their perimeters just press the rod or wire when it is straight, and in line with the axis of the bore through the head, each successive pin a touching an opposite side of the wire or rod. It is obvious that these pins in revolving force out any crooks or bent places in the wire or rod, and that as the work may be pulled somewhat rapidly through the head or frame, the operation is a rapid one. ”

“ But that's not what we do when we turn a computer into an appliance. We're not making a computer that runs only the "appliance" app; we're making a computer that can run every program, but which uses some combination of rootkits, spyware, and code-signing to prevent the user from knowing which processes are running, from installing her own software, and from terminating processes that she doesn't want. In other words, an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box. ”

“ Keypunching and Card Input to the DiskKeypunching and Card Input to the Disk Normally, it is expected that casual program writing, editing and data generation will be done directly from the user's console. Even for the case of long programs which are too tedious for the programmer to type, a trained typist can still type the program directly into the disk memory. However, for various reasons such as distance, convenience, or exchange with other computer centers, it is still sometimes necessary to input punched cards. ”

“ A paper of pins containing a pin for every day in the year, and costing but a few cents, gives no idea to the purchaser of the time, thought and capital expended in machines for making them, and yet were it not for such machines, rapidly cutting coils of wire into lengths, pointing and heading the pins, and sticking them into papers, the world would be deprived of one of its most ubiquitous and useful articles. Many tons of pins are made in the United States weekly, and it is said that 20,000,000 pins a day are required to meet the demand. ”

“ They’re the gizmos into which you insert the floppy disks through slots in the computer.
From the outside a disk looks square. It’s inside a container that helps protect it from fingerprints and other threats to the plastic disk’s magnetic coating.
You can’t cover the delicate disk completely, though. Some of it must touch the head of a disk drive. A head “writes” magnetic patterns on the oxide coating of a disk; in other words, it stores information that you’ve typed into your computer or the results of your calculations. ”

“ Telegraph keys are merely pieces of apparatus by which the circuit can be conveniently and rapidly opened or closed at the will of the operator. An ordinary push-button may be used to turn off and on the current, but it is not so convenient as a "key." Fig. 92 shows a side view of a simple key. C is a metal strip about 3⁄4 in. wide and 4 or 5 in. long. At the left end it is fastened to the base with a screw, A. Another screw, X, serves as one binding-post. Y is another screw binding-post. W is a short wire, used to regulate the amount of spring to the key. ”

“ High-speed analog storage permits the machine to make sequential calculations, a job once reserved for the digital computer. But even these advances cannot offset the basic limitations the analog computer is heir to.
84Fewer analog machines are being built now, and many in existence do not enjoy the busy schedule of the digital machines. As the mountains of data pile up, created incidentally by computers in the first place, more computers are needed to handle and make sense of them. It is easier to interpret, store, and transmit digital information than analog ”

“ If the person at the other end can’t adjust them, either, and if those for his machine are different from yours, you’re out of luck if you don’t know how to fix the program code. You two may have to reach each other through an electronic mail service that mediates between machines. Often, however, micros are set for 1 stop bit, 8 data bits, and no parity, an informal standard. ”

“ The pins for turning the disks are each made a driving fit for a hole drilled through the metal at a point 15/32 in. from the center. Notches are cut in the disks C, D and E, Fig. 1, to receive the latch end, and the disk B is made like a cam, its use being to raise the latch into its keeper when the handle is turned backward. The disk A is without a notch and has only a pin for turning the other disks.
The Parts as They are Attached to a Drawer Front to Make a Combination Lock (Fig. 1)
The disks are mounted on the inside of the drawer front in a U-shaped piece of metal, F, Fig. ”

“ Because it must be fed digits in its input, the digital machine is not economically feasible in many applications that will probably be reserved for the analog. A digital clock or thermometer for household use would be an interesting gimmick, but hardly worth the extra trouble and expense necessary to produce. Even here, though, first glances may be wrong and in some cases it may prove worth while to convert analog inputs to digital with the reverse conversion at the output end. One example of this is the airborne digital computer which has taken over many jobs earlier done by analog devices. ”