maxx50 said:
As an alien . you sure are making it easy to have your activities tracked
You don't use the portion of the earth that we do. ;>Q
You noted that the first link answered your question on adding additional 0s?
The reason that computing was first limited to 2, 4, or 8 bits is that memory was extreamely expensive. When the first 16 bit computers came out with Windows 95 it cost $1000 to put the 64megs of memory into the computer. The new AMD and Intel computers us 64 bits and it still costs $1000 to put the correct amount of memory into the computer so that the full addressable memory array is available.
The first 255 memory positions in any computer are taken up with the table that contains the binary equivilants of the keyboard. Then additional memory positions are taken up with space for the kernel of the OS, the BIOS, the shadow video ram, etc. A 64 bit system running Windows is using 600 megs just to put the start screen on the monitor. If you are running Areo, an AV, a firewall, a blocker, the print manager and the network manager you are already above 800 megs and you haven't run an application yet.
In various alternative OSs you can have much less overhead, but it's not as usable. I can run DOS6.2 on a modern computer and only have an overhead of 32K. However, if I want to access all the socketed memory I have to run an memory manager; if I want to talk to my printer I have to run a spooler; if I want to see what I'm doing on the monitor I have to run a graphical interface. It's not very user friendly to have to type in every command.
Hexadecimal changed much of the "book keeping" necessary. Simply by loading a table of hexadecimal equivalants during the POST procedure, I could eliminate many of the "peeks" and "pokes" that had been necessary. When the POST procedure was further refined so that it read the BIOS and loaded further tables for input/output management and BASIC, it became much easier to use a computer.
The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions used very stupid computers. To input a command, the astronaut had to enter the binary equivilants of each letter and number that the command they wanted to enter contained. They had books of the commands that it was thought they would need and Huston had to transmit the unaticipated commands. When you are going to crash on the moon in 8 seconds and it's going to take an hour to enter the command to avoid that, you are not a happy camper.
To make it more complicated, if you made a typo, the command wouldn't be what you thought it was. The keyboard on the lunar missions was just a calculator keypad with a red commit key beside it. You typed in the numbers for the letter or number you wanted, hit commit and then typed in the numbers for the next letter or number. When you had entered the entire command, you hit the green enter key and the computer executed the command if you had it right, or you if you had fucked up.
The shuttle uses a POST procedure that loads a form of BASIC. If you are familiar with DOS and used an old wordprocessor with the orange and black screen, you know what the astronaut is seeing. At least they can see the command and check the syntax before hitting enter.
Over the years, many have asked "why not just install modern computers in the shuttle"? The reason is that we don't manufacture them anymore. To install a modern computer we have to strip out all the wiring and replace it with the wiring to handle all of the things a modern computer can do. This represents about a thousand miles of wire and a couple of tons of additional weight. The shuttle would become too heavy.
