Bialar Crais

Just had to answer this:

Of course. Still do. Who need fancy GOOEEY-stuff when there's Vi and Ed?

Edwin

I use pico quite a lot.

lpetrich

To me, vi and emacs are not true command-line text editors, because they operate in ASCII-art GUI mode. However, one can get a command line in them, so they may qualify as hybrid CLI-GUI editors.

The editor ed, however, is a true command-line editor, though I had used the command-line editors of a different OS, VM/CMS.

But my point is that someone only familiar with the sort of computing common on mainframes and minicomputers would be lost on my machine.

Unless I started the app "Terminal", which creates a Unix command-line window inside of the MacOS-X GUI. And Unix-heads of the past 20-25 years would find that it responds to some very familiar commands. Though users of other minicomputer and mainframe OSes would have to do some learning, they would find that the Unix command line operates on familiar paradigms.

But before the late 1960's, interactive computing was extremely rare, and someone familiar with the computers back then who was told that the box was a computer might ask "where's the card reader?" -- for punched cards.

Bialar Crais

True I suppose. Vi isn't pure CLI.

However, I dunno if I'd call Vi's interface a GUI tho'.

Not to mention that it is the most user friendly editor ever devised.

You get a bourne compatible shell and the most basic stuff in terms of command and term-emulation when starting that?

I guess so...I'm a bit chronologically challenged and hence missed the mainframe era. I compensated by signing up as a UN*X junkie as soon as I could tho.

But I think I am way off topic. I apologize.

Dibble Helix

True, way off-topic - but since you mention command-line editors do any of you guys remember 'edlin' a sort of 'ed' clone shipped with early versions of DOS.

Dibble (PS: I still use vi - sad I know!)

Dibble Helix

Back on-topic:

I agree, but I don't believe that this is just a recent development. Among the ancient Greeks there were plenty of scientists in the true sense. They came up with some rather wacky models of how the world works, but they did not automatically resort to 'magic' to explain the unexplained.

[edited for crap UBB]

[ May 20, 2002: Message edited by: Dibble Helix ]</p>

wdog

lpetrich and all,

A while back in arn I posted a purely hypothetical thought, what would something intelligent and autonomous look like if it we humans had designed it. One thought I have is that we are progressing at a pace much faster than evolution. If you consider pure processing power, we should be able to mimic the human brain in about 25-50 years using current extrapolations. Right now I dare say we produce machines that are more complex and smarter than say a virus, probably we current match the intellect of a mouse or so. (there is a web site on this, I'll find it later if you want). Nanotechnology and lithography current can produce (in roughly two dimensions only) structures and electronic switches at a higher density that you can find in biological organisms. Nanotech will also enable building and manipulation at this scale (1-100nm) which again is at the subcellular level.

We have accomplished this in say 2000 years of effort with an exponentially changing rate. Most of current technology was accomplished in the last 200 years or so. We can only guess what the next 100 years will bring. Compare that to the time scale of evolution, and I have to ask if there is a designer, why is it so slow?

This seems to be related to the question how you might recognize advanaced technology, how would creatures look if we actually designed them? My guess is that we will someday achieve design complexity and efficiency that is superior to nature's biological designs. If that happens, could there possibly be an argument left for a creator?

Liquidrage

<a href="http://www.medicalintuitives.com/biologic/Procedure/TheScience.html" target="_blank">http://www.medicalintuitives.com/biologic/Procedure/TheScience.html</a>

But would they even see the computer?

Dibble Helix

Yeah right! I never believed that sh!t about the natives 'not seeing' the ship, who says they didn't? if the natives said that then what language did they say it in? This theory has more holes in it than a..a..a thing with lots of holes in it!

dh

lpetrich

That site contains the quote

"The cause of all disease; all discomfort is an opinion the patient believed about themselves or life."

-Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, (1802-1866)

He had been a major influence on Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science.

That site contains the "wishing will make it so" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is a common misinterpetation of the Copenhagen interpretation of it.

As to not seeing Magellan's ships, those vehicles were at a distance and their true nature would not have been very obvious to someone who had never seen such vehicles before.

Which is more closely related to what I was discussing.