THE
BLUE BOX (Recycled Ideas)
by Don Cox
Back to the index
The digital world is racing forward at unprecedented speed,
and sometimes I feel like I'm being left behind. I've come
to the belated realization that unless I can do an upgrade,
my old Boolean Mark II computer is soon destined to take
an honoured place in the Science Museum. So that's my dilemma,
should I put in the considerable effort to make the Boolean
Y2K compatible, or should I give it an honourable retirement
and move to a more modern, but much less versatile computing
device. By the way, a Y2K compatible computer is one that
keeps on working when the year 2000 arrives. In the year
2000, a non-compatible computer will cease to calculate,
and will only contemplate.
I expect that by now you have all heard the Y2K problem
explained many times, but in case you've missed it, let
me put it in the simplest possible terms. In early days,
back when the Boolean was built, we were short on memory
capacity, so the numbers representing the year were limited
to the last two digits. These occasionally became interchanged
or even inverted, leading to what is known as a twisted
pair. This has caused continual confusion, which has been
handled by making it an industry standard. I should mention
that the twisted pair was invented by the telephone companies,
and is still widely used by them. If you think you are beginning
to see the first glimmerings of a conspiracy here, welcome
to the 21st century. But I digress. Imagine what will happen
in the year 2000, the two last digits are 00, so any interchange
or inversion still gives you 00, and no confusion is possible.
Without customer confusion the computer industry is doomed,
so they have taken steps to maintain the confusion index
at or beyond the industry standard. How have they done this?
By threats, that's how. They tell us they may shut off the
power in the middle of the party on 1 Jan. 2000. That's
downright cruel. They tell us airplanes may fall out of
the sky, and that elevators may stop on the ground floor
and sulk, and refuse to budge. Confusion will reign and
the computer and telephone companies will make millions.
So there you have the Y2K problem in a nutshell.
I've done a lot of thinking about how to salvage the Boolean
Mark II and make it function in the 21st century. I had
almost written it off when I learned about the spinach based
electronics being developed at Oak Ridge in the U.S. The
spinach protein structures being studied can generate light-induced
electricity in fractions of a nanosecond. A method has been
developed to attach these structures to a gold-plated surface
and orient them in a specific direction. This is all that's
really needed to make switches and logic circuits and will
doubtless be hailed as the breakthrough of the decade. I
find this all very reassuring, finally we farmers will regain
our proper place at the forefront of science and society.
I've been in touch with Oak Ridge as you might well imagine,
and with their collaboration have launched a parallel project
based on potato protein. I explained to them that spinach
may be available year round in the southern U.S., but here
in the sub-Arctic we need something that we can keep in
a root cellar. They were intrigued with my crank operated
hard drive, and have installed a version of it on their
machines under my supervision. I have shown them how to
add another V-belt on the main shaft that can run a small
spinach or potato shredder and thus insure continuous operation.
I'm applying for a patent.
It's wonderful to see the Boolean Mark II rising like a
phoenix from the ashes of computational history. Everything
old is new again.
Bluebox ©2001 Don Cox
Website ©2001 OttawaWEB
