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Reprint of 258 (Milk Bath!)

2 (5.1%)

You should try having an ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP.

1 (2.6%)

Oh, God, that's actually TRUE.

3 (7.7%)

My therapist won't see anyone else in my social circle.

4 (10.3%)

Wait, you're seeing someone?

0 (0%)

He misses your body (AUGH!)

16 (41%)

Wow. I broke him.

2 (5.1%)

Warning label under the boobs.

6 (15.4%)

TAKE ME, OH OMNISCIENT MACHINE PANTHEON!

3 (7.7%)

Mister Peepers! NOOOOOOOO!

2 (5.1%)

Total Members Voted: 36

[jwhouk]

Pintsize's motherboard is in his head? I thought it was in his torso. Of course Marten is a guitar nerd rather than a computer geek, so maybe the cricket actually immolated itself on some other circuit-board. Pintsize's robo-religious ecstasy is a bit creepy, but of course he has tried before to escape the cycle of silicon samsara. Poor Winslow.

It's in his head. Jeph even mentions this in the book.

[Wiregeek]

The apple Extended Keyboard is nice, but throw ye down on an IBM Model M. I do so love an input device that can double as a melee weapon in a pinch.

http://www.preater.com/modelm/

yum.

[pwhodges]

I've got two of those. 

[Minomelo]

Erm... Is Marten reading gutair porn there

[mickcheese]

Raven >>>>>>>> Marigold. I actually kinda miss her and her hobo ex-boyfriend.

Agreed. I don't understand Marigold's appeal at all. Raven was a fun character, but I've always found Marigold to be a little depressing.

Also, I'm new. Hello.

[Heliphyneau]

Of course I got it—I read Secrets of Power: Find Your Own Truth (Shadowrun novel) ages ago.

Wow, mega-props to you for even knowing what Shadowrun is.  I used to play that with a group of regular gaming friends, one of whom actually wrote one of the guidebooks.  I only read one or two of the novelizations, though.

That... was not... what I meant. *sigh*

(Was I the only one who got an "insert" featuring some Wondermark wisdom with my book?)

I wasn't actually addressing whether I knew what you meant, just responding to raoullefere (and correct, raoullefere, my friend had nothing to gain from the whole six-sider thing; he playtested an early version of the game on some friends, including my later-to-be husband, and he wrote the book on magic).  As to "bunyips," I doubt that Shadowrun and Wondermark are the only two possible sources referencing them, since they are mythical beings and whatnot.  I did not get any insert with my QC book other than my packing slip, though I do recall seeing Wondermark's Supernatural Collective Nouns print for sale at TopatoCo.  If you got a copy of that print, then lucky you!  They either like you or accidentally put part of someone else's order in your package.

Does this mean that Winslow will now embark on terrible and protracted revenge against Pintsize?

That would be sorta OOC for Winslow, I think.  Maybe he'd force Pintsize to do a eulogy -- and promptly regret it, of course.  ^_^

I loved glowy ecstatic Pintsize, and Marten's squicked expression in the last panel.

[peterh]

The apple Extended Keyboard is nice, but throw ye down on an IBM Model M. I do so love an input device that can double as a melee weapon in a pinch.

http://www.preater.com/modelm/

yum.

That is the Keyboard To End All Keyboards.
Great tactile feel, and you could actually split a desk with them. The Mother of keyboards, it was.

[hannahsaurusrex]

Jiminy..

I can't stop thinking Momo would be more useful to the singularity cause. With her paralyzing cuteness, ability to have opposable thumbs (when downloaded right), and her Zeusbolts, she would be UNSTOPPABLE.

Or perhaps that is why we haven't seen her yet?

[Dliessmgg]

Raven >>>>>>>> Marigold. I actually kinda miss her and her hobo ex-boyfriend.

Agreed. I don't understand Marigold's appeal at all. Raven was a fun character, but I've always found Marigold to be a little depressing.

Raven is better for jokes, but Mari is more interesting as a character imho.

[Skewbrow]

I can't stop thinking Momo would be more useful to the singularity cause.

May be the social protocol database is incompatible with da singularity?

[Skewbrow]

When Hannelore foolishly stuffs Pintsize with too much RAM, Marten strikes Pintsize a good un' the back of the head, and the teeny terror spits the ramstick out. Where the RAM be, there be ye motherboard, me hearties! Although we be assumin' the wee monster's other ram be soldered on.

Not really contesting the location of the motherboard any longer, but since when did everything exiting thru the mouth necessarily originate from the head. Under ideal conditions may be, but...

[mickcheese]

Raven is better for jokes, but Mari is more interesting as a character imho.

Well, Marigold has definitely been developed a lot more than Raven ever was despite Raven being in the strip for far longer. Like you say, Raven was a walking, talking set up for some easy jokes and she never really moved beyond that. But I don't think that should be held against Raven as a character. Pintsize hasn't been developed very far either, but he's still a valuable member of the cast. And I like them both more than Marigold, whose presence I usually (but certainly not always) find to be a drain on the comic.

Her drama/humor ratio is probably the lowest of all the main cast members.

[Dliessmgg]

You make it sound like drama is a bad thing.

[St.Clair]

When Hannelore foolishly stuffs Pintsize with too much RAM, Marten strikes Pintsize a good un' the back of the head, and the teeny terror spits the ramstick out. Where the RAM be, there be ye motherboard, me hearties! Although we be assumin' the wee monster's other ram be soldered on.

Remember when 1 gig was a lot?  Heck, remember when 24 megs was a lot?

[celticgeek]

When I bought my first personal computer, I went for the FULL MEGABYTE OF RAM.  None of this 640 KB stuff.

 And I went for the GIGANTIC 10 Megabyte hard drive, too.

[laizeohbeets]

You make it sound like drama is a bad thing.

It is when they're The Bringer of Doom and The Bringer of Drama. Besides, as someone knowing people like Marigold and Raven, I'd definitely prefer to be around Raven over Marigold.

[AnAverageWriter]

I don't see why. Marigold is sweet, intelligent, has helped others on occasion, and we haven't seen enough of Raven at all to make a judgment. I've never understood the Marigold hate on this forum from some people.  



She's like the Kimiko Ross of the QC universe!

Only prettier.

[zadojla]

When I bought my first personal computer, I went for the FULL MEGABYTE OF RAM.  None of this 640 KB stuff.

 And I went for the GIGANTIC 10 Megabyte hard drive, too.

First mainframe computer I was paid to operate had 64K of memory and 10 megs of disk storage,  It ws the size of two refrigerators side by side.

[celticgeek]

I remember those, too.  Honeywell H600 and a Honeywell H6000; although I was a mere user, not a sysadmin or anything important. 

[peterh]

When I bought my first personal computer, I went for the FULL MEGABYTE OF RAM.  None of this 640 KB stuff.

 And I went for the GIGANTIC 10 Megabyte hard drive, too.

Ooooh...
Mine had 1 K of RAM. Which, after some messy soldering, could be extended to 16K.
Storage? An old cassette recorder.

While I wasn't *paid* to operate or program it, the first computer I "had access to" was when I was in school, and... well, let me just say that "access to" was in the form of handing over a batch of punched cards, and we'd have to wait a week for the output. Made for some interesting debugging sessions.

[raoullefere]

I remember the Mac Plus being touted as "capable of holding 1 full megabyte of RAM—all anyone would ever need."  And I have a flash drive that holds 8 gb; in size and cost, it make my old Rodime 40 mb hard drive seem both gargantuan and hideously expensive.

When Hannelore foolishly stuffs Pintsize with too much RAM, Marten strikes Pintsize a good un' the back of the head, and the teeny terror spits the ramstick out. Where the RAM be, there be ye motherboard, me hearties! Although we be assumin' the wee monster's other ram be soldered on.

Not really contesting the location of the motherboard any longer, but since when did everything exiting thru the mouth necessarily originate from the head. Under ideal conditions may be, but...

You'd have to whack the body, or at least hit Pintsize from a different angle to get that chip we see to bounce up that teeny neck—if, indeed, it's possible. I mean, stuffing cake batter down that little hole is one thing; getting a chip on a rigid circuit-board to pop up that easily, another. On the other hand, if the RAM is in the head, Marten's blow would be about right to jar it loose and bounce it out.

Edit: the more I think about it, the more I wonder how Pintsize does get the batter down or even eat in the first place. I probably need to consign that to 'it's just a comic," though.

[mickcheese]

You make it sound like drama is a bad thing.

It's not a bad thing. I couldn't read this comic at all if I thought that drama was a bad thing.

That being said, this is primarily a comedic comic. And even though a lot of the humor is derived from the drama there is such a thing as too much drama. Marigold is consistently a source of drama and rarely a source of comedy. Many of the other characters are just as dramatic as her, but they also provide far more laughs than she does (at least IMO).

I don't see why. Marigold is sweet, intelligent, has helped others on occasion, and we haven't seen enough of Raven at all to make a judgment. I've never understood the Marigold hate on this forum from some people.

It's not hate, at least not from me. But I do prefer other characters, such as Raven, to her. And I wouldn't mind at all if she were put on a long bus trip to Allosaurus Town.

That sounded mean.

Maybe I do hate her just a little.

[AnAverageWriter]

I remember the Mac Plus being touted as "capable of holding 1 full megabyte of RAM—all anyone would ever need."  And I have a flash drive that holds 8 gb; in size and cost, it make my old Rodime 40 mb hard drive seem both gargantuan and hideously expensive.

I remember that awesome old thing. My first new PC was a Mac Plus! I can still remember when I upgraded its storage to a "massive" Apple HD20 and 4MB of SIMM RAM.

And it cost almost 3 grand, STOCK.

But oh, how I loved it.

[Dliessmgg]

That being said, this is primarily a comedic comic. And even though a lot of the humor is derived from the drama there is such a thing as too much drama. Marigold is consistently a source of drama and rarely a source of comedy. Many of the other characters are just as dramatic as her, but they also provide far more laughs than she does (at least IMO).

I don't think she brings less comedy, it's just a different sort of comedy. The other characters most funny to me when they're self-aware. Marigold (and Dale, maybe?) is not self-aware and funny because of that.

[bhtooefr]

Of course, you all are assuming that the CPU and RAM reside on the motherboard.

Back in ye olde days of personal computing, the motherboard was a backplane. All it had was a bunch of slots. Then, one of the cards for that slot was the bus master (controlling all of the other slots,) and had your CPU. It might have also had RAM, and if you were really lucky, it also had I/O other than the slot interface.

I think Pintsize's body is a backplane, and his head like a card with a CPU, RAM, and minimal I/O. Note that it can be attached to the body in any position: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=465

[Carl-E]

When I bought my first personal computer, I went for the FULL MEGABYTE OF RAM.  None of this 640 KB stuff.

 And I went for the GIGANTIC 10 Megabyte hard drive, too.

That was the same computer I had at my first job! 

While I wasn't *paid* to operate or program it, the first computer I "had access to" was when I was in school, and... well, let me just say that "access to" was in the form of handing over a batch of punched cards, and we'd have to wait a week for the output. Made for some interesting debugging sessions.

Same here!  We must be of a similar age...

The first PC I had was a Commodore 64, which was named for its 64K of Ram.  Found the bumper sticker in my parent's basement a couple of years ago, "I adore my 64". 

First mainframe computer I was paid to operate had 64K of memory and 10 megs of disk storage,  It ws the size of two refrigerators side by side.

Got ya beat...

My dad was maintenance manager at the Carborundum abrasives plant in Niagra Falls.  They were based there for the cheap electricity, making silicon carbide by running tens of thousands of volts through a pile of sand and ground coal.  They had a 25-year-old UNIVAC from the early 50's controlling the voltage. 

As maintenance head, my father decided it couldn't be supported anymore.  He brought it home before he could find someone to take it.  It came on a truck, and took up a bay in the garage, it was about the size and shape of a VW bus.  I'm pretty sure it had all of 1 kilobyte (1000 words) of processing power, and the boot storage was a tape drive - punch tape, about 50 feet of it (we unspooled it to see).  Output was directly connected to three large voltage regulators - you had to watch the meters to be sure it was running correctly! 

We powered it up once.  If you took off the side panel and turned out the lights, you could watch the relays arc in the dark...

It was replaced with a cupboard sized mainframe (this was still way before desktops) that had a VT100 to monitor the output.  That decision alone saved the company thousands of dollars, making my dad a minor celebrity and the company's "tech geek"...

I tell this story as often as I can, young people (my students) just don't believe it.  I'm not as old as celticgeek, but in my lifetime the developments have been mindboggling.  This is the kind of accelleration that make people believe a singularity is "just around the corner".  But really, it's pretty normal.  My grandfather was born the year Henry Ford started making cars, and watched them develop all the way to the front wheel drive, fuel injected, computer controlled boxes of the 80's (he still preffered his caddy convertable with the fins).  He used to tell me stories about his first car, with the crank start, the accellerator and "spark" levers on the steering column, and the brake lever between the driver and passenger, allowing my grandmother to stop the car if necessary! 

And his grandfather peobably saw the development of guns from flintlocks to revolvers through the 1800s...  technology always progresses whatever civilization thinks is important. 

Plus ca change! 

[pwhodges]

I'm not as old as Celticgeek either, but I remember my great-grandmother, who was born in 1850 - so was already my age now when the First World War started, and then lived through the second and beyond.

The first two  computers I used were both EELM KDF9s...  One was Oxford University's computer (yes, just the one), and the next was Culham Laboratory's (mentioned in that article).

[raoullefere]

Of course, you all are assuming that the CPU and RAM reside on the motherboard.

Back in ye olde days of personal computing, the motherboard was a backplane. All it had was a bunch of slots. Then, one of the cards for that slot was the bus master (controlling all of the other slots,) and had your CPU. It might have also had RAM, and if you were really lucky, it also had I/O other than the slot interface.

I think Pintsize's body is a backplane, and his head like a card with a CPU, RAM, and minimal I/O. Note that it can be attached to the body in any position: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=465

You're likely correct. That comic, btw, makes me wonder even more how cake gets in the body. *whack* Or I would, if it weren't just a comic.

And how does he taste anything? *whackity whack* Sorry, I can't seem to help myself

[celticgeek]

Tasting Stuff

[Olymander]

Edit: the more I think about it, the more I wonder how Pintsize does get the batter down or even eat in the first place. I probably need to consign that to 'it's just a comic," though.

Not really an explanation, but #212 mentions that there's a holding tank in the torso.  I guess maybe there's a channel or passageway down each of the tube-like attachment points for his head, hands, and feet (neck, arms, and legs)?  Or maybe just the neck... unless you got in the habit of attaching his head to his arms, there's probably no good reason to make room for said channel other than because it'd be easier to manufacture neck-style appendages for everything.

Edit - Got beaten to it.  Sort of.

[zadojla]

First mainframe computer I was paid to operate had 64K of memory and 10 megs of disk storage,  It ws the size of two refrigerators side by side.

Got ya beat...

You have me beat, but at my second job they had an old top-of-the-line IBM 1401 with 16 K of memory we used to run payroll calculation program whose source code was lost, and so could not be ported to a more modern system.  No disk at all, only tape, and the program was loaded from an object deck of cards, which had to be copied when worn because a new one could not be compiled.  There was no console; input was via sense switch and display lights.  By that time I was a supervisor, so I "delegated" that particular task...

[jwhouk]

You make it sound like drama is a bad thing.

Okay, who pulled the drama tag?

[jwhouk]

It's not hate, at least not from me. But I do prefer other characters, such as Raven, to her. And I wouldn't mind at all if she were put on a long bus trip to Allosaurus Town.

That sounded mean.

Maybe I do hate her just a little.

Jeph put her on a bus to Allosaurus University.

[jwhouk]

So what will Faye do with this information about Sven?

Blow it off and enjoy her relationship with Angus.    - 12 (22.6%)
Brood over it for weeks (years IRT).    - 6 (11.3%)
Tell Dora, of course.    - 8 (15.1%)
Go with Angus, but secretly pine for Sven.    - 7 (13.2%)
Dump Angus and go back to Sven. For the sex.    - 0 (0%)
Do something stupid to screw up her relationship with Angus.    - 13 (24.5%)
Tell Gina Riversmith.    - 3 (5.7%)
GOOGLE IT!    - 3 (5.7%)
www.vespaavenger.com    - 1 (1.9%)

Total Voters: 53

So we're pretty much split on things, it appears...

[Carl-E]

First mainframe computer I was paid to operate had 64K of memory and 10 megs of disk storage,  It ws the size of two refrigerators side by side.

Got ya beat...

...and the program was loaded from an object deck of cards, which had to be copied when worn because a new one could not be compiled.  There was no console; input was via sense switch and display lights.  By that time I was a supervisor, so I "delegated" that particular task...

Was there at least a card punch?  Or did the poor intern have to sit there with a stylus and fresh cards? 

[Skewbrow]

You guys are beating me hands down on old computer stories, but I share mine anyway. My first encounter was at the high school with a device that had 16k of memory, running a Basic interpreter, and you could turn its display to "B/W graphics mode" with a resolution of 72x60 pixels. A classmate coded a demo showing a space shuttle lift off (also a novel thing at the time). The only mass memory device on it was a tape deck. A C60 cassette would hold aplenty. I can still hear the bits sing as a 4kB game loaded up in only like 3 minutes.  First year at college we had a line printer I/O access to the mainframe, but those were shortly afterwards replaced with VT52s. E-mail account? Got my first one on my second year at grad school. They had this splendid idea that your e-mail address consisted of your password to the local IBM mainframe followed with @nd.edu. You gave your e-mail address only to friends far away. After all, who else would need your e-mail address? Nobody thought this practice to carry any risks 

[Carl-E]

nd.edu - Notre Dame? 

Oh, for the trusting days of the early internet, sending unencrypted passwords through telnet dial ups to check bulletin boards full of acsii porn art...

[jwhouk]

Rule 34 was in effect even before there were personal computers.

[Carl-E]

Purely for historical purposes.  (Probably still NSFW)

I recognize a bunch of these, actually.  Had a few hanging in my room (c'mon, it was the 70's).  One of them even has a header talking about the old 132 column printers with the folding paper that made the long nudes printable.

Damn, I'm feeling old now. 

[zadojla]

Was there at least a card punch?  Or did the poor intern have to sit there with a stylus and fresh cards? 

029 and 129 keypunches, and a 1402 reader/punch attached to the system.  The printer was a 1403 model 3, and could have produced the "art" linked to above, which was usually done with a card-to-print utility and an "appropriately-formatted" input deck.

We old-timers still refer to any 80-byte fixed length record as a "card".  I haven't seen physical cards in use since 1985. 

Nowadays, I'm not even allowed on raised floor.

[bhtooefr]

My cube is actually in a raised floor environment, but I don't do any server or mainframe work. (From what I hear, the room was built as a HUGE server room, and then things got downsized, so they put up a wall and made part of it office space. Then, things got downsized again, and relocated, so they put up yet another wall, making a tiny server room, with some office space and a large storage area.)

Oh, and telnet != dial-up.

All of that said, the oldest computer I've directly used is probably something in the Apple II line. I have indirectly used a PDP-8/E, however.

[Carl-E]

Oh, and telnet != dial-up.

Didn't say it was... I was dialing up to use telnet...   

[peterh]

While I wasn't *paid* to operate or program it, the first computer I "had access to" was when I was in school, and... well, let me just say that "access to" was in the form of handing over a batch of punched cards, and we'd have to wait a week for the output. Made for some interesting debugging sessions.

Same here!  We must be of a similar age...

Could be. I'm 52. Ask me again in two months and the answer will be different.

The first PC I had was a Commodore 64, which was named for its 64K of Ram.  Found the bumper sticker in my parent's basement a couple of years ago, "I adore my 64". 

But then again, that 64k was including the ROM containing the OS and the development environment.

Mi first was (you prolly guessed this from the 1K memory size) a ZX-80. Soon to be superceded by a ZX-Spectrum.

[bhtooefr]

Well, you could always bank switch the ROM out. If you didn't want the OS or BASIC (or thought you could do a better job at the routines than Commodore did,) then you could load your stuff into RAM, and then bankswitch the ROM out, and get more RAM.

(Same trick for 64k on an Apple II, but smaller ROM, and there is still a 4k hole in the memory map that is for I/O, and can't be bankswitched out - the entire $C0-CF area.)

[peterh]

Well, you could always bank switch the ROM out. If you didn't want the OS or BASIC (or thought you could do a better job at the routines than Commodore did,) then you could load your stuff into RAM, and then bankswitch the ROM out, and get more RAM.

(Same trick for 64k on an Apple II, but smaller ROM, and there is still a 4k hole in the memory map that is for I/O, and can't be bankswitched out - the entire $C0-CF area.)

Yup, I remember that.

And it didn't take the community long to fugure out that you could actually do a bank switch trick on the ZX Spectrum too. If only Sinclair would've used working ratherthan defective memory chips. So... people started to use working memory chips, and all of a sudden, the ZX Spectrum would have a whopping 128k RAM! How were we ever going to consume all that?
Sinclair's reaction to this was the Spectrum 128k.

[jwhouk]

What was The Moment Of The Week?

Reprint of 258 (Milk Bath!)    - 2 (8.7%)
You should try having an ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP.    - 0 (0%)
Oh, God, that's actually TRUE.    - 3 (13%)
My therapist won't see anyone else in my social circle.    - 4 (17.4%)
Wait, you're seeing someone?    - 0 (0%)
He misses your body (AUGH!)    - 6 (26.1%)
Wow. I broke him.    - 1 (4.3%)
Warning label under the boobs.    - 3 (13%)
TAKE ME, OH OMNISCIENT MACHINE PANTHEON!    - 3 (13%)
Mister Peepers! NOOOOOOOO!    - 1 (4.3%)

Total Voters: 23

[Akima]

You guys are beating me hands down on old computer stories, but I share mine anyway.

To all these old computer stories I say: "Looxury, bloody looxury!" My first computing device was a suànpán:



When, years later, I read Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! this anecdote struck a particular chord, although the Japanese gentleman in the story was probably using his country's soroban which differs significantly from the Chinese suanpan. There is a difference between being good at arithmetic, and understanding numbers, and there are pitfalls in relying too much on a machine. I enjoyed the story, and the book generally, so much that I'm prepared to forgive Feynman's unfortunate lapse into we/they thinking in the penultimate paragraph...

[raoullefere]

Stop that. You're going to get someone to drag out his slide-rule stories, and then somebody's going to mention their bag of sticks, while someone's gonna haul out the old clay tablets he used back in Ur.

[zadojla]

Stop that. You're going to get someone to drag out his slide-rule stories, and then somebody's going to mention their bag of sticks, while someone's gonna haul out the old clay tablets he used back in Ur.

Oh.  Never mind then...

[celticgeek]

I am old enough to have used slide rules.  I also taught slide rule for a couple of years.

And we should probably move this to a thread in the computer forum, entitled: The Old Geek's Bragging Thread.