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GeneralRe: Unpopular opinion Pin
soulesurfer8-Apr-20 22:00
soulesurfer8-Apr-20 22:00 
GeneralRe: Unpopular opinion Pin
MadGerbil9-Apr-20 2:31
MadGerbil9-Apr-20 2:31 
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Matt McGuire9-Apr-20 5:18
professionalMatt McGuire9-Apr-20 5:18 
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raddevus9-Apr-20 9:57
mvaraddevus9-Apr-20 9:57 
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Dan Borden9-Apr-20 8:09
Dan Borden9-Apr-20 8:09 
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kalberts9-Apr-20 9:19
kalberts9-Apr-20 9:19 
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James Lonero10-Apr-20 12:17
James Lonero10-Apr-20 12:17 
GeneralRe: Unpopular opinion Pin
kalberts10-Apr-20 15:26
kalberts10-Apr-20 15:26 
In the late 1960s, a Norwegian research institute build a prototype for a 16-bit mini - "mini" in those days meaning a full height 19" rack. Around 1971, one grand old company was going to commercialize this design. As always, they had all the documentation printed (500 copies) before the real production was started.

Then it was discovered that the guys doing the documentation had been making a couple of errors: For the shift instructions, they had mixed up the bit selecting rotational shift with the don't care bit. And the description of address calculation where the base register (i.e. stack frame pointer) was involved was incorrect. But the documentation was already made, the machines were not. So rather than having to revise 500 copies of documentation, they decided to rather build the machine to behave the way the documentation described it.

This is even more crazy considering that two companies were invited to commercialize the design. The other company (a small startup company where they hardly knew the meaning of the word 'documentation') copied the prototype design. So there you had two Norwegian-built machines, with identical instruction set except for rotational shift and identical addressing mechanisms except for stack relative addressing.

Both machine series survived for quite a few years, but I never saw a single piece of software that was made to run on both machines. No common compiler with a switch to select either the "KV" or "ND" CPU variant. They ended up in completely non-overlapping market segments, rather than the intention of establishing a solid Norwegian computer industry with two manufacturers sharing architecture and design resources. Thanks to a tech writer who didn't understand the things he was documenting.
GeneralRe: Unpopular opinion Pin
Kirk Wood11-Apr-20 5:06
Kirk Wood11-Apr-20 5:06 
GeneralYouTube ban 5G/COVID-19 conspiracy videos Pin
OriginalGriff7-Apr-20 11:30
mveOriginalGriff7-Apr-20 11:30 
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Peter_in_27807-Apr-20 12:38
professionalPeter_in_27807-Apr-20 12:38 
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Mark_Wallace7-Apr-20 16:50
Mark_Wallace7-Apr-20 16:50 
GeneralRe: YouTube ban 5G/COVID-19 conspiracy videos Pin
Nelek7-Apr-20 20:43
protectorNelek7-Apr-20 20:43 
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5teveH8-Apr-20 0:31
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Mark_Wallace8-Apr-20 1:08
Mark_Wallace8-Apr-20 1:08 
GeneralRe: YouTube ban 5G/COVID-19 conspiracy videos Pin
David O'Neil7-Apr-20 18:05
professionalDavid O'Neil7-Apr-20 18:05 
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abmv8-Apr-20 0:45
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jsc428-Apr-20 0:58
professionaljsc428-Apr-20 0:58 
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kalberts8-Apr-20 1:56
kalberts8-Apr-20 1:56 
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dandy728-Apr-20 5:41
dandy728-Apr-20 5:41 
GeneralRe: YouTube ban 5G/COVID-19 conspiracy videos Pin
Mark_Wallace8-Apr-20 2:00
Mark_Wallace8-Apr-20 2:00 
GeneralRe: YouTube ban 5G/COVID-19 conspiracy videos Pin
James Lonero10-Apr-20 12:26
James Lonero10-Apr-20 12:26 
GeneralDamn COVID 19 PinPopular
Mike Hankey7-Apr-20 8:23
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GeneralRe: Damn COVID 19 Pin
Super Lloyd7-Apr-20 18:16
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jeron18-Apr-20 4:02
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