Has anyone here heard the story on how the US railways are all the width they are because of Roman chariots (or something like that)? I can't find any information on it, but I remember seeing a show where they said that the railway systems of the past were all different widths - and because of this, were incompatible. When a standard was agreed upon, they went with today's standard width. I'm not sure if this was chosen because on manufactuer was more influencial or not... But it all came down to how there were roads made by the Romans that were a certain width. These roads developed ruts and later builders of cars or whatever had to build to the same wheelbase inorder to fit these ruts. When locomotives were made, it was easier to just use existing tooling. So.... long story short (too late) today's railways are as wide as they are today because of some dude in Itay years and years ago. (I will try to find a link or something, but I saw this on some PBS show years ago).

I was wondering if any of you knew any other little stories like that. I know that the memory structure on current PC's is still based on PC's from the 80's, but I don't really know how the original figure was reached.

Another little story is how US NTSC (Never The Same Color ) television uses 60 fields (or 30 frames) per second. This was becuase of the US's power system being 120volts AC. The power basically became the timeing device. Someone determined that all humans really need is 45 fields per second to similate a moving image, so the 60 is really over kill and a waste of information. Needing to put out 30 frames per second, NTSC had to sacrifice scan lines per frame. In contrast, PAL uses fewer frames per second (but still enough) but allow for more scan lines. Because of this, PAL has always been considered to be better than NTSC. So it is interesting that the first TV makers in the US were not limited by their own means, but by Edison for picking the number 120. It would be interesting to go back and find out "why 120?"

This is all from the top of my head, so feel free to correct me.

Why the Space shuttle SRBs are 2 horses arse wide...

http://www.paulperry.net/notes/standard_guage.asp

Yeah, I thought that story sounded a bit like an urban legend. Interesting summary, thanks for the link, Morris.

This site has actually gone and researched this urban legend and said it was false Quite an interesting site if you've got an hour or so free to have a look around.

The PC standard is really crap in my opinion. It's had features and other parts grafted on over the years. ACPI and PNP are good examples of recent braindeadness at work. ACPI needs a huge interpreter in the kernel just to handle initialising the hardware and PNP is great if it works. Totally crap if it decides not to. Give me back the days of jumper blocks
I'm not saying that the original hardware was any better though. IBM didn't actually follow the specifications laid out by Intel and redefined the meaning several of the interrupts. Don't get me started about the A20 line gate inside the keyboard controller...

On a related note, Bill Gates denies ever saying that 640k would be enough for anybody. He was interviewed awhile back here and he does give a quite convincing reason.

The mains voltage doesn't matter for the television standards. It's the frequency that is important. US electricity is at 60hz whilst Europe is mostly 50hz. The reason why the television standards used mains frequency is that it is quite stable as the power station actually has extra equipment to lock it to 50 or 60 hertz. If the mains frequency is a multiple of picture field scan rate then interference is also reduced.

- Trevor

I've just dealt with ACPI for the first time and I thought it was great. Given, this was under Linux, so I don't know how braindeadedly Windows handles it. And I once agreed with you about PNP until I used it under Linux. Works like a champ there, and you can decide which IRQs and I/O ports you want it to use. (Were you aware that Microsoft suggests setting your PC BIOS to indicate that the running OS is not PNP-compatible so that the BIOS will pick IRQs, I/O ports, etc?)

Bill Gates may not have said that, but he definitely did say that all encryption will be broken once someone finds a way to easily factor large prime numbers (from ``The Road Ahead'' -- go find it at your bookstore -- it's around page 110 or page 265, depending on the release).

ACPI is a good idea in theory but it's been implemented by committee and the standard is huge and extremely convoluted. I just think that using a big binary interpreter to run code in the BIOS in an attempt to achieve portability is a bad way of doing it. I will probably have to either change my mind about it or put up with the idea in the future now the option to disable ACPI has been removed from new BIOS's. How good is the support for ACPI these days? I haven't tried to run it since the early days.

It's just that anytime anybody comes up with a big unified model to handle hardware, somebody else comes along with something that doesn't fit into the model and you need to add a hack.

Ideal world for me would be that everybody at least tried to follow a sane standard and that they published their APIs. Chances of this happening are minimal though Anybody know people at 3Com responsible for writing drivers for their winmodems? I want to use my built-in 56k modem in Linux!

PnP under Linux is a joy to use. PnP under Windows is definately a different experience. I want to be able to specify exactly what the hardware should set itself to. The computer shouldn't always think it knows more than the user

I didn't know that Microsoft recommends setting the PnP OS option in the BIOS to be off. I've always had to set it to off because the USB host controller wouldn't be initialised properly for Linux. In my old VAIO you couldn't even turn it off at all.

Well... There IS an quick way to factor large prime numbers... You just need to make a large quantum computer. They've only done it with a small number of qubits at the moment so your data is safe still for a few years

I'm seriously on a big rant at the moment so I apologise if I come over as being argumentative or plain irritating

- Trevor

My point is that it's already remarkably easy to factor large prime numbers. Given a large prime P, the factors are {P, 1}.

I don't know much about ACPI other than under Linux, I can get signals from each of the ACPI devices (mostly buttons AFAIK), and do whatever I want with them. I just set up a daemon on a computer to ``shutdown -h now'' when the front panel button is pressed 3 times within 5 seconds. Try doing that with APM.

Given a large prime P, the factors are {P, 1}.

Given *any* prime P, the factors are (P, 1)

Just saying that a factor of P is P and 1 isn't quite what they had in mind. Finding the values of the two prime numbers that make up P is much harder as you know

I just tried ACPI on my Inspiron and bizarre and nasty things started to happen. I blame the flakey Dell BIOS

- Trevor

That really bums me out that it is an urban legend.. Like I said, the post I made was from the top of my head (thanks for clarifying the Frequency thing) but I am remembering more of the original show I saw on PBS. It was a really cool that tied all of these seemingly unrelated objects and events together. The host would be in England current day and say something about Tibet and with a snap of his fingers, he was in Tibet. Must have been a bitch to schedule all of thier shoots! But now I'm wondering how much of that show is real and how much is based on urban myths....

but I am remembering more of the original show I saw on PBS

That would be James Burke's "Connections" series, eh?

You might be able to e-mail Burke and ask him what his source was. Also, there was a companion book to the series that might contain that reference and that you can probably get at your library.

In this vein, my contribution of "trivial foundations" would be -- while Beethoven would be pissed if he heard it called trivial -- the capacity/design of the Compact Disc being based on the length of the 9th Symphony. There are recent techno discussions on the BBS about CD design factors, but I am old enough to remember reading a story before the market introduction of CDs about the Beethoven factor. I just can't find a solid reference to it now.

[edit: It looks like Burke was born in Ulster]

Jim, I heard that too. The length of the LP may be related too.... interesting.

the capacity/design of the Compact Disc being based on the length of the 9th Symphony.

Probably not... Most performances of the glorious Ninth run 59--63 minutes, whereas (as you well know) the capacity of the CD is anything from 68--75 minutes, depending on how far the producers want to stretch the standard.

tanstaafl.

Most performances of the glorious Ninth run 59--63 minutes

It's coming back to me now.....they based it on the famous performance of the 9th by the narcoleptic Russian conductor Somnolensky.

Boy, I've got the bug now. This may be another urban legend, but I do remember reading about it a long time ago. I searched some CD FAQ sites, and a few had pointers to supposed histories (and even reference to this "9th" factoid) but they were a dead end from a truth/provenance standpoint.

More to come...

(edit: Well, I did find another reference to it on urbanlegends.com that cites a book "Ken C. Pohlmann, _The Compact Disc Handbook_, 2nd Ed., 1992 (ISBN 0-89579-301-6)" and goes on to cite the following from that and another source: "Why 74 minutes? Pohlmann doesn't know either. He says: 'According to one version of history, the 74-minute time was selected because conductor Herbert von Karajan, a Polygram artist**, demanded a 74-minute capacity so his favorite piece, Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_, would fit on a single disc. The other version claims the wife of Sony chairman Akio Morita insisted that Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_, her favorite piece, fit on a disc.' Neither version is attributed." .....and the same UL page provides another snip from an interview by Nancy Herther in the July 1992 _CD-ROM Professional_ ("The Past, Present and Future of the Compact Disc, Multimedia and the Industry: An Interview with Dr. Toshi Doi"). Dr. Doi is a Director of the Sony Corporation, and helped invent the compact disc. On p. 21:
" Q. I've heard different stories about the beginnings of the compact disc. Could you please tell us how the compact disc came to be the 12 cm disc that it is.
A. Mr. Oga from Sony decided the size of the compact disc. We had a big debate with Philips on the size of the CD disc. I was pushing 10 cm, because it was a round number and a very small disc. Sony was very interested in having a portable CD player from the very beginning. Philips was pushing for a much larger disc***. Mr. Oga finally made the decision that he wanted something which could hold the entire Beethoven's 9th Symphony on a single disc. That was a very good decision and as good of a reason as any other."

The interview actually seems more credible -- unless Doi just enjoys perpetuating a good joke!)

Isn't the original CD spec for 74 minutes? I know that in recent years they have stretched it.....??

Correct, Doug. The CD-length-because-of-the-9th is also an Urban Legend. I'm sure Rob Schofield could chime in on it, since he worked for Philips during that time.

Burke's Connections series was really cool, but I figured that some of the so-called "connections" were rather thin threads and perhaps a little shaky on the historical research. Didn't make the show any less interesting, though, I really enjoyed it.

Man! This is like finding out that Santa doesn't exist! :P

The CD-length-because-of-the-9th is also an Urban Legend

Dang, Tony, you're too quick for me. I added some snips from urbanlegends.com to my earlier post. It made me think that, rather than a confirmed UL, it's still up in the air (and may remain so). Even with the quote from the Sony exec, though, who needs a 74-minute disc spec for a 63 minute symphony?

[edit: Looking at that Toi quote I'm wondering, what would be the time capacity of a disk if they went with the 10cm diameter he refers to? Would it be under 63 minutes? If so, that makes the rationale a little more credible, Beethoven-wise.]

From what I remember learning in a digital music class I took in college, the 74-minute spec was a completely arbitrary number. I heard it was somewhat based on how much data could be fit on the CD and at what type of compression. But, I think I remember someone saying that the minute length could have varied either way.

I'm going to see if I can find the info on this.

Maybe they wanted 5" disks so that they could use them in computers? And THAT determined the 74min point?

Isn't the original CD spec for 74 minutes? I know that in recent years they have stretched it.....??

Yes, I believe you're right. I got confused (amazing how easily that happens) and pulled the 68 number from the standard capacity of 680 MB. 68 minutes, 680 megabytes, 10,936 square millimeters of surface area -- it's all the same thing, isn't it?

And get this -- a CD is almost exactly one cubic inch in volume.

118mm diameter x 1.5mm thick = 16404 mm^3, = 1.001 in^3.

So, a CD plays at roughly one and a quarter hours per cubic inch. Now that's information that's useful to know!

tanstaafl.

The amount of data per square inch on a CD is/was fixed. There is no compression. When deciding on the final standard size of the disk, there was a known, fixed ratio trade-off between physical handling size and the amount of music. They simply set the standard size in a place where most of the known "long" recordings would fit, while still offering an easy-to-handle, compact size for the media.

I'm sure that fitting the 9th onto the disc was one of their concerns when making the decision. But it certainly wouldn't have been the only piece they considered.

I think that sounds right, Tony. I remember them mentioning that the size was pretty arbitrary. I suppose when developing anything like this (such as a PDA), you need to keep usability in mind.

118mm diameter x 1.5mm thick = 16404 mm^3, = 1.001 in^3.

Not like it is the authoritative work on the subject, but the full UL page I referred to is here . It does have a little more info about some of the other design/density considerations.

In the end, given the haze of history, I think I'd agree with Tony that the "9th" might have been a factor but was likely not *the* factor as its near-UL status might suggest. That doesn't seem inconsistent with what that gent Doi said.

Also, WRT that whole Von Karajan thing (and maybe Doug has an opinion on this) my memory is that when CDs were *almost* on the market (they were building like a total of 2 pressing plants) it seemed like there was a bigger stake for classical labels -- like who cared what the quality of rock-and-roll records was like, relatively speaking? I could see DG and others having a pretty active lobby at Sony/Philips. Plus, I don't think Von Karajan was known for keeping his mouth shut.

[edit: "Doi", not "Toi". Also, I was thinking H Von Karajan was on Deutsche Grammaphon, but as the UL page points out, it was Polygram that was (still is??) a Philips subsidiary]

No, but a tax should be imposed upon him each time he does

Before I vote please tell me: would the money go to the RIAA? Or does it depend on what he's calculating?

Man! This is like finding out that Santa doesn't exist! :P

Guess what? The Easter bunny doesn't anymore either... (See attached)

If you account for the hole in the middle of the CD, would that make the numbers work out exactly?

If you account for the hole in the middle of the CD, would that make the numbers work out exactly?

Oh no, don't get him started.

Guess what? The Easter bunny doesn't anymore either... (See attached)

ROFL