I would think that someone smart enough to build a time machine would be smart enough to either reproduce the 5100 outright, write a simulator for it, or fix the UNIX machines without it. Sorta like going back in time to get a 3/4" socket because yours is busted. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Team Tierra Buena" To: Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 8:58 PM Subject: RE: [Az-Geocaching] Time Travel? > > The program that the site referred to was a live broadcast with George > > Noory from the Oct 8th, 2004 Coast-To-Coast radio show. The guest was > > Oliver Williams who spoke about John Titor. Below is the recap from > that > > show: > > Oops! I think I left the and tags out of my original > message. > > > Williams also referred to an article in Rochester Magazine about the > IBM > > 5100 computer. Titor claimed he'd traveled from 2036 to retrieve the > IBM > > 5100 in order to resolve computer problems in the future. The 5100, > > according to Titor, had unpublished features that would allow it to > > interface with old mainframes still in use in his time. Williams > believes > > Titor "went back home" after the completion of his mission to find and > > acquire an IBM 5100. > > I used to program the IBM 5100. It was an interesting machine. It was > truly one of the world's first "portable computers", although no one > wanted to port it for very long distances (say, over 100 yards). It used > a deservedly obscure* programming language known as APL (which stood for > "A Programming Language"). APL on the 5100 was fully portable to the IBM > System/360 mainframe (provided the mainframe had a terminal with the > special APL keyboard that had as many Greek letters as English ones on > it**) primarily because APL was an interpretive rather than a compiled > language, so each system's interpreter could generate its respective > machine code on the fly. Why anyone would think either the 5100 or the > S/360 mainframe series might be more capable of resolving "computer > problems in the future" escapes me. They had plenty of their own > problems thirty-odd years ago. > > > (Note: During the show, an eBay auction featuring the > > IBM 5100 jumped from $58 to $1000.) > > And a ten-year-old grilled cheese sandwich went for what, $38,000? David > Hannum was right. > > To be honest, I can't remember the last time I even thought of a 5100 > until I read your posting. If I had, and I knew I could buy a working > model on eBay for $58, I might have done so. (I just checked, and the > only one I see currently for sale is over $500.) What I'd *really* like > to get my hands on is a copy of the source code for "Bugs and Loops", a > game written in APL based on the concept of a Turing Machine. It was one > of the most challenging games I've ever encountered in any format. Being > able to play that game again would be some time travel I'd love to do. > > Steve > Team Tierra Buena > > * In case there are any APL devotees reading this, I know all about the > language's "elegance", and how you can write multitasking operating > systems in a hundred lines of code. Which is exactly its problem: Those > hundred lines will be impenetrably unreadable. Give me ten thousand > lines of GOTO-riddled COBOL and a little time, and I'll be able to > figure out what in heck it's doing. I challenge the author of any > non-trivial APL program to reconstruct what they did six months after > they finished writing it. > > ** For the curious, I've attached a JPEG of a complete APL program to > find all of the prime numbers in the set of integers from 1 to some > upper bound (defined in the program as "R"). > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > ____________________________________________________________ > Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com > To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: > http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching > > Arizona's Geocaching Resource > http://www.azgeocaching.com >