Tom and Jerry

Tom and Jerry is an Academy Award-winning animated cartoon series of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrical short subjects created, written and directed by animators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. One hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced by the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood from 1940 until 1957, when the animation unit was closed down. These shorts are notable for having won seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), tieing it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the most-awarded theatrical animated series. It is widely considered one of the best animated cartoon series ever.

The following cartoons won the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Subject: Cartoons:

* 1943: The Yankee Doodle Mouse
* 1944: Mouse Trouble
* 1945: Quiet Please!
* 1946: The Cat Concerto
* 1948: The Little Orphan
* 1951: The Two Mouseketeers
* 1952: Johann Mouse

These cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, but did not win:

* 1940: Puss Gets the Boot
* 1941: The Night Before Christmas
* 1947: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse
* 1949: Hatch Up Your Troubles
* 1950: Jerry's Cousin
* 1954: Touché, Pussy Cat!

These cartoons were nominated for the Annie Award in the Individual Achievements Category: Character Animation, but did not win:

* 1946: Springtime for Thomas
* 1955: That's My Mommy
* 1956: Muscle Beach Tom
* 2005: The KarateGuard

Motorola 68000

Pre-release XC68000 chip manufactured in 1979.

The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor (formerly Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector). Introduced in 1979 as the first member of the successful 32-bit m68k family of microprocessors, it is generally software forward compatible with the rest of the line despite belonging to the 16-bit hardware technology generation. After twenty-seven years in production, the 68000 architecture remains a popular choice for new designs.



The 68000 grew out of the MACSS (Motorola Advanced Computer System on Silicon) project, begun in 1976 to develop an entirely new architecture without backward compatibility. It would be a higher-power sibling complementing the existing 8-bit 6800 line rather than a compatible successor. In the end, the 68000 did retain a bus protocol compatibility mode for existing 6800 peripheral devices, and a version with an 8-bit data bus was produced. However, the designers mainly focused on the future, or forward compatibility, which gave the M68K platform a head start against later 32-bit instruction set architectures. For instance, the CPU registers are 32 bits wide, though few self-contained structures in the processor itself operate on 32 bits at a time. The 68000 may be considered a 16-bit microprocessor which is microcoded to accelerate 32-bit tasks. The MACSS team drew heavily on the influence of minicomputer processor design, such as the PDP-11 and VAX systems, which were similarly microcoded.

In the mid 1970s, the 8-bit processor manufacturers raced to introduce the 16-bit generation. National Semiconductor had been first with its IMP-16 and PACE processors in 1973-1975, but these had issues with speed. The Intel 8086 in 1977 quickly gained popularity. The decision to leapfrog the competition and introduce a hybrid 16/32-bit design was necessary, and Motorola turned it into a coherent mission. Arriving late to the 16-bit arena afforded the new processor more integration (roughly 70000 transistors against the 29000 in the 8086), higher performance per clock, and acclaimed general ease of use.

The original MC68000 was fabricated using an HMOS process with a 3.5-micron feature size. Initial engineering samples were released in late 1979. Production chips were available in 1980, with initial speed grades of 4, 6, and 8 MHz. 10 MHz chips became available during 1981, and 12.5 MHz chips during 1982. The 16.67 MHz "12F" version of the MC68000, the fastest version of the original HMOS chip, was not produced until the late 1980s.

The 68000 had many high-end design wins early on. It became the dominant CPU for Unix based workstations, found its way into heralded computers such as the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple Lisa and Macintosh, and was used in the first generation of desktop laser printers. In 1982, the 68000 received an update to its ISA allowing it to support virtual memory by conforming to the Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements. The updated chip was called the 68010. A further extended version which exposed 31 bits of the address bus was also produced, in small quantities, as the 68012.

To support lower-cost systems and control applications with smaller memory sizes, Motorola introduced the 8-bit compatible MC68008, also in 1982. This was a 68000 with an 8-bit data bus and a smaller (20 bit) address bus. After 1982, Motorola devoted more attention to the 68020 and 88000 projects.

eSATA

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment is a computer bus primarily designed for transfer of data between a computer and storage devices (like hard disk drives or optical drives).

The main benefits are faster transfers, ability to remove or add devices while operating (hot swapping), thinner cables that let air cooling work more efficiently, and more reliable operation with tighter data integrity checks than the older Parallel ATA interface.

It was designed as a successor to the legacy Advanced Technology Attachment standard (ATA), and is expected to eventually replace the older technology (retroactively renamed Parallel ATA or PATA). Serial ATA adapters and devices communicate over a high-speed serial cable.

Standardized in mid-2004, eSATA defined separate cables, connectors, and revised electrical requirements for external applications:

* Minimum transmit potential increased: Range is 500–600 mV instead of 400–600 mV.
* Minimum receive potential decreased: Range is 240–600 mV instead of 325–600 mV.
* Identical protocol and logical signaling (link/transport-layer and above), allowing native SATA devices to be deployed in external enclosures with minimal modification
* Maximum cable length of 2 m (USB and FireWire allow longer distances.)

eSATA enters an external storage market already served by the USB and FireWire interfaces. Most external hard disk drive cases with FireWire or USB interfaces use either PATA or SATA drives and "bridges" to translate between the drives' interfaces and the enclosures' external ports, and this bridging incurs some inefficiency. Some single disks can transfer almost 120 MB/s during real use, more than twice the maximum transfer rate of USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 (IEEE 1394a) and well in excess of the maximum transfer rate of FireWire 800, though the S3200 FireWire 1394b spec reaches ~400 MB/s. Finally, some low-level drive features, such as S.M.A.R.T., are not usable through USB or FireWire bridging. eSATA does not suffer from these issues.

Macintosh XL

Macintosh XL Specifications

The Macintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64K Macintosh ROM emulation. An identical machine was sold as the Lisa 2/10 with the Lisa OS only.

The Macintosh XL had a 400K 3.5" floppy drive and an internal 10 MB proprietary Widget hard drive with provision for an optional 5 or 10MB external ProFile hard drive. At the time of release, the Macintosh XL was colloquially referred to as the "Hackintosh", although this name has also been used more generally to describe Macintosh computers assembled from unusual combinations of parts.

Processor: 68000, 5
PMMU:none
FPU: none
Data Path:16, 5
L1 Cache: none
L2 Cache: none
2nd Processor: none
Slots: 3 Lisa slots

Logic Board: none
RAM Slots: 2, Lisa cards
Min - Max RAM: 0.5 MB - 2 MB
RAM Sizes: 512 K
Install in Groups of: 1

Panopticon

The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."

The architecture

incorporates a tower central to a circular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. Toward this end, Bentham envisioned not only venetian blinds on the tower observation ports but also maze-like connections among tower rooms to avoid glints of light or noise that might betray the presence of an observer
Ben and Marthalee Barton

"Morals reformed - health preserved - industry invigorated - instruction diffused - public burthens lightened - Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock - the gordian knot of the poor-law not cut, but untied - all by a simple idea in Architecture!"

Bentham derived the idea from the plan of a military school in Paris designed for easy supervision, itself conceived by his brother Samuel who arrived at it as a solution to the complexities involved in the handling of large numbers of men. Bentham supplemented this principle with the idea of contract management; that is, an administration by contract as opposed to trust, where the director would have a pecuniary interest in lowering the average rate of mortality. The Panopticon was intended to be cheaper than the prisons of his time, as it required fewer staff; "Allow me to construct a prison on this model," Bentham requested to a Committee for the Reform of Criminal Law, "I will be the gaoler. You will see ... that the gaoler will have no salary -- will cost nothing to the nation." As the watchmen cannot be seen, they need not be on duty at all times, effectively leaving the watching to the watched. According to Bentham's design, the prisoners would also be used as menial labour walking on wheels to spin looms or run a water wheel. This would decrease the cost of the prison and give a possible source of income.

Bentham devoted a large part of his time and almost his whole fortune to promote the construction of a prison based on his scheme. After many years and innumerable political and financial difficulties, he eventually obtained a favourable sanction from Parliament for the purchase of a place to erect the prison, but in 1811 after Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (1809-1812) refused to authorise the purchase of the land, the project was finally abandoned. In 1813 he was awarded a sum of £23,000 in compensation for his monetary loss which did little to alleviate Bentham's ensuing unhappiness.

While the design did not come to fruition during Bentham's time, it has been seen as an important development. For instance, the design was invoked by Michel Foucault (in Discipline and Punish) as metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies and its pervasive inclination to observe and normalise. Foucault proposes that not only prisons but all hierarchical structures like the army, the school, the hospital and the factory have evolved through history to resemble Bentham's Panopticon. The notoriety of the design today (although not its lasting influence in architectural realities) stems from Foucault's famous analysis of it.

Information Theory

Information Theory

Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and engineering involving the quantification of information. Historically, information theory developed to find fundamental limits on compressing and reliably communicating data. Since its inception it has broadened to find applications in statistical inference, networks other than communication networks, biology, quantum information theory, data analysis, and other areas, although it is still widely used in the study of communication.

A key measure of information that comes up in the theory is known as information entropy, which is usually expressed by the average number of bits needed for storage or communication. Intuitively, entropy quantifies the uncertainty involved in a random variable. For example, a fair coin flip will have less entropy than a roll of a die.

Applications of fundamental topics of information theory include lossless data compression (e.g. ZIP files), lossy data compression (e.g. MP3s), and channel coding (e.g. for DSL lines). The field is at the crossroads of mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, neurobiology, and electrical engineering. Its impact has been crucial to success of the Voyager missions to deep space, the invention of the CD, the feasibility of mobile phones, the development of the Internet, the study of linguistics and of human perception, the understanding of black holes, and numerous other fields. Important sub-fields of information theory are source coding, channel coding, algorithmic complexity theory, algorithmic information theory, and measures of information.

The most important quantities of information are entropy, the information in a random variable, and mutual information, the amount of information in common between two random variables.



Entropy of a Bernoulli trial as a function of success probability, often called the binary entropy function, Hb(p). The entropy is maximized at 1 bit per trial when the two possible outcomes are equally probable, as in an unbiased coin toss.

A-5 Vigilante

A-5 Vigilante

The North American A-5 Vigilante was a powerful, highly advanced carrier-based supersonic bomber designed for the United States Navy. Its service in the nuclear strike role to replace the A-3 Skywarrior was very short.

Designated A3J-1, the Vigilante first entered squadron service with VAH-3 in June 1961, replacing the A-3 Skywarrior in the heavy attack role. All variants of the Vigilante were built at North American Aviation's facility at Port Columbus Airport in Columbus, Ohio, alongside the T-2 Buckeye and OV-10 Bronco.

Under the Tri-Services Designation plan implemented under Robert McNamara in September 1962, the Vigilante was redesignated A-5, with the initial A3J-1 becoming A-5A and the updated A3J-2 becoming A-5B. The subsequent recce version, originally AJ3-3P, became the RA-5C.



The Vigilante's early service proved troublesome, with many teething problems for its advanced systems. It also arrived in service during a major policy shift in the Navy strategic role, which switched to emphasize submarine launched ballistic missiles rather than manned bombers. As a result, in 1963 procurement of the A-5 was ended and the type was converted to the fast reconnaissance role. The first RA-5Cs were delivered in July 1963, with Vigilante squadrons redesignated RVAH.

Despite the Vigilante's useful service, it was expensive and complex to operate, and it was phased out after the end of the Vietnam War. Disestablishment of RVAH squadrons began in 1974, with the last Vigilantes completing their final deployment in September 1979.

The Vigilante did not end the career of the Skywarriors, which would carry on as electronic warfare platforms and tankers. Fighters fitted with pods would replace the RA-5C. Following up to present day, the weight of fighters such as the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has evolved into the same 62,950 lb class as the Vigilante. The Super Hornet fighter is also planned to cover the strike, reconnaissance, tanker, and electronic warfare roles of these old bomber types.

Although the Vigilante served in the attack and recce roles, its design and configuration was believed to be a major influence on one of the world's most famous postwar interceptors: the Soviet MiG-25 'Foxbat' was apparently heavily influenced by the A-5's design. (The MiG-25 would look even more familiar if the Vigilante had retained the twin vertical fins of the prototype; although North American originally specified two fins, like the later Foxbat, that part of the design was vetoed by the Navy in favor of one folding tailfin.) Other western aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle would also adopt a high mounted wing and wedge-shaped intake geometry.