A85: Re: The possible

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A85: Re: The possible



-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Warner <jgwarner@wesnet.com>
To: assembly-85 <assembly-85@towerguard.unix.edu.sollentuna.se>
Date: Thursday, November 05, 1998 10:11 PM
Subject: A85: The possible


>
>OK,
>I leave town for a few days and look what i said started, one big
>argument!! I guess I can end it, I hope.
>
>1. Damn near everything conceivable is possible, with the right
>equipment and knowledge.


Remember, this is a calculator, and without adding new hardware to it, there
are many things that _are_ impossible.  It has a finite ram size, a finite
clock speed, a defined instruction set, etc.  So there are things that are
impossible to program for it (note: I'm not saying your compression idea is
impossible, just certain things are, like a version of Quake identical to
the PC game).

>2.The problem with negative responses to ideas is because of people like
>Dines Justesen who brag about how long they've programmed the ti-8x, and
>have an ego they can't have bruised just can't, or aren't willing to,
>admit that other people who are fresh coul think of doing something they
>haven't done, or think of a way to things different.


I don't think it has anything to do with ego.  There is a thing called
experience.  Dines has contributed to asm programming since the very
beginning on the 85.  He helped map out the rom.  We have him to thank for
many programs out now.  He also wrote the first assembly shell for the 82,
the first(?) 85 emulator for the PC, etc.  So when he says something is
impossible, you can be 99% sure he knows what he is talking about.

>3. I was wrong. The idea I had was wrong, it'd been a while since i did
>anything like this so i was rusty, but i'm not now. My idea was wrong,
>but i hate asshole who call me stupid. So i'm going to write the
>compression program just to prove to Dines Justesen that he's not as
>smart as he thinks. any help would be appreciated and given credit for,
>just email me, not the list, and we'll make Dines Justesen and everyone
>like him swallow their words.
>
>And lastly, hey Dines Justesen, have you ever tried to zip a zipped
>file? I can tell you now it doesn't work, so niether does your little
>formula, so you're already wrong! That argument it over!


That was his point!  It doesn't work!  To restate what has already been
restated several times, you wanted an algorithm to 'compress ANY string to
HALF size'.  Dines was using the analogy that if your idea _were_ possible,
then you _could_ compress a zip file, compress it again, and again, until it
was down to one byte or 1 bit.  But as you know, you cannot recompress a
compressed file or string anymore and get anything out of it (at least not
more than a very small percentage).  Therefore, it _is_ impossible to
'compress ANY string to HALF size'.

Another thing worth mentioning, are you really trying to make Dines mad
enough to leave the list and possibly calculator programming altogether?  I
would hate to
see that happen.

example for above:

 A B C D E F       <= orginal string
ABCDEF             <= string compressed to HALF size
XYZ                <= compressed again to HALF size
JK                 <= and again to HALF size (rounded up)
T                  <= once more to HALF size

As you can see, how do you get " A B C D E F" out of T (the compression
scheme is just made up for example, but bear with me)?  You can't.  This is
the point that Dines was trying to make.

--
David Phillips <electrum@tfs.net>
ICQ: 13811951
AOL/AIM: Electrum32
86 Central: http://www.tfs.net/~electrum/
"There ain't no such thing as the fastest code!" -- Michael Abrash
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