Forwarded without comment ...

From: blstuart_at_bellsouth.net <(blstuart_at_bellsouth.net)>
Date: Wed Mar 17 20:15:20 1999

In message <m10NLQv-000IySC_at_p850ug1>, Tony Duell writes:
>You mean like using 'binary' to mean a flip-flop circuit (old books do
>this - they talk about 'the clock pulse then clears the first binary and
>sets the second binary'). Back then, 'flip-flop' meant what we now call a
>monostable...

I'm generally loathe to question Tony's data on practical hardware
matters, but this didn't sound familiar at all. How old a reference
do you have that uses "flip-flop" to describe a monostable device?
The oldest references I have are Terman's Electronic and Radio Engineering
from 1955 and Bartee's Digital Computer Fundamentals from 1960
both published by McGraw Hill. (And no, I'm not old enough to
have studied them new.) Both use the term flip-flop to describe
the Eccles-Jordan type bistable multivibrator.

>Suffice it to say, I am not going to change my usage of the work
>'kilobyte' becase of some committee... Just as I am not celebrating the
>millennium a year early either.

Oh, I don't know. I kind of like the idea that those of us who know
better get to celebrate twice as much by using it as an excuse to celebrate
both years...

Brian L. Stuart
Received on Wed Mar 17 1999 - 20:15:20 GMT