April 1, 1972: Write Only Memory

Embedded Geek writes "While digging around Jack Ganssle's site, I came across an amusing prank from days gone by. In 1972 Signetics recognized April Fools day by printing a full color datasheet (scanned sheet 1 and sheet 2 here) for a Write-Only Memory (which accepts data but never reads it back), a considerable effort when documents were made via literal "cut and paste". Packed with jokes both obvious (a graph of "number of pins left versus number of insertions") and subtle ("Vdd = 0V +/- 2%") it's worth a chuckle."

Essential For...

[geoffsmith]

Writing perl code! Write once, read never.

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]

shhhs...

[DanThe1Man]

I thought I just had to avoid reading slashdot one day a year to avoid April Fools crap.

Holy cow

[ObviousGuy]

You people ARE nerds! Jebus. I thought everyone was just faking it!

This is perfect for my project.

[seanadams.com]

I get a lot of spam, so I've been working on a hardware accelleration card for /dev/null. This'll save me having to develop my own design in an expensive FPGA.

Re:Holy cow

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice, quoting from Simpsons? And you are not a dork either? Quoth from the Comic Book Guy: "You laugh at me, oh that is rich!"

Just what the MPAA and RIAA ordered

[Brynath]

Something they can sell that has Perfect Copy Protection!

Re:shhhs...

[gazbo]

Aye. But don't worry, It's one of the most linked to April Fools, and from the seventies, so there is no chance that we haven't heard of it before.

Write only memory?

[vidnet]

You mean like the windows registry?

Crap goes in, but doesn't seem to go out until you have to reinstall a month later :)

Re:wow

[Ted Maul]

First posts are write only.

Advances in cooling

[rhysweatherley]

It took Intel 30 years to acheive a chip that has the same cooling requirements:

The 25120 is easily cooled by employment of a six-foot fan, 1/2" from the package. If the device fails, you have exceeded the ratings. In such cases, more air is recommended.

Signetics were way ahead of their time.

How's this for speed?

[JaredOfEuropa]

"The 25120 will provide 50% higher speed than you will obtain".

Huh?

[jnievele]

I didn't know that DAT backup tapes were invented in 1972... ;-)

Latex slip-ons!!!

[pawlie]

Brilliant: slip-on latex protectors for preventage of VD!! (Voltage Destruction) Pill packaged devices do not require protection!

Favorite WOM feature

[octalman]

My favorite feature of this device is that typical bit capacity is 35% to 75% of "guaranteed" bit capacity.

Write many, read never...

[MadFarmAnimalz]

I'd rather thought that /dev/null was the most elegant WOM out there...

Heck, they even coded it such that it has infinite capacity, or a very high capacity in any case.

Could someone dedicate a machine for a few years with a shell script running an infinite loop writing data to /dev/null? I personally think it's about time we found out how much you can stash in there.

Later that day...

[robolemon]

After writing up the paper and printing it in color (back in the day before cheap color printing), the Signetics engineers retire to the local bar.

After laughing it up for a bit, their boss walks in. He is visibly angry.

Boss: "Miller! Wilson! Did you waste our money again? I found the Write-Only Memory specs! That's it! The six-foot fan was one thing, but now you guys have crossed the line. How are you going to explain yourselves?"

Miller: (angrily to Wilson) "I thought you said he wouldn't be able to read it!"

Slashdot Readers: (groan)

Re:wow

[malkman]

The real question is, why would someone make a first post in the first place?

However, through the use of simple mathematics I've deducted a formula that explains this habit-
sP + aF / P = Need of being the first poster
You see, the persons small penis (sP) factor is added to his annoyance factor (aF) and divided by any real personality this poster may have (P), creates the probability of having a first post, as well as the need to be the first poster.
Therefore, the average first poster believes that by being the first poster, he will enlarge his penis size. Unfortunately, this is most opposite of what *really* occurs.
fP = P / sP - wFOP = First poster's penis size.
As you can see, the first post has the effect of actually *shrinking* his penis, as the personality factor is divided by his existing small penis, minus an additional amount based on the annoyance factor of the first post itself. So, in reality, these people are causing long-lasting damaging effects to their genitals.

And to answer your question, no, I DON'T have anything better to do than post nonsensical, offtopic garbage on a message board.

The original Bill Gates Quote:

[Bazman]

"640k of Write-Only Memory ought to be enough for anybody".

Baz

Now I really do feel old ...

[Pogue Mahone]

I remember this one when it first appeared. Does that make me "venerable"?

On a similar line, somewhere at home I have a spoof datasheet from Nominal Semidestructors giving information about the new Polish Operational Amplifier.

What I'm missing, however, is my copy of the table of variation of pi with temperature and pressure, which I believe was given to all engineering freshmen at Cambridge at one time. If anyone can help me to locate a new copy I'd be grateful. Please reply here or email me (see homepage).

Re:This is perfect for my project.

[Hellkitten]

a true WOM (data get stored, but can't be read), or is it a "fake" optimized WOM (data never gets stored,

Interesting point. So to be true Write Only Memory the data has to be there, but impossible to read.

My proposal for a true WOM with infinite storage capacity: A poverful laser poining into space, turn the laser on and off to encode 1 and 0. With enough power and careful aim to not hit a black hole or anything the data will be there forever, but nobody will be able to read it back

Potential problem are: If faster than light travel becomes available we could race past the beam and read the data. Aliens could read the data if they fly into the beam. Even in space the beam could hit a few atoms, and the light could be 'reflected' back at earth and read

And in case anyone wonders: Yes I'm a nerd, and thyis stuff matters.

Re:Essential For...

[DarkHelmet]

$what($are_you)->$talking("about") . "you" . $technophobe.
@PERL."is"->$the_easiest->$language->$Eva r

# As with all other perl code
# I find documenting this unnecessary

Another write-only tech

[ndogg]

Yeah, my hand-writing is write-only, or so everyone tells me...

1Z2Z vacumn tube

[wa1hco]

The data sheet for the 1Z2Z vacuum tube (circa 1966) contained items like a "urinated tungsten filament" and a monode structure (one less than diode), IIRC.

If humor exists prior to the Google...can anyone laugh?

An oldy but goodie

[rnturn]

I know people who have copies of that data sheet.

Another one that was good for a laugh was the ``Damn Fast Op-Amp'' that appeared in a normal device catalog from one of the major electronics device manufacturers (like Signetics, Fairchild, National, or maybe even AMD -- I'm leaning toward the latter but I can't remember any more. Darned cobwebs.) I used to enjoy asking interns to look up some information for me in the catalog and wait to see if they noticed it. You could tell if they did from the laughter.

Another one from the same time frame (1980-ish) was the announcement -- on official IBM product sheets -- of a Galactic Edition' of the VM/CP (or was it VM/CMS?) operating system. This included advanced features like the one that allowed users to create and destroy their own planetary systems and such.

Oh those were the days. Bet you don't see stuff like this appearing in official company literature any more. Hell, there'd probably be someone suing the company after they'd been traumatized upon seeing such offensive material (like `damn') or claiming fraud when their personal solar system didn't appear.

Re:In the Jargon Lexicon

[tswinzig]

This has been in The Jargon Lexicon [tuxedo.org] for ages. Don't all slashdotters know of it?

I must have missed the part on this site where it says, "YOU MUST READ THE ENTIRE JARGON LEXICON BEFORE READING SLASHDOT."

Re:Lost memory

[Frying Ferret]

Umm wouldn't 668 be the next door to the beast seeing as 667 would across the street?

Re:In the Jargon Lexicon

[HermDog]

Shocking oversight. Here, I'll fix it:

You must read the ENTIRE jargon lexicon before reading Slashdot

Re:In the Jargon Lexicon

[majcher]

I must have missed the part on this site where it says, "YOU MUST READ THE ENTIRE JARGON LEXICON BEFORE READING SLASHDOT."

Even if us lowly posters haven't (although you should), it would be nice if our nerd-overlord editors who put the story on the front page have given the jargon file a quick skim.

"Breaking news on Slashdot! Some programmers use funny words like 'foo' and 'bar' in their code, instead of *real* variable names!"

zzzzzzz....