Oh, but we can find more:

        The percentage of storage in physical volume of the storage device.

        The percentage of storage in physical volume of the storage medium (total capacity or used capacity).

        The percentage of storage according to weight (of device or of storage medium).

        The percentage of storage according to price (purchased price or current market value).

        The percentage of storage according to how much I care if it got lost (again, by bytes, devices, or whatever).

Okay, now I'm starting to stretch it. Any other takers?

I've got a heck of a lot of unused spinning disk space, but it's mostly unused.
My phone is 100% solid state storage, and it might be my most active storage device, in a sense of the word.
And some of my data is on unknown media, up in the cloud.

Get a cheap Android tablet that has a USB host interface. Then attach all your relays and sensors via USB (or USB to serial, if need be).

Similarly, if you want HDMI in, just search Ebay for things like this: hdmi touch lcd monitor
They start around $150.

I agree. I think it's silly to create two different versions of the same website. Higher complexity for both implementers and users benefits nobody. Just make a single version that happens to work well on a big screen or a small screen.

In general, to foster cooperation, you need some ideals that the great majority agree upon. Your examples are quite the opposite.

At the same time, though, the majority of people can be real dumb asses. So perhaps things ought to be decided by a majority of people who have enough education to know what they're talking about. Of course, everyone should be able to get educated.

But as far as what "needs" to be decided - that's where we need to be careful. I'm all for preserving freedoms and such, but as life plainly shows, there are lots of messy issues. Regarding the issue at hand: How should inventors be compensated? Or artists, writers, and other creative folks? How could we encourage people to make *more* use of previous work, rather than less?

The original systems that were put in place for these things (patents, copyrights, etc) are being co-opted more and more as simply tools for corporations to benefit financially from the public while doing less and less work. They're addicted to their "revenue streams", and they keep going back to the government to make them bigger and last longer. The government set these things up as a balancing act between the creators and the common good, but the balance has been lost (taken).

I'm doing too much pondering on an empty stomach...

I wonder how long this system will remain viable?

Reminds me of a story concerning the game "MULE" (an excellent little multi-player economy-based game set around the building of a new colony). I liked this game a lot and often played against my brothers and friends. We'd play very competitively, each trying to maximize our own profits. Then I met a friend at college and happened to mention this game. She said, "Oh, I love that game too. What was the richest colony you made?" Until she asked, it hadn't occurred to me that you could play the game a different way: cooperatively, in order to achieve the best good for the colony as a whole.

I wonder when humanity will figure that out too.

(This is not an endorsement of "socialism" or "communism" or anything like that, or even a criticism of competition. It's just a note that we tend to focus too much on little-picture, selfish goals instead of big-picture ones. Compete to make the best thing, rather than compete to kill the competition.)

The next turning point was when there were more buttons on the remote than on the TV. I was somewhat taken aback at some point to learn that a remote was no longer an accessory, but in fact a required item because you could not set up your TV (or VCR or whatever) properly without it. (And "universal" remotes often lacked the necessary functions as well.) But these days, I watch so little TV, I hardly care anymore.

That only worked on the Apple II+ and successors. The games that did that would just lock up on my Apple II. On one game, I searched for that wait loop and NOPed it out. Of course, then it ran way too fast. I think I gave up at that point.

I'd read somewhere that the Z8000 was one of the last "hardwired" CPUs (where complex operations are handled by dedicated logic); all others had switched over to micro-coding (where a simple base machine is implemented in logic gates, and then a ROM "microcode" table is used to implement complex operations), since it was much easier to implement. There was mention of various wiring bugs in the Z8000 that delayed it, and that even the final product still had some bugs.

What store are you looking at? You can get an entry-level iPad 2 for $399, or a "new" iPad for $499.

Well, the original Apple II, as described in the article, had only 4 colors for hires graphics (the 8th bit was unused). Woz published a later article in Byte describing a circuit modification for the Apple II that could increase the palette to 6 colors by utilizing the 8th bit (to implement a half-bit shift for the given byte's pixels). This was later incorporated into the Apple II+ and its successors. I did that modification on my Apple II, though my handiwork wasn't the greatest, and it led to a bit of instability until I redid it later on. (And yes, we can all moan about the whole colors vs. resolution issue...)

Going back to the topic of the address mapping to screen coordinates, Woz mentioned in some interview that he saved a couple of IC's by doing it his way, but also if he'd known how successful the machine was going to be, he'd have put in those two IC's in order to have a straightforward mapping.

You should look at oldcomputers.net for this info.

Radio Shack TRS-80:
basic unit with 4K RAM and B/W video monitor: $600
basic unit with 16K RAM and Level II basic, monitor: $1000
($300 Expansion Interface required to add more than 16K memory)
basic unit with 16K RAM, Level II, Expansion Interface, monitor: $1300
5.25" disk drive (requires 16K, Level II, Expansion Interface): $500

Commodore PET:
PET 2001 (4K RAM, built-in B/W monitor): $800
(not especially upgradeable memory-wise)
PET 4032 (in 1980; 32K RAM, built-in B/W monitor): $1300
CBM 8050 dual floppy drive (in 1980): $1700

Apple II: (in 1977)
Basic unit with 4K: $1300
Basic unit with 16K: $1700
Disk II floppy drive with controller card (1978): $600

Atari 800: (in 1979)
Basic unit with 8K: $1000
(includes slots for 3 optional 16K RAM cartridges)
810 floppy drive: $600

Exidy Sorcerer: (1980)
basic unit with 8K RAM: $900
basic unit with 16K RAM: $1150
S100 Expansion Unit: $420
Video Disk unit (B/W monitor + 2 floppy drives): $3000

Note that prices came down over time, especially due to decreases in RAM prices.

So, I'd say that there was something of an "Apple tax" even back then, but it wasn't really so much. When you considered how much expansion capability you got with the basic unit (which for other systems was either an add-on or simply not possible), it was actually a good deal.

and, skipping over the last word, was hoping that someone had made the Portal "gun" that shoots out working portals?

You mean where hundreds of solutions exist for a niche problem, but the poster can't afford them?