Dynamic Subspace

Tag: Computers

Desktop Computer Build Description (i7-7700 and Radeon RX-550 4GB GDDR5) with Benchmarks

Over the past two weeks, I built a new desktop computer to replace my i5-based Intel NUC, because I wanted more CPU horsepower and a dedicated graphics card.

The NUC6i5SYH has a soldered i5-6260U CPU. This part has only two CPU cores, which support two threads each for a total of four threads. With this new build, I use a socket-based i7-7700, which has four CPU cores, each of which supports two threads for a total of eight threads. Coupled with a higher, maximum clock rate, this i7 processor can do more work in less time than the i5-6260U CPU in the Intel NUC.

For watching 1080p videos and lower resolution 3D graphics, the i5-6260U’s integrated graphics are more than sufficient. However, I wanted to play some 3D games and use Unreal Engine 4 for a project. The entry-level graphics of AMD Radeon’s RX 550 coupled with a design that does not require a higher-wattage PSU seemed adequate for this particular build.

My new computer’s specs, sourcing, and pricing are:

Intel i7-7700 (Microcenter, $280)

Gigabyte B250-DS3H mATX Motherboard (Microcenter, $10 on promotion and free after rebate)

Asus Radeon Rx-550 4GB GDDR5 Video Card (Microcenter, $103)

Crucial 8GB 2×4 DDR4-2400 RAM (Microcenter, $75)

ADATA SU800 128GB 3D-NAND 2.5 Inch SATA SSD (Amazon, $56)

EVGA 400 watt PSU (Amazon, $30)

ROSEWILL Micro ATX Mini Tower Computer Case, FBM-01 (Amazon, $25)

Redragon K552-N KUMARA Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (Amazon, $27)

Teknet Gaming Mouse (Amazon, $11)

Microsoft Windows 10 Home USB (Amazon, $110)

Total: $727

With any computer build that I undertake, I am most interested in maintaining access to legacy software and operating systems for my research. While I haven’t tested everything, I have confirmed that Sheepshaver/MacOS 7.5.5 and VirtualBox/Windows 98 are up-and-running.

After this preliminary setup, I ran the following benchmarks to stress test and evaluate the system. The results are included below as a measure for anyone interested in how a system like mine performs.

Performance Test 9, CPU Test

Using the evaluation copy of Performance Test 9, the CPU Test yielded a result of 11,399, which places the system above the average for this CPU and in the 92nd percentile.

Performance Test 9, 3D Graphics Mark Test

I opted for the budget/entry-level RX 550 video card, because only a few games that I play would benefit from a greater investment in this part of the overall build. Nevertheless, I was pleased with the 3,954 3D Graphics Mark result, which places the system in the 71st percentile.

Unigen Heaven Benchmark 4.0

My system earned a Heaven Benchmark score of 843 and it sustained an average 33.5 frames per second.

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0

FPS:
33.5
Score:
843
Min FPS:
17.9
Max FPS:
68.6
System

Platform:
Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz (3599MHz) x4
GPU model:
Radeon RX 550 Series 22.19.677.257 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920×1080 fullscreen
Preset
Custom
Quality
High
Tessellation: Disabled
Powered by UNIGINE Engine
Unigine Corp. © 2005-2013

Unigen Valley Benchmark 1.0

In the Valley Benchmark, my system gained a score of 1,415 with an average 33.8 frames per second.

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0

FPS:
33.8
Score:
1415
Min FPS:
21.1
Max FPS:
58.3
System

Platform:
Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz (3599MHz) x4
GPU model:
Radeon RX 550 Series 22.19.677.257 (4095MB) x1
Settings

Render:
Direct3D11
Mode:
1920×1080 fullscreen
Preset
Custom
Quality
High
Powered by UNIGINE Engine
Unigine Corp. © 2005-2013

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Benchmark

After creating a character and running the benchmark, my computer earned a score of 8077, Extremely High performance, and it maintained an average 59.933 frames per second.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward BenchmarkFINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward

BenchmarkTested on: 10/27/2017 10:38:37

PMScore: 8077

Average Frame Rate: 59.933

Performance: Extremely High -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

Loading Times by Scene Scene #1 1.251 sec Scene #2 5.183 sec Scene #3 3.822 sec Scene #4 3.259 sec Scene #5 4.570 sec Scene #6 1.514 secTotal Loading Time 19.600 sec
DAT:s20171027223837.dat
Screen Size: 1280x720Screen Mode: WindowedDirectX Version: 11Graphics Presets: High (Desktop)General-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled-Occlusion Culling: Enabled-LOD on Distant Objects: Disabled-Real-time Reflections: Highest Quality (DirectX 11 Only)-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA-Transparent Lighting Quality: High-Grass Quality: High-Background Tessellation: High Quality-Water Tessellation: High QualityShadows-Self: Display-Other NPCs: DisplayShadow Quality-LOD on Shadows: Enabled-Shadow Resolution: High – 2048p-Shadow Cascading: Best-Shadow Softening: StrongTexture Detail-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic-Anisotropic Filtering: x8Movement Physics-Self: Full-Other NPCs: FullEffects-Limb Darkening: Enabled-Radial Blur: Enabled-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: Standard Quality (DirectX 11 Only)-Glare: NormalCinematic Cutscenes-Depth of Field: Enabled
SystemWindows 10 Home 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (15063.rs2_release.170317-1834)Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz8151.770MBRadeon RX 550 Series (VRAM 3072 MB) 22.19.0677.0257
Benchmark results do not provide any guarantee FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn (Windows version) and FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward (Windows version) will run on your system.
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Official Website http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/(C) 2010-2015 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
Share ResultsType 1http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 8077 1280×720 High (Desktop) DX11 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz Radeon RX 550 Series Type 2http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 8077 1280×720 High (Desktop) DirectX11 Windowed Radeon RX 550 Series Type 3http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1280×720 High (Desktop) DirectX11 Score: 8077 Extremely High Type 4http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1280×720 High (Desktop) DirectX11 Windowed Score: 8077 Full ResultsFINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark  Score: 8077 Extremely High  1280×720 High (Desktop) DirectX11 Windowed  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz  Radeon RX 550 Series  http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV

Then, I ran the test again in 1080p resolution in full-screen mode. This resulted in a lower rating of “high” with a numerical score of 4,416.

Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood Benchmark

I ran the Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood benchmark twice–once at 720p in windowed mode (default) and once at 1080p in full screen mode. I imported my created character from Heavensward into Stormblood.

In 720p, windowed mode, my system scored 10,877 (extremely high).

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood BenchmarkFINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood BenchmarkTested on: 10/28/2017 3:58:19 PMScore: 10877Average Frame Rate: 73.707Performance: Extremely High -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.Loading Times by Scene Scene #1 2.109 sec Scene #2 2.956 sec Scene #3 2.329 sec Scene #4 3.194 sec Scene #5 5.589 sec Scene #6 1.192 secTotal Loading Time 17.373 sec
DAT:s20171028155819.dat
Screen Size: 1280x720Screen Mode: WindowedDirectX Version: 11Graphics Presets: High (Laptop)General-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled-Occlusion Culling: Enabled-LOD on Distant Objects: Enabled-Real-time Reflections: Off-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA-Transparent Lighting Quality: Normal-Grass Quality: Normal-Background Tessellation: High Quality-Water Tessellation: High Quality-Glare: OffShadows-Self: Display-Other NPCs: DisplayShadow Quality-LOD on Shadows: Enabled-Shadow Resolution: Normal – 1024p-Shadow Cascading: Best-Shadow Softening: StrongTexture Detail-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic-Anisotropic Filtering: x4Movement Physics-Self: Full-Other NPCs: FullEffects-Limb Darkening: Enabled-Radial Blur: Enabled-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: Standard-Glare: NormalCinematic Cutscenes-Depth of Field: Enabled
SystemWindows 10 Home 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (15063.rs2_release.170317-1834)Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz8151.770MBRadeon RX 550 Series (VRAM 4044 MB)
This software does not guarantee that your system will run the Windows versions of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn, FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward, and FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood.
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood Official Website http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/(C) 2010-2017 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
Share ResultsType 1http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 10877 1280×720 High (Laptop) DX11 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz Radeon RX 550 Series Type 2http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 10877 1280×720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Windowed Radeon RX 550 Series Type 3http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1280×720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Score: 10877 Extremely High Type 4http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1280×720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Windowed Score: 10877 Full ResultsFINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood Benchmark  Score: 10877 Extremely High  1280×720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Windowed  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz  Radeon RX 550 Series  http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV

Next, I ran the benchmark again but in 1080p resolution and in full-screen mode.

This time, my computer scored only 5,807 (very high). Watching the benchmark demo unfold on my monitor was exciting, and the game looked gorgeous!

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood BenchmarkFINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood BenchmarkTested on: 10/28/2017 4:07:17 PMScore: 5807Average Frame Rate: 39.137Performance: Very High -Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.Loading Times by Scene Scene #1 2.298 sec Scene #2 2.920 sec Scene #3 2.417 sec Scene #4 3.088 sec Scene #5 5.725 sec Scene #6 1.032 secTotal Loading Time 17.484 sec
DAT:s20171028160717.dat
Screen Size: 1920x1080Screen Mode: Full ScreenDirectX Version: 11Graphics Presets: High (Laptop)General-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled-Occlusion Culling: Enabled-LOD on Distant Objects: Enabled-Real-time Reflections: Off-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA-Transparent Lighting Quality: Normal-Grass Quality: Normal-Background Tessellation: High Quality-Water Tessellation: High Quality-Glare: OffShadows-Self: Display-Other NPCs: DisplayShadow Quality-LOD on Shadows: Enabled-Shadow Resolution: Normal – 1024p-Shadow Cascading: Best-Shadow Softening: StrongTexture Detail-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic-Anisotropic Filtering: x4Movement Physics-Self: Full-Other NPCs: FullEffects-Limb Darkening: Enabled-Radial Blur: Enabled-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: Standard-Glare: NormalCinematic Cutscenes-Depth of Field: Enabled
SystemWindows 10 Home 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (15063.rs2_release.170317-1834)Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz8151.770MBRadeon RX 550 Series (VRAM 4044 MB)
This software does not guarantee that your system will run the Windows versions of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn, FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward, and FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood.
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood Official Website http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/(C) 2010-2017 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
Share ResultsType 1http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 5807 1920×1080 High (Laptop) DX11 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz Radeon RX 550 Series Type 2http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 5807 1920×1080 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Full Screen Radeon RX 550 Series Type 3http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1920×1080 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Score: 5807 Very High Type 4http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1920×1080 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Full Screen Score: 5807 Full ResultsFINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood Benchmark  Score: 5807 Very High  1920×1080 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Full Screen  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz  Radeon RX 550 Series  http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV

Conclusion

While I certainly understand choosing components for overclocking, I opted for a build that was stable first and provided performance second.

I am very happy with my system’s stability and performance. If your processing needs outweigh your graphics needs, I recommend building a system similar to this one.

October 28, 2017
Intel NUC 6I5SYH Hardware Review, BIOS Update, and Fedora 25 Installation Guide

Before Thanksgiving 2016, I purchased an Intel NUC 6I5SYH ($319.99 on sale at Microcenter, late-November 2016) to serve as my new home desktop computer. This review/guide is based on my initial setup of the 6I5SYH.

The Intel NUC 6I5SYH is a small form factor (SFF) bare-bones personal computer from Intel’s “Next Unit of Computing” line.

The 6I5SYH includes an enclosure (approximately 4 1/2″ wide x 4 3/8″ deep x 2″ tall), motherboard with a soldered i5-6260U CPU (Skylake, or 6th-gen architecture–1.9GHz up to 2.8GHz Turbo, Dual Core, 4MB cache, 15W TDP), wall-mount power adapter with multi-country AC plugs, and VESA mount bracket.

The 6I5SYH’s motherboard supports the i5’s integrated Iris 540 graphics over a built-in HDMI 1.4b or Mini DisplayPort 1.2, and it includes 2x USB 3.o ports (back), 2x USB 3.0 ports (front and one supports charging), 2x USB 2.0 headers (on motherboard), IR sensor, Intel 10/100/1000Mbps ethernet, Intel Wireless-AC 8260 M.2 (802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, and Intel Wireless Display 6.0), headphone/microphone jack (front, or 7.1 surround sound via HDMI and Mini DisplayPort/back), and SDXC slot with UHS-I support (left side).

The 6I5SYH requires the user to supply a hard drive or SSD, and RAM. For permanent storage, it has internal support for an M.2 SSD card (22×42 or 22×80) and SATA3 2.5″ HDD/SSD (up to 9.5mm thick). For memory, it supports dual-channel DDR4 SODIMMs (1.2V, 2133MHz, 32GB maximum) across two internal slots.

For my 6I5SYH’s RAM, I installed one Crucial 8GB DDR4 2400 BL SODIMM ($44.99 on sale at Micro Center, late-November 2016), and for its SSD, I installed a Silicon Power S60 240GB SATA3 SSD ($67.99 on sale on Amazon, December 2015). Excluding the costs of a monitor, keyboard, and trackball, this system cost $432.97.

After first assembling the 6I5SYH with its RAM and SSD, I booted it and went into the BIOS (press F2 at the boot/Intel screen) to check its BIOS version. Based on everything that I had read about this and past Intel NUCs, it is always advisable to have the most up-to-date BIOS installed. Sure enough, it reported having BIOS 0045, and a newer BIOS had been released (0054) according to the Intel Download Center page for the 6I5SYH.

I downloaded the new BIOS binary file to a FAT-formatted USB flash drive on my Mac, inserted the USB flash drive into a front USB port on the NUC, pressed F7 to update BIOS, and followed the prompts. After confirming the BIOS had updated, I turned the 6I5SYH off by holding down the power button on its top plate.

Next, I used the Fedora Media Writer for Mac OS X to create a bootable USB flash drive of Fedora 25 Workstation using the same flash drive that I had used to flash the 6I5SYH’s BIOS.

After the media creation was completed, I inserted my Fedora 25 bootable USB flash drive into a front USB port of the 6I5SYH, powered it on, pressed F10 for the boot menu, and followed the prompts. If you need an installation guide for Fedora 25 check out the Fedora Documentation here, or if you need a screenshot walkthrough of installing Fedora 25, check out this guide.

After installing Fedora 25 with full disk encryption, I installed updates and began installing additional software. The guides here and here offer great advice (there are others for “what to do after installing fedora 24” that have useful info, too) on what to install and configure after a fresh installation of Fedora. Some that I recommend include Gnome Tweak Tool (available within Software app), Yum Extender (DNF) (available within Software app), VeraCrypt, and VLC. Remember to install RPM Fusion free and nonfree repositories–directions here, too.

So far, Fedora 25 has performed wonderfully on the 6I5SYH! Out of the box, the graphics, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB ports, and SD card reader have worked without error. I am using a Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter to connect the 6I5SYH to a less expensive VGA-input LCD monitor. I am watching 1080p Rogue One trailers without a hiccup, and I listen to Beastie Boy MP3s while doing work in GIMP or LibreOffice. I have not yet fully tested virtualization or emulation (consoles or vintage computing)–these are my next steps.

The 6I5SYH is snappy about doing work, and it is quiet nearly always except when it first boots up (and the fans spin up high momentarily). For the features, size, and price, I highly recommend the 6I5SYH as a desktop replacement that runs Fedora 25 and common Linux programs quite well!

December 28, 2016
Working Bibliography for Digital Fabrication Module of “A Cultural History of Digital Technology” at City Tech

This is a 3D print of a Mandelbulb that I created with Mandelbulb3D, Fiji, and meshlab.

I’m an NEH Fellow for City Tech’s “A Cultural History of Digital Technology” project. It brings together faculty from across the college to design humanities-course modules and a new course proposal that brings the six modules together. I am contributing to the Digital Fabrication Module of the course curriculum that the team will develop.

I put together the following bibliography of Science Fiction, critical work, video games, and software as part of my contribution to the project and the upcoming curricular work. Following my bibliography, I have included the preliminary viewings and readings for this module (which were selected before I joined the project as a fellow) for those interested in learning more about these topics.

Working Bibliography

Fiction: 3D Printing (chronological)

Heinlein, Robert A. “Waldo.” Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 1942: 9-53.

Smith, George O. “Identity.” Astounding Science Fiction Nov. 1945. 145-180.

Russell, Eric F. “Hobbyist.” Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 1947: 33-61.

Sheckley, Robert. “The Necessary Thing.” Galaxy Science Fiction June 1955. 55-66.

Clarke, Arthur C. The City and the Stars. Harcourt Brace/SFBC, 1956.

Stephenson, Neal. The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. Bantam Spectra, 1995.

Gibson, William. All Tomorrow’s Parties. Viking Press, 1999.

Brin, David. Kiln People. Tor, 2002.

Marusek, David. Counting Heads. Tor, 2005. [expansion of his novella We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy, 1995].

Doctorow, Cory. “Printcrime.” Nature vol. 439 (12 Jan. 2006): 242.

Sterling, Bruce. “Kiosk.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Jan. 2007: 68-113.

Doctorow, Cory. Makers. HarperVoyager, 2009.

Stross, Charles. Rule 34. Ace Books, 2011.

Hamilton, Peter F. Great North Road, Macmillan UK, 2012.

Gibson, William. The Peripheral. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2014.

Newman, Emma. Planetfall. Roc, 2015.

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Aurora. Orbit, 2015.

Fiction: Fractals (chronological)

Langford, David. “Blit.” Interzone Sept./Oct. 1988: 40-42.

Rucker, Rudy. “As Above, So Below.” in The Microverse. Ed. Byron Preiss. Bantam Spectra, 1989. 334-340.

Shiner, Lewis. “Fractal Geometry.” in The Edges of Things. WSFA Press, 1991. 59.

Anthony, Piers. Fractal Mode. Ace/Putnam, 1992. [second novel in his Mode series].

Di Filippo, Paul. “Fractal Paisleys.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May 1992: 72-106.

Charnock, Graham. “On the Shores of a Fractal Sea.” in New Worlds 3. Ed. David Garnett. Gollancz, 1993. 125-136.

Luckett, Dave. “The Patternmaker.” in The Patternmaker: Nine Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Lucy Sussex. Omnibus Books, 1994. 3-18.

Pickover, Clifford A. Chaos in Wonderland: Visual Adventures in a Fractal World. St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Turzillo, Mary A. “The Mandelbrot Dragon.” in The Ultimate Dragon. Eds. Keith DeCandido, John Betancourt, and Byron Preiss. Dell, 1995. 167-172.

Williamson, Jack. “The Fractal Man.” 1996. in At the Human Limit. Haffner Press, 2011. 187-204.

Leisner, William. “Gods, Fate, and Fractals.” in Strange New Worlds II. Eds. Dean Wesley Smith, John J. Ordover, and Paula M. Block. Pocket Books, 1999. 166-183.

Thompson, Douglas. Ultrameta: A Fractal Novel. Eibonvale Press, 2009.

Patrice, Helen. “Mandelbrot Universe.” Dreams & Nightmares no. 92 (May 2012): n.p.

Strasser, Dirk. “The Mandelbrot Bet.” in Carbide Tipped Pens: Seventeen Tales of Hard Science Fiction. Eds. Ben Bova and Eric Choi. Tor, 2014. 365-378.

Non-Fiction (chronological)

Snow, C.P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge UP, 1961.

Rucker, Rudy. “In Search of a Beautiful 3D Mandelbrot Set.” RudyRucker.com. 5-14 Sept. 1988 (revised 24 Sept. 2009).

Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Thurs, Daniel Patrick. “Tiny Tech, Transcendent Tech: Nanotechnology, Science Fiction, and the Limits of Modern Science Talk.” Science Communication vol. 29, no. 1 (Sept. 2007): 65-95.

Video Games (chronological)

Rescue on Fractalus!, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_on_Fractalus! and https://archive.org/details/a2_Rescue_on_Fractalus_1985_Lucasfilm_Games_cr_Blade.

.kkrieger, http://web.archive.org/web/20120204065621/http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger.

No Man’s Sky, http://www.no-mans-sky.com.

Software

KPT Bryce 1.0 (1994), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY8GPU5osx4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLjPYgs8bg and http://kai.sub.blue/en/frax.html and http://fract.al.

The Mandelbrot Set in HTML5 Canvas and Javascript, http://tilde.club/~david/m/.

Julia Map, http://juliamap.googlelabs.com/.

FracalLab, http://hirnsohle.de/test/fractalLab/.

Paul Lutus, The Mandelbrot Set, http://arachnoid.com/mandelbrot_set/index.html.

Preliminary Viewings

NOVA, “Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimension,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/hunting-hidden-dimension.html.

Benoit Mandelbrot TED Talk, Fractals and the Art of Roughness, https://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_the_art_of_roughness?language=en.

Preliminary Readings

Devlin, Keith. The Language of Mathematics: Making the Invisible Visible. W. H. Freeman, 1998. 188-220.

Flake, Gary. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation. MIT Press, 1998. 59- 110.

Mandelbrot, Benoit. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. W.H. Freeman, 1983. 4- 38.

Mandelbrot, Benoit. Fractals: Form, Chance, and Dimension. W.H. Freeman, 1977.

Samuel, Nina. ed. The Islands of Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals, Chaos, and the Materiality of Thinking. Bard Graduate Center, 2012.18-56.

June 6, 2016
Before Cyberpunk: Science Fiction and Early Personal Computing (for the 13th City Tech Poster Session)

For the New York City College of Technology, CUNY’s 13th Annual Research Poster Session, I created the poster embedded above to illustrate my current research on pre-cyberpunk science fiction (SF) about computing and personal computing. The poster discusses my focus and provides a timeline with SF about computing matched with key technological innovations that made the personal computing revolution in the late-1970s possible.

What I am interested in is the fact that William Gibson’s “cyberspace” captured the popular imagination about the metaphorical place where computing, processing, navigating, interacting, and communicating occurs, but some of the very good SF about computing that predates Gibson’s coining the term cyberspace failed to leave an indelible impression. Certainly, these stories were read and circulated, but the reach of their images and metaphors seem to have been limited in scope as compared to Gibson’s writing.

One of the ideas that I have had since creating the poster is that the idea of hidden computing or outlaw computing is something central to Vernor Vinge’s “True Names.” This, of course, features large in Gibson’s fictions, and it is the image that I am looking for in other SF of this transitional era.

At the poster session, I will carry my Raspberry Pi-based touchscreen-computer-in-a-Suntory-box-from-Japan to demonstrate the idea of hidden computing. I will post a step-by-step instruction post soon about assembling the Raspberry Pi-based computer and offer some additional thoughts about how I would like to use them in my technical communication classes.

In this post, I want to provide some of my notes and links to relevant resources as a record of the initial research that I did in preparation of this poster. It is my hope that it might lead to conversations and collaborations in the future.

Fiction Sources

Murray Leinster’s “A Logic Named Joe” (1946): Home computers connected to a large scale network. [Couldn’t fit within poster dimensions, but a significant work that needs mentioning.]

Isaac Asimov’s “The Fun They Had” (1951): Children discovering a print book are agog at what it represents while their classroom/desktop teaching computers flash mathematical fractions at them. [Couldn’t fit within poster dimensions, but another important work in this genealogy.]

Poul Anderson’s “Kings Who Die” (1962): Human-computer interface, according to Asimov and Greenberg in The Great SF Stories #24, “one of the first stories to address this question” (69).

Daniel F. Galouye’s Simulacron-3 (1964): Also published as Counterfeit World. Adapted as Welt am Draht/World on a Wire (1973). Simulated reality for artificial beings programmed to believe (except in the case of one character) that they are real and living in the “real world.”

Philip K. Dick’s A Maze of Death (1970): A crew in a disabled spacecraft while awhile their remaining lives in a computer generated virtual world.

John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider (1975): Computer programming and hacking. First use of the term “worm” to describe a type of self-propagating computer program set loose on the computer network. Protagonist as outlaw.

[Five year gap during the personal computing revolution. Were the SF writers playing with their new personal computers?]

John M. Ford’s Web of Angels (1980): The “Web” is a communication and computing network connecting humanity. “Webspinners” are an elite group of programmers who can manipulate the Web in unique and unexpected ways. Protagonist as outlaw.

Vernor Vinge’s “True Names” (1981): Computing power hidden from view of a watchful government–literally under the floor boards. Early MMORPG/virtual reality experience of what was later called cyberspace. Protagonist as outlaw.

Damien Broderick’s The Judas Mandala (1982): First SF to use the terms “virtual reality” and “virtual matrix.” Protagonist as conspirator/outlaw?

Nonfiction Sources

Cavallaro, Dani. Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson. New Brunswick, NJ: Athlone Press, 2000. Print.

Ferro, David L. and Eric G. Swedin. Eds. Science Fiction and Computing: Essays on Interlinked Domains. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011. Print.

Kay, Alan C. “A Personal Computer for Children of All Ages.” ACM ’72 Proceedings of the ACM Annual Conference – Volume 1. New York: ACM, 1972. n.p. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Mowshowitz, Abbe. Inside Information: Computers in Fiction. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1977. Print.

Murphy, Graham J. and Sherryl Vint. Beyond Cyberpunk: New Critical Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Slusser, George Edgar and TA Shippey. Eds. Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Print.

Stableford, Brian. Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Timeline of Computer History. Computer History Museum, 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.

Warrick, Patricia. The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction. Cambridge: MIT, 1980. Print.

November 18, 2015
The Debut of the Apple Disk II, Ambiguous Terminology, and the Effects of Memory: Digging Deeper into an Anecdote from Kirschenbaum’s Mechanisms

The first Apple Disk II and controller card hand wired by Wozniak. Photo taken at the Apple Pop-Up Museum in Roswell, GA.

Matthew Kirschenbaum constructs a compelling and interesting argument in his book Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination (2008). He argues that while new media and computer software might seem ephemeral and intangible, it has in fact physicality, a many-layered history, and emerging archaeological protocols (developed by Kirschenbaum and many others).

However, one section titled “Coda: CTRL-D, CTRL-Z” attracted my attention, because its use of the term “recover” in a story about the debut of the Apple Disk II seemed to imply computer disk data recovery instead of what historically happened, which was the manual rewriting of the software that had been accidentally overwritten during a botched disk copy operation.

Kirschenbaum uses the story of Steve Wozniak and Randy Wigginton’s development of software to control the reading and writing of data to Apple’s Disk II, which was based on Shugart’s 5 1/4″ floppy disk drive, before its unveiling at the 1978 CES in Las Vegas to establish an analogy: “Nowadays we toggle the CTRL-D and CTRL-Z shortcuts, deleting content and undoing the act at a whim. Gone and then back again, the keyboard-chorded Fort and Da of contemporary knowledge work” (Kirschenbaum 69). The idea is that computer facilitate a kind of gone and back again play as described by Freud. Of course, the keyboard shortcuts that he refers to are not universal across platforms or software, but the concept is pervasive. Nevertheless, my focus is not on that concept per se but instead on the Apple Disk II debut anecdote, the terminology surrounding what actually happened, and how that relates to the kinds of work that we do in new media archaeology.

After introducing the story of the Apple Disk II’s debut at CES, Kirschenbaum cites a passage from Steven Weyhrich’s Apple II History website:

“When they got to Las Vegas they helped to set up the booth, and then returned to working on the disk drive. They stayed up all night, and by six in the morning they had a functioning demonstration disk. Randy suggested making a copy of the disk, so they would have a backup if something went wrong. They copied the disk, track by track. When they were done, they found that they had copied the blank disk on top of their working demo! By 7:30 am they had recovered the lost information and went on to display the new disk drive at the show.” (Weyhrich par. 13, qtd. in Kirschenbaum 69).

First, it should be noted that Weyhrich uses the term “recovered” to describe the way that the “lost information” was brought back from the brink of the overwritten disk. Then, Kirschenbaum reads Weyhrich’s account above in the following way:

“Thus the disk handling routines that took the nascent personal computer industry by storm were accidentally overwritten on the very morning of their public debut–but recovered and restored again almost as quickly by those who had intimate knowledge of the disk’s low-level formatting and geometry” (Kirschenbaum 69).

Weyhrich uses the term “recovered” to refer to the software Wozniak and Wigginton had lost during the bad copy operation. Kirschenbaum borrows Weyhrich’s “recovered” and adds “restored” to describe the final state of the software on Wozniak and Wigginton’s floppy disks for use on the CES show floor. When I first read Kirschenbaum’s book, his reading seemed unncessarily ambiguous. On the one hand, Kirschenbaum does not directly say that the two Apple engineers used their knowledge of controlling the disk drive and reading low-level information on the floppy disks to “recover” the lost data–i.e., use the drive and disk technology to salvage, rescue, or retrieve what remains on the disk but otherwise might seem lost to someone with less advanced knowledge. On the other hand, Kirschenbaum’s reading of the incident–“recovered and restored again almost as quickly”–is implicitly aligned with his own project of the physicality of data stored on new media storage devices. One could mistakenly believe that Wozniak and Wigginton had restored the lost data from the overwritten floppy disk.

Steven Wozniak writes about this episode in his autobiography, iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon (2006). Before turning to Wozniak’s later recall of this event in 1978, I would like to look at the two sources that Weyhrich cites on the passage that Kirschenbaum cites in his argument.

Weyhrich’s first of two footnotes on his passage points to page 168 of Gregg Williams and Rob Moore’s 1985 interview with Steve Wozniak titled, “The Apple Story, Part 2: More History And The Apple III” in the January 1985 issue of Byte magazine. In the interview, Wozniak tells them:

“We worked all night the day before we had to show it [the disk drive] at CES. At about six in the morning it was ready to demonstrate. Randy thought we ought to back it up, so we copied the disk, track by track. When we were done, he looked down at them in his hands and said, “Oh, no! I wrote on the wrong one!” We managed to recover it and actually demonstrated it at CES” (Williams and Moore 168).

In this primary source, we see Wozniak using the term “recover” to indicate that they were able to get the demonstration operational in time for CES that day, but what form the “recovery” took place is not explained. Was it data recovery in the technical sense or data recovery in the hard work sense of re-writing the code?

Weyrich’s second footnote on his passage points to Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine’s “Fire In The Valley, Part Two (Book Excerpt)” in the January 1985 issue of A+ Magazine. While I have been unable to find a copy of this magazine, I did refer to the book that this excerpt was taken from: Freiberger and Swaine’s Fire in the Valley (1984). On page 286, they write in regard to Wozniak and Wigginton’s disk dilemma at CES:

“Wigginton and Woz arrived in Las Vegas the evening before the event. They helped set up the booth that night and went back to work on the drive and the demo program. They planned to have it done when the show opened in the morning even if they had to go without sleep. Staying up all night is no novelty in Las Vegas, and that’s what they did, taking periodic breaks from programming to inspect the craps tables. Wigginton, 17, was elated when he won $35 at craps, but a little later back in the room, his spirits were dashed when he accidentally erased a disk they had been working on. Woz patiently helped him reconstruct all the information. They tried to take a nap at 7:30 that morning, but both were too keyed up” (Freiberger and Swaine 286).

Unlike Wozniak’s “recover” in the Williams and Moore interview above, Freiberger and Swaine use the term “reconstruct” in their narrative about the pre-CES development of the Disk II demonstration software. Unlike the term recover, which means to regain what is lost, reconstruct means to build something again that has been destroyed. Freiberger and Swaine’s selection of this term seems more accurate when considering what Wozniak says about this episode in his autobiography:

“We set up in our booth and worked until about 6 a.m., finally getting everything working. At that point I did one very smart thing. I was so tired and wanted some sleep but knew it was worth backing up our one good floppy disk, with all the right data. . . . But when I finished this backup, I looked at the two unlabeled floppy disks and got a sinking feeling that I’d followed a rote pattern but accidentally copied the bad floppy to the good one, erasing all the good data. A quick test determined that this is what happened. You do things like that when you are extremely tired. So my smart idea had led to a dumb and unfortunate result. . . . We went back to the Villa Roma motel and slept. At about 10 a.m. I woke up and got to work. I wanted to try to rebuild the whole thing. The code was all in my head, anyways. I managed to get the good program reestablished by noon and took it to our booth. There we attached the floppy and started showing it” (Wozniak and Smith 218-219).

In this account, Wozniak says that he is responsible for overwriting the good disk with the bad (as opposed to what he said to Williams and Moore for the 1985 Byte magazine interview), but most important is the terms that he uses to describe how he made things right: “I wanted to try to rebuild the whole thing.” He “reestablished” the program by reentering “the code . . . in [his] head” into the computer that they had on-hand. Wozniak’s word choice and description makes it clearer than in his earlier interview that he had to remake the program from memory instead of attempting to “recover” it from the overwritten media itself. While, it might have been theoretically possible for someone as well versed in the mechanism that by that point he had had a significant hand in redesigning from the original Shugart drive mechanism and controller card and of course his development with Wigginton of the software that controlled the hardware to read and write floppy disks in the Apple Disk II system (computer-controller card-disk drive), Wozniak, who reports throughout his autobiography as an engineer who works things out in head meticulously before putting his designs into hardware or software, took the easiest path to the solution of this new media problem: write out the software again from memory.

Memory, of course, is another tricky element of this story. It was my memory of Wozniak’s exploits that drew me to this passage in Kirschenbaum’s book. My memory of Kirschenbaum’s argument informed the way that I interpreted what I thought Kirschenbaum meant by using this episode as a way of making his Fort-Da computer analogy. Kirschenbaum’s memory of the episode as it had been interpreted secondhand in Weyhrich’s history of the Apple II informed how he applied it to his argument. Wozniak’s own memory is illustrated as pliable through the subtle differences in his story as evidenced in the 1985 Byte magazine interview and twenty-one years later in his 2006 autobiography.

Ultimately, the episode as I read it in Kirschenbaum’s Mechanisms was caught in an ambiguous use of language. The use of certain terms to describe the work that we do in new media–in its development, implementation, or daily use–relies on the terminology that we use to describe the work that is done to others–lay audience or otherwise. Due to the kind of ambiguity illustrated here, we have to strive to select terms that accurately and explicitly describe what it is we are talking about. Of course, primary and secondary accounts contribute to the possibility of ambiguity, confusion, or inaccuracy. Sometimes, we have to dig more deeply through the layers of new media history to uncover the fact that illuminates the other layers or triangulate between differing accounts to establish a best educated guess about the topic at hand.

Works Cited

Freiberger, Paul and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984. Print.

Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Print.

Weyhrich, Steven. “The Disk II.” Apple II History. Apple II History, n.d. Web. 13 Sept. 2015.

Williams, Gregg, and Rob Moore. “The Apple Story, Part 2: More History And The Apple III”, Byte, Jan 1985: 167-180. Web. 13 Sept. 2015.

Wozniak, Steve and Gina Smith. iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. Print.

September 15, 2015