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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | + | {{incomplete|Created by a GIT VAN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | |
+ | A sequel to [[1755: Old Days]], in this comic, a (young) [[Cueball]] is learning about the early days of the Internet from an (old) [[Hairbun]]. Most of her description is laughably fanciful but Cueball reacts with amazed belief. So either this is an alternate universe, or else Hairbun is wickedly pulling the leg of a naive Cueball. | ||
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+ | The claims: | ||
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* The cloud was smaller and called a "Mainframe" and was near Sacramento. | * The cloud was smaller and called a "Mainframe" and was near Sacramento. | ||
− | ** This is | + | **This is false even accepting the premise that Hairbun is describing the early Internet, and not instead how computing was before the Internet. There was no cloud for remote storage in the early Internet. Yes, there were multiple {{w|mainframe computer}}s connected together. |
* It was on the state landline. | * It was on the state landline. | ||
− | ** | + | ** This is probably meant to astonish Cueball, who in this context may associate {{w|landline}}s (i.e. hard wired telephone connections) with an imagined stone age technology, and which nobody today uses for anything at all. And of course even in the age of all landlines, there was never such a thing as "the state landline", imagined as an immense shared party line to which the governor would have priority access for making calls. This could be a reference to early {{w|dial-up modem}}s, which ''did'' use landlines, and so users would have to disconnect from the Internet for making phone calls. |
− | * No memory protection; instead, people would call around to ask whether anyone else using an address and Microsoft's early foothold in computing was because of | + | * No memory protection; instead, people would call around to ask whether anyone else using an address, and Microsoft's early foothold in computing was because of Bill Gates lying about his usage of addresses. |
− | ** | + | ** Memory protection is coded preventative measures designed to stop an outsider (or another thread running in the code) from accessing and editing the memory on a device unauthorized, to avoid tampering with or corrupting it. Hairbun is correct in that this sort of code was not well-developed early on, but she claims that there wasn't any centralized management of the memory at all, and the only way to check if editing a particular address in the Mainframe was safe was physically asking all the other developers if they were already making changes to it. Her implication is that Bill Gates took advantage of this honor system to restrict people not working for Microsoft from making changes, allowing the company to take ownership of a lot of code. |
* "Git" was a van that drove around gathering tapes to copy, and the term "pull request" came from the van physically pulling over when signaled with an air horn. | * "Git" was a van that drove around gathering tapes to copy, and the term "pull request" came from the van physically pulling over when signaled with an air horn. | ||
− | ** {{w|Git}} is a {{w| | + | ** {{w|Git}} is a {{w|version control system}}, which employs and manages a centralized copy of a coding project to prevent and resolve conflicts from multiple people editing the project at once. It works by having individual contributors {{w|Pull request|pull}} the project onto their device, make their changes, and then push those changes back to the master copy to be integrated into it. Data used to be stored on cartridges of {{w|magnetic tape}}; in order for version control to exist at this time, there would have to be a master tape that was copied and physically distributed to each contributor, and then the edited tapes would be gathered afterward and conflicts resolved. Hairbun claims that Git provided this service back then using vans. In reality, Git did not exist until 2005, long after digital computers and networked servers became widely accessible and the "early internet" was history. |
− | * Before terminals we all used punch cards, which were originally developed to control looms, and so the | + | * Before terminals we all used punch cards, which were originally developed to control looms, and so the looms would produce sweaters when code was run. |
− | ** | + | ** This last statement is completely nonsensical. It is true that looms were driven by {{w|punch card}}s (dating back to 1745), and so were early computers and at the same time ({{w|Charles Babbage}} used them around 1830 to control his Analytical Engine). However, Hairbun's statement is that because of this, the ''same'' punch card machines would run both ''simultaneously'', such that feeding one cards to compile code would necessarily cause a sweater to be produced by the connected loom, which was then sent to the developer. It's not even likely that any punch patterns used in computer coding would be interpretable as valid sweater-creating instructions. |
* (From the title text) You can still hand in a floppy disk to an ice cream truck and get an invite to a git repo a few hours later. | * (From the title text) You can still hand in a floppy disk to an ice cream truck and get an invite to a git repo a few hours later. | ||
− | ** Git repo is short for Git {{w|Repository (version control)|repository}}, the place where all the files associated with a project are stored. Hairbun | + | ** Git repo is short for Git {{w|Repository (version control)|repository}}, the place where all the files associated with a project are stored. Apparently, Hairbun believes that modern ice cream truck drivers service Git in the same way she says the vans did before and that it's still possible to give them a floppy disk (an early magnetism-based storage device) in order to gain access to a repo. The ice cream industry has no connection to computing{{Citation needed}}. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
+ | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
:[In a slim panel, Cueball and Hairbun are walking together to the right. Hairbun has her palm raised.] | :[In a slim panel, Cueball and Hairbun are walking together to the right. Hairbun has her palm raised.] | ||
:Cueball: What was the Internet like in the olden days, for a developer? | :Cueball: What was the Internet like in the olden days, for a developer? |