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Recent Updates:
At the end of this page, I have appended
some comments on the recent 2018 World Chess Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and
Fabiano Caruana, as it appears to me the course of that match underscores the need for some
action to address the frequency of draws in Chess as it stands.
A page has been added about Triangle Chess,
a chess variant played on a board made up of triangular spaces.
A page within the section on Chess in my
web site has been updated to note that while the Edinburgh Upright pattern of chessmen may
not have been as close to the Staunton pattern as some claim, another style of chessmen,
also designed by the firm of John Jaques & Son, now known as Jaques of London, but in 1828,
for the Grand Cigar Divan of Simpson's on the Strand, did in fact anticipate almost all of
the essential features of the Staunton pattern.
Also, I have added a description of a new chess variant of my own invention
to the site, Exciting Chess, which combines Shogi as well as
Checkers with Chess. I was inspired to create this variant after also adding a new
existing historical variant to my page, The Game of War, which
set me to thinking of the impact of having a compulsory capture rule only involving some of the
pieces.
A new page has been added to my section on
music; its initial purpose is to explain the role of the bass bar and sound post in the
design of the violin, but in addition material has been added on the tunings of the members
of the violin family along with additional related instruments proposed from time to time,
and on various speculations advanced as to what might have been the long sought-for secret of
the legendary violin maker Antonio Stradivari.
The page on color filter array designs
has been updated to include references to the H6D-100c and the IQ3 100MP medium format
camera backs, the Foveon Quattro sensor, and even the Minolta RD-175 camera, also known
as the Agfa ActionCam. A recent previous update updated it to include a reference
to the Hubble palette, and a slightly less recent one previously
described the new X-Trans and EXR designs from Fujifilm.
My page about the components that make up a
computer now has a section added at the end about how the packaging of integrated circuits has
kept up with the increasing sophistication of microprocessors.
Finally, I have added to this site a page concerning
one of the most popular mathematical subjects:
I had long delayed doing so, despite the topic being a natural for this page,
as there are many other excellent pages on this subject on the Web. At present, it is quite a modest
page on the subject, and I do expect to expand it.
The page about decimal floating-point
has been updated to describe the Binary Integer Decimal (BID) alternative format used by
Intel computers, and a relatively little-known decimal floating-point format predating the IEEE 754 decimal floating-point
standard effort (but not the IEEE 754 standard for binary floating-point) used with the
Motorola 68040 microprocessor is also now described on that page.
A page has been added containing a brief chronology
of the typewriter, highlighting various technical innovations in its history. There is also
a new page giving a history of computers in general, and the
microcomputer revolution in particular.
A brief discussion of perfect
forward secrecy, along with the man-in-the-middle attack, has been added to
the cryptography pages.
Descriptions of the Rockex,
the Hagelin TC-52
and the Gretag TC-53
have now been added to the web site.
A description of the Abwehr SG-39, which was
similar to an Enigma, but with a pinwheel assembly controlling the rotor stepping,
has been added to the page on relatives of the Enigma,
and a description of the SG-41 has been
added to the page on Hagelin machines.
My page on keyboard arrangements has had a
description of the Neo keyboard, a German-language keyboard designed for more efficient
typing, added.
My page of featured images
now has an illustration of seven-segment numerals, accompanied by
the unusual nine-segment design offered by Itron.
A page about the Korean typewriter has been
added to this web site.
A page about modifying
the 5-level teleprinter code to enable it to access a larger character
repertoire has had added to it, at the bottom, a discussion about ways to
modify it so as to mitigate one major objection to the use of 5-level
code: the fact that errors in transmission of data can cause garbles
when they obscure the current shift state.
My page about the board game Camelot has now had
some comments on Reversi, along with some diagrams, added, and also
some additional minor notes on the antiquity of the Parker Brothers board
game Telka.
A discussion about alternate number bases has been moved
from my page on computer arithmetic to a page of its own
after some expansion.
A new page has been added featuring
puzzles where a 3 by 3 by 3 cube is formed from pieces made up of smaller cubes.
My page about hexagonal Chess variants
has had a diagram of the hexagonal Chess variant by Dave McCooey added, and, in addition,
a diagram and a description of C'Escacs, an enlarged chess variant inspired by Glinski's
hexagonal chess, have been added.
A news item concerning the interest of the government of France in
modifying the usual keyboard layout for computers on which data in the French language is
entered prompted me to learn more about French-language keyboard layouts. One result is that
on this page, where I once referred to a Belgian keyboard
layout designed for efficient typing as mysterious, I have now added information about
its designer, one Alfred Valley.
A new page
describes another hypothetical computer architecture, one which attempts to
combine variable-length instructions with signal processor-style VLIW.
And since that page was added, another page
has been added concerning an attempt to combine an operating mode with
CISC-style variable length instuctions with both a RISC architecture
and a signal processor VLIW architecture, after closer study of how some
real digital signal processors (DSPs) with a VLIW architecture actually
worked.
A new page has been added to the
section of my site which discusses allowing computers to handle data of a wider
selection of lengths than powers of two of a basic unit with no loss of efficiency. This
page deals with using the techniques examined in this section to create a highly
versatile computer with a native 36-bit word length. And now an
additional page has been added on a similar
architecture, but with a 32-bit word length, so as to make use of existing
memory parts and an existing DEC-TED-S4ED code.
Atranj, a Turkish Great Chess variant,
is now discussed here, with particular attention being paid to discussing the move of the
Urdabeqin. Also, yet another new chess variant
is described on these pages. Drawing from the many previous ones proposed
here, it is an attempt to propose a new type of chess set that would have a
slight hope of attracting interest, including a 12 by 8 board and pieces for
four different variants to suit different tastes.
The rules for Hiashatar,
the current Mongolian form of Great Chess,
have been revised so that there is enough detail to actually attempt to play
a game of it.
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