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Welcome to the Speleotrove website: an accumulation of webpages,
documents, and software.
Experimental: you can now be alerted to updates to this website by following http://twitter.com/speleotrove; or use hashtags for specific parts of the site. |
| Speleology |
OmniBUSS 5, The Journal of Birmingham
University Speleological Society, Number 5, February 1974.
Includes Expedition 1973, Picos de Europa, the first
Speleogroup expedition.
The Characteristics and Use of Lead-Acid Cap Lamps, Cowlishaw, M. F., Trans. British Cave Research Association, Vol. 1. No. 4. pp199–214., December, 1974. Summary: It was 1885 when the first portable rechargeable lamp was invented. The lead-acid cap lamp we know today has evolved in the ninety years since then, and has a high capacity together with many other advantages. This paper describes the construction and characteristics of these lamps, and discusses possible modifications, the use, and the maintenance of the most common types of lead-acid cap lamps. Forcau ’76; the report of the Oxford expedition to the Pozo de Vega el Forcau. (OUCC proceedings 8, 1976, also available as HTML pages.) Speleogroup; LED caving lights, expedition logs, and other speleological projects (these are on the Speleogroup.org website). |
| Computing |
General Decimal Arithmetic: Algorism for
computers (and people).
Fundamental requirements for picture presentation, Cowlishaw, M. F., Proc. Society for Information Display, Volume 26, No. 2 (1985). Abstract: “How many bits per picture element does a display need?” For the display resolutions now commonly in use, only 4 bits per picture element (pel) are needed for the display of monochrome images. A total of 8 bits per pel are needed for color images. These conclusions are based both on experiment and on the theoretical model of the visual system in which the detectors in the eye are treated as simple photon-detectors. The results are applicable to “natural” images and also to computer generated images. A particular 8-bit color encoding scheme is described that also has the advantage that natural images are displayable on monochrome displays. The Acorn 6502 Microcomputer Kit; a little piece of computer history—Acorn Computer’s first public offering, the Acorn Microcomputer (later known as the Acorn System 1). The one pictured on these pages was shipped on 9 April 1979. Also here is an Emulator for the computer, so you can try it for yourself even if you don't have the original hardware. It might also be useful as an educational resource, too, as it really shows how to program a computer at the hardware level (and with the mini-debugger you can watch the registers and other internal state changing as instructions are executed). MemoWiki documentation snapshot. MemoWiki is a simple Wiki intended for personal documentation, research, and small-scale collaboration. It allows the viewing, editing, and maintenance of a collection of pages using just a web browser. To make it easy to support research, MemoWiki integrates its pages with academic references (which can be edited just as easily) and other files (such as papers, programs, and images).
NetRexx 2.
Introduction, overview, and definition of the NetRexx
programming language, version 2.
From the Introduction:
NetRexx is a general-purpose programming language inspired by
two very different programming languages, Rexx and
Java™. It is designed for people, not computers. In
this respect it follows Rexx closely, with many of the concepts
and most of the syntax taken directly from Rexx or its
object-oriented version, Object Rexx. From Java it derives
static typing, binary arithmetic, the object model, and
exception handling. The resulting language not only provides
the scripting capabilities and decimal arithmetic of Rexx, but
also seamlessly extends to large application development with
fast binary arithmetic.
PMGlobe, a program which displays the Earth as a globe on Windows 2000 (or later). It can be run as an application or as a screen saver. ( PMGlobe for OS/2 and Palm Globe—for early Palm devices—are also here.)
STET – A STructured Editing Tool;
Description and Users Guide.
Davies, S. and Cowlishaw, M. F., IBM UK Scientific Centre,
Version 2: 28th Dec 1980.
From the Introduction:
STET is a first attempt to take the structure out of the domain
of languages, and into the domain of editors. In addition to
conventional editing facilities, STET gives the user a third
dimension: a tree structure that may be traversed using Program
Function Keys much as scrolling is normally implemented...
IEEE 754-2008 errata. The current version of the IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic (IEEE 754) was published in August 2008. Since then, some minor problems have been noticed; this page lists those that I am aware of, with suggested corrections. .EXE Magazine interview—Mike Cowlishaw, by Alun Williams, Feature Editor, .EXE Magazine, July 2000. (This interview was completed but neither edited nor published because .EXE magazine ceased publication with the August 2000 issue.) |
| Aviation |
Flying weather analyses: some experimental analyses
of UK weather over the past 10–11 years, with particular
emphasis on wind strengths and
Visual
Flight Rules.
The Sirocco Microlight: a collection of information on the Sirocco Microlight, a single-seat ultralight aircraft which has a pusher propeller, tricycle undercarriage, and 3-axis flight controls. Includes a description and history, several articles and other references, and some links to images and videos. The Spratt Controlwing Flying Boat—plans and construction notes. George G. Spratt's Controlwing flying boat was developed from 1939, with plans drawn up in 1972–1973. Bill Wolfe used these drawings to build N107GW in the late 1990s, and this page includes his annotated plans and an 84-page manual. Long Marston R22 overhead join and circuits: an image showing flight tracks from a training session on 2008.10.29, departing to and returning from Shotteswell airstrip. Terry Viner’s airfields: a collection of UK airfields and airstrips in GPS Exchange Format (GPX). |
| Other | Wallace Breem (1926–1990) was a British librarian and author, and was the Librarian and Keeper of Manuscripts of the Inner Temple Library at his death in 1990. He was perhaps most widely known for his historical novels, including the classic Eagle in the Snow (1970). |
This site was constructed and is maintained by
Mike Cowlishaw.
Please send me any
corrections, suggestions for improvement, etc.
All text and images Copyright © Mike Cowlishaw 1973, 2009 except where
stated otherwise. All rights reserved.
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