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marsmore about mars

mars


  5  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Mars  \Mars\,  n.  [L.  Mars,  gen.  Martis,  archaic  Mavors,  gen. 
  Mavortis.] 
  1.  (Rom.  Myth.)  The  god  of  war  and  husbandry. 
 
  2.  (Astron.)  One  of  the  planets  of  the  solar  system,  the 
  fourth  in  order  from  the  sun,  or  the  next  beyond  the 
  earth,  having  a  diameter  of  about  4,200  miles,  a  period  of 
  687  days,  and  a  mean  distance  of  141,000,000  miles.  It  is 
  conspicuous  for  the  redness  of  its  light. 
 
  3.  (Alchemy)  The  metallic  element  iron,  the  symbol  of  which 
  [male]  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  planet  Mars.  [Archaic] 
  --Chaucer. 
 
  {Mars  brown},  a  bright,  somewhat  yellowish,  brown. 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  Mars 
  n  1:  the  4th  planet  from  the  sun  [syn:  {Mars},  {Red  Planet}] 
  2:  (Roman  mythology)  god  of  war  and  agriculture;  father  of 
  Romulus  and  Remus;  counterpart  of  Greek  Ares  [syn:  {Mars}] 
 
  From  U.S.  Gazetteer  (1990)  [gazetteer]: 
 
  Mars,  PA  (borough,  FIPS  47672) 
  Location:  40.69663  N,  80.01409  W 
  Population  (1990):  1713  (672  housing  units) 
  Area:  1.2  sq  km  (land),  0.0  sq  km  (water) 
  Zip  code(s):  16046 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  Mars  n.  A  legendary  tragic  failure,  the  archetypal  Hacker 
  Dream  Gone  Wrong  Mars  was  the  code  name  for  a  family  of  PDP-10 
  compatible  computers  built  by  Systems  Concepts  (now,  The  SC  Group): 
  the  multi-processor  SC-30M,  the  small  uniprocessor  SC-25,  and  the 
  never-built  superprocessor  SC-40.  These  machines  were  marvels  of 
  engineering  design;  although  not  much  slower  than  the  unique  {Foonly} 
  F-1,  they  were  physically  smaller  and  consumed  less  power  than  the  much 
  slower  {DEC}  KS10  or  Foonly  F-2,  F-3,  or  F-4  machines.  They  were  also 
  completely  compatible  with  the  DEC  KL10,  and  ran  all  KL10  binaries 
  (including  the  operating  system)  with  no  modifications  at  about  2-3 
  times  faster  than  a  KL10. 
 
  When  DEC  cancelled  the  Jupiter  project  in  1983,  Systems  Concepts 
  should  have  made  a  bundle  selling  their  machine  into  shops  with  a 
  lot  of  software  investment  in  PDP-10s,  and  in  fact  their  spring  1984 
  announcement  generated  a  great  deal  of  excitement  in  the  PDP-10  world. 
  TOPS-10  was  running  on  the  Mars  by  the  summer  of  1984,  and  TOPS-20  by 
  early  fall.  Unfortunately,  the  hackers  running  Systems  Concepts  were 
  much  better  at  designing  machines  than  at  mass  producing  or  selling  them 
  the  company  allowed  itself  to  be  sidetracked  by  a  bout  of  perfectionism 
  into  continually  improving  the  design,  and  lost  credibility  as  delivery 
  dates  continued  to  slip.  They  also  overpriced  the  product  ridiculously; 
  they  believed  they  were  competing  with  the  KL10  and  VAX  8600  and  failed 
  to  reckon  with  the  likes  of  Sun  Microsystems  and  other  hungry  startups 
  building  workstations  with  power  comparable  to  the  KL10  at  a  fraction  of 
  the  price.  By  the  time  SC  shipped  the  first  SC-30M  to  Stanford  in  late 
  1985,  most  customers  had  already  made  the  traumatic  decision  to  abandon 
  the  PDP-10,  usually  for  VMS  or  Unix  boxes.  Most  of  the  Mars  computers 
  built  ended  up  being  purchased  by  CompuServe 
 
  This  tale  and  the  related  saga  of  {Foonly}  hold  a  lesson  for 
  hackers:  if  you  want  to  play  in  the  {Real  World},  you  need  to  learn  Real 
  World  moves 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  Mars 
 
  A  legendary  tragic  failure,  the  archetypal  Hacker  Dream  Gone 
  Wrong  Mars  was  the  code  name  for  a  family  of  PDP-10 
  compatible  computers  built  by  Systems  Concepts  (now,  The  SC 
  Group):  the  multi-processor  SC-30M,  the  small  uniprocessor 
  SC-25M,  and  the  never-built  superprocessor  SC-40M.  These 
  machines  were  marvels  of  engineering  design;  although  not  much 
  slower  than  the  unique  {Foonly}  F-1,  they  were  physically 
  smaller  and  consumed  less  power  than  the  much  slower  DEC  KS10 
  or  Foonly  F-2,  F-3,  or  F-4  machines.  They  were  also 
  completely  compatible  with  the  DEC  KL10,  and  ran  all  KL10 
  binaries  (including  the  operating  system)  with  no 
  modifications  at  about  2--3  times  faster  than  a  KL10. 
 
  When  DEC  cancelled  the  Jupiter  project  in  1983,  Systems 
  Concepts  should  have  made  a  bundle  selling  their  machine  into 
  shops  with  a  lot  of  software  investment  in  PDP-10s,  and  in 
  fact  their  spring  1984  announcement  generated  a  great  deal  of 
  excitement  in  the  PDP-10  world.  {TOPS-10}  was  running  on  the 
  Mars  by  the  summer  of  1984,  and  {TOPS-20}  by  early  fall. 
 
  Unfortunately,  the  hackers  running  Systems  Concepts  were  much 
  better  at  designing  machines  than  at  mass  producing  or  selling 
  them  the  company  allowed  itself  to  be  sidetracked  by  a  bout 
  of  perfectionism  into  continually  improving  the  design,  and 
  lost  credibility  as  delivery  dates  continued  to  slip.  They 
  also  overpriced  the  product  ridiculously;  they  believed  they 
  were  competing  with  the  KL10  and  VAX  8600  and  failed  to  reckon 
  with  the  likes  of  Sun  Microsystems  and  other  hungry  startups 
  building  workstations  with  power  comparable  to  the  KL10  at  a 
  fraction  of  the  price. 
 
  By  the  time  SC  shipped  the  first  SC-30M  to  Stanford  in  late 
  1985,  most  customers  had  already  made  the  traumatic  decision 
  to  abandon  the  PDP-10,  usually  for  VMS  or  Unix  boxes.  Most  of 
  the  Mars  computers  built  ended  up  being  purchased  by 
  {CompuServe}. 
 
  This  tale  and  the  related  saga  of  {Foonly}  hold  a  lesson  for 
  hackers:  if  you  want  to  play  in  the  {Real  World},  you  need  to 
  learn  Real  World  moves 
 
  [{Jargon  File}] 
 
 




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