Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?

D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

 
 
On Mon, 16 Dec 2024, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
 

This is a very good point! I read today that a 21 day ban on smartphones in
UK schools resulted in better psychological health/well being, and better
sleep, and a 3% memory improvement.

>
 Today's kiddies are plagued by 'social' and political
 BS which constantly tries to twist their brains into
 knots. For SM it means PROFIT ... for political interests
 it's produced a gen of near-psychotics which can be
 twisted around the proverbial finger.

 
This is the truth. I see it in the class room every single day. If the exam is
hard, they would never dream of working harder or study more. Instead they
complain to the school that the teacher is evil, and refuse to take the exam
until it is made easier.

I wonder how some of these pansies would have responded to the digital
logic design exams I had long ago in university.  The prof. told
everyone the rules up front: open book, open notes, and the kicker: an
exam suitable for a 70min period, but we had 50min to take it.

After the first one, I worked out why the "70min in 50min time slot". 
The digital logic design problems that were suitable for a pencil and
paper exam had a hard complexity knee at about the 4-5 bits point.  4-5
bits or less and one could solve the Karnaugh maps on paper by hand. 
And even 5 bits was 'pushing it', paper complexity wise.  Anything
beyond was in the realm of "you now need a computer solver for this". 
So all the problems on the exams ended up being /easy enough/
(relatively speaking) that 50min of problems in 50min of exam time
meant that nearly the entire class would score 95+ (out of 100).  So to
separate out those who truly understood from those just getting by
required "too many problems" to solve in time.  The good students had
no problem finishing a 70min exam in 50 minutes and scoring 95+ on them
(myself and another classmate named Scott proved that fact).  The "ok"
students would get most of the exam done, and score in the 75-90 range. 
And the actual mediocre students would be the ones scoring the sub 75
scores because they cracked open the book (and if you needed to crack
open the book, it meant you were not going to score well on the exam,
making the whole "open book, open note" rule moot).

There was bitching and moaning on the part of the mediocre students
after each exam, but nothing changed because of their bitching and
moaning.