Alien Life in the Galaxy and Universe

M31 galaxy in the constellation Andromeda contains billions of planets with life according to new data.

ALIEN LIFE IN THE GALAXY AND UNIVERSE
SETI gets a boost recently by news released from astronomers working with the Kepler spacecraft. Minimum, there are tens of billions of planets in our galaxy that are likely to contain life. Moreover, the entire Universe is likely to hold a minimum of 100 billion times 10 billion or a thousand billion billion planets with life.

However, the vastness of the space inside the galaxy and Universe is so great, that many civilizations with warp speed capability would still have great challenges in finding us. For example, if their technology allows warp 10, or travel that's 10 time the speed of light, it will still take 100/10 = 10 million years to reach those galaxies that are 100 million light years distant.

TeraByte Drive

New TeraByte Drive holds 220 million pages!
Functions for Propeller programs, backup,
streaming data, archives, DSC data, ULTRA
Telescope images and albums, manages
databases and works in real time or offline
conditions. The new TB1 may also hold
administrative information for the ULTRA
Space Administration.

PROPELLER POWERED BIG BRAIN

BIG BRAIN ADDS ON A NEW TERABYTE DRIVE (Capacity: One Thousand Billion Bytes)

Holds 220 Million Pages!

The one TeraByte drive facilitates the ULTRA expansion, the operations of the DSC Deep Space Center, the operation of the ULTRA telescope, and the management of the ULTRA Space Administration. The small footprint portable 22mm drive is equal to 1,024 GB drives. The drive is a Seagate technology FreeAgent Go Flex Ultra-Portable Drive for PC and Mac use, PN9ZFAM5-570, and runs USB 3.0 which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0. The drive earned CNET Editor's Choice Award. It's also compatible with USB 2.0. The drive ships with encryption and backup software and can share files between Mac and PC. It contains a preloaded NTFS driver for the Mac and is compatible with OSX 10.4.11 or higher, 10.5.8, or 10.6.2 (32 bit Kernal only). It's also is designed to work with Windows 7, Vista, and XP. To write Mac files, reformatting is required. Instructions for use with Mac OS is found at the instructions link. The drive can backup data and store streaming data incoming from the ULTRA Telescope. It can archive images, manage a database and offer real time data storage and retrieval. A terabyte or one TB is 10¹² = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes of information which is 1,024 times a gigabyte (GB) or 1,048,576 times a megabyte (MB), which is a million million bytes. At an average 5,000 characters per page, 1TB of disk space could hold 220 million pages of text! It would take 728,178 retro 3.5-inch floppy disks to equal the storage capacity of a single 1,024 gigabyte hard drive. To format this drive for use with Mac, use the FreeAgent GoFlex software already on the drive. If you try to install using the Mac Disk Utility it won't write to the drive. To install the Seagate Diagnostics, and Memeo Backup (Included Applications: Seagate Diagnostics 1.1, Seagate Storage Gauge 1.0, Memeo Backup 2.5, Extensions: Seagate Storage Driver 5.0.1, Paragon NTFS for Mac 8.0) double click on the Mac Installer.dmg icon and follow the menu. You may want to backup these raw files to another drive first. After you format the drive for Mac, Get Info will show a full TB drive. The installed software takes up space and the remaining capacity is 999.17GB. Installed software uses 904MB or 903,954,432 Bytes. This is in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format which is compatible with Time Machine. It will now read and write Mac format. (By not formatting the drive for Mac, the drive could do PC read and write, and only Mac read.)

Links
Mac install instructions

MC Minimal Computer Reborn

Minimal Computer for Schools

MC COMPUTER REBIRTH

This week, the MC Minimal Computer is reborn. Arising from the ashes of a hard drive crash, the resurrected MC is designed as a school machine and a construction project for Parallax Propeller chip enthusiasts, or anyone interested in building their own simple computer.

The battery driven Minimal Computer, also part of the Big Brain Clan, uses one prop chip and a series of panel toggle switches and LEDs. The MC is the forerunner of the new and upcoming projects: the Shrunken Computer, and the all new Propeller COSMAC Elf II.

MC is designed as a Learning System for schools. It's the tool needed for learning the BINARY language and exploring computer programming. In minimal configs and standby, the MC can of course run for months... approaching a year's time on the internal battery. The front panel has inputs for 3 volts DC using banana jacks. Toggle inputs B0 through B7 are designed for input of binary programs and to regulate SPIN language code. Equivalent LEDs are panel mounted for display readout. Additionally the MC has an Enter/Step pushbutton, a power on/off switch, and AUX toggle.

The MC is very portable and extremely light weight. It school back packs, fits luggage, and has a great all around appearance. It's fun and easy to work with, and it interfaces to PC, Mac or LINUX. MC is built on one solderless breadboard affixed to cabinet floor with sticky tape. The solderless design allows for changes in the minimal configurations, i.e. working with LEDs, ports, control projects, etc. More information will follow.

MC Computer Restoration

MC COMPUTER RESTORATION PROJECT

The MC Computer - Sequence of construction steps

We found the long lost Propeller MC Minimal Computer! It's discovery now makes it one of the foremost Big Brain projects of all time!

Since the advent of the MC Computer, a computer designed for minimal computing, the Big Brain was born and developed in a time span lasting over one year. During this era, several things happened. A hard drive crash destroyed the MC Computer material including the story about MC development, Text Manual, schematics, photos and software with numerous programs. It was like a flesh eating virus and it ate all HD content. Over a half year later, the recovery process continues and emergence of some files has led to the ongoing restoration of the MC Computer. The new knowledge and technology created by the Big Brain will enable more rapid development of the MC.

Original

MC is now another offspring of the Big Brain and is designed with only one Propeller chip. The MC computer is the foundation project that will lead to several more interesting projects, including the Shrunken Computer (SC) and the Propeller Elf II (the Propeller-based emulator of the original retro Netronics Elf II microcomputer from the 1970s).

MC Assembly Parts & Tools

During the temporary demise of the MC (the HW always remained intact, except its one Propeller chip was assimilated by the Big Brain), new projects emerged based based on its design, therefore knowledge exists of the development of these new projects. Also utilizing one Propeller, the two new reincarnations will reside within the Big Brain's offspring family. During the original post, a teaser showed small images of the emerging project, step by step. Stay tuned for more information about the MC Minimal Computer, the SC Shrunken Computer and the New Propeller Elf II.