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Oct 24, 2022 at 20:40 history edited davidbak CC BY-SA 4.0
Added footnote for TAOCP v4B availability
Aug 22, 2022 at 17:55 comment added davidbak @fuz - gotta hand it to Knuth - when he writes a book it's the book he wants to write the way he wants to write it - and the publisher just has to suck it up. That fold-out messes up the printing/binding process I'm sure - can't be cheap!
Aug 22, 2022 at 17:48 comment added fuz If you buy TAOCP volume 3 today, it has that very diagram in a little fan fold page still in there.
Aug 15, 2022 at 15:48 comment added Mark Morgan Lloyd I'd note that Knuth was, at various times, a consultant for Burroughs and that Burroughs ALGOL had sorting as a primitive operation. And while I can't speak for other manufacturers' drives and controllers, the Burroughs drives allowed all operations in both forward and reverse direction with the controller reversing the data transfer to/from memory if necessary.
Aug 14, 2022 at 19:19 comment added dlatikay @Hearth reach out to CuriousMarc he might be interested to put his restorated OD3201 to good use.
Aug 14, 2022 at 2:57 comment added Hearth @davidbak I say, go for it! At least if you have the time and energy to devote to it.
Aug 13, 2022 at 23:17 comment added davidbak @Hearth - You know ... I am 👉👈 this close to making a little project with a RasPi or something simpler - 10 steppers in a line representing 5 drives, with painted thread spools on them, some stepper motor hats, a bit of python, and, of course, a polyphase merge sort algorithm!
Aug 13, 2022 at 15:53 comment added Hearth I would love to see a video of a tape drive running this algorithm... Do you know if one happens to exist?
Aug 13, 2022 at 14:52 comment added Barmar That diagram looks like a musical score. :)
Aug 12, 2022 at 22:28 comment added Raffzahn "can probably be considered state-of-the-art for the heyday of tape storage" - true and still is.
Aug 12, 2022 at 21:35 history edited davidbak CC BY-SA 4.0
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Aug 12, 2022 at 21:10 history edited davidbak CC BY-SA 4.0
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Aug 12, 2022 at 21:04 history edited davidbak CC BY-SA 4.0
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Aug 12, 2022 at 20:58 history answered davidbak CC BY-SA 4.0