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A New Kind of Science and Wolfram's Computational Equivalence
With the official launch of Wolfram|Alpha earlier this year, and the recent release of the Wolfram|Alpha Webservice API, I got to thinking about Stephen Wolfram and his contributions to computing. These classic 2002 entries from Michael Swaine's long-running Programming Paradigms column in DDJ examine Wolfram's theories as laid out in his seminal book, A New Kind of Science.
A New Kind of Science
by Michael Swaine
Michael examines Stephen Wolfram's magnum opus, A New Kind of Science.
"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
- Isaac Newton
In this column, I'm writing about Stephen Wolfram's magnum opus, A New Kind of Science (Wolfram Media, 2002; ISBN 1-57955-008-8). This 1200-page, half-a-million-word book is the most astonishing thing I've read in a long time. One of the astonishing things about the book is its ambition. Like Newton, Wolfram sees the achievements of science as instances of playing in puddles on the shore while the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered near at hand. Unlike Newton, Wolfram wades in.
"[T]he entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of nature is badly put together and built up, and like some magnificent structure without any foundation," Francis Bacon wrote in his magnum opus, The New Organon, published in 1620. "There was but one course left, therefore - to try the whole thing anew upon a better plan, and to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations."
Wolfram's ambition is no less modest - he intends a total reconstruction of science and all human knowledge, erected on the foundation he lays out in this book.
Wolfram says that science has thus far huddled on that safe shore, asking only those questions that its established methods have a good chance of answering. In doing so, it has avoided a vastly larger realm of questions - questions that Wolfram proposes tackling with the method he has been exploring for the past 20 years. That's what his book is about.
I won't attempt here to judge how well it succeeds, but I'll at least try to give a sense of what Wolfram thinks he's figured out. I also have another installment of my thread on quantum computing.
The Key to Everything
Ten years ago this fall, DDJ senior editor Ray Valdez and I sat down with Stephen Wolfram to talk about Mathematica (which he created), mathematics, and whatever might be on Wolfram's mind. The result of that conversation was published in this column in the January and February 1993 issues of DDJ. At the end of that published interview, after sharing his views on more narrow technical issues, Wolfram said:
It's actually an interesting historical thing that I've been studying, how partial differential equations ended up being thought by people to be the fundamental equations of physics. It's very bizarre, because it isn't true, and not only is it not true, even the fact that atoms exist makes it clear that it's not true. So why is it that people will [say] that the fundamental equations of physics are partial differential equations?
What happened, I think, is that when these models were first developed, the only methods for figuring out what the consequences were was hand calculation. Computers are a very recent phenomenon in the history of science, and the fundamental models that exist in science have not yet adapted to computation. And that's my next big thing.
That was his plan 10 years ago: To use basic ideas from computation to figure out the correct models of physics. "Next big thing" indeed. At the time, this looked like an outrageously ambitious plan, but I suspected that Wolfram might just be the guy to pull it off. I do think that Wolfram may be a Newton-scale intellect. I'm sure he has Newton-scale ambition.
Ten years later, the ambition of Wolfram's plan has ballooned. In 1992, he was still willing to talk about looking for the fundamental equations of physics. Now, he's apparently convinced that the whole idea of looking for simple equations is the wrong way to do science. Or put it this way: That the way of doing science pursued by every scientist since Isaac Newton amounts to picking the low-hanging fruit from the tree of knowledge. Based on what he said in that interview, in 1992 Wolfram saw computers as a tool for finding the right equations. Today, he sees computation as the method for doing direct experimental research on the fundamental processes by which the universe works. He isn't talking about simulation - his approach isn't to model the clockworks of the universe, but to find the actual program by which today makes tomorrow. Program, not equation: For equations, Wolfram would substitute simple programs as the proper form of scientific law. And along the way, he would throw out the continuum: For continuous models like partial differential equations, he would substitute discrete computations. Again, not as an approximation, not as a simulation.
He thinks the universe is discrete. He thinks it's digital. And it's no longer just physics that he's trying to rebuild from the foundation up. All of science, Wolfram believes, needs to be reconstructed along lines that he lays out in his book. Physics. Biology. Cognitive science. Economics. His approach promises answers, or a path to answers, to such puzzles as free will, intelligence, and how all this bewildering complexity could have come from simple beginnings. He thinks he's found the key to everything.
The Genius In the Attic
"In my early years," Wolfram says, "I was very much a part of the traditional scientific community."
Technically correct, but Wolfram was never much a part of the traditional system of educating scientists. He never had the patience to attend college classes or to finish any traditional academic degree program, although after he had spent a year at Cal Tech, the university granted him a Ph.D. The number and quality of his professional publications demanded it. At Cal Tech, and later at the Institute for Advanced Studies and the University of Illinois, there was something about Wolfram that rubbed people the wrong way. He had little patience with people whom he considered his intellectual inferiors - and that was most of the planet - and he had no tact at all.
"[H]ad I remained there," he says, "I have little doubt that I would never have been able to create something of the magnitude [of what] I describe in this book."
But he didn't have to remain there. While he was at Cal Tech, Wolfram became the youngest person ever to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, often called the "genius grants." The MacArthur Prize carried with it enough money to let a genius pursue his or her research interests for a good stretch of time, although probably not as long as Wolfram has been at it. For that, he has Wolfram Research, the company he built to sell the program that he wrote, Mathematica. The success of Mathematica and his ownership of this profitable, private company created an intriguing situation: One of the brightest people on the planet has had all the money he needs and precisely the tools he needs to pursue whatever research he wishes with no academic responsibilities.
Wolfram has made the most of it, devoting nearly all his time to a single area of research. He is right, too: As part of the traditional scientific community, he probably could not have retreated to an attic room for a decade obsessed with what his colleagues regard as mere recreational mathematics, and it would have been a bit of a challenge to get 10 years of funding for a plan to prove that the god program of the universe is a cellular automaton.
Cellular Automata
Some of us discovered cellular automata, or CAs, through Martin Gardner's February 1971 "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American, where he introduced John Horton Conway's CA called the "Game of Life." I probably don't need to remind you that the Game of Life involves binary cells in a grid, each either "on" or "off" and all simultaneously updated on each play of the game according to a simple rule. Conway's rule is: Each on cell with two or three orthogonally adjacent on neighbors stays on; each off cell with exactly three on neighbors goes on; every other cell stays off or turns off. I should remind you that Conway chose this rule carefully to make the behavior of the system over time interesting and unpredictable.
(First aside: Conway's still into games, as his talk at http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_play_stream.html?stream_id=672 proves. Second aside: While researching something else, I stumbled across what is probably my own first implementation of the Game of Life. Since it was written under weekly deadline pressure for the October 11, 1982 issue of InfoWorld and coded in The Software Works Forth for the Osborne 1 computer, I'll spare you the code.)
Others discovered cellular automata through some of the fascinating work done on them in the field known as artificial life, popularized in Steven Levy's Artificial Life (Vintage Books, 1992; ISBN 0-679-74389-8). But the history of CAs extends back decades earlier: Edward Fredkin, former head of MIT's Project MAC, was exploring CAs in 1960, and John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam really pioneered the field over a decade before that. Konrad Zuse, one of the inventors of the digital computer, independently invented CAs. Tommaso Toffoli and Alvy Ray Smith have also done significant CA work.
I have to give credit to the other explorers in this territory because giving credit to others is not Wolfram's long suit. "His gracelessness toward his predecessors knows no bounds," Levy wrote in Artificial Life.
But maybe Wolfram has improved. Although the 800-plus pages in the main body of A New Kind of Science read as though no one had ever thought any of these things before Stephen Wolfram shone the light of his prodigious intellect on them, the 300-plus pages of notes go some distance toward acknowledging others' work. (And the notes, printed in smaller type, actually run 50,000 words longer than the main text.)
It is a fact that the study of cellular automata was languishing before Wolfram dismayed his IAS colleagues by dropping quantum chromodynamics to take up this seemingly frivolous subject, and that it was reinvigorated by a series of papers by Wolfram in the 1980s.
Wolfram prefers the simplicity of the one-dimensional CA. Here's a description: Picture an infinitely long line of pixels, each either black or white. That's your input to your 1D CA; the initial conditions. Wolfram often works with extremely simple initial conditions, like one black pixel and the rest white, or alternating black and white pixels. Now apply a nearest neighbor rule to all the pixels simultaneously, a rule like "if the pixels immediately to the right and left of me are black and I am white, I go black; otherwise I become or remain white." Apply the rule repeatedly. To see what is happening over time, Wolfram shows each successive generation of pixels below the previous one, so the diagrams of his 1D CAs are two-dimensional, but the second dimension is time.
Wolfram noticed something odd about some of these CAs. One in particular seemed to be able to produce infinite complexity from an extremely simple rule and trivially simple initial conditions. Others had noticed this odd feature of CAs. It was almost what Conway had in mind in picking the Game of Life rule so as to make its behavior "interesting and unpredictable." But Wolfram began to understand this as a discovery of the utmost importance. In information-theoretic terms, it looks like a violation of the second law of thermodynamics: How does all that complexity come out of such simplicity? Where does it come from? And what are the implications of being able to generate complexity out of simplicity?
How Today Makes Tomorrow
That's the question on which Wolfram has spent the past 10 years of his life, the question on which he hangs the half-million words of this book, and the question that he thinks knocks the props out from under science as we know it. The answer, briefly, is CAs.
CAs are computer programs, but they are vastly simpler than the kind of programs that scientists usually use in trying to model nature or physics.
They are no less powerful, though. Edward Fredkin preceded Wolfram in seeing that certain simple CAs were complex enough to model physics, and the artificial life people see them as a way to explore the processes of life. But Wolfram has carefully detailed all the complex systems to which CAs are computationally equivalent. For starters, Turing machines. Simple CAs have the computational power of a Turing machine, which means that they are computationally equivalent to any computer. Wolfram doesn't stop with stating this theoretical result; he shows how to compute with CAs. He explores generalized CAs (continuous, mobile, totalizing), substitution systems (including fractals), production systems or string rewriting systems, register machines, recursive functions, and the tag systems developed by Emil Post for implementing syntactic reduction rules in Principia Mathematica. He shows how to emulate these kinds of systems with CAs, and how to emulate CAs with these kinds of systems.
They are all, he says, equivalent. Wolfram enshrines this equivalence in a principle he calls the "Principle of Computational Equivalence." Not only are CAs and Turing machines and such computationally equivalent, but they are all computationally equivalent to thunderstorms, airfoil turbulence, and human consciousness. So far, this sounds like the Church-Turing thesis.
I'm not sure, at least after one reading of the book, what Wolfram intends here beyond what is already well accepted, unless it is that this computational equivalence is not just a fact about math or computer science or logic, but is a fact about the physical nature of the universe.
But if that's what he means, David Deutsch said it first in 1985. Deutsch, a professor at the University of Oxford, is one of the leading lights in quantum computing, credited with first elucidating the concept of quantum parallelism.
I think I'll have to study Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence further and, if I figure it out, discuss it here in my next column. In any case, Wolfram demonstrates that CAs can embody more general rules than can the mathematical equations that make up most of science. And this means that they can go to places where science has not gone before. Put it this way: Despite the dazzling success of science in uncovering connections among the phenomena of nature and giving us better guesses about aspects of the future, the mystery of the succession of events remains. At one instant, everything that is, is exactly the way it is; in the next instant, everything is different. What is the rule that maps one instant onto the next? Isn't this the real job of science: to explain how today makes tomorrow? That's the challenge Wolfram lays out in A New Kind of Science.
The Quantum Thread
One huge gap in A New Kind of Science is its almost total ignoring of quantum physics, especially quantum computation. Deutsch thinks that this alone wrecks Wolfram's thesis. Responding to a request from the Daily Telegraph for his first impressions on A New Kind of Science, Deutsch wrote: "I was disappointed that there is only the barest mention of quantum computation. If computation-based ideas really are going to play a fundamental role in physics, it will have to be through the quantum theory of computation...not the classical one that this book is based on."
Indeed, Richard Feynman, the previous-generation boy genius whom boy genius Wolfram encountered at Cal Tech, pointed out as early as 1981 that there are quantum phenomena, like the EPR effect, that simply cannot be emulated by a classical computer - only by a quantum computer. Deutsch again: "Hence my first impression is that the book's central thesis is false: I do not think that the sciences...will be revolutionised by reinterpreting nature in terms of simple computational rules rather than simple equations."
On the other hand, maybe Wolfram's approach can handle quantum phenomena. Edward Fredkin would probably think so, since he, like Wolfram, believes that the universe is discrete, not continuous; that it is fundamentally computational, and that the ultimate program of the universe is a cellular automaton. Fredkin calls his theory "Digital Mechanics" and he is convinced that it should be able to explain quantum phenomena like the EPR effect.
Wolfram's Computational Equivalence
by Michael Swaine
What do Stephen Wolfram, author of A New Kind of Science, Ed Fredkin, quantum computers, and BASIC have in common? They're all topics that Michael examines in this column.
In the last column, I wrote about Stephen Wolfram's big book, A New Kind of Science (Wolfram Media 2002; ISBN 1-57955-008-8) and concluded by saying that I would have to study Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence further and, if I figured it out, discuss it here. I fear that what I meant was that I would figure out exactly what Wolfram was getting at with this Principle and what all the implications of this Principle are, and that I would explain it all succinctly and entertainingly here in 2700 words or less. If that's what I meant, I have to confess failure.
Here's what I can do: I can summarize what Wolfram says about computational equivalence and computational universality and the universe as computation and whether the universe is continuous or discrete, and provide some context on some of these issues. But as to how important or even how original Wolfram's Principle is, my ego is not big enough to think that I have the answers.
Besides, I have to devote some of this column space to a couple of other obsessions. In my continuing thread on quantum computing, I'll touch on computational universality as it pertains to the possibility of building quantum computers. And just in case you were wondering, I'll answer the question, whatever happened to Turbo Basic?
Wolfram's Big Idea
Wolfram spends 700 pages building up to this Principle of Computational Equivalence. He thinks it's hugely important, and isn't reticent about saying so. Here is Wolfram's Principle of Computational Equivalence, stated in what he says are the most general terms: "[A]lmost all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication."
Several ideas are packed into this simple-sounding statement. First, there is the claim that all processes can be viewed as computations. Among DDJ readers, that claim is probably not terribly contentious. We are not put off by the notion that DNA performs computations, or that certain physical processes "compute" a fast Fourier transform. But Wolfram does mean all processes - analytical thought, perception, biological evolution, and the unfolding of the universe since the Big Bang, to name a few.
Second, the implicit message that this is a productive, probably the most productive, way of looking at things. That scientific inquiry ought to involve, in a much greater sense than it has in the past, the search for the program behind the process. Again, not obviously heretical. Science has generally meant a search for general laws rather than detailed programs, but most scientists today would probably agree with a statement along the lines of "Computer simulations of natural processes can be a useful tool for the advancement of scientific understanding." Most would probably not go along with Wolfram's view that science before Stephen Wolfram and his new kind of computation-centric science has just been picking the low-hanging fruit off the tree of knowledge.
Third, discreteness: Discrete and continuous models of the universe have battled for supremacy since before Plato's time, and Wolfram comes down on the side of the atomists. This definitely is controversial. He does supply examples of continuous programs in his book and he does take pains to show that discreteness is not a necessary feature of the cellular automata examples that he uses to make his points. But nearly all the cellular automata in the book are discrete. In these cellular automata, discrete cells in a discrete grid-like space nudge their neighbors into discrete changes of state in discrete time increments. Ultimately, Wolfram makes it clear that he doubts that continuous mathematical functions have any connection with physical reality, and suspects that space is not a continuum, but rather something discrete. Probably not a cellular automata-style grid, but maybe a network. And time: "There is nothing to say that on shorter scales, time is not discrete." Wolfram would find it convenient if the cosmic clockworks were shown to be digital. He dances around the discrete/continuous issue for a while, but eventually commits himself: "[M]y strong, strong suspicion is that at a fundamental level, absolutely every aspect of our universe will in the end turn out to be discrete." This is certainly not mainstream scientific thinking.
Fourth, Wolfram's criterion of "obviously simple" is a very low threshold. Absurdly simple cellular automata with trivial initial conditions are sometimes complex enough to clear the bar. It was confronting these apparently simple programs that generate apparently infinitely complex output that set Wolfram off on the 20-year research program that culminated in A New Kind of Science.
Fifth, the "equivalent sophistication" part. He's saying that, in some sense, there is no fundamental difference between a Rule-30 cellular automaton and a human mind, or between a hurricane and the entire universe.
They are all computations of equivalent sophistication. Not just in some sense, but in a very important sense: All such processes are computationally equivalent, meaning that they all have the same fundamental limits. The human mind is capable of the same set of computations as a dust cloud or a banana slug - and no more.
Some Implications
In A New Kind of Science, Wolfram describes the simple programs that caught his attention so dramatically two decades ago. He shows how they can produce output of unlimited complexity, that in fact, they can be universal computers. He shows how they can be made to mirror processes in nature, the form and structure of living things, turbulent fluids, economic behavior. He asserts that these processes are also effectively universal computers. And he asserts that all of these things are computationally equivalent - that there is really only one level of computational capability beyond the trivial. It's sort of a You Got It or You Don't Got It thing, and all these processes have got it. They are universal computers and, therefore, they are computationally equivalent. "[I]f one looks at a sequence of systems with progressively more complicated rules, one should expect that the overall behavior they produce will become more complex only until the threshold of universality is reached. [After that,] there should be no further fundamental change..."
One implication of his Principle of Computational Equivalence, which Wolfram draws explicitly, is that no system of any kind can ever carry out a computation that is more sophisticated than what can be carried out on a Turing machine or with a cellular automaton. That includes human brains and quantum computers.
On the other hand, the Principle of Computational Equivalence implies that any computation that can be performed by the most powerful computer can, in principle, be performed by any process that passes its low threshold of complexity. A cloud can compute a Quicksort - in principle. Another implication of the Principle of Computational Equivalence is that many of the unsolved problems of science and mathematics may remain unsolved - because they are computationally irreducible. Many of the cellular automata that Wolfram explores in loving detail in the book produce output that seems to be unpredictable by any means other than running the program and seeing what it does. Given the initial conditions and the rule governing the process, it is still impossible to short-cut the process to determine, say, the color of cell c at time t.
In traditional science and mathematics, the length of the derivation is, at most, an aesthetic issue. But Wolfram's computational approach makes explicit the fact that there is always a race between the system used to predict behavior and the system whose behavior is being predicted. The tacit assumption of science has always been that our models, through their sophistication, can outperform the process we are trying to model. The Principle of Computational Equivalence says that, unless we are willing to model limited aspects of the target system, this is not the case - our models cannot be more sophisticated than the processes they are modeling. Not if they are computations of equivalent sophistication.
Fredkin's Digital Philosophy
It needs to be said that others have said many of these things. Ed Fredkin, for one.
Fredkin has been many things, including head of MIT's AI Lab. He is one of the world's experts on cellular automata, like Stephen Wolfram; is an atomist, like Stephen Wolfram; and has for many years entertained some of the same ideas that Wolfram spells out in his book. I can't go into all of them, but Mark Henschel pointed me to Fredkin's web site (http://www.digitalphilosophy.org/) where you can read many of his (very readable and interesting) papers. At that site, you will find many of the ideas discussed here, as well as many of the ideas in Wolfram's book not discussed here, such as the law of conservation of information. And you'll read this: "[Digital Philosophy] suggests that the Universe, with finite resources, is busy computing its future as fast as it can [and] that there is no way from within the DM Universe to, in general, predict exact future states sooner than the Universe will get to those states." Sound familiar?
Then there's David Deutsch.
Deutsch is the winner of the 1998 Paul Dirac prize for theoretical physics and a researcher at the Centre for Quantum Computation at Oxford University. Deutsch has come up with a Principle, too, one that he thinks is as important as the laws of thermodynamics. Here's how he puts it: "There exists an abstract universal computer whose repertoire includes any computation that any physical possible object can perform." Deutsch's Principle is clearly related to Wolfram's, and the relationship is a little more obvious when you realize that Deutsch's principle is merely a translation into the realm of physical objects of the familiar Church-Turing thesis: "Every function which would naturally be regarded as computable can be computed by the universal Turing machine." [Alan Turing] I leave it to you to decide how original Wolfram's Principle is.
How Today Makes Tomorrow
One aspect of A New Kind of Science that I do find revolutionary is this idea of attacking head-on the question of how today makes tomorrow. Wolfram's little cellular automata chug along, generating a new generation of black and white cells at each time increment, and, for the most interesting ones, there is (Wolfram tells us) no shortcut to finding out the color of cell c at time t. The only way to find out is to run the program up to time t. Most of science as we know it, I take Wolfram to be saying, is about finding shortcuts. And most of the time, he says, there are none. You have to run the program.
Wolfram says that science as we have known it is successful because it is designed to ask only the kinds of questions that are easy for its methods to solve. When you ask, what is the relationship between this variable and that, you are not asking how some process actually works. You are asking if there is a shortcut to finding certain values. And in simple processes that unfold in symmetric or nested ways, there typically are shortcuts. So science investigates such simple processes and ignores the processes that generate most of the complexity in the universe. But true knowledge of the universe consists of understanding exactly how it works, and that means finding the program. Laws don't explain what the universe is doing; they just point out some interesting consequences of what it's doing. What it's doing is what it's doing - the program that it's executing. And in most cases, we don't know that. In most cases, Wolfram suggests, we never will. I find this viewpoint both inspiring and humbling.
Inspiring because it attempts to remove the magical action at a distance inherent in science as it is done today. Most scientific theories state a causal connection between two phenomena without specifying the steps that mediate that connection. Wolfram advocates a science that finds the actual program that nature is executing.
Humbling because he thinks that, in many cases, this will be impossible, because the program that nature is executing is like one of his cellular automata whose state at time t can only be discovered by running the program until time t. Having identified a vast realm of ignorance, Wolfram is saying that much of this realm lies forever outside the light cone of human knowledge.
Universal Quantum Computers
Universality is the threshold of seriousness in computer design: If it's not universal, it's just a glorified calculator. Wolfram has shown that the threshold is a lot easier to reach than von Neumann and other computer pioneers thought, but it's not quite trivial.
Early designs for quantum computers didn't rise to the threshold. It was a real breakthrough when Paul Benioff designed the first quantum computer in 1981, but Benioff's model was highly abstract and idealized. Richard Feynman's 1984 quantum computer design was worse than the first digital computers that had to be rewired for every computation. As Julian Brown points out in Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse: The Quest for the Quantum Computer (Simon & Schuster, 2000; ISBN 0684814811), you would have had to effectively reinvent Feynman's computer for every new problem.
Then, in 1985, David Deutsch (him again!) published the paper "Quantum Theory, the Church-Turing Principle and the Universal Quantum Computer." While Deutsch's plan for a universal quantum computer would not have been practical to build, it did advance the field in several ways. Feynman had pushed for quantum computers because he thought that classical computers could not adequately model quantum physics - and Deutsch's quantum computer satisfied Feynman's wish: It could act as a quantum simulator. Beyond that, it was a universal computer and could do anything that any computer could do. Deutsch achieved this in a familiar way: He made the machine model an abstract Turing machine, as Benioff had done earlier, more obscurely. Beyond this, Deutsch's quantum computer could take advantage of quantum parallelism. This meant, according to the thinking of quantum computer designers, that it would be able to do things that classical computers could not do.
It is worth noting that Stephen Wolfram expresses strong doubts that this ever will prove to be the case.
Nevertheless, Deutsch had demonstrated that a universal quantum computer was a real possibility. The challenge then became to come up with a practical design and build one. To be continued...
Whatever Happened To...?
Tom Hanlin at PowerBasic wrote to call my attention to PowerBasic. A visit to the PowerBasic site (http://www.powerbasic .com/) and some further research told me what happened to Borland's Turbo Basic. Turbo Basic was a follow-on product to Borland's hugely popular Turbo Pascal and a response to Microsoft's QuickBasic - which was a precursor to Visual Basic. Borland didn't commit to Turbo Basic for long, though. After introducing the product in 1985 or '86, within four years, Borland had sold all rights to developer Bob Gale and he had already started a company and published the first version of the successor product, PowerBasic.
By 1993, PowerBasic 3.0 was capable of compiling to 386 opcodes and featured an inline assembler. PC Magazine gave it high honors. As recently as three years ago, PowerBasic was judged the fastest DOS-based Basic around. And to answer the obvious question, quite a few. Even today, there are still quite a few DOS-based Basics around. PowerBasic is one of them, but it also comes in Windows versions. A complete standalone .EXE Hello World program written in PowerBasic reportedly compiles to just 6144 bytes on disk, or 3208 bytes in memory. That's the Windows version. The DOS version doesn't appear to have been updated in years, but it's still for sale. Remember TSRs? PowerBasic lets you create one with just five lines of code. If you don't remember TSRs, they were small programs and the initials stood for terminate-and-stay ready -- and beyond that my memory is a little hazy.


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Rock's Short List (5' 8" and Under)
Fri May 22, 2009
Shawn Amos in GetBack
The world's a cruel place for a short dude. Barred from basketball, left off firefighter shortlists, and unable to ride Space Mountain, his life is a never-ending "you must be this tall to ride" sign.
Music is the only place a short dude can go for salvation. While most athletic teams, branches of the armed forces, and theme parks have height requirements, bands do not. A 5-foot-tall dude may never be starting guard for the Lakers, but there's nothing preventing him from shredding a solo at Madison Square Garden. He may get overlooked at the McDonald's counter trying to order a Happy Meal, but he's always 10 feet tall on the JumboTron.
Some say short dudes compensate for their lack of height by becoming overachievers or hostile. Or both. It's not my job to psychoanalyze just to lay out some selectively chosen facts that make my case the way I want.
So I present you with Rock's Short List. Randy Newman was wrong. Short people DO have reason to live. It's rock 'n' roll.
Prince (5' 2")
One of the most diminutive musicians around, Prince makes up for his height by wearing high heels, playing every instrument on his recordings, and making sure none of his women are taller than him - and wear flats.
John Mellencamp (5' 7")
The former Johnny Cougar fits the profile of an angry short dude. He was arrested at age eight for breaking and entering, started his first band at 14, and lost a college job for using profanity. To complicate the theory, though, his wife is supermodel Elaine Irwin, who stands at 5 feet 11 inches.
Bono (5' 7 1/2")
Bono is the classic overachiever. He's determined to be in the biggest rock band in the world, save said world, and receive all of its accolades (he's the only person to be nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Grammy, and Nobel Peace Prize). If the dude was 6 feet 1 inches tall, we wouldn't know who he is.
Thom Yorke (5' 5 1/4")
The Radiohead singer's height is overshadowed by another physical trait: his left eye, which was closed shut at birth. Yorke underwent five operations by the time he was six to correct it. He was left with a drooping eyelid.
Angus Young (5' 2")
The 54-year-old AC/DC guitarist has played the instrument since he was five. And he's dressed in a schoolboy uniform the whole time. It's the perfect way to get people to ignore your adolescent height: just dress like a kid.
Roger Daltrey (5' 7")
Within The Who, Daltrey had a reputation for quickly punching anyone who disagreed with him, including the 6-foot-tall Pete Townshend. He also gets around the height issue by swinging his microphone around his head onstage. It adds a couple feet at least.
Ronnie James Dio (5' 4")
Dio sings so loudly and looks so satanic that no one would notice his elfin height. That is, unless you paid attention to some of those early band names, like Electric Elves and Elf. Those were unfortunate.
Iggy Pop (5' 7 1/2")
Iggy's bare-chested stage antics distract from any height issues his fans may possess. Between the self-mutilation, stage-diving, and self-exposure, who's counting inches (no pun intended)?
Paul Simon (5' 3")
Simon and his duo partner, Art Garfunkel, have famously feuded for more than 40 years. Some say the tension was caused by Garfunkel's acting career. Others say it was Art's jealousy of Simon's solo success. I say it's Simon being overshadowed by a dude who's 6 feet tall - 6 feet 5 inches with the Jewfro.
Bob Marley (5' 7")
The Rastaman was proof that big things come in small packages. Marley is as close to a musical deity as you can get. He had a sound and a message that transcended mere mortals. And with his lion's mane of dreadlocks, you'd think you were standing in front of a giant.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Rock's Short List (5' 8" and Under)
1 comment:
Your opening comments were very funny Konformist.
I don't much care for famous people. They all can die as far as I am concerned.
Famous people believe non famous persons are lower than themselves. So much lower.
But short people are very funny Konformist.
- Sunday, June 07, 2009
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subset: commoncrawl


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Raven Shoot Interview Volume 2 DVD-R
The first Raven Shoot Interview (tape #5230) was so deep, so informative and so entertaining that we had to do another. The articulate and intelligent Scott Levy, aka Raven, sat down again with RF Video for another must see Shoot Interview. This one picks up after his first stay in ECW as he heads into WCW to lead his flock. Learn all about his WCW stay and his return to ECW. You will be shocked at some of the stories of drug use during his second ECW stay. Finally Raven talks about why his WWE stay was so disappointing before going into life on the indies and NWA TNA. You will be shocked, surprised and you will learn from one of the greatest minds in wrestling on what will go down as one of the best Shoots in RF Video history!!!
-Why he went to WCW 1997
-His introduction in WCW as an outsider
-The Raven's Rules gimmick
-Bringing Steve Richards into WCW
-The concept of the "flock" and how the members were picked
-How the locker room changed over the time he was in WCW
-The deal pool with Vampiro & ICP
-The party scene in WCW
-Stories from the Gold Club in Atlanta (stripclub) where it was reported Eric Bischoff & pro athletes were paying for sex
-His feud with Diamond Dallas Page
-Winning the U.S. title and then dropping it the next night on Nitro to Bill Goldberg
-How bad were his drug problems while in WCW
-Teaming with Perry Saturn
-Working against Benoit & Malenko
-Raven explains what he always called "The Top 10" in WCW and why he never was in that group
-The 24 hours leading into the meeting with all the WCW wrestlers where Raven quit WCW
-Eric Bischoff's reaction & how he originally wanted to prevent Raven from leaving
-His phone conversation with Paul Heyman about returning to ECW
-His return to ECW in Queens NY where he teamed with Dreamer to win the tag titles from The Dudley Boyz
-Why his relationship with Paul Heyman was strained
-What led to him going into rehab again and finally beating his drug problems
-Differences in ECW in compared to the first time he was there
-Thoughts on ECW being on TNN
-Working behind the scenes with Heyman, Lance Storm, & Tommy Dreamer
-Opinion on Paul Heyman saying he treated his second run in ECW like a paid vacation
-Getting the reputation of being lazy
-Why he never had another singles match with Tommy Dreamer in ECW
-What Vince McMahon said when he found out Raven was hired into WWE
-Memories of attacking Jerry Lawler
-Working with Tazz
-What happened with the mystery woman angle that involved Tori
-Opinion on the hardore division in WWE
-Memories of his match at Wrestlemania against Big Show & Kane
-His feud with Saturn and the angle with moppy
-His match against Rhyno at No Way Out 2001
-Thoughts on ECW being reformed in WWE
-Why the WWE vs. WCW feud never worked
-Why he was put exclusively on Sunday Night Heat
-Why he think WWE didn't do more with him
-His opinion on the WWE writers
-How he was fired from WWE
-His surprise debut for NWA TNA and his thoughts on the product
-Wrestling against Sandman again
-Thoughts on A.J. Styles & Christopher Daniels
-Thoughts on Vince Russo
-Thoughts on his match against C.M. Punk
-All this and much more
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Miles More Magic wrote:1. Being a gentleman. Makes people listen to what you say without taking offence, even if it isn't what you want to hear.
2.Making people aware that magic alone isn't any good, without knowing how to perform it.
3. Any tip Allen gave was worth taking note of and listening to.
4. As Alfred said, how long have you got? the list should be long!
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From the First Reformed Church in downtown Somerville, NJ…one church light left on. I love doors and thought the shot itself would be cool, but knew it needed a little kick. B&W shots are always neat when tones are involved…throw in a selective color and and texture and a simple door is transformed into art! Hope you enjoy!
Talke Photography Settings:
- Camera: Nikon D300
- Lens: Nikon 12-24 f/4.0
- Setting: Aperture Mode
- Focal Length: 24.0 mm
- Exposure: HDR 7 exposures (+3 to -3)
- Aperture: f/22.0
- Gear: Tripod
- Post Process: Adobe CS5, Color Efex Pro, HDR Efex Pro, Photo Tools 2.6, Silver Efex Pro 2, 1 texture


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Television's most popular fake pundit sat down with one of it most well known actual political gabbers and the result was certainly more civil than their reputations may have let on.
"The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart visited conservative talker Bill O'Reilly on his FOX show as part of the promotional tour for his new book, "Earth (The Book)," and the two had an interview that was by turns spirited and light-hearted, reports the New York Daily News.
Though amicable throughout, the two did not shy away from touching on hot button topics. O'Reilly asked the funny man if he had "Obama remorse." After a jovial back and forth, Stewart addressed the question, saying that Obama "ran as a visionary, and he's led as a functionary." He added that the president has retained too much of the "same system and the same people in place."
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
O'Reilly said that Obama had detached himself from "regular folks", something that Stewart contested.
"What people?" "The Daily Show" host asked.
"The regular people who would never watch your show," O'Reilly retorted.
"Oh for God sake's. You went to Harvard. How long are we going to play this?" Stewart responded.
Later in the interview, Stewart urged O'Reilly to attend his rally in Washington, D.C., October 30 that he hopes will bring together Americans who feel like their voices aren't being heard above the din in the national political discourse.
The Fox host said he would like to be there, but was afraid that he'd get a "contact high" from the crowd.
"Every dope dealer within a hundred miles is going to be at the rally, Stewart. You know that," O'Reilly said.
Stewart joked that it would be more of a family-oriented event, noting that its war-cry would be, "We're here but only til 3: We have a sitter!"
Stewart also didn't miss a chance to compare O'Reilly to Fox's biggest personality of the moment, saying that "The O'Reilly Factor" host was "Fox 1.0" and that the current "2.0" version of the network is decidedly more radical.
"I think you can't believe what you've unleashed," Stewart said, referencing Glenn Beck by implication, if not by name. "On this network [now], you're left wing."
Whatever their political differences, clearly there were no hard feelings as O'Reilly will return the favor and stop by "The Daily Show" September 27.
"All right, now I know I'm going to get laid out when I go on your show Monday," O'Reilly said.
"We actually like you," Stewart responded. "I'm telling you, you're in trouble baby," he said.
Selected Reading: NY Daily News, Entertainment Weekly, Huffington Post


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Regular price
"Good times" Hoodie
French champagne hoodie design.
Exclusive to our store - Divesland luxury clothing.
Hoodie information
· Material of the sweatshirt: 50% polyester, 50% cotton. · Air-jet spun yarn. Soft feel and reduced pilling.
Shipping information
· Worldwide shipping. · All orders come with tracking number, provided via email after shipped.


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Cook the Book: Chocolate Brioche with Chocolate Chips
To make individual chocolate brioches, François Payard, author of this week's Cook the Book selection Chocolate Epiphany, offers these instructions: divide the dough into fifteen two-ounce rounds. Shape into balls, and press a one-inch chunk of bittersweet chocolate (60% or 72%) into the center of each round. Place them on a baking sheet, allow them to rise. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake as you would the loaves, checking to see if they are done after 20 minutes.
Win 'Chocolate Epiphany'
In addition to excerpting a recipe from Chocolate Epiphany each day this week, we're also giving away five (5) copies of the book. Enter to win here.
Chocolate Brioche with Chocolate Chips
What's New On Serious Eats
- Vegetable cooking spray, for the bowl and pans
- 1/3 tablespoons active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water (110º to 115°F)
- 4 cups bread flour
- 1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons plus 1 pinch salt
- 1/2 cup plus 1 pinch sugar
- 8 large eggs
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold but malleable, cut into pieces
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Spray a large bowl with vegetable cooking spray, dampen a clean kitchen towel with water, and set aside.
Sprinkle the yeast over the water in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, and let stand for 10 minutes, until the yeast begins to foam.
Add the flour, cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons of the salt, and 1/2 cup of the sugar to the bowl, and mix on low speed. Add 7 of the eggs and mix the dough until it comes together in a ball, about 5 minutes. Add the butter and mix until well combined. The dough will be very soft and sticky. Transfer the dough to the prepared bowl, cover with the damp towel, and let rise in a warm place until the dough doubles in volume, about 1 hour.
With your fist, punch down the dough, then let it rise again in the refrigerator until doubled, at least 2 hours, or overnight.
Spray the sides and bottom of two 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pans with vegetable cooking spray and set them aside.
Punch down the dough and divide it into 2 pieces of equal size. Work with one piece of dough at a time, leaving the other covered. Slightly flatten each piece of dough and fold its corners toward the center to create rounded edges. Invert the dough on your work surface so that the seams are down. Cup the dough in your hands. Keep your fingers close together, your thumb resting on your forefinger, to form a rounded shape. Make a slight back-and-forth movement with your wrists so that the dough rotates in between your fingers. Use your fingers to make the dough roll around in the tight cradle that they form. Your hands should never lift from the table as you perform this circular motion. The dough will shape into a tight ball. Repeat with the other piece of dough.
With your fingers, stretch each ball into a rectangle about 9 inches wide and 10 inches long (they should be as wide as the loaf pans are long). Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips over each rectangle of dough. With the width of the dough parallel to your work surface, roll each rectangle over itself lengthwise, to form a cylinder. Shape the dough into a loaf by rolling its bottom edge toward the top. The ends of each loaf should be tapered when the proper shape is achieved. Roll the dough over so that its seam is at the bottom, and slightly taper the dough further on both ends if necessary. Place the loaves in the prepared pans, seam side down, and lightly dust them with a little bit of flour. Place the pans in a warm place and let the dough rise until it fills three quarters of the pans, about 1 hour.
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F.
Prepare an egg wash with the remaining egg by whisking it very well with the pinch of salt and pinch of sugar, until the mixture is well blended. Brush the tops of the loaves with the egg wash, and with a sharp knife, slit their tops lengthwise. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, rotating once during baking, until the brioche has a shiny golden brown top, and a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. To be sure, pull the breads out of their molds and tap the bottoms: if they sound hollow, they are done. Unmold the loaves and let cool on a wire rack.
All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.


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BELEGA – Business and Marketing Multi Usage Responsive Email Template is awesome and mordern template which comes in 18 color themes ( Dark and Light ),10 layouts structure-pages each, And with template builder in the main file.
Features & Content
- 18 Color Schemes, each theme has 10 structure HTML email template pages.
- Layered and sliced elements PSD files.
- Well commented valid HTML .
- User friendly documentation covers PSD & HTML editing, sending the template.
- You can copy/paste content blocks/modules (tables) from layout to another.
- You can delete/duplicate any content block (table)/modules.
- With best and easy use Template Builder.
Change Log
Version1.3: In this Package you will find: - Update date: Aug 6,2014 - Template builder updated to version 3 - change google fonts API in realtime - new UI Version1.2: In this Package you will find: - Update date: Juy 2,2014 - Updated to the Template builder 2.1 - Edit the text and images directly - Fix some small bug Version1.1.2: In this Package you will find: - Update date: Dec 28,2013 - Fix a small bug of mailchimp version ( set the max-widht and max-height for the small icons of image title) Version1.1.1: In this Package you will find: - Update date: Dec 17,2013 - Fix a small bug of Template Builder of BELEGA( can not download without changing the radius value), now it works ok. Version1.1: In this Package you will find: - Update date: Dec 16,2013 - Support realtime changing border radius value Version1.0: In this Package you will find: - 180 HTML E-mail Templates - layered and sliced elements PSD files - Documentation - Template Builder - Current Release
Compatible with
- All major browsers.
- Apple Mail.
- Gmail.
- Thunderbird.
- Hotmail.
- Yahoo Mail.
- Microsoft Outlook.
- iPhone.
- iPod.
- iPad.
- windows phone 7.5
- android 4.0
- Eudora.
- FoxMail.
- OperaMail.
- And many more…
Sources and Credits
- Please see the guide.
- I created the template by writing code directly in HTML files so I can't provide a PSD file with complete template structure. But layered and sliced PSD files of graphic elements (images, buttons, symbols, graphics, deviders, header images…) are included in download….
- You can get inline css version / mailchimp version / campaignmonitor version pages.
- Images only Preview not included.
- The html code is encrypted for security reasons.


text:
Are you in the United States?
Visit our U.S.A. & International site for relevant pricing, distribution and product availability information.Go to StarTech.com
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- Display Mounts and Ergonomics
- Laptop Locks
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Browse By
USB 3.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station SSD / HDD with integrated Fast Charge USB Hub and UASP For SATA 6 Gbps - White
Dock your 2.5" or 3.5" SATA SSDs/HDDs and add USB Fast Charge Capacity in a stylish white docking station
Product ID: SDOCKU33HW
- Supports 2.5in and 3.5in form factor SATA hard drives (HDD) and solid state drives (SSD)
- UASP Compliant
- Built-in USB 3.0 Hub with Fast Charging Port
- Configurable power management
- SuperSpeed USB 3.0 compliant host interface, with up to 5 Gbps of data bandwidth
- Stylish full white design with silver trim
- Compatible with SATA revision I/II/III (1.5/3.0/6.0 Gbps) drives
- Plug-and-Play and Hot-Swap compatible
Volume Order?
Request a quote
Reseller Pricing:
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The SDOCKU33HW USB 3.0 Dock with Fast Charge USB hub lets you easily connect and swap 2.5in or 3.5in SATA III hard drives (HDD) and solid state drives (SSD) through an available USB port. The enclosure supports UASP and delivers optimal performance with a USB 3.0 connection, but is also backward compatible with USB 2.0/1.1 host connections.
The Hard Drive Dock features a built-in 3-port USB 3.0 Hub that enables you to connect up to 3 additional USB 3.0 devices to your computer through the same USB host connection. One of the ports on the hub also has Fast Charging capabilities, that charges iPad's and other mobile devices as effectively as through a wall plug. This Fast Charge Port has been specially designed for compatibility with a wide range of tablets and smartphones.
With support for UASP, the dock performs up to 70% faster than conventional USB 3.0, when paired with a UASP-enabled host controller to utilize the full potential of your SATA III hard drives. Please see our UASP testing results below for further details.
With support for SATA I/II/III, large capacity drives (tested up to 4TB), and 2.5in or 3.5in hard drives this HDD/SSD docking station is compatible with virtually any SATA hard drive, and greatly increases the storage/backup capabilities of your computer. Plus, the dock features configurable power management, which reduces energy consumption and helps extend the life of your drives by avoiding unnecessary access..
Extend the value of this hard drive docking station further with the addition of our SATA to IDE Hard Drive Adapter (SAT2IDEADP), allowing easy insertion of any 2.5 or 3.5in. IDE hard drive into a SATA hard drive dock.
To ensure compatibility with your computer system, the SDOCKU33HW supports all of the leading operating systems, including: Microsoft Windows® (8/7/Vista/XP/Server 2008/Server 2003), Apple® OSX (10.9/10.8/10.7/10.6), Linux, and Google Chrome OS™.
With uniform white design and sleek silver trim, the SDOCKU33HW will look great with your Apple® Mac® , and is backed by a 2-year StarTech.com warranty and free lifetime technical support.
Improved Performance with UASP
UASP is supported in Windows 8, Mac OSX (10.8 or above), and Linux. In testing UASP performs with a 70% faster read speed and 40% faster write speed over traditional USB 3.0 at peak performance.
At the same peak in testing UASP also shows an 80% reduction in required processor resources.
Testing results were obtained using an Intel® Ivy Bridge system, a UASP enabled StarTech.com Enclosure, and a SATA III solid state drive.
- Data recovery specialists who need quick access to drives to recover/retrieve data
- Backup data quickly to an external data archiving
- Technicians who regularly test or benchmark different hard drives and need to swap between them
- System administrators who need quick access to drives for imaging
- IT professional that need to charge tablets and Smart phone devices
The StarTech.com Advantage
- Charge your iPad and other mobile device faster than standard USB 3.0, with Fast Charge Port specially designed for compatibility with a wide range of tablets and smartphones
- Save time, with file transfers up to 70% faster than traditional USB 3.0 when used with a UASP-supported host
- Hassle-free access to drive data, with hot swappable top slot-loading dock design that supports both 2.5in and 3.5in HDD/SSDs
Product Numbers
Ingram Micro Canada
SYNNEX Canada
ASI Distribution Canada
UPC Code
Technical Specifications
|Warranty Information
|2 Years
|Chipset ID
ASMedia - ASM1053 - 6G
|Compatible Drive Types
|Drive Installation
|Drive Size
|2.5in & 3.5in
|Number of Drives
|Max Drive Capacity
|Currently tested with up to 4TB 7200 RPM 3.5" hard drives and 1TB 7200 RPM 2.5" hard drives
|Type and Rate
|USB 3.0 - 5 Gbit/s
|SATA III (6 Gbps)
|UASP Support
|Drive Connectors
|1 - SATA Data & Power Combo (7+15 pin) Receptacle
|Host Connectors
|1 - USB 3.0 A (Fast-Charge, 9 pin) Female
|1 - USB Type-B (9 pin) USB 3.0 Female
|2 - USB Type-A (9 pin) USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) Female
|Microsoft WHQL Certified
|OS Compatibility
|OS independent; No software or drivers required
|Special Notes / Requirements
|Note: Certain devices may not support charging and syncing simultaneously. In these instances disconnect the device, and set the charge only switch to "on", then reconnect the device.
|LED Indicators
|1 - Power/Activity
|Center Tip Polarity
|Input Current
|Input Voltage
|Output Current
|Output Voltage
|Plug Type
|Power Consumption (In Watts)
|Power Source
|AC Adapter Included
|Operating Temperature
|5°C to 35°C (41°F to 95°F)
|Storage Temperature
|-20°C to 50°C (-4°F to 122°F)
|Physical Characteristics
|White & Silver
|Aluminum and Plastic
|Product Height
|2.2 in [5.5 cm]
|Product Length
|5.1 in [13 cm]
|Product Width
|2.8 in [72 mm]
|Weight of Product
|12.4 oz [350 g]
|Packaging Information
|Package Height
|5.6 in [14.3 cm]
|Package Length
|5.5 in [14 cm]
|Package Width
|3.5 in [90 mm]
|Shipping (Package) Weight
|1.4 lb [0.6 kg]
|What's in the Box
|Included in Package
|1 - HDD Dock
|1 - USB 3.0 Cable (1m)
|1 - Universal Power Adapter
|1 - Power Cords (NA/UK/EU)
|1 - Instruction Manual
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Product Support
- SDOCKU33Hx.pdf SDOCKU33HW_Manual
Data Sheets
Frequently Asked Questions
Before You Buy
To determine if your hard drive will work in this device, on the product page, click the Technical Specifications tab, and do the following:
- Make sure that the device supports the storage size of your hard drive. If the storage size of your hard drive is larger than what the device was tested with, the hard drive will likely still work with the enclosure.
- Confirm that your hard drive uses the same interface type as the device. For example, IDE, SATA, or M.2.
- Make sure that the device supports the physical size of your hard drive, such as 2.5 inches or 3.5 inches.
- Verify that the power consumption of your hard drive doesn't exceed the power output of the device. If you're using multiple hard drives, make sure that the combined power consumption of all of the hard drives doesn't exceed the power output of the docking station.
How to
To confirm that Windows detects your USB device, complete the following:
- Press the Windows key+R, type devmgmt.msc, and press Enter.
- In Device Manager, under the appropriate heading, confirm that your expansion card is listed and that there isn't an exclamation mark next to it. For example, a USB controller card would be under Universal Serial Bus controllers.
Your USB device is listed according to the name of the chipset. To determine the name of the chipset of your USB device, navigate to www.StarTech.com and look on the Technical Specifications tab for your product.
To confirm that the Mac OS detects your USB device, complete the following:
- Click the Apple icon.
- Click About This Mac.
- Click More Info or System Report.
- Under the appropriate heading, confirm that your USB device is listed and that there isn't an error. For example, a network card would be under Ethernet Cards.
You may need to refresh the System Information page after you plug in your device. To do so, press Command + R with the System Information page open.
Your USB device is listed according to the name of the chipset. To determine the name of the chipset of your USB device, navigate to www.StarTech.com and look on the Technical Specifications tab for your product.
- The drive may be damaged. Test with a known-working drive, or test the drive directly to a PC.
- The operating system on the computer may not support reading and writing to the file system on the docked hard drive or SSD. Remember, Windows cannot read Mac or Linux file systems. Also, macOS can read but not write to NTFS drives.
- If the drives came from a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks), they would not be accessible in our docking stations.
- If the drive uses 4Kn sectors, check the technical specifications of the docking station, and ensure it can read 4Kn drives.
When you troubleshoot issues with a hard drive dock or duplicator, there are some quick tests that you can complete to rule out potential problems. You can test to make sure that the following components are working correctly and are not the source of the issue:
- IDE, SATA, and eSATA cables
- Hard drives
- Hard drive dock or duplicator
To test your setup components, try the following:
- Use the cables, hard drives, and hard drive dock or duplicator in another setup to see if the problem is with the components or the setup.
- Use a different cable, hard drive, and hard drive dock or duplicator in your setup to see if the problem persists. Ideally, you should test a component that you know works in another setup.
When you test the hard drive and hard drive dock or duplicator, it is recommended that you do the following:
Note: For a hard drive duplicator you may need to switch the device to PC mode (if available).
- To check Disk Management, press the Windows key + R, type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Check to see if your hard drive is listed.
- Do one of the following:
- If the hard drive is listed with unallocated space, the hard drive needs to be reformatted. Right-click unallocated and click New Simple Volume. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the reformatting.
Note: Formatting a hard drive erases all of the data on it. Make sure that you back up all of your data before you reformat the hard drive.
- If the hard drive is listed as healthy but does not have a drive letter, for example, C:, right-click healthy and click Change Drive Letter and Paths. Click Add, assign a drive letter, and click OK.
Note: A formatted hard drive will not show up in Computer or My Computer until it has a drive letter assigned to it.
This docking station allows the hard drive to enforce its own power state, as opposed to enforcing a power state that keeps the hard drive active at all times. Since most newer hard drives have low-power energy conservation modes, this will cause the hard drive to enter an idle state if it is not used for a certain amount of time.
Compliance and Safety
Compliance Letters
Safety Measures
- If product has an exposed circuit board, do not touch the product under power.
- If Class 1 Laser Product. Laser radiation is present when the system is open.
- Wiring terminations should not be made with the product and/or electric lines under power.
- Product installation and/or mounting should be completed by a certified professional as per the local safety and building code guidelines.
- Cables (including power and charging cables) should be placed and routed to avoid creating electric, tripping or safety hazards.
* Product appearance and specifications are subject to change without notice.
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USB 3.0 SATA Hard Drive Docking Station SSD / HDD with integrated Fast Charge USB Hub and UASP For SATA 6 Gbps - White
Product ID: SDOCKU33HW