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	Fri, 19 Sep 1997 11:40:14 +0930 (CST)
Message-ID: <19970919114014.62916@lemis.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 11:40:14 +0930
From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
Cc: Joerg Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: INB question
References: <19970919111434.20114@lemis.com> <199709190206.LAA03892@word.smith.net.au>
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In-Reply-To: <199709190206.LAA03892@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Fri, Sep 19, 1997 at 11:36:03AM +0930
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On Fri, Sep 19, 1997 at 11:36:03AM +0930, Mike Smith wrote:
>>>>> The ISA specification explicitly requires bus pullup resistors.  It may
>>>>> be unwise to depend on reading 0xff back-to-back with a previous read/
>>>>> write operation, ...
>>>>
>>>> That's why i wrote ``unspecified, with a tendency to 0xff''.
>>>
>>> The implication (as an english speaker) from your claim was
>>> "unspecified but sometimes 0xff".  It would be civilised to qualify the
>>> "tendency" under the circumstances.
>>
>> To be fair, I think that this is the same as "indeterminate, but with
>> an above-average likelihood of being 0xff".  I don't think this has
>> anything to do with the fact that I speak German.
>
> That's still not good enough.  The reality is "0xff under all except
> certain specific circumstances".  "Tendency" and "likelihood" both
> imply indeterminacy which is not present in this case.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Without going into detail which the original discussion didn't
warrant, I believe it's correct to say "tending to be 0xff".  This is
a statistical statement for those who don't have a logic analyzer
probe coming out of their left forefinger.

Greg