My first Windows computer was a 486sx running Windows 3.1. This was the early 90s. CDROMs were only just appearing on the horizon. This was a time pre- USB interface and FLASH memory. Floppy disk was king. Windows 3.1 came on six 3.5inch disks. At 1.44 MB each, this was less than 9 MB of installation files. By the time of Windows 10 in 2015, this had grown to 6 GB. These days its pretty much download only, although you can still buy a USB stick with it if needed. It's been a long time since Windows was available on a floppy disk, but if it was, Windows 10 would take 4167. What happens if disk 2189 is corrupted, or the computer crashes? You will have to start again with disk number 1.
The Code of Life
Growing up, I was a little obsessed with building radio receivers. They were pretty basic, but I loved tuning across the shortwave bands listening into all the strange sounds that would exist there in strange bands. I knew some of them were Ham radio transmissions, but others were a mystery. Those signal, those pulses of radio frequency energy contained information. Some of which was important. With this project I addressed that by looking at the shape that various messages that changed the world would have taken.
First is The Word to End All Wars. The Morse code spells out OVER. War is over, the war to end all wars, or at least they thought that.
Second is The Unthinkable from The Unsinkable. This spells out DOWN, the word no one ever expected to hear on the airwaves breaking through from the Titanic as it headed down to its watery grave.
The Titanic wasn't alone, its sister ship the Britannic also found itself at the bottom of the ocean. Down With Its Sister spells out HIT. During the First World War it was a hospital ship. However, this didn't save it from being hit by an enemy torpedo or hitting a mine itself.