Systemizing

Post Reply New Topic

Could people tell me what Systemizing is?


I wanted to respond to one of the previous threads but missed my chance.


Thanks

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssie ... cohen.html

I'd not heard of it either.

Systemizing refers to the ability, need, desire, obsession, etc. to create systemic order from things or to understand how things work or fit together. Some of us, for example, have both a natural ability and burning compulsion to understand things such as how road systems link up, transport systems, power transmission systems, etc.

There are many manifestations, but the common link is to understand how things work or fit together in a logical and orderly way.

One of the better-known Baron-Cohen assessment quizzes is the "Systemizing Quotient." Not surprisingly, my rating was very high (67; max is 80).

Last edited by melissa17b on 22 Mar 2009, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

WHOA! The way you explain it, I ALWAYS used to do that! I literally wouldn't use ANYTHING until I understood how it worked! When I first used a transistor radio, for example, I knew what a tank circuit was, what transistors, capacitors, resistors were, etc.... Is it any wonder why machinery and electronics were among my first two interests? Even 10 years before I TOUCHED a computer(at least one that I was allowed to work with), I understood memory, CPUs, etc... BTW I WAS born in the 60s, and computers, as we know them, weren't economically feasible until the 70s. Computers were then really called computers(as opposed to the microcomputers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s), and cost tens of thousands of dollars at a time when today it would be equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars. I didn't get my first computer until almost 1980.

BTW the one I "touched" in the 1970s was one of those minicomputers that cost what today would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was just a little kid at the time though(I was there with my father who was there to fix a problem.), and didn't know COBOL or PDP 11 macro. I ALSO didn't have an account on it. So, even if I wanted to, I couldn't program it. It was a DEC PDP 11/70 BTW. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11

MAN, it looks ANCIENT, doesn't it! Even the term TRANSISTOR RADIO is ANCIENT! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio

Thanks Melissa and star, it was kind of you to respond

This sure brings back memories. As your contemporary, my first computing experience, in the late '70s, was on that 12-bit monster predecessor - the PDP-8, complete with paper tape reader and teletype printer. Programming it was quite tricky.

Not too many years before, in the early '70s, an electric four-function adding machine was a technological marvel not yet seen by all that many people. Times sure have changed...

OH YEAH! I bought perhaps the second generation calculator! Not only did it have +,-,*,/, but it had ONE number of memory! WOW! It was LED(back when LEDs used a LOT of power). It was also about twice as big as my current blackberry 8830!

ALSO, I finally DID get to work on a LOT of PDPs! PDP8e, PDP11/20,PDP11/23,PDP11/44, PDP/70, nad a couple later PDPs. I believe the 73 and 83. I also worked on the alpha, Microvax II, and almost the entire VAX line. COBOL, DIBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, MACRO(pdp and VAX), And almost all the O/S RSTS/E, RT11, TSX11, VMS, ULTRIX. My last job was as a system admin, manager, programmer, etc... at a DEC OEM. I tend to stay at a job a LONG time! Of course, I have ALSO worked on every popular variant of UNIX, CP/M, M/S(AKA PC) DOS, and M/S Windows. I EVEN worked on a system made to make IBM's AIX look like WANG's O/S!

I did an English term paper for highschool on C.M.O.S! It WAS in my interest, afterall.

BTW, you and I are the same age(depending on the month/day)! If you were in the US, I would have PM'd you. The girl in your avatar is cute, and I like your posts.

Then please help me understand a CPU... I always wanted to, but I find it too hard to learn. Would you teach me?
I know what transistors are, and I do understand RAM. I think I understand boolean-logic.. ... Well I have to, since I understand RAM

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic, or what. By understanding a CPU, I mean understanding how the registers, memory, address circuitry, decode circuitry, etc... works, how buffers, caches, indexes, the APU, etc... are setup, and how they are driven by the clock(s), etc.... Wait states, CAS, RAS, cycle time, etc....

Of course you only needed to know the basics to program them(I/O addressing methods, memory addressing methods, index registers, APU, and MAYBE wait states ). You don't even need to know a lot of that now, as they have higher level languages, more libraries, coprocessors, and larger registers(registry overflows can cause a delay that can become apparent if you are doing something that is very time dependent). It WAS best to know SOMETHING about the CAS and RAS before say 1990, when you setup computers, but now, at least on some like the IBM PCs, they try to hide those details in some of the memory modules. Even most of the earlier systems hid that in details about the wait states, in the BIOS setup, and some people simply turned the wait states up until the memory stopped failing. Lower settings for wait states were faster, but cheaper computers or cheaper memory required them to be higher.

HECK, for CAS/RAS, etc.... I used to wonder why they didn't just use static RAM. At least one company made QUASI static RAM! Of course, dynamic RAM is CHEAPER! After all, static remembers data as long as it has power. Dynamic only remembers for a VERY short time, which is why it has to constantly be "refreshed". TODAY it seems that dynamic, and a new sort of EEPROM type device(flash memory) kind of rule the roost.

Of course, if you are programming lower level and using "real mode", then intel added something called "segment registers"! The 8088 could REALLY only address 64K of memory. It used other registers to select a given 64K bank of memory. Who's to say WHAT they will next come up with? MOST changes make EVERYTHING faster and easier, if they are noticable, but some make them more complex, etc... I had to keep explaining to my old boss why the first several versions of DBL(a DIBOL workalike) could only address 64K! HIS policy was to just throw memory at the problem, and the computer DID have like 4MB! BTW DIBOL is a language DEC created that is almost like a cross between COBOL and FORTRAN.

EVENTUALLY, they built DBL to handle the bank switching, etc... almost transparently. MOST languages and programs do today. ALSO, WIN NT(2000,XP,VISTA) uses what they call flat page mode, where the banks are about 4MB. ALSO, there is built in memory mapping and page swapping. So it isn't even necessary to know a lot about that.

OK, are you happy you asked?

By your definition of systemizer there are many NTs who are also driven and impelled by curiosity and have just got to know how things work. Taking a watch apart to see what makes it tick is not a sure fire way of separating the curious Aspies from the curious NTs. A driving curiosity and an ability to conceptualize what one experiences is more descriptive of intelligence than it is of AS.

ruveyn

Whoops... I didn't mean to sound sarcastic... I have to work on that one
Very interesting indeed, I'm very happy I asked, cause now I know that you are the guy!
Computers are my greatest interest, so I want to learn a lot. And I feel that I'm missing a big step by not knowing much about CPUs!

I know about CAS, RAS, Timings etc... As I said, I know RAM...
A clock... the one on the wall ??
Kidding... I do know about the clockrates, of course...
It's more the CPU itself, how it works, and what it is...
Well I know it's transistors, but hey, thats only the first chapter.

And I have been trying really hard to understand the explanations on websites... but... I don't get it..

So "F1"... Please PM me...