The definition of a Main Bus

[malogoss]

Do you want the world to know your funky definition of a main bus?
Do you want the world to know that you are the person with the correct definition?
Do you want to point out how wrong other people are with their stupid definitions?
Do you want to make the forums better by posting in the right thread?

Here's the thread you've been wishing for, this space is yours.
Have fun!

[Hedning]

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

Messaggio originale di jamiechi:

I thought KOS defined the Bus. There are pictures. :)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=754378586

There are reddit posts that pre-date her guide that use the term in relation to Factorio. We'll never know who originally coined the term and which meaning it stemmed from though many may claim to have originated it.

The use of terms are usually a social process, not one guy dictating what it means for everyone. Even in some cases where we know who originated the term its usage can be something completely different. It is how the term is adopted by the group that matters. The factorio bus comes from computing because a lot of factorio players are familiar with it and it looks similar. The factorio bus does not look like a box on wheels. If the players that together made the term popular had thought of transportation they would have called it a highway or something similar.

[knighttemplar1960]

Messaggio originale di Hedning:

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

There are reddit posts that pre-date her guide that use the term in relation to Factorio. We'll never know who originally coined the term and which meaning it stemmed from though many may claim to have originated it.

The use of terms are usually a social process, not one guy dictating what it means for everyone. Even in some cases where we know who originated the term its usage can be something completely different. It is how the term is adopted by the group that matters. The factorio bus comes from computing because a lot of factorio players are familiar with it and it looks similar. The factorio bus does not look like a box on wheels. If the players that together made the term popular had thought of transportation they would have called it a highway or something similar.

Odd. To me the Factorio bus looks much more like a multi-lane highway and far less like a computer bus. A computer bus can use constructive and destructive interference on its signals. A physical bus can't do that. I think I'm still going to go with the logistic meaning of the word bus since that's what the bus in Factorio is doing and would make the term bus more accurate in this context.

[Chindraba]

Omnibus is an adjective meaning "for all". If you go back far enough anyway. "Bus" as a shortened form of that, even after conversion to a noun, carries that same implication. The transportation 'bus' is transportation "for all" that want to use it. Routes and economics rather limit the reality of that, but the concept remains. The electrical bus is a bar, or rod, where anything can be connected. Again, "for all". The system bus, in the computer design, is the channel "for all" the signals. The "bus", main or otherwise, in Factorio is "for all".

Notice that in the above cases it is "for all" not "for every". The transportation bus is not the transportation used by everyone, the electrical bus is not the power source for every devices, the computer's system bus is not the pathway for every signal, and the Factorio but need not be the pathway for every item.

The optical similarity of the Factorio bus to a highway happens to also appear in the computer's system bus, if you magnify the tracings enough. There is a wire, or circuit path, for each of the bits in the data width, and a path for each of the bits in the address width, and at least 1 path for control signals. And, before some dim-wit decides to go there, the USB is, as far as the data is concerned, a 1-lane bus, hence the S for serial. The transportation bus is also serial. Seldom will you find more than one bus on the same route and schedule taking multiple lanes on the road. One behind the other, mere minutes or hours apart, is the way they work. (Perhaps a sushi belt would be a better comparison to the city bus.)

All the non-game examples share another trait, which is often shared in practice, even if not in definition, by the Factorio bus. While, in theory, any of them can be made to any length, once made they have a set length. The electrical bus, once built, is not extended by welding on another bar. The system bus is not extended by connecting new traces to the end. The city bus gets to the end of the line and turns around. If the computer bus, or electrical bus needs to have more room, more connections, the "extension" is by branching. A new bar is connected to the old one somewhere, anywhere, and runs off in a different direction, or runs in parallel above, below, or beside the original bus. The system bus grows by adding expansion cards, connecting to some 'tap' on the existing bus.

Just thought I'd toss int a few facts and see if the combatants can find a peaceful resolution.

[Hedning]

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

Odd. To me the Factorio bus looks much more like a multi-lane highway and far less like a computer bus. A computer bus can use constructive and destructive interference on its signals. A physical bus can't do that. I think I'm still going to go with the logistic meaning of the word bus since that's what the bus in Factorio is doing and would make the term bus more accurate in this context.

look at any schematic picture of a bus (computing) such as this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Computer_system_bus%28fixed%29.svg/1280px-Computer_system_bus%28fixed%29.svg.png

and you'll see the similarity. And if the word was actually highway you would be correct that it was from transportation and not computing, but it's not.

[RiO]

Messaggio originale di Hedning:

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

Odd. To me the Factorio bus looks much more like a multi-lane highway and far less like a computer bus. A computer bus can use constructive and destructive interference on its signals. A physical bus can't do that. I think I'm still going to go with the logistic meaning of the word bus since that's what the bus in Factorio is doing and would make the term bus more accurate in this context.

look at any schematic picture of a bus (computing) such as this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Computer_system_bus%28fixed%29.svg/1280px-Computer_system_bus%28fixed%29.svg.png

and you'll see the similarity. And if the word was actually highway you would be correct that it was from transportation and not computing, but it's not.

Fun fact: highway is actually one of the original nomenclature contenders for the bus in computing, but bus is the one that stuck.

[jamiechi]

This is what I think about busses when I first started reading magazines about the early computers in High School. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus

I didn't get to see or touch one until my first year of College in 1976. The smartest thing in my High School was a copy machine in the main office.

[jamiechi]

Messaggio originale di puschit:

Main bus = organized spaghetti

Sometimes spaghetti is straight.

[knighttemplar1960]

Messaggio originale di Hedning:

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

Odd. To me the Factorio bus looks much more like a multi-lane highway and far less like a computer bus. A computer bus can use constructive and destructive interference on its signals. A physical bus can't do that. I think I'm still going to go with the logistic meaning of the word bus since that's what the bus in Factorio is doing and would make the term bus more accurate in this context.

look at any schematic picture of a bus (computing) such as this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Computer_system_bus%28fixed%29.svg/1280px-Computer_system_bus%28fixed%29.svg.png

and you'll see the similarity. And if the word was actually highway you would be correct that it was from transportation and not computing, but it's not.

We like to shorten things in this day and age. Omnibus became bus. We also like to shorten things with acronyms. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation became laser. Sound navigation and ranging became sonar. Radio detection and ranging became radar. Thomas A Swift Electric Rifle became taser. Perhaps bus is an acronym for Best Use of Supplies.

That you believe that its is strictly one (inflexibility again) is a problem. The person that coined the phrase may have been a computer engineer that worked on transportation routing software (like Lycos maps, then Yahoo maps, and now Google maps) and efficiently used both meanings of the word bus which is verified to have originated from omnibus. A word that predates electronics.

[Noodle]

Messaggio originale di jamiechi:

The smartest thing in my High School was a copy machine in the main office.

I don't understand why the copy machine had to follow the main office dress code.

[Hedning]

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

That you believe that its is strictly one (inflexibility again) is a problem.

As far as I can tell you just went to the start of the etymology for the general word "Bus", as if the start has any special significance. No, what has significance is what people are encountering in their daily lives, and a lot of factorio players are computer nerds, especially those early forumites who could have helped popularize the name.

Shall we run a little experiment? I find sources that reference bus to computing and you find sources that references whatever it is you think it is referencing. I don't predict it's going to be too much work, because I doubt you'll even find one. Maybe you can.

I start: https://youtu.be/ErdHbEgJG58?si=TKtdSereTRUXQ883&t=140 timestamp 2:20

Your turn.

[knighttemplar1960]

Messaggio originale di Hedning:

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

That you believe that its is strictly one (inflexibility again) is a problem.

As far as I can tell you just went to the start of the etymology for the word "Bus", as if the start has any special significance. No, what has significance is what people are encountering in their daily lives, and a lot of factorio players are computer nerds, especially those early forumites who could have helped spread the name.

Shall we run a little experiment? I find sources that reference bus to computing and you find sources that references whatever it is you think it is referencing. I don't predict it's going to be too much work, because I doubt you'll even find one. Maybe you can.

I start: https://youtu.be/ErdHbEgJG58?si=TKtdSereTRUXQ883&t=140
timestamp 2:20

Your turn.

First off, let me hand wave your example the way you do. Since Nilaus in this video is using a hybrid city block/bus build. Using your terminology this disqualifies it as a reliable source since it isn't an example of a "real main bus". It is a hybrid build which you have all ready disqualified as a main bus. Also let me refine your use of the word bus in electronics. The correct nomenclature for that type bus is E-bus. People that work in electronics that are communicating with other people in electronics shorten it because they know that is the only use of the term in their business lexicon (unless they also provide electronic monitoring of an IRL conveyor bus system aka CAN bus conveyor systems).

As far as your ridiculous challenge I decline. You are simply trying to justify your inflexibilty and are doing so by trying to make the word bus a Factorio only term. Bus is not a Factorio only word even in the sense that it is being used in game or videos. Satisfactory videos use the specific term conveyor bus. Modern day businesses such as Excel Conveyors, SAP automated warehouses, and FPO (Freight Process Outsourcing) use E-buses (and robotics) to control conveyor buses.

Continental AG turns your attempt to topsy turvy the word bus on its head. Their use of E-bus applies to an electronic system of controlling buses (the vehicle).

I don't really care what you think about a system you don't use. You are not an expert on the system (clearly, or you would have dropped this by now). Even if you were you don't get to determine the nomenclature of the word bus.

The bus in Factorio is carrying products, not signals, which means it is literally the logistic meaning of the word even if the creator of the video doesn't understand the origin of the word any more than you do. None of the videos you will try to misrepresent as contrary evidence will use the bus to carry electronic signals and none of the belt strips (with the exception of the sushi belt bus videos) in any of the Factorio videos on youtube are wired to carry electrical signals down the bus. They carry representations of physical products. They are therefore logistic buses and not computer buses, no matter how you try to twist it.

[Chindraba]

Messaggio originale di Hedning:

I start: https://youtu.be/ErdHbEgJG58?si=TKtdSereTRUXQ883&t=140 timestamp 2:20

Against my better judgement I started watching that video. I was looking for someone else to explain their view on a few points where I'm thinking your view is less common and that a different way of explaining it would end up with it making sense to me after all. The key targets were the extensibility, including not turning off lanes because they might be needed latter, not replenishing the belts as they run thin, or dry, and not adding new things to the bus, especially with the aim or changing what's in a space opened by thinned, or turned, lanes.

I'll grant that you may not be the source of all the points I was looking for, only that you seem to have been the most vocal in what is, or is not, a bus and the points I was interested in are ones which have appeared here and there in the discussions.

I stopped watching when I got to the 11:51 timestamp. I realized that, while this is a video you pointed out for different reasons, it is by one of the main names tossed around in this debate, and the first thing he covers about using material from the bus is turning out a full lane. Looking for an explanation of where my thinking is wrong seems unlikely to arise in a video which is in agreement with me.

Messaggio originale di Hedning:

what has significance is what people are encountering in their daily lives, and a lot of factorio players are computer nerds, especially those early forumites who could have helped popularize the name.

I'll give this at least half-credit. I'll also suggest that you don't give it enough credit. "What people are encountering in their daily lives" is much more than the narrow world of computing architecture design. Even for nerds. Or, more correctly, especially for nerds. As a nerd myself, I'll inform you that the term "bus" exists in many nerd-ish fields. It's even in many areas of electronics other than computers. Vacuum tube radios use a bus system. The move to solid-state electronics did not change that practice either. You don't expect that the idea of a signal bus was a novel and sui generis invention, do you? In general, nerds learn many things and are able to bend that knowledge into cross-discipline usage. It's not about the knowledge, that's a bookworm, it's about the skill to use it in many different ways.

I've already explained how the "bus" concept is the same thing, in all the cases where 'bus' is used. Moving things of the same class without regard to individuality within the class. People on the vehicular bus can be anyone, and they can get on or off anywhere. The power on the power bus can be any tapped, or augmented, at any point by anything which needs or makes that power. The signal on the system bus can be any kind of signal - computer instructions, memory addresses, control signals, or timing indicators, or ever pure data, and anything attached to the bus can read and use any of the signals, or add more of its own signals. There's even a power bus with multiple voltages and anything can tap into the chosen voltage, perhaps even to provide a different voltage back to the bus. A bus in Factorio is the same concept, again. Any items can be moved in the bus, they can be taken from the bus anywhere and they can be added anywhere. The sole difference between a Factorio bus and all the rest is that the Factorio version is merely a representation of a bus, nothing is actually moved on the bus.

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

The bus in Factorio is carrying products, not signals, which means it is literally the logistic meaning of the word even if the creator of the video doesn't understand the origin of the word any more than you do. None of the videos you will try to misrepresent as contrary evidence will use the bus to carry electronic signals and none of the belt strips (with the exception of the sushi belt bus videos) in any of the Factorio videos on youtube are wired to carry electrical signals down the bus. They carry representations of physical products. They are therefore logistic buses and not computer buses, no matter how you try to twist it.

Well... it is not "literally the logistic meaning of the word". Rather, it is in the logistical application of the word, or concept. The word, no matter who's trying to define it for their goal, is still the use in noun form of an adjective meaning "far all". The video might not have a main bus in your, or someone else's, intended use of the full phrase. It is, still, a bus as much as your E-bus, the power bus in a television set, the public transit system of London.

[knighttemplar1960]

Messaggio originale di Chindraba:

Well... it is not "literally the logistic meaning of the word". Rather, it is in the logistical application of the word, or concept. The word, no matter who's trying to define it for their goal, is still the use in noun form of an adjective meaning "far all". The video might not have a main bus in your, or someone else's, intended use of the full phrase. It is, still, a bus as much as your E-bus, the power bus in a television set, the public transit system of London.

That is the point I was making all along. E-bus is a very narrow definition of the term bus and taken by itself is inaccurate. The person that it trying to make it one and only one meaning thinks that no one including nerds believes it doesn't apply to anything other than electronics.

I've mentioned before that I worked in the transportation industry. I was on the team that wrote proprietary routing software (for 18 wheelers AND buses both school and public mass transit), for the international company I worked for. When the project was done and only needed maintaining and updates I moved to materials, safety, and accident investigations.

Any statement that nerds only think a bus is electronic is false. I'm a nerd, and because of my work history, when I first heard the term bus applied to Factorio an electrical bus was the 2nd thing I thought of not the first and I discarded the electrical bus idea for my own main bus factories because I was using it for transportation of goods not signals.

In Factorio my electrical bus was a set of combinators and wires I used for an old (and discarded) train control system pre-train station limits.

[Hedning]

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

As far as your ridiculous challenge I decline.

This reminds me of "the final experiment" where some wealthy glober is paying the $30k each for 1-2 flat earthers to go on a trip to antarctica to see the 24h sun circling around them that they think is impossible. While some flat earthers keep saying they're not going to see it; a lot of them switched tactic, now claiming that they will, but that it doesn't disprove flat earth, because they already know us globers are right about our predictions, like you know I am right about the origin of the name bus in factorio, but you are committed to your false belief at this point so you can't admit it.

Messaggio originale di knighttemplar1960:

are doing so by trying to make the word bus a Factorio only term

That's not even close to what I have said. Saying what x means in context A does not mean context A is the only context where x is used nor does it say anything about x in context A' (complement of A). This is basic logic. It's not very hard to follow.

[Hedning]

Messaggio originale di Chindraba:

I stopped watching when I got to the 11:51 timestamp. I realized that, while this is a video you pointed out for different reasons, it is by one of the main names tossed around in this debate, and the first thing he covers about using material from the bus is turning out a full lane. Looking for an explanation of where my thinking is wrong seems unlikely to arise in a video which is in agreement with me.

For convenience and as a summary I made a list of positive and negative traits for what I call a "main bus" in factorio. Here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/427520/discussions/0/4334232001330172451/?ctp=16#c4345492131564348239
It's post #227 in the other topic if you have issues with the link. Also earlier in that topic you could read how I accepted as a bus the only megabase bus I had seen at that point which turned belts.

Bus is on a spectrum (like most things). There are traits that make it more bus-like and traits that make it less bus-like. Nilaus had tried to play with a large bus and encountered some of the big issues with it. Anyone who tries to start with a bus and plays it for long enough will start to make it less and less bus-like as they go. First they'll realize that they need so many green circuits that just splitting off belts doesn't really work, so they dedicate. Then they start realizing that it is stupid to draw the belt around on a detour to the bus in the first place instead of just drawing it directly from the smelters. Then they'll realize that most of the green circuits go to blue, so they build some blue near the green instead of taking the green to the bus and past all of that stuff that is unlocked between green and blue circuits.. This is the inevitably "rusting" of the bus where pieces start to fall off it like rust on a pipe. Eventually you can't call a rusty pipe a "pipe" anymore. It's the same with the bus.

Nilaus had experienced some of this falling apart of the bus by the time he made that tutorial. Unfortunately the stupidity of it had not quite sunk in, or he ignored those feelings just to get the video out for the views, because he's contradicting his own experiences in the video. I watched him play that base and then make the video and I remember that his actual playing the base is not as he describe in the video.