[EM] Electronic Voting Bill of Rights?

[Gervase Lam]

> Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 17:59:28 -0500
> From: Dave Ketchum <davek at clarityconnect.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] Electronic Voting Bill of Rights?

> > It depends on whether you do Disk-At-Once or Track-At-Once recording.
> >  If you do Disk-At-Once (i.e. write all the ballots in one go), then
> > what I said above would work.

Whoops.  I think it is better to use Session-At-Once here.  This is 
because all computer data files are written into just one track per 
session.

A disk can contain many sessions, which in turn can contain the required 
number of tracks.  Normally CD-ROMs and Audio CDs only have one session 
per disk.

> Remember that the disk has other content - I want the single disk to
> start with program, etc., to read when polls open, and for everything to
> get recorded that might be of interest later.
>
> As covered above, I expect multiple ballots must go in each ballot
> record written.

I assume the multiple ballots here are duplicate ballots, which act as 
backups just in case of data corruption.  Even with the start program and 
duplicate ballots, you should be able to put in about 1/4 million ballots 
on the disc.  However, this does very heavily depend on the computer file 
system used on the disc.

> Does not really answer our problem, but it could simply be whether
> anyone has written CD burner code to run on a Z80.

Using the Domesday Project as an example, all I was trying to say was that 
it is possible to get an 8 bit CPU to run an optical disk.  The Z80 is an 
8 bit CPU.  However, I doubt anybody has written CD burner code in Z80.

Anyway, the Z80 would be virtually dependent on how the CD burner was 
wired to it.  This would depend on how the "wiring up" has been designed. 
Only after knowing this would you be able to program the Z80 
appropriately.

Thanks,
Gervase.