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When was the Bain computer turned on?
Karam's book "David and Goliath" describes the Bain computer as "an old Philips PC".
No mention has ever been made of a mouse. (Windows 3.0 was introduced in August 1990, when computers cost over $3,000)
Safe then, to assume it was pre-mouse, pre-Windows, ie, the operating system was DOS.
Safe also to assume that it was before computers came with a CMOS battery clock that retains the time and date.
The prosecution expect us to believe that Bain rushed home from the paper round and immediately turned the computer on, then killed Robin, then spent twenty minutes doing something he won't talk about, then at 7.09am dialled 111. That he first turned the computer on is implausible.
Equally unlikely is the defence assertion that Robin turned the computer on at 6.44am, typed the grossly untrue message (without leaving fingerprints on the keys or the on/off switch), then killed himself just as David came in the front door. Incidentally, having found one dead body, I would have dialled 111, not gone around every other room in the house!
So...here is the challenge
to Karam, Karam's publisher, Reed, Cull, Panckhurst, Petrie, Power, the jury, Holmes, Campbell, Rafferty, Cox, Kleinjes, Broad, ie, everyone, anyone
*1* Get an old computer. it doesn't have to be as old as the Bains, (which might still exist?), but it must have DOS as the operating system, and a word-processor.
If it has a CMOS batter, disconnect it, shouldn't be too hard to do that.
*2* Have handy a digital clock with seconds display
*3* Turn computer on, note the exact time, let's say it is 9.45am. Wait for the computer to "boot-up". Soon the Microsoft copyright message will appear in white letters on
a black screen, then it will display the date as Jan 1, 1980, and the time as 12.00am because that is what all DOS computers of that era did. Then the C:\ prompt.
*4* type TIME at the flashing cursor, press Enter.
*5* type 12:30am press Enter
*6* type CLS press Enter This will clear the screen and erase all trace of the time alteration
*7* type WP press Enter, to run the word-processor, probably Word
*8* type the message, then note the exact time. It will be about two minutess after the initial turn-on time. (Boot-up takes about 50 seconds, It takes me 30 seconds for steps
4-8, not including the time it takes Word to load.)
*9* Wait a few hours, or even a whole day, (as the Police did.)
*10* Get an "expert" to come and tell you when the computer was turned on.
the expert will invoke the command "Save as..." (possible Shift f-2, or something like that), to name the file.... types a filename, then invoke the "SAve" command
Then "Load File". The word=processor will look on the hard disc and display all file names and their time and date of creation.
The "expert" will look at that time and date, subtract the time from the present time and solemnly declare..
"This computer was turned on at 9.15am. Just as Cox did.
There are perhaps four ways of finding out when an old DOS computer was turned on. The above was one way. Much easier would simply be... exit the word-processor - it isn't necessary to save the message which has been photographed a hundred times. Then simply type TIME. Cox would have seent he display as 7.32am and when he typed DATE it would have said Jan 2 1980. He would then have subtractdd the 7.32 from the present time, (which he didn't know coz he didn't bother with his own watch, instead had to ask a policeman what the time was.) And arrive at the same erroneous time.
A third way would be...
type DEBUG at the C-prompt. Debug is a small utility programme that has been included in the Microsoft operating system since the very beginning, it is still deep inside Windows and can still be used. It is used for writing assembly-language programmes, and for correcting existing files or programmes. It can also be used for examining computer hardware features and memory cells. And probably other uses too.
type D40:006c L4 this is an instruction to display the contents of memory starting at address 40:006c, and do four of them.
The four double digits displayed are in hexadecimal notation - 0-9, A-F
006c receives impulses from the system clock at the rate of 18.2 "ticks" per second. It takes about 14 seconds to go from zero to 256 (FF in hex) then 6d will advance by one. It takes about an hour to fil up 006d, then 6e will advance, ie it counts the hours.
Not having access to an old computer, I can't remember whether 6e resets to zero after 24 hours, and I never ran my old XT clone continuously anyway.
If the Police had engaged someone who actually knew somthing about old DOS computers, or if Cox had done the above, they all could have learnt that the Bain computer had actually been turned on at perhaps 7:13:20am ie, after the 111 call.
A fourth way would be to write a little programme in assembly-language using debug, which would invoke the "Get Time" function, and display it in hours, minutes, seconds, and hundredths of seconds. But that might use the TIME input, so probably won't help.
A fifth way....ASK Bain Karam should. The answer doesn't matter, the body language will say enough.
Predicition. Nobody will, nobody cares.
OK...so I might be wrong, I have been wrong before of course. So....explain in precise detail where I am wrong.
The following is from the page http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/nz/cases/NZCA/2003/294.html The computer turn on time [95] When the police examined the computer in the alcove to the lounge they ascertained, as noted earlier, that somebody had written on it the message “Sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay”.It is not possible to ascertain the time at which this message was typed, but the time the computer was switched on can be calculated, although not with exactitude. [96] At trial the Crown contended that whoever had switched on the computer that morning was the person who typed the message and committed the murders.Thus, although it is possible that the person who switched the computer on was not the person who typed the message, the case was not run on that basis.David did not and does not take issue with the Crown’s contention.It was thus important to identify with as much precision as possible the time at which the computer had been switched on, so as to compare that time with the time at which David returned from his paper round. [97] At trial the turn on time was said to be 6.44am.That time was worked out by a computer technician, Martin Cox.When he began an examination of the computer on the day following the murders the computer was running, not having been switched off in the meantime.He was accompanied by Detective Anderson who noted the steps taken by him. [98] In order to follow the method employed by Mr Cox it is necessary to understand relevant characteristics of the computer.Typically, it had a battery powered clock, commonly referred to as the hardware clock.This had no direct display but, as long as it was supplied with power from the battery, it would maintain incremental date and time registers.When the computer is started by switching on, it reads the hardware clock status and transfers the date and time information to another clock, run by the computer’s operating system and known as the system clock.The system clock starts running 13 seconds (plus or minus one second) after the computer is started.Information in the system clock is lost when the computer is shut down. New chronological data is transferred to the system clock from the hardware clock on a subsequent start up.Computer events are “date stamped” by the computer in the sense that the date and time of their occurrence, in terms of the system clock, is automatically recorded. [99] The word processing program installed in the computer was Microsoft Word.That program loaded and opened 44 seconds (plus or minus one second), after start up and upon such initialisation a temporary file, relevant to the program and having the extension .TMP, is created.The time of creation is date stamped in terms of the system clock.Being a temporary file, it would be deleted automatically if the Word program were exited; but it will be preserved if the computer is “crashed”, that is, simply switched off without exiting the running programs including, in this case, Word. [100] Mr Cox attempted to ascertain the date stamp of the .TMP file by crashing the computer, restarting it and noting the saved record.Before crashing the computer he saved the “sorry” message as “message.doc” which file was itself date stamped in terms of the system clock.The detective kept a note of the key strokes made by Mr Cox during his examination.He also noted the time, according to his watch, that the process began, 1416 hours, and the time the computer was crashed, 1422 hours.But the finish time of the saving process was not contemporaneously ascertained by Mr Cox or by Detective Anderson, either according to a watch or in terms of New Zealand Standard Time (NZST). [101] On the assumption that the system clock exactly coincided with NZST it would not have been necessary to note NZST upon the saving of message.doc in order to ascertain when the creation of the .TMP file and hence, when the opening of the Word program, occurred.But as it happened, the system clock was far from coincident with NZST, a fact which could not have been discovered before crashing the computer except by exiting Word and thereby deleting the very file it was necessary to save. [102] At some time prior to Mr Cox’s work the battery for the hardware clock had become exhausted.This caused the system clock to default, after start up of the computer, to a time and date of 12:00:00 am on 01-01-1980.Therefore, the date stamp given to the .TMP file was referable to that time and date rather than NZST.In terms of the system clock, the time the .TMP file was created was 12:00:30 which for present purposes is close enough to the 44 seconds after start up previously mentioned.The only way that information could be related to NZST would have been, if before the computer had been crashed, the time of the occurrence of some other event date stamped by the computer were accurately noted in terms of NZST.That would identify the correlation between the system clock time and NZST.The saving of message.doc was an appropriate event, the utility of which was dependent upon an exact ascertainment of NZST when it occurred. [103] According to Mr Cox’s evidence at trial, message.doc was saved at 1416 hours on 21 June 1994.On that basis Mr Cox deduced that message.doc was saved 31 hours and 32 minutes after the Word program was started, the timing of which was then calculated as 0644 hours on 20 June 1994. [104] The integrity of the method we have described is vulnerable to inaccuracies in any of the component temporal references.Detective Anderson made a note of the time on his watch at which the examination of the computer began (14.11) and, as we have already mentioned, the start of the save process (14.16) as well as the time the computer was crashed (14.22).A number of operations were performed during the six minute period between 14.16 and 14.22, apart from the saving operation.The timing of the various operations within that six minute period was not, however, recorded.In fairness to Detective Anderson, we acknowledge that he did not appreciate and was not told the crucial need to note the exact time of saving the message.Also, his watch was unsuitable for such a purpose.It had no second hand and no minute divisions between each five minute marker.These characteristics increase the potential for parallax error when attempting to read time from the watch. [105] The new evidence is to the effect that Detective Anderson’s watch had been some two minutes fast when checked seven days later and therefore, in simple terms for the moment, the switch-on time should become 6.42am rather than the 6.44am time upon which the jury would have worked.David contends that the jury were misled on an important point and this in itself created a miscarriage of justice which should lead to his convictions being quashed.The Crown’s argument that this new evidence was not fresh relied on the fact that it had been recorded, in a job-sheet available to the defence, that Detective Anderson’s watch had later been found to be two minutes fast.The defence could therefore, so the Crown submitted, have brought this out at the trial. [106] We do not consider it lies in the Crown’s mouth in these circumstances to claim this evidence should not be admitted on appeal.The Crown was just as responsible for the failure to bring out the point at trial as was the defence.Indeed it can be said that the Crown should have ensured the correct position was brought to the jury’s attention. [107] David points to a number of features of the evidence which he suggests, on a more exact examination of the timing issue, would tend to make the start up time earlier rather than later.The Crown does the reverse.Each side advanced outside times for start up from their perspective.The [108] The discrepancy between the Crown and defence figures is largely related to the different estimates of the time that would have elapsed from the start to the finish of the save process, the defence alleging 30 seconds at the most and the Crown, based on the estimate of Mr Cox and Detective Anderson, two minutes as most likely.There is a further complication.It appears that three days before Detective Anderson’s watch was checked and found to be two minutes fast he had synchronised watches with another detective.Detective Anderson cannot, however, remember the time difference or whether it was he who altered his watch or the other detective. [109] We mention again here the fact that Ms Denise Laney claimed to have seen David outside the gate to 65 Every Street at 6.45am.The circumstances in which she came to that view are such that her suggested time cannot be regarded as anywhere near precise.The greater detail in her second statement which was not disclosed to the defence does not, in our view, lead to any materially greater precision.Ms Laney fixed the time on the basis that her digital car clock was five minutes fast.The clock’s digital nature immediately involves a potential imprecision of up to 59 seconds. Ms Laney took the view that her clock was five minutes fast by reason of the fact that it “usually” read five minutes past the hour when the news came on.She did not correlate her calculation with any objectively verifiable time signal – simply with the commencement of the news on a station or stations which were not identified. [110] When she saw David outside the gate Ms Laney looked at her car clock. It was reading 6.50am.She therefore reckoned the true time was 6.45am.She was in the habit of seeing David at an earlier point on his paper run most mornings as she was supposed to start work at 6.45am in premises nearby.On this occasion she thought she was running a little late.An alternative explanation is that David was running early. [111] We are bound to say that when all the relevant evidence is assessed, including the evidence about the various sightings on the paper run, and times and distances from those sightings to 65 Every Street, we find ourselves unable to conclude, with any confidence or precision, exactly when the computer was switched on, or when David returned home or the time he could have switched the computer on, taking account of the fact that he would have undertaken other time consuming activities before doing so – see para [46] above. [112] It is not appropriate in a case such as the present to ask whether individual pieces of new evidence, viewed in isolation, might reasonably have led the jury to return a different verdict.The necessary assessment should be done globally, ie. by assessing the force and effect of all the new evidence admitted on both sides when considered alongside the evidence called at the trial.The most that can be said about the new evidence relating to the computer switch-on time, when viewed in isolation, is that it cannot be regarded as excluding David in the sense of showing it was physically impossible for him to have committed the murders.Mr Withnall appropriately did not put his case that high.There is too much imprecision involved. [113] We end this topic by noting that on Ms Laney’s 6.45am evidence, and the 6.44am switch-on time adopted, seemingly without challenge, at the trial, David cannot have fitted the Crown’s thesis that it was the murderer who switched on the computer.Yet the jury found David guilty.The new evidence widens the potential time gap but it cannot be regarded as clinching the matter in David’s favour by reason of physical impossibility.The times involved do not have nearly enough precision or reliability to produce that consequence.The timing evidence is such that a reasonable jury could conclude that it was physically possible for David to have committed the murders; whether the Crown had proved he had done so would then be a matter for assessment on all the other evidence. Correspondence is welcome.... to mcckenzieATpostDOTcom http://tinyurl.com/davidbain
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