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HP-UX

HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrity Servers, based on Intel's Itanium architecture.

Earlier versions of HP-UX supported the HP Integral PC and HP 9000 Series 200, 300, and 400 computer systems based on the Motorola 68000 series of processors, the HP 9000 Series 500 computers based on HP's proprietary FOCUS architecture, and later HP 9000 Series models based on HP's PA-RISC instruction set architecture.

HP-UX was the first Unix to offer access-control lists for file access permissions as an alternative to the standard Unix permissions system. HP-UX was also among the first Unix systems to include a built-in logical volume manager. HP has had a long partnership with Veritas Software, and uses VxFS as the primary file system.

It is one of three commercial operating systems that have versions certified to The Open Group's UNIX 03 standard. (The others are macOS and AIX.)

Characteristics
HP-UX 11i offers a common shared disks for its clustered file system. HP Serviceguard is the cluster solution for HP-UX. HP Global Workload Management adjusts workloads to optimize performance, and integrates with Instant Capacity on Demand so installed resources can be paid for in 30-minute increments as needed for peak workload demands.

HP-UX offers operating system-level virtualization features such as hardware partitions, isolated OS virtual partitions on cell-based servers, and HP Integrity Virtual Machines (HPVM) on all Integrity servers. HPVM supports guests running on HP-UX 11i v3 hosts – guests can run Linux, Windows Server, OpenVMS or HP-UX. HP supports online VM guest migration, where encryption can secure the guest contents during migration.

HP-UX 11i v3 scales as follows (on a SuperDome 2 with 32 Intel Itanium 9560 processors):

 * 256 processor cores
 * 8 TB main memory
 * 32 TB maximum file system
 * 16 TB maximum file size
 * 128 million ZB—16 million logical units each up to 8 ZB.

Security
The 11i v2 release introduced kernel-based intrusion detection, strong random number generation, stack buffer overflow protection, security partitioning, role-based access management, and various open-source security tools.

HP classifies the operating system's security features into three categories: data, system and identity:

Context dependent files
Release 6.x (together with 3.x) introduced the context dependent files (CDF) feature, a method of allowing a fileserver to serve different configurations and binaries (and even architectures) to different client machines in a heterogeneous environment. A directory containing such files had its suid bit set and was made hidden from both ordinary and root processes under normal use. Such a scheme was sometimes exploited by intruders to hide malicious programs or data. CDFs and the CDF filesystem were dropped with release 10.0.

Supported hardware platforms
HP-UX operating systems supports a variety of PA-RISC systems. The 11.0 added support for Integrity-based servers for the transition from PA-RISC to Itanium. HP-UX 11i v1.5 is the first version that supported Itanium. On the introduction of HP-UX 11i v2 the operating system supported both of these architectures.

BL series
HP-UX 11i supports HPE Integrity Servers of HP BL server blade family. These servers use the Intel Itanium architecture.

CX series
HP-UX 11i v2 and 11i v3 support HP's CX series servers. CX stands for carrier grade and is used mainly for telco industry with -48V DC support and is NEBS certified. Both of these systems contain Itanium Mad6M processors and are discontinued.

RX series
HP-UX supports HP's RX series of servers.

Release history
Prior to the release of HP-UX version 11.11, HP used a decimal version numbering scheme with the first number giving the major release and the number following the decimal showing the minor release. With 11.11, HP made a marketing decision to name their releases 11i followed by a v(decimal-number) for the version. The i was intended to indicate the OS is Internet-enabled, but the effective result was a dual version-numbering scheme.

Versions

 * 1.0 (1982): First release for HP 9000 Series 500. HP-UX for Series 500 was substantially different from HP-UX for any other HP machines, as it was layered atop a Series 500 specific operating system called SUNOS (unrelated to Sun Microsystems' SunOS).
 * 1.0 (1984): AT&T System III based. Support for the HP Integral PC (HP 9807A). The kernel runs from ROM; other commands are disk based.
 * 2.0 (1984): First release for HP's early Motorola 68000-based workstations (HP 9816U, HP 9826U, HP 9836U)
 * 5.0 (1985): AT&T System V based. Distinct versions were available for the Integral PC, the Series 200/300 and the Series 500. Introduced the proprietary Starbase graphics API for the Series 200, 300 and 500. The Series 300 5.x releases included a proprietary windowing system built on top of Starbase named HP Windows/9000, which was also available as an optional extra for Series 500 hardware.
 * 3.x (1988): HP 9000 Series 600/800 only. Note: 2.x/3.x (for Series 600/800) were developed in parallel with 5.x/6.x (for Series 200/300/400), so, for example, 3.x was really contemporary with 6.x. The two lines were united at HP-UX 7.x.
 * 6.x (1988): Support for HP 9000 Series 300 only. Introduced sockets from 4.3BSD. This version (together with 3.x) also introduced the above-discussed context dependent files (CDF), which were removed in release 10 because of their security risks. The 6.2 release added X11, superseding HP Windows/9000 and X10. 6.5 allowed Starbase programs to run alongside X11 programs.
 * 7.x (1990): Support for HP 9000 Series 300/400, 600/700 (in 7.03) /800 HP systems. Provided OSF/Motif. Final version to include the HP Windows/9000 windowing system.
 * 8.x (January 1991): Support for HP 9000 Series 300/400 600/700/800 systems. Shared libraries introduced. [[Image:HP-UX Install QIC.jpg|thumb|right|HP-UX 9.0 installation software on QIC cartridge, 1992]]
 * 9.x (July 1992): 9.00, 9.02, 9.04 (Series 600/800), 9.01, 9.03, 9.05, 9.07 (Series 300/400/700), 9.08, 9.09, 9.09+ (Series 700 only), 9.10 (Series 300/400 only). These provided support for the HP 9000 Series 300, 700 and 800 systems. Introduced System Administration Manager (SAM). The Logical Volume Manager (LVM) was presented in 9.00 for the Series 800. Adopted the Visual User Environment desktop.
 * 10.0 (1995): This major release saw a convergence of the operating system between the HP 9000 Series 700 (workstation) and Series 800 (server) systems, dropping support for previous lines. There was also a significant change in the layout in the system files and directories, based on the AT&T UNIX System V Release 4 standard. Applications were removed from /usr and moved under /opt; startup configuration files were placed under /etc/rc.config.d; users were moved to /home from /users. Software for HP-UX was now packaged, shipped, installed, and removed via the Software Distributor (SD) tools. LVM was also made available for Series 700.
 * 10.10 (1996): Introduced the Common Desktop Environment. UNIX95 compliance.
 * 10.20 (1996): This release included support for 64-bit PA-RISC 2.0 processors. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) were introduced for use within CDE. The root file system could be configured to use the Veritas File System (VxFS). For legacy as well as technical reasons, the file system used for the boot kernel remained Hi Performance FileSystem (HFS, a variant of UFS) until version 11.23. 10.20 also supported 32-bit user and group identifiers. The prior limit was 60,000, or 16-bit. This and earlier releases of HP-UX are now effectively obsolete, and support by HP ended on June 30, 2003.
 * 10.24: This is a Virtual Vault release of HP-UX, providing enhanced security features. Virtual Vault is a compartmentalised operating system in which each file is assigned a compartment and processes only have access to files in the appropriate compartment and unlike most other UNIX systems the superuser (or root) does not have complete access to the system without following correct procedures.
 * 10.30 (1997): This was primarily a developer release with various incremental enhancements. It provided the first support for kernel threads, with a 1:1 thread model (each user thread is bound to one kernel thread).
 * 11.00 (1997): The first HP-UX release to also support 64-bit addressing. It could still run 32-bit applications on a 64-bit system. It supported symmetric multiprocessing, Fibre Channel, and NFS PV3. It also included tools and documentation to convert 32-bit code to 64-bit.
 * 11.04: Virtual Vault release.
 * 11.10: This was a limited release to support the HP 9000 V2500 SCA (Scalable Computing Architecture) and V2600 SCA servers. It also added JFS 3.3, AutoFS, a new ftpd, and support for up to 128 CPUs. It was not available separately.
 * 11.11 (2000) – 11i v1: This release of HP-UX introduced the concept of Operating Environments. It was released in December 2000.  These are bundled groups of layered applications intended for use with a general category of usage. The available types were the Mission Critical, Enterprise, Internet, Technical Computing, and Minimal Technical OEs. (The last two were intended for HP 9000 workstations.) The main enhancements with this release were support for hard partitions, Gigabit Ethernet, NFS over TCP/IP, loadable kernel modules, dynamic kernel tunable parameters, kernel event Notifications, and protected stacks.
 * 11.20 (2001) – 11i v1.5: This release of HP-UX was the first to support the new line of Itanium-based (IA-64) systems. It was not intended for mission critical computing environments and did not support HP's ServiceGuard cluster software. It provided support for running PA-RISC compiled applications on Itanium systems, and for Veritas Volume Manager 3.1.
 * 11.22 (2002) – 11i v1.6: An incremental release of the Itanium version of HP-UX. This version achieved 64-way scalability, m:n threads, added more dynamic kernel tunable parameters, and supported HP's Logical Volume Manager on Itanium. It was built from the 11i v1 source code stream.
 * 11.23 (2003) – 11i v2: The original release of this version was in September 2003 to support the Itanium-based systems. In September 2004 the OS was updated to provide support for both Itanium and PA-RISC systems.  Besides running on Itanium systems, this release includes support for ccNUMA, web-based kernel and device configuration, IPv6, and stronger random number generation.
 * 11.31 (2007) – 11i v3: This release supports both PA-RISC and Itanium. It was released on February 15, 2007. Major new features include native multipathing support, a unified file cache, NFSv4, Veritas ClusterFS, multi-volume VxFS, and integrated virtualization. Hyperthreading is supported on Itanium systems with Montecito and Tukwila processors. HP-UX 11i v3 conforms to The Open Group's UNIX 03 standard. Updates for 11i v3 have been released every 6 months, with the latest revision being B.11.31.1805, released in May 2018. HP has moved to a cadence of one major HP-UX operating system update per year.

HP-UX 11i operating environments
HP bundles HP-UX 11i with programs in packages they call Operating Environments (OEs).

The following lists the currently available HP-UX 11i v3 OEs:

 * HP-UX 11i v3 Base OE (BOE): Includes the full HP-UX 11i operating system plus file system and partitioning software and applications for Web serving, system management and security. BOE includes all the software formerly in FOE & TCOE (see below), plus software formerly sold stand-alone (e.g. Auto Port Aggregator).

 * HP-UX 11i v3 Virtualization Server OE (VSE-OE): Includes everything in BOE plus GlancePlus performance analysis and software mirroring, and all Virtual Server Environment software which includes virtual partitions, virtual machines, workload management, capacity advisor and applications. VSE-OE includes all the software formerly in EOE (see below), plus additional virtualization software.

 * HP-UX 11i v3 High Availability OE (HA-OE): Includes everything in BOE plus HP Serviceguard clustering software for system failover and tools to manage clusters, as well as GlancePlus performance analysis and software mirroring applications.

 * HP-UX 11i v3 Data Center OE (DC-OE): Includes everything in one package, combining the HP-UX 11i operating system with virtualization. Everything in the HA-OE and VSE-OE is in the DC-OE. Solutions for wide-area disaster recovery and the compiler bundle are sold separately.

 * HP-UX 11i v2 (11.23) : HP dropped support for v2 in December 2010. Currently available HP-UX 11i v2 OEs include:

 * HP-UX 11i v2 Foundation OE (FOE): Designed for Web servers, content servers and front-end servers, this OE includes applications such as HP-UX Web Server Suite, Java, and Mozilla Application Suite. This OE is bundled as HP-UX 11i FOE.
 * HP-UX 11i v2 Enterprise OE (EOE): Designed for database application servers and logic servers, this OE contains the HP-UX 11i v2 Foundation OE bundles and additional applications such as GlancePlus Pak to enable an enterprise-level server. This OE is bundled as HP-UX 11i EOE.
 * HP-UX 11i v2 Mission Critical OE (MCOE): Designed for the large, powerful back-end application servers and database servers that access customer files and handle transaction processing, this OE contains the Enterprise OE bundles, plus applications such as MC/ServiceGuard and Workload Manager to enable a mission-critical server. This OE is bundled as HP-UX 11i MCOE.
 * HP-UX 11i v2 Minimal Technical OE (MTOE): Designed for workstations running HP-UX 11i v2, this OE includes the Mozilla Application Suite, Perl, VxVM, and Judy applications, plus the OpenGL Graphics Developer's Kit. This OE is bundled as HP-UX 11i MTOE.
 * HP-UX 11i v2 Technical Computing OE (TCOE): Designed for both compute-intensive workstation and server applications, this OE contains the MTOE bundles plus extensive graphics applications, MPI and Math Libraries. This OE is bundled as HP-UX 11i-TCOE.

 * HP-UX 11i v1 (11.11): According to HP's roadmap, was sold through December 2009, with continued support for v1 at least until December 2015.

title: HP-UX


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User:Geronimo Jones

http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=rc&days=1

Geronimo Jones is a made up name, of course. No-one would really be called that. Well, that's what i thought when i started using the alias in a few places to prevent getting spammed.

Later, i did a search on a search engine and got quite a few hits. Apparently there was a US movie in the 1960s called "Geronimo Jones". I haven't seen it. Also there was some medical student in the Caribbean with that name had a personal web page. That was a couple of years ago, he's probably a doctor now.

Mostly i haven't been bothering to log in here. I've done quite a few very minor contributions, but they just have an ip address for an author.

I first came here after the slashdot article (February or March 2001). This proves you can be here longer than most authors without getting (or deserving) a reputation as a wise elder statesman.

There wasn't much here when i arrived, and nearly all of it very shallow. There were a couple of areas where i could churn out something better than what was here with essentially no effort.

Now a few areas actually have proper articles. For the most part it doesn't feel as nice just to jump in and write without thinking or checking sources. But there is stuff here that is worth reading, so it is still a cool place to be, and may eventually become useful. Anarchy rules OK?

As of July 2001, we are in the midst of the second Slashdot invasion, and i have to say i am very impressed with both the quantity and quality of the stuff happening now.

In December 2001, there is a continuous stream of new stuff, much of it fairly good. The software seems to handle the heaviest loads ok now (back in July it became so slow as to be unusable). Wikipedia seems to roll on it's own now without much need for slashdot or other mentions to bring in lots of good authors. My main criticism is that some newcomers are a bit too fast to change good articles without doing their homework, and a bit too reluctant to completely rewrite and expand the crap articles. But, on the whole, things a going pretty well.

One day i must go back and write a bit more of interstellar travel. But don't let that stop you from adding stuff there yourself :-)

Geronimo, please put that topic in interstellar travel possibly in a new sub-page. thanks, Mike Dill

(thanks Mike)

It will be nice to find a person with a 128KB Amiga. I think it will be very difficult. Commodore 128 had 128KB, and to be able to say "Amiga is better" they need at least more RAM than the older machines. I've got a Amiga 500, and 512 was too few RAM, so 256 was MORE few and i cannot imagine a Amiga running with less RAM. (For example, default PAL workbench is 640x200x2 / 8 = 40960 bytes. Imagine any greater resolution or depth. I haven't got to mention HAM) ;). Tuxisuau

I continue to think there are no 128k Amigas :P

Webpages can have errors... and they can propagate. I simply don't trust that, it's too little for an Amiga to boot. --Tuxisuau

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Geronimo Jones


text:
Phonetic algorithm

A phonetic algorithm is an algorithm for indexing of words by their pronunciation. Most phonetic algorithms were developed for English and are not useful for indexing words in other languages. Because English spelling varies significantly depending on multiple factors, such as the word's origin and usage over time and borrowings from other languages, phonetic algorithms necessarily take into account numerous rules and exceptions.

Algorithms
Among the best-known phonetic algorithms are:

 * Soundex, which was developed to encode surnames for use in censuses. Soundex codes are four-character strings composed of a single letter followed by three numbers.
 * Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex, which is a refinement of Soundex designed to better match surnames of Slavic and Germanic origin. Daitch–Mokotoff Soundex codes are strings composed of six numeric digits.
 * Cologne phonetics: This is similar to Soundex, but more suitable for German words.
 * Metaphone and Double Metaphone which are suitable for use with most English words, not just names. Metaphone algorithms are the basis for many popular spell checkers.
 * New York State Identification and Intelligence System (NYSIIS), which maps similar phonemes to the same letter. The result is a string that can be pronounced by the reader without decoding.
 * Match Rating Approach developed by Western Airlines in 1977 - this algorithm has an encoding and range comparison technique.
 * Caverphone, created to assist in data matching between late 19th century and early 20th century electoral rolls, optimized for accents present in parts of New Zealand.

Common uses

 * Spell checkers can often contain phonetic algorithms. The Metaphone algorithm, for example, can take an incorrectly spelled word and create a code. The code is then looked up in directory for words with the same or similar Metaphone. Words that have the same or similar Metaphone become possible alternative spellings.
 * Search functionality will often use phonetic algorithms to find results that don't match exactly the term(s) used in the search. Searching for names can be difficult as there are often multiple alternative spellings for names. An example is the name Claire. It has two alternatives, Clare/Clair, which are both pronounced the same. Searching for one spelling wouldn't show results for the two others. Using Soundex all three variations produce the same Soundex code, C460. By searching names based on the Soundex code all three variations will be returned.
 * Data deduplication efforts use phonetic algorithms to easily bucket records into groups of similar sounding names for further evaluation.
 * Speech to text modules use phonetic encoding to find the set of dictionary words that are pronounced similarly to the phonemes output by the processed audio signal.

title: Phonetic algorithm


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Metaphone

Metaphone is a phonetic algorithm, published by Lawrence Philips in 1990, for indexing words by their English pronunciation. It fundamentally improves on the Soundex algorithm by using information about variations and inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation to produce a more accurate encoding, which does a better job of matching words and names which sound similar. As with Soundex, similar-sounding words should share the same keys. Metaphone is available as a built-in operator in a number of systems.

Philips later produced a new version of the algorithm, which he named Double Metaphone. Contrary to the original algorithm whose application is limited to English only, this version takes into account spelling peculiarities of a number of other languages. In 2009 Philips released a third version, called Metaphone 3, which achieves an accuracy of approximately 99% for English words, non-English words familiar to Americans, and first names and family names commonly found in the United States, having been developed according to modern engineering standards against a test harness of prepared correct encodings.

Procedure
Original Metaphone codes use the 16 consonant symbols 0BFHJKLMNPRSTWXY. The '0' represents "th" (as an ASCII approximation of Θ), 'X' represents "sh" or "ch", and the others represent their usual English pronunciations. The vowels AEIOU are also used, but only at the beginning of the code. This table summarizes most of the rules in the original implementation:

 * 1) Drop duplicate adjacent letters, except for C.
 * 2) If the word begins with 'KN', 'GN', 'PN', 'AE', 'WR', drop the first letter.
 * 3) Drop 'B' if after 'M' at the end of the word.
 * 4) 'C' transforms to 'X' if followed by 'IA' or 'H' (unless in latter case, it is part of '-SCH-', in which case it transforms to 'K'). 'C' transforms to 'S' if followed by 'I', 'E', or 'Y'. Otherwise, 'C' transforms to 'K'.
 * 5) 'D' transforms to 'J' if followed by 'GE', 'GY', or 'GI'. Otherwise, 'D' transforms to 'T'.
 * 6) Drop 'G' if followed by 'H' and 'H' is not at the end or before a vowel. Drop 'G' if followed by 'N' or 'NED' and is at the end.
 * 7) 'G' transforms to 'J' if before 'I', 'E', or 'Y', and it is not in 'GG'. Otherwise, 'G' transforms to 'K'.
 * 8) Drop 'H' if after vowel and not before a vowel.
 * 9) 'CK' transforms to 'K'.
 * 10) 'PH' transforms to 'F'.
 * 11) 'Q' transforms to 'K'.
 * 12) 'S' transforms to 'X' if followed by 'H', 'IO', or 'IA'.
 * 13) 'T' transforms to 'X' if followed by 'IA' or 'IO'. 'TH' transforms to '0'. Drop 'T' if followed by 'CH'.
 * 14) 'V' transforms to 'F'.
 * 15) 'WH' transforms to 'W' if at the beginning. Drop 'W' if not followed by a vowel.
 * 16) 'X' transforms to 'S' if at the beginning. Otherwise, 'X' transforms to 'KS'.
 * 17) Drop 'Y' if not followed by a vowel.
 * 18) 'Z' transforms to 'S'.
 * 19) Drop all vowels unless it is the beginning.

This table does not constitute a complete description of the original Metaphone algorithm, and the algorithm cannot be coded correctly from it. Original Metaphone contained many errors and was superseded by Double Metaphone, and in turn Double Metaphone and original Metaphone were superseded by Metaphone 3, which corrects thousands of miscodings that will be produced by the first two versions.

To implement Metaphone without purchasing a (source code) copy of Metaphone 3, the reference implementation of Double Metaphone can be used. Alternatively, version 2.1.3 of Metaphone 3, an earlier 2009 version without a number of encoding corrections made in the current version, version 2.5.4, has been made available under the terms of the BSD License via the OpenRefine project.

Double Metaphone
The Double Metaphone phonetic encoding algorithm is the second generation of this algorithm. Its implementation was described in the June 2000 issue of C/C++ Users Journal. It makes a number of fundamental design improvements over the original Metaphone algorithm.

It is called "Double" because it can return both a primary and a secondary code for a string; this accounts for some ambiguous cases as well as for multiple variants of surnames with common ancestry. For example, encoding the name "Smith" yields a primary code of SM0 and a secondary code of XMT, while the name "Schmidt" yields a primary code of XMT and a secondary code of SMT—both have XMT in common.

Double Metaphone tries to account for myriad irregularities in English of Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and other origins. Thus it uses a much more complex ruleset for coding than its predecessor; for example, it tests for approximately 100 different contexts of the use of the letter C alone.

Metaphone 3
A professional version was released in October 2009, developed by the same author, Lawrence Philips. It is a commercial product sold as source code. Metaphone 3 further improves phonetic encoding of words in the English language, non-English words familiar to Americans, and first names and family names commonly found in the United States. It improves encoding for proper names in particular to a considerable extent. The author claims that in general it improves accuracy for all words from the approximately 89% of Double Metaphone to 98%. Developers can also now set switches in code to cause the algorithm to encode Metaphone keys 1) taking non-initial vowels into account, as well as 2) encoding voiced and unvoiced consonants differently. This allows the result set to be more closely focused if the developer finds that the search results include too many words that don't resemble the search term closely enough. Metaphone 3 is sold as C++, Java, C#, PHP, Perl, and PL/SQL source, Ruby and Python wrappers accessing a Java jar, and also Metaphone 3 for Spanish and German pronunciation available as Java and C# source. The latest revision of the Metaphone 3 algorithm is v2.5.4, released March 2015. The Metaphone3 Java source code for an earlier version, 2.1.3, lacking a large number of encoding corrections made in the current version, version 2.5.4, was included as part of the OpenRefine project and is publicly viewable.

Common misconceptions
There are some misconceptions about the Metaphone algorithms that should be addressed. The following statements are true:

 * 1) All of them are designed to address regular, "dictionary" words, not just names, and
 * 2) Metaphone algorithms do not produce phonetic representations of the input words and names; rather, the output is an intentionally approximate phonetic representation, according to this standard:
 * words that start with a vowel sound will have an 'A', representing any vowel, as the first character of the encoding (in Double Metaphone and Metaphone 3 - original Metaphone just preserves the actual vowel),
 * vowels after an initial vowel sound will be disregarded and not encoded, and
 * voiced/unvoiced consonant pairs will be mapped to the same encoding. (Examples of voiced/unvoiced consonant pairs are D/T, B/P, Z/S, G/K, etc.).

This approximate encoding is necessary to account for the way English speakers vary their pronunciations and misspell or otherwise vary words and names they are trying to spell. Vowels, of course, are notoriously highly variable. British speakers often complain that Americans seem to pronounce 'T's the same as 'D'. Consider, also, that all English speakers often pronounce 'Z' where 'S' is spelled, almost always when a noun ending in a voiced consonant or a liquid is pluralized, for example "seasons", "beams", "examples", etc. Not encoding vowels after an initial vowel sound will help to group words where a vowel and a consonant may be transposed in the misspelling or alternative pronunciation.

Metaphone of other languages
Metaphone is useful for English variants and other languages, having been preferred to Soundex in several Indo-European languages. On the other hand, rough phonetic encoding causes language dependency — or, in a language variant, average language-speaker dependency —  mainly for non-English variants.

Perhaps the first example of stable adaptation of non-English metaphone was Brazilian Portuguese: it originated in ~2008 as a database solution in Várzea Paulista municipality of Brazil, and it evolved to the current   algorithm.

Metaphone algorithms for other languages

 * Brazilian Portuguese in C Metaphone for Brazilian Portuguese, in C with PHP and PostgreSQL port.
 * Brazilian Portuguese in Java Metaphone for Brazilian Portuguese, in Java.
 * Spanish Metaphone in Python
 * Double Metaphone algorithm for Bangla
 * Double Metaphone algorithm for Amharic
 * Russian Metaphone in Ruby.
 * Double Metaphone and Metaphone in JavaScript

title: Metaphone


text:
Audio Video Interleave

Audio Video Interleave (also Audio Video Interleaved and known by its initials and filename extension AVI, usually pronounced ) is a proprietary multimedia container format and Windows standard introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows software. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback. Like the DVD video format, AVI files support multiple streaming audio and video, although these features are seldom used.

Many AVI files use the file format extensions developed by the Matrox OpenDML group in February 1996. These files are supported by Microsoft, and are unofficially called "AVI 2.0". In 2010 the US government's National Archives and Records Administration defined AVI as the official wrapper for preserving digital video.

History
Publishers faced a predicament regarding how they should distribute videos on CD-ROMs. Thirty seconds of video displayed in 24-bit color and at thirty frames per second and Super VGA resolutions could take up 680 megabytes of space—the storage capacity of most CD-ROMs in 1992. Lossily compressing the videos would save a lot of space, but not without degrading the quality of the videos. Publishers who were more concerned about video quality instead were searching for an ideal compression algorithm that would compress the video files while still preserving the quality.

Microsoft recognized the problem and sought to develop a standard that would losslessly compress the video files. They also recognized that because of the hardware requirements for playing the videos in uncompressed quality, which at the time were demanding, it needed to allow users of low-end computers to play the videos in compressed quality. They developed and published the Audio Video Interleave format on November 10, 1992, as part of their Video for Windows, and included support for codecs to satisfy those users.

Format
AVI is a subformat of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), which divides a file's data into blocks, or "chunks". Each chunk is identified by a FourCC tag.

An AVI file takes the form of a RIFF header, which is then divided into two mandatory chunks and one optional chunk. The first chunk is identified by the "hdrl" tag, which stores the information required by the codec to decompress the AVI file for viewing. The second sub-chunk is identified by the "movi" tag, containing the actual audio and visual data that make up the AVI video. The third optional chunk is identified by the "idx1" tag, which indexes the offsets of the data chunks within the file.

By way of the RIFF format, the audio and visual data contained in the "movi" chunk can be encoded or decoded by software called a codec, which is an abbreviation for (en)coder/decoder. Upon creation of the file, the codec translates between raw data and the (compressed) data format used inside the chunk. An AVI file may carry audio and visual data inside the chunks in virtually any compression scheme, including Full Frame (Uncompressed), Indeo, run-length encoding, and Microsoft Video 1.

Some programs, like VLC, complain when the "idx1" index sub-chunk is not found, as it is required for efficient moving among timestamps. They offer to "fix" the file by building an index temporarily or permanently.

Metadata
As a derivative of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), AVI files are commonly tagged with metadata in the INFO chunk. In addition, AVI files can embed Extensible Metadata Platform. By design, any RIFF file can legally include additional chunks of data, each identified by a four-character code; software which does not understand that particular code should skip the chunk. As such, it is theoretically possible to expand any RIFF file format, including AVI, to support almost any conceivable metadata. Some of the limitations of AVI in modern use relate to a lack of standardization in this metadata (see Limitations below).

Limitations
Since its introduction in the early 90s, new computer video techniques have been introduced which the original AVI specification did not anticipate.

 * The original AVI specification does not provide a standardized way to encode aspect ratio information, although the later OpenDML (AVI 2.0) specification does. Consequently, older players may not select the right aspect ratio automatically (though it may be possible to do so manually).
 * There are several competing approaches to including a time code in AVI files, which affects usability of the format in film and television post-production, although it is widely used. For WAV audio files, Broadcast Wave (BWF) extensions were designed to standardize post-production metadata, but an equivalent for AVI files has not emerged. Some parties are known to write BWF chunks into AVI for metadata.
 * AVI was not intended to contain video using any compression technique that requires access to future video frame data beyond the current frame (B-frame). Approaches exist to support modern video compression techniques (such as MPEG-4) that rely on this function, although this is beyond the intent of the original specification and may cause problems with playback software which does not anticipate this use.
 * AVI cannot contain some specific types of variable bitrate (VBR) data reliably (such as MP3 audio at sample rates below 32 kHz).
 * Overhead for AVI files at the resolutions and frame rates normally used to encode standard definition feature films is about 5 MB per hour of video, the significance of which varies with the application.
 * AVI files cannot contain attachments such as fonts and subtitles. Consequently, subtitles must be distributed in a separate file or hardcoded into the video stream.

More recent container formats (such as Matroska, Ogg and MP4) solve all these problems, although software is freely available to both create and correctly replay AVI files which use the techniques described here.

DV AVI
DV AVI is a type of AVI file where the video has been compressed to conform with DV standards. There are two types of DV-AVI files:
 * Type 1: The multiplexed Audio-Video is kept in its original multiplexing and saved together into the Video section of the AVI file
 * Does not waste much space (audio is saved uncompressed, but even uncompressed audio is tiny compared to the video part of DV), but Windows applications based on the VfW API do not support it.
 * Type 2: Like type 1, but audio is also saved as an additional audio stream into the file.
 * Supported by VfW applications, at the price of a small increase in file size.

Type 1 is actually the newer of the two types. Microsoft made the "type" designations, and decided to name their older VfW-compatible version "Type 2", which only furthered confusion about the two types. In the late 1990s through early 2000s, most professional-level DV software, including non-linear editing programs, only supported Type 1. One notable exception was Adobe Premiere, which only supported Type 2. High-end FireWire controllers usually captured to Type 1 only, while "consumer" level controllers usually captured to Type 2 only. Software is and was available for converting Type 1 AVIs to Type 2, and vice versa, but this is a time-consuming process.

Many current FireWire controllers still only capture to one or the other type. However, almost all current DV software supports both Type 1 and Type 2 editing and rendering, including Adobe Premiere. Thus, many of today's users are unaware of the fact that there are two types of DV AVI files. In any event, the debate continues as to which – Type 1 or Type 2 – if either, is better.

title: Audio Video Interleave


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Buran programme

The Buran programme (Буран,, "Snowstorm", "Blizzard"), also known as the "VKK Space Orbiter programme" (ВКК «Воздушно-Космический Корабль»), was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Moscow and was formally suspended in 1993. In addition to being the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian reusable spacecraft project, Buran was also the name given to orbiter 1K, which completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988 and was the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space. The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket as a launch vehicle.

The Buran programme was started by the Soviet Union as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program and benefited from extensive espionage undertaken by the KGB of the unclassified US Space Shuttle program, resulting in many superficial and functional similarities between American and Soviet Shuttle designs. Although the Buran class was similar in appearance to NASA's Space Shuttle orbiter, and could similarly operate as a re-entry spaceplane, its final internal and functional design was different. For example, the main engines during launch were on the Energia rocket and were not taken into orbit by the spacecraft. Smaller rocket engines on the craft's body provided propulsion in orbit and de-orbital burns, similar to the Space Shuttle's OMS pods. Unlike the Space Shuttle whose first orbital spaceflight was accomplished in April 1981, Buran, whose first and only spaceflight occurred in November 1988, had a capability of flying uncrewed missions, as well as performing fully automated landings. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration.

Background
The Soviet reusable spacecraft programme has its roots in the late 1950s, at the very beginning of the space age. The idea of Soviet reusable space flight is very old, though it was neither continuous nor consistently organized. Before Buran, no project of the programme reached operational status.

The first step toward a reusable Soviet spacecraft was the 1954 Burya, a high-altitude prototype jet aircraft/cruise missile. Several test flights were made before it was cancelled by order of the Central Committee. The Burya had the goal of delivering a nuclear payload, presumably to the United States, and then returning to base. The Burya programme was cancelled by the USSR in favor of a decision to develop ICBMs instead. The next iteration of a reusable spacecraft was the Zvezda design, which also reached a prototype stage. Decades later, another project with the same name would be used as a service module for the International Space Station. After Zvezda, there was a hiatus in reusable projects until Buran.

The Buran orbital vehicle programme was developed in response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program, which raised considerable concerns among the Soviet military and especially Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov. An authoritative chronicler of the Soviet and later Russian space programme, the academic Boris Chertok, recounts how the programme came into being. According to Chertok, after the U.S. developed its Space Shuttle program, the Soviet military became suspicious that it could be used for military purposes, due to its enormous payload, several times that of previous U.S. launch vehicles. Officially, the Buran orbital vehicle was designed for the delivery to orbit and return to Earth of spacecraft, cosmonauts, and supplies. Both Chertok and Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy (General Designer and General Director of NPO Molniya) suggest that from the beginning, the programme was military in nature; however, the exact military capabilities, or intended capabilities, of the Buran programme remain classified.

Like its American counterpart, the Buran orbital vehicle, when in transit from its landing sites back to the launch complex, was transported on the back of a large jet aeroplane – the Antonov An-225 Mriya transport aircraft, which was designed in part for this task and was the largest aircraft in the world to fly multiple times. Before the Mriya was ready (after the Buran had flown), the Myasishchev VM-T Atlant, a variant on the Soviet Myasishchev M-4 Molot (Hammer) bomber (NATO code: Bison), fulfilled the same role.

Programme development
The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. Soviet officials were concerned about a perceived military threat posed by the U.S. Space Shuttle. In their opinion, the Shuttle's 30-ton payload-to-orbit capacity and, more significantly, its 15-ton payload return capacity, were a clear indication that one of its main objectives would be to place massive experimental laser weapons into orbit that could destroy enemy missiles from a distance of several thousands of kilometres. Their reasoning was that such weapons could only be effectively tested in actual space conditions and that to cut their development time and save costs it would be necessary to regularly bring them back to Earth for modifications and fine-tuning. Soviet officials were also concerned that the U.S. Space Shuttle could make a sudden dive into the atmosphere to drop nuclear bombs on Moscow.

In 1974, Valentin Glushko's design bureau, OKB-1 (later NPO Energiya), proposed a new family of heavy-lift rockets called RLA (РЛА, «Ракетные Летательные Аппараты»). The RLA concept included the use of kerosene and liquid hydrogen as fuel, and liquid oxygen as oxidizer (both new technologies in the Soviet space programme), with the shuttle orbiter being one possible payload. While NPO Molniya conducted development under the lead of Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy, the Soviet Union's Military-Industrial Commission, or VPK, was tasked with collecting all data it could on the U.S. Space Shuttle. Under the auspices of the KGB, the VPK was able to amass documentation on the American shuttle's airframe designs, design analysis software, materials, flight computer systems and propulsion systems. The KGB targeted many university research project documents and databases, including Caltech, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and others. The thoroughness of the acquisition of data was made much easier as the U.S. shuttle development was unclassified.

By 1975, NPO Energiya had come up with two competing designs for the orbiter vehicle: the MTKVP (МТКВП, «Многоразовый Транспортный Корабль Вертикальной Посадки»), a 34-meter-long lifting body spaceplane launched on top of a stack of kerosene-fueled strap on boosters; and the OS-120 (ОС-120, «Орбитальный Самолет»), a close copy of the US Space Shuttle based on US Space Shuttle documentation and designs obtained through the VPK and KGB. The OS-120 was a delta-winged spaceplane based heavily on the US Space Shuttle design, equipped with three liquid hydrogen engines, strapped to a detachable external tank and four liquid fuel boosters (NPO Energiya even considered the use of solid propellant rocket boosters, further imitating the US Shuttle's configuration).

A compromise between these two proposals was achieved by NPO Energiya in January 1976 with the OK-92 (ОК-92, «Орбитальный Корабль»), a delta-winged orbiter equipped with two Soloviev D-30 turbofan jet engines for autonomous atmospheric flight, launched to space from a rocket stack made of a core stage with three cryogenic engines, and four kerosene-fueled boosters, each with four engines. By 1978, the OK-92 design was further refined, with its final configuration completed in June 1979. Soviet engineers were initially reluctant to implement a spacecraft design with so many similarities to the US Space Shuttle. Although it has been commented that wind tunnel testing showed that NASA's design was already ideal, the shape requirements were mandated by its potential military capabilities to transport large payloads to low Earth orbit, themselves a counterpart to the Pentagon's initially projected missions for the Shuttle. Even though the Molniya Scientific Production Association proposed its Spiral programme design (halted 13 years earlier), it was rejected as being altogether dissimilar from the American shuttle design.

The construction of the shuttles began in 1980, and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model (BOR-5) took place as early as July 1983. As the project progressed, five additional scale-model flights were performed. A test vehicle was constructed with four jet engines mounted at the rear; this vehicle is usually referred to as OK-GLI, or as the "Buran aerodynamic analogue". The jets were used to take off from a normal landing strip, and once it reached a designated point, the engines were cut and OK-GLI glided back to land. This provided invaluable information about the handling characteristics of the Buran design, and significantly differed from the carrier plane/air drop method used by the United States and the test craft. Twenty-four test flights of OK-GLI were performed by the Gromov Flight Research Institute test pilots and researchers after which the shuttle was "worn out". The developers considered using a couple of Mil Mi-26 helicopters to "bundle" lift the Buran, but test flights with a mock-up showed how risky and impractical that was. The VM-T ferried components and the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the heaviest airplane ever) was designed and used to ferry the shuttle.

The flight and ground-testing software also required research. In 1983 the Buran developers estimated that the software development would require several thousand programmers if done with their existing methodology (in assembly language), and they appealed to Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics for assistance. It was decided to develop a new high-level "problem-oriented" programming language. Researchers at Keldysh developed two languages: PROL2 (used for real-time programming of onboard systems) and DIPOL (used for the ground-based test systems), as well as the development and debugging environment SAPO PROLOGUE. There was also an operating system known as Prolog Manager. Work on these languages continued beyond the end of the Buran programme, with PROL2 being extended into SIPROL, and eventually all three languages developed into DRAKON which is still in use in the Russian space industry. A declassified May 1990 CIA report citing open-source intelligence material states that the software for the Buran spacecraft was written in "the French-developed programming language known as Prolog", possibly due to confusion with the name PROLOGUE.

Flight crew preparation
Until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, seven cosmonauts were allocated to the Buran programme and trained on the OK-GLI ("Buran aerodynamic analogue") test vehicle. All had experience as test pilots. They were: Ivan Ivanovich Bachurin, Alexei Sergeyevich Borodai, Anatoli Semyonovich Levchenko, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Shchukin, Rimantas Antanas Stankevičius, Igor Petrovich Volk, and Viktor Vasiliyevich Zabolotsky.

A rule, set in place for cosmonauts after the failed Soyuz 25 mission of 1977, stipulated that all Soviet space missions must contain at least one crew member who has been to space before. In 1982, it was decided that all Buran commanders and their back-ups would occupy the third seat on a Soyuz mission, prior to their Buran spaceflight. Several people had been selected to potentially be in the first Buran crew. By 1985, it was decided that at least one of the two crew members would be a test pilot trained at the Gromov Flight Research Institute (known as "LII"), and potential crew lists were drawn up. Only two potential Buran crew members reached space: Igor Volk, who flew in Soyuz T-12 to the space station Salyut 7, and Anatoli Levchenko who visited Mir, launching with Soyuz TM-4 and landing with Soyuz TM-3. Both of these spaceflights lasted about a week.

Levchenko died of a brain tumour the year after his orbital flight, Bachurin left the cosmonaut corps because of medical reasons, Shchukin was assigned to the back-up crew of Soyuz TM-4 and later died in a plane crash, Stankevičius was also killed in a plane crash, while Borodai and Zabolotsky remained unassigned to a Soyuz flight until the Buran programme ended.

Spaceflight of I. P. Volk
Igor Volk was planned to be the commander of the first crewed Buran flight. There were two purposes of the Soyuz T-12 mission, one of which was to give Volk spaceflight experience. The other purpose, seen as the more important factor, was to beat the United States and have the first spacewalk by a woman. At the time of the Soyuz T-12 mission the Buran programme was still a state secret. The appearance of Volk as a crew member caused some, including the British Interplanetary Society magazine Spaceflight, to ask why a test pilot was occupying a Soyuz seat usually reserved for researchers or foreign cosmonauts.

Spaceflight of A. S. Levchenko
Anatoli Levchenko was planned to be the back-up commander of the first crewed Buran flight, and in March 1987 he began extensive training for his Soyuz spaceflight. In December 1987, he occupied the third seat aboard Soyuz TM-4 to Mir, and returned to Earth about a week later on Soyuz TM-3. His mission is sometimes called Mir LII-1, after the Gromov Flight Research Institute shorthand. When Levchenko died the following year, it left the back-up crew of the first Buran mission again without spaceflight experience. A Soyuz spaceflight for another potential back-up commander was sought by the Gromov Flight Research Institute, but never occurred.

Ground facilities
Maintenance, launches and landings of the Buran-class orbiters were to take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh SSR. Several facilities at Baikonur were adapted or newly built for these purposes:

 * "Buran" at launch pad.JPEG 110 – Used for the launch of the Buran-class orbiters. Like the assembly and processing hall at Site 112, the launch complex was originally constructed for the Soviet lunar landing program and later converted for the Energia-Buran program.
 * Site 112 – Used for orbiter maintenance and to mate the orbiters to their Energia launchers (thus fulfilling a role similar to the VAB at KSC). The main hangar at the site, called MIK RN or MIK 112, was originally built for the assembly of the N1 Moon rocket. After cancellation of the N-1 programme in 1974, the facilities at Site 112 were converted for the Energia-Buran programme. It was here that orbiter 1K was stored after the end of the Buran programme and was destroyed when the hangar roof collapsed in 2002.
 * Site 251 – Used as Buran orbiter landing facility, also known as Yubileyniy Airfield (and fulfilling a role similar to the SLF at KSC). It features one runway, called 06/24, which is 4500 m long and 84 m wide, paved with "Grade 600" high quality reinforced concrete. At the edge of the runway was a special mating-demating device, designed to lift an orbiter off its Antonov An-225 Mriya carrier aircraft and load it on a transporter, which would carry the orbiter to the processing building at Site 254. A purpose-built orbiter landing control facility, housed in a large multi-storey office building, was located near the runway. Yubileyniy Airfield was also used to receive heavy transport planes carrying elements of the Energia-Buran system. After the end of the Buran programme, Site 251 was abandoned but later reopened as a commercial cargo airport. Besides serving Baikonur, Kazakh authorities also use it for passenger and charter flights from Russia.
 * Site 254 – Built to service the Buran-class orbiters between flights (thus fulfilling a role similar to the OPF at KSC). Constructed in the 1980s as a special four-bay building, it also featured a large processing area flanked by several floors of test rooms. After cancellation of the Buran programme it was adapted for pre-launch operations of the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft.

Atmospheric test flights
An aerodynamic testbed, OK-GLI, was constructed in 1984 to test the in-flight properties of the Buran design. Unlike the American prototype, OK-GLI had four AL-31 turbofan engines fitted, meaning it was able to fly under its own power.

Orbital flight of Buran in 1988
Following a series of atmospheric test flights using the jet-powered OK-GLI prototype, the first operational spacecraft (Buran, orbiter 1K) flew one uncrewed test mission.

At 03:00 UTC on 15 November 1988, Buran and the Energia carrier rocket lifted off from pad 110/37 in Baikonur. The life support system was not installed for the flight and no data was displayed on the CRT displays in the Command Compartment.

The shuttle orbited the Earth twice, travelling 83707 km in 3 hours and 25 minutes (0.14 flight days). On its return, it performed an automated landing on the shuttle runway (Site 251) at Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Planned flights
The planned flights for the shuttles in 1989, before the downsizing of the project and eventual cancellation, were:
 * 1991 — Orbiter 2K uncrewed first flight, duration 1–2 days.
 * 1992 — Orbiter 2K uncrewed second flight, duration 7–8 days. Orbital manoeuvres and space station approach test.
 * 1993 — Buran (1K) uncrewed second flight, duration 15–20 days.
 * 1994 — Orbiter 3K first crewed space test flight, duration of 24 hours. Craft equipped with life-support system and with two ejection seats. Crew would consist of two cosmonauts with Igor Volk as commander, and a flight engineer.
 * 1994-1995 - Second, third, fourth and fifth crewed orbital test flights.

The planned uncrewed second flight of orbiter 2K was changed in 1991 to the following:
 * December 1991 — Orbiter 2K uncrewed second flight, with a duration of 7–8 days. Orbital maneuvers and space station approach test:
 * automatic docking with Mir's Kristall module
 * crew transfer from Mir to the orbiter, with testing of some of its systems in the course of twenty-four hours, including the remote manipulator
 * undocking and autonomous flight in orbit
 * docking of the crewed Soyuz TM-101 with orbiter 2K
 * crew transfer from the Soyuz to the orbiter and onboard work in the course of twenty-four hours
 * automatic undocking and landing

Cancellation of the programme 1993
After the first flight of a Buran shuttle, the project was suspended due to lack of funds and the political situation in the Soviet Union. The two subsequent orbiters, which were due in 1990 (Orbiter 2K) and 1992 (Orbiter 3K) were never completed with other articles being scrapped (see next section).

The project was officially terminated on 30 June 1993, by President Boris Yeltsin. At the time of its cancellation, 20 billion roubles had been spent on the Buran programme. Commenting on the discontinuation of the programme in his interview to New Scientist, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov described the project's end:"'We had no civilian tasks for Buran and the military ones were no longer needed.'"

The programme was designed to boost national pride, carry out research, and meet technological objectives similar to those of the U.S. Space Shuttle program, including resupply of the Mir space station, which was launched in 1986 and remained in service until 2001. When Mir was finally visited by a spaceplane, the visitor was a Space Shuttle orbiter, not a Buran-class orbiter.

The Buran SO, a docking module that was to be used for rendezvous with the Mir space station, was refitted for use with the U.S. Space Shuttles during the Shuttle–Mir missions.

The cost of a Buran launch carrying a 20-ton payload was estimated at 270 million roubles, vs 5.5 million roubles on the Proton rocket.

Baikonur hangar collapse
On 12 May 2002, a hangar roof at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan collapsed because of a structural failure due to poor maintenance. The collapse killed eight workers and destroyed one of the Buran-class orbiters (Buran, orbiter 1K), which flew the test flight in 1988, as well as a mock-up of an Energia booster rocket. It was not clear to outsiders at the time which orbiter was destroyed and the BBC reported that it was just "a model" of the orbiter. It occurred at the MIK RN/MIK 112 building at Site 112 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, 14 years after the only Buran flight. Work on the roof had begun for a maintenance project, whose equipment is thought to have contributed to the collapse, together with heavy rainfall in the days preceding the collapse.

List of vehicles
Five orbiters were planned to be built (designated 1K-5K, K stands for Корабль), with hull numbering starting with 1 or 2 (e.g. 1.01), two originally ordered in 1970s and three ("second series") additionally ordered in 1983.

For research and testing purposes, several test articles were produced, designated 1M-8M (M stands for Макет), with hull numbering starting with 0 (e.g. 0.02). The programme prefix OK stands for Орбитальный Корабль and carries the GRAU index number 11F35.

By 1991 two operational vehicles were delivered to Baikonur, three others were under construction at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant (TMZ) near Moscow.

Most of the geo-locations below show the orbiter bodies on the ground; in some cases Google Earth's History facility is required to see the orbiter within the dates specified.

Revival possibilities
Over time, several scientists looked into trying to revive the Buran programme, especially after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

The 2003 grounding of the U.S. Space Shuttles caused many to wonder whether the Energia launcher or Buran shuttle could be brought back into service. By then, however, all of the equipment for both (including the vehicles themselves) had fallen into disrepair or been repurposed after falling into disuse with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In 2010 the director of Moscow's Central Machine Building Institute said the Buran programme would be reviewed in the hope of restarting a similar crewed spacecraft design, with rocket test launches as soon as 2015. Russia also continues work on the PPTS but has abandoned the Kliper program, due to differences in vision with its European partners.

Due to the 2011 retirement of the American Space Shuttle and the need for STS-type craft in the meantime to complete the International Space Station, some American and Russian scientists had been mulling over plans to possibly revive the already-existing Buran shuttles in the Buran programme rather than spend money on an entirely new craft and wait for it to be fully developed but the plans did not come to fruition.

On the 25th anniversary of the Buran flight in November 2013, Oleg Ostapenko, the new head of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, proposed that a new heavy-lift launch vehicle be built for the Russian space programme. The rocket would be intended to place a payload of 100 tonne in a baseline low Earth orbit and is projected to be based on the Angara launch vehicle technology.

Comparison to NASA's Space Shuttle
Because Buran debut followed that of, and because there were striking visual similarities between the two shuttle systems—a state of affairs which recalled the similarity between the Tupolev Tu-144 and Concorde supersonic airliners—many speculated that Cold War espionage played a role in the development of the Soviet shuttle. Despite remarkable external similarities, many key differences existed, which suggests that, had espionage been a factor in Buran development, it would likely have been in the form of external photography or early airframe designs. NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher stated that Buran was based on a rejected NASA design. See the section above.

Key differences between Energia-Buran system and NASA's Space Shuttle

 * Unlike Space Shuttle's boosters, each of Energia's four boosters had their own guidance, navigation, and control system. Known as Zenit-2, they were used as launch vehicles on their own to deliver smaller payloads than those requiring the complete Energia-Buran system.
 * Energia could be configured with four, two or no boosters for payloads other than Buran, and in full configuration was able to put up to 100 metric tons into orbit. The Space Shuttle orbiter was integral to its launch system and was the system's only payload.
 * Energia's four boosters used liquid propellant (kerosene/oxygen). The Space Shuttle's two boosters used solid propellant.
 * The liquid fueled booster rockets were not constructed in segments vulnerable to leakage through O-rings, which caused the destruction of.
 * Energia's four boosters were designed to be recovered after each flight, though they were not recovered during Energia's two operational flights. The Space Shuttle's boosters were recovered and reused.
 * Buran equivalent of the Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System used GOX/LOX/Kerosene propellant, with lower toxicity and higher performance (a specific impulse of 362 isp using a turbopump system) than the Shuttle's pressure-fed monomethylhydrazine/dinitrogen tetroxide OMS engines.
 * Buran was designed to be capable of both piloted and fully autonomous flight, including landing. The Space Shuttle was later retrofitted with automated landing capability, first flown 18 years after the Buran on STS-121, but the system was intended to be used only in contingencies.
 * The nose landing gear was located much farther back on the fuselage rather than just under the mid-deck as with the NASA Space Shuttle.
 * Buran could lift 30 metric tons into orbit in its standard configuration, comparable to the early Space Shuttle's original 27.8 metric tons
 * Buran could return 20 tons from orbit, vs the Space Shuttle's 15 tons.
 * Buran included a drag chute, the Space Shuttle originally did not, but was later retrofitted to include one.
 * The lift-to-drag ratio of Buran is cited as 5.6, compared to a subsonic L/D of 4.5 for the Space Shuttle.
 * Buran and Energia were moved to the launch pad horizontally on a rail transporter, and then erected and fueled at the launch site.  The Space Shuttle was transported vertically on the crawler-transporter with loaded solid boosters but the main tank was fueled at launch site.
 * Buran was intended to carry a crew of up to ten, the Shuttle carried up to eight in the largest crewed mission normally between five and seven people in most missions and would have carried more only in a contingency.
 * Buran has a different carbon-carbon heat tile layout in its underside, in which all gaps between heat tiles are parallel or perpendicular to the direction of airflow through the orbiter.

title: Buran programme


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Northumbria

Northumbria (Norþanhymbra rīċe ; Regnum Northanhymbrorum) was an early medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is now Northern England and south-east Scotland.

The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the people south of the Humber Estuary. What was to become Northumbria started as two kingdoms, Deira in the south and Bernicia in the north. Conflict in the first half of the seventh century ended with the murder of the last king of Deira in 651, and Northumbria was thereafter unified under Bernician kings. At its height, the kingdom extended from the Humber, Peak District and the River Mersey on the south to the Firth of Forth on the north. Northumbria ceased to be an independent kingdom in the mid-tenth century when Deira was conquered by the Danes and formed into the Kingdom of York. The rump Earldom of Bamburgh maintained control of Bernicia for a period of time; however, the area north of the Tweed was eventually absorbed into the medieval Kingdom of Scotland while the portion south of the Tweed was absorbed into the Kingdom of England as the county of Northumberland and County Palatine of Durham.

Possible Celtic British origins
The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was originally two kingdoms divided approximately around the River Tees: Bernicia was to the north of the river and Deira to the south. It is possible that both regions originated as native Celtic British kingdoms, which the Germanic settlers later conquered, although there is very little information about the infrastructure and culture of the British kingdoms themselves. Much of the evidence for them comes from regional names that are British rather than Anglo-Saxon in origin. The names Deira and Bernicia are likely British in origin, for example, indicating that some British place names retained currency after the Anglo-Saxon migrations to Northumbria. There is also some archeological evidence to support British origins for the polities of Bernicia and Deira. In what would have been southern Bernicia, in the Cheviot Hills, a hill fort at Yeavering Bell contains evidence that it was an important centre for first the British and later the Anglo-Saxons. The fort is originally pre-Roman, dating back to the Iron Age at around the first century. In addition to signs of Roman occupation, the site contains evidence of timber buildings that pre-date Germanic settlement in the area that are probably signs of British settlement. Moreover, Brian Hope-Taylor has traced the origins of the name Yeavering, which looks deceptively English, back to the British gafr from Bede's mention of a township called Gefrin in the same area. Yeavering continued to be an important political centre after the Anglo-Saxons began settling in the north, as King Edwin had a royal palace at Yeavering.

Overall, English place-names dominate the Northumbrian landscape, suggesting the prevalence of an Anglo-Saxon elite culture by the time that Bede – Anglo-Saxon England's most prominent historian – was writing in the eighth century. According to Bede, the Angles were the predominant Germanic immigrants, who settled north of the Humber and gained political prominence during this period. While the British natives may have partially assimilated into the Northumbrian political structure, relatively contemporary textual sources such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People depict relations between Northumbrians and the British as fraught.

Unification of Bernicia and Deira
The Anglo-Saxon states of Bernicia and Deira were often in conflict before their eventual semi-permanent unification in 651. Political power in Deira was concentrated in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which included York, the North York Moors, and the Vale of York. The political heartlands of Bernicia were the areas around Bamburgh and Lindisfarne, Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, and in Cumbria, west of the Pennines in the area around Carlisle. The name that these two states eventually united under, Northumbria, might have been coined by Bede and made popular through his Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

Information on the early royal genealogies for Bernicia and Deira comes from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People and Welsh chronicler Nennius' Historia Brittonum. According to Nennius, the Bernician royal line begins with Ida, son of Eoppa. Ida reigned for twelve years (beginning in 547) and was able to annex Bamburgh to Bernicia. In Nennius' genealogy of Deira, a king named Soemil was the first to separate Bernicia and Deira, which could mean that he wrested the kingdom of Deira from the native British. The date of this supposed separation is unknown. The first Deiran king to make an appearance in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum is Ælle, the father of the first Christian Northumbrian king Edwin.

A king of Bernicia, Ida's grandson Æthelfrith, was the first ruler to unite the two polities under his rule. He exiled the Deiran Edwin to the court of King Rædwald of the East Angles in order to claim both kingdoms, but Edwin returned in approximately 616 to conquer Northumbria with Rædwald's aid. Edwin, who ruled from approximately 616 to 633, was one of the last kings of the Deiran line to reign over all of Northumbria. Oswald's brother Oswiu eventually succeeded him to the Northumbrian throne despite initial attempts on Deira's part to pull away again. The last independent king of Deira was Oswine. He was murdered by Oswiu in 651, and Northumbria was thereafter united under Bernician rule.

While violent conflicts between Bernicia and Deira played a significant part in determining which line ultimately gained supremacy in Northumbria, marriage alliances also helped bind these two territories together. Æthelfrith married Edwin's sister Acha, although this marriage did little to prevent future squabbles between the brothers-in-law and their descendants. The second intermarriage was more successful, with Oswiu marrying Edwin's daughter and his own cousin Eanflæd to produce Ecgfrith, the beginning of the Northumbrian line. However, Oswiu had another relationship with an Irish woman named Fina which produced the problematic Aldfrith. In his Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, Bede declares that Aldfrith, known as Fland among the Irish, was illegitimate and therefore unfit to rule.

Northumbria and Norse settlement
The Viking invasions of the ninth century and the establishment of the Danelaw once again divided Northumbria. Although primarily recorded in the southern provinces of England, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (particularly the D and E recensions) provide some information on Northumbria's conflicts with Vikings in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. According to these chronicles, Viking raids began to affect Northumbria when a band attacked Lindisfarne in 793. After this initial catastrophic blow, Viking raids in Northumbria were either sporadic for much of the early ninth century or evidence of them was lost. However, in 865 the so-called Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia and began a sustained campaign of conquest. The Great Army fought in Northumbria in 866–867, striking York twice in less than one year. After the initial attack the Norse left to go north, leaving Kings Ælle and Osberht to recapture the city. The E recension of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests that Northumbria was particularly vulnerable at this time because the Northumbrians were once again fighting amongst themselves, deposing Osberht in favour of Ælle. In the second raid, the Vikings killed Kings Ælle and Osberht whilst recapturing the city.

After King Alfred re-established his control of southern England, the Norse invaders settled into what came to be known as the Danelaw in the Midlands, East Anglia, and the southern part of Northumbria. In Northumbria, the Norse established the Kingdom of York whose boundaries were roughly the River Tees and the Humber, giving it approximately the same dimensions as Deira. Although this kingdom fell to Hiberno-Norse colonisers in the 920s and was in constant conflict with the West-Saxon expansionists from the south, it survived until 954 when the last Scandinavian king Eric, who is usually identified as Eric Bloodaxe, was driven out and eventually killed.

In contrast, the Great Army was not as successful in conquering territory north of the River Tees. There were raids that extended into that area, but no sources mention lasting Norse occupation and there are very few Scandinavian place names to indicate significant Norse settlement in northern regions of Northumbria. The political landscape of the area north of the Tees during the Viking conquest of Northumbria consisted of the Community of St. Cuthbert and the remnants of the English Northumbrian elites. While the religious Community of St. Cuthbert "wandered" for a hundred years after Halfdan Ragnarsson attacked their original home of Lindisfarne in 875, The History of St. Cuthbert indicates that they settled temporarily at Chester-le-Street between the years 875–883 on land granted to them by the Viking King of York, Guthred. According to the twelfth-century account Historia Regum, Guthred granted them this land in exchange for establishing him as king. The land extended from the Tees to the Tyne and anyone who fled there from either the north or the south would receive sanctuary for thirty-seven days, indicating that the Community of St. Cuthbert had some juridical autonomy. Based on their positioning and this right of sanctuary, this community probably acted as a buffer between the Norse in southern Northumbria and the Anglo-Saxons who continued to hold the north.

North of the Tyne, Northumbrians maintained partial political control in Bamburgh. The rule of kings continued in that area with Ecgberht I acting as regent around 867 and the kings Ricsige and Ecgberht II immediately following him. According to twelfth-century historian Symeon of Durham, Ecgberht I was a client-king for the Norse. The Northumbrians revolted against him in 872, deposing him in favour of Ricsige. Although the A and E recensions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle report that Halfdan was able to take control of Deira and take a raiding party north of the River Tyne to impose his rule on Bernicia in 874, after Halfdan's death (c. 877) the Norse had difficulty holding on to territory in northern Bernicia. Ricsige and his successor Ecgberht were able to maintain an English presence in Northumbria. After the reign of Ecgberht II, Eadwulf "King of the North Saxons" (r. 890–912) succeeded him for control of Bamburgh, but after Eadwulf's death rulership of this area switched over to earls who were possible kinsmen or direct descendants of the royal Northumbrian house.

Æthelfrith (r. 593–616)
Æthelfrith was the first Anglo-Saxon leader to hold the thrones of both Deira and Bernicia, and so he ruled over all the people north of the Humber. His rule was notable for his numerous victories over the Britons and the Gaels.

Edwin (r. 616–633)
Edwin, like Æthelfrith, was king of both Deira and Bernicia and ruled them from 616 to 633. Under his reign, the Isle of Man and the lands of Gwynedd in Northern Wales were incorporated into Northumbria. Edwin married Æthelburh, a Christian Princess from Kent in 625. He converted to Christianity two years later after a period of heavy consideration and after consulting numerous advisors. Edwin fell in battle in 633 against Cadwallon of Gwynedd and the pagan Penda of Mercia. He was venerated as a saint and martyr after his death.

Oswald (r. 634–642)
Oswald was a king of Bernicia, who regained the kingdom of Deira after defeating Cadwallon in 634. Oswald then ruled Northumbria until his death in 642. A devout Christian, Oswald worked tirelessly to spread the faith in his traditionally pagan lands. It was during his reign that the monastery at Lindisfarne was created. Oswald fell in the Battle of Maserfield against Penda of Mercia in 642 but his influence endured because, like Edwin, Oswald was venerated as a saint after his death.

Oswiu (r. 642–670)
Oswiu was the brother of Oswald and succeeded him after the latter's defeat in Maserfield. Oswiu succeeded where Edwin and Oswald failed as, in 655, he slew Penda during the Battle of the Winwaed, making him the first Northumbrian King also to control the kingdom of Mercia. During his reign, he presided over the Synod of Whitby, an attempt to reconcile religious differences between Roman and Celtic Christianity, in which he eventually backed Rome. Oswiu died from illness in 670 and divided Deira and Bernicia between two of his sons. His son Aldfrith of Northumbria took over the throne upon his death.

Eadberht (r. 738–758)
Eadberht of Northumbria, the brother of Ecgbert, Archbishop of York, is seen by some historians as a return to the imperial ambitions of seventh-century Northumbria and his reign may represent a period of economic prosperity. He faced internal opposition from rival dynasties and at least two actual or potential rivals were killed during his reign. In 758 he abdicated in favour of his son Oswulf and became a monk at York. Oswulf was murdered the next year and Æthelwald Moll of Northumbria seized the throne, which he occupied for seven years until he was deposed by Alhred. Æthelred I of Northumbria, son of Æthelwald, reigned for 10 interrupted years to 796.

Halfdan Ragnarsson (r. 876–877)
Halfdan Ragnarsson was a Viking leader of the Great Heathen Army which invaded England in 865. He allegedly wanted revenge against Northumbria for the death of his father, who was supposedly killed by Ælla of Northumbria. While he himself only ruled Northumbria directly for about a year in 876, he placed Ecgberht on the throne as a client-king, who ruled from 867 to 872. Halfdan was killed in Ireland in 877 whilst trying to regain control over Dublin, a land he had ruled since 875. There were no further Viking kings in Northumbria until Guthfrith took over in 883.

Æthelstan of Wessex (r. 927–939)
Æthelstan ruled as King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to 939. The shift in his title reflects that in 927, Æthelstan conquered the Viking Kingdom of York, previously part of the Northumbrian Kingdom. His reign was quite prosperous and saw great strides in many fields such as law and economics, but was also characterized by frequent clashes with the Scots and the Vikings. Æthelstan died in 939, which led to the Vikings' retaking of York. Æthelstan is widely considered one of the greatest Anglo-Saxon kings for his efforts to consolidate the English kingdom and the prosperity his reign brought.

Eric of York (r. 947–948, 952–954)
In the early twentieth century, historians identified Eric of York with the Norwegian king Eric Bloodaxe, although more recent scholarship has challenged this association. He held two short terms as King of Northumbria, from 947 to 948 and 952 to 954. Historical documentation on his reign is scarce, but it seems Eric pushed out the joint English-Viking rulers of Northumbria in 947, who then regained the land in 948 or 949. Eric took back the throne in 952, only to be deposed again in 954. Eric was the last Viking king of Northumbria and his authority only extended to the southern kingdom of York. In 954 he was murdered, allegedly with the connivance of Oswulf, the Anglo-Saxon ruler of the northern Northumbrian territory of Bamburgh.

Eadred of Wessex (r. 946–954)
King Eadred was the half-brother of Æthelstan and full brother of Edmund, all of whom were sons of King Edward the Elder. Eadred inherited the rule of Northumbria, but like Edmund lost it soon afterwards. When Eadred finally regained control in 954, he appointed Oswulf earl of the whole of Northumbria.

Politics and war
Between the years of AD 737 and 806, Northumbria had ten kings, all of whom were murdered, deposed, or exiled or became monks. Between Oswiu, the first king of Northumbria in 651, and Eric Bloodaxe, the last king of Northumbria in 954, there were forty-five kings, meaning that the average length of reign during the entire history of Northumbria is only six and a half years. Of the twenty-five kings before the Danish rule of Northumbria, only four died of natural causes. Of those that did not abdicate for a holy life, the rest were either deposed, exiled, or murdered. Kings during the Danish rule of Northumbria (see Danelaw) were often either kings of a larger North Sea or Danish empire, or were installed rulers.

Succession in Northumbria was hereditary, which left princes whose fathers died before they could come of age particularly susceptible to assassination and usurpation. A noteworthy example of this phenomenon is Osred, whose father Aldfrith died in 705, leaving the young boy to rule. He survived one assassination attempt early in his rule, but fell victim to another assassin at the age of nineteen. During his reign he was adopted by Wilfrid, a powerful bishop. Ecclesiastical influence in the royal court was not an unusual phenomenon in Northumbria, and usually was most visible during the rule of a young or inexperienced king. Similarly, ealdorman, or royal advisors, had periods of increased or decreased power in Northumbria, depending on who was ruling at the time.

Warfare in Northumbria before the Danish period largely consisted of rivalries with the Picts to the north. The Northumbrians were successful against the Picts until the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685, which halted their expansion north and established a border between the two kingdoms. Warfare during the Danish period was dominated by warfare between the Northumbrians and other English Kingdoms.

Ealdormen and earldoms of Northumbria
After the English from Wessex absorbed the Danish-ruled territories south of the Tees, Scots invasions reduced the rump Northumbria to an earldom stretching from the Tyne to the Tweed. The surviving Earldom of Northumbria, alongside the Haliwerfolk between the Tyne and Tees, were then disputed between the emerging kingdoms of England and Scotland, with the Earldom being split roughly in half along the River Tweed.

Roman and post-Roman Britain
Under Roman rule, some Britons north of the Humber practised Christianity. York had a bishop as early as the fourth century. After the Romans left Britain in the early fifth century, Christianity did not disappear, but it existed alongside Celtic paganism, and possibly many other cults. Anglo-Saxons brought their own Germanic pagan beliefs and practices when they settled there. At Yeavering, in Bernicia, excavations have uncovered evidence of a pagan shrine, animal sacrifice, and ritual burials.

Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity
The first King of Northumbria to convert to Christianity was King Edwin. He was baptized by Paulinus in 627. Shortly thereafter, many of his people followed his conversion to the new religion, only to return to paganism when Edwin was killed in 633. Paulinus was Bishop of York, but only for a year.

The lasting conversion of Northumbria took place under the guidance of the Irish cleric Aidan. He converted King Oswald of Northumbria in 635, and then worked to convert the people of Northumbria. King Oswald moved the bishopric from York to Lindisfarne.

Monasteries and figures of note
The monastery at Lindisfarne was founded by Aidan in 635, and based on the practices of the Columban monastery in Iona, Scotland. The location of the bishopric shifted to Lindisfarne, and it became the centre for religion in Northumbria. The bishopric would not leave Lindisfarne and shift back to its original location at York until 664. Throughout the eighth century, Lindisfarne was associated with important figures. Aidan, the founder, Wilfrid, a student, and Cuthbert, a member of the order and a hermit, all became bishops and later Saints. Aidan assisted Heiu to found her double monastery at Hartlepool. She too came to be venerated as a saint.

The Christianity culture of Northumbria was influenced by the continent as well as Ireland. In particular, Wilfrid travelled to Rome and abandoned the traditions of the Celtic church in favour of Roman practices. When he returned to England, he became abbot of a new monastery at Ripon in 660. Wilfrid advocated acceptance of the authority of Rome at the Synod of Whitby. The two-halves of the double monastery Monkwearmouth–Jarrow were founded by the nobleman Benedict Biscop in 673 and 681. Biscop became the first abbot of the monastery, and travelled to Rome six times to buy books for the library. His successor, Abbot Ceolfrith, continued to add to the library until by one estimate the library at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow had over two hundred volumes. One who benefited from this library was Bede.

In the early seventh century in York, Paulinus founded a school and a minster but not a monastery. The School at York Minster is one of the oldest in England. By the late eighth century, the school had a noteworthy library, estimated at one hundred volumes. Alcuin was a student and teacher at York before he left for the court of Charlemagne in 782.

Synod of Whitby
In 664, King Oswiu called the Synod of Whitby to determine whether to follow Roman or Irish customs. Since Northumbria was converted to Christianity by the Celtic clergy, the Celtic tradition for determining the date of Easter and Irish tonsure were supported by many, particularly by the Abbey of Lindisfarne. Roman Christianity was also represented in Northumbria, by Wilfrid, Abbot of Ripon. By the year 620, both sides were associating the other's Easter observance with the Pelagian Heresy. The King decided at Whitby that Roman practice would be adopted throughout Northumbria, thereby bringing Northumbria in line with Southern England and Western Europe. Members of the clergy who refused to conform, including the Celtic Bishop Colman of Lindisfarne, returned to Iona. The episcopal seat of Northumbria transferred from Lindisfarne to York, which later became an archbishopric in 735.

Impact of Scandinavian raiding, settlement and culture
The Viking attack on Lindisfarne in 793 was the first of many raids on monasteries of Northumbria. The Lindisfarne Gospels survived, but monastic culture in Northumbria went into a period of decline in the early ninth century. Repeated Viking assaults on religious centres were one reason for the decrease in production of manuscripts and communal monastic culture.

After 867, Northumbria came under control of the Scandinavian forces, and there was an influx of Scandinavian immigrants. Their religion was pagan and had a rich mythology. Within the Kingdom of York, once the raids and war were over, there is no evidence that the presence of Scandinavian settlers interrupted Christian practice. It appears that they gradually adopted Christianity and blended their Scandinavian culture with their new religion. This can be seen in carved stone monuments and ring-headed crosses, such as the Gosforth Cross. During the ninth and tenth centuries, there was an increase in the number of parish churches, often including stone sculptures incorporating Scandinavian designs.

Golden Age of Northumbria
The Christian culture of Northumbria, fuelled by influences from the continent and Ireland, promoted a broad range of literary and artistic works.

Insular art
The Irish monks who converted Northumbria to Christianity, and established monasteries such as Lindisfarne, brought a style of artistic and literary production. Eadfrith of Lindisfarne produced the Lindisfarne Gospels in an Insular style.

The Irish monks brought with them an ancient Celtic decorative tradition of curvilinear forms of spirals, scrolls, and doubles curves. This style was integrated with the abstract ornamentation of the native pagan Anglo-Saxon metalwork tradition, characterized by its bright colouring and zoomorphic interlace patterns.

Insular art, rich in symbolism and meaning, is characterized by its concern for geometric design rather than naturalistic representation, love of flat areas of colour, and use of complicated interlace patterns. All of these elements appear in the Lindisfarne Gospels (early eighth century). The Insular style was eventually imported to the European continent, exercising great influence on the art of the Carolingian empire.

Usage of the Insular style was not limited to manuscript production and metalwork. It can be seen in and sculpture, such as the Ruthwell Cross and Bewcastle Cross. The devastating Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 marked the beginning of a century of Viking invasions that severely limited the production and survival of Anglo-Saxon material culture. It heralded the end of Northumbria's position as a centre of influence, although in the years immediately following visually rich works like the Easby Cross were still being produced.

Literature
The Venerable Bede (673–735) is the most famous author of the Anglo-Saxon Period, and a native of Northumbria. His Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731) has become both a template for later historians and a crucial historical account in its own right, and much of it focuses on Northumbria. He's also famous for his theological works, and verse and prose accounts of holy lives. After the Synod of Whitby, the role of the European continent gained importance in Northumbrian culture. During the end of the eighth century, the scriptorium at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow was producing manuscripts of his works for high demand on the Continent.

Northumbria was also home to several Anglo-Saxon Christian poets. Cædmon lived at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St. Hilda (614–680). According to Bede, he "was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven." His sole surviving work is Cædmon's Hymn. Cynewulf, prolific author of The Fates of the Apostles, Juliana, Elene, and Christ II, is believed to have been either Northumbrian or Mercian.

Scandinavians and the Danelaw
From around 800, there had been waves of Danish raids on the coastlines of the British Isles. These raids terrorized the populace, but exposure to Danish society brought new opportunities for wealth and trade. In 865, instead of raiding, the Danes landed a large army in East Anglia, and had conquered a territory known as the Danelaw, including Northumbria, by 867. At first, the Scandinavian minority, while politically powerful, remained culturally distinct from the English populace. For example, only a few Scandinavian words, mostly military and technical, became part of Old English. By the early 900s, however, Scandinavian-style names for both people and places became increasingly popular, as did Scandinavian ornamentation on works of art, featuring aspects of Norse mythology, and figures of animals and warriors. Nevertheless, sporadic references to "Danes" in charters, chronicles, and laws indicate that during the lifetime of the Kingdom of Northumbria, most inhabitants of northeast England did not consider themselves Danish, and were not perceived as such by other Anglo-Saxons.

The synthesis of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian and Christian and Pagan visual motifs within the Danelaw can be illustrated by an examination of stone sculpture. However, the tradition of mixing pagan and Christian motifs is not unique to the Danelaw, and examples of such synthesis can be seen in previous examples, such as the Franks Casket. The Franks Casket, believed to have been produced in Northumbria, includes depictions of Germanic legends and stories of the founding Roman and the Roman Church and is dated to the early eighth century. The Gosforth Cross, dated to the early tenth century, stands at 4.4 m and is richly decorated with carvings of mythical beasts, Norse gods, and Christian symbolism. Stone sculpture was not a practice of native Scandinavian culture, and the proliferation of stone monuments within the Danelaw shows the influence that the English had on Viking settlers. On one side of the Gosforth Cross is a depiction of the Crucifixion; whilst on the other are scenes from Ragnarok. The melding of these distinctive religious cultures can further be seen in the depiction of Mary Magdalene as a valkyrie, with a trailing dress and long pigtail. Although one can read the iconography as the triumph of Christianity over paganism, it is possible that in the process of gradual conversion the Vikings might have initially accepted the Christian god as an addition to the broad pantheon of pagan gods. The inclusion of pagan traditions in visual culture reflects the creation of a distinctive Anglo-Scandinavian culture. Consequently, this indicates that conversion not only required a change in belief, but also necessitated its assimilation, integration, and modification into existing cultural structures.

Economy
Northumbria's economy centred around agriculture, with livestock and land being popular units of value in local trade. By the mid 800s, the Open field system was likely the pre-eminent mode of farming. Like much of eastern England, Northumbria exported grain, silver, hides, and slaves. Imports from Frankia included oil, luxury goods, and clerical supplies in the 700s. Especially after 793, raids, gifts, and trade with Scandinavians resulted in substantial economic ties across the North Sea. When coinage (as opposed to bartering) regained popularity in the late 600s, Northumbrian coins featured kings' names, indicating royal control of currency. Royal currency was unique in Britain for a long time. King Aldfrith (685–705) minted Northumbria's earliest silver coins, likely in York. Later royal coinage bears the name of King Eadberht (738–758), as well as his brother, Archbishop Ecgbert of York. These coins were primarily small silver sceattas, more suitable to small, everyday transactions than larger gold Frankish or Roman coins. During the reign of King Eanred the silver content of the coins declined until they were produced in copper alloy, these coins are commonly known as stycas, but the term is an antiquarian invention. Stycas remains in use throughout the kingdom until at least the 860s and possibly later. Larger bullion values can be seen in the silver ingots found in the Bedale Hoard, along with sword fittings and necklaces in gold and silver.

Language
In the time of Bede, there were five languages in Britain: English, British, Irish, Pictish, and Latin. Northumbrian was one of four distinct dialects of Old English, along with Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. Analysis of written texts, brooches, runes and other available sources shows that Northumbrian vowel pronunciation differed from West Saxon. Although loans borrowed from the Celtic Languages, such as the Common Brittonic language of the Britons, and the Old Irish of the Irish missionaries, into Old English were few, some place-names such as Deira and Bernicia derive their names from Celtic tribal origins. In addition to the five languages present in Bede's day, Old Norse was added during the ninth century. This was due to the settlements of the Norse in the north and east of England, an area that became the Danelaw. This language had a strong influence on the dialect of Northumbria. These settlers gave the region many place-names from their language as well as contributing to the vocabulary, syntax, and grammar of Old English. Similarities in basic vocabulary between Old English and Old Norse may have led to the dropping of their different inflectional endings. The number of borrowed words is conservatively estimated to be around nine-hundred in standard English but rises to the thousands in some dialects.

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