text:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages

Templates and tags
Templates and tags for wherever you think appropriate.
 * Article Discussion Pages: WPMA
 * User Space: User WPMA

Task forces

 * Crusades task force
 * Medieval philosophy task force

To do
Please add tasks to this list, but delete once complete.

 * Assess unclassified pages in the statistics section below.
 * Reassess "low" importance articles of a high quality — more important than initially thought?
 * Improve important articles of a low quality, especially Medieval architecture.
 * Improve the Minstrel page, especially by adding citations (to remove the template message).
 * Peer review Westminster Abbey so it can pass FAN
 * Peer review peer review of the 1290 English Edict of Expulsion page, please help if you can.

Participants
Introduce yourself and join the group! Just add your name.

Considerate la vostra semenza: Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza
 * User:DrMedRenArtHistory - University Professor, PhD in medieval and Renaissance art history + teach medieval Islamic art
 * User:MrBauer24: I have a passion for ancient/medieval history and would love to help to contribute to this part of Wikipedia.
 * User:Chucklehammer: Wrote my undergrad thesis on saints' lives in France. Would love to help clear up misconceptions about medieval history that show up on pages throughout Wikipedia.
 * User:GuardianH: Student with an interest with the medieval world, Roman law, and Byzantium.
 * User:CarolingianCitizen:Love the Carolingian Empire & Dynasty (West Francian Rulers) as well as the medieval history of France. I am also very interested in the Republic of Florence, or generally the north of Italy in the middle ages.
 * User:Danial Bass: Particularly interested in the 14-15th centuries in western and central europe and 11-13th century in eastern europe
 * Aelfwine Eriol (talk) I'm interested in the Migration Period and it's relation to germanic heroic legend.
 * User:Terence1284 Focus Area: Early Fourteenth Century Britain especially Thomas, Second Earl of Lancaster.
 * Moughera Focus area: fertile crescent, extended interest, Middle East, Far East and Africa
 * User:Efli-R Mediterranean history, cultural history, religious history - lately also Vikings, British history and archaeology.
 * User:kapiski
 * User:Knight De Roy: Canadian language teacher, and history major. Medieval history is passion of mine, as well as collecting manuscript artwork.
 * SALTMINER27 A Generic Guy who likes the Middle Ages.
 * Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi : Late-medieval English political, social and economic history, including polyical culture and the gentry / nobility.
 * User:3family6: Bachelor's in History with a focus on medieval and early modern Europe. Wide range of interests. Planning to go to grad school, perhaps focusing on food systems. Also interested in the Mongol and Timurid conquests.
 * User:fintobin : History undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin. Wide breadth of interests.
 * User:Dimik72 : I study the Byzantine Middle Ages. Do visit the updated page on the 11th century historian and judge Michael Attaleiates on Wikipedia.
 * User:NadalFedexisGod : I love everything about Middle Ages!
 * User:mindwanderweg : Leprosy in the high Middle Ages and the Knights of St. Lazarus
 * User:Auntieruth55 Holy Roman Empire
 * User: ANB : I'm interested in medieval literature from Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland c. 1100-1500.
 * User: Hellboy2hell : I am a member of the crusades taskforce.
 * User:Sparkles26: undergraduates researching medieval fashions at the University of Arizona
 * User:Pecopteris: Interested in all aspects of the Middle Ages, but most knowledgeable in Anglo-Saxon times.
 * User:Brailrae: Interested in almost all aspects of medieval history.
 * Bangabalunga I have a degree in history and can contribute a lot to this field.
 * Berke330 Byzantine & Late Antiquity History and Architecture, Medieval Constantinople and Asia Minor
 * User:Chesslover96 I really enjoy studying the Middle Ages, and hope that my knowledge makes a positive contribution to Wikipedia!
 * Doug Coldwell Interested in anything connected with Petrarch.
 * Helperzoom. I'm interested in later medieval preaching and Latin religious literature.
 * Dan Knauss
 * Thomas Lessman World history, especially Ancient and Medieval. Slowly writing a book about Roman history. I appreciate what Wikipedia stands for and would like to contribute and learn.
 * Lins_o_21. I am interested in all aspects of Medieval history.
 * Reyjfb. Info on Knights Templars
 * Ryan_of_Andor I've been interested in history for a long time. I write, and feel that using real world examples makes a story that much more interesting. I would love to help anyway I can, and enjoy learning anything new.
 * Sheilakirbos. I am interested in ecclesiastical history, currently, the Avignon Papacy.
 * David Skipper I'm interested in the twelfth century and medieval aristocracy. I'm a university teacher and decided that since my students use Wikipedia so much, I'd better make sure they're reading sense, so I'm updating and expanding those articles they'll trawl!
 * Stbalbach
 * Tabun1015 Love the Middle Ages. Recently created an article about Medieval ships
 * Tameeria I'm interested in Dithmarschen's medieval history, the Hanseatic League and piracy in the North and Baltic Seas.
 * thelivinglegend I love history. I am a history maniac.
 * AlainV 01:30, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Zombieminion. Interests in weapons and warfare.
 * Adam Bishop. Mostly crusades, sometimes Byzantine stuff, England and France
 * J OHN C OLLISON [ Ludraman] - I don't know much but I have an interest. Probably just copyediting, proofreading etc. for me.
 * Dsmdgold. Right now I am mainly interested in Medieval art, especially illuminated manuscripts.
 * Antandrus. I know pretty much about medieval music, especially as it gets towards the Renaissance; happy to help any way I can.
 * llywrch Although I'm trying to focus on ancient history topics at the moment, I have contributed material in the Early Mediaval period (before AD 1000) in the past, & at the present occasionally look over the new contributions to some of the articles.
 * Ferkelparade π. I have a fair bit of knowledge of the Medieval histories of Germany and the Mongols, I've had a number of missing/rather poor articles in these areas on my to do list for quite some time but never got around to contributing.
 * Fergananim Seanchai interested in anything to do with this era, anywhere.
 * I'd love to help Everyking 07:00, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * PWilkinson An amateur with an interest in lesser-known bits of history - currently post-Carolingian Europe and (late and just post-)Almohad Spain and north Africa, but this is liable to change at any time.
 * User:Mississippienne My particular interest lies in 10th-14th century Europe, the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt, and the Kievan Rus.
 * WBardwin history and archaeology in early periods, particularly on the Eastern Med, excavations-esp. pottery and dating, and interest in disease outbreaks, population patterns and cultural change.
 * Ro4444I'm primarily interested in the history of the Holy Roman Empire (for all periods, not just medieval, but I've primarily been studying the medieval history of it at this time), and recently became interested in the late Roman Empire in the West (395-486). I've contributed several HRE articles.
 * User:Heelgrasper Danis MA student (History) working with Danish Late Medieval political history in particular. I'm also interested in historiographic aspects.
 * User:You Can Act Like A Man Late medieval England; early medieval Europe; early western church & Papacy.
 * Neutralitytalk (specializing in Spain, especially the Reconquista)
 * Smerdis of Tlön - My particular interests are medieval Latin literature and legal history.
 * Shirley - I'm new to Wikipedia but I have a strong interest in the Middle Ages, primarily medieval England and Scotland as well as arms, armor, and warfare.
 * Dennis - Particular interests are the period from the fall of the Empire in the west through the early Middle Ages, as well as ecclesiastical history, especially including the scholastics.
 * Adair - New to Wikipedia. Interests in medieval to Renaissance music. Know a bit about it as well. Also interested in how music and art was influenced by society and politics at the time, and society in general.
 * JakeVortex - Interested in the 1380s, the history of chess, Medieval woodworking and woodworking tools, and the 1500s.
 * Astavrou, Byzantine Empire mostly
 * User:Cuchullain - I'm interested particularly in the 12th century and Arthurian legend.
 * wcmiker - Interested in the Crusades, the Byzantine Empire, and the history of the Catholic Church.
 * Ghirlandajo - Interested in medieval prosopography and architecture. There is hardly any article on Russian Middle Ages that hasn't been started or heavily revised by me. I hold that the Russian Middle Ages embrace the 17th century as well. --Ghirlandajo 22:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Mavros - Interested in the Byzantine empire, the orthodox church and crusader states, especially Cyprus and Cypriot people. Medieval Greek, especially works in vernacular and regional dialects.
 * Durova 06:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC) - I've created or revised several articles on Hundred Years' War, especially issues surrounding Joan of Arc. I've also added translations from the French Wikipedia on the subject.
 * Deacon of Pndapetzim (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC) - Celtic history, the European periphery, colonialism, eastern lore, Byzantine Empire, Russia, language and language change.
 * siafu - Mongol invasions, khans, and empire, Crusades, Byzantine empire, Ottoman empire, generally get sucked up in histories of various conquerors, wars, and empires. Will be working soon on bringing Genghis Khan up to FA quality.
 * User:Staffelde My main focus is translating from German, many of which articles are on mediaeval my mistake, medieval lit topics. I have some interest in / knowledge of some English med'l subjects, mostly to do with religious houses, land law and documents - I do some translating from Latin too.
 * Haukur Mainly Old Norse literature.
 * Hahaandy1 Anything Medieval, I'm a student at Oxford so have access to quite literally tons of resources.
 * Asturrulumbo Mostly Norman England, Muslim Spain, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
 * User:Igilli Byzantium, Ottoman Turks, Post Mongol Russia and Holy Roman Empire up to and including the Reformation and 30 Years War
 * User:Harthacanute Anglo-Saxon England; relations between Anglo-Saxons, other peoples in Britain and wider European context. Am willing to work on any British history 55 BC - AD 1100.
 * Graham Wilton English history in the 15th century
 * 67.190.113.165 08:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC) I'm interested in Genghis Khan, Mongols, Mongol Khans, religious diversity, cultural diversity, Huns, Xiongnu, Chinese empires and kingdoms, middle eastern kingdoms, Russian kingdoms, central and eastern European kingdoms, Mongol battles, scenarios, tactis, ethnography, technologies, cultures, pre-genghis khan social and economic setup, movement among the cultures and populations that got affected by the Mongol military, anything related to Mongol setup, influences, etc. Please feel free to talk to me about this and please write something in my discussion, constructive arguments and suggestions would work great. Mostly I want Genghis Khan article to be very qualified article, rich, comprehensive, specific, concrete one with all viewpoints in it.
 * User:Rhion Medieval Wales.
 * Angus McLellan Britain and Ireland, mainly before the Normans; Merovingians and Carolingians; pre-Mongol Rus.
 * User:Neddyseagoon - First Barons' War and Dover Castle
 * Stoa - English/Norman monarchs (specifically Eleanor of Aquitaine and Empress Matilda), royalty/titles of the High Middle Ages, medieval judicial systems, early Islamic philosophy, Charlemagne/Paladins, Arthurian Literature and their authors.
 * Dryzen Byzantine Empire, crusades, Franks, Heraldry.
 * Thetruthbelow 23:36, 29 April 2006 (UTC) Crusades, Arthurian legends, Chinese empires Sorry everyone, but I don't have enough time to participate in this project. I hereby withdraw my status as a participant. Thetruthbelow(talk) 14:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Beginning – Interested in a bit of everything, but particularly art, architecture, literature, languages, and minority groups. (April 29, 2006)
 * E va   d  b  – I'm mostly interested in articles of a heraldic nature.  Heraldry developed in the late and high Middle Ages, so I think that it's appropriate.  Other than that, I'll probably just stick to copy editing and other help.
 * Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 19:10, 11 May 2006 (UTC) Interested in Jewish history, Sub-Roman Britain, the Vikings and Norse history, and the history and anthropology of the Eurasian nomads (particularly the Khazars).
 * Pat Payne 22:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC) I'm interested mostly in the history of England and the Vikings in the Dark Ages, although I am also starting to study more general European history as well.
 * Great Legacy I love history! I'll see what I can do
 * Alarine – Mostly interested in high and late Middle Ages - particularly art and literature and how they were affected by politics, along with minority groups, medical and technological developments. But so far, I've mostly stuck to copy editing and minor changes, since I'm relatively new to contributing.
 * Dylicious I'm interested in Early Germanic Tribes, Anglo-Saxon, Goths, Franks, etc. I also am interested in Byzantine history. Eurasian/Turkic nomads.
 * Merne Túrante Hello, History major here. I am still a sapling when it comes to History (I mean on the academic area), but I intend on getting specialized at Medieval literature.
 * Kober, interested in the medieval Caucasus and Middle East.
 * Andrew Dalby. I focus on the late 12th century Mediterranean, down to the Fourth Crusade; also original narrative sources; also oral or quasi-oral epic poetry
 * Rcpaterson I have a working knowledge of most aspects of European political and military history in the Middle Ages, but my area of expertise is in the history of the British Isles, particularly in the wars between England and Scotland. I began by improving and editing existing articles (many of a quite dismal standard).  More recently I have started to make original contributions.
 * insiriusdenial So-called "Medieval Studies" major. My main interests are art-related, theological, and late Medieval history.
 * Garcilaso 20:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Interested in Culture and Art of the Middle Ages, specially in Architecture, and in Spanish Middle Ages, Christian and Muslim.
 * SteveMcCluskey  Medieval science (esp. astronomy and computus); medieval philosophy.
 * Frodowilson Medieval England, France, Scotland, and Wales. English Medieval Wars and Conquests, Medieval castles, political geography, Christianity, Medieval economy.
 * Xandar 18:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC) Interested in Medieval Europe, Africa and Middle East
 * User:Ghostexorcist - Interested in the First Crusade
 * User:Qmwne235 - Crusades, Hundred Years' War, Muslim kingdoms, Mongols, China, anything about Central Asia. Not an expert.
 * Srnec — varied, but especially southern Italy, the Carolingians and Merovingians
 * InfernoXV Low-level Byzantinist and Classicist, palæographer.
 * Peter Isotalo Pretty much anything except heraldry. Particular interest social history with a special fondness for cuisine.
 * Cupbearer - Senior majoring in medieval history. Special interest: hunting.
 * Bearerofthecup - Cupbearer (above) reincarnated
 * Vincentvivi - In-depth understanding of the history of England between the reign of Alfred and the time of the Reformation in terms of monarchic struggles and foreign wars. Interests in the Holy Roman Empire and Scotland during this period.
 * DGG 05:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC) Librarian, but history is not my professional field. Nowadays, mainly trying to prevent deletions of anything that sounds academic.
 * User:Johnbod Mostly art history, especially at the end of the period - prints in particular. I've done some costume stuff, but that's not really my field.
 * Grimhelm Medieval science, philosophy, warfare, fortifications, Byzantine Empire, Vikings and Rus', etc ad nauseam; working on Bolli Bollasson at the moment.
 * Rob Lindsey Hi there. Have a background in Old English, Anglo-Saxon history, and Catholicism, but I'm also quite interested in the Welsh and the Welsh language. That said, I'm up for anything medieval really! Rob Lindsey 11:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Elonka. Trying to get Knights Templar to featured status
 * TomasBat Very interested in medievel times, especially in knigthood, The Black Death, The Hundred Years War, and its dark, early period.
 * Brandon - interested primarily in literature and society in medieval Italy.
 * AnnaKucsma — Particularly inerested in Joan of Arc (and by extension, the Hundred Years' War), and Arthurian legend
 * Studiofox - I read books and follow links and now I'm here.
 * dllu - Right now I'm working on my MA thesis about collective memory in the sagas, so things related to that will definitely get my attention, but anything medieval is great, and anything Nordic is even better! :o)
 * Kyok o  - the Middle Ages are not my strength, but despite that, I'm interested in La Chanson de Roland and Arthurian legend. I'm currently working on The Lais of Marie de France. I hope to improve my knowledge about the Middle Ages and maybe give something back too.
 * Cantrix - I'm a medieval re-enactor, so I'm especially interested in medieval life and society.
 * Samrsharma- Military composition and tactics
 * Abbeybufo - particularly interested in monastic history & medieval lit - my BA dissertation was on dream texts, and my MA on medieval buildings archaeology. Don't have a lot of time, but will help when/if I can.
 * User:SGilsdorf - Late antique, Carolingian, and Ottonian history; ecclesiastical history; liturgy; historiography
 * Ealdgyth - Anglo-Norman and Angevian history, including some genealogy
 * Attilios - Italian medieval architectures, figures and Co. Also work in progress on Byzantine Empire (Fatured article only for absolute length... but it needs much work) and History of Rome.
 * Ryan McDaniel 22:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC) Most knowledgeable on Late Antique, English, Spanish
 * Arundhati Lejeune Arundhati lejeune 10:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC) Particularly interested in Celts and Middle English.
 * Hera52 10:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC), Medieval History A level Student (Britain)- I'm interested in Byzantium and I've studied 11th/12th century Europe.
 * Cavanagd 12:32, 16 July 2007 (UTC), I'm going into second year University Level history (Ireland) particular interests in Scottish/Irish history. European history too. Give me work!
 * Cocytus Pursuing my Ph D. in Medieval Studies, specific interests are in literature, the sagas, Iceland and the Vikings.
 * EvertoExcel Not an expert or anything, but will help out where I can.
 * PKM Mostly costume and textiles, also pre-Conquest Britain and the Plantagenets, will be infrequent.
 * LordAmeth I love European medieval history, Britain in particular, but my real expertise is in medieval Japan.
 * Portia1780 Medieval French Literature, Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture
 * Xn4 European history, literature, architecture and heraldry (especially English, French, German and Italian)
 * Amanda Ald I'm very fascinated in medieval history, definitely enjoyed learning about it this year, the black death (plague) was also very interesting.
 * Buirechain I'm a Medievalist interested in early Ireland, although with training more broadly throughout Europe, especially Insular history and languages. I'm currently working on Early Irish law and am planning to work on other aspects of early Irish history, esp. social structure.
 * ArchiveMaker 07:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC) History ftw. Ask if you need help, always happy to contribute.
 * User:georgequizbowl08
 * User:Sicilian-American. I'm interested in medieval Sicily currently, but my interests shift.
 * Merovingian (T, C, E) 12:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Doric Loon - interests include: medieval Germany, medieval historiography, history of German language.
 * Kafka Liz - I'm currently primarily interested in manuscripts and iconography, with side interests in Seljuk Turkey and Byzantine art.
 * Wjhonson - Building a database of all genealogical ties between all "rulers" from 500 to 1700, referenced to primary sources. It will take about 90 years but hey.
 * RomanticParrot - I love everything history, especially European Medieval history and northern Africa / Middle Eastern history.
 * Vojvodaen (talk) 09:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Jmacwiki - Happy to help. Esp. Great Britain, Eastern & former-Western Roman: political & linguistic history, Romanesque architecture, plagues.
 * German Osorio - Amateur historian.
 * samsam22 Crusdares, Mamlukes and ayyubids. Samsam22 (talk) 03:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Vinsfan368
 * Ron B. Thomson (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies) medieval mathematics and astronomy
 * Caranorn: The Lotharingian region in particular and the Medieval period in general.
 * Matthieu (talk) 11:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC): The Angevin Empire (committed the article) and early Plantagenet history. Relationships between Capetians and Angevin Plantagenets, more generally the evolution of the Capetian dynasty. Feudal France as a whole.
 * WikieWikieWikie Europe, 500AD- 1500AD, with specific concern in the British Isles and the Scandinavian regions, with a point of view for study of the wider European field. Christendom and Crusades.
 * Boomx021 The Second Crusade would be something of my knowledge along with the Hundred Years War. I'll also have knowledge in the Spanish Empire.
 * Narfil Palùrfalas (talk) - I should have joined this project a long time ago. I enjoy studying especially the Italian Renaissance and, oddly enough, the early Dark Ages as well.  But I like pretty much all of pre-modern history.
 * AprilBlood So glad I finally joined up with Wikipedia and this Project! I'm especially interested in, and reasonably knowledgeable concerning the Italian Renaissance.
 * Chris772 (talk) 06:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC) I am knowledgeable in the history of Europe, Britain, and Scandinavia (generally Viking era Scandinavia). I will do what I can to help out and make Wikipedia a better place for historical information.
 * User Cate228 Medieval (12th century) Welsh and Celtic history is an obsessive hobby of mine. I look forward to putting some of it to good use.
 * Daryl I am interested in all history, however, I am particularly interested in the sixth century A.D.
 * User:Yggur Interested in Medieval history, specifically the Early Middle Ages.
 * Through Blue mostly Plantagenet and Capet.
 * Lysandros - Mostly Crusades and Ottoman expansion into Europe.
 * Secisek - I am interested in the British Isles and Church History.
 * Lioux - I have studied medieval music history fairly extensively in pursuit of a degree.
 * Dictionman- I am interested in the Medieval era, however mostly of pretaining to Germanic and Gothic cultures. I have a sizeable knwoledge of the Crusades, Frankish Empire and the Renaissance.
 * JanderVK Medieval and Neo-Mediaevalism
 * RCB - I have been obsessed about the Middle Ages since early childhood, specifically warfare and medieval Japan.
 * tobyc75 - I'm mainly interested in Germanic and British history.
 * User:TootsMojo - I have a strong background in history and I am always happy to be of help.
 * User:Manutdglory - The Crusades
 * User:Pietru il-Boqli - Mediterranean medieval history, Maltese medieval history, medieval theology.
 * User:Bighairything - Especiallly interested in early medieval period and Byzantium generally.
 * User:Hadrian89 - Literature mostly, but a bit of British history too.
 * Jwhosler
 * User:Dougatwiki - Mainly biographies of people connected with Sussex, England.
 * User:Gloryify - Interested in French, including the Hundred Year War, Anglo-Saxon, including King Arthur and the Crusades and Nordish History and Mythology.
 * User:Nefirious - Connected with Indian Medieval History, European Medieval History and wars.
 * Nicosia1 - Byzantium, Crusades, Cyprus
 * User:Estarrol - Warfare, countries, pretty much everything
 * Mazhindu - Interested in all aspects of history but at the minute have a special interested in medieval
 * Laurinavicius - Interests in all aspects of medieval history, particularly European, Byzantine, Middle Eastern, and military history
 * Jan1nad - English, particularly Mercian, from 600 to 1400
 * Supertouch: mostly biographies of medieval Islamic figures
 * Inuyasha1821990: Holy Roman Empire
 * DerFreigeist (talk) 11:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC):I'm interested in medieval Southeastern Europe
 * User:Jeanne boleyn - I am mainly interested in the House of Plantagenet, the Wars of the Roses, the Hundred Years War, Crusader kingdoms, the mysterious Knights Templar, and the Lusigan and Mortimer families. I have created articles on various medieval noblewomen and heiresses; and I have expanded the Isabella of Angouleme, Philippa of Hainault, and Margaret of Anjou articles. My favourite specific periods are the 13th and 15th centuries, and the colourful personages who illuminated them.
 * camdan - polish and Lithuanian history, Clans in late medieval time
 * User:Richard asr interested in Medieval Arthurian legend and literature, Middle English poetry and the themes and motifs common to Medieval Romance in general.
 * Revcasy (talk) interested in early to high Middle Ages, Byzantium, political history of the Catholic church, political transformations of the 10th and 11th century, and small scale medieval warfare tactics
 * User:Knight1993 The Crusades, the Reconquista, the Vikings, the Byzantine Empire and the Hundred Years war.
 * User:Daniel32708 A little bit of everything!
 * User:Er-vet-en Early to high.
 * CanonLawJunkie (talk) 20:25, 21 August 2010 (UTC)  Love the Middle Ages! Can work on Catholic Church articles. Thanks and God bless!
 * Deltabaryon From Antiquity to Modern Times.
 * XPTO Portuguese history and Reconquista
 * Gregorius the Brown Happy to work on pretty much anything. I am especially interested in the High Middle Ages, including the Crusades.
 * User:TheSilverArrow Bosnian history
 * User:Monica italiana Graduate student working on Italian and Middle English literature, especially Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch and Chaucer
 * User:BenFrankish Currently doing my MA on Muslim subjects of Valencia and Sicily, but also interested in the Mediterranean encounter of faiths more generally, the Crusade movement, the history of the Crusader states & 11th-14th C religious history.
 * User:Grey Fox-9589 The Low Countries, and more.
 * Christianity, Anglo-Saxon England, and lots of other things.
 * User:TheConduqtor Concerned with any and all things having to do with medieval history, specifically the early Anglo-Saxon period (subsequent to the fall of the Roman Empire).
 * User:Peaceingalaxy Especially interested in England and France.
 * User:Johnboddie
 * ARG1900 Very interested in women's history.
 * User:David.cormier ministerialis, Holy Roman Empire, heraldry.
 * User:Ceoil, esp 1400-1530 art history. But also late 13th c. Ceoil (talk) 09:07, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * User:LeftAire Love mostly any aspect of history; mainly interested in the High and Late Middle Ages (Up to the 18th Century as a whole), but would be more than willing to contribute to expanding links. Other specific areas in the Middle Ages: Holy Roman Empire, Danish-Ruled England (Canute-era), Song Dynasty China, and relations with western Europe and the Byzantines (mainly during the first two Crusades.)
 * User:AbbyShant Mostly interested in certain literary works, and happy to do research on areas I'm not quite as well versed in to help!
 * User:EmyP Librarian and historian. Areas of strongest knowledge are Lay piety & devotion (Britain and Europe), Kievan Rus', and Interrelations between noble families. Fluent Russian = work translating articles between RU and EN Wikipedia.
 * User:PretorianOlinCrusade's
 * Zoebuggie☺ Newly returned to Wikipedia, unsure of involvement. Interested in the events around the reign of Alfred the Great of Wessex, Anglo -Saxon Life and culture.
 * User: LM103  Medieval Europe.  12/13th century.
 * Hfeatherina (talk) 08:27, 29 November 2012 (UTC)User: Hfeatherina : I'm a PhD Candidate at Johns Hopkins writing a dissertation on Renaissance political history.
 * User: Gadifere High to Late Middle Ages, nobility and military history. Knights are awesome! Fluent in Dutch and happy to get started on some translations to get a better coverage of the medieval history of the Low Countries.
 * User:Codrinb - Especially focused on central and eastern Europe, but not only
 * Wilhelm Meis - Interested in heraldry, the Holy Roman Empire, medieval toys and games (primarily hnefatafl), hastiludes, medieval/renaissance literature and evolving notions of chivalry.
 * Kendrick7talk 03:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC) About time I said howdy. Mostly have worked on theology, heresy, etc.
 * Arnoutf (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2014 (UTC) Interest in Middle Ages, especially 800-1500 European. Chipping away at the backlog of non assessed article.
 * Jontiben (talk) 12:10, 13 March 2014 (UTC) I'm mostly interested in ancient pre-classical history, but I have an interest in Medieval history as well, mostly Italian, Holy Roman, and the British Isles.
 * Retroplum (talk) Anglo-Saxon England, pre-Christian Scandinavia and anything to do with the Carolingian Empire.
 * Rubor Sanguinis (talk) The Church's history in the high and late Middle Ages, especially the subject of heresies; also the culture and art in the above-mentioned periods (troubadours, trouvères, chansons de geste, and so on).
 * Staranise (talk) My interest is in 16th century Italy, 14th century France and biographies of women throughout the Medieval and Renaissance periods.
 * Tomh903 (talk) Mostly interested in the British Isles throughout the Middle Ages and also might edit significantly on Crusade related topics.
 * JoshNEWK1998 (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC) Just generally intrested in the Middle Ages and helping to improve pages.
 * Duonaut (talk | contribs) 01:29, 28 October 2014 (UTC) Interested in the Middle Ages (Mainly England.)
 * SamWilson989 (talk) 15:04, 4 January 2015 (UTC) Interested in the Angevin Empire and the people who lived within it.
 * User:Thewildhunt : Currently studying Middle Byzantine pd, interest in warrior saints, accession politics, tactica, law, borderlands. Have done early&high middle ages stuff in West– manuscript traditions, miracles & magic
 * User:Vami IV : Middle Ages European history enthusiast. Primary interests are Europe circa 1 AD to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. My wet dream topics are Christianity, Christendom, The Crusades, Knights, Chivalry, and especially Castles. That being said, I am more than willing to edit / work on what needs to be worked on. See my contributions for my previous work. Novice editor.
 * User:Charlesvvvv (User Talk:Charlesvvvv) Interested in all medieval history such as the Crusades
 * User:Dan Koehl (User Talk:Dan Koehl) Interested in all medieval history such as noble families, genealogy and cross-wiki related to those topics.
 * User:Isaiasad2 (User Talk:Isaiasad2) Interested mainly in the Crusades and Europen warfare
 * User:FrederickII (User talk:FrederickII) Interested in Medieveal warfare such as the Crusades and the other wars waged in Europe.
 * User:InformationvsInjustice (User Talk:InformationvsInjustice) I have acquired some knowledge of the manuscript tradition.  I can read Latin and am making a go of Greek.
 * Glz19 (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2017 (UTC) Interested in all medieval history, with a special attention to my country, Lombardy.
 * User:TungstenPoet1 Mainly concerned with Charles d'Orléans and pages related to him.
 * ILoveCaracas (talk) 05:50, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
 * --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2018 (UTC) Have worked on many medieval articles: Merovingian, Carolingian, Belgian, English, etc
 * Iazyges  Consermonor   Opus meum  04:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Fb2ts (talk) 14:35, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Figfires Send me a message! 16:02, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
 * --Ermenrich (talk) 13:50, 20 May 2018 (UTC) I'm working on improving Wikipedia's coverage of medieval German literature, especially heroic poetry. I can also help with some historical topics.
 * 20DKB03 Interested in all Medieval history, more particularly in the Byzantine Empire.
 * Escriba de Restrepo Medievalist.
 *  Je Bon Ser  (talk | sign) 18:43, 24 February 2019 (UTC). Europa!
 * ImanFakhri  Talk   16:13, 9 September 2019 (UTC) Interested mainly in Crusades.
 * Fachwerkhaus54 Interested mostly in Germanic-speaking Europe.
 * NoahKidd1478 Mainly concerned with the European 'Dark Ages'. I want to contribute to the 'year' pages from 395 to 900. Working on a book about the Dark Ages.
 * Tgec17 Currently focused on 13th century Nobility
 * Maldezir Medievalist & Hispanist concerned about Iberian Peninsula's underrepresentation on English Wikipedia.
 *  The Emperor of Byzantium  (talk) have experience in Early, & Later Byzantine History (as well as an interests in Post-Roman Britannia, High Byzantine culture and The formation of the Varangian Rus.
 * Gellersa Focus area: Codicology/History of the Book, especially the history of paper in Europe mostly surrounding the Balkans.
 * AllegroConFuco Most experience in German-speaking Europe, Britain and the Balkans.
 * Al-khataei: Europe, Western, Northern, Central and South Asia and North Africa.
 * User:StarTigerJLN: Medieval France, Medieval England
 * User:Wichmann92: Focus: Medieval military, esp. the crusades, Byzantines, medieval logistics, medieval military culture; Geographic areas: Germany, France, England, Italy, Scandinavia); Historiography of medieval studies; Religion and medieval mentalities.
 * User:Moostcho: Focus Areas: Byzantine history, early middle ages in Western Europe
 * User:Ficaia: Mainly Europe and Middle East.
 * User:Faust.TSFL: medieval onomastics, and early medieval British history/archaeology
 * User:Ltwin: I focus on British and Christianity related topics.
 * Osbus00: MA History student; interested in general medieval history with a particular focus on Iberia and Languedoc
 * Jeblinton: AI researcher helping students analyze Middle English dialects, with an interest in clearing up the current state of scholarship on the long-contested identity of Sir Thomas Malory, writer of Le Morte D'arthur.
 * Gyalu22 Interested in the story of Central and Southeast Europe. Loves medieval warfare
 * GoldenBootWizard276
 * Godtres Particularly interested in the medieval church and heresy.
 * User:Unlimitedlead Primarily royal biographies.
 * Havenzeye Love to learn about the history of the Middle Ages and would love to contribute to the project
 * Seltaeb Eht (talk) 07:07, 28 November 2023 (UTC): Interested in the early middle ages, medieval Ireland, the Carolingian world, and the Eastern Roman Empire
 * JimKillock Jim Killock (talk) 22:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC) Mostly interested in medieval topics, local history to Worcestershire, working on some pages about English Jewish history and also Neo-Latin.
 * Gankbank789 Gankbank789 (talk) 10:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC) Mostly interested late Medieval history pertaining the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark, but also interested in the Carolingian Dynasty, medieval Italy, and medieval Switzerland. Working on pages relating to the Dano-Hanseatic rivalry and the Old Swiss Confederacy as of this date.
 * Michael Goodyear Academic and amateur historian. Currently trying to bring some critical scholarship to Eleanor of Aquitaine
 * SeanPadraig (talk) 17:59, 14 February 2024 (UTC) - my interests lie primarily in south-east Northumberland.
 * Orecchietta Particularly interested in medieval Mediterranean cross-cultural exchanges and medieval philosophies of music.
 * 01:34:00, 22 June 2024 (UTC) - My interests are the Holy Roman Empire and Austria, as well as the biographies of royal and noble family members.
 * Orecchietta Particularly interested in medieval Mediterranean cross-cultural exchanges and medieval philosophies of music.
 * 01:34:00, 22 June 2024 (UTC) - My interests are the Holy Roman Empire and Austria, as well as the biographies of royal and noble family members.

Related WikiProjects

 * WikiProject History
 * WikiProject Medieval Scotland
 * WikiProject Military history/Medieval warfare task force
 * WikiProject King Arthur
 * Medieval philosophy task force
 * Crusades task force
 * WikiProject Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

title: Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages


text:
Kyle Orton

Kyle Raymond Orton (born November 14, 1982) is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for Purdue, where he started four straight bowl games. He was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft. After an injury to Bears starter Rex Grossman, Orton was pressed into service as the starting quarterback during his rookie year, starting the first 14 games of the 2005 season, but was replaced by Grossman for the playoffs that year. Orton did not play at all in 2006, and sparingly in 2007. He regained his starting job from Grossman in 2008, but the team finished a disappointing 9–7 and out of the playoffs. In the offseason of that year, he was traded to the Denver Broncos.

Orton spent the next three seasons with Broncos, where he amassed a 12–21 record as a starting quarterback over three seasons. He lost his starting role to Tim Tebow during the 2011 season and was released by the team. Orton was claimed off waivers by the Kansas City Chiefs. He spent the next three seasons as a back-up quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills. Orton became the Bills' starting quarterback in 2014, where he went 7–5. He retired after the season.

Early life
Orton attended Southeast Polk High School in Pleasant Hill, Iowa, where he was a four-sport star in football, basketball, tennis, and track & field.

At the end of his high school career, Orton was the No. 2 ranked quarterback in the nation by SuperPrep and No. 7 by Rivals.com. His career passing statistics were 208 for 450 (46.2%), 3,176 yards with 24 touchdowns, and 18 interceptions. He earned honorable mention all-state and first-team all-conference his senior year, after completing 95 of 192 attempts (49.5%), 1,366 yards with 12 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions.

Orton wore uniform No. 18 in honor of former Nebraska Cornhuskers' quarterback Brook Berringer who died in a plane crash in 1996.

College career
Orton committed to Purdue, but considered attending Colorado before ultimately deciding on the former. Orton started in the 2001, 2002 and 2004 Sun Bowl, and the 2003 Capital One Bowl. He is the only Purdue quarterback to start four consecutive bowl games (Drew Brees and Mark Herrmann started three straight). During his undergraduate years at Purdue, Orton was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

In 2004, Orton was the preseason third-team All-American quarterback, behind USC's Matt Leinart and Oklahoma's Jason White as well as a Heisman Trophy hopeful early in the season. After starting the season 5–0 the Boilermakers lost 4 straight close games. During that stretch Orton suffered injuries against Michigan and Northwestern. Brandon Kirsch took over for Orton in the 3rd quarter against Northwestern and Orton subsequently missed the game the following week against Iowa. Orton was able to return to the field in the 4th quarter against Ohio State to help the Boilermakers get the go ahead TD to overcome the Buckeyes and snap their losing streak. The following week the Boilermaker's defeated their rival, Indiana Hoosiers, 63–24. During that game Orton tied former Purdue quarterback Drew Brees' record for number of passing yards in a game (522). That record stood until 2018 when David Blough threw for 572 yards in a game against University of Missouri.

Orton makes a cameo in NCAA Football 2006, where he says, "EA Sports, it's in the game", along with Derek Anderson in the game's introduction.

2005
Orton was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft. In the 2005 NFL season, he was rushed into the Bears starting lineup as a rookie after a preseason injury to starter Rex Grossman, and the poor play of back-up Chad Hutchinson. Orton started 15 games of the season, but was replaced by Grossman after halftime during the Bears' Week 15 victory against the Atlanta Falcons. After sitting for Week 16, Orton started the regular season finale, Week 17, against the Minnesota Vikings. The outcome of this game, for the Chicago Bears, did not have any effect on their post-season hopes. The Bears had already clinched the NFC North championship and a first-round bye in the 2005–06 playoffs with their Week 16 victory over the Green Bay Packers. Grossman then started for the Bears in their only post-season game. They lost to the Carolina Panthers.

Overall, the Bears had a record of 10–5 in games that Orton started, including an eight-game winning streak after a 1–3 start. Despite the team's success, Orton finished with the lowest quarterback rating in the NFL (59.7) among all "qualified" quarterbacks (those with 224+ pass attempts). Despite the low rating, the Bears coaches repeatedly insisted that they were pleased with Orton's performance. The coaching staff asked Orton to minimize mistakes and to let the rushing attack and the defense win ballgames rather than employing an aggressive passing attack.

Measuring Orton's victories, his rookie season was successful. His 15 starts and 10 victories are both rookie records for Bears quarterbacks. 10 rookie wins is also sixth most in the NFL since 1970. , Orton held at least 5 other Bears rookie franchise records, including completions (190), attempts (368), passing yards (1,869), passing TDs (9), and interceptions in a single game (5 on Sep 25 against Cincinnati).

2006
Following the 2005 season, the Bears signed veteran Brian Griese as the team's second-string quarterback. Orton, now demoted, became the Bears’ third-string quarterback, and did not see any action throughout the entire 2006 season.

2007
The following off-season, the Bears acquired Chris Leak, who had previously led the Florida Gators to a BCS Championship, shortly after the 2007 NFL Draft. Leak struggled in training camp, while Orton, who had trained in the off-season, excelled but was placed at third string. According to the Chicago Tribune, Orton was en route to overtake Griese's (then) second string position. Orton continued to show signs of improvement in the preseason. He completed sixteen of twenty-five passes for 151 yards and one touchdown en route to leading the Bears to a comeback victory over the Houston Texans.

After the Bears lost their chances of making a postseason berth, Lovie Smith chose to start Orton over Griese. Orton made his first start in nearly two seasons on December 17, 2007, against the Minnesota Vikings. The Bears lost the game 20–13. Orton finished with 22 completions on 38 attempts, 184 yards, and 1 interception. He improved in the final two games of the season, leading the Bears to two consecutive victories, passing for 294 yards, 3 touchdowns and an interception.

2008
On February 25, 2008, the Bears and Orton agreed to a one-year contract extension running through the 2009 season. Competition for the starting quarterback job was expected to be fierce with Rex Grossman, during training camp.

On August 18, after deadlock against Grossman in games with the Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks, Bears head coach Lovie Smith named Orton the team's starting QB for the 2008 season in Week 3 of the preseason, despite not throwing a pass over 17 yards or for a touchdown in the first two preseason games.

On September 7, 2008, Orton led the Bears to a 29–13 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the first regular season game of the season. He threw for a career-high 334 yards and two touchdowns, while completing 24 of 34 passes in a 34–7 victory over the Detroit Lions. He finished the game with a career-high, at that time, passer rating of 121.4.

From the start of November 2008, Kyle Orton passed for ten touchdowns, and four interceptions, leading the Bears to a 4–3 record. Orton sustained an ankle injury against the Detroit Lions in Week 9 of the NFL season, and did not start the next week. He rushed himself back into the starting lineup a week after Grossman had a solid outing coming off the bench against the Titans. After his return, Orton threw eight touchdowns, and eight interceptions while averaging a quarterback rating of 66.9, including ratings of 39.1 against Minnesota, 49.2 against New Orleans, and 48.7 against Green Bay.

The Bears finished the season with a 9–7 record, while missing the playoffs by one game. Coach Lovie Smith was pleased with Orton's performance and believed he would be the team's starting quarterback for the following season. However, Jerry Angelo, the team's general manager, stated he wished to further solidify the quarterback position in the long run.

2009
On April 2, 2009, the Bears traded Orton (along with their first and third-round draft picks in 2009 and their first-round pick in '10) to the Denver Broncos for Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler and the Broncos' fifth round pick in '09.

On June 13, Broncos head coach Josh McDaniels declared Orton the starting quarterback for the season. Orton led the Broncos to a 12–7 victory in the 2009 season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was won on a deflected pass that landed in the arms of Brandon Stokley who took it 87 yards for a touchdown. This play has been called "The Immaculate Deflection" in many media sources.

Over the next five weeks, Orton led the Broncos to a surprising 6–0 record to begin the season. His most impressive effort in that streak came against the New England Patriots, when he completed 35–48 passes for 330 yards and orchestrated a 98-yard drive to tie the game and send it into overtime. He threw his first interception of the season to Randy Moss, who came in to help on the attempted Hail Mary pass, at the end of the first half. It was his first in 173 pass attempts which dated back to 2008 when he was with the Chicago Bears. He led another drive for the game-winning field goal in overtime. On October 13, 2009, Kyle Orton was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week, for that effort.

On Nov 15, Orton suffered an ankle injury on the road against the Washington Redskins. He came out of the game at halftime with a career-high passer rating of 134.7. The injury kept him from starting the next game against the Chargers. He did return partway through that game, replacing Chris Simms.

For the 2009 season (playing in 16 games with 15 starts), Orton threw 21 touchdown passes and 12 interceptions with an 86.8 QB rating.

2010
Orton was named the Broncos starting quarterback for 2010. He signed a one-year contract extension (through the 2011 season), on August 19, 2010. On September 26, 2010, Orton threw for 476 yards against the Indianapolis Colts, a career-high. Less than two months later, November 14, Orton threw a career-high four touchdown passes against the Kansas City Chiefs. Later in the season, with the Broncos eliminated from playoff contention, Orton played poorly against the Arizona Cardinals on December 12, 2010. Tim Tebow was named the starter the following week by interim coach Eric Studesville and played the last three games of the season. Orton finished the season with 3,653 yards, 20 touchdowns, and nine interceptions

2011
Orton entered the 2011 season as the Broncos starting quarterback. The team had a 1–4 start with Orton throwing 8 touchdowns and 7 interceptions as the starter, accumulating 979 yards and completing 58.7% of his passes. He was replaced as the starter by Tim Tebow during the week 5 contest against the San Diego Chargers, and Orton never took another snap for the Broncos. Orton was waived on November 22, 2011, officially ending his tenure with the Denver Broncos. He had a record of 12–21 as a starter during his time with the Broncos, throwing for 8,434 yards, 49 touchdowns, and 28 interceptions.

Kansas City Chiefs
He was claimed off waivers by the Kansas City Chiefs on November 23, 2011, after a season-ending injury to starting quarterback Matt Cassel. Kansas City paid $2.5 million remaining on Orton's nearly $8.9 million salary for the year. Chicago (looking to replace injured Jay Cutler) and the Dallas Cowboys (because of concerns of injuries to backup quarterback Jon Kitna) also made claims on him. However, since Kansas City had a worse record than the other two teams it was given priority in claiming him per the NFL's inverse order of the standings rule on the waiver priority list.

On December 4, 2011, in a game against his former team, the Chicago Bears, Orton came into the second quarter to relieve Tyler Palko, but was injured on his first pass attempt. Palko led the Chiefs to a 10–3 win over the Bears, but struggled the following week in a 37–10 loss to the Jets.

Palko's injury paved the way for a quarterback change, and on December 18, Orton was named the starting Chiefs' quarterback by new interim coach Romeo Crennel. In his first game as their starter, he led the Chiefs to a 19–14 upset of the previously undefeated Green Bay Packers, ending the defending 2011 Super Bowl champions winning streak at 19 games, dating back to the previous season. He completed 23 of 31 passes for 299 yards with no interceptions and no passing touchdowns.

In the final two games of the season, Orton lost 16–13 in overtime against the Raiders before returning to Denver to defeat the Broncos in the season finale.

Dallas Cowboys
On March 14, 2012, Orton signed a three-year contract with the Dallas Cowboys to replace former backup quarterback Jon Kitna, who retired after the Cowboys' 2011 season. In week 4 against the Bears, his former team, Orton replaced Tony Romo late in the game and threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Jason Witten, though the Bears still won the contest 34–18. The Cowboys went on to finish the season 8–8, losing to the Washington Redskins in a do-or-die week 17 contest.

In the 2013 season, Orton had seen minimal time on the field with a total of 40 passing yards which all came during week 14 against the Chicago Bears. On December 27, 2013, head coach Jason Garrett announced that Orton would be the starting quarterback for the week 17 game against the Philadelphia Eagles after Tony Romo underwent back surgery. He threw for 30 completions and 358 yards on 46 attempts (65.2%) and two touchdowns. He threw an early interception by Mychal Kendricks which was dropped by his tight end Jason Witten, and another interception by Brandon Boykin on the Cowboys' last drive which secured a 24–22 victory for the Eagles.

Buffalo Bills
Prior to the 2014 NFL season, Orton threatened the Cowboys with a possible retirement and did not report to any of the team's organized team activities or workouts. Besides accumulating $70,000 in fines, quarterback coach Wade Wilson reported that Orton did not maintain any communications with the Cowboys during this period. Orton, who risked losing part of his signing bonus by holding out, eventually showed up to training camp. The team released him on July 15 and promoted Brandon Weeden to the backup quarterback position. The Cowboys were relieved of Orton's $3.25 million salary in 2014, but still had to pay him a signing bonus. He would follow Jeremiah Ratliff as the second player in two straight years to force the Cowboys to waive him.

On August 29, 2014, Orton agreed on a two-year deal with the Buffalo Bills, with the team paying him $5 million in the first year alone, making him the highest paid backup quarterback in the league. On September 29, 2014, at the beginning of week 5, Bills head coach Doug Marrone announced that Orton would become the new starting quarterback for the Bills in relief of EJ Manuel. Taking over with the team at 2–2, Orton led the Bills to a 9–7 finish. Though they missed the playoffs, the 2014 season marked the first time since 2004 that the Bills had finished with a winning record. Orton finished the season with 3,018 passing yards, 18 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and an 87.8 quarterback rating.

On December 29, 2014, Orton announced his retirement from the NFL.

Personal life
After retiring from the NFL in 2014, Orton and his wife moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to raise their daughter. Orton intends to mentor high school and college-level football players in Louisiana.

Orton's father, Byron Orton, served on the Iowa Labor Commission. Orton said that running for the United States Congress "is definitely something that I want to do when I get older."

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

title: Kyle Orton


text:
Roger A. Pielke

Roger A. Pielke Sr. (born October 22, 1946) is an American meteorologist with interests in climate variability and climate change, environmental vulnerability, numerical modeling, atmospheric dynamics, land/ocean – atmosphere interactions, and large eddy/turbulent boundary layer modeling. He particularly focuses on mesoscale weather and climate processes but also investigates on the global, regional, and microscale. Pielke is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.

Background
Pielke was awarded a B.A. in mathematics at Towson State College in 1968, and then an M.S. and Ph.D. in meteorology at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in 1969 and 1973, respectively.

From 1971 to 1974 he worked as a research scientist at the NOAA Experimental Meteorology Lab (EML), from 1974 to 1981 he was an associate professor at the University of Virginia (UVa), served the primary academic position of his career as a professor at Colorado State University (CSU) from 1981 to 2006, was deputy of Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University from 1985 to 1988, from 1999 to 2006 was Colorado State Climatologist, at Duke University was a research professor from 2003 to 2006, and was a visiting professor at the University of Arizona from October–December 2004. Since 2005, Pielke has served as senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU-Boulder and an emeritus professor of the Department of Atmospheric Science at CSU. After retiring from CSU and he remains a CIRES emeritus researcher.

Pielke spearheaded development of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) with William R. Cotton.

Pielke has served as Chairman and Member of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Weather Forecasting and Analysis, as Chief Editor of Monthly Weather Review, was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 1982 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2004, has served as Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. National Science Report to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, as Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and as Editor of Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere.

On climate change
Although he had stated that carbon dioxide is not the predominant forcing of global warming, Pielke said in 2007 that he was not a "sceptical scientist" about climate change:

 * As I have summarized on the Climate Science weblog, humans activities do significantly alter the heat content of the climate system, although, based on the latest understanding, the radiative effect of CO2 has contributed, at most, only about 28% to the human-caused warming up to the present. The other 72% is still a result of human activities!

Pielke has criticized the IPCC for its conclusions regarding CO2 and global warming and accused it of selectively choosing data to support a selective view of the science.

In 2010 Pielke revisited a question provided by Andrew Revkin "Is most of the observed warming over the last 50 years likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations", Pielke stated that "the 2010 answer ... remains NO", and that "The added greenhouse gases from human activity clearly have a role in increasing the heat content of the climate system from what it otherwise would be", but "there are other equally or even more important significant human climate forcings" and furthermore "We now know, however, that the natural variations of atmospheric and ocean circulation features within the climate system produces global average heat changes that are substantially larger than what was known in 2005. The IPCC models have failed to adequately simulate this effect."

Family
Pielke is married. He has two children. His son Roger A. Pielke Jr. is a political scientist and works in the field of climate policy. His daughter Tara Pielke is a web developer.

Publications
Pielke has published more than 300 scientific papers, 50 chapters in books, and co-edited 9 books. A listing of papers can be viewed at the Pielke Research Group website.

 * Pielke, R.A., 1984: Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling. 1st Edition, Academic Press, New York.
 * Pielke, R.A., 1990: The Hurricane. Routledge Press, London.
 * Cotton, W.R. and R.A. Pielke, 1995: Human impacts on weather and climate, Cambridge University Press, New York.
 * Pielke, R.A., 1995: A primer on weather and climate.
 * Pielke, R.A. and R.P. Pearce, Editors, 1994: Mesoscale modeling of the atmosphere. American Meteorological Society Monograph, Volume 25.
 * Pielke, R.A. Jr. and R.A. Pielke Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their nature and impacts on society. John Wiley and Sons, England.
 * Pielke, R.A. Jr. and R.A. Pielke Sr., Editors, 2000: Storms, Volumes I and II, Routledge Press, London.
 * Pielke, R.A Sr.., 2002: Mesoscale meteorological modeling. 2nd Edition, Academic Press, San Diego, California.
 * Kabat, P., Claussen, M., Dirmeyer, P.A., J.H.C. Gash, L. Bravo de Guenni, M. Meybeck, R.A. Pielke Sr., C.J. Vorosmarty, R.W.A. Hutjes, and S. Lutkemeier, Editors, 2002: Vegetation, water, humans and the climate: A new perspective on an interactive system. Global Change – The IGBP Series Springer

title: Roger A. Pielke


text:
Aid to Families with Dependent Children

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was a federal assistance program in the United States in effect from 1935 to 1997, created by the Social Security Act (SSA) and administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provided financial assistance to children whose families had low or no income.

The program grew from a minor part of the social security system to a significant system of welfare administered by the states with federal funding. However, it was criticized for offering incentives for women to have children, and for providing disincentives for women to join the workforce. In July 1997, AFDC was replaced by the more restrictive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

History

The program was created under the name Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) by the Social Security Act of 1935 as part of the New Deal. It was created as a means tested entitlement which subsidized the income of families where fathers were "deceased, absent, or unable to work". It provided a direct payment of $18 per month for one child, and $12 for a second child. In 1994, the average payment was $420/month.

The federal government required contributions from individual states, and authorized state discretion to determine who received aid and in what amount. In 1961 a change in the law permitted states to extend benefits to families where the father was unemployed, a measure which 25 states eventually adopted. The words "families with" were added to the name in 1962, partly due to concern that the program's rules discouraged marriage.

The civil rights movement and the efforts of the National Welfare Rights Organization in the 1960s expanded the scope of welfare entitlements to include black women. The welfare rolls’ racial demographics changed drastically. The majority of welfare recipients still remained white and most black female recipients continued to work. Starting in 1962, the Department of Health and Human Services allowed state-specific exemptions as long as the change was "in the spirit of AFDC" in order to allow some experimentation. By 1996 spending was $24 billion per year. When adjusted for inflation, the highest spending was in 1976, which exceeded 1996 spending by about 8%. In 1967 the federal government began requiring states to establish the paternity of children eligible for the program, and extended benefits to "unemployed male parents with a work history".

Man-in-the-house rule
A number of states enacted so called "man-in-the-house" rules, which disqualified families if there was any adult male present in the household whatsoever. This was part of a broader attempt to discourage welfare dependency by the undeserving, in particular minority families where the man didn't have work or where the woman had a relationship with men who didn't take care of the family.

The "man-in-the-house" rule was struck down in 1968 by the Supreme Court in King v. Smith. Thereafter, families with males in the household were eligible for benefits if they were not deemed to be actual or substitute parents, although any financial contribution on the part of the male to the family was still considered a part of the family's total income. By 1981, the Supreme Court went further and required that states take into consideration the income earned by step-fathers.

Thirty-and-a-third rule
The year 1967 saw the establishment of the thirty-and-a-third rule, which allowed families to keep their first $30 earned along with one third of their income following the first $30 without the change affecting their eligibility for benefits. This and other factors led to a large increase in enrollment. For example, caseloads rose 24% from 1960 to 1965, but rose 126% in the period from 1965 to 1970.

Califano v. Westcott
The Supreme Court ruled in Califano v. Westcott (1979) that two-parent families with an unemployed mother are entitled to Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits.

Criticism

Early in the program, there were concerns about whether it encouraged unwed motherhood. Some advocates complained that the rule had the effect of breaking up marriages and promoting matriarchy:

"[T]he AFDC program tended to treat households with a cohabiting male who was not the natural father of the children much more leniently than those with a resident spouse or father of the children. This feature created a clear disincentive for marriage and also a clear incentive for divorce, because women who married face the reduction or loss of their AFDC benefits."

One economist was unable to find convincing evidence that welfare programs have a strong effect on the dissolution of marriages. But right or wrong, this argument was among the stepping stones leading to the modification of AFDC toward TANF.

Termination
In 1996, President Bill Clinton negotiated with the Republican-controlled Congress to pass the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which drastically restructured the program. Among other changes, a lifetime limit of five years was imposed on the receipt of benefits; the newly limited nature of the replacement program was reinforced by calling AFDC's successor Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Many Americans continue to refer to TANF as "welfare" or AFDC.

TANF has remained controversial. In 2003, LaShawn Y. Warren, an ACLU Legislative Counsel, said that TANF gives states an incentive "to deny benefits to those who need it most. The solution to getting people out of the cycle of poverty is not to prematurely kick them off welfare. Too many have been denied aid unfairly, creating a false impression that the number of people who need help has decreased." In 2006, a New Republic editorial wrote, "A broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster—and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped."

title: Aid to Families with Dependent Children


text:
Talk:British North America Act 1867

Naming
British Acts of Parliament are named without the comma. Please do not move this to "[...], 1867", "[...] (1867)", or anything else like that.

James F. (talk) 20:40, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * While I don't doubt the British convention, in Canada it is always cited as "British North America Act, 1867". The question is which country's convention should take precedence on naming the article. I'd argue it should use the Canadian form because the document is nothing less than the Constitution for the whole country while for Britian it's an act of parliament like any others. --PullUpYourSocks 01:32, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

 * The Act itself, before it was amended in 1982, said it should be cited as "The British North America Act, 1867" — with a comma. See for example. --Mathew5000 04:45, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:British North America Act 1867


text:
Secure Electronic Delivery

Secure Electronic Delivery (SED) is a service created in 2003 and provided by the  British Library Document Supply Service (BLDSS). Its purpose is to enable faster delivery of digital materials as encrypted, copyright-compliant PDF Documents, to a personal e-mail address. These documents are supplied from the British Library via its On Demand service. When the British Library supplies articles electronically, it sends them securely in order to ensure its usage is permitted (research purposes) and copyright law is observed.

Methods
As the publishing industry, authors and creators become highly protective of their assets and intellectual property, they impose strict rules on delivery methods to prevent copyright infringement. Nowadays, DRM-enabled secure delivery appears to be the most widely used solution to address issues faced by libraries in supplying ebooks and digital materials to their users. SED, one of these solutions, is using Adobe LiveCycle Digital Rights Management (LCDRM) as an encryption method to deliver documents.

Advantages
SED offers convenience, quality and speed as documents are delivered upon request at any location and on any device. Requested articles are scanned for high quality reproduction, opened anywhere on any machine, including mobile devices.

Restrictions
The following are restrictions hold in a SED service implementation:
 * The digital material is accessible only for 14 days via a link sent to a personal message.
 * Due to copyright reasons, the material can be opened only once, saved for 14 days and does not allow a copy-paste action.
 * Upon display, the material must be printed from the same device and reprinted only once.
 * The On Demand encryption technology works best on the default Safari browser although other browsers may accommodate it.

title: Secure Electronic Delivery


text:
The Chimes

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly referred to as The Chimes, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books", five novellas with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, the Christmas books include The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848).

Plot
Toby ("Trotty") Veck, an elderly "ticket-porter", plies his trade from the steps of a church, whose Chimes have for many years cheered and encouraged him as he trots around delivering letters. Today, on New Year's Eve, Trotty is filled with gloom at reports in the newspapers of working class crime and immorality, and concludes that the poor must be incorrigibly bad by nature.

Trotty's daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive to announce their decision to marry the very next day. Although desperately poor and with few prospects, they see no point in waiting any longer, reasoning that they will otherwise regret in later years the missed opportunity to have cheered and helped each other as husband and wife. The couple's happiness is dispelled by an encounter with Alderman Cute who sanctimoniously lectures them on how they have brought their own misfortunes on themselves, and who promises to ‘Put down’ such people. The couple feel they barely have a right to exist, let alone to marry.

Trotty carries a note from Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP, who dispenses charity to the poor in the manner of a paternal dictator. Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts, and berates Trotty because he is unable to pay a small debt to Mrs Chickenstalker, a local shopkeeper. Returning home, convinced that he and his  fellows are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman, and his nine-year-old orphaned niece, Lilian. Fern has been accused of vagrancy and Trotty warns that Cute plans to have him arrested. Trotty takes Fern and Lilian home, and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodgings. Meg is distressed, and it seems the encounter with Cute has dissuaded her from marrying Richard.

Trotty sits up late with a newspaper and is reinforced in his belief that the working classes are naturally wicked by reading of a poor woman who in desperation has killed both herself and her baby. Suddenly, the Chimes burst violently in on his thoughts, and seem to call him to the church. Climbing to the bellchamber, he discovers a swarming, leaping cloud of dwarf phantoms that vanish as the Chimes cease. Then he sees the dark foreboding goblin figures of the bells. The goblin of the Great Bell berates him for the wrong he has done the Chimes in losing faith in man's destiny to improve.

Trotty sees himself lying dead at the base of the bell tower, and is told that he had fallen and died there nine years ago. Meg's life is to be an object lesson for him: he must "learn from the creature nearest to [his] heart" what pressures there are on the poor. There follows a series of visions in which, helpless to interfere, he is shown the troubled lives of Meg, Richard, Will and Lilian over the subsequent years. Richard descends into alcoholism; Meg eventually marries him in an effort to save him, but he dies ruined, leaving her with a baby; Will is driven in and out of prison; Lilian turns to prostitution and dies of grief. At last, destitute and homeless, Meg is driven to contemplate drowning herself and her child. Trotty breaks down when he sees Meg poised to jump into the river, and cries that he has learned his lesson, that "there is no loving mother on the earth who might not come to this, if such a life had gone before". He finds himself able to catch her dress and prevent her from jumping.

Trotty awakens at home as the Chimes joyfully ring in the New Year on the day of Meg and Richard's wedding. Their friends arrive to provide a surprise feast and celebration. Will and Lilian are warmly greeted by Mrs Chickenstalker, who turns out to be an old friend. The author explicitly invites the reader to decide if this awakening is a dream-within-a-dream. The reader is asked to bear in mind "the stern realities from which these shadows come", and to endeavour to correct, improve, and soften them.

Principal characters

 * Toby "Trotty" Veck, the protagonist, a poor elderly messenger or "ticket-porter"
 * Margaret "Meg" Veck, Toby's daughter
 * Mrs Chickenstalker, a local shopkeeper
 * Alderman Cute, a Justice of the Peace
 * Sir Joseph Bowley, a rich paternalist MP
 * Will Fern, a countryman
 * Lilian Fern, Will's orphaned niece

Development history
The book was written in late 1844, during Dickens's year-long visit to Italy. John Forster, his first biographer, records that Dickens, hunting for a title and structure for his next contracted Christmas story, was struck one day by the clamour of the Genoese bells audible from the villa where they were staying.

"All Genoa lay beneath him, and up from it, with some sudden set of the wind, came in one fell sound the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant, jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas 'spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead.'" Two days later Forster received a letter from Dickens which read simply: "We have heard THE CHIMES at midnight, Master Shallow!", and the writing of the book began. Forster describes Dickens's intentions in writing The Chimes as striking "a blow for the poor". "They had always been his clients, they had never been forgotten in any of his books, but here nothing else was to be remembered ... he had come to have as little faith for the putting down of any serious evil, as in a then notorious city alderman's gabble for the putting down of suicide. The latter had stirred his indignation to its depths just before he came to Italy, and his increased opportunities of solitary reflection since had strengthened and extended it. When he came therefore to think of his new story for Christmas time, he resolved to make it a plea for the poor ... He was to try and convert Society, as he had converted Scrooge, by showing that its happiness rested on the same foundations as those of the individual, which are mercy and charity not less than justice." Dickens returned to London for a week in December 1844 and gave readings of the finished book to friends prior to publication, to judge its impact. The artist Daniel Maclise, who had contributed two illustrations to The Chimes and attended two of these events, portrayed the reading of 3 December 1844 in a well-known sketch.

Explanation of the novel's title
The chimes are old bells in the church on whose steps Trotty Veck plies his trade. The book is divided into four parts named "quarters", after the quarter chimes of a striking clock. (This parallels Dickens naming the parts of A Christmas Carol "staves" – that is "stanzas" – and dividing The Cricket on the Hearth into "chirps".)

Literary significance and reception
A Christmas Carol had been extremely well received the previous year, and The Chimes aroused public interest and anticipation. Five different stage productions of the book were running within weeks of publication and nearly 20,000 copies were sold in the first three months. It had a high media profile, and was widely reviewed and discussed. Critical opinion was divided; those sympathetic to its social and political message liked the book, but others thought it dangerously radical. The Northern Star reviewer called Dickens "the champion of the poor"; John Bull rejected his unflattering caricatures of philanthropy. It was certainly a financial success for Dickens, and remained popular for many years, although in the long term its fame was eclipsed by that of A Christmas Carol.

Allusions to other works
Asking the upper classes to stop interfering with his life and leave him to die, Will Fern makes a bitter reference to the biblical Book of Ruth, deliberately misquoting Ruth's "Whither thou goest, I will go" speech.

Allusions to actual history, geography and current science
The novel's setting is contemporary and the 1840s (the "Hungry Forties") were a time of social and political unrest.

Trotty's conviction that poor people are naturally wicked is influenced by an article in his newspaper about a young woman who has tried to drown herself and her child, and this motif returns at the climax of the book, when Meg is driven to contemplate the same course of action. This is a reference to Mary Furley, a destitute young woman sentenced to death in 1844 for infanticide after her desperation not to return to the workhouse led to a suicide attempt in which her child drowned. This case caused great public debate in the late spring of 1844. Dickens took part in the general outcry against the sentence, which was eventually commuted to transportation. Among other works inspired by the Furley case is Thomas Hood's poem The Bridge of Sighs.

Alderman Cute is a parody of Sir Peter Laurie, a Middlesex magistrate, alderman and former Lord Mayor of London, known for his determination to "put down" the lower classes and their antisocial behaviour. His remarks on the 1844 Mary Furley case have been cited as one inspiration to Dickens to write The Chimes.

The unnamed young man who harks back to the "good old times" is a reference to the Young England movement. Dickens removed many of these references prior to publication.

Adaptations
In 1914, the book was made into a silent film, The Chimes, directed by Thomas Bentley.

A musical adaptation of The Chimes was created in 1992 by Lisa Kofod and Gay Donat Reed, with music by Paul Johnson. A staged reading of this work was produced at The Workhouse Theatre in New York City.

The Chimes was adapted into a 24-minute clay-animated film in 2000 by Xyzoo Animation. It won a Cine Special Jury award in 2002.

The Colonial Radio Theatre in Boston produced a full cast radio production of The Chimes in 2000. This was released on CD by Blackstone Audio in 2007, and re-released by Brilliance Audio in 2011.

In 2004, a stage adaptation by Les Smith premiered at the Southwark Playhouse.

In 2015, Audible issued The Chimes as a free audible book with Christmas well wishes from the company to its subscribers.

In 2022, Average Romp released The Chimes as a full-cast audio dramatisation starring Toby Jones as Toby Veck.

title: The Chimes


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Orthogonal instruction set

In computer engineering, an orthogonal instruction set is an instruction set architecture where all instruction types can use all addressing modes. It is "orthogonal" in the sense that the instruction type and the addressing mode vary independently. An orthogonal instruction set does not impose a limitation that requires a certain instruction to use a specific register so there is little overlapping of instruction functionality.

Orthogonality was considered a major goal for processor designers in the 1970s, and the VAX-11 is often used as the benchmark for this concept. However, the introduction of RISC design philosophies in the 1980s significantly reversed the trend against more orthogonality.

Modern CPUs often simulate orthogonality in a preprocessing step before performing the actual tasks in a RISC-like core. This "simulated orthogonality" in general is a broader concept, encompassing the notions of decoupling and completeness in function libraries, like in the mathematical concept: an orthogonal function set is easy to use as a basis into expanded functions, ensuring that parts don’t affect another if we change one part.

Basic concepts
At their core, all general purpose computers work in the same underlying fashion; data stored in a main memory is read by the central processing unit (CPU) into a fast temporary memory (e.g. CPU registers), acted on, and then written back to main memory. Memory consists of a collection of data values, encoded as numbers and referred to by their addresses, also a numerical value. This means the same operations applied to the data can be applied to the addresses themselves. While being worked on, data can be temporarily held in processor registers, scratchpad values that can be accessed very quickly. Registers are used, for example, when adding up strings of numbers into a total.

Single instruction, single operand
In early computers, the instruction set architecture (ISA) often used a single register, in which case it was known as the accumulator. Instructions included an address for the operand. For instance, an  instruction would cause the CPU to retrieve the number in memory found at that address and then add it to the value already in the accumulator. This very simple example ISA has a "one-address format" because each instruction includes the address of the data.

One-address machines have the disadvantage that even simple actions like an addition require multiple instructions, each of which takes up scarce memory, and requires time to be read. Consider the simple task of adding two numbers, 5 + 4. In this case, the program would have to load the value 5 into the accumulator with the  instruction, use the   instruction pointing to the address for the 4, and finally   to store the result, 9, back to another memory location.

Single instruction, multiple operands
Further improvements can be found by providing the address of both of the operands in a single instruction, for instance,. Such "two-address format" ISAs are very common. One can further extend the concept to a "three-address format" where the   is also folded into an expanded.

It is often the case that the basic computer word is much larger than needed to hold just the instruction and an address, and in most systems, there are leftover bits that can be used to hold a constant instead of an address. Instructions can be further improved if they allow any one of the operands to be replaced by a constant. For instance,  eliminates one memory cycle, and   another.

Multiple data
Further complexity arises when one considers common patterns in which memory is accessed. One very common pattern is that a single operation may be applied across a large amount of similar data. For instance, one might want to add up 1,000 numbers. In a simple two-address format of instructions, there is no way to change the address, so 1,000 additions have to be written in the machine language. ISAs fix this problem with the concept of indirect addressing, in which the address of the next point of data is not a constant, but itself held in memory. This means the programmer can change the address by performing addition on that memory location. ISAs also often include the ability to offset an address from an initial location, by adding a value held in one of its registers, in some cases a special index register. Others carry out this addition automatically as part of the instructions that use it.

The variety of addressing modes leads to a profusion of slightly different instructions. Considering a one-address ISA, for even a single instruction,, we now have many possible "addressing modes":

 * Immediate (constant):  — adds the constant value to the result in the accumulator
 * Direct address:  — add the value stored at address 1
 * Memory indirect:  — read the value in address 1, use that value as another address and add that value

Many ISAs also have registers that can be used for addressing as well as math tasks. This can be used in a one-address format if a single address register is used. In this case, a number of new modes become available:

 * Register direct:  — add the value stored in the address held in register one
 * Displacement:  — add the constant to the address register, then add the value found in memory at that resulting location
 * Index:  — add the value in register 1 to the address register to make a new address and then adds the value at that location to the accumulator
 * Autoindex:  — as in the Index case, but automatically increments the address

Orthogonality
Orthogonality is the principle that every instruction should be able to use any supported addressing mode. In this example, if the direct addressing version of  is available, all the others should be as well. The reason for this design is not aesthetic, the goal is to reduce the total size of a program's object code. By providing a variety of addressing modes, the ISA allows the programmer to choose the one that precisely matches the need of their program at that point, and thereby reduce the need to use multiple instructions to achieve the same end. This means the total number of instructions is reduced, both saving memory and improving performance. Orthogonality was often described as being highly "bit efficient".

Keeping the addressing mode specifier bits separate from the opcode operation bits produces an orthogonal instruction set.

As the ultimate end of orthogonal design is simply to allow any instruction to use any type of address, implementing orthogonality is often simply a case of adding more wiring between the parts of the processor. However, it also adds to the complexity of the instruction decoder, the circuitry that reads an instruction from memory at the location pointed to by the program counter and then decides how to process it.

In the example ISA outlined above, the  instruction using direct encoding already has the data it needs to run the instruction and no further processing is needed, the decoder simply sends the value into the arithmetic logic unit (ALU). However, if the  instruction is used, the address has to be read, the value at that memory location read, and then the ALU can continue. This series of events will take much longer to complete and requires more internal steps.

As a result, the time needed to complete different variations of an instruction can vary widely, which adds complexity to the overall CPU design. Therefore, orthogonality represents a tradeoff in design; the computer designer can choose to offer more addressing modes to the programmer to improve code density at the cost of making the CPU itself more complex.

When memory was small and expensive, especially during the era of drum memory or core memory, orthogonality was highly desirable. However, the complexity was often beyond what could be achieved using current technology. For this reason, most machines from the 1960s offered only partial orthogonality, as much as the designers could afford. It was in the 1970s that the introduction of large scale integration significantly reduced the complexity of computer designs and fully orthogonal designs began to emerge. By the 1980s, such designs could be implemented on a single-chip CPU.

In the late 1970s, with the first high-powered fully orthogonal designs emerging, the goal widened to become the high-level language computer architecture, or HLLCA for short. Just as orthogonality was desired to improve the bit density of machine language, HLLCA's goal was to improve the bit density of high-level languages like ALGOL 68. These languages generally used an activation record, a type of complex stack that stored temporary values, which the ISAs generally did not directly support and had to be implemented using many individual instructions from the underlying ISA. Adding support for these structures would allow the program to be translated more directly into the ISA.

The PDP-11
The PDP-11 was substantially orthogonal (primarily excepting its floating point instructions). Most integer instructions could operate on either 1-byte or 2-byte values and could access data stored in registers, stored as part of the instruction, stored in memory, or stored in memory and pointed to by addresses in registers or memory. Even the PC and the stack pointer could be affected by the ordinary instructions using all of the ordinary data modes. "Immediate" mode (hardcoded numbers within an instruction, such as ADD #4, R1 (R1 = R1 + 4) was implemented as the mode "register indirect, autoincrement" and specifying the program counter (R7) as the register to use reference for indirection and to autoincrement. (Encoded as ADD (R7)+,R1 .word 4.)

The PDP-11 used 3-bit fields for addressing modes (0-7) so there were (electronically) 8 addressing modes. An additional 3-bit field specified the registers (R0–R5, SP, PC). Immediate and absolute address operands applying the two autoincrement modes to the Program Counter (R7), provided a total of 10 conceptual addressing modes. Most two operand instructions supported all addressing modes for both parameters.

The VAX-11
The VAX-11 extended the PDP-11's orthogonality to all data types, including floating point numbers. Instructions such as 'ADD' were divided into data-size dependent variants such as ADDB, ADDW, ADDL, ADDP, ADDF for add byte, word, longword, packed BCD and single-precision floating point, respectively. Like the PDP-11, the Stack Pointer and Program Counter were in the general register file (R14 and R15).

The general form of a VAX-11 instruction would be:

opcode [ operand ] [ operand ] ...

Each component being one byte, the opcode a value in the range 0–255, and each operand consisting of two nibbles, the upper 4 bits specifying an addressing mode, and the lower 4 bits (usually) specifying a register number (R0–R15).

In contrast to the PDP-11's 3-bit fields, the VAX-11's 4-bit sub-bytes resulted in 16 addressing modes (0–15). However, addressing modes 0–3 were "short immediate" for immediate data of 6 bits or less (the 2 low-order bits of the addressing mode being the 2 high-order bits of the immediate data, when prepended to the remaining 4 bits in that data-addressing byte). Since addressing modes 0-3 were identical, this made 13 (electronic) addressing modes, but as in the PDP-11, the use of the Stack Pointer (R14) and Program Counter (R15) created a total of over 15 conceptual addressing modes (with the assembler program translating the source code into the actual stack-pointer or program-counter based addressing mode needed).

The MC68000 and similar
Motorola's designers attempted to make the assembly language orthogonal while the underlying machine language was somewhat less so. Unlike PDP-11, the MC68000 (68k) used separate registers to store data and the addresses of data in memory. The ISA was orthogonal to the extent that addresses could only be used in those registers, but there was no restriction on which of the registers could be used by different instructions. Likewise, the data registers were also orthogonal across instructions. Unlike the PDP-11, the 68000 only supported one general addressing mode for two-parameter instructions. The other parameter was always a register, with the exception of MOV. The MOV instructions supported all addressing modes for both parameters.

In contrast, the NS320xx series were originally designed as single-chip implementations of the VAX-11 ISA. Although this had to change due to legal issues, the resulting system retained much of the VAX-11's overall design philosophy and remained completely orthogonal. This included the elimination of the separate data and address registers found in the 68k.

The 8080 and follow on designs
The 8-bit Intel 8080 (as well as the 8085 and 8051) microprocessor was basically a slightly extended accumulator-based design and therefore not orthogonal. An assembly-language programmer or compiler writer had to be mindful of which operations were possible on each register: Most 8-bit operations could be performed only on the 8-bit accumulator (the A-register), while 16-bit operations could be performed only on the 16-bit pointer/accumulator (the HL-register pair), whereas simple operations, such as increment, were possible on all seven 8-bit registers. This was largely due to a desire to keep all opcodes one byte long.

The binary-compatible Z80 later added prefix-codes to escape from this 1-byte limit and allow for a more powerful instruction set. The same basic idea was employed for the Intel 8086, although, to allow for more radical extensions, binary-compatibility with the 8080 was not attempted here. It maintained some degree of non-orthogonality for the sake of high code density at the time. The 32-bit extension of this architecture that was introduced with the 80386, was somewhat more orthogonal despite keeping all the 8086 instructions and their extended counterparts. However, the encoding-strategy used still shows many traces from the 8008 and 8080 (and Z80). For instance, single-byte encodings remain for certain frequent operations such as push and pop of registers and constants; and the primary accumulator, the EAX register, employs shorter encodings than the other registers on certain types of operations. Observations like this are sometimes exploited for code optimization in both compilers and hand written code.

RISC
A number of studies through the 1970s demonstrated that the flexibility offered by orthogonal modes was rarely or never used in actual problems. In particular, an effort at IBM studied traces of code running on the System/370 and demonstrated that only a fraction of the available modes were being used in actual programs. Similar studies, often about the VAX, demonstrated the same pattern. In some cases, it was shown that the complexity of the instructions meant they took longer to perform than the sequence of smaller instructions, with the canonical example of this being the VAX's  instruction.

During this same period, semiconductor memories were rapidly increasing in size and decreasing in cost. However, they were not improving in speed at the same rate. This meant the time needed to access data from memory was growing in relative terms in comparison to the speed of the CPUs. This argued for the inclusion of more registers, giving the CPU more temporary values to work with. A larger number of registers meant more bits in the computer word would be needed to encode the register number, which suggested that the instructions themselves be reduced in number to free up room.

Finally, a paper by Andrew Tanenbaum demonstrated that 97% of all the constants in a program are between 0 and 10, with 0 representing between 20 and 30% of the total. Additionally, between 30 and 40% of all the values in a program are constants, with simple variables (as opposed to arrays or such) another 35 to 40%. If the processor uses a larger instruction word, like 32-bits, two register numbers and a constant can be encoded in a single instruction as long as the instruction itself does not use too many bits.

These observations led to the abandonment of the orthogonal design as a primary goal of processor design, and the rise of the RISC philosophy in the 1980s. RISC processors generally have only two addressing modes, direct (constant) and register. All of the other modes found in older processors are handled explicitly using load and store instructions moving data to and from the registers. Only a few addressing modes may be available, and these modes may vary depending on whether the instruction refers to data or involves a transfer of control.

title: Orthogonal instruction set


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