chenr@tilt.UUCP (Raymond Chen) (05/06/84)
There's just one problem with this. It's a *ROM* !! How many of you out there would like to run your VAXens with most of UNIX on a ROM? Consider the number of unfixable bugs. It would make a great distribution medium, but five years (hopefully less) from now, when I have a VAX+ class machine sitting on my desk, I want to run the *smallest* amount of straight, canned software I can get away with. Call me spoiled, but I've gotten to *like* having the source code on- line. I don't hack it (unless I can't avoid it), but it's nice to know that I can, since there always seems to be one more major bug. (Remember the vi modeline feature?) For crying out loud, you couldn't even use a binary debugger. At the current prices, I don't think the additional storage would be worth the additional frustation. Now, a half-gigabyte RAM would be something worth looking into. Read/write players are out, but they're only one-time writes. Still, if the price of disks came down low enough, that wouldn't be bad (when the price of the r/w players come down. They are *expensive*.). By the way, I read an earlier rumor about IBM going the secrecy road with its successors to the PC. That would positively make me want to p***, excuse me. I own a PC, and the thing I like most about it is the documentation. How many other micros give you BIOS listings, instructions and examples on how to write and install custom device drivers, full documentation on the graphics chip, etc.? I can see it, five years from now. A blue, sealed box with the IBM logo on it, running half a gigabyte of unalterable IBM software. Ugh. Pardon me, but I'm feeling a little sick... Source licenses are wonderful things... -- The preceding message was brought to you by -- Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr
markh@tekig1.UUCP (05/08/84)
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site houti.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site tekig1.UUCP Message-ID: <1636@tekig1.UUCP> Date: Mon, 7-May-84 22:04:36 EDT tilt.UUCP> Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR Lines: 16 <"...we're just a habit, like sacharrine..." P. Simon> To !tilt!chenr 's lament about the CD being a ROM and thus having marginal utility I can only react with amazement...When was the last time you corrected a typo in a book or magazine? Did the existence of that typo ruin the book? Possibly, but not likely. Think of the utility of having the entire contents of the The Encyclopedia Brittanica on line? or all the cookbooks you ever wanted? or professional references (law libraries?)? I sincerely doubt that the possibilities have escaped Big Blue...and I sure don't expect to see anything as hacked up as OS source or object (ANYBODY'S) on a ROM. (With, naturally, the exception of the stuff which makes all this primitve hardware perform in a civilized manner...my terminal, f'rinstance.)
broehl@wateng.UUCP (Bernie Roehl) (05/18/84)
I suspect that the CD's will be used for databases and the like, rather
than program distribution. I mean, even with sources and all, Unix isn't
pushing a gigabyte! More likely it will be the Encylopedia Britannica or
the OED that gets put on CD, not software.
--
-Bernie Roehl (University of Waterloo)henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (05/20/84)
Bernie Roehl comments, in part:
.......................... I mean, even with sources and all, Unix isn't
pushing a gigabyte! .............
Just wait for 4.3BSD, if 4.2 is anything to judge by... :-(
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henrytihor@acf4.UUCP (05/21/84)
Actually its a fairly straightforwards exercise to modify things in "ROM" (ala MACintosh or either SCCS or MMS). Technical terms are things like call vectors in RAM and forward deltas. CDC will probably be distributing their entire documentation sets for their big machines on R/O disk in the future. Of course having the manuals on-line is something anyone reading this should be familiar with, but having real manuals on line rather that microcryptic man pages is something to blow ones mind. Its even novice friendly. Now one doesn;t have to say "RTFM", the editor will even do that for you if you are using it in the edit-compile-reedit mode.