jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA (09/24/86)
Whatever happened to the kind of operating systems that used to run in 6 or 8 K bytes in a PDP-11? Things like RSX-11M? We used to do wondrous things in 32 K bytes including EVERYTHING. When we went to 65 K it was sheer Heaven (especially after DEC found and fixed those silly BPLs that should have been BHSs and caused a lot of their own software to crash when the addresses went negative all of a sudden). What I'm trying to say is: megabytes are nice, but why not USE THEM for something USEFUL rather than squandering them in overgrown operating systems and inefficient applications programs? Reminds me of IBM's universal answer for all problems: buy more memory. Buy a faster processor. Just think what you could accomplish with a 68000 and even 512K of memory if you programmed the way they HAD TO when 65K was a BIG machine! -John Sangster jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa "Paper Tape Forever!!!!"
Lynn%PANDA@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Lynn Gold) (09/24/86)
David Beckmeyer was demonstrating a Unix-like environment, complete with multi-tasking and multiple logins on an ST this weekend. Granted, you needed a hard disk and 1k memory to run it without things dragging, but at least someone has done it. Beckmeyer's multi-tasking C shell retails for $99. --Lynn -------
braner@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (braner) (09/25/86)
[] I sure agree with John: memory is being squandered uselessly! That 4K screen-editor for the Apple II I mentioned is rather complete (no multiple windows, though). I read about a utility for Apple Pascal (on the Apple II) that reminds one of Sidekick in what it does. It eats all of about 5K - Sidekick gobbles between 26 and over 100K, depends on what parts of it are installed. Why? because it was written for a 640K machine, sloppily. People will tell me that we will want "real" EMACS and graphic-UNIX on our personal machines when they finally have 2 Megabytes (4 ?). What for? Use the RAM (even part of the 1 Meg space we have now) for an intelligent, transparent disk caching scheme at the OS level, and (with one floppy) it will put hard disks to shame! Instead of silly BASIC environments with 17 windows (edit in one, list in another, etc.) - let us have an incrementally compiled BASIC (or C, or Pascal)! An incrementally-compiling environment needs RAM for many things: source, executable code, variables (that remain intact while you modify source and continue running!), compiler, editor/lister/decompiler (or whatever that is), library routines, and (yes) a graphics screen. THAT'S what RAM is for! (HBASIC actually compiles at edit time and DECOMPILES at list/re-edit time. So fast, though, that you don't notice. At run time, it RUNS! 2000 times faster than BASICA (sieve benchmark)! THAT'S what a 16/32 bit processor is for! Did you hear of the brand-name "supermini" that serves many users simultaneously with a famous OS, but performs floating point operations a lot slower than Applesoft BASIC? (That's a true story, but the company that made it is so big I'd rather not mention them by name :-) - Moshe Braner Peter's principle of computer engineering: Software will expand to fill the memory allotted.