mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP (02/25/87)
>> > Gee, the biggest, fastest Unix box I can get to (both legitimately and >> > otherwise) doesn't have VM. Their attitude is "Real memory for real >> > performance." Maybe the hardware designers know something you don't? >> > If not, "how come you ain't rich?" :-) >> Make that "Real memory for real bucks." Also note that hardware designers How about "Real bucks for real performances" :-) But maybe it ain't so.... >> Think about what you just said. "Save 10%." Now, what if we had just put >> in 2 MB of DRAM and a swapper with an 16MB swap space. Now, think about >> how much that additional 14 MB of DRAM is going to cost if you have a 16 MB >> system. Try (using 1Mb DRAM chips) 20 bucks per chip times 8 chips times >> 14 sets. That's 2240 buckaroos, bud. Oh, and don't forget the price of >> the support chips. I think I can find a pretty good MMU for that price, >> plus maybe a 200 MB hard drive (OEMs can get a 200 MB hard drive for < $1500, >> quantity 100 or so) too. Simple math. Of course, the price of RAM will >> drop. But so will MMUs and HDs. Simple math, but I don't like the numbers you started with. I was offered 2Meg for $150 today. Multiply by eight, you and get that 16Meg costs all of $1K. Support system is about $500. For that, I can get maybe a 60 Meg HD + disk subsystem. But I'd rather have the memory. And I've already got true multi-tasking, with facilities that Unix programmers either dream about having, or don't know exist. Of course, I specifically said that if I could save 10% on the cost of a box, and was planning on selling it in a market where I didn't need an MMU, then it would be stupid to put one in. You want a market where you don't need an MMU? How about process control boxes? Game machines? Low-end home computers (those which have 68K's being the _topic_ of this newsgroup). >> > For instance, that's why the Amiga doesn't have an MMU; they looked at >> > it, and were looing at $125 for the CPU board. Even at $10 for the >> Again, the Amiga is 'old' in comparison to todays technology available to >> the designer. True, when they designed it, an MMU may have been expensive, Yah, but I bet you don't see the "new" technology before 1988 ("new" == 68030 and whatever intel has in the pipe). Not in consumer-priced machines, anyway. By which time the next newest chip will also have neat features you want. Sorry, but I want a system now, not year after next. Sure, if you offered to give me a system with an MMU, I'd probably take it over one without. But until the price drops to something reasonable (say, a system with an MMU for < $1K), I'll keep what I've got. With enough memory, it's a more pleasant environment than my Sun, and at 1/3rd the cost. >> > As for Unix proper - it's got serious problems. The worst is that the >> > system calls have long since gotten past the point of having been >> > designed, and have "grown" to be what they are. Starting over from >> > scratch, and building a system that emulates Unix on top of a >> > reasonable OS (which is what Minix is) is a _good_ thing. Period. The >> > trick is to then get all those Unix utilities (hopefully, after >> > rewriting them to regularize the argument parsing & delete cruft >> > that's been added to solve problems you solved in a better way) >> > running on your system. That's harder, 'cause you have to talk AT&T >> > out of the sources, or rewrite all of them. >> >> I tend to agree that UNIX is not as easy to learn as some other OSs. >> Yet, it is very powerful. One cannot overlook the power of an OS/language >> just because it may be difficult for some people to learn. It's the >> same old "Why should I learn it if I can't understand it in 5 minutes" >> attitude that raises all of these "I hate XXXX OS/language/computer" >> comments. Still, I agree that there is room for improvement. There always >> is. Sigh. Read what I said, not what you wish I'd said. I didn't say anything about Unix being hard to learn (which is true). The power of Unix is not the OS, it's all those utilities that don't exist anywhere else. As for the language, there are non-Unix OS's that are about as hard to port to as porting to a different Unix version. Most of the neat features in the Unix OS proper can be found in other OS's nowadays. Trouble is, the nice things in those OS's haven't found there way back into Unix. So which do you expect to be the better OS? <mike