[OT] Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Grub2 and is the upgrade a tooth puller.

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday 29 June 2012 21:46:20 Grant Edwards wrote:

> Things have been going steadily downhill since the days of V7 on a
> PDP-11 with 256K words of RAM, a 20MB hard drive and uucp via dial-up
> modems for "networking".  Real programmers didn't _need_ more that
> 64k of text and 64k data to get the job done.

Sorry, but that's just bloat. When I joined the software development 
effort on the national grid control system in 1980 (I was the third of 
three) we had two Ferranti Argus 500 computers, one on-line and one 
standby, each with 32KB RAM (twice as much as the same machines had at 
the newly commissioning AGR power stations); 24-bit word length with 
hardware key switches on the control panel (holy of holies). The three 
disks were 2MB monsters, three feet six tall, five feet long and eighteen 
inches wide, with air filtering systems we were supposed to know about 
but Never Touch. Each disk could be connected to either CPU under 
software control. The displays were graphic stroke writers, as used in 
submarines and other warships - none of that nasty raster technology. I 
think the display drivers were more complex than the CPUs - all that D-A 
conversion of multiple values at once. Can you imagine X and Y amplifiers 
to drive a spot in a circle - and meet up? Then a display full of them. 
Those devices occupied as much cubicle space as the CPUs. Oh, and there 
was a third machine (you wouldn't call it a box) for software 
development. Paper tape for program I/O - not punched cards I'm glad to 
say.

My boss was often called on to escort parties of power utility visitors, 
mostly American, around the control centre. Their most common question 
was "yes, I see the display drivers, but now where is your mainframe?" 
Of course we didn't have one nor need one; we used subtle engineering in 
those days rather than throwing money at the problem. That changed 
later, but that's another story, and so is the use of PDP-11s in a minor 
role.

Then the time came to replace that ageing technology. The man in charge 
of the project complained to me once that, although he admired what we 
were achieving, he couldn't freeze a user spec while we kept on making 
the machine jump through ever-higher hoops. A proud moment for me - 
there was still life in the old dogs yet, so why must they be replaced?

Not now, but I'll tell you some day about my proudest achievement in 
assembler programming. Perhaps also what happened at three a.m. after 
most bank holiday Mondays. Cyril might not like me telling you though.

As I said in the subject: OT.

-- 
Rgds
Peter