[geeks] Kids today!

[Lionel Peterson]

--- Mike Meredith <mike at blackhairy.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sunday 11 May 2003 14:36, Lionel Peterson wrote:
> > Mainframe O/Ss, like MVS (or it is now what, z/OS?) had a great
> > feature, every time you issue a system call, every other process
> > get the chance to execute.
> 
> Read the end of page 21 of "The Design of the UNIX Operating System".
> The Unix 
> scheduler(s) may not be perfect but they're way in advance of the
> "Rodney 
> King" approach (I'm not sure I understand what a Rodney King
> scheduler is 
> though). Bear in mind that the scheduler has moved on considerably
> since then.

Well, a better reference would be "Blance DuBois - I've always relied
on the kindness of strangers" - form a Tennessee Williams play
(Streetcar named desire?)...

In Unix, accounting for CPU time is an afterthought, in MVS, it is one
of the fundamental reasons MVS (and other Mainframe OSs) were built -
to charge users for machine time.

Yes, I know about "acct" - Ken & Dennis didn't sit down to think of a
way to charge users for CPU time, they wanted to share - suits wanted
to charge, and nothing says suits like a mianframe!



=====
Lionel

"Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten
programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software"
Bill Gates, in "An OpenLetter to Hobbyists" dated February 3, 1976

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