[rescue] Small servers (was Re: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100)

[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 4, 2008, at 16:38 , Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

> On Sun, May 04, 2008 at 04:16:36PM -0400, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>
>> Almost no living programers today would even know how to write code
>> for a machine that was not based on 8/16/32/64-bit 2's compliment  
>> CPUs
>> and not too many more have any idea how to deal with a machine that  
>> is
>> not Intel based or running a video console.
>
> I don't know, It's been a long time, but I still could probably dredge
> up with a few days time one of, BAL (IBM 360/370) (and channel  
> programs),
> COMPASS (CDC-6400) (and some familarity with the IO processors),
> IBM 1130, and if I really had to HP 2100. The HP 3000 and Buroughs  
> used
> Algol, and I probably could dig that up too, though I don't think I  
> wrote
> Algol code for them, but I seem to remember writing it for something.

Sorry, what I mean to say is that almost none were trained on it in  
college in the last couple of decades.

For that matter, a good number of graduates today have never even used  
real hardware.

You can get a comp-sci degree without ever leaving Netbeans...

> On the other hand, some of the newer processors I've written code for
> such as the 8088, 680x0, PPC, AT&T 3B2, 80386 onward, and so on
> was done in C, and I can't seem to remember much differences between
> them that the C compilers did not take care of.

That's because they are all basically the same.

Word is 8-bit multiple, 2's complement, and sub-word register and  
memory addressing.

Most students never see anything else and most systems sold today are  
like that.

>> That's just pure stupidity.
>
> No, it's good business. :-) Think of it as pay-per-view software.

No, it's pure stupidity.

Losing access to my systems is not good business, and if I get mad  
enough it won't be good business for the idiot whose head I cut off  
when it happens either.

> Remember Sun's "the network is the computer"? That's the business
> model with 99.99% "local offloading". IMHO the worst of both worlds.

That's fine for things which must be distributed, and also if they can  
be converted to local use.

But I don't need that to access *MY* data, and nothing should ever  
require that.

-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."