My Vintage Dream PC

[jmfbahciv]

I prefer not to bother with irrational unteachables.

So far, there are only two who falling into that category. There
is one who is showing some promise but old habits are difficult to
break.

Though you
probably class me as such.

Nope, not yet .

I just hope you can imagine the recursive
willful ignorance i have to deal with daily.

<shrug> I use their posts to speak through them to the readers
who don't post.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Maybe, maybe not. You seem to make a distinction between UUOs and
CALLIs. Syscalls do not have this distinction. There are multiple
ways to get system information or request system services in MVS.
MSwin has a very messy mix. Please provide some clarity.

A CALLI is UUO. REally, take a look at the UUOSYM definitions
I referred you to yesterday. (Note that I didn't get all the posts
read yesterday; so the timelines of today's answers may be skewed.)

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

This starts to sound like another turn of the venerable Wheel of
Reincarnation ( http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/W/wheel-of-
reincarnation.html ), only implemented in general-purpose hardware.

Yep.

/BAH

 

[Bill Pechter]

I do believe, however, that this time Billy's boys may have made
something nice. If it fails, they'll have to create a Linux based
implementation to keep up. I think they should have developed one
all along anyway.

Why bother...

They could just buy RedHat or Novell and not have too much R&D invested.
The problem is they'd need to be working on getting Office, SQL Server etc
running on Linux...

So getting their full set of API's on Linux with either X11
or a windowing system of their own design would be a good move.

This one might work pretty good though.

I hope to test Windows 7 soon.

Bill

 

[FatBytestard]

If by "trouble-free" you mean slow and annoying, then yes. I can't say
it has crashed on my Wife's laptop.

It is almost arguable that there are no laptops with enough power for
the OS's fancy GUI "features".

Yes it was a mistake for them to set it up that way, but it should never
have been offered for laptops with all the glitz turned on. Even now, if
someone turns on all the glitz on a laptop install, they should have
their head examined. Unless, of course, the laptop is specifically for
multimedia and such. I am a utilitarian. I use a laptop for less CPU
intensive tasks.

 

[FatBytestard]

Too late, their "next" OS is already in the hands of the customers,
which means nothing in it will be fixed. It has ever been thus.

Thus spoke another "It's all bad" bandwagon dope.

 

[FatBytestard]

RSTS wasn't really a timesharing system.

RSTS/E was, however, you dumb bitch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSTS/E

 

[FatBytestard]

What is wrong with it is that 1023 CPUs are idle while waiting for the
1024th to give them something to do.

/BAH

You really do need to examine and understand how modern multicore
processors work.

As it stands at present, you have no clue whatsoever.

 

[FatBytestard]

John Larkin wrote:


John Larkin wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
On Tue, 26 May 2009 09:13:45 -0700

If
every task in turn has its own CPU, there would be no context
switching in the entire system, so there's even less for the
supervisor CPU to do.
Wheee it's MP/M all over again.

He's reinventing what didn't work well at all.
Times have changed, guys.
Not really. The proportions of speed seem to remain the same.

When cpu chips have 64 cores each running 4
threads, scattering bits of the OS and bits of applications all over
tha place dynamically, and virtualizing a dozen OS copies on top of
that mess,... is that going to make things more reliable?
First of all, the virtual OSes will merely be apps and be treated
that way. Why in the world would you equate 4 threads/core?

Furthermore,
it is extremely insecure to insist the computer system have
a single-point failure which includes the entire running
monitor.

Fewer points of failure must be better than many points.
You need to think some more. If the single-point failure is
the monitor, you have no security at all.

Few security
vuls must be better than many, many. The "entire running monitor"
could be tiny, and could run on a fully protected, conservatively
designed and clocked CPU core.
It isn't going to be tiny. YOu are now thinking about size of the
code. YOu have to include its data base and interrupt system.
The scheduler and memory handler alone will by huge to handle I/O.

Its MTBF, hardware and software, could
be a million hours.

That doesn't matter at all if the monitor is responsible for the
world power grid.



Hardware basically doesn't break any more; software does.
That is a very bad assumption. You need soft failovers.
Hardware can't take water nor falling into a fault caused
by an earthquake or a bomb or an United Nations quanantine
[can't think of the word where a nation or group are
declared undesirable].

The virtualizing trend is a way to have a single, relatively simple
kernal manage multiple unreliable OSs, and kill/restart them as they
fail. So why not cut out the middlemen?
HOney, you still need an OS to deal with the virtuals. Virtuals are
applications.

/BAH

Yes. Applications are million-line chunks written by applications
programmers who will make mistakes. Their stuff will occasionally
crash. And the people who write device drivers and file systems and
comm stacks, while presumably better, make mistakes too. So get all
that stuff out of the OS space. Hell, get it out of the OS CPU.
You did not read what I wrote. Those virtual OS spaces you were talking
about are applications w.r.t. monitor which is running.
How can an OS ever be reliable when twelve zillion Chinese video card
manufacturers are hacking device drivers that run in OS space?
You seem to be confusing OSes with monitors.

The top-level OS should be small, simple, absolutely in charge of the
entire system, totally protected, and never crash.

Why not?

If it's absolutely in charge of the entire system, then it has to
be able to access all of hardware, including the other cores. This
implies that some kind of comm protocol and/or pathway has to go
from all those other cores to the master core. This sucks w.r.t.
performance. The system will run only as fast as the master core
can send/receive bits. All other cores will constantly be in
"master-core I/O wait".

/BAH
All the kernal has to do is set up priviliges and load tasks into
processors. It should of course do no applications processing itself
(which would imply running dangerous user code) and has no reason to
move application data either. Stack driver CPUs, device driver CPUs,
file system CPUs do the grunt work, in their own protected
environments. There can be one shared pool of main memory for the apps
to use, as long as access mapping is safe.

Memory can be shared as needed for processes to communicate. But
nobody can trash the kernal.

What's wrong with that?

Even Intel is headed in that direction: multiple (predicted to be
hundreds, maybe thousands) of multi-threaded cores on a chip,
surrounding a central L2 cache that connects to DRAM and stuff, each
with a bit of its own L1 cache to reduce bashing the shared L2 cache.

Does anybody think we're going to keep running thirty year old OS
architectures on a beast like this?
I, for one, think we are going to do just that -- which is not the same
thing as saying that I think it would be a good idea.

Maybe you're right. How depressing.

and then the same kind of OS evolution we did will happen again.

/BAH

Bullshit.

If anything, things will move toward "cloud computing" paradigms, and
the OS will move in that direction as well.

 

[FatBytestard]

Again, you demonstrate that you don't know what you're talking about.

/BAH

According to you, you were trained in and using computers prior to
1960, the year of my birth.

So, when were you moving bits, you dippy twit?

 

[TheQuickBrownFox]

Because your PC isn't actively running all of those threads; those
thread are not simultaneously asking the Boss CPU for attention.

/BAH

What happens when a hugely CPU intensive screen saver comes on while
hugely CPU intensive video conversion app runs in the background?

NOTHING, the app runs fine, and the screen saver does too. Now try
that on an older CPU like an early 486.

I think it is you that doesn't know what you are talking about.

All those thread, and the screen saver timer, and all else, et al are
all running, and they all do get "boss attention".

You, however, are still in a single thread mentality paradigm. Your
faults are glaring.

 

[FatBytestard]

So far, there are only two who falling into that category. There
is one who is showing some promise but old habits are difficult to
break.

Yes, two. You and your ass. When either talks, it comes out wrong.
No, there is no promise that you will ever learn what is going on in the
modern world.

Lately... in this thread, it has been your ass that has been talking.

 

[FatBytestard]

Why bother...

They could just buy RedHat or Novell and not have too much R&D invested.
The problem is they'd need to be working on getting Office, SQL Server etc
running on Linux...

So getting their full set of API's on Linux with either X11
or a windowing system of their own design would be a good move.



I hope to test Windows 7 soon.

Bill
--

Had you been a member of the MSDN, you would already have received
emails with links to the download page for the RC evaluation release.

I joined back when it was free. Not sure if it is anymore.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Had you been a member of the MSDN, you would already have received
emails with links to the download page for the RC evaluation release.

I joined back when it was free. Not sure if it is anymore.

What does your NAMBLA membership cost Archie? Surely you've opted for
a lifetime membership by now.

 

[Richard Cranium]

I am a utilitarian.

You also said you're celibate ... and a woman pleaser extraordinaire
(those two do clash a bit) ... and an engine-builder ... and a pool
table coverer ... and an infant swimmer ... and so many, many
wonderous things ad nauseum.

Others here say that you're a phony ... a liar ... an asshole ... a
low self-esteem wannabe searching for the recognition and approval
that eludes you now and will for all time be far beyond your reach.
You have the personality of a piss clam; maybe less.

Of course, you could show that you're not afraid to take a risk by
trying to solve the puzzle. Eh Archie? Personally, I think your fear
of not being able to solve the puzzle after all of your boasting will
eventually be your ultimate downfall as more and more people on Usenet
recognize your multitude of nyms and consistent posting manner. Say
it Archie. You decline to admit that you claimed to be celibate, so
at least confirm that you're scared shitless of the puzzle exposing
your incompetence. It must really suck to be you.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Yes, two. You and your ass. When either talks, it comes out wrong.
No, there is no promise that you will ever learn what is going on in the
modern world.

Lately... in this thread, it has been your ass that has been talking.

Nothing strange about Archie talking to peoples' asses. It's the peak
of his comprehension capabilities.

 

[FatBytestard]

What does your NAMBLA membership cost Archie? Surely you've opted for
a lifetime membership by now.

**** off and die, stalktard.

 

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Using IBM systems means that you were exposed to a mindset that was
based on handling huge amounts of data processing, not huge numbers
of users demanding instant gratification. Both require different
tradeoffs when developing the monitor and supporting software.

they let me play disk engineer in bldg 14&15 in the late 70s & early 80s
.... some past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk

there was joke that i worked 4-shift week, 1st shift in sjr/bldg.28, 2nd
shift in bldgs. 14&15, 3rd shift in stl/bldg.90, and 4th shift at HONE.

part of what kick it off were all the test cells were running
"stand-alone", dedicated machine time (one at a time). They had tried
MVS ... for possibly doing multiple testing concurrently ... but MVS
(at the time) MTBF was 15-minutes. Basically these were devices under
development and tended to have error rates that wouldn't be found in
normal business operation.

I sat a task to rewrite i/o supervisor so that it was completely bullet
proof and never fail ... allowing on-demand, concurrent/multiple testing
.... significantly improving productivity. One of the problems was that I
happened to mention the MVS MTBF number in an internal report describing
the effort. Even tho it wasn't for public consumption ... it still
brought down the wrath of the MVS organization on me (informally I was
told that any corporate level awards or anything else at the corporate
level would be blocked by the MVS organization).

Another informal example (old email) of statements that the MVS
organization objected to (even when they were purely for internal
consumption):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#email801015

.... basically prior to product ship, a collection of 57 normally
expected 3380 errors were specified ... and with hardware aid ... they
could be generated on demand. All resulted in MVS crashing ... and in
65% of the cases there was no indication of what was the problem that
forced the re-IPL.

It contributed to being periodically being told that I didn't have a
career with the company.

Possibly the largest (virtual machine) time-sharing service during
the period was HONE. It had started out with cp67 for branch office
young SEs being able to work with operating systems after 23jun69
unbundling announcement. misc. past posts mentioning unbundling:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle

It eventually transitioned to providing online world-wide sales &
marketing support. The multiple cp67 (in the US) transitioned to vm370
and clones started to be created at various places around the world. In
the late 70s, the various US HONE datacenters were consolidated in
single place (multiple loosely-coupled SMP processors). That HONE
operation had something approaching 40,000 defined users in the 1980
timeframe. misc. past posts mentioning HONE (&/or APL)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone

 

[Richard Cranium]

According to you, you were trained in and using computers prior to
1960, the year of my birth.

Mommy shat you in 1960? I find it amazing that you have been able to
remain alive all these years. A reasonable person would have
predicted that your nasty attitude towards people would eventually
annoy someone's girlfriend, wife, or mother enough to result in your
elimination by whatever means were available at that time. Perhaps
you never speak about your education because mommy had to keep you out
of the public schools to protect you - hence you were home-schooled
and never got beyond the secondary school level. I'm sure that if you
had a college degree you would have been boasting about being first in
your class and having developed some incredible technological advance
that the government took over and retained you as an SRD-class
consultant. That's the bare minimum I'd expect from you Archie! We
already know that you spend the majority of your miserable life at the
keyboard posting caustic remarks on Usenet. You use over forty nyms
and frequent many groups, but your attitude is consistent. Face it;
there are no more worlds for you to conquer. It's time to off
yourself in some wildly majestic manner. Go for it Archie.

Like I said before, you da' man Archie; you 'da man!

Bwuahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

 

[Richard Cranium]

On Sat, 30 May 2009 08:16:43 -0700, FatBytestard

**** off and die, stalktard.

Ooh Archie. Look at the anger you're releasing here. I can imagine
your brow furrowing; your face getting redder and redder; your pulse
quickening as your heart struggles to pump that vital fluid through
you immensely obese body. You make Jabba the Hutt look like a Jenny
Craig success story.

Calm down little tyke. It's not healthy for you to get so angry. You
need to vent your pent-up emotions. There have been reports in the
medical literature that illustrate conclusively that blacks are far
more susceptable to heart attacks and/or strokes when stress levels
rise uncontrolled as yours are now. Take a break from your computer
and go pop a cap into the towelhead at your nearest 7-11. Then come
back relaxed and calm for more conversation.