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Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #153592 > unrolled thread

Are we just running in place?

Started byRS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>
First post2015-10-30 15:53 +0300
Last post2015-11-03 11:24 -0500
Articles 20 on this page of 216 — 52 participants

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Contents

  Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-10-30 15:53 +0300
    Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 13:43 +0000
      Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 10:28 -0400
        Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-10-30 15:34 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place?     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-10-30 09:05 -0700
            Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:25 -0400
              Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-30 17:28 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:32 +0000
                Re: Are we just running in place? Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-11-01 20:01 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-30 17:30 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-10-31 08:05 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:01 +0100
        Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 17:34 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:49 -0400
            Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 18:23 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:59 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:19 +0100
                Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-04 03:52 -0800
                  Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-04 11:57 +0000
                    Re: Are we just running in place? Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-11-07 06:15 +0000
                      Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-07 10:39 +0000
                        Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-07 06:20 -0800
                          Re: Are we just running in place? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-11-07 09:16 -0600
                            Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-07 07:38 -0800
                              Re: Are we just running in place? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-11-07 10:13 -0600
                                Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-08 10:30 +0000
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-09 14:04 -0600
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-11-10 22:48 +0000
                                    Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-10 15:09 -0800
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? "John Jackson" <jj@nospam.com> - 2015-11-11 12:21 +1100
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-11-11 07:57 +0000
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-11 11:24 +0000
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2015-11-11 10:37 -0600
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-12 11:45 -0600
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-11-12 17:47 +0000
                                          Re: Are we just running in place? Bernd Felsche <berfel@innovative.iinet.net.au> - 2015-11-15 22:58 +0800
                                    Re: Are we just running in place? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-11-10 19:45 -0500
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-11 11:25 +0000
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-11 10:41 -0500
                                          Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-11 16:33 +0000
                                            Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-11 14:18 -0500
                                              Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-11 20:41 +0000
                                                Re: Are we just running in place? Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-11-11 21:29 +0000
                                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-12 11:27 +0000
                                              Re: Are we just running in place? Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2015-11-12 12:34 +0200
                                                Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-12 09:11 -0500
                                          Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-11 20:40 +0000
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-12 11:47 -0600
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-11-12 15:32 -0500
                                          Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-13 12:05 -0600
                                            Re: Are we just running in place? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-11-13 15:24 -0500
                                    Re: Are we just running in place? Greymaus <mausg@mail.com> - 2015-11-11 11:22 +0000
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2015-11-11 10:36 -0600
                                Re: Are we just running in place? Ingo Paschke <ipaschke@lpclabs.de> - 2015-11-08 11:46 +0100
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2015-11-11 15:23 -0500
                                Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-08 13:46 +0000
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? pechter@S20.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2015-11-08 19:14 +0000
                                    Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-08 12:26 -0800
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-08 12:45 -0800
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? "John Jackson" <jj@nospam.com> - 2015-11-09 08:49 +1100
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> - 2015-11-09 00:04 +0000
                                          Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-09 06:13 -0500
                                            Re: Are we just running in place? Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2015-11-09 13:48 -0800
                                              Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-09 21:09 -0800
                                                Re: Are we just running in place? Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2015-11-10 10:01 -0700
                                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-10 15:55 -0500
                                                    Re: Are we just running in place? Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2015-11-10 17:40 -0700
                                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2015-11-11 15:29 -0500
                                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-10 13:15 -0800
                                              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-10 14:15 +0000
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-09 14:13 +0000
                                          Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-09 06:24 -0800
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-08 17:45 -0500
                                      Re: Are we just running in place? Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2015-11-09 11:39 +0000
                                        Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-11-09 13:51 +0000
                                    Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-09 14:13 +0000
                                Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-09 14:01 -0600
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-09 12:08 -0800
                            Re: Are we just running in place? "John Jackson" <jj@nospam.com> - 2015-11-09 14:49 +1100
                            Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-09 13:40 -0600
                          Re: Are we just running in place? tracymnelson@gmail.com - 2015-11-09 09:48 -0800
                            Re: Are we just running in place? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-11-09 14:19 -0600
                              Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-11-10 08:04 +0000
                                Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-10 12:10 +0000
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-11-10 16:25 +0000
                                    Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-10 17:42 +0100
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2015-11-10 12:10 -0500
                                Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-10 07:57 -0500
                                  Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-10 14:16 +0000
                            Re: Are we just running in place? Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2015-11-11 15:32 -0500
                      Re: Are we just running in place? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-11-07 19:32 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? "John Jackson" <jj@nospam.com> - 2015-11-05 13:06 +1100
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-11-07 06:12 +0000
                Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-11-04 21:21 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:33 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com> - 2015-11-01 12:59 -0500
              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2015-11-03 17:29 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-10-30 18:39 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-30 19:22 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? "Dirk T. Verbeek" <dverbeek@xs4all.nl> - 2015-10-30 20:27 +0100
                Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-10-30 20:08 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-10-30 21:21 +0000
                    Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-10-31 04:15 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-02 14:19 +0000
                    Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-11-02 16:15 +0000
                      Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-02 12:29 -0500
                      Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-02 19:13 +0000
                        Re: Are we just running in place? bde@besplex.bde.org (Bruce Evans) - 2015-11-02 21:25 +0000
                          Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-03 14:03 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2015-10-30 21:11 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-10-30 20:05 +0000
      Re: Are we just running in place? Johnny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2015-10-30 19:53 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? Uncle Steve <stevet810@gmail.com> - 2015-11-01 12:09 -0500
          Re: Are we just running in place? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-11-02 17:17 +0000
      Re: Are we just running in place? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-31 12:02 -0700
      Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-01 09:42 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-01 13:33 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2015-11-02 12:45 +1100
            Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-02 11:06 +0100
      Re: Are we just running in place? Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-11-03 22:06 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-03 23:43 +0100
          Re: Are we just running in place? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-11-04 13:52 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-03 23:46 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-11-04 04:31 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-11-04 07:57 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 10:28 +0100
            Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-04 03:49 -0800
              Re: Are we just running in place? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-11-04 17:23 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-11-04 04:35 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 10:24 +0100
              Re: Are we just running in place? Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2015-11-04 09:55 +0000
                Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 12:42 +0100
            Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 14:57 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-11-04 11:29 -0500
              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-04 16:43 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 17:55 +0100
                Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 18:04 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-04 18:48 +0000
                    Re: Are we just running in place? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-11-04 13:05 -0600
                      Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-04 11:52 -0800
                    Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 19:36 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 21:15 +0100
                    Re: Are we just running in place? BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2015-11-04 21:35 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> - 2015-11-04 21:07 +0100
          Re: Are we just running in place? Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2015-11-04 10:36 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-03 23:52 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> - 2015-11-04 02:56 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-04 11:05 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Waldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> - 2015-11-04 03:12 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-04 10:02 +0100
              Re: Are we just running in place? Andreas Eder <a_eder_muc@web.de> - 2015-11-08 11:48 +0100
                Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-08 11:18 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Andreas Eder <a_eder_muc@web.de> - 2015-11-08 15:33 +0100
          Re: Are we just running in place? Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2015-11-04 10:36 +0100
            Re: Are we just running in place? tracymnelson@gmail.com - 2015-11-05 11:39 -0800
              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-11-05 20:44 +0000
                Re: Are we just running in place? tracymnelson@gmail.com - 2015-11-06 06:19 -0800
              Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-06 07:02 -0800
          Re: Are we just running in place? "John Jackson" <jj@nospam.com> - 2015-11-05 09:01 +1100
            Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-11-05 00:09 +0000
        Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-04 11:03 -0500
          Re: Are we just running in place? Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-11-04 21:25 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-11-05 08:01 +0000
    Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-30 06:49 -0700
      Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-30 06:56 -0700
      Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 10:27 -0400
        Re: Are we just running in place? Stephen Wolstenholme <steve@easynn.com> - 2015-10-30 14:43 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 11:05 -0400
            Re: Are we just running in place? Stephen Wolstenholme <steve@easynn.com> - 2015-10-30 15:21 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 11:58 -0400
                Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 16:26 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:18 -0400
                Re: Are we just running in place? Stephen Wolstenholme <steve@easynn.com> - 2015-10-31 10:28 +0000
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-10-31 07:08 -0400
                  Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-31 10:27 -0400
                    Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-10-31 10:51 -0400
                      Re: Are we just running in place? Stephen Wolstenholme <steve@easynn.com> - 2015-10-31 15:30 +0000
                      Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-31 09:39 -0700
                        Re: Are we just running in place? Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-31 12:21 -0700
                          Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-10-31 13:10 -0700
              Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 16:24 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-10-30 17:01 -0400
            Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 16:19 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:39 -0400
        Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 16:18 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? pechter@S20.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2015-10-30 16:51 +0000
            Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:22 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-30 13:37 -0400
            Re: Are we just running in place? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-30 18:26 +0000
    Re: Are we just running in place? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-30 17:40 +0000
      Re: Are we just running in place? Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2015-11-07 07:12 +0000
    Re: Are we just running in place? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-30 20:28 -0700
    Re: Are we just running in place? "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-10-31 15:09 +1100
    Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-31 11:11 +0000
      Re: Are we just running in place? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2015-10-31 14:57 +0300
      Re: Are we just running in place? Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-31 10:19 -0400
        Re: Are we just running in place? "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-31 16:28 +0000
      Re: Are we just running in place?     wje@acm.org (Bill Evans) - 2015-10-31 04:14 -0700
    Re: Are we just running in place? Rikishi42 <skunkworks@rikishi42.net> - 2015-11-01 18:52 +0100
      Re: Are we just running in place? "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-11-02 13:11 +1100
        Re: Are we just running in place? Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2015-11-02 03:18 +0000
          Re: Are we just running in place? "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-11-02 15:36 +1100
            Re: Are we just running in place? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2015-11-02 11:15 +0100
              Re: Are we just running in place? "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-11-03 06:56 +1100
            Re: Are we just running in place? Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2015-11-02 13:51 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-11-02 14:27 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-11-02 09:31 -0600
              Re: Are we just running in place? Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2015-11-02 10:53 -0600
              Re: Are we just running in place? "78lp" <78lp@nospam.com> - 2015-11-03 07:19 +1100
          Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-02 09:50 -0800
            Re: Are we just running in place? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-11-02 09:59 -0800
              Re: Are we just running in place? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-11-02 10:30 -0800
              Re: Are we just running in place? Mike Lander <mkl2379@gmail.com> - 2015-11-02 21:00 +0000
              Re: Are we just running in place? Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2015-11-11 12:24 -0500
                Re: Are we just running in place? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-11-11 19:10 -0500
      Re: Are we just running in place? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-03 11:24 -0500

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#153880

FromMorten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid>
Date2015-11-03 23:43 +0100
Message-ID<bupngc-on9.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>
In reply to#153879
In article <n1bb5v$4u$1@z-news.wcss.wroc.pl>,
Waldek Hebisch  <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> wrote:
>In alt.folklore.computers gareth <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> wrote:
>> "RS Wood" <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote in message 
>> news:d9h7ivF1apvU1@mid.individual.net...
>> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/15/junk_your_it_now_before_it_drags_you_under/
>> 
>> 
>> Very well said.
>> 
>> Give me a machine with GHz speed, and astronmical sized hard disk, a retina 
>> display,
>> but otherwise completely lacking in system software, so that I can control 
>> from the
>> ground up, just as I did with my first experience of a PDP-11/20 back in 
>> 1971.
>> 
>> I always revelled in close contact with the machine, and as time has 
>> progressed, I feel more
>> and more divorced from the computers that I love.

With a BSD you get a LOT more close to the hardware. There
is a distinct "look and feel" of snappy response with all of them
when run on modern hardware.

>Plying devils advocate: much of software bloat is forced by
>hardware.  A simple example is hard dirives.  Random access
>time to hard drives improved maybe 5 times compared to 196x
>era.  At the same time sequential read speed improved about
>1000 times and capacity about 10^5 times.  Note that simple
>operation "read the whole drive" now takes _much more_ time
>than in the past (capacity increased faster than read speed).
>Basically, without disk cache and large block transfers you
>will get speed only slightly better than PDP-11/20.

[snip]

>old school text software would use tables with 128
>entries (one for each ASCII code) to make decision.
>Even several tables fits in few kB of memory.  Naively
>using the same approach with Unicode leads to tens
>of MB memory use.  Worse, some tables may need to be
>initialized at runtime and than it leads to huge
>slowdown.  So someting smarter is meeded.  But this
>leads to much more complicated code which is still
>slower than ASCII version.  And this is just at very
>basic level.  On top of that you need to handle
>varying text directions, complicated sorting
>rules, etc.  Basically you need large tables to
>describe rules of various languages and special
>libraries.

Still, UTF-8 caches the "codepage", and takes less than
twice the space of plain old ASCII; even when doing some
language with lots of character modifiers, like thai or
arabic.

>An extra anecdote: some time ago I looked why Linux kernel
>after boot took that much memory (more than 10 MB).  Then
>I realised that to manage memory Linux has tables with
>entries per each pago of physical memory.  Compared to
>memory present in the machine the tables are tiny.  And
>they were "always" present -- simply on small machines
>kernel code took much larger percentage of available
>memory and memory usage of tables did not stand out.
>In old days operating sytem would take sizable part
>of available memory, frequently more than half.  Modern
>Linux kernel takes only tiny part of memory, so
>relative overhead is quite small.  

Indeed. On the machine I write this on, an early ARM7 with
2G mamory Linux including all drivers and tables take 22.5 
megabytes, and the tables take around half of that. So
Linux with drivers take somewhat more then 10. Linux reports
3679 kb in various lockable tables, and each pid takes 1152
bytes. 256k is for a DMA pool. Nothing particularly wasteful
here. With hardware around 2000 times faster, 250+ times
more disk and memory and support for around 17k various
peripherals and I/O speeds >> 100x what we used ca 1980, but
the code size of the kernel has gone up around 10-20x. I
call that very good.

Still only twice as big as VMS got to be while it was
still on VAXen, and still within an order of magnitude
from Tops20; which has around 5% as much space used by
drivers. (How many drivers are in Tops20 all in all? 100
maybe?)

-- mrr

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#153909

Fromjmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com>
Date2015-11-04 13:52 +0000
Message-ID<PM000523B759D8A0E0@aca40489.ipt.aol.com>
In reply to#153880
Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <n1bb5v$4u$1@z-news.wcss.wroc.pl>,

> Still only twice as big as VMS got to be while it was
> still on VAXen, and still within an order of magnitude
> from Tops20; which has around 5% as much space used by
> drivers. (How many drivers are in Tops20 all in all? 100
> maybe?)

A lot, lot less.  One LPT; 4 or 5 disks; one terminal
2 magtapes; and then the stuff needed if one used DECnet.

/BAH

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#153881

FromBartC <bc@freeuk.com>
Date2015-11-03 23:46 +0000
Message-ID<iHb_x.156225$n_1.9881@fx47.am4>
In reply to#153879
On 03/11/2015 22:06, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> In alt.folklore.computers gareth <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> wrote:

>> I always revelled in close contact with the machine, and as time has
>> progressed, I feel more
>> and more divorced from the computers that I love.
>>
>
> Plying devils advocate: much of software bloat is forced by
> hardware.  A simple example is hard dirives.  Random access
> time to hard drives improved maybe 5 times compared to 196x
> era.  At the same time sequential read speed improved about
> 1000 times and capacity about 10^5 times.  Note that simple
> operation "read the whole drive" now takes _much more_ time
> than in the past (capacity increased faster than read speed).
> Basically, without disk cache and large block transfers you
> will get speed only slightly better than PDP-11/20.

I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or 
running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. You might 
need bigger pointers to address memory, but at worst that would double 
the size of the data used by a program.

> If you look at USB you will see that the specification
> actually forces rather complicated implementation.

I don't know what's involved with driving USB, but I don't see that it's 
so complex that it would need hundreds of thousands of lines of code.

30 years ago I was printing graphics on dot matrix printers. The drivers 
were a few KB, with a few dozen lines of difference between Epson and 
HP. Now, a driver download just for HP might be 40MB** (filling four 
entire hard drives 30 years ago). (And, having done it, I can tell you 
that generating a raster image for a laser printer isn't any harder than 
doing it for an dot matrix printer. There's just more data.)

(** And that particular download didn't solve the problem I was having! 
One subsystem of the computer had no idea what another subsystem was doing.)

> Now, Unicode has more than 10^6
> potential characters and more than 10^5 assigned, with
> useful charactes spread out in several blocks.  The
> old school text software would use tables with 128
> entries (one for each ASCII code) to make decision.
> Even several tables fits in few kB of memory.  Naively
> using the same approach with Unicode leads to tens
> of MB memory use.  Worse, some tables may need to be
> initialized at runtime and than it leads to huge
> slowdown.  So someting smarter is meeded.  But this
> leads to much more complicated code which is still
> slower than ASCII version.  And this is just at very
> basic level.  On top of that you need to handle
> varying text directions, complicated sorting
> rules, etc.  Basically you need large tables to
> describe rules of various languages and special
> libraries.

Unicode means using 2 or 4 bytes per character instead of 1, that's all. 
And storage schemes such as UTF8 mean that text files needn't take up 
that much more space. As for those that tables indexed by character: you 
simply wouldn't have a table with 64K or 1M entries; you'd use another 
approach (and probably for most purposes, special characters will be 
part of the ASCII subset).

Supporting Unicode with a big selection of fonts means a lot more data, 
but not necessarily that much more complexity (not of the order of 100 
or 1000 anyway). You would also expect such software to be optimised for 
the default language.

(Also, you simply don't use tables -- for a parser etc -- that span 64K 
or 1M characters instead of 256. Programming languages for example still 
tend to use English.)

> An extra anecdote: some time ago I looked why Linux kernel
> after boot took that much memory (more than 10 MB).  Then
> I realised that to manage memory Linux has tables with
> entries per each pago of physical memory.  Compared to
> memory present in the machine the tables are tiny.  And
> they were "always" present -- simply on small machines
> kernel code took much larger percentage of available
> memory and memory usage of tables did not stand out.
> In old days operating sytem would take sizable part
> of available memory, frequently more than half.  Modern
> Linux kernel takes only tiny part of memory, so
> relative overhead is quite small.

On CP/M it might have been 8KB out of 64KB. One machine I used also used 
to take 1.5 seconds to boot (from floppy!), before I could start doing 
useful work. Most machines now take far longer when starting from 'cold' 
(an Android tablet I have takes *two minutes*. I would really love to 
know what on earth it's doing!).

-- 
Bartc

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#153888

FromCharlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
Date2015-11-04 04:31 +0000
Message-ID<n1c1np12equ@news4.newsguy.com>
In reply to#153881
On 2015-11-03, BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or 
> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. You might 
> need bigger pointers to address memory, but at worst that would double 
> the size of the data used by a program.

It's a variation of Parkinson's Law, which in its original form states:
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
With computers, programs expand so as to fill all available memory
and disk space (and users' time).

Remember, abundance justifies waste.  Or so they'd have you believe.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

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#153890

FromStan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org>
Date2015-11-04 07:57 +0000
Message-ID<slrnn3jejq.8qo.plan.b@ID-309335.user.uni-berlin.de>
In reply to#153888
On 4 Nov 2015 04:31:53 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> On 2015-11-03, BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or 
>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. You might 
>> need bigger pointers to address memory, but at worst that would double 
>> the size of the data used by a program.
>
> It's a variation of Parkinson's Law, which in its original form states:
> "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
> With computers, programs expand so as to fill all available memory
> and disk space (and users' time).

When doing a backup the other day I was surprised to see that this
computer has over 1.16 *million* files on it!  *That's* bloat...
I've no idea what most of them are.

-- 
Stan Barr     plan.b@bluesomatic.org

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#153896

FromMorten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid>
Date2015-11-04 10:28 +0100
Message-ID<8mvogc-h9b.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>
In reply to#153890
In article <slrnn3jejq.8qo.plan.b@ID-309335.user.uni-berlin.de>,
Stan Barr  <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> wrote:
>On 4 Nov 2015 04:31:53 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2015-11-03, BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or 
>>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. You might 
>>> need bigger pointers to address memory, but at worst that would double 
>>> the size of the data used by a program.
>>
>> It's a variation of Parkinson's Law, which in its original form states:
>> "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
>> With computers, programs expand so as to fill all available memory
>> and disk space (and users' time).
>
>When doing a backup the other day I was surprised to see that this
>computer has over 1.16 *million* files on it!  *That's* bloat...
>I've no idea what most of them are.

I have almost 4m on my laptop. 600k come with the distro, the rest
are purely my own. Around a million are old emails and a news archive.
Around 300k are photographs, the vast bulk of them my own from various
construction projects. (A project easily generate a few thousand
images if you are at it with a camera all the time). [1].

-- mrr

[1] I have done a lot of consulting based on these images when the
builders need documentation a decade later. 

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#153903

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2015-11-04 03:49 -0800
Message-ID<e549788b-15da-4b9b-9f38-ac558352e84a@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#153888
On Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 9:32:20 PM UTC-7, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> Remember, abundance justifies waste.  Or so they'd have you believe.

It is true that nothing justifies waste.

However, the first priority is to avoid waste of *scarce* resources.

The second priority is to avoid wasting human effort, and people's time.

And if abundant resources can be used in place of things that, due to their 
scarcity, are more valuable, that is economically rational.

The fact that Linux has been forced to keep up with Windows and OS X, instead 
of being vastly more efficient due to being lean and mean, seems to prove that 
the situation isn't entirely due to malice.

John Savard

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#153928

FromCharlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
Date2015-11-04 17:23 +0000
Message-ID<n1deu405d@news6.newsguy.com>
In reply to#153903
On 2015-11-04, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> On Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 9:32:20 PM UTC-7, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> Remember, abundance justifies waste.  Or so they'd have you believe.
>
> It is true that nothing justifies waste.

I'll tell that to the dairy marketing board next time I see someone
dumping milk in excess of quota down the drain.

> However, the first priority is to avoid waste of *scarce* resources.

Now look at it from a corporate standpoint.  The first priority -
the one that trumps all others - is to make money.  Any executive
who doesn't believe this will be tossed out by the shareholders.
As for scarce resources, sometimes scarcity is created in order
to drive up prices.

> The second priority is to avoid wasting human effort, and people's time.

I'm sure we've all seen software where the programmer saves a couple of
hours of his time by making every single user waste a few minutes every
day.  It's a net loss - but a gain for the programmer (and his employer),
so the practice continues.  The cheapest thing in the world is other
people's time.

> And if abundant resources can be used in place of things that, due to
> their scarcity, are more valuable, that is economically rational.

True - but sometimes things are wasteful of resources without saving
anything else.

> The fact that Linux has been forced to keep up with Windows and OS X,
> instead of being vastly more efficient due to being lean and mean,
> seems to prove that the situation isn't entirely due to malice.

But the pictures are so _pretty_!  We gotta have pretty pictures -
especially if they move.  And cute sounds.  Don't forget cute sounds...

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

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#153889

FromWaldek Hebisch <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl>
Date2015-11-04 04:35 +0000
Message-ID<n1c1us$c9i$1@z-news.wcss.wroc.pl>
In reply to#153881
In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
> On 03/11/2015 22:06, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> > In alt.folklore.computers gareth <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> wrote:
> 
> >> I always revelled in close contact with the machine, and as time has
> >> progressed, I feel more
> >> and more divorced from the computers that I love.
> >>
> >
> > Plying devils advocate: much of software bloat is forced by
> > hardware.  A simple example is hard dirives.  Random access
> > time to hard drives improved maybe 5 times compared to 196x
> > era.  At the same time sequential read speed improved about
> > 1000 times and capacity about 10^5 times.  Note that simple
> > operation "read the whole drive" now takes _much more_ time
> > than in the past (capacity increased faster than read speed).
> > Basically, without disk cache and large block transfers you
> > will get speed only slightly better than PDP-11/20.
> 
> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or 
> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. You might 
> need bigger pointers to address memory, but at worst that would double 
> the size of the data used by a program.

If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will
be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the
the same features as the old one, then there is no need
for more complexity.  But at comparable featurs modern
machine may do much more work: typical Linux desktop is
able to handle more than 1000 telent session (for 1000
users).  PDP-11/20 probably would be overloaded at 10
(and lack features like command line history present
in modern command line).  Without disc cache machine
with single disc drive would get overloaded probably
below 40 users.  You need complexity to fully
hardware potential.

You sound like hardware were working as in the post,
only faster and bigger, basicaly just scaling up.
Even if it ere simple scaling, you stil may need smarter
algorithms, for example linearly scannig all processes on
each clock tick is fine if you have 10 processes, but becames
problematic when there are thousends of them.  But hardware
progress is anything like that: DRAM latency is about 50ns
which is only slightly better than 70ns in 1990, and only
few time better than 250-350ns from late seventies.  So,
current machines are fast only due to caches.  And with
caches something as simple as matrix multiplication sudenly
needs smart algorithm: you can use just three simple loops
or library lile ATLAS.  Only problem is that simple method
is something like 500 time slower for big matrices.  Similarly
on system level: cache effectively becomes part of context
that is stored and restored on interrupts.  So, when
uniterrupted modern processor is quite fast, but time
lost due to an interrupt may be bigger than on simpler
(and otherwise slower) processor.  Consequently, you need
to minimize number of interrupts and maximize work per interrupt.  

> > If you look at USB you will see that the specification
> > actually forces rather complicated implementation.
> 
> I don't know what's involved with driving USB, but I don't see that it's 
> so complex that it would need hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
> 
> 30 years ago I was printing graphics on dot matrix printers. The drivers 
> were a few KB, with a few dozen lines of difference between Epson and 
> HP. Now, a driver download just for HP might be 40MB** (filling four 
> entire hard drives 30 years ago). (And, having done it, I can tell you 
> that generating a raster image for a laser printer isn't any harder than 
> doing it for an dot matrix printer. There's just more data.)

Compare resolutions and available fonts: there are a lot more data
needed to get features of modern printer.  OTOH, this also
depends on printer: for my printer I actually use no special
driver (just the genric USB printer support build into Linux
kernel).  I do not have access to some features, but printer
is doing what I need os this is OK.  And, no, data sent to
my printer usually is not raster data: it is Postscript
printer and most data is in vector form (in software I
choose "generic Postscript printer").

> > Now, Unicode has more than 10^6
> > potential characters and more than 10^5 assigned, with
> > useful charactes spread out in several blocks.  The
> > old school text software would use tables with 128
> > entries (one for each ASCII code) to make decision.
> > Even several tables fits in few kB of memory.  Naively
> > using the same approach with Unicode leads to tens
> > of MB memory use.  Worse, some tables may need to be
> > initialized at runtime and than it leads to huge
> > slowdown.  So someting smarter is meeded.  But this
> > leads to much more complicated code which is still
> > slower than ASCII version.  And this is just at very
> > basic level.  On top of that you need to handle
> > varying text directions, complicated sorting
> > rules, etc.  Basically you need large tables to
> > describe rules of various languages and special
> > libraries.
> 
> Unicode means using 2 or 4 bytes per character instead of 1, that's all. 
> And storage schemes such as UTF8 mean that text files needn't take up 
> that much more space. As for those that tables indexed by character: you 
> simply wouldn't have a table with 64K or 1M entries; you'd use another 
> approach (and probably for most purposes, special characters will be 
> part of the ASCII subset).

Exactly, you need another approach, like hash tables with entries
only for relevant characters, or lists or ranges.

> Supporting Unicode with a big selection of fonts means a lot more data, 
> but not necessarily that much more complexity (not of the order of 100 
> or 1000 anyway). You would also expect such software to be optimised for 
> the default language.

In ASCII era you would have a table with charater properties
which can take 128 bytes (for 8 binary properties).  Together
with accessor functions less than 1kb.  Corresponding
library for Unicode when I looked at it were 2.7 MB.  One
reason was that there is a lot of Unicode charaters.  But
there is also more relevant properties.  Given all functionality
the 2.7 MB actually did not look so large.  Note: I am not
talking about fonts, just charater properties.  For example,
in ASCII in "fixed" font all characters are of the same
width, but Unicode has notion of double with charaters.
ASCII is left to right, but Unicode has several properties
to allow mixing left to right with right to left.  There
is so called bidi algorithm which specifies how logical
text should be reordered for display.

Let me add: it is easy to criticise modern systems.  I hate
bloat at least as other folks here.  But _part_ of complexity
is due to genuinely useful features (among them need to drive
modern hardware at adequate performance level).  So comparisons
to PDP11, MVS, MSDOS or even early Linux miss the point:
even hardcore hackers want enough features to get insanely
complex system.  Sure, a lot of new features look pointless.
And at least theoretically it is possible to get much
smaller and still very useful system.  But deciding
between features (which one should be supported) it
pretty hard job.  And if useful feature gets rejected in
its right place, then it reapears in other places
as kludges or workarounds leading to bloat which we
tried to avoid.  So it is not clear if we can do
better.

Brooks wrote: "the systems we build are at the border
of what we can do" (this is from memory, he almost shurely
used different words but the sense was as above).
Assuming that complex system can be built, increasing
complexity we can gain useful features and solve various
problems.  So there is strong pressure to more complex
systems.  And general public have little understanding
of complexity, but can easily spot differences in features.
So market prefers complex solutions and ensures that
system are as complex as we can make them without evident
breakdown.

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch

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#153894

FromMorten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid>
Date2015-11-04 10:24 +0100
Message-ID<vevogc-h9b.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>
In reply to#153889
In article <n1c1us$c9i$1@z-news.wcss.wroc.pl>,
Waldek Hebisch  <hebisch@math.uni.wroc.pl> wrote:
>In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>> On 03/11/2015 22:06, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>> > In alt.folklore.computers gareth <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>> >> I always revelled in close contact with the machine, and as time has
>> >> progressed, I feel more
>> >> and more divorced from the computers that I love.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Plying devils advocate: much of software bloat is forced by
>> > hardware.  A simple example is hard dirives.  Random access
>> > time to hard drives improved maybe 5 times compared to 196x
>> > era.  At the same time sequential read speed improved about
>> > 1000 times and capacity about 10^5 times.  Note that simple
>> > operation "read the whole drive" now takes _much more_ time
>> > than in the past (capacity increased faster than read speed).
>> > Basically, without disk cache and large block transfers you
>> > will get speed only slightly better than PDP-11/20.
>> 
>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or 
>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity. You might 
>> need bigger pointers to address memory, but at worst that would double 
>> the size of the data used by a program.

I adressed the Linux kernel size in a post yesterday. It
has grown to about ten times the size of what tops20 took in
1984. Half of it is tables and buffers, nearly 4mb of various
core tables, a few megabytes of buffers for network, dma, 
terminals, disks etc, and around 2% of memory for the 4k 
page tables. It could grow to more than 50mb if all the
loadable drivers are in; but that is unfair, no such machine
exist that would need that.

In a way, Linux is the continuation of Tops20. When you start
to read the kernel code you will understand. It just hides
under the "unix" layer.

>If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will
>be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the
>the same features as the old one, then there is no need
>for more complexity.  But at comparable featurs modern
>machine may do much more work: typical Linux desktop is
>able to handle more than 1000 telent session (for 1000
>users).  PDP-11/20 probably would be overloaded at 10
>(and lack features like command line history present
>in modern command line).  Without disc cache machine
>with single disc drive would get overloaded probably
>below 40 users.  You need complexity to fully
>hardware potential.

But,. it still takes about one minute to do a full build
of emacs from sources, this has been fairly constant. On our
2-processor mips3k machine in ca 1990 it took one minute.
On our 8-way brand new r6k one almost a decade later, same
time. And on my new 8way 2.4Ghz arm7 with spiffy SSD, still
the same time. Emacs has grown. A lot. 

But it loads in two-digit milliseconds now, almost too fast
to see. (unless it fires up over X, which still take a few
seconds). I remember when it took around 40 seconds.

[snip]
>Brooks wrote: "the systems we build are at the border
>of what we can do" (this is from memory, he almost shurely
>used different words but the sense was as above).
>Assuming that complex system can be built, increasing
>complexity we can gain useful features and solve various
>problems.  So there is strong pressure to more complex
>systems.  And general public have little understanding
>of complexity, but can easily spot differences in features.
>So market prefers complex solutions and ensures that
>system are as complex as we can make them without evident
>breakdown.

In a way, the whole western civilisation was struggling 
hard with coping with complexity until they managed to
get it programmed sometime in the 1980s or thereabouts.

Remember all the tables we used in advanced school in the
60s and 70s? Log tables, sine tables, stress tables, 
interest tables and whatnot? And the constant errors in 
payrolls, long delays in interest payments in banks, 
insane times used by the people computing stress levels
on machinery and buildings?

Now these are all computerised, and the calulations take
less than a second, in general. (if we still do it the
way they did it back then. But we DO use more, sometimes
way more advanced approaces now, because we can.)

So, the early computers were sorely needed when they
arrived, and were pushed to their limits. It was the
"Risc Revolution" ca 1987 that finally gave us a leeway
in computing time, not having to work nights any longer.

That was when the computers had caught up with the pent-up
demand in society for handling complexity. After that
it has been inside-out, the computers have been driving
the development.

-- mrr

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#153898

FromAhem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net>
Date2015-11-04 09:55 +0000
Message-ID<20151104095533.c7ee90dff7117a3a75e2ebea@eircom.net>
In reply to#153894
On Wed, 4 Nov 2015 10:24:15 +0100
Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> wrote:

> And on my new 8way 2.4Ghz arm7 with spiffy SSD

	That sounds rather nice - what is it ? I can't seem to find
anything near those specs

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN                                      | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#153902

FromMorten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid>
Date2015-11-04 12:42 +0100
Message-ID<ti7pgc-4lb.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>
In reply to#153898
In article <20151104095533.c7ee90dff7117a3a75e2ebea@eircom.net>,
Ahem A Rivet's Shot  <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 4 Nov 2015 10:24:15 +0100
>Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> wrote:
>
>> And on my new 8way 2.4Ghz arm7 with spiffy SSD
>
>	That sounds rather nice - what is it ? I can't seem to find
>anything near those specs

It is an overclocked, aggressively cooled (-60C) hardkernel xu4, 
runs normally on 2GHz.

http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G143452239825

It only uses around 8 watts while running the large builds, and around 1.5
in normal editing, so it is not a very difficult one to cool. I use an ancient
lab-freezer of ~12W effect to cool it and a rpi. Total power consumption for
the freezer and both of them are still << 50W.

-- mrr

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#153911

FromBartC <bc@freeuk.com>
Date2015-11-04 14:57 +0000
Message-ID<V1p_x.113230$8s6.73562@fx46.am4>
In reply to#153889
On 04/11/2015 04:35, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or
>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity.

> If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will
> be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the
> the same features as the old one, then there is no need
> for more complexity.

When you speed up a processor clock by 1000 times, why shouldn't the 
same program run faster?

Modern software is more sophisticated, but it's mostly the extra memory 
and storage that makes it possible. Does it really need a 1000x faster 
machine just to run at the same speed as the old one?

(In 1981 I wrote a little assembler for Z80, running on a 2.5MHz Z80 
(where each 8-bit instruction took between 4 and 24 clock ticks). It 
processed source code at 1700 lines per second.

I recently tested NASM, running on a 3GHz 64-bit x86 processor (with 
multiple 64-bit operations per clock), and it managed 23000 lines per 
second, only 13 times as fast!

There is some very fast software around, but equally a lot of it is 
inexplicably slow.)

> caches something as simple as matrix multiplication sudenly
> needs smart algorithm:

Smart algorithms don't necessarily mean huge bloated code. If something 
needs a million lines of code, then it's not an algorithm! (1M lines is 
about 15000 pages; even the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was only 
about 100.)

(I use my own language for programs for which other people use C. And I 
run my own compiler for that. That compiler is about 0.3MB.

It does pretty much the same job as, for example gcc, for which a 
typical installation might be 300MB. And even that is small compared 
with Visual C, for which you're looking at a 5000-11000 MB download.

See, it is still possible to keep things small and manageable. But 
programs don't need to be as tiny as mine, they just don't really need 
to be 1000 to 10000 times bigger.)

  you can use just three simple loops
> or library lile ATLAS.  Only problem is that simple method
> is something like 500 time slower for big matrices.

The sort of complexity I'm concerned with is not really about such 
low-level algorithms. It's about systems getting too big enough that no 
one really knows what is going on.

People build on top of other systems which are built on top of others, 
and eventually you've got a horrible bloated mess. And a slow one!

(I know I will be castigated for using Windows in this apparently 
Unix-dominated group, but here goes. Until recently, every morning on my 
PC, a program called SVCHOST would take over my machine. It occupied one 
core of two, but still, everything else practically ground a halt.

It carried on for some half an hour. If stopped, it would start again, 
or there would be problems with connectivity later. It wasn't a virus 
either!

It turned out to be something to do with Windows updates, but it never 
reported any actual updates, it never actually /did/ anything. It just 
made the machine - my machine that I want to work on - impossible to 
use. Other people had the same problems.

It was solved by disabling something to do with the updates. The 
question remains, why would MS allow something like this to run that 
would effectively cripple customers' machines? What exactly was it doing 
that required so much CPU power? Does anyone know for sure? I doubt it!)

>> Unicode means using 2 or 4 bytes per character instead of 1, that's all.
>> And storage schemes such as UTF8 mean that text files needn't take up
>> that much more space. As for those that tables indexed by character: you
>> simply wouldn't have a table with 64K or 1M entries; you'd use another
>> approach (and probably for most purposes, special characters will be
>> part of the ASCII subset).
>
> Exactly, you need another approach, like hash tables with entries
> only for relevant characters, or lists or ranges.
>
>> Supporting Unicode with a big selection of fonts means a lot more data,
>> but not necessarily that much more complexity (not of the order of 100
>> or 1000 anyway). You would also expect such software to be optimised for
>> the default language.
>
> In ASCII era you would have a table with charater properties
> which can take 128 bytes (for 8 binary properties).  Together
> with accessor functions less than 1kb.  Corresponding
> library for Unicode when I looked at it were 2.7 MB.

That's just data. You flash an image onto the screen; that's 1MB or 2MB; 
it's nothing, because the capacity is there.

What's exasperating (this is again Windows), is you right-click 
something (a file, icon, whatever), and sometimes you can count slowly 
to ten before it even shows a pop-up list of options. You're not asking 
for some complicated calculations, you just want it to show 'Properties' 
so that you can click on it!

So what was it spending ten seconds doing? The problem is there's 
apparently no-one whose job it is to find out. They only know how to add 
complexity: buy more RAM, a faster machine, download add-on software to 
'clean' your system, or download yet another upgrade!

-- 
Bartc

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#153920

FromDan Espen <despen@verizon.net>
Date2015-11-04 11:29 -0500
Message-ID<n1dblr$s8h$2@dont-email.me>
In reply to#153911
BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

> On 04/11/2015 04:35, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>> In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>
>>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or
>>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity.
>
>> If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will
>> be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the
>> the same features as the old one, then there is no need
>> for more complexity.
>
> When you speed up a processor clock by 1000 times, why shouldn't the
> same program run faster?
>
> Modern software is more sophisticated, but it's mostly the extra
> memory and storage that makes it possible. Does it really need a 1000x
> faster machine just to run at the same speed as the old one?
>
> (In 1981 I wrote a little assembler for Z80, running on a 2.5MHz Z80
> (where each 8-bit instruction took between 4 and 24 clock ticks). It
> processed source code at 1700 lines per second.
>
> I recently tested NASM, running on a 3GHz 64-bit x86 processor (with
> multiple 64-bit operations per clock), and it managed 23000 lines per
> second, only 13 times as fast!
>
> There is some very fast software around, but equally a lot of it is
> inexplicably slow.)
>
>> caches something as simple as matrix multiplication sudenly
>> needs smart algorithm:
>
> Smart algorithms don't necessarily mean huge bloated code. If
> something needs a million lines of code, then it's not an algorithm!
> (1M lines is about 15000 pages; even the proof of Fermat's Last
> Theorem was only about 100.)
>
> (I use my own language for programs for which other people use C. And
> I run my own compiler for that. That compiler is about 0.3MB.
>
> It does pretty much the same job as, for example gcc, for which a
> typical installation might be 300MB. And even that is small compared
> with Visual C, for which you're looking at a 5000-11000 MB download.
>
> See, it is still possible to keep things small and manageable. But
> programs don't need to be as tiny as mine, they just don't really need
> to be 1000 to 10000 times bigger.)
>
>  you can use just three simple loops
>> or library lile ATLAS.  Only problem is that simple method
>> is something like 500 time slower for big matrices.
>
> The sort of complexity I'm concerned with is not really about such
> low-level algorithms. It's about systems getting too big enough that
> no one really knows what is going on.
>
> People build on top of other systems which are built on top of others,
> and eventually you've got a horrible bloated mess. And a slow one!
>
> (I know I will be castigated for using Windows in this apparently
> Unix-dominated group, but here goes. Until recently, every morning on
> my PC, a program called SVCHOST would take over my machine. It
> occupied one core of two, but still, everything else practically
> ground a halt.
>
> It carried on for some half an hour. If stopped, it would start again,
> or there would be problems with connectivity later. It wasn't a virus
> either!
>
> It turned out to be something to do with Windows updates, but it never
> reported any actual updates, it never actually /did/ anything. It just
> made the machine - my machine that I want to work on - impossible to
> use. Other people had the same problems.
>
> It was solved by disabling something to do with the updates. The
> question remains, why would MS allow something like this to run that
> would effectively cripple customers' machines? What exactly was it
> doing that required so much CPU power? Does anyone know for sure? I
> doubt it!)

svchost is just a container.
This page explains what it does and how to find out what's really
going on:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-is-svchostexe-and-why-is-it-running/

Pretty poor CPU use reporting from Windows, IMO.

-- 
Dan Espen

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#153922

Fromscott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
Date2015-11-04 16:43 +0000
Message-ID<oAq_x.8722$UN.3110@fx28.iad>
In reply to#153911
BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>On 04/11/2015 04:35, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>> In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>
>>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or
>>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity.
>
>> If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will
>> be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the
>> the same features as the old one, then there is no need
>> for more complexity.
>
>When you speed up a processor clock by 1000 times, why shouldn't the 
>same program run faster?

Because it's not processor bound.  Most applications aren't.  They're
I/O bound or Z bounded.

The BPL compiler on my emulated Burroughs system is faster[*] than the
actual compiler ever was on even the two-million-dollar plus physical
hardware (V530).

[*] Close to an order of magnitude better

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#153925

FromMorten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid>
Date2015-11-04 17:55 +0100
Message-ID<rtppgc-5bc.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>
In reply to#153911
In article <V1p_x.113230$8s6.73562@fx46.am4>, BartC  <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>On 04/11/2015 04:35, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
>> In alt.folklore.computers BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
>
>>> I don't understand why increasing capacity of memory or storage, or
>>> running at faster clock speed, by itself increases complexity.
>
>> If you accept fact that your new high-powered maching will
>> be only slightly faster then 40 years old one providing the
>> the same features as the old one, then there is no need
>> for more complexity.
>
>When you speed up a processor clock by 1000 times, why shouldn't the 
>same program run faster?
>
>Modern software is more sophisticated, but it's mostly the extra memory 
>and storage that makes it possible. Does it really need a 1000x faster 
>machine just to run at the same speed as the old one?
>
>(In 1981 I wrote a little assembler for Z80, running on a 2.5MHz Z80 
>(where each 8-bit instruction took between 4 and 24 clock ticks). It 
>processed source code at 1700 lines per second.
>
>I recently tested NASM, running on a 3GHz 64-bit x86 processor (with 
>multiple 64-bit operations per clock), and it managed 23000 lines per 
>second, only 13 times as fast!
>
>There is some very fast software around, but equally a lot of it is 
>inexplicably slow.)
>
>> caches something as simple as matrix multiplication sudenly
>> needs smart algorithm:
>
>Smart algorithms don't necessarily mean huge bloated code. If something 
>needs a million lines of code, then it's not an algorithm! (1M lines is 
>about 15000 pages; even the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was only 
>about 100.)
>
>(I use my own language for programs for which other people use C. And I 
>run my own compiler for that. That compiler is about 0.3MB.
>
>It does pretty much the same job as, for example gcc, for which a 
>typical installation might be 300MB. And even that is small compared 
>with Visual C, for which you're looking at a 5000-11000 MB download.

gcc binaries for arm7 takes 6811 kilobytes to download and 22700 kilobytes
in the file system. A far cry from 300 meg.

Now, the LIBRARIES for everyone and their dog might take more. Much
more.

>See, it is still possible to keep things small and manageable. But 
>programs don't need to be as tiny as mine, they just don't really need 
>to be 1000 to 10000 times bigger.)
>
>  you can use just three simple loops
>> or library lile ATLAS.  Only problem is that simple method
>> is something like 500 time slower for big matrices.
>
>The sort of complexity I'm concerned with is not really about such 
>low-level algorithms. It's about systems getting too big enough that no 
>one really knows what is going on.
>
>People build on top of other systems which are built on top of others, 
>and eventually you've got a horrible bloated mess. And a slow one!
>
>(I know I will be castigated for using Windows in this apparently 
>Unix-dominated group, but here goes. Until recently, every morning on my 
>PC, a program called SVCHOST would take over my machine. It occupied one 
>core of two, but still, everything else practically ground a halt.
>
>It carried on for some half an hour. If stopped, it would start again, 
>or there would be problems with connectivity later. It wasn't a virus 
>either!
>
>It turned out to be something to do with Windows updates, but it never 
>reported any actual updates, it never actually /did/ anything. It just 
>made the machine - my machine that I want to work on - impossible to 
>use. Other people had the same problems.
>
>It was solved by disabling something to do with the updates. The 
>question remains, why would MS allow something like this to run that 
>would effectively cripple customers' machines? What exactly was it doing 
>that required so much CPU power? Does anyone know for sure? I doubt it!)

Technology indestinguishable from magic. It does not have to be
advanced, it just has to be hidden.

>>> Unicode means using 2 or 4 bytes per character instead of 1, that's all.
>>> And storage schemes such as UTF8 mean that text files needn't take up
>>> that much more space. As for those that tables indexed by character: you
>>> simply wouldn't have a table with 64K or 1M entries; you'd use another
>>> approach (and probably for most purposes, special characters will be
>>> part of the ASCII subset).
>>
>> Exactly, you need another approach, like hash tables with entries
>> only for relevant characters, or lists or ranges.
>>
>>> Supporting Unicode with a big selection of fonts means a lot more data,
>>> but not necessarily that much more complexity (not of the order of 100
>>> or 1000 anyway). You would also expect such software to be optimised for
>>> the default language.
>>
>> In ASCII era you would have a table with charater properties
>> which can take 128 bytes (for 8 binary properties).  Together
>> with accessor functions less than 1kb.  Corresponding
>> library for Unicode when I looked at it were 2.7 MB.


>That's just data. You flash an image onto the screen; that's 1MB or 2MB; 
>it's nothing, because the capacity is there.

With a 1920 x 1280 32-bit screen that is around 10 MB. And that is
what I would consider a usable desktop.

>What's exasperating (this is again Windows), is you right-click 
>something (a file, icon, whatever), and sometimes you can count slowly 
>to ten before it even shows a pop-up list of options. You're not asking 
>for some complicated calculations, you just want it to show 'Properties' 
>so that you can click on it!
>
>So what was it spending ten seconds doing? The problem is there's 
>apparently no-one whose job it is to find out. They only know how to add 
>complexity: buy more RAM, a faster machine, download add-on software to 
>'clean' your system, or download yet another upgrade!

I see why I chose to not use that platform around a decade and a half
ago.

-- mrr

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#153933

FromBartC <bc@freeuk.com>
Date2015-11-04 18:04 +0000
Message-ID<hNr_x.243476$TF5.64285@fx37.am4>
In reply to#153925
On 04/11/2015 16:55, Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <V1p_x.113230$8s6.73562@fx46.am4>, BartC  <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

>> (I use my own language for programs for which other people use C. And I
>> run my own compiler for that. That compiler is about 0.3MB.
>>
>> It does pretty much the same job as, for example gcc, for which a
>> typical installation might be 300MB. And even that is small compared
>> with Visual C, for which you're looking at a 5000-11000 MB download.
>
> gcc binaries for arm7 takes 6811 kilobytes to download and 22700 kilobytes
> in the file system. A far cry from 300 meg.
>
> Now, the LIBRARIES for everyone and their dog might take more. Much
> more.

For Windows, you need the full download if you want to be able to 
compile anything (the core 65MB installation can't). Then, if you're 
enough of a gcc expert you might be be able to pick the essential files 
out of the 3500 that are present.

With Clang, out of the 400MB installation, the compiler itself is 50MB, 
but that can't compile anything by itself either (it piggy backs onto gcc).

MS Visual C also has a core compiler far smaller than the Visual Studio 
environment, but try finding a download smaller than 5 or 6GB! (I did 
manage special Visual C++ 2008 download intended to compile Python, 
that's a few hundred MB on disk.)

Perhaps you have a mind to tinker with the source code of gcc; that's a 
90MB download, 100s MB on disk, some 40,000 files IIRC. Still, that's 
not as bad as the 1.5 million *files* that comprise Visual Studio!

(My compiler is 20 source files (not including the IDE; that's another 5!).)

>> So what was it spending ten seconds doing? The problem is there's
>> apparently no-one whose job it is to find out. They only know how to add
>> complexity: buy more RAM, a faster machine, download add-on software to
>> 'clean' your system, or download yet another upgrade!
>
> I see why I chose to not use that platform around a decade and a half
> ago.

(A decade and a half ago, I think I'd just managed to find a Linux 
system that could recognise a USB mouse! But not a graphics display or 
modem yet.)

-- 
Bartc

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#153939

Fromscott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
Date2015-11-04 18:48 +0000
Message-ID<Wps_x.880$af1.546@fx04.iad>
In reply to#153933
BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>On 04/11/2015 16:55, Morten Reistad wrote:

>
>Perhaps you have a mind to tinker with the source code of gcc; that's a 
>90MB download, 100s MB on disk, some 40,000 files IIRC. Still, that's 
>not as bad as the 1.5 million *files* that comprise Visual Studio!
>
>(My compiler is 20 source files (not including the IDE; that's another 5!).)
>

I suppose your compiler supports ADA, Java, Go, C, C++, Objective C and Fortran
and generates code for 50 instruction set architectures, including the PDP-11 and VAX?

Does your compiler support C11 and C++14?

If not, then you can't compare it with GCC.

And the number of source files is not an interesting statistic.   SLOC is.

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#153944

From"Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net>
Date2015-11-04 13:05 -0600
Message-ID<d9v36rFhh9iU1@mid.individual.net>
In reply to#153939
"Scott Lurndal" wrote:

> BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>>On 04/11/2015 16:55, Morten Reistad wrote:
>
>>
>>Perhaps you have a mind to tinker with the source code of gcc; that's a
>>90MB download, 100s MB on disk, some 40,000 files IIRC. Still, that's
>>not as bad as the 1.5 million *files* that comprise Visual Studio!
>>
>>(My compiler is 20 source files (not including the IDE; that's another 
>>5!).)
>>
>
> I suppose your compiler supports ADA, Java, Go, C, C++, Objective C and 
> Fortran
> and generates code for 50 instruction set architectures, including the 
> PDP-11 and VAX?
>
> Does your compiler support C11 and C++14?
>
> If not, then you can't compare it with GCC.
>
> And the number of source files is not an interesting statistic.   SLOC is.

Nevertheless, anything with 1.5 million files will get my attention.

I set out to install VC once, several years ago but it failed so I aborted 
it.  I just looked to see what residue was left behind and there's nothing I 
can't live with.  One of the directories is "Depends" which happen to be the 
name of a popular adult diaper, I thought that was interesting. 

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#153947

FromQuadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
Date2015-11-04 11:52 -0800
Message-ID<0192dc93-56be-4916-bb7d-cd07457e6eac@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#153944
On Wednesday, November 4, 2015 at 12:05:02 PM UTC-7, Osmium wrote:

> I set out to install VC once, several years ago but it failed so I aborted 
> it.  I just looked to see what residue was left behind and there's nothing I 
> can't live with.  One of the directories is "Depends" which happen to be the 
> name of a popular adult diaper, I thought that was interesting.

It can't be because "Dependencies" is more than eight characters long...

John Savard

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