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Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:29:39 -0700
From: Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
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Subject: Re: Arithmetic overflow checking
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On 7/10/2011 11:07 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:53:09 -0400, David Lamb wrote:
>
>> On 08/07/2011 12:30 AM, Eric Sosman wrote:
>>> On 7/7/2011 8:51 PM, Peter Duniho wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>> I would not worry about the "simple" or "efficient" criteria. IMHO, if
>>>> one is deciding to apply overflow checking to every computation, one
>>>> has already abandoned the hope of efficiency.
>>>
>>> I've used machines that raised overflow traps "for free,"
>> ...
>>> (The machines I speak of were from forty-odd years ago
>>
>> When microprocessors started to arrive on the scene, a lot of old-timey
>> hardware folks said they'd forgotten 30+ years of hardware design. When
>> operating systems for computers based on said processors came out, a lot
>> of old-timey software folks said they'd forgotten 30+ years of operating
>> system design.  We seem to still be suffering the consequences.
>
> That happened not once, but twice.
>
> The first great leap backward was the minicomputer era, when the likes of
> the PDP-8 arrived with a single user, single tasking OS reminiscent of
> early computers, except they generally had teletypes instead of banks of
> switches and flashing lights. By then the better mainframes were multi-
> user, multitasking beasts.
>
> Then the first microcomputers arrived in the mid/late '70s. By this time
> the better minis had multi-tasking operating systems, but micros had re-
> implemented the earliest mini OSes - CP/M was near as dammit a copy of
> the old PDP-8 OS (RSTS?) from the late 60s - and the earliest micros even
> had switches and flashing lights (KIM-1, IMSAI 8080). By 1980 the minis
> were running UNIX but the latest and greatest micros had - drumroll - MS-
> DOS!
>
>

Only twice? Aren't you forgetting "smart" phones. One of the great
advances in Android is (Drum roll!) multitasking!!!

Patricia