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Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth

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On 9/7/25 11:43, Dan Espen wrote:
> John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> writes:
> 
>> According to Peter Flass  <Peter@Iron-Spring.com>:
>>>> In practice that was fine, BOS and DOS only ran one program at a time
>>>> so it'd usually be waiting for the I/O to finish anyway.
>>>
>>> Definitely not. In my day DOS had three partitions. Batch ran in BG, but
>>> FG1 might run a spooler or a simple TP program like MTCS. Now there are
>>> more partitions, but no more /30s.
>>
>> DOS could certainly have three partitions, but I doubt many people used them on
>> a 360/30. Multiprogramming needed storage protection, which was an extra cost
>> option on the /30, and at least 32K, but you could get a /30 with 16K or 24K.
>>
>> Spooling wouldn't make much sense on a machine so slow that it stops when it
>> reads or writes anything. The manual says that "Execution of instructions is
>> suspended until the completion of data transfers for buffered devices" which
>> included most printers and card readers.
>>
>> It normally only came with a multiplexor channel, which a disk or tape captured
>> for the length of the operation so it couldn't do disk or tape I/O and any other
>> I/O at the same time unless you paid extra for a selector channel.
> 
> I don't believe I ever worked with a 30 without storage protection, or
> less than 64K.  A typical COBOL program would use a lot of that 64K.

Most of the machines I worked with had 32K, COBOL ran fine. I suppose a 
16K machine without storage protect, decimal, or floating-point would 
have worked for dedicated applications, like RJE, but at that point why 
not just go with a /20?

> 
>> You could run OS on a 64K /30, but only single threaded PCP, not MFT or MVT.
> 
> OS on a 30?  No way!
> 

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Re: Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-09-03 14:13 +0000
  Re: Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-09-03 23:11 +0000
  Re: Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth Alexander Schreiber <als@usenet.thangorodrim.de> - 2025-09-04 10:10 +0200
  Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2025-09-06 17:38 +0000
    Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2025-09-06 15:16 -0700
      Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2025-09-06 22:39 +0000
        Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth geodandw <geodandw@gmail.com> - 2025-09-06 18:46 -0400
          Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2025-09-06 23:00 +0000
            Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth geodandw <geodandw@gmail.com> - 2025-09-07 15:57 -0400
        Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth geodandw <geodandw@gmail.com> - 2025-09-06 18:48 -0400
        Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-09-07 04:11 -0400
        Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2025-09-07 14:43 -0400
          Re: slow computers, Hmmm ... Downloaded Xenix - But It's *41* Floppies Worth Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2025-09-08 08:10 -0700

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