Path: csiph.com!x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!news2.arglkargh.de!news.theremailer.net!frell.theremailer.net!anonymous-x3!anonymous-x2!anonymous From: Fritz Wuehler Comments: This message did not originate from the Sender address above. It was remailed automatically by anonymizing remailer software. Please report problems or inappropriate use to the remailer administrator at . Identifying the real sender is technically impossible. Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,comp.sys.dec,vmsnet.pdp-11 Subject: Re: Y3K for PDP-11 Operating Systems References: Message-ID: <692fa4c3da8b25daef82cba4092ea173@msgid.frell.theremailer.net> Precedence: anon Date: Thu, 26 May 2011 22:20:22 +0200 Mail-To-News-Contact: abuse@frell.theremailer.net Organization: Frell Anonymous Remailer Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.sys.dec:513 Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2011-05-26 08.50, Fritz Wuehler wrote: > > Johnny Billquist wrote: > > > > Not from where I stand as someone who is in the business of writing > software for IBM mainframes (not in COBOL, btw!) However I could be > accused of thinking there is really only one OS left in the world, z/OS. > > :-) > However, I suspect you live in a diminishing world. That's true of everything good but unless a miracle happens it will still be around for a long time. > That is true. However, questions like if the earth is flat or not is at > least a provable statement. What we talk about here is so much more just > a question of opinions, trends and taste. There are no provable right or > wrong. Which makes it so much more problematic. And which makes it > possible for products with a high suck-factor so succeed. I don't agree. You can prove technology is superior or inferior. What you can't prove is what you should like or not like, and since unqualified people are making technology choices (too many MBA CTOs and no engineering CTOs) the issue isn't what's better. It's what they like, or more to the point what is the cheapest thing they can do this quarter. > He. I was using it a just a couple of years ago, and were sitting in > this meeting with a printed copy of a word document when I realized that > the pagination became different and when everybody else talked about > page x, I sometimes had to go to page x+1. Very difficult to discuss the > contents of the document under those circumstances... :-/ > It would appear that under some circumstances, OO overflowed the text to > the next page earlier than MS Office do. And it wasn't too complex a > document either. Figures, and just text. I am sure this can be dealt with by people who know how but I agree what happened is not a good situation. Anyway I never had it come up. > > Itanium, VMS, what's next ;) > > Good question, actually. Maybe IBM mainframes? :-) They have been saying that since 1975 but here we are in 2011 and IBM is worth more than Microsoft on the stock market. True we have many less jobs, orders of magnitude less, but it's a great platform with an endless life left. It's going away for many reasons, none of them technical or quality related. Those of us in the business are pained over it as much as you guys who love DEC and PDP. We've worked on this stuff for 40 or 50 years. > Probably not, but anyway... The trend will not stop here. More roadkill > is to be expected. Yep. :-(