Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)?

From	anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c, comp.theory, comp.lang.c++, comp.arch
Subject	Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)?
Followup-To	comp.arch
Date	2026-08-05 07:24 +0000
Organization	Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien
Message-ID	<2026Aug5.092433@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> (permalink)
References	<114ibo4$2q4sk$1@toylet.eternal-september.org> <Mz2bS.56479$aXr.23998@fx18.ams4> <114ti98$2f5p1$1@dont-email.me> <2KscS.109586$4Fu9.30028@fx05.ams4>

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

Followups directed to: comp.arch

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Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> writes:
>I can make the case that for instance Microsoft got wealthy because of
>the 1992 memory shortage.

Asking search engines for "1992 memory shortage" brought up no sign of
a 1992 memory shortage, but an article about a 1988 memory shortage,
which says:

|The 1988 shortage, while the most painful, isn’t history’s only RAM
|shortage. For example, in 1995, a fire on Penang Island in Malaysia
|caused a power outage so dramatic that semiconductor factories were
|shut down for nearly three weeks.

Looking at <https://humanprogress.org/dataset/historical_price_of_computer_memory_and_storage?countries=Historical+price+of+memory-Historical+price+of+flash+memory-Historical+price+of+disk+drives-Historical+price+of+solid-state+drives&primary-data=10811&compare=null&chart-type=Table&view=selected&value-type=score&calc-table-country-a=null&calc-table-country-b=null&x-axis-start=0&x-axis-end=10&y-axis-start=10.617405&y-axis-end=3786967000000000&y-axis-log=false&x-axis-log=false&auto-scale=true&map-color=Monochromatic+Sky&region-calculation=Mean&start-date=1956&end-date=2023&the-year=2023&sort-bar-chart-ascending=true>

The prices per TB for "memory" are:

  1991       1992       1993  
75,538,730 48,417,580 47,029,436

So the price fell from 1991 to 1992, which indicates that there was no
shortage in 1992.  The prices did not fall much from 1992 to 1993.

>It was probably the primary cause companies
>computerizing their offices in the 90s chose IBM compatible PCs over
>DEC VAXen, or Unix workstations.

A shortage that did not exist as explanation, that does not convince
me.

BTW, I bought an IBM compatible PC in 1993, which I used as a "Unix
workstation" (running Linux).

Followups set to comp.arch.

- anton
-- 
'Anyone trying for "industrial quality" ISA should avoid undefined behavior.'
  Mitch Alsup, <c17fcd89-f024-40e7-a594-88a85ac10d20o@googlegroups.com>

Thread

What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-07-31 22:33 +0800
  Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-07-31 22:47 +0800
    Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2026-08-04 15:27 -0500
      Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-05 05:22 +0800
        Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2026-08-05 07:24 +0000
      Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-04 22:51 +0000
        Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? BGB <cr88192@gmail.com> - 2026-08-05 13:08 -0500
          Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-05 21:59 +0000
            Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-08-06 11:39 -0700
  Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? R Kym Horsell <kym@sdf.org> - 2026-07-31 17:09 +0000
    Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-07-31 19:55 +0200
      Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-01 02:09 +0800
      Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? R Kym Horsell <kym@sdf.org> - 2026-07-31 18:11 +0000
        Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> - 2026-08-01 10:08 +0200
          Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-01 16:26 +0800
            Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2026-08-01 01:41 -0700
          Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? R Kym Horsell <kym@sdf.org> - 2026-08-02 01:31 +0000
  Re: What is a genius programmer (e.g. C, Pascal, Foxpro)? John McCue <jmclnx@gmail.com.invalid> - 2026-08-03 21:15 +0000
    Re: What is a genius programmer ... Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions ... "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-08-04 13:58 +0800
      Re: What is a genius programmer ... Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions ... Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-04 17:03 +0800
        Re: What is a genius programmer ... Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions ... "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-08-07 00:04 -0700
          Re: What is a genius programmer ... Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions ... Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-08 21:55 +0800
            Re: What is a genius programmer ... Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions ... Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-08-08 17:31 +0000
  Understanding difference Queue and Mutex? (Was: What is a genius programmer) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2026-08-03 23:35 +0200
    What does Dmitry Vyukov teach us? (Was: Understanding difference Queue and Mutex?) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2026-08-03 23:36 +0200
      Parking is more expensive than spinning (Re: What does Dmitry Vyukov teach us?) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2026-08-03 23:44 +0200
        In Praise of Slacking (Was: Parking is more expensive than spinning) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2026-08-03 23:56 +0200
          Re: In Praise of Slacking (Was: Parking is more expensive than spinning) Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-04 08:29 +0800
            You should write a blog about it [(Was: In Praise of Slacking) Mild Shock <janburse@fastmail.fm> - 2026-08-04 02:49 +0200
              Re: You should write a blog about it [(Was: In Praise of Slacking) Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-08-04 09:47 +0800

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