[24796] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 6949 Volume: 10
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Thu Sep 2 18:11:11 2004
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 15:10:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Thu, 2 Sep 2004 Volume: 10 Number: 6949
Today's topics:
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <amajorel@teezer.fr>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <kkrueger@example.edu>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <wyrmwif@tango-sierra-oscar-foxtrot-tango.fake.org>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <john.thingstad@chello.no>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism (Dave Hansen)
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <albalmer@att.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <spam@mouse-potato.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <cbfalconer@yahoo.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <cbfalconer@yahoo.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <peter@engcorp.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <kkrueger@example.edu>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <albalmer@att.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <albalmer@att.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <spam@mouse-potato.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <yyx-nospam@gmx.de>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <espen@*do-not-spam-me*.vestre.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <albalmer@att.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <spam@mouse-potato.com>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <dwall@fastmail.fm>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <firstname@lastname.pr1v.n0>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <albalmer@att.net>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <amajorel@teezer.fr>
Re: Xah Lee's Unixism <lynn@garlic.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:19:43 +0000 (UTC)
From: Andre Majorel <amajorel@teezer.fr>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <slrncjep0f.oa.amajorel@vulcain.knox.com>
On 2004-09-02, John Thingstad <john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
> The fact that the NT kernel is not entirely stable yet really
> shouldn't supprise anyone. Afterall Unix has messed with it's
> kernel for 30 years.
I feel compelled to point out that Linux achieved considerably
better stability after just a few years.
--
André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:11:08 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Karl A. Krueger" <kkrueger@example.edu>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <ch7nnq$sk1$1@baldur.whoi.edu>
In comp.lang.lisp Rupert Pigott <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> John Thingstad wrote:
>>
>> As for following standards thats just plain sense. Note the Mac OS
>> 10 / Darwin uses a unix kernel because of all the problems with
>> interoperabillity OS 9 had with talking to Windows and Unix boxes.
>
> Which I believe is derived from a Mach uKernel... The "UNIX" bits
> are the FreeBSD userland utilities that surround it.
Well, no. Mac OS X uses a BSD kernel implemented on top of the Mach
microkernel, much as Apple's experimental mkLinux placed a Linux kernel
on top of Mach. OS X also uses a pretty standard set of BSD libraries
and utilities -- as well as the NeXT-derived ones. (You can tell the
heritage apart pretty easily -- if it's written in Objective-C, it's
from the NeXT side.)
The BSD heritage is a two-way street: Apple has contributed code
developed for OS X back to the FreeBSD and OpenBSD projects, as well as
releasing the whole Unix core of OS X as the open-source Darwin system.
It's also not particularly accurate to say that the reason Apple moved
to Unix was "interoperability". Rather, the old Mac System was simply
never designed for what it ended up being used to do. There were too
many layers of cruft -- and too many design decisions that were right
for 1984 but wrong for 1999. Single-user, cooperative multitasking, and
a network stack designed for small LANs rather than the Internet ... the
old Mac System was a great microcomputer OS but not a great workstation
OS.
When you consider that the first Macs to run OS X were several hundred
times faster than the 1984 Mac, had one thousand times as much RAM, and
had fifty thousand times as much mass storage, it should follow pretty
naturally that the constraints of the old system's design would cease to
be appropriate.
1984 Original Macintosh: 128kB RAM, 8MHz m68k, 400kB disk
1999 Power Macintosh G4: 128MB RAM, 400MHz PPC G4, 20 GB disk
--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger@example.edu>
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Email address is spamtrapped. s/example/whoi/
"Outlook not so good." -- Magic 8-Ball Software Reviews
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 18:31:09 -0000
From: SM Ryan <wyrmwif@tango-sierra-oscar-foxtrot-tango.fake.org>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <10jepndi1en2id8@corp.supernews.com>
# > Not exactly a typical editor function, agreed. I was feeling a little
# > whimsical at the time.
#
# i once did a random email/usenet signature with zippy/yow ... but i
# added two other files to it ... and then i had to fix a feature in
# yow. yow uses a 16bit random number to index a yow file ... it was ok
# as long as your sayings file was less than 64kbytes. i had to modify
# yow to handle files larger than 64kbytes ... the "sayings" file used
# for 6670 separater pages was 167k bytes and the jargon file was 413k
# bytes ... while a current zippy yow file is 52,800 bytes.
It's nice to know people still have time to work on really important things.
--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
I'm not even supposed to be here today.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:32:09 +0200
From: "John Thingstad" <john.thingstad@chello.no>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <opsdpprvxppqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:19:43 +0000 (UTC), Andre Majorel
<amajorel@teezer.fr> wrote:
> On 2004-09-02, John Thingstad <john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
>
>> The fact that the NT kernel is not entirely stable yet really
>> shouldn't supprise anyone. Afterall Unix has messed with it's
>> kernel for 30 years.
>
> I feel compelled to point out that Linux achieved considerably
> better stability after just a few years.
>
I feel compelled to replay that Linux is based on the Posix standard which
is basically a recipie for writing unix. They did not write a new
operating system. They implemented a tested and proven one.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 18:53:24 GMT
From: iddw@hotmail.com (Dave Hansen)
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <41376b7f.602254937@News.individual.net>
On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 17:03:21 +0100, Rupert Pigott
<roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>John Thingstad wrote:
[...]
>
>uKernels are *NOT* a new idea at all. They weren't a new idea when
>NT was unleashed on the world. What people think of as "NT" is a big
>pile of shite that obscures the uKernel. Since the graphics stuff
>got put into ring 0 I think that you could legitimately claim that
>BSD Unix is more of a micro kernel than NT. :)
>
>> (Unix tradionally has a spagetti of intercalling function calls as a
>> kernel.)
>
>Remember NeXTStep ?
QNX is another example of a microkernel OS, "unixy" without being
unix. It's been around since, what, 1981?
AIUI, it used to be called Q-NIX, until a certain telephone company
complained.
Regards,
-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 11:55:05 -0700
From: Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <9pqej0tjtikajsa74c7a5el7quk49k053s@4ax.com>
On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:32:09 +0200, "John Thingstad"
<john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
>On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:19:43 +0000 (UTC), Andre Majorel
><amajorel@teezer.fr> wrote:
>
>> On 2004-09-02, John Thingstad <john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
>>
>>> The fact that the NT kernel is not entirely stable yet really
>>> shouldn't supprise anyone. Afterall Unix has messed with it's
>>> kernel for 30 years.
>>
>> I feel compelled to point out that Linux achieved considerably
>> better stability after just a few years.
>>
>
>I feel compelled to replay that Linux is based on the Posix standard which
>is basically a recipie for writing unix. They did not write a new
>operating system. They implemented a tested and proven one.
Huh? Linux is only recently paying some attention to the POSIX
standards. I don't know the current level of compliance, though I'm
pretty sure that some parts of POSIX.4 have been implemented.
I wouldn't describe the POSIX standards as a "recipie for writing
unix", anyway.
--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerconsultingthis@att.net
------------------------------
Date: 02 Sep 2004 19:00:52 +0000
From: Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <877jrcjy1n.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com>
"John Thingstad" <john.thingstad@chello.no> writes:
> Note the Mac OS 10 / Darwin uses a unix kernel because of all the
> problems with
> interoperabillity OS 9 had with talking to Windows and Unix boxes.
No that's not the reason. The reason is ONLY because of the lack of
virtual memory management (with separation of addressing spaces for
processes) in MacOS. That's the one error in design in MacOS I
identified in version 1.0 that they've dragged all along for 20
years. (And I bet that if they did not make it, AAPL would be $50-$80
now, and they'd have at least 40%-50% of market share). Instead,
they've wasted resources, CEOs and CTOs for 10 years before the NeXT
take over.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never
stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 19:08:41 GMT
From: CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <41376B82.C6A202FC@yahoo.com>
Peter Hansen wrote:
> Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
>> wyrmwif@tango-sierra-oscar-foxtrot-tango.fake.org "SM Ryan" wrote:
>
>>> There's a story about why railroad tracks are spaced the way they are.
>>
>> Is this the one about two Roman horses' arses? If so, it also accounts
>> for the physical dimensions of the Space Shuttle's boosters.
>
> A quick search using Google will show that while there is a
> certain amount of truth in the original story, most of the
> details are wrong, and the final bit about the booster rockets
> is unsubstantiated. But it's still a cute story.
I know nothing about those stories, but it seems reasonable to me
that the boosters would have been designed to be transportable by
railroad, which ties their dimensions to track gauge.
--
Some similarities between GWB and Mussolini:
a) The strut; b) Making war until brought up short:
Mussolini: Ethiopia, France, Greece.
GWB: Afghanistan, Iraq.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 19:08:42 GMT
From: CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <41376DCA.B833324A@yahoo.com>
John Thingstad wrote:
>
... snip ...
>
> These peaple had more than a 100 years of experience in
> developing muliuser / mutitasking operating systems between
> them. The fact that the NT kernel is not entirely stable yet
> really shouldn't supprise anyone. Afterall Unix has messed
> with it's kernel for 30 years. But the modular arcitecture
> and the microkernel are new ideas in OS design and should in
> time lead to a more extensible OS than unix.
The original NT (3.0) was well designed, but slow on the hardware
of the time. Then MS got to work increasing module connectivity
and reducing reliability. This is the usual premature
optimization bug, together with planned obsolescence. The result
is an unmaintainable mess.
--
Some similarities between GWB and Mussolini:
a) The strut; b) Making war until brought up short:
Mussolini: Ethiopia, France, Greece.
GWB: Afghanistan, Iraq.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:28:16 +0100
From: Rupert Pigott <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <1094153294.416994@teapot.planet.gong>
Alan Balmer wrote:
> Huh? Linux is only recently paying some attention to the POSIX
> standards. I don't know the current level of compliance, though I'm
Nah, that's been going on since at least 1994 when I installed it.
> pretty sure that some parts of POSIX.4 have been implemented.
God only knows, as long as it works I'm not complaining. :)
Cheers,
Rupert
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:38:15 -0400
From: Peter Hansen <peter@engcorp.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <P5GdnU8q-8Sw66rcRVn-qg@powergate.ca>
CBFalconer wrote:
> Peter Hansen wrote:
>>Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
>>>wyrmwif@tango-sierra-oscar-foxtrot-tango.fake.org "SM Ryan" wrote:
>>>>There's a story about why railroad tracks are spaced the way they are.
>>>
>>>Is this the one about two Roman horses' arses? If so, it also accounts
>>>for the physical dimensions of the Space Shuttle's boosters.
>>
>>A quick search using Google will show that while there is a
>>certain amount of truth in the original story, most of the
>>details are wrong, and the final bit about the booster rockets
>>is unsubstantiated. But it's still a cute story.
>
> I know nothing about those stories, but it seems reasonable to me
> that the boosters would have been designed to be transportable by
> railroad, which ties their dimensions to track gauge.
You know, it's really rather helpful when people take the time to
read the things they are trying to discuss, since quite often
those things end up answering questions that those people
might have.
See the snapes.com article that Dave Hansen (no relation) posted
for more... and a response to your reasonable thoughts above.
-Peter
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 19:57:03 +0000 (UTC)
From: "Karl A. Krueger" <kkrueger@example.edu>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <ch7tud$16m$1@baldur.whoi.edu>
In comp.lang.lisp Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> "John Thingstad" <john.thingstad@chello.no> writes:
>> Note the Mac OS 10 / Darwin uses a unix kernel because of all the
>> problems with interoperabillity OS 9 had with talking to Windows and
>> Unix boxes.
>
> No that's not the reason. The reason is ONLY because of the lack of
> virtual memory management (with separation of addressing spaces for
> processes) in MacOS.
It was my impression that the Motorola 68000 CPU, upon which the
original Macintosh was based, did not support memory management in
hardware. At least, that's usually given as the reason that portable
Unix systems such as NetBSD will "never" run on the earlier 68k (or,
for that matter, 8086 or 80286) chips.
--
Karl A. Krueger <kkrueger@example.edu>
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Email address is spamtrapped. s/example/whoi/
"Outlook not so good." -- Magic 8-Ball Software Reviews
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:21:07 -0700
From: Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <e00fj09ic603q3acjdea0bj5sp1v37f11p@4ax.com>
On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:28:16 +0100, Rupert Pigott
<roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Alan Balmer wrote:
>
>> Huh? Linux is only recently paying some attention to the POSIX
>> standards. I don't know the current level of compliance, though I'm
>
>Nah, that's been going on since at least 1994 when I installed it.
>
That's what I mean - it's been (and is still) "going on." It ain't
soup yet., and only recently (imo) has it been taken seriously. I
think pthreads were the defining point for me.
It is certainly not the case that Linux was written by following the
POSIX "recipe."
>> pretty sure that some parts of POSIX.4 have been implemented.
>
>God only knows, as long as it works I'm not complaining. :)
>
>Cheers,
>Rupert
--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerconsultingthis@att.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:22:53 -0700
From: Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <h70fj0521al68ampoop9o2b74p2gl03289@4ax.com>
On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 19:57:03 +0000 (UTC), "Karl A. Krueger"
<kkrueger@example.edu> wrote:
>In comp.lang.lisp Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>> "John Thingstad" <john.thingstad@chello.no> writes:
>>> Note the Mac OS 10 / Darwin uses a unix kernel because of all the
>>> problems with interoperabillity OS 9 had with talking to Windows and
>>> Unix boxes.
>>
>> No that's not the reason. The reason is ONLY because of the lack of
>> virtual memory management (with separation of addressing spaces for
>> processes) in MacOS.
>
>It was my impression that the Motorola 68000 CPU, upon which the
>original Macintosh was based, did not support memory management in
>hardware.
That's what I remember, but wasn't there an MMU available as a
separate chip?
> At least, that's usually given as the reason that portable
>Unix systems such as NetBSD will "never" run on the earlier 68k (or,
>for that matter, 8086 or 80286) chips.
--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerconsultingthis@att.net
------------------------------
Date: 02 Sep 2004 20:27:25 +0000
From: Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <874qmgifgy.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com>
"Karl A. Krueger" <kkrueger@example.edu> writes:
> When you consider that the first Macs to run OS X were several hundred
> times faster than the 1984 Mac, had one thousand times as much RAM, and
> had fifty thousand times as much mass storage, it should follow pretty
> naturally that the constraints of the old system's design would cease to
> be appropriate.
Yes, but the first NeXTcube or NeXTstation were not much more
powerfull than even the original Macintosh. In anycase, at the time
the Macintosh appeared, there were already 680x0 based unix workstations.
> 1984 Original Macintosh: 128kB RAM, 8 MHz 68000, 400 kB disk
1989 low end NeXTcube: 128MB RAM, 25 MHz 68030, 256 MB optical disk!
> 1999 Power Macintosh G4: 128MB RAM, 400MHz PPC G4, 20 GB disk
NeXTstep could have run on a MacIIfx (The TI Explorer ran on a MacIIfx).
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never
stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we.
"I don't think it* can be won." (*):the war on terror.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Sep 2004 20:29:11 GMT
From: Andreas Krey <yyx-nospam@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <slrncjf0iv.7vj.a.krey@inner.h.uberluser.org>
* Karl A. Krueger (kkrueger@example.edu)
...
> It was my impression that the Motorola 68000 CPU, upon which the
> original Macintosh was based, did not support memory management in
> hardware.
That is not the problem; one can do memory management and multiple
address spaces in external hardware as well. But the MacOS architecture
obviously wanted to be all in one address space, as did the early
windows versions. This makes GUI easier and networking and fault
isolation harder, but it's a valid tradeoff. :-)
What you can't do with the 68000 is virtual memory management
because that requires the processor to save the state of
execution in the middle of an instruction when needed data
is not physically in memory. 68020 and upwards provided that
feature, and the Sun 3/50 used a 68020 and a proprietary memory
management unit mainly consisting of two fast SRAMs to get
virtual memory support.
I don't know whether the 68000 already had user and supervisor
mode which is also (besides an MMU) a prerequisite for completely
jailing user programs.
Andreas
--
np: 4'33
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:30:42 GMT
From: Espen Vestre <espen@*do-not-spam-me*.vestre.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <SpLZc.4768$g%5.62154@news2.e.nsc.no>
Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> (The TI Explorer ran on a MacIIfx).
...on a nubus card (just like the MacIvory (Symbolics)), if I
remember right.
--
(espen)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:29:45 -0700
From: Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <0g0fj0dvbthf0cj224bdt6ikqsv2vs5jlb@4ax.com>
On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:38:15 -0400, Peter Hansen <peter@engcorp.com>
wrote:
>CBFalconer wrote:
>
>> Peter Hansen wrote:
>>>Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
>>>>wyrmwif@tango-sierra-oscar-foxtrot-tango.fake.org "SM Ryan" wrote:
>>>>>There's a story about why railroad tracks are spaced the way they are.
>>>>
>>>>Is this the one about two Roman horses' arses? If so, it also accounts
>>>>for the physical dimensions of the Space Shuttle's boosters.
>>>
>>>A quick search using Google will show that while there is a
>>>certain amount of truth in the original story, most of the
>>>details are wrong, and the final bit about the booster rockets
>>>is unsubstantiated. But it's still a cute story.
>>
>> I know nothing about those stories, but it seems reasonable to me
>> that the boosters would have been designed to be transportable by
>> railroad, which ties their dimensions to track gauge.
>
>You know, it's really rather helpful when people take the time to
>read the things they are trying to discuss, since quite often
>those things end up answering questions that those people
>might have.
>
>See the snapes.com article that Dave Hansen (no relation) posted
>for more... and a response to your reasonable thoughts above.
>
The shuttle boosters are 3.7m diameter. Quite a bit larger than the
gage of any railroad I've ever seen.
More than you ever wanted to know:
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Space%20Shuttle%20Solid%20Rocket%20Booster
--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerconsultingthis@att.net
------------------------------
Date: 02 Sep 2004 20:31:14 +0000
From: Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <87zn48h0q5.fsf@thalassa.informatimago.com>
"Karl A. Krueger" <kkrueger@example.edu> writes:
> In comp.lang.lisp Pascal Bourguignon <spam@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> > "John Thingstad" <john.thingstad@chello.no> writes:
> >> Note the Mac OS 10 / Darwin uses a unix kernel because of all the
> >> problems with interoperabillity OS 9 had with talking to Windows and
> >> Unix boxes.
> >
> > No that's not the reason. The reason is ONLY because of the lack of
> > virtual memory management (with separation of addressing spaces for
> > processes) in MacOS.
>
> It was my impression that the Motorola 68000 CPU, upon which the
> original Macintosh was based, did not support memory management in
> hardware. At least, that's usually given as the reason that portable
> Unix systems such as NetBSD will "never" run on the earlier 68k (or,
> for that matter, 8086 or 80286) chips.
That's not exactly true. There are some small problems with the
instruction set, but at the time Motorola sold 68000, they sold PMMU
and SMMU (segmented MMU) for it, and there was 68000 based
unix workstations.
Actually, the segmented MMU would have been a perfect match to the
Memory Management of the MacOS.
The problem was that they started with a 6809 and 64KB in mind for the
Macintosh...
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never
stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and
neither do we.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 21:42:57 +0100
From: Rupert Pigott <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <1094157775.808540@teapot.planet.gong>
Alan Balmer wrote:
> On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:28:16 +0100, Rupert Pigott
> <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>Alan Balmer wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Huh? Linux is only recently paying some attention to the POSIX
>>>standards. I don't know the current level of compliance, though I'm
>>
>>Nah, that's been going on since at least 1994 when I installed it.
>>
>
> That's what I mean - it's been (and is still) "going on." It ain't
> soup yet., and only recently (imo) has it been taken seriously. I
> think pthreads were the defining point for me.
PThreads is considered to be a tar-pit by far wiser people than I,
so I can't blame folks for being behind the curve on this regard.
> It is certainly not the case that Linux was written by following the
> POSIX "recipe."
I think it's fair to say it was. As I'm sure you know : Back in the
early 90s you had two main flavours of UNIX, BSD & SYSV (still do I
guess). Where there was any disagreement Linux generally went for
the third flavour, namely POSIX...
The differences showed when you used a true BSD or a true SYSV box.
There also used to be quite a few references in the man pages and
includes. Maybe this has changed, it's been a while since I cared
enough. :/
Cheers,
Rupert
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 21:48:32 +0100
From: Rupert Pigott <roo@try-removing-this.darkboong.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <1094158110.307899@teapot.planet.gong>
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> "Karl A. Krueger" <kkrueger@example.edu> writes:
>
>>When you consider that the first Macs to run OS X were several hundred
>>times faster than the 1984 Mac, had one thousand times as much RAM, and
>>had fifty thousand times as much mass storage, it should follow pretty
>>naturally that the constraints of the old system's design would cease to
>>be appropriate.
>
>
> Yes, but the first NeXTcube or NeXTstation were not much more
> powerfull than even the original Macintosh. In anycase, at the time
> the Macintosh appeared, there were already 680x0 based unix workstations.
It was specifically the 68000. Fixes were made that took effect in the
68010 and 68020. Dunno about 68008. IIRC the problem was that you could
not restart some instructions properly. Some UNIX workstations did use
68Ks, there was an Apollo that had two of them running in lock-step,
with one of them one instruction behind the other. When the leading CPU
barfed, action would be taken and the other CPU would take over. Someone
in comp.arch worked on the Fortune boxes and IIRC he claimed they had a
more elegant single CPU solution.
Cheers,
Rupert
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:58:34 -0000
From: "David K. Wall" <dwall@fastmail.fm>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <Xns9558ACB0EA0FFdkwwashere@216.168.3.30>
Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote in message
<news:9pqej0tjtikajsa74c7a5el7quk49k053s@4ax.com>:
> On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:32:09 +0200, "John Thingstad"
><john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
>>I feel compelled to replay that Linux is based on the Posix
>>standard which is basically a recipie for writing unix. They did
>>not write a new operating system. They implemented a tested and
>>proven one.
> Huh? Linux is only recently paying some attention to the POSIX
> standards.
Linus deliberately tried to pay attention to the POSIX standard
almost as soon as he realized that his terminal emulator project
was turning into an OS. 1991 isn't all that long ago, but I'm
not sure I would refer to it as "recent" in this context.
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Jul3.100050.9886%40klaava.Helsinki.FI
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 22:40:52 +0200
From: Morten Reistad <firstname@lastname.pr1v.n0>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <kg08hc.bgc1.ln@via.reistad.priv.no>
In article <41376B82.C6A202FC@yahoo.com>,
CBFalconer <cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Peter Hansen wrote:
>> Brian {Hamilton Kelly} wrote:
>>> wyrmwif@tango-sierra-oscar-foxtrot-tango.fake.org "SM Ryan" wrote:
>>
>>>> There's a story about why railroad tracks are spaced the way they are.
>>>
>>> Is this the one about two Roman horses' arses? If so, it also accounts
>>> for the physical dimensions of the Space Shuttle's boosters.
>>
>> A quick search using Google will show that while there is a
>> certain amount of truth in the original story, most of the
>> details are wrong, and the final bit about the booster rockets
>> is unsubstantiated. But it's still a cute story.
>
>I know nothing about those stories, but it seems reasonable to me
>that the boosters would have been designed to be transportable by
>railroad, which ties their dimensions to track gauge.
ISTR there was some tunnel NASA had to relate to if they wanted
to move the goods from production to launch. But that may have been
earlier products.
But rail tunnels are also descended from the same asses, so to speak.
-- mrr
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 14:33:16 -0700
From: Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <ct2fj0husp9caju36esc877vmkf7akr4j2@4ax.com>
On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:58:34 -0000, "David K. Wall"
<dwall@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net> wrote in message
><news:9pqej0tjtikajsa74c7a5el7quk49k053s@4ax.com>:
>
>> On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:32:09 +0200, "John Thingstad"
>><john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
>
>>>I feel compelled to replay that Linux is based on the Posix
>>>standard which is basically a recipie for writing unix. They did
>>>not write a new operating system. They implemented a tested and
>>>proven one.
>
>> Huh? Linux is only recently paying some attention to the POSIX
>> standards.
>
>Linus deliberately tried to pay attention to the POSIX standard
>almost as soon as he realized that his terminal emulator project
>was turning into an OS. 1991 isn't all that long ago, but I'm
>not sure I would refer to it as "recent" in this context.
>
>http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Jul3.100050.9886%40klaava.Helsinki.FI
I don't know that the "interest" he expresses in this post proves the
point ;-) However, Linux was based on Minix, and I think Minix was
POSIX.2 compliant.
Actually, what I'm remembering is a few years ago, when I was querying
a allegedly expert Linux developer. The question was, roughly, "Is
Linux POSIX-compliant." and the answer was, roughly, "Not very."
However, I seem to remember that we were talking POSIX.4 at the time.
Many systems don't yet support all of dot-4. I haven't looked at the
headers of my latest Linux install to see what sections are
implemented - I'll try to do that tonight.
Perhaps I'm misinterpreting John Thingstad's remarks, but I was mostly
objecting to the idea that Linus sat down with a copy of the POSIX
specifications and turned them into an OS. (Especially since not all
of the current POSIX standards existed at the time :-)
--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
removebalmerconsultingthis@att.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 21:44:46 +0000 (UTC)
From: Andre Majorel <amajorel@teezer.fr>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <slrncjf52a.oa.amajorel@vulcain.knox.com>
On 2004-09-02, John Thingstad <john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Sep 2004 18:19:43 +0000 (UTC), Andre Majorel
><amajorel@teezer.fr> wrote:
>
>> On 2004-09-02, John Thingstad <john.thingstad@chello.no> wrote:
>>
>>> The fact that the NT kernel is not entirely stable yet really
>>> shouldn't supprise anyone. Afterall Unix has messed with it's
>>> kernel for 30 years.
>>
>> I feel compelled to point out that Linux achieved considerably
>> better stability after just a few years.
>>
>
> I feel compelled to replay that Linux is based on the Posix standard
> which is basically a recipie for writing unix. They did not write a
> new operating system. They implemented a tested and proven one.
Are you arguing that the stability comes from the API, not from
the implementation ? If so, why has NT become more stable over
the years, since its API has not changed ?
--
André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 15:57:38 -0600
From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com>
Subject: Re: Xah Lee's Unixism
Message-Id: <ur7pks59p.fsf@mail.comcast.net>
Alan Balmer <albalmer@att.net> writes:
> The shuttle boosters are 3.7m diameter. Quite a bit larger than the
> gage of any railroad I've ever seen.
but they did have to be transported from utah to florida ... so while
the gauge may not have been issue ... there were things like
bridges, tunnels, etc. My understanding was the sectioning
was specifically because of length transportion issues.
i have some recollection of competing bids building single unit
assemblies at sea coast sites allowing them to be barged to
florida. supposedly the shuttle boosters were sectioned specifically
because they were being fabricated in utah and there were
transportation constraints.
shortly have the disaster ... some magazine carried a story spoof
about columbus being told that his ships had to be built in the
mountains where the trees grew ... and because of the difficulty of
dragging them down to the sea ... they were to be built in sections
... and then tar would be used to hold them together when they were
put to sea.
earlier thread on this subject
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#83 CNN reports...
this has 149 feet long as 12 feet diameterin four sections from utah
http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/shuttle1.htm
... making each section about 40 foot long. 12 foot high and wide on
flatbed .... 15-16 high (on flatbed) clears bridges and overpasses and
12 foot wide should hopefully be within bridge width restrictions.
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
------------------------------
Date: 6 Apr 2001 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Users-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 6 Apr 01)
Message-Id: <null>
Administrivia:
#The Perl-Users Digest is a retransmission of the USENET newsgroup
#comp.lang.perl.misc. For subscription or unsubscription requests, send
#the single line:
#
# subscribe perl-users
#or:
# unsubscribe perl-users
#
#to almanac@ruby.oce.orst.edu.
NOTE: due to the current flood of worm email banging on ruby, the smtp
server on ruby has been shut off until further notice.
To submit articles to comp.lang.perl.announce, send your article to
clpa@perl.com.
#To request back copies (available for a week or so), send your request
#to almanac@ruby.oce.orst.edu with the command "send perl-users x.y",
#where x is the volume number and y is the issue number.
#For other requests pertaining to the digest, send mail to
#perl-users-request@ruby.oce.orst.edu. Do not waste your time or mine
#sending perl questions to the -request address, I don't have time to
#answer them even if I did know the answer.
------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V10 Issue 6949
***************************************
