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From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Personal OS
Summary: thinking back about thinking forward
Message-ID: <1990May30.042930.9261@ico.isc.com>
Date: 30 May 90 04:29:30 GMT
References: <402@newave.UUCP> <3300131@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <9437@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <36849@think.Think.COM>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 25

barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
[in response to complaints about overlays and overlay loaders]
> Remember, the article was written in the early 80's, when VM on personal
> computers was almost unthinkable...

Something's wrong with the time scale here.  In the early 80's (starting
around 82) I was working with a company that was thinking very seriously,
and in fact starting to build, machines that had VM and were intended for
individuals.  The company was not that farsighted, either.  There was
nothing unthinkable about it.  There were some tough cost issues right
then, but everyone saw they'd work out in time.  The 68010 was out and lots
of different groups were lamenting the lack of a standard MMU for it...as
they set out making their own MMU's to keep the world safe for incompati-
bility.  BSD was available and had VM.  The obvious thing to do was to take
BSD and put it on a 68010 machine--and lots of folks did.

>...(indeed, hard disks on personal computers
> were considered a luxury -- I think the Winchester disk is probably one of
> the most important computer technologies of the 80's)...

A slight adjustment here: Winchester is a '70's technology.  Its impact on
personal computers, true, was in the 80's.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...Simpler is better.