Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!jesup
From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Segmented Architectures ( formerly Re: 48-bit computers)
Message-ID: <20629@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 15 Apr 91 06:09:41 GMT
References: <1991Apr04.023845.3501@kithrup.COM> <1991Apr6.211320.18594@athena.mit.edu> <7YKAMBE@xds13.ferranti.com> <1991Apr12.021609.5340@athena.mit.edu> <24004@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> <3336@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <1991Apr14.014401.1297@zoo.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 29

In article <1991Apr14.014401.1297@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <3336@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>>... Electronic mail on a SPARC doesn't take more resources than
>>it did on a PDP-11...
>
>Oh, but it does.  The pdp11 had the immense good fortune of being too small
>to run sendmail...!

	Quite right.  Never underestimate the ability of software people to
use all available resources, and then 10% (or 100%) more.  If mail has become
"small", someone we recode it using OO, or in a functional language, or...
Then they'll add all sorts of frills, say automatic AI junk-mail filters,
voicemail, a friendly voice that says "Some important mail from your buddy
fred has arrived, and I knew you would want to know about it immediately;
shall I read it for you?", or some such sillyness.

	(Please excuse my intentionally semi-serious predictions.)

	The only proof I need is X/OpenLook/Unix.  When we have 1000-Spec
machines on our desktops, they'll probably _still_ have >1sec response times.
;-|

-- 
Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion.
Thus spake the Master Ninjei: "To program a million-line operating system
is easy, to change a man's temperament is more difficult."
(From "The Zen of Programming")  ;-)