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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!homxa!dman
From: dman@homxa.UUCP (#D.ANDERSON)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group
Subject: About nuking newsgroups:
Message-ID: <221@homxa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-May-84 10:56:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxa.221
Posted: Thu May 31 10:56:41 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Jun-84 09:41:54 EDT
References: <210@homxa.UUCP> <1941@utcsstat.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 41

>> By the way, there is NO reason we have to limit ourselves to
>> 512 groups ... Using additional memory to keep more groups when
>> running checknews and readnews shouldn't scare anyone except
>> those with systems without paging and small memories.

> The attitude that "Gee my VAX has a 6 megabyte data space, so no
> one needs to ever think about memory constraints" is widespread
> and dangerous.

Very true. But it is the progressive view, and I'd rather push the
limits than be forced to hang back.

> It is possible to fill even a 6 megabyte data space. The advantage
> of facing memory constraints squarely is that your programs have
> a good chance of running on even quite small machines. Portable
> programs can not assume a 6 megabyte data space.

Why not? Paging allows an address space as big as the moon. If you
worrying about the physical length of an address, well, I grieve for
you. That's why we got rid of our PDPs.

> B news is not wonderfully portable ... some will say that if expanding
> news limits breaks PDP-11s ... it's further justification for getting
> a machine with a bigger virtual address space. There certainly are
> legitimate needs for bigger virtual address spaces and people hereabouts
> are looking at machines with same, but in the case of news, I think
> the problem is poor design. News needs a re-write.

Yeah, news is due for a re-write. Version 3.0 should include screen
control, user supergrouping, special bulletin boards, etc.  We'll see
2.11 first. But as far as I know, nobody's out there writing it. The
design of 2.10 is not poor - it is a product of software evolution.
But the real question of virtual addressing will bite you in the end.
Sure, you can still do alot without it. But the limitations are too
great. Why isn't there anyone using PDP-8's to read news? or 8080's?
I think that you ought to at least upgrade to a 32 bit machine. At
least while you can still unload your PDP's; Soon nobody may want them.

How long till we all need 64 bit addressing?

					Dave Anderson  201-949-5552