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From: root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: dumber terminal device drivers
Message-ID: <323@bu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 30-Mar-85 22:11:42 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.323
Posted: Sat Mar 30 22:11:42 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 01:39:59 EST
References: <327@piggy.UUCP>, <2536@nsc.UUCP>
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 43

>Comments about using a bit-mask to indicate wake-up characters
>as a way to optimize terminal handling in programs like VI,EMACS

Absolutely valid, used in TOPS-20 all the time (exactly as decribed)
also exists in VMS. The TOPS-20 front end processors seem to also
take advantage of this architecture and could be used in front ends
in general.

On the other hand, if I were to expend my efforts I have seen the
future and it is here: Our XEROX1108 Lisp Machines run PUP to speak
to our 4.2 Vaxen. One of the nice things LEAF supports (a file protocol)
is the ability to just do a 'cd' to a VAX directory, quite transparently.
They have a text editor TEDIT with a package that more or less simulates
EMACS.

The result is if I want to edit a file on the VAX I just CD
(actual cmd is CONNECT) to it's directory and run the editor
which runs completely on my local workstation (except for the
occasional block transfers of the file to the local box [*not*
the whole file]). Voila' the cycles for character handling are
well spent locally w/o bothering the central machine and I am
freed more or less from either creating or suffering from a loaded
central machine. I really have little else to do with the local
cycles (there's enough left over for the background processes) so
I feel no real need to optimize further.

The upshot is: Traditional, centralized time sharing is DEAD.
Turn those super-minis, main-frames into file/compute servers
and get yourself a workstation (they're getting quite cheap.)
Optimizing a program so that 40 people EMACS'ing on a VAX11/780
or so will be non-interfering is a waste of time. Buying a
slightly faster (4X or so) super-mini is a waste of money, you
wake up a few weeks later and you have 4X the people running
those programs and you are back where you started.

Workstations provide linear growth solutions to these problems
with linear, predictable non-catastrophic costs (ie. the kind of costs
engendered in upgrading a super-mini to the next stupid model.)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University

...and get out of the way if you can't lend a hand cuz the times
they are a' changing