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From: dfh@scirtp.UUCP (David F. Hinnant)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.arch
Subject: Re: 386 Family Products (8086 sucks debate)
Message-ID: <552@scirtp.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Nov-85 08:18:35 EST
Article-I.D.: scirtp.552
Posted: Sun Nov 24 08:18:35 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Nov-85 05:40:50 EST
References: <7687@watrose.UUCP>
Organization: SCI Systems, Research Triangle Park, NC
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Xref: watmath net.micro:12855 net.arch:2172

> I have two points to make:
> 
> 2) The whole thing about the 8086 is that it is, to some degree, upward 
> compatible from 8080. So you get 8080 -> 8086 -> 186 -> 286 -> 386,
> each better than the last in some way or another.
> 

This is true up to a point. (See below).

> Why? Market share. A fundamental lesson learned very early on (50's) by
> etc.....
> essentially the same software as the 370/158. The time difference for these
> machines is probably 15 years (don't know for sure).
> 
> Thus, Joe Insurance Co. hasn't had to change its software because of software
> for the last 15 years. CPU upgrades are a joke. At Waterloo recently, 
> 2 4341's were swapped for 2 4381's in the space of about 5-10 hours.
> Nobody noticed, except for speed.
> 
> Chris Shaw    watmath!watrose!cdshaw  or  cdshaw@watmath

The point about Joe Insurance Co. is not a particularly valid one.  I
suspect that most software written 8, 10 or 15 years has long since
outlived its usefulness.  Example: At (an unnamed division of) ITT, I
ran into a receiving system that constantly crashed, and when up was
very, very slow.  Often I would go down to receiving, checking on what
was growing roots there and hadn't been shipped up to us (everything
from disks to disk drives.  What bozos!) On several occasions I was
told the that "the terminal was full".  It seems the DBMS could only
hold a finite number of entries that was obviously to low.  The DBMS?
It was written 10 years ago and when contacted, the vendor was amazed
to find anyone still using it.  The source code?  Not even the vendor
had it around anymore.

In this 'age' of new! and improved! software (SuperCalc --> Lotus 1-2-3
--> ??) I don't think maintaining the bridge between applications on
microprocessor driven systems is as important as it once was (any may
still be) with mainframes.   Applications software simply changes too fast.

-- 
				David Hinnant
				SCI Systems, Inc.
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