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From: davidsen@steinmetz.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM new 'standard'
Message-ID: <1340@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Mar-87 13:25:24 EST
Article-I.D.: steinmet.1340
Posted: Fri Mar 27 13:25:24 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Mar-87 11:05:46 EST
References: <701@imsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@kbsvax.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 52

In article <701@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>What about virtual memory and the other wonders of protected mode?
>Virtual memory was also an accomodation to poverty on multi-user
>machines for which there was never enough memory.  In 15 years of
>programming, including applications in Cobol, statistics, maximum
>likelihood modeling, software design and all sorts of things, I have
>never actually SEEN any application which could not be programmed in
>640K, the standard for PC and AT clones these days.  Probably 70% of all
^^^^^
  Given enough time I could do anything on a 64k CP/M machine that I
  can do on a Cray. If you like simple, small computers, get a Turing
  machine! Putting big problems in small machines is an exercise, not
  the right way to do it.
>programs I have ever seen which do anything worthwhile and were well
>written take less than 64K.  True fanatics in need of really BIG arrays
>will likely find more happiness using the Turbo Extender package with its
>LIM and virtual arrays than they will looking elsewhere
>
>Then there is the possibility of running UNIX on 286 and 386 machines.
>Unix is my OS of choice for machines which for some legitimate reason
>HAVE to be multi-user;  I can't think of any reason why any sane person
>should wish to run it on a single user computer, unless they like slow
>performance, clunky and fragile file systems, lack of standardization,
>and generally prefer 1976 software, such rubbish as TROFF, VI, ED, YACC
>etc. to the software of the present.  Make no mistake, the DOS software
>world is casting a giant shadow right now, and UNIX is standing IN that
>shadow.  When the biggest  and most critical selling point of all UNIX
>systems is "runs DOS software", the conclusion to be drawn is obvious.

There are a lot on nice applications for DOS. My opinion is that
using DOS to run DOS software is like diving for pearls in a cesspool.
It's rewarding, but unpleasant. (You may quote me on that).

The major reason I got a 386 machine was to run DOS software
under UNIX. Running software development under UNIX on an AT
yields better tools, faster compile time, having editors not
limited to 640k, and running things in the background. I do
sometimes run CodeView to debug something really nasty, but
that's one of the "pearls" I mentiond before. I can get good
spreadsheets, good communications, good databases, and I can
take them all with me. I run on machines ranging from an XT to a
Cray2, and there is nothing better than portability. Having just
done an evaluation of clone compatibility for my company, I can
tell you that we found a total of one AT clone which was
reasonably compatible. All others tested fell short by some
measure. So much for compatibility and portability.

-- 
bill davidsen			sixhub \
      ihnp4!seismo!rochester!steinmetz ->  crdos1!davidsen
				chinet /
ARPA: davidsen%crdos1.uucp@ge-crd.ARPA (or davidsen@ge-crd.ARPA)