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From: jay@splut.UUCP (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Was the 360 badly-designed?  (was Re: Compatibility with EBCDIC)
Message-ID: <85@splut.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 07:23:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: splut.85
Posted: Mon Aug 24 07:23:39 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Aug-87 01:43:49 EDT
References: <855@tjalk.cs.vu.nl> <2683@hoptoad.uucp> <916@haddock.ISC.COM> <1580@sol.ARPA>
Organization: Confederate Microsystems, League City, TX
Lines: 61
Summary: 360 !-necessarily-= badly designed
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.c:3918 comp.arch:1939

In article <1580@sol.ARPA>, crowl@cs.rochester.edu (Lawrence Crowl) writes:
> crowl@cs.rochester.EDU (Lawrence Crowl) writes:
> [...] the leading edge of technology supports the 360 architecture.
> Some of the fastest scalar machines available are based on the 360.

Yup. Just look at a 3090-600E. Blindingly fast, and will still solve the
real-world problems that business faces daily.

> Yes, times have changed, but "well-designed" is relative to the time at which
> the design was done.  Roman roads were well-designed.  No one builds them any
> more, but they were still well-designed.

Actually, there will be a new runway installed at Houston's Intercontinental
Airport (I think...been a while since I heard the news report) using Roman
road-building technology. Seems that they think that the runway will last
longer and be easier to maintain.

> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
> ]The misconception here is that a broad user base implies high quality or
> ]elegance of design.  Instead of offering VERY good arguments, I will simply
> ]offer three counterexamples without further comment.
> ]1.   The 8086 family of CPUs versus the 680x0 family of CPUs

While people are bashing the 360 and 80x86 architectures, millions of
businesses and people are getting real, useful work done on them.

> ]2.   The National Enquirer versus the Wall Street Journal
> ]3.   Family Feud versus the MacNeil/Lehrer Report
> 
> I had no misconception, and these are not counter-examples.  I did not state
> that something had to be well-designed to be popular.  Nor are popular things
> necessarily poorly-designed.  Popular and well-designed are loosely related.

Yeah. Just look at Volvos and 680x0s. (BTW, have you noticed that people
who drive Volvos, just as people who use 680x0s and Unix, are convinced that
the rest of us are screwing up horribly if we don't follow their lead?)

> I am not necessarily stating that the 360 architecture was well-designed, but I
> am saying the architecture has shown flexibility and adaptability for many
> years.  If you wish to say the 360 architecture is bad, you must show why its
> adaptability is illusory.  The 360 architecture has been implemented on
> machines spanning roughly two orders of magnitude in performance.  It has gone
> from physical memory to virtual memory.  It supported a virtual machine long
> before many other architectures did.  
> 
> I repeat my statement: one needs VERY good arguments to claim that the 360
> architecture was badly-designed.  Anyone care to provide them or refute them?
> I have added comp.arch since they are likely to provide interesting input.

And those arguments will STILL fly in the face of practical, real-world
problem solving. Business isn't interested in conceptual purity; they want
their problems solved, now, and don't really care how they get that way -
except that they won't throw away many years and millions of dollars of
investment without a very good reason. Unix and VAXen haven't been good
enough reasons.

-- 
Jay Maynard, K5ZC...>splut!< | uucp: hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!nuchat!splut!jay
"Don't ask ME about Unix...  | (or sun!housun!nuchat)       CI$: 71036,1603
I speak SNA!"                | internet: beats me         GEnie: JAYMAYNARD
The opinions herein are shared by neither of my cats, much less anyone else.