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From: tsmith@gryphon.CTS.COM (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.unix.wizards,comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: pdp-11/55
Message-ID: <1899@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 00:20:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: gryphon.1899
Posted: Wed Oct 14 00:20:38 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Oct-87 23:38:05 EDT
References: <1755@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <275@usl> <29933@sun.uucp> <8741@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: tsmith@gryphon.CTS.COM (Tim Smith)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
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Xref: mnetor comp.arch:2640 comp.unix.wizards:4900 comp.os.minix:1889

In article <8741@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
+=====
| > The 11/45 was the only other 11 to have [split space].
| 
| No, later large 11s (44, 73, 8x) have it.  It took them a while to learn
| that it was important, but they eventually did.  Having Bell Labs / AT&T
| refuse to buy the 11/60 for this reason (I was told) made quite an impression
| on DEC.
| 
| > DEC never produced an operating system that took advantage of it...
| 
| I think this changed as the DEC operating systems grew.  I'm not sure of
| that; I lost interest in DEC operating systems in early 1975 when Fifth
| Edition Unix came out.
+=====
This last paragraph is one of the more provocative statements that I
have seen about PDP-11's.

For demonstrating the wonders of Unix, for simple time-sharing, and
for advanced (for 1975) text-processing, I'm sure that Unix V5 must
have been brilliant in its time (wasn't it also an element known as
unobtanium?).  In my experience, most PDP-11s in the mid-70's made
their way into labs, or onto factory floors. There, I am quite sure,
Unix V5 would have shined not at all. For whatever you may think of
RT (passable for the demands), or RSX (no comment), or RSTS (passable
for the demands), they did do useful work. What *were* you doing with
11's in 1975? Just a curious question...
+=====
| "Mir" means "peace", as in       |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
| "the war is over; we've won".    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
+=====
Actually, if I remember my college Russian correctly, "mir" means
both "peace" and "world". That makes "mir" seem a most peaceable
word.

-- 
Tim Smith
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