Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!MGHCCC.HARVARD.EDU!smith%eri.DECnet From: smith%eri.DECnet@MGHCCC.HARVARD.EDU.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Lost features in "newer, better" operating systems Message-ID: <8711130234.AA12248@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Wed, 11-Nov-87 15:21:00 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8711130234.AA12248 Posted: Wed Nov 11 15:21:00 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 16:41:47 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: "ERI::SMITH" Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 44 INHW400@INDYVAX.BITNET says: >A historical note: DEC's TOPS-20 operating system (no boos, please) maintains >the system time as GMT based on that same "Smithsonian" standard epoch. One of >the system startup parameters is the offset from GMT to local time. The system >services that perform date conversion will use this offset unless told to use >some other time zone, can handle the usual symbolic time zones as part of a >date-time string, and will apply or not apply DST as requested. So DEC has >done it all at least once before, and should be able to do it again for their >flagship operating system. I wish Digital (and other manufacturers) would put do more in the way of trying to keep a formal list of features and good ideas that have appeared a) in Digital's previous products, b) in competitor's products. There is nothing more irritating then to find out that some feature that's been in some low-end operating system for years that almost everybody likes is missing from "their flagship operating system." My pet beef is the inability to get a DIR in any sorting order other than alphabetical (e.g. reverse chronological). The Macintosh has done it for three years; RT-11 has done it for at least, oh hell, ages and ages. Why can't VMS do it? Along similar lines, while not suggesting that VMS has to be UNIX, and not making a judgement on how far thing should go, VMS should go further than it does in trying to match UNIX feature for feature at SOME very basic level. (Our Ultrix person tells me that it automatically adjusts for DST). By the way, someone named George Miller who used to work here had the idea--I don't know if it was original--that power companies should tweak their 60 cycle frequency in such a way as to produce a continuous, automatic adjustment of synchronous wallclocks to solar time. It sounded like a good idea to me, but probably in the same general category as calendar reform... -------------------------------------------------------------------- Daniel P. B. Smith ARPA: smith%eri.decnet@mghccc.harvard.edu Eye Research Institute CompuServe: 74706,661 20 Staniford Street Telephone (voice): 617 742-3140 Boston, MA 02114 -------------------------------------------------------------------- "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."--Thoreau ------