On Monday 07 November 2005 11:40 pm, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

Well, after reading this thread I decided to fire up Gnome for the first time in three years. It looked ok.. seemed to behave ok... but after I while I figured out I had been lied to by it's pretty face. When I fired up Firefox it was mangled. Gnome had managed to not let me click on any popdown menu or button and the toolbar bookmarks were completely missing. I thought I'd done something wrong so I removed all dot files and tmp files associated with Gnome and shutdown to a login prompted. I then logged in and started Gnome once more.. nope.. Firefox was smoked as far as using it in Gnome. I logged out and started KDE.. and Firefox worked fine.

So as far as I'm concerned.. unless SUSE gets Gnome a LOT more polished then it is at present.. I'll not be using Gnome for anything.

I do wonder something though. This change is to SLES and NLD right? Well, why would ANYONE *need* a UI to admin a Linux server is beyond me so the SLES thing is no biggie. The NLD issue is solved by using SUSE Pro I would think. I guess if SUSE mangles support for KDE that I'll just find something else to use as a desktop OS on my Dell.. maybe Kubuntu or something. I certainly won't be using Gnome.

*shrug*

You have described every experience I have ever had with GNOME. The KDE OTOH, is rock solid. Sure, some things go bonkers from time to time, but I'm usually running the bleeding edge bits, or even my own builds. I hope Novell execs aren't stup^h^h^h^h thinking they can get a better deal by cutting TrollTech out of the picture. The best remember, that knife cuts both ways. Steven

On Mon November 7 2005 22:12, Ben Rosenberg wrote:

On 11/7/05, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

...

You have described every experience I have ever had with GNOME. The KDE OTOH, is rock solid. Sure, some things go bonkers from time to time, but I'm usually running the bleeding edge bits, or even my own builds. I hope Novell execs aren't stup^h^h^h^h thinking they can get a better deal by cutting TrollTech out of the picture. The best remember, that knife cuts both ways.

It's got nothing to do with Trolltech. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that the Novell people think " we can be a success too.. if we emulate Redhat.." and this is just wrong. They DO not understand what made SUSE have such a loyal fanbase. It wasn't emulating Redhat.. it was quality. And if that quality takes a nose dive.. I'm out. At least as far as my desktops and laptops in the office... my servers don't have X installed because a UI isn't need to admin a Linux box.. the day it is needed is the day I switch them all to X86 OS X. :)

-Ben

Well, I for one am not a happy camper. I was strolling thru the /. dot site when I stumbled on the news that Novell was going to GNOME as the default. Talk about a step backwards. The generic GNOME project has been a dismal example of a devel mono culture IMHO. And as on poster pointed out, the second you install a new app the dependencies go to to shit and it barfs all over the place. Ya, that's the ticket! I have installed kde with screwed up dependencies and it still runs. Sure Kong may crash or some such but it still loads. Gnome most of the time becomes so kludged at the slightest that it often takes a complete rebuild to fix the silly thing. Though as I type it occurs to me that this is a sure revenue source for all the service and support calls it will garner. On the other hand this sort of stunt only goes so far... What like they're M$ or something - a lock in Novell "ain't" got. But I digress! I do understand going to a single Desktop for support reasons, but KDE is sooooo much more mature than Gnome. Granted, the Ximian builds are generally the best of the lot Gnome has to offer. But as far as I'm concerned thats like saying my Ford Pinto has the 2000 cc engine instead of the 1600cc engine.... IT'S STILL A FORD PINTO. This was the fear I had when Novell bought SuSE. And it isn't as if this is a complete shock. I mean Novell did buy Ximian. But Mr Perens is qouted in eWeek as follows: "The latest KDE snub came last month, when open-source mover Bruce Perens announced that he'd chosen to exclude KDE in favor of GNOME from the forthcoming enterprise-aimed, community-led UserLinux distribution." Gotta love those Corporate power games.... For the love of the CIO! All I have to say is try taking Joe User and tell him to change the fonts in KDE, then tell him to change the fonts in Gnome. Which do think he'll have more success doing? Three guesses and the first two don't count! And if that isn't enough try setting up dual monitors in Gnome... Like I said it freaking PUKES all over the place. In KDE it took me 3 mouse clicks. I'd hate to put SuSE on the shelf, but it Novell goes the way of RH that's just where it's going. Curtis. :/ -- Spammers Beware: Tresspassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again! Warning: Individuals throwing objects at the crocodiles will be asked to retrieve them!

On Tuesday 08 November 2005 03:25 am, devosc wrote:

I dont really comment much, but I recently have had thoughts maybe related.

In my opinion I would love to see Gnome as the default desktop, that said, but not with KDE installed also. I think I read awhile back that there is a difference in the languages used to build each, c/c++ ? dunno... but in my experience Gnome had always seemed to have a better response time as a desktop, mouse movements was what I noticed...

Since I have absolutely no delays with the mouse using the KDE, I can't compare that to anyting. As for the underlying language used, yes, the GNOME is written in C, not C++. If anything, that means it will be slower if both languages are utilized to their fullest reasonable extent. But that speed different may not be significant when dealing with GUIs. I do believe it is harder to write well structured applications in C. Gtk does have a C++ wrapper, and there is work on a C# wrapper, but the last I looked (a few months ago), C# and Mono were still not quite all there. I will say that Mono seems like the best thing going for GNOME. People may object to "buying into" technology promoted by the monopolistic software vendor, but there are advantages to going with the flow at times.

Obviously I love Gnome, but ultimately I'm still using KDE applications... primarily Knonqueror, Kate...

Sheez! Konqueror is basically the heart of the KDE.

FireFox is wonderfull in Gnome, pretty much everything is (but I've had no cause to log into KDE).

Firefox should work well under the GNOME, it's built with the same toolkit.

There might be valid points about dependencies etc, in Gnome, personally I think I found that installing everything including the Development packages is one step closer to reducing the hunt for dependent packages.

The dependency problames may be a question of no-one putting in the effort to get things right. But it may be an indication that it's harder to get things right with GNOME.

However, I dont really have the time, or mind to get into that side of things with SuSE/Linux, I just need something that helps me get the few things that I need done etc, so in this respect, my only reason for upgrading is when their might be newer versions of applications that I would like to use... Gnome being one of them.

But with the above said, and the comment about SuSE Plugger not being fixed, I'm seriously considering why is it worth be sending off the $x dollars for distro disks and manuals... when something like the bug in (Gnome ?) SuSE Plugger/Watcher is not being fixed...

Have you filed a bug report, or asked for help?

as opposed to finding/installing newer versions of SuSE at no cost.... admittedly each instance of $x dollars might be trivial but over the years == $MS....

If your primary reason for using free software is simply to forego the cost of paying for a license, please stop using it.

I just hope that a portion of the money spent actually does get back to the developers of these applications, eg. KDE, Gnome etc...

I suspect that is a very mixed bag. Some developers get paid by other means, some don't get paid anything. Some get paid big bucks. Few opensource developers are in it primarily for the money. Steven

devosc wrote:

...

...

as opposed to finding/installing newer versions of SuSE at no cost.... admittedly each instance of $x dollars might be trivial but over the years == $MS.... If your primary reason for using free software is simply to forego the cost of paying for a license, please stop using it.

...

I just hope that a portion of the money spent actually does get back to the developers of these applications, eg. KDE, Gnome etc... I suspect that is a very mixed bag. Some developers get paid by other means, some don't get paid anything. Some get paid big bucks. Few opensource developers are in it primarily for the money.

I'm not sure I understand your point here, you ask me not to use Free Software, but at the same time Corporations can make profit from distributing free software.

There are aspects of this that I dont want to begin to understand... But I do find that statement above a little off ---- as said my reasoning for repeatedly paying for the SuSE distribution was in the hope that it benefits those that develop the software.... and b/c Novell are comendering this distribution it would be nice to reasons why its worth doing so... there is a middle ground... and I'm sure there is a wealth of applications that going into to that I've never even heard of nor used etc...

btw, my first paragraph omitted the word, 'without', i.e. 'not without'...

I think he's saying, you get benifit from Linux, please support it. When you, for example, buy SUSE, you're helping to keep the distro viable. You're certainly allowed to download for free, but why not help out a bit, if you can? Also, companies such as SUSE, don't just sell what you can download for free. They provide some support, put together a nice distro etc. All that costs money. Where should that money come from?

On 11/8/05, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

On Tuesday 08 November 2005 03:25 am, devosc wrote:

...

I dont really comment much, but I recently have had thoughts maybe related.

In my opinion I would love to see Gnome as the default desktop, that said, but not with KDE installed also. I think I read awhile back that there is a difference in the languages used to build each, c/c++ ? dunno... but in my experience Gnome had always seemed to have a better response time as a desktop, mouse movements was what I noticed...

Since I have absolutely no delays with the mouse using the KDE, I can't compare that to anyting. As for the underlying language used, yes, the GNOME is written in C, not C++. If anything, that means it will be slower if both languages are utilized to their fullest reasonable extent.

Umm.. How do you get that? It is rather the other way around. C++ apps are generally slower. Why is the Linux kernel written in C? If C++ was faster, then would that not have made sense? The fact is actually that one cannot really say that the one language is faster than the other, becuase the speed all depends on the implementation and what you want to do. But that speed

different may not be significant when dealing with GUIs. I do believe it is harder to write well structured applications in C.

This is generally true, although I have started Linux GUI programming with KDE and then tried GNOME. It was easier to get going in KDE/Qt because it is in C++ and the API is quite good, but once I got my head wrapped around Gtk and GNOME, the Qt/KDE stuff felt like walking with lead shoes. The Gtk API is more difficult to use in the beginning, but it is more powerful and actually simpler. Fact is that both GNOME and KDE are good desktop solutions. The preference for the one over the other is a personal perception. I have tried KDE on many occations and I support clients that use KDE, but I can just not get used to KDE. I find it diffecult to use. But that is because I do things differently than other people. KDE is still a good desktop, even though I don't like it. And I ahve seen lots of people complain about dependency problems when installing GNOME. Funny thing is that I don't have any. I love using GNOME. I don't like mono though, I would rather opt for Python, but that is personal preference. But, just because I like GNOME, does not mean that KDE is bad. And just because Novell might decide that they would default to GNOME on thier corporate products does not mean that KDE is doomed for SUSE. -- Andre Truter | Software Engineer | Registered Linux user #185282 ICQ #40935899 | AIM: trusoftzaf | http://www.trusoft.za.org ~ A dinosaur is a salamander designed to Mil Spec ~

On 11/8/05, Allen wrote:

...

The fact is actually that one cannot really say that the one language is faster than the other, becuase the speed all depends on the implementation and what you want to do.

A myth usually shown false with a little assembler.

OK, I'll agree that something written in assembler is about always faster that written in any other language, but someone can also write a program in assembler that will be slower than the same program written in C. The assembler version would then be written very bad. That is my point here. If you compare compilers and languages you generally implement the exact same program in them all and you try to do the best implementation in each language and compile with best options. Then, assembler will be afstest and C will be faster than C++. But to compare somthing like GNOME and KDE and say that one is faster than the other becuase of the language used is not valid, because they are two different things, with two different designs consisting of hundreds of applications. There are too many variables that affect the speed.

...

And I ahve seen lots of people complain about dependency problems when installing GNOME. Funny thing is that I don't have any.

Install it from source. Why do you think Slackware dropped it?

When one install GNOME on SUSE you don't install it from source, so how is this relevant? People complain that when they install GNOME with rpms that it has dependency problems. Installing from source is a totally different story. By the way, Gentoo is a real install-from-source distro and they use GNOME. Slackware does not install from source, they use pre-compiled binaries in tar.gz archives. -- Andre Truter | Software Engineer | Registered Linux user #185282 ICQ #40935899 | AIM: trusoftzaf | http://www.trusoft.za.org ~ A dinosaur is a salamander designed to Mil Spec ~

On 11/8/05, Allen wrote:

Like Processor and RAM.... I don't care which Desktop they go to, I was merely pointing out language CAN be faster than another.

Yes, that is true, but in the context of this thread it is not a real factor. A person stated that GNOME should be slower than KDE because it is written in C.

...

When one install GNOME on SUSE you don't install it from source, so how is this relevant?

Uhhhh the same way that bringin up Gentoo in this is?

No. I brought Gentoo up, because when you mentioned Slackware it sounded as if you indicated that install from source and it does not, Gentoo does. But I guess you mentioned Slackware because the Slackware people find GNOME difficult to compile and thus make it available for installation under Slackware.

...

By the way, Gentoo is a real install-from-source distro and they use GNOME. Slackware does not install from source, they use pre-compiled binaries in tar.gz archives.

So is ROCK Linux. What is the point? Gentoo is so fast yet it slows so badly because someone is compiling Open office in the background..... Where is the point?

Sorry, I misinterpreted your previous mention of Slackware. See above.

The reason I brought up Slackware was because it was an example of someone not using Gnome anymore because they seem to make ti as hard as possible to add to a distro.

I've talked with Pat Multiple times and putting Gnome in a distro isn't so easy as it seems. Dropline Gnome is probably a better option anyway. and it's .tgz, like BSD, there is a slight difference form tar.gz which is source.

Fortunately there are people at SUSE and outside SUSE like James Ogley who do build rpm packages of GNOME for SUSE. I have been using Jame's version of GNOME for SUSE since SuSE 8.x. These days the GNOME that comes with SUSE is up to date, so I can just use this. But, to get back to the thread: How is the fact that GNOME is difficult to build affect installing GNOME on SUSE from rpms? The people who produce the rpms have the problems, not the end user. If it was such a problem for the SUSE people to build GNOME, then why would they standardise their commercial offerings on GNOME? -- Andre Truter | Software Engineer | Registered Linux user #185282 ICQ #40935899 | AIM: trusoftzaf | http://www.trusoft.za.org ~ A dinosaur is a salamander designed to Mil Spec ~

On 11/9/05, Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Tuesday 08 November 2005 5:13 pm, Andre Truter wrote:

...

Yes, that is true, but in the context of this thread it is not a real factor. A person stated that GNOME should be slower than KDE because it is written in C. Why would an application written in C (GNOME/GTK) be slower than an application written in C++(KDE/QT). In my experience, I have seen applications written in an interpretive language run faster than comparable apps written in C,

That is my point. With something like GNOME and KDE there are too many variables in design and sub-systems used that you cannot say that one is faster than the other purely based on the language used. but assuming that both sets of code are reasonably well

written, C++ should be a bit slower because of 2 factors (C++ has more code, and C++ compilers cannot optimize as well as C compilers yet).

Yes, I agree here, so, even if we could compare GNOME and KDE purely based on implementation language, then GNOME should be faster, so the original statement made earlier in the thread is invalied. -- Andre Truter | Software Engineer | Registered Linux user #185282 ICQ #40935899 | AIM: trusoftzaf | http://www.trusoft.za.org ~ A dinosaur is a salamander designed to Mil Spec ~

On Tuesday 08 November 2005 04:41 pm, Andre Truter wrote:

On 11/8/05, Allen wrote:

...

...

The fact is actually that one cannot really say that the one language is faster than the other, becuase the speed all depends on the implementation and what you want to do.

A myth usually shown false with a little assembler.

OK, I'll agree that something written in assembler is about always faster that written in any other language, but someone can also write a program in assembler that will be slower than the same program written in C. The assembler version would then be written very bad. That is my point here.

It's been several years since I studied this at the microcode control level, but I can only imagine compilers have extended this technology. Compilers can ofther analyse the call sequence and find ways of interleaving and prefetching that a human being would have a very hard time competing with. Sure, there are tweeks a person with a profiler can implement with in-line assembly calls, but other than very specialized, and fairly limited cases, it is unlikely assembler is going to provide much if any performance increase. GCC 4.x introduced some impressive performance increases. It you know what you are doing with CPP, you can write your code in a way that doesn't even involve pointers. References are not pointers, and do not incur the same dereferencing hit pointers do.

If you compare compilers and languages you generally implement the exact same program in them all and you try to do the best implementation in each language and compile with best options. Then, assembler will be afstest and C will be faster than C++.

C has nothing significant in the way of performance which C++ lacks. OTOH, C++ has several features which can enhance performance if used correctly. Quit often C programmers with implement solutions which are structured in many way like C++.

But to compare somthing like GNOME and KDE and say that one is faster than the other becuase of the language used is not valid, because they are two different things, with two different designs consisting of hundreds of applications. There are too many variables that affect the speed.

For the record I never stated that the KDE would be faster than the GNOME just because it is written in C++. What I said what that C++ can, in principle, be used in ways that improve performance which C would have a hard time emulating.

People complain that when they install GNOME with rpms that it has dependency problems. Installing from source is a totally different story.

I've been down that road too.

On Tuesday 08 November 2005 22:41, Andre Truter wrote:

OK, I'll agree that something written in assembler is about always faster that written in any other language

Today, I would say almost never (though some extremely performance requiring programs use assembly for a few inner loops here and there) Modern optimization technology will almost always outperform humans

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2005-11-08 at 23:41 +0200, Andre Truter wrote:

But to compare somthing like GNOME and KDE and say that one is faster than the other becuase of the language used is not valid, because they are two different things, with two different designs consisting of hundreds of applications. There are too many variables that affect the speed.

As a matter of fact, yes, it was felt that kde was slower than gnome, and one of the given reasons was because one was written with C++ and the other in C. This was felt by the kde developers, so much so, that they teamed with the gcc folks to improve the optimizing code method for gcc (g++) when compiling c++ code. Now, the feeling is that kde has improved in speed due to this effort (as seen in SuSE 10, I'm told). Note that this do not means that one is inherently slower than the other, or viceversa; rather, that the proper attention to optimizing code had not yet been given to the compiler used. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDd9pttTMYHG2NR9URAnDBAJ9WwA73k+iZY72wIOdHvud7ZffwAQCfU0IV 7TztIyLzzV4fEdKpaPgMDV0= =uAuM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 22:08 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Allen,

On Tuesday 08 November 2005 13:00, Allen wrote:

...

On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 08:19:09PM +0200, Andre Truter wrote:

...

On 11/8/05, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

...

...

Since I have absolutely no delays with the mouse using the KDE, I can't compare that to anyting. As for the underlying language used, yes, the GNOME is written in C, not C++. If anything, that means it will be slower if both languages are utilized to their fullest reasonable extent.

Umm.. How do you get that? It is rather the other way around. C++ apps are generally slower. Why is the Linux kernel written in C? If C++ was faster, then would that not have made sense?

. . .

...

A myth usually shown false with a little assembler.

That's irrelevant, because code written in assembly has little or no portability to other platforms and often marginal portability to other processors in the same family. And programmer productivity writing in assembler is abysmal.

. . . Portability and programmer productivity has nothing to do with program execution speed. The difference in C and C++ runtimes will be dependent on the compiler used. Rudolf

On Tue, 8 Nov 2005 16:00:57 -0500, Allen wrote:

A myth usually shown false with a little assembler.

Not all assembler code is faster then what a good optimizing compiler does. Even assembler wizards like Michael Abrash have been telling that for quite a long time. In most cases, the win from using assembler is so minimal that it's just not worth the effort. Philipp

What I was taught in my course on hardware in college years ago is that some compilers on "RISC" processors skipped assembler, and wrote in a more cryptic instruction set which was virtually impossible for a human to make sense of. The assembler instructions for such systems is written as a "higher level" language. Most modern compilers generate their code directly rather than calling the assembler. Some of the reasons for this is optimization and scheduling. Although on the Digital Alpha with our older compiler we went through the assembler (a beast written in a dialect of Pascal). We rewrote the assembler from scratch, but we also switched compilers to Dec's new compiler that was able to optimize better. In the old assembler, the schduler was added to the end of the assembler where it would go through

On Thursday 10 November 2005 12:08 am, Steven T. Hatton wrote: the code stream, with the new assembler, the scheduler was integrated and operated on the assembler's internal data structure. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday 10 November 2005 14:02, Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

On Thursday 10 November 2005 12:08 am, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

...

What I was taught in my course on hardware in college years ago is that some compilers on "RISC" processors skipped assembler, and wrote in a more cryptic instruction set which was virtually impossible for a human to make sense of. The assembler instructions for such systems is written as a "higher level" language. Most modern compilers generate their code directly rather than calling the assembler.

This is true, but I suspect Steven is talkiing about microcode. Microcode is the stuff the CPU really understands, and assembly (or machine language, which is a one-to-one translation of assembly code, not counting the administrative stuff, and the occasional macro) gets translated to microcode on the fly. This is true for most modern platforms, and especially for AMD. I'm told AMD actually implements the Intel compatibility on top of their native microcode

I'd love to see a linux version written directly to the native AMD core :)

If you are AMD, you understand that Intel is likely to unleash some features to render your hardware obsolete in a timeframe that you can't react to speedily enough, with the need for redesigning and retooling, so recoding in microcode gives you the ability to swiftly respond. For years that's how we at Amdahl were able to stay with the twists and turns by IBM that were designed to kill us off. When IBM started off on that road, we didn't have microcode, so we had to add a FAM (Fast Assist Mode) so that when the new instructions generated an exception, they could be emulated by substituting a series of software instructions - so Microcode and Macrocode appeared in our succeeding products. An ex-colleague remarked last week how amazing it is that the latest greatest stuff like Xen has been standard on mainframes (Amdahl MDF followed by IBM LPAR's) for decades. Eventually IBM got us, not by technology, but by nearly going under themselves. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, licensed Private Pilot Retired IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support Specialist Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks

Anders Johansson wrote:

On Sunday 13 November 2005 04:29, Sid Boyce wrote:

...

If you are AMD, you understand that Intel is likely to unleash some features to render your hardware obsolete in a timeframe that you can't react to speedily enough,

No actually, I don't. You see, the problem is that Intel can't make AMD machines obsolete without at the same time making their own machines obsolete, which the market won't accept. This is why Itanium failed so miserably. Intel is simply locked into its own past.

You are no doubt correct, both IBM and more recently Intel have been shown that they are not masters of the PC architecture. If you are AMD you probably want to cover all bases - Fear is the main driver in this industry and it shows - if Itanium had been successful, the air would be thick with flying pigs, yet some faction within Intel was able to convince senior management it was the only sane business model and the one sure way to smash AMD, likewise AMD needed a credible anti-FUD story to tell.

...

with the need for redesigning and retooling, so recoding in microcode gives you the ability to swiftly respond. For years that's how we at Amdahl were able to stay with the twists and turns by IBM that were designed to kill us off.

I think that's slightly different, since the mainframe market is far lower volume, IBM is/was in contact with each of their customers (who in many cases didn't buiy, they leased), so their ability to introduce new, incompatible features is/was far higher than Intel's will ever be

Lower numbers, mega bucks, it didn't seem like low volume when growth rates were so high and the amount of work to turn out a new machine was so huge. The major stranglehold IBM had on the industry was ownership of both software and hardware definitions, that's why I was asking our senior management why we weren't fighting to have the FTC authorities order that hardware specs be drawn up by a separate industry body. I obviously got nowhere with that, I'd ask one question and get an answer to one I didn't ask, instead they kept feeding us a line that Solaris and SPARC was going to blow away the mainframe. Once we effectively left the scene, mainframe sales from the one remaining vendor went sky high once more and we could only drool. It'll be interesting to see how the guys at PSI (Platform Solutions Inc.) make an impact this time around, all the mainframe resilience and reliability features in an Itanium based box + Amdahl firmware running z/OS, Linux, Windows, Solaris x86 and I imagine a lot else also.

...

When IBM started off on that road, we didn't have microcode, so we had to add a FAM (Fast Assist Mode) so that when the new instructions generated an exception, they could be emulated by substituting a series of software instructions - so Microcode and Macrocode appeared in our succeeding products. An ex-colleague remarked last week how amazing it is that the latest greatest stuff like Xen has been standard on mainframes (Amdahl MDF followed by IBM LPAR's) for decades. Eventually IBM got us, not by technology, but by nearly going under themselves.

mainframes created almost all technology we see today. I have said many times that the past 30 or so years in computer development could have been skipped by giving the 3270 3D accelerated graphics

SGI and Sun stepped into that slot admirably, and Apple, so the mainframe makers didn't see the need for or care about graphics. If you wanted something standard, 3270 was it and if you had higher demands, a Sun workstation with X3270 Windows did the lot. Now you see lots of NT/W2K have replaced the Sun kit, perhaps the IBM HMC based on Linux may drive a change to Linux. Speaking to the smart ex-colleagues, they have moved some and are moving all the diagnostic tools over to Linux, these guys always saw great merits in Linux, but the majority of the average support techs and some managers often tried to give me grief for using Linux, so it sure was a smug feeling when they all started having Linux business plans in their presentations. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, licensed Private Pilot Retired IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support Specialist Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks

On Thursday 10 November 2005 11:01 am, Allen wrote:

What you do the small speed boost may not matter, but in the 80s my teacher was writing code for the 68K processor and you couldn't use C for that. There are always applications that require assembler. One that comes to mind was a project I was working on a few years ago where we had to insert code into a program that called a library function, but on return it had to restore all the registers back to the state they were in before the code, including the scratch registers. Some things you can do using ASMs from C. If you need to do things directly at the hardware level, assembler is required. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

James, On Thursday 10 November 2005 18:18, James Knott wrote:

...

About 10 years ago, someone wanted a DOS utility that would simply exit with a 0 return code. I did it in 5 bytes, using debug. With Turbo C, it took a few K bytes.

So what? That tells us nothing about how real designs are made efficient. The programs we use all day long every day are not trivial "exit with fixed status" programs, they're large, complex systems that absolutely demand refined designs comprising multiple independent, often reusable components: kernel modules, drivers, libraries (lots of 'em), utilities, servers, daemons, plug-ins etc. Randall Schulz

James, On Friday 11 November 2005 06:45, James Knott wrote:

Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

James,

On Thursday 10 November 2005 18:18, James Knott wrote:

...

...

About 10 years ago, someone wanted a DOS utility that would simply exit with a 0 return code. I did it in 5 bytes, using debug. With Turbo C, it took a few K bytes.

So what? That tells us nothing about how real designs are made efficient.

That would depend on what you mean by "efficient". Are you talking about writing a large program for use on a full desktop system, where developer time is important? Or perhaps writing for a small embedded device, where memory is critical? Until you know the priorities, you cannot say which method is better. In some situations, getting right down to the "bare metal", counting every byte is important. In others, what's a few meg of memory here and there?

Your example was for DOS, a so-called desktop OS (so-called OS, too, I guess...) Libraries help real programs (not degenerate special cases) remain small, too, just as the very concept of a subroutine does. And people are writing Java code for cell phones, you know. Randall Schulz

On Friday 11 November 2005 10:20 am, Jerry Feldman wrote:

The issue here is that if you build with a high level language line C (not really a high-level language) you are going to get libraries linked in. (Note that IBM's OS used to supply one called IEFBR14. This was simply a utility that would exit). The C language requires the use of a library to set up the environment, and provide the 2 arguments to main. Most C compilers will automatically link in the C runtime libraries. In the above case, you are talking about just a few assembler statements.

As I stated previously, the C-code in Java has a lot of in-line asm calls. There is clearly a place (or so the Java implementors believe) for assembler knowhow in the development of large projects. Steven

On Friday 11 November 2005 01:38 pm, Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 12:33 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

...

As I stated previously, the C-code in Java has a lot of in-line asm calls. There is clearly a place (or so the Java implementors believe) for assembler knowhow in the development of large projects. [COBAL...I'll take your word for it]

WRT: Java, I don't understand what you actually mean. Are you talking about the Java JVM? Certainly, the Java developers (like Gosling) never intended Java programs to call any other language. Because Java is essentially an interpretive language it is slower than a compiled language.

Yes, the VM. You can fetch the Java implementation source (but please don't ask for a link, I don't remember where I found it.) I have it all on my harddrive. It's quite an impressive mix of C and C++. The very nitty-gritty stuff is written in C, proper, with the more structured stuff built in C++ on top of that.

But, I think your statement, that there will always be the place for assembler knowhow is certainly true. There are always places direct access to the hardware is required.

Steven

On Friday 11 November 2005 01:55 pm, Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 1:48 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

...

Yes, the VM.  You can fetch the Java implementation source (but please don't ask for a link, I don't remember where I found it.)  I have it all on my harddrive.  It's quite an impressive mix of C and C++.  The very nitty-gritty stuff is written in C, proper, with the more structured stuff built in C++ on top of that.

Actually there are a number of JVMs (Sun, IBM, BEA, ...). The JVM itself needs to be somewhat platform dependent. It also needs to consider performance, and needs to be native. I would suspect that there would be very few lines of assembler as that really kills portability.

When I say there are a lot of asm calls, I am specifically referring to the platform specific parts of the sun JVM. As a percentage of the entire Java source tree, this is probably miniscule. If I get motivated, I'll try to fish out some of the source I'm talking about. Steven

On Thursday 10 November 2005 11:50 am, Dave Howorth wrote:

Not sure what you mean here? It was and is certainly possible to use C on the 68000. Just one example was a machine called the 'Unicorn' from a company here in the UK called Torch. It not only ran a C compiler, it's native operating system was Unix. A number of Unix vendors used the 68000, and C was certainly available on it. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Hi, On Thursday 10 November 2005 09:00, Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Thursday 10 November 2005 11:50 am, Dave Howorth wrote:

...

Not sure what you mean here? It was and is certainly possible to use C on the 68000. Just one example was a machine called the 'Unicorn' from a company here in the UK called Torch. It not only ran a C compiler, it's native operating system was Unix.

A number of Unix vendors used the 68000, and C was certainly available on it.

The successors in that architecture that had memory protection and mapping software (68010, perhaps?) were the basis for the first Sun workstations.

-- Jerry Feldman

Randall Schulz

The successors in that architecture that had memory protection and mapping software (68010, perhaps?) were the basis for the first Sun workstations. This is correct, Sun, Cadmus, and other Unix workstation vendors at the time

On Thursday 10 November 2005 12:39 pm, Randall R Schulz wrote: pretty much used the 68010. We (Cadmus) ran on System V with virtual memory in 1984 time frame. We also had a windowing system based on the original Macintosh. We sold our windowing software before we closed our doors. Also note that we had a very nice netfork file system using raw ethernet protocol back in that time frame. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Thursday 10 November 2005 2:29 pm, Anders Johansson wrote:

Even the Amiga 500 had a C compiler. I owned one called Lattice (or was that the company that made it, I forget) Was the Amiga a computer :-) I had Lattice on the Atari ST. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Thursday 10 November 2005 11:50 am, Dave Howorth wrote:

...

Not sure what you mean here? It was and is certainly possible to use C on the 68000. Just one example was a machine called the 'Unicorn' from a company here in the UK called Torch. It not only ran a C compiler, it's native operating system was Unix. A number of Unix vendors used the 68000, and C was certainly available on it.

And even if a computer didn't have the resources to run the compiler, cross compiling was always an option.

On Thursday 10 November 2005 12:14 pm, Allen wrote:

Weird. They had to use Assembler for pretty much everything. They used those processors and.... I don't even know which OS, but they had a lot of Unix. Probably device drivers, but Unix has always been mostly C (actually the original Unix was not, but it was rewritten in C when they invented C). He told me back when he did this that Vi would only show one line at a time and you'd have like thousands of lines of code and have to check something a few lines up so you'd have to give the command to view it up in that area or something. I worked on Xenix in 1981 using a Heath/Zenith ASCII terminal and VI did full screen. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Thursday 10 November 2005 02:30 pm, Anders Johansson wrote:

On Thursday 10 November 2005 18:52, Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

On Thursday 10 November 2005 12:14 pm, Allen wrote:

...

Weird. They had to use Assembler for pretty much everything. They used those processors and.... I don't even know which OS, but they had a lot of Unix.

Probably device drivers, but Unix has always been mostly C (actually the original Unix was not, but it was rewritten in C when they invented C).

...

He told me back when he did this that Vi would only show one line at a time and you'd have like thousands of lines of code and have to check something a few lines up so you'd have to give the command to view it up in that area or something.

I worked on Xenix in 1981 using a Heath/Zenith ASCII terminal and VI did full screen.

ed does one line at a time. vi is ed with multiline display, more or less

Thumb switches to enter the start code to read the key punched tape 1979.

Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

Thumb switches to enter the start code to read the key punched tape 1979. Did that on the PDP-8 in 1970. On the PDP-8, you entered the RIM loader by hand. This was a loader whose only job was to read in the paper tape driver. The RIM format was an inefficient format, but required a minimum number of instructions. The steps here are: Key in RIM loader. Read the paper tape bootstrap code. This was a paper tape reader that used

On Thursday 10 November 2005 2:45 pm, Steven T. Hatton wrote: the more appropriate paper tape format. (This is essentially what you have in ROM today except today it can read from multiple media forms). Then read in the rest of the system.

Yep, I toggled in the RIM loader on a PDP-8i, on more than a few occasions. Back in those days, "real" computers had front panels, just like my IMSAI 8080.

On Thu, 10 Nov 2005, Anders Johansson wrote:

...

...

He told me back when he did this that Vi would only show one line at a time and you'd have like thousands of lines of code and have to check something a few lines up so you'd have to give the command to view it up in that area or something.

I worked on Xenix in 1981 using a Heath/Zenith ASCII terminal and VI did full screen.

ed does one line at a time. vi is ed with multiline display, more or less

Original vi is a front-end to ex, not ed. This is one of the things that made it the one full-screen editor which could work on documents much bigger than what you could hold in RAM, it was/is actually a line-editor which acted like a file editor. Things were a lot more fun in those days... Bjørn -- Bjørn Tore Sund Phone: (+47) 555-84894 Stupidity is like a System administrator Fax: (+47) 555-89672 fractal; universal and Math. Department Mobile: (+47) 918 68075 infinitely repetitive. University of Bergen VIP: 81724 Support: system@mi.uib.no Contact: teknisk@mi.uib.no Direct: bjornts@mi.uib.no

Hello, Ian, On Friday 11 November 2005 05:38, Ian Marlier wrote:

...

...

Things were a lot more fun in those days...

You know, with each e-mail in this thread, the same thought comes to the front of my mind...

y'all be old!

And you'd prefer not to become old?

- Ian

RRS

Allen wrote:

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

Steven T. Hatton wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 01:01 pm, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history. So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I thought he got his start in programming by rummaging through dumpsters to find discarded printouts he could pirate.

Yes, he did do that, but his first product was (IIRC) a traffic counting system called Traf-O-Data. The first Microsoft (then Micro Soft) product was a BASIC interpreter, for the Altair 8800. http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/dictionary/detail.asp?guid=&searchtype=1&DicID=19295&RefType=Encyclopedia

Mike McMullin wrote:

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:15 -0500, Steven T. Hatton wrote:

...

On Friday 11 November 2005 01:01 pm, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history. So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)? I thought he got his start in programming by rummaging through dumpsters to find discarded printouts he could pirate.

Makes sense, with that and his mother on the board of director's for IBM, you can see how far hard work really gets you.

I thought she met someone from IBM, while working on the board of some charity.

On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 01:01:30PM -0500, James Knott wrote:

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

A compiler. ;) Though he did this before Microsoft was even well know. He almost made BASIC.... well, not sure HE made it, I mean God knows he doesn't code often. He also wrote a note to the computer club saying they stole things (You can see this in the movie Revolution OS, cool). He almost had Xenix but ditched that when IBM came to him for an OS for the "PC" in which he bought a rip off of CP/M from Tim Patterson of Seattle computer products. He didn't pay much for it. It took a few weeks to compile it and if you have this version of DOS, you can see his name on it as of yet because even back then, they put it out before chekcing to make sure it was gone. Tim then worked for Microsoft for a couple years. Gates got away with not selling DOS outright to IBM, so he had MS-DOS, they had PC-DOS, and Dr-DOS was out.... Lots of DOS, even Apple had a DOS. DOS couldn't actually use a HD and then alter on support for those was added in, it didn't handle them well but people were willing to look the other way because they no longer needed to share a HD with their deparment and had one of their very own. (You can find this story in the book "The Complete Free BSD, 3rd Edition"). Gates made a GUI called Windows 1.0 which I have a copy of, friend got it for me, he knows I collect OSs. The look was apple. Apple got pissed but Gates tricked them in court so he was allowed to use their stuff. Can't find the story right now because I'm not searching as I type this, I closed my browser to do an update. Gates then started realising Windows wasn't in competition with Unix. He wanted all of the PC market and took some CMS coders anbd told them what they could do, to make Windows NT. That was already a joke of an OS but it was more stable than previous versions. But the UI was crap and looked like Windows 2.o and 3.0. He promised a new version with the Windows 95 interface and that came years later than he said ti would. Surpise, he stuck with that motto. Windows 2000 was going to be called NT5 and in some parts of the system it is called that. Windows XP is called NT 5.1. I can type more if you want but this is becoming long. -Allen.

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I wrote all this and no one replied to it. did it not show up? On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 01:19:08PM -0500, Allen wrote:

On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 01:01:30PM -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

A compiler. ;) Though he did this before Microsoft was even well know. He almost made BASIC.... well, not sure HE made it, I mean God knows he doesn't code often.

He also wrote a note to the computer club saying they stole things (You can see this in the movie Revolution OS, cool). He almost had Xenix but ditched that when IBM came to him for an OS for the "PC" in which he bought a rip off of CP/M from Tim Patterson of Seattle computer products. He didn't pay much for it.

It took a few weeks to compile it and if you have this version of DOS, you can see his name on it as of yet because even back then, they put it out before chekcing to make sure it was gone.

Tim then worked for Microsoft for a couple years.

Gates got away with not selling DOS outright to IBM, so he had MS-DOS, they had PC-DOS, and Dr-DOS was out.... Lots of DOS, even Apple had a DOS.

DOS couldn't actually use a HD and then alter on support for those was added in, it didn't handle them well but people were willing to look the other way because they no longer needed to share a HD with their deparment and had one of their very own. (You can find this story in the book "The Complete Free BSD, 3rd Edition").

Gates made a GUI called Windows 1.0 which I have a copy of, friend got it for me, he knows I collect OSs. The look was apple. Apple got pissed but Gates tricked them in court so he was allowed to use their stuff. Can't find the story right now because I'm not searching as I type this, I closed my browser to do an update.

Gates then started realising Windows wasn't in competition with Unix. He wanted all of the PC market and took some CMS coders anbd told them what they could do, to make Windows NT. That was already a joke of an OS but it was more stable than previous versions. But the UI was crap and looked like Windows 2.o and 3.0.

He promised a new version with the Windows 95 interface and that came years later than he said ti would. Surpise, he stuck with that motto. Windows 2000 was going to be called NT5 and in some parts of the system it is called that. Windows XP is called NT 5.1. I can type more if you want but this is becoming long.

-Allen.

...

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* Allen [11-11-05 20:01]:

I wrote all this and no one replied to it. did it not show up?

yes, including two complete superfluous sigs. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

* Allen [11-11-05 20:13]:

Ummm, sigs? I don't have one...

But it hasn't stopped you from repeatedly quoting op's ad nauseum -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:01 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I didn't know he dated Barbera Streisand. As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/

Mike McMullin wrote:

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 18:36 -0800, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:01 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history. So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I didn't know he dated Barbera Streisand.

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him.

Would Altair Basic be it? The one that he cried about not getting all of the registrations (and monies) that the thought he was entitled to?

No. While He developed BASIC for the Altair and complained about the "theft", his first product was a traffic counting system called Traf-O-Data. I included a URL in another note.

On Saturday 12 November 2005 03:06 pm, Mike McMullin wrote:

On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 17:30 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Mike McMullin wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 18:36 -0800, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:01 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I didn't know he dated Barbera Streisand.

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him.

Would Altair Basic be it? The one that he cried about not getting all of the registrations (and monies) that the thought he was entitled to?

No. While He developed BASIC for the Altair and complained about the "theft", his first product was a traffic counting system called Traf-O-Data. I included a URL in another note.

My bad. I keep going back to this one thing as being the seminal event that forms the crux of M$ core philosophy. Make sure they pay you, and pay you more, and can't help but pay you again.

You're almost there. Check out the April and November letters, from '75, I think. The homebrew computer club was passing out copies of Altair basic, which pissed off Gates to no end. He then wrote full page letters in Byte magazine describing how all software should be closed source and paid for. -- kai www.perfectreign.com linux - genuine windows replacement part

On Sat, Nov 12, 2005 at 05:30:10PM -0500, James Knott wrote:

Mike McMullin wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 18:36 -0800, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:01 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history. So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I didn't know he dated Barbera Streisand.

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him.

Would Altair Basic be it? The one that he cried about not getting all of the registrations (and monies) that the thought he was entitled to?

No. While He developed BASIC for the Altair and complained about the "theft", his first product was a traffic counting system called Traf-O-Data. I included a URL in another note.

Ah hell, you got me here. 'I forgot about that. So that was first and then came the ones I was talking about. -Allen.

-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com

Allen wrote:

...

...

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him. Would Altair Basic be it? The one that he cried about not getting all of the registrations (and monies) that the thought he was entitled to?

I answered this already. A compiler and a language were his first products.

His first product was Traf-O-Data. I provided a link in an earlier message.

On Saturday 12 November 2005 06:07 pm, Mike wrote:

...

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt.  Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created.  I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him.

I've heard people claim that BOB was his greatest innovation.   I keep a copy on a laptop to show people.  

His wife was really the champion of BOB.....

On Sat, Nov 12, 2005 at 07:07:58PM -0400, Mike wrote:

On November 11, 2005 9:36 pm, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:01 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I didn't know he dated Barbera Streisand.

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him.

I've heard people claim that BOB was his greatest innovation. I keep a copy on a laptop to show people.

That and Windows ME are the to biggest flops gates has ever done. Unless he needs Viagra, but those flop pretty bad lol. I've seen Bob, I can't imagine why it didn't sell! lol. I know why, back when it was release steep requirements meant something to people. -Allen.

-- Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600 Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca

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On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 19:07 -0400, Mike wrote:

On November 11, 2005 9:36 pm, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 13:01 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

I'm 22. I got my first computer when I was 17 / 18. I'm just good with history.

So, what was Bill Gates' first product (besides BS)?

I didn't know he dated Barbera Streisand.

As to his first product what has he really developed from scratch ever. DOS was simply a fork of CPM and that he got cheap and exploited to the hilt. Since then I can not think of a single scratch idea through code and release that BG ever created. I think he is more Borg than man assimilating whatever and whoever can not stand up to him.

I've heard people claim that BOB was his greatest innovation. I keep a copy on a laptop to show people.

Spelling error there are two letter O in that name. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/

From: Anders Johansson Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 22:22:35 +0100 To: Subject: Re: [SLE] Gnome disappointment

On Friday 11 November 2005 14:38, Ian Marlier wrote:

...

You know, with each e-mail in this thread, the same thought comes to the front of my mind...

y'all be old!

Depends on your definition. I'm either relatively young, middle aged, or totally archaic, depending on who you ask

How old are you then?

nolo contendere. Very young.

Allen wrote:

On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 04:50:04PM +0000, Dave Howorth wrote:

...

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 11:01 -0500, Allen wrote:

...

What you do the small speed boost may not matter, but in the 80s my teacher was writing code for the 68K processor and you couldn't use C for that. Not sure what you mean here? It was and is certainly possible to use C on the 68000. Just one example was a machine called the 'Unicorn' from a company here in the UK called Torch. It not only ran a C compiler, it's native operating system was Unix.

Weird. They had to use Assembler for pretty much everything. They used those processors and.... I don't even know which OS, but they had a lot of Unix.

He told me back when he did this that Vi would only show one line at a time and you'd have like thousands of lines of code and have to check something a few lines up so you'd have to give the command to view it up in that area or something.

Perhaps he didn't know what he was talking about. Wouldn't be the first or last time that happened.

Allen wrote:

...

On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 04:50:04PM +0000, Dave Howorth wrote:

...

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 11:01 -0500, Allen wrote:

...

What you do the small speed boost may not matter, but in the 80s my teacher was writing code for the 68K processor and you couldn't use C for

Since earliest days of Unix -- vi was/is a screen editor; ed, a line at a time tool. (see edlin in earliest PC DOS) Wouldn't you love to have earliest edition of Brian W. Kernighan/Rob Pike "The Unix Programming Environment" or Brian W. Kernighan/Dennis M. Ritchie "The C Programming Language" Somewhere around here is a Ken Thompson masterpiece - and to clear up an earlier item: Ken Thompson, in 1969, began writing the Unix kernel (a small general purpose time sharing-system) on salvaged DEC PDP-7 store room junk. By 1970, C development was started on a PDP-11, and by 1973, the kernel had been rewritten in C by Dennis M. Ritchie and Ken Thompson and compiled with Dennis M. Ritchie's C Compiler. In 1974 Unix was first licensed to universities "for educational purposes." Lonn C. Dugan -----Original Message----- From: Allen [mailto:gorebofh@comcast.net] Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 22:05 To: suse-linux-e@suse.com Subject: Re: [SLE] Gnome disappointment On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 09:21:28PM -0500, James Knott wrote: that.

...

...

Not sure what you mean here? It was and is certainly possible to use C on the 68000. Just one example was a machine called the 'Unicorn' from a company here in the UK called Torch. It not only ran a C compiler, it's native operating system was Unix.

Weird. They had to use Assembler for pretty much everything. They used those processors and.... I don't even know which OS, but they had a lot of Unix.

He told me back when he did this that Vi would only show one line at a time and you'd have like thousands of lines of code and have to check something a few lines up so you'd have to give the command to view it up in that area or something.

Perhaps he didn't know what he was talking about. Wouldn't be the first or last time that happened.

Mmmmm, usually I'd say yes to this, but this guy is one of the most intelligent computer people I've ever met. He has like no arrogance about him, but he knows he's not an idiot either. We get along good and I should check with him about when the dates were where Vi did this supposedly. I know Vi is "Visual" ed, but the first versions of it maybe did only do one line at a time. Not positive about that though. -Allen.

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On 11/10/05, Lonn Dugan wrote:

Lonn C. Dugan

On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 09:21:28PM -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Allen wrote:

...

On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 04:50:04PM +0000, Dave Howorth wrote: He told me back when he did this that Vi would only show one line at a time and you'd have like thousands of lines of code and have to check something a few lines up so you'd have to give the command to view it up in that area or something.

Perhaps he didn't know what he was talking about. Wouldn't be the first or last time that happened.

Mmmmm, usually I'd say yes to this, but this guy is one of the most intelligent computer people I've ever met. He has like no arrogance about him, but he knows he's not an idiot either. We get along good and I should check with him about when the dates were where Vi did this supposedly.

I know Vi is "Visual" ed, but the first versions of it maybe did only do one line at a time. Not positive about that though.

-Allen.

I haven't tried in a while, but last I knew VI still went into single line mode if you have an unsupported terminal. Not sure what other option it has. I've personally never had this happen with VIM, but that could be because I've never used VIM from a dumb terminal. IIRC, it has been a number of years (10-15) since I used a dumb terminal for anything. Greg -- Greg Freemyer The Norcross Group Forensics for the 21st Century

Lonn Dugan wrote:

Since earliest days of Unix -- vi was/is a screen editor; ed, a line at a time tool. (see edlin in earliest PC DOS) Wouldn't you love to have earliest edition of Brian W. Kernighan/Rob Pike "The Unix Programming Environment" or Brian W. Kernighan/Dennis M. Ritchie "The C Programming Language"

Holy mackerel! Don't you ever compare ed (a line editor that could basically do everything except making coffee) with edlin (a line editor that could basically do nothing). Ed was designed with a teletype in mind (the pre-crt stage of computing) edlin was designed without anything in mind. Editing with edlin was editing with both hands tied behind your back and you had to type with your nose. Yikes! -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704

On Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 12:59:18PM -0500, James Knott wrote:

Jos van Kan wrote:

...

Lonn Dugan wrote:

...

Since earliest days of Unix -- vi was/is a screen editor; ed, a line at a time tool. (see edlin in earliest PC DOS) Wouldn't you love to have earliest edition of Brian W. Kernighan/Rob Pike "The Unix Programming Environment" or Brian W. Kernighan/Dennis M. Ritchie "The C Programming Language"

Holy mackerel! Don't you ever compare ed (a line editor that could basically do everything except making coffee) with edlin (a line editor that could basically do nothing).

Ed was designed with a teletype in mind (the pre-crt stage of computing) edlin was designed without anything in mind. Editing with edlin was editing with both hands tied behind your back and you had to type with your nose.

The line editor (Ed?) included with Pr1me computers was worse than Edlin. I have never seen an editor as bad as that one.

You've never used WordPad or Word have you? -Allen

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On Friday 11 November 2005 2:04 pm, James Knott wrote:

Yes, I've used both and they're fantastic, compared with that Pr1me editor. It was a line editor and IIRC, you could only use relative line number, not aboslute, other that the 1st and last lines. So, if you were working on line 29 and you wanted to work on line 12, you'd have to jump -17 lines. You couldn't just jump to line 12. There were many other oddities, which I have (thankfully) long since forgotten. I did a bit of work on a Pr1me years ago, but I couldn't help soiling myself each time :-) -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Friday 11 November 2005 02:29 pm, Simon Roberts wrote:

There aren't any files in the universe that you "have to" edit with vi. It's just a text editor. You might want to use it if you:

a) know it well (like many of us do, which probably accounts for it's continued popularity) b) can't find anything better that's ready to hand c) need a feature that you know how to use in vi but don't know how to use in anything else.

d) You're on a strange or brand new *nix system. vi is almost always the only editor you can count on being there.

On Friday 11 November 2005 03:45 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 3:36 pm, Bruce Marshall wrote

...

d) You're on a strange or brand new *nix system. vi is almost always the

only

...

editor you can count on being there.

I believe that's the case in the SuSE rescue system, and it's unfortunate. There are other simple editors around and it wouldn't be hard to include one of them, but it's not something that I as a user can do.

Paul

vi is a standard of sorts... get used to it. I don't use it on a regular basis and I only know how to do real simple visual editing with it. But it gets me by when putting up a fresh install of SuSE, or using the rescue system, or Tom's root boot. (I'm sure he'd be willing to put the editor of your choice on that floppy... <NOT> )

On Fri November 11 2005 5:15 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

...

vi is a standard of sorts...   get used to it.

I agree that it's a standard, but it's an ill-chosen one.  It wouldn't be all that hard for SuSE and others to include pico or some other more modern editor as well -- the space it takes is, I'm pretty sure, trivial.  This is a case of tradition triumphing over rationality. maybe during the install process you could choose youe editor, not a bad idea..

For another example of obsolete tradition, look at the manpage of stty.

loook at almost ANY man page, and a windows person would run screaming back to a DOS prompt! -- Paul Cartwright Registered Linux user # 367800 X-Request-PGP: http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-pcartwright/key.asc

On Saturday 12 Nov 2005 01:06, Allen wrote: pruned

Is it REALLY that hard to remember pressing i for instering text, hitting escape and then :wq to save and exit? And if you screw up hitting escape and then :q! to leave without saving?

joe beats the crap out of vi , ed , edlin ..

You made this out to sound like Vi only let you use it if you could speak 7 languages and knew Binary...

-Allen

...

Paul

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Pete . -- If Bill Gates had gotten LAID at High School do YOU think there would be a Microsoft ? Of course NOT ! You gotta spend a lot of time at your school Locker stuffing underware up your ass to think , I am going to take on the worlds Computer Industry -------:heard on Cyber Radio.:------- AFFA

That's the one I'm missing.  I had Joe on with 8.2, and really liked it.  I'll have to see if there's a copy for 10.0-GM

...

...

You made this out to sound like Vi only let you use it if you could speak 7 languages and knew Binary...

-Allen

...

Paul

Pete .

  Mike I just tried man joe and it gave me info, then I tried just joe from

On Sat November 12 2005 2:29 pm, Mike McMullin wrote: the command line and it opened up a new window! Version 3.3 Paul ( the other Paul) -- Paul Cartwright Registered Linux user # 367800 X-Request-PGP: http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-pcartwright/key.asc

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2005-11-11 at 20:06 -0500, Allen wrote:

Is it REALLY that hard to remember pressing i for instering text, hitting escape and then :wq to save and exit? And if you screw up hitting escape and then :q! to leave without saving?

It may not be so difficult to remember those things... if you ever knew those things, to start with. I remember the first time I tried vi and could even exit from it. With many other "user friendly" editors there is some kind of menu or help line to get you started at least. It is not the best editor for novices in this time and age: that's why the suse rescue system nowdays also includes 'joe'. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDdekAtTMYHG2NR9URAv8lAKCQjZdemfLznHTM/oIqo9+fiOzRfQCgglru pULP4YIEM+BnAfpSk7h2c48= =yrw5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 11/12/05 8:07 AM, "Carlos E. R." wrote:

I remember the first time I tried vi and could even exit from it.

ROFLOL And I thought it was me! OK, I admit...it was the first few times...(maybe more) ;) -- Thanks, George If there is no monitor, it's an Apple ASIP server. If there is a dusty stool sitting in front of it, it's a Linux server If there is a comfortable chair and several coffee cup stains in front of it, it's an NT server. If no one can remember where the server is, it's a Novell server. If there is a high paid network admin contractor, comfortable chair, several coffee cup stains sitting in front of it, it's a Apple OSX server.

On Friday 11 November 2005 5:15 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

I agree that it's a standard, but it's an ill-chosen one. This is your opinion. I'm sure that others disagree. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 5:15 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

...

I agree that it's a standard, but it's an ill-chosen one. This is your opinion. I'm sure that others disagree.

This is your opinion. I'm sure that others disagree. ;-)

On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 18:58 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

On Friday 11 November 2005 5:15 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

...

I agree that it's a standard, but it's an ill-chosen one. This is your opinion. I'm sure that others disagree.

This is your opinion. I'm sure that others disagree. ;-)

Sure: http://thomer.com/vi/vi.html -- pgp-id: 926EBB12 pgp-fingerprint: BE97 1CBF FAC4 236C 4A73 F76E EDFC D032 926E BB12 Registered linux user: 75761 (http://counter.li.org)

On Friday 11 November 2005 3:45 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

I believe that's the case in the SuSE rescue system, and it's unfortunate. There are other simple editors around and it wouldn't be hard to include one of them, but it's not something that I as a user can do. Vi has effectively been the standard editor for both Unix and Linux systems since AT&T included in System III. it does the job and it is on virtually every Unix and Linux system. I don't think that SuSE wants to get into an editor war especially since the Novell HQ is within easy reach of RMS. (And Ximian is in his back yard). -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Friday 11 November 2005 05:49 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

I don't think anyone would argue that vi isn't the standard editor.  My point is that it's an ill-chosen and obsolete one, especially since it's so easy to include a second one as a more rational choice.   That would make everyone happy, including those who believe that vi is indeed perfection incarnate.

I don't think vi is anything.... it's just a tool that is small and is on most *nix systems and is an emergency tool. As such it's like a can-opener. A standard that you can find almost anywhere. As an emergency tool, it can run on almost any system, including Tom's rootboot which is a really handy tool to carry around in your pocket. If you want to have <your fav editor> available... any time... put it on a floppy and use it wherever you happen to be. Nobody is stopping you from doing that. Enjoy....

On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 09:04 +0100, Kaare Rasmussen wrote:

...

I don't think anyone would argue that vi isn't the standard editor. My point is that it's an ill-chosen and obsolete one, especially since it's so

You can call vi many things. You can't call it obsolete.

Well, if a linux box doesn't have vi I battle to use it. vi is both simple and complicated, it does the quick edit very effiently and it can do the complicated task that even programmers require, I support over 1000 System with it remotley, and have tried many other programs. Not are quick and easy enough to for me. vi filename <ins> edit file nav with arrow keys jump up and down (LOL) with page up and down <shift>:wq to save an quit There are tone of features that I jst can't do with out like dw delete word d3000 clears from here to the end of a file yy yank a line and press p to paste more and more and more basically I have proven it so many times, to coloegues and friends, that I can build webpages and config files and readme faster than they can in any other editor.. maybe I am a vi man, who knows... my 2c Chadley

On Friday 11 November 2005 2:29 pm, Simon Roberts wrote:

2) vi allows editing of files that include non-printing characters. That's nothing special, but many "pure" text editors don't give you any mechanism to insert control codes. This is really not something you'll need often, and even if you do, vi is not the only editor capable of this, just one of them. As does EMACS. And, I agree.

One of the real beauties of Unix and Linux is that virtually every configuration file is text and may be edited with just about any text editor, even notepad running under WINE. Essentially, Bill Joy and associates wanted a better editor and wrote one. On the East Coast, Stallman wrote EMACS in 1975 as a set of macros around the TECO editor. http://www.softpanorama.org/Editors/humor.shtml It has been written, that on the day of the Great Editor War, the peace is shattered by an unprovoked attack by nvi on Emacs. Emacs strikes back, sending viper out to annihilate vile, while repelling the continued attacks from nvi without sweat, until XEmacs and jed join forces in another attack on Emacs. Emacs is crushed, but XEmacs is seriously wounded in the battle, and unable to defend itself when Crisp, XCoral, and nedit all attacks at the same time. Meanwhile, jed, although less severely harmed from the battle, find itself facing a formidable opposition in the form of µEmacs, mg, joe, freemacs, and notGNU, who all join the battle now. nvi, now with perl as an extension language, tries to claim the now vacant title as The Mother of All Editors, but is immediately attacked by vim, elvis, sam, and wily. The battle continues, drawing in more and more editors, even obscure presumed dead editors like xedit, teco, and tpu/edt, until finally a single survivor emerges, pico, which has meanwhile been bought by Bill Gates, renamed to MS Edit, and stripped for all the advanced features that just confused the users. So the answer, my friend, is to learn pico now and get rich on consulting once MS Edit becomes the accepted industry standard. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

I didn't realize that MS Edit, which I think is a good replacement for vi, is just pico. Now if only SuSE/Novell would put it on the installation DVD rescue system ... Ah, yes. And then Novell would be required to add the Microsoft EULA on

On Friday 11 November 2005 3:48 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote: their distros :-) -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Friday 11 November 2005 03:48 pm, Paul W. Abrahams wrote:

I didn't realize that MS Edit, which I think is a good replacement for vi, is just pico.   Now if only SuSE/Novell would put it on the installation DVD rescue system ...

Use your own system (which is possible 99% of the time) 1) boot the rescue system 2) login as root (no password) 3) mount /dev/hda? /mnt (mount your root partition) 4) chroot /mnt And you can use pico to your hearts content if it was installed. So what's the problem?

I remember xedit from Cal Poly SLO i think it was on the Poly Cyber system. Its installed but there are no man pages and my old notes from then are gone. Does anyone have a url? -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/

On Sat, 2005-11-12 at 10:12 -0500, Bruce Marshall wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 09:22 pm, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

...

I remember xedit from Cal Poly SLO i think it was on the Poly Cyber system. Its installed but there are no man pages and my old notes from then are gone.

Does anyone have a url?

There are man pages for it on 10.0

Not apparently on 9.2. If you could capture them and send off list it would be apreciated. Perhaps its 10.0 time but on the other machine. But for now its 9.2 all the way. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/

Jerry Feldman wrote: .

it was interesting that when the PC came out, it really had no support for color or any of the more interesting stuff that its competitors, like Apple, had. I think IBM had the view of the drab corporate desktop where noone wanted color or graphics.

The original PC supported colour. Green IIRC. ;-)

On Friday 11 November 2005 14:24, Jerry Feldman wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 2:06 pm, James Knott wrote:

...

Jerry Feldman wrote:

.

...

it was interesting that when the PC came out, it really had no support for color or any of the more interesting stuff that its competitors, like Apple, had. I think IBM had the view of the drab corporate desktop where noone wanted color or graphics.

The original PC supported colour. Green IIRC. ;-)

Henry Ford said about the Model T, "You can paint it any color, so long as it's black".

The PC supported CGA. 16 colours? Nick

On Friday 11 November 2005 14:33, Simon Roberts wrote:

CGA is not part of "original" IBM PC, though with the flattening effect of distant perspective, it might seem like that.

Do you mean included in the basic PC? Or do you mean it was released later? I thought it came out at the same time. It was an added cost but then so was anything more then 16K memory-) Nick

On Friday 11 November 2005 15:19, James Knott wrote:

The original IBM PC was monochrome only with CGA following later.

I don't think that's right. I remember the RF connector-) Nick

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2005-11-11 at 20:37 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

...

The original IBM PC was monochrome only with CGA following later.

I don't think that's right. I remember the RF connector-)

IIRC, when the IBM PC was first released, only the monochrome card was available. The CGA card came out very shortly after.

I don't know when they were comercialized, but I just dug out the "Technical Reference" book of the IBM PC, first edition (Revised January 1983) and it documents both interfaces: IBM Monochrome Display and Parallel Printer Adapter 2-47 ... Color/Graphics Adapter 2-55 They were different cards. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDdgMetTMYHG2NR9URAreHAJ9BB8yrDffIbrftHnQhrM2ikMzmlwCdHYOZ DMLraMWVWUNSjL5g+Nq0WEE= =3VQC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2005-11-13 at 08:54 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

I don't know when they were comercialized, but I just dug out the "Technical Reference" book of the IBM PC, first edition (Revised January 1983) and it documents both interfaces:

IBM Monochrome Display and Parallel Printer Adapter 2-47 ... Color/Graphics Adapter 2-55

They were different cards.

The "PC" was announced in August 1981 and went on sale in October. By 1983, the XT would have been available, IIRC.

Even if that were so, which I don't know (after all, I don't/didn't live in the USA), that book was published by IBM that year and was for the PC only, no mention of the XT at all. And it documents the CGA card. And it is a reprint, thus there was an earlier print date. That documentation had much to do with the PC boom, it facilitated making cards, adaptors, clones, and software. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDd1s5tTMYHG2NR9URAgE7AJwPGvz5G/kZKssc5WzwU0KxQ1EmVwCgjSLs hPc7bWsHBmrouz5of3uRg6g= =GmKq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On Friday 11 November 2005 2:28 pm, Nick Zentena wrote:

On Friday 11 November 2005 14:24, Jerry Feldman wrote:

...

On Friday 11 November 2005 2:06 pm, James Knott wrote:

...

Jerry Feldman wrote:

.

...

it was interesting that when the PC came out, it really had no support for color or any of the more interesting stuff that its competitors, like Apple, had. I think IBM had the view of the drab corporate desktop where noone wanted color or graphics.

The original PC supported colour. Green IIRC. ;-)

Henry Ford said about the Model T, "You can paint it any color, so long as it's black".

The PC supported CGA. 16 colours? The original PC had a mono card in it. The color cards like CGA came shortlay afterward. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 14:06 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Jerry Feldman wrote:

.

...

it was interesting that when the PC came out, it really had no support for color or any of the more interesting stuff that its competitors, like Apple, had. I think IBM had the view of the drab corporate desktop where noone wanted color or graphics.

The original PC supported colour. Green IIRC. ;-)

Tandy Radio Shack offered brown or green as options on the Model 4P. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/

On Friday 11 November 2005 9:23 pm, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

Tandy Radio Shack offered brown or green as options on the Model 4P.

The Apple II (II not IIE) supported 16 colors. You essentially used a commercial TV as your monitor. -- Jerry Feldman Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2005-11-11 at 18:24 +0100, Jos van Kan wrote:

Ed was designed with a teletype in mind (the pre-crt stage of computing) edlin was designed without anything in mind. Editing with edlin was editing with both hands tied behind your back and you had to type with your nose.

Edlin was a line editor, quite crude, but it "saved my life" once: it is possible to edit a file in a headless PC, with keyboard and printer only. Other operationg systems also had an editor equivalent (more or less) to edlin, designed to work with dumb terminals or teleprinters. The problem was not that dos included edlin, but that it only included edlin as an editor. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDdgk/tTMYHG2NR9URAgwNAJ9j36QdwqLLSZ3iuL9i0lvsymMhlgCeKCab SyFKbJM+4KTb18p1LcrA12I= =n6QR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I was around in the early days of vee-eye (not "vie"), aka vi, and I've never liked it. The fact that it's built on top of a truly horrendous line editor, ex, is a particularly unpleasant flaw, which shows itself in the need to use "ex" commands for many operations such as inserting one file within another. The particular bit of execrable human engineering in vi that bugs me the most is the mode dependence. Vi is extraordinarily vulnerable to mistyping; a couple of wrong keystrokes in insert mode and you're in command mode where the text you're typing can just about wipe out your file. It's too bad that vi still occupies a prominent place in Linux; as I remember it's the editor you need to use to modify the sudoers file (or maybe it's some other system file). Even the DOS editors are better, and they can operate from a command line also -- which is of course what you need when you're working with a crippled system where X isn't an option. And of course there's Emacs, which can be overwhelming but also doesn't require a window system. Paul