Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1.chuqui 4/7/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group Subject: Re: About nuking newsgroups: Message-ID: <1014@nsc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 3-Jun-84 12:27:32 EDT Article-I.D.: nsc.1014 Posted: Sun Jun 3 12:27:32 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Jun-84 20:22:12 EDT References: <221@homxa.UUCP> <452@denelcor.UUCP> Organization: The Warlocks Cave Lines: 42 >But the real question of virtual addressing will bite you in the end. >Sure, you can still do alot without it. But the limitations are too >great. Why isn't there anyone using PDP-8's to read news? or 8080's? >I think that you ought to at least upgrade to a 32 bit machine. At >least while you can still unload your PDP's; Soon nobody may want them. > Dave Anderson 201-949-5552 Good grief. Let us face some facts here. First, PDP's are still being sold. PDP's run Unix. Usenet is basically a Unix based piece of software (with minor exceptions). The reason PDP-8's and 8080's don't run news is basically because they don't run Unix. If they did we'd probably try to support them as well. This is NOT VAXnet. This is NOT BSDnet. This is USENET. The software that we publish needs to be portable so that it can reach the widest possible audience. If it doesn't we are artificially crippling the network. What you are telling us to do is basically the same as suggesting that a person write a program for the IBM PC but require that the PC have 512K instead of 128K so that you can do everything. Any marketing person will tell you that you are cutting your own throat. True, if you DO have 512K you should be able to do more (or better), but you don't ignore the much larger market of 128K machines because of it. You figure out how to get the software to do it slower or with a little less functionality or something. You don't tell people to blindly upgrade unless you absolutely have to. (What you do is get them hooked onto the thing and then let them talk themselves into the upgrade after the fact). Anyone who honestly things they can ignored PDP's has no idea how many of them are still out there. They also seem to ignore the trend to workstations and smaller personal machines, not every one of which is going to try to simulate vaxes. Massive addressing spaces is for the lazy programmers who don't want to have to think about things like structure and efficiency (both of which are sometimes amazingly lacking in usenet software at times). chuq -- From the closet of anxieties of: Chuq Von Rospach {amd70,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui (408) 733-2600 x242 I'm sure I have my death ray in here somewhere...