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From: keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.apple
Subject: Re: The Apple Shaft
Message-ID: <141@cadovax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Sep-84 13:49:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: cadovax.141
Posted: Thu Sep 27 13:49:07 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Sep-84 09:39:29 EDT
References: <515@nmtvax.UUCP>
Organization: Contel Cado, Torrance, CA
Lines: 47
Xref: 7974 1192

[chew on this gibberish for awhile]

Has anyone noticed that the size of programs always expand to fill the
available memory?  Does anyone out there really think that a 128k MAC
will be useful 6 months from now?

What else will we get with a 512k MAC except bigger programs that take
longer to load?  Is there any truth to rumors of MULTI-TASKING MAC software?

And what about batch processing of command lists?  What new USEFUL features
have we really gotten?  What USEFUL features have we lost in exchange for
screen sex? 

This memory problem really irks me.  The IBM has this problem too, and in
spades.  Remember the good old days when Wordstar was considered a BIG
program in 24k?  Now programmers can afford to use terribly inefficient
compilers and write code in the quick-and-dirty.  Is this good?  Next
we all get multi-tasking systems that put a premium on tight and 
re-entrant code so it dosen't hog the whole machine.  Either that, or
move to virtual memory type operating systems and just swap the hell
out of everything.

And while I'm at it, does anyone out there really thing that the wave
of 16 bit processors really gave us higher performance?  I think all
it gave us was more addressing space.  It STILL takes 2 bus transfers
to load an address into the processor.  And SURE we went to higher
clock rates on processors, but with the new EXPANDED instruction sets
instructions take 4 times (or more) as many clock cycles to execute!
Instruction sets are larger, so instruction codes are bigger, and so
are instructions.  OBOY now we have more instruction fetch cycles per
instruction and the code is larger.  What used to run in 64k now runs
in 256k JUST SO WE COULD HAVE MORE ADDRESSING RANGE!  Is this progress?
Disk space just got smaller.  That's ok, you have a winchester?

I think the only computer 'for the rest of us' is still an
ATARI or COMMODORE.

Don't get me wrong,  I like screen sex, but there's more to life than
just sex.

but sex SELLS!

Keith Doyle
{ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd