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Path: utzoo!utcsri!clarke
From: clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: problems with Star Wars #2 (part 2: the crux)
Message-ID: <1237@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 13:40:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1237
Posted: Wed Jul 10 13:40:56 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Jul-85 14:19:54 EDT
References: <1197@utcsri.UUCP> <5772@utzoo.UUCP> <1236@utcsri.UUCP> <5775@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: clarke@utcsri.UUCP (Jim Clarke)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 30
Summary: 

In article <5775@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP writes:
>I wasn't aware that there was a "current actual Star Wars proposal", in
>the sense of specific ill-advised hardware systems having been chosen for
>active use.  And I think you are reading a bit much into the space between
>the lines; I was claiming that the critics are being silly in certain ways,
>not that the system they are attacking is beyond criticism.  Yes, I do have
>reservations, some of them quite serious, about the current proposal.  But
>it is vitally important that the baby not be thrown out with the bathwater;
>it is high time, long past time, that our "defence departments" got back
>into the defence (as opposed to deterrence) business.
>
Sorry to misread you (though, as you can guess, I still disagree with that last
sentence).

>> Just think of it as a giant Berklix in the sky, Henry.  The first time you
>> hit funny code, bam!  we're all dead.  Or maybe the second time.  Or the third.
>
>Just think of our current setup as a giant OS/360 in the sky.  You know your
>programs won't run forever, especially since IBM keeps changing the control
>blocks with each new release.  It's a question of whether you can get
>everything important off onto another system -- yes, even a Berklix -- before
>the crash comes.  Because there really isn't much hope of convincing the
>Computer Center to stop buying from IBM.
>
>[Oh boy, a rousing round of analogical one-upmanship!]
>-- 
>				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology

I surrender!  (... though I wonder if instead of "a giant OS/360 in the
sky", what we really have mightn't be a whole lot of 360/30's on the ground?)