Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!pacbell!ames!indri!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!iscuva!jimc From: jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Subtantiatng my criticism [really: VM on PDP 11/70] Message-ID: <2591@iscuva.ISCS.COM> Date: 8 Aug 89 23:18:45 GMT References: <13277@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane WA Lines: 37 In article <13277@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> dorourke@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (David M. O'Rourke) writes: >... I've never seen a Unix system without >virtual memory. And how could you do all of this in 64k?? I would be >interested in how it was to use such a system. Has Unix grown that much?? I had a roommate who had a Morrow Decision 1 computer a few years back that ran a derivative of version 6 Unix called Micronix. It required at least 128/192K of RAM to work. It wasn't any speed demon, but it ran, and you could use it to get work done. The most interesting part is that the MD1 computer had a 4 MHz Z-80 as the CPU! No virtual there you can bet. (You needed 192K of RAM to run the CP/M emulator -- 128K would get the system up, but it wasn't very usable that way. For more than 1 user you had to add more RAM if you didn't want to thrash the disk.) Regarding wimpy 68000's running Unix and having lousy interactive performance -- that's what I'm writing this on now. Specs: 7 MHz CPU, 1M RAM, no disk (file server), clone of System 5 Unix. Runs just fine, we're basing our product line on this puppy. By the way, the graphical window manager and a few support programs run on the 512K RAM version of this workstation without any problem (you really need the 1MB version to use a shell and the like, but [like X] you can run your programs anywhere and put the display anywhere else). The kernel takes just about 256K of RAM, the video 38K (monochrome), leaving the rest for normal tasks. F--k Berkeley and the 4MB kernel they slithered in on. It _is_ possible to get performance and features without doing it in virtual hog-heaven, you've just got to put a little work into it. Just a proud papa. +----------------+ ! II CCCCCC ! Jim Cathey ! II SSSSCC ! ISC-Bunker Ramo ! II CC ! TAF-C8; Spokane, WA 99220 ! IISSSS CC ! UUCP: uunet!iscuva!jimc (jimc@iscuva.iscs.com) ! II CCCCCC ! (509) 927-5757 +----------------+ "With excitement like this, who is needing enemas?"