someone smarter than Dave Cutler
in [Device Drivers]
|
From: Jim Stewart on 30 Mar 2010 14:23 Scott Lurndal wrote: > Mark Crispin <mrc(a)panda.com> writes: > >> I wonder if anyone will ever write an accurate history of that time, as >> opposed to the various bogus histories that overly tout self-promoters >> (Jobs, Gates, Stallman, Cutler, etc.) to the exclusion of others. Most of >> these so-called histories totally ignore the PDP-10, a platform that >> utterly dominated from the late 1960s until the late 1970s, and remained >> important until the late 1980s. And the notion that free software and >> software sharing didn't exist prior to the GNU religion is downright >> offensive. > > You write "the PDP-10, a platform that utterly dominated from the late > 1960's to the 1970's.". > > I assume you are speaking with your tongue in your cheek, since clearly > the IBM 3[67]0 family and clones dominated the period in question, with the PDP-10 > relegated to fourth or fifth tier after Burroughs, Sperry, Honeywell, > Bull and CDC. You are, of course, correct. Anyone that takes the time to leaf through some Datamation magazines of that era would be lucky to find any reference to PDP-10's.
From: Mark Crispin on 30 Mar 2010 15:01 On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Jim Stewart posted: > Anyone that takes the time to leaf through some > Datamation magazines of that era would be lucky > to find any reference to PDP-10's. Using Datamation as an historical reference is like using the National Enquirier. -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
From: Mark Crispin on 30 Mar 2010 15:24 On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Mark Crispin posted: > Using Datamation as an historical reference is like using the National > Enquirier. More to the point, since Datamation ceased to exist 12 years ago (and became irrelevant years earlier) and the young'uns wouldn't know: Datamation was read mostly for its humor; and its primary audience were people who worked in administrative computing (which was indeed dominated by IBM). It did not in any way reflect reality in other areas of computing. As far as Datamation was concerned, timesharing did not exist, and networking meant RJE. Datamation almost totally ignored minicomputers. It dismissed the personal computer revolution and microprocessors for quite a while until these became impossible for even the most hide-bound to ignore. -- Mark -- http://panda.com/mrc Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
From: glen herrmannsfeldt on 30 Mar 2010 16:00 In alt.sys.pdp10 Mark Crispin <mrc(a)panda.com> wrote: > On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Mark Crispin posted: >> Using Datamation as an historical reference is like using the National >> Enquirier. > More to the point, since Datamation ceased to exist 12 years ago (and > became irrelevant years earlier) and the young'uns wouldn't know: > Datamation was read mostly for its humor; and its primary audience were > people who worked in administrative computing (which was indeed dominated > by IBM). I do remember sometimes reading DATAMATION at the public library when I was in high-school. Those years most of my programming was on OS/360, and there really wasn't much else in many libraries related to actual programming. > It did not in any way reflect reality in other areas of computing. As far > as Datamation was concerned, timesharing did not exist, and networking > meant RJE. Your previous comment didn't mention timesharing, though. > Datamation almost totally ignored minicomputers. It dismissed the > personal computer revolution and microprocessors for quite a while until > these became impossible for even the most hide-bound to ignore. Well, there wasn't much of the microprocessor revolution in 1974, which was when I read DATAMATION. The only one I actually remember reading was about a PL/I compiler with a COME FROM statement. -- glen
From: Jim Stewart on 30 Mar 2010 16:05
Mark Crispin wrote: > On Tue, 30 Mar 2010, Jim Stewart posted: >> Anyone that takes the time to leaf through some >> Datamation magazines of that era would be lucky >> to find any reference to PDP-10's. > > Using Datamation as an historical reference is like using the National > Enquirier. A circular religious argument not unexpected from someone that believed that PDP-10's dominated the era. |