> On Sep 10, 2025, at 3:10 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> On 9/10/25 11:02, ben via cctalk wrote:
>> On 2025-09-10 8:46 a.m., Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
>>> On 9/10/25 08:32, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>>>>> On Sep 9, 2025, at 8:52 PM, Martin Eberhard via cctalk
>>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I just love the PDP11's assembly language.
>>>
>>> Yes, the PDP-11 machine language was INCREDIBLY brilliant, and did the very
>>> best with what you could do in 16 bits!
>>
>> But even then you could see the hand writing on the wall for 16 bits.
>
> Oh, absolutely, the PDP-11 was the best 16-bit instruction set I've ever
> seen, and I've seen quite a few. But, there were substantial limitations.
> Then, I moved up to the VAX, which was a real experience! Over the top
> instruction set, but it kept all the greatness of the PDP-11, and solved the
> address space issue.
For a while, until programmers used it all up. This is the Microsoft effect:
programs will expand to consume all available CPU, memory, and storage.
paul
