You’re a hardware guy, huh? Sent from my iPhone
> On Sep 10, 2025, at 12:31, Paul Koning via cctalk <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> 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 >
