On Tue, 2002-12-17 at 13:42, Narins, Josh wrote: > Yeah, I remember when we just had rocks and sticks.
Don't be snide, you young whippersnapper! I'm not even 40... A former boss of mine worked on the IBM 1403, which had hard disks, but only the most minimal OS. Thus, one had to remember which cylinder/sector that your file started on. > We didn't have words for concepts, concepts like "register overflow" or > "seven" > > A rock counted as five, a stick meant one, and that's what you had. > > Unless Og was counting, who counted rocks as threes. > > We said to Og, "Hey, do whatever you want, personal standards are cool" and > then whispered, under our breaths ", freak." > > > > We heard later that Og went off and invented fire. > But his old gang > his old gang and I > we all > we all think he bought it > we all think he bought it, hot. > > > > -hsoj sniran > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ron Johnson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 12:42 AM > To: Debian-User > Subject: Re: [OT] Remember when hard disk sizes were in MiB? > > > Being an old fogey myself (no matter how many "daily snapshots" of the code, > and how many 10s of thousands of test records I kept in data files, I just > couldn't come near filling up a 40MB HDD), I *totally* understand your > point. However... > > Just today, I received 3 512MB SDRAMS for the grand sum of US$94. That's > 24,576x more RAM that was in my KayPro2, and 2,458x as much RAM as in my > first PC/AT. Likewise, the 120GB drives that go for US$125 is 154,194x as > much capacity as the 2 380KB (yes, 380KB, not 360KB) in said KayPro2. > > In 1992, I bought a 250MB HDD, which is 1/480th the size of the > 120GB HDD. (It's 1/1280th the size of the new 320GB Maxtors...) > > So..... So what if programs are biggers now than they were back then? They > do a *heck* of a lot more!!!! > > No! I am NOT defending/condoning poor programmers and poor programming! You > being an ex-VAX programmer will understand that VMS 7.3 has a lot more > capabilities/functionality than VMS 1.0, and thus STARLET.OLB is bigger now > than it was 25 years ago. And more genericly, compiler writers now optimize > more for speed rather than code size. IMHO, it's a valid trade-off. > > Of couse, now that programmers don't have the pressing need to write really > tight code, they've forgotten how. Many under 35 years of age (unless they > were C64 assembler geeks) have never learned how. And object orientation > hasn't helped one bit... > > > On Tue, 2002-12-10 at 22:18, Mark L. Kahnt wrote: > > I was digging through some old papers and found this from nearly a > > decade ago: > > > > (Dec. 21) > > I'm getting tired of lazy, slovenly, good-for-nothing programmers > > wasting my hard-earned hard disk space with their frivolous code. My > > first PC hard disk had a 10MB capacity. These days, I can think of > > individual applications that consume more space. It has to stop. Stop > > the insanity! It's getting to the point where I'm being forced to swap > > hard disks as often as I change my socks -- about once a year. > > Programmers and their corporate sponsors have to be taught to become > > thrifty with *our* hard disk space by writing compact programs. > > Here's my plan. For every megabyte of hard disk space a software > > product consumes, the publisher must rebate the customer $10. So if a > > program takes up 1MB we get $10 back. For 2MB we get $20 back and so on > > and so on. Buy Windows and you could get enough back for the down > > payment on a small ranch home in Levittown. > > Let me tell you friends, with such a plan in force we'll see smaller > > and more efficient programs hit the market in a hurry. It'll be like the > > good old days when programs came on single floppy disks or, better yet, > > audio cassettes. > > What I'm a little hazy on at the moment is how to enforce this policy. > > Maybe I'll send a few of my Brooklyn buddies to the executive suites of > > some major software publishers with a subtle message, like a fish > > wrapped in a newspaper, or a horse's head or a photograph of Pat > > Robertson. > > And how will you spend your rebate? Oh, have fun! Paint the town red, > > courtesy of... > > --John Edwards > > > > ====================================================================== > > Mark again -- > > > > The first hard drive I worked with on a desktop was 5 MiB, connected > > to a VAX 11/750 with a 100 MiB hard drive in the system room, back > > when they were the size of dishwashers. Then I lucked out and got a > > machine with 20 MiB on the desktop (powered by a PDP/11 processor.) 16 > > people worked on that VAX, developing compilers (4) and interpreters > > (5) for a number of different platforms (5), with multiple versions of > > the source code on the system in the days before RCS and CVS. I worked > > at squeezing the Pascal compiler onto one 180 KiB floppy (that's how > > big they were back then, before the second side of the disk also > > became available. > > > > I also remember that to do pretty well anything, you needed to program > > it - User Friendly meant that error messages were included, rather > > than just going off wildly and trashing the entire system ;) There is > > justification for larger code than we used to use because programs are > > doing vastly more than I did in the early 1980s when writing > > interpreters and compilers at Watcom. Graphics were only just being > > introduced to computers, and code was 8 or 16 bit on most platforms > > (except for the 32-bit VAX and the 36-bit IBM) and back then, we could > > save all sorts of memory by only saving the last two digits of the > > year > > ;) > > > > I look on program bloat as something comparable to governments and > > taxes: the more services you want provided, the more taxes or disk > > space (depending on the metaphor) are needed to do it. That said, > > those $600 hammers, $1000 pens and $1600 toilet seats probably could > > be optimised out of some code (closest parallel to the toilet seat is > > the Microsoft paper sodding clip.) Because we want our software to do > > so much, we must commit the resources to do that task, on the trust > > that programmers are going to respect the finite resources (the same > > way we want our governments to respect our finite wallets.) > -- > +---------------------------------------------------------------+ > | Ron Johnson, Jr. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | > | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson | > | | "My > | advice to you is to get married: If you find a good wife, | > | you will be happy; if not, you will become a philosopher." | > | Socrates | > +---------------------------------------------------------------+ > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the >designated recipient(s) named above. 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Therefore, we do not represent that >this information is complete or accurate and it should not be relied upon as such. >All information is subject to change without notice. -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ron Johnson, Jr. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson | | | | "My advice to you is to get married: If you find a good wife, | | you will be happy; if not, you will become a philosopher." | | Socrates | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
