I'd like to see a 5 year old PC do what one of our 5 year old VAXen does; namely serve as development and build box for around 30 programmers, all hacking away.
If you had 30 people logged into a 486 PC with 32 MB of RAM running Linux, all running several instances of their favourite text editor, with about 10 of those people running compilers at any one time, then the thing would rapidly grind to a halt. But my VAX 3100 (No, not a VAXstation 3100) Just Works.
(Don't even get me started on the utter shiteness of Linux administration when compared to the orthogonal beauty of VMS)
But let me assure you that the plastic, although it yellows with age, is anything BUT cheap, in common with anything else with "DIGITAL" written on it... --
I recently archived a big pile of our DEC equipment documentation.
Here's what I sent offsite:
60 (sixty) archive boxes of manuals.
This was for a a VAX (VMS-5.5) and a PDP-11(RSX-11), with a pascal compiler, a database, CMS, MMS, and a DEC office suite (whose name I forget).
In other words, this was 90 feet of shelf space.
Say what you like about DEC, but their documentation was a thing of beauty, especially those manuals whose cover folded back across to allow you to prop the thing up on your desk. --
File versions in VMS are not there to provide you with version control; they're there so that in the event of accidentally saving a file over itself, you can go back a version or two.
For proper version control that blows CVS away, check to see if CMS is installed. (Yes, it's better than CVS. No, you can't get it for UNIX.)
If you're proliferating versions, get the admin to do a SET FILE/VERSION=x on your home directory and that will limit each file to x versions. x can be 0.
Alternatively, put a PURGE/LOG [...] into your LOGIN.COM.
Don't complain about VMS, it's older and wiser than you are:). --
My Windows 2000 box has 1584.dll files. And I've got next to nothing installed. (Office 2K, a few games) --
There's nothing wrong with 70's OSen
on
A Praise To Unix
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· Score: 2
After all, the other great OS of the 70's was VMS, still going strong now at version 7.2 (VMS revs much more slowly than other OSen) and it's still lightyears ahead of NT in terms of stability, features, manageability and clustering. --
AmigaOS? Advanced? Well, ten years ago, in comparison to the operating systems of other home computers, yes it was.
Remember this: Windows 98 is built on technology that is 20 years old.
I guess you'd better tell the deluded motherfucking idiots at Dell, IBM, Compaq, Oracle, HP, and SAP that they need to get the shipping orders of antipsychotics in, pronto.
When both browsers are available on CD, then fair enough, your point stands.
However, I (and quite a lot of the rest of Europe) am on a 56K dialup link to the internet at home. And under this circumstance the difference between 6 and 25 megabytes becomes quite crystal clear. --
Once you're even slightly above the minimum requirements, the main thing you need is memory. 64MB doesn't cut the mustard for W2K - you need at least 128.
On my humble PC, it's quicker than 98 for interactive use (i.e. web browsing, wordprocessing, general footling about). But, as always, YMMV. --
It's not that you can't get a DOS prompt - you can - but more that they've done much to stop the "it's a 32-bit GUI running on a 16-bit shell written for 8 bit hardware...."
Having said that, quite what WinME offers that W2K doesn't, apart from pricing, I don't really know.
I guess it depends on whether WinME will require WDM drivers or not - after all, one of the primary problems with W2K is that much legacy hardware is flat out not supported, due to cobwebbed 16-bit drivers, which may or may not install in WinME.
And finally, StarDock's WindowFX looks MUCH cooler in W2K than anything else... --
Well, I quite like nethack (http://www.nethack.org) but I much prefer Angband (http://www.phial.com/angband) and even better than that, Zangband (http://www.zangband.org).
Games that, for once, don't depend on the fillrate of my Riva TNT. --
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to see a 5 year old PC do what one of our 5 year old VAXen does; namely serve as development and build box for around 30 programmers, all hacking away.
If you had 30 people logged into a 486 PC with 32 MB of RAM running Linux, all running several instances of their favourite text editor, with about 10 of those people running compilers at any one time, then the thing would rapidly grind to a halt. But my VAX 3100 (No, not a VAXstation 3100) Just Works.
(Don't even get me started on the utter shiteness of Linux administration when compared to the orthogonal beauty of VMS)
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Anyone created/located these?
Helix have a muttering on their site about supporting FreeBSD in the future, but I wish they'd get on with it...
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It's that VAXen and their like are Proper Computers, the like of which few /.ers have ever heard of, let alone used.
The comments here mostly from the people who have used, adminned and programmed these beautiful machines.
The rest are from peons like you who haven't.
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Yes, they always look mucky.
But let me assure you that the plastic, although it yellows with age, is anything BUT cheap, in common with anything else with "DIGITAL" written on it...
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VMS is so damn logical, so utterly, relentlessly consistent, that it's hardly unfriendly.
It's not pretty, and it's got lots of switches (type HELP SHOW if you don't believe me) but it has fantastic on-line help...
I posit that you can't work VMS because it's not UNIX.
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I recently archived a big pile of our DEC equipment documentation.
Here's what I sent offsite:
60 (sixty) archive boxes of manuals.
This was for a a VAX (VMS-5.5) and a PDP-11(RSX-11), with a pascal compiler, a database, CMS, MMS, and a DEC office suite (whose name I forget).
In other words, this was 90 feet of shelf space.
Say what you like about DEC, but their documentation was a thing of beauty, especially those manuals whose cover folded back across to allow you to prop the thing up on your desk.
--
File versions in VMS are not there to provide you with version control; they're there so that in the event of accidentally saving a file over itself, you can go back a version or two.
:).
For proper version control that blows CVS away, check to see if CMS is installed. (Yes, it's better than CVS. No, you can't get it for UNIX.)
If you're proliferating versions, get the admin to do a SET FILE/VERSION=x on your home directory and that will limit each file to x versions. x can be 0.
Alternatively, put a PURGE/LOG [...] into your LOGIN.COM.
Don't complain about VMS, it's older and wiser than you are
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It's NTOSKRNL.EXE, not .VXD.
:)
A VXD is a virtual device driver, specific to the Windows 9x operating system.
End of nitpick
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"who do you sue when the bug loses you money?"
No-one.
But then, you haven't read your End User Licence Agreement on any piece of proprietary software recently, have you?
Sue Microsoft and Sun because their software had a bug and see how far it gets you.
This is a strawman argument and should be disregarded.
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I ditched Linux in favour of FreeBSD for these very reasons.
FreeBSD is not as glitzy as Linux, but it's more logical, more professional and more reliable.
Not until the kernel is placed under proper source control and anonymous CVS access is available am I even going to contemplate going back.
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My Windows 2000 box has 1584 .dll files. And I've got next to nothing installed. (Office 2K, a few games)
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After all, the other great OS of the 70's was VMS, still going strong now at version 7.2 (VMS revs much more slowly than other OSen) and it's still lightyears ahead of NT in terms of stability, features, manageability and clustering.
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Of course, when you do "locate *.so | wc" you also count all the symlinks, so the actual number of shared libraries is less than that.
something like "find / -iname \*.so -type f -print | wc -l" should do it.
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AmigaOS? Advanced? Well, ten years ago, in comparison to the operating systems of other home computers, yes it was.
Remember this: Windows 98 is built on technology that is 20 years old.
I guess you'd better tell the deluded motherfucking idiots at Dell, IBM, Compaq, Oracle, HP, and SAP that they need to get the shipping orders of antipsychotics in, pronto.
You're trolling and I fell for it.
--
Now, a jet engine has considerably more moving parts than a rocket engine.
So, how small can you make an actual jet engine and still have it work?
--
"And a mail client is a useless addition too -- everyone just uses web-based e-mail like HoTMaiL or Yahoo! Mail"
What's your definition of "everyone"? That'd be you, right, because you can't figure out Outlook Express?
STFU until you get a clue, moron.
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When both browsers are available on CD, then fair enough, your point stands.
However, I (and quite a lot of the rest of Europe) am on a 56K dialup link to the internet at home. And under this circumstance the difference between 6 and 25 megabytes becomes quite crystal clear.
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http://www.hpmuseum.org/
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You can play "tunes" on my HP42s (circa 1993), too.
And you can write programs to do this, too.
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CMD.EXE is the recommended command processor to use under NT.
And it can do tab-completion of filenames, too.
Exercise for the reader:
Use REGEDIT.EXE to find a key called "CompletionChar", set the value to 9 (ASCII for "TAB") and bob's yer uncle.
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There's a new search gizmo, which is better. You get alpha blending, which means your menus can fade in and out.
Obviously a new-ish icon set has appeared, and the networking has been replaced with the My Network Places paradigm.
If they transplant the W2K shell wholesale,
All of this is just chrome.
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Once you're even slightly above the minimum requirements, the main thing you need is memory. 64MB doesn't cut the mustard for W2K - you need at least 128.
On my humble PC, it's quicker than 98 for interactive use (i.e. web browsing, wordprocessing, general footling about). But, as always, YMMV.
--
"Windows ME is essentially Win2k pro with the 98 kernel"
Not really. It's more like the 98 kernel with the W2K shell. And there's a WORLD of difference between the two.
You couldn't chop out the kernel of W2K and replace it with 98's kernel - they're just too architecturally different.
It's 98 with no boot-to-dos functionality and the W2K shell.
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It's not that you can't get a DOS prompt - you can - but more that they've done much to stop the "it's a 32-bit GUI running on a 16-bit shell written for 8 bit hardware...."
Having said that, quite what WinME offers that W2K doesn't, apart from pricing, I don't really know.
I guess it depends on whether WinME will require WDM drivers or not - after all, one of the primary problems with W2K is that much legacy hardware is flat out not supported, due to cobwebbed 16-bit drivers, which may or may not install in WinME.
And finally, StarDock's WindowFX looks MUCH cooler in W2K than anything else...
--
Well, I quite like nethack (http://www.nethack.org) but I much prefer Angband (http://www.phial.com/angband) and even better than that, Zangband (http://www.zangband.org).
Games that, for once, don't depend on the fillrate of my Riva TNT.
--