10 Sep
2025
10 Sep
'25
1:18 p.m.
You’re a hardware guy, huh?
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 10, 2025, at 12:31, Paul Koning via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Sep 10, 2025, at 3:10 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
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
On 9/10/25 11:02, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 2025-09-10 8:46 a.m., Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
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.
On 9/10/25 08:32, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>> On Sep 9, 2025, at 8:52 PM, Martin Eberhard via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> 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.