15 Jul
2016
15 Jul
'16
6:30 p.m.
On 07/15/2016 11:10 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
We don't appreciate how much faster modern PCs are
than the old
ones, because modern PC OSes are so appallingly slow and bloated.
Reminds me of a conversation that I had with Greg Mansfield back in the
mid-80s when he was working for Cray. I was grousing about the time
spent recompiling the BSD kernel on a VAX 11/750, even when streamlining
the process through partial recompilation (i.e. compiling only those
parts needing it). Greg was working with, IIRC, UniCOS at the time and
confided that on an X/MP he didn't bother with partial
recompilation--there was no practical time savings realizable.
Flash back to 1975 when recompiling the STAR OS kernel on a dedicated
STAR 1B took all night--assuming that the machine stayed up that long.
--Chuck