New subject: IBM AT Piggyback Memory

19 Oct 1998

Well, that's just what I was asking about. What do you mean by
'user friendliness'? A built-in debugger is not high on my list of
user-friendly features. Also, how is the TOPS base 'stronger' than
UNIX? Does it have more calls, or what?
...
 > [Why is TOPS-20 so much better than Unix?]
> 
> Umm...  It runs on a PDP-10?
> 
> Seriously, now, I like the idea of being able to DETACH CONTINUE  something,
...
 > log in from elsewhere, re-attach my job, and
continue without  stopping the
...
   job (Unless is
tries to do TTY I/O, then it has to wait).   
  Well, to be technical, there is a program for Unix to do this called
`screen'.  It's actually pretty nice in that it gives you 10 virtual
terminals, allowing you to switch between them (Ctrl-A <number>) and
cut-n-paste as well (defaults to using vi keybindings---use Unix enough  and
...
 you'll get used to it).  You can also detach the
session and reconnect  to it
...
 later (and the program will continue to run even if it
does TTY I/O).

> And, Unix doesn't
> have ^T.  This gets Status.  If you think your program has hung or  something,
...
 > pressing ^T does a line like this:
> 07:49:28 MM IO wait at .TEXT1+17  Used 0:00:21.8 in 2:34:21, Load    0.80
...
 > (I just pressed ^T into MM and retyped what it
printed)
> This means that MM is waiting on I/O at .TEXT1+17 (which is a label  defined
...
   in the
program.  If you wrote the program, this is significant.)
 You also get the used CPU and connect times, and the system load.
 Unix doesn't do this, and I wish it did... 
  That's more a function of the shell than anything else.  I think  there is
...
 a Unix shell that will do that (or could be told to do
that).  Granted,  if
...
 you're in some other program it won't work.

> Also, if you suddenly decide you want to go poke at your program's 
interior,
...
 > you and ^C^C it and say DDT, and (provided you
know how to operate  DDT) it
...
 > will snag the program you just stopped and let you
play with it.  Or,  if you
...
   do this
accidentally, you can say CONTINUE and it will go along like
 nothing happened. 
  Now that is a nice feature, and it might be possible to munge that  into
...
 Unix as well.  But that's the main problem with
Unix---all these  features
...
 are munged onto a pretty weak base and people have gone
so long without
these features that Unix weenies tend to dismiss them as breaking the
`simplicity' of Unix (brain death is more like it 8-)

  I think what most people lament is that 20 years later, Unix still  doesn't
...
 have the user friendliness of TOPS-20 nor are we likely
to see anything  like
...
 it any time soon.

  -spc (Yea yea yea it could be done, but doing it right (or even  reliably)
...
 	under Unix is a real pain ... )

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