Ancient machines turning on (was Re: eBay strikes again...) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

31 Oct 1998

I guess experiences vary wildly in terms of stability. I've never
had a problem with DOS or Windows 3.x in terms of stability. Some
crashes, but usually when running junky programs. Win95 I might trust
in terms of not crashing, but the filesystem is so unreliable, I stay
away from it. Linux, I'm running on this Compaq 386sx/20 with 6MB RAM,
and it's never crashed. Slackware. I dunno. I seem to be lucky with
not having things fail. I've plugged in connectors backwards many a
time, and have never fried anything. The SMPSU cut out. But then, how
many people would say DOS is unstable?
...

Last reboot of this dos6.22/win3.1 system was three weeks ago when I  shut 
...
 it down to shuffle the drives and replace a dead fan. 
It's quite  stable.
...
 Then again I tend to trash apps that don't behave! 
I've also tamed a 
few unruly ones with carefull edits or the creation of a proper PIF 
file.  Considering the number of DOS apps I run under windows Setting 
things up right is a necessity.

To me GPFs are applications that under VMS would likely cause an 
exception exit dump.  GPFs are a poor error handling mech for programs 
trying to do what should or are illegal things.  It's easy to blame a 
weak OS for crappy applications.  Dos has few to no protections and
ragging on it is unfair.

< compared to the stability (weeks and months without rebooting) of  Linux,
...
 < in turn doesn't approach the bulletproof
reliability you expect from  VMS
...

The Slakware 3.0 Linux I have on a 386dx/33 that is a good machine but 
with only 8meg of ram Linux is not that stable.  Forget getting  xwindows 
...
 to behave well in 8meg.

< I freely admit I learned most of my computer science under Vax-VMS so  I 
...
 < strong bias towards it, but I've also run
moderately large scale  vaxclus
...

I'm biased as well, I run 7 vaxen here, two of which are LAVC members.
I also run RT-11, RSTS-11 and a lot of CP/M systems.

< and at least the versions we used... 5.5a, if memory serves, were  remark
...
 < reliable.  To the point where we once had a
cluster server loose its  dis
...

Solid!  I run both 5.4-4 and 5.5 and uptimes are limited by power on 
times, though in the past I've seen months to years.

< I'm not a programmer.  I'm a sysadmin/netadmin type.  Ease of 
programmin
...
 < secondary to me compared to reliability.  A system
that crashes  frequent
...
 < the bane of my profession's existance, because
it means instead of  spend
...
 < time on the entire environment and routine
maintenance you spend more  ti
...
 < firefighting mode.

That is why VMS, unix and their kin are used on the enterprize scale.
Dos/win was used that way but it was never conceived as a multiuser OS
nor as a networking server platform.  Using it that way maybe a hackers 
dream but a sysadmin nightmare.

< We were discussing why people don't get attached to PCs as much, and  any
...
 < machine that bombs frequently or in general causes
headaches seems to  me
...
 < it's not going to be high on people's
lists.

A machine that is poorly understood and marketed by processor speed 
hype that shows zippy games.  I still don't understand why a kid needs 
a 300MHz PII to run simcity other than hype.  To me it's simpler, one
486dx or PII is the same as another, ther eis nothing to distinguish 
them.  Even the PS2 series was at least different on the bus level.

It's a matter of maturity of the system and all of the software.

Allison

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