"Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran

[Dave Wade]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
> Guzis
> Sent: 31 October 2015 17:03
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: "Demystification" is just as important as "Abstraction" in
> "Computer Science" (Was: Know any Fortran
> 
> On 10/31/2015 04:00 AM, Dave Wade wrote:
> 
> > SSE2 isn't exactly "leading edge" technology. It dates back to P4 in
> > 2001 so is actually older than the XP.
> > Also whilst XP would run on a small machine it was dire.
> > I once was sent to look at a 256Mhz PII running XP to see if I could
> > speed it up. Must have have been 2008 or 9 I think.
> > Whilst fiddling I accidentally swapped the mouse and keyboard
> > connections only to find it wouldn't boot set up like that.
> > I left it that way and no one else figured out what was wrong so the
> > user got their PC upgraded...
> 
> Well, XP runs just fine on my dual P3 (1GHz) server box.  I know that
Whistler
> was being tested and had many beta releases before the P4.  The
> P3 certainly wasn't dead in 2001--the Tuallies were just being released
then.

I should hope so too. I would expect Windows/7 to run just fine as well,
provided there are drivers.

> 
> I started testing Whistler and developing for it using a P1, then a K6
machine.
> While not as snappy as 2K, it was and is certainly usable.
> 

I had a K6-350 for ages. I can't remember what I ran on it W2K I think. 
I think at about that time in work I had an Armada 700 with perhaps a 450Mhz
CPU.
That ran 2k fine but XP was not nice and not usable.

> The be-all and end-all of any PC OS isn't necessarily running a bloated
> browser.
> 

When I last looked at an XP machine it was more the AntiVirus that killed
memory. 
Also Java was pretty much a resource hog. But I have an eMachine with an
Atom CPU
It really crawls with XP. Seems much better now I have put 7 on it.
Debating if I should try 10...

> Let's also not forget that XPe was deployed on all sorts of non-SSE2
> hardware, from thin clients to POS system.

That would mostly be the embedded version. There is a windows/7 8 & 8.1
embedded as well. 
I believe that the Win/7 embedded is lighter than the XP embedded.

XP on was a total pain as some of the HP clients were susceptible to a nasty
that sneaked in via a downlevel JAVA
The would re-boot up clean but when running if they got infected they would
attack other machines on the network.


> 
> --Chuck

Dave