Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:01:52 +1000 (EST) From: Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au> To: Walt Pawley <walt@wump.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: please help to uninstall FreeBSD!!! Message-ID: <20090820025253.M90928@sola.nimnet.asn.au> In-Reply-To: <20090818120022.668B710656AC@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20090818120022.668B710656AC@hub.freebsd.org>
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This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. --0-423725794-1250704912=:90928 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:23:29 -0700 Walt Pawley <walt@wump.org> > At 4:44 PM +0200 8/17/09, Heiner Strauß wrote: [..] > >Putting the symbol names in one word helped the linker / loader a lot. > >Live was so easy. > > > >Heiner > > > >C (one word = 32 bit) .NOT. (some word processor software) > > As something of an ancient curmudgeon these days, I've enjoyed > this discussion. As speculation on my part, perhaps the six > character limitation is less a software issue than an early > architecture issue - DEC's PDP-6/10 design used 36-bit words > and packed six characters (clearly from a limited subset of the > then current ASCII) per word, making simple searches very > effective through symbol tables with a simple word level > compare loop. Can I play in the ancient curmudgeonly nostalgia reunion too? > While likely not all that closely related to the issue, I > recall a technique I was introduced to on Control Data systems > called COSY, in which one punched binary coded Hollerith cards > with two characters per column encoded (six bits per > character). Of course, such cards required excellent handling > equipment (which Control Data had) because a stack of cards > punched with 960 holes in each one had lots of opportunity for > hanging chads. First real systems programming job was converting $multinat's data files from NCR 315 format (12-bit 'slabs' holding 2 6-bit alphanum upper-case characters or 3 4-bit BCD numbers, on 7 track tape and some paper tape) to IBM 360 format (8 bit EBCDIC chars or BCD numerics, on 9 track tape), which only took about 4 months, replacing a whole floor & tons of gear. The NCR was also clearly designed around 80-column punch cards; 2 alphas or 3 digits or one 12-bit instruction code per column. The programmer's art was judged (by peers, not management :) on what your best single card 80-slab program could do once booted .. test runs of which involved turning up at the end of The Operator's shift and likely offering some $inducement, after conning one of the punch girls into typing 160 chars of utter gibberish for no apparent reason .. </OT nostalgia> cheers, Ian --0-423725794-1250704912=:90928--
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