From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <0f55d9e46a0352445b7c9d406c888dd2@yourdomain.dom>, <20031017204106.GV834@cassie.foobarbaz.net> Subject: Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 10:33:00 +0000 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 73ccbdbe-eacc-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Christopher Nielsen wrote: > ... As much as I loved it, SPARC is dead. > ... > All the world's an x86 or PowerPC. Which is most unfortunate, as the x86's ISA really sucks. But I think perhaps Plan 9 ought to take a different approach. You guys are not able to keep up with the PC hardware wave front, making it necessary to configure "obsolete" equipment in order to run Plan 9; I know that the availability of Plan 9 support for graphics cards has affected how I have built my own PCs. Given that this is necessarily the case, what is so wrong about continuting the multi-platform tradition that Plan 9 started with? There are plenty of MIPS and SPARC boxes on the used equipment market, e.g. eBay, selling for peanuts compared to modern PCs. Heck, many people still build and operate PDP-11 systems (not that I expect a Plan 9 port to the PDP-11). Is there some pressing reason why you have to give in to the continual pressure to upgrade to the latest PC gizmos? Plan 9 doesn't use nor need most of the capabilities of the latest PCs.