From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.1 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id c2be8865 for ; Fri, 29 Jun 2018 15:41:38 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 781C8A1B15; Sat, 30 Jun 2018 01:41:37 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 24E9BA181B; Sat, 30 Jun 2018 01:41:28 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 62780A181B; Sat, 30 Jun 2018 01:41:26 +1000 (AEST) Received: from hacklheber.piermont.com (hacklheber.piermont.com [166.84.7.14]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E836EA1815 for ; Sat, 30 Jun 2018 01:41:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from snark.cb.piermont.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hacklheber.piermont.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EED61217; Fri, 29 Jun 2018 11:41:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jabberwock.cb.piermont.com (jabberwock.cb.piermont.com [10.160.2.107]) by snark.cb.piermont.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D512A2DED80; Fri, 29 Jun 2018 11:41:24 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2018 11:41:24 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" To: Larry McVoy Message-ID: <20180629114124.3529a1a8@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> In-Reply-To: <20180629001831.GA29490@mcvoy.com> References: <81277CC3-3C4A-49B8-8720-CFAD22BB28F8@bitblocks.com> <20180628141538.GB663@thunk.org> <20180628104329.754d2c19@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <20180628145609.GD21688@mcvoy.com> <20180628154246.3a1ce74a@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <20180628170317.14d65067@jabberwock.cb.piermont.com> <20180628222954.GD8521@thunk.org> <20180629001831.GA29490@mcvoy.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] PDP-11 legacy, C, and modern architectures X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: TUHS main list Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Thu, 28 Jun 2018 17:18:31 -0700 Larry McVoy wrote: > On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 06:29:54PM -0400, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 05:03:17PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger > > wrote: > > > > > > Tens of thousands of machines is a lot more than one. I think > > > the point stands. This is the age of distributed and parallel > > > systems. > > > > This is the age of distributed systems, yes. I'm not so sure > > about "parallel". And the point remains that for many problems, > > you need fewer strong cores, and a crapton of weak cores is not > > as useful. > > As usual, Ted gets it. My laptop's GPUs are a lot more powerful than the CPU and do much more most of the time, and they're ridiculously parallel. Everything from weather prediction to machine learning to Google's search stuff runs _parallel_, not just distributed. All the simulations I do of molecular systems run parallel, on lots and lots of machines. > Perry, please take this in the spirit in which is intended, but > you're arguing with people who have been around the block (there > are people on this list that have 5 decades of going around the > block - looking at you Ken). You don't remember that you've known me for thirty years or so? Hell, you used to help me out. Viktor and I and a couple of other people built the predecessor of Jumpstart at Lehman Brothers like 25 years ago, it was called PARIS, and you were the one who did stuff like telling us the secret IOCTL to to turn off sync FFS metadata writes in SunOS so we could saturate our disk controllers during installs. (I guess it wasn't that secret but it was a big help, we got the bottleneck down to being network bandwidth and could install a single workstation from "boot net" to ready for the trader in five minutes.) I guess I wasn't that memorable, but I'm sure at least Ted remembers me, we've been paling around at conferences and IETF meetings for decades. Anyway, I've also been doing this for quite a while. Not as long as many people here, I'm way younger than the people who were hacking in the 1960s on IBM 360s (I was learning things like reading back then, not computer science), but my first machine was a PDP-8e with an ASR-33 teletype. > This is a really poor place for a younger person I wish I was young. People do still tell me that I look like I'm in my 30s but I think that's just that my hair isn't gray yet for some unaccountable reason. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com