VanLUG Email Archive
bbarnett@L8R.net
Tue, 19 Jan 1999 14:04:46 -0800 (PST)
On 19-Jan-99 Dave Martindale wrote:
> Vincent Janelle <malokai@gildea.net> writes:
>>The amiga rocked unix. :) Thats just pride though, I know that
>>technically it sucked, although a fully multitasking OS in less than 1mb
>>of ram is pretty damn amazing.
>
> Really? I remember running UNIX on a PDP-11 with 48 Kwords (96 Kb)
> of memory. It was fully multitasking, complete with daemons running
> in the background for printing. With some more memory (I think 124 Kw),
> it supported 12 terminals with students writing and running course
> assignments.
>
> However, there was minmal networking - a couple of synchronous modems
> going to IBM and Honeywell mainframes. No Ethernet, no NFS, no TCP/IP.
> And the terminals were self-contained ASCII terminals running at 9600
> or (gasp) 19200 bps. No X or other window managers. The editing was
> done with line-oriented editors like "ed" - no "vi" yet.
>
> I'll bet you could still run all these core functions of UNIX or Linux
> in far less than 1 Mb of ram if you stripped out all the networking
> stuff and used serial terminals.
Probably, but could you run a GUI with resolutions up to 4096 colours, full
sound support, etc, etc, all under a meg? Hell, I can run a full tcp/ip stack,
web browser in 16 bit, irc, about 20 or 30 other small apps/deamons, all on
different screens, and all in under 5-6 megs of ram. Try that with ANY other
os. You won't ;)
>
> The problem is that we now expect much more of a single-user workstation
> than we used to expect from a multi-user timesharing system.
>
> Another example: I once used a Burroughs B-5500. This was a mainframe
> computer, built with discrete components (pre-IC, pre-printed circuit
> board). Main memory was 32 Kw of 48 bits each, or 192 Kb total.
> In this ran a fully multitasking operating sytem for batch jobs,
> including hardware-supported memory management and virtual memory.
>
> Dave
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