Then vs Now Programming WAS: Re: AMD vs Intel memory managemement

Fri Jun 14 09:01:15 MST 2013

I haven't been paying real close attention to this thread so I don't know
if this came up but isn't there an issue with the speed of the
non-efficient code?  Also, when I first got into linux my box never locked
up. Now  it does like maybe once every 3 months or so. The XBMC server
locks up maybe once a month. And if I try to exit the program usually it
locks the system rather than exiting the program.
:-)~MIKE~(-:

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 8:22 PM, keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>
> I think what you are saying is 4GB of RAM is like $50.00.  If it takes
> $10,000 more to develop more efficient code that could be compensated by
> spending $50 on RAM then just spend the $50.00 and enjoy not spending
> $9950.00 for more efficient code.
>
>
>
> ------------------------
> Keith Smith
>
> --- On *Thu, 6/13/13, Kevin Fries <kevin at fries-biro.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Kevin Fries <kevin at fries-biro.com>
> Subject: RE: Then vs Now Programming WAS: Re: AMD vs Intel memory
> managemement
> To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>
> Date: Thursday, June 13, 2013, 6:43 PM
>
> I think there is a big reality being missed here.  Back in the "old days"
> when developers wrote "tight" code, that was out of necessity not out of
> some higher purpose.  Computers did not do much, spell checkers were a
> luxury, as were point and click interfaces.  I remember spending more money
> for my first 10MB hard drive than i would spend for a 1TB today.  The price
> to write this tight code today is too high for the benefit it would bring.
> Yes code is more bloated today, but if you take a look at the bloat in
> proportion to the increase in memory, disk, and network speed, it could be
> argued that software has gotten smaller, not larger.
>
> Just my $0.02
>
> Kevin
> On Jun 13, 2013 2:03 PM, "Carruth, Rusty" <
> Rusty.Carruth at smartstoragesys.com<http://mc/compose?to=Rusty.Carruth@smartstoragesys.com>>
> wrote:
>
> IMHO, the answer is yes.  And the answer is no.****
>
> ** **
>
> Operating systems in ‘the olde days’ were REALLY small, and didn’t do
> much. No gui, for one! (Well, ok, on the IBM 1130 I used the GUI was the
> flashing lights on the console!)****
>
>
> Shoot, the entire boot loader fit on a single 80 column punch card.  The
> card had I think 12 bit positions per column, so that means we could load a
> program (from cards!) with 120 bytes of program. The computer ran 16 bit
> instructions, so that means in 60 instructions we could read binary data
> from the card reader (12 bits at a time), and store it into memory!****
>
> ** **
>
> FORTRAN (and later C) and assembly language were probably the primary
> languages in use for applications.****
>
> ** **
>
> As James said: “Cache?  We don’t need no stinkin’cache!”  Cache was a
> luxury that Idon’t think we even considered…****
>
> ** **
>
> I’m not sure how much is language bloat, and how much is (perceived?) lack
> of need to be careful about ram or anything.  I will say that it seems
> that, as computers get faster, they run slower due to all the junk that
> comes with the OS.  It wasn’t that long ago that Linux would run
> ‘hummingly’ on a lowly Pentium with 512MB of ram.  Try that today with a
>  current distribution that isn’t aimed at ‘low-end’ computers!****
>
> ** **
>
> Personally, I think it’s a bad thing that we can turn what would have been
> a supercomputer 40 years ago into a machine that runs slower than my
> Osborne 2 did!  (I can out-type my Lenovo ThinkPad T410 to the point that
> I’ve had 40 to 80 characters typed that it had not bothered to process
> before I gave up typing and waited for it to catch up!)  (Yes, its running
> Windows)****
>
> ** **
>
> (Note, an Osborne 2 was a ‘portable computer’ (about the size of a medium
> piece of luggage) that ran CP/M, had 64K of RAM and 2x 5 ¼” floppies!  (The
> REALLY cool luggable machines had some ‘huge’ hard drive (probably 20MB!))
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Rusty, climbing down off of soapbox now J****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org<http://mc/compose?to=plug-discuss-bounces@lists.phxlinux.org>[mailto:
> plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org<http://mc/compose?to=plug-discuss-bounces@lists.phxlinux.org>]
> *On Behalf Of *Nathan England
>
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> On Thursday, June 13, 2013 07:01:23 AM Lyle Tuttle wrote:****
>
> In the 'old' days, I worked for the Atomic Energy Commission designing,
> building and maintaining computer controlled experiments using radiation
> from and located on the face of the reactor.....our SDS "mainframe" <G> ran
> ALL experiments (including some x-ray diffraction projects in remote
> locations) in real-time......that computer had 16K core memory.......and
> people came from all over the world to see what we were doing....now a
> watch has more memory.....
>  ****
>
> Lyle has brought up a question that is interesting to me. I hear stories
> like this of these amazing things people did with computers 30 and 40 years
> ago and then the comment always comes up like "And we only had xx kb of
> ram".****
>
>  ****
>
> So my question is, was programming in what ever language they used back
> then more efficient and today's languages are seriously bloated and require
> more ram, or do programmers today not know how to program as efficiently?*
> ***
>
>  ****
>
> Or what gives?****
>
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