OT Win7 updates

[Don Y]

The 8086 had NO CONCEPT OF MEMORY MANAGEMENT. It had the concept of an EXTERNAL floating point unit -- so boards were built with provisions for external FPU's (even though not sold with those installed).

The 68000 had mechanisms to rerun a bus cycle -- essential for a demand paged MMU. So, you could make provisions in your hardware and software to add support for the PMMU when it became available.

The same was true of the 32k (you could actually design a system that would "short out" the MMU if it was not present and "switch it in" if installed -- no settings or jumpers necessary!)

In Eggebrecht's book (architect and team leader for the IBM PC), he explained his reasons for selecting the 8086 family over other alternatives available at the time of the design.

The choices were essentially:

- 6502

- z80

- z8000

- 8086

- 68k

- "proprietary" chip (i.e., an "IBM special") (Amusing that he didn't even consider the DEC parts -- perhaps fear that DEC might not be able to produce in the volumes they envisioned? Or, maybe just "out-of-the-question" to patronize a competitor?)

The 6502 and z80 were ruled out because they feared being seen as "followers" in the industry (instead of LEADERS) -- the z80 and

6502 (apple!) having already carved out markets.

The z8000 was too different from the z80 so no simple migration path from the HUGE z80 code base to that architecture. (amusing considering how hard it is/was to port code *to* the PC)

The proprietary solution was ruled out because the only tools available ran on IBM mainframes ("Buy one of our PC's! Then, buy one of our mainframes so you can write code for it!!")

The 68k saw a lot of attention. It was recognized as a much nicer architecture (more like an '11 -- OhMiGosh!). The reasons against adopting it boiled down to the fact that it had a 16b bus. They were more interested in pinching pennies than designing a real computer!

I.e., "We'll fix it in version 2"

In his words: "In summary the 8088 was selected because it allowed the lowest cost implementation of an architecture that provided a migration path to a larger address space and higher performance implementations. Because it was a unique choice relative to competitive system implementations, IBM could be viewed as a leader, rather than a follower. It had a feasible software migration path that allowed access to the large base of existing 8080 software. The 8088 was a comfortable solution for IBM. Was it the best processor architecture available at the time? Probably not, but history seems to have been kind to the decision."

I think he underestimates the "kindness" aspect! History has been TOLERANT of the decision. How many millions (?) of man years of discarded software have come and gone because of the endless contortions as Intel keeps trying to make an antique architecture work in a modern world! (each contortion causing software to become obsolete or extraordinary measures taken to allow it to live on for a short while longer...)

[Don Y]

The question then becomes, "where are you going to DOCUMENT this?" (besides here) So, you don't shoot yourself in the foot again, later?

My perpetual problem is partition sizing/layout. I keep experimenting with different partition (slice) configurations to make for a more maintainable/expandable system.

E.g., set up / as R/O -- but then /etc needs to be someplace "special" (or, "mount -u /", update /etc, then remount / as R/O).

Or, set up a separate /var to support a large amount of data; then cringe when you boot single user and / runs out of space!

Or, ...

But, there's no place to ANNOTATE my decisions! The current information is stored in the disk label. And, while it LOOKS like a text file when you try to edit it (disklabel -e), that's an illusion; even the "comments" that appear are synthetic comments -- you can't ADD anything to them!

So, I've taken to storing a copy of the label in ~root and editing it to add those comments. Then, just remembering not to delete this "note"!

[rbowman]

At least we don't have to compile for 5 different memory models anymore.

A company I worked for had a 5110 with the PALM processor:

It had nothing to do with the 5150 (IBM PC). My take was IBM fully expected the PC to be an epic fail and sent their expendables to Boca Raton to scrounge up parts and not disturb the adults. The damn thing survived so they had to back up and try again with the PCjr to prove there was no market for home computers.

[rbowman]

That was the beginning of the end for our RS6000 sites. I forget all the details but the older RS6000 boxes couldn't run the newer AIX versions that IBM patched for Y2K. When the sticker shock for new RS6000 boxes set in people started thinking "I could buy one hell of a Windows server for that."

[Don Y]

I think a lot depends on who gets to make the buying decision. You spend money for THIS... or for THAT.

I've worked for lots of different companies/clients with different management backgrounds: engineers, finance people, even *dentists* (marketing electronic devices). It is interesting to see how they approach decisions regarding "investments", make/buy tradeoffs, etc.

I think the *worst* one are engineers! There's too much temptation to DIY things -- things that often should be purchased or even passed over!

In my current project, I am continually aware of this as I don't have to answer to anyone. It's too easy to fall for the Siren's Song. OTOH, I *do* want to see results -- in MY lifetime! :> So, regardless of how deep the pockets might be and how interesting the technology, there's an eventual limit on the calendar... (it would be nice if I KNEW what that limit was!)

[rbowman]

I don't miss modems at all. We send pages out to the people responding to an incident and in the bad old days it was literally dialing out to a paging service that would send a text to an alphanumeric pager. Hayes compatible was a laugh and then you had to figure out what Mom's Paging Parlor was capable of. Towards the end I had to break the bad news to some clients that the whizzbang 56k super modem they had bought was utterly incapable of dumbing itself down enough to talk to some 2400 baud paging terminal.

They're still around though. One of our support people was setting one up this week. Fortunately it is a direct line to a Zetron 2200 so there's no modem involved.

The fun thing with modems was when the dispatchers would get annoyed with the squeals and turn it off. "We're not getting pages anymore!"

[rbowman]

Hopefully it keeps working. It went through a few iterations as M$ played cat and mouse with the developers. M$ is nothing if not persistent.

[Micky]

I'm glad you said this.

I got: "To use this Web site's full functionality, you must be running Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later."

I'm using ie 9 but that's not good enough for it!

So I toggled active-x and tried it both positions and it still gave the same message.

It said "If you prefer to use a different Web browser, you can get updates from the Microsoft Download Center. " so I went there but couldn't find Windows 7 SP1 Rollup Update.

Oh well.

[Micky]

Could you please post the link for the 32 bit version, if you still know it. I couldn't get it the normal ways.

[Don Y]

Before the internet was as ubiquitous as today, it was the only practical way to connect two points electronically.

And, the narrowness of the pipe meant you had to think real hard about what you sent down it!

On an early system, users could "dial in" and get a "console" to control and configure the device (Z180 based). I wrote a curses(3) implementation so I could develop "screens" instead of a "command line based interface". Client saw these elaborate screens and you could almost see the gears turning in his head as he was counting: 25 lines, 80 characters per line,

2000 characters per screen, ~200 characters per second -- WTF?! This is going to be DOG SLOW!

"Trust me..."

When he saw my first dog-and-pony, he was blown away at how fast it was! "But how is that possible??" Hadn't occurred to him that there were numerous optimizations that I could perform in the software to ELIMINATE data going down the wire, needlessly.

In fact, when I installed a fallback "command line mode" (when $TERM=none), he was annoyed at how much slower this simpler scheme actually was! (and, of course, far less user friendly)

I had a lot of modems over the years -- but always Telebits. This made things great for UUCP, etc. But, lousy when dealing with the rest of the (Windows) world!

I still keep a pair of 8840's: as i used them to develop some modem protocols for some of my projects (two land lines so they could "call each other")

And, a QBlazer (battery powered, portable) just because it was so cute!

But, there are just too many damn "S registers". And, everyone's idea of the Hayes Command Set was slightly different. The PEP support just made my life a bit harder when talking to other things (including the boxes I was designing -- 212 modems, etc.)

What I didn't like was how often you'd receive a call that was a modem or fax machine thinking it was calling a modem/fax machine! Of course, you couldn't TELL IT that it had reached a wrong number. And, it would dutifully call back some minutes later to try again to get a carrier...

[David B.]

I suspect your laptop is too old to run Windows 10

Read here:

[Farquar]

That happened to me....repeatedly. I always sent them 10 pages of solid black background with white text telling them to stop faxing my number.

[Mayayana]

| My laptop is XP, and is fine thus far. No nagging about Win 10 on it. |

The "free offer" of Win10 doesn't apply to XP. I just mentioned that in terms of update choices. XP SP3 is important and most software/hardware requires it, but I've never updated an XP machine beyond that, and now there are no more XP updates, anyway -- unless you're a big company willing to pay shockingly large fees to Microsoft to get them. In other words, MS is still updating XP. They're just not letting XP customers have those updates!

[Mayayana]

| I'm using ie 9 but that's not good enough for it! | | So I toggled active-x and tried it both positions and it still gave | the same message. | | It said "If you prefer to use a different Web browser, you can get | updates from the Microsoft Download Center. " so I went there but | couldn't find Windows 7 SP1 Rollup Update. | | Oh well.

I'm wondering whether the whole rollup thing might just be a way to get people back to Internet Explorer. What a weird requirement. But maybe it makes sense technically. MS is trying a new method of just downloading file changes rather than whole files. That, and the ActiveX requirement, indicates that they may want to hang around and rifle through things while you're updating, in order to collect data on how it works out.

In any case, here are links for the actual download without the hassles:

Actual link for 32-bit version that doesn't require letting MS onto one's computer with ActiveX enabled:

Link for 64-bit:

Link to list of actual files involved, in case anyone wants to know about that:

The download is an MSU file, which is actually a CAB file relabeled to work with Windows Installer. There are CABs within CABs. There are over 35,000 files altogether. But MS has come up with a clever way to package only file changes rather than whole files. Those, too, are compressed. So it's not easy to figure out exactly what's in the package. I didn't find any list of KB numbers.

I was inspecting the package because I wondered what kind of dubious things might be in it. From what I've been able to figure out, it seems MS has not added more Windows 10 trojan horses, but they apparently did include some updates to the telemetry spyware. I've never looked into the details of that to know what the story is, so I'm not sure what the implications are or whether it can be disabled.

[trader_4]

CPU series timeline is not necessarily the same as when other chips that extended the capabilities came out. You didn't need a MMU to use a Z8000 and probably 99% of the designs never used it at all. As I said, from a quick google search it looks like those two chips you're talking about came out in the early 80s. There is a data sheet dated 1985 and a patent application from I think 1981. That is the point that the whole industry was bringing out more advanced chips. In 1982 you had the 286 that had the MMU on board. Beyond that, Don tries to make it sound like you really could build a robust multi-tasking system with memory management and paging around an 8086 or similar timeframe CPU. You couldn't build a practical system, because not only was hardware lacking, but even if you had the hardware, the performance of those early CPUs wasn't up to it. Nor was there an OS.

[trader_4]

I have them right. Show us the date the Z8000 MMU and paging chips were introduced. Those specific chips, not the CPU itself which was used without it. As I said, from what I see they came out in the early 80s, about the same time as the 286. You could try to build a half-assed multitasking system with paging using even an 8086. Even the 286 wasn't really up to the task, for a number of reasons, including overall performance. Don makes it sound like in 1978 there were microprocessor solutions that allowed you to do build a robust, multitasking system with paging. Just a few years matter in an industry moving at speed.

[trader_4]

It's not essential to rerun a bus cycle. The 386 and all subsequent Intel CPUs don't need to rerun bus cycles because the MMU and paging are inside the chip. The CPU knows whether or not to run a bus cycle before it ever runs it in the first place. In other words, it's an MMU and paging done right. Kind of important, if some malicious program attempts to write to a memory address to shut down the power grid or take your nuke off line.

The same can be said for any product that has enormous acceptance and an installed base, especially a product that runs software. The real world isn't like you, sitting in your shop, where you say you don't reuse existing code, you just toss it and start all over from scratch.

[Stormin Mormon]

Nice thing is you can save the black sheets, and use them on the next guy.

[Muggles]

I don't want to put Win10 on it anyway, so, I guess it's a good thing it's too old for Win10.

[rbowman]

JIRA. The cgi test code will be checked in and built with the deliverables. I'll attach a sample of the JSON file used to dummy up data for the GET return. There will be notes for QA on setting up the apache server and where to look for the logs from the cgi process. There will also be instructions for setup on the live system. The JIRA issue will reference the FSD that the client signed off on, as well as the API provided by the third party.

We also have a directory off the source tree for informal programming documentation that includes quirks we've found, little tricks, and cookbooks for various tasks.

The biggest problem is not knowing the documentation is there. There is a good deal of interaction between the programmers but over the years each of us has drifted into separate areas of expertise along with the general maintenance programming. If someone stumbles across a real pitfall or interesting nugget it comes up at the next formal meeting.

Still, there is a problem disseminating the corporate experience. I have a vague idea what the Java guys are up to and sometimes undertake limited Java tasks to keep my hand in, but they're a lot better at it than I am. otoh, I've had to navigate the labyrinth of WCF and can turn out a SOAP interface easily given a wsdl.

All this is a problem for any organization. We're small and informal enough that there are no barriers between programming. QA, operations, and support like you find in larger companies but those areas of specialization exist and knowledge doesn't always flow as well as it might.