Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!oitnews.harvard.edu!news.sesqui.net!uuneo.neosoft.com!bonkers.taronga.com!peter
From: peter@bonkers.taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Retro-Computing!
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Message-ID: <D698sJ.HxB@bonkers.taronga.com>
References: <D5yxwn.5BG@sdf.saomai.org> <1995Mar27.122235.13616@ivax> <D647Cp.Hx1@bonkers.taronga.com> <0098E1C5.AFC91B9E@sacto.mp.usbr.gov>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 13:14:43 GMT
Lines: 28

In article <0098E1C5.AFC91B9E@sacto.mp.usbr.gov>,
 <henrym@sacto.mp.usbr.gov> wrote:
>In article <D647Cp.Hx1@bonkers.taronga.com>, peter@bonkers.taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>In article <1995Mar27.122235.13616@ivax>,
>>Mark H. Wood <mwood@indyvax.iupui.edu> wrote:
>>>Pssst!  Don't tell this guy how we used to do (small) program development
>>>entirely in FILDDT....

>>Wimps. Even as late as 1982 we were running multiuser on a system with
>>12K of RAM under Polyforth. All you big iron people are WIMPS. Real
>>programmers do *realtime*. If you can afford to be a few milliseconds past
>>the deadline now and then you consider yourself *lucky*.

>	Nah, REAL HACKERS go in and install new JSYS's (or UUO's) into
>the running operating system during prime timesharing.

You think those days are over, do you? Hah! Couple of years ago I was
still binary patching a UNIX kernel to support multiple network stacks
(one from Intel, one from Lachman: daft buggers used the same names for
different functions) five minutes before an important demo with the
customers and the president of the company *staring* at me.

But that's nothing like the stress of looking for a bug in a railroad safety
system that's been installed all over Ohio, in code that's been touched by
half a dozen realtime hackers, comments in three languages, before it misses
catching another hot wheel and we get a derailment this time...

Realtime is a whole different world, my friends.
