On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
<taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:

>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>
>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>Lurndal) wrote:
>>>
>>>>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>><john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such software
>>>>>>> could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>
>>>>>It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>anything. IIRC.
>>>>
>>>>Claimed by whom?
>>>
>>>The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>
>>>This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>
>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for longer
>> than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC processor
>> from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a claim about
>> "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>
>>
>>>It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>
>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>
>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>> expensive implementation.
>>
>I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>marketing "people".
>
>And you know how accurate marketing claims are.

I think both points are quite possible.

Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ. So
perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:23:30 -0000 (UTC), Thomas Koenig
<tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:

>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> schrieb:
>
>> And, BTW, my Windows computers run on /segmented archtectures/, not on
>> RISC.
>
>You are still running a 32-bit versions of Windows? Wow.

My Netbook (HP Mini) is resolutely 32-bit -- the processor is 32-bit
and so the Windows 7 Starter it runs is also 32-bit.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On 2022-11-28 08:19, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
> news:c4q9oh5cfddg5j9464g6p4flc7io1ddqca@4ax.com:
>
>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:26:39 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>> news:VeNgL.134720$Ayma.73744@fx09.iad:
>>>
>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:25:29 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>> Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> "pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>> On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 11:57:46 AM UTC-5, Paul S
>>>>>>> Person wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 10:54:54 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
>>>>>>>> <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> And, anyway, given how long they have had those Crays, up
>>>>>>>> to how many bits do you think they have identified /every
>>>>>>>> single prime/ in that range? And so can (relatively)
>>>>>>>> quickly crack any encryption based on prime numbers?
>>>>>>>> 32-bit? 64-bit? 128-bit? 256-bit? 512-bit? 1Kb? 1Mb? Who
>>>>>>>> can say? Certainly not me!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You're in my house now. I set up the Symmetric Key
>>>>>>> Challenges at RSA, and have been working in cryptographic
>>>>>>> computing for over 30 years.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.keylength.com/en/4/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To sum up: There's no reason yet to think cryptography can
>>>>>>> be easily defeated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Indeed. Cryptography is almost always defeated due to
>>>>>> flaws. Flaws in the implementation[*], or flaws in the Human
>>>>>> side such as social engineering.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes. It's /always/ somebody else's fault when things go South.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure what you are attempting to convey with that
>>>> statement. Care to be more specific?
>>>
>>> He's insulting people who write cyptography apps with flaws they
>>> don't want to admit to.
>>
>> Indeed. Or, perhaps more broadly, secure systems that somehow
>> turn out to not be, in fact, secure.
>
> Pretty much what I said.
>>
>> But it's more general than that -- this is how "the Wise" in the
>> Middle Ages preserved their reputations when the plain fact was
>> that their spells to raise and control demons /did not work/: it
>> was the fault of the user.
>
> Self delusion is at least as old as humanity, and likely older.
>

What's it like to be completely immune to irony?

:-)

On 11/27/22 5:00 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <6FednTnd8bBqz-D-nZ2dnZfqn_adnZ2d@giganews.com>,
> John W Kennedy <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Bwah-ha-ha-ha! I can remember when IBM’s most popular mainframe maxed
>> out at 16,000 six-bit characters.
>
> (Hal Heydt)
> That would be the IBM 1401. Minimum memory was 1.2K.

1,400. I don't know whether the system name was based on that or the
other way around, or neither.

> Autocoder is one the languages I learned Way Back When. Then
> proceeded to use it on an IBM S/360-30 with 1401 emulation because
> that shop was still running Autocoder programs in production in
> the early 1970s.

I remember it well. I worked briefly on a 1401 (and its souped-up
sister, the 1460), and in 1401 compatibility on a 360/30, but then moved
to a corporation that had had only a 402 two years before, so there was
no pre-360 legacy. In the 29 years I was there, we progressed from a
360/30 to a five-processor 3090.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:

> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>
>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>><john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Huh? ARM isn�t an OS; it�s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>anything. IIRC.
>>>>>
>>>>>Claimed by whom?
>>>>
>>>>The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>
>>>>This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>
>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>
>>>
>>>>It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>
>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>
>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>> expensive implementation.
>>>
>>I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>marketing "people".
>>
>>And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>
> I think both points are quite possible.
>
> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ.
> So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".

Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On 11/28/2022 12:47 AM, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> There have been Windows implementations for MIPS, ARM, Alpha and PowerPC.
> Vobis (a German computer discounter at the
> time) actually offered an Alpha with Windows, the
> "Highscreen Alpha 5000". You can see their catalog at
> https://www.schmalenstroer.net/books/Alte%20Kataloge/Vobis%20Denkzettel%201997-07-24.pdf
> (have to scroll down a bit).
>
> With its PALcode, the Alpha was designed with different operating
> systems in mind.
>

There were at least a couple dozen Alphas that could run NT or 2000. At
one orkspace I maintained three DS10s, two VMS and one NT.

On 27 Nov 2022 at 21:33:14 GMT, "John W Kennedy"
<john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:

> I first encountered the RISC concept in the article in the IBM Journal
> of R&D about the experimental 801 processor and I don’t recall ever
> hearing such a claim, either. They talked about performance, compiler
> simplification, and cost (especially by completely purging microcode).
> And it’s fairly well known that, when Acorn picked up the concept, it
> was to meet an “impossible” spec.

Good ARM history article series (two parts so far) on Ars lately,
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/a-history-of-arm-part-1-building-the-first-chip/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/a-history-of-arm-part-2-everything-starts-to-come-together/

And an older article more oriented around Acorn,
https://arstechnica.com/features/2020/12/how-an-obscure-british-pc-maker-invented-arm-and-changed-the-world/

>> Windows hasn't run on a "segmented architecture" since NT was
>> introduced. And the current generation 64-bit x86 architecture
>> is very RISC-like in the hardware internals. They've done a masterful
>> job in keeping an ancient 16-bit architecture relevent in modern
>> times.
>
> There is an ARM Windows, though, is there not?

There is. It includes full x86-64 emulation, for the obvious reasons.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Sent from my SGI Onyx

On 29/11/2022 05:08, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
> news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>
>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>> news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>
>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>> Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>> <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>> anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Claimed by whom?
>>>>>
>>>>> The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>
>>>>> This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>
>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>>
>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>
>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>
>>> I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>> claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>> marketing "people".
>>>
>>> And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>
>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>
>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ.
>> So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>
> Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.
>
But how do you tell the difference???? :-)

Cheers,
Gary B-)

"Gary R. Schmidt" <grschmidt@acm.org> wrote in
news:o4ch5j-dq8.ln1@paranoia.mcleod-schmidt.id.au:

> On 29/11/2022 05:08, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>> news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>> news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>>
>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home
>>>>>> (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>>> <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn
>>>>>>>>>> out to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>>> anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Claimed by whom?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> It is the RISC proponents who were making these
>>>>>> predictions.
>>>>>
>>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>>
>>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>>
>>>> I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>>> claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>>> marketing "people".
>>>>
>>>> And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>>
>>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>>
>>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or
>>> DDJ. So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>>
>> Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.
>>
> But how do you tell the difference???? :-)
>
Rather the point.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:19:43 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
<taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:

>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>news:c4q9oh5cfddg5j9464g6p4flc7io1ddqca@4ax.com:
>
>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:26:39 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>news:VeNgL.134720$Ayma.73744@fx09.iad:
>>>
>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:25:29 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>"pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>>On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 11:57:46 AM UTC-5, Paul S
>>>>>>>Person wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 10:54:54 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
>>>>>>>> <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> And, anyway, given how long they have had those Crays, up
>>>>>>>> to how many bits do you think they have identified /every
>>>>>>>> single prime/ in that range? And so can (relatively)
>>>>>>>> quickly crack any encryption based on prime numbers?
>>>>>>>> 32-bit? 64-bit? 128-bit? 256-bit? 512-bit? 1Kb? 1Mb? Who
>>>>>>>> can say? Certainly not me!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>You're in my house now. I set up the Symmetric Key
>>>>>>>Challenges at RSA, and have been working in cryptographic
>>>>>>>computing for over 30 years.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>https://www.keylength.com/en/4/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>To sum up: There's no reason yet to think cryptography can
>>>>>>>be easily defeated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Indeed. Cryptography is almost always defeated due to
>>>>>>flaws. Flaws in the implementation[*], or flaws in the Human
>>>>>>side such as social engineering.
>>>>>
>>>>>Yes. It's /always/ somebody else's fault when things go South.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure what you are attempting to convey with that
>>>> statement. Care to be more specific?
>>>
>>>He's insulting people who write cyptography apps with flaws they
>>>don't want to admit to.
>>
>> Indeed. Or, perhaps more broadly, secure systems that somehow
>> turn out to not be, in fact, secure.
>
>Pretty much what I said.

Very much what you said, just a bit broadened.

Great minds do think alike, after all.
>> But it's more general than that -- this is how "the Wise" in the
>> Middle Ages preserved their reputations when the plain fact was
>> that their spells to raise and control demons /did not work/: it
>> was the fault of the user.
>
>Self delusion is at least as old as humanity, and likely older.

True enough, but the /point/ was the pattern of claiming that "what I
did was perfect, so the problem /must/ lie elsewhere".

And, to be fair, nuclear power stations and computer encryption do
work, unlike spells for raising demons. There /is/ a difference here.

I should like to point out how this topic arose:

1) I noted that a sufficiently-paranoid person would not bother to
encrypt email to defeat the NSA because anyone who doesn't think the
NSA has /already/ broken all such encryption is not sufficiently
paranoid.

2) The pushers of computer security/encryption /immediately/ launched
themselves into defense mode by claiming any failures were always
someone else's fault. Almost as if they had a guilty conscience ...
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

Jay E. Morris <morrisj@epsilon3.comcon> wrote:
> On 11/28/2022 12:47 AM, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> There have been Windows implementations for MIPS, ARM, Alpha and PowerPC.
>> Vobis (a German computer discounter at the
>> time) actually offered an Alpha with Windows, the
>> "Highscreen Alpha 5000". You can see their catalog at
>> https://www.schmalenstroer.net/books/Alte%20Kataloge/Vobis%20Denkzettel%201997-07-24.pdf
>> (have to scroll down a bit).
>>
>> With its PALcode, the Alpha was designed with different operating
>> systems in mind.
>>
>
> There were at least a couple dozen Alphas that could run NT or 2000. At
> one orkspace I maintained three DS10s, two VMS and one NT.

Also OSF/1...we were a Unix shop we ran that on ours.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:08:29 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
<taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:

>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>
>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>
>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>><john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>>anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Claimed by whom?
>>>>>
>>>>>The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>
>>>>>This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>
>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>>
>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>
>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>
>>>I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>>claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>>marketing "people".
>>>
>>>And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>
>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>
>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ.
>> So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>
>Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.

I'm not sure that was the case. There were, and probably still are, a
/lot/ of people who really really hate segmented architectures and
Windows. The marketing campaign was much, much tamer.

BTW, has anyone else noticed this interesting progression:
1) A claim is reported that RISC processors will take over the world.
2) I point out that this same claim was made 25 (say) years ago, and
it didn't happen.
3) Others claim that modern "segmented" processors are really RISC
processors which mimic segmentation so the software will run.

Which, of course, leads to the question:

If RISC processors have /already/ taken over the world, why was the
new prediction made at all?

I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into semantic
mush.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
news:3lecohdefpqnut3kbe1944m760o2gpuale@4ax.com:

> On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:19:43 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
> Kujisalimisha <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>>news:c4q9oh5cfddg5j9464g6p4flc7io1ddqca@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:26:39 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>>news:VeNgL.134720$Ayma.73744@fx09.iad:
>>>>
>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:25:29 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>>Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>>>On Friday, November 25, 2022 at 11:57:46 AM UTC-5, Paul S
>>>>>>>>Person wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 10:54:54 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
>>>>>>>>> <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> And, anyway, given how long they have had those Crays,
>>>>>>>>> up to how many bits do you think they have identified
>>>>>>>>> /every single prime/ in that range? And so can
>>>>>>>>> (relatively) quickly crack any encryption based on prime
>>>>>>>>> numbers? 32-bit? 64-bit? 128-bit? 256-bit? 512-bit? 1Kb?
>>>>>>>>> 1Mb? Who can say? Certainly not me!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>You're in my house now. I set up the Symmetric Key
>>>>>>>>Challenges at RSA, and have been working in cryptographic
>>>>>>>>computing for over 30 years.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>https://www.keylength.com/en/4/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>To sum up: There's no reason yet to think cryptography can
>>>>>>>>be easily defeated.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Indeed. Cryptography is almost always defeated due to
>>>>>>>flaws. Flaws in the implementation[*], or flaws in the
>>>>>>>Human side such as social engineering.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Yes. It's /always/ somebody else's fault when things go
>>>>>>South.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not sure what you are attempting to convey with that
>>>>> statement. Care to be more specific?
>>>>
>>>>He's insulting people who write cyptography apps with flaws
>>>>they don't want to admit to.
>>>
>>> Indeed. Or, perhaps more broadly, secure systems that somehow
>>> turn out to not be, in fact, secure.
>>
>>Pretty much what I said.
>
> Very much what you said, just a bit broadened.
>
> Great minds do think alike, after all.
>
>>> But it's more general than that -- this is how "the Wise" in
>>> the Middle Ages preserved their reputations when the plain
>>> fact was that their spells to raise and control demons /did
>>> not work/: it was the fault of the user.
>>
>>Self delusion is at least as old as humanity, and likely older.
>
> True enough, but the /point/ was the pattern of claiming that
> "what I did was perfect, so the problem /must/ lie elsewhere".

Which is precisely what I was talking about. The precise, exact
form of self delusion is as old as humanity, and likely older.
>
> And, to be fair, nuclear power stations and computer encryption
> do work, unlike spells for raising demons. There /is/ a
> difference here.
>
> I should like to point out how this topic arose:
>
> 1) I noted that a sufficiently-paranoid person would not bother
> to encrypt email to defeat the NSA because anyone who doesn't
> think the NSA has /already/ broken all such encryption is not
> sufficiently paranoid.

Plus, it's not terribly defficult for an organization with that
level of resources to bypass your encryption entirely, by, say,
planting spyware on the computer or just parking a TEMPEST van
outside your house.
>
> 2) The pushers of computer security/encryption /immediately/
> launched themselves into defense mode by claiming any failures
> were always someone else's fault. Almost as if they had a guilty
> conscience ...

Which is to say, self delusion is as old as humanity, and likely
older.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
news:80fcohdrjkbg26f4r6m5fsled7hknqka5n@4ax.com:

> On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:08:29 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
> Kujisalimisha <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>>news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>>news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>>
>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>>Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>>On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>>><john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn
>>>>>>>>>> out to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Huh? ARM isn�t an OS; it�s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>>>anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Claimed by whom?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>>>
>>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>>
>>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>>
>>>>I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>>>claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>>>marketing "people".
>>>>
>>>>And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>>
>>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>>
>>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or
>>> DDJ. So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>>
>>Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.
>
> I'm not sure that was the case. There were, and probably still
> are, a /lot/ of people who really really hate segmented
> architectures and Windows. The marketing campaign was much, much
> tamer.
>
> BTW, has anyone else noticed this interesting progression:
> 1) A claim is reported that RISC processors will take over the
> world. 2) I point out that this same claim was made 25 (say)
> years ago, and it didn't happen.
> 3) Others claim that modern "segmented" processors are really
> RISC processors which mimic segmentation so the software will
> run.
>
> Which, of course, leads to the question:
>
> If RISC processors have /already/ taken over the world, why was
> the new prediction made at all?
>
> I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into
> semantic mush.

Semantic mush is the building block of all marketing hype. They're
glued together with more semantic mush as mortar, plastered over
with more semantic much, and deocrated with pieces of art made out
of semantic mush (hung with picture hangers made out of semantic
mush).

It's turtles all the way down.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:19:43 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
><taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:

>2) The pushers of computer security/encryption /immediately/ launched
>themselves into defense mode by claiming any failures were always
>someone else's fault. Almost as if they had a guilty conscience ...

I, and I suspect Peter, would disagree with this characterization.

Particularly, the "fault" claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

While cryptographic algorithms are still a topic of research, and
as computing capabilities grow, what was once computationally
infeasible becomes possible. To that end, the experts (and I'm
talking about the Rivests, Diffies, Hellmans and the whole lot of
successive academic generations) are quite aware of the flaws
in various cryptographic algorithms and continuously work to
improve and ameliorate the flaws.

That said, there are lot of inexperienced programmers who
attempt to design their own crypto algorithms and a bunch
more that use existing implementations[*] of the standard
algorithms incorrectly. Caveat Emptor.

[*] which themselves often have bugs; OpenSSL comes to mind.

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:08:29 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
><taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>BTW, has anyone else noticed this interesting progression:
>1) A claim is reported that RISC processors will take over the world.

Reported by whom? An anonymous poster in a Usenet newsgroup?

>2) I point out that this same claim was made 25 (say) years ago, and
>it didn't happen.

Again, cite please. Not a cite to your claim, but a period cite.

>3) Others claim that modern "segmented" processors are really RISC
>processors which mimic segmentation so the software will run.

There have been no "modern segmented" processors since the 286.

There hasn't been any segmented software running, even under windows
since the 286 (except in compatability mode, e.g. v86, which was
not implemented in the 64-bit x86 processors and has been obsolete
for over two decades).

The internal structure of a modern intel or amd processor quite
strikingly resembles the internal structure of a modern RISC
processor. That doesn't make it a RISC processor, it just notes
that the internal implementation (where the macro instructions
are fissioned into micro-operations that are scheduled to the
relevent units - arithmetic, load/store, simd - for execution)
has the same implementation and performance qualities of
RISC architectures.

>
>Which, of course, leads to the question:
>
>If RISC processors have /already/ taken over the world, why was the
>new prediction made at all?

ARM has taken over the world - they've shipped over 200 billion
processors, and there are server-grade ARM processors already
in production in various cloud datacenters from various
vendors.

Intel's share price (and history over the last two decades)
should tell you a great deal about the RISC impact on their
business. Hint, the stock price today is a bit less per
share than it was in 2000.

>
>I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into semantic
>mush.

I suspect that you are reaching to make a pointless argument.

scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
news:3IrhL.7$Use.0@fx15.iad:

> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

>>I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into
>>semantic mush.
>
> I suspect that you are reaching to make a pointless argument.
>
Isn't that the whole purpose of Usenet?

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On Tuesday, November 29, 2022 at 12:44:56 PM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Paul S Person <pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
> >On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:19:43 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
> ><taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >2) The pushers of computer security/encryption /immediately/ launched
> >themselves into defense mode by claiming any failures were always
> >someone else's fault. Almost as if they had a guilty conscience ...
> I, and I suspect Peter, would disagree with this characterization.
>
> Particularly, the "fault" claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
>
> While cryptographic algorithms are still a topic of research, and
> as computing capabilities grow, what was once computationally
> infeasible becomes possible. To that end, the experts (and I'm
> talking about the Rivests, Diffies, Hellmans and the whole lot of
> successive academic generations) are quite aware of the flaws
> in various cryptographic algorithms and continuously work to
> improve and ameliorate the flaws.
>
> That said, there are lot of inexperienced programmers who
> attempt to design their own crypto algorithms and a bunch
> more that use existing implementations[*] of the standard
> algorithms incorrectly. Caveat Emptor.
>
> [*] which themselves often have bugs; OpenSSL comes to mind.

This is only too true. The best known ciphers and hashes are
very, very good - they've been examined publicly, by many
experienced cryptanalysts.

But they have to be implemented - problems can enter here,
for example, timing and power consumption attacks, sensitive
data left in memory, and much else. An implementation that's
good on one processor with one compiler may be insecure when
built on a different processor, or with another compiler.

Then they have to be used as parts of protocols, and if those
protocols are badly designed, you can be screwed.

Key generation and handling is another can of worms - can you
be sure parts of keys aren't left in memory? Can you be sure that
the random number generator is secure? I've seen an actual attack
where a state level power caused a bad RNG to be a library's
default choice, thereby restricting the keyspace to something
searchable.

However, even flawed crypto, when used routinely, greatly complicates
the bad guy's job, vs just sending plaintext.

pt

On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 11:49:39 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, November 29, 2022 at 12:44:56 PM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> Paul S Person <pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>> >On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:19:43 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
>> ><taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >2) The pushers of computer security/encryption /immediately/ launched
>> >themselves into defense mode by claiming any failures were always
>> >someone else's fault. Almost as if they had a guilty conscience ...
>> I, and I suspect Peter, would disagree with this characterization.
>>
>> Particularly, the "fault" claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
>>
>> While cryptographic algorithms are still a topic of research, and
>> as computing capabilities grow, what was once computationally
>> infeasible becomes possible. To that end, the experts (and I'm
>> talking about the Rivests, Diffies, Hellmans and the whole lot of
>> successive academic generations) are quite aware of the flaws
>> in various cryptographic algorithms and continuously work to
>> improve and ameliorate the flaws.
>>
>> That said, there are lot of inexperienced programmers who
>> attempt to design their own crypto algorithms and a bunch
>> more that use existing implementations[*] of the standard
>> algorithms incorrectly. Caveat Emptor.
>>
>> [*] which themselves often have bugs; OpenSSL comes to mind.
>
>This is only too true. The best known ciphers and hashes are
>very, very good - they've been examined publicly, by many
>experienced cryptanalysts.
>
>But they have to be implemented - problems can enter here,
>for example, timing and power consumption attacks, sensitive
>data left in memory, and much else. An implementation that's
>good on one processor with one compiler may be insecure when
>built on a different processor, or with another compiler.
>
>Then they have to be used as parts of protocols, and if those
>protocols are badly designed, you can be screwed.
>
>Key generation and handling is another can of worms - can you
>be sure parts of keys aren't left in memory? Can you be sure that
>the random number generator is secure? I've seen an actual attack
>where a state level power caused a bad RNG to be a library's
>default choice, thereby restricting the keyspace to something
>searchable.
>
>However, even flawed crypto, when used routinely, greatly complicates
>the bad guy's job, vs just sending plaintext.

Ah.

More excuses.

To justify a response that was inappropriate to begin with.

"It's someone else's fault" is /not/ a response to "those who don't
think the NSA can read their email no matter what are not sufficiently
paranoid". That was my point: that a person who is sufficiently
paranoid will just keep on truckin' without worrying about the NSA,
'cause there ai'nt nothin' that can be done anyway.

This eagerness to support the purity and potency of cryptography might
be a sign of a Deeply Held Religioius Belief: that it /is/ -- indeed,
/must/ be -- possible to hide secrets from governmental agencies
tasked, staffed, and equipped precisely to find them.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 09:58:11 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
<taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:

>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>news:3IrhL.7$Use.0@fx15.iad:
>
>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>
>>>I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into
>>>semantic mush.
>>
>> I suspect that you are reaching to make a pointless argument.
>>
>Isn't that the whole purpose of Usenet?

I don't know that that is the /whole/ purpose of Usenet -- but it is
certainly a common use and a lot of fun.
\ --
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
news:g83foh58frlkkblvvssiv0gtovmiljro81@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 09:58:11 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili
> Kujisalimisha <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>news:3IrhL.7$Use.0@fx15.iad:
>>
>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>
>>>>I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into
>>>>semantic mush.
>>>
>>> I suspect that you are reaching to make a pointless argument.
>>>
>>Isn't that the whole purpose of Usenet?
>
> I don't know that that is the /whole/ purpose of Usenet -- but
> it is certainly a common use and a lot of fun.
> \

On the other hand . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJvdGcb7Fs

(But technically speaking, Usenet is not the internet.)

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

On Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 17:03:07 UTC, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2022 11:49:39 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Tuesday, November 29, 2022 at 12:44:56 PM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> >> Paul S Person <pspe...@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
> >> >On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 09:19:43 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
> >> ><taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >2) The pushers of computer security/encryption /immediately/ launched
> >> >themselves into defense mode by claiming any failures were always
> >> >someone else's fault. Almost as if they had a guilty conscience ...
> >> I, and I suspect Peter, would disagree with this characterization.
> >>
> >> Particularly, the "fault" claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
> >>
> >> While cryptographic algorithms are still a topic of research, and
> >> as computing capabilities grow, what was once computationally
> >> infeasible becomes possible. To that end, the experts (and I'm
> >> talking about the Rivests, Diffies, Hellmans and the whole lot of
> >> successive academic generations) are quite aware of the flaws
> >> in various cryptographic algorithms and continuously work to
> >> improve and ameliorate the flaws.
> >>
> >> That said, there are lot of inexperienced programmers who
> >> attempt to design their own crypto algorithms and a bunch
> >> more that use existing implementations[*] of the standard
> >> algorithms incorrectly. Caveat Emptor.
> >>
> >> [*] which themselves often have bugs; OpenSSL comes to mind.
> >
> >This is only too true. The best known ciphers and hashes are
> >very, very good - they've been examined publicly, by many
> >experienced cryptanalysts.
> >
> >But they have to be implemented - problems can enter here,
> >for example, timing and power consumption attacks, sensitive
> >data left in memory, and much else. An implementation that's
> >good on one processor with one compiler may be insecure when
> >built on a different processor, or with another compiler.
> >
> >Then they have to be used as parts of protocols, and if those
> >protocols are badly designed, you can be screwed.
> >
> >Key generation and handling is another can of worms - can you
> >be sure parts of keys aren't left in memory? Can you be sure that
> >the random number generator is secure? I've seen an actual attack
> >where a state level power caused a bad RNG to be a library's
> >default choice, thereby restricting the keyspace to something
> >searchable.
> >
> >However, even flawed crypto, when used routinely, greatly complicates
> >the bad guy's job, vs just sending plaintext.
> Ah.
>
> More excuses.
>
> To justify a response that was inappropriate to begin with.
>
> "It's someone else's fault" is /not/ a response to "those who don't
> think the NSA can read their email no matter what are not sufficiently
> paranoid". That was my point: that a person who is sufficiently
> paranoid will just keep on truckin' without worrying about the NSA,
> 'cause there ai'nt nothin' that can be done anyway.
>
> This eagerness to support the purity and potency of cryptography might
> be a sign of a Deeply Held Religioius Belief: that it /is/ -- indeed,
> /must/ be -- possible to hide secrets from governmental agencies
> tasked, staffed, and equipped precisely to find them.

If they're determined then they can probably send a tiny robot
spider into your house with a video camera to lurk and watch you.
But most places don't have the Orwellian surveillance of
citizens that evidently China currently has.

I'm idly curious whether there's a specific name for the
level of paranoia of suspecting that despite Western
governments and police repeatedly arguing for
substitution or prevention of personal data encryption
which they can't break, they actually can. It's not an
absolutely unreasonable position. But you also have
to account for cases where they do get into a dark web
site or a criminal encrypted phone system and use it
to spy. While that is precisely a description of encryption
being breached, it at least seems to be not happening all
the time.

On 11/29/22 12:10 PM, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:08:29 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>> news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>> news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>>
>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>> Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>>> <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>>> anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Claimed by whom?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>>>
>>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>>
>>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>>
>>>> I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>>> claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>>> marketing "people".
>>>>
>>>> And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>>
>>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>>
>>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ.
>>> So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>>
>> Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.
>
> I'm not sure that was the case. There were, and probably still are, a
> /lot/ of people who really really hate segmented architectures and
> Windows. The marketing campaign was much, much tamer.
>
> BTW, has anyone else noticed this interesting progression:
> 1) A claim is reported that RISC processors will take over the world.

Apart from legacy architectures dating back to the 60s or 70s, haven’t
they? And even the current implementations of z/Architecture are
implemented mostly as RISC, with a minority of opcodes invisibly
implemented in software using the hardware opcodes (a paradigm that
actually goes back to the S/360-44).

> 2) I point out that this same claim was made 25 (say) years ago, and
> it didn't happen.
> 3) Others claim that modern "segmented" processors are really RISC
> processors which mimic segmentation so the software will run.
>
> Which, of course, leads to the question:
>
> If RISC processors have /already/ taken over the world, why was the
> new prediction made at all?
>
> I suspect that, as always, we have long-since descended into semantic
> mush.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

John W Kennedy <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> schrieb:
> On 11/29/22 12:10 PM, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:08:29 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>>> news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>>> news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>>> Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>>>> <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>>>> anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Claimed by whom?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>>>
>>>>> I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>>>> claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>>>> marketing "people".
>>>>>
>>>>> And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>>>
>>>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>>>
>>>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ.
>>>> So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>>>
>>> Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.
>>
>> I'm not sure that was the case. There were, and probably still are, a
>> /lot/ of people who really really hate segmented architectures and
>> Windows. The marketing campaign was much, much tamer.
>>
>> BTW, has anyone else noticed this interesting progression:
>> 1) A claim is reported that RISC processors will take over the world.
>
> Apart from legacy architectures dating back to the 60s or 70s, haven’t
> they?

Well, yes and no - it is very much a matter of debate.

Old systems (like almost all versions of the /360, the VAX, the
Motorola 6800 or the DG Eclipse/MV of "The Soul of a New Machine"
fame ) used static microcode, where each instruction was split into
one or several microcode instructions, which were then executed.

The original RISC designs were, in a way, machines which exposed
the microcode directly to the user. At least the 801 was indeed
used as such, to run a /370 (I believe). They also used pipeplining
on their instructions to gain performance. They also (usually) had
one cycle per instruction, later versions had superscalar execution,
out-of-order execution and whatnot.

Today's CISC designs like the different AMD64 versions out there
first translate their CICS instructions into micro-ops (microcode,
if you will), which they then pipeline, schedule out-of-order
and whatnot.

A relatively pure RISC design like the POWER still has many
instructions as a single micro-instructions, others are cracked
into two. I believe RISC-V is designed so that it is a relatively
pure RISC, and each instruction is designed so it more or
less can be implemented directly. Of course, they advertise
for instruction fusion for things they left out.

So... has RISC taken over the world? You could argue as well that
microcode (not static, but instructions that can be scheduled)
rules supreme in x86-world. This is slightly at variance with
the definition of microcode as it is used now (which is static
RAM the same sort of micro-ops that the main engine uses).

> And even the current implementations of z/Architecture are
> implemented mostly as RISC, with a minority of opcodes invisibly
> implemented in software using the hardware opcodes (a paradigm that
> actually goes back to the S/360-44).

That is _really_ hard to define. IIRC, the hardware runs a superset
of a subset of the instructions that the programmer sees, and they
use millicode (executing one machine instructions via several
other machine instructions of the same format, but with some additional
ones available which the programmer cannot use).

Backwards compatibility to the mid-1960s comes at a price...

On 12/1/2022 11:33 AM, Thomas Koenig wrote:
> John W Kennedy <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> schrieb:
>> On 11/29/22 12:10 PM, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> On Mon, 28 Nov 2022 11:08:29 -0700, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha
>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote in
>>>> news:qfr9oh1ghvqo1husle7uiu7drko9pq2gao@4ax.com:
>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:30:23 GMT, Ninapenda Jibini
>>>>> <taustinca@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote in
>>>>>> news:huNgL.314169$Mlk.253947@fx17.iad:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>> On Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:26:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott
>>>>>>>> Lurndal) wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Nov 2022 15:36:29 -0500, John W Kennedy
>>>>>>>>>> <john.w.kennedy@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Badly written software - or simply badly /conceived/
>>>>>>>>>>>>> software - can kill any CPU.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> That's /always/ the excuse when the big promises turn out
>>>>>>>>>>>> to be, at best, overly optimistic.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> I seem to recall that the theory was that no such
>>>>>>>>>>>> software could possibly exist with the new OSes.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Huh? ARM isn’t an OS; it’s a RISC architecture.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> It was claimed that the associated OSes would never lose
>>>>>>>>>> anything. IIRC.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Claimed by whom?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The people making the promises about RISC. IIRC.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This was, what, 30 years ago? 25? Details fade.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've been in the hardware and OS side of the business for
>>>>>>> longer than that, and worked on and OS for the early RISC
>>>>>>> processor from Motrola, the 88100. I've never heard such a
>>>>>>> claim about "OS never loosing anything"[*].
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It is the RISC proponents who were making these predictions.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You'll need to find some citations to support your memory.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The claims about RISC have always been around the simplicity
>>>>>>> of the hardware providing a path to easier and less
>>>>>>> expensive implementation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> I suspect that, as an industry insider, you've seen technical
>>>>>> claims by technical people, and he's seen marketing claims by
>>>>>> marketing "people".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And you know how accurate marketing claims are.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think both points are quite possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> Although some of it may have come from articles in BYTE or DDJ.
>>>>> So perhaps "enthusiasts" rather than "marketing".
>>>>
>>>> Entusiasts are simply parroting the marketing spiel.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure that was the case. There were, and probably still are, a
>>> /lot/ of people who really really hate segmented architectures and
>>> Windows. The marketing campaign was much, much tamer.
>>>
>>> BTW, has anyone else noticed this interesting progression:
>>> 1) A claim is reported that RISC processors will take over the world.
>>
>> Apart from legacy architectures dating back to the 60s or 70s, haven’t
>> they?
>
> Well, yes and no - it is very much a matter of debate.
>
> Old systems (like almost all versions of the /360, the VAX, the
> Motorola 6800 or the DG Eclipse/MV of "The Soul of a New Machine"
> fame ) used static microcode, where each instruction was split into
> one or several microcode instructions, which were then executed.
>
> The original RISC designs were, in a way, machines which exposed
> the microcode directly to the user. At least the 801 was indeed
> used as such, to run a /370 (I believe). They also used pipeplining
> on their instructions to gain performance. They also (usually) had
> one cycle per instruction, later versions had superscalar execution,
> out-of-order execution and whatnot.
>
> Today's CISC designs like the different AMD64 versions out there
> first translate their CICS instructions into micro-ops (microcode,
> if you will), which they then pipeline, schedule out-of-order
> and whatnot.
>
> A relatively pure RISC design like the POWER still has many
> instructions as a single micro-instructions, others are cracked
> into two. I believe RISC-V is designed so that it is a relatively
> pure RISC, and each instruction is designed so it more or
> less can be implemented directly. Of course, they advertise
> for instruction fusion for things they left out.
>
> So... has RISC taken over the world? You could argue as well that
> microcode (not static, but instructions that can be scheduled)
> rules supreme in x86-world. This is slightly at variance with
> the definition of microcode as it is used now (which is static
> RAM the same sort of micro-ops that the main engine uses).
>
>> And even the current implementations of z/Architecture are
>> implemented mostly as RISC, with a minority of opcodes invisibly
>> implemented in software using the hardware opcodes (a paradigm that
>> actually goes back to the S/360-44).
>
> That is _really_ hard to define. IIRC, the hardware runs a superset
> of a subset of the instructions that the programmer sees, and they
> use millicode (executing one machine instructions via several
> other machine instructions of the same format, but with some additional
> ones available which the programmer cannot use).
>
> Backwards compatibility to the mid-1960s comes at a price...

But American Expresses old software written in assembly and Cobol still
runs on IBM mainframes ...

Lynn