Re: Market pressures for more reliable software

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

Maybe I'm just in the springtime of my senility, but that's pretty much how
I remember it and pretty much what I was trying to describe. "distributed"
computing was not around in the days of the ENIAC and vacuume tube
computing - so pretty much ipso facto, "centralized" computing existed
first. When all that existed in the entire universe were big gigundous
computers that had to be kept in hermetically sealed rooms, people didn't
have one of them sitting under their desk - so "centralized" computing
existed and "distributed" computing didn't.

Like I said, I didn't think I was making an extravagant claim here or going
against what was pretty much accepted interpretation of computing historical
facts. Since I'm not trying to say something like "The Earth Is Flat!" I'm
believing that somehow I'm miscommunicating. OTOH, if someone wants to
believe that computing only started when IBM invented the PC, then I suppose
that belief would lead one to conclude that "distributed" and "centralized"
computing have always existed side-by-side and it has never been otherwise.
I suppose there really isn't anything I can do about that belief.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


"Gary Labowitz" <garyl@enter.net> wrote in message
news:AkCZ6.1988$Tt6.825475@monger.newsread.com...
> And now it's you that needs correction. Most shops in the early days were
> centralized computing. And most of those were centralized development as
> well. [Definition: centralized -- a single computer at a centralized
> location. All computing is done on that computer. Users go physically to
> that computer site and either submit jobs directly to the machine, being
> given time on the machine to use it, or submit jobs to a checkpoint from
> which operators submit the jobs for the user. If the site was large enough
> to have several computers they were clustered in the same general area and
> users selected which of the computers would be used for their individual
> jobs.]
>
> I can remember back to 1962 (when I started with IBM) but built my first
> computer in 1956.
> Your turn.
> Gary
> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <spamtrap@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in
> message news:3b366a2b$6$fuzhry$mr2ice@va.news.verio.net...
> > In <YXDX6.1$MM4.254@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net>, on 06/19/2001
> >    at 08:21 AM, lesbell@nospam.lesbell.com.au said:
> >
> > >"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > >I seem to be getting misunderstood for reasons I don't comprehend.
> >
> > You haven't been misunderstood, you've been corrected. Your knowledge
> > of DP history is faulty, and you haven't paid attention to those who
> > were there in the old days and told you the reality.
> >
> > >We
> > >*used*to* have centralized computing.
> >
> > What you mean "we", kimosabi? As I said, it's not a question of
> > misunderstanding you, it's a question of correcting you. Maybe you
> > worked at a shop that had centralized computing, although I doubt it.
> > Such shops were not the norm.
> >
> > >What I *am* saying is that we once had a centralized model and opted
> > >out of it
> >
> > And as long as you keep saying something demonstrably false your
> > conclusions remain suspect. The industry has had both decentralized
> > development on centralized hardware and centralized development on
> > decentralized hardware for as long as I can remember. Centralization
> > of one does not, has not and will not imply centralization of the
> > other.
> >
> > --
> > -----------------------------------------------------------
> >      Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
> >      Atid/2
> >      Team OS/2
> >      Team PL/I
> >
> > Any unsolicited commercial junk E-mail will be subject to legal
> > action.  I reserve the right to publicly post or ridicule any
> > abusive E-mail.
> >
> > I mangled my E-mail address to foil automated spammers; reply to
> > domain acm dot org user shmuel to contact me.  Do not reply to
> > spamtrap@library.lspace.org
> > -----------------------------------------------------------
> >
>
>