From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-04-13 14:09:34 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!news.glorb.com!news.moat.net!border1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:09:33 -0500 Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:09:33 -0400 From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.147.90.114 X-Trace: sv3-RU3CHONuO+Tol4tfrez2diPwrIb+fGCwu4L6n/w9Rwo9DE/0exY2pCZPGKQ1/3RcweHPk/rzKMlIGKo!hwSTp4jW1n9SKk0bNjoyljWAxaWtXUIyqNYusyIrDDDNJ4h6+6LV0d45Zj2YhA== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:7059 Date: 2004-04-13T17:09:33-04:00 List-Id: Alexander E. Kopilovich wrote: > Well, if you wish to compare Unix not with OS/370, RSX and VMS but with > Multics then I can say only that Multics never existed in big real world. > Its users definitely admired it, but there was rather small number of them, > and they even do not seem to be a representative sample of programmer > population - their average skills, motivation and environment were far better > than normal. Academics also loved Multics but nevertheless they did not bother > themselves with carrying its inheritance into the future. So no one knows how > this potentially superior Multics would behave in big real world. Hmmm. Honeywell never did a good job of selling Multics systems, in fact most customers thought it was a difficult fight to buy Multics instead of GCOS. (On the other hand, almost all customers knew that al GCOS 3& 8 development work was done on Multics, so why buy GCOS?) However several companies including Stratus and Prime developed and sold operating systems that were based on Multics. Since they defined the hardware, any necessary hardware support to do a good Multics clone was "in there." Prime had a significant share of the "super-mini" market with PrimOS when internal corporate politics basically killed PrimOS and eventually Prime. Stratus now sells mostly fault-tolerant Windows systems, but I think they still sell VOS, which was their Multics clone. However, the fall-off in PL/I use has been a significant drag on VOS sales--similar to the problems that Ada is having in the marketplace. -- Robert I. Eachus "The terrorist enemy holds no territory, defends no population, is unconstrained by rules of warfare, and respects no law of morality. Such an enemy cannot be deterred, contained, appeased or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed--and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the business at hand." -- Dick Cheney