[HECnet] Another TOPS-10 DECnet problem

Believe me, a large number of us in the systems group were really sorry to retire our 11/60 (or 11/50? 55?) RSTS system.? We just thought it was so neat.? And we missed it for years.? The assembler was a little strange for us, but definitely easier for us to hack than PDP-8 (which had its own advocates) or IBM 370 (which had truly maniacal devotees) The architecture had some very interesting ideas. I was also one of the few that would move between DEC and IBM, which is quite a paradigm shift if you've ever had to stare a 3270 in the face after EMACS. My students always seem to ask me which OS I prefer or what language is the best, my response is always the same, "I like the OS that I get paid to use and the language I get paid to program in".? One has to earn a living... I honestly don't know where those two got their stamina from... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On 11/11/21 6:26 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: > And where I'm from we were regularly running 40 people on one 11/70 > with RSTS/E, and on bad days we were above 60. But then it was > miserably slow... > > And yes, I have plenty of memories of the mails between MRC and BAH. :-) > > ? Johnny > > On 2021-11-11 23:48, Thomas DeBellis wrote: >> Oh, that old cat fight?? Meow!!? I'm walking away from it; I don't >> know how much email got spewed between MRC and BAH about it.? I don't >> think either side ever got the point that you are not comparing >> apples to apples. >> >> Having looked at both schedulers, I don't immediately see that either >> was more efficient than the other.? There clearly was cross >> fertilization in a number of areas. >> >> Recall that Tops-20 has processes and that a job may have a large >> number of processes.? The number of jobs then is not going to be a >> valid comparison.? For example, let's take a look at Galaxy on >> Tops-10, which occupies 10 job slots: >> >> Job??? Who???? Line#??? What Size(P) State?? Run Time >> >> ?1??? [OPR]???? DET???? NEBULA? 26+40?? HB 0 >> ?3??? [OPR]????? 0????? QUEUE?? 9+38??? ^C 1 >> ????? [OPR]???? DET???? QUASAR? 40+40?? SL 1 >> ?9??? [OPR]???? DET???? PULSAR? 5+40??? HB SW 0 >> 10??? [OPR]???? DET???? ORION?? 109+40? SL 0 >> 11??? [OPR]???? DET???? NML???? 15+18?? HB 3 >> 13??? [OPR]???? DET???? CDRIVE? 30+40?? HB 0 >> 14??? [OPR]???? DET???? FAL-10? 104+40? SL 1 >> >> >> They're all underneath a _single_ job on Tops-20 or built into the >> EXE?, but producing the same load because it is the same code. >> >> We did do some instrumenting and we found that the snazzy parsing >> (COMND%) was not contributing that much to load.? There was some >> overhead simulating UUO's, which are obviously natively executing on >> Tops-10.? Nearly all editing was done with WYSIWYG video editing, >> which surely must produce more load than TECO or SOS.? Some work was >> put into TEXTI% to mitigate the context switching. >> >> MRC's position was that Tops-20 was doing more, but I'm not sure how >> comfortable I am with that.? Having used and programmed both, I think >> it's more like 'doing differently'.? I would say that it was rare to >> find people who could easily move between the two and/or who weren't >> highly opinionated. >> >> It's a waste of time; you bought what did the job best for your >> environment.? It's kind of like apples and pineapples; they sound the >> same but they're just not. >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> On 11/11/21 5:20 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote: >>> >>> >You had a 20 that would handle 600 students in 1977/???/ >>> >>> ??I think he said something about six 20s?? I?m pretty sure there?s >>> no way one CPU would have handled 600 timesharing users.?? We could >>> get to around 120 on a single KL10E with TOPS-10 before it got >>> unbearably slow.? With TOPS-20 on the same hardware we could only >>> get to 80 or so; TOPS20 was something of a pig. >>> >>> Bob >>> >