OT: Arun Kishan
Neil Rieck
and new) seems to have many similarities to OpenVMS.
Video: 55 minutes
NSR
Neil Rieck
This is a repost because the previous link required you to login to
msdn. Sorry about that. (NSR)
This detailed description of Windows Process/Thread dispatcher (old
and new) seem to have many similarities to OpenVMS. The old was was
written by Dave Cutler.
Video: 55 minutes
p.s. Part way through, Arun mentioned that changes to the dispatcher
were necessary to support scaling windows onto a larger number of
CPUs. The last time I heard someone give a similar (scaling) speech,
it was Gaitan D'Antoni describing changes in OpenVMS-7.3-2 which,
IIRC, was related to erroneous serialization on IOLOCK8. Likewise,
both OSs have enjoyed improvements as engineers have analyzed problems
getting their OSs running in a virtualized environment.
NSR
Neil Rieck
> This is a repost because the previous link required you to login to
> msdn. Sorry about that. (NSR)
>
> This detailed description of Windows Process/Thread dispatcher (old
> and new) seem to have many similarities to OpenVMS. The old was was
> written by Dave Cutler.
>
> Video: 55 minutes
>
>
> p.s. Part way through, Arun mentioned that changes to the dispatcher
> were necessary to support scaling windows onto a larger number of
> CPUs. The last time I heard someone give a similar (scaling) speech,
> it was Gaitan D'Antoni describing changes in OpenVMS-7.3-2 which,
> IIRC, was related to erroneous serialization on IOLOCK8. Likewise,
> both OSs have enjoyed improvements as engineers have analyzed problems
> getting their OSs running in a virtualized environment.
>
> NSR
Lots of people are still sending me emails bashing my Windows posts so
let me set the record straight:
1) I love OpenVMS and consider it my favorite OS
2) Windows is not (yet) as stable as OpenVMS and is still vulnerable
to many kinds of infections
3) After reading lots of books this year including "Showstopper! The
Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at
Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary I have come to the conclusion that
someday soon (perhaps 5 years) Windows will be as stable as OpenVMS.
Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
4) The ex-DECies at Microsoft have made Windows-NT (and 2000, XT,
Vista, Win-7) more respectable. The code bases known as MS Chicago and
Cairo have been totally replaced with ex-DECie code bases like
Whistler etc. and it shows. Too bad MS stuck with the name "Windows"
because everyone associates the new stuff with the old stuff.
5) I have done some fancy OpenVMS I/O programming where you set up
conditions for communicating with the kernel and can tell you that
this Microsoft video:
which indicated where Windows came from kernel-wise (Cutler and VMS)
and where they are going (re: 256 core support) reminded me of the
story of the "Tortoise and the Hare". We OpenVMS hares are satisfied
to sleep with point releases of OpenVMS every 18 months while the
Windows tortoises are catching up fast. The execs at HP see this too
and are just biding their time while providing minimal life-support to
OpenVMS. They make hardware which runs multiple operating systems so
really don't give a damn.
6) Just as we have all seen with Solaris and OS-X when they've been
installed on quality hardware, Windows will also run better. Sure
there was the big fiasco a couple years back at the London Stock
Exchange but sometime in the future someone is going to try a stunt
like that again and it will work. When that happens programmers who
can only write code for OpenVMS will be put out to pasture.
Neil Rieck
Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/
Arne Vajhøj
> 6) Just as we have all seen with Solaris and OS-X when they've been
> installed on quality hardware, Windows will also run better. Sure
> there was the big fiasco a couple years back at the London Stock
> Exchange but sometime in the future someone is going to try a stunt
> like that again and it will work. When that happens programmers who
> can only write code for OpenVMS will be put out to pasture.
Probably already are.
I think the number of 100% pure VMS jobs are
extremely rare today.
Arne
Richard B. Gilbert
VMS jobs of any sort have been rare for the last six years or more. If
you have one, you had better have a second or even third string for your
bow! If your VMS job goes away your chances of finding another one are
slim.
Arne Vajhøj
> Arne Vajh�j wrote:
>> On 09-01-2010 19:51, Neil Rieck wrote:
>>> 6) Just as we have all seen with Solaris and OS-X when they've been
>>> installed on quality hardware, Windows will also run better. Sure
>>> there was the big fiasco a couple years back at the London Stock
>>> Exchange but sometime in the future someone is going to try a stunt
>>> like that again and it will work. When that happens programmers who
>>> can only write code for OpenVMS will be put out to pasture.
>>
>> Probably already are.
>>
>> I think the number of 100% pure VMS jobs are
>> extremely rare today.
>
> you have one, you had better have a second or even third string for your
> bow! If your VMS job goes away your chances of finding another one are
> slim.
There are still some VMS systems around that needs people.
But new hiring is close to zero.
And most of the people do *nix and Windows as well.
Arne
Richard B. Gilbert
I was doing Unix, Windows and VMS at my last job. The Unix was running
on X86 hardware and supporting a typesetting application. The Windows
part was removing virii and worms and patching Windows to close some of
the "holes" being exploited by said virii and worms. The VMS support
occupied very little of my time.
JF Mezei
> Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary I have come to the conclusion that
> someday soon (perhaps 5 years) Windows will be as stable as OpenVMS.
> Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
Posting such scandalous material on c.o.v. could be hazardous to your
health... Don't be surprised if Mr Vaxman shows up at your door step in
the middle of the night and starts throwing empty Guineess bottles at
you :-) :-)
Remember the "VMS is today where Windows 8 wants to be" ? Well, we are
at Windows 7. So Windows 8 is likely in 2-3 years.
However, I think that Linux is a far likelier candidate to replace VMS.
> Whistler etc. and it shows. Too bad MS stuck with the name "Windows"
> because everyone associates the new stuff with the old stuff.
MS's focus on marketing precludes an image of having a robust high
perfornance kernel. They were given the VMS clustering code, and despite
an apparantly high number of exDECies at MS, they did nothing with it.
If MS just rewrote its lock manager, why didn't they architect it to
support locks across nodes ?
> like that again and it will work. When that happens programmers who
> can only write code for OpenVMS will be put out to pasture.
Cows get fed at the pasture. VMS skills don't generate food.
Neil Rieck
> Neil Rieck wrote:
> > Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary I have come to the conclusion that
> > someday soon (perhaps 5 years) Windows will be as stable as OpenVMS.
> > Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
>
> Posting such scandalous material on c.o.v. could be hazardous to your
> health... Don't be surprised if Mr Vaxman shows up at your door step in
> the middle of the night and starts throwing empty Guineess bottles at
> you :-) :-)
Oh well, maybe I can convince him that we should share a few bottles
then trow the empties at HP management. They are to blame for the
current situation.
>
> Remember the "VMS is today where Windows 8 wants to be" ? Well, we are
> at Windows 7. So Windows 8 is likely in 2-3 years.
>
> However, I think that Linux is a far likelier candidate to replace VMS.
Maybe. Linux developers have created some unique things (like the
built in software firewall which came out of the Honeypot Project
which MS stole for Windows-XP SP2). Solaris is pretty cool but, like
OpenVMS, development has slowed to a crawl. At least these OSs run on
x86-64 and AMD64.
>
> > Whistler etc. and it shows. Too bad MS stuck with the name "Windows"
> > because everyone associates the new stuff with the old stuff.
>
> MS's focus on marketing precludes an image of having a robust high
> perfornance kernel. They were given the VMS clustering code, and despite
> an apparantly high number of exDECies at MS, they did nothing with it.
>
Arun's video states that they rewrote the kernel's process dispatcher
so Windows would scale on to a larger number of cores (Vista supports
64 while Win-7 supports 256). The last time I heard something like
this is when HP had problems scaling OpenVMS onto 32-CPUs at the Bank
of Austria (the fixes came out in OpenVMS-7.2-1). Anyone who is
analyzing OS performance in a virtualized environment will be doing
the same thing.
I think I heard the Bank of Austria story in February-2005 (TUD in
Toronto) but the Arun video was posted August-2009. So I think it is
safe to assume that Windows-7 and Windows Server 2008 is 4 years (or
less) behind OpenVMS-7.3-2. There were minor performance increases
associated with OpenVMS-8.2 and 8.3 but we all realize that OpenVMS
development has slowed to a crawl with the exodus of American
employees from OpenVMS engineering.
>
> If MS just rewrote its lock manager, why didn't they architect it to
> support locks across nodes ?
>
Not sure but it would not be wise to think that they won't ever do it.
Remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare.
> > like that again and it will work. When that happens programmers who
> > can only write code for OpenVMS will be put out to pasture.
>
> Cows get fed at the pasture. VMS skills don't generate food.
>
Sometimes a successful stallion is put out to pasture for STUD
SERVICE. But in our "extreme capitalism" economy I suspect anyone put
out to pasture will be put there to die. And when they go down
(probably due to starvation) the worms and bacteria will decompose
your body to fertilize the fields. So be sure to learn some alternate
skills so you never starve!
Neil Rieck
>
[...snip...]
> Lots of people are still sending me emails bashing my Windows posts so
> let me set the record straight:
>
> 1) I love OpenVMS and consider it my favorite OS
>
> 2) Windows is not (yet) as stable as OpenVMS and is still vulnerable
> to many kinds of infections
>
> 3) After reading lots of books this year including "Showstopper! The
> Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at
> Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary I have come to the conclusion that
> someday soon (perhaps 5 years) Windows will be as stable as OpenVMS.
> Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
>
> 4) The ex-DECies at Microsoft have made Windows-NT (and 2000, XT,
> Vista, Win-7) more respectable. The code bases known as MS Chicago and
> Cairo have been totally replaced with ex-DECie code bases like
> Whistler etc. and it shows. Too bad MS stuck with the name "Windows"
> because everyone associates the new stuff with the old stuff.
>
> 5) I have done some fancy OpenVMS I/O programming where you set up
> conditions for communicating with the kernel and can tell you that
> this Microsoft video:
>
> http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/Arun-Kishan-Farewell-to-the...
>
> which indicated where Windows came from kernel-wise (Cutler and VMS)
> and where they are going (re: 256 core support) reminded me of the
> story of the "Tortoise and the Hare". We OpenVMS hares are satisfied
> to sleep with point releases of OpenVMS every 18 months while the
> Windows tortoises are catching up fast. The execs at HP see this too
> and are just biding their time while providing minimal life-support to
> OpenVMS. They make hardware which runs multiple operating systems so
> really don't give a damn.
>
> 6) Just as we have all seen with Solaris and OS-X when they've been
> installed on quality hardware, Windows will also run better. Sure
> there was the big fiasco a couple years back at the London Stock
> Exchange but sometime in the future someone is going to try a stunt
> like that again and it will work. When that happens programmers who
> can only write code for OpenVMS will be put out to pasture.
>
> Neil Rieck
> Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge,
> Ontario, Canada.http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/
One final thought. There is some evidence that humans left Africa
twice in the second half of the previous two interglacial periods when
food and water were in short supply. (Glacials usually last 100,000
years and are followed by interglacials which usually last 20,000).
What has this got to do with OpenVMS?
Most people in this newsgroup compare OpenVMS to Windows or *NIX but
conveniently forget about the evolution of the processor (s/w living
environment). Meanwhile, just like the story of the "Tortoise and the
Hare", the x86-64 architecture (under evolutionary pressure from
AMD64) as been catching up to, and may be very close to surpassing,
Itanium. Someday an Intel bean counter will kill Itanium at the stroke
of a pen which means that OpenVMS will not have anywhere to go.
HP management will reassure you by claiming that OpenVMS can run in a
virtualized mode hosted by HP-UX but does that OS run on x86-64?
Perhaps both OSs will need to run from PC emulators :-)
Alternatively, HP management could make use of the lower labor costs
at HP-India to quietly begin an OpenVMS port to x86-64.
VAXman-
>On Jan 10, 12:55=A0am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
>> Neil Rieck wrote:
>> > Microsoft" by G. Pascal Zachary I have come to the conclusion that
>> > someday soon (perhaps 5 years) Windows will be as stable as OpenVMS.
>> > Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
>>
>> Posting such scandalous material on c.o.v. could be hazardous to your
>> health... Don't be surprised if Mr Vaxman shows up at your door step in
>> the middle of the night and starts throwing empty Guineess bottles at
>> you :-) :-)
>
>Oh well, maybe I can convince him that we should share a few bottles
>then trow the empties at HP management. They are to blame for the
>current situation.
I don't have any empty Guinness bottles as I do not drink bottled Guinness.
>> However, I think that Linux is a far likelier candidate to replace VMS.
>
>Maybe. Linux developers have created some unique things (like the
>built in software firewall which came out of the Honeypot Project
>which MS stole for Windows-XP SP2). Solaris is pretty cool but, like
>OpenVMS, development has slowed to a crawl. At least these OSs run on
>x86-64 and AMD64.
I'll go with the Linux.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
http://www.quirkfactory.com/popart/asskey/eqn2.png
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"
Neil Rieck
> In article <196d2b8d-8959-492c-aa47-2b03c5f16...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com>, Neil Rieck <n.ri...@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
[...snip...]
>
> >Oh well, maybe I can convince him that we should share a few bottles
> >then trow the empties at HP management. They are to blame for the
> >current situation.
>
> I don't have any empty Guinness bottles as I do not drink bottled Guinness.
>
How about tossing an empty keg?
NSR
JF Mezei
> environment). Meanwhile, just like the story of the "Tortoise and the
> Hare", the x86-64 architecture (under evolutionary pressure from
> AMD64) as been catching up to, and may be very close to surpassing,
> Itanium.
Isn't IA64 already behind the 8086 ? It may catch up/surpass the 8086
when Tukwilla is released, but I suspect it will be eclipsed again with
the next 8086.
Lets not forget that for a company such as HP, it isn't just the chip
that is different, but also the systems.
With Windows gaining ability to support more CPUs, I suspect we will
start to see larger "industry standard" systems being built.
As 8086 SYSTEMS scale up, it reduces the range of IA64 systems that
offer unique capabilities. Eventually, the costs of maintaining a
totally separate low volume architecture when the 8086 already covers
almost all of its range of systems will force HP to decided to
standardize on the 8086.
> HP management will reassure you by claiming that OpenVMS can run in a
> virtualized mode hosted by HP-UX but does that OS run on x86-64?
> Perhaps both OSs will need to run from PC emulators :-)
You'll have a 8086 Windows mainframe running an IA64 mainframe emulator
running HP-UX, running VMS :-)
> Alternatively, HP management could make use of the lower labor costs
> at HP-India to quietly begin an OpenVMS port to x86-64.
HP could have done that any time it wanted and make us of the highly
capable team it had in the USA who knew VMS inside out.
If HP ports HP-UX to the 8086, I suspect we will see something like
Apple's Rosetta which can run Pa-Risc and IA64 binaries on the 8086.
(but only for HP-UX applications).
In terms of emulating VMS, I am not sure this is the route they will
take. Sure, there are 3rd parties that already provide VAX/Alpha
emulation. And there may be an IA64 emulator.
I think the focus will be on porting middleware to another OS to make
migration from VMS possible/easier. I imagine that OMX has had high
level talks with Livermore/Hurd about the real future of VMS and they
would know exactly what componments would be ported to what platform to
make the porting of their software possible.
Of the large remaining customers, I suspect HP would now have good
feedback on what features/middeware of VMS makes it hard for them to
port to another platform.
Say RTR is absolutely necessary for OMX. And HP ports RTR to work on
Linux. Then it pretty much assures that OMX exchanges will remain HP
customers since they will need to buy RTR from HP nop matter what
platform the exchange software runs on.
VAXman-
>On Jan 10, 4:15=A0pm, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>> In article <196d2b8d-8959-492c-aa47-2b03c5f16...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups=
>> >then trow the empties at HP management. They are to blame for the
>> >current situation.
>>
>s.
>>
>
>How about tossing an empty keg?
:D
Michael Kraemer
>
> Lets not forget that for a company such as HP, it isn't just the chip
> that is different, but also the systems.
>
I don't get it why people believe in x86 as being the saviour.
I can't remember any ailing OS ever having risen from
the ashes by switching to x86 (or any other hardware platform).
An OS has to survive by its own virtue.
BeOS for example was cool when it ran on PPC boxen.
Switched to x86 and went under.
Data General's DG/UX ran on 88k, switched to x86 and went under.
Etc, etc.
It's not just that some code has to run natively on x86,
the hardware built around it is at least as important.
Look at OS/2 for example, it's x86 right from the start,
but listening to the respective NGs it's pretty hard to find
current x86 hardware to run it, in particular the coolest one,
i.e. net- and notebooks. The same is true for
Linux until very recently, when it became commercially
interesting to offer netbooks with Linux rather than Windoze,
i.e. to avoid the M$ tax on top of hardware costing $1xx.
So even if (!) HP would bother to port VMS to x86,
it'll most likely run on proprietary HP x86 boxen only,
and in this case you're not much better off than with
proprietary Itanics.
Michael Kraemer
>
> Lots of people are still sending me emails bashing my Windows posts
and rightfully so.
People accuse Palmer for abandoning VMS and turning
DEC into a M$/windoze company, yet they appear to follow
exactly his footsteps.
So either he was right or people are a bit schizophrenic these days.
> Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
I think you vastly overestimate the influence of techies
in a market-driven organization.
>
> which indicated where Windows came from kernel-wise (Cutler and VMS)
didn't we bury this
"Cutler created WNT==VMS++ and therefore it must be good"
myth not too long ago?
Michael Kraemer
> I was doing Unix, Windows and VMS at my last job. The Unix was running
> on X86 hardware and supporting a typesetting application. The Windows
> part was removing virii and worms and patching Windows to close some of
> the "holes" being exploited by said virii and worms. The VMS support
> occupied very little of my time.
In my experience the amount of necessary daily support is
roughly proportional to the number of users,
especially on the desktop.
Neil Rieck
[...snip...]
> I don't get it why people believe in x86 as being the saviour.
Nobody is saying that. HPQ no longer manufacturing processors and so
totally relies on Intel's Itanium (which from what I have heard is a
fairly decent and not that expensive). Intel appears to be focusing
more on PC competition from AMD and so x86-64 is getting the lion's
share of improvements. OpenVMS development was going along at a fairly
good clip until 8.3 but it appears that HPQ management has got OpenVMS
on minimal life support with point releases every 18-24 months
(probably to maximize their profits).
It doesn't matter which technology is the best when companies owning
that technology make decisions to stop developing it.
Neil Rieck
[...snip...]
> > Why? Because of the influence of the ex-DECies at Microsoft.
>
> I think you vastly overestimate the influence of techies in a market-driven organization.
Nope: after recently reading "Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to
Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft (1994) by G.
Pascal Zachary" I learned that Bill Gates welcomed the exDECies with
open arms knowing that they (the exDECies) would fix the crappy code
bases based upon DOS. I don't need to remind anyone here that Bill
Gates and Paul Allen had access to PDP-8 systems at Lakeside School.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm#tc2
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm#tc4
So DEC Management really screwed up when they drove Cutler and the ex-
DECies into the arms of Bill Gates (who just happened to be running
Microsoft at the time). I see this all the time when upper management
over estimates their own value to the company while under estimating
the value of the hired talent. I'm not sure what happened to the VPs
at DEC but Cutler, along with many of the exDECies, have become
millionaires many times over.
On top of all of this, Cutler has retired several times from Microsoft
but they always lure him back to finish off stuff that the
microsofties could do. The last time this happened was with Windows
Azure.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2145
Bill Gates wasn't dumb. He set up two competing development streams
(exDECies vs. microsofties) then just chose the best one.
VAXman-
Let's get this silliness straight...
In 2001, Arthur C. Clark's novel, HAL was a step up from IBM.
HAL
-----.
| IBM
`-----
Follow the alphabet stairway...
A <---.
-. |
|B --'
`-.
|C
`-.
|D
`-.
|E
`-.
|F
`-.
|G
`-.
|H <---.
`-. |
|I --'
`-.
|J
`-.
|K
`-.
|L <---.
`-. |
|M --'
`-.
|N
`-.
|O
`-.
|P
`-.
|Q
`-.
|R
`-.
|S
`-.
|T
`-.
|U
`-.
|V
`-.
|W
`-.
|X
`-.
|Y
`-.
|Z
Therefore...
VMS
----.
| WNT
`-----
...is a step DOWN from VMS! Several steps down in my opinion but it's a
step down nonetheless. Follow the alphabet stairstep.
A
-.
|B
`-.
|C
`-.
|D
`-.
|E
`-.
|F
`-.
|G
`-.
|H
`-.
|I
`-.
|J
`-.
|K
`-.
|L
`-.
|M ----.
`-. |
|N <-'
`-.
|O
`-.
|P
`-.
|Q
`-.
|R
`-.
|S ----.
`-. |
|T <-'
`-.
|U
`-.
|V ----.
`-. |
|W <-'
`-.
|X
`-.
|Y
`-.
|Z
So, WNT == --VMS;
John Wallace
VMS isn't about "cool", it's about business benefits. BeOS and DG/UX
were already struggling; switching to x86 did not cause them to fail,
but it didn't do them any long term good either.
There is little architectural difference between the innards of a
decent modern AMD64 server and a low end IA64 box [1]. At today's high
end of IA64, there are no fundamental architectural reasons why the
AMD64 boxes could not one day extend upwards into massive-memory
massive-SMP territory, but the AMD64 business model says that very
very few workloads need that kind of system, so why bother with the
development costs (especially if some other empire in the same company
is already catering for that market).
VMS survives today because people are interested in the business
benefits the VMS software brings. Subject to the massive-memory
massive-SMP caveat above, IA64 hardware for VMS brings no benefits,
only disadvantages, because if any of the players involved in a
potential VMS project is unconvinced about IA64 - the end user, the IT
department, the application provider, the consultants, etc - then
often the benefits of VMS are ignored and the project likely goes for
mainstream hardware (AMD64) with a mainstream OS (*ix, Windows).
If VMS was available on some subset of mainstream AMD64 hardware, that
problem vanishes. HP already make a very reputable set of AMD64
servers. They, or their Dell equivalents, are running enterprise-class
software in businesses around the world, and their compatible and
affordable little brothers are running smaller businesses too.
You wouldn't need VMS support on all of HP's AMD64 boxes, just a
representative few. And if as a bonus VMS works but is unsupported on
other AMD64 family members, then that's the "cheap machines for VMS
development" issue sorted.
I'm not holding my breath though, especially as it would leave the HP-
UX community (alone) picking up the whole cost of IA64 development,
and that might not go down well.
[1] If there are, I'm sure readers will be happy to be enlightened.
VAXman-
>Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
>
>> I was doing Unix, Windows and VMS at my last job. The Unix was running
>> on X86 hardware and supporting a typesetting application. The Windows
>> part was removing virii and worms and patching Windows to close some of
>> the "holes" being exploited by said virii and worms. The VMS support
>> occupied very little of my time.
>
>roughly proportional to the number of users,
>especially on the desktop.
In my experience, it's been:
Support person = ceil (1/(number of users on system))
On VMS and unix, number of users on system is typically >1. Regardless,
1 support person for VMS and unix. However, with WEENDOZE, it's 1 user
per box...
Support person = ceil (1/(1 WEENDOZE user)) * WEENDOZE boxes.
Judging by the size of some of the IT support groups I have encountered,
the math may be a bit off with an additional fudge factor...
Support person = ceil (1/(1 WEENDOZE user)) * (WEENDOZE boxes + fudge)
Fudge is usually for the support of the WEENDOZE server to which these
single user WEENDOZE boxes connect.
It's like buying a car with a full time mechanic.
Michael Kraemer
>
> Let's get this silliness straight...
>
>
> So, WNT == --VMS;
>
don't tell me, tell it the others who always come up with
various versions of the "Cutler is next to god because he invented
WNT as a successor of VMS" story.
As if he was the only person in the world who could develop decent software.
VAXman-
He doesn't deserve the accolades for what's come out of Micro$haft since
he became one with Landru there.
Bob Koehler
> roughly proportional to the number of users,
> especially on the desktop.
related to the stability of the OS and the self-consistency of the
user interface.
Neil Rieck
Here is another way to look at it:
VMS + 1 = WNT
(e.g. VMS plus some extra stuff = Windows-NT)
:-) NSR
Neil Rieck
> In article <hif77s$vo...@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>, m.krae...@gsi.de (Michael Kraemer) writes:
> >In article <00A97618.E95A2...@SendSpamHere.ORG>, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
>
> >> Let's get this silliness straight...
>
> >> So, WNT == --VMS;
>
> >don't tell me, tell it the others who always come up with
> >various versions of the "Cutler is next to god because he invented
> >WNT as a successor of VMS" story.
> >As if he was the only person in the world who could develop decent software.
>
> He doesn't deserve the accolades for what's come out of Micro$haft since
> he became one with Landru there.
>
Ah, another Star Trek fan. In this instance is Landru Gates?
NSR
Neil Rieck
I hear ya but have seen different results. 18 months ago some idiot
replaced a dual-host uVAX-4300 cluster with an equivalent system based
upon two DL380 boxes running Windows 2003 Server. They're still
running VMS-5.5-2 with Charon VAX emulator. It took them a couple
months to stop it from crashing but since then it now runs better than
the uVAX platform (at least so far). Nobody touches the platform (it
is a lights out operation run from Montreal) but it apparently hosts
over a hundred simultaneous users.
The only reason why I bring this up is that the DL380 (Xeon based)
looks identical to the Itanium boxes I see on eBay. So i guess the
handwriting is on the wall (so to speak).
NSR
Arne Vajhøj
> Neil Rieck schrieb:
>> Lots of people are still sending me emails bashing my Windows posts
>
> and rightfully so.
> People accuse Palmer for abandoning VMS and turning
> DEC into a M$/windoze company, yet they appear to follow
> exactly his footsteps.
> So either he was right or people are a bit schizophrenic these days.
What made sense for the Digital CEO in the 1990's and what makes
sense for the ordinary VMS user 15 years later is two very different
things.
>> which indicated where Windows came from kernel-wise (Cutler and VMS)
>
> didn't we bury this
> "Cutler created WNT==VMS++ and therefore it must be good"
> myth not too long ago?
It is not a myth that Windows kernel is very inspired from VMS
due to Cutler and other.
Most people do not care much about the kernel when evaluating
an OS.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
> On top of all of this, Cutler has retired several times from Microsoft
> but they always lure him back to finish off stuff that the
> microsofties could do. The last time this happened was with Windows
> Azure.
>
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2145
Interesting. I was not aware that he was involved in Azure.
> Bill Gates wasn't dumb.
No surprise.
You don't make that kind of money by being dumb.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
Really?
Most places pay their employees to work with the apps
not with the OS.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
> In article<hiev8l$oq9$01$1...@news.t-online.com>, Michael Kraemer<M.Kr...@gsi.de> writes:
>> Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
>>> I was doing Unix, Windows and VMS at my last job. The Unix was running
>>> on X86 hardware and supporting a typesetting application. The Windows
>>> part was removing virii and worms and patching Windows to close some of
>>> the "holes" being exploited by said virii and worms. The VMS support
>>> occupied very little of my time.
>>
>> In my experience the amount of necessary daily support is
>> roughly proportional to the number of users,
>> especially on the desktop.
>
> In my experience, it's been:
>
> Support person = ceil (1/(number of users on system))
>
> On VMS and unix, number of users on system is typically>1. Regardless,
> 1 support person for VMS and unix. However, with WEENDOZE, it's 1 user
> per box...
>
> Support person = ceil (1/(1 WEENDOZE user)) * WEENDOZE boxes.
>
> Judging by the size of some of the IT support groups I have encountered,
> the math may be a bit off with an additional fudge factor...
>
> Support person = ceil (1/(1 WEENDOZE user)) * (WEENDOZE boxes + fudge)
>
> Fudge is usually for the support of the WEENDOZE server to which these
> single user WEENDOZE boxes connect.
>
> It's like buying a car with a full time mechanic.
But for some reasons the CIO's have not figured that out yet !?!?
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
First I don't think that the argument (at least for most) is that
VMS on x86 will be a huge success - more that if IA-64 disappears
then being able to run VMS on x86-64 is a lot better than not
being able to run VMS at all.
BTW, other OS's have moved to x86 & x86-64 with better result
than those you list: Solaris, MacOS X, *BSD.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
He is not.
But he has certainly contributed more to software than
the average software guy.
Arne
Neil Rieck
> On 11-01-2010 05:01, Michael Kraemer wrote:
>
>
> It is not a myth that Windows kernel is very inspired from VMS
> due to Cutler and other.
>
> Most people do not care much about the kernel when evaluating
> an OS.
>
You are correct but the exDECies at Microsoft did a lot more than just
rework the kernel. Citing both security and performance issues, the
exDECies where the people pushing for NTFS, not Gates. Others have
told me that the exDECies were also responsible for the changes which
allowed remote management of these GUI boxes (so called lights-out
operation). Kind of impressive when you think about.
On a related note, the other day I was trying to imagine what the
world would be like if DEC had not driven Cutler (and his variable
crew of 30-100) into the arms of Bill Gates. Would DEC have still gone
down but only later? Would Windows (or Windows-NT) still have happened
but only later? Knowing how DEC licensed cheaper systems (Rainbow
etc.) I "think" that Cutler's Crew had a bigger effect on the computer
world at Microsoft than they would have inside DEC. (just my opinion)
NSR
VAXman-
>On 11-01-2010 07:47, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>>> Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
>>>> I was doing Unix, Windows and VMS at my last job. The Unix was running
>>>> on X86 hardware and supporting a typesetting application. The Windows
>>>> part was removing virii and worms and patching Windows to close some of
>>>> the "holes" being exploited by said virii and worms. The VMS support
>>>> occupied very little of my time.
>>>
>>> In my experience the amount of necessary daily support is
>>> roughly proportional to the number of users,
>>> especially on the desktop.
>>
>> In my experience, it's been:
>>
>> Support person = ceil (1/(number of users on system))
>>
>> On VMS and unix, number of users on system is typically>1. Regardless,
>> 1 support person for VMS and unix. However, with WEENDOZE, it's 1 user
>> per box...
>>
>> Support person = ceil (1/(1 WEENDOZE user)) * WEENDOZE boxes.
>>
>> Judging by the size of some of the IT support groups I have encountered,
>> the math may be a bit off with an additional fudge factor...
>>
>> Support person = ceil (1/(1 WEENDOZE user)) * (WEENDOZE boxes + fudge)
>>
>> Fudge is usually for the support of the WEENDOZE server to which these
>> single user WEENDOZE boxes connect.
>>
>> It's like buying a car with a full time mechanic.
>
Corporation's Ignorant Officers? No doubt.
Bill Gunshannon
So, when are we finally going to put this myth to rest (like the Cutler
is god myth)?
This place has always had a nearly one-to-one sysadminr-to-VMS
ratio while I have repeatedly stated that I do more than a dozen
Unix servers almost a dozen Windows servers and lots of clients
(including student labs) and, at one time, several VMS systems
and even some PDP-11's running vasrious OSes, with a one man shop.
And, lets look at other sites I know. When i was mobed I visited
sites with thousands of users scattered over thousands of square
miles being supported by 2-3 sys admins. I just interviewed with
a place that has over 20 Windows servers and around 10,000 users
with a total support staff of 6 people for not only the Windows
stuff, but for everything including the network.
It really is time to get a grip on reality or a lot of former VMS
workers are going to need to learn how to say "Do you want fries
with that?" for their next job.
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
VAXman-
>In article <4b4bee9d$0$272$1472...@news.sunsite.dk>,
> Arne Vajh�j <ar...@vajhoej.dk> writes:
>is god myth)?
>
>This place has always had a nearly one-to-one sysadminr-to-VMS
>ratio while I have repeatedly stated that I do more than a dozen
>Unix servers almost a dozen Windows servers and lots of clients
>(including student labs) and, at one time, several VMS systems
>and even some PDP-11's running vasrious OSes, with a one man shop.
>
>And, lets look at other sites I know. When i was mobed I visited
>sites with thousands of users scattered over thousands of square
>miles being supported by 2-3 sys admins. I just interviewed with
>a place that has over 20 Windows servers and around 10,000 users
>with a total support staff of 6 people for not only the Windows
>stuff, but for everything including the network.
>
>It really is time to get a grip on reality or a lot of former VMS
>workers are going to need to learn how to say "Do you want fries
>with that?" for their next job.
It's not a myth, Bill... You've been around and doing this since the
early days of the systems you've mentioned. Look in the corporation's
IT department today. Filled with kids with 6 month certificates and
their only claim to fame is that they're able to beat some video game
without cheat codes.
The son-in-law has been working over time for the past several days
to bring a new WEENDOZE server on-line where he works. Sadly, he's
very much a WEENDOZE zealot. Even with 10 year of experience, he's
been fighting this system. So, perhaps you should talk with him and
find out what apps they are trying to run. I'll bet they're not any
you've encountered. It's not always an OS (or in this case WEENDOZE)
only issue but one of the OS coupled with the apps runnin on it.
A large multi-national chocolate confection company where I did some
time a few years ago had one VMS system manager at each of its sites
and these sites had several VMS system. They had server people that
were in charge on the one IBM mainframe and many more people support-
ing their WEENDOZE environment than I think there were users thereof.
Another site, a huge auto rental/leasing company, has co-located VMS
boxes. One system manager that knowns enough to great accounts with
a DCL script (I wager he'd be lost completely in UAF) and how to re-
boot and change the tapes in the backup system. These systems just
run along. Their employees all use WEENDOZE boxes to access the VMS
server (database) for leasing info, payment and other tasks associated
with the business. About 100 people in the main office and countless
others accessing remotely. I've met at least 2 dozen people that are
on staff for the WEENDOZE support. The linux web server they run is
managed by some outsource.
I could tell you about about a Healthcare provider and one large mid-
west public power provider with WEENDOZE guys put in charge of their
VMS systems. The one guy was SOOO dumb that when asked to get info
from the system console, he would snap a picture of the console with
a point-and-shoot and email a M$ W(ei)RD doc with the photo incorpor-
ated within it. If you think I'm making this guy up, there another
c.o.v. poster here who's had this character in a VMS training class.
Just a few examples of the scope of the corporate IT staffing and the
level of competence (or incompetence) that's out there.
Bill Gunshannon
So, how is it Windows fault that Corporations hire cheap and end out
with incompetent sys admins? Guess what, after the .com bubble burst
Linux became very much the same. Every kid who ran a web server in
his mom's basement suddenly became an unemployed "IT Professional".
Trust me, we got here applying as students. Thought they should just
be given credit for half their courses because they had been doing
"IT Consulting" since they were sophmores in high school. Amazing
how many of them either dropped out of school entirely or ended up
changing majors to something a little less heavy.
>
> The son-in-law has been working over time for the past several days
> to bring a new WEENDOZE server on-line where he works. Sadly, he's
> very much a WEENDOZE zealot.
Or one could say he just understands the business he has chosen to
work in.
> Even with 10 year of experience, he's
> been fighting this system.
Sounds like he didn't get much real experience in those 10 years.
Windows is not rocket science.
> So, perhaps you should talk with him and
I'm always available. For a price. :-)
> find out what apps they are trying to run. I'll bet they're not any
> you've encountered.
Could be. But I can say the same. I have my foot in two worlds and
with the exception of the usual Office Suite they share very little
in the line of apps.
> It's not always an OS (or in this case WEENDOZE)
> only issue but one of the OS coupled with the apps runnin on it.
Which is always true in all cases with all OSes.
>
> A large multi-national chocolate confection company where I did some
> time a few years ago had one VMS system manager at each of its sites
> and these sites had several VMS system. They had server people that
> were in charge on the one IBM mainframe and many more people support-
> ing their WEENDOZE environment than I think there were users thereof.
You know as well as I do that there is no place with more Windows
support people than Windows users. That is the usual pap that
people here like to spout that just makes them look foolish. As
I said, I no longer know how many VMS systems the datacenter here
has (the number goes down constantly) but they have usually had
more VMS admins than Unix admins and the number of Unix boxes has
been higher for quite some time. Windows admins? I am sure they
have a dozen or so supporting a couple thousand users (if you count
the students as users, too). I do it all by myself. Unix, Windows
and at one time VMS and other more obscure OSes.
>
> Another site, a huge auto rental/leasing company, has co-located VMS
> boxes. One system manager that knowns enough to great accounts with
> a DCL script (I wager he'd be lost completely in UAF) and how to re-
> boot and change the tapes in the backup system. These systems just
> run along.
So do my Unix and Windows boxes. Trust me, I know. I was just
away for 6 months mobilized with the Army. Even though I suggested
it they did not hire a temp replacement for me. Everything, yes
everything, just kept on running all the time I was gone. They even
went through a power shutdown (because of construction on the back
of the building) and all my boss had to do was power the boxes back
up and everything went back to normal.
> Their employees all use WEENDOZE boxes to access the VMS
> server (database) for leasing info, payment and other tasks associated
> with the business. About 100 people in the main office and countless
> others accessing remotely. I've met at least 2 dozen people that are
> on staff for the WEENDOZE support. The linux web server they run is
> managed by some outsource.
Sounds like either they, too, have bought into the army of MS admins
myth or they just have bad HR practices and don't hire the best. Or,
most likely, they pay poorly and get what they pay for.
>
> I could tell you about about a Healthcare provider and one large mid-
> west public power provider with WEENDOZE guys put in charge of their
> VMS systems. The one guy was SOOO dumb that when asked to get info
> from the system console, he would snap a picture of the console with
> a point-and-shoot and email a M$ W(ei)RD doc with the photo incorpor-
> ated within it.
Does the image show the info required? Then what's the problem with
the media chosen to do it? If they want otherwise, specify how you
want it. In any event, how can you fault a guy who was hired to do
MS support for not knowing something as obscure as VMS? He had very
likely never seen a VMS system before.
> If you think I'm making this guy up, there another
> c.o.v. poster here who's had this character in a VMS training class.
What's your point? Now you fault a guy who was hired for his
Windows experience because he doesn't know VMS? How far would
you get with IBM DOS/E? What about PRIMOS? Univac Exec8?
>
> Just a few examples of the scope of the corporate IT staffing and the
> level of competence (or incompetence) that's out there.
It is not incompetence to not know a system that was not a requirement
when you got hired. Well, maybe it is. But the incompetence in that
case is in the hands of the manager who is using the wrong people for
the job.
And none of this provides any evidence that it takes more than one
competent MS sys admin to manage a system with several thousand users.
I have feet in two very different IT worlds. One is probably the most
draconian you are ever going to see and the other is very close to the
opposite. I run both of them as secure and reliable systems. One of
them I do this with an almost non-existant budget. What MS is selling
today isn't Windows 3.1. And people who think these systems can't do
real work and refuse to keep up to date on how to make them do real
work better buy comfortable shoes, because they are going to spend a
lot of time standing in the unemployment line.
JF Mezei
> On a related note, the other day I was trying to imagine what the
> world would be like if DEC had not driven Cutler (and his variable
> crew of 30-100) into the arms of Bill Gates. Would DEC have still gone
> down but only later? Would Windows (or Windows-NT) still have happened
> but only later?
At the time Microsoft was having a hard time producing what ended up
being called Windows 95, both Apple (MacOs) and IBM (OS2) were starting
to gain market share against DOS/Wondows 3.1 beause of those delays.
Had Microsoft failed to get Windows 95 off the ground, it is possible
OS-2 might have taken off and MS would be nowhere today.
Once Windows 95 came out, OS-2 was dead and Apple spiraled down to a
point where they begged Jobs to come back to save the company.
However, it was only later that the mass market windows began to get
Windows NT under the hood. I have no idea how the current OS looks like
compared to the original early 1990s Windows NT.
Since it is only recently (XP?) that mass market Windows got NT under
the hood, it is quite possible that MS would have still managed without
Cutler since they would have had an extra 10 years to get NT "right".
And MS could have gotten OS engineers from othet failing companies.
JF Mezei
In fairness, Windows is a very active OS with lots of development,
changes, new appls, new versions of apps and new versions of the OS.
That requires more man power to manage (even if Windows were well designed).
VMS is a stable OS without new application, without many changes, and
generally, a terminal connects to a vMS system to run one application.
Much simpler to administer. Not so much because VMS is better, but
rather because of how VMS is being used.
I think one reason companies stuck with XP is that they are sick adn
tired of having to rebuild their Windows environment from scracth with
every new release of Windows. And as such, XP has allowed companies to
get some stability which results in less manpower requirements.
VAXman-
{..snip..}
Bill, you need to get out more often. In corporate America today it is
more important to pass muster with the HR department than the IT depart-
ment for a job. You have to be a "team player" and whatever other silly
politically correct nonsense these MBAs with as much common sense as an
earthworm trying to find the surface during a rainstorm toss at the can-
didate.
They don't want qualified people, they want people with backbones about
as ridged as that popular gelatin product that was hawked by Bill Cosby.
When they can't find those flaccid people, they outsource the effort to
India.
VAXman-
Yeah, Bill can't appreciate that some corporate mahogany-lined meeting
room martini-guzzling luncheon marauders don't understand this. They
see the latest ads "I'm a PeeCee and WEENDOZE was my idea" and force a
complete revamp of the department edict without consulting with those
who would know if the particular new WEENDOZE is capable of running an
application that is the backbone of the organization or if the provider
of said application has yet to product a version of their product that
will run under WEENDOZE 7-deadly-sins. No, it's easier to malign and
insult those who have to, in order to feed the family, endure and tol-
erate their mindless edicts.
Bob Koehler
>
> So, when are we finally going to put this myth to rest (like the Cutler
> is god myth)?
>
> This place has always had a nearly one-to-one sysadminr-to-VMS
> ratio while I have repeatedly stated that I do more than a dozen
> Unix servers almost a dozen Windows servers and lots of clients
> (including student labs) and, at one time, several VMS systems
> and even some PDP-11's running vasrious OSes, with a one man shop.
What you've got one VMS system and one admin to go with it?
I've never seen that ratio anywhere else, or heard of it from anyone
else. What are you doing that's so wrong?
Bob Koehler
>
> Most places pay their employees to work with the apps
> not with the OS.
Maybe in your business, but the OS is a daily thing in mine.
And if it is the apps for some folks, the self consistency of the
apps becomes an issue. Guess where the prgrammers get thier
inspiration for what the app interface should be like?
Bill Gunshannon
The number of systems has gone up and down (pretty much only down
lately) but the number of Sysadmins has never been less than 2
and usually more than that.
Now, in my shop it has never been more than one and that wasn't
just for VMS, either. :-)
Richard B. Gilbert
> In article <CKcEpQ...@eisner.encompasserve.org>,
> koe...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes:
>> In article <7r3ecg...@mid.individual.net>, bill...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>>> So, when are we finally going to put this myth to rest (like the Cutler
>>> is god myth)?
>>>
>>> This place has always had a nearly one-to-one sysadminr-to-VMS
>>> ratio while I have repeatedly stated that I do more than a dozen
>>> Unix servers almost a dozen Windows servers and lots of clients
>>> (including student labs) and, at one time, several VMS systems
>>> and even some PDP-11's running vasrious OSes, with a one man shop.
>> What you've got one VMS system and one admin to go with it?
>>
>> I've never seen that ratio anywhere else, or heard of it from anyone
>> else. What are you doing that's so wrong?
>
> The number of systems has gone up and down (pretty much only down
> lately) but the number of Sysadmins has never been less than 2
> and usually more than that.
>
> Now, in my shop it has never been more than one and that wasn't
> just for VMS, either. :-)
>
> bill
>
>
The only situation I can think of where you require more than ONE
sysadmin is 200-300 Windows Desktops! The last time I saw that was
about five years ago with W/98 and W/2K. The only reason we required
that many sysadmins was the necessity to remove viruses and worms and to
fix the vulnerabilities that enabled said viruses and worms.
AdeV
> The only situation I can think of where you require more than ONE
> sysadmin is 200-300 Windows Desktops!
Surely, every sysadmin requires a sidekick - as immortalized in BOFH?
--
Cheers!
Ade.
Neil Rieck
[...snip...]
>
> So, when are we finally going to put this myth to rest (like the Cutler
> is god myth)?
>
Trying to replace the "Cutler is God" myth with "Windows is OpenVMS
Reimplemented" fact. Don't believe me? Then watch the Rob Short video:
http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/3c021020-5765-4c0a-a7b1-d6f0c90c5f1b
p.s. Rob Short started at DEC in Ireland then came to Massachusetts to
work on PDP-11/05 and VAX-11/780. he was also working with Cutler when
they were shut down by DEC management in the late 1980's. Rob ends up
being a (technical) managing VP at Microsoft. What the video to see
how much of an effect the exDECies had on both Microsoft and Intel.
Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/OpenVMS.html
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/openvms_demos.html
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/openvms_resources.html
JF Mezei
> Trying to replace the "Cutler is God" myth with "Windows is OpenVMS
> Reimplemented" fact. Don't believe me? Then watch the Rob Short video:
My old PSION PDA (circa early 1990s) had many features similar to VMS.
It had the equivalent to mailboxes for interprocess communications, it
had a DECNET like stack where you could remotely start tasks a d
exchange data, and you could , on the PSION, edit files residing on
another machine. Priorities were similar as well (any priorty above 16
got "real time" like stuff.
And there were rumours that a number of PSION engineers had come from
DEC (Reading).
Does that make the PDA a "VMS re-implemented ?".
There are certain core concepts in an OS which are fairly common.
Windows doesn't have commonality iwt the VMS file system, it doesn'T
have RMS, it doesn't have clustering, its file specifications are quite
different, its device names are quite different.
Let me ask you this: Data General was made up of a lot of ex DEC folks.
Does this mean that AOS-VS was a re-implementation of VMS ? It was quite
different to the user and system manager, even if some core concepts in
the kernel might have been similar.
It is an insult to say that Windows is VMS re-implememted.
Deffectors to Microsoft should not be glorified. People should limit
themselves to stating that many ex-Digits went on to work at Microsoft.
VAXman-
>> is god myth)?
>>
>
>Reimplemented" fact. Don't believe me? Then watch the Rob Short video:
>
>0c5f1b
ROTFLMFAO! Sorry, System is temporarily unavailable
WEENDOZE is NOT OpenVMS... but then we all knew that.
Paul Sture
AdeV <sp...@solutionengineers.com> wrote:
Sickness, holidays, the inevitable meetings and split shift cover.
Plus in the likes of a financial institution, separate teams for
development, testing and production (it's a security thing).
--
Paul Sture
Richard B. Gilbert
> In article <MPG.25b72d388...@news.enta.net>,
> AdeV <sp...@solutionengineers.com> wrote:
>
>> Richard B. Gilbert may or may not have expounded:
>>
>>> The only situation I can think of where you require more than ONE
>>> sysadmin is 200-300 Windows Desktops!
>> Surely, every sysadmin requires a sidekick - as immortalized in BOFH?
>
> Sickness, holidays, the inevitable meetings and split shift cover.
>
Dial-in from home worked for me for many years.
Arne Vajhøj
> In article<4b4bedea$0$272$1472...@news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?=<ar...@vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> Most places pay their employees to work with the apps
>> not with the OS.
>
> Maybe in your business, but the OS is a daily thing in mine.
I will assume that an overwhelming majority in the company you work
for also focus on apps not OS.
> And if it is the apps for some folks, the self consistency of the
> apps becomes an issue. Guess where the prgrammers get thier
> inspiration for what the app interface should be like?
The OS / GUI toolkit.
Which is probably one of the main reasons for the success of
Windows.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
The average would have a college degree in CSc.
> The son-in-law has been working over time for the past several days
> to bring a new WEENDOZE server on-line where he works. Sadly, he's
> very much a WEENDOZE zealot. Even with 10 year of experience, he's
> been fighting this system. So, perhaps you should talk with him and
> find out what apps they are trying to run. I'll bet they're not any
> you've encountered. It's not always an OS (or in this case WEENDOZE)
> only issue but one of the OS coupled with the apps runnin on it.
There must be hundreds of thousands of apps for Windows. That is a
jungle.
But in general it is good for an OS to have many apps.
> A large multi-national chocolate confection company where I did some
> time a few years ago had one VMS system manager at each of its sites
> and these sites had several VMS system. They had server people that
> were in charge on the one IBM mainframe and many more people support-
> ing their WEENDOZE environment than I think there were users thereof.
>
> Another site, a huge auto rental/leasing company, has co-located VMS
> boxes. One system manager that knowns enough to great accounts with
> a DCL script (I wager he'd be lost completely in UAF) and how to re-
> boot and change the tapes in the backup system. These systems just
> run along. Their employees all use WEENDOZE boxes to access the VMS
> server (database) for leasing info, payment and other tasks associated
> with the business. About 100 people in the main office and countless
> others accessing remotely. I've met at least 2 dozen people that are
> on staff for the WEENDOZE support. The linux web server they run is
> managed by some outsource.
Most servers apps are easy to maintain.
The problem is client apps and end users. They can use an infinite
amount of support.
Today that requires Windows people to deliver that support, because
they practically all do run Windows.
20 years ago they could have been sitting at their VT220's and
running WP on VMS.
Then that support would have required a lot of VMS people.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
> WEENDOZE is NOT OpenVMS... but then we all knew that.
Yep.
They are (and especially were 15 years ago) rather
similar in some kernel things.
But that is something like 2% of Windows.
Win32 API, MFC, COM, WMI, registry, .NET etc. are
completely different from anything on VMS (let us
gracefully forget the attempts to get COM and
registry on VMS !).
We can see the opposite for Linux & Unix. They have a very
different kernel, but because they use the same GUI, the same
shells, the same apps etc. then they in reality are very similar.
Arne
Neil Rieck
With all due respect, no one at DEC defected to Microsoft.
Technology people in the know (Gordon Bell, Dave Cutler, just to name
two of many) realized that VAX was at the end of its life so wanted to
move from 32-bit CISC to 64-bit RISC. People with no clue wanted to
build Aquarius (aka VAX 9000) while they were feeding bad advice to
Ken Olsen. So the people at DEC West in Seattle were shut down by the
DEC suits and told to move back to Massachusetts. Culter was so pissed
he gave them all one month paid leave. Rather than move back to
Massachusetts, many discussed the creation of their own computer
consulting company in Seattle. It was around this time that people in
the know at Microsoft got wind of this opportunity and scooped them
up. We all know what happened to VAX 9000.
Any one of us would have gone to Microsoft under similar
circumstances.
NSR
Bill Gunshannon
Which, of course, means nothing. I woukld take 4 years of real
experience over a 4 year degree any day. (and, remember, I work
with these people on both sides of the degree every day!) The
only employer I know of who still sees this is the government
who, in most cases, will accept experience in lieu of education
but usualy states plainly in their vacancy announcements that
'education can not be used as a substitute for required experience."
>
>> The son-in-law has been working over time for the past several days
>> to bring a new WEENDOZE server on-line where he works. Sadly, he's
>> very much a WEENDOZE zealot. Even with 10 year of experience, he's
>> been fighting this system. So, perhaps you should talk with him and
>> find out what apps they are trying to run. I'll bet they're not any
>> you've encountered. It's not always an OS (or in this case WEENDOZE)
>> only issue but one of the OS coupled with the apps runnin on it.
>
> There must be hundreds of thousands of apps for Windows. That is a
> jungle.
Not sure I would say "hundreds of thousands" but then, it depends
on your definition of "app". Do you count things like "Frogger"? :-)
>
> But in general it is good for an OS to have many apps.
A quick count of the Ports Tree I FreeBSD returns over 24,000. And
that would be just the ones that have been tested and known to compile
and work under FreeBSD.
>
>> A large multi-national chocolate confection company where I did some
>> time a few years ago had one VMS system manager at each of its sites
>> and these sites had several VMS system. They had server people that
>> were in charge on the one IBM mainframe and many more people support-
>> ing their WEENDOZE environment than I think there were users thereof.
>>
>> Another site, a huge auto rental/leasing company, has co-located VMS
>> boxes. One system manager that knowns enough to great accounts with
>> a DCL script (I wager he'd be lost completely in UAF) and how to re-
>> boot and change the tapes in the backup system. These systems just
>> run along. Their employees all use WEENDOZE boxes to access the VMS
>> server (database) for leasing info, payment and other tasks associated
>> with the business. About 100 people in the main office and countless
>> others accessing remotely. I've met at least 2 dozen people that are
>> on staff for the WEENDOZE support. The linux web server they run is
>> managed by some outsource.
>
> Most servers apps are easy to maintain.
>
> The problem is client apps and end users. They can use an infinite
> amount of support.
Not if the company takes the practical route of not letting users
install anything on their company owned PC. Baselining can solve
a world of problems. And in addition to the fact that the Windows
environment can be secured within itself, there are also products,
like Mcaffee's Host Based Security System, available that, while
seen by some as rather draconian, can lock them down even more while
still allowing business to be transacted.
>
> Today that requires Windows people to deliver that support, because
> they practically all do run Windows.
>
> 20 years ago they could have been sitting at their VT220's and
> running WP on VMS.
>
> Then that support would have required a lot of VMS people.
My personal experience is that the systems require equal amounts of
attention when the sys admins are of equal capabilities and experience.
Windows, today, may require more user support but that is just because
the number of users has grown eponentially. the number of admins has not.
John Santos
jfmezei...@vaxination.ca says...>
>
> > Trying to replace the "Cutler is God" myth with "Windows is OpenVMS
> > Reimplemented" fact. Don't believe me? Then watch the Rob Short video:
>
>
> My old PSION PDA (circa early 1990s) had many features similar to VMS.
> It had the equivalent to mailboxes for interprocess communications, it
> had a DECNET like stack where you could remotely start tasks a d
> exchange data, and you could , on the PSION, edit files residing on
> another machine. Priorities were similar as well (any priorty above 16
> got "real time" like stuff.
>
> And there were rumours that a number of PSION engineers had come from
> DEC (Reading).
>
> Does that make the PDA a "VMS re-implemented ?".
>
> There are certain core concepts in an OS which are fairly common.
>
> Windows doesn't have commonality iwt the VMS file system, it doesn'T
> have RMS, it doesn't have clustering, its file specifications are quite
> different, its device names are quite different.
>
Kernel internals (modularity, device drivers, scheduler, memory
management, etc.) are supposed to be very similar to VMS. None of
this is directly visible to users, but is critical for system
reliability.
> Let me ask you this: Data General was made up of a lot of ex DEC folks.
> Does this mean that AOS-VS was a re-implementation of VMS ? It was quite
> different to the user and system manager, even if some core concepts in
> the kernel might have been similar.
No! This would be totally revisionist history.
The DG people left DEC during the early PDP-11 years (1969-1970 or
there abouts.) I've heard, but don't know for sure, that the Nova
design was a 16-bit design very similar to the 12 and 18-bit DEC
machines, but DEC rejected it in favor of the (at the time) new and
very different Gordon Bell PDP-11 architecture.
DG started work on their 32-bit system about the same time as, and
in direct competition to, DEC starting work on the VAX and VMS.
I am almost totally unfamiliar with AOS, but it can't be a re-
implementation of VMS since it was written at the same time and
independently.
The DEC West people who left and went to Microsoft had years of
VMS experience *before* leaving.
>
>
> It is an insult to say that Windows is VMS re-implememted.
> Deffectors to Microsoft should not be glorified. People should limit
> themselves to stating that many ex-Digits went on to work at Microsoft.
--
John Santos
Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
John Wallace
> In article <00c9936c$0$23454$c3e8...@news.astraweb.com>,
> jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca says...>
"Critical for system reliability" was important in the original NT
design (the one that outsiders saw as NT3.x) but afaik was quickly
(and quietly) sacrificed.
In the original approach, lots of kernel subsystems had their own
separate kernel address spaces and communicated with each other by
"safe" methods such as message passing/procedure calls. (Gross
oversimplification, lots more detail in Custer's "Inside Windows NT"
book).
Obviously because the address spaces are isolated, separate, there is
less chance of unintended data corruption between subsystems, and less
chance of unintended code execution (only explicitly-exported APIs are
accessible). That does indeed enhance system reliability.
But for each call to another subsystem, there is a performance
overhead because of parameter checking and (where necessary) parameter
copying.
Back in the early days of NT, this meant that a given PC doing a
particular set of tasks would likely do them faster on a Win16 OS
(Windows 95/98) than on a Win32 OS (NT3.x/NT4). Gates didn't like
this. Even though the Win32 OS was actually in many cases more
productive (more stable), the "benchmarks" in trade rags showed NT
appearing unacceptably slower than Win95/98.
So to get some of this speed back, Billco dropped the "everything in a
separate address space" model, and more and more kernel stuff that
could/should have been protected was dumped into big shared lumps of
kernel mode stuff. Which got rid of the parameter passing overhead but
of course brought back all the possibilities for unintended data
corruption and unintended data access.
More recently, Vista had a whole load of redesign work done to bring
back some of the isolation which had been abandoned so long ago. This
time the goal wasn't system reliability, the goal was Hollywood-
mandated content protection. Vista (especially Vista64) was supposed
to provide secure tamper-proof end-to-end copy protection of DRM-
protected commercial content such as Blu-Ray. But obviously content
protection is trivially bypassed if any arbitrary kernel mode code can
see other arbitrary bits of data passing through the kernel; what
good's your DRM then? So the "protected media path" was introduced,
along with a whole load of other features that allow media rights
owners to determine what your computer can do with their content.
"System reliability" isn't the driving force behind these changes
though; being a Hollywood-compatible general purpose media-centric OS
is.
Paul Sture
<dec96c96-1ba6-4f28...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
John Wallace <johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> "Critical for system reliability" was important in the original NT
> design (the one that outsiders saw as NT3.x) but afaik was quickly
> (and quietly) sacrificed.
I don't remember the sacrifice being all that quiet. Rather I recall
dragging the graphics into the kernel being actively promoted as a
performance benefit.
The rest of what you say is spot on.
--
Paul Sture
FredK
"Paul Sture" <paul....@sture.ch> wrote in message
news:paul.nospam-C449...@pbook.sture.ch...
> In article
> <dec96c96-1ba6-4f28...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> John Wallace <johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> "Critical for system reliability" was important in the original NT
>> design (the one that outsiders saw as NT3.x) but afaik was quickly
>> (and quietly) sacrificed.
>
> I don't remember the sacrifice being all that quiet. Rather I recall
> dragging the graphics into the kernel being actively promoted as a
> performance benefit.
>
Putting it in context, graphics performance has always driven bend-the-rules
programming. The early days used direct rendering to simple graphics (like
frame buffers) or a relatively efficient indirect rendering that queued
drawing commands (directly, or via a simple IO call) to DMA hardware. The
complexity came in the form of finding a fast/simple way to coordinate
access to the HW between the callers as graphics cards appeared without
atomic drawing commands. X11 simplified that by having all graphics access
be done by a seperate process (the X11 Server) which would have complete
control of the HW - but at the cost of having to encode and pass the drawing
commands through a protocol pipe and a context switch. 3D made it even more
complex because of the amount of HW context needed for a graphics call. But
the belief was that CPUs were getting faster and faster and that the
overhead would eventually be noise. The same thing with Windows. NT
implemented all kinds of clever things to make the overhead of the graphics
call to be "small" - but it still came at the cost of a context switch.
So, VWS was faster on the same HW than X11, and pre-NT Windows was faster on
the same HW as NT. It turns out that in the case of graphics, raw speed is
was the bottom line to users. So NT changed things, and many X11
implementations hacked in direct rendering (mostly 3D, but sometimes even
2D) support.
Today, except for the truly high-end (esp 3D) we've reached a point where
indeed that overhead is mostly "noise". Things are so fast that even common
2D text output is anti-aliased on many Linux implementations.
JF Mezei
> Today, except for the truly high-end (esp 3D) we've reached a point where
> indeed that overhead is mostly "noise". Things are so fast that even common
> 2D text output is anti-aliased on many Linux implementations.
Haven't today's graphic cards "solved" the problem by requiring the OS
to "talk" to the graphics card in the GL potocol instead of doing the
work themselves ?
With so much of work now offloaded to the graphics card, is there still
much of a need to keep the OS side of the graphics in the kernel for
efficiency purposes ?
John Wallace
> In article
> <dec96c96-1ba6-4f28-af8f-099e46fa6...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> John Wallace <johnwalla...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > "Critical for system reliability" was important in the original NT
> > design (the one that outsiders saw as NT3.x) but afaik was quickly
> > (and quietly) sacrificed.
>
> I don't remember the sacrifice being all that quiet. Rather I recall
> dragging the graphics into the kernel being actively promoted as a
> performance benefit.
>
> The rest of what you say is spot on.
>
> --
> Paul Sture
The performance benefit was indeed promoted loudly, but iirc
(correction welcome) the tradeoff for reliability, stability and
security was kept relatively quiet... after all, Windows wasn't an
enterprise-class OS back then, so it didn't matter.
Arne Vajhøj
> On Jan 16, 1:07 pm, Paul Sture<paul.nos...@sture.ch> wrote:
>> In article
>> <dec96c96-1ba6-4f28-af8f-099e46fa6...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>> John Wallace<johnwalla...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>> "Critical for system reliability" was important in the original NT
>>> design (the one that outsiders saw as NT3.x) but afaik was quickly
>>> (and quietly) sacrificed.
>>
>> I don't remember the sacrifice being all that quiet. Rather I recall
>> dragging the graphics into the kernel being actively promoted as a
>> performance benefit.
>>
>> The rest of what you say is spot on.
>
> (correction welcome) the tradeoff for reliability, stability and
> security was kept relatively quiet... after all, Windows wasn't an
> enterprise-class OS back then, so it didn't matter.
Enterprise class is mostly a synonym for expensive.
But we talk about server usage, then the OS in question
(NT 4.0) was very much a server OS.
Because most of the desktop users were on 95 and 98
not NT 4.0 Workstation.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
But it is a lot easier for people with an education to get experience
than for people with experience to get an education.
>>> The son-in-law has been working over time for the past several days
>>> to bring a new WEENDOZE server on-line where he works. Sadly, he's
>>> very much a WEENDOZE zealot. Even with 10 year of experience, he's
>>> been fighting this system. So, perhaps you should talk with him and
>>> find out what apps they are trying to run. I'll bet they're not any
>>> you've encountered. It's not always an OS (or in this case WEENDOZE)
>>> only issue but one of the OS coupled with the apps runnin on it.
>>
>> There must be hundreds of thousands of apps for Windows. That is a
>> jungle.
>
> Not sure I would say "hundreds of thousands" but then, it depends
> on your definition of "app". Do you count things like "Frogger"? :-)
Almost everything is available for Windows.
During the beta test of Windows 7 MS got data about
users running 800000 different software and version
combinations.
>> But in general it is good for an OS to have many apps.
>
> A quick count of the Ports Tree I FreeBSD returns over 24,000. And
> that would be just the ones that have been tested and known to compile
> and work under FreeBSD.
The *BSD's has a nice app base. But they are lacking in the
big commercial apps.
You can do a lot of things with Windows.
But most sites don't.
Arne
Bill Gunshannon
Not necessarily. Experience requires a job, how many unemployed VMS
people do you know? Education can be done while working or not. It
only take time (and money in nmost cases, but financial aid is available).
And it takes an equal amount of tioem to get 4 years of experience as it
does for 4 years of education. :-)
>
>>>> The son-in-law has been working over time for the past several days
>>>> to bring a new WEENDOZE server on-line where he works. Sadly, he's
>>>> very much a WEENDOZE zealot. Even with 10 year of experience, he's
>>>> been fighting this system. So, perhaps you should talk with him and
>>>> find out what apps they are trying to run. I'll bet they're not any
>>>> you've encountered. It's not always an OS (or in this case WEENDOZE)
>>>> only issue but one of the OS coupled with the apps runnin on it.
>>>
>>> There must be hundreds of thousands of apps for Windows. That is a
>>> jungle.
>>
>> Not sure I would say "hundreds of thousands" but then, it depends
>> on your definition of "app". Do you count things like "Frogger"? :-)
>
> Almost everything is available for Windows.
>
> During the beta test of Windows 7 MS got data about
> users running 800000 different software and version
> combinations.
Yes, but how many of them are things like "Frogger"? :-)
>
>>> But in general it is good for an OS to have many apps.
>>
>> A quick count of the Ports Tree I FreeBSD returns over 24,000. And
>> that would be just the ones that have been tested and known to compile
>> and work under FreeBSD.
>
> The *BSD's has a nice app base. But they are lacking in the
> big commercial apps.
And why is that? Simply because the people who control FreeBSD (actually,
all of the BSD's) have no interest in being any more than they are right
now. I think most of them think they are still with the CSRG and this
is all just an academic endeavor.
And, once again, how is that MS's fault? Secure and stable is very
doable. I (and I am sure many other) do it every day. I do it in
an academic environment where "draconian" just is not allowed. In
business, draconian should be the word of the day. One could even
argue that not using very draconian sys admin methods in a business
environment was not using due diligence!
Paul Sture
<ac928aa7-6e6e-49fb...@c29g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
John Wallace <johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
It was known in the circles I was talking to at the time. Granted that
was probably a small circle.
--
Paul Sture
Simon Clubley
>
> It was known in the circles I was talking to at the time. Granted that
> was probably a small circle.
>
I was well aware of the reliability concerns at the time as well, even
before NT 4 actually shipped.
Simon.
--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980's technology to a 21st century world
Arne Vajhøj
> In article
> <ac928aa7-6e6e-49fb...@c29g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
> John Wallace<johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Jan 16, 1:07 pm, Paul Sture<paul.nos...@sture.ch> wrote:
>>> In article
>>> <dec96c96-1ba6-4f28-af8f-099e46fa6...@m26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>>> John Wallace<johnwalla...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> "Critical for system reliability" was important in the original NT
>>>> design (the one that outsiders saw as NT3.x) but afaik was quickly
>>>> (and quietly) sacrificed.
>>>
>>> I don't remember the sacrifice being all that quiet. Rather I recall
>>> dragging the graphics into the kernel being actively promoted as a
>>> performance benefit.
>>>
>>> The rest of what you say is spot on.
>>
>> (correction welcome) the tradeoff for reliability, stability and
>> security was kept relatively quiet... after all, Windows wasn't an
>> enterprise-class OS back then, so it didn't matter.
>
> It was known in the circles I was talking to at the time. Granted that
> was probably a small circle.
As I recall it then it was explained in practically every
technical PC magazine, so the circles were not that small.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
> In article<4b53c9b8$0$273$1472...@news.sunsite.dk>,
> Arne Vajh�j<ar...@vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> But it is a lot easier for people with an education to get experience
>> than for people with experience to get an education.
>
> Not necessarily. Experience requires a job, how many unemployed VMS
> people do you know? Education can be done while working or not. It
> only take time (and money in nmost cases, but financial aid is available).
> And it takes an equal amount of tioem to get 4 years of experience as it
> does for 4 years of education. :-)
I am pretty sure that a much higher percentage of IT people have a job
than study at university level.
>> Almost everything is available for Windows.
>>
>> During the beta test of Windows 7 MS got data about
>> users running 800000 different software and version
>> combinations.
>
> Yes, but how many of them are things like "Frogger"? :-)
Some probably are.
But that does not change that almost all software in the
world is available for Windows.
>> The *BSD's has a nice app base. But they are lacking in the
>> big commercial apps.
>
> And why is that? Simply because the people who control FreeBSD (actually,
> all of the BSD's) have no interest in being any more than they are right
> now. I think most of them think they are still with the CSRG and this
> is all just an academic endeavor.
It is not so important why (unless one want to change it). It is how
it is.
>> You can do a lot of things with Windows.
>>
>> But most sites don't.
>
> And, once again, how is that MS's fault? Secure and stable is very
> doable. I (and I am sure many other) do it every day. I do it in
> an academic environment where "draconian" just is not allowed. In
> business, draconian should be the word of the day. One could even
> argue that not using very draconian sys admin methods in a business
> environment was not using due diligence!
People got spoiled early on and think the P in PC means Personal.
Arne
George Cornelius
> More recently, Vista had a whole load of redesign work done to bring
> back some of the isolation which had been abandoned so long ago. This
> time the goal wasn't system reliability, the goal was Hollywood-
> mandated content protection. Vista (especially Vista64) was supposed
> to provide secure tamper-proof end-to-end copy protection of DRM-
> protected commercial content such as Blu-Ray. But obviously content
> protection is trivially bypassed if any arbitrary kernel mode code can
> see other arbitrary bits of data passing through the kernel; what
> good's your DRM then? So the "protected media path" was introduced,
> along with a whole load of other features that allow media rights
> owners to determine what your computer can do with their content.
I hate to tell you this, but a little razzle dazzle does not keep a
true kernel mode hacker from finding where your data is and stealing
it. Find the magic bullet - where in the kernel to insert your code -
and you collect any information you want from the running processes.
And if that's too difficult, you find the simplest architecture
that Vista can possibly run on, run the code within an emulator for
that architecture, and insert your hooks into the emulator itself.
Not to mention that if you can find a processor in which you can
disable the processor data cache, you can grab the bits from the
bus on their way to and from external storage. Where there's a
will there's a way. And I haven't started talking about popping
the covers off the chips yet.
As far as I know, the only way to come close to truly implementing
end-to-end secure transfer is to put the decryption - and the
decryption keys - in the graphics card itself. That may explain,
of course, why my ATI HDTV card won't work with just any graphics
processor - they want one where enough of the crucial operations are
inside that processor, preferably an ATI branded one, where I can't
hack into them.
Where you find implementations that are convoluted beyond belief,
look around a bit. There's an entire flock of attorneys who had
a major influence on the final outcome. And that applies to a lot
more than just computer systems.
George Cornelius
John Wallace
wrote:
Kernel mode, or even the emulator, on its own doesn't buy you much if
the high value content is encrypted till it reaches not just the
graphics card but the (in theory) HDMI-connected HDCP-protected
display, which is supposed to do a key exchange thing at connect time
before it will work in proper HD mode... it's not about making it
impossible, it's just about making it look too tedious (or, from a
DMCA point of view, too dangerous) to be worth doing in general.
George Cornelius
> On Jan 29, 8:19=A0pm, cornel...@eisner.decus.org (George Cornelius)
> wrote:
>> run the code within an emulator for that architecture, and insert
>> your hooks into the emulator itself.
>
> Kernel mode, or even the emulator, on its own doesn't buy you much if
> the high value content is encrypted till it reaches not just the
> graphics card but the (in theory) HDMI-connected HDCP-protected
> display, which is supposed to do a key exchange thing at connect time
> before it will work in proper HD mode... it's not about making it
> impossible, it's just about making it look too tedious (or, from a
> DMCA point of view, too dangerous) to be worth doing in general.
I agree 100%. That's where the lawyers come in.
If they make it convoluted enough, you don't know which pieces of
the kernel are there to collect the forensic evidence to be used
against you in court.
My personal feeling about the DMCA's provisions are that they have
forced you to accept trojan horses.
Microsoft and the content providers can run whatever code they want
on your system, and as long as it is there to protect their content,
it is sacrosanct: tamper with it at your peril. At least until
some court rules otherwise.
But remember that the 'long arm of the law' is not so long by
today's standards. Nothing keeps a hacker in a country that
has not accepted the DMCA's provisions from doing what he wants.
He is only likely to run into trouble based on what he does
with the protected content once he has unlocked it.
George Cornelius
George Cornelius
> the high value content is encrypted till it reaches not just the
> graphics card but the (in theory) HDMI-connected HDCP-protected
> display, which is supposed to do a key exchange thing at connect time
OK, well those are some specifics I was not aware of, but of course
addressed in general terms in my original post. The ATI HDTV product
required a feature of DirectX 9.0 called 'Digital Overlay' before
it would render an HDTV picture. It's just possible that since
a typical PC monitor is already high definition, they will use
a special encrypted path to overlay all or part of the display
with the protected content. No key exchange, no protected content,
and that portion of the display is black.
You realize, of course, that if true end-to-end encryption in that
sense were in place there would be no reason for Vista or Windows 7
to have special features to protect the content on their own.
But the thinking, no doubt, is that it will take time for the
majority of PC hardware to support full end-to-end encryption,
and in the interim there must be tools that don't use it and
for which the O/S will do its best to provide hacker defenses.
George Cornelius