sorting 3922

Are you trying to get work done, or show people differences?

Yeah, I know. I had to explain to a high end user community that VMS would not run on the Cray architecture. VMS was a fine vendor OS compared to CDC OSes, some IBM OSes, maybe Prime OS, ad nauseum for minicomputers.

Well, I would not have put the 370 but maybe the 360. I would throw the Univac 1100 in and maybe toss the PPC. I don't know enough about B5500s to throw them in, but then this list might be too old-heavy.

Hey, I learned a lot of these annoyances as a IBM brat as a college frosh on the ARPAnet. I found the net useful, but that kind of knowledge is fine for people going into architecture maybe, but not being an end computer user. We have lots of people who only have 2 machines experience: their shared VAX in your case or workstation or laptop and the high end machine (now made from the same CPU instruction set or some one elses papered over by a HLL).

Reading is one thing, but experiencing half a dozen OSes in short order with 1-2 a dozen pieces of hardware is another. Zoos should not be dizzying. A hand holding guide isn't always available.

And if you don't get emotionally involved, you as a student aren't going to pick it up. I had another interview yesterday, and my old officemate is convinced that most people should be kept off computers and out of their lives because he feels they are just wasting cycles better spent on plant development.

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