[FRIAM] naive question

Fri Oct 21 21:22:32 EDT 2022

In that case, from Wikipedia:

Before joining Microsoft in 1991, Rashid had been the developer of the Mach
kernel <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_%28kernel%29> during his
tenure as a professor of computer science
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science> at Carnegie Mellon
University <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_University>.[2]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rashid#cite_note-:1-2> The Mach
multiprocessor operating system kernel
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_%28operating_system%29> developed
by Rashid has had a lasting influence in the design of modern operating
systems <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system>, including the
design of Windows NT <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT>,[3]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rashid#cite_note-3> and remains at
the core of several operating systems such as NeXTSTEP
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP>, GNU Hurd
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd>, macOS
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS>, iOS
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS>, OSF/1
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSF/1>, and Tru64 UNIX
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tru64_UNIX>.[2]
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rashid#cite_note-:1-2>

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 6:50 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> Ok, I don’t normally like celebrity stories, but that is neat.
>
> On Oct 21, 2022, at 4:03 PM, Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> As for "NeXT machine's software RIP", Rick Rashid, who was central in the
> development of that software, was my office neighbor.  He left to take a
> position at Microsoft as VP of Research.  I wonder if the software is
> RIPing.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Fri, Oct 21, 2022, 3:08 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>> FWIW,  I dipped into the higher levels of real-time-systems development
>> several times in my career.  The earliest being a control system (circa
>> 1981) for the LANL Proton Storage Ring where one naturally can't afford
>> anything *but* failsafe implementations, etc. The stakes are just too
>> 'ffing high and the coupling to electrooptomechanical systems quite
>> intimate.
>>
>> The "digital" components of such systems might have had the opportunity
>> to ignore timing issues and simply "execute the same steps" regardless
>> of timing.  But in fact many software-driven (sub)systems represented
>> time-critical processes and sometimes were up agains the timing limits
>> of the analog components which had no leeway in their "execution".
>>
>> There are all kinds of analogies in federated (distributed) simulation
>> environments which Glen (and others here) probably know much better than
>> I, where different "clocks" matter, and different levels of
>> synchronization and reproducibility are in play.   The Postscript
>> interpreters, printers, and film recorders were also pseudo real-time
>> systems since some of the timing components were in fact software
>> controlled (for example, the film recorders were "stroke" devices with
>> software driving D-A converters to "sweep" out vectors and "clip" the
>> on/off of the beam with appropriate analog component delays/biases/gains
>> needing to be calibrated for.   Fortunately failures in this step did
>> not (usually) damage anyone or risk anyone's health and safety (like the
>> beam in the PSR did).
>>
>> Regarding identity and equivalence, I prefer the phrase: "close enough
>> for who it's for"...
>>
>>
>> On 10/21/22 11:18 AM, glen wrote:
>> > Ha! If we're going to argue about words, then let's stick with the
>> > word "identity" and skip the "metaphor" nonsense. You and Frank seem
>> > to be using the word in a weird way. Identity means "the exact same
>> > particular thing over any differencing available" or somesuch. I mean,
>> > it's used that way in phrases like "identity theft" as well as
>> > mathematical identity. It's equivalence sets all the way down. I just
>> > can't imagine any working computationalist would ever say anything
>> > like "executed identically" unless ... well ... the exact same
>> > process, with the exact same steps, happened.
>> >
>> > I suppose there are deep philosophical intuitions pried at by the
>> > words "emulation" versus "simulation". And one can argue (again with
>> > help from Christian List) about whether there exist fully closed
>> > ontological walls like we try to create with things like Jails,
>> > HyperV, Docker, VM's like Java's, etc. But "execute identically" is a
>> > phrase that would only be used by someone who worked *way* above such
>> > levels (assuming levels even exist at all). It's a bit like talking to
>> > the kids programming websites these days, with access to infinite disk
>> > space, infinite memory, steeped in continuous delivery, etc. [⛧]
>> >
>> > Layers of abstraction are fine. Use 'em when you need 'em. But we
>> > shouldn't posture by invoking things like "instruction sets" and
>> > "execute identically" in the same breath. (Not that you did that ...
>> > just sayin'.)
>> >
>> >
>> > [⛧] Rant: This is a good talk
>> > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ab3ArE8W3s>. But I get super
>> > irritated when people use *toy* code in their rhetoric and leave large
>> > scale deployment as an exercise for the reader. Yeah, fine. The REPL
>> > is cool and all. But when my simulation takes a fvcking WEEK to
>> > execute, it's difficult to sympathize. I've recently been playing
>> > around with VSCodium, which is pretty cool. But whatever, man. I still
>> > have to upload the code somewhere and execute it. Get off my lawn!
>> >
>> > On 10/21/22 09:24, Steve Smith wrote:
>> >>
>> >> As a counter-example,  we ran film recorders whose "guts" were built
>> >> by Ed Fredkin's Information International company and were built to
>> >> the spec of Dec PDP-11 (I think 11?) and it was anecdotally agreed
>> >> among the user community (of a few thousand delivered units in the
>> >> world?) that these PDP-clones *never* failed to execute the code
>> >> identically to the machines they were patterned after.   I don't
>> >> remember the details of implementation of these 70's era hardware
>> >> designs, but I understood that they III designed their own PCBs but
>> >> (obviously?) used the same CPU chips... I don't know about all the
>> >> other support components... A likely answer to this pondering is that
>> >> these machines did not run a general purpose OS and the III
>> >> software/system people probably made up for any differences in
>> >> Software/Timing/Error Handling?
>> >>
>> >> If Owen is listening in here, I think he was there for more than a
>> >> little of this from inside Apple/Sun?
>> >>
>> >> - Steve
>> >>
>> >> PS.   To concede/confront glen's sentiment that: " 'Metaphor' is an
>> >> evil word, used only by manipulators and gaslighters",   I would
>> >> offer that the use of *conceptual metaphor*  is to thinking as noise
>> >> is to simulated annealing, and his point about "tighter or looser
>> >> equivalence" might well be the best argument *for* the use of
>> >> metaphorical thinking?  I can't believe I'm stirring/kicking this can
>> >> of worm-hornets down the street again...
>> >>
>> >
>>
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