"Real Computers" (was Re: Trivia Question)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Fri Feb 21 17:13:01 2003

I wrote:
> That's quite a sad definition of "real computer". Any one of my PDP-8
> or PDP-11 systems, even the wimpiest, is much more of a "real
> computer" than any PC compatible will ever be.

Phil wrote:
> What, even if said PC is a K6-II/400 running Linux?

Even if it's the dual Athlon XP 1900 running Red Hat 8 which I use
for most of my software development. There's no question that it
has orders of magnitude more computing power, memory, and disk, but
that's not part of my criteria for "real computer":

1) Is it well-engineered from the ground up?
    PCs: no, a lot of the stuff in even the best PCs is of very poor
    quality manufacture - even the non-high-tech stuff like the cases
    are shoddy.

2) Can it be expected to have a long operating life?
    PDP-8: I've got one that is 27 years old and still works great,
    largely because it was well-engineered. Do I believe that PCs
    made today will work 27 years from now? Some will, but if you
    were to compare PDP-8s and PCs stored and operated under comparable
    conditions, not nearly as high a percentage of PCs will survive.

3) Is it documented?
    PDP-8: very well
    PC: barely at all. Just try to get information about what your
    BIOS does in System Management Mode - for instance, if you PC
    supports ECC, how do you get the error log? And forget about getting
    source code for the BIOS.
    Although the processors from Intel and AMD are fairly well documented
    (there are still some secrets, but not as much as in the Pentium
    Appendix H days), the "chipset" is often poorly documented or not
    documented at all. For instance, information on configuring the
    caches and memory controllers is typically not available, with the
    excuse that the BIOS does it for you.

4) Can it be repaired if it breaks?
    PDP-8: definitely.
    PC: no, you throw away a subsystem and get a replacement. The
    problem here is that any given subsystem (e.g., a video card) is
    only on the market for maybe two years; after that you can't get
    an identical replacement. Original-spec PDP-8 replacement parts
    were available for over 20 years.

I'm not saying that PCs don't have their place. I use them all the time.
But calling any PC-compatible machine a "real computer" is a sick joke.

Eric
Received on Fri Feb 21 2003 - 17:13:01 GMT