Eight Megabytes and Constantly Swapping [was Re:Linux still largely invisible in the marketplace]

[Tim Writer]

"D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> writes:

> | From: Tim Writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>
> 
> | People used to say Emacs stands for Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping!
> | That was in the days of 8MB Sun3s.
> 
> Actually, we said it in the days before Sun existed.  I think that
> first heard it, contemptuously, from Peter Fraser, the main author of
> QED for GCOS.
> 
> I first tried (Gosling's) EMACS in in the days of 8MB VAX departmental
> servers.  Unaffordable, in my opinion.
> 
> At about that time I got a Kaypro II which came bundled with an EMACS
> subset, Perfect Writer (a relabelled MINCE).  The Kaypro had 64K of
> RAM and two floppy drives.  That got me (my fingers) into the EMACS
> habit.
> 
> I now use JOVE as my main editor.  It is an EMACS subset developed on
> a PDP-11 (64K of RAM for code plus 64K for data).  It is bigger now.
> Compiled for x86_64:
>    text	   data	    bss	    dec	    hex	filename
>  137133	  11076	 299276	 447485	  6d3fd	/usr/bin/jove
> 1019061	2482692	      0	3501753	 356eb9	/usr/bin/emacs
> (JOVE's BSS is mostly pre-allocated buffer cache.)

I used Jove for a while too.

> The good parts of EMACS are not fat.

I use Xemacs now because there are features of full Emacs that I like and, by
comparison with many modern apps, it's not at all bloated. I couldn't live
without Gnus, for example.

> BTW, I think that it is wonderful that I can use the same application
> (JOVE) for more than 20 years.  Through umpteen changes to the
> platform.  I've used cat(1) for just over 30 years now.

I think it's wonderful that I can use much of the same UNIX toolset that I
learned in 1983. I think this is one of the most important, yet often
overlooked benefits, of UNIX and UNIX-like systems. Skills don't become
obsolete every few years; instead, you can continue to build on a broad,
stable foundation.

-- 
tim writer <tim-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>                                  starnix inc.
647.722.5301                                      toronto, ontario, canada
http://www.starnix.com              professional linux services & products
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