JF Mezei wrote:
> So what do those OLPC laptops run then ?

They do run Linux.

More specifically a Fedora variant.

Arne

Uusimäki schrieb:

> Most probably, yes. I don't remember the exact prices, but I don't think
> the price difference between a X86 laptop and an AlphaBook was so huge.
> IIRC the high end X86 laptops were also expensive at that time.

Given the very limited number of units produced (a few thousands),
the various UNIX/RISC-based notebooks were for sure
way more expensive than an x86 notebook.
I don't have numbers for the alpha,
but I doubt it would be much different from a comparable
IBM Thinkpad 850/860 running AIX, for example.
These beasts started at $12000 for the lowest model (about 1995).
(I got mine for some $150 last year :-)

In article ,
helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes:
> In article , JF Mezei
> writes:
>
>> Right now, Linux is being used for the "One Laptop per Child" projects
>> around the world.
>
> Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
> gurus would read Cliff Stoll.

Why? I can't think of anyone in the industry more clueless. Just
because he was able to write and sell a book. Heck, so did Al Gore.
Next you'll be saying Cliff Stoll should get a Nobel Prize.....


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

On Dec 8, 10:27 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <0cb14cd4-c2c7-41c6-be7c-c07bc6dc8...@s12g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
> AEF writes:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 8, 7:31 am, billg...@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> >> In article <475a7ef1$0$27828$9b536...@news.fv.fi>,
> >> Uusimäki writes:
>
> >> > JF Mezei wrote:
> >> >> Right now, Linux is being used for the "One Laptop per Child" projects
> >> >> around the world.
>
> >> >> Microsoft, not wanting to be left out, has setup a team of 40 people
> >> >> trying to fit Windows and office on 1gig (they can't) so now they will
> >> >> pay for flash cards and the hardware needed to be added on the cheap
> >> >> laptops, and they still are having problems fitting the bloat that is
> >> >> Windows onto those cards. And they will also need to update the laptop's
> >> >> firmware to support booting from the additional flashcards.
>
> >> >> Just imagine if many years ago, VMS management had listened to Mr
> >> >> Dachtera and ported VMS to the then 32 bit 8086. Today, they could load>> >> VMS on those laptops with space to spare simply because VMS engineers
> >> >> have always been fairly mature, efficient and frugal in system resources
> >> >> needed to run their software. It would have paid off big time if VMShad
> >> >> been selected to be the OS of choice for those laptops all around the
> >> >> world. (put in Mosaic, update MAIL and DECWRITE and you're set).
>
> >> >> It, way too late now, of course.
>
> >> >> But it is interesting to see Microsoft struggle with this and hopefully>> >> they will fail and millions of kids around the world will learn Linux first.
>
> >> > Quite so, but it wouldn't have been too much of an effort to convert
> >> > e.g. the VAXstation 4000-VLC into a laptop case. There was about
> >> > everything needed on a main board with only one daughter card (the
> >> > graphichs card). If the SIMM sockets would have been inclined, it would
> >> > have been ready for putting into a laptop case.
> >> > I think it would have been better to make a VAX laptop than trying to
> >> > fit VMS on every other possible hardware combination. That would never
> >> > have made it worth while. There is way too much work and the result
> >> > would be too uncertain.
>
> >> > In mid 90's there was built a AlphaBook, as you surely know, but for
> >> > some reason it never became popular. IMHO the reason was exactly what
> >> > you mentioned; VMS vas not made available early enough on laptops.
>
> >> BUt it would have lacked the most important part needed for this
> >> program. A price low enough to give away a million of them. The
> >> recently released EeePC is $300-400 and it is not part of this
> >> program because it is being sold at a profit. You can figure the
> >> likely real cost from this. What would a VAX laptop or an Alphabook
> >> cost? And we need not even go into the shortcomings of VMS for a
> >> project like this.
>
> >> bill
>
> >> --
> >> Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves>> b...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
> >> University of Scranton |
> >> Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include
> > The problem with this argument is that it is comparing apples to
> > oranges.
>
> How so?

Because you're ignoring the premise of the argument. Quoting from the
original post:

"Just imagine if many years ago, VMS management had listened to Mr
Dachtera and ported VMS to the then 32 bit 8086. Today, they could
load
VMS on those laptops with space to spare simply because VMS engineers
have always been fairly mature, efficient and frugal in system
resources
needed to run their software. It would have paid off big time if VMS
had
been selected to be the OS of choice for those laptops all around the
world. (put in Mosaic, update MAIL and DECWRITE and you're set).

It, way too late now, of course. "

You talk about VAX and Alpha laptops. He's talking about 8086 (or
whatever the hell the stupid architecture is called). He's talking
about if it had been done way back.

>
> > Are regular Linux or Windows or Mac laptops currently cheap
> > enough to give away? NO!
>
> OLPC is not giving away "regular Linux or Windows or Mac laptops"
> it is giving away OLPC Laptops. My ASUS EeePC IS a "regular Linux"
> laptop and it can run Windows as well. And, even with the need to
> make a profit it is selling for less than $400. Real cost is probably
> in the neighborhood of around $200.

But you spoke of VAX and Alpha laptops. Not what would have been
"8086" (OWTHTSAIC) laptops running VMS. You keep comparing to what VMS
would cost if done now instead of what it would have cost if it were
ported to WTHTAIC long ago. That's apples to oranges.

>
> > That's apples to apples (and Apples!). The
> > question how much it would cost if one went through the same procedure
> > to make cheap VMS laptops.
>
> Well, if you want to be pedantic, I can run VMS on my EeePC. Just load
> SIMH and then load VMS. The question being who would want to? It would
> definitely not fit the criteria for the OLPC program.

Again you're comparing to present VMS, not to VMS according to the
original premise.

>
> > Remember, while these laptops are very
> > cheap and have some capabilities regular laptops lack, they are very
> > limited compared to regular laptops in other ways.
>
> I would need to look at the actual specs for the OLPC laptops, but I
> really can't see where they would be lacking any needed funtionality.
> My cheap EeePC has all the capabilities of my IBM Thinkpad and comes
> pre-configured to do a lot of things that took considerable adjustment
> to do on the Thinkpad.

I saw the report on 60 minutes about it. I think it was very limited
in some respects. You can't put CD's in it. There's no hard drive. No
bays or ports. Lots of stuff like that is missing, I think. I don't
know anything about the EeePC, however, as this is the first I've
heard of it.

>
> > And keep in mind
> > the assumption that VMS would have already been ported to the
> > appropriate architecture, etc., etc., You can't assume what would it
> > cost to do this now. That was not the point. (Another level of apples
> > to oranges!).
> > Just what shortcomings were you thinking of?
>
> The total lack of a usable interface and the necessary applications for
> it to be usable by the target audience.

Again comparing to present VMS instead of what VMS would have been
according to the original premise.

>
> bill
>
> --
> Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
> b...@cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
> University of Scranton |
> Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include

AEF

JF Mezei schrieb:

> Just imagine if many years ago, VMS management had listened to Mr
> Dachtera and ported VMS to the then 32 bit 8086.

To be effective today, this decision would have to be made
about 20 years ago. I doubt that many people in this
group (incl. Mr Dachtera) would have advocated to ditch
VAX, stop alpha, and port to x86 around 1990.
x86 became viable only towards the mid-90s,
after intel managed to put RISC inside and,
together with M$, shovelled their stuff into
children's and living rooms. From their
it crept back into the offices.

> Today, they could load
> VMS on those laptops with space to spare simply because VMS engineers
> have always been fairly mature, efficient and frugal in system resources
> needed to run their software. It would have paid off big time if VMS had
> been selected to be the OS of choice for those laptops all around the
> world. (put in Mosaic, update MAIL and DECWRITE and you're set).

Well, "official" Mosaic stopped at 2.7-sth IIRC.
This version is unable to render most of the stuff
which is around in the WWW today.

JF Mezei schrieb:

> It isn't that they weren't "able". It is that their management decisions
> didn't result in low cost competitively priced machines. I am sure
> Digital Equipment Corporation had the brains and ability to produce
> competitive equipment had top management tasked its troups to make it so.

Well, you may think of DEC's engineering as a league of superheroes,
defying the laws of physics and economics. I don't think so.
The VAX was at the end of its road, and with alpha they indeed
tried to enter the low-end, see e.g. the alphaVME and alpha-PC efforts.
Both failed because a low-end alpha with a tiny native software
portfolio but a premium price was nothing enough people wanted to buy.

> My original point was that because VMS engineers had managed to prevent
> bloat over the years, VMS would now be considered a great OS for those
> resource-limited OLPC laptops.

You are generously mixing past, present and future.
In the distant past, VMS might have been "non-bloated",
but so were the other OSs. IIRC Windoze 3.x and MS-DOS-sth
fit on few floppies and used less than 4MB.
To satisfy modern requirements an OS has to be
"bloated" in some way, and VMS wouldn't be the exception.
OTOH, I'm pretty sure it carries along a lot of baggage
of the past which is useless on a modern laptop.

> And if VMS had been made available on a viable platform, its limited
> footprint would have also made it quite interesting for lots of embedded
> applications. Imagine if Nokia had chosen VMS as kernel for its handsets
> instead of buying the leftovers from PSION's OS.
>
> Consider VMS still able to run on a 16 meg all-mighty Microvax II. I
> think my phone requires more memory to boot :-)

Well, try to run a modern browser.
Just loading it will probably exceed your MV's available memory
by a factor of two or three.
And: can you phone and SMS with your MV ?

In article <475B1EEA.9020907@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert"
writes:

> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
> > In article , JF Mezei
> > writes:
> >
> >
> >>Right now, Linux is being used for the "One Laptop per Child" projects
> >>around the world.
> >
> >
> > Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
> > gurus would read Cliff Stoll.
> >
>
> Do you mean "The Cuckoo's Egg"? A great book, but how is it relevant?

That's an excellent book as well, but I was referring to "High-Tech
Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian". Stoll makes a good case
for keeping computers out of the classroom (and, by extension, out of
the hands of third-world children). I won't repeat his arguments here,
since they literally fill a whole book. Highly recommended.

Of course, many Luddites have made superficially similar demands. The
interesting thing, of course, is that Stoll has spent his entire life
working with computers.

> (I'm not familiar with "One Laptop per Child".)

The idea stems from this self-appointed guru Mr. Digital himself, the
guy with the Greek name from MIT. His idea is that all children in the
world should have a laptop. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that since
other things are more important, I'm saying that even if the children
had everything else, they don't need a laptop (and neither do well-to-do
children in first-world countries).

The "One Laptop per Child" project is developing a cheap laptop (with a
crank to recharge the battery etc) intended for distribution to the
children of the world.

In article , JF Mezei
writes:

> Consider VMS still able to run on a 16 meg all-mighty Microvax II. I
> think my phone requires more memory to boot :-)

No smiley needed JF; I remember putting my mobile phone together which I
was issued at work (my personal one is much older, from 2001 or so, the
Nokia 3310---all you need, but no bull****). I remember being taken
aback when I inserted a 32-MB memory chip, realising that I have VAXes
with less memory.

Of course, these days it's not uncommon for portable electronic devices
to have GB of memory.

In article <13ce4$475b2683$cef8887a$5430@TEKSAVVY.COM>, JF Mezei
writes:

> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
> > Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
> > gurus would read Cliff Stoll.
> >
>
> So what do those OLPC laptops run then ?

Some sort of Linux.

In article <5s0u1dF16h4t1U1@mid.individual.net>, billg999@cs.uofs.edu
(Bill Gunshannon) writes:

> In article ,
> helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes:
> > In article , JF Mezei
> > writes:
> >
> >> Right now, Linux is being used for the "One Laptop per Child" projects
> >> around the world.
> >
> > Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
> > gurus would read Cliff Stoll.
>
> Why? I can't think of anyone in the industry more clueless. Just
> because he was able to write and sell a book. Heck, so did Al Gore.
> Next you'll be saying Cliff Stoll should get a Nobel Prize.....

I think his "High-Tech Heretic" book is relevant here. "The Cuckoo's
Egg" is entertaining---not Nobel-Prize material, but a good read.

"Uusimäki" wrote in message
news:475a7ef1$0$27828$9b536df3@news.fv.fi...

> In mid 90's there was built a AlphaBook, as you surely know, but for
> some reason it never became popular. IMHO the reason was exactly what
> you mentioned; VMS vas not made available early enough on laptops.
>

One big reason for its lack of popularity is clear enough, but may be
disappearing in the mists of time.

The Alphabook, from Tadpole (who also did the SPARCbook), was based on a
21066/21068 Alpha chip. That's the same chip as was used in the Alpha
Multia, and the AXPpci33 motherboard. 21066 was 21064 core with most of (all
of?) the external glue logic integrated on-chip - it didn't need what PeeCee
people now call Northbridge or Southbridge, it was pretty much all on the
chip - just connect the DRAM to the CPU, and the PCI bits (if needed) to the
CPU, and off you go. You can see this quite clearly if you look at a Multia
or AXPpci33 motherboard.

Unfortunately although the idea was great, in real life the implementation
was a *lot* slower than a corresponding-speed 21064, and added to the other
21064 gotchas (e.g. no byte addressability, which was Bad News for PeeCee
class software), it wasn't competitive and didn't exactly sell like hot
cakes. You could run it fanless though which made it unique among the Alphas
of its time.

Afaict there still isn't a glueless fanless reasonable performance volume
market x86. If there was, would it sell? The "media centre PC" and "set top
box" markets (which were among 2016x target markets) would surely snap them
up?

One Laptop Per Child is basically irrelevant in the bigger picture, except
as a demonstration of how far Billco will go to retain their market
dominance. Getting something other than Windows into the education system
would be a worthy task.

regards
John

In article , helbig@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply) writes:
> In article <475B1EEA.9020907@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert"
> writes:
>
>> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
>> > In article , JF Mezei
>> > writes:
>> >
>> >
>> >>Right now, Linux is being used for the "One Laptop per Child" projects
>> >>around the world.
>> >
>> >
>> > Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
>> > gurus would read Cliff Stoll.
>> >
>>
>> Do you mean "The Cuckoo's Egg"? A great book, but how is it relevant?
>
> That's an excellent book as well, but I was referring to "High-Tech
> Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian". Stoll makes a good case
> for keeping computers out of the classroom (and, by extension, out of
> the hands of third-world children). I won't repeat his arguments here,
> since they literally fill a whole book. Highly recommended.

One of the main goals of One Laptop per Child is for the children to
take the laptops home.

I have a friend who works for them, so I hear about some of the glitches
in the endeavor. They are prepared to send these around the world, but
not to Nigeria where the green and white design of their product is not
acceptable to the government because green and white are the colors of
the opposition political party.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Kraemer [mailto:M.Kraemer@gsi.de]
> Sent: December 9, 2007 5:36 AM
> To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
> Subject: Re: OT: One Laptop per Child
>
> JF Mezei schrieb:
>
> > Just imagine if many years ago, VMS management had listened to Mr
> > Dachtera and ported VMS to the then 32 bit 8086.
>
> To be effective today, this decision would have to be made
> about 20 years ago. I doubt that many people in this
> group (incl. Mr Dachtera) would have advocated to ditch
> VAX, stop alpha, and port to x86 around 1990.
> x86 became viable only towards the mid-90s,
> after intel managed to put RISC inside and,

Also - Lets not forget where some of the x86 "RISC" architecture came from.
Remember the lawsuit.

[snip...]

Regards

Kerry Main
Senior Consultant
HP Services Canada
Voice: 613-592-4660
Fax: 613-591-4477
kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom
(remove the DOT's and AT)

OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.

On Dec 9, 6:28 am, hel...@astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
remove CLOTHES to reply) wrote:
> In article <475B1EEA.9020...@comcast.net>, "Richard B. Gilbert"
>
> writes:
> > Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
> > > In article , JF Mezei
> > > writes:
>
> > >>Right now, Linux is being used for the "One Laptop per Child" projects
> > >>around the world.
>
> > > Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
> > > gurus would read Cliff Stoll.
>
> > Do you mean "The Cuckoo's Egg"? A great book, but how is it relevant?
>
> That's an excellent book as well, but I was referring to "High-Tech
> Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian". Stoll makes a good case
> for keeping computers out of the classroom (and, by extension, out of
> the hands of third-world children). I won't repeat his arguments here,
> since they literally fill a whole book. Highly recommended.
>
> Of course, many Luddites have made superficially similar demands. The
> interesting thing, of course, is that Stoll has spent his entire life
> working with computers.
>
> > (I'm not familiar with "One Laptop per Child".)
>
> The idea stems from this self-appointed guru Mr. Digital himself, the
> guy with the Greek name from MIT. His idea is that all children in the
> world should have a laptop. I'm not saying we shouldn't do that since
> other things are more important, I'm saying that even if the children
> had everything else, they don't need a laptop (and neither do well-to-do
> children in first-world countries).

Did you see the piece about this on "60 Minutes"? I heard a broadcast
of it on the radio and the point was that with this project,
attendance at schools in the Third World is way, way up because of
this laptop project. I well understand that much learning must be done
without computers, but at least this is getting the kids to go to
school. So I think the point is not that the kids have a laptop -- the
point is that the laptop gets the kids to go to school.

>
> The "One Laptop per Child" project is developing a cheap laptop (with a
> crank to recharge the battery etc) intended for distribution to the
> children of the world.

AEF

Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
> In article <13ce4$475b2683$cef8887a$5430@TEKSAVVY.COM>, JF Mezei
> writes:
>> Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply wrote:
>>> Whenever I hear about this nonsense, I wish all of these self-appointed
>>> gurus would read Cliff Stoll.
>>>
>> So what do those OLPC laptops run then ?
>
> Some sort of Linux.

Fedora based.

Arne

In article , Michael Kraemer writes:
> JF Mezei schrieb:
>
>> Just imagine if many years ago, VMS management had listened to Mr
>> Dachtera and ported VMS to the then 32 bit 8086.
>
> To be effective today, this decision would have to be made
> about 20 years ago. I doubt that many people in this
> group (incl. Mr Dachtera) would have advocated to ditch
> VAX, stop alpha, and port to x86 around 1990.
> x86 became viable only towards the mid-90s,
> after intel managed to put RISC inside and,
> together with M$, shovelled their stuff into
> children's and living rooms. From their
> it crept back into the offices.
>
>> Today, they could load
>> VMS on those laptops with space to spare simply because VMS engineers
>> have always been fairly mature, efficient and frugal in system resources
>> needed to run their software. It would have paid off big time if VMS had
>> been selected to be the OS of choice for those laptops all around the
>> world. (put in Mosaic, update MAIL and DECWRITE and you're set).
>
> Well, "official" Mosaic stopped at 2.7-sth IIRC.
> This version is unable to render most of the stuff
> which is around in the WWW today.

I am curious why you think "official" would be a requirement?


George Cook
WVNET

George Cook wrote:
> In article , Michael Kraemer writes:
[...]
>> Well, "official" Mosaic stopped at 2.7-sth IIRC.
>> This version is unable to render most of the stuff
>> which is around in the WWW today.
>
> I am curious why you think "official" would be a requirement?

Indeed, Mosaic runs on VMS, and renders many WWW sites:

Your VMS version appears to be V8.3 running on a Digital Personal
WorkStation .
The TCP/IP software is TCP/IP Services (or UCX compatible).
Your Mosaic executable was generated using Motif 1.6
and was built on 5-SEP-2007 19:33:35.16 with image Ident 4.2
using DEC C.
It was linked with HP SSL.

Thanks, George :-)

George Cook schrieb:
> In article , Michael Kraemer writes:
>>
>>Well, "official" Mosaic stopped at 2.7-sth IIRC.
>>This version is unable to render most of the stuff
>>which is around in the WWW today.
>
>
> I am curious why you think "official" would be a requirement?
>

I'm well aware that you are the current maintainer of Mosaic.
This is of course appreciated and I might consider it even
for other historical platforms left in the cold
as far as browsers are concerned.

However, I'm curious how a single person can hope to keep
up with the ever changing web standards, as compared to the number
of people working on Mozilla, Firefox, Opera etc.
And as compared to the number of people working at M$ to spoil the
standards.

In article
<7c16e6f4-35f6-44d8-8503-5765d580b029@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, AEF
writes:

> Did you see the piece about this on "60 Minutes"?

No.

> I heard a broadcast
> of it on the radio and the point was that with this project,
> attendance at schools in the Third World is way, way up because of
> this laptop project. I well understand that much learning must be done
> without computers, but at least this is getting the kids to go to
> school. So I think the point is not that the kids have a laptop -- the
> point is that the laptop gets the kids to go to school.

That might be true, but I doubt that that is the motivation for those
behind the project. Considering the cost, I'm sure that one could spend
the equivalent on almost anything else and get the children to school
with that as bait.