XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Lynn McGuire   wrote:   
   >So you are going stop porting mainframe software down to the PCs, a   
   >trend that got started in 1987 with the 80386 ?   
   >   
   >We actually supported our mainframe software on the PC in 1984 using the   
   >IBM AT/370 board running at 0.5 mips and 0.1 mflops with 6 MB of ram   
   >soldered to a full length daughter board for $14,000 each, including MVS   
   >(IIRC, maybe was CMS).  I am fairly sure that we sold over a thousand of   
   >these for IBM.  The 80386 / 80387 combo was a welcome change for   
   >mainframe software porting down to the PC.   
      
   There are currently serious issues with code bloat with commercial software   
   because as Mr. Gates says, "people don't buy new versions for bug fixes,   
   they buy it for new features."  So we have small applications like Matlab   
   which was a great engineering math package that ran in 4Mb on the Sun 4,   
   and we add stuff and add stuff and now we have a bloated mess that barely   
   shambles along on a 16GB PC.   
      
   I once took apart a factory automation system on a Vax and figured out   
   what it was actually doing... it had many data entry screens, and it had   
   all kinds of internal databases.... but really all it needed to be doing   
   was to talk to a PLC, take user input to send to the PLC, and take data   
   from the PLC to put unsorted into six flat files which would get uploaded   
   to an IBM.  It came in around 300,000 lines of code and I replaced it with   
   about 500 lines of python.   
      
   >The newest EMS (engine management systems) crossed 30 million lines of C   
   >code at both Ford and Toyota in the last couple of years.  I have no   
   >idea how much rom / ram that requires but I suspect at least a gigabyte   
   >or sixteen.   
      
   That's a whole lot of code to replace a carburetor and a distributor.  What   
   is it really doing in there?  How much of what it is doing is actually   
   needed?  How much is actually beneficial?   
      
   My car has a box of TTL controlling the fuel injection and ignition and   
   it's an interesting problem to look at.   
      
   >Today, my largest Win32 DLL is 13 MB from 850,000 lines of Fortran code   
   >and 50,000 lines of C++ code.  My smallest Win32 DLL is 400 KB.   
      
   13Mb is miniscule by modern standards... and I bet if you look at that   
   executable you'll find a lot of it is setup and shutdown stuff from the   
   compiler.  That's the shameful part.   
   --scott   
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)