Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 11 Jun 1997 08:08:28 -0500 (EST) | From | "Mark H. Wood" <> | Subject | Re: "obsolete" hardware |
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On Tue, 10 Jun 1997, Trevor Jenkins wrote:
> > But I really see no reason to have 386 support (and I'd say drop > > math emulation too so that people can use FP in the kernel) in the > > 2.1.x and later kernels. None of the new features are really worth > > implementing on such old hardware. > > This is a truly arrogant attitude worthy only of Microsoft---that > you must have cutting-edge technology to run the latest version of > some "product". One of the virutes of Linux has always been the > support of obsolete hardware. Commerical UNIX vendors want their > customers to upgrade to the latest hardware so as to be commerically > viable but why must we follow suit?
Hear, hear! I know a guy who has executable code that was compiled on VMS 1.x (on a VAX 11/780 'cuz that's all there was then) that still runs on current equipment under VMS 6. You wouldn't want VMS-heads laughing at us now, would you?
But maybe I missed something. What do we get in exchange for throwing all those still-usable 386 systems in the trashcan?
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer MWOOD@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU Those who will not learn from history are doomed to reimplement it.
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