On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 4:37 PM, Johnny Billquist <b...@softjar.se> wrote:
> True. However, it isn't actually the geometry that cause the Unix messup > here, but the fact that Unix divided disks into partitions. So it needed to > know where each partition started. And before disklabels, it was hardcoded > per disk type. To be fair.... UNIX partition the RP06 because it overflowed a 16bit integer on the PDP-11. The 36 bits machines DEC was making at the same time did have that problem. Because UNIX supported mounted file systems which most small computer systems could not, it was a fairly elegant solution. Like many software tricks that were introduced to solve one issue, it was a handy solution for others and partitions became de rigor for quotas, organization and other sins. The commercial UNIX vendors put labels and support in the disk ROMS pretty early, (PC/UNIX's was ham strung by the sins of IBM) but its a classic example of things are the way there are because it made a lot of sense when it was done. Time moved on.... And as Paul and I were discussing off-line 'support' for MSCP really was not a 'mess-up' -- it was a zip/zag where DEC went one direction and by that time it came out, BSD was trying to solve a problem different than what DEC's cared about and non-DEC UNIX vendors started having their own solution. So while its an example of the start of DEC HW being to quit being the 'focus' for things UNIX. It was a cool new thing DEC had, but basically it was minimally supported, not exploited, because people did not care at the point. Clem Clem
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