[ih] Literary Estate of M A Padlipsky

[Bill Ricker]

I have (with permission) added *Vint Cerf's pre-recorded eulogy* for MAP's
Wake (2011 NOV) to the MAP Literary Estate
<https://n1vux.github.io/articles/MAP/> website.

5 years ago on a E-mail vs email (vs netmail) thread, Andy commented on
[IH]

Andy> As I recall, one of MAP's favorite uses of netmail was to discuss
scotch whisky.

Absolutely. And that interest is also well represented.
If Andy is still listening -- were you on MALTS-L? How early?


I got an offlist query, which since 'twas off-list, i'm quoting anonymously
(but y'all know each other ...)

Anon> Does this include Mike’s famous “Ritual for Catharsis #1”  I think I
>>> have a hard copy somewhere, if not.
>>
>>

> >  I *will* keep an eye out for RfC#1 ... not to be confused with
>> RFC#0001 :-D.
>> > (I presume that initialism was intentional.)
>> > Now that i know it's significant ...
>>
>
Anon > Yes, it was very much intentional and talks about the Big Bad
> Neighbor who delivers coal one lump at a time
>

Excellent.
I have marked this MOST WANTED, and will keep an eye out as i sift physical
files and obsolete hard-drives further.
If *anyone* else has an easily accessible copy of the privately
circulated *Ritual
for Catharsis #1,* please do share.

Re
> one lump at a time

That reminds me of how Wang Labs would beat DEC VAX/VMS in *actual*
word-processing
& email workload *tests*, despite a massive headstart in CPU clock for same
$$ and # users, demonstrating "clock speed is just a number" (and one only
relevant within a single architecture).

DEC salespersons at the time touted their much larger clock speed as
^proof^ their offering was more cost effective. As salesweasels are wont to
do.

The Wang VS was an ASCII IBM 360 (the odd result of patent exchange - Dr
Wang had one of the three key patents on magnetic core RAM, and c.1990
recapitulated with a SIMM RAM patent
<https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-federal-circuit/1201198.html>! ), so had
block-mode green-screen terminals feeding controllers and channel
processors,  same architecture as an IBM 360/370 MF, but *called* a
mini-computer, without the retro-futuristic styling of 3270 cases, and with
a heavy emphasis on word-processing and email, though business applications
were very much possible too. The CPU polled channels for work waiting to be
done, few interrupts required, and only processed *completed*
transmitted screens.
Meanwhile the VMS CPU required an interrupt service routine to store each
keystroke individually,including each backspace.   The force multiplier of
delegation! A clock advantage 4x or more on CPU couldn't support even half
the users the VMS way. (And Wang eventually caught up on Clock too ... just
as the market for Word-processing shifted to PCs, even in Law Firms. Oops.)

The coincidence that is not chance: the Big Bad Neighbor would have been
TENEX (laterly TOPS-20), the BBN improvement on the DEC-10 OS for the
PDP-10 processor. (Another ASCII MF pretending to be a minicomputer.)  DEC
provided an escape sequence to put a VT-100/220 into Block Mode, but that
was not the norm in that ecosystem.
   (At least outside of the accounting side of a shop --  I'm guessing the
only VMS application i know of that was ported from VAX to Alpha to iTanium
/ iTannic was block-mode, as it was COBOL. I think it's *finally* been
retired, with workload moving to a commercial IBM MF COBOL application.
Still good for accounting!)

As MAP would close, with muted cheers,

WILLIAM D RICKER
for the Literary Estate of Michael A Padlipsky
https://n1vux.github.io/articles/MAP/