Am 13.08.2012 18:09, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

> So you're saying that the fact that British Telecom plc could only
> afford 25.2GB of spinning disk for a mission-critical system means that
> they're "not big enough" to play with the Big Boys? :-P

Heck, maybe they didn't need more.

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On 8/13/2012 9:09, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> So you're saying that the fact that British Telecom plc could only afford
> 25.2GB of spinning disk for a mission-critical system means that they're
> "not big enough" to play with the Big Boys? :-P

I don't know. AT&T had five major databases (and bunches of minor ones) the 
smallest of which was 300TB.

EDS (the mainframe room I'm talking about) processes pretty much every 
credit card in the USA and many internationally. So, yes.

How many power companies did BT get their power from? Was it 
mission-critical enough that if one of the power plants exploded, they'd 
still be online?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
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   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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>> So you're saying that the fact that British Telecom plc could only afford
>> 25.2GB of spinning disk for a mission-critical system means that they're
>> "not big enough" to play with the Big Boys? :-P

> How many power companies did BT get their power from? Was it
> mission-critical enough that if one of the power plants exploded, they'd
> still be online?

It wasn't /that/ mission-critical. It was only their fault-reporting 
database, not one of the actual call routine systems or anything like that.

Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back 
in 1995, why didn't they do that?

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Am 14.08.2012 10:35, schrieb Invisible:
>>> So you're saying that the fact that British Telecom plc could only
>>> afford
>>> 25.2GB of spinning disk for a mission-critical system means that they're
>>> "not big enough" to play with the Big Boys? :-P
>
>> How many power companies did BT get their power from? Was it
>> mission-critical enough that if one of the power plants exploded, they'd
>> still be online?
>
> It wasn't /that/ mission-critical. It was only their fault-reporting
> database, not one of the actual call routine systems or anything like that.
>
> Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back
> in 1995, why didn't they do that?

The claim was about hundreds of GB, not TB. It sure as hell wasn't 
available for a dollar and a dime. But it was /possible/ and could be 
obtained... for money.

Why on earth would a company (or government-funded institution for that 
matter) spend even a single /penny/ to pimp their equipment beyond what 
they actually /need/?

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Le 2012-08-14 04:35, Invisible a écrit :
>>> So you're saying that the fact that British Telecom plc could only
>>> afford
>>> 25.2GB of spinning disk for a mission-critical system means that they're
>>> "not big enough" to play with the Big Boys? :-P
>
>> How many power companies did BT get their power from? Was it
>> mission-critical enough that if one of the power plants exploded, they'd
>> still be online?
>
> It wasn't /that/ mission-critical. It was only their fault-reporting
> database, not one of the actual call routine systems or anything like that.
>
> Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back
> in 1995, why didn't they do that?

Because they didn't need to.

If their fault reporting system was able to run just fine on a system 
using 1 raid array of 4GB disks, there was no need to have it run on a 
more powerful system. (Side note:  the PC I bought in 99 had a 20GB HD, 
so those 4.2GB disks were probably already a few years old.)

Also, 128GB is not multiple TB.

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On Tue, 14 Aug 2012 09:35:48 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back
> in 1995, why didn't they do that?

I don't think anyone said it was "trivial" - just "possible".

Neither of those implies "cheap" or "desirable in all circumstances" 
either.

Jim

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>> Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back
>> in 1995, why didn't they do that?
>
> I don't think anyone said it was "trivial" - just "possible".
>
> Neither of those implies "cheap" or "desirable in all circumstances"
> either.

I said "why would you want a 140GB heap when it's impossible to have 
that much RAM?"

And everyone was like "OMG, are you kidding? Of COURSE you can have 
hundreds of GB of RAM. EVERYBODY does this ALL THE TIME for EVERYTHING! 
If your company doesn't do this then they're just being cheap."

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Am 14.08.2012 23:03, schrieb Orchid Win7 v1:

> I said "why would you want a 140GB heap when it's impossible to have
> that much RAM?"
>
> And everyone was like "OMG, are you kidding? Of COURSE you can have
> hundreds of GB of RAM.

Yes, everyone was like that indeed.

> EVERYBODY does this ALL THE TIME for EVERYTHING!

No, nobody was like that.

Your question was based on the presumption that "it's impossible to have 
that much RAM"; everyone disagreed with that presumption and told you 
so, and examples were given that proved it wrong.

> If your company doesn't do this then they're just being cheap."

Well, actually everyone was like "If your company doesn't do this it 
doesn't mean a thing; there may be other reasons than outright 
impossibility."

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On Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:03:49 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back
>>> in 1995, why didn't they do that?
>>
>> I don't think anyone said it was "trivial" - just "possible".
>>
>> Neither of those implies "cheap" or "desirable in all circumstances"
>> either.
> 
> I said "why would you want a 140GB heap when it's impossible to have
> that much RAM?"
> 
> And everyone was like "OMG, are you kidding? Of COURSE you can have
> hundreds of GB of RAM. EVERYBODY does this ALL THE TIME for EVERYTHING!
> If your company doesn't do this then they're just being cheap."

No, I don't think anyone responded that way.

Jim

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Le 2012-08-14 17:03, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
>>> Still, if it's as trivial as you claim to have multiple TB of RAM back
>>> in 1995, why didn't they do that?
>>
>> I don't think anyone said it was "trivial" - just "possible".
>>
>> Neither of those implies "cheap" or "desirable in all circumstances"
>> either.
>
> I said "why would you want a 140GB heap when it's impossible to have
> that much RAM?"
>
> And everyone was like "OMG, are you kidding? Of COURSE you can have
> hundreds of GB of RAM. EVERYBODY does this ALL THE TIME for EVERYTHING!
> If your company doesn't do this then they're just being cheap."

[Citation required]

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/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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