[Info-vax] vtAlpha and marketing bullshit

[Paul Sture]

On Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:41:47 +0000, ChrisQ wrote:

> On 12/19/11 21:43, Phillip Helbig---undress to reply wrote:
>> In article<mn.9b577dbca3033f0b.104627 at invalid.skynet.be>, Marc Van Dyck
>> <marc.gr.vandyck at invalid.skynet.be>  writes:
>>
>>> I was also going to say something along this. For me, the fact that
>>> there is indeed a linux kernel as bottom layer seemed obvious, and I
>>> don't care the least bit, be it SuSe or whatever else. The fact is,
>>> it's embedded, tested as one product, does not need to be feed with
>>> patches every few weeks, and is supported as one product, so no
>>> ping-pong between two suppliers who will both pretend that the fault
>>> is at the other side. After all, if they have re-used a Linux kernel,
>>> that means they have been able to dedicate more effort on the emulator
>>> side, and that's what is important.
>>
>> Something like Apple?
>>
>>
> Sweet-16 ?, Wozniac's 16 bit virtual machine in the Apple II rom. That's
> what I read from the initial description, which I assumed would load,
> with a boot loader, and start running before the first block of vms.
> 
> Haven't really thought about all the possible gotchas, but that seems
> like the way to maximise speed, though it obviously isn't that trivial a
> task...
> 

That reminds me of a firewall solution done by Red Hat(?) about 10 years 
ago.  Boot off a CD, put your config files on a write locked floppy, and 
it all ran out of RAM.  I seriously thought about getting it until I saw 
the price (1,000 USD IIRC).

While I have since learnt that a dedicated hardware solution is better 
for a firewall, the principal idea is not forgotten.


-- 
Paul Sture