[Info-vax] FreeAXP loses network connectivity when laptop is woken up from "sleep"

[John Wallace]

On May 15, 8:14 pm, Johnny Billquist <b... at softjar.se> wrote:
> On 2012-05-15 11.23, John Wallace wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 15, 1:55 pm, m.krae... at gsi.de (Michael Kraemer) wrote:
> >> In article<bed0d406-2f99-4d52-bfa1-26626f7dd... at z19g2000vbe.googlegroups.com>,
>
> >> John Wallace<johnwalla... at yahoo.co.uk>  writes:
> >>> 2) The strange "file is there, file is not there" behaviour is a
> >>> feature introduced in Vista. It's related to apps that want to write
> >>> files to system-protected directories. When such a write happens in
> >>> Vista or later, it doesn't end up in the real system directory, there
> >>> is a shadow directory elsewhere that will get the file, that *some*
> >>> (but not all) APIs know about. It's a band-aid on an elastoplast to
> >>> work around a Defective by Design security model, but this is Windows.
>
> >> Wasn't Windows designed by Himself (aka D.Cutler)?
>
> > Not correct, even if you were referring specifically to the NT flavour
> > of Windows.
>
> > WNT's kernel stuff, process architecture, etc has some VAXELN
> > heritage. VAXELN was a not particularly well known (even inside DEC)
> > Cutler project for a distributable RT OS which would feel comfortable
> > for VMS programmers without being VMS, and allow distributed RT
> > applications to be developed without need to understand low level
> > hardware specifics and OS kernel interface details. VAXELN
> > incorporated early examples of a process model which also incorporated
> > threads, and a nice approach to interprocess data sharing (a
> > distributed naming service, transparent messaging between apps whether
> > on the same node or separate, etc). Marvellous stuff, some of which
> > duly made its way into NT, though many writers understandably missed
> > the VAXELN connection (it is briefly mentioned in Custer's book
> > "Inside Windows NT").
>
> > Unfortunately, Gates didn't like the fact that the robustness and
> > security made possible by things like the multiple protected address
> > spaces in VAXELN (and in any other worthwhile OS) meant that for some
> > benchmarks, WNT was slower than W98 on the same hardware (because of
> > things like the increased number of context switches, mode changes
> > etc). Productivity goes up as robustness goes up but isn't so easy to
> > demonstrate as frame rates on a game or other silly benchmark. So
> > Gates got the team to move quite a bit of code from user mode to
> > kernel mode, processes started using shared memory rather than
> > messaging, etc. Thereby increasing performance but inevitably also
> > decreasing robustness, as accidents were no longer confined to a
> > single process.
>
> > That's one aspect relevant here.
>
> > Another aspect of the defectiveness by design referred to earlier is
> > that Gates wanted the new OS to provide transparent compatibility with
> > existing applications but seemingly didn't understand the security
> > implications of that (why would he care anyway?). Consequently, random
> > apps were allowed to write pretty much where they wanted, because
> > that's what they'd always been able to do on Windows. Applications
> > couldn't do that on RSX or VMS or even VAXELN, OSes which all had some
> > concept of security.
>
> > Windows had previously had no concept of security, and therefore, for
> > compatibility with that legacy, neither did the Gatesified WNT.
>
> > WNT was not, is not, and never will be VMS++.
>
> I think this is pretty correct, as far as it goes, except that it's not
> frmo VAXELN, but a project called Prism, that Cutler worked on at DEC
> before moving to MS.
>
> (See third paragraph ofhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX-11)
>
>         Johnny

Not sure about that PRISM reference.

I did know VAXELN in reasonable detail (and VMS and a bit of WNT :))
whereas I've only ever heard/read rumours and stories about PRISM. As
I understand it, VAXELN predates PRISM.I can find no mention of PRISM
in the foreword in my 1993 copy of Custer's book, contrary to what the
RSX wiki-article appears to say. Nor is PRISM mentioned in the index.
VAXELN isn't in the index either, but an informed observer who knows
basic WNT internals and basic VAXELN internals and basic VMS internals
(that's probably not many people :)) would see rather more
similarities between WNT and VAXELN than there are between WNT and
VMS.

Anyway, PRISM or not, the main point here is that there were lots of
sensible goals in what Cutler's vision of WNT might have been. The
goals are specifically referenced in Cutler's foreword to Custer's
book: "portability, security, POSIX compliance, compatibility,
scalable performance, multiprocessor support, extensibility, and ease
of internationalisation" (p xviii in my copy).

History shows that Billco actually cared little for these in reality,
except maybe compatibility, but in recruiting Cutler and co he had
eliminated a potential competitor from the market, which is something
that Gates always seemed to enjoy doing.