[Info-vax] The (now lost) future of Alpha.

[Paul Sture]

On 2018-08-07, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
> On 8/6/2018 11:21 AM, Bob Koehler wrote:
>> In article <pk7pe6$c30$1 at gioia.aioe.org>, Chris <xxx.syseng.yyy at gfsys.co.uk> writes:
>>>
>>> One of the reasons why unix and C became so popular in the early days
>>> is because the C library provides platform independent access to i/o,
>>> storage and a shed load of other functions. If I write a c program for
>>> any flavour of unix, or linux and don't try to be too clever, it will
>>> almost always compile and run on anything else.
>>
>>     You obvioulsy haven't done enough with ioctl().  Or am I being "too
>>     clever"?
>>
>>     Years ago, I found I had to get into ioctl() just to identify the contents
>>     of a magtape.
>>
>
> Basic always worked well with magtape.

COBOL does too, and VMS COBOL can understand EBCDIC too.

> Worthless capability now.  What's a magtape?

Tape is not dead yet:

"Reel talk: You know what's safely offline? Tape. Data protection outfit Veeam inks deal with Quantum":

<https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/14/veeam_gets_taped_up_by_quantum_in_antiransomware_deal/>


-- 
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the
intelligent are full of doubt.                 -- Bertrand Russell