[Info-vax] OpenVMS async I/O, fast vs. slow

[Simon Clubley]

On 2023-11-10, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>
> I was playing with computers way before I started at University. When I 
> started in the Gymnasium in Sweden (1982), we shared one PDP-11/70 
> running RSTS/E between four schools. Having a multiuser system, and 
> being able to communicate with people in other places were really cool, 
> and I was a big fan of RSTS/E. (Never got into PCs because of this.)
> And this all, of course, led to computer clubs, and I got involved with 
> one that had a PDP-11/40 on which we eventually got RSX up and running. 
> And I just found that there were things in RSX that I found nicer than 
> in RSTS/E, so for my playing around, I start switching more and more 
> into RSX. And then I got into VMS pretty naturally from there. Worked at 
> DEC for a while, and eventually started at University (where they were 
> running DEC-20s), and of course yet again a computer club. This one had 
> a PDP-8/I, but soon got a PDP-11/34. And me being the person around who 
> was most experienced with that architecture, I sortof started running 
> more PDP-11 stuff and RSX again, at after that it's mostly been what 
> I've been doing for fun.
>

In my case, the decisive moment was when I was 14 when I entered
upper secondary school.

My parents had moved house over the summer into a new school catchment
area and I couldn't take both technical drawing (IIRC) and computer
science at the new secondary school. 

I knew nothing about either of the subjects and had to choose on the
spot which one I wanted to take. I choose computer science. Within
a few weeks I was utterly hooked and the rest is history. :-)

[In those days, if you showed the level of interest I rapidly did in
school, your interest was assumed to be both genuine and benign. As a
result, thanks to the teaching staff, I was able to explore the equipment
I had access to in a way that you would _never_ be allowed to these days.
I probably learnt a _lot_ more outside of the classroom than I did in it.]

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.