On Wed, 2007-06-13 at 11:31 -0400, Todd Zullinger wrote:
I enjoyed that sort of entertainment in the installer. My favorite
was the "let's all go to the kitchen and get a snack!" one with the
smiling refrigerator & hot dog (again, this could just be the drugs
talking :).
Going back to the late '70s, the system generation for the RSX-11
operating system for the PDP-11 series was a semi-interactive
question-and-answer process which culminated in a several hour (on the
11-34 that I was supporting) delay while the kernel was compiled and
built. One of the first questions asked was whether the generation was
being done in the UK, England, France, or Germany. The first time I
added support for a new device, I had visions of NLS support (although
not by that acronym in the '70s), and was amazed at what computers could
do. It turned out that a message was issued just before the actual
generation started, warning that the next process could take several
hours, and suggesting that the invoker take a break and have a <cup of
coffee / cup of tea / glass of wine / glass of beer>. (Depending on the
response to the earlier question.)
Cheers,
Gordon Keehn
