> ppc64p7 is likely POWER7-based systems

POWER 7 & 8 I think.

> not sure on 8260, 32dy4, and 8560

Those are PPC-based embedded processors.

> sparcv9v is (I assume) Niagra chips and above, containing virtualization/containerization tech.

I thought v9v was v9 + VIS instruction set extensions.

> Hitachi SuperH

SuperH gets used a lot in embedded, mobile and automotive applications. The SH3 & SH4 are really quite powerful 32-bit processors with MMUs, and I've always found the SH4 4x4 vector instruction set nifty (and amazingly fast if your problem can fit in that box). The biggest reason to continue SuperH support in Linux is the fact that the patents on the chip have expired and there is an active effort to produce an open source implementation (see: https://lwn.net/Articles/64763...). They currently have SH2 level functionality and are aiming at SH4.

The SH5 was a 64-bit extension of SuperH. It apparently shipped but never made an impact on the market and quickly disappeared, but it does provide a roadmap to 64-bit once a working open source SH4 is solid.

> s390 s390x Some sort of mainframe/large workstation systems I think

Mainframes. Descendants of the IBM/370 and currently call "z/Series" or some such. Latest one is the "z13" line. Processor not derived from PPC or Power, though there is technology overlap. Can run Linux on bare metal or under the z/VM hypervisor.

No open source project is keeping Cobol alive. The Cobol world is barely aware of open source. Cobol is being kept alive by the billions of lines of code that do things like get you your paycheck or process your insurance claim every day.

Didn't take long for the Burzynski shill to show up.

The question still stands, why do you want to harm people by telling them that? When did you stop beating your wife? Talk about a master of the strawman...you AC are gifted.

I've probably had ~1000 EISA machines pass new through my hands in the old days, but almost exclusively servers, and mostly Pentium. There were also a number of Alpha-based machines that used EISA, and the HP 9000 HP-PA-based machines used it. I *think* I've seen a MIPS-based EISA machine from back when we thought we'd be running WinNT on MIPS. Good times. For a relatively short period of time, it was extremely popular at the high end. It was never really direct competition for VL-Bus, which was more "we need more bandwidth for consumer level video and PCI isn't here yet" than "new bus arch for high performance computing". I don't have one now, but did within the last 5 years. FWIW...EISA is why PCI isn't as closed and license heavy as MCA.

I've still got a little bit of FDDI, as it's the only 100Mb tech for things VAXen and older Sun. But I suppose that kinda proves the point of "leave old crusty tech behind".

We have an ex-KGB Cold War nostalgist on the other side of the table. Is it suprising that we're reacting with "what the fuck do we do with an ex-kgb douche jerking off over the cold war to stop being a global fuckwit?"?

As with most things like this, the answer is "yes, but...". BSD can do it, but it isn't the same as how Linux does it, so if you're world is Linux, BSD is a trip to a foriegn land. BSD makes it straightforward to build minimal, fixed-function systems (and has for a very long time). There isn't, however, a point-n-click or other easy interfaces to do it. It requires somewhat more intimacy with how BSD systems are put together at a macro level. I think the investment is worthwhile; BSD makes it easy to understand the dependencies required and what can be left out. But I'm obviously in the minority. And if you think Docker is cool as a mechanism to deploy these minimalist environments, check out what Jails in FreeBSD brings to the table with (since 2000, btw).

Russian military operating on foreign soil out of uniform? Last time I checked, that was called a "spy". Treat them like what they are.

I like how it's "if we don't live forever in 2045, it's because we didn't take it serious enough" without the possibility that it should be "by 2045 we know it's not possible to live wildly longer than we did in 2014 and these guys whole schtick has been a fools errand".

And it should be unsurprising that the authors are bought and paid for shills: http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

Both authors are bought and paid for shills. See: http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

He's not talking about a "two-sided market", he's talking about an industry that is trying to double bill. The end user pays for the delivery infrastructure, and if they need to build more capacity, it should come out of the huge profits these companies are realizing. *That's* how Economics 101 works. Saying "I'd really hate something bad to happen to your bits on the way to your customer...maybe you should pay me a little something to make sure that doesn't happen" and then claiming "I need the money because bandwidth" is simply extortion. Utter bullshit, every word of it.

Must not name collide with anything related to computers, no matter how tenuously related. Gotcha. Redefine the issue enough times, you get to be right, I suppose.