Some time ago (probably 8-10 years ago), I noticed that getty lost the ability to automatically do stty -iuclc -olcuc if you logged in with a username all in caps, like the original UNIX getty used to do, and bash lost mapping ^ into |, both of which are needed to use an ASR-33 on a UNIX type system. I did use UNIX V6 on an ASR-33 for a bit in the 1970's.

In terms of MIPS (meaningless indicator of processor speed), the Vax 780 was the gold standard for benchmarks. As such, it became the measurement all of the super-minis measured themselves against, and the general concensus was it a 1MIP machine. Of course later VAXes came in at different speed/price points.

Nah, you should program using cards (9-edge down of course) or UNIX's first character terminal (the teletype 37) to get a true retro feeling. Programming in cards where you submitted the deck to the attendents for processing, and sometime later picked your output, tended to make you check the program by hand before submitting, particularly if you didn't get the output back until the next day. I remember in my first high school having the 029 or 027 card punch in the next room to the computer, made it so convenient for doing those last minute changes (though in a pinch, tape and a portable hole punch would do), while my second high school had the 24-hour turn around.

In the 1.xx days it was a classic cathedral project until the EGCS/GCC split. In the real old days (1988-ish) you logged on to the central server and edited the files there, using emacs version mode, with the number of versions set rather high. You had to register the IP address that you would be ftp'ing the sources from, and the threat was if you were passing along pre-release versions of the source outside the clique then you would have your access denied. It was a different time....

Intel had a period where they were focused elsewhere (IA-64), and AMD had come out with guns blazing. However, eventually Intel did wake up, and AMD was slow in getting out the Barcelona chips to compete against the core5 chips.

Ummm, the SSE5 instruction was AMD's extension not Intel's. After SSE4, the next Intel instruction set is AES, CLMUL, FMA3, and AVX. After AVX came out, the SSE5 instructions were changed to XOP (integer vector), FMA4 (fused multiply/add using the SSE5 format instead of the Intel FMA3 format), and CVT16 instructions (conversion to/from 16-bit floating point). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Vector_Extensions

The problems with dye-subs is the print will last maybe 10 years (according to Wilhelm). That's great for a picture that you will hang on your refrigerator for a while and then be replaced, but not as good for something that will last longer. Another problem is because the ink and paper come as a kit, you don't have much choice as to the paper, and likely there will be no clone versions of the ink/paper combinations, and when the manufacturer stops making it, you need to replace the printer. Dye-subs are great for things like photo setups at festivals, where you want something that can do print after print for fixed costs all day long, and the photo is immediately protected against the elements.

Though in terms of migraines, in the past I have been sensitive to the 50/60Hz flickering that fluorescents gave off (at least a few years ago), and I found halogen or incandescents to be better. I suspect the modern CFL's have better ballasts than previous models, but I still dread the 2012 cutoff when incandescents are supposed to be removed.

Compilers are a lot more complex. Just because the compiler compiles itself, doesn't mean that particular slowdowns and speedups won't be made.

When I glanced at the site, the differences between the two Ubunto distros look like they are mostly in cpu intensive code, and not things like OS drivers, etc (some of the differences between Snow Leopard are OS/filesystem issues). Given a change from GCC 4.3 to GCC 4.4 was made between the two distributions, it is likely due to the compiler. It may be something simple like not using -mcpu=native on the compilation (not specifying the cpu means GCC has to choose the generic cpu model, which is a compromise between various AMD and Intel chipsets). It could also be one of the places that was made slower, because incorrect code was generated, but you didn't always see the effect of the bad code in the sample dataset.

Good for you. As the other posters have mentioned, this isn't available to everybody. For example, I had a T-1 connection to my house when I was a work at home programmer, and the rate was $400/month. It was the only high speed connection available to me at the time (no cable, and we are too far from the central office for DSL, but because T-1 is regulated, the phone company has to provide it wherever it provides a landline). Well, the T-1 bill would have jumped to $700/month starting next month, and we decided that enough was enough, and cancelled the service. Right now, my only options are 3G networking (Sprint and Verizon) or satellite (hughes/wildblue), both of which have bandwidth caps. Both Sprint and Verizon offer service with 5 gigabytes/month service, and seem to be a much better deal than satellite. I went with Sprint, because my neighbors have been using it for a bit. It is fast enough that I can get a VPN connection to work, though the upload speeds and ping latencies are a little slower than I had with the T-1. In theory, Verizon Fios will be here within the year, and I hoping to get business class service from them.

I just switched to a Nokia 6133 using t-mobile, and I've set things up so the laptop connects to the phone via bluetooth, and I set up a normal PPP connection using GPRS/EDGE. I also have the cable, but it is more convenient to use bluetooth (however, I discovered when my house lost power for 5 days and I needed to check email, that the bluetooth drains the battery much faster). I do have to subscribe to the unlimited data service on t-mobile, and speed depends on whether I can get GPRS or EDGE. Here is one such site that documents how to set things up. http://koti.kapsi.fi/mcfrisk/linux_gprs.html