asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-01#1877608 << pogo is a 256MB ram / 2core / 800MHz box, and takes up considerable vertical space if you mount the sata disk ; rk is a 2GB / 4core / 1.8GHz box, and takes up 2cm of vertical ( and there is existing rack of'em )☝︎
asciilifeform: if you want own fg, you put it inside yer own box that you colo.
asciilifeform: ( 0 typhus in former, 7-8hr workday vs 14 , etc )
asciilifeform: think plantation slaves vs lowell mill gurlz
asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-01#1877582 << sorta why asciilifeform is an 'old-time su' fan, of sorts. thing was run ottoman-style, 'these are our slaves, let's keep them in decent quarters, actual milk, etc', 'let's build rockets so barbarian invader thinks twice' , etc. 'phree world' sees the plebe as moar of a game animal than farm horse, 'if dies, dies'. turns out, makes for objectively shittier existence for near-errybody.☝︎
asciilifeform: there's ye olde 'comfort breeds idjicy' hypothesis, but it's a 'what' and not a 'how'
asciilifeform: ( recall mircea_popescu's piece with the legionnaires & their armours )
asciilifeform: i dunno the answer any moar than the romans knew.
asciilifeform: as a larva i had nfi ~why~ the 'grandfathers' were made of diff stuff, quite evidently to naked eye, than errybody's fathers, but was clear that they were.☟︎
asciilifeform: last gen that worked with stalin and was actually answerable for results, with the psychodynamics of 'it worx, or my arse on a plate' baked into their firmware.
asciilifeform recalls burial of grandfather, with orchestra, rifle salute, etc. and vague notion that various 'changes' all about are indeed connected with the disappearance of that gen☟︎
asciilifeform: ('coincidentally' su folded shop when the ~last d00ds who knew what german mg sounded like, went to grave)
asciilifeform: modern ru only distanced from zimbabwe at all because ~those~ d00dz wound up the clock spring.☟︎
asciilifeform: consider that 'soyuz' rocket that ~still~ produced, is a korolev ('50s, but really stalin-era staff) design.
asciilifeform: it is quite evident that there was no kurchatov in 1978.
asciilifeform: then i haven't anything to go with, i have nfi what powers chainsaw then.
asciilifeform: so, to extend lemma, atari ~because~ cheap ic, and not other way ?☟︎☟︎
asciilifeform: is contention that asciilifeform is following in the footsteps of the mythical drunk who 'could drink erry day cuz he turned in his glass' ?
asciilifeform: 'here's d00d with milling machine, he and assistant made this mold, took week, can you pay him for a week? not that it matters, he's booked 365d/y '
asciilifeform as a larva, was taken to a su plastics factory where father was commissioning sumthing-or-other cover for some mechanism. and learned not only how plastic objects made, but why he 'no canhaz' custom one
asciilifeform: dunno what's the formula being sought, but how about that they don't, that can go to where built and see that it's factory and not farm ?
asciilifeform: it is really mega-mystery that device where nonrecoverable tooling cost is comparable to satellite rocket , is intensely start-topology/centralized affair in management ?
asciilifeform: i currently dun grasp what hole mircea_popescu sees in the 'amortize via konsoomer' hypothesis. near as i can tell, it was the exact pattern. 6502 was initially costly, and cost dropped precisely in proportion to how popular 'atari'.
asciilifeform: he was told by viziers that the only approach that has remote chance of staying solvent, was to copy ameri-tech. it had track record of working, surface to air rocket was copied at penny to the dollar of original cost, and worked a++ (still fielded in fact, from that period even)
asciilifeform: just as e.g. organic chem is a german biz, by birth
asciilifeform: like or not, most of ic formative yrs happened in (old) usa
asciilifeform: unless yer unspeakably loaded ( in usa this existed, and so there ~were~ 'bolixes', oddball affairs that were not 'pdp clone' )
asciilifeform: the aspec of this that stands out to asciilifeform's eye is that ic biz is moar like venus rocket than anyffing else. can't exactly save pennies from sofa cushion and upstart 'against establishment'
asciilifeform: after that, nomoar interesting irons, fullstop.
asciilifeform: but nato could amortize cost of that z80 by selling in atari.
asciilifeform: so in '70s was pressure, nato tank has 8bit comp for targeting rockets, so su tank also gotta, etc
asciilifeform: there is also the 'install base pressure'. recall mircea_popescu's serpent thread, when looked like it may have to be scrapped, 'motherfucker, i built battleship on this thing and NOW you say to scrap'
asciilifeform: well i did say 'chronically', not ' mircea_popescu that 1 time he forgot his wallet at home '
asciilifeform: i cannot presume to pin this down exactly. will share hypothesis tho : '50s-'60s su excelled at 'castles' , 'institutional' mega-constructions. venus rocket is a pyramid. but ic is a konsoomer-driven affair
asciilifeform: little thing, quite un-pdplike physically, approx same size and shape as mircea_popescu's spectrum clone
asciilifeform: ( neither asciilifeform nor asciilifeform's elder brother ever saw bk in anyone's house, was ruinously expensive, but at public toilet type affairs was common )
asciilifeform: ^ single-chip pdp11. whole generation learned on it.
asciilifeform: result : lotsa DEC clones, later -- intelade
asciilifeform: was duly implemented, imperial decree 'scrap all native comp work', largely ( if not entirely ) carried out
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: late 70s, piggy was running dry, tech gap becoming palpable. bean counters given problem of how to close gap at minimal cost. gave answer, 'warez'
asciilifeform: and yes they fished it out. ran on those '60s pre-ics.
asciilifeform: ( who even into '70s persisted in a belief that there's 'amazing su tech' worth fishing out of e.g. sunken su sub , with howard hughes' mega-boat )☟︎
