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永恒的主机
The Eternal Mainframe (2013)
2018 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇 2013 年的文章《永恒的大型机》论述了一个观点：个人电脑革命并未真正取代集中式计算，历史正在循环——云计算本质上就是当年大型机分时系统的回归，计算资源和控制权重新集中到少数提供商手中。文章回顾了从分时系统到 PC 再到云的演变，提醒人们对这种集中化保持警惕。
为什么经久不衰：它精准预言了云计算时代计算权力重新集中的趋势，多年后重读依然切中要害，是理解计算史循环规律的经典视角。
HN 评论精选
AWS 本质上就是分时系统的回归，按用量付费改变了人们对资源的思考方式。
《分时系统的回归》——这已经是非常真实的现实了。Amazon AWS 就是分时系统，“按用量付费”。通过把服务器从固定成本变成可变成本，更多人不得不精细地关注资源消耗。在个人电脑和租用服务器时代的大部分时间里，情况并非如此。
Animats查看英文原文
"The Return of Time-Sharing" - now that's very much real. Amazon AWS is time-sharing. "Pay for what you use". By changing servers from a fixed cost to a variable one, more people have to worry about resource consumption in fine detail. Through most of the personal computing and leased server era, that was not the case.
回顾浮点协处理器的历史，类比 GPU 正在走从外挂到融入系统的相似道路。
有趣的是，70 年代的小型机上，我们现在所说的“浮点协处理器”还是硬件选件。即使是 Intel 8086，数学协处理器也是单独的 8087 芯片。小型机上要根据硬件是否带协处理器使用不同版本的编译器，通常由系统管理员来确保安装正确的编译器。这个传统延续到了 PC 上，过了很久才能默认人人都有硬件浮点支持。而且各语言的软件浮点实现都烦人地不同，所以没有可移植的二进制浮点写法——只能转成 ASCII。GPU 就像一种 CPU 之外的新型硬件浮点，如今正逐渐重新融入主系统。
DannyB2查看英文原文
It is amusing to note that on mini computers of the 1970's that what we now would call a "floating point co-processor" was a hardware option. Even with the Intel 8086, a "math" coprocessor was a separate 8087 chip. On mini computers you used a different version of the language compiler depending on whether your hardware had this coprocessor or not. Typically you didn't make this choice, but the system administration people made sure the correct compilers were installed to generate hardware supported floating point or software floating point. That tradition seemed to make its way into PCs. It was a while before you could just assume that everyone had hardware supported floating point. Oh, and every language's software floating point was annoyingly different. So no portable way of writing binary floating point -- you had to convert to/from ASCII. GPUs are like a new fangled hardware floating point external to the CPU. Now to gradually become part of the main system again.
作者以亲身经历印证文章观点：对计算机与权力集中的警惕并非杞人忧天。
文章引用了《Max Headroom》的台词：“关机开关？她要为此坐多年牢。关机开关是非法的！”我 1980 年 18 岁时曾对父母的一位朋友说，计算机将是和火一样重要的发明。他十年前还是个嬉皮士，觉得我幼稚——可能因为火太重要了，更可能是因为嬉皮士对计算机与权威的关系心存不信任。回想起来，他两种理由上可能都是对的，尽管我花了几十年才明白。这篇文章很好地阐述了保持谨慎的理由。
pjmorris查看英文原文
FTA: > Janie Crane: “An off switch?” > Metrocop: “She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!” > -Max Headroom, season 1, episode 6, “The Blanks” As a callow 18 year old in 1980, I suggested to one of my parent's friends that the computer would be as important an invention as fire. He'd been a hippie 10 years earlier, and thought I was being childish, possibly because fire is so vital, more likely because he had a hippie's distrust of the computer's relationship to authority. In retrospect, he was probably right for either reason, though it took me multiple decades to catch on. This article does a nice job of laying out the case for being cautious.
补充“PC”一词的历史渊源：IBM 命名使其成为通用称呼。
在 BYTE 杂志和早期微型计算机的年代，我记得“个人电脑”这个词似乎是乔布斯创造的。Apple 没有大力营销它。当时这些机器被称为“微型”或“家用”电脑，甚至“自制”电脑，因为在“神圣三件套”（Apple II、TRS-80 和 Commodore PET）之前，没有两台电脑的硬件是相同的，这严重阻碍了软件的大规模分发。IBM 把它的电脑命名为 PC，从而占用了这个词并永远与之绑定。
DannyB2查看英文原文
Back in the early days of BYTE magazine, early microcomputers, etc. I seem to recall that Steve Jobs coined the term "Personal Computer". Apple didn't market it to death. But at that time the way these computers were described was as "micro" or "home" computers. Or even "home brew", because before the "holy trinity" (Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore PET), no two computers' hardware was the same. A real hinderance to mass software distribution. IBM named its computer the PC, thus co-opting the term and forever being associated with it. But you have to remember back further.
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