From Newsgroup: comp.arch

On Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:55:29 GMT, MitchAlsup
<[email protected]d> wrote:

In this case YOU have to ask YOURSELF why are you providing any of those >strange data sizes AT ALL ??? That is who is Concertina for ???

I think that ARM-based smartphones already existed when I started work
on Concertina II.
But it may be that it was before Apple switched the Macintosh over to
Apple Silicon, so ARM was still seen as a niche product.

So, psychologically, I felt that we were living in a world where,
essentially, x86 - at least in its x86-64 incarnation - had *killed
off all other computer architectures*.
From this, I drew the conclusion that, when it comes to computer
architectures, "There can be only one" - like Highlander.

And from that, I came to the further conclusion... that if the world
can have only one computer architecture, then, in order for the world
not to be impoverished thereby, that one surviving computer
architecture must be able to "do everything", where "everything"
includes, say, being able to run PDP-10 code at nearly native speeds.
Hence, strange data sizes.

John Savard
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From Newsgroup: comp.arch

[email protected] (John Savard) posted:

On Wed, 11 Feb 2026 23:55:29 GMT, MitchAlsup <[email protected]d> wrote:

In this case YOU have to ask YOURSELF why are you providing any of those >strange data sizes AT ALL ??? That is who is Concertina for ???

I think that ARM-based smartphones already existed when I started work
on Concertina II.
But it may be that it was before Apple switched the Macintosh over to
Apple Silicon, so ARM was still seen as a niche product.

So, psychologically, I felt that we were living in a world where, essentially, x86 - at least in its x86-64 incarnation - had *killed
off all other computer architectures*.

Microprocessors killed off minicomputers--no doubt.
Microprocessors did not kill off mainframes--and still cannot (RAS)

From this, I drew the conclusion that, when it comes to computer architectures, "There can be only one" - like Highlander.

{Duncan or Connor} ??

One will never happen, one may become and remain dominant for long
periods of time, but not forever.

And from that, I came to the further conclusion... that if the world
can have only one computer architecture, then, in order for the world
not to be impoverished thereby, that one surviving computer
architecture must be able to "do everything", where "everything"
includes, say, being able to run PDP-10 code at nearly native speeds.
Hence, strange data sizes.

Everything I have seen over 50 years tells me "mediocracy first wins".

John Savard

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From Newsgroup: comp.arch

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (John Savard) wrote:

if the world can have only one computer architecture, then, in
order for the world not to be impoverished thereby, that one
surviving computer architecture must be able to "do everything",
where "everything" includes, say, being able to run PDP-10 code
at nearly native speeds.

However, an architecture of extreme complexity, burdened with lots of
rarely used features, is most unlikely to become the world's sole
architecture.

Have you tried running PDP-10 code in an emulator on a modern 64-bit
machine? I'd bet that it significantly exceeds the speed of the native hardware.

John
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