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We can't do a counterfactual. Perhaps the technical superiority of mainframes could have been maintained with greater competition and investments in the "right

We can't do a counterfactual. Perhaps the technical superiority of mainframes could have been maintained with greater competition and investments in the "right" pursuits instead of focusing on being litigious and covetous. Seagate also had some 80s theft but instead they chose to focus on their next technologies and making better products. "They can't steal our quality" is the quote I remember. Corporate espionage happens a lot. I've had it happen to me, at companies I've been involved in, multiple times. Of course we are supposed to ignore how common it is and focus on China and then assume everyone else are honest moral angels getting hoodwinked. Nonsense. The accusations are framed as if because something is Chinese we cannot trust it. There's suspicions, hunches, and feelings. You even used "suspected". As if "well we can't trust those shifty Asians". This will get us nowhere. Build better stuff. Also you can't down vote replies, but thanks anyway. Your nonsense is entertaining

pc86 6y ago
Surely we can disagree without calling well-intentioned comments "nonsense."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kristopolous 6y ago
  but it's clearly not. it's a "call in the troops" brigading. I said essentially the same things here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24101407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24101407 which was outside their thread of interest so it didn't go in the deep negatives. Same message, different parent, radically different results. So it's not good faith, it's some dumb bad faith psychological game. It's an Ash conformity test. I'm supposed to think "hrmm, maybe 'Chinaman is evil' race-baiting IS correct, look at all the people who think that!" Nope. Not happening. I know the scam. I know I'm not the crazy one, there's groups of racist internet lunatics that go around and do attacks like this ... that's why I dropped it. They can have their fun. I have other things to do with my time, but I'm retracting absolutely nothing. They can try to move that overton window somewhere else.
rumanator 6y ago
> Perhaps the technical superiority of mainframes I don't understand the point you are trying to make. I mean, the PC killed the mainframe because it was a superior concept, because it catered to an incomparably larger market (personal computing) and, due to its massive economies of scale allowed to develop solutions that ate away the mainframe market. I mean, think about it: why so you think a massively successful company like Google, with very deep pockets and total freedom to pick and choose the best technology money can buy, decided to found their whole business not on mainframes but on massive clusters of COTS PCs? And why do you think Google doubled-down on PCs, and not on mainframes, even after they started to design and build and operate their own computers? > The accusations are framed as if because something is Chinese we cannot trust it. China's regime can't be trusted because it has a very long track record of fraud and abuse and deceitfulness, not to mention human rights violations. You'd be hard-pressed to find any nation that developed a trusting relationship with China due to the way China's totalitarian regime engages with the whole world, specially their neighbors.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  > I don't understand the point you are trying to make. I mean, the PC killed the mainframe ... and build and operate their own computers? Because in the early 80s and late 70s, IBM, Honeywell, CDC, Unisys, Burroughs, nobody focused on the right things. That's why it's a counterfactual. Virtual machine first started on VM by IBM and then on VM/ESA. The parallel multi core processor was also a mainframe innovation. If in a different world where they ran it like a brutal startup instead of a post ww2 government contractor relying on legislation to secure profits, the past 40 years could have played out differently. Just like CP/M could have been on the IBM PC if Digital Research returned the phone calls faster or we could all be running Xerox desktops today if they had dealt with Parc differently or we'd all be in a post nuclear apocalypse if the people in charge of launching them didn't defy orders. Please stop assuming I'm profoundly incompetent, this is counterproductive

pc86 6y ago

Surely we can disagree without calling well-intentioned comments "nonsense."

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kristopolous 6y ago
but it's clearly not. it's a "call in the troops" brigading. I said essentially the same things here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24101407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24101407 which was outside their thread of interest so it didn't go in the deep negatives. Same message, different parent, radically different results. So it's not good faith, it's some dumb bad faith psychological game. It's an Ash conformity test. I'm supposed to think "hrmm, maybe 'Chinaman is evil' race-baiting IS correct, look at all the people who think that!" Nope. Not happening. I know the scam. I know I'm not the crazy one, there's groups of racist internet lunatics that go around and do attacks like this ... that's why I dropped it. They can have their fun. I have other things to do with my time, but I'm retracting absolutely nothing. They can try to move that overton window somewhere else.

rumanator 6y ago

> Perhaps the technical superiority of mainframes I don't understand the point you are trying to make. I mean, the PC killed the mainframe because it was a superior concept, because it catered to an incomparably larger market (personal computing) and, due to its massive economies of scale allowed to develop solutions that ate away the mainframe market. I mean, think about it: why so you think a massively successful company like Google, with very deep pockets and total freedom to pick and choose the best technology money can buy, decided to found their whole business not on mainframes but on massive clusters of COTS PCs? And why do you think Google doubled-down on PCs, and not on mainframes, even after they started to design and build and operate their own computers? > The accusations are framed as if because something is Chinese we cannot trust it. China's regime can't be trusted because it has a very long track record of fraud and abuse and deceitfulness, not to mention human rights violations. You'd be hard-pressed to find any nation that developed a trusting relationship with China due to the way China's totalitarian regime engages with the whole world, specially their neighbors.

kristopolous 6y ago
> I don't understand the point you are trying to make. I mean, the PC killed the mainframe ... and build and operate their own computers? Because in the early 80s and late 70s, IBM, Honeywell, CDC, Unisys, Burroughs, nobody focused on the right things. That's why it's a counterfactual. Virtual machine first started on VM by IBM and then on VM/ESA. The parallel multi core processor was also a mainframe innovation. If in a different world where they ran it like a brutal startup instead of a post ww2 government contractor relying on legislation to secure profits, the past 40 years could have played out differently. Just like CP/M could have been on the IBM PC if Digital Research returned the phone calls faster or we could all be running Xerox desktops today if they had dealt with Parc differently or we'd all be in a post nuclear apocalypse if the people in charge of launching them didn't defy orders. Please stop assuming I'm profoundly incompetent, this is counterproductive