Use Cases for using Reload vs Reload Fast

[vv0bbLeS]

Hello all,

If we have the option to use both the reload and reload fast option, would there ever be a reason to use the plain reload command instead of the new reload fast command? Basically, I would think you would always want to use the reload fast command and there's no need to ever use the plain reload command if your switch supports reload fast ?

[vv0bbLeS]

@Joseph W. Doherty  haha sorry, didn't mean to make you feel old! ; )  I looked at that Z80 Wikipedia article you linked, and it mentioned the Z80 chip was used in arcade games like Pacman (which made me think of the weird glitch that happens in level 256 due to integer overflow. A very nice very technical explanation of this glitch and why it happens is given here: Pac-Man Kill Screen Explained - YouTube).

And yes, it's so strange to me when I talk with my co-workers who have been around IT a while, when they talk about the old days. I ask them what it was like to see the rise of Microsoft and Windows (which to me has always been around, well since Windows 3.1 for me : D  ) . Same with changes in the networking world. Some of my co-workers worked on non-Ethernet-based networks like token ring (which I realize isn't "that" old : ) at my company we actually still have remnants of token ring equipment in some of our TCOM closets that never got cleaned up. it's kind of cool to look at).

And wow, multiuser games across a network in 1980! That sounds awesome. I recently watched a 3 min Youtube video where Vint Cerf discusses the commercialization of the internet around 1989 (or 1991 with the "world wide web") so yeah to play multiuser games in 1980 would've been difficult I would think? Would you have had to use government-owned networks then? or maybe private corporate networks? (of course early network engineers would never use their company's network resources to play video games with each other, like Doom or anything ; )  

And yes, I agree with your statement about the Cisco CLI and the impact it's had on the industry. I think what they were meaning there was how most other network equipment vendors have more or less copied the "style" of the Cisco CLI, with show commands and enable mode and things like that. But yes, to claim credit for their "CLI" in general would definitely be a bit much! And I never thought about CLI's in general going back to the 60's - that's pretty cool. Interesting as I think of the 60's as being the punch-card programming era, but perhaps the CLI's were used for something else at that time, or only available on certain computer models?

Haha I guess we've de-railed this thread quite a bit : D 

[Joseph W. Doherty]

"Haha I guess we've de-railed this thread quite a bit"

Yes, perhaps a tad, but Cisco still was part of the discussion.

"Some of my co-workers worked on non-Ethernet-based networks like token ring"

Ditto - story there too, but I'll refrain from telling it.  ; )

". . . to play multiuser games in 1980 would've been difficult I would think?"

Not at all difficult.

"Would you have had to use government-owned networks then? or maybe private corporate networks?"

Unsure what all CompuServe used end-to-end (Wiki notes many various technologies being used), but access was part of the usage cost (at the time $6 per hour, flat rate, non-business hours - every month - I thought I couldn't have spent that much time on their system - laugh).

Understand these "games" were text based, both personal and multiuser.  Possibly you've never seen one.  Far, far removed from something like Doom.

" I think what they were meaning there was how most other network equipment vendors have more or less copied the "style" of the Cisco CLI, with show commands and enable mode and things like that."

Again, conceptionally, no new ground there either.  Had commands to show stuff like users active on system, tasks running, etc.  Also had, for admin usage, a command to enable your access level to allow much more config access.

However, certainly other network vendors wanted to use syntax as close as possible to Cisco's as it made it easier to use Brand X if you were already familiar with Cisco syntax.  (Heck, even when Windows 1.0 came out, some interesting legal battles between Apple and Microsoft over the "look".  Due to some of these legal battles, Windows could only tile windows as Apple claimed overlapping windows was "theirs".  [Speaking of legal battles, Bill Gates - Microsoft tried to obtain exclusive rights to "Windows" - courts said, sorry, you cannot own that word.])

". . .  60's as being the punch-card programming era . . ."

It was, into the 70s too.  (Ha, I've used IBM keypunch models 26, 29 and even the 129!)  But in the 70s, glass terminals started to replace using punched cards, although, on some systems, your input was still using punched card rules.

". . . or only available on certain computer models?"

Yep, more or less.

[vv0bbLeS]

"Understand these "games" were text based, both personal and multiuser.  Possibly you've never seen one.  Far, far removed from something like Doom."

Reminds me of the well-known text-game Colossal Cave Adventure on the PDP-10. And you're correct, I don't think I've ever played a text-based game as I grew up in a time where graphical games were prevalent : )

"Again, conceptionally, no new ground there either."

Gotcha, makes sense. And also makes sense other vendors would want to model Cisco CLI as it makes it easier on customers to migrate to new vendor's products.

"Ha, I've used IBM keypunch models 26, 29 and even the 129!"

Haha wow that's awesome, but I have to say don't envy you! : ) To be carrying a huge stack of cards to the computer lab to run my program, hoping I don't drop them on the floor along the way! Hopefully I'd have taken a marker and drew on the side of the stack to help me put them back together, unless my department were really fancy and we had an IBM card sorter! : ) (FYI a lot of that info I learned from Dr. David Brailsford here: Punch Card Programming - Computerphile - YouTube )

Anyways, thanks again! And thanks for the fun chat!

[Joseph W. Doherty]

"Reminds me of the well-known text-game Colossal Cave Adventure on the PDP-10. And you're correct, I don't think I've ever played a text-based game as I grew up in a time where graphical games were prevalent : )"

Ha, you're a real computer historian!  Possibly the "best" variant of the kind of game you described, above, was Zork.  (Similar conceptional game, but with "pictures" was Myst- let's not discuss the hours I played both of those).

BTW, PDP-10 was one of the mainframes I learned to program on.

"To be carrying a huge stack of cards to the computer lab to run my program, hoping I don't drop them on the floor along the way! Hopefully I'd have taken a marker and drew on the side of the stack to help me put them back together, unless my department were really fancy and we had an IBM card sorter!"

Actually for most labs, computer decks were relatively small.  The trick for those was to use multiple rubber bands, this in case one broke the deck didn't fly apart.

For professional sized computer programs, you would/should use the first six (?) positions on the card for a sequence number (like ACL ACE line numbers) and also use the last eight positions for the program's name.  This so you could do exactly what you described, i.e. run such a dropped card deck though a card sorter.  Personally, outside of early school labs, I didn't have to actually have program code on card decks, but as mentioned earlier, while on-line editing source code, compilers, on some systems, generally expected the source code was still formatted per such card rules.

(A common issue that almost every programmer, at that time, would bump up against, was writing code, on-line, where you ran past column 72.  Compiler would ignore any code there, but if the "code" was a single character symbol, which was optional for syntax, but had logical impact, complier would not generate an error, but generate code without the "coded" logic.  Yet, when you printed the source code, the symbol was there.  An example is code like "a=123", but if the "3" is in column 73, the compiler generates code for "a=12", but when you print out the code, it still shows "a=123".)

[vv0bbLeS]

Ha, you're a real computer historian!  Possibly the "best" variant of the kind of game you described, above, was Zork."

Haha thanks! I do enjoy computer history, very fascinating and exciting. And I'll have to look more into Zork!

"Similar conceptional game, but with "pictures" was Myst- let's not discuss the hours I played both of those"

Haha now there is a game I have played! Very fun and the sounds were so good - made the game quite intense. Such a good feeling when the code numbers you worked so hard to get actually worked to unlock the whatever-it-was you were trying to unlock!

"BTW, PDP-10 was one of the mainframes I learned to program on."

Wow that's awesome! I tried a few quick Google searches but couldn't find what programming language was used on that. Would you have had to use PDP assembly ? (I don't want to drag this thread on with such off-topic questions but I really am curious on that one : )  )

"Actually for most labs, computer decks were relatively small.  The trick for those was to use multiple rubber bands, this in case one broke the deck didn't fly apart."

Ah ok gotcha. And wow, genius idea with the multiple rubber bands. I hadn't heard that one before. Very cool!

"while on-line editing source code, compilers, on some systems, generally expected the source code was still formatted per such card rules."

never heard that one either. Very interesting that compilers still expected code to be formatted like it would've been on punched cards, but I suppose that's a reasonable expectation since it wasn't so far removed.

And wow the column 73 issue sounds terrible (yuck), very hard to track down, especially if you had never run into it before and weren't aware to check that as one of the first troubleshooting steps!