Hewlett Packard has just released the source code for the Advanced File System, once used on the VAX series of minicomputers.

While some will scoff, and say that this is old code, it must be remembered that sometimes older is better, and was more thoughtfully developed, for computers that were slower, and had to be efficient, as every little bit of difference mattered. It was not possible to throw another few hundred megahertz of processing speed at a problem.

The thing is, while no one may wish to use AdvFS in its entirety, there certainly might be some tricks in there to add some snap to a current file system. After all, ReiserFS will probably not be getting updated any time soon.

from ZDNet

Been a while since you’ve seen DEC, the acronym for the late, Digital Equipment Corp., in a headline, and this might be the last time.

But Hewlett-Packard has placed DEC’s old Advanced File System (AdvFS) on Sourceforge as a Linux enhancement so let’s all party like it’s 1979.

AdvFS offers solid security and back-up features, along with fine-grain control of file systems and free space, according to the SourceForge page. The documentation for AdvFS is living on the H-P site.

For you younger readers DEC once defined the mini-computer space, and sold out to Compaq in 1998, which then sold-out to H-P four years later.

However it may be best known for this 1977 quote from co-founder Ken Olsen. “There is no reason for any person to have a computer in his home.”

At that time DEC ruled the computing roost, and Olsen was sneering at a 22 year old kid’s start-up, called Micro-Soft. The kid retires this week, aged 53, and probably made a million dollars while I typed this sentence.

Let that be a warning to the kid’s successors. Feel free to add your favorite DEC stories to the comment thread. Be careful, though. Wikipedia says that Olsen, unlike George Carlin, is still with us.

What many people don’t understand, is that there are few really new ideas, and that much of what gets heralded as new is simply a synthesis of fragments of older work.

You never know what bright group of people (or maybe single person) will pick up the code, ad some bits here and there, and make something that is the successor to NTFS!

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