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On Thu, 2005-07-07 at 09:53 +0900, Malcolm Cohen wrote: > Even unformatted i/o was based on records (magtapes worked that way). > Losing the record structure doesn't actually change very much except > what you can do (no record structure = more restrictions on what the > programmer can do), which in turn enables different compiler optimisations > (for a disc file, don't bother to write the record lengths). > > So I'd say that in every sense except the record length, a stream file puts > MORE shackles on the programmer, not fewer. Many years ago, an engineer got the bright idea to conserve (7-track) tape (and maybe reduce the amount of logic circuits he needed) by designing an instrument to write data without gaps. Then he gave it to us to process on the 7090. It required some *very tricky* channel programming to read the data and put it into an usable (i.e. record) format, without the data and program stomping on each other as they rotated around memory under control of the channel program. -- Van Snyder | What fraction of Americans believe [log in to unmask] | Wrestling is real and NASA is fake? Any alleged opinions are my own and have not been approved or disapproved by JPL, CalTech, NASA, Frederick Gregory, George Bush, or anybody else.