8 Apr
2017
8 Apr
'17
9:22 p.m.
That's interesting that that sort of thing dates
back (at least) to the Labs.
Research couldn't hold a candle to Development on making smooth transitions.
You don't take a telephone switch offline to change a file format or the like.
The development cycle used to be about three years: one year for design,
one for implementation, and one to build a hybrid to bridge the transition.
At 2AM on Sunday, you'd install the hybrid on one of the dual cross-checked
processors at a time, so the switch was never interrupted. Later you'd
dispense with the hybrid the same way.
Doug