You appear to be incapable of understanding any middle ground between "obviously incorrect" and "obviously correct." Is the concept of uncertainty that foreign to you?
Really? Because when it comes to something testable, like in this case either running a test of yes vs /dev/zero or looking at the source code of everything involved, there isn't any uncertainty that OP's statement is obviously incorrect.
The only uncertainty is OP's use of "back then", "from memory", "maybe", "could have", etc... without providing any evidence to support their statement.
They were talking about things in the distant past. (Distant in computer terms.) The only way there isn't uncertainty is if you tried all the systems that were available at the time in question.
The claim is testable, in theory. You didn't test it, nor did anyone else here, so the fact that it's testable doesn't remove any uncertainty.
> If what you're trying to convey is that abstract reasoning based on fundamental principles without any consideration of real-world complications is a superior approach to determining what's true, well, I reject that.
