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Re: [LUG] unix is 40 years old this year

 

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009, Benjamin M. A'Lee wrote:

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 08:33:26AM +0100, Simon Waters wrote:
Gordon Henderson wrote:

I claim boring old guy!!! (Although I've just shaved off the grey beard
I was sporting at the last meet!)

Not used Unix that early, but I have used Multics in anger - shudder.

Multics is now Open Source (and Free software from a quick glance at the
terms) for those who are interested.

Thereÿÿs also http://simh.trailing-edge.com/ --- a pdp-11 emulator, that
links to images of Unix v5-7. If I remember correctly, they have user
accounts `ken' and `dmr'...

I remember looking at that some time back to see if I could get the old v6 going again... But didn't really have the time.

My first job (while at college) was looking after the departmental pdp11 running v6 - one task I had to do was fix 'lpr' - first big C program I looked at... I remember we submitted my code back to the local disty (Herriott Watt IIRC), but I've no idea if my code went any further, but who knows, there might be a line or 2 of mine in there somewhere yet :)

I can't remember now what I did to it though!!!

I have to say.. the old unixes while nice to play with in a sort of academic way are probably best left where they are - consigned to history!!!

The PDP11 however - or LSI11.. Saw a lot of life for many years - they priduced a one-chip microprocessor out of it (from the hand-wired backplane of days gone by!) and it was very popular in industrial control systems - I think there's even a compny (or 2?) still producing emulators for them (and the hardware) running on a PC for old factory automations... There was even a desktop variant called a Terak (I think) which ran the UCSD P system (I used one for another summer project)

The sort of things that really ought to be running on modern microcontrollers now, I guess, but why change something that's working :)

Gordon
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