6 ms·

Well yes to this - in the 80s you were either System V or whatever crap IBM was selling back then! :) Ps I always assumed 80x24 was a teletype (eg. tty) standa

by mattrp 7y ago

Well yes to this - in the 80s you were either System V or whatever crap IBM was selling back then! :) Ps I always assumed 80x24 was a teletype (eg. tty) standard or at the least a two-by 80x12 punch card layout. I also wonder if the serial cable throughput to the terminal played a role..

tgv 7y ago
I think RSX, RT-11 and VMS would like a word.
- mattrp 7y ago
  Sorry I was being intentionally controversial. I had both Unix and vms accounts as a student and I guess the vms never really resonated with me...
  - tgv 7y ago
    Don't worry. I never liked it either. When I found Unix, I was sold. I think it was the pipe (in the shell) that did it.
    - mattrp 7y ago
      For the longest time I had my systems cat Syslog to an lpr... anytime someone did something, I’d hear a bzzzzzt. Usually about 5 times a day. Maybe a dozen. Then one morning I came into work and there was a whole box of paper on the floor and the printer is still bzzt, bzzt, bzzt... it was a hacker who had decided to follow some instructions he found on the web and hack my system. Every time he’d do something he’d erase his steps... but he never checked to see that all his movements were being printed!
- Taniwha 7y ago
  And all the other mainframe operating systems ... Most of the other big mainframe companies tried to emulate IBMs walled garden each had their own OS, their own (incompatible) networking system, their own compilers etc Unix was great mostly because it was simple and you could port it to new hardware ... Prior to that it was in no hardware manufacturer's interest to release their OS into the wild, that didn't sell mainframes. Unix also released a generation of frustrated systems people who were not allowed to write kernel code unless they worked for a mainframe company
- rbanffy 7y ago
  And don't piss off Burrough's MCP. I always imagined an OS had to be really user hostile to have a movie villain named after it. IIRC, Alan Kay, Bonnie McBird's husband, worked for them and, probably, made some of his opinions clear to his wife. It IS the most user hostile thing I ever seen running on a computer.

by mattrp 7y ago

tgv 7y ago

I think RSX, RT-11 and VMS would like a word.

mattrp 7y ago
Sorry I was being intentionally controversial. I had both Unix and vms accounts as a student and I guess the vms never really resonated with me...
- tgv 7y ago
  Don't worry. I never liked it either. When I found Unix, I was sold. I think it was the pipe (in the shell) that did it.
  - mattrp 7y ago
    For the longest time I had my systems cat Syslog to an lpr... anytime someone did something, I’d hear a bzzzzzt. Usually about 5 times a day. Maybe a dozen. Then one morning I came into work and there was a whole box of paper on the floor and the printer is still bzzt, bzzt, bzzt... it was a hacker who had decided to follow some instructions he found on the web and hack my system. Every time he’d do something he’d erase his steps... but he never checked to see that all his movements were being printed!
Taniwha 7y ago
And all the other mainframe operating systems ... Most of the other big mainframe companies tried to emulate IBMs walled garden each had their own OS, their own (incompatible) networking system, their own compilers etc Unix was great mostly because it was simple and you could port it to new hardware ... Prior to that it was in no hardware manufacturer's interest to release their OS into the wild, that didn't sell mainframes. Unix also released a generation of frustrated systems people who were not allowed to write kernel code unless they worked for a mainframe company
rbanffy 7y ago
And don't piss off Burrough's MCP. I always imagined an OS had to be really user hostile to have a movie villain named after it. IIRC, Alan Kay, Bonnie McBird's husband, worked for them and, probably, made some of his opinions clear to his wife. It IS the most user hostile thing I ever seen running on a computer.