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Access to a Shared Unix Computer
- cbm-vic-20 8mo agoMulti-user Unix? What will they think of next? This is cool, though. Gives people a taste of what it used to be like with everyone in the university logged into the big time-sharing machines all together.
- mghackerlady 8mo agoI kinda wish it stayed that way, or rather something better replaced multi-user systems as they aren't well suited to personal computers like we have nowadays. Plus I like the added bonus of not needing to spend much to have access to the kind of compute power needed for a compsci course, it makes compiling a lot faster
- kjs3 8mo agoYou apparently never had to share a 3B20 (around 1 MIP) with 200 other CS1401 students desperately trying to get their Pascal project to compile before the midnight deadline. 15m for 'hello world'? If you're lucky.
- flyinghamster 8mo agoEeeeeep. I was lucky that my big CS courses were done on a Sequent Balance 8000 equipped with six NS32032 CPUs and room for six more. Yup, SMP in the mid-1980s. That machine positively flew on loads that would bring the neighboring Pyramid 90x to its knees. I had an account on a 3B20, and it did not impress me in the least, but the 3B2/400 boxes in one lab were pretty reasonable for being small systems. What a shame that the WE32000 didn't get any traction. Before I went down to UIUC, the junior college had a Prime 650, and all compile jobs were run through a queue precisely to avoid having the machine get crushed.
- kjs3 8mo agoThat's kinda funny...we musta lived in parallel worlds. The 3B20 might have been slow, but it had a solid I/O subsystem so you could load it up with users, and was generally reliable (it was originally built as a telco switch control processor looking for 5-nines uptime). But by the later 80s the industry had moved on, and we were in the process of migrating those CS classes from the 3B20 to either a Sequent Symmetry (follow-on to the Balance with something like 16x i386) or a Pyramid 90x, depending on the class. The Symmetry was...not reliable. The 90x was worse. The wails of a lab full of undergrads realizing the shared machine had just taken a dirt-nap and all their work with it was a far too common sound. Good times. We also had a bunch of 3b2s, most with an AT&T 5620 'windowing terminal' attached, which is a really fascinating 'what might have been' if bitmapped workstations and X11 hadn't taken over that niche. I ended up with a Sun 3/160 for most of that time, and the rest is history.
- flyinghamster 8mo agoStrange that the Balance was largely reliable. I recall one or two hiccups, but nothing that caused me lost work. There were other machines floating around, but they were pretty much reserved for faculty/staff/grad students, and undergrad plebes weren't welcome to use what passed for the internet at the time (but Usenet was was available, albeit via Ray Essick's "notes" software). Also, any student could get an account on the CDC Cyber 170, but few courses used it for actual coursework by the time I was there. Then there was PLATO, a world unto itself... it also ran on CDC hardware, with bespoke way-ahead-of-its-time touchscreen plasma display terminals, online forums, instant messaging, and multi-player online games. We only had a few of the 5620s in the 3B2 lab, and I remember a wacky mechanical mouse with a metal ball that I can't imagine would have held up in the long run. The PLATO touchscreens were optical, with a grid of infrared beams to pick up touches.
- kjs3 8mo agoHa! We (gatech) were a CDC shop as well, with PLATO. We'd moved up to the Cyber 180s (I think we had a 810, 2 x 855 and a 990 vector machine). FORTRAN on the 990 was pretty fun, and I might be the last person to ever run the ALGOL-60 compiler.
- technothrasher 8mo ago> Multi-user Unix? We could call it Multics! But yeah, I remember those glory days of everybody on the school's Sun 3/280, when an accidental fork bomb would ruin everyone's homework.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- Levitating 8mo agoSimilar to SDF.org and envs.net
- nmz 8mo agoExcept its actually useful, unless you pay sdf for membership (it's just like $30 or so) the only commands it can run is stuff on /bin, which is their prerogative, but tilde is much better. oh and they erase your account if you don't log in, which, why would you even login if there's nothing to do
- user3939382 8mo agoI’ve had my SDF membership for over 20 years, it’s one of the best values I ever got from anything in my life. SDF absolutely rocks. Great community of people. The meager membership fee keeps the lights on.
- iberator 8mo agosame
- john_alan 8mo agohttps://tilde.team https://tilde.team FTW
- pelcg 8mo agoIt has been years since I have heard of this. Looks great!
- roywashere 8mo agoI started my own! Scrappy https://tildeweb.nl https://tildeweb.nl
- dddw 8mo agoLeuk, mag ik meespelen?
- roywashere 8mo agopls drop me an email: address in profile
- tosti 8mo agoHoi, kan ik ook lid worden aub met een kusje erop?
- roywashere 8mo agopls drop me an email: address in profile
- tosti 8mo agosent
- avadodin 8mo agoThe editorialized title brings back memories of logging into smashthestack almost two decades ago leaving and looking at graffiti on the walls. I didn't learn much following the link itself other than it is supposed to be pronounced TIL-dee and that some people have more money to spare than others.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- FergusArgyll 8mo agoHey, I signed up for an account 2 days ago. Still no response, does anyone know what that means? Not accepted or it's just one overworked volunteer?
- AstroJetson 8mo agoOne very overwhelming overworked volunteer. It’s a free service, so patience is a virtue.
- mongrelion 8mo agoApparently there are a few more similar communities like the one from the post https://tildeverse.org/members/ https://tildeverse.org/members/
- dirk94018 8mo agoCool
- davidcollantes 8mo agoI believe it runs Linux. [This](https://medium.com/message/tilde-club-i-had-a-couple-drinks-and-woke-up-with-1-000-nerds-a8904f0a2ebf https://medium.com/message/tilde-club-i-had-a-couple-drinks-...) is the story behind tilde.club.
- ctmnt 8mo agoAre there any publicly accessible Unixes these days?
- davidcollantes 8mo agoI don’t know. Certified Unix? There might be, but it would certainly be a small picking. This is the list of UNIX certified products: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/.
- ctmnt 8mo agoI did not realize that macOS was officially certified Unix. Interesting, thanks. I guess that makes my laptop a multi-user Unix.
- zahlman 8mo agoIt bothers me that they put so much effort into the aesthetic, but the links aren't underlined like they always were back in the day. It's a legitimate a11y feature, okay?
- deepend-tilde 8mo agoSignup processing has been delayed.. This will be remedied right shortly :)