Greybeards (Re: Netbooks & BSD)

[Gary Kline]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 06:22:59AM -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> > From owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org  Wed Oct 20 15:04:17 2010
> > From: Mike Jeays <mike.jeays at rogers.com>
> > To: Bob Hall <rjhjr0 at gmail.com>,
> >         FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
> > Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:05:34 -0400
> > Cc: 
> > Subject: Re: Greybeards (Re: Netbooks & BSD)
> >
> > On October 20, 2010 03:46:06 pm Bob Hall wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:07:55PM -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> > > > On 10/20/2010 11:55 AM, Gary Kline wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:47:38AM -0700, perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
> > > > >> Matthias Apitz <guru at unixarea.de> wrote:
> > > > >>> El d?a Tuesday, October 19, 2010 a las 07:29:46PM -0700, Gary Kline 
> > escribi?:
> > > > >>>> 	PS:  I really _was_ current on hardware stuff.  Back in the VAX
> > > > >>>> 	780 days :-)
> > > > >>> 
> > > > >>> I booted my first UNIX V7 tape on a PDP-11 around 1982, I think.
> > > > >> 
> > > > >> Gotcha beat :)  UNIX V6, PDP-11/34, RK05 disk cartridge, 1975.
> > > > >> The whole runtime fit on one RK05.  The sources took a second one.
> > > > >> 
> > > > > 	I remember the 11/34 fondly.  The whole EE department at Cory
> > > > > 	Hall was running one one; then when I interned at Livermore my
> > > > > 	job of porting the "Portable F77 Compiler" was done with vi and
> > > > > 	the source code that Stu Feldman wrote.  I love[d] those bloody
> > > > > 	old computers, :-)  Dunno why.   Maybe because they really
> > > > > 	*were* about computing.  Not streaming [[whatever]] or having
> > > > > 	php running.  (Blah^9^9^9)
> > > > > 	
> > > > > 	:)
> > > > 
> > > > Heck, when I started out, they didn't even have zeros and ones yet.
> > > > We had to settle for "o"s and "l"s ...
> > > 
> > > When I started out, we didn't have read/write heads for the hard disks.
> > > We had to copy the data from the screen to the disk by hand using
> > > magnetized sewing needles. In order to read the damn things we had to
> > > pass a compass over the disk and see where the needle deflected.
> >
> > OK, I guess you win! End-of-thread time?
> 
> Well, if one is going to get into that kind of bragging, the first *mainframe*
> I worked on didn't have any disks at all. purely mag-tape based.   An early-
> generation IBM system/360 with a whopping 64k words of _core_ memory.  The 
> operating system was "TOS" (the <T>ape <O>perating <S>ystem), predecessor of
> DOS, which the machine was upgraded to when they got a couple of hard-disks
> for it.  Single user, bare-bones batch processing,  punch-card input.  late 1960s.


	I learned FORTRAN back in summer quarter '78 on a CDC-6400 that
	used punch cards.  Had to use my _nose_ to finish one card.  The 
	6400 took up a chunk of the basement of Evans HAll and had a
	HUGE 64k of core!  That's the limit of my bragging--er,
	commenting:-)

	"TOS"?  <snicker>, LOL, ROFL ...
> 
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions at freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe at freebsd.org"

-- 
 Gary Kline  kline at thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
    The 7.90a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php
                           http://journey.thought.org