Thanks for the warm welcome! For me, it was uucp of all things. I needed to set up a way of copying mailboxes from one place to another over a modem-to-modem connection. Unix allowed me to do it with a simple script and minimal overhead. When I realised that I also had a C compiler built in then.... On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 21:56, Warren Toomey wrote: > All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome. > A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you > if the conversation goes a bit off-topic. > > So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you > first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd > previously used? > > Mine was: Oh, I can: > + write a simple script > + to edit a file on the fly > + with no temporary files (a la pipes) > + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me! > > I was using TOPS-20 beforehand. > > Cheers, Warren > -- www.mattrudge.net - for wibble and guff blog.mattrudge.net - for Linuxy goodness