From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.7 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,PLING_QUERY,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id c5d7971c for ; Fri, 11 Oct 2019 16:51:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 41DEF9B8B2; Sat, 12 Oct 2019 02:51:51 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 06A1694788; Sat, 12 Oct 2019 02:51:18 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 59E3894702; Sat, 12 Oct 2019 02:51:15 +1000 (AEST) X-Greylist: delayed 399 seconds by postgrey-1.36 at minnie.tuhs.org; Sat, 12 Oct 2019 02:51:14 AEST Received: from mail.nomadlogic.org (mail.nomadlogic.org [174.136.98.114]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E9A4B946B9; Sat, 12 Oct 2019 02:51:14 +1000 (AEST) Received: from [172.0.0.130] (ec2-34-200-89-232.compute-1.amazonaws.com [34.200.89.232]) by mail.nomadlogic.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTPSA id 07dec56e TLS version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128 verify=NO; Fri, 11 Oct 2019 16:44:34 +0000 (UTC) To: Warren Toomey , tuhs@tuhs.org References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> From: Pete Wright Message-ID: <1e8b746e-da68-6e1a-d1f4-f9a9a13a7686@nomadlogic.org> Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 09:44:32 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.1.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Language: en-US Subject: Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On 10/10/19 1:55 PM, 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? For me it happened in highschool - 1992/1993.  I had been playing around with my i386 at home which had a modem and i used to dial into my local library and eventually bbs's and stuff.  then my school offered a class on Earth Systems Science which was partly funded and sponsored by NASA which was awesome by itself, but for me the real turning point was our computer lab had an SGI indigo workstation.  everything about it blew my mind, i have very clear memories of learning how to download satalite data via ftp, use tar to expand the data then visualize it.  i also remember bugging one of the smarter guys in the class how he changed his prompt to look so cool :^) this workstation also had mosaic and we were all given email addresses (domain gaia.circles.org, even had a webpage hosted there!). so for me - this Unix aha! moment was very closely mixed with an Internet aha! moment when i discovered how much more info was available to me compared to my local suburban library :) -pete -- Pete Wright pete@nomadlogic.org @nomadlogicLA