From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: doug@cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2017 08:46:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix of choice these days?
Message-ID: <201709251246.v8PCk4n7000870@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>


>>  "Bah. That's just some goof-ball research toy."

> I feel like the same thing was said about Unix at some point very early
in it's history.

Amusingly the IT department of AT&T felt that way and commissioned a
Harvard prof, no less, to write a report about why VMS was the way to
go on Vaxen. The hired gun (so much for academic integrity) addressed
the subject almost entirely with meta arguments:

(1) VMS was written by OS professionals; Unix was a lab experiment.

(2) One could count on support from DEC, not from Research. (So
much for USG; as far as i know the author never asked anyone in]
Bell Labs about anything.)

(3) And the real killer: VMS was clearly far advanced, witness 
its shelf of manuals vs the thin Unix volumes that fit in one's
briefcase. Lee McMahon had particular fun with this one in a
rebuttal that unleashed the full power of his Jesuit training
in analytic debate.

Doug