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* Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
@ 2019-10-15  0:28 Pat Barron
  2019-10-15  1:19 ` Andrew Warkentin
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Pat Barron @ 2019-10-15  0:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

I don't know that I had a single "Aha!" moment, but there were a few 
things that just got hold of me and led me down the Unix path...

The first Unix I used was V7m on a PDP-11/40, in college.  By this point, 
I was "aware" of Unix, in theory I even knew C - but never had an actual 
system to try it out on until this point.  I'd used other operating 
systems (or things that called themselves operating systems...), primarily 
TRSDOS, CP/M, OS1100, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, and VMS.  Unix was certainly the 
first multiuser operating system that I ever had administrator access on.

1) The idea of taking the output of one program, and using it directly as
    input to another program - and the simplicity by which it was done -
    was revolutionary to me.  It was not unusual for me at that time to do
    things like this by having the first program create a temporary file,
    and then having another program open this temporary file and use it as
    input, but the whole paradigm of stdin/stdout/pipes made it so you
    didn't even have to "know" in your program that you might need to use
    the output of some other program (via a temporary file) as input.
    That was amazing to me.

2) Unix was really the first operating system that I had full, buildable
    sources for.  (I theoretically had access to VMS source code, but it
    was on microfiche and not in machine-readable form, so it was just a
    read-only reference.)  If I wanted to see how the OS was doing
    something, I could look.  If I wanted to change something the OS did,
    or add something to the OS (either in the kernel, or as a user space
    utility), I could do that (and I did on a couple of occasions).  If
    something was broken, I could try to figure it out and fix it.  There
    was this bug in V7m, where if you were on a non-separate I&D system
    that didn't have the floating point option (and our 11/40 did not), and
    you tried to run an "a.out" file that was zero length, you'd get a
    kernel panic.  We were using the system for a computer architecture
    course, students were programming in assembly language, and if there
    was a problem with the source file the assembler would leave a zero
    length executable behind.  Of course, students would try to run it
    anyway, even though "as" produced errors.  We'd sometimes get 3 or 4
    system crashes in the course of an evening.  The students and the
    instructors were all up in arms because any time this would happen,
    everyone would lose whatever they were working on (and maybe more, if
    the filesystem got messed up during the panic), and if there was no one
    around who had a key to the computer room when it happened, it would
    stay down until they could find someone who had physical access and the
    knowledge to know how to deal with "fsck"...  (The construction in the
    lab was pretty minimal, and the walls to most of the rooms didn't go
    all the way to the ceiling - sometimes when it crashed and no one was
    around, they'd take to climbing over the wall to reboot the system
    themselves - which could produce disasterous results of there were
    filesystem issues...)  I found the problem, and I fixed it.  That was
    my first adventure in kernel debugging...  (Later, we migrated to a
    PDP-11/24 and we ordered the KEF11-A floating point option for it, so
    that problem became moot.)

3) The idea of processes being able to talk to each other (without some
    kind of pre-arrangement, like setting up a pipe between them, or
    using temporary files) was just amazing, and this was the first time
    I'd really seen it.  I knew VMS had this thing called a "mailbox",
    but I never used it for anything and didn't even know what it was
    for.  On V7m, I stumbled across the mpx(5) man page.  I think the
    first time I came across it, I stared at it for hours, looking at
    the description and trying to figure out what you'd even use that
    functionality for.  At some point it was like a lightning bolt hit
    me - "Oh, wait!  You can use this to send messages between unrelated
    processes!"  Except V7m came with one little proviso - the mpx code
    was there, but it didn't work...  So I dug into it, and made it work -
    at least, well enough for what I wanted to use it for.  I wrote a
    multiuser chat program with it (isn't that the first thing any
    undergrad does when they discover interprocess communications?  :-) ).
    I had a similar epiphany with sockets on 4.2BSD a year or two later,
    under similar circumstances.  The one thing I found in command with
    both mpx and sockets was that the documentation described the
    low-level functionality - but there was nothing that clearly stated,
    "This functionaliy is used to allow processes to talk to each other"...

I'm sure there are plenty more experiences with early Unix that ensured
that I'd continue down this path, but I think these are my favorites.

--Pat.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
  2019-10-15  0:28 [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment? Pat Barron
@ 2019-10-15  1:19 ` Andrew Warkentin
  2019-10-15  4:06   ` Warner Losh
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Andrew Warkentin @ 2019-10-15  1:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

I didn't really have a single "Aha" moment, but I remember borrowing
some books on Unix from the library and realizing it was more powerful
than anything else I'd used (up until then, I'd only really used
DOS/Windows, classic Mac OS, and Apple II systems; as you can probably
tell, I'm quite a bit younger than many other people on this list).
Shortly afterwards, I installed Linux (initially Mandrake 8.2, but I
replaced it with Debian 3.0 shortly thereafter; I still have my
original Debian 3.0 install around as a VM that I use from time to
time) and never really looked back. I did keep a Windows dual boot
around for a while but that eventually went away (although I still do
have Windows VMs around). Soon after that, I decided I was going to
put together my own Unix-like OS; initially I was going to put
together a NeXTStep/OS X-like Linux distribution, but then later
decided I was going to write a QNX-like microkernel-based OS instead.
I still don't have anything that is actually useful at the moment,
although now I am making a bit better progress than in the past (I
changed my mind on several parts of the design and was quite busy with
other projects for a while).

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
  2019-10-15  1:19 ` Andrew Warkentin
@ 2019-10-15  4:06   ` Warner Losh
  2019-10-15  4:27     ` [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2019-10-15  4:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Andrew Warkentin; +Cc: TUHS main list

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I had two aha moments.

First was that I really didn't want the filesystem to do logical name
translation. It was simple enough to do in the program. So no way to have
the kernel expand /usr/share/fubar/$USER/fu. While VMS' logical names were
a cool wart on its filename stuff, the whole ball of wax had too many
special cases for different device types, permission areas of logical
names, logical name table nesting rules, etc. Simpler was better.

The second was the simplicity of the install... boot one file to prep the
disk, one to copy a fs to the future swap system and a final one to get the
ball rolling... for booting off of tape, on systems with no real memory,
this kept what wound up in memory small enough to live in the sub Megabyte
systems ot needed to work on...  though once there was a lot more, this was
left behind when you could just load one kernel with a ran disk to do all
the setup... the different pieces of the install acted as a Koan for how
Unix worked...

Warner

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 7:19 PM Andrew Warkentin <andreww591@gmail.com> wrote:

> I didn't really have a single "Aha" moment, but I remember borrowing
> some books on Unix from the library and realizing it was more powerful
> than anything else I'd used (up until then, I'd only really used
> DOS/Windows, classic Mac OS, and Apple II systems; as you can probably
> tell, I'm quite a bit younger than many other people on this list).
> Shortly afterwards, I installed Linux (initially Mandrake 8.2, but I
> replaced it with Debian 3.0 shortly thereafter; I still have my
> original Debian 3.0 install around as a VM that I use from time to
> time) and never really looked back. I did keep a Windows dual boot
> around for a while but that eventually went away (although I still do
> have Windows VMs around). Soon after that, I decided I was going to
> put together my own Unix-like OS; initially I was going to put
> together a NeXTStep/OS X-like Linux distribution, but then later
> decided I was going to write a QNX-like microkernel-based OS instead.
> I still don't have anything that is actually useful at the moment,
> although now I am making a bit better progress than in the past (I
> changed my mind on several parts of the design and was quite busy with
> other projects for a while).
>

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?)
  2019-10-15  4:06   ` Warner Losh
@ 2019-10-15  4:27     ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
  2019-10-15  9:03       ` Arrigo Triulzi
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2019-10-15  4:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Warner Losh; +Cc: TUHS main list

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On Monday, 14 October 2019 at 22:06:11 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> The second was the simplicity of the install...

Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.

I wasn't alone.  A year or two later (about 1994) I was contacted by
the editorial team of iX, a German Unix magazine, asking if I had
managed to install Consensys UNIX System V.4 (maybe from tape by this
time).  They were having such difficulties that they ended up with an
article saying effectively "Consensys looks good, and we've heard good
things from other people, but we totally failed to install it".

That was one of the things that I found so refreshing with BSD/386,
also round that time.  Part of the issue with the System V variants
was the incessant entry of activation keys for every tiny component,
as well as the lack of overall documentation.

Greg
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?)
  2019-10-15  4:27     ` [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
@ 2019-10-15  9:03       ` Arrigo Triulzi
  2019-10-16  3:20         ` Warner Losh
  2019-10-16  8:20         ` Matt Rudge
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Arrigo Triulzi @ 2019-10-15  9:03 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Greg 'groggy' Lehey; +Cc: TUHS main list

On 15 Oct 2019, at 06:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
> my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.

Not to mention Xenix/286… the never ending 5”1/4 “HD” floppies… the ones which somehow were almost readable but not quite… then you started the install again and a different floppy failed.

Was it tar on the raw floppy? I don’t remember to be honest.

Arrigo


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?)
  2019-10-15  9:03       ` Arrigo Triulzi
@ 2019-10-16  3:20         ` Warner Losh
  2019-10-16  8:20         ` Matt Rudge
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2019-10-16  3:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arrigo Triulzi; +Cc: TUHS main list

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On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 3:03 AM Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo@alchemistowl.org>
wrote:

> On 15 Oct 2019, at 06:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> > Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
> > my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.
>
> Not to mention Xenix/286… the never ending 5”1/4 “HD” floppies… the ones
> which somehow were almost readable but not quite… then you started the
> install again and a different floppy failed.
>
> Was it tar on the raw floppy? I don’t remember to be honest.
>

Venix had a boot disk, and the rest of the disks were tar without
compression...

Warner

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?)
  2019-10-15  9:03       ` Arrigo Triulzi
  2019-10-16  3:20         ` Warner Losh
@ 2019-10-16  8:20         ` Matt Rudge
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Matt Rudge @ 2019-10-16  8:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Arrigo Triulzi; +Cc: TUHS main list

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On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 10:55, Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo@alchemistowl.org>
wrote:
>
> On 15 Oct 2019, at 06:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> > Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
> > my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.
>
> Not to mention Xenix/286… the never ending 5”1/4 “HD” floppies… the ones
which somehow were almost readable but not quite… then you started the
install again and a different floppy failed.
>

I can remember having to reinstall Xenix on a Wang PC-002. The floppy disks
had been kept in a folder next to a radiator, and I had to clean the floppy
drive with compressed air before we could start. Surprisingly the reinstall
went smoothly, but very slowly! The real issue was getting the serial
terminal board working again!

Matt

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?)
@ 2019-10-16  3:50 Pat Barron
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Pat Barron @ 2019-10-16  3:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

Possibly the most time consuming install I did was installing Xenix on a 
bunch of Intel i310 systems.  Xenix was a "secondary" OS for these 
systems, the main OS being iRMX.  Xenix for these systems was distributed 
on 5.25" floppies.  Lots and lots of floppies...  They came in a 3-ring 
binder, many pages of floppies...  We also had a couple of i380 systems, 
Xenix for those came on 8" floppies...  That was time consuming, but it 
was just manual labor.

The most unpleasasnt install I can recall was AIX 2.2.1 on the IBM-PC/RT. 
Which also was really (under the covers) Interactive UNIX, with some other 
stuff mixed in.  Not only was this also time-consuming with a binder full 
of 5.25" floppies, but my recollection is that there were too many 
opportunities to make a tiny little mistake during the install and have to 
start all over again.

--Pat.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 8+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2019-10-16  8:21 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 8+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2019-10-15  0:28 [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment? Pat Barron
2019-10-15  1:19 ` Andrew Warkentin
2019-10-15  4:06   ` Warner Losh
2019-10-15  4:27     ` [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2019-10-15  9:03       ` Arrigo Triulzi
2019-10-16  3:20         ` Warner Losh
2019-10-16  8:20         ` Matt Rudge
2019-10-16  3:50 Pat Barron

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