The Unix Heritage Society mailing list
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
To: Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com>
Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Favorite unix design principles?
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2021 18:09:27 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAD2gp_T4ECxt_x6OZ1RkTymiV4w6fcVD8fb91aVeqhNVWHifkw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2M0_X3Tw7371jnrMvUiDBOFDRW1Y6Cycmu_QKnWhotU4A@mail.gmail.com>

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1994 bytes --]

On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 4:29 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:


> These days, Apple no longer cares about Mac OS because iOS is where they
> now put their effort, although I'm not super impressed there either, but I
> also don't push it like I do Mac OS.  Sad really.   If I could get the
> day-2-day applications that I need to work on FreeBSD, I suspect I would be
> there in a heartbeat.
>

Decades ago I worked out the lifecycle of tech companies:

1) Engineering-driven: the goal is to make and sell high-quality products.
DEC and HP were like this for a long time.

2) Sales-driven: the goal is to sell products, high-quality or not.  Too
many examples to specify.

3) Finance-driven: the goal is to make money, whether you sell products or
not.  The classic case here is Carnegie Steel.  When Carnegie told his
direct reports they were going into the railroad business and they
protested that the company knew nothing about it, he said "Carnegie Steel
isn't about making steel, it's about making money, and anyone who forgets
that is fired."

4) Survival-driven: the goal is to keep the company going whether you make
money or not.  Auto companies just after bailouts are in this step.  In
particular, Chrysler was bailed out in 1979 and again in 2009: see Tom
Paxton's song "I'm Changing My Name To Chrysler" (covered by Arlo and Pete
on _Precious Friends_).

On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 4:43 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

You had *three* RK05s, an RK07, *and* a DH11?  We had just two, and a
> crappy DJ-11 on our /40s.  Pretty much stable; any bugs were fixed on the
> spot because we had the source code after all.
>

I cut my teeth on a PDP-8 with a single TU58 DECtape and a TD8/E controller
(no interrupts, no data break cycles; I/O was more or less analogous to
terminal I/O).  Uphill both ways in the snow.



John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan@ccil.org
So they play that [tune] on their fascist banjos, eh?
        --Great-Souled Sam

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4342 bytes --]

  parent reply	other threads:[~2021-01-30 23:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 70+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2021-01-25 11:10 Tyler Adams
2021-01-25 12:32 ` Steve Nickolas
2021-01-26  2:06   ` M Douglas McIlroy
2021-01-26  2:53     ` Steve Nickolas
2021-01-26 10:22     ` Tyler Adams
2021-01-26 12:26       ` John P. Linderman
2021-01-26 15:23       ` Clem Cole
2021-01-26 16:00         ` Niklas Karlsson
2021-01-26 16:13           ` Adam Thornton
     [not found]       ` <CAKH6PiXKjksEpQOMMMQTbcsMvX2thz3WzqjoRWJAsXnZ4Eq_iQ@mail.gmail.com>
2021-01-30 19:01         ` Tyler Adams
2021-01-30 19:50           ` Jon Steinhart
2021-01-30 20:06             ` Tyler Adams
2021-01-30 21:28               ` Clem Cole
2021-01-30 21:42                 ` Dave Horsfall
2021-01-30 21:45                 ` Tyler Adams
2021-01-30 22:31                   ` Larry McVoy
2021-01-30 22:28                 ` Larry McVoy
2021-01-30 23:11                   ` [TUHS] FreeBSD behind the times? (was: Favorite unix design principles?) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-01-30 23:17                     ` Larry McVoy
2021-01-30 23:22                       ` Warner Losh
2021-01-30 23:31                         ` [TUHS] [SPAM] " Larry McVoy
2021-01-30 23:37                           ` Jon Steinhart
2021-01-30 23:54                             ` Larry McVoy
2021-01-31 12:23                               ` [TUHS] [SPAM] Re: FreeBSD behind the times? Dermot Tynan
2021-01-31  0:00                             ` [TUHS] [SPAM] Re: FreeBSD behind the times? (was: Favorite unix design principles?) Bakul Shah
2021-02-09  2:15                         ` [TUHS] " Will Senn
2021-02-09  2:16                           ` Will Senn
2021-02-09  2:30                             ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2021-01-31  0:39                     ` Steve Nickolas
2021-01-31  1:47                     ` Will Senn
2021-01-31  2:25                       ` Larry McVoy
2021-01-31  2:52                         ` Will Senn
2021-01-31  3:00                           ` Larry McVoy
2021-01-31  3:06                             ` Will Senn
2021-01-31  3:32                               ` John Cowan
2021-02-04  5:43                         ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-04  6:10                           ` Angus Robinson
2021-02-04  7:46                             ` Andy Kosela
2021-02-04 22:25                             ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-04 15:45                           ` Will Senn
2021-02-04 16:03                             ` Henry Bent
2021-02-04 16:32                             ` Dan Cross
2021-02-04 16:49                               ` Will Senn
2021-02-04 17:46                               ` Larry McVoy
2021-02-04 18:41                               ` Bakul Shah
2021-02-04 22:28                                 ` George Michaelson
2021-02-04 22:41                                   ` Bakul Shah
2021-02-05  0:33                                   ` Larry McVoy
2021-02-05  5:17                                     ` Bakul Shah
2021-02-05 14:18                                       ` Larry McVoy
2021-02-05 18:16                                         ` Warner Losh
2021-02-05 18:21                                         ` ron minnich
2021-02-06  0:03                                         ` Bakul Shah
2021-02-06  2:06                                           ` Dan Cross
2021-02-06  3:01                                             ` Bakul Shah
2021-02-06  1:18                                         ` John Gilmore
2021-02-06  1:43                                           ` joe mcguckin
2021-02-06  1:55                                           ` Bakul Shah
2021-02-05 20:50                             ` Dave Horsfall
2021-02-06  0:21                               ` Brad Spencer
2021-02-06  2:22                               ` Rico Pajarola
2021-02-06  2:55                                 ` Larry McVoy
2021-02-06  3:07                                   ` Will Senn
2021-02-27  8:54                                   ` Stuart Remphrey
2021-02-06  4:55                               ` John Cowan
2021-02-04  7:46                         ` Chris Torek
2021-02-04 15:47                           ` Will Senn
2021-02-11 21:01                         ` Angel M Alganza
2021-01-30 23:09                 ` John Cowan [this message]
2021-01-30 23:22                   ` [TUHS] Favorite unix design principles? Jon Steinhart

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=CAD2gp_T4ECxt_x6OZ1RkTymiV4w6fcVD8fb91aVeqhNVWHifkw@mail.gmail.com \
    --to=cowan@ccil.org \
    --cc=clemc@ccc.com \
    --cc=tuhs@tuhs.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).