So, looking from this perspective, maybe there was nothing
particularly special in Unix as such. It was just a double pump of
C-Unix, mutually pumping each other's success story.
I am not sure. I tried to find some time and install old OS on
simh/pdp11, yet there was always something more pressing to do. Some
alternatives to Unix, judging by their wikipedia descriptions, did not
convince me - like, one OS booted straight into debugger, if memory
serves.
ITS, yes. But the debugger was not just a debugger, it was also a general command-line interpreter, a shell in modern terms. So while it is possible to debug an empty memory into doing whatever you want, it is also possible to run "advent", aka Colossal Cave Adventure.
And after
reading about TECO, plenty of editors seem like better choice for me
:-).
I switched from Teco to ex at some point, and never went either forward or back. (Occasionally I drop into vi mode for things like parenthesis checking.)
By the way, did anyone else start out on Unix-alikes before using actual Unix? I read the BSTJ issue and became an instant convert, but only when $EMPLOYER got a MicroVAX was I able to work like that. Next came the MKS Toolkit on DOS, and then Cygwin for many years. I suppose it's only my last two $EMPLOYERs standardizing on the Mac that has left me running, like, actual Unix.
If I still stick to Unix, it is because I still need something
dependable and allowing my various experiments or small time
developments.
"Computers are the greatest set of electric trains in the world."
I still suggest they are following the money. They are the
kind of folk who never would find Unix interesting enough based on
merits only. Asking about their choices leads us nowwhere, because
their choices are not based on technical criteria.
True. But then, many of us geeks make our choices not on technical criteria but on tribal loyalty. Which is *technically* superior, vi or emacs? (Please don't answer that.)
Of course I could not be using specialised note
taking program. Instead, I went with Emacs and org-mode. In the
process I had to learn a bit of Elisp and dot-emacs file. Some
defaults in Emacs are not comfy for my eyes - fonts, colors, it had to
be fine tuned to my liking.
Note that Emacs is probably the oldest import into the Unix ecosystem from outside, and it bears the marks of its origin: monolithic (but programmable), one tool does it all.
I wonder if other Unix (ab)users share something with me? Like,
specialised single-person needs, or putting together building blocks
of command line tools, or preference for terminal based software
(because it works more often than not)?