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=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU,FREEMAIL_FORGED_FROMDOMAIN,FREEMAIL_FROM, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,HTML_MESSAGE,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, PLING_QUERY,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE,WEIRD_PORT 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 31b42a80 for ; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 06:20:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id BA0059B57D; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 16:20:31 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BA23A9B53F; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 16:19:58 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=gmail.com header.i=@gmail.com header.b="Bkukb+ep"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id D775A9B53F; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 16:19:55 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-oi1-f176.google.com (mail-oi1-f176.google.com [209.85.167.176]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3C56C93D06 for ; Wed, 23 Oct 2019 16:19:55 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-oi1-f176.google.com with SMTP id a15so16418005oic.0 for ; Tue, 22 Oct 2019 23:19:55 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to; bh=Mv34O2xtmZonjPG+EUx2Pzt4PQRsN98LKRPPZ1sECMs=; b=Bkukb+epNj7/TjJ5jsjlqqrhFaGByhfa589/z+cu1sPFFWOLBBiz4EEw4JZcYSw2ft UFrXNLyVKrRtk9Kggf+Huf8TR+0EkA+WaAh8tL9Jrl7jSt28wD52w49cmbbjQB0tfALX c9gx7MhbF9NERgQ1U+urBsGiSu3DQCs+jO+SMv96QI4HWn9BSjwgD0hFTVYe72r9JWji qx0BFc9KjzgyiTkMYJ0jwsPhIVvvPrheP9M0AITENezUP1sob8ugsbG71Jos7a1Jv82d 3RKZGYivBw+2ARWlG1NEedvgLQgpRdolwNr/a5OufWCowWdv7D8mbaolPp2iNNcBVRq/ CowQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to; bh=Mv34O2xtmZonjPG+EUx2Pzt4PQRsN98LKRPPZ1sECMs=; b=MscOols45HmSPdAJSE4vOG8HpqOj4UlxybkzYLtyLDyFtcrsXPcKo579DEIgfrIrP+ VQmBBeyud/GO7z+jbkeEwdE3cV6dQadLY+DC6KJGD7DA/8NnJXMW1kx3I8p4nBYQpavf 0YxVEDRDLIEmmLuXQiUL/4rXt6f+JYW2cWTn3FYutjcgIUdcgoCOMSXl50v6wdDWnQ9E zK3XCuS4kRnbZdSiXU11+34rc7qrIuJ+uGLB0y97hHymNcfEV9EYnyIQu8ylAUbV37HC Pf3VA0DtF6Pfv49zTTddAIsfMp2GdlYK/SXazbKXMxhFhL3lcGDACtcbsNA6ZCNGxJSC p+Og== X-Gm-Message-State: APjAAAXHdIOTB0whedJMHuNChu2g0CYWGuH7Svd5aHEmpMZ36x4Smpmi PQzCMzSkjxLR4tq2FPUxtI4s9VSmw3VdkBwHr9pl+7lV X-Google-Smtp-Source: APXvYqwQWr5KGb+FSyy1WTcHEckcK+bxg+aEJ8qp2zk4AYcjWFkf8Y2P0jbmbyBEYOgV33LMvY2jb75KRWwLkZ+6DWY= X-Received: by 2002:aca:4c86:: with SMTP id z128mr5820682oia.91.1571811592697; Tue, 22 Oct 2019 23:19:52 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> In-Reply-To: From: Adam Thornton Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 23:19:41 -0700 Message-ID: To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000a2faf805958de7d5" 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" --000000000000a2faf805958de7d5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I can't remember an epiphanal "a-ha!" moment. I remember that by 1999 I had migrated from OS/2 to Linux as my primary computing environment, and I've never really left; I ran Linux for a bunch of years, and then slid over to OS X, where I've mostly remained--the host OS on most of the modern stuff I own is either OS X or Linux, with other Unixes usually running under emulation (I have a NeXTStation and three Sparc machines of varying vintage, all running period-appropriate Unixes, when I fire them up, but they don't stay running; the MicroVAX comes frustratingly close to running but doesn't quite, and I haven't even powered up the VAX 11/730 I got a couple months ago to see how close it is to usable). Turning back the clock farther... In 1998 I remember someone saying, with a mixture of awe and horror, "I've never seen anyone use a GUI as just a place to stash a bunch of terminal windows before." I also remember screwing with dialup scripts to run PPP on my Linux machine at home, which must have been '96 or so? So that early I was clearly living in it at least enough that I didn't want to leave to fire up another OS (although I also remember learning far too much about PPP on OS/2), and spending enough time connected to the Internet that I wanted a network stack running all the time. I remember Cygwin on NT and ... EMX, I think it was? ... to let me use and build Unixy-feeling things on NT and OS/2 respectively, which suggests that while I was still using them in the mid-to-late 90s I kinda hated them. (That's not quite fair; OS/2 had some nice points.) In 1992 or 1993 I remember fiddling with definitions inside kernel include files to make my soundcard, my parallel port, and my modem all work at the same time (again on Linux), and not finding that a big deal (I had some nonstandard IRQs set up to get everything to play nice together, IIRC). I guess that was also about when I was hand-editing my partition table to multiboot a 386DX/25 of my very own so it could run Linux and DOS/Win3.11 off the same drive. I remember some very early Linux experiences (late '91 or early '92) as my first exposure to bash (the Sun workstations at school ran SunOS and my environment, at least, was csh, which was certainly less unpleasant than /bin/sh) and realizing how vastly much more I liked using bash than csh, as well as the difficulty my muscle memory had transitioning from esc-completion to tab-completion. I remember that I didn't really speak C at that point. Though come to think of it I didn't really get _fluent_ at C until the late-ish 90s. The first Unix system I used was something, probably Xenix, on a Dell '386 in a physics lab at UT Austin in the summer of '89, and while I didn't really "get" Unix at that point, I knew I liked it better than DOS, and it let me access Usenet, which was a huge deal. That was the same summer and same lab where I discovered the flight simulator on the SGI IRIS. I'm sure that hardware was expensive and used to do complex nonlinear dynamic simulations for people, but it was also certainly used for flying pretend planes in what seemed then like an astonishingly realistically rendered 3-D world. That summer was when I made the choice between Emacs and vi, and that choice has stuck with me for 30 years. In two more years the core of my .emacs file (which I inherited, obviously) will be old enough to be president. Adam On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 10:14 PM Gilles Gravier wrote: > Hi! > > Mine was more of an "oh oh" moment... when, back in 1994, I needed to > clean up /tmp on the company Data General Aviion that I was > administering... and I typed "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*" > > Notice the involuntary space between /tmp and /* ... hence the "oh oh..." > moment when I started seeing this take long... and when I typed Ctrl-C an= d > started seeing some things like "/bin/ls not found" when I looked for the > files in / ... > > Gilles > > Le ven. 11 oct. 2019 =C3=A0 00:55, Warren Toomey a =C3=A9c= rit : > >> 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? >> >> Mine was: Oh, I can: >> + write a simple script >> + to edit a file on the fly >> + with no temporary files (a la pipes) >> + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me! >> >> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand. >> >> Cheers, Warren >> > > > -- > *Gilles Gravier* - Gilles@Gravier.org > GSM : +33618347147 and +41794728437 > Skype : ggravier | PGP Key : 0xA610DB098DE6D026 > > --000000000000a2faf805958de7d5 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
I can't remember an epiphanal "a-ha!" m= oment.

I remember that by 1999 I had migrated from= OS/2 to Linux as my primary computing environment, and I've never real= ly left; I ran Linux for a bunch of years, and then slid over to OS X, wher= e I've mostly remained--the host OS on most of the modern stuff I own i= s either OS X or Linux, with other Unixes usually running under emulation (= I have a NeXTStation and three Sparc machines of varying vintage, all runni= ng period-appropriate Unixes, when I fire them up, but they don't stay = running; the MicroVAX comes frustratingly close to running but doesn't = quite, and I haven't even powered up the VAX 11/730 I got a couple mont= hs ago to see how close it is to usable).=C2=A0 Turning back the clock fart= her...

In 1998 I remember someone saying, with= a mixture of awe and horror, "I've never seen anyone use a GUI as= just a place to stash a bunch of terminal windows before."=C2=A0 I al= so remember screwing with dialup scripts to run PPP on my Linux machine at = home, which must have been '96 or so?=C2=A0 So that early I was clearly= living in it at least enough that I didn't want to leave to fire up an= other OS (although I also remember learning far too much about PPP on OS/2)= , and spending enough time connected to the Internet that I wanted a networ= k stack running all the time.

I remember Cygwi= n on NT and ... EMX, I think it was? ... to let me use and build Unixy-feel= ing things on NT and OS/2 respectively, which suggests that while I was sti= ll using them in the mid-to-late 90s I kinda hated them.=C2=A0 (That's = not quite fair; OS/2 had some nice points.)

In= 1992 or 1993 I remember fiddling with definitions inside kernel include fi= les to make my soundcard, my parallel port, and my modem all work at the sa= me time (again on Linux), and not finding that a big deal (I had some nonst= andard IRQs set up to get everything to play nice together, IIRC).=C2=A0 I = guess that was also about when I was hand-editing my partition table to mul= tiboot a 386DX/25 of my very own so it could run Linux and DOS/Win3.11 off = the same drive.

I remember some very early Lin= ux experiences (late '91 or early '92) as my first exposure to bash= (the Sun workstations at school ran SunOS and my environment, at least, wa= s csh, which was certainly less unpleasant than /bin/sh) and realizing how = vastly much more I liked using bash than csh, as well as the difficulty my = muscle memory had transitioning from esc-completion to tab-completion.=C2= =A0 I remember that I didn't really speak C at that point.=C2=A0 Though= come to think of it I didn't really get _fluent_ at C until the late-i= sh 90s.

The first Unix system I used was somet= hing, probably Xenix, on a Dell '386 in a physics lab at UT Austin in t= he summer of '89, and while I didn't really "get" Unix at= that point, I knew I liked it better than DOS, and it let me access Usenet= , which was a huge deal.=C2=A0 That was the same summer and same lab where = I discovered the flight simulator on the SGI IRIS.=C2=A0 I'm sure that = hardware was expensive and used to do complex nonlinear dynamic simulations= for people, but it was also certainly used for flying pretend planes in wh= at seemed then like an astonishingly realistically rendered 3-D world.=C2= =A0 That summer was when I made the choice between Emacs and vi, and that c= hoice has stuck with me for 30 years.=C2=A0 In two more years the core of m= y .emacs file (which I inherited, obviously) will be old enough to be presi= dent.

Adam

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 10= :14 PM Gilles Gravier <gilles@grav= ier.org> wrote:
Hi!

Mine was more of an "oh= oh" moment... when, back in 1994, I needed to clean up /tmp on the co= mpany Data General Aviion that I was administering... and I typed "sud= o rm -rf /tmp /*"

Notice the involuntary spac= e between /tmp and /* ... hence the "oh oh..." moment when I star= ted seeing this take long... and when I typed Ctrl-C and started seeing som= e things like "/bin/ls not found" when I looked for the files in = / ...

Gilles

Le=C2=A0ven. 11 oct. 2019 =C3=A0= =C2=A000:55, Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org> a =C3=A9crit=C2=A0:
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?

Mine was: Oh, I can:
=C2=A0 + write a simple script
=C2=A0 + to edit a file on the fly
=C2=A0 + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
=C2=A0 + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!=

I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.

Cheers, Warren


--
Gilles Gravie= r=C2=A0=C2= =A0- Gilles@Gravier.org
GSM : +33618347147 and +417947284= 37
Skype : ggravier | PGP Key : 0xA610DB098DE6D026
--000000000000a2faf805958de7d5--