From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 12363 invoked from network); 25 Jan 2023 19:54:35 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 25 Jan 2023 19:54:35 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C50DD423C9; Thu, 26 Jan 2023 05:53:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: from outgoing.mit.edu (outgoing-auth-1.mit.edu [18.9.28.11]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DAE80423C8 for ; Thu, 26 Jan 2023 05:53:43 +1000 (AEST) Received: from cwcc.thunk.org (pool-173-48-120-46.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [173.48.120.46]) (authenticated bits=0) (User authenticated as tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU) by outgoing.mit.edu (8.14.7/8.12.4) with ESMTP id 30PJrUkt016589 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 25 Jan 2023 14:53:31 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=mit.edu; s=outgoing; t=1674676412; bh=QyWL0cCcvnIAfQLqGrPUd/DFRtBBoeulTbSDgF0Z/BA=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To; b=mmQh9KskvewKx0Uib1eIIOck4Q2IiXHSYRNJWwbQZTI5g2GdfQ1f3OEN2ypoa6rIy +STwmY5s4IVO03Qs29zvSUfACgWRE2fudfdatOjJWCl4pxVBj67/p2JE00n1b5RcDr i3xiNjInvuSS74Uc41ufMj6r25yum+xNE1fvtotyeu7jrrDcjO+uXNOruWg7W3UW7a ffim72a4bqk9pr3lWP7ouOR6YXOkefE3jXiKsrYQ+SIyeGD6H52KPOPOzKedYmq0z5 +RrWHX+XAszD0X4cMYoIN0LPsvpTiiio/SIFbg31z0EdkAwEc3X+V0G34LLUulb7Uh GTLsYyfHY5E7g== Received: by cwcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id BD03815C469B; Wed, 25 Jan 2023 14:53:30 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2023 14:53:30 -0500 From: "Theodore Ts'o" To: Rich Salz Message-ID: References: <3e272d72-b77a-d347-b5c3-7ed19482e5af@gmail.com> <3h5FEAegoTs6FrhHODiW-rBdB59dt_Rmr4G0PIw7flqaJLsmorgPsilm4f2aJkDud-qEljDjnCJcE1uY05Iw4HNQcyNG4W3wzVlLD0UZfLg=@protonmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Message-ID-Hash: KSKGSV3VCQQ7EKD6ZIJSMGQWJ57C66ND X-Message-ID-Hash: KSKGSV3VCQQ7EKD6ZIJSMGQWJ57C66ND X-MailFrom: tytso@mit.edu X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: segaloco , TUHS main list X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Setting up an X Development Environment for Mac OS List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Wed, Jan 25, 2023 at 11:41:12AM -0500, Rich Salz wrote: > > Aa for the questions of the UNIX-ness of X, it started in Athena, which as > > I understand it was supposed to be relatively OS-agnostic distributed > > computing? In any case, the predecessor ran on a different OS, not sure how > > significant that is to the genesis of what would be called X or what OS it > > "started" on. > > Athena was about scaling up Unix workstations. It was started with grants > from IBM and Digital. It was never OS-agnostic. Well..... technically Athena was about computing in higher ed. If you go far back enough, at the very beginning, we used VAX 750's and IBM PC/AT's running DOS. As soon as the Microvax 2's and IBM PC/RT's came in, about 2 or so years in, Project Athena switched to Unix workstations, but in the earliest days (which would have been pre-X Windows), Project Athena had not yet standardized on Unix or workstations for that matter. The VAX 750's were huge time-sharing systems that you could connect to via VT-100's and VS-100 that were hard-wired to the VAX 750's, and telnet from IBM PC/AT's. The smaller clusters used PC/AT's because they were more flexible as to which 750 you were connecting to; otherwise, undergraduates had to go to the right terminal room in the right part of campus to connect to the Vax 750 that you were assgined to based on the starting character of your last name. (And graduate students initially didn't have access to Project Athena at all; although if you were in EECS, LCS or the AI Lab you had access to dedicated systems, of course.) One of the perks for being hired as a student systems programmer back then was that you got accounts on all of the Vax 750's, so you could use any terminal room across campus. :-) We then would either rlogin to our "home" Vax 750, or we had scripts that would replicate our home directories across the various 750's. There was a brief, shining moment that we were standardized on BSD-derived Unix systems, but then IBM turned down AOS (the "academic" operating system), and we were forced to use AIX on the IBM RT's, with all that this implied: SMIT, and other horrors. "AIX: it *reminds* you of Unix...." was the saying at the time --- although we tried not to say that when the IBM engineers assigned Athena were in hearing range :-). The one saving grace of the IBM RT's was that they were three MIPS machines, while the Microvax's were but a single MIPS, and that made a huge different if you were running TeX or LaTeX. Cheers, - Ted