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From: Robert Brockway <robert@timetraveller.org>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 01:00:43 +1000 (AEST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1910140034420.2337@mira.opentrend.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019, Warren Toomey wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.

Well I've been on this list for 13 years (just checked) but I'll jump in.
I've mostly lurked with probably less than 13 comments total.

> 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?

I had run Microware OS-9 as a teenager which is somewhat Unix like so some 
commands were familiar to me from the outset, but my Unix ahah moment is 
almost embarrassingly simple.

I was trying to arrange to meet with a fellow student during 2nd year at 
University to work on a project.  It was 1992 so neither of us had a 
calendar readily available.  I turned to the dumbterm in front of me and 
said "If Unix had a calendar command I think it would be 'cal'".  I typed 
cal and when it worked I realised I found Unix so much more intuitive than 
other OSes I had used in the past.

I used Unix at university for the next couple of years, installed Linux at 
home in 1994 and a year later I founded a Unix user group[1].  At the 
first meeting I hoped we wouldn't run out of things to talk about.  I had 
a lot to learn.

[1] Which is still going to this day.  http://www.humbug.org.au.

Rob

  parent reply	other threads:[~2019-10-13 15:09 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 122+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-10-10 20:55 Warren Toomey
2019-10-10 21:11 ` SPC
2019-10-10 21:25   ` Jim Capp
2019-10-10 21:33     ` greg travis
2019-10-10 21:13 ` Michael Parson
2019-10-10 21:15 ` Matt Rudge
2019-10-10 21:31 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2019-10-10 21:34 ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-10 23:10 ` Seth J. Morabito
2019-10-10 23:23 ` Brian L. Stuart
2019-10-10 23:28   ` George Michaelson
2019-10-10 23:35 ` Bakul Shah
2019-10-10 23:49   ` David
2019-10-11  1:44 ` Gregg Levine
2019-10-11  1:45   ` Gregg Levine
2019-10-11 10:55 ` Leah Neukirchen
2019-10-11 12:04   ` Tyler Adams
2019-10-13 19:46     ` Peter Jeremy
2019-10-14  2:13       ` Lawrence Stewart
2019-10-14  2:32         ` Rico Pajarola
2019-10-14  9:49           ` Michael Kjörling
2019-10-14 18:36             ` Nemo Nusquam
2019-10-14 21:10               ` Jim Geist
2019-10-14 22:22                 ` Warren Toomey
2019-10-14 22:56                 ` Arthur Krewat
2019-10-14 23:44                   ` Jim Geist
2019-10-14 23:47                     ` Adam Thornton
2019-10-14 23:54                       ` Arthur Krewat
2019-10-15  0:03                         ` Henry Bent
2019-10-14 23:54                       ` Ronald Natalie
2019-10-15  0:04                         ` Arthur Krewat
2019-10-15  0:06                           ` Ronald Natalie
2019-10-15  0:27                             ` Arthur Krewat
2019-10-15  0:07                         ` George Michaelson
2019-10-15  0:10                           ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-15  0:27                           ` [TUHS] Supercomputer UNIX (was Aga moments) Ronald Natalie
2019-10-15  0:33                             ` [TUHS] Supercomputer UNIX (was Aha moments) Ronald Natalie
2019-10-14 23:52                     ` [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment? Arthur Krewat
2019-10-11 12:53 ` KatolaZ
2019-10-11 16:44 ` Pete Wright
2019-10-11 17:13 ` Jim Geist
2019-10-11 17:20   ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-11 17:40   ` Jim Capp
2019-10-11 17:48 ` Larry W. Cashdollar via TUHS
2019-10-11 21:56 ` Tomasz Rola
2019-10-12  2:41 ` ricercar
2019-10-12  3:01   ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-12 14:37     ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-10-12 16:12     ` David
2019-10-12 17:59       ` Adam Thornton
2019-10-12 19:10         ` Jon Forrest
2019-10-13 21:45           ` Steve Johnson
2019-10-14  0:36             ` Jon Forrest
2019-10-14  2:08               ` Lawrence Stewart
2019-10-16 13:29             ` Pierre DAVID
2019-10-12  3:23   ` Richard Salz
2019-10-12  3:34     ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-12 21:32     ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2019-10-12  8:55 ` Wesley Parish
2019-10-12 10:17 ` Naveen Nathan
2019-10-12 11:54 ` markus schnalke
2019-10-12 19:33 ` Michael Kjörling
2019-10-12 22:38   ` Gregg Levine
2019-10-13  1:37 ` Dan Cross
2019-10-13 15:00 ` Robert Brockway [this message]
2019-10-13 15:33 ` arnold
2019-10-13 15:41   ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-13 15:47     ` David Potesta
2019-10-18  1:49 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-10-18 12:07   ` Ronald Natalie
2019-10-21 16:16 ` Dario Niedermann
2019-10-23  5:13 ` Gilles Gravier
2019-10-23  6:19   ` Adam Thornton
2019-10-23 15:08   ` Arthur Krewat
2019-10-23 15:11     ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-23 15:26       ` Arrigo Triulzi
2019-10-23 15:33         ` Dan Cross
2019-10-23 16:19           ` Arthur Krewat
2019-10-23 15:17     ` Richard Salz
2019-10-23 15:22       ` Arrigo Triulzi
2019-10-23 16:45     ` Will Senn
2019-10-23 22:19       ` Adam Thornton
2019-10-24 17:32       ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
2019-10-26  0:33     ` Dave Horsfall
2019-10-25 20:58 ` John S Quarterman
2019-10-25 22:11   ` Will Senn
2019-10-26  0:57 ` William Corcoran
2019-10-12  4:42 Doug McIlroy
2019-10-12  6:12 ` Adam Thornton
2019-10-12 10:05 ` Steve Nickolas
2019-10-12 12:49   ` Doug McIlroy
2019-10-12 14:26     ` Steve Nickolas
2019-10-12 13:55 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-12 14:51 ` Ronald Natalie
2019-10-13  1:57 Jon Steinhart
2019-10-13  3:45 Rudi Blom
2019-10-13 16:07 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-13 16:25 ` Richard Salz
2019-10-14 15:32 Doug McIlroy
2019-10-15  8:42 ` Thomas Paulsen
2019-10-14 16:45 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-15  0:28 Pat Barron
2019-10-15  1:19 ` Andrew Warkentin
2019-10-15  4:06   ` Warner Losh
2019-10-16 14:39 Doug McIlroy
2019-10-20 19:25 Norman Wilson
2019-10-20 20:12 ` Sean Dwyer
2019-10-21  2:31   ` Ken Thompson via TUHS
2019-10-21  2:37     ` Warren Toomey
2019-10-22  5:25       ` Peter Jeremy
2019-10-22  6:29       ` Sean Dwyer
2019-10-21  2:40     ` Bakul Shah
2019-10-21  2:45     ` Larry McVoy
2019-10-21 10:45       ` jason-tuhs
2019-10-21 11:55         ` William Corcoran
2019-10-22  5:19         ` Adam Thornton
2019-10-21 12:10 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-21 16:50 ` Angelo Papenhoff
2019-10-21 12:34 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-22 13:36 Noel Chiappa
2019-10-22 14:22 ` Abhinav Rajagopalan
2019-10-22 20:08   ` Warren Toomey

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