24 Feb
2017
24 Feb
'17
11:31 a.m.
On Feb 21, 2017, at 9:56 PM, Steve Nickolas
<usotsuki(a)buric.co> wrote:
On Tue, 21 Feb 2017, Clem Cole wrote:
Apologies for the late response, but just wanted to chime in to say that I, too, was in a
position similar to Steve’s.
As a teenager around 1982, I’d been fortunate enough to sneak my way onto the ARPAnet (via
a DOD TAC dialup in DC), and had wrangled accounts on MIT-CCC (a V6 machine) and
Brookhaven National Lab (V7 on an 11/44). I believe both machines had source (CCC
definitely did), and I enjoyed perusing the code.
Instead of going to college, I moved west to the Bay Area, and no longer had local dialup
access to the ARPAnet (not to mention Unix source code), so moved over to UUCP. I ported
the UUCP/NNTP code to Mac OS (classic, not OS X) using the Lightspeed C compiler, splurged
on a Telebit Trailblazer, and somehow convinced some very kind person at MIPS to call my
modem in Sonoma County once an hour. For a time, I think I had the only Mac-based UUCP
node — sly.graton.ca.us. I still regret not releasing my port.
At some point there in the late eighties, I had the bright idea to start a small Unix ISP,
and bought (with too many $$$) what I recall was an ESIX system, on a big 386 tower. I
remember SVR4 (?) feeling pretty corporate and sterile, and there definitely was no
source. I can’t remember why I couldn’t/didn’t buy a BSDi system — maybe too expensive?
Spent too much time writing code, not enough time actually getting the ISP up, but the
experience was educational.
A few years hence, I worked for O’Reilly & Associates (also in Sonoma County) on
Global Network Navigator, the first commercial web publication. We had a few Sun
workstations, but mostly these clunky monochrome X terminals. So the idea of Linux — a
downloadable, hackable, personal, fun, almost punk-rock Unix, easily installable on a
fairly generic 386 machine (once I downloaded the fifty-odd diskette images) was pretty
damned appealing. And because my previous experience had been mostly V6 and V7 (with only
a smattering of BSD), the supposed difference between Linux and “real Unix" felt
quite minimal to me.
—John
See my comment to Dan. I fear you may not have
known where to look, or whom
to ask. As I asked Dan, were you not at an university at time? Or where
you running a Sun or the like -- i.e. working with real UNIX but working
for someone with binary license, not sources from AT&T (and UCB)?
No, and no. I was in high school, actually, and I only attended college - a local 2-year
school - for one semester before dropping out because I couldn't handle it.