[TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?

Bakul Shah bakul at bitblocks.com
Fri Oct 11 09:35:12 AEST 2019


On Oct 10, 2019, at 1:55 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 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

Being an OS student I had read "The Unix Timesharing System" paper by
Ritchie and Thompson and had wanted to use Unix years before I actually
had the chance. I don't remember an "Aha!" moment but I took to it like
a duck to water. Most everything felt just so comfortable and right.
It was very much as I had imagined it to be.

Prior to it I had used TSO, TOPS-10, VM/CMS and VMS. And CP/M @home.



More information about the TUHS mailing list