March 8th, 2017
“A very good place to start” – Oscar Hammerstein II
IBM 801 Building ca. 1975Late last year I became aware of “The Unix Heritage Society”, a fascinating archive and mailing list on UNIX history (and often, tangential topics). Even Ken Thompson occasionally contributes.
There have been various TUHS discussions of AIX in the 1980s, the RT/PC, etc. Often I want to say, “no, that’s not how it was, or, at least, not how it seemed to me when I was in the middle of things”, but I’ve avoided joining those discussions.
Since I don’t know of a good history of AIX, nor the associated hardware projects prior to the RS/6000, this is my attempt to say what I can to clarify and fill in the lesser known history. (Peter Salus’ A Quarter Century of Unix is a comprehensive reference, but barely mentions AIX. The RT book is a snapshot at the time of the first release and only incidentally covers history. AIX Turns 20 reflects on the first two decades.) Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in hardware, operating systems | Comments Off on Let’s start at the very beginning… 801, ROMP, RT/PC, AIX versions
November 11th, 2016
An attempt at organizing thoughts & readings
Tuesday (and early voting in the weeks before) was a measurement, and though decisive, not a very complete or illuminating diagnosis of our population, any more than taking a person’s temperature characterizes their health. Our electoral health is not good. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on koko: Tuesday’s measurement of our electorate
October 19th, 2016
“Genghis Khan and his brother Don
Could not keep on keepin’ on”
(1971) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – Bob Dylan
For many years, starting in high school, one of my ambitions was to make good recordings of live music. Until I could afford and justify the cost of good machines, I progressed through a series of mediocre, but less expensive reel to reel recorders, starting with a Wollensak similar to the photo at left. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in hardware, music | Comments Off on koko: “reel audio”
October 18th, 2016
“Genghis Khan and his brother Don
Could not keep on keepin’ on”
(1971) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – Bob Dylan
VMware Server 1.0 wasn’t broke…
After almost 10 years of being comfortable with VMware Server 1.0[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6], I mostly needed to move on: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in hardware, operating systems | Comments Off on koko: virtually fun
