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fos - intro....


fos
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Hi everyone,

 

I was asked to mod the *nix forum and try to spark a little life. For me it was quite an honor to be asked. I have sponsored and operated another forum that is still around. It was originally a hangout for users of a commercial linux called Libranet. Libranet is no more but some of its best users and even a couple of Libranet developers are still around. I was a Libranet user....

 

Here is an excerpt from an intro in the staff section. I'm an old graybeard not a guru....

 

I have been a *nix fan since the early 90s when I took my first C and Unix course at a state university in Florida. At that time there were no free and open source Unix systems. The closest thing at the time was Coherent produced by Mark Williams Co. I actually got it installed on one of the first 386 laptops from a company called Zeos. The university had a four CPU Unix server made by Sequent. The professor stated that it cost $35,000 at the time. I remember that the computer lab only had six Unix terminals that were almost always occupied. When you did manage a seat, they were very slow. I did all of my homework on the Zeos. I still remember the MWC compiler, it was small, fast, and produced very tight code.

 

Imagine my excitement when SLS and UNC started producing disk sets of the very early Linux. Once Slackware came out it became the best *nix available. C Users Journal did publish the source code for a version of BSD. Can you imagine 1000s of lines of code. You can still see the series of articles on old CD archives of CUJ.

 

I actually started with computing in the early 70s. I first learned Fortran with real punch cards using the NE Florida Data Center (NERDC) out of Gainesville, FL. We would submit our stack of cards on one day and receive the output the following day. I moved up to IBM Selectric terminals in 72. In 75 I built an Alltair. I sure wish I still had it! I then moved on to every model TRS ever made. I still have a couple M100, the first viable laptop. I once ran a tank data base of the USS Saratoga out of a stateroom to support a shipyard repair period on a TRS Model IV and one of their line printers.

 

More later, I'm just about to call it a day.

 

fos

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