[nylug-talk] LSB/FHS filesystem silliness, developer silliness

[wdg3rd@comcast.net]

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Ajai Khattri <ajai at bitblit.net>
> On Tue, 5 Dec 2006, wdg3rd at comcast.net wrote:
> 
> > OS-9 was [and NitrOS-9 is] a sort of mini-Unix written in assembler for
> > the Motorola 6809 cpu, (still) widely used in embedded applications and 
> > on the Radio Shack Color Computer.
> 
> TRaSh-80???
> 
> :-)

Yeah, you better smile when you use that nickname, son.  Nobody in Fort Worth realized how the initials of Tandy/Radio Shack would be abused by those who bought inferior machines with crappy 6502 CPUs.

In my basement I have a Model One, a Model 2, a Mod 4, a Mod 4p (the "Singer sewing machine case luggabe" version of the Mod 4, 26 pounds of knee-joint destroying fun), a Mod 12 (which is spare parts for), a Tandy 6000 Xenix system (Radio Shack started shipping Xenix in 1/83, as an instructor and tech support type at the highest volume Radio Shack Computer Center in Southern California, I had to learn Unix right then), several Mod 100 notebooks, at least one of every major revision of the Color Computer.  Plus a crapload of peripherals for same, and software and documentation out the wazoo.  It's a hobby, OK?

That Tandy 6000 boots the only Microsoft operating system I use at home (unless you consider BASIC in ROM an operating system).  Xenix was a fully-licensed-from-AT&T-by-Microsoft port of Version 7, later upgraded to System III, with many Berkeley enhancements.  (Though no networking aside from the serial uucp utility set).  Microsoft wasn't competent to make it an end-user product, so they sub-licensed it to Altos, Tandy, IBM and the Santa Cruz Operation (which last has almost nothing to do with the modern SCO Group).  In the mid-1980s, Tandy had more CPUs in the field running Unix than any other single hardware vendor.

I backup the T6k to one of my Linux boxes using uucp.  (Also my AT&T 7300 Unix PCs).  In fact, for these machines, having more software and data than will fit on their old 15-70 Mb drives, I move material both ways as needed, at 9600bps.  I may be one of the only Linux users in this area still using uucp, or for that matter serial ports.  (I know guys in PA, FL, TX, CA and WA who also do so).
--
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net

When you let people do whatever they want, you get Woodstock. When you let governments do whatever they want, you get Auschwitz.       Doug Newman