Technologists Notes

“A very good place to start” – Oscar Hammerstein II

IBM 801 Building ca. 1975

Late 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.) (more…)

“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: (more…)

“Genghis Khan and his brother Don
Could not keep on keepin’ on”
(1971) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – Bob Dylan

(What is the plural of “Linux”?)

I guess it was trepidation from memories of upgrading to Fedora 19. I kept checking out the subsequent releases, 20, then 21, then 22, then 23, but not doing much with them. “Enough is enough” I said to myself, and even put my toe in the water with the beta release of Fedora 24. Five months later, I wonder what was holding me back. Though much has changed between 19 and 24, getting going with 24 really didn’t seem that hard. (more…)

“Genghis Khan and his brother Don
Could not keep on keepin’ on”
(1971) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – Bob Dylan

Advising Don’t drop your iBook, and subsequently reporting repairs and repurposing (but not eventual abandonment), I only hinted at my negative over-reaction to Apple as a result of those iBook experiences. But I also knew I had to keep up with what Apple was doing, and that would mean hands on experience.

Besides the iBook, I had a Power Mac G4 that a client gave me to port software to OS X Server. I ported the software to Panther and Tiger and still have the machine.

It isn’t close to meeting the Leopard 867MHz processor requirement, but I’ve still found it useful from time to time. (more…)

“Genghis Khan and his brother Don
Could not keep on keepin’ on”
(1971) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – Bob Dylan

Windows 3

I wrote before: “I remember thinking in 1989 that X-Windows was going to be the dominant windowing environment on PCs. I said about as much in “Unix – The Force Behind Personal Computing?” Unix Technology Advisor 2, 2 (February 1990). When Michael Dell read what I had written, he gently suggested I take a closer look at Windows 3.0. History shows Michael was right and I was wrong.” (more…)