How the Linux-vs-BSD culture clash looked in the 1980s/1990s
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How the Linux-vs-BSD culture clash looked in the 1980s/1990s
https://liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org/97149.html
(Fairly rare tech blog post, from me.)
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How the Linux-vs-BSD culture clash looked in the 1980s/1990s
https://liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org/97149.html
(Fairly rare tech blog post, from me.)
@lproven Oh yes, I couldn't remember the name of that Mark Williams Corporation product - Coherent. I really wanted to explore its potential, but my boss wouldn't spring the £99* for it, saying I could have a login on the Sequent running Dynix/ptx instead. But I thought that "unix" on commodity hardware for general purpose use, as you note, had a future.
* - I'm sure it was available in the UK at the time, at the usual £-$ equivalence -
@lproven Oh yes, I couldn't remember the name of that Mark Williams Corporation product - Coherent. I really wanted to explore its potential, but my boss wouldn't spring the £99* for it, saying I could have a login on the Sequent running Dynix/ptx instead. But I thought that "unix" on commodity hardware for general purpose use, as you note, had a future.
* - I'm sure it was available in the UK at the time, at the usual £-$ equivalence@withaveeay I have fond memories of Coherent, which made me grok Unix.
I got it in Italy by mail order and installed it on a 386 laptop with 2 MB RAM and a 40 MB hard disk, half for Coherent and the rest for DR-DOS which shipped with the machine. Coherent was fantastic, for fun I even used my Amiga 500 as a serial terminal connected to the laptop via RS-232.
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@withaveeay I have fond memories of Coherent, which made me grok Unix.
I got it in Italy by mail order and installed it on a 386 laptop with 2 MB RAM and a 40 MB hard disk, half for Coherent and the rest for DR-DOS which shipped with the machine. Coherent was fantastic, for fun I even used my Amiga 500 as a serial terminal connected to the laptop via RS-232.
@amoroso @withaveeay Nice!
I only got to do this sort of thing at work. I did have UUCP delivering emails (from me to me, of course) over RS232 between my own Xenix 286 machine and the big Xenix 386 machine we used for customer demo purposes. That was as close as I got.
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@withaveeay I have fond memories of Coherent, which made me grok Unix.
I got it in Italy by mail order and installed it on a 386 laptop with 2 MB RAM and a 40 MB hard disk, half for Coherent and the rest for DR-DOS which shipped with the machine. Coherent was fantastic, for fun I even used my Amiga 500 as a serial terminal connected to the laptop via RS-232.
@amoroso @withaveeay The slightly sad thing is that I believe only the final 386 version of Coherent was made FOSS. I am not sure if the earlier 8086 and 80286 versions survived at all.
The 286 one was apparently very capable and did even more than Xenix within the tiny 64 kB process size limit the processor imposed.
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@amoroso @withaveeay Nice!
I only got to do this sort of thing at work. I did have UUCP delivering emails (from me to me, of course) over RS232 between my own Xenix 286 machine and the big Xenix 386 machine we used for customer demo purposes. That was as close as I got.
@lproven With that Coherent setup I also used UUCP over dial-up to send email via an Italian provider connected to an Internet gateway at Rutgers University. My paid plan carried Usenet too but I never used it.
I was living in the future. I recall a Computer Science professor at the university I was a student at impressed by a mail I sent him.
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@amoroso @withaveeay The slightly sad thing is that I believe only the final 386 version of Coherent was made FOSS. I am not sure if the earlier 8086 and 80286 versions survived at all.
The 286 one was apparently very capable and did even more than Xenix within the tiny 64 kB process size limit the processor imposed.
@lproven Maybe Stephen Ness knows more. He worked at MWC also on Coherent, for example the excellent manual. I exchanged a few mails with him.
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@amoroso @withaveeay The slightly sad thing is that I believe only the final 386 version of Coherent was made FOSS. I am not sure if the earlier 8086 and 80286 versions survived at all.
The 286 one was apparently very capable and did even more than Xenix within the tiny 64 kB process size limit the processor imposed.
@lproven The Elm email client ran perfectly on Coherent. I also easily ported XScheme by David Betz.
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@lproven With that Coherent setup I also used UUCP over dial-up to send email via an Italian provider connected to an Internet gateway at Rutgers University. My paid plan carried Usenet too but I never used it.
I was living in the future. I recall a Computer Science professor at the university I was a student at impressed by a mail I sent him.
@lproven Here it is, I got UUCP access from Sublink Network:
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@ilcomizietto Mi raccomando puntomlpunto, se cerchi ml sbagli tiro 😉
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First WebSocialBR – Brazilian Fediverse Forum event in Brasil coming up on December 3rd. We are glad to support the event.
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@mora Appena riesco faccio. Ma quindi "ml" sta per "machine learning"? Santa pazienza!
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@ilarioq @sport @claudio1883.bsky.social pensare che una (piccola) cosa come questa risolva tutti i problemi è come credere che mettendo Klopp a guidare la Nazionale di calcio vinceremo i mondiali. Cmq se tra gli undicenni Ganna è popolare come Berrettini avremo un sacco di ciclisti. Altrimenti andiamo avanti con me e mio padre ospiti non so quante volte all'arrivo della Coppa Agostoni solo per i suoi rapporti di lavoro con un organizzatore, pur non essendo noi appassionati
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@Zel mi hai fatto risalire la curiosità e, vedendolo da esterno senza account, notavo però il discorso dei feed che è abbastanza interessante anche se ovviamente è twitter in purezza e ho notato un botto di AI dump (che però alla fine c'è pure qua se si esce dalle bolle)
citando Malcom: "non mi aspetto niente, ma sono già deluso"
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@ilcomizietto Mettici pure tutto quello che contiene .ml. a FALSE, almeno questi
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Gilles Villeneuve campione mondiale di motoslitte
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I try to be polite when I write prompts for LLMs. Especially in languages like Korean or Japanese that have grammatical honorifics, I make sure to use the formal, respectful form of speech (what's known as 敬語—gyeongeo or keigo). I joke with my friends that I'm using polite language early on to be pardoned for my sins when AI eventually takes over the world, but the real reason is that I don't want to get used to speaking to someone in a commanding tone. It makes me think I might start believing it's “okay” to order around certain intelligent beings, almost like condoning slavery.
