[rescue] Linux

[Carl R. Friend]

   Greg Woods was overheard remarking:

> > On Thursday, November 28, 2002, at 09:54 AM, Carl R. Friend wrote:
> > >
> > >    Why in the world do people insist on loading the latest
> > > version of L*x or *BSD on hardware that has its own perfectly
> > > good OS?  It's like folks who want to get *BSD running on
> > > PDP-10 iron.  WHY?????!
> > 
> > 1) It works.
> > 2) It is open.
> > 3) It abstracts the hardware.  I can run the same OS on almost any iron.
> 
> And of course the biggest reason of all:
> 
>   0) sometimes the OEM's OS just plain sucks

   OK, I'll risk becoming a pariah here, but I really think that
the OEM's OS should be taken as part and parcel of the machinery.
After all, it _is_ part of the historical "fabric" of any device
one may collect.

   Sometimes, yes, the original OS can be maddening - infuriating,
even - but that's a good chunk of what the system was like when
it was new.  From the crowd here, and from the name of the list,
I'd assume that there's a fair appreciation of history amongst
us.

   The OS is part of the history as much as (some might even
venture to say more than) the iron it runs atop.  If all we want
to do is run *BSD (to pick a random OS), we can run it atop the
latest PeeCee silicon available.  If, however, we really want to
take a look at "how things were done" contemporaneously to the
machines we may collect then we need to delve into the operating
environment that was in use on that machine at the time the
machine was originally deployed.

   There are a whole raft of OSes available for pdp11s, for
instance.  RT-11, RSX-11, and RSTS come to mind.  Oh, yes,
some early UNIX versions, too.  For Data General kit there
were SOS, RTOS, AOS, and RDOS (sorry, no *NIXes).  The PDP-10
line supported TOPS-10 (a damn fine OS).  Other manufacturers
had their own OSes.  To turn our backs on those (no matter
how much we think they might stink - I have my biases on
the matter, too) is to turn or backs on the history of the
machines themselves.  Should we turn our backs on, say, DOS
for the IBM System/360 because we can get Linux to run on it?

   Aw, hell.  I'm rambling.  Happy Thanksgiving, all!

   Cheers.

+------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin)            | West Boylston       |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast            | Massachusetts, USA  |
| mailto:crfriend at rcn.com                        +---------------------+
| http://users.rcn.com/crfriend/museum           | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W |
+------------------------------------------------+---------------------+