Linux is KING - Couldn't be hacked - Mac, Vista went down in flames

[Les]

On Sat, 2008-04-05 at 00:00 -0400, Ric Moore wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 19:12 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
> > Ric Moore wrote:
> > > cp/m had all kinda sort and list commands. I'm just not sure which would
> > > have been better, to be under the evil domination of Digital or
> > > Microsoft. <grins> cp/m ][ was pretty nice, though. It did pretty much
> > > whatever I wanted it to do. Ric
> > 
> > Hey, be nice!  First off, remember Gary Kildall's company was Digital
> > Research, Inc.--NOT Digital Equipment Corp. (at the time chaired by
> > Ken Olson).
> > 
> > I worked for DRI on CP/M and MP/M.  There were some nomenclature and UI
> > similarities between DEC's RT-11 or RSTS and CP/M, but they were NOT the
> > same company--not by a long shot.  They were even on different coasts!
> > 
> > IBM went with Microsoft because they arrived for a meeting with Gary,
> > but he was out flying his airplane and missed it.  IBM got ticked off
> > and called Microsoft.  We've never been sure if IBM was a day early
> > (as Gary always claimed) or Gary screwed up his calendar.  Either one is
> > as likely as the other (IBM can be petulant and Gary could be very
> > scatterbrained at times).
> 
> I bought just about every Televideo model made from Gov. Surplus. God, I
> forget the monster they built that served the 8 bit machines running
> cp/m and the 16 bit machines running cp/m86, but it ran MP/M and could
> handle either client. Pretty slick!! Televideo, when the old man ran the
> company made some very nice handling machines. Excellent keyboards. Nice
> nice stuff! I had a collection of a pile of cp/m machines, Altos,
> Televideo, Kaypro, an original ozzie, 3 Imsai machines, plus quite a few
> I had never heard of before. Got 'em for $10 apiece at Gov Surplus, just
> to play with. Remember Irv Hoff?? I talked to him on the phone a few
> weeks before he died of cancer. His contributions to the modem world
> were priceless. Ric
> 
I was overseas from 1972 to 1977, and did much of my early programming
and programming study then, using Fortran and paying for time on a
company timeshare.

I never met any of the folks I was reading about, and I was months
behind the curve, I think, (technical communications were not what they
are today), but I learned so very very much.  I read every book I could
afford to buy, joined McGraw-Hill's book club and bought one or two
books nearly every month.  It was tough to do that on a sailors salary
with a family to support, and studying took a lot of the little free
time I had (3 or 4 section duty, taking classes, standing watches 3 out
of 4 weekends or 2 out of three weekends), but I did get a lot done... I
earned an ASEE at University of Guam (it's part of the California system
of colleges), and got a First Class Radio Operators License, and passed
the Navy Chief ET's exam (not enough points to advance then).  I did the
finals and the exams all in one week.  It was punishing, but I had
operations coming up and I couldn't delay.  I worked on the side some as
well.  I remember getting about 3 or 4 hours of sleep a day.  And I
continued that during my next shore tour as I earned an AA at Skagit
Valley Community college.  Didn't realize I didn't need the AA to go on
in school.  Wasn't smart enough to ask.

	I learned, I wrote software to flash lights, make noises, even to say
the hex digits in place of a readout on one of my early boards.  That
way I could follow the listing as it read them back to me.  I figured
out how to make a comparator and wrote a resyncing program to allow
storing data on audio cassettes at 8K baud because I was tired of
waiting for the 300 baud modem.  I never experienced a drop out with my
algorithm.  But I didn't patent it, I thought it was too obvious.  I
designed a SAR algorithm and used the system to sample voice at about a
10K rate.  I was experimenting with voice input.  I had a crazy idea of
listing programs by voice onto cassette tape and then being able to edit
them and reload them to run from assembly or some other language, but
without binary type storage, so they would always be available in source
form.  Sounds crazy now, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea to
me.

	I really wanted to be able to meet and talk to some of the other early
experimenters, but I was nearly half a world away.  At that time I felt
so isolated from the world of bits and bytes that even now I can feel
it.

	I hope some of the young people reading this list are inspired by our
words and our deeds to pursue ever greater goals.  Maybe visit the
planets or even the stars.  We are not meant to be bound, not to our
limitations, nor even to the earth.  We, all people are meant to
explore, to learn, to develop, and to expand.

Regards,
Les H