Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!uunet!kithrup!sef
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: UNIX vs. the world (again) (was: Compilation listing from Sun ...)
Message-ID: <1991Jun16.184815.17898@kithrup.COM>
Date: 16 Jun 91 18:48:15 GMT
References: <1991Jun15.143436.5574@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <25791@lanl.gov>
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Lines: 21

In article <25791@lanl.gov> jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>Nope.  That's an after effect.  The _reason_ UNIX became popular was for
>no _technical_ advantage at all.  It became popular because, at a critical
>time in the 70's, it was _free_ and _open_ and avalable on the _cheapest_
>useful hardware: PDP-8/11 and VAXen.  

UNIX wasn't available on vaxen until the '80s (not surprising, considering
that vaxen weren't available until the '80s).  When vaxen were available,
unix was a good OS to port to them because the system was largely written in
a portable fashion, in a high-level language which, by luck, happened to
move nicely to the larger vax.

As for unix being free:  when you bought a vax, you bought a license for
VMS.  It's kinda silly to argue that unix is free, considering that unix had
to be ported, while vms was already there for the cost of the machine.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.