Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hcrvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!hcrvax!hugh
From: hugh@hcrvax.UUCP (Hugh Redelmeier)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.college
Subject: Re: Free and undirected campus computing facilities - Not at Waterloo
Message-ID: <1502@hcrvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Nov-84 14:06:25 EST
Article-I.D.: hcrvax.1502
Posted: Thu Nov 15 14:06:25 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 16-Nov-84 00:29:20 EST
References: <457@utcsrgv.UUCP> <649@watdcsu.UUCP>, <425@watcgl.UUCP>, <652@watdcsu.UUCP> <9840@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto
Lines: 27

There were many "Golden Eras" of computing at Waterloo: at least
one per generation.  WATFOR (the original for the IBM 7040/44)
was written by four undergrads as a summer job.  The IBM 1620s
and 1710 were the centre for another generation.  In the first
week of first year, I asked for access to the IBM 1710 (officially
it was only to be used by grad students and faculty).  I was not
only given access, I was put in charge of the machine and two others.
From then on, it was a hacks' machine (we called ourselves
"computer rats" then).  We had access to the sources of the system
software & wrote more; we made hardware mods; we put a spooling system
on a machine that came without I/O interrupts!

Another Golden Age was initiated by the arival of APL, the first
timesharing on campus.

Another involved the Honeywell Computer (I christened it "the 'Bun",
a name which has stuck for some reason (see earlier news items for
references)).  This machine's software was so bad that it has been
almost completely hidden by the handiwork of a generation of hacks.

The next generation used Unix.

I presume the current generation uses its own personal computers.

It is interesting to note that each generation has some contempt
for the succeeding one, or at least the system they worked with
("Real hacks don't ...").