Wow. I have to say that it is funny how you hear the legendary tales of computing history over and over again and then some little crucial minor details like "we sold the CEO's office on it" eventually slip out.
Ok, that was important at AT&T, but not really why Unix currently rules the universe. Due to anti-trust settlements and cheap licensing, and copyright foibles, Unix was the cheap midrange choice for students and non-enterprise users. After a lot of pain, Unix eventually evolved into an "open standard". And that eventually evolved into an "open source" standard with Linux (and BSD, MacOS, etc.) To quote DEC's Ken Olsen[1]:
> [UNIX is] great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it’s great for interchanging programs between different machines. ... It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They’ll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
And that is why your cell phone runs Unix and not VMS.
> And that is why your cell phone runs Unix and not VMS.
While this is unquestioningly accepted by the software and at large communities, for some reason "low-end manufacturing" in the US and the rest of the developed world is exempt from this logic. Somehow, we'll dispense with this pesky manufacturing economic sector, and when someone wants a "real" high-end manufactured system/product, they will end up purchasing it from these same developed world economies. We're VMS'ing ourselves to our detriment, and the developing nations are laughing all the way to the bank.
There is so much embedded knowledge that I've seen played out over and over again in different economic sectors in my paths consulting across different industries that I no longer buy this line of argument. Anyone who believes this must first prove to the disinterested observer/reader that the "low-end" they say is no longer needed is hermetically packaged to automation levels with no loss of institutional knowledge on all fronts of quality, step-wise improvements leading to innovations, environmental impact, etc.,..., in which case, we should simply automate it ourselves and retain the embedded wealth represented in that knowledge.
"...and it’s great for interchanging programs between different machines..."
This is like saying "DNA is great for interchanging phenotypes between different locations".
I think that the missing piece as to why it's universal is that Linux was better than DOS, not VMS. You kind-of, sort-of had to have a VAX to run VMS. Your desktop 386 could run SCO.
It's ... useable ( but of low useability ) so the Windows API doomed Linux to success.
Although I too was initially expecting a tale about how UNIX came to rule the world, I think "top" in the article's title instead means the top of Bell Labs/AT&T.
> It didn't seem like a very good idea for us to be keeping records from
> the inner sanctum of the corporation on a computer where most everybody
> had super-user privileges. A call to the PR guy convinced him of the
> wisdom of keeping such things on their own premises. And so the CEO's
> office bought a Unix system.
... and this is exactly how it works today with SaaS subscriptions, except root-privileged people don't even work at the same company and (frequently) aren't as capable as the folks at Bell Labs.
I think something like sandstorm is a good balance between this though. Easy enough to setup and you can use whatever cloud software available for it. The feel of shared-hosting, but the control of self-hosting, all in one easy to use package.
TeX was and is available on a large number of OSes. I was very happy being to run a 'large' TeX instance on my Atari ST with 1 MB of ram, it could easily typeset my undergraduate thesis.
> Just as one hears of cars chosen for their cupholders, so were these users converted to Unix for trivial reasons: line numbers and vanity.
This is why Jobs was the visionary. "[L]ine numbers and vanity" are real-world problems with technical solutions. When you bridge technology into the real world, to create solutions in real lives, then you create value.
It's painful to consider that something like UNIX could be worthless, but it was worthless ... until it improved somebody's life. This is something I have not fully learned yet.
The real world is the ultimate judge. It's not an easy thing to do, but when you fully realize and accept this, you can then learn to harness it and in turn acquire infinite power to change things.
> Other documents began to accumulate in their directory. By the time we became aware of it, the hoard came to include minutes of AT&T board meetings. It didn't seem like a very good idea for us to be keeping records from the inner sanctum of the corporation on a computer where most everybody had super-user privileges.
I wonder how many meeting minutes, price lists, product specs, supplier agreements, etc. etc. are currently sitting on Google's, Amazon's, Dropbox's servers now...
[+] [-] flomo|9 years ago|reply
Ok, that was important at AT&T, but not really why Unix currently rules the universe. Due to anti-trust settlements and cheap licensing, and copyright foibles, Unix was the cheap midrange choice for students and non-enterprise users. After a lot of pain, Unix eventually evolved into an "open standard". And that eventually evolved into an "open source" standard with Linux (and BSD, MacOS, etc.) To quote DEC's Ken Olsen[1]:
> [UNIX is] great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it’s great for interchanging programs between different machines. ... It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They’ll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
And that is why your cell phone runs Unix and not VMS.
[1] http://sinix.org/blog/?p=16
[+] [-] yourapostasy|9 years ago|reply
While this is unquestioningly accepted by the software and at large communities, for some reason "low-end manufacturing" in the US and the rest of the developed world is exempt from this logic. Somehow, we'll dispense with this pesky manufacturing economic sector, and when someone wants a "real" high-end manufactured system/product, they will end up purchasing it from these same developed world economies. We're VMS'ing ourselves to our detriment, and the developing nations are laughing all the way to the bank.
There is so much embedded knowledge that I've seen played out over and over again in different economic sectors in my paths consulting across different industries that I no longer buy this line of argument. Anyone who believes this must first prove to the disinterested observer/reader that the "low-end" they say is no longer needed is hermetically packaged to automation levels with no loss of institutional knowledge on all fronts of quality, step-wise improvements leading to innovations, environmental impact, etc.,..., in which case, we should simply automate it ourselves and retain the embedded wealth represented in that knowledge.
[+] [-] ArkyBeagle|9 years ago|reply
This is like saying "DNA is great for interchanging phenotypes between different locations".
I think that the missing piece as to why it's universal is that Linux was better than DOS, not VMS. You kind-of, sort-of had to have a VAX to run VMS. Your desktop 386 could run SCO.
It's ... useable ( but of low useability ) so the Windows API doomed Linux to success.
[+] [-] ue_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uiri|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nomadic_09|9 years ago|reply
I tried googling--led to several different results for VMS.
[+] [-] enriquto|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] old-gregg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xCMP|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudhirj|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_wot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dispose13432|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperhopper|9 years ago|reply
Although it is a shame that for end users Unix is still nowhere near the top of any popularity metric.
[+] [-] dhosek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greglindahl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kps|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TrumpVoter12345|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] idm|9 years ago|reply
This is why Jobs was the visionary. "[L]ine numbers and vanity" are real-world problems with technical solutions. When you bridge technology into the real world, to create solutions in real lives, then you create value.
It's painful to consider that something like UNIX could be worthless, but it was worthless ... until it improved somebody's life. This is something I have not fully learned yet.
[+] [-] oliv__|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plq|9 years ago|reply
I wonder how many meeting minutes, price lists, product specs, supplier agreements, etc. etc. are currently sitting on Google's, Amazon's, Dropbox's servers now...
[+] [-] qwertyuiop924|9 years ago|reply
Just sayin'.