KvE>> All the above was implemented on very expensive mainframe and KvE>> minicomputers.
MK> Back in the late 1980's VMS was most often the going thing on mainframes MK> whereas so-called minicomputers often ran minix or BSD, usually BSD given MK> it's earlier history.
Where I worked we had quite some kit from HP as long as they called their systems desktop-calculator. This enabled us to bypass the IT department. But we were later absorbed anyway.
MK> Seems to me that minix dominated the 16-bit MK> architectures way back then and dumb terminals wired into a VMS driven MK> mainframe was all the rage.
We were only a few miles away fron Andy Tannenbaum, but the minix had no backup from a corporate entity, so it did not enter into our world very much.
MK> However I suppose this all depends on what MK> one was exposed to at that time and your posted history is likely MK> correct MK> for early Fidonet development. My first exposure to Unix was Sun's MK> SparcStation running Solaris in the early 1990's.
I still have a M20, but compared to current day Intel and AMD, it is slow. I will probably scrap it one ofe these days, the screen takes far to much space and requires extra support of the table ;)
After the OS aged, I installed Linux, Sparc is no longer supported by Debian.
MK> Given the above, from my perspective back then, DOS never stood a MK> chance. MK> I never bothered with PC's until the first 32-bit processors started MK> rolling out and even then made it a point to replace the crippled 16-bit MK> software they usually came bundled with (5.25" bootable floppies at the MK> start).
Well we are still confronted with it's offspring ;( My last Fidonet activities on MS were with W95 for a node an XP for a point system.
KvE>> No, it is still there and is not maintained.
MK> Business as usual. Good to see some things never change. ;-)
Well if you see what some people still proudly use, Russian Roulette seem safer.
KvE>> If you force the conservative people out of Fidonet, the net will KvE>> lose it's current already weak momentum and die.
MK> Those people don't exist and what you see are actually cyber ghosts. MK> Having said that, the conversion routine I use for local display of MK> messages relies on the builtin obsolescence you appear to be referring to MK> in the above quote.
Well some of these ghosts can be quite verbal at times, but now I understand why they regurgitate the same subjects every so many years.
As for the builtin obsolesence, I know your hobby-horse. That part may be an inconvenience, to me it is not the most worrying.
My worries are more in the field of OS/2 Warp x.xxx, WFW and fossil based telnet shims in a world that is slowly moving to IPv6.
Your answer will probably be: We are all to old to be present when that really becomes a problem.
Kees
--- FPD v2.9.040207 GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5 * Origin: As for me, all I know is that, I know nothing. (2:280/5003.4)
