6 Mar
2005
6 Mar
'05
10:51 a.m.
On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 10:08:09 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
That said, I *do* want to run some sort of Unix on my PDP-11/73.
Probably won't boot it that often, though.
Me, too, but at least in this one case, while there are several
"classic" DEC operating systems for PDP-11s, the history of UNIX and
the history of the PDP-11 are intertwined; it's not just a forcing of
some modern codebase to fit on an ancient platform. Additionally, at
least some of us (myself for sure) have run UNIX on the PDP-11 when it
was still current or semi-current (in my case, I had 2.9BSD tapes
nearly 20 years ago, trying to afford a platform with enough disk
space to get it to run - the closest I ever got was an 11/24 with two
RL02 - I loaded it, but had issues with enough disk space to rebuild
the kernel).
This case aside, though, I basically agree with Tony's assertion that
one should run a classic OS on classic hardware - why put NetBSD on an
Amiga when one can run AmigaDOS? It takes something out of the
'classicalness', IMHO.
-ethan
P.S. - I did just think of another UNIX case where I think it's
appropriate on classic hardware - BSD or Ultrix on a Unibus VAX. I
got my start with UNIX on an 11/750 in 1984. My first UNIX install
was Ultrix-32 v1.1 on an 11/730 in 1986. VMS is great, but there's
room for UNIX, too.
One of the
dangers (to bring things around to being on-topic for this
list) is that people will start running Linux or a BSD exclusively on
their vintage hardware.
If you want a unix box, then get a unix box (e.g. a PC running linux or
*BSD). IMHO a PERQ should run POS...