In the Beginning was the Command Line

[talexb-SBdzbUvMQDunS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Robert Brockway wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Oliver Meyn wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > <http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html>
>
> [..]
>
> How big is the article that the remainder of it is packaged as a zip file?
> :)

Robert,

It expanded out to 64 pages when I pulled it into AbiWord -- way too long
to read in one sitting. Seems like the authour is the same age as me,
though -- in 1973 I was also sitting in front of a teletype with paper
tape reader and a 110 baud modem, dialing into the PSBGM system to do some
noodling around in BASIC. The incantation

  HEL K603,^B^E^A^A

was the login for that account (or something like it). We would write

  10 GOTO 10
  RUN

and let it sit for a few seconds, then press ^C to stop it

  ^C
  STOPPED
  CPU TIME: 13.74 SECONDS

and cram our fists into our mouths to stop from laughing out loud -- the
Math teacher (Al Seddon) might be in the next office and come out to see
what was so funny.

Every week Mr. Seddon would put up the sheet for computer time (twenty
minute slots) on the computer room door, and we'd scramble to write our
names in.

Oh, man. Good memories.


I may get to read the rest of the (longish) essay -- however as it was
written in January 1999 (almost four years ago) it may not be as relevant
as I originally hoped.


Alex Beamish

--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml