Please don’t be shocked, but I’ve been reading old #UNIX Review magazines on Archive.org, as one does. I’ve been finding a number of interesting artifacts throughout. This June 1984 ad by Cadmus Computer Systems listed a #USENET address: !wivax!cadmus.
This is a UUCP bang path, for the kids who don’t know. The ! separates relay hops, it’s a literal routing instruction. Get to the backbone, reach wivax, forward to cadmus.
No DNS.
Machines screamed at each other to swap data.
wivax was a VAX at Wang Laboratories in Lowell, MA where Cadmus was based.
The TELEX number printed right next to it is also interesting. This represents telegraph infrastructure and the infant internet, side by side in a transitional moment.
Here’s an ad for cross-compilers and assemblers for UNIX environments.
My favorite detail here is this brag: “Over the past 3 years, we’ve built over 1MB of working code.” Cross-compilers, assemblers, simulators, and debuggers targeting six architectures across a dozen hosts. This code was dense.
The 80’s #UNIX wars were a wild time.
It’s also very fun to read the articles from the time and see what they were predicting for the future. “UNIX for the masses” was a popular topic.
This is an original ad for a #UNIX computer company.
No AI art here! You can see the artist’s signature over the dragon’s wing.
To think all of this amazing art is buried in 40-year-old computer magazines.
This one is from the July 1988 issue of "VLSI Systems Design."
Editor: quick! I need art to accompany the article on internationalization of #UNIX for our Dec 1985 issue!
Illustrator on shrooms: say no more.
From a 1991 SunExpert magazine article about “What’s to come” for network protocols. The article depicts a man traveling into the 2020’s, seemingly unaware of the chaos he’ll find.
He’s going to pass @prahou traveling back in time to 1991 to get some mint condition Sun workstations.
Oh, this is good...
From UNIX World, 1985: "It finds the subtle bugs in my C programs" - Claude B. Finn.
40 years later, people are using Claude to find bugs in programs. What's old is new again.
#Anthropic #LLM #Claude #ClaudeCode #AI #Security #Programming #UNIX #C
@patrislav @casandro @bit101 @occult This was a helpful overview for me of this kind of spot-on context: https://www.caimito.net/en/blog/2025/12/07/the-recurring-dream-of-replacing-developers.html
One thing that happens in each round is that some portion of the people who are thinking they won't need programmers any more end up becoming programmers using the language/tools that were supposed to replace developers. (Business people learning COBOL, etc.)
Hoping we can lean into a future that repeats that pattern, in software and ideally hardware as well.
@rozeboosje @bit101 @occult wow. I just read up on synon, dug into a bunch of screenshots of yhe development process.
I guess this is one of those things that demos amazingly well when you want to build a somple crud application.
It's still not clear to me how you do things outside of the templates. You write a separate program in COBOL and just call into it?
@rozeboosje @bit101 @occult I checked it out as well. I couldn't believe what you said, but it's true. It's truly something out of 1988. But they seem to have bolted an llm on top of it now?
I love it how they promote their security scan, that, among other things, checks for "use of IE ActiveX"
@loke @bit101 @occult If you scroll down you'll see a banner "They are using WinDev", listing a few big companies with the one common attribute: none of them are IT. Some manager types in those companies decided to use their "magic beans" to develop their in house applications, and now they're saddled with a technological debt that prevents them from ever unshackling themselves from PCSoft.
Poor sods. But that's how I suspect PCSoft somehow manages to keep its head above water.
It's summer, 1985.
I get a call from my buddy to open this month’s issue of UNIX WORLD magazine to page 110.
I see they are preparing to standardize the C programming language.
I say, “This is a good thing" under my breath.
I am still punk as fuck.
Hey @prahou is your computer sad or happy?
Is this Mr. Computo?
From the May 1985 issue of UNIX WORLD magazine.
When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
I found this ad for a six-degree-of-freedom 3D input device in the Summer 1989 issue of the SGI magazine "IRIS Universe".
I remember seeing stuff like this around in the 90s, but it all seemed so inaccessible at the time. Flipping through these old professional magazines, you spot some interesting engineering and industrial design.
@flexion, you should get one of these, restore it, and get it working on one of your systems.
@occult This was my guide back in the day. @alice
https://books.google.com/books/about/Unix_for_Luddites.html?id=UJEkAQAAIAAJ
Hey man.. it's the Fediverse..
The total here equals the sum of all its internal contradictions.
occult
Devine Lu Linvega
Janet
Matthew Martin
bit101
Christian Berger DECT 2763
patrislav ♾️ #RIPNatenom
John Abbe (aka Slow)
Tim Curry
Dr. Ferrous
D2
Pino Carafa
Elias Mårtenson
Sashin
Huubje
Florian 'floe' Echtler
/usr/people/flexion
Pedro MC Fernandes
wil
silverwizard
slyborg
Lot⁴⁹
jlamasfripp
julian
Wendroid 🇺🇦
Felis_Catus_Domesticus
Maestro Mushi