It's teletype day!
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
| Site | https://thalia.dev |
| GitHub | https://github.com/thaliaarchi |
Thalia Archibald
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Computer science PhD student at the University of Utah, researching compiler verification with @regehr.
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
My poor little teletype has been printing :-) smiley faces all day without a break.
Whew, I got my terminals setup just in time for proper UNIX timesharing with 4 simultaneous users!
Currently cleaning my filthy Silent 707 (left) and attempting to repair the stuck D and M keys of my Silent 703 (right).
Featuring my newest acquisition, a TI Silent 700 Model 742 KSR programmable data terminal.
It has an Intel 8008 and is programmable for filling forms like an old fillable PDF, but all on paper. It's in pristine condition from being stored in its rolling case all these years. I haven't gotten it working yet, as it seems stuck in receive mode.
This Friday at noon PDT, I will be speaking about UNIX V4 for @lindsey's Languages, Systems, and Data Seminar! I'm excited to demonstrate programming with a teletype, as that hasn't fit into my other talks.
If you're interested, email (see my site) or DM me for a Zoom invite.
Abstract: We recently recovered UNIX V4 from a 1974 magnetic tape at the University of Utah. This version of the UNIX operating system, thought to have been lost, was the 19th copy distributed to the public, just months after the first public announcement. It was originally acquired by Martin Newell while managing the computer graphics laboratory, and it was likely connected to his foundational research in procedural modeling and the famous Utah teapot. UNIX V4 was the culmination of the effort to rewrite the kernel in C, made possible by the introduction of structs to the language, and has shaped all modern operating systems. In this talk, I put this artifact into context within the larger history of UNIX and demonstrate period-appropriate software development with a paper-printing teletype and replica PDP-11.
Watch this space.
a.out(V), UNIX Programmer's Manual First Edition, 3 November 1971.
Happy Star Trek day!
In the original Star Trek pilot, the ship printed the distress call on paper—a technology dropped in the rest of the franchise. In 1965, computing was on paper, so even this printer was futuristic, with laser sounds instead of loud impact printing. This clip also shows a video intercom.
Star Trek: The Original Series S1E11 “The Menagerie, Part I” (34:11) and pilot “The Cage”
#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #startrek #computingincinema
My talk at VCF PNW yesterday went well! Thanks for all the great questions.
Recording forthcoming.
