How Should We Relate to Trinitarians (LONG Article

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>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Masoner <richardm@cd.com> writes:

    >> I run Linux, which is a free clone of Unix.  I used to run ISC
    >> 386/ix until 1/95, but it would have cost too much to upgrade
    >> it, so I

    Richard> Is Interactive still around??  I figured they were out of
    Richard> business by now.

Interactive Systems Corporation, or ISC, or Interactive, was a Kodak
Venture Corporation.  They got thier big break when Sun decided to
build a low end workstation using the intel 80386 chip.  Sun wanted
Unix to run on the 386 so it would work just like the bigger Sun
workstations.  They contracted AT&T, the inventors and then owners of
Unix (Novell bought it from them later on), to port Unix to the 386.
AT&T was too busy to be bothered with such a puny little business
opportunity (remember, last week they anounced they are getting out of
the computer business?) that they subcontracted ISC to do the port for
them.  

AT&T owned the result, but licensed it back non-exclusively to ISC as
part of the deal.  Sun got their license for a 386 Unix.  Then the
Santa Cruz Operation, original authors of Xenix (a 16 bit Unix clone
for the 286), later bought out by MicroSlop, bought a license, as did
many other vendors.  The Santa Cruz Operation was finally dropped by
MicroSlop and became SCO.  They don't sell much Xenix anymore, but
they do sell a lot of Unix.  Novell runs the ISC port as the kernel to
their Unixware server software for networked PCs, since they bought
out USL (Unix System Laboratories, a former division of AT&T) and now
own the thing.

Finally, Kodak took their profits on ISC and Sun bought out ISC,
renaming it "SunSoft", their software division.  So yes, ISC is now
defunct -- sort of, and no, the *SOUL* of ISC lives in the heart of
every intel 386+ Unix system except Linux, and the same team of
excellent software developers is now responsible for all the software
at Sun Microsystems.

Sun is now claiming on NPR (New-age Propaganda Radio) that they are
"the inventors of network computing" -- which they are *NOT* !!!  If
anyone should get that title, it is Datapoint Corp. in San Antonio
Texas: they invented ARCnet and the whole token ring concept back when
they were running intel 8008 processors -- *BEFORE* the 8080, 8085,
8086, 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486, and 80586 (ne "Pentium").  This was
in the early 1970s.

I worked on a Datapoint machine in 1973.  I worked on a Datapoint
ARCnet system in 1982, and also on their RPS (or was it RMS?) peer to
peer network as well, likewise in 1982 -- *BEFORE* the PC was
invented!  Everyone else was running CP/M if they used microcomputers
at all, otherwise they ran minicomputers like the PDP-8 and the PDP-11
and the Data General Nova.  

Nowdays, ARCnet is second only to EtherNet for computer networking,
and IBM's Token Ring architecture is basically ARCnet revisited.  Even
SONET, the fastest fiber optic protocol used by the long distance
phone companies, is basically a token ring implemented in hardware at
unreal speeds.  The internet runs on T3 backbones in this country, and
most major providers use a T1 to service their POPs.  T1 is 1.5
Megabits per second.  T3 is 30 times as fast, or 45 MBPS.  So my 14.4
KBPS modem is 1/100 of a T1 line, and 1/3000 of a T3 line.  SONET runs
1.3 GBPS!  Yes, that's Gigabits per second -- One BILLION bits per
second.  A million 14.4 KBPS circuits at once.  I have seen in a major
telephony corporation's research labs SONET runing at 30 GBPS.  It is
incredible -- all over a little strand of glass fibre.  

We are wiring the world for the beast, but that's another story I will
save for later.

One of these days I must flame Sun for stealing the credit for
computer networks!

    >> it.  I use Gnu emacs as the tool for most of my work with text
    >> files.  I use the RMAIL mode of emacs to read mail, and I use
    >> super-cite, which is an optional enhancement to mail-mode in
    >> emacs, to reply to mail.  It is super-cite that does the nice
    >> quoting.  It reforms lines so that you never exceed 80 chars
    >> line length, and preserves names through multiple citations.
    >> It's pretty slick.

    Richard> For those not familiar with unix lingo, emacs is like an
    Richard> operating system unto itself; it has *everything*,
    Richard> including (probably) a kitchen sink somewhere in there.
    Richard> I'm an elm/vi bigot myself ;-) I do, also, use a really
    Richard> cool nifty X11 GUI based mail reader called Z-Mail.

DEFINITION: vi : [ Vee Eye, also Vye ] a bootstrap loader used to
                 install emacs.  (see "emacs").

DEFINITION: emacs : [ Eee Max ] a kitchen sink disguised as an 
                    editor.

DISCLAIMER:  I appologise for carrying on like this on a RELIGIOUS
mailing list, but many of you out there are also computer geeks and
can follow this stuff too.  It is really relevent towards
understanding where the world is headed, and the soon appearance of
the man of perdition on the scene.

-- 
--"Hear now my reasoning, and harken to the pleadings of my lips." [Jb 13:6]--
Robert J. Brown  (Bob/Rj)   rj@eli.wariat.org  1 708 705-0370 (vmail/fax/data)
Elijah Laboratories Inc;  759 Independence Drive;  Suite 5;  Palatine IL 60074
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