I used to work at UBC in Pharmacology in the
1980's and had a few talks with Bill Webb about
Unix but, unfortunately, for the data acquisition
we were doing Unix was far too slow and I did
everything in optimized PDP-11 assembler. Of
course, we didn't have a PDP-11/45 like Bill had
and had to make do with a slower PDP-11/34. Bill
had hacked Unix considerably and it was locally
known as Webbix on campus. Played around with
Unix and Webbix back then but don't think I have the tapes anymore.
One of the RL01 or RLO2 disks I picked up at SERF
in the 1990's (along with a MINC system)
contained a copy of Webbix but I'm not sure I
copied it. Gave away the MINC and 2 RLO1 or RLO2
drives to a guy in Seattle about 2006 and hopefully he's copied them.
Boris Gimbarzevsky
I recovered several pieces of Unix media all
of whichh I think made it into TUHS/PUPS
collection - at UBC in the mid-1990âs while I was working at TRIUMF.
Those Unix disks and tapes came from a SERF sale
(Surplus Equipment Recycling Facility) on UBC
main campus, not from TRIUMF. Bill Webb was a
common thread for Unix use in the biology department at UBC.
TRIUMF extensively used Data General Nova, then
Eclipse (both 16 and 32 bit), computers from
opening through the 1990âs for both cyclotron
control systems and data acquisition for
experiments. They also had a fair number of
PDP-11âs and VAXen running RSX-11, RT-11, and
VMS. I myself had an Alpha workstation on my
desk for the two users I was at TRIUMF.
One of my favorite connections between TRIUMF
and UBC, was the underground pneumatic tube used
to rapidly carry short lived isotopes produced
in the cyclotron to the main campus for biology
and medical uses. It should not come as a
surprise to anyone that I still work in moving
things and people through underground tunnels ð
Tim N3QE
