Yes, UUCP was literally a thing, but UNIX was unobtanium in the early computing eral - The world of the University Minicomputer.
It certainly wasn't even vaguely accessible by a hobbyist running a Z80 or 6800 in the late 70's. I vividly remember being able to take home a NEC 80386 computer from my day job (I worked for a computer store selling NEC machines) during the Christmas shutdown between 1987/1988 - It had SCO Xenix installed and a new graphical system (To SCO) called 'XWindows' Unheard of - I did a heap of learning. That was probably the point where a UNIX like operating system became accessible to people. Then 386BSD arrived (1993) and Linux came (1991) into the scene and suddenly unix was everywhere - I still remember my first stack of installation media for freeBSD - something like 10 1.4MB floppies for the Binaries, and another 10 for the source files. So - yea, UUCP was around, but it wasn't alive in hobbyist circles. Kindest regards, Doug Jackson em: d...@doughq.com ph: 0414 986878 Follow my amateur radio adventures at vk1zdj.net On Thu, 24 Oct 2024 at 11:39, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > On 10/23/2024 3:22 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, 23 Oct 2024, Robert Feldman via cctalk wrote: > > > >> Ward Christensen, Early Visionary of Social Media, Dies at 78 > >> > >> https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/technology/ward-christensen-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UU4.nswM.540OUXuySX84&smid=url-share > > > > Thank you for sharing that. > > > > > > The author, presumably a heavy Reddit, TikTok and Facebook user, seemed > > to have never heard about existence of computers before internet, nor > > about any computer to computer connections other than internet. He does > > not seem to know about anything except CBBS,and that solely because it > > "resembles Facebook". > > "Early Visionary of Social Media" > > > > > > It is an adequately detailed story of his life, and mostly about CBBS > > ("a forerunner of Reddit, TikTok and Facebook") > > > > A dozen paragraphs about CBBS, but XMODEM barely rated a mention, and > > even there, only about its use on CBBS: > > > > "In 1977, he developed a protocol, called XMODEM, for sending computer > > files across phone lines; it was later used on C.B.B.S." > > . . . "For decades, his license plate read, XMODEM." > > > > Which had already been done with UUCP in 1976. > > bill' >
