As much as I love MPE, I'm also very fond of Unix.  I just don't understand why
they can't coexist.  In particular, I don't see why HP can't stick with the OS
they invented and let everybody else ride the Unix bandwagon.  It's not like
they've done a better job with their version of Unix than everyone else did.  (I
much prefer Solaris to HP-UX, personally.)

As for my opinion of the guys who invented Unix:  I keep an 8x10 picture of Ken
Thompson and Dennis Ritichie (working on a PDP-11) on the wall by my desk for
inspiration.





John Clogg <[log in to unmask]> on 05/16/2002 04:17:00 PM

Please respond to John Clogg <[log in to unmask]>

To:   [log in to unmask]
cc:    (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject:  Re: [HP3000-L] Unix to Unix Translators & Rosetta Stones



Wirt wrote:
>I expect Hell to be populated almost exclusively by the
>guys who wrote UNIX.

No, the authors of Unix won't be the ones to populate hell.  After all,
there have always been techno-geeks around who delight in writing arcane,
unfriendly, and unnecessarily kluge-riddled software.  It's what they do.
No, the real sinners are the academics and members of the trade press who
managed to convince the industry that this was a good thing.  Thousands of
computer users migrated from OS's like MPE and VMS to Unix, because they
believed the barrage of articles and columns that proclaimed that
"proprietary" is a dirty word, that "open" = "Unix", and that Unix is the
newest, coolest thing.  This explains why so many people disparage MPE for
being "old" while extolling the virtues of Unix (an older OS).

Some day the computer industry will mature to the point that everyone
doesn't feel the need to jump on the bandwagon of every popular fad.  I
guess we can think of our industry as being in its teens -- those years when
peer pressure has its greatest influence.

As has been noted here many times, there is a lot to be said for an OS that
doesn't lock you into a single vendor's hardware and for which there exists
a wide selection of tools and applications.  An open, multi-platform OS is
really a good idea.  It's just a shame that the industry seized on Unix as
the answer to that need.  We can all look forward to the day when a really
good OS will emerge to fill that role.  I suspect it will look familiar to
those of us who know MPE.

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