My favorite inspirational computing videos
Posted: 19 Apr 2019, 22:08
When I lack inspiration, I sometimes return to my most favorite video when we progressed beyond batch computing into time sharing when CTSS at MIT was born. I'll keep it short on what *inspires me*, rather than rewrite whole histories done better by real writers. Maybe you can use the portability of Porteus to do the same with someone else...
CTSS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q07PhW5sCEk
How quaint right? Aside from the historical perspective, what lives on and what you may *feel* after all these years is something that can't be transmitted by video.
It's a connection not to just the software and hardware, but the fact that there are real HUMAN BEINGS behind it all - some of them still with us. That might help reduce the current "culture of contempt".
Quirky sidenote is that this system, CTSS is what Ken Thompson had the insight to put regular expressions inside an editor, QED, and not just have it be something external in programming.
And oh yes, the introduction of passwords.
DTSS at Dartmouth.
Right, we all know this is where BASIC came from. But wait - everyone forgets that time-sharing was developed *simultaneously* by undergrads, not the professors working on basic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPNjSoDrqw
Right, so like everyone else at the time researching time-sharing, everything was written in assembly specific to the hardware you had. No high-level system languages here.
Even so, with still photographs, the inspiration and drive to continue comes through. Timeless.
BERKELEY TIME SHARING
BSD right? What about before that? Oh that's right, Ken Thompson was well familiar with the BTS system before joining Bell Labs to work on Multics, which as we know led to Unix later and all that history.
Berkeley Timesharing System
Project Genie
I'll stop here since it could go on forever.
I mean it doesn't matter what you use, but we tend to forget what inspired the pioneers, and what can still inspire us if you "tune in" to the material.
CTSS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q07PhW5sCEk
How quaint right? Aside from the historical perspective, what lives on and what you may *feel* after all these years is something that can't be transmitted by video.
It's a connection not to just the software and hardware, but the fact that there are real HUMAN BEINGS behind it all - some of them still with us. That might help reduce the current "culture of contempt".
Quirky sidenote is that this system, CTSS is what Ken Thompson had the insight to put regular expressions inside an editor, QED, and not just have it be something external in programming.
And oh yes, the introduction of passwords.
DTSS at Dartmouth.
Right, we all know this is where BASIC came from. But wait - everyone forgets that time-sharing was developed *simultaneously* by undergrads, not the professors working on basic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPNjSoDrqw
Right, so like everyone else at the time researching time-sharing, everything was written in assembly specific to the hardware you had. No high-level system languages here.
Even so, with still photographs, the inspiration and drive to continue comes through. Timeless.
BERKELEY TIME SHARING
BSD right? What about before that? Oh that's right, Ken Thompson was well familiar with the BTS system before joining Bell Labs to work on Multics, which as we know led to Unix later and all that history.
Berkeley Timesharing System
Project Genie
I'll stop here since it could go on forever.
I mean it doesn't matter what you use, but we tend to forget what inspired the pioneers, and what can still inspire us if you "tune in" to the material.