Re: [TUHS] Need your help for 2019

Remember that Unix is mostly driven by software issues, rather than hardware.  In fact, Usenix folks often complained that the various computer museums setting up were almost entirely focused on hardware, and had almost no educational material about how software worked or was written, and the algorithms under the covers that made it all work.  At one point we offered the Boston computer museum $30,000 if they would make an exhibit primarily dealing with software, and they turned us down. Previous anniversaries have included "Old Farts' BOF" and even some talks by previous presidents and other contributors.  At one such celebration there were professional fireworks set off at the (outdoor) banquet in Oregon.   I was on the board when that was done --one of the most interesting board discussions I remember was debating whether we should go with the $10,000 or the $20,000 fireworks show. That said, I think the anniversary is worth honoring in some fashion... Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Toomey" &lt;wkt(a)tuhs.org&gt; To:<tuhs@tuhs.org> Cc: Sent:Sat, 4 Mar 2017 13:16:08 +1000 Subject:[TUHS] Need your help for 2019 Mid-year 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the creation of Unix and I've been quietly agitating for something to be done to celebrate this. Up to now, there's been little response. The original Unix user's group, Usenix, will hold its Annual Technical Conference on the west coast of the US at this time, so it would make sense to do something in conjunction with this conference. Some suggestions: - a terminal room with a bunch of period terminals: ASR-33s, -37s, VT100s, VT102s, VT220s - these connected to real/emulated Unix systems either locally or via a terminal server and telnet to remotely emulated systems - some graphical terminals: Sun pizza boxes, a Blit would be great - if possible, some actual real PDP-11s, VAXen - emulated systems: V1 to V7 Unix, 32V, the BSDs etc. In fact there are plenty of Unix versions that we could run in emulated mode. - Unix of course was one of the systems used to implement the Arpanet protcols, so it would be interesting to get some of the real/emulated systems networked together - how about an emulated UUCP network with Usenet on top of it, and some mail/news clients on the emulated systems. - retro workshops/tutorials: how to edit with ed, using nroff, posting a Usenet article, dealing with bang paths. I'm proposing to gather a bunch of people to start the ball rolling on the technical/demonstration side. We'd need people: - with terminals, portable PDP-11s and VAXen, Sun boxen - prepared to set up emulated systems - who can help bring the networking (UUCP, Usenet, Arpanet) back to life - willing to write and run workshops that show off this old technology - to help set up terminal servers and all the RS-232 to telnet stuff Some of this we can start doing now, e.g. rebuild an emulated Arpanet, UUCP, Usenet, get emulated systems up, build front-end telnet interfaces. Is there anybody willing to sign up for this? I think once we have some momentum, we can tell the Usenix people and get some buy-in from them. Post back and/or e-mail me if you can help. Thanks, Warren