25 Jun
2024
25 Jun
'24
6:17 p.m.
https://www.geekwire.com/2024/seattles-living-computers-museum-logs-off-for…
These folks hosted the UNIX 50th Celebration and had a physical PDP-7 that
was used to bring up UNIX V0 (after first getting it running on SIMH). That
later was not easy because the original PDP-7s (like the one Ken had access
to) did not have disk storage. BTL had paid DEC's Custom Special Systems
(CSS) to splice a Burrough's disk that DEC was selling using for the 15 and
later the PDP-9. It started with splicing reverse engineering that code
to build a simulation of that disk into the simh, so we could ensure that
UNIX ran—finally, modeling that HW with a custom microprocessor-based board
with an SD card with a functional replica of a PDP-7 I/O interface on one
side obeying the device registers and operations that UNIX expected to see.
The LCM-L folks were incredibly gracious and generous. I am so sad to see
their collection go away. In particular, I hope the PDP-7s and the CDC-6500
find new homes.
Clem
26 Jun
26 Jun
12:56 a.m.
I am not a lawyer, but as I've mentioned before, people building a
collection or creating a Museum should form a non-profit organization
(with a business plan to support it) to take ownership of it and keep it
out of the estate, because there is no guarantee one's heirs will give a
$#!^ about any of it other than for the gold that can be harvested from
it. Do it straight away because you likely won't know in advance of
when your time is up.
And even if all you have is one or a few items (let's say, a missile
guidance computer, or someone's unpublished notes from lectures) at
least make sure you have a valid will to try very hard to require it to
be sent someplace that can accept it, or that will appoint (a)
right-thinking representative(s) to handle said item(s).
Or at least make sure you've actually succeeded in educating your family
on the importance of said items, and places that can accept them.
As someone from the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum once said to me,
"They [TCM=>CHM] were lucky to get that, we don't have one."
But IMHO the LCM might be the biggest such failure of responsibility to
computing history ever.
Best,
- Aron (a docent at The Computer Museum when it was at DEC in Marlborough)
1:29 a.m.
This is almost completely unrelated but somewhat in the "write your
will/trust the right way".
My dad made me trustee of their estate. OK, fine. He passed first,
then my mom passed and there was a decent amount, not a lot but enough
you'd notice it. 3 kids, divided equally. But I had made enough money
that it seemed unfair to me to take my third when my brother, a PhD from
Cornell, was busy convincing everyone that how they were going about
saving the Everglades was wrong, and he was broke. I could just hear
my dad saying "Larry, you are fine, Chris is not".
So I gave him my third but it is a pain in the butt. You can only
gift so much each year without a tax implication.
The point being that none of the trust people had ever heard of, or
thought of, the idea that one of the kids would be willing to give
up their share.
Since we're mostly old folks, maybe put something in your trust that
says any kid can yield any portion to whoever they want and it is as
if you wrote that into the trust/will. We did that with our trust
and the lawyer had to be told 3 times. She kept saying that's not
what happens, the kids argue about they should get more, nobody
says they should get less. Turns out I'm the odd ball.
On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 08:56:43PM -0400, Aron Insinga wrote:
I am not a lawyer, but as I've mentioned before,
people building a
collection or creating a Museum should form a non-profit organization (with
a business plan to support it) to take ownership of it and keep it out of
the estate, because there is no guarantee one's heirs will give a $#!^ about
any of it other than for the gold that can be harvested from it.?? Do it
straight away because you likely won't know in advance of when your time is
up.
And even if all you have is one or a few items (let's say, a missile
guidance computer, or someone's unpublished notes from lectures) at least
make sure you have a valid will to try very hard to require it to be sent
someplace that can accept it, or that will appoint (a) right-thinking
representative(s) to handle said item(s).
Or at least make sure you've actually succeeded in educating your family on
the importance of said items, and places that can accept them.
As someone from the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum once said to me, "They
[TCM=>CHM] were lucky to get that, we don't have one."
But IMHO the LCM might be the biggest such failure of responsibility to
computing history ever.
Best,
- Aron (a docent at The Computer Museum when it was at DEC in Marlborough)
--
---
Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat
3:34 a.m.
New subject: Trust stuff, Re: Sad but not unexpected news about the LCM-L
According to Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com>:
This is almost completely unrelated but somewhat in the
"write your
will/trust the right way". ...
So I gave him my third but it is a pain in the butt.
You can only
gift so much each year without a tax implication.
Well, in principle, but unless you expect your estate to be over $10
million, you generally don't have to pay any gift tax. (If you do
expect your estate to be over $10M, you need a real tax expert, not
advice from random mailing lists.
The point being that none of the trust people had ever
heard of, or
thought of, the idea that one of the kids would be willing to give
up their share.
That's surprising. Every testamentary trust I've been involved with
had language that let the heirs disclaim all or part of their share. I
thought it was boilerplate. You are quite right that it's an important
thing to include.
9:22 a.m.
New subject: Wills. (Was: Sad but not unexpected news about the LCM-L)
Hi,
Larry wrote:
So I gave him my third but it is a pain in the butt.
You can only
gift so much each year without a tax implication.
AIUI, in the UK, a ‘deed of variation’ can alter the will's wishes as
long as all beneficiaries sign.
any kid can yield any portion to whoever they want and
it is as if you
wrote that into the trust/will.
That's open to sibling A pressuring B to yield without C-F knowing until
too late. Whereas if A-F have to sign then some of C-F may stand up to
the bully, knowing what A's like.
--
Cheers, Ralph.
1:42 a.m.
I understand property on the mall is expensive, but the smithsonian
has adjunct/allied/associated museums not on the mall.
You would think somebody in Maynard would fund oh, I don't know.. an
old Mill structure to be repurposed as a museum? Or many in Armonk?
The Indy "this belongs in a museum" really needs a rider: A nationally
recognized, affiliated, publicly endowable museum.
Full marks to Paul Allen to keep the stuff. He did a useful thing.
-G
5:22 p.m.
They did, in one of DEC's buildings in Marlborough, Massachusetts: The
Digital Computer Museum dba The Computer Museum. Later it moved to
Boston in the same building as the Children's Museum there; space that
was used by an automobile museum for a while. After the End of the Age
of Minicomputers, it moved to California and eventually became the
Computer History Museum. MIT Lincoln Lab took back the TX-0 and
disassembled it to some extent so that it could be moved and put into
storage, where it sits, in a classified facility which we mere insecure
civilians can't access. A few things were on display in The Science
Museum in Boston (it inherited the Massachusetts non-profit organization
of TCM IIUC) but I think they've been moved to CHM too. And at least
some of those giants have now passed away too.
And make that an actually *endowed* museum. I've been reminded that
Allen also created a Science Fiction Museum and a Rock & Roll Museum.
The SF has been merged into the R&R because that's the one that will
probably sell enough tickets to keep paying the bills and the staff.
- Aron
On 2024-06-25 20:42, George Michaelson wrote:
...
You would think somebody in Maynard would fund oh, I
don't know.. an
old Mill structure to be repurposed as a museum? Or many in Armonk?
The Indy "this belongs in a museum" really needs a rider: A nationally
recognized, affiliated, publicly endowable museum.
...
1:44 a.m.
It is sad that a billionaire would create a museum but
then instruct his heirs to dismantle it upon his death,
rather than set up some kind of permanent funding
for it.
Paul Guertin
1:46 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 9:44 PM Paul Guertin <paul(a)guertin.net> wrote:
It is sad that a billionaire would create a museum
but
then instruct his heirs to dismantle it upon his death,
rather than set up some kind of permanent funding
for it.
That's not at all what happened; please, let's not write such things
that suggest that it is.
Allen was a man dying of cancer. LCM+L was important to him, but he
neglected to leave explicit instructions to set up an endowment for
it; that's unfortunate, but it was an oversight: he had other
concerns. I've talked to several of the players, and no one, not once,
has suggested that he "instructed his heirs to dismantle it upon his
death."
- Dan C.
2:46 a.m.
Dixit Dan Cross (2024-06-25 21:46):
On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 9:44 PM Paul Guertin
<paul(a)guertin.net> wrote:
Thank you for the correction. I read the article too quickly,
and misinterpreted the sentence
It is sad that a billionaire would create a
museum but
then instruct his heirs to dismantle it upon his death,
That's not at all what happened; please, let's not write such things
that suggest that it is.
The closure came as the estate began to deal with a
number of
properties that no longer had a billionaire benefactor to help keep the
doors open, and in line with what the estate says was Allen’s desire to
sell his assets after his passing.
It is the estate's position that Allen wanted the museum's assets
to be sold, and not Allen's stated wishes.
Paul Guertin
5:36 a.m.
Dan Cross wrote:
Allen was a man dying of cancer. LCM+L was important
to him, but he
neglected to leave explicit instructions to set up an endowment for
it; that's unfortunate, but it was an oversight: he had other
concerns.
The oversight would be that it was done too late. Such paperwork was in
progress, but it was not completed before his death.
2:30 p.m.
New subject: Planning for the future was Re: Sad but not unexpected news about the LCM-L
On 6/26/24 12:36 AM, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
Dan Cross wrote:
There's a lesson in here
somewhere.
I was always skeptical of the LCM-L's approach to curation, not that I
had any specific reason for it other than finding it difficult to access
some of the digital materials. However, I would hope that we would be
more careful with how we contribute materials going forward. It's
important that when you donate an item for posterity, that it be made
accessible and available to that posterity... in perpetuity. This isn't
a simple endeavor, it takes planning... as in ahead of time, beforehand,
in advance of :). Of course that's easy to say, now, in this particular
case. But, now that we know one way things can go awry, we should be
more careful going forward.
Which brings me to my topic - how is TUHS set up for the future? and a
corollary what's the deal with Bitsavers (I see mirrors including
content on Archive.org)?
Of late, I've seen quite a few "reliable" retro sites going off the air
and more and more, I'm relying on Archive.org's wayback machine to
locate the materials on those sites. To my mind this is a problem in
that Archive used to make a lot more digitial content available at
higher resolution, without gatekeeping, but now, not so much... as in,
practically anything is freely accessible.
Is TUHS set up in such a way as to weather the sands of time or do we
need to do something to ensure its sustainability (similarly
bitsavers/gunkies/beebe's bib/etc).
Will
Allen was a man dying of cancer. LCM+L was
important to him, but he
neglected to leave explicit instructions to set up an endowment for
it; that's unfortunate, but it was an oversight: he had other
concerns.
The oversight would be that it was done too late. Such paperwork was
in
progress, but it was not completed before his death. 
3:18 p.m.
New subject: Planning for the future was Re: Sad but not unexpected news about the LCM-L
On 6/26/24 7:30 AM, Will Senn wrote:
what's the deal with Bitsavers (I see mirrors
including
content on Archive.org)?
They throw things into the Wayback Machine and mangle the filenames and destroy the
directory heirarchy
somewhere else. I'm disappointed that the major search engines seem to return what is
at IA first. It
isn't even necessarily the most recent version of a file.
The Computer History Museum has committed to being a mirror site
http://bitsavers.computerhistory.org
The intention in some day to integrate it with the "Open CHM" project, but the
infrastructure for that
is still a work in progress.
9:57 p.m.
New subject: Planning for the future
On 27/6/24 00:30, Will Senn wrote:
Which brings me to my topic - how is TUHS set up for the future?
Is TUHS set up in such a way as to weather the sands of time or do we
need to do something to ensure its sustainability (similarly
bitsavers/gunkies/beebe's bib/etc).
Good question. There isn't a real succession plan. We do have a handful
of people behind the scenes (the TUHS team) who have access to the
server and who could take over the care and feeding if required. The
regular operations are mostly documented but, as always, could be
improved upon.
The "assets" are nearly all publicly available. The Unix archive can be
easily copied: see the end of
https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=source:unix_archive
The mailing list contents can be downloaded from here as Zip files:
https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/
The actual list of people on the list isn't available, although the TUHS
team could easily get a copy.
The "tuhs.org" domain I have registered until May 2030.
What I should probably do is to ask one of the TUHS team to volunteer to
a) put their credit card up as a secondary for my cloud provider in case
my card stops working and b) give them access to the cloud provider so
they can make their card the primary one.
I did try to float the idea of a more formalised TUHS structure a while
back but there was not much enthusiasm at the time :-)
Cheers, Warren
P.S. And I should set up a "dead man's hand" script to tell the list if
I have been 'inactive' for a few weeks.
30 Jun
30 Jun
1:05 p.m.
New subject: Planning for the future
On 6/26/24 4:57 PM, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:
Good question. There isn't a real succession plan. We do have a
handful of people behind the scenes (the TUHS team) who have access to
the server and who could take over the care and feeding if required.
The regular operations are mostly documented but, as always, could be
improved upon.
The "assets" are nearly all publicly available. The Unix archive can
be easily copied: see the end of
https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=source:unix_archive
The mailing list contents can be downloaded from here as Zip files:
https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/
The actual list of people on the list isn't available, although the
TUHS team could easily get a copy.
The "tuhs.org" domain I have registered until May 2030.
What I should probably do is to ask one of the TUHS team to volunteer
to a) put their credit card up as a secondary for my cloud provider in
case my card stops working and b) give them access to the cloud
provider so they can make their card the primary one.
I did try to float the idea of a more formalised TUHS structure a
while back but there was not much enthusiasm at the time :-)
Cheers, Warren
P.S. And I should set up a "dead man's hand" script to tell the list
if I have been 'inactive' for a few weeks.
Hi Warren,
I didn't realize it was so easily mirrored. The instructions are super
clear and effective. This all sounds like a good approach to providing
for continuity over the long haul, even if it's not super formal.
It's interesting the perspectives gathering here - for some, it's like a
chat room to reminisce. For others, it's an information source. For a
few, it's a living history. What may not be apparent to some of the
folks who lived the history is that it is a fragile thread and those who
experienced its genesis firsthand are a rapidly shrinking population. If
we've seen misinformation creeping into discussions of late, it's only
going to get much worse over the years. Particularly if we don't capture
more of the real story and keep that alive. TUHS is a great resource for
folks to turn to when they want to dig deeper into the origins of UNIX
or to learn more about the motivations for early decisions that charted
the course of it's descendants. The transition from research unix to
commercial and open source is becoming history that fewer and fewer
folks really know much about. All this to say, TUHS is more than a chat
platform for reminiscing and clarifications of the record - it's a
historical record of important conversations that should be preserved
and protected :).
Thanks,
Will
Thanks for the details!
Will
26 Jun
26 Jun
4:56 p.m.
It's not like this was the first time he faced cancer. It's too bad he
didn't take the lesson from an earlier encounter and do this decades
ago. Now if only his family would take those wishes of his into account
and tell the lawyers to finish the job.
On 2024-06-26 00:36, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
Dan Cross wrote:
Allen was a man dying of cancer. LCM+L was
important to him, but he
neglected to leave explicit instructions to set up an endowment for
it; that's unfortunate, but it was an oversight: he had other
concerns.
The oversight would be that it was done too late. Such paperwork was
in
progress, but it was not completed before his death.
90
days inactive
95
days old
15 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
aki＠insinga.com -
Al Kossow -
Aron Insinga
-
Clem Cole -
Dan Cross -
George Michaelson -
John Levine -
Larry McVoy -
Lars Brinkhoff -
Paul Guertin -
Ralph Corderoy -
Warren Toomey -
Will Senn