Nekochan Net

Today I'm sorry to learn that DMR passed away this weekend. It's hard to overestimate his contributions.

https://plus.google.com/101960720994009 ... NuEDDYfvKP

Here is a great two minute presentation of Unix with DMR himself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVQTPbD6UY

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<- MicroVAX 3500 <- DECsystem 5500 <- MicroVAX 3300
Pictures of my collection: www.pdp8.se

Yet you can expect that, unlike Steve Jobs, he won't get an obituary in the media.

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R4000 R4400 R4400 R8000 R10000 R4000PC R4000SC R5000SC R5000 RM7000 2xR10000 R12000 - 2x2xR10000 R16000
among more than 150 machines : Apollo, Be, Data General, Digital, HP, IBM, MIPS before SGI, Motorola, NeXT, SGI, Solbourne, Sun...

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4xRS6K 2xHP9K 6xSUN 1xDEC 14xMAC 7xPC 2xPS2

dennis ritchie, a significant conrtibutor in unix/c is now history.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/13/dennis_ritchie/

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no plan

Truly sad news, my condolences to his family and loved ones.

Many of us wouldn't be here without his contributions.

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"Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a
pyramid with thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"

My first year at college we did VAX/VMS Pascal, and I just wanted to be with all the cool kids programming in 'C' on Unix.
I have a little more perspective now, but I had a lot of fun time writing C, and as a systems programming language, if you exercise a little restraint, it rocks...

Dennis created something very special...

RIP

Mark.

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, Fuel, VAXstation 4000/90 x2, VAXstation 4000/60, VAXstation 4000/VLC x2, AlphaServer 1000A, DEC AXP 3000/600 (desktop), DEC AXP 3000/600 x2 (rackmount), DEC AXP 3000/800 (rackmount), AlphaServer 300 4/266, DEC GIGI, Sun Ultra 5, HP ZX6000, DECstation 5000/240, VAXstation 3100s, MVII, Commodore 64 & Flyer, LA75, PP404, Juki 6100, Brother HR10

And linsux destroyed it. I still have two 9-track tapes from Bell Labs, one labeled UNIX Operating System 6th Edition and one labeled Mini Unix Operating System 6th Edition, both dated 2/19/82.

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-ks



See them all >here<

Of course not. Olsen didn't, and the Woz probably won't . Steve was all about marketing.

Clark might get a mention because of Jurassic Park.

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Systems available for remote access on request.

(single-CM)

We lost a Giant.

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5/11/11 12:58:19 AM gfxCardStatus[268] AMD Radeon HD 6750M in use. Bummer! Less battery life for you.
5/11/11 12:58:20 AM gfxCardStatus[268] Intel HD Graphics 3000 in use. Sweet deal! More battery life.
MacBook Pro 17inch 2011
Mac Mini 2010

If you consider the percentage of systems and devices out there that are either:
- Running an OS with heritage that goes back to the original UNIX
- Running an OS that is an independent reimplementation of the UNIX design
- Running some software written in C
he clearly had a far greater impact on modern computing than Jobs and most others.

So far, the only reference in mainstream media I've seen is the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15287391

Don't want to play down DMR in any way - quite to the contrary, without him there wouldn't probably even be Nekochan today. I bow to him for his co-development of Unix. However, regarding his C - sternly opposed to Backus, he did not liberate us from the von Neumann style of programming at all but actually drew us only deeper into that malstrom. Of course, thanks to him, nowadays about 90% or so of source code you can get is in C/C++. But that was never the right thing at all...

That is a bit of a chicken an egg problem, no? C was fundamental to the development of Unix. You could not have one without the other.

The whole "doing the right thing" is a highly subjective qualitative estimation, which can lead to catastrophic results sometimes. The motivation for C was a study in tradeoffs between portability/performance/expressivity for a systems language, to be used to design and implement a portable/multiuser operating system. What eventually became Unix.


It is kind of unfair to piggyback the "liberation from Von Neumann architectures" as a responsibility under the context C was developed and intended for, specially since Backus was as responsible (if not more) for their entrenchment.


Not saying that C or Unix are perfect. But I think your critique was a bit unfair.

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"Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a
pyramid with thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?"

From what I have read recently. UNIX was implemented first in B or BCPL or some language like that around 1968/1969 and then rewritten in C and assembler and released in 1971.

I can't find the cartoon with the egg and chicken in bed smoking ... and one them says "well that answers that question".

R.

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死の神はりんごだけ食べる

アレゲはアレゲ以上のなにものでもなさげ -- アレゲ研究家


J5600, 2 x Mac, 3 x SUN, Alpha DS20E, Alpha 800 5/550, 3 x RS/6000, Amiga 4000 VideoToaster, Amiga4000 -030, 733MHz Sam440 AmigaOS 4.1 update 1. Tandem Himalaya S-Series Nonstop S72000 ServerNet.

Sold:

Cortex ---> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cortex-th ... 11?sk=info
Minnie ---> http://www.facebook.com/pages/Minnie-th ... 02?sk=info
Book ----> http://pymblesoftware.com/book/
Github ---> https://github.com/pymblesoftware
Visit http://www.pymblesoftware.com
Search for "Pymble", "InstaElf", "CryWhy" or "Cricket Score Sheet" in the iPad App store or search for "Pymble" or "CryWhy" in the iPhone App store.

Wow, I didn't C this happening so soon.

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<-------- A very happy forum member.

There are a respectful number of obituaries:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15287391
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/13 ... assed-away
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/20 ... and-on.ars

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4xRS6K 2xHP9K 6xSUN 1xDEC 14xMAC 7xPC 2xPS2