Please don’t be shocked, but I’ve been reading old #UNIX Review magazines on Archive.org, as one does.
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Please don’t be shocked, but I’ve been reading old #UNIX Review magazines on Archive.org, as one does. I’ve been finding a number of interesting artifacts throughout. This June 1984 ad by Cadmus Computer Systems listed a #USENET address: !wivax!cadmus.
This is a UUCP bang path, for the kids who don’t know. The ! separates relay hops, it’s a literal routing instruction. Get to the backbone, reach wivax, forward to cadmus.
No DNS.
Machines screamed at each other to swap data.
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@occult@vox.ominous.net @neauoire@merveilles.town which issue is this one from?
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@occult@vox.ominous.net @neauoire@merveilles.town which issue is this one from?
@foxy Sorry, I forgot! You can search the issues on Archive.org.
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@foxy Sorry, I forgot! You can search the issues on Archive.org.
@occult@vox.ominous.net I scoured through all issues I could find with no success. Thanks anyway!
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They should re-create this steel-bound UNIX reference manual.
Hey @prahou is your computer sad or happy?
Is this Mr. Computo?
From the May 1985 issue of UNIX WORLD magazine.
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Oh my, it's his father!
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@occult@vox.ominous.net I scoured through all issues I could find with no success. Thanks anyway!
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When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
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When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
OBEY.
BYTE Magazine, October 1983.
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When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
@occult What about BlueSky?
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OBEY.
BYTE Magazine, October 1983.
From the same issue, this illustration could be used in an article tomorrow about #LLM overreliance.
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@occult What about BlueSky?
@slyborg this is what I would say about BlueSky.
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When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
@occult Gonna have to borrow that image for future use.
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@occult Gonna have to borrow that image for future use.
@12thRITS Thank the illustrator, John Cospito!
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@12thRITS Thank the illustrator, John Cospito!
@occult Will do
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When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
@occult@vox.ominous.net cover image of the 2028 ActivityPub Magazine
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When someone asks me what the #Fediverse, #Mastodon or #ActivityPub is I'll use this illustration from UNIX Review, April 1985.
@occult Isn’t that “the cloud”
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Here’s an ad for cross-compilers and assemblers for UNIX environments.
My favorite detail here is this brag: “Over the past 3 years, we’ve built over 1MB of working code.” Cross-compilers, assemblers, simulators, and debuggers targeting six architectures across a dozen hosts. This code was dense.
The 80’s #UNIX wars were a wild time.
It’s also very fun to read the articles from the time and see what they were predicting for the future. “UNIX for the masses” was a popular topic.
@occult Regarding "Unix for the masses:
Imagine walking around a typical household and counting up the number of devices running Linux (incl eg Android).
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@patrislav @casandro @bit101 @occult This was a helpful overview for me of this kind of spot-on context: https://www.caimito.net/en/blog/2025/12/07/the-recurring-dream-of-replacing-developers.html
One thing that happens in each round is that some portion of the people who are thinking they won't need programmers any more end up becoming programmers using the language/tools that were supposed to replace developers. (Business people learning COBOL, etc.)
Hoping we can lean into a future that repeats that pattern, in software and ideally hardware as well.
