Please don’t be shocked, but I’ve been reading old #UNIX Review magazines on Archive.org, as one does.
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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.
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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
The way it was before the corprite take over
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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.
the fedi will likely never live up to any promise because it is too easily made into a censorship platform. Nostr is a better design but it's currently filled with even crazier people than the fedi. Major tinfoil hat crowd in there, but that is the price you pay for free speech- you might hear something you don't like. Which brings us back to block and mute as tools.
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Computing in the year 2029 as depicted in UNIX WORLD magazine, 1985.
@occult What computing is in 2026
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@occult Gonna have to borrow that image for future use.
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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 well that would be a fully decentralised network which the ferdiverse isn't.
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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 It's so god-awful that it's awesome
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@occult It's so god-awful that it's awesome
@d1 I'd argue it's only awesome.
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From the same issue, this illustration could be used in an article tomorrow about #LLM overreliance.
How @catsalad's toots get to my computer.
(BYTE magazine, July 1988)
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How @catsalad's toots get to my computer.
(BYTE magazine, July 1988)
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I found this ad for a six-degree-of-freedom 3D input device in the Summer 1989 issue of the SGI magazine "IRIS Universe".
I remember seeing stuff like this around in the 90s, but it all seemed so inaccessible at the time. Flipping through these old professional magazines, you spot some interesting engineering and industrial design.
@flexion, you should get one of these, restore it, and get it working on one of your systems.
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I found this ad for a six-degree-of-freedom 3D input device in the Summer 1989 issue of the SGI magazine "IRIS Universe".
I remember seeing stuff like this around in the 90s, but it all seemed so inaccessible at the time. Flipping through these old professional magazines, you spot some interesting engineering and industrial design.
@flexion, you should get one of these, restore it, and get it working on one of your systems.
@occult I only have the Magellan SpaceMouse for SGI. The Spaceball that someone had listed on eBay for a long time was far too expensive.
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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.
RE: https://vox.ominous.net/@occult/116103841606429399
@occult the historical posts in here make this a thread for @estherschindler and @nomad and @murph
Probably also for @sjvn and @hal_pomeranz
# BangPathForTheYou'veGotMail
We've got 3 years left to build this:
https://mastodon.social/@occult@ominous.net/116103844379755970
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RE: https://vox.ominous.net/@occult/116103841606429399
@occult the historical posts in here make this a thread for @estherschindler and @nomad and @murph
Probably also for @sjvn and @hal_pomeranz
# BangPathForTheYou'veGotMail
We've got 3 years left to build this:
https://mastodon.social/@occult@ominous.net/116103844379755970
@FLOX_advocate @occult This is the retro future I signed up for!
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@FLOX_advocate @occult This is the retro future I signed up for!
@hal_pomeranz @occult trinary rainbow MFA access cards!
And access so amazing it needs a seatbelt ( unlike starships ) !
