24 Nov
2025
24 Nov
'25
12:03 p.m.
On 2025-11-24 8:35 a.m., Paul Koning wrote:
The hardware is NOT!
CP/M had open source hardware, and bios routines.
On Nov 23, 2025, at 10:34 PM, ben via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
You have no software ownership any more, or control over you computer.
You forgot about open source. This issue is precisely why it was created and why it is
such a big deal. Yes, if you actually run Windows on your poor innocent
PC, you're correct.
STRANGE, I RUN WINDOWS*.It works with my hardware. Linux does not.It
never did with any computer I ever had.I had a PDP 8,clone once that
never ran windows or unix. (spare time gizmos). I could find free FPGA
software with windows but my designs never compiled properly.
*Darn caps lock key. I hate modern keyboards.The ASR 33 I liked.The
surplus keyboards of the 70's I liked.
I said UNIX, and implied the historic versions for the pdp 11 and pdp 7.
Was giving it away free the only advantage, or what could be OPEN SOURCE
for the time? (when nobody is looking, we will copy a tape for you).
Ignoring politics what was the advantage over other operating systems?
PDP-11's with a MMU. cheap compared to the IBM-370's?
The C compiler for UNIX, I think was more important for UNIX development
as it was a production compiler, compared to toy language like pascal.
It also was small compared with today.
Having 100's of students write 'hello world' was important back then.
Pascal,C,BASIC all work. I ended up on the pc side of computing
thus better hardware and software I never had.
Looking back in history, the PDP 11 and the PDP 10 was not better
but just the 'first'. Important but not better hardware wise.
Ben.
PS. Notice how you can't run a program over night, with windows
demanding some stupid update and reset.
PPS: DEC and IBM in the 70's were the most known but what others like
Philips P856.