

Free Unix (1983) - lelf
http://article.olduse.net/771@mit-eddie.UUCP

======
WalterGR
On Chrome, this will transform the entire web to look like that page. (It's
very quick-and-dirty, so not everything works.)

1\. Install the Stylebot extension
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha)).

2\. Click the "CSS" button added to the right of the omnibar.

3\. Click "Options..."

4\. Click "Styles" in the left sidebar.

5\. Click the "Edit Global Stylesheet" button.

6\. Enter the following:

    
    
        @font-face {
          font-family: GlassTTYVT220;
          src: local("Glass TTY VT220") local("Glass TTY VT220 Medium") url(http://waltergr.com/misc/Glass_TTY_VT220.ttf) format("truetype");
        }
        
        * {
          color: #e5b800;
          background-color: #0a0600;
          font-family: GlassTTYVT220;
          font-size: 20px;
        }
    

7\. Click save.

8\. Load / refresh a page.

9\. Bask in the amber glow.

I didn't want to hotlink the font on someone else's server so I uploaded it to
one of mine. You should probably put it on a server you own, which is
accessible via SSH, and change
[http://waltergr.com/..](http://waltergr.com/..). to //yourserver.com/...

Here's a screenshot of the front page of HN: [http://waltergr.com/misc/chrome-
vt220-screenshot.png](http://waltergr.com/misc/chrome-vt220-screenshot.png)

~~~
hauget
Dude. Thanks for this. First thing through my head when I saw this was retro
font FTW.

------
mojuba
> I have worked extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command
> interpreters, the Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine
> operating system.

Glorious times! You might be given bare metal and full freedom to create new
operating systems, invent languages and write compilers/debuggers/editors for
them. Nothing can ever make a software engineer happier than this. In my view
anyway.

Will this ever happen again?

~~~
weland
It does, especially in the embedded world. I spent a good portion of my two
last years working on an operating system for very resource-constrained
devices.

The web kids get all the rage, we get all the fun.

~~~
sanderjd
How did you get into that line of work?

~~~
weland
I didn't do anything special, really. I spent most of my teens hacking around
quite eclectically, and especially played with a lot of operating systems and
computers, old and new. Other than that, after finishing university, I applied
for a job, went to the interview, got the job and so on. Nothing special.

One thing that probably did help me was that, while still being a competent
enough programmer (working part-time included), I got my BSc in Electrical
Engineering, so it was especially easy to get into the embedded world (being
able to go from reading a schematic to writing the driver, while being able to
debug stuff with the logic analyzer and the oscilloscope are good assets). But
that's not a rule, I was the only one in my team with a degree in something
other than CS/CompEng, and I'm still in a minority everywhere I go.

Edit: oh, yeah. The other thing is, I started at a small company. A lot of
companies nowadays tend to overspecialize even their fresh-out-of-school
junior programmers. It doesn't happen everywhere, but where it does, it's a
disaster. I worked on a lot of stuff in my first year, from various peripheral
drivers to factory test routines.

------
nicholassmith
Amazing how much more reasonable Stallman seems in that, a fantastic bit of
history.

~~~
dandrews
The most innocuous mention of Stallman's name inevitably provokes an emotional
remark.

I was struck most by the date of that announcement. Stallman has dedicated 30
years "[putting] together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be
able to get along without any software that is not free". _That_ represents a
monumental commitment to principle.

You can call him unyielding, uncompromising, demanding, and I won't quibble.
But unreasonable? That word has too many connotations of unfairness or lack of
consideration, a bit ad hominem for my taste.

We _need_ leaders at the extremes, the deep thinkers, the rabble rousers, for
these are the people who actually change the world. The politicians moderate
those influences, making the compromises that are necessary, preventing wild
swings of the needle. Be glad that RMS isn't a politician - he is more
effective where he is.

------
saejox
And it's yet to be released.

~~~
dllthomas
Only sorta. They've written a TON of valuable code, released and used by
millions. They've yet to put together a competitive system of _only_ GNU code,
though nowadays Debian does let you install Hurd underneath (I'm not sure how
much this breaks, but at least many things work).

------
brokenparser
This might be the empire game envisioned by Stallman, but it's not a GNU
project: [http://www.wolfpackempire.com/](http://www.wolfpackempire.com/)

------
woadwarrior01
I couldn't help but think, would Stallman have used something like
Kickstarter?, had it existed back then. Or would he have perhaps added a
bitcoin address for donations, if it existed?

~~~
bencollier49
"It's been three months since $425,000 was donated to this project and I
_still_ don't have a working version of HURD. I demand a refund!"

------
NIL8
Great post!

Did anybody else have quirks in their vision after reading this?

I went from reading this: [http://article.olduse.net/771@mit-
eddie.UUCP](http://article.olduse.net/771@mit-eddie.UUCP) to this:
[https://37signals.com/svn/posts/3633-on-writing-
interfaces-w...](https://37signals.com/svn/posts/3633-on-writing-interfaces-
wells) and had some weird focusing issues.

------
finin
I'd guess that he composed that message on a Lisp Machine and not a CRT, e.g.,
something like this:
[http://s7.computerhistory.org/is/image/CHM/500004885-03-01](http://s7.computerhistory.org/is/image/CHM/500004885-03-01)?

~~~
acqq
It also has a CRT
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube))

~~~
finin
Yes, the lisp machnes used CRTs, but they did not look like the classic
terminals from that era. IIRC they had much higher resolution and were black
and white.

------
bobowzki
That font.

~~~
yankcrime
DEC VT220, here's a recreation of that font's appearance:
[http://asdasd.rpg.fi/~svo/glasstty/](http://asdasd.rpg.fi/~svo/glasstty/)

~~~
jaxb
That magic hacking glow :-)

------
anuragramdasan
Fascinating. Is that how it used to be back then?

~~~
acqq
It you were lucky! (*
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo))
Good amber glow screens were better compared to the green ones. High
(invisible) refresh rates were also "professional" equipment. I worked at home
by having the computer connected to the antenna input of the plain small black
and white CRT TV. That's 50 Hz refresh of the screen. Interlaced. If you grew
up on LCD screens you certainly don't know how 50 Hz refresh feels. And I
saved the assembly code to the cassette tape recorder. If I was lucky, if it
didn't crash and cause the whole RAM to be wiped out before. And I was lucky
that I didn't have to key the sequence in with the switches on the front
panel, that I also did earlier (not on this one, but the picture is good:
[http://www.vintagecomputer.net/MITS/680/altair_680_front_pan...](http://www.vintagecomputer.net/MITS/680/altair_680_front_panel_right.jpg)).
And that all is even not a joke (as in the video I linked first).

~~~
anuragramdasan
Well that is interesting. I started off on a celeron/pentium system so I have
no clue how these work. Actually never even came across one of such system in
my life. Also since all the old usenet stuff are found on Google Groups, I
never even came across this interface before.

~~~
acqq
If you refer to the picture, it's of Altair "the first home computer," the
computer for which Bill Gates wrote his version of BASIC which was practically
an OS for that computer.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC)

Ever heard of the computer bus -- you know the thing that all extension cards
connect to -- well on the panels of old computers you were able to see the
state of the bus or to change it with the switches. You've actually felt the
bits with your hands and saw them on the lights -- you were able to turn on
and of each one with the switch.

------
swah
Great copywriting! Go for it dude!

