[ih] What is the origin of the root account?

[Miles Fidelman]

Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>
>
>      >> Without checking, I think it was somewhat later. MIT got an early one,
>      >> but that was around 1978.
>
>      > A little earlier than that. I graduated in 1975, and remember one
>      > arriving a couple of years earlier.
>
> This too seems unlikely. The VAX 11/780 was "introduced on 25 October 1977 at
> DEC's Annual Meeting of Shareholders". See:
>
>    http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/digital/timeline/1977.htm
>
> for corroboration of the year.
>

That's very odd - my memory must be failing me, but I could have sworn 
we had a VAX to play with, and I wasn't around MIT after 195.

Then again, Gorden Bell provides pretty much the definitive rebuttal to 
my memory:

"So on April 1, 1975 I pulled a group together we called the VAX A 
group. VAX A was the mailing list and there were 6 of us. We took moved 
together on the 3^rd floor of Building 12, almost at the same spot I had 
when I came to DEC in 1960. My main office was on the first floor with 
Ken."  (from http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/bell.htm#VAX)

Guess it couldn't have been around before 1975 - given that work on the 
VAX hadn't started yet.

Wonder what it was we were playing with.

Miles



-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra