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

[Dave Crocker]

On 4/14/2013 6:40 AM, John Day wrote:
> You left out Ari Ollikainen.  ;-)

Ari did ops, and I don't recall his doing o/s design or development. 
(BTW, neither did I.)  But yeah, I left out quite a few people.


> Remember it well. (Well reasonably well)  ;-) The XDS-940 was a nice

I'm told the 940 was wonderful.  (FWIW, it was also the system the first 
Engelbart SRI system ran on, I believe.)  And the purchase of the 
(originally XDS) Sigma-7 was based on that prior success, but the Sigma 
hardware was flakier.


> machine.  Although, I had not heard the story of its loss.  I am not all
> surprised, knowing the sense of humor around that group.

Before I worked for the group, I remember that one day my father was 
about to drive me somewhere and paused while my brother came up to the 
car and asked whether my father might help resolve an issue.  He 
described the o/s project and said that they were naming components 
after an urban model, including calling the mechanism for retrieving 
memory the 'garbage collector'. But he said they weren't sure what to 
call the mechanism that allocated time to processes, and switched to the 
next process when the first had run out of time.

With no hesitation, my father said "that's the Madam".

Also, I'm told one of the project members became quite upset as the 
pattern of naming and declared that the names should be simpler and that 
the team should just call a spade a spade.

Hence forth, this was now called the Spade Project.



d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net