On 7/19/06, Robert Holmes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Not strictly true I think. Sure, Linux can't run without a PC but does that > mean it can't exist without one? Linux started its existence in Torvalds' > head before it appeared on a CPU and if all CPUs vanished tomorrow it would > still exist in his and other experts heads. >
There's a funny sort of ontology here. Linus wrote Linux because he was inspired by Andrew Tanenbaum's Minix. Andrew Tanenbaum developed Minix on a PC using Coherent, a UNIX clone from the Mark Williams Company, because it provided the necessary tools. It also provided an existence proof, but he didn't really need that. Coherent was the brainchild of Bob Swartz, but it was originally developed on a DEC PDP-11 and ported to the Zilog Z8000 before the 8086 or the IBM PC existed. The Mark Williams Company itself was originally a subsidiary of Embosograph founded to market a 7-Up knockoff soft drink formula called Dr. Enuf. Coherent was written by a core of students from the University of Waterloo, working in Chicago under sometimes questionable immigration status. The work took place in a huge brick building at 1430 West Wrightwood which had the word Teletype engraved over the entrances. But the only profitable part of this family commercial empire was Embosograph itself and its profits derived from the manufacture of plastic beer signs, embossed graphics on plastic augmented by lights and waterfall illusions. So beer rating, or the rating of the fizzy alcoholic beverage which many americans call beer, is where Linux started. -- rec -- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
