Ancient UNIX; was Re: [Gllug] loadavg

[Nix]

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005, Ian Northeast mused:
> No, I meant no IP stack. Not no interfaces. Loopback didn't exist
> either. It denied the existence of IP: "protocol not supported". In

Wow boggle.

I've seen Linux run that way a few times (rescue disks and such) but not
if I could avoid it.

It feels like having a system without a disk: strange because it was
1996 before any of my personal machines had any network connection
whatsoever; whenever the link goes down now, it's like my mind's been
forcibly shut down.

(Hell, s/the link/google/ ;) )

> UTS the IP stack is not truly in the kernel, it is built by a script
> shortly after IPL (boot). There are a number of daemons to support
> it.

Microkernellish, or just `this was bodged on the side so we didn't want
to fit it in the kernel'?

>     When the ethernet "cards" it wanted weren't available, the whole
> lot went tits up. All the daemons failed to start. No IP. Not at all.

Excellent.

But since they were in userspace you could start them yourself, I
hope...

> It was only possible to "use" this system because it has excellent SNA
> support.

SNA: a term of mythic horror that those who have experienced it recoil
from. I have not had this epochal experience myself.

>          This is why I know the above. I had to log in to a convenient
> zOS (MVS) machine which does both IP and SNA and hop across via SNA.
> 
> I did mention that this thing is weird didn't I?

It's IBM. Of course it has five hundred totally inconsistent ways to do
everything, most of which are rooted in protocols that were old when the
Jacquard loom was invented.

(This is entirely unlike Unix in every respect, of course. Naturally. :) )

-- 
`Blish is clearly in love with language. Unfortunately,
 language dislikes him intensely.' --- Russ Allbery
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