What would the world be like if, instead of PCs, computing for the masses had arrived in the form of Unix-powered terminals similar to France's Minitel, administered not by the Baby Bells but by the US Postal Service with iron-clad First and Fourth Amendment protections after the US government took the rights to Unix from AT&T under eminent domain, put Unix into the public domain, and put the whole Bell Labs crew on the government payroll?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jun/28/minitel-france-says-farewell
@starbreaker crying a little 😿
@roxmsauce How come?
@starbreaker BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE SO BEAUTIFUL
@roxmsauce We could still do it, by which I mean providing neighborhood Unix installations where people can log in and do things.
Paul Ford had something like that going a couple of years ago at https://tilde.club (story at https://medium.com/message/tilde-club-i-had-a-couple-drinks-and-woke-up-with-1-000-nerds-a8904f0a2ebf).
There's also https://sdf.org.
But these days it seems like anybody who wants to can get a cheap used amd64 computer and figure out how to install Linux/BSD, and have their own Unix, so community Unix servers seem almost pointless.
While anyone can run a server, I think there is also a valuable lesson regarding community that would come from having an account in a shared server.
Sdf is an excellent example.
@RussSharek @starbreaker I think my main feel was the idea of phones and tablets being "kiddie" and getting an account on a Unix box meant you were A Real Adult.
@roxmsauce @RussSharek It would certainly be a milestone on the way to adulthood.
That's a great point.
@starbreaker @roxmsauce i started https://squiggle.city/ on the tilde.club model, and there's a small but thriving community at http://tilde.town where i hang out pretty regular.
my feel is that the point of community unix servers is the _community_ part. there's a special magic to shared spaces like that.
@brennen you could specify your Masto account on that website 😉
@charlag yeah, why not. i haven't updated that stuff in ages.
. @starbreaker @roxmsauce this is so great and it makes me happy
@starbreaker @roxmsauce I am part of https://homebrewserver.club which is a gathering for people selfhosting from home. It has the same community feel, eventhough everyone runs their own machine. There are shared unix accounts but they where barely used. We had the homebrewserver.club host (its an eeepc) travel around for a while even, from member to member.
@starbreaker I'd like to see each resident in the US over 13 issued an email account by the US Government, used for all correspondence by all governments from fed to local.
totally centralized, open to abuse, but no more so than everyone on Gmail.
even if it were a closed email system only for intercitizen contact and government contact, I'd love to see that
I'd still love to see a US where every resident over a certain age has a shell account on a local Unix installation and knows how to use it.
Imagine a nation of potential Unix hackers.
@starbreaker @sydneyfalk
Yes, that'd be pretty awesome!
Maybe I should set a unix install up for the Puget Sound. "pugetsound.online". spread it through the different local meetups etc. :)
just gotta have the cgi page to gift you an account, set up a _public_html and tie it to email .
might be fun, might be a disaster.
> might be fun, might be a disaster
this feels like a sum up of all the human endeavors, particularly AI
actually, if I thought there was a god, this seems like what they'd think about this whole "humanity" experiment
@AdamThePhantump @sydneyfalk @pnathan It could be a neighborhood public Unix installation.
I'd advise against automatic sign-ups, at least at first. Let interested people email you and request their preferred username, instead.
@starbreaker @sydneyfalk yeah I see lots of abuse potential. :-S
@starbreaker If this happened, I think a lot more people would understand the technical basics and structure behind UNIX, which has a steep learning curve.
There are times I wish that I had spent some time learning it, but I've got so much else to do that I'm perfectly content to stay with Windows at this point. ^-^;;
And yes, I know Windows is a monstrously unpopular platorm around here, but I believe we can respect each other and their tech choices (for the most part). ^_^
@ayachan I might not like Windows, but that's never stopped me from using it at my day job. I figure that if people are using it at home, they probably have their reasons.
Use whatever works for you. I'd rather show off interesting ways to extend the life of old computers with UNIX than bully or cajole people who are content with Windows, because the hard sell never works.
UNIX isn't going away, and it'll still be around if you change your mind. In the meantime, do what's best for you.
@starbreaker I use Windows because it's compatible with everything I run, is supported by some of the biggest names in the tech industry and can utilise modern hardware well. People will disagree with me on some of this, but I've been very happy.
When it comes to software and drivers, there is no substitute where I am concerned.
And I don't want UNIX to go away. I think UNIX is amazing and serves a very important purpose, including managing 99% of the servers out there.
Use what you like. ^_^
@ayachan That's fair enough, and I readily admit that modern Windows is vastly improved over old versions. Windows 7 was the first version I could tolerate.
TBH, I wish Microsoft would build Windows on top of Unix like Apple did with OSX.
@starbreaker I couldn't agree more with what you're saying here. ^_^ New Windows is vastly superior to a great deal of their older products.
I'm not so sure how I feel about building Windows off of UNIX, but I am glad that this is how MacOS X got its start. ^_^
@tbeckett Unix was a powerful multitasking multiuser system and a potential mainframe replacement in mid-1970s, when personal computing meant buying an Altair kit, building it yourself, and programming it.
Also, I've been using some kind of Unix-style OS since I was a young man, and had never been exposed to VMS.
Imagine if every American got their own #Unix shell account from the Post Office, and young students looked forward to the day in third grade when the local neighborhood sysadmin would come in and teach them the basics.