Tales From The Dork Web
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I spent the first week of 2021 learning an OS called Plan 9 from Bell Labs. This is a fringe Operating System, long abandoned by it’s original authors. It s also responsible for a great deal of inspiration elsewhere. If you’ve used the Go language, /proc, UTF-8 or Docker, you’ve used Plan 9-designed features. This issue dives into Operating System internals and some moderately hard computer science topics. If that sort of thing isn’t your bag you might want to skip ahead. Normal service will resume shortly.
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Tales From The Dork Web
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We look back at older computers with rose tinted spectacles, but can we look forward with them? What might a computer with a 100 year lifespan look like, and how do we build it? In this issue I want you to rethink what we know about retrocomputing in terms of designing long-term sustainability today. Along the way I’ll introduce something I’m calling Heirloom Computing. This is part of a series I’m writing on the next 100 years of computing called As We May Link.
I’ve written a followup piece that has more info on what I’m building and answers some common questions.