Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Unix magic poster

424 views
Skip to first unread message

CptDondo

unread,
Jan 29, 2007, 12:01:32 PM1/29/07
to
Does anyone have the original Unix Magic poster they're willing to part
with? It's described here:

http://www.opengroup.org/press/16sep04.htm

I had contacted Mr. Overacre at one point, but alas he doesn't have the
copyright to it and the copyright holder is apparently gone....

If anyone has a copy in good condition, I'd love to buy it.

I'm in the US.

--Yan

CptDondo

unread,
Jan 29, 2007, 12:05:22 PM1/29/07
to

Here's an image of it from Mr. Overacre's portfolio.

<http://www.garyoveracre.com/portfolio/10.html>

--Yan

Dennis Ritchie

unread,
Jan 29, 2007, 9:32:50 PM1/29/07
to

"CptDondo" <y...@NsOeSiPnAeMr.com> wrote in message
news:12rsa0h...@corp.supernews.com...

> Does anyone have the original Unix Magic poster they're willing to part
> with? It's described here:
>
> http://www.opengroup.org/press/16sep04.htm
>
> I had contacted Mr. Overacre at one point, but alas he doesn't have the
> copyright to it and the copyright holder is apparently gone....

They turn up (rarely) on Ebay. Last year an ex-relative (i.e.
relative of my brother's ex-wife) managed to get a couple
from the artist and asked me to sign them to use as gifts.
(Incidentally, the one on Overacre's page isn't the first
of the series).

Dennis


Jorgen Grahn

unread,
Jan 30, 2007, 4:32:26 PM1/30/07
to
On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:05:22 -0800, CptDondo <y...@NsOeSiPnAeMr.com> wrote:
> CptDondo wrote:
>> Does anyone have the original Unix Magic poster they're willing to part
>> with? It's described here:
>>
>> http://www.opengroup.org/press/16sep04.htm
...

>
> Here's an image of it from Mr. Overacre's portfolio.
>
> <http://www.garyoveracre.com/portfolio/10.html>

Interesting -- never heard about that poster before.

But that one is cut -- showing maybe 70% of the original. A Google image
search on "Overacre" brings up a full, high resolution version.

diff, tar, null, awk, troff ... But ... oregano? What's that all about?

tuva:~> apropos oregano
oregano: nothing appropriate.

/Jorgen

--
// Jorgen Grahn <grahn@ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
\X/ snipabacken.dyndns.org> R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

CptDondo

unread,
Jan 31, 2007, 11:59:33 AM1/31/07
to
Jorgen Grahn wrote:

> But that one is cut -- showing maybe 70% of the original. A Google image
> search on "Overacre" brings up a full, high resolution version.

Hmmm... All I've found is a 900x1200 or so image. The full poster is
something like 2x3' (or 60cm x 100cm for the rest of the world).

I'd love to have a scanned image that I can reproduce at 11x17 (A3 size)
for my study.


> diff, tar, null, awk, troff ... But ... oregano? What's that all about?
>
> tuva:~> apropos oregano
> oregano: nothing appropriate.

Yeah, I never noticed that before. Interesting. Google brings up some
references to a browser, but that poster predates the WWW.

--Yan

Al Balmer

unread,
Jan 31, 2007, 1:23:50 PM1/31/07
to
On 30 Jan 2007 21:32:26 GMT, Jorgen Grahn
<grahn...@snipabacken.dyndns.org> wrote:

>On Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:05:22 -0800, CptDondo <y...@NsOeSiPnAeMr.com> wrote:
>> CptDondo wrote:
>>> Does anyone have the original Unix Magic poster they're willing to part
>>> with? It's described here:
>>>
>>> http://www.opengroup.org/press/16sep04.htm
>...
>>
>> Here's an image of it from Mr. Overacre's portfolio.
>>
>> <http://www.garyoveracre.com/portfolio/10.html>
>
>Interesting -- never heard about that poster before.
>
>But that one is cut -- showing maybe 70% of the original. A Google image
>search on "Overacre" brings up a full, high resolution version.
>
>diff, tar, null, awk, troff ... But ... oregano? What's that all about?

What timeframe are we talking about. There was an oregano frontend to
spice in the late 90's.


>
>tuva:~> apropos oregano
>oregano: nothing appropriate.
>
>/Jorgen

--
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ

CptDondo

unread,
Jan 31, 2007, 1:58:50 PM1/31/07
to
Al Balmer wrote:

> What timeframe are we talking about. There was an oregano frontend to
> spice in the late 90's.

mid 80s or so. Al Gore hadn't invented the Internet yet. :-)

--Yan

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,
Jan 31, 2007, 3:25:27 PM1/31/07
to
Al Balmer <alba...@att.net> writes:
> What timeframe are we talking about. There was an oregano frontend to
> spice in the late 90's.

and now for something different ... a different SPICE

misc. previous references to this series of trip reports
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#61 MVS History (all parts)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#37 Are there more stupid people in IT than there used to be?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006n.html#56 AT&T Labs vs. Google Labs - R&D History
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006t.html#37 Are there more stupid people in IT than there used to be?

SPICE reference from part of trip report to CMU 22jul81-24jul81

Shifting Towards Personal Computing

Most of what I said above about the advantages of small machines over
large machines is, I believe, also applicable when comparing personal
machines to small machines. That is, personal machines will probably
have as many advantages over small machines as small machines do over
large machines.

But before I go into that, let me define what I mean by *large*,
*small*, and *personal* machines. My primary criterion in
categorizing a machine as *large* or *small* is the number of
simultaneous users it typically supports. The following table is my
general feeling:

1 user - personal machine
2 to 10 users - very small machine
10 to 25 users - small machine
25 to 50 users - medium machine
50 to 150 users - large machine
150 to 300 users - very large machine
over 300 users - enormous machine

Of course, the larger machines are generally faster and have more
memory and storage as well as more users. But for a machine to be
effective, regardless of the number of users it supports, it must
deliver a certain amount of computing power to each user and there
must be available a certain amount of memory and storage per user. As
suggested above, there seems to be quite a bit of evidence to indicate
that doubling the MIPS, memory, storage, and number of users, results
in less of everything for everyone.

Several people at CMU seem to feel that the natural extension of this
is the personal computer where a fixed amount of compute power and
memory are dedicated to a single user and not subject to load
fluctuations or other user's hardware or software failures. The SPICE
people at CMU seem to feel that such a machine would need about 1 MIPS
of compute power and about 1 Mbyte of memory plus around 10 Mbyte of
DASD part of which should be on a removeable medium.

Current technology seems to fall just short of providing this
combination at an affordable price, but it's close and getting closer.

I tend to agree with the SPICE people that we should be heading toward
personal machines and should begin getting them for our Computer
Science researchers even if they cost 10 times what we'd like to pay
for them

The cost will come down dramatically and we need to get leading edge
experience with machines that will be cost effective 4-5 years from
now which means we'll have to pay much higher prices today. The
alternative is to work with today's cost effective technology and gain
very little experience on how to use tomorrow's.


...


The Computer Science Department

The goal of the computer science department computer facilities
is to optimize the productivity of researchers,
and to provide sufficient cycles for the various research projects.
They want to provide a minimally constrained solution space
for the researchers.

"Solve the problem, then specifiy the requirements"

The department is committed to doing research with equipment that
will be available in 3 to 5 years; thus it costs much more to simulate
that equipment with currently available gear. They view such capital
expenditures as leverage for their researchers. Try to choose
productivity of the users over throughput of the systems - minimize
administrative overhead and constraints.

The computer science department personnel are as follows:

* 40 faculty and researchers
* 80 graduate students
* 55 staff, including administrators, secretaries, programmers,
engineers, operators, technicians

Systems and Their Use

The computer science department has several different
kinds of machines:

* General purpose time sharing
* Project machines
* Personal machines
* research systems
* connectivity and networking
* special resources


...


The SPICE Project

For a complete description of the Spice project, see
"Research in Personal Computing at Carnegie-Mellon University,
Peter G. Hibbard, 25 November 1980, Spice Document S008"

Spice, *Scientific Personal Integrated Computing Environment* is a
major research project currently underway at CMU.

Spice is aimed at increasing user productivity. The environment will:

* Comprise at least 100 personal computers connected in a high
bandwidth network, providing facilities for scientific computing.
* Provide access to shared facilities such as printers and filing
systems.
* Provide a consistent style of user interaction for all the software
components.
* Provide tools to encourage modular extension and enhancement of the
software during its lifetime.

Work started on Spice during the summer of 1979. It is expected that a
version of the system will be available to users by 1983; and
essentially complete by 1985. The computer science department is
heavily committed to using Spice for its principal computing resources
until the 1990's.

The Spice machine is a 2 to 4 mips processor, 1 megabyte of memory, a
100 megabyte disk, a full page APA display, tablet, and a 10 megabit
ethernet connection. While CMU is using the Perq as a Spice
development machine, they feel that it is under powered, and does not
represent what will be needed in the second half of this decade.

The machines will be connnected via the 10 megabit ethernet, and will
share a common file system, with the local disk being managed as a
cache to the primary file server(s). Thus the system will give the
appearance of a large timesharing system, yet have all the advantages
of personal, separate machines.

Dave Hansen

unread,
Jan 31, 2007, 5:05:33 PM1/31/07
to
[...]

> What timeframe are we talking about. There was an oregano frontend to
> spice in the late 90's.

A quick Google search indicates that there is a web browser that goes
by that name.

There is also apparently an implementation of Algol 68 for UNIX that
was done in the eartly 1970s at UCLA.

Regards,

-=Dave

Jeremy C B Nicoll

unread,
Feb 1, 2007, 4:50:24 PM2/1/07
to
In article <1170281133....@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>,
Dave Hansen <id...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> A quick Google search indicates that there is a web browser that goes
> by that name.

Yes, on RISC OS (running on ARM chips). Also I think as the embedded
browser in Sony(?) playstations or set-top boxes or something.

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll, Edinburgh, Scotland - my opinions are my own.

m.zin...@verizon.net

unread,
Jun 1, 2012, 8:57:51 PM6/1/12
to
I have one great condition & frame it must have been on the wall at Unitech

Jim1...@yahoo.com

unread,
Mar 2, 2014, 4:44:05 PM3/2/14
to
On Monday, January 29, 2007 12:01:32 PM UTC-5, CptDondo wrote:
I have one too, in very good shape, if anyone is interested. - Jim

Rod Speed

unread,
Mar 2, 2014, 7:27:45 PM3/2/14
to


<Jim1...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5467956d-84fd-44a4...@googlegroups.com...
You've replied to a 7 year old post.

Quadibloc

unread,
Mar 4, 2014, 3:07:56 AM3/4/14
to
In searching relative to this subject, I've found that:

The URL
http://www.garyoveracre.com/portfolio/10.html
now points to an expired domain.

However, Google Image Search does now find some excellent images of the poster.

Also, there are "Unix Views" and "Unix Feuds" posters, apparently from the same series.

John Savard

Quadibloc

unread,
Mar 4, 2014, 4:44:41 AM3/4/14
to
On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 1:07:56 AM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

> Also, there are "Unix Views" and "Unix Feuds" posters, apparently from the same
> series.

Further searching established that those three posters (the other being the "Unix Magic" one in the thread title) comprise the entire series.

John Savard

fmorelli

unread,
Dec 2, 2014, 10:35:07 PM12/2/14
to
I have one. We were right down the road from Unitech and had it hanging on the wall of the first place I was hired from after getting minted with a CS degree. When we shut down the company, I took that and two oscilloscopes with me. I won't sell it ... sentimental reasons that go with things like my first edition K&R, and other things I stared at far too long in my youth.

Filippo

Charles Richmond

unread,
Dec 3, 2014, 3:22:47 PM12/3/14
to
"fmorelli" <fmor...@computechinc.com> wrote in message
news:38967f8c-8079-4e3c...@googlegroups.com...
I missed most of this thread, but is the following the Unix magic poster you
are talking about:


http://tinyurl.com/c7kahys

--

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

Michael Black

unread,
Dec 3, 2014, 4:26:43 PM12/3/14
to
No, you didn't miss this thread, it's just an old one that keeps getting
resurrected.

Started in 2007, then in 2012 someone resurrected it,
presumably because he was hoping to sell it (he doesn't say, but makes
sure we know "it's in good condition".

Then in March of this year, someone else resurrects it, and that time the
guy was looking for offers. And then resurrected again yesterday, but no
quoting so it's not obvious which resurrection of the thread he's replying
to, and no I'm not going to bother checking message IDs to see which one.

Michael


0 new messages