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The Day That Unix Died
My recollection of this piece of humor comes from sitting
in the second or third seat on my high school bus listening
to my friend Nicholas reading it off a dot-matrix printout
from home. He was told about it by his father who had worked
at Bull (Honeywell) in the 70s-90s. I think it was around
1995.
The internet "revolution" (can it even be that cliche') was
in full swing and people were taking about computers all the
time. However, as much as people were talking about computers,
they were hadly using them on a daily basis. I was embedded
in computers because I attended Carl Hayden Community High
School's Computer Science Magnet. This program was part of a
court-ordered desegegation lawsuit. In order to bring
students who would attend the more affluent schools in the
district. My Home school was Central on Central and Campbell.
Carl Hayden was at 33rd Ave. and Roosevelt. The neighborhood
around the school is still not nice. In 25 years not much
has changed.
There I was, a white boy from another part of town being
bussed to a special program for people who were going to make
computers a life-long career. I was sitting on this bus
listening to my friend read the words to this parody of a
song that came out 9 years before I was born. The congitive
dissonance was shocking.
Long, long, time ago, I can still remember
How UNIX used to make me smile...
And I knew that with a login name
That I could play those unix games
And maybe hack some programs for a while.
But February made me shiver
With every program I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep,
I couldn't take one more spec...
I can't remember getting smashed
When I heard about the system crash
And all the passwords got rehashed
The Day That UNIX Died...
And I was singing:
It described a world of computing that was old in the 90s.
Now, it is positively ancient. Hearing it make me think
about how much I didn;t know about the origin of the devices
everone was talking about every day. The very idea of
a computer being something that filled a room or required
a priesthood of white-coated accolytes made me feel like I
was missing the the texture of computing.
Bye, bye, nroff, rogue and vi
Gave my program to Phil Levy but Phil Levy was high,
The boys on the board were sayin' "fuck this, goodbye."
Singin' this'll be the day that I die...
This'll be the day that I die
Did you write the new games shell
And do you have faith in the manual?
If b:dennie tells you so...
Well, do you believe in UNIX C
Can hacking save you memory
And can you tell me why vi's so slow
Well, I know that you're in love with C
'Cause I saw your code on UNIX B
You just kicked off your shoes
Man, you cleaned up every kludge!
I was a lonely young computer geek
With a program due 'most every week
But I guess that I was meant to freak
The Day That UNIX Died
And I was singin:
(chorus)
Well, for ten weeks we've been in this class
The professor really is an ass.
But that's not how it used to be...
When Ira Pohl taught in CIS 12
And user limits could go to hell
And there was still space on UNIX C.
And while the board was looking 'round
The Chancellor brought the budget down
The classes were adjourned
Evaluations weren't returned
And while Huffman read a book by Pohl
The CIS board made some prof's heads roll
And we wrote programs that weren't whole
The Day That UNIX Died
And we were singin'...
(chorus)
Helter skelter in the summer swelter
I went in the lab to find some shelter
Ninety degrees and risin' faaaaaasst!!!
C stayed up for ten whole days
The hackers really were amazed
Wonderin' how long it all would last.
Well, both the forums were really great
Nobody got us all irate
We had a stroke of luck
The system was not fucked
'Cause the hackers kept their code real clean
The UNDR-shell was really keen
Do you recall what was the scene
The Day That UNIX Died
And we were singin...
(chorus)
Our programs were all in one place,
UNIX had run out of space
With no time left to start again...
So, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Use every programming trick
'Cause UNIX may soon crash again...
And as I watched the system fill
My login process would be killed.
The system just went down
Consternation up at Crown"!!!
The hours went on into the night
And all that we could do was rite
I saw Dennie laughing with delight
The Day That UNIX Died
And he was singin'...
(chorus)
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some stat lab news
But she just cursed and said "grow up"
I went down through the stat lab door
Where I'd learned of UNIX years before
But the man there said that UNIX wasn't up
And in the halls the students screamed,
The majors cried and the hackers dreamed,
But not a word was spoken
The Vaxes all were broken
And the three folks I admire most
The Father, Frank, and a.g.'s ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The Day That UNIX Died
And they were singin...
So bye, bye, nroff, rogue and vi
Gave my program to Phil Levy but Phil Levy was high.
The boys on the board were sayin' "fuck this, goodbye"
Singin' this'll be the day that I die...
(with apologies to Don McLean)
It had the cadence of a joke. I didn;t get the humor, but I
knew that I was just a bit (pardon the pun) past the days
described in this parody. I'm sure that it was a magical
time.
Can we get lost in a mythologized past? Can the nostalgia for
times past be so strong? I don;t know, but I feel like I can
be part of that time in this way: writing this in vi, over
SSH on a Raspberry Pi that serves up my Gopher hole.
