A very quick bit of reminiscing.

I don't remember my first experiences with UNIX clearly enough.

It was in 1984 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, where I was starting the computer science masters program. Initially, we studied basic programming (not Basic programming!), then data structures, then algorithm design, all in pascal on the mainframe. I think I remember keying in pascal source on an IBM 3278 terminal in a large computer center. The operating system was VM/CMS as I recall, and it was my first experience with timeshared systems. I had a lot of fun on that system learning a new text editor (Xedit), two new programming languages (Pascal, and Rexx), and a whole new OS (VM/CMS). This was a wonderful time for me, exploring a new universe of high-powered computing, and so unlike the punch card, Fortran nightmare of my undergraduate days in the late '70s.

The oldest UNIX I used regularly was 4.1BSD on Vaxen and 4.2BSD on Sun workstations in the mid-'80s. I don't remember too much about them as they were my first real experience with UNIX and I didn't have a lot of experience with the operating system back then.

Since then, I've had a lot of experience, mostly with AT&T versions (System V in all its distributions and Solaris), though some BSDish stuff, including SunOS, and various Open Source BSD distributions. And then pretty massive experience with various Linux distributions.

Recently I've become interested in some of the older UNIXs again. I'm running AT&T System V R4 on older hardware for the fun of it, and I have been running V7 and V6 UNIX under Simh emulation for a while.

Tonight I uploaded a V7 distribution for x86 architecture here. It's in the Documents tab of this group. It's distributed in multiple files by Nordier & Associates, an IT consulting company in South Africa. These are clearly some really cool people!

I haven't installed this thing yet, but I plan to just as soon as I can find some hardware to put it on. I'd encourage others too also. All are welcome to comment on their experiences.