Subj : Re: My Retro Computing
To   : Oli
From : tenser
Date : Tue Aug 10 2021 06:17:47

On 09 Aug 2021 at 05:37p, Oli pondered and said...
 
 Ol> tenser wrote (2021-08-09):
 Ol> 
 Ol>  t> It's all tied together with
 Ol>  t> services running running on a Plan 9 network.
 Ol> 
 Ol> Does Plan 9 count as retro? ;)

That's an interesting question.  Very few of us are left
running it, but in many ways, it's _still_ very futuristic
compared to Unix/Linux.

 Ol> And what does Plan 9 network mean?

Plan 9 was designed to be network-centric.  You were kind
of meant to have an auth server, a CPU server, and a file
server, all running on separate machines, and then terminals
that users used.  Users could connect from their terminal
to a CPU server when they needed a little extra computational
power or RAM.

I wrote about this a few years ago here:
http://pub.gajendra.net/2016/05/plan9part1

(I haven't gotten around to writing parts two and three yet).

 Ol> I tried a Plan 9 image for the Raspberry. It booted, but then I had no
 Ol> idea how to proceed. I found another Plan 9 image, but haven't tried it
 Ol> yet.

Plan 9 was built as a programmer's system; the idea was that,
instead of a network of loosely federated Unix systems, you'd
build a more tightly coupled Unix from a network of machines.
There's not a lot to do with it unless you're a C programmer.

That said, Richard's Raspberry Pi image is definitely the
way to go with respect to playing around with it.

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