Post B5O9spEBDFOogdrXIO by thalia@discuss.systems
 (DIR) More posts by thalia@discuss.systems
 (DIR) Post #B5O9sKDkUndQWKQFou by thalia@discuss.systems
       2026-04-17T00:35:48Z
       
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       I now have my own Utah teapot!This ordinary teapot is the "hello world" object of computer graphics and has cameos in countless productions.A thread on teapots and UNIX… 🧵Photo: My Melitta teapot, 2026-04-16.#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah
       
 (DIR) Post #B5O9sQZasUfqDogmhc by thalia@discuss.systems
       2026-04-17T00:36:32Z
       
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       While working on his 1975 dissertation on procedural modeling at the University of Utah, Martin Newell needed a good test object and, at the suggestion of his wife, picked their Melitta tea set. He measured it by hand and created a model rendered with Bézier curves, one of the first to be modeled as rules instead of a set of points.Shortly thereafter, Jim Blinn refined the model. While doing a demo, he shrunk the model vertically by a third, but everyone liked it better that way, so it stuck. His 1977 publication with Martin on texture and reflection applied several fun textures to the teapot and from there its popularity spread.Photo: A Utah teapot in the Kahlert School of Computing office, signed in 2023 by Martin Newell and Jim Blinn, 2025-11-07.#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah
       
 (DIR) Post #B5O9sWujIp95t6ckTo by thalia@discuss.systems
       2026-04-17T00:37:04Z
       
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       At the same time as he modeled the teapot, in 1974, Martin acquired a copy of UNIX V4 for the new computer graphics lab he was managing. It was evidently to serve as the operating system for the lab's PDP-11/45 computer. But UNIX had only been publicly released a few months prior and was still quite flakey, so it went unused, in favor of DEC's more conventional DOS and RSX-11M operating systems.Photo: UNIX V4 tape with the original Utah teapot at the Computer History Museum, held by Thalia Archibald and Jon Duerig, 2025-12-19.#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah
       
 (DIR) Post #B5O9scbS9PI7X3eRGa by thalia@discuss.systems
       2026-04-17T00:40:42Z
       
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       After the obsolescence of minicomputers, the UNIX V4 magnetic tape was saved from destruction by Jay Lepreau, an operating systems researcher involved with USENIX conferences. But, without any way to use it, it sat in his office until last July, when Aleks Maricq discovered it while preparing to move the Flux research group to the new building.I heard the news just after Rob Ricci (@ricci) posted and was soon holding the tape. But without any accompanying documentation, its background was a complete mystery. The University of Utah was not known to have been involved with UNIX, "only" computer graphics and the ARPANET, so I had to go back to primary sources. I tracked down lists of early UNIX users and found Martin's name listed among about 25 sites using UNIX V4. Through numerous hours in online and physical archives, I found that UNIX was not used for research at the U until later, corroborating Martin and Jim's recollections. But, being at the cutting edge, they followed the latest technologies.Photo: Researchers holding the UNIX V4 tape in the storage closet it was found, left to right: Thalia Archibald, Aleks Maricq, Jon Duerig, Rob Ricci, and Axel Sorenson, credit: Dan Hixson, 2025-11-12.#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah
       
 (DIR) Post #B5O9sj6A09Q3g242xk by thalia@discuss.systems
       2026-04-17T00:42:26Z
       
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       As the only surviving copy of this version of UNIX, it was vital that it be preserved. Jon Duerig and I brought it to the Computer History Museum's Research Archives, where vintage media recovery has been honed over decades. There, Al Kossow (@bitsavers) recovered the raw analog waveform using his modified tape drive, explaining the process to news and museum film crews as he worked. By recording the low-level waveform, it can be analyzed offline without stressing the tape by reading it again. This was done with Len Shustek's readtape program and, after some debugging with Len, we recovered a complete, flawless dump. Fortunately, the tape was in impeccable condition and did not need to be baked.Photo: UNIX V4 tape with Al Kossow's Utah teapot in the CHM Archives lab, 2025-12-19.#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah
       
 (DIR) Post #B5O9spEBDFOogdrXIO by thalia@discuss.systems
       2026-04-17T00:43:10Z
       
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       A quick, preliminary analysis of the disk image before sharing showed it was a unique snapshot, earlier than V5. We could see Hunt the Wumpus, SNOBOL, and an older version of cc. Then within hours of my tape image upload to the Internet Archive, Angelo Papenhoff (@aap) produced a working SIMH emulation setup and published instructions. Within days, Jacob Ritorto had booted it on a real PDP-11/45 and Ashlin Inwood on a PDP-11/40, the two officially supported machines. And I visited the Interim Computer Museum (@icm) to attempt booting on their "misspiggy" PDP-11/70, but more repairs were needed.As a historical artifact, the UNIX V4 tape fills in a midpoint of a 19-month gap in UNIX source code. It was shortly after the kernel was rewritten from assembly into C and was rapidly growing into a system we recognize today. And at the University of Utah, it adds a connection in a history of pioneering computer science research, and I'm happy to have been involved.Photo: UNIX V4 tape with a PDP-11/20 and UNIX V1 manual at the Computer History Museum, held by Jon Duerig and Thalia Archibald, 2025-12-19.#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #unix #utah