A small bit of my interview on UNIX V4 at the Computer History Museum is now published! It also features interviews with Al Kossow ( @bitsavers), Len Shustek, Jon Duerig, and Warren Toomey.
Happy 83rd Birthday to Ken Thompson! 🎂
A true computing legend and co-creator of UNIX, B, and Go—technologies that shaped the modern software world and still power the bulk of today’s infrastructure. 💻️🔥
Yeah, that v4 tape find was kinda neat!
I can't help but think, older sources may still exist, somewhere?
I mean, not just because I helped restore some (e.g. https://code.google.com/archive/p/unix-jun72/ USENIX presentation on such findings here, PDF of Toomey's 2009 on "The Restoration of Ancient UNIX Artifacts": https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/usenix09/tech/full_papers/toomey/toomey.pdf) and some of those collaborators went even deeper, e.g. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010IAHC...32c..74T/abstract "First Edition Unix: Its Creation and Restoration" (from 2010) and because well, for the 50th Anniversary of UNIX, they booted up a system with a version supposedly dating back to 1969 "The Earliest Unix Code: An Anniversary Source Code Release" (2019): https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-earliest-unix-code-an-anniversary-source-code-release/
But also, this: "1971 Bob Fabry buys UNIX license for $99 to share with students" (from https://www.berkeley.edu/about/history-discoveries/ though, you have to click "Contributions/Discoveries" then click on 1977 and I'll note: there's a typo within the associated image of "FreeBDS" when I am pretty sure they intended to write FreeBSD" so y'know, maybe not the most accurate source of earlier provenance outside of Bell Labs? Still, definitely older than the University of Utah UNIX v4 tape from 1974).
#AncientUNIX #UNIX #Artifacts #SoftwarePreservation #History #OurStory
A small bit of my interview on UNIX V4 at the Computer History Museum is now published! It also features interviews with Al Kossow ( @bitsavers), Len Shustek, Jon Duerig, and Warren Toomey.
Unix 🤝 Amiga
｢ Amiga UNIX (also known as “Amix”) was Commodore's port of AT&T System V Release 4 Unix to the Amiga in 1990. Like many early Unix variants, Amiga Unix never became wildly popular, but it is an interesting sidestep in the history of the Amiga ｣
Call for testing for a script that installs #KDE #PLASMA on a #FreeBSD desktop or laptop. Testing is aimed at users who already know FreeBSD, for example who can configure /etc/rc.conf and /boot/loader.conf.
I’m especially interested in feedback from people with NVIDIA GPUs, since I don’t have this hardware myself.
CFT GitHub: https://github.com/alfonsosiciliano/kde-installer-dialogs/blob/main/cft.md
CFT GitLab: https://gitlab.com/alfix/kde-installer-dialogs/-/blob/main/cft.md
Discussion to figure out which packages to install and which configurations to use for #NVIDIA GPUs (for example x11/nvidia-xconfig, linux_enable="YES", and so on): https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-desktop/2026-January/007438.html
@FreeBSDFoundation #CFT #UNIX #OpenSource #FreeBSDDesktop #FreeBSDLaptop #gpu #GUI
Unix 🤝 Amiga
｢ Amiga UNIX (also known as “Amix”) was Commodore's port of AT&T System V Release 4 Unix to the Amiga in 1990. Like many early Unix variants, Amiga Unix never became wildly popular, but it is an interesting sidestep in the history of the Amiga ｣
Call for testing for a script that installs #KDE #PLASMA on a #FreeBSD desktop or laptop. Testing is aimed at users who already know FreeBSD, for example who can configure /etc/rc.conf and /boot/loader.conf.
I’m especially interested in feedback from people with NVIDIA GPUs, since I don’t have this hardware myself.
CFT GitHub: https://github.com/alfonsosiciliano/kde-installer-dialogs/blob/main/cft.md
CFT GitLab: https://gitlab.com/alfix/kde-installer-dialogs/-/blob/main/cft.md
Discussion to figure out which packages to install and which configurations to use for #NVIDIA GPUs (for example x11/nvidia-xconfig, linux_enable="YES", and so on): https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-desktop/2026-January/007438.html
@FreeBSDFoundation #CFT #UNIX #OpenSource #FreeBSDDesktop #FreeBSDLaptop #gpu #GUI
Edited 2025 to update gender and a few other things.
I'm a software engineer with a degree in Anthropology. I highly recommend the combo.
Most recently I was tech lead for Scaled Human Review at Meta. I worked in the Integrity Foundation (what other companies call "Trust and Safety") on Better Engineering initiatives and #Metaverse integration, with the teams that build human review software for the 30-40K external reviewers. I'd sworn I’d never work at Facebook, but I decided to see if I could make a difference. I couldn’t. And it wasn't a good fit for either of us. But I learned a lot about how the sausages are made and why they have such a hard time with #contentmoderation.
I've been on #socialmedia for four decades (seriously, I saw someone catfished in chat in 1978—this stuff isn't new), and virtually everyone I know I met online somewhere—many I've still never met in person. Needless to say, that's made me pretty passionate about making online communities safe for everyone, and especially marginalized groups.
I'm now a freelance #consultant and semi-retired, working on my own projects (I'll write more on that later), and with my wife's #consulting company (see below). I'm planning to do a lot more writing about #society and #technology (as well some #SFF), and to travel more.
I tend to write long posts (like this one). They may get shorter once my blog is back up. I don't stick to one topic, but I'll try to tag them so you can filter. I post about tech stuff (recent, as well as old geeky #Unix stuff), #social issues, #LGBTQ issues (especially the T), pretty #photos, and random personal anecdotes. When I boost, it's because I think it's something that might be interesting to someone, or some group, that follows me. Those tend to include all the above topics, plus SF&F-related things, and cool science stuff.
I'm #pan, #poly, and #trans. I prefer "they" or "she" for pronouns, but "he" is fine. I spent most of my life thinking I really was a straight cis man who just happened to be a bit quirky and a passionate and tearful ally, so I'm not too picky about how you refer to me. I'm also more than happy to answer any questions about all that, public or private.
I grew up mostly in #Maine and then lived in Massachusetts for a long time, but I now live on sovereign #Swinomish land in #WashingtonState (US), on the edge of the San Juan islands. Despite my first name (that's a story) and current location, I'm not Native American, although I focus a lot on Native American rights. My parents were both active in that area, and that was my introduction to civil rights in general.
I've been a #software engineer at various levels (from programmer to CTO to company founder) for 40+ years. I learned BASIC in high school, taught myself Pascal, FORTRAN and PL/1 in college, learned C as an intern at Bell Labs (Murray Hill, one floor up from the Unix crew), and went on from there. In college, I majored in #Anthropology with a concentration in #Psychology, and that's influenced the way I look at software ever since. Software is designed for people. Software systems build communities (whether intended or not). Anyone who does that damn well better understand how people and #communities work.
I've worked for Bell Labs (psych stats), Sperry Research (window systems, UX design), Apollo/HP (programmable shell, windowing systems, Unix porting, UX design), Bright Ideas (cookbook, educational games), OSF (windowing standards), Alfalfa (multimedia email - SMTP *and* X.400 :)), Wildfire (phone-based voice assistant), Utopia/USWeb (web and security consulting), Saroca (small boats), Messagefire (anti- #spam software), MessageGate (corporate compliance software), Somewhere (software consulting), ZeeVee (web video aggregation, metadata scraping), TiVo (video content correlation, #metadata pipelines), and Meta. Plus a few others.
I've been with my wife, Dr. Mollie Pepper, for over a decade. She's a #sociologist with a focus on #refugee migration, #gender, and violence; the kind of work that gives you PTSD. She did her dissertation on women's roles in the (now extremely defunct) peace process in #Myanmar (aka #Burma). A few years ago she was at a military base frantically processing thousands of Afghan refugees and managing translators (whom Trump is now deporting). She has a consulting company that specializes in evaluating and designing social service projects. You can find her at https://carlsonpepper.com/. Everything I know about #feminism, #intersectionality, #queer theory, #CRT, and #racism I either learned from her, or she gave me the theoretical underpinnings to understand them properly.
I have two grown daughters from my first marriage with Nassim Fotouhi; a kick-ass software engineer/engineering manager who came to the States just before the Iranian revolution.
Shadi Fotouhi is an artist (see my profile background photo, go look up the drug codes and compare them to the mermaids' behavior) turned software engineer; building dynamic room installations will do that to you. She worked in QA at a gaming company, and then at Jibo; a robotics startup. Now she's a senior software engineer at Wayfair--Kubernetes, release configuration, and all that fun stuff.
Shireen Hinckley is a documentarian, digital image technician, video editor, and co-founder of Somewhere Films (https://www.somewherefilms.com/shireen-hinckley); a womxn's filmmaking collective. She works for #Beyoncé at Parkwood Entertainment, where she's an editor and post-production supervisor for all of their video releases. She worked on "Black is King" and just about every video since then, whether it's for Instagram, Times Square, Tiffany's, the Oscars, or Chloe x Halle.
I'm incredibly honored to have those wonderful women in my life. I wouldn't be who I am without them.
A couple other things that may come up, especially in my photos. My mother is an artist who lives in Maine in a round house she designed, and the family built, when I was in high school. And I'm part owner of a #lighthouse on Cape Cod.
--kee
Happy 83rd Birthday to Ken Thompson! 🎂
A true computing legend and co-creator of UNIX, B, and Go—technologies that shaped the modern software world and still power the bulk of today’s infrastructure. 💻️🔥
File this under #shell #functions I should have written years ago:
![# MYEMOJI
export XMAS=(
'🎄' '🌲' '🌟' '🎁' '🔔' '❄️' '☃️' '⛄'
'🎅' '🤶' '🦌' '🍪' '🥛'
)
export SPRING=(
'🌱' '🌿' '☘️' '🍀' '🍄' '🌷' '🌹' '🥀'
'🌺' '🌸' '🌼' '🌻' '🌈' '🍒' '🍎' '🍊'
'☕️' '🍵' '🥐' '🍩' '🍪'
)
myemoji() {
emoi=$(( int(rand48() * $#SPRING + 1) ))
echo -n -e "$SPRING[emoi]"
}
export PS1='%F{red} $(myemoji) %n@%m:%~%#%f '](https://cdn.masto.host/appdotnet/media_attachments/files/116/017/327/153/812/085/original/23305d0b3d73991f.png)
function grepc {
#Do a grep -c, but skipping files with no results
grep -c "$@" |grep -v ':0$'
}
HBD, Ken Thompson! Thompson received the 1983 #ACMTuringAward with Dennis Ritchie, for their development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the #UNIX operating system. Thompson explains creating UNIX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E2cCqAS9AM
