[ale] Unix Automation?

[Tom Freeman]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011, Greg Freemyer wrote:

<<snip>>
>>
>> My hand is raised.  30 days to get X running on my first Linux install.
>
> My first UNIX computer was a Perkin Elmer (1982?).  I don't think Sun
> or Apollo were shipping yet.
>
> IIRC, it didn't come with a graphic monitor at all.  We needed
> graphics, so we bought some monitors and graphics cards.  Over $200K
> for a few monitors / high-end controllers / and a polaroid based
> graphic printer. (iirc).
>
> The printer was cool.  It had a B&W monitor that faced up and a
> polaroid camera that faced down.  I think there were colored filters
> between the two that controlled what color was being printed.  The
> primary colors were "printed" onto the polaroid one at a time, by
> physically moving the filter.
>
I just occured to me that the first UNIX type equipment I ever fiddled 
with was a chromatography controller from Varian on '84??. They had it 
locked up pretty tightly, but somebody clued us in on how to get to the 
command line and a really really really bizzare form of BASIC.