[Simh] pdp11 and unix

[Clem Cole]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Nigel Williams <
nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:

> For William's benefit, in those times computers were (chronically) few
> in number.
>
​And very valuable - cost big bucks (millions).  Computer time was often
"billed" out to people.​




> Anyone from that era will remember the endless booking
> problems getting time on a machine of any size. If you were willing to
> do the graveyard shift you gained a small amount of scheduling
> flexibility (if the machine wasn't down for maintenance / resting
> etc).
>

​Or more importantly, you could arrange to have standalone time.

As a system's programmer, I used to do the weekend based mid-night shift at
the computer center.  But we could keep beer cold under the raised floor
too.    But we got the system all to ourselves - particularly if you could
get the weekly backups done.  Then the time from after the backups finish
until 8 AM was yours.    Some of our best hacks and most useful learning
took place then, but computer time was precious.

Clem
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