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The Day That Unix Died

My recollection of this piece of humor comes from sitting
in the second or third seat on my high school bus listening
to my friend Nicholas reading it off a dot-matrix printout
from home. He was told about it by his father who had worked
at Bull (Honeywell) in the 70s-90s. I think it was around 
1995.

The internet "revolution" (can it even be that cliche') was
in full swing and people were taking about computers all the
time. However, as much as people were talking about computers,
they were hadly using them on a daily basis. I was embedded
in computers because I attended Carl Hayden Community High 
School's Computer Science Magnet. This program was part of a
court-ordered desegegation lawsuit. In order to bring
students who would attend the more affluent schools in the 
district. My Home school was Central on Central and Campbell.
Carl Hayden was at 33rd Ave. and Roosevelt. The neighborhood
around the school is still not nice. In 25 years not much
has changed.

There I was, a white boy from another part of town being
bussed to a special program for people who were going to make
computers a life-long career. I was sitting on this bus
listening to my friend read the words to this parody of a 
song that came out 9 years before I was born. The congitive
dissonance was shocking.


	Long, long, time ago, I can still remember 
	How UNIX used to make me smile...
	And I knew that with a login name
	That I could play those unix games
	And maybe hack some programs for a while.
	But February made me shiver
	With every program I'd deliver
	Bad news on the doorstep,
	I couldn't take one more spec...
	I can't remember getting smashed
	When I heard about the system crash
	And all the passwords got rehashed
	The Day That UNIX Died...
	And I was singing:

It described a world of computing that was old in the 90s.
Now, it is positively ancient. Hearing it make me think
about how much I didn;t know about the origin of the devices
everone was talking about every day. The very idea of
a computer being something that filled a room or required
a priesthood of white-coated accolytes made me feel like I
was missing the the texture of computing.

	Bye, bye, nroff, rogue and vi
	Gave my program to Phil Levy but Phil Levy was high,
	The boys on the board were sayin' "fuck this, goodbye."
	Singin' this'll be the day that I die...
	This'll be the day that I die

	Did you write the new games shell
	And do you have faith in the manual?
	If b:dennie tells you so...
	Well, do you believe in UNIX C
	Can hacking save you memory
	And can you tell me why vi's so slow
	Well, I know that you're in love with C
	'Cause I saw your code on UNIX B
	You just kicked off your shoes
	Man, you cleaned up every kludge!
	I was a lonely young computer geek
	With a program due 'most every week
	But I guess that I was meant to freak
	The Day That UNIX Died
	And I was singin:

	(chorus)

	Well, for ten weeks we've been in this class
	The professor really is an ass.
	But that's not how it used to be...    
	When Ira Pohl taught in CIS 12
	And user limits could go to hell
	And there was still space on UNIX C.
	And while the board was looking 'round
	The Chancellor brought the budget down
	The classes were adjourned               
	Evaluations weren't returned                      
	And while Huffman read a book by Pohl
	The CIS board made some prof's heads roll
	And we wrote programs that weren't whole
	The Day That UNIX Died 
	And we were singin'...

	(chorus)

	Helter skelter in the summer swelter
	I went in the lab to find some shelter
	Ninety degrees and risin' faaaaaasst!!!
	C stayed up for ten whole days
	The hackers really were amazed
	Wonderin' how long it all would last.
	Well, both the forums were really great
	Nobody got us all irate
	We had a stroke of luck
	The system was not fucked
	'Cause the hackers kept their code real clean
	The UNDR-shell was really keen
	Do you recall what was the scene
	The Day That UNIX Died
	And we were singin...

	(chorus)

	Our programs were all in one place,
	UNIX had run out of space
	With no time left to start again...
	So, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
	Use every programming trick
	'Cause UNIX may soon crash again...
	And as I watched the system fill
	My login process would be killed.
	The system just went down
	Consternation up at Crown"!!!
	The hours went on into the night
	And all that we could do was rite
	I saw Dennie laughing with delight
        The Day That UNIX Died
	And he was singin'...
	
	(chorus)

	I met a girl who sang the blues
	And I asked her for some stat lab news
	But she just cursed and said "grow up"
	I went down through the stat lab door
	Where I'd learned of UNIX years before
	But the man there said that UNIX wasn't up
	And in the halls the students screamed,
	The majors cried and the hackers dreamed,
	But not a word was spoken
	The Vaxes all were broken
	And the three folks I admire most
	The Father, Frank, and a.g.'s ghost 
	They caught the last train for the coast
	The Day That UNIX Died
	And they were singin...

	So bye, bye, nroff, rogue and vi
	Gave my program to Phil Levy but Phil Levy was high.
	The boys on the board were sayin' "fuck this, goodbye"
	Singin' this'll be the day that I die...

			(with apologies to Don McLean) 

It had the cadence of a joke. I didn;t get the humor, but I
knew that I was just a bit (pardon the pun) past the days
described in this parody. I'm sure that it was a magical
time.

Can we get lost in a mythologized past? Can the nostalgia for
times past be so strong? I don;t know, but I feel like I can
be part of that time in this way: writing this in vi, over
SSH on a Raspberry Pi that serves up my Gopher hole.