[FRIAM] computer models of the mind

[Douglas Roberts]

You're starting to have too much fun with this, Roger.

;-]

On 7/19/06, Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org> wrote:
>
> On 7/19/06, Robert Holmes <robert at holmesacosta.com> wrote:
> > Not strictly true I think. Sure, Linux can't run without a PC but does
> that
> > mean it can't exist without one? Linux started its existence in
> Torvalds'
> > head before it appeared on a CPU and if all CPUs vanished tomorrow it
> would
> > still exist in his and other experts heads.
> >
>
> There's a funny sort of ontology here.
>
> Linus wrote Linux because he was inspired by Andrew Tanenbaum's Minix.
> Andrew Tanenbaum developed Minix on a PC using Coherent, a UNIX clone
> from the Mark Williams Company, because it provided the necessary
> tools.  It also provided an existence proof, but he didn't really need
> that.  Coherent was the brainchild of Bob Swartz, but it was
> originally developed on a DEC PDP-11 and ported to the Zilog Z8000
> before the 8086 or the IBM PC existed.  The Mark Williams Company
> itself was originally a subsidiary of Embosograph founded to market a
> 7-Up knockoff soft drink formula called Dr. Enuf.  Coherent was
> written by a core of students from the University of Waterloo, working
> in Chicago under sometimes questionable immigration status.  The work
> took place in a huge brick building at 1430 West Wrightwood which had
> the word Teletype engraved over the entrances.  But the only
> profitable part of this family commercial empire was Embosograph
> itself and its profits derived from the manufacture of plastic beer
> signs, embossed graphics on plastic augmented by lights and waterfall
> illusions.
>
> So beer rating, or the rating of the fizzy alcoholic beverage which
> many americans call beer, is where Linux started.
>
> -- rec --
>
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-- 
Doug Roberts, RTI International
droberts at rti.org
doug at parrot-farm.net
505-455-7333 - Office
505-670-8195 - Cell
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