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The next version of Windows NT, code-named Cairo and targeted for release sometime in 1995, will be built around the concepts of objects and component software. It will have a native OFS (Object File System) and distributed system support.

1995 Signs to Cairo

Cairo, Microsoft's object-oriented successor to Windows NT, will begin beta testing in early 1996 for release in 1997. Although Microsoft is not revealing the full details of Cairo yet, there are enough clues within current Microsoft OSes to yield a good idea of how it might work.

1996 Unearthing Cairo

At the first NT developers conference in 1992, Bill Gates announced that Cairo would arrive in three years and would incorporate object-oriented technologies, especially an object file system. Since then, we've seen Windows NT 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 3.51, and most recently NT 4.0. None is object oriented, none has an object file system, none is Cairo. It seems that Cairo is Microsoft's sly way of promising the world. "Will we see Plug and Play in NT?" "Oh yes, of course, in Cairo." "Will NT ever produce world peace and cheap antigravity?" "You bet -- in Cairo."

September 1, 2003 Eweek 'Longhorn' Rollout Slips

Microsoft Corp. has once again shifted the schedule for the release of "Longhorn," the company's next major version of Windows, leaving some users up in the air about an upgrade path.

Microsoft executives from Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on down have long described Longhorn as the Redmond, Wash., company's most revolutionary operating system to date. The product was originally expected to ship next year. Then in May of this year, officials pushed back the release date to 2005. But now executives are declining to say when they expect the software to ship.

"We do not yet know the time frame for Longhorn, but it will involve a lot of innovative and exciting work," said Gates at a company financial analyst meeting this summer. Since then, other Microsoft officials have neither retracted nor clarified Gates' statement.

As you suggest, a distributed, global (federated) identity would make this all a lot easier and work a lot better. Persistent profile information is powerful and offers many advantages to citizens, corporations and all those middlemen, but can lead to serious privacy abuses if the information is not securely - and absolutely - controlled by the profile owner.

The fact that global identity is so valuable has not escaped the eye of marketing departments everywhere, and there are several projects aimed at establishing global identities for consumers. (Note that I say "consumers" here rather than "citizens" as the systems being designed generally only see you as a consumer and nothing more. Therefore, since there's nothing to buy on Slashdot or Poliglut, you probably wouldn't exist on those systems.)

There are two main problems with the currently proposed systems: Passport, designed by Microsoft, is a wholly centralized system. (The only thing good about this is that your profile data in Passport is not in danger of being bought by Microsoft!) The other system is Project Liberty, a system being put together by a scary consortium of BigCos. EPIC has a good, short paper on the privacy considerations of Liberty here.

There's a new group in this area working...

...to create the world's premier electronic system for individuals and organizations to interact commercially, socially and personally, while providing every entity with control of its information, identity, and relationships consistent with healthy communities.

So where does one go? First, of course it has to be open source. PGP's web of trust, Ron Rivest's and Carl Ellison's SPKI/SDSI, and Matt Blaze's Keynote all offer secure local name spaces and even integrated trust management systems. (Thought I had forgotten about your original point, didn't you?) We're nearing completion of a requirements specification and hope to have an initial implementation by years end. And this is being done mostly by volunteers, as there's no money (yet).

BTW, one of the most difficult problems facing federated identity systems such as Liberty is how to get all these BigCos to work together. We're following Chaordic approach that, like the Visa payment system, melds simple but powerful global unilateral agreements (Principles) with local control of agreements that control inter-group relationships.

Apparently you have not been reading the stories that have been being referenced here. Might want to go back to This story and follow the thread "SCO Hates BSD Too."

Thanks for the pointer, I finally sat through the whole interview and got a strong whiff of BS throught his presentation. If you haven't read this already, check out this interview with SCO's Mr. Sontag at Byte for some direct contradiction to what Darl says. Seems that SCO thinks they are the kings of the os world.

I wish they would stay with a single story now, but once the trial starts they will have to stop dancing around and choose a single presentation that matches the suit they filed.

...during the interview reported in this BYTE article. You can see here that Microsoft have updated the later builds of MS-Windows 2003 to reflect this.

Wow, a blast from the past, see this ancient aix laptop from IBM:

Although it's not the first RISC-based portable PC running Unix, IBM's RS/6000 N40 is the first using the new PowerPC chip, and it may be the fastest. ... powered by a 50-MHz PowerPC 601 microprocessor with a 32-KB cache... equipped with 16 MB of RAM and a 340-MB hard drive, is $11,995.

(Pardon if any of these links are going stale.)

"SCO is about to attack BSD, too."

Umm, where did you read that? I'd just like to read it myself...

Linked For Your Pleasure! In this article, Chris Sontag makes the case that essentially every operating system on earth is now SCO property. Somehow Sun is "in the clear,"but Microsoft is not. Key elements of this argument:

1) The original AT&T contracts deeded all IP derived from Unix back to AT&T

2) BSD is derived from this codebase as are all sysV implementations. Microsoft and Apple's current OS Offerings owe at least something to BSD.

3) The BSD case covered pre sysV code, which the SCO released under BSD license a few years ago in any case.

4) BSD has been contributed to since the case in 1994, and in some cases has received Linux code.

5) SCO alleges that the BSD folks have not lived up to their end of the 1994 agreement

It's a scary case, but honestly I don't see how any judge could grant such sweeping power to SCO. It would destroy the IT market utterly and cast a chilling effect on any computer science innovation in the US. This case is going to ultimately end up having to decide many age-old issues which have caused us problems such as people who do not create IP but lay claim to it after buying bits of companies then exercise their rights in a much more egregious manner than the original IP holder would have, and the court-testng of the GPL, among other things.

I think it might be best to do it on a totally-provably licence compliant Windows system.

Actually, SCO would have you believe that Solaris is the only safe option.

JFS ( Journalling File System ). NUMA (Non Uniform Memory Access), a SGI/Stanford collaboration . RCU ( Read-Copy-Update ). SMP ( Symmetrical Multi-Processing ).

"'So you want royalties from FreeBSD as well?' I asked. Sontag responded that 'there may or may not be issues. We believe that UNIX System V provided the basic building blocks for all subsequent computer operating systems, and that they all tend to be derived from UNIX System V (and therefore are claimed as SCO's intellectual property).'"

Copy of a post to LWN in answer to someone else who applauded the humour:

The Who's down with Other People's Intellectual Property sign is major chutzpah. The IP which TSG (not the original SCO, The SCO Group) is laying claim to is code written by IBM which belongs to IBM according to the terms of the AT&T agreement.

For an example of such code, turn to SMP. TSG's own SMP implementation sucks so badly that all of their licencees, past and present, have written and are using their own implementation instead. TSG is claiming ownership of those implementations.

The short story is that the IP in contention does not belong to TSG even if it was originally developed (by IBM) for use with SCO UNIX or UnixWare sources and is not a part of the BSD codebase or otherwise public domain or copyright (e.g. GPL) by others. To put it in the same terms that TSG are applying to IBM and Linux TSG are using barratry to steal the rights to code that they did not write and do not own.

It's worse than that. If you read what Chris Sontag said in the BYTE article, you will see that TSG are trying to leverage their barratry to steal ownership of every significant OS in the world.

You know how annoying parking meters are? In asserting that everything else descends at least in principle from their UNIX codebase, TSG are trying to install a meter on every CPU in the world, starting with the USA. They are trying to encumber everybody with a licence agreement, but instead of using Microsoft's attrition method, they're aiming for one fell swoop.

To show you how brazen this is, consider the same scenario in another industry. The Canopy Group buys Ford, then claims that since every production-line car in the world was derived in one way or another from Henry Ford's system. They start with General Motors but have an eye on an unexpectedly thriving kit-car industry. Is the analogy clear, and good enough?

While TSG employees might be fine and friendly to deal with, TSG management is trying to stage one of the biggest ripoffs in software history. If they succeed, it will undermine the livelihood implied in tens of thousands of Linux-related job in the USA and greatly slow Linux deployment worldwide. They even have the gall to hint about taxing the BSDs! If they fail, TSG and these guys' jobs, pensions etc will be a scorched memory.

This (to say nothing of much other lying and prevarication) makes those posters a lot less funny than you hope. Ha, ha, and all, but meanwhile they're trying to throw the IT world over a barrel.

And suddenly Boise' actions make sick sense. In the unlikely event of him winning this one, he'll be first in line for the next one, and the next, and the next... and if TSG's licence works out to something of the order of $100 a CPU a year, their income will easily exceed Microsoft's. Are you reading me, Bill?

The penny evidently hasn't yet dropped for Sun. The $100M they've already paid is a drop in the bucket compared with what TSG will get out of them if they win.

Hmm.

From here;


"So is anybody clean? What about Apple and Microsoft?" I wondered. "Sun is clean," he saidâ"but he gave no answer in regards to Apple and Microsoft.

"But I thought that Microsoft had signed a license agreement?" "No," Sontag said. Microsoft merely licensed an "applications interface layer."



SB

How long until SCO claim that SCO IP was stolen and put into plan9?

They already have. The linked article is dates June 16 2003. Since many do not appear to read the articles ...

"... We believe that UNIX System V provided the basic building blocks for all subsequent computer operating systems, and that they all tend to be derived from UNIX System V (and therefore are claimed as SCO's intellectual property)."

This obviously included Microsofts operating systems as well. And despite Microsoft having paid for a licence recently, they do not appear to be ruling out going after the beast at a later date.

"So is anybody clean? What about Apple and Microsoft?" I wondered. "Sun is clean," he saidâ"but he gave no answer in regards to Apple and Microsoft. "But I thought that Microsoft had signed a license agreement?" "No," Sontag said. Microsoft merely licensed an "applications interface layer."

In perpetuity.

Actually, that may not be an ouch because courts generally frown on perpetual contracts (IANAL).

Now I'm not claiming that therefore SCO has a slam dunk. But it does indicate SCO's main line of attack. And it does make all the arguments about date and place of invention somewhat tangential.

One key question is: exactly how much work is covered by the original license? Another key question: how much of the original UNIX is tainted by unlicensed imports from BSD? I'll be watching while the billion dollar boys battle it out...

"We believe that UNIX System V provided the basic building blocks for all subsequent computer operating systems, and that they all tend to be derived from UNIX System V (and therefore are claimed as SCO's intellectual property)."

...and there's also this bit...

I listened to how IBM has bypassed U.S. export controls with Linux. How "Syria and Libya and North Korea" are all building supercomputers with Linux and inexpensive Intel hardware, in violation of U.S. export control laws. These laws would normally restrict export of technologies such as JFS, NUMA, RCU, and SMP-and, (I was waiting for this) "encryption technologies." "We know that is occurring in Syria," I heard, even though my mind was fogging over at this point. "So are you saying that the U.S. government might file a "Friend of the Court Brief" to support your case against IBM?" I blurted out. "Don't be surprised" was Sontag's answer.

...and of course there's something something similar in today's CNet article...

SCO claims IBM has breached its contract by making multiprocessor operating system technology available "for free distribution to anyone in the world," including residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya, countries to which the United States controls exports. The open-source technology IBM released "can be used for encryption, scientific research and weapons research," the suit said.

Let me summarize SCO's position:

"We own Unix System V, which was innovative and gave the world lots of experience with operating systems. As a result, all operating systems that follow are derivative products which violate our trade secrets. These include, but are not limited to: Apple Mac OS, Microsoft's MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Sun's SunOS and Solairs, SGI's Irix, IBM's AIX, HP's HP-UX, Digital's DG-UX and Ultrix, Linux, Bell Labs' Plan 9, the GNU Hurd, BeOS, Atari's STOS and Amiga Workbench, Apple's PRODOS, Tandy's TRSDOS...[paragraph trimmed due to time constraints]

"Oh... and what's more, IBM is an international nuclear terrorist, so we should get a billion... no THREE billion dollars because they're un-American. OH, and Linux is bad, don't use it, that Torvalds guy is sloppy."

If you think this even deserves to be dignified with a response, you're a little shaky yourself.

Answers to your points:

Has anyone, besides SCO, looked at the Linux code and tried to determine what might have come from SCO, and what might have come from a common predecessor?

The Linux development process, including all code additions, is completely transparent and recorded for posterity on the Internet. Every snippet of code can be traced to its submitter or originating project. This is why Linus' only real response thus far has been to essentially say "Hey, our development process is open for all to see... on the other hand, where's SCO's evidence?"

If SCO wins, what can be done? What will the consequences be?

If SCO wins given their current claims, it will essentially have a claim to every last product in the entire computing and networking industry, and the US legal and intellectual property systems will be thrown into confusion for decades to come.

This will be extremely silly because SCO Group hasn't ever contributed a single line of code to any product, including the ones that they now claim to "own". It would be turning any concept of "justice" on its head in a crazy world.

IBM will act in its own interests, of course, and not in the interests of the Linux community; what should we expect from them?

This is moot because right now, what IBM appears to be doing is precise

IBM has bypassed U.S. export controls with Linux... "Syria and Libya and North Korea" are all building supercomputers with Linux and inexpensive Intel hardware, in violation of U.S. export control laws. These laws would normally restrict export of technologies such as "JFS, NUMA, RCU, and SMPâ"and... encryption technologies... We know that is occurring in Syria"

From an interview with Chris Sontag, SCO's Senior Vice President in Byte. Sounds more like Donad Rumsfeld than Mohammed al-Sahaf.

According to an article on byte.com, Linux is only the start. BSD,Windows,MAC could potentially be targets as wells. SCO appears to beleive that all operating systems are derived in some way from Unix System V technology. I think they are hoping if they stink loud enough someone buy them out. (Byte article is here

This, along with Sontag giving ONLY SUN a "clean bill of health" and thereby telegraphing Sun to be the "unnamed" Co-conspirator^W^W^Wlicensee of SCOSource, is starting to make Sun look damnably guilty by association.

Sun -- you better stand against SCO in this or face the same wrath SCO is receiving.

OK, I could be completely wrong here. Lord knows trying to figure out what's in these people's minds is hard. But here's what I think is going on, and why they make such a claim. I preface this by saying that it was other posters here, in yesterday's SCO-related articles, that first made this point to me. First, check out this C|Net article, containing a brief interview with the CEO of SCO. In particular, note this quote:

Where people get a little confused is when they think of SCO Unix as just the Unix that runs the cash register at McDonalds. We think of this as a tree. We have the tree trunk, with Unix System 5 running right down the middle of the trunk. That is our core ownership position on Unix.

Off the tree trunk, you have a number of branches, and these are the various flavors of Unix. HP-UX, IBM's AIX, Sun Solaris, Fujitsu, NEC--there are a number of flavors out there. SCO has a couple of flavors, too, called OpenServer and UnixWare. But don't confuse the branches with the trunk. The System 5 source code, that is really the area that gives us incredible rights, because it includes the control rights on the derivative works that branch off from that trunk.

I added the boldface to that last clause for emphasis.

Similarly, Chris Sontag, SCO's Senior Vice President of the Operating Systems Division, said the following in this Byte magazine article:

We believe that UNIX System V provided the basic building blocks for all subsequent computer operating systems, and that they all tend to be derived from UNIX System V (and therefore are claimed as SCO's intellectual property).

The point is that I think they feel they have some sort of rights over the additional code and technologies that licensees add to the System V code they license from SCO in the process of creating their particular product. IBM bought Sequent, acquiring Sequent's RCU technology. IBM added that technology to AIX. Apparently, in SCO's mind, that gives SCO some degree of rights over that technology, because it's now part of AIX, and AIX is a derivative work of SCO's System V code, and SCO believes they have some amount of rights over all derivative works. And therefore, claims SCO, adding it to Linux violated SCO's rights.

This seems like what they're saying. It also seems completely nuts -- unless IBM's license for SysV code for AIX gives the rights for technologies they come up with and add to AIX back to the owner of the System V codebase. I can't imagine that being true, though.

Another read on this is that it looks even more than it did before like an attempt to re-try the Unix Systems Labs vs. BSD case.

My [large hardware company] rep who is supplying me with neat technology including handhelds, laptops, tablets and Linux server appliances, is also the rep for SCO. He tells me he doesn't even want to touch SCO now that they've pulled their shenanigans. He even referenced McBride's comment that contracts are strong bases for lawsuits as a real chiller. Imagine being so reviled that sales people don't want your money...

I wonder if employees of SCO have any pride left, or any intention on working with the tech industry again? They may not be the source of SCO's vitrol and venom, but as long as they sit quietly and let the day traders pimp and pump the stock they are one and the same as McBride/Sontag/et al. We need a hacker revolt from within SCO -- if any are left. ... Until proven otherwise, no friends of tech or Open Source remain in SCO.

If you work for SCO you better cut your ties with Sontag/McBride or lie on your resume for your next position. Pretending to be unemployed since Caldera brought on McBride will get you further than admitting you sat idly by while your company pulled the crap that it is pulling.

SCO loves Sun more than anyone else. Apparently Sun has paid over $100 mil through the years.

AIX first, then Linux, then BSD, then Apple and then Microsoft. It seems Microsoft paid $30 mil for just an application layer... link to byte article

Well, I figured that I had heard pretty much everything moronic spewing from SCO headquarters. Well - I was wrong. Those SCO people must have some pretty wild dope there in Utah. If you really want to read some MORONIC comments, head over to Byte and get ready to fall over.

Not only are SCO's mouthpieces claiming they "own" Unix SysV - but everything that ever had an ancestry that can be traced back to SysV including any derivative work. Chris Snotrag spews that even the BSD trees may be tainted (obviously he never read anything about the last legal go-around...) Mind you everything that Snotrag spews about has been totally debunked by the OSI position paper by ESR.

Add to this - SCO making rumbles late last week that they are considering "actions" against an unnamed hardware vendor. Now who could that be? HP/HP-UX/True64? SGI/IRIX? Intel/Monterey? Weeeeee..... everyone into the pool.

Curious though - Do SCO realize the number of other parties are going to get dragged into this including ATT (they signed the original contracts in 1985 with IBM - contracts that up to now have never even been questioned), UCB (via the USL vs. BSDi lawsuit), and all the above players. If they didn't then their legal advise is totally screwy - if they did - they've got _huge_ balls!

I also wonder - did they ever consider the fact that not only the 1500 Fortune Companies they went after but also the DOJ, US Military & US Government all use *NIX extensively (they have gone way beyond AIX in violation in the Byte piece)? They have to be on serious drugs.

So - here a recap of todays events:

SCO screams at top of lungs! (playground style....)
IBM yawns....(800lb. gorilla style)

B.T.W - SCO are now making comments (in public no less) to the effect that IBM has been _deliberately_ circumventing US export controls on certain types of supercomputers!!! If there is an IBM lawyer reading this, you should look at the comments closely. (i.e. slander)

... on this can be found in a Byte.com article containing an interview with Chris Sontag, SCO's Senior Vice President.

No, but SCO did make a comment about Sun. 'Sun is clean', was the comment. I wonder how much it cost to get them to say that, since it seems that Solaris is the only OS that they are not now claiming is built on stolen IP.

Looks like SCO is not only looking at Linux. They want to own your computer. Take a look at http://www.byte.com/documents/s=8276/byt1055784622 054/0616_marshall.html

IBM is multinational by all means and any measure. International laws, i.e. laws in other countries than US may not be so overwhelmed by SCO's case inside the US as indicate in this Byte magazine article:

"It is also undeniable that the business climate in the U.S. lets someone take a far more aggressive attitude towards a competitor's customers than does the climate in Europe. SCO should have anticipated this, but Sontag seemed to be quizzical about what these European lawsuits are demanding, and how SCO should react to them. I got the impression that SCO's management was thinking entirely in terms of U.S. law, and have not thought through the international implications of their actions.

I find this amazing, especially considering that SCO's latest 10Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveals that "revenue from international customers accounted for 48 percent of operating system platform revenue." "

It's even crazier than we think. SCO isn't claiming that it (or AT&T, Novell, etc.) necessarilly wrote the code that IBM allegedly put into Linux. Rather, SCO says that it has exclusive rights to any code that IBM distributed with AIX, even if the code is entirely IBM's own word! Essentially, all code in any form of Unix belongs to SCO.

Accoding to an interview at Byte with Chris Sontag, SCO's VP, Linux is used by terrorists, and therefore IBM's Linux efforts are equivalent to selling arms to terrorists. Because of this, Sontag expects the US govt. to support his case against IBM and Linux as part of the war on terror. He also accuses Intel of using Linux as a way to flout US laws that ban weapons exports to North Korea.

Unfortunately, this is not a troll or an attempt at humor.

HERE is the article.. Sorry. And, in plain text: http://www.byte.com/documents/s=8276/byt1055784622 054/0616_marshall.html

From the Byte.com article:
"So are you saying that the U.S. government might file a "Friend of the Court Brief" to support your case against IBM?" I blurted out. "Don't be surprised" was Sontag's answer.

TIA TERMINAL:
SELECT Count(*)
INTO $RESULT
FROM GOV.WHITEHOUSE, SCO.BOARD
WHERE GOV.WHITEHOUSE.CABINET.MEMBER = SCO.BOARD.MEMBER
OR SCO.BOARD.MEMBER.LASTNAME = "CHENEY";

if $RESULT >= 0 then sidewith(SCO)
else sidewith(null)

AT&T contracts were unusual, in that they were perpetual. ...courts prefer sunset contracts, and usually insist that any IP rights lapse unless they are continually and consistently enforced.

They'll give you the Codebas3 if you give them your computer. They ownz your puter

SCO is now claiming that they could possibly own the rights to most major OSs, including the *BSDs, OSX, and possibly even Microsofts OSs.

Overall a very good read, highly recommended.

"The fundamental concept of the personal computer was to make trade-offs that guaranteed PCs would crash more often...The first PCs cut corners in ways that horrified computer scientists at the time, but the idea was to make a computer that was more affordable and more compact."

"Having 15 million lines of code isn't as bad as having 15 million lines of new code"

Millions of PC users would be overjoyed with an MTBCF of just one day. Yet mainframes are big, complex systems that often have clusters of CPUs, gigab ytes of main memory, and thousands of users. What makes them so reliable?

Mainframe experts say that it's a matter of priorities. ... . When a mainframe crashes, however, it's a major catastrophe. It's General Motors calling up IBM to demand answers.

Byte magazine had a great article too, with a nicely done chart.

Memorable line: Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Computers are from hell.

Byte magazine had a great article too, with a nicely done chart.

Memorable line: Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Computers are from hell.

It is most certainly factually correct in a general way... The whole issue, if you can call it that, is Apple did not emulate the fpu which I think was integrated on the 040 but not the 030

There was no FPU on the 020, 030, or 040LC - in fact the only Mac chip which had one built-in was the 040, so the possibility of using the math library you mention was well known at the time. People who did use it had no problem (from a math point of view) moving to PowerPC, and those that did were well aware that they were using instructions which were only supported by one type of 68K Mac.

The loss of 80 bit doubles is also a red herring - you now had native 64-bit doubles on all machines (which was a big deal at the time, since you could now assume there was a fast FPU present on all machines and not worry about trying to hack together implementations using fixed point math), and a (slower) 128-bit long double if you really really needed precision.

The original poster sounds like he has a massive chip on his shoulder about something (e.g., the fact that 90% of the Toolbox remained 68K code didn't really matter, since the critical 10% that was called most often - e.g., drawing bottlenecks - was native), but if you're interested in a more technical description of what the transition was like there's a useful article at BYTE.

Oops. It was an AMD 29K processor. Information on the 29030 Information on the 29000 processor

Not quite offtopic: back in the late 70s, some workstation designers decided they could do an intuitive user interface without waiting for bitmap displays to become affordable. The result was the form-based user interface of the CTOS operating system, which ran on special proprietary hardware. Of course, like most proprietary systems, it was driven from the marketplace by IBM compatibles. Too bad, really.

Pink? Nah, Apple already tried that.

From Dennis Ritchie's point of view, Linux is Unix.

Care to have a cite for this? I have a cite of DMR saying "As a product,
[UNIX has] certainly lost any chance to take over the mass market.", which is most certaintly not true today if he considers Mac OS X "UNIX", and possibly not true if he considers Linux "UNIX".

- Sam

As a product, [UNIX has] certainly lost any chance to take over the mass market.

- Sam

ExtremeMhz.com has released an article on how they designed and built a PC containing dual systems. One system is a supercooled Intel and the other is a water chilled AMD.

For years, you've been able to mix a PC and a SPARC in one case, and you can mix AS/400 and PC too. There are many advantages to this kind of configuration. But why would you want to mix a PC and a PC?

Talking to myself: The exact quote is "As a product, [UNIX has] certainly lost any chance to take over the mass market."

- Sam

I am not American but according to Andy Patrizio at Byte.com, Clear Channel stations all basically play the same songs and are full of ads?

Clear Channel (owner of every radio station in America)

And according to this Byte article they are not even that good. Too many advertisements, the same dull chart songs everywhere. Apparently they have real competition in the satellite radio market too, but I am not American so this is just all hearsay to me :)

There is always NPR too!

For interesting machines, at least.. together with forgotten code there are forgotten platforms out there :) (and some are still being sold, even - just try getting a Quicktime player on your Linux/alpha box... )

You remind me of the Hercules emulator though - emulates the IBM System/370 through to zSeries mainframes. Apparently runs OS/370 pretty decently on recent hardware (preferably dual-processor, at least 1GHz), and during the beta testing for Redhat 7.3 a RH engineer actually invited people to try installing Redhat/S390 on it!

That, apparently, was slow :p You can read Moshe Bar's account of it at Byte.com

Duh. I was wrong about FAT32, I was confusing it with the fact that Windows95 always had a 32-bit protected mode file system, but the format was FAT16, and also that it always supported long file names on FAT16 volumes.

But I was right about Windows For Workgroups 3.11 and its 32-bit prot-mode VFAT. See this Jon Udell piece in Byte for confirmation:

"...Why not take DOS out of the loop as well? That's what WFW 3.11's 32-bit file access feature does, using a pair of new VxDs. VFAT.386 delivers protected-mode INT 21h services..."

IBM, Thinkpad 755CV. It's an old, but spiffy laptop...Ted Selker still has one (I believe it was his idea in the first place...), and I've actually played with it.

See figure 6 of this document for a picture. See this article for more info. Then, if you want more, ask google.

Incorrect, OS/2 was SMP since 2.1. The OS/2 SMP model is still known to be one of the best SMP models to have ever been written. Click on this link http://www.byte.com/art/9406/sec11/art2.htm and learn something about OS/2 SMP (oh geez, it's 1994) and SMP in general.