Well, since nobody else has posted a very informative answer...
Linux is based on MINIX. It was built on MINIX, using MINIX. It started off as Linus's weekend hack to build a 386-specific replacement kernel, so he could have MINIX with pre-emptive multi-tasking and memory protection. Andy Tanenbaum didn't want to make MINIX 386-specific because, like the NetBSD and Debian folks, he was trying to make something that would be portable to lots of different hardware. (Like the Atari ST I was running it on.)
Then there was the big flamewar over monolithic kernels vs modular microkernels. Linus went off in a huff and turned Linux into a complete OS by ripping out all the MINIX and adding all the GNU stuff instead. Then over the years he introduced a modular kernel and made it portable to multiple architectures, basically admitting he was wrong but never saying so.
At that point, Linux started to become usable as an OS. And in the mean time, MINIX had been killed by toxic licensing policies of the copyright owner (not Andy Tanenbaum). That, and the x86 architecture had expanded to 90% of the market. So, we arrived at the situation we have today, where MINIX is largely forgotten, and we have a MINIX-like Linux with all the mindshare.
And now, ironically, Andy Tanenbaum has made MINIX 3 only run on the x86. So perhaps he and Linus can now both admit they were wrong in major respects, and make friends?
I guess the submitter had the (clearly incorrect) belief that Slashdot readers would be familiar with the work of the guy who actually invented hypertext.
It's sad to see the procession of ignorant comments along the lines of "He doesn't know what he's talking about", "It can't possibly work", "What does he mean by XML being limited", and so on. Those making the comments should go do some basic research. Yes, some of his stuff is hard to understand. That's not because it's bullshit, it's because it is so different from what we have now. That doesn't mean it's impractical. For example, even if we never see Xanadu, I'll be grateful to Ted for the invention of Tumbler Lines, which I've used myself for data encoding. (The telephone system ought to use tumbler lines, for example.)
It's even sadder that the Xanadu project basically died because of a classic combination of technology-led development and bad project management. A lot of the technology was real; "Literary Machines" describes a big chunk of it. There are days when I still fantasize about being independently wealthy and spending my time actually implementing it cleanly, or at least building a Mac OS X ZigZag.
I do think there's one flaw with Xanadu: as the reluctance of the world to embrace CSS and the changes to copyright law have shown, most people don't want a world where information can be used and reused, even if they get paid for each use. Instead, they want a world where they can specify in exact detail what a page should look like, can control who can link to them, can decide whether you're even allowed fair use quotations. If Xanadu did exist now, it wouldn't kill the web--the web would continue as the venue for information control freaks. So in a sense, the revolution Ted really wanted can never happen now.
His book "Literary Machines" goes into great detail about how this could all be accomplished, and the Xanadu source code (released open source as Udanax) apparently has a partial implementation.
His other book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" is more the political manifesto and historical document. That one's easier to get, it was published by Microsoft Press.
There was supposedly going to be a big Xbox shortage too. I used to work across the street from Best Buy. I remember walking through every day, and they had stacks of unwanted Xboxes. Same at EB, they couldn't shift 'em and started offering special bundles.
Now, PS2 on the other hand... Those were hard to find. The worst bit was when I got a PS2, I couldn't find any Sony memory cards anywhere.
Could there be a commercial opportunity in forking Wikipedia, and then having an advertising-supported business hire some editors and professionals to verify Wikipedia articles, perhaps in conjunction with other content?
Oh yeah, make it financially beholden to advertising interests. That'll do wonders for its neutrality and comprehensiveness. It works so well for network TV, after all.
The wingnuts haven't managed to get the article deleted outright as they wanted, but they've whined until it has been removed from the featured articles list.
Bill didn't give a cent to anybody until after he got marrried, maybe it's Melinda that's the generous one. Ever think of that?
No need to speculate, if you Google you can probably find a copy of the leaked memo from Microsoft's corporate PR department, which suggested to Gates that he should consider setting up a charitable foundation in order to improve the general public's view of the corporation.
Hey presto, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation appeared shortly afterwards.
OS X definitely has the symbols as Unicode fonts, and they work in Safari. If Mozilla is still a Carbon application rather than Mach-O, that really needs fixing... I remember seeing an "experimental" Mach-O build back in the days of Mozilla 0.x, I'd have expected the real thing to be up to date by now.
Because standardization of extended character sets, via Unicode, is a relatively recent development. Hence, there's a lot of software around that still doesn't handle Unicode.
For example, I switched to bash because tcsh didn't cope with Unicode. Mozilla's Unicode support is incomplete--card symbols defined in the HTML 4.01 standard don't show up properly on the Mac, even though it definitely has them in its standard fonts. Many text editors don't support Unicode. And so on.
In fact, it's only recently that Slashdot was fixed to allow us to use words like "cliché" and enter amounts of money in Pounds Sterling like £5.99, even though those 'special' characters were part of HTML 1.0. Forget about using the aforementioned card symbols on Slashdot—we got 1996's CSS a couple of months ago, maybe we'll get 1999's HTML 4 in 2008?
Next you add in the fact that most people are too lazy to even learn to spell correctly, far less learn how to type an e with an acute accent, and you have a recipe for today's state of the web.
I find the opening of files and switching between buffers easier on emacs.
One of the vim tips on the vim web site details how to set up those otherwise useless function keys on your keyboard to switch between buffers. It doesn't get much easier than that. I also saw a tip on how to map a key to "split window, open file".
If you're really stuck with building for platforms where there's no GCC code generator, then all bets are off. You might even find yourself using a compiler that generates broken 'for' loops, like a version of Microsoft's C compiler I once had to use.
That was my first thought too. "They're equivalent, so why is anyone even asking? Any optimizing compiler will handle it."
Then I remembered that this is Slashdot, where the groupthink is that a CS degree is useless and doesn't teach anything you need to know in the real world.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since nobody else has posted a very informative answer...
Linux is based on MINIX. It was built on MINIX, using MINIX. It started off as Linus's weekend hack to build a 386-specific replacement kernel, so he could have MINIX with pre-emptive multi-tasking and memory protection. Andy Tanenbaum didn't want to make MINIX 386-specific because, like the NetBSD and Debian folks, he was trying to make something that would be portable to lots of different hardware. (Like the Atari ST I was running it on.)
Then there was the big flamewar over monolithic kernels vs modular microkernels. Linus went off in a huff and turned Linux into a complete OS by ripping out all the MINIX and adding all the GNU stuff instead. Then over the years he introduced a modular kernel and made it portable to multiple architectures, basically admitting he was wrong but never saying so.
At that point, Linux started to become usable as an OS. And in the mean time, MINIX had been killed by toxic licensing policies of the copyright owner (not Andy Tanenbaum). That, and the x86 architecture had expanded to 90% of the market. So, we arrived at the situation we have today, where MINIX is largely forgotten, and we have a MINIX-like Linux with all the mindshare.
And now, ironically, Andy Tanenbaum has made MINIX 3 only run on the x86. So perhaps he and Linus can now both admit they were wrong in major respects, and make friends?
Google for Udanax.
I guess the submitter had the (clearly incorrect) belief that Slashdot readers would be familiar with the work of the guy who actually invented hypertext.
It's sad to see the procession of ignorant comments along the lines of "He doesn't know what he's talking about", "It can't possibly work", "What does he mean by XML being limited", and so on. Those making the comments should go do some basic research. Yes, some of his stuff is hard to understand. That's not because it's bullshit, it's because it is so different from what we have now. That doesn't mean it's impractical. For example, even if we never see Xanadu, I'll be grateful to Ted for the invention of Tumbler Lines, which I've used myself for data encoding. (The telephone system ought to use tumbler lines, for example.)
It's even sadder that the Xanadu project basically died because of a classic combination of technology-led development and bad project management. A lot of the technology was real; "Literary Machines" describes a big chunk of it. There are days when I still fantasize about being independently wealthy and spending my time actually implementing it cleanly, or at least building a Mac OS X ZigZag.
I do think there's one flaw with Xanadu: as the reluctance of the world to embrace CSS and the changes to copyright law have shown, most people don't want a world where information can be used and reused, even if they get paid for each use. Instead, they want a world where they can specify in exact detail what a page should look like, can control who can link to them, can decide whether you're even allowed fair use quotations. If Xanadu did exist now, it wouldn't kill the web--the web would continue as the venue for information control freaks. So in a sense, the revolution Ted really wanted can never happen now.
His book "Literary Machines" goes into great detail about how this could all be accomplished, and the Xanadu source code (released open source as Udanax) apparently has a partial implementation.
His other book "Computer Lib/Dream Machines" is more the political manifesto and historical document. That one's easier to get, it was published by Microsoft Press.
Imagine how much time and space you'll get back when you throw out all those books and get rid of the bookshelves!
Pentium M. AMD.
Or if you're really hardcore about low power consumption, VIA C3.
They may have shipped millions of PSPs, but I still haven't seen one, and I'm not likely to buy one until I do, am I?
Mmm, yes. Sarcasm, you know?
Thank goodness the USA doesn't buy overseas TV shows and make crappy sanitized unfunny versions of them.
Microsoft don't offer a viewer for the Mac, as far as I can tell.
There was supposedly going to be a big Xbox shortage too. I used to work across the street from Best Buy. I remember walking through every day, and they had stacks of unwanted Xboxes. Same at EB, they couldn't shift 'em and started offering special bundles.
Now, PS2 on the other hand... Those were hard to find. The worst bit was when I got a PS2, I couldn't find any Sony memory cards anywhere.
...most Microsoft products will continue to be distributed under the MSBOL, the Microsoft Bend Over License.
Oh yeah, make it financially beholden to advertising interests. That'll do wonders for its neutrality and comprehensiveness. It works so well for network TV, after all.
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Libertarian_soci alism
The wingnuts haven't managed to get the article deleted outright as they wanted, but they've whined until it has been removed from the featured articles list.
There's also the option of future series called "Hoot Crowd" or "How Cod Rot".
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/10/01/leaked_ema il_exposes_ms_charity/
No need to speculate, if you Google you can probably find a copy of the leaked memo from Microsoft's corporate PR department, which suggested to Gates that he should consider setting up a charitable foundation in order to improve the general public's view of the corporation.
Hey presto, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation appeared shortly afterwards.
Oh, you know... Evil.
The usual.
OS X definitely has the symbols as Unicode fonts, and they work in Safari. If Mozilla is still a Carbon application rather than Mach-O, that really needs fixing... I remember seeing an "experimental" Mach-O build back in the days of Mozilla 0.x, I'd have expected the real thing to be up to date by now.
Because standardization of extended character sets, via Unicode, is a relatively recent development. Hence, there's a lot of software around that still doesn't handle Unicode.
For example, I switched to bash because tcsh didn't cope with Unicode. Mozilla's Unicode support is incomplete--card symbols defined in the HTML 4.01 standard don't show up properly on the Mac, even though it definitely has them in its standard fonts. Many text editors don't support Unicode. And so on.
In fact, it's only recently that Slashdot was fixed to allow us to use words like "cliché" and enter amounts of money in Pounds Sterling like £5.99, even though those 'special' characters were part of HTML 1.0. Forget about using the aforementioned card symbols on Slashdot—we got 1996's CSS a couple of months ago, maybe we'll get 1999's HTML 4 in 2008?
Next you add in the fact that most people are too lazy to even learn to spell correctly, far less learn how to type an e with an acute accent, and you have a recipe for today's state of the web.
One of the vim tips on the vim web site details how to set up those otherwise useless function keys on your keyboard to switch between buffers. It doesn't get much easier than that. I also saw a tip on how to map a key to "split window, open file".
If you're really stuck with building for platforms where there's no GCC code generator, then all bets are off. You might even find yourself using a compiler that generates broken 'for' loops, like a version of Microsoft's C compiler I once had to use.
You can convert Real to MP3 even more easily using mplayer...
Why not just get your Car Talk fix by just downloading it for free?
http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/online.html
Farty Ferret
Odiferous Otter
Stinky Mink
That was my first thought too. "They're equivalent, so why is anyone even asking? Any optimizing compiler will handle it."
Then I remembered that this is Slashdot, where the groupthink is that a CS degree is useless and doesn't teach anything you need to know in the real world.