ugh.book

The UNIX-HATERS History xxiii

bolics Lisp Machine (affectionately known as a LispM), one of two state-
of-the-art AI workstations at the Lab. But it was all coming to an end. In
the interest of cost and efficiency, the Media Lab had decided to purge its
LispMs. If Travers wanted to continue doing research at MIT, he discov-
ered, he would have to use the Lab’s VAX mainframe.

The VAX ran Unix.

MIT has a long tradition of mailing lists devoted to particular operating
systems. These are lists for systems hackers, such as ITS-LOVERS, which
was organized for programmers and users of the MIT Artificial Intelli-
gence Laboratory’s Incompatible Timesharing System. These lists are for
experts, for people who can—and have—written their own operating sys-
tems. Michael Travers decided to create a new list. He called it UNIX-
HATERS:

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 87 13:13:41 EDT

From: Michael Travers <mt>

To: UNIX-HATERS

Subject: Welcome to UNIX-HATERS

In the tradition of TWENEX-HATERS, a mailing list for surly folk

who have difficulty accepting the latest in operating system technol-

ogy.

If you are not in fact a Unix hater, let me know and I’ll remove you.

Please add other people you think need emotional outlets for their

frustration.

The first letter that Michael sent to UNIX-HATERS included a well-rea-
soned rant about Suns written by another new member of the Unix Gulag:
John Rose, a programmer at a well-known Massachusetts computer manu-
facturer (whose lawyers have promised not to sue us if we don’t print the
company’s name). Like Michael, John had recently been forced to give up
a Lisp Machine for a computer running Unix. Frustrated after a week of
lost work, he sent this message to his company’s internal support mailing
list: