x-posted from financial cryptography blog w/regards some history of
e-commerce on the internet

Builders V. Breakers
https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001100.html

we had been brought in to consult with this small client/server startup
that wanted to do payment transactions on their server ... and they had
this technology they had invented called SSL which they wanted to
use. in previous life, we had worked with the two people responsible for
the "commerce" server (on scaleup for high integrity, high availability,
high thruput DBMS).

we had sign-off on various aspects of the server to payment gateway
operation ... so could mandate various things about industrial strength
networking (before things like internet SLA contracts, so had to
invent/design compensating processes). lots of past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtnetork.html#gateway

On Sep 13, 9:23 pm, Al Kossow spies.com> wrote:

I had a quick look at the Q-7A document which I think you're referring
to (on bitsavers) and both it
and the 4020 description seem very much like proposals to see if there
was any interest in paying the
bill at the Pentagon. I doubt either ever got much beyond this
stage. I recall that the last SAGE
machine, decommissioned around 1982, was a vacuum tube machine, and if
the Q7-A had been built and deployed,
it would certainly have lived on later than that.

Just as a point of possible interest, the 4020 name was also used by
an early microfilm and hard copy
recorder built by Stromberg-Carlson, called the S-C 4020. Just a
coincidence.

Peter Capek

RCN shut down all its newsservers 3 days ago. Thanks to Charlie, I
already had newsguy written down to use when I'd gone to Michigan.

I had to start using them now. What PITA.

Can you hear me now?

/BAH

Things have definitely been hopping at the
new Commodor mail list at Vcsweb.com. I've
already posted 5 news items there with another
one coming tonight, and we've had our first
little bit of discussion.
The new mission of the Commodor mail list
-- a focus on 8-bit C= news, announcements, and
discussions pertaining to such subjects. All
mail list members are encouraged to participate
in this new focus.
If you want to be a part of this mail
list, send an e-mail to
Commodor-request@vcsweb.com with the word
Subscribe in the subject or body, and you will
get back a message with further instructions.
The Commodor mail list is the oldest known
C= mail list, originating from the early 1990's
at the University of Buffalo in New York State.
It has been moved to Vcsweb.com, due to
changes in the university policies. ...

VMware Chief Says the OS Is History
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151147/vmware_chief_says_the_os_is_history...

from above:

VMware's CEO made his pitch on Tuesday for a new type of operating
system for the data center, and in the process assigned the "traditional
OS" to the dustbin of history.

... snip ...

pitch goes on to say that most of the new generation of software doesn't
exist yet ... but this has been a repeated theme over the past year or
so ... including reference to various kinds of things called virtual
appliances.

misc. references:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007m.html#67 Operating systems are old and busted
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#3 Hypervisors May Replace Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center...

A while back, there was a discussion of stacks with the spring loaded plate
stacker as an analogy. There is a picture on page 111 of the Fall 1962 AFIPS
conference which shows the stacker as a mechanical analogy for the KDF-9
'nested store' ie. stack.

data from a larger (but still linux-centered) sample;

968 G2
662 Microsoft
159 Forte
116 Thunderbird
50 Mozilla
41 Xnews
25 MicroPlanet-Gravity
24 MT-NewsWatcher
18 KNode
17 Gnus
17 40tude_Dialog
16...

IBM celebrates forgotten supercomputer
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=104356&pagtype=all

from above:

It was fifty years ago this week that IBM built the Stretch
supercomputer, and IBM marked the event on Thursday with a retrospective
at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, attended by
three of the system's pioneers: Fred Brooks, Fran Allen and Harwood
Kolsky.

... snip ...

Welfare babies, greasy diners and other tidbits

Yes it's James and yes I'm back to express my opinions on several hot
topics germane to the here and now. First, nigs on welfare. Because
these women can't seem to understand the concept of using birth
control and because they appear all to eager to spread their legs to
any Tom, Dick or Tyrone, our government is left footing the bill for
the resulting future car thieves. A solution? Cut off all benefits
after 1 year. Educate the ones who want it so they can find a real job
and above all, keep up with current affairs in our nation's welfare
program. There is no shortage of liberal ass polyps in suits out there
lobbying for even more rights for these lazy sloths.

Next up, greasy diners. I've eaten at my fair share of them while out
on the road and for the most part, they offer a pretty good selection
of Americana food however it was my recent misfortune to run...

Please follow the link below to the CDC "Diode transfer circuit"
patent by Jim Thornton and Seymour Cray:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=WLVcAAAAEBAJ&dq=thornton+cray&jtp=1#PPA1,M1