UNIX tools

[RAMontante]

On iuvax here, Steve Kinzler finds:
|
| From /usr/local/calendar.history:
| 
| 	Aug 14	First Unix-based mallet created (1954)
| 
| Anyone got a clue what this is about?


Arguably, this is the first instance of a "computer game".  The mallet was
created in celebration of the just-announced invention of the transistor,
and wild-eyed Bell Labs employees ran around gleefully smashing electronic
tubes ("valves", for you younger types :) with the mallet.

At least, they tried to.  They were quickly brought up short by the
realization that their new mallet would not have any OS support for another
decade and a half.  Not only that, but they had no way to score their new
game as the Nixie-tube readouts had been among the first to be smashed.

Meanwhile, a large paper-chaff maker was positioning itself to dominate
the emergent computer industry with a siren song called "OS\360".  And
to support this monster of obscure opcodes, IBM applied the in-house
masterstroke that they used successfully against UNIX for years, until it
was finally written.

IBM's hardware answer to the UNIX mallet, the premature predecessor of
all other UNIX tools:  They Used a Bigger Hammer.