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The Unisys Icon: One Canadian Xennial's Memories of Ontario's Obscure Computer

80 点作者 ecolonsmak4 个月前

13 条评论

jasoneckert4 个月前
The picture in this blog is the later version of the ICON, but it ran the same QNX OS, programs, and games, and used the same LEXICON file server for it all.<p>In case anyone is interested in more information about the earlier version of the ICON (and the LEXICON file server it ran from), here are my two blogs posts:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jasoneckert.github.io&#x2F;myblog&#x2F;icon-computer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jasoneckert.github.io&#x2F;myblog&#x2F;icon-computer&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jasoneckert.github.io&#x2F;myblog&#x2F;lexicon-computer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jasoneckert.github.io&#x2F;myblog&#x2F;lexicon-computer&#x2F;</a><p>One interesting QNX command we used to get in trouble in high school was apb (all points bulletin) - here&#x27;s a demo of it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kr8ts6zV2DU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=kr8ts6zV2DU</a>
bitwize4 个月前
The 186 produced some obscure, kinda great, but ultimately doomed (due to not being PC compatible) systems in the early 80s. My favorites are the Tandy 2000 and the Mindset. This is one I haven&#x27;t heard of.<p>I&#x27;m also fascinated by the early Canadian personal computer scene. They were trying some innovative things in the great white North. Things like the mostly PC compatible Hyperion, which beat the Compaq Portable to market by a hair (and which <i>You Can&#x27;t Do That on Television</i> star Christine McGlade famously carried in to work on her motorcycle), and the NABU, an early network computer concept whose software was downloaded through a television cable network (unlike the ICON it was successfully rescued from total obscurity).
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Scoundreller4 个月前
&gt; Each Unisys ICON came with its own monitor and a very robust keyboard with a trackball embedded in it.<p>The trackballs were robust indeed.<p>Due to the client&#x2F;server nature; a classroom of kids logging in at the same time could take several minutes and most of that time would be filled with a classroom of 7 year olds spinning the heck out of the tennis ball sized trackball.<p>One more knowledgeable teacher once told us that the this probably made the computers slower because each time you do something it has to pause and decide what to do. I guess he understood interrupts somehow.<p>But that logic doesn’t work on 8 year olds with a trackball and nothing else to do.
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nubinetwork4 个月前
Ah the icon... the one system where you can just tell it to run a shell as root to gain superuser privileges...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.juliandunn.net&#x2F;2006&#x2F;08&#x2F;21&#x2F;on-hacking-the-unisys-icon&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.juliandunn.net&#x2F;2006&#x2F;08&#x2F;21&#x2F;on-hacking-the-unisys-...</a>
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sillywalk4 个月前
Previous Discussion:<p>87 points by jasoneckert on April 4, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 34 comments<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30894348">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=30894348</a>
cabinguy4 个月前
Ah, Unisys. I used to buy&#x2F;sell refurbished laptops and stumbled upon a couple thousand Unisys laptops, one time. Pentium 133’s &amp; 166’s. I wasn’t very familiar with them, but luckily they were all in “like new” condition when I got them. At that time I was probably paying sub $1&#x2F;Mhz and selling them for $3-4-5&#x2F;Mhz…so I have very fond memories of Unisys as well. The good old days.
31337Logic4 个月前
I used these in grade school back when I lived in Ontario. Your write-up on these is detailed and brought back lots and lots of memories. Thank you!!
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mmphosis4 个月前
I implemented the very slow flood fill for Spectricon, the paint software.
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clwg4 个月前
I grew up in Ottawa, where QNX originates. My high school must have had someone with family connections to the company, because we could have built a significant Beowulf cluster with all the Icons.<p>These systems had numerous problems, one of which was the school board&#x27;s severe lack of resources to manage them. The teachers were limited in what they were allowed or able to do, so if a lab went down, it typically took about a week to get someone to fix it. As students, we used this to our advantage. I have fond memories of causing all sorts of issues on these systems as a kid. Another perk was that my school wasn’t air-conditioned, except for the computer labs, so during the hot months it&#x27;s where you wanted to be.
overthink4 个月前
My highschool had dozens of these. Hazy memories from 30+ years ago but I seem to recall they had a chat program called Coco (?). I remember chatting with friends in the library while in typing class and getting in trouble for it. High tech!
xattt4 个月前
My Scarborough elementary school in the early&#x2F;mid 1990s must have been an exception.<p>Each classroom had a IIe, some with green screens and some with colour monitors. All outfitted with a well-rounded collection of educational game 5 1&#x2F;4” floppies.<p>We also had a networked Mac Plus computer lab with a couple of Performas at the “head” of the table.
rbanffy4 个月前
We need a lot more photos of these machines. Maybe even 3D scans.
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Farfignoggen4 个月前
Well I&#x27;ve seen and programmed on Burroughs Corporation Mainframes(IBM Mainframes as well) and have seen an actual Sperry Corporation Univac Mainframe Drum Storage system(Ginormous beast) in actual use! And has anyone here actually played Space Invaders(ASCII Characters used) on a Burroughs TD830 CRT monitor! And modern day Unisys is the merger of those 2 mainframe makers some time ago!<p>But none here are maybe from that Era that was coming to a close in the late 70s and are not yet qualified to shake their fist and angrily yell at that singular cloud floating in a beautiful blue sky!
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