[Warning: Suited for techies and tech enthusiasts; others may find it boring] I was talking to one of the new joiners at our firm today - we were talking about a client using Sun's hardware for a project when he asked why Sun ran only Solaris and no other OS - I started to explain him that Solaris was actually a Unix variant when the conversation turned to free software, Linux etc. and generally into the lineage of operating systems, the history of modern computing etc. During our brief chat I realized that for most of us post-90's generation, the seeming "excitement" times in computing were either the mid-90's when Linux and GNU/ FSF grew or it was even later when Web2.0, Software as a Service etc grew. But I think the most exciting times for the computing industry when the real "pirates" swarmed the industry was the period of 60s / 70s when the foundation of the personal computing world was being laid. The foundation of personal computing - unlik