Sorry, Wrong!

The FAA requires up-to-date charts appropriate for the routes being flown. The FAA has approved these as legal substitutes for printed charts as long as they are current (at Least IPads are, I assume Delta will be getting approval for these things).

So unless they are also carrying the "38 pounds" of paper charts, these things ARE flight critical devices by definition.

I don't know about most frequent, but my migration path has been basically as in the subject line TOPS10-Multics-Unix-Linux.

There are lots of details and side branches. For example, there would be a long side branch next to Multics and Unix where Lisp machines were a primary parallel tool. But that was not so much a migration as a dual-use. I was doing Lisp on TOPS10, Multics, and Solaris at the same times.

The Unix branch could be detailed with V6, V7, BSDs, SunOS/Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, etc. but as those came to end of life there was not so much of a migration as an upgrade. Linux follows that in natural progression.

Finally, I have touched most of the rest of the systems as side branches. Everything from the MVS family to the DEC RT/RSX/VMS things to offerings from Data General, Tandom, Prime, etc. all the way to the various DOS and Windows stuff on Intel. But I wouldn't call any of those migrations. Just temporary offshoots. The Lisp machines were the only side branch long-enough and important enough to consider as a "migration".

There is a more compelling reason beyond pure entertainment that speaks to the original question of relevance to computer science and software engineering.

I was an early player of Adventure on a PDP-10. At that time all software, even in languages like Fortran, were specific to a single architecture thorough non-standard libraries, internal use of architectural features, etc. Adventure was the FIRST system that was valuable enough (for whatever reasons) that it was ported to practically everything out there. It was neat at the time to be at some trade show, go to the Data General or Interdata booth and find Adventure running as a demo.

Today we take portability of Linux, Android, C or python or Perl programs, or practically anything else as a given. It is difficult for those not there at the time to appreciate just how different this was in a world of universal walled gardens. But at the time Adventure was unique and, I contend, worthy of study for just that reason.

And now that Aaron Swartz is gone, this is a wonderful way to identify the next targets...

That's GNU/FLOSHW...

SLS on Floppies
Slackware
RedHat
Fedora

Addison Wesley 1976.
It showed the Unix Philosophy to a larger audience than Version 6 could reach at the time.
Best programming book ever if you want to go for pragmatic influence rather than computer science.
It also came with the ability to get the code. While the code is now dated, the philosophy is still leading edge. And lots of us played with that code.

Ah the memories! Fortran was still ubiquitous. It made Fortran usable. Kind of makes me want to go dig up RATFOR and do something...

I fly myself in my own plane. I make sure to give myself a good security check before each flight to make sure I'm not a terrorist.

The whole point of Microsoft developing .net was Microsoft trying to embrace-extend Java with Microsoft-only bits and Sun suing Microsoft over use of the name
"Java". Microsoft took their marbles and went off to play in their own yard creating .net.

The only difference here is that Sun sued over calling something "Java" that wasn't exactly Java. Oracle is doing something a bit deeper in that they are saying that Google can't fork the language even if they call it something different.

But Java has already been forked into "real-java" vs ".net/mono/etc". If this suit were being done in some dream world where a still-existing Sun were suing Microsoft over the Java-like structure of .net, then I think the perception would be quite different than Oracle vs Google. the real question here is how much control software patents give over a language.

Superintendent James Hayes sees the technology as an essential move to prepare kids for the future. The School Committee approved the move last year, and Hayes said he's getting the news out now so families can prepare. 'We have one platform,' Hayes said. 'And that's going to be the Mac.'"

...and I know how to turn on the camera so I can watch the children getting ready for bed... Ummm I mean in case the computer gets stolen...

Yet

Yet

And the longer you refuse to haul your sorry ass down to vote, the closer the "Yets" get.

I picked up an Asus EEEBox 202, burned the Fedora-10 dvd to a USB key, and made a home server for DNS, DHCP, wireless, etc. Needed to get updated drivers for the wireless but that was trivial...

Love the box. Low power. Runs everything.

Asimov: "Not as we know it". Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sept 1961.

Reprinted in View from a Height, Doubleday, 1963.

Asimov did his usual concise job of working through alternative chemistries. Better than this article in my opinion.