Not to diminish Unix's importance, it is a link in the chain -- but what a link it is! When MS is bankrupt, Windoze won't fit onto a DVD and no affordable hardware will be able to run it, Unix will be here. I run FreeBSD on my desktop and still enjoy firing up my AT&T 6300+ and playing with SVR2. Amazingly, the two computers, separated by more than 20 years, interact very nicely through a RS232 connection.