[R] Reminiscing on 20 years using S

[roger koenker]

On Dec 26, 2007, at 2:05 PM, Greg Snow wrote:

>
> I realized earlier this year (2007) that it was in 1987 that I first
> started using an early version of S (it was ported to VMS and was  
> called
> success).  That means that I have been using some variant of S (to
> various degrees) for over 20 years now (I don't feel that old).
>

Boxing day somehow seems appropriate for this thread.  R.I.P. to all  
those old boxes
of yesteryore and the software that ran on them -- and yet there is  
always a residual  archaeological curiosity.

I discovered recently that the MIT athena network contains a circa  
1989 version
of S:  http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/astaff/project/Sdev/S/  which  
made me wonder
whether there was any likelihood that one could recreate "S Thu Dec  7  
16:49:47 EST 1989".
Curiosity is one thing, time to dig through the layers of ancient  
civilizations is quite another.
But if anyone would like to offer a (preferably educated) guess about  
the feasibility of  such a project, like I said, I would be curious.


url:    www.econ.uiuc.edu/~roger                Roger Koenker
email   rkoenker at uiuc.edu                       Department of Economics
vox:    217-333-4558                            University of Illinois
fax:    217-244-6678                            Champaign, IL 61820