[l3robot]

"It was a time when companies weren’t afraid to invest in basic science." No they were probably afraid, but they were forced to invest in science by states. AT&T did not decide to invest massively in science and risky projects like Unix, they were forced to. Please stop thinking companies are behind innovation. A great piece of article that demestify this myth: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/11/tech-inno...

[mannykannot]

AT&T was forced by the government to invest massively in Unix? That does not fit with what I have heard about its origins, which was as a shoestring project of Ken Thompson, Dennis Richie, and a few other collaborators [1]. If anything, the government prevented AT&T from following up on the initial development, as part of its anti-trust measures that allowed AT&T a telephone monopoly while preventing it from expanding into computing and related technologies.

The article you link to may describe the current state of affairs, but it does not properly characterize the state of affairs in the 1950s and beyond, when many major technology corporations had research laboratories. While their activities were nominally directed towards future products and profitability, in practice this was interpreted quite freely, leading to things like Unix, as well as scientific work.

[1]http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch02s01.html

[s17n]

In addition to generally being a garbage piece of writing, the linked article doesn't actually provide a citation for AT&T being "forced" to invest in anything.

Please somebody downvote this.

[choonway]

The push came most likely from the pressures of the cold war. Now that it is long over, threats like Russia/Syria/ISIS/North Korea/China don't provide the same level of urgency to compete as before.

[fjsolwmv]

We are also past the era where someone like Shannon or Turing noodling on a sheet of paper could invent a war-changing idea.