A Brief History of System Administration

With Dr. Peter H. Salus, technology historian

In the modern age, most folks have at least a vague idea what system administrators do: work tirelessly to meet the needs of their users and organizations, plan and implement a robust computing environment, and pull proverbial rabbits out of many different hats. Although sysadmins are often viewed as underpaid and underappreciated, most users can at least identify their friendly local sysadmin—in many cases, more quickly than they can name their boss’s boss.

It wasn’t always this way. Over the last 50 years (and the 30-year history of ...

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