Warren Toomey, the founder and maintainer of all things related to The Unix Heritage Society (TUHS) https://www.tuhs.org/ has been awarded the 2022 USENIX Lifetime Achievment Award (“The Flame”).

Without TUHS, it would hardly even be possible to enjoy retro unix explorations. This is a well earned accolade by an unassuming and very hard working individual.

Congratulations, Warren!

flame

About Warren Toomey

Warren retired in 2021 after a three decade career of teaching Computer Science and IT in tertiary institutions including the University of New South Wales, Bond University and TAFE Queensland (a polytechnic/community college). His teaching was always systems focussed: computer architecture, operating systems, systems programming, networking and cybersecurity. Warren was first introduced to Unix at the end of 1982 at a Summer School at the University of Wollongong, but lost access to it when he started his undergraduate degree in 1984. This loss was the driving force behind his fascination with Unix and its history. Fortunately, Minix, 386BSD and FreeBSD came along at just the right time to slake Warren’s thirst for Unix. He founded the Unix Heritage Society in 1994 (originally named the PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society) and has nurtured it since. Now retired, Warren’s interests now include dressage riding, and he has become a competent groom for his wife Kaz, a professional ‘Big Tour’ rider.

Past recipients of the Flame

  • Chet Ramey (2020)
  • Margo Seltzer (2019)
  • Eddie Kohler (2018)
  • Tom Anderson (2014)
  • John Mashey (2012)
  • Dan Geer (2011)
  • Ward Cunningham (2010)
  • In Honor of Gerald J. Popek (2009)
  • Andrew S. Tanenbaum (2008)
  • Peter Honeyman (2007)
  • Radia Perlman (2006)
  • Michael Stonebraker (2005)
  • M. Douglas McIlroy (2004)
  • Rick Adams (2003)
  • James Gosling (2002)
  • The GNU Project and all its contributors (2001)
  • Richard Stevens (2000)
  • The X Window System Community at Large (1999)
  • Tim Berners-Lee (1998)
  • Brian W. Kernighan (1997)
  • The Software Tools Project (1996)
  • The Creation of USENET (1995)
  • Networking Technologies (1994)
  • Berkeley UNIX (1993)

Read more about the award and its recipients at https://www.usenix.org/about/awards/flame

Read more about why Warren started TUHS at https://minnie.tuhs.org/Blog/2015_12_14_why_start_tuhs.html

- will

post added 2022-12-15 17:52:00 -0600