Ontario's Computer: The Burroughs ICON (2022)
jasoneckert.github.io
jasoneckert.github.io
I eventually figured out a few ways to give myself root. The passwords in the password file were not hashed. First method was to spoof the login prompt. Ran it remotely from another computer on another computer that I knew the teacher would always log into. Once I succeeded in getting root's password, I put another method into one of the boot up scripts which would copy the password file somewhere else if another file was present. All I had to do then was just reboot a computer to get root's password. Later I was able to figure out the memory location where the group and user number was stored by comparing the memory dumps while being logged in as various users. Then I just needed to poke those memory locations, start a new shell, and I was root.
It's a shame that these computers have kind of disappeared. They are a part of computing history, for Ontario at least. I've contacted a few people online that still have hardware. Everyone seems to be unwilling to share what they have.
To preserve the history, I think it would help if they could be emulated. Even a modern web browser probably possesses enough computer power to emulate them. They ran on a 286, at least the early ones did.
There was a trackball integrated into the case. Some buttons on the keyboard acted as buttons for the mouse cursor.
One of the most popular programs on these computers was a program called FGED. It would save animations that could be played back later. Some people would spend hours creating them, then later play them back for their friends.
Later version of the ICON supported DOS games. I remember playing "scorched earth": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(video_game)
Burroughs was always big on being able to network computers together. Their B20 line was awesome on the amount of sharing you could do between systems. Lots of sites had one or two machines with disks on them, the rest would use the network to get to the data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_B20
[12] fake_login
Where 12 was the remote computer I wanted to run it on. The networking was definitely ahead of what was possible with PC's.
This is a sad part of history, I vividly remember hearing this had happened. Growing up in Ontario with computer labs full of these up until the mid to late 90's, graph paper hanging on the walls with LOGO programs, and games, so many games (Oregon trail, Cross Country Canada), and then they started getting replaced with PC's in classrooms. I remember missing a local auction or something that had a bunch of these Burroughs (later Unisys) ICONs for $5/$10, but without the LEXICON server they were functionally useless, I still regret not picking one up.
Always happy whenever someone else remembers them.
But that might have meant software and support costs, and can't have that.
I too am glad they are remembered.
Ontario's Computer: The Burroughs ICON - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30894348 - April 2022 (34 comments)
From there, somehow the GUI made it possible to trackball-and-action-key my way to admin privileges and change the login motd for everyone in the school.
My downfall was sharing that info with more destructive classmates who changed the password of the administrator and supposedly almost got me charged with mischief.
Keyboarding class in grade 9 though was made a bit more interesting despite already being able to touch type, as I somehow figured out how to drop to the (quite limited) QNX command prompt.
Well, I suppose for the same reason the "talk" command (which wrote a message to all networked terminals) was removed after the first day.
(it's shown on the motherboard, 7th image down)