<div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>Attached is the one I have been toying with. Ignore the 'v7' part I added.</div><div><br></div><div>Ken<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Mar 4, 2023 at 9:41 AM Noel Chiappa <<a href="mailto:jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu">jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> > From: Clem Cole wrote:<br>
<br>
> It had more colorful name originally - fsck (pronounced as fisk BTW)<br>
> was finished. I suspect the fcheck name was a USG idea. <br>
<br>
I dunno. I don't think we at MIT wold have gratuitously changed the name to<br>
'fcheck'; I rather think that was its original name - and we pretty<br>
definitely got it from CMU. 'fsck' was definitely descended from 'fcheck'<br>
(below).<br>
<br>
<br>
> From: Jonathan Gray<br>
<br>
>> (are 'fsck' and 'fcheck' the same program?)<br>
<br>
> <a href="https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7addenda/fsck" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7addenda/fsck</a><br>
<br>
Having looked the the source to both, it's quite clear that 'fcheck' is a<br>
distant ancestor of 'fsck' (see below for thoughts on the connection(s)). The<br>
latter has been _very_ extensively modified, but there are still some traces<br>
of 'fcheck' left.<br>
<br>
A lot of the changes are to increase the portability, and also to come into<br>
compliance with the latest 'C' (e.g. function prototypes); others are just to<br>
get rid of oddities in the original coding style. E.g.:<br>
<br>
unsigned<br>
dsize,<br>
fmin,<br>
fmax<br>
;<br>
<br>
Perfectly legal C, but nobody uses that style.<br>
<br>
<br>
> From: Jonathan Gray<br>
<br>
> fcheck is from Hal Pierson at Bell according to<br>
> <a href="https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/CB_Unix/readme.txt" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/CB_Unix/readme.txt</a><br>
<br>
Hmm. "the major features that were added to UNIX by CB/UNIX ... Hal Person<br>
(or Pierson?) also rewrote the original check disk command into something<br>
that was useful by someone other than researchers."<br>
<br>
I poked around in CB/UNIX, and found 'check(1M)':<br>
<br>
<a href="https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/CB_Unix/cbunix_man1_01.pdf" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/CB_Unix/cbunix_man1_01.pdf</a><br>
<br>
(dated November 1979). Alas, the source isn't there, but it's clearly in the<br>
fheck/fsck family. (CB/UNIX also has chkold(1M), which looks to me like it's<br>
'icheck'.)<br>
<br>
So now we have a question about the ancestry of 'check' and 'fcheck' - is one<br>
an ancestor of the other, and if so, which - or are they independent<br>
creations? Without the source, it's hard to be definitive, bur from the<br>
messages (as given in the manual), they do seem related.<br>
<br>
Clem's message of 3 Mar, 14:35 seems to indicate the the original was from<br>
CMU, authored by Ted Kowalski; he also:<br>
<br>
<a href="https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=anecdotes:clem_cole_student" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=anecdotes:clem_cole_student</a><br>
<br>
says "Ted Kowalski shows up for his OYOC year in the EE dept after his summer<br>
at Bell Labs ... He also brought his cool (but unfinished) program he had<br>
started to write originally at U Mich - fsck". So maybe the CB/UNIX 'check' is<br>
descended from a version that Ted left behind at Bell Labs?<br>
<br>
Is anyone in touch with Hal Pierson? He could surely clear up these questions.<br>
<br>
Noel<br>
</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>End of line</div><div>JOB TERMINATED</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div>