From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Tue Oct 3 11:25:18 2023 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2023 21:25:18 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of yacc Message-ID: Steve, Was Yacc an original coinage, or was it inspired by a similar acronym for yet another whatever? The question is inspired by Yamoo, yet another map of Orion, which is mentioned in today's NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/orion-nebula-webb-planets.html. Do the two acronyms share a common ancestor? Doug From ron at ronnatalie.com Wed Oct 4 05:14:35 2023 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2023 19:14:35 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of yacc In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: According to WIkipedia (for what that’s worth), it was Stephen Johnson’s coining of it for YACC that started it all. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Douglas McIlroy" To "TUHS main list" ; scj at yaccman.com Date 10/2/23, 9:25:18 PM Subject [TUHS] etymology of yacc >Steve, > >Was Yacc an original coinage, or was it inspired by a similar acronym >for yet another whatever? The question is inspired by Yamoo, yet >another map of Orion, which is mentioned in today's NYT: >https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/orion-nebula-webb-planets.html. >Do the two acronyms share a common ancestor? > >Doug From bakul at iitbombay.org Wed Oct 4 05:42:18 2023 From: bakul at iitbombay.org (Bakul Shah) Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2023 12:42:18 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of yacc In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54A5F4A7-8EF0-4D07-A712-2FEA6DF2168D@iitbombay.org> From https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534771/yacc--unix--and-advice-from--bell-labs-alumni-stephen-johnson.html What made you name your parser generator in the form of an acronym: Yet Another Compiler Compiler? There were other Compiler-compilers in use at Bell Labs, especially as part of the Multics project. I was familiar with a version of McClure's TMG. When Jeff Ullman heard about my program, he said in astonishment "Another compiler-compiler?". Thus the name... > On Oct 2, 2023, at 6:25 PM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > Steve, > > Was Yacc an original coinage, or was it inspired by a similar acronym > for yet another whatever? The question is inspired by Yamoo, yet > another map of Orion, which is mentioned in today's NYT: > https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/orion-nebula-webb-planets.html. > Do the two acronyms share a common ancestor? > > Doug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wobblygong at gmail.com Wed Oct 4 15:22:38 2023 From: wobblygong at gmail.com (Wesley Parish) Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2023 18:22:38 +1300 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of yacc In-Reply-To: <54A5F4A7-8EF0-4D07-A712-2FEA6DF2168D@iitbombay.org> References: <54A5F4A7-8EF0-4D07-A712-2FEA6DF2168D@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: I thought that was probably the reason. Compiler-compilers weren't exactly news by that time ... On 4/10/23 08:42, Bakul Shah wrote: > From > https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534771/yacc--unix--and-advice-from--bell-labs-alumni-stephen-johnson.html > > > *What made you name your parser generator in the form of an > acronym: Yet Another Compiler Compiler?* There were other > Compiler-compilers in use at Bell Labs, especially as part of the > Multics project. I was familiar with a version of McClure's TMG. > When Jeff Ullman heard about my program, he said in astonishment > "Another compiler-compiler?". Thus the name... > >> On Oct 2, 2023, at 6:25 PM, Douglas McIlroy >> wrote: >> >> Steve, >> >> Was Yacc an original coinage, or was it inspired by a similar acronym >> for yet another whatever? The question is inspired by Yamoo, yet >> another map of Orion, which is mentioned in today's NYT: >> https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/orion-nebula-webb-planets.html. >> Do the two acronyms share a common ancestor? >> >> Doug > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.bowling at kev009.com Wed Oct 4 16:52:24 2023 From: kevin.bowling at kev009.com (Kevin Bowling) Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2023 23:52:24 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Known Specimens of Pre-5ESS UNIX Telephone Switching Software? In-Reply-To: <1eaf63bd-5394-a692-ad42-c8dd5c1a741c@osta.com> References: <202309260137.38Q1btZU325043@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <1eaf63bd-5394-a692-ad42-c8dd5c1a741c@osta.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 7:46 PM Heinz Lycklama wrote: > > To answer Jon's following question (2 minutes later): > ________________________________ > Oh yeah, and I think that this is why Heinz wrote MERT, > but he should know more than me about it. > ________________________________ > Yes, my Dept. in MH was involved in the early days of digital switching > and the need for real-time response was certainly recognized. > But MERT was not developed with a specific telephony project in mind. > I was mostly involved in software in support of current projects > being done in the Dept. We started the MERT project at the > time that DEC announced their PDP-11/45 mini-computer in > the early 1970's because it supported 3 separate address > spaces - system, supervisor, and user. This enabled us to > run operating system environments with different user > application program needs, specifically real-time under > control of one supervisor and time-sharing applications > in another supervisor, to start with. Hence its name - > Multi-Environment Real Time (MERT). Once we had MERT up > and running on the PDP-11/45 and PDP-11/70 computers, some > projects in other Bell Labs locations involved in telephony projects > started building their projects on the MERT system. The > DMERT system was developed later on by projects at yet > another Bell Labs location. I don't have access to IEEE but there is a paper on MERT https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6770410. The 3B20D and DMERT are also cronicaled in the BSTJ, I have hard copies of that but it should be on IEEE. There is a lot of detail on the 3B20D and 3B21D in the 254 BSPs as well as some coverage of UNIX RTR https://www.telecomarchive.com/plant-all.html. There is more coverage of the 3B20 elsewhere, for instance https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1500412.1500418. Wing N. Toy, one of the hardware engineers, published some nice books that tangentially touch on these designs but contain a lot of great microcoding knowledge. Regards, Kevin > Heinz > > On 9/25/2023 6:37 PM, Jon Steinhart wrote: > > segaloco via TUHS writes: > > Hello, my studies lately bring me to the question: Are there any extant > examples of telephone switching software, built on UNIX, from the various > parts of the Bell System prior to the introduction of the 5ESS and 3B20D? > My focus veers earlier as some 5ESS/3B20D/DMERT technology is still in > active use, that sleeping dragon can lie. > > What's gotten me curious is reading about 1ESS in a BSTJ volume I > picked up, noting the particulars on how previous concerns of manual and > electro-mechanical systems were abstracted into software. Even without > surviving examples, were previous systems such as the 1ESS central > control ever ported to or considered for porting to UNIX, or was the > hardware interface to the telco lines too specific to consider a future > swap-out with, say, a PDP11 running arbitrary software? Columbus's SCCS > (switching, not source code) also comes to mind, although all I know that > survives of that is the CB-UNIX 2.3 manual descriptions of bits and pieces. > > By the way, it's funny, I have UNIX to thank for my current experiments > with telephones and other signalling stuff, what with making me study the > Bell System more generally. It's starting to come full circle in that I > want to take a crack at reading dialing, at least pulse, into some sort > of software abstraction on a SBC that can, among other things, provide a > switching service on top of a UNIX-like kernel. I don't know what I'd do > with such a thing other than assign work conference call rooms their own > phone numbers to dial with a telephone on a serial line...but if I can even > get that far I'd call it a success. One less dependency on the mobile... > > - Matt G. > > Heinz might know something about this. If I remember correctly, one of the > projects in his group was SS1, an all-digital exchange. I have some vague > memory of him and Carl poring over some gigantic switch statement looking > for a bug - the long distance code wasn't sending the ST pulse and as a > result all of the key pulse senders at the Berkeley Heights telephone > exchange were taken off line and needed a technician to go in and manually > reset them. They were not amused. Fortunately, they and BTL were both > children of Ma Bell. > > If my memory serves me correctly, the system had a pair of PDP-11/10s that > ran Hal Alles's digital filter code, a PDP11/70 behind the whole thing, > Harry Breece's active replacement circuitry for the hybrid transformers, > and some huge insanely fast wire-wrapped boards designed by John Sheets > that did TDM switching. > > Jon > > From kevin.bowling at kev009.com Fri Oct 6 00:19:03 2023 From: kevin.bowling at kev009.com (Kevin Bowling) Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2023 07:19:03 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Known Specimens of Pre-5ESS UNIX Telephone Switching Software? In-Reply-To: References: <202309260137.38Q1btZU325043@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <1eaf63bd-5394-a692-ad42-c8dd5c1a741c@osta.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Oct 3, 2023 at 11:52 PM Kevin Bowling wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 26, 2023 at 7:46 PM Heinz Lycklama wrote: > > > > To answer Jon's following question (2 minutes later): > > ________________________________ > > Oh yeah, and I think that this is why Heinz wrote MERT, > > but he should know more than me about it. > > ________________________________ > > Yes, my Dept. in MH was involved in the early days of digital switching > > and the need for real-time response was certainly recognized. > > But MERT was not developed with a specific telephony project in mind. > > I was mostly involved in software in support of current projects > > being done in the Dept. We started the MERT project at the > > time that DEC announced their PDP-11/45 mini-computer in > > the early 1970's because it supported 3 separate address > > spaces - system, supervisor, and user. This enabled us to > > run operating system environments with different user > > application program needs, specifically real-time under > > control of one supervisor and time-sharing applications > > in another supervisor, to start with. Hence its name - > > Multi-Environment Real Time (MERT). Once we had MERT up > > and running on the PDP-11/45 and PDP-11/70 computers, some > > projects in other Bell Labs locations involved in telephony projects > > started building their projects on the MERT system. The > > DMERT system was developed later on by projects at yet > > another Bell Labs location. > > I don't have access to IEEE but there is a paper on MERT > https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6770410. The 3B20D and DMERT are > also cronicaled in the BSTJ, I have hard copies of that but it should > be on IEEE. > > There is a lot of detail on the 3B20D and 3B21D in the 254 BSPs as > well as some coverage of UNIX RTR > https://www.telecomarchive.com/plant-all.html. > > There is more coverage of the 3B20 elsewhere, for instance > https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1500412.1500418. Wing N. Toy, one > of the hardware engineers, published some nice books that tangentially > touch on these designs but contain a lot of great microcoding > knowledge. I was reviewing this book https://archive.org/details/computerhardware0000toyw and it is one of the best computer architecture books I've seen. Somehow in 400 pages the authors manage to cover logic, language implementation, compilation, instruction set design, various aspects of operating systems design, and fault tolerance citing timeless pedagogical hardware (PDP11, VAX, S/370, System/38, iAPX-432, WE32000) and software (VMS, UNIX, DMERT). Readers of this list will enjoy it! > Regards, > Kevin > > > > Heinz > > > > On 9/25/2023 6:37 PM, Jon Steinhart wrote: > > > > segaloco via TUHS writes: > > > > Hello, my studies lately bring me to the question: Are there any extant > > examples of telephone switching software, built on UNIX, from the various > > parts of the Bell System prior to the introduction of the 5ESS and 3B20D? > > My focus veers earlier as some 5ESS/3B20D/DMERT technology is still in > > active use, that sleeping dragon can lie. > > > > What's gotten me curious is reading about 1ESS in a BSTJ volume I > > picked up, noting the particulars on how previous concerns of manual and > > electro-mechanical systems were abstracted into software. Even without > > surviving examples, were previous systems such as the 1ESS central > > control ever ported to or considered for porting to UNIX, or was the > > hardware interface to the telco lines too specific to consider a future > > swap-out with, say, a PDP11 running arbitrary software? Columbus's SCCS > > (switching, not source code) also comes to mind, although all I know that > > survives of that is the CB-UNIX 2.3 manual descriptions of bits and pieces. > > > > By the way, it's funny, I have UNIX to thank for my current experiments > > with telephones and other signalling stuff, what with making me study the > > Bell System more generally. It's starting to come full circle in that I > > want to take a crack at reading dialing, at least pulse, into some sort > > of software abstraction on a SBC that can, among other things, provide a > > switching service on top of a UNIX-like kernel. I don't know what I'd do > > with such a thing other than assign work conference call rooms their own > > phone numbers to dial with a telephone on a serial line...but if I can even > > get that far I'd call it a success. One less dependency on the mobile... > > > > - Matt G. > > > > Heinz might know something about this. If I remember correctly, one of the > > projects in his group was SS1, an all-digital exchange. I have some vague > > memory of him and Carl poring over some gigantic switch statement looking > > for a bug - the long distance code wasn't sending the ST pulse and as a > > result all of the key pulse senders at the Berkeley Heights telephone > > exchange were taken off line and needed a technician to go in and manually > > reset them. They were not amused. Fortunately, they and BTL were both > > children of Ma Bell. > > > > If my memory serves me correctly, the system had a pair of PDP-11/10s that > > ran Hal Alles's digital filter code, a PDP11/70 behind the whole thing, > > Harry Breece's active replacement circuitry for the hybrid transformers, > > and some huge insanely fast wire-wrapped boards designed by John Sheets > > that did TDM switching. > > > > Jon > > > > From ron at ronnatalie.com Mon Oct 9 08:37:20 2023 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2023 22:37:20 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] HCR FOOBAR Message-ID: I was digging around my desk looking for something and I came across a quaint piece of UNIX history. Many years ago HCR gave away “foobars.” They had a gold one, which Rick “Seismo” Adams won and a silver one that I have in front of me now. The ounce of silver was never really worth enough for me to want to cash it in (I think Rick promptly did so with his ounce of gold). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sauer at technologists.com Mon Oct 9 10:05:49 2023 From: sauer at technologists.com (Charles H Sauer (he/him)) Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2023 19:05:49 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] HCR FOOBAR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8cd683a4-656b-4746-861f-4b089b72f6db@technologists.com> (From my office wall) 1987 HCR "commemorative plate" https://technologists.com/photos/1987/fullsize/1987ThompsonRitchie.jpg 1991 Dell SVR4 (& other) plaque https://technologists.com/photos/1991/sm1991DellQ1.jpg 1991 486 die photo https://technologists.com/photos/1991/sm1991Intel486.jpg On 10/8/2023 5:37 PM, Ron Natalie wrote: > I was digging around my desk looking for something and I came across a > quaint piece of UNIX history.   Many years ago HCR gave away “foobars.” >    They had a gold one, which Rick “Seismo” Adams won and a silver one > that I have in front of me now.   The ounce of silver was never really > worth enough for me to want to cash it in (I think Rick promptly did so > with his ounce of gold). > -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer From henry at henare.com Mon Oct 9 19:48:47 2023 From: henry at henare.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2023 05:48:47 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] HCR FOOBAR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <18b13d6d018.2952.27ce34798ec5af9926fa49424fa0531c@henare.com> No photos? I'd like to see this... - Henry On October 8, 2023 18:37:43 "Ron Natalie" wrote: > I was digging around my desk looking for something and I came across a quaint piece of UNIX history. Many years ago HCR gave away “foobars.” They had a gold one, which Rick “Seismo” Adams won and a silver one that I have in front of me now. The ounce of silver was never really worth enough for me to want to cash it in (I think Rick promptly did so with his ounce of gold). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ron at ronnatalie.com Tue Oct 10 00:50:18 2023 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2023 14:50:18 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] HCR FOOBAR In-Reply-To: <18b13d6d018.2952.27ce34798ec5af9926fa49424fa0531c@henare.com> References: <18b13d6d018.2952.27ce34798ec5af9926fa49424fa0531c@henare.com> Message-ID: Really doesn’t look like much, just a bar. THey had put “HCR FOOBAR” on the thing with letraset or something but that all flaked off over the years. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Henry Mensch" To "Ron Natalie" ; "TUHS main list" Date 10/9/23, 5:48:47 AM Subject Re: [TUHS] HCR FOOBAR >No photos? I'd like to see this... > >- Henry > >On October 8, 2023 18:37:43 "Ron Natalie" wrote: > >>I was digging around my desk looking for something and I came across a >>quaint piece of UNIX history. Many years ago HCR gave away >>“foobars.” They had a gold one, which Rick “Seismo” Adams won and a >>silver one that I have in front of me now. The ounce of silver was >>never really worth enough for me to want to cash it in (I think Rick >>promptly did so with his ounce of gold). >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From norman at oclsc.org Tue Oct 10 01:48:16 2023 From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2023 11:48:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] HCR FOOBAR Message-ID: <8B5ED1006E0E936499515927F18C779B.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org> Ron Natalie: Really doesn't look like much, just a bar. THey had put `HCR FOOBAR' on the thing with letraset or something but that all flaked off over the years. ==== Pfui, or as some spell it, foo. Norman Wilson Toronto ON PS: Lunchtime. Time to visit the pfuid bar. From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Oct 10 02:17:36 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2023 16:17:36 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound Message-ID: Spotted this and ordered it on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together themselves. - Matt G. P.S. Would anyone be interested in some V7 binders? I'm not keen on acquiring too many duplicates so would happily ship them to anyone wanting an original set of the papers from back when. As a bonus, the binders have some nice numbered tabs separating the papers/sections. I actually have three such binders, two that seem to be stock V7 Volume 2A/2B and one that is V7 Volume 1 but slightly tweaked with some "local" pages (to my knowledge, local to MIT Lincoln Labs, they added stuff like the RAND editor). Just let me know, if I don't hear anyone speak for them in a month or so they're going to the CS department at the local uni, they've got a shelf with some 4.3BSD binders that could use some elder influence :) From jsg at jsg.id.au Tue Oct 10 12:11:25 2023 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2023 13:11:25 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Spotted this and ordered it on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 > > After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's > Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior > to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does > anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley > folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed > for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the > completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX > BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. > If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly > adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this > has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious > because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version > 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that > set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together > themselves. Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was mentioned here. There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG Archives. July 8, 1981 This is a full distribution kit for the second release of the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The package you received should have contained: 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk cartridges containing the basic system software; this is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains additional material beyond the basic system on the first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX systems for UNIX'' 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's manual. 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 of the programmer's manual for the system. 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the programmer's manual. 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c of the programmer's manual for the system. 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing cards. 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Oct 11 09:53:21 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2023 23:53:21 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Another Find: UNIX Release 5.0 BTL Administrators Manual Message-ID: Just got this one today, UNIX Release 5.0 Administrator's Manual, BTL version: https://i.imgur.com/hZW1C01.jpg (the one on the right, companion to the one on the left I've documented a bit already). First, an amusing anecdote of how I happened across this one. I hate Amazon. Like despise Amazon. I could go on for hours on the why, but the point is, I do not like Amazon. As such, I rarely, if ever, find myself looking at anything for sale on their site. At some point the past few years I did happen across an auction for the WECo equivalent of this manual on Amazon and nearly broke my anti-Amazon-ness to register and purchase it, but I resisted. It stuck in my mind but wasn't enough to change my opinion. Well, fast-forward to a few weeks ago, I'm recanting this tale to a friend of mine as we're loitering in the lobby of our music space. He's on his laptop so decides to search up UNIX manuals on Amazon to be like see all this stuff you could be getting, you should just get an Amazon account. We look through auctions for a while and it's mostly a chorus of "I have that already" or "That's not relevant" or "I could buy that for pennies on the dollar elsewhere" but then he comes across an auction with no picture saying UNIX 5.0 Manual or something pretty generic like that. No pictures on the main posting, but there is a link saying two copies available. That was the first I learned that a pictureless Amazon posting can then lead​ to specific auctions or sales that do have pictures, that stuff just apparently doesn't always show up in the search results? In any case, he clicks down into them and this baby pops up. Luckily I was able to avoid registering as he offered to just buy it for me and I hand him the cash. So the result is this document is in my hands due to a deal with Amazon a brokered through a friend so I didn't have to join their site. I still feel like I've done a deal with the devil but hey, uncovered one more obscure thing in the process. Now for some analysis: Only difference on the cover page, like the BTL User's Manual, is additional text indicating "Including BTL Computer Center Standard and Local Commands". Like the User's Manual (and the Release 3.0 manual and other internal/pre-commercial manuals) there is an acknowledgements and preface page prior to the introduction. Added commands compared with a standard issue WECo 5.0 Administrator's Manual include: Section 1: Holmdel: archadmin - archlist, archsched, archque, archinit, archshut - archive administrative commands Indian Hill: bsnap - bsnap - snap baud rate usage findi - findi - find file names corresponding to inode numbers linesnap - linesnap - monitor activity on DH11 or DZ11 lines newids - newids - descend a directory changing owner and group id on files pisnap - pisnap - monitor performance of the operating system snap - snap - monitor activity within the operating system tabsnap - tabsnap - snap system tables vault - vault - save/restore a file system to/from tape Piscataway: archsys - archsys - archive system ds - ds - directory scanner filesave.py - filesave - perform daily filesave procedure fsea - fsea - file system entropy analyzer fss - fss - file system scanner fwall - fwall - write to all users by pathname lacctcms - lacctcms - command summary from per-process accounting records xchng - xchng - exchanges ownership of files Section 8: Div 452 STD: atd - atd - a batch monitor atf - atf - make a job file atr - atr - run a batch job att - att - parse time specification The TOC additionally lists a "trouble.div" page, presumably Div 452-specific trouble reporting stuff, but the manual contains no such page. Based on front-back pages available it doesn't look like the page would've been ripped out or anything, so probably just not actually in the print run. The trouble(8) page in this manual matches one from a standard 5.0 manual. So takeaways here, looks like Holmdel, Indian Hill, and PIscataway may have all had their own backup/archival systems between archadmin(1M)(HO), archsys(1M)(PY), and vault(1M)(IH). There were quite a few enhanced performance snapshot tools in Indian Hill while Piscataway appeared to have some particular filesystem analysis tools. The section 8 at administration tools are interesting in that at(1) itself is also Div 452 as of 5.0, is not in the System V manuals at all. While at(1) then pops up in standard SVR2 manuals, these administrative pieces do not (at least what I've got on hand, they're neither in the comb bound red covered AT&T UNIX User's Manual nor the 5 volume set with the metallic looking alphabet blocks on the cover.) I don't have any SVR3 manuals to check, and my blue wall of SVR4 books I already moved to my new place, so I can't look in those right this second. I can't seem to find either Administrators Manual volume on bitsavers either, so can't check to see if these exist in later versions yet. Anywho, as usual, reach out if there's something in particular you'd like to know about one of these pages, otherwise this is going on the pile I plan on starting work on again once this move is out of the way (and hopefully the last one for a few years at least...) - Matt G. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mah at mhorton.net Sun Oct 15 13:19:59 2023 From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton) Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2023 20:19:59 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> I checked my bookshelf - my 4.1BSD manuals are the same Bell Labs printing as the two Worthpoint links below. AFAIK they are a vanilla printing of the soft copy from the 4.1 BSD tape. If there is any value to documenting this further, please let me know. Thanks, /Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am) maryannhorton.com “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman who went through hell to become the person she is today.” * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.*       Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. On 10/9/23 19:11, Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: >> Spotted this and ordered it on eBayhttps://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 >> >> After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's >> Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior >> to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does >> anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley >> folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed >> for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the >> completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX >> BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. >> If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly >> adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this >> has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious >> because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version >> 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that >> set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together >> themselves. > Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes: > https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ > Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was > mentioned here. > > There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals. > https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163 > https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 > > A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in > doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG > Archives. > > July 8, 1981 > > > This is a full distribution kit for the second release of > the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The > package you received should have contained: > > 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk > cartridges containing the basic system software; this > is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' > 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains > additional material beyond the basic system on the > first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the > manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) > > 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', > ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the > kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX > systems for UNIX'' > > 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's > manual. > > 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. > > 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the > programmer's manual. > > 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing > cards. > > 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. > > 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. > manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Oct 15 15:49:31 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2023 05:49:31 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> Message-ID: <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> One thing worth noting, I think, not sure, but I think the contents suggest the 4BSD rather than 4.1BSD set, I can't tell for certain because I actually can't locate a 4.1BSD doc folder with the Volume 2C intro and TOC. The physical article (as well as a Acco binder copy I also have) both indicate November 1980 (as opposed to 4.1BSDs June 1981.) Curiously, the comb bound one has one extra entry in the TOC written in by hand: the curses paper. Indeed it is the last in the comb bound manual and not present in my Acco-bound copy. Not conclusive of anything but just an observation, I can't track down an authoritatively-sourced copy of the doc/vmunix folder where the original of the TOC lives in 4BSD. The 4BSD typesetter sources of the TOC match what is in both copies I have, minus the hand-written curses inclusion. It very well could be the Volume 2C version of the TOC stopped being maintained around this time as I likewise don't see the doc/vmunix folder in 4.1c or 4.2. Either way, just something I found odd, I can't 100% confirm parity with what would be in /usr/doc on a standard 4.1BSD distro, I'll have to go digging and see what I have though, I feel like I archived away some 4.1BSD stuff I found somewhere that had some delta with what is in the UNIX tree. Not going to draw any firm conclusions until I put eyes on doc sources though. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if the manual amounts to more of a "4.0b", being the 4BSD set with some incremental changes towards 4.1. But again, nothing to back that up, just my initial impression. - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Saturday, October 14th, 2023 at 8:19 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote: > I checked my bookshelf - my 4.1BSD manuals are the same Bell Labs printing as the two Worthpoint links below. AFAIK they are a vanilla printing of the soft copy from the 4.1 BSD tape. > > If there is any value to documenting this further, please let me know. > > Thanks, > > Mary Ann Horton (she/her/ma'am) > maryannhorton.com > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn. > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > https://www.amazon.com/Trailblazer-Lighting-Transgender-Equality-Corporate-ebook/dp/B0B8F2BR9B > > On 10/9/23 19:11, Jonathan Gray wrote: > >> On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: >> >>> Spotted this and ordered it on eBay >>> https://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 >>> After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's >>> Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior >>> to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does >>> anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley >>> folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed >>> for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the >>> completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX >>> BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. >>> If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly >>> adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this >>> has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious >>> because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version >>> 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that >>> set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together >>> themselves. >> >> Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes: >> https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ >> Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was >> mentioned here. >> >> There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals. >> https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163 >> >> https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 >> A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in >> doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG >> Archives. >> >> July 8, 1981 >> >> This is a full distribution kit for the second release of >> the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The >> package you received should have contained: >> >> 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk >> cartridges containing the basic system software; this >> is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' >> 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains >> additional material beyond the basic system on the >> first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the >> manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) >> >> 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', >> ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the >> kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX >> systems for UNIX'' >> >> 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's >> manual. >> >> 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 >> of the programmer's manual for the system. >> >> 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. >> >> 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the >> programmer's manual. >> >> 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c >> of the programmer's manual for the system. >> >> 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing >> cards. >> >> 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. >> >> 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. >> manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mah at mhorton.net Tue Oct 17 04:42:06 2023 From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2023 11:42:06 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: My vol 2C is comb bound with the Bell logo on the front and back cover. It matches what Matt describes below: Date November 1980, hand-written part 55 (Curses) on TOC, Curses included. I personally wrote "4.1 BSD Vol 2C" on the spine of my comb version, and "4.1 BSD Vol 1" on the spine of the other comb bound, which were clearly a set. (We were expected to use the V7 vol 2a and 2b, as they were not changed.) Vol 1's title page is dated June, 1981". The preface of Vol 1 adds 3 paragraphs beginning "This update to the fourth distribution of November, 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full interconnect architecture of the VAX 11/780. ..." This paragraph is not dated but would seem to be from June 1981. I don't recall who ran the set of manuals in Bell Labs, but it wasn't done at Columbus. Someone was kind enough to send me a set. I'm inclined to believe Matt is right about vol 2C not being updated except by pencil and the Curses section. Interestingly, I also have a "UNIX 3.0 Vol 1" comb bound manual with the same style of cover, same personal spine label, probably done at the same time, likely by the same group. I don't recall who but I'll speculate it was someone at MH or WH. Possibly Brian Redman? Thanks, /Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am) maryannhorton.com “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman who went through hell to become the person she is today.” * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.*       Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. On 10/14/23 22:49, segaloco wrote: > One thing worth noting, I think, not sure, but I think the contents > suggest the 4BSD rather than 4.1BSD set, I can't tell for certain > because I actually can't locate a 4.1BSD doc folder with the Volume 2C > intro and TOC. The physical article (as well as a Acco binder copy I > also have) both indicate November 1980 (as opposed to 4.1BSDs June > 1981.) Curiously, the comb bound one has one extra entry in the TOC > written in by hand: the curses paper. Indeed it is the last in the > comb bound manual and not present in my Acco-bound copy. > > Not conclusive of anything but just an observation, I can't track down > an authoritatively-sourced copy of the doc/vmunix folder where the > original of the TOC lives in 4BSD. The 4BSD typesetter sources of the > TOC match what is in both copies I have, minus the hand-written curses > inclusion. > > It very well could be the Volume 2C version of the TOC stopped being > maintained around this time as I likewise don't see the doc/vmunix > folder in 4.1c or 4.2. Either way, just something I found odd, I can't > 100% confirm parity with what would be in /usr/doc on a standard > 4.1BSD distro, I'll have to go digging and see what I have though, I > feel like I archived away some 4.1BSD stuff I found somewhere that had > some delta with what is in the UNIX tree. Not going to draw any firm > conclusions until I put eyes on doc sources though. That said, it > wouldn't surprise me if the manual amounts to more of a "4.0b", being > the 4BSD set with some incremental changes towards 4.1. But again, > nothing to back that up, just my initial impression. > > - Matt G. > ------- Original Message ------- > On Saturday, October 14th, 2023 at 8:19 PM, Mary Ann Horton > wrote: > >> I checked my bookshelf - my 4.1BSD manuals are the same Bell Labs >> printing as the two Worthpoint links below. AFAIK they are a vanilla >> printing of the soft copy from the 4.1 BSD tape. >> >> If there is any value to documenting this further, please let me know. >> >> Thanks, >> >> /Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am) >> maryannhorton.com >> >> “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman >> who went through hell to become the person she is today.” >> *- Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* >> >> "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" >> *- Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.* >> >> Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. >> >> >> >> >> >> On 10/9/23 19:11, Jonathan Gray wrote: >>> On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: >>>> Spotted this and ordered it on eBayhttps://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 >>>> >>>> After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's >>>> Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior >>>> to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does >>>> anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley >>>> folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed >>>> for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the >>>> completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX >>>> BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. >>>> If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly >>>> adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this >>>> has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious >>>> because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version >>>> 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that >>>> set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together >>>> themselves. >>> Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes: >>> https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ >>> Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was >>> mentioned here. >>> >>> There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals. >>> https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163 >>> https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 >>> >>> A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in >>> doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG >>> Archives. >>> >>> July 8, 1981 >>> >>> >>> This is a full distribution kit for the second release of >>> the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The >>> package you received should have contained: >>> >>> 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk >>> cartridges containing the basic system software; this >>> is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' >>> 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains >>> additional material beyond the basic system on the >>> first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the >>> manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) >>> >>> 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', >>> ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the >>> kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX >>> systems for UNIX'' >>> >>> 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's >>> manual. >>> >>> 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 >>> of the programmer's manual for the system. >>> >>> 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. >>> >>> 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the >>> programmer's manual. >>> >>> 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c >>> of the programmer's manual for the system. >>> >>> 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing >>> cards. >>> >>> 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. >>> >>> 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. >>> manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clemc at ccc.com Tue Oct 17 05:49:11 2023 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:49:11 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: Yes - I send a fairly detailed history, including pics but Warren's mailer did not allow them. Here is the short form: ber did two printings of 4.1 [white/without and later, with BTL covers], the second printing had the Marx supplement. ber helped to facilitate the 4.2 printing with the BSD daemons - although USENIX bankrolled it and did the distribution. I do not know for sure who the editor for the 4.3 [colored combs + BSD daemons] was [I think Keith, with help from Mike and Sam], but USENIX and CSRG did that printing. and the distribution. By the time of 4.4, USENIX approached Tim OReilly who used his own printing, and binding set up - hence "perfect binding" not combs. Clem On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 2:42 PM Mary Ann Horton wrote: > My vol 2C is comb bound with the Bell logo on the front and back cover. > > It matches what Matt describes below: Date November 1980, hand-written > part 55 (Curses) on TOC, Curses included. > > I personally wrote "4.1 BSD Vol 2C" on the spine of my comb version, and > "4.1 BSD Vol 1" on the spine of the other comb bound, which were clearly a > set. (We were expected to use the V7 vol 2a and 2b, as they were not > changed.) Vol 1's title page is dated June, 1981". The preface of Vol 1 > adds 3 paragraphs beginning "This update to the fourth distribution of > November, 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full > interconnect architecture of the VAX 11/780. ..." This paragraph is not > dated but would seem to be from June 1981. > > I don't recall who ran the set of manuals in Bell Labs, but it wasn't done > at Columbus. Someone was kind enough to send me a set. > > I'm inclined to believe Matt is right about vol 2C not being updated > except by pencil and the Curses section. > > Interestingly, I also have a "UNIX 3.0 Vol 1" comb bound manual with the > same style of cover, same personal spine label, probably done at the same > time, likely by the same group. I don't recall who but I'll speculate it > was someone at MH or WH. Possibly Brian Redman? > Thanks, > > *Mary Ann Horton* (she/her/ma'am) > maryannhorton.com > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.* > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > > > On 10/14/23 22:49, segaloco wrote: > > One thing worth noting, I think, not sure, but I think the contents > suggest the 4BSD rather than 4.1BSD set, I can't tell for certain because I > actually can't locate a 4.1BSD doc folder with the Volume 2C intro and TOC. > The physical article (as well as a Acco binder copy I also have) both > indicate November 1980 (as opposed to 4.1BSDs June 1981.) Curiously, the > comb bound one has one extra entry in the TOC written in by hand: the > curses paper. Indeed it is the last in the comb bound manual and not > present in my Acco-bound copy. > > Not conclusive of anything but just an observation, I can't track down an > authoritatively-sourced copy of the doc/vmunix folder where the original of > the TOC lives in 4BSD. The 4BSD typesetter sources of the TOC match what is > in both copies I have, minus the hand-written curses inclusion. > > It very well could be the Volume 2C version of the TOC stopped being > maintained around this time as I likewise don't see the doc/vmunix folder > in 4.1c or 4.2. Either way, just something I found odd, I can't 100% > confirm parity with what would be in /usr/doc on a standard 4.1BSD distro, > I'll have to go digging and see what I have though, I feel like I archived > away some 4.1BSD stuff I found somewhere that had some delta with what is > in the UNIX tree. Not going to draw any firm conclusions until I put eyes > on doc sources though. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if the manual > amounts to more of a "4.0b", being the 4BSD set with some incremental > changes towards 4.1. But again, nothing to back that up, just my initial > impression. > > - Matt G. > ------- Original Message ------- > On Saturday, October 14th, 2023 at 8:19 PM, Mary Ann Horton > wrote: > > I checked my bookshelf - my 4.1BSD manuals are the same Bell Labs printing > as the two Worthpoint links below. AFAIK they are a vanilla printing of the > soft copy from the 4.1 BSD tape. > > If there is any value to documenting this further, please let me know. > Thanks, > > *Mary Ann Horton* (she/her/ma'am) > maryannhorton.com > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.* > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > > > On 10/9/23 19:11, Jonathan Gray wrote: > > On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > Spotted this and ordered it on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 > > After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's > Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior > to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does > anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley > folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed > for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the > completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX > BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. > If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly > adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this > has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious > because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version > 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that > set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together > themselves. > > Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes:https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ > Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was > mentioned here. > > There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals.https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 > > A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in > doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG > Archives. > > July 8, 1981 > > > This is a full distribution kit for the second release of > the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The > package you received should have contained: > > 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk > cartridges containing the basic system software; this > is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' > 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains > additional material beyond the basic system on the > first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the > manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) > > 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', > ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the > kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX > systems for UNIX'' > > 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's > manual. > > 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. > > 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the > programmer's manual. > > 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing > cards. > > 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. > > 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. > manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. > > > ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsg at jsg.id.au Tue Oct 17 14:00:18 2023 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 15:00:18 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 11:42:06AM -0700, Mary Ann Horton wrote: > My vol 2C is comb bound with the Bell logo on the front and back cover. > > It matches what Matt describes below: Date November 1980, hand-written part > 55 (Curses) on TOC, Curses included. > > I personally wrote "4.1 BSD Vol 2C" on the spine of my comb version, and > "4.1 BSD Vol 1" on the spine of the other comb bound, which were clearly a > set. (We were expected to use the V7 vol 2a and 2b, as they were not > changed.) Vol 1's title page is dated June, 1981". The preface of Vol 1 adds > 3 paragraphs beginning "This update to the fourth distribution of November, > 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full interconnect > architecture of the VAX 11/780. ..." This paragraph is not dated but would > seem to be from June 1981. > > I don't recall who ran the set of manuals in Bell Labs, but it wasn't done > at Columbus. Someone was kind enough to send me a set. > > I'm inclined to believe Matt is right about vol 2C not being updated except > by pencil and the Curses section. > > Interestingly, I also have a "UNIX 3.0 Vol 1" comb bound manual with the > same style of cover, same personal spine label, probably done at the same > time, likely by the same group. I don't recall who but I'll speculate it was > someone at MH or WH. Possibly Brian Redman? You mentioned the manuals in: https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/comp.unix.wizards/1981-December/000593.html "Inside Bell Labs, we have ordered a bunch of 4.1BSD manuals printed like our 3.0 manuals (6x9 with the plastic ring binders). We haven't gotten them back yet (this is expected some time early next year) but if they come out like our 3.0 manuals they will be a total win. (The only disadvantage is that it's nearly impossible to add your own local pages.) Cost seems to be (50,$2000), (100,$2000), (200,$2500)... When we get them, if they're good, I'll publicise the name of the print company (they're in NJ) and people can probably work out some kind of combined deal - the demand inside the labs was incredible (900 manuals) and since everybody in the labs runs the non-Berkeley version of UNIX, I expect the combined demand on the outside would knock down the price real quick." A scan of the 3.0 manual is on bitsavers: https://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/System_III/UNIX_Users_Manual_Release_3_Jun80.pdf (32M) From jsg at jsg.id.au Tue Oct 17 15:30:46 2023 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:30:46 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks for clarifying the 4.1 printings. The role of Lewis Law and the Harvard Science Center in distributing manuals is also interesting. v6 https://archive.org/details/unix_news_april-30-1976/mode/2up "The Science Center at Harvard is willing to undertake the task of reproducing and distributing the manuals for UNIX." pwb https://archive.org/details/login_march-1978/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/login_apr98/page/n87/mode/2up 'Lews undertaking of reproduction and distribution of the UNIX manuals meant that they would be more widely proliferated. Lou Katz told me: "Up until that time, one got Xeroxed copies from Ken."' "It was Lew Law who negotiated with AT&T to get permission to reproduce Thompson’s copies." v7, 4bsd https://archive.org/details/login_january-1981/page/14/mode/2up "Harvard University is continuing to act as a wholesale distributor of manuals; currently in stock are V6, V7, PWB 1.0, and the Berkeley 4BSD." 4.1bsd https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/comp.unix.wizards/1981-December/000084.html "Harvard Science Center is a local distribution center for all UNIX (V6, V7, PWB, 4.1BSD) manuals." On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 03:49:11PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: > Yes - I send a fairly detailed history, including pics but Warren's mailer > did not allow them. > > Here is the short form: > > ber did two printings of 4.1 [white/without and later, with BTL covers], > the second printing had the Marx supplement. > ber helped to facilitate the 4.2 printing with the BSD daemons - although > USENIX bankrolled it and did the distribution. > I do not know for sure who the editor for the 4.3 [colored combs + BSD > daemons] was [I think Keith, with help from Mike and Sam], but USENIX and > CSRG did that printing. and the distribution. > By the time of 4.4, USENIX approached Tim OReilly who used his own > printing, and binding set up - hence "perfect binding" not combs. > > Clem > > On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 2:42 PM Mary Ann Horton wrote: > > > My vol 2C is comb bound with the Bell logo on the front and back cover. > > > > It matches what Matt describes below: Date November 1980, hand-written > > part 55 (Curses) on TOC, Curses included. > > > > I personally wrote "4.1 BSD Vol 2C" on the spine of my comb version, and > > "4.1 BSD Vol 1" on the spine of the other comb bound, which were clearly a > > set. (We were expected to use the V7 vol 2a and 2b, as they were not > > changed.) Vol 1's title page is dated June, 1981". The preface of Vol 1 > > adds 3 paragraphs beginning "This update to the fourth distribution of > > November, 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full > > interconnect architecture of the VAX 11/780. ..." This paragraph is not > > dated but would seem to be from June 1981. > > > > I don't recall who ran the set of manuals in Bell Labs, but it wasn't done > > at Columbus. Someone was kind enough to send me a set. > > > > I'm inclined to believe Matt is right about vol 2C not being updated > > except by pencil and the Curses section. > > > > Interestingly, I also have a "UNIX 3.0 Vol 1" comb bound manual with the > > same style of cover, same personal spine label, probably done at the same > > time, likely by the same group. I don't recall who but I'll speculate it > > was someone at MH or WH. Possibly Brian Redman? > > Thanks, > > > > *Mary Ann Horton* (she/her/ma'am) > > maryannhorton.com > > > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > > * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* > > > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > > * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.* > > > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > > > > > > > On 10/14/23 22:49, segaloco wrote: > > > > One thing worth noting, I think, not sure, but I think the contents > > suggest the 4BSD rather than 4.1BSD set, I can't tell for certain because I > > actually can't locate a 4.1BSD doc folder with the Volume 2C intro and TOC. > > The physical article (as well as a Acco binder copy I also have) both > > indicate November 1980 (as opposed to 4.1BSDs June 1981.) Curiously, the > > comb bound one has one extra entry in the TOC written in by hand: the > > curses paper. Indeed it is the last in the comb bound manual and not > > present in my Acco-bound copy. > > > > Not conclusive of anything but just an observation, I can't track down an > > authoritatively-sourced copy of the doc/vmunix folder where the original of > > the TOC lives in 4BSD. The 4BSD typesetter sources of the TOC match what is > > in both copies I have, minus the hand-written curses inclusion. > > > > It very well could be the Volume 2C version of the TOC stopped being > > maintained around this time as I likewise don't see the doc/vmunix folder > > in 4.1c or 4.2. Either way, just something I found odd, I can't 100% > > confirm parity with what would be in /usr/doc on a standard 4.1BSD distro, > > I'll have to go digging and see what I have though, I feel like I archived > > away some 4.1BSD stuff I found somewhere that had some delta with what is > > in the UNIX tree. Not going to draw any firm conclusions until I put eyes > > on doc sources though. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if the manual > > amounts to more of a "4.0b", being the 4BSD set with some incremental > > changes towards 4.1. But again, nothing to back that up, just my initial > > impression. > > > > - Matt G. > > ------- Original Message ------- > > On Saturday, October 14th, 2023 at 8:19 PM, Mary Ann Horton > > wrote: > > > > I checked my bookshelf - my 4.1BSD manuals are the same Bell Labs printing > > as the two Worthpoint links below. AFAIK they are a vanilla printing of the > > soft copy from the 4.1 BSD tape. > > > > If there is any value to documenting this further, please let me know. > > Thanks, > > > > *Mary Ann Horton* (she/her/ma'am) > > maryannhorton.com > > > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > > * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* > > > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > > * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.* > > > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > > > > > > > On 10/9/23 19:11, Jonathan Gray wrote: > > > > On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > > Spotted this and ordered it on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 > > > > After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's > > Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior > > to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does > > anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley > > folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed > > for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the > > completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX > > BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. > > If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly > > adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this > > has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious > > because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version > > 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that > > set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together > > themselves. > > > > Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes:https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ > > Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was > > mentioned here. > > > > There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals.https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 > > > > A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in > > doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG > > Archives. > > > > July 8, 1981 > > > > > > This is a full distribution kit for the second release of > > the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The > > package you received should have contained: > > > > 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk > > cartridges containing the basic system software; this > > is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' > > 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains > > additional material beyond the basic system on the > > first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the > > manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) > > > > 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', > > ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the > > kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX > > systems for UNIX'' > > > > 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's > > manual. > > > > 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 > > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > > > 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. > > > > 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the > > programmer's manual. > > > > 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c > > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > > > 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing > > cards. > > > > 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. > > > > 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. > > manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. > > > > > > ᐧ From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Oct 18 04:27:54 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 18:27:54 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <_KPOZIyIT-gVThxdTCGqUZRiiUv93et1KimgBUEZZ3P_jB6ENak6vvpr2wZuhI2-9xPBybdU6gFMiYTjpdulQWI3MaZUgrCAeD4wA9qEqOE=@protonmail.com> So an update, looked around various BSD versions to try and resolve the confusion on naming/dates. From https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/man/man0/pref: > This manual reflects the Berkeley system mid-October, 1980. > A large amount of tuning has been done in the system since the last release; > we hope this provides as noticeable an improvement for you as it did for us. However, looking in the preface for 4.1BSD (as buried down in here http://bitsavers.org/bits/UCB_CSRG/4.1_BSD_19810710.zip) this bit is instead: > This update to the fourth distribution of November 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full interconnect architecture of > the VAX 11/780. This does point to some confusion as the preface for the 4BSD manual states mid-October 1980, but then the cover page (and subsequent manuals) refer to November 1980. Both 4.1c and 4.2 contain the following: > This update to the 4.1 distribution of June 1981 provides support > for the VAX 11/730, full networking and interprocess communication > support, an entirely new file system, and many other new features. Confusingly, the cover page in the 4.1BSD collection on bitsavers says November 1980 like the 4BSD one. However, pretty much everything else refers to 4.1BSD as a June 1981 release. Again with the " of "". Rewind back to 3BSD, and the preface starts: > This manual reflects the state of the Berkeley system, December 1979. So going by manuals I can identify alone: 3BSD - December 1979 4BSD - October 1980/November 1980 (The preface says mid-October 1980, all subsequent stuff refers to 4BSD as a November 1980 release) 4.1BSD - June 1981 (Although the Volume 1 cover page says November 1980, it appears unchanged from 4BSD at this point) 4.1cBSD - March 1983 4.2BSD - August 1983 Unfortunately that early 4.1BSD image doesn't seem to have the documents collection, just the manual itself, so I can't really compare what that looked like in November 1980 to June 1981 to verify if anything other than the addition of the curses paper is salient to the 4->4.1 upgrade. Briefly, the changes from V7 up through 3BSD are mainly: - Replacement of PDP-11-specific stuff like the installation papers, assembler manual, and several hardware capabilities mentions in papers - Replacement of adb papers and mentions with sdb - The V7 summary is replaced with a 32V summary - The Learn paper is dropped - Many documents regarding the vmunix efforts and particulars of BSD are added (/usr/doc/vmunix, this folder disappears again by 4.1cBSD, complicating some comparisons) - Volume 2C content (such as memacros, ex, pascal) are added So really all someone would need from 2A/2B as a BSD user that aren't in a standard V7 set are assembler and debugger papers, installation/bootstrapping/maintenance notes, and the vmunix papers, all of which were probably easily accessible enough that running off all the rest just to have a proper set with these was considered overkill. I'll do some more thorough analysis when I've got my desk setup at my new place, I already moved all my hard-copy manuals over there. More in the future, but it's looking like the November 1980 on the cover page may not necessarily nail it as 4BSD rather than 4.1, the date may just not have been updated in the interim. Until I see a /usr/doc folder from 4.1BSD (as opposed to 4.1cBSD) I can't say for certain. - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Monday, October 16th, 2023 at 12:49 PM, Clem Cole wrote: > Yes - I send a fairly detailed history, including pics but Warren's mailer did not allow them. > > Here is the short form: > > ber did two printings of 4.1 [white/without and later, with BTL covers], the second printing had the Marx supplement. > ber helped to facilitate the 4.2 printing with the BSD daemons - although USENIX bankrolled it and did the distribution. > I do not know for sure who the editor for the 4.3 [colored combs + BSD daemons] was [I think Keith, with help from Mike and Sam], but USENIX and CSRG did that printing. and the distribution. > By the time of 4.4, USENIX approached Tim OReilly who used his own printing, and binding set up - hence "perfect binding" not combs. > > Clem > > On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 2:42 PM Mary Ann Horton wrote: > > > My vol 2C is comb bound with the Bell logo on the front and back cover. > > > > It matches what Matt describes below: Date November 1980, hand-written part 55 (Curses) on TOC, Curses included. > > > > I personally wrote "4.1 BSD Vol 2C" on the spine of my comb version, and "4.1 BSD Vol 1" on the spine of the other comb bound, which were clearly a set. (We were expected to use the V7 vol 2a and 2b, as they were not changed.) Vol 1's title page is dated June, 1981". The preface of Vol 1 adds 3 paragraphs beginning "This update to the fourth distribution of November, 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full interconnect architecture of the VAX 11/780. ..." This paragraph is not dated but would seem to be from June 1981. > > > > I don't recall who ran the set of manuals in Bell Labs, but it wasn't done at Columbus. Someone was kind enough to send me a set. > > > > I'm inclined to believe Matt is right about vol 2C not being updated except by pencil and the Curses section. > > > > Interestingly, I also have a "UNIX 3.0 Vol 1" comb bound manual with the same style of cover, same personal spine label, probably done at the same time, likely by the same group. I don't recall who but I'll speculate it was someone at MH or WH. Possibly Brian Redman? > > > > Thanks, > > > > Mary Ann Horton (she/her/ma'am) > > maryannhorton.com > > > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > > - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag > > > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > > - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn. > > > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > > > > > On 10/14/23 22:49, segaloco wrote: > > > > > One thing worth noting, I think, not sure, but I think the contents suggest the 4BSD rather than 4.1BSD set, I can't tell for certain because I actually can't locate a 4.1BSD doc folder with the Volume 2C intro and TOC. The physical article (as well as a Acco binder copy I also have) both indicate November 1980 (as opposed to 4.1BSDs June 1981.) Curiously, the comb bound one has one extra entry in the TOC written in by hand: the curses paper. Indeed it is the last in the comb bound manual and not present in my Acco-bound copy. > > > > > > Not conclusive of anything but just an observation, I can't track down an authoritatively-sourced copy of the doc/vmunix folder where the original of the TOC lives in 4BSD. The 4BSD typesetter sources of the TOC match what is in both copies I have, minus the hand-written curses inclusion. > > > > > > It very well could be the Volume 2C version of the TOC stopped being maintained around this time as I likewise don't see the doc/vmunix folder in 4.1c or 4.2. Either way, just something I found odd, I can't 100% confirm parity with what would be in /usr/doc on a standard 4.1BSD distro, I'll have to go digging and see what I have though, I feel like I archived away some 4.1BSD stuff I found somewhere that had some delta with what is in the UNIX tree. Not going to draw any firm conclusions until I put eyes on doc sources though. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if the manual amounts to more of a "4.0b", being the 4BSD set with some incremental changes towards 4.1. But again, nothing to back that up, just my initial impression. > > > > > > - Matt G. > > > ------- Original Message ------- > > > On Saturday, October 14th, 2023 at 8:19 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote: > > > > > > > > > > I checked my bookshelf - my 4.1BSD manuals are the same Bell Labs printing as the two Worthpoint links below. AFAIK they are a vanilla printing of the soft copy from the 4.1 BSD tape. > > > > > > > > If there is any value to documenting this further, please let me know. > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > > > Mary Ann Horton (she/her/ma'am) > > > > maryannhorton.com > > > > > > > > “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman > > > > who went through hell to become the person she is today.” > > > > - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag > > > > > > > > "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" > > > > - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn. > > > > > > > > Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. > > > > > > > > > > > > On 10/9/23 19:11, Jonathan Gray wrote: > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Oct 09, 2023 at 04:17:36PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Spotted this and ordered it on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/235246689392 > > > > > > > > > > > > After the link is a pretty nondescript comb-bound 4.1BSD User's > > > > > > Manual Volume 2C. I don't think I've seen comb-bound issues prior > > > > > > to the USENIX 4.2BSD set that introduced the Beastie cover. Does > > > > > > anyone know if there was a limited run produced by the Berkeley > > > > > > folks themselves or if this is more likely a one-off someone printed > > > > > > for themselves? Either way, this is an exciting find for the > > > > > > completeness of my library, this would leave 3BSD as the only VAX > > > > > > BSD version I don't have any Volume 2C papers in my bookshelf from. > > > > > > If this does prove to be issue from Berkeley or someone directly > > > > > > adjacent to them, the next thing I hope to figure out is if this > > > > > > has Volume 1 and Volume 2A/2B companions. I find myself curious > > > > > > because the 4BSD Volume 2C I have was following a plain Jane Version > > > > > > 7 Volume 2A/2B rather than also 4BSD 2A/2B, so whoever curated that > > > > > > set either got them that way or clobbered V7 and 4BSD docs together > > > > > > themselves. > > > > > > > > > > Brian Ehrmantraut's photo has two 4.1BSD volumes: > > > > > https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/posts/722465582733996/ > > > > > Link from when the Wollongong Group version of the commentary was > > > > > mentioned here. > > > > > > > > > > There was a Bell Laboratories printing of the 4.1BSD manuals. > > > > > https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1981-bell-laboratories-unix-users-1947580163 > > > > > https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1980-bell-laboratories-unix-1947578308 > > > > > > > > > > A list of documents included with the distribution can be found in > > > > > doc/vmunix/cover*. Below text from 4.1a.tar.gz included in the CSRG > > > > > Archives. > > > > > > > > > > July 8, 1981 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This is a full distribution kit for the second release of > > > > > the Fourth Berkeley software tape, known as 4.1bsd. The > > > > > package you received should have contained: > > > > > > > > > > 1) Either a 2400' 1600 bpi magnetic tape or two RK07 disk > > > > > cartridges containing the basic system software; this > > > > > is the bootstrap distribution media. A second 2400' > > > > > 1600 bpi tape or a third RK07 disk cartridge contains > > > > > additional material beyond the basic system on the > > > > > first tape (INGRES, source for documents in the > > > > > manuals, bit mapped fonts, etc.) > > > > > > > > > > 2) Documents titled ``Installing and operating 4.1bsd'', > > > > > ``Bug fixes and changes in 4.1bsd'', ``Changes to the > > > > > kernel in 4.1bsd'', and ``Hints on configuring VAX > > > > > systems for UNIX'' > > > > > > > > > > 3) A two sided copy of volume 1 of the programmer's > > > > > manual. > > > > > > > > > > 4) A single sided, reproduction-quality copy of Volume 1 > > > > > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > > > > > > > > > 5) A copy of a document describing fsck. > > > > > > > > > > 6) A two sided copy of volumes 2a and 2b of the > > > > > programmer's manual. > > > > > > > > > > 7) A single sided, reproduction-quality, copy of Volume 2c > > > > > of the programmer's manual for the system. > > > > > > > > > > 8) 2 Vi Reference Cards and a master for reproducing > > > > > cards. > > > > > > > > > > 9) Three documents describing the Berkeley Network. > > > > > > > > > > 10) Two documents on the internals of the Pascal system. > > > > > manual and a new table of contents for volume 2c. > > [https://mail.proton.me/api/core/v4/images?Url=https%3A%2F%2Fmailfoogae.appspot.com%2Ft%3Fsender%3DaY2xlbWNAY2NjLmNvbQ%253D%253D%26type%3Dzerocontent%26guid%3D75c9f24a-a3ab-47ac-9d94-aad7107d5bae&DryRun=0&UID=2axgtlzcaymgrilxrunbrpuncqvuryao]ᐧ From clemc at ccc.com Wed Oct 18 06:11:26 2023 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:11:26 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: <_KPOZIyIT-gVThxdTCGqUZRiiUv93et1KimgBUEZZ3P_jB6ENak6vvpr2wZuhI2-9xPBybdU6gFMiYTjpdulQWI3MaZUgrCAeD4wA9qEqOE=@protonmail.com> References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> <_KPOZIyIT-gVThxdTCGqUZRiiUv93et1KimgBUEZZ3P_jB6ENak6vvpr2wZuhI2-9xPBybdU6gFMiYTjpdulQWI3MaZUgrCAeD4wA9qEqOE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: Matt -- a couple of things to consider. There is a huge demarcation up to and including 4.1BSD vs. anything afterward. DARPA created CSRG after 4.1BSD was released. And 4.1 was primarily the "FASTVAX" work vs. 4.0. Remember, it was wnj's work to demonstrate that UNIX was just as fast as VMS, which had been used to convince DARPA to let the contract for "UNIX support" (creating CSRG) vs. using an "officially supported" system from DEC directly which a number of the contractors wanted. Once CSRG started, two things changed at Berkeley that had huge external ramifications: - The manner distributions [master tapes] were created. - How released SW was named. While there are common people and some of the tech is the same, trying to compare anything post 4.1BSD with the earlier system will be confusing if not just lead to flawed conclusions -- not so much because of technical differences [which start to get larger] but because of the processes and procedures associated with the releases themselves and how they were distributed. BTW: Research somewhat went through some of the same changes. Basically, V0-> V1 -> V2 -> V3 -> V4 is the state of Ken's system at the time, and the "release" number is not (yet) very formal [Lou Katz talks about the RK05 that Ken copied for him for the first official released outside - V4 at Columbia]. The key is that someone in research writes tapes [imaging your RK05]. - but the early 'research releases' are ephemeral. Starting with V6, Ken/Dennis masters a tape in research, and the IBM shop is imaging that for people licensing the IP -- *i.e.,* everyone is getting the same bits on their tape. Although with V6, the famous "patch tape" leaks independently, and with V7, the master tape that I believe srb originally created was updated to add the "agenda" directory - so if you got one of the first tapes [like I did], that directory is missing. So remember that UCB uses a similar scheme for BSD, 2BSD, 3BSD, 4BSD, and 4.1BSD. In fact, the standard scheme was you sent the ILO a blank tape, and it was returned to you with the bits on it. For the first two, we have the contents of the development area on the Cory Hall machine. With the 3/4/4.1 release, it is the contents from Ernie [as I recall, Bob Kriddle or one of his minions was responsible for copying tapes for the ILO]. But contents (i.e. the bits) change anytime the tapes are spun (they were written in batches for the ILO -- who handled the licensing/distribution). BTW the other ILO distributions worked the same way. I would write any requested CAD tape every couple of weeks when they asked me too. But starting with CSRG, Sam set up a distribution area. And the copies sent out were just that. Also, by then, if you asked for a copy, you were paying UCB $1000 or so for the costs, but it included the tape (the original BSD tape was either free with the self-stamped tape or very nominal). Also, remember 4.1A, 4.1B, and 4.1C were beta's or release candidates -- they were not widely distributed like 4.1BSD had been. 4.2 was the first official release from CSRG. [Don't forget BBN had the official DARPA network stack - and that was for 4.1]. Basically. the primary DARPA folks like BBN, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, CMU, Utah, *etc*.. might have gotten a copy of 4.1A/B/C to give feedback. That's why you see the socket interface change so dramatically between 4.1A and 4.1C. Simple 4.1A was Kirk's new file system and the first shot at BSD's network stack [again remember UNIX has a TCP/IP stack already that any DARPA contractor could get from BBN - but you had to have a BBN license for it -- but that's a different story]. With 4.2 we see the wider world get everything, and of course, the network stack and sockets interface would start their spread from the UCB code base. I hope this helps, Clem ᐧ ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Oct 18 07:56:19 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 21:56:19 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> <_KPOZIyIT-gVThxdTCGqUZRiiUv93et1KimgBUEZZ3P_jB6ENak6vvpr2wZuhI2-9xPBybdU6gFMiYTjpdulQWI3MaZUgrCAeD4wA9qEqOE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: Once again, I very much appreciate the background you're able to provide Clem! Looking at these sorts of differences in files on various archives is certainly deriving an incomplete picture, and this sort of history of the circumstances surrounding the ongoings of the time lend much reasoning to what otherwise looks a little opaque just stepping through code and documentation files. Understanding the transition to a more formal distribution (i.e. snapshots of a development machine vs. intentionally packaged distributions) helps explain some of the discrepancies I'm seeing as I study documentation and what was available more. I feel there are lessons to be learned there that still apply today. I know thinking about that dichotomy is making me reconsider a few things about how my own team shares stuff around with other dev groups in our org. We're currently in the "I archive them a copy of whatever's sitting in source control" stage and am trying to get away from that. Hopefully whatever I land on doesn't also become a "never again!" - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Tuesday, October 17th, 2023 at 1:11 PM, Clem Cole wrote: > Matt -- a couple of things to consider. > > There is a huge demarcation up to and including 4.1BSD vs. anything afterward. DARPA created CSRG after 4.1BSD was released. And 4.1 was primarily the "FASTVAX" work vs. 4.0. Remember, it was wnj's work to demonstrate that UNIX was just as fast as VMS, which had been used to convince DARPA to let the contract for "UNIX support" (creating CSRG) vs. using an "officially supported" system from DEC directly which a number of the contractors wanted. Once CSRG started, two things changed at Berkeley that had huge external ramifications: > > - The manner distributions [master tapes] were created. > - How released SW was named. > > While there are common people and some of the tech is the same, trying to compare anything post 4.1BSD with the earlier system will be confusing if not just lead to flawed conclusions -- not so much because of technical differences [which start to get larger] but because of the processes and procedures associated with the releases themselves and how they were distributed. > > BTW: Research somewhat went through some of the same changes. Basically, V0-> V1 -> V2 -> V3 -> V4 is the state of Ken's system at the time, and the "release" number is not (yet) very formal [Lou Katz talks about the RK05 that Ken copied for him for the first official released outside - V4 at Columbia]. The key is that someone in research writes tapes [imaging your RK05]. - but the early 'research releases' are ephemeral. Starting with V6, Ken/Dennis masters a tape in research, and the IBM shop is imaging that for people licensing the IP -- i.e., everyone is getting the same bits on their tape. Although with V6, the famous "patch tape" leaks independently, and with V7, the master tape that I believe srb originally created was updated to add the "agenda" directory - so if you got one of the first tapes [like I did], that directory is missing. > > So remember that UCB uses a similar scheme for BSD, 2BSD, 3BSD, 4BSD, and 4.1BSD. In fact, the standard scheme was you sent the ILO a blank tape, and it was returned to you with the bits on it. For the first two, we have the contents of the development area on the Cory Hall machine. With the 3/4/4.1 release, it is the contents from Ernie [as I recall, Bob Kriddle or one of his minions was responsible for copying tapes for the ILO]. But contents (i.e. the bits) change anytime the tapes are spun (they were written in batches for the ILO -- who handled the licensing/distribution). BTW the other ILO distributions worked the same way. I would write any requested CAD tape every couple of weeks when they asked me too. > > But starting with CSRG, Sam set up a distribution area. And the copies sent out were just that. Also, by then, if you asked for a copy, you were paying UCB $1000 or so for the costs, but it included the tape (the original BSD tape was either free with the self-stamped tape or very nominal). Also, remember 4.1A, 4.1B, and 4.1C were beta's or release candidates -- they were not widely distributed like 4.1BSD had been. 4.2 was the first official release from CSRG. [Don't forget BBN had the official DARPA network stack - and that was for 4.1]. > > Basically. the primary DARPA folks like BBN, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, CMU, Utah, etc.. might have gotten a copy of 4.1A/B/C to give feedback. That's why you see the socket interface change so dramatically between 4.1A and 4.1C. Simple 4.1A was Kirk's new file system and the first shot at BSD's network stack [again remember UNIX has a TCP/IP stack already that any DARPA contractor could get from BBN - but you had to have a BBN license for it -- but that's a different story]. With 4.2 we see the wider world get everything, and of course, the network stack and sockets interface would start their spread from the UCB code base. > > I hope this helps, > Clem > > ᐧ > ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Wed Oct 18 10:18:24 2023 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 20:18:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound Message-ID: <20231018001824.5231718C096@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Clem Cole > Stakrting with V6, Ken/Dennis masters a tape in research, and the IBM > shop is imaging that for people licensing the IP -- *i.e.,* everyone is > getting the same bits on their tape. Although with V6, the famous > "patch tape" leaks independently Actually, TUHS contains two microscopically different V6 distros: Dennis_v6 --------- v6root.gz, v6src.gz and v6doc.gz are a set of three RK05 images of Sixth Edition with root, /usr and documentation, from Dennis Ritchie. Ken_Wellsch_v6 -------------- v6.tape.gz is a copy of the Sixth Edition distribution tape which was sent in by Ken Wellsch. It notes that there are differences between the two, but hadn't investigated what they are. Here are some details: the source files for the kernel are identical, except for sys/ken/main.c, which has the following added in the Wellsch version: printf("RESTRICTED RIGHTS\n\n"); printf("Use, duplication or disclosure is subject to\n"); printf("restrictions stated in Contract with Western\n"); printf("Electric Company, Inc.\n"); (What clearly happened is that after they'd done some distribution, the AT+T lawyers made them add that.) Anyway, as a result, the binary system images 'rkunix', etc are slightly different between the two. Everything else seems to be identical: everything in /bin, /etc, /lib, /usr/bin and /usr/lib are all identical. Noel From rich.salz at gmail.com Wed Oct 18 22:12:43 2023 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 08:12:43 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> <_KPOZIyIT-gVThxdTCGqUZRiiUv93et1KimgBUEZZ3P_jB6ENak6vvpr2wZuhI2-9xPBybdU6gFMiYTjpdulQWI3MaZUgrCAeD4wA9qEqOE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Oct 17, 2023 at 4:12 PM Clem Cole wrote: > > There is a huge demarcation up to and including 4.1BSD vs. anything > afterward. .... (lots of great deal trimmed) > I remember being at small software company (mirror.tmc.com :) and we bought a Vax750 and mtXinu came and supported 4.1c BSD on it (Ed Gould himself), and then we got upgraded to 4.2 when it came out. I remember waiting on tenterhooks for the upgrade. And having my mind blown when I typed in the "network programming" exercises and found sockets a way for two unrelated processes to communicate. Unless my memory's wrong about the 4.1c/4.2 thing. I think we had an emacs tape (CCA? Unipress? Not sure) that needed 4.2 and we just had to wait for the supported version. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mah at mhorton.net Fri Oct 20 00:27:32 2023 From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton) Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2023 07:27:32 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Found: 4.1BSD User's Manual Volume 2C Comb-Bound In-Reply-To: References: <6c5c6aab-19b6-464b-b171-51ceffe28750@mhorton.net> <6G3JATXF2TQyIW619ZP7z6IUk0v5BDa4IyCz0tv0bn4ouLRPkLIrdDNqEuc1qxgOtyndQ-6uehYHgVg4E2sTFXFqywipjIBglws3yKuH0QE=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <1df0ae28-fd90-4ca3-ac3f-3165396bfc6b@mhorton.net> Now there's a trip down memory lane! I'm afraid this memory is lost to the cobwebs of my mind, but I'm grateful for the archival systems that keep the history. Thanks, /Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am) maryannhorton.com “This is a great book about an amazing journey of a woman who went through hell to become the person she is today.” * - Monica Helms, creator of the transgender flag* "Brave and Important - Don’t miss this wonderful book!" * - Laura L. Engel, Intl. Memoir Writers Assn.*       Available on Amazon and bn.com. Audiobook on Google Play. On 10/16/23 21:00, Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 11:42:06AM -0700, Mary Ann Horton wrote: >> My vol 2C is comb bound with the Bell logo on the front and back cover. >> >> It matches what Matt describes below: Date November 1980, hand-written part >> 55 (Curses) on TOC, Curses included. >> >> I personally wrote "4.1 BSD Vol 2C" on the spine of my comb version, and >> "4.1 BSD Vol 1" on the spine of the other comb bound, which were clearly a >> set. (We were expected to use the V7 vol 2a and 2b, as they were not >> changed.) Vol 1's title page is dated June, 1981". The preface of Vol 1 adds >> 3 paragraphs beginning "This update to the fourth distribution of November, >> 1980 provides support for the VAX 11/750 and for the full interconnect >> architecture of the VAX 11/780. ..." This paragraph is not dated but would >> seem to be from June 1981. >> >> I don't recall who ran the set of manuals in Bell Labs, but it wasn't done >> at Columbus. Someone was kind enough to send me a set. >> >> I'm inclined to believe Matt is right about vol 2C not being updated except >> by pencil and the Curses section. >> >> Interestingly, I also have a "UNIX 3.0 Vol 1" comb bound manual with the >> same style of cover, same personal spine label, probably done at the same >> time, likely by the same group. I don't recall who but I'll speculate it was >> someone at MH or WH. Possibly Brian Redman? > You mentioned the manuals in: > https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/comp.unix.wizards/1981-December/000593.html > > "Inside Bell Labs, we have ordered a bunch of 4.1BSD manuals printed > like our 3.0 manuals (6x9 with the plastic ring binders). We haven't > gotten them back yet (this is expected some time early next year) but > if they come out like our 3.0 manuals they will be a total win. > (The only disadvantage is that it's nearly impossible to add your own > local pages.) Cost seems to be (50,$2000), (100,$2000), (200,$2500)... > > When we get them, if they're good, I'll publicise the name of the print > company (they're in NJ) and people can probably work out some kind of > combined deal - the demand inside the labs was incredible (900 manuals) > and since everybody in the labs runs the non-Berkeley version of UNIX, > I expect the combined demand on the outside would knock down the price > real quick." > > A scan of the 3.0 manual is on bitsavers: > https://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/System_III/UNIX_Users_Manual_Release_3_Jun80.pdf (32M) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fariborz.t at gmail.com Sat Oct 21 09:27:40 2023 From: fariborz.t at gmail.com (Skip Tavakkolian) Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 16:27:40 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix Message-ID: This might be interesting to some. It is a piece of a longer conversation between Dave Plummer and Dave Cutler (RSX11, VMS, WinNT) https://youtu.be/9K3eMzF6x28?feature=shared -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Oct 21 10:36:40 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 00:36:40 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I consistently hear from folks the same about Bill Gates pushing for volume over anything else with Xenix. I wonder to what degree that sort of paradigm shift lead to what we see today with "app stores" and cheap little apps being peddled a dime a dozen. Must be a viable enough business model if people keep doing it, but it makes me die inside. There's also the fact though that as the barrier to entry goes down, well, more folks enter the playing field. Also I gotta appreciate that Dave Cutler's Bill Gates impersonation is consistent with other folks mocking over the years. He's probably got a pretty thick skin by this point (although the financial success probably helps). Thanks for the share, there are a few other videos linked there from I assume the same interview, I quite enjoyed them, especially the anecdote of Steve Ballmer's last ditch effort Denny's breakfast to bring Dave on board. Something this brings back to mind that I always wonder about with Microsoft and their OS choices: So they went with Windows NT for their kernel, scraped the Windows environment off the top of DOS and dolloped it on top. Has there been any explanation over the years why they also decided to keep the MSDOS CLI interface? It's not like the NT kernel couldn't handle simple stuff like a UNIX-y shell, tools like grep and sed, etc. and Microsoft had code in Xenix they probably could've considered using for that. Was it not wanting to have any licensing questions by avoiding anything that smelled like Xenix at all? Or was the consumer base at the time that invested in the MSDOS environment that handing them a Bourne shell with some ubiquitous UNIX tools would've just been unworkable? Feels like a lost opportunity, they could've had their kernel and their desktop environment and still given folks a more robust CLI. Instead stuff like UWIN, Cygwin, etc. had to come along and fill the void. That was something I was hoping he'd talk about when I clicked, but I didn't catch anything particular about the CLI choice. - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Friday, October 20th, 2023 at 4:27 PM, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > This might be interesting to some. It is a piece of a longer conversation between Dave Plummer and Dave Cutler (RSX11, VMS, WinNT) > > https://youtu.be/9K3eMzF6x28?feature=shared -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From usotsuki at buric.co Sat Oct 21 10:53:30 2023 From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas) Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 20:53:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Oct 2023, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Something this brings back to mind that I always wonder about with > Microsoft and their OS choices: So they went with Windows NT for their > kernel, scraped the Windows environment off the top of DOS and dolloped > it on top. Has there been any explanation over the years why they also > decided to keep the MSDOS CLI interface? It's not like the NT kernel > couldn't handle simple stuff like a UNIX-y shell, tools like grep and > sed, etc. and Microsoft had code in Xenix they probably could've > considered using for that. Was it not wanting to have any licensing > questions by avoiding anything that smelled like Xenix at all? Or was > the consumer base at the time that invested in the MSDOS environment > that handing them a Bourne shell with some ubiquitous UNIX tools > would've just been unworkable? Feels like a lost opportunity, they > could've had their kernel and their desktop environment and still given > folks a more robust CLI. Instead stuff like UWIN, Cygwin, etc. had to > come along and fill the void. That was something I was hoping he'd talk > about when I clicked, but I didn't catch anything particular about the > CLI choice. They actually inherited the CLI from OS/2, didn't they? -uso. From velocityboy at gmail.com Sat Oct 21 11:04:42 2023 From: velocityboy at gmail.com (Jim Geist) Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 19:04:42 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Both of them were heavily influenced by DOS. Many of the same commands and switches from DOS still work today, and pre-powershell scripting is DOS batch files with lots of extensions added. On Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 6:52 PM Steve Nickolas wrote: > On Sat, 21 Oct 2023, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > Something this brings back to mind that I always wonder about with > > Microsoft and their OS choices: So they went with Windows NT for their > > kernel, scraped the Windows environment off the top of DOS and dolloped > > it on top. Has there been any explanation over the years why they also > > decided to keep the MSDOS CLI interface? It's not like the NT kernel > > couldn't handle simple stuff like a UNIX-y shell, tools like grep and > > sed, etc. and Microsoft had code in Xenix they probably could've > > considered using for that. Was it not wanting to have any licensing > > questions by avoiding anything that smelled like Xenix at all? Or was > > the consumer base at the time that invested in the MSDOS environment > > that handing them a Bourne shell with some ubiquitous UNIX tools > > would've just been unworkable? Feels like a lost opportunity, they > > could've had their kernel and their desktop environment and still given > > folks a more robust CLI. Instead stuff like UWIN, Cygwin, etc. had to > > come along and fill the void. That was something I was hoping he'd talk > > about when I clicked, but I didn't catch anything particular about the > > CLI choice. > > They actually inherited the CLI from OS/2, didn't they? > > -uso. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cowan at ccil.org Sat Oct 21 12:27:59 2023 From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2023 22:27:59 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 8:37 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: I wonder to what degree that sort of paradigm shift lead to what we see > today with "app stores" and cheap little apps being peddled a dime a > dozen. Must be a viable enough business model if people keep doing it, but > it makes me die inside. > Book publishers made similar complaints about the mass-market paperback when Robert de Graaf introduced them to the U.S. market in 1939, just in time for World War II. They cost about an eighth of the price of the same book in hard covers and they sold like crazy — 1.5 million in the first year alone. Yes, the quality was crap (those early paperbacks are collectibles now because most of them have fallen apart), but the words sold books to a huge untapped market who would never have bought a book before. Bought any hardbacks lately? Was it not wanting to have any licensing questions by avoiding anything > that smelled like Xenix at all? Or was the consumer base at the time that > invested in the MSDOS environment that handing them a Bourne shell with > some ubiquitous UNIX tools would've just been unworkable? > I think both of those are pretty likely explanations. Another possibility is that the idea was just out of the box for them. DOS was for one market and Xenix was for another. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave at horsfall.org Sat Oct 21 12:29:38 2023 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 13:29:38 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Oct 2023, Jim Geist wrote: > Both of them were heavily influenced by DOS. Many of the same commands > and switches from DOS still work today, and pre-powershell scripting is > DOS batch files with lots of extensions added. Wasn't the DOS interface influenced by CP/M? -- Dave From grog at lemis.com Sat Oct 21 16:27:36 2023 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 17:27:36 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20231021062736.GB77759@eureka.lemis.com> On Friday, 20 October 2023 at 16:27:40 -0700, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > This might be interesting to some. It is a piece of a longer conversation > between Dave Plummer and Dave Cutler (RSX11, VMS, WinNT) > > https://youtu.be/9K3eMzF6x28?feature=shared This really doesn't seem to have much to do with Xenix. Yes, he mentions it briefly, talking about licensing, but that seems to be all. FWIW, Xenix preceded DOS as a Microsoft operating system. From my personal timeline: 6 September 1980: At Euromicro 80, a conference in London, I heard a presentation about Xenix from a Microsoft person whose name I no longer recall. It was supposed to have been from Bill Gates, but he had a last-minute cancellation. December 1980: I bought a pair of S-100 boards and an operating system called 86-DOS from an obscure company in Washington state, USA. I spoke on the phone to a Tim Paterson, who assured me that 86-DOS had a bright future. The rest is, of course, history. June 1981: Byte magazine carried an article from Microsoft about Xenix. This was presumably written no later than May 1981. August 1981: IBM released the PC. I've done a bit of searching and found this link: https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/microsofts-xenix which tells me that Microsoft (really their SCO) licensed 7th Edition Unix in 1978 and brought out a product 2 years later. That seems plausible. Does anybody have a programme for Euromicro 80? More of my recollections at http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep1980.php#21 Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 163 bytes Desc: not available URL: From sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au Sat Oct 21 17:11:13 2023 From: sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au (steve jenkin) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 18:11:13 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: <20231021062736.GB77759@eureka.lemis.com> References: <20231021062736.GB77759@eureka.lemis.com> Message-ID: Date & event of 1980 Xenix release. Xenix was a version of AT&T UNIX, ported and packaged by Microsoft. It was first offered for sale to the public in the August 25, 1980 issue of Computerworld. Source: > On 21 Oct 2023, at 17:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > > I've done a bit of searching and found this link: > https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/microsofts-xenix which > tells me that Microsoft (really their SCO) licensed 7th Edition Unix > in 1978 and brought out a product 2 years later. That seems > plausible. -- Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA From pnr at planet.nl Sun Oct 22 01:36:30 2023 From: pnr at planet.nl (Paul Ruizendaal) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 17:36:30 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix Message-ID: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> An interesting set of videos indeed, although I wish they were not all chopped up in 5 minute segments. > I consistently hear from folks the same about Bill Gates pushing for volume over anything else with Xenix. That was his business model. His Basic for the 8080 was copied a lot (the famous 1976 open letter to hobbyists) and he shifted to selling bulk licenses to manufacturers. These could then make a bundled hw/sw sale and sidestep the copying. If I understood correctly, in the early days he sold the bulk licenses for a fixed amount, without per copy fees. I suppose this matched his cost structure, so it worked; the leverage and profit came from selling the same to all manufacturers in the market. He also used it in his deal with IBM, beating out Digital Research that wanted per copy fees. Retaining the rights to DOS also matched the business model that had been pioneered for his Basic. It would seem that the same thinking was at play in the deal for Xenix (which I think preceded the IBM deal). He would spend money once on porting Unix to each of the various next-gen microprocessors of the time (x86, Z8000, 68K, NS32K) and sell (sub-)licenses to hardware manufacturers, who in turn had a right to sub-license binaries to end-users. The deal that he had to negotiate with Bell had to match that business model. Beyond this, I’m sure that Bill Gates understood the strong network effects in software and the "winner takes all” dynamic that results from it -- hence his focus on volume and market share. However, I don’t think this drove the structure of his 1979 [?] Unix license deal with Bell. > Something this brings back to mind that I always wonder about with Microsoft and their OS choices: So they went with Windows NT for their kernel, scraped the Windows environment off the top of DOS and dolloped it on top. Has there been any explanation over the years why they also decided to keep the MSDOS CLI interface? The below site has a very nice summary of Xenix at Microsoft (I’ve linked it a couple of times before): http://seefigure1.com/2014/04/15/xenixtime.html About blending Xenix and DOS it says: "As late as the beginning of 1985, there was some debate inside of Microsoft whether Xenix should be the 16-bit “successor” to DOS; for a variety of reasons – mostly having to do with licensing, royalties, and ownership of the code, but also involving a certain amount of ego and politics – MS and IBM decided to pursue OS/2 instead. That marked the end of any further Xenix investment at Microsoft, and the group was left to slowly atrophy.” Probably that same dynamic was in play for the CLI of Windows NT. Moreover, as you already point out, by the time of NT there were tens of millions of users of DOS, and numerous books, magazines, etc. explaining it. Throwing away that familiarity for unclear benefits (in the eyes of those users) would serve no business purpose. In a way it is the same dynamic that kept C89 and Bash in place for so long: people know it, it is good enough and it works everywhere. === Seeing the Cutler interviews reminded me of the old joke that there are only two operating systems left: Unix and VMS (Linux being Unix-family and Windows being VMS-family). I wonder if we will see it narrow down to just one before the hardware changes so much that the concept of an OS changes beyond recognition. My hypothesis would be that an entirely new approach will come first. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Oct 22 02:38:59 2023 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 16:38:59 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> References: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> Message-ID: > Seeing the Cutler interviews reminded me of the old joke that there are only two operating systems left: Unix and VMS (Linux being Unix-family and Windows being VMS-family). I wonder if we will see it narrow down to just one before the hardware changes so much that the concept of an OS changes beyond recognition. My hypothesis would be that an entirely new approach will come first. Android is becoming quite popular for POS systems, which is where I thought we'd be seeing some interesting developments what with all sorts of new hardware the past 5-10 years. There's some microkernel stuff going on with seL4 out in the world but I don't know what particularly. Redox is interesting, a Rust-first OS, breaking C hegemony on operating systems, but it's pretty much a novelty right now from what I hear. That and the actual experience is still meant to be UNIX-y. At this point I wonder how realistic it would even be to introduce some paradigm shift in OS interface. The basic syscall interface is still sitting way up under a lot of stuff doing the heavy lifting, I imagine any kernel and runtime environment that intends to actually succeed at present would at the very least need to have interfaces for things like read/write/open/close, seeks, probably fork/exec, sockets, if anyone outside of deeply embedded systems programmers want anything to do with it. Those discrete operations don't really go away in my mind at least until concepts like files and processes themselves are completely reimagined. Granted, this exact thing has been done many, many times over the past few decades, but who is running those systems in large-scale production environments? I can't think of any systems I interact with outside of again deeply embedded applications that aren't WNT (so VMSish), Mach, BSD, or Linux kernel based. Word on the street (and implied by license notifications) that even modern game console operating systems like PlayStations and the Switch have a good chunk of BSD sitting under them. And of course mobiles are mostly split Mach (iOS) and Linux (Android). None of this is to speak to the validity of alternative systems, just observations in my little corner of the world :) - Matt G. From cowan at ccil.org Sun Oct 22 02:40:27 2023 From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 12:40:27 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> References: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> Message-ID: On Sat, Oct 21, 2023 at 11:37 AM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > An interesting set of videos indeed, although I wish they were not all > chopped up in 5 minute segments. > The alternative nowadays is for YouTube to chop videos up themselves with commercials. The below site has a very nice summary of Xenix at Microsoft (I’ve linked > it a couple of times before): > http://seefigure1.com/2014/04/15/xenixtime.html By this time, there was growing retail demand for Xenix on IBM-compatible > personal computer hardware, but Microsoft made the strategic decision not > to sell Xenix in the consumer market; instead, they entered into an > agreement with a company called the Santa Cruz Operation to package, sell > and support Xenix for those customers. That's not entirely true. The first personal computer I used was an IBM PC/AT, and I bought MS-branded Xenix (System III) for it. It was a box full of floppies, and it came with the MS C compiler (CL.EXE etc.) which could compile for Xenix or cross-compile for MS-DOS. That way I could write command-line programs on Xenix and deliver them for DOS. In a way it is the same dynamic that kept C89 and Bash in place for so > long: people know it, it is good enough and it works everywhere. > C89 has plenty of obvious successors; bash does not. Seeing the Cutler interviews reminded me of the old joke that there are > only two operating systems left: Unix and VMS (Linux being Unix-family and > Windows being VMS-family). > OS/360 (now in the form of z/OS) is still very much with us. z/OS is Posix-certified, but it is fairly distant from Linux, *BSD, or Solaris. (It is not to be confused with Linux running on System Z virtualized.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca Sun Oct 22 04:21:10 2023 From: stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca (Stuff Received) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2023 14:21:10 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04f1d466-d4dc-7a0b-404c-5f58b13969e1@riddermarkfarm.ca> On 2023-10-20 19:27, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > This might be interesting to some. It is a piece of a longer > conversation between Dave Plummer and Dave Cutler (RSX11, VMS, WinNT) > > https://youtu.be/9K3eMzF6x28?feature=shared > Is this the full 3-hour interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi1Lq79mLeE ? S. From paul.winalski at gmail.com Mon Oct 23 02:44:48 2023 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2023 12:44:48 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> References: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> Message-ID: On 10/21/23, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > An interesting set of videos indeed, although I wish they were not all > chopped up in 5 minute segments. > >> I consistently hear from folks the same about Bill Gates pushing for >> volume over anything else with Xenix. > > That was his business model. Exactly. Microsoft was all about volume. They were willing to leave niche markets to third-party software vendors. Back in the 1990s, when Microsoft flirted with the idea of selling Windows NT on DEC Alpha and IBM's PowerPC Microsoft sold its Visual Fortran technology to DEC, who sold it as Digital Visual Fortran (later to be Compaq Visual Fortran). The market for Fortran compilers was too small for MS. > Probably that same dynamic was in play for the CLI of Windows NT. Moreover, > as you already point out, by the time of NT there were tens of millions of > users of DOS, and numerous books, magazines, etc. explaining it. Throwing > away that familiarity for unclear benefits (in the eyes of those users) > would serve no business purpose. In a way it is the same dynamic that kept > C89 and Bash in place for so long: people know it, it is good enough and it > works everywhere. Upward command line compatibility from DOS and Win16 was essential for NT's acceptance in both the user and developer communities. Windows NT was a bit of a hard sell to application developers at first. It had a lot of advantages over Win16 (32-bit address space; true multitasking), but that came at the price of loss of control. Under DOS, the OS handed over complete control of hte hardware to your application and you could do whatever you wanted to, as long as you left things in a reasonable state when you returned control to the OS. Things were more disciplined under Win16, but it was common practice for applications to put hooks into the Win16 code. With NT, the OS was protected against tampering by non-privileged code. You had the Win32 API to work with and that's it--no hooks in the OS or other jiggery-pokery. Some application developers--both inside and outside of Microsoft--balked at that. I recall hearing that the DOS command line interface was patterned after the OS/8 CLI on the PDP-8, which used forward-slash (/) for command switches. That's why, when they decided to adopt the Unix conventions for directories in file pathnames, they had to use backslash (\) as the directory delimiter. -Paul W. From velocityboy at gmail.com Mon Oct 23 02:56:01 2023 From: velocityboy at gmail.com (Jim Geist) Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2023 10:56:01 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> Message-ID: This is getting a little far afield from Unix history, it's Windows history, but for similar reasons MS had to make a huge investment in game technology. Gaming under DOS was already huge by the time Windows 95 came out, and without proper support for games on Windows it would be hard to get a lot of people to leave DOS behind. Game developers were wedded to the idea of the complete control they had over the machine under DOS. Many were using DOS extenders to break the 640k limit - basically a small operating system linked into the game that let them access memory over the 1M line. Hence the Games SDK, later known as DirectX, and some relatively infamous industry events to court game developers to start porting their games to Windows. On Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 10:45 AM Paul Winalski wrote: > On 10/21/23, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > > > An interesting set of videos indeed, although I wish they were not all > > chopped up in 5 minute segments. > > > >> I consistently hear from folks the same about Bill Gates pushing for > >> volume over anything else with Xenix. > > > > That was his business model. > > Exactly. Microsoft was all about volume. They were willing to leave > niche markets to third-party software vendors. Back in the 1990s, > when Microsoft flirted with the idea of selling Windows NT on DEC > Alpha and IBM's PowerPC Microsoft sold its Visual Fortran technology > to DEC, who sold it as Digital Visual Fortran (later to be Compaq > Visual Fortran). The market for Fortran compilers was too small for > MS. > > > Probably that same dynamic was in play for the CLI of Windows NT. > Moreover, > > as you already point out, by the time of NT there were tens of millions > of > > users of DOS, and numerous books, magazines, etc. explaining it. Throwing > > away that familiarity for unclear benefits (in the eyes of those users) > > would serve no business purpose. In a way it is the same dynamic that > kept > > C89 and Bash in place for so long: people know it, it is good enough and > it > > works everywhere. > > Upward command line compatibility from DOS and Win16 was essential for > NT's acceptance in both the user and developer communities. Windows > NT was a bit of a hard sell to application developers at first. It > had a lot of advantages over Win16 (32-bit address space; true > multitasking), but that came at the price of loss of control. Under > DOS, the OS handed over complete control of hte hardware to your > application and you could do whatever you wanted to, as long as you > left things in a reasonable state when you returned control to the OS. > Things were more disciplined under Win16, but it was common practice > for applications to put hooks into the Win16 code. With NT, the OS > was protected against tampering by non-privileged code. You had the > Win32 API to work with and that's it--no hooks in the OS or other > jiggery-pokery. Some application developers--both inside and outside > of Microsoft--balked at that. > > I recall hearing that the DOS command line interface was patterned > after the OS/8 CLI on the PDP-8, which used forward-slash (/) for > command switches. That's why, when they decided to adopt the Unix > conventions for directories in file pathnames, they had to use > backslash (\) as the directory delimiter. > > -Paul W. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsg at jsg.id.au Tue Oct 24 00:41:47 2023 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 01:41:47 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] UNIX NEWS July 16, 1975 Special Issue Message-ID: The scans of UNIX NEWS John Gilmore provided are appreciated but the July 16 1975 "special issue" is very difficult to read: tuhs/Documentation/Usenix/Early_Newsletters/19750716-unix-news-special-issue.pdf tuhs/Documentation/Usenix/Early_Newsletters/19750716-unix-news-special-issue-darker.pdf Hendrik Jan Thomassen shows the copy sent to Nijmegen in: >From UNIX to Linux, a time lapse of 45 years T-Dose 2016 https://youtu.be/boahlBmc-NY?t=2434 A transcription from the video: * * * * ***** * * * * ***** * * **** * * ** * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** * * * *** * * * ** * * * * ** * ** ** * *** * * ***** * * * * ***** * * **** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Circulation 49 July 16, 1975 Special Issue -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The contents of this "special issue" will be repeated in the normal July issue to be mailed the last week of July. NEW SYSTEM AVAILABLE The Sixth Edition - June 1975 of the UNIX system is now available for distribution to licensees. Commercial users should contact Western Electric for details. Academics can receive the new system for a service fee of $150.00. Normal distribution is on 800 bpi - 9 track tape. You need not send a tape. Just a check for $150.00 addressed to: C. W. Christ, Jr. Room 6A312 Murray Hill, NJ 07974 The tape contains a single file which extracts to 3 RK-packs or equivalent. These contain: pack0) The system except for /usr/source pack1) /usr/source pack2) Documentation in machine readable form Those who require distribution on RK-packs should send two or three packs along with their checks. The package also includes one hard-copy of each of the 19 documents. Among the new "goodies" are: 1) Separate I and D space for the resident monitor on 11/45s and 11/70s 2) Huge files (up to 16 megabytes) 3) A preprocessor for structured Fortran 4) TMG 5) A preprocessor for DC, with arbitrary precision 6) Many fixes and rewrites of system programs from "as" to "c" 7) Much improved comments embedded in system source 8) More graceful death on running out of resources and other crashes UNIX NEWS At the users' meeting in New York on June 18 it was decided that the UNIX NEWS will be irregular in format but regular in mailing. We will try to be in the mails by the last day of each odd month. Where, as in this case, a special issue is warranted we will mail it and include the contents also in the regular mailing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Address Correspondence to Prof. M. Ferentz Physics Dept. Brooklyn College of CUNY Brooklyn, NY 11210 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From f4grx at f4grx.net Tue Oct 24 17:58:13 2023 From: f4grx at f4grx.net (Sebastien F4GRX) Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 09:58:13 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler recollection about Xenix In-Reply-To: References: <25140E5E-38B5-4CB9-B0D5-8C395206E49D@planet.nl> Message-ID: Hi, You can enjoy non-chopped up videos by replacing youtube.com by yewtu.be in related URLs (easiest way to remember). Or you can paste a youtube URL in the search box of any Invidious instance, like https://invidious.fdn.fr Other instances listed here in case one of them is down: https://docs.invidious.io/instances/ Sebastien Le 21/10/2023 à 18:40, John Cowan a écrit : > > > On Sat, Oct 21, 2023 at 11:37 AM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > > An interesting set of videos indeed, although I wish they were not > all chopped up in 5 minute segments. > > > The alternative nowadays is for YouTube to chop videos up themselves > with commercials. > > The below site has a very nice summary of Xenix at Microsoft (I’ve > linked it a couple of times before): > http://seefigure1.com/2014/04/15/xenixtime.html > > > By this time, there was growing retail demand for Xenix on > IBM-compatible personal computer hardware, but Microsoft made the > strategic decision not to sell Xenix in the consumer market; > instead, they entered into an agreement with a company called the > Santa Cruz Operation to package, sell and support Xenix for those > customers. > > > That's not entirely true.  The first personal computer I used was an > IBM PC/AT, and I bought MS-branded Xenix (System III) for it.  It was > a box full of floppies, and it came with the MS C compiler (CL.EXE > etc.) which could compile for Xenix or cross-compile for MS-DOS.  That > way I could write command-line programs on Xenix and deliver them for DOS. > >  In a way it is the same dynamic that kept C89 and Bash in place > for so long: people know it, it is good enough and it works > everywhere. > > > C89 has plenty of obvious successors; bash does not. > > Seeing the Cutler interviews reminded me of the old joke that > there are only two operating systems left: Unix and VMS (Linux > being Unix-family and Windows being VMS-family). > > > OS/360 (now in the form of z/OS) is still very much with us.  z/OS is > Posix-certified, but it is fairly distant from Linux, *BSD, or > Solaris.  (It is not to be confused with Linux running on System Z > virtualized.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rsc at swtch.com Thu Oct 26 11:55:33 2023 From: rsc at swtch.com (Russ Cox) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 21:55:33 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] trusting trust code Message-ID: Hi all, Ken mailed me the code for the compiler backdoor. I have annotated it and posted it at https://research.swtch.com/nih. As part of the post, I wrote a new simulator that can run V6 binaries. The simulator is a halfway point between the designs of simh and apout. It is running a translation of the V6 kernel to Go (with no hardware) and running user binaries on a simulated PDP11 CPU. The result combines apout's "easy to run" with simh's "v6-specific system calls work". In particular, it is good enough to run the backdoored login command, which apout simply cannot due to host OS tty handling not being like V6, and without having to fuss with disk pack images like in simh. If you have Go installed locally, you can run the new simulator with go run rsc.io/unix/v6run at latest You can also run it in your browser at https://research.swtch.com/v6. Finally, it turns out that the backdoor code was published this summer in the TUHS archive, but no one noticed. It is in dmr_tapes.tgz [1] in the file dmr_tapes/ken-sky/tp/nih.a. It is also visible in the dmr_tapes/ken/bits tape image, although not in the extracted files. Enjoy! Best, Russ [1] https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Dennis_Tapes/ From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com Thu Oct 26 14:31:29 2023 From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia) Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2023 00:31:29 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] trusting trust code In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 9:55 PM Russ Cox wrote: > Hi all, > > Ken mailed me the code for the compiler backdoor. > I have annotated it and posted it at https://research.swtch.com/nih. > Amazing. I always wondered if it was just a thought experiment or if he really implemented it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: