I've assembled some notes from old manuals and other sources
on the formats used for on-disk file systems through the
Seventh Edition:
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~norman/old-unix/old-fs.html
Additional notes, comments on style, and whatnot are welcome.
(It may be sensible to send anything in the last two categories
directly to me, rather than to the whole list.)
To all concerned,
I recently came into possesion of IBM's Xenix 1.00 on 5.25 floppy
disks for free. Problem is that it is missing disk 3 of 3 or the 4th
disk in the set. I have the Installation disk, Disk 1 of 3, and Disk 2 of 3.
Does anybody, by any chance, have the 4th disk, Disk 3 of 3 that
they would be willing to share? Or, is that not allowed to be asked here?
Thank you,
James
To all you programmers,
I'm sure you're scoffing at me, but I just obtained Borland's C++
BuilderX, Person Edition. It only cost $10.00 U.S. dollars direct from
Borland.
I plan to teach myself how to view, modify, replace, and
write/re-write Unix Operating System code.
May I rely on help from TUHS expert programmers? I know I'm going to
need the help.
My ultimate goal is to bring Unix Version7 into the 21st century.
Since 4.3BSD contributed code into Unix Version8, I feel I will probably
use portions of the latest BSD sources that are legally available.
Again, if I may use those of you that programmers help, I would
surely appreciate it alot.
Thank you,
James Falknor
Użytkownik José R. Valverde napisał:
>Looks like overkill to me. It made lots of sense way back then, but as you
>are speaking of an X86 port and you can assume an ANSI terminal to be the
>default and available, you may as well (at least as a start) do without
>termcap and terminfo (BTW I'd bet you don't need support for almost none
>of those ancient terminals).
>
I do not need curses or termcap or terminfo to work under simulated pdp
environment via apout in Coherent. As I said I can build
everything(using V7 make,cc ans as), it means I can work, and I do not
need ANSI terminal (if You have meant true VT100 terminal, and not
TERM=vt100 on PC, BTW apout for version 7 assumes as default TERM=vt100
). I was meaning building in pdp environment running in Coherent, and
not building in Coherent via for example a crosscompiler or so.
One needs termcap or terminfo if one wants to port more sophisticated
tools like vi etc.
>
>What you can get is then a simpler screen-oriented text editor which can
>easily be ported and then used as a bootstrap to port more advanced tools.
>
>Namely, S from 'A Software Tools Sampler' by Webb Miller. I ported and used
>it on both V6 and V7, and still use it on V7 on SIMH. Neat, small, easy to
>port, usage alike vi, but much simpler... And comes with some other
>interesting tools (actually my first involvement with that code was to have a
>unix-like toolkit on eraly VMS long, long ago).
>
>The code is available on the Net, but I'm including it here as an attachment
>as it is not that big (52K).
>
> j
>
>
Great, I will try it out. I have already tested succesfully more_v7 ,
which I obtained from Tim.
Thanks. I will let You know how it works.
Andrzej
Thanks to all,
This project is, indeed, for my own educational purposes. I have
always been "all idea, no action" type of person. It's time for me to
act on my ideas.
I have started by comparing the differences between Unix V7, 32V,
Coherent, and NetBSD code base.
I wish to preserve as much of Unix V7 as possible. Unix V7 was not
without code contributed by others, namely Universities around the
world. I don't know the legal logistics, but I don't see any reason to
change the name from Unix V7 to anything else.
As I begin to make run time progress on this project, I will keep
everybody notified. I will also be posting questions as they arise.
Thank you,
James Falknor
(I know I'm not alone with a World of Programmers on this mailing list)
> I do not know Plan9, but according to descriptions I have read, it looks
> very interesting. Well it was developed by Bell Lab...(?)-AT/T, which
> does not require recommendation.They offer also another interesting OS,
> namely Inferno.
This is my last email on this subject. Promise.
I suggest using the Plan 9 compilers and start with the code for the
32V system. That's the code that first ran on the VAX. It'll be
easier to move than the PDP version. It's just Seventh Edition moved
to the VAX.
I'm using Plan 9 to type this. It's the os I have used as my primary
os for the last 10 years. I wrote the Cisco PIX Firewall and the
LocalDirector using it. I first used Plan 9 15 years ago at Bell Labs.
In a very real sense, it is the true decendent of a very noble line of
timesharing systems, going all the way back to MIT's CTSS.
You should try Plan 9 for free by downloading it from Bell Labs. It's
all open source. Expect to learn a lot. It's UNIX like a Ford
Mustang is a T-Model. Lot of the ideas of V7-10 are further developed
in Plan 9. It's certainly the os perfered by a good number of UNIX
purests. It was the result of a number of poeple, including Ken
Thompson, who thought that a fresh code start would allow them to
better exploit new technology like networking, hetergenious
processors, and symmetrical multiple processors.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com
I really hope James does the port. I wish I had the time to do it
myself. A native V7 port would be really useful in some situations,
but more importantly it would help educate new generations of
programmers. It would demonstrate the true power and synergy of the
software tools approach that UNIX blessed us with. It doesn't need
shared libraries, threads, gui's or even vi. The Seventh Edition is
amazing technology in a form that can be understood, internalized, and
the resulting education used to produce much better modern software.
There should be at least a version in it's native form. There's just
something special about running it native.
Brantley Coile
