TUHS September 2019

tuhs@tuhs.org

74 participants
45 discussions

by Norman Wilson

KatolaZ: > We can discuss whether the split was necessary or "right" in the first > instance, as we could discuss whether it was good or not for cat(1) to > leave Murray Hill in 1979 with no options and come back from Berkley > with a source code doubled in size and 9 options in 1982. We needn't discuss that (though of course there are opinions and mine are the correct ones), but in the interest of historic accuracy, I should point out by 1979 (V7) cat had developed a single option -u to turn off stdio buffering. Sometime before 1984 or so, that option was removed, and cat was simplified to just while ((n = read(fd, buf, sizeof(buf))) > 0) write(1, buf, n) (error checking elided for clarity) which worked just fine for the rest of the life of the Research system. So it's true that BSD added needless (in my humble but correct opinion) options, but not that it had none before they touched it. Unless all those other programs were stuffed into cat in an earlier Berkeley system, but I don't think they were. Norman Wilson Toronto ON (Three cats, no options)

4 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] [OT] Re: earliest Unix roff

by Norman Wilson

Arthur Krewat: Which is better, creating a whole new binary to put in /usr/bin to do a single task, or add a flag to cat? Which is better, a proliferation of binaries w/standalone source code, or a single code tree that can handle slightly different tasks and save space? ====== Which is simpler to write correctly, to debug, and to maintain: a simple program that does a single task, or a huge single program with lots of tasks mashed together? Which is easier to understand and use, individual programs each with a few options specialized to a particular task, or a monolith with many more options some of which apply only to one task or another, others to all? What are you trying to optimize for? The speed with which programmers can churn out yet another featureful utility full of bugs and corner cases, or the ease with which the end-user can figure out what tool to use and how to use it? Norman Wilson Toronto ON

4 years, 7 months

A Couple of New Unix Artifacts

by Warren Toomey

I fear we're drifting a bit here and the S/N ratio is dropping a bit w.r.t the actual history of Unix. Please no more on the relative merits of version control systems or alternative text processing systems. So I'll try to distract you by saying this. I'm sitting on two artifacts that have recently been given to me: + by two large organisations + of great significance to Unix history + who want me to keep "mum" about them + as they are going to make announcements about them soon * and I am going slowly crazy as I wait for them to be offically released. Now you have a new topic to talk about :-) Cheers, Warren * for some definition of "soon"

4 years, 7 months

PWB vs Unix/TS

by Warner Losh

OK. I'm totally confused, and I see contradictory information around. So I thought I'd ask here. PWB was started to support unix time sharing at bell labs in 1973 (around V4 time). PWB 1.0 was released just after V6 "based on" it. PWB 2.0 was released just after V7, also "based on it". Later Unix TS 3.0 would become System III. We know there was no System I or System II. But was there a Unix TS 1.0 and 2.0? And were they the same thing as PWB 1.0 and 2.0, or somehow just closely related? And I've seen both Unix/TS and Unix TS. Is there a preferred spelling? Thanks for all your help with this topic and sorting things out. It's been quite helpful for my talk in a few weeks. Warner P.S. Would it be inappropriate to solicit feedback on an early version of my talk from this group? I'm sure they would be rather keener on catching errors in my understanding of Unix history than just about any other forum...

4 years, 7 months

cathode

by William Corcoran

Hello TUHS on Tues., Warren Toomey suggested I let the group know about a utility that exists at least for iMacs and IOS devices. It’s called “cathode” and you can find it on the Apple App Store. Please forgive me if this has already been mentioned. This utility provides for an xterm window that looks like the display an old *tube. You can set the curvature of the glass, the glow, various scan techniques, 9600 speed, and so on. It adds that extra dimension to give the look and feel of working on early UNIX with a tube. I would love to see profiles created that match actual ttys. My favorite tube is the Wyse 50. Another, one I remember is a Codex model with “slowopen” set in vi. Remember how early UNIX terminals behaved with slowopen, right? The characters would overtype during insert mode in vi, but when you hit escape, the line you just clobbered reappears shifting the remaining text as appropriate to the right. Cathode adds a little spice, albeit artificially, to the experience of early UNIX. Truly, Bill Corcoran (*) For the uninitiated, we used to call the tty terminal a “tube.” For example, you might hear my boss say, “Corcoran, that cheese you hacked yesterday launched a runaway that’s now soaking the client’s CPU. Go jump on a free tube and fix it now!”

4 years, 7 months

PiDP-11 in action!

by Adam Thornton

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0MKJjk8pRBvkZAEzaobjfOyPQ I start v7 Unix and play "Hunt The Wumpus". (I finally got it put together this weekend, and fixed the last couple dodgy joints tonight). Adam

4 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] block operations in editors, was My EuroBSDcon talk

by Doug McIlroy

Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Doug McIlroy > > > the absence of multidemensional arrays in C. > >?? From the 'C Reference Manual' (no date, but circa 'Typesetter C'), pg. 11: > > "If the unadorned declarator D would specify an n-dimensional array .. then > the declarator D[in+1] yields an (n+1)-dimensional array" > > >I'm not sure if I've _ever_ used one, but they are there. Yes, C allows arrays of arrays, and I've used them aplenty. However an "n-dimensional array" has one favored dimension, out of which you can slice an array of lower dimension. For example, you can pass a row of a 2D array to a function of a 1D variable, but you can't pass a column. That asymmetry underlies my assertion. In Python, by contrast, n-dimensional arrays can be sliced on any dimension. Doug

4 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] earliest Unix roff

by Doug McIlroy

> Excellent - thanks for the pointer. This shows nroff before troff. > FWIW: I guess I was miss informed, but I had been under the impression > that was the other way around. i.e. nroff was done to be compliant with > the new troff, replacing roff, although the suggestion here is that he > wrote it add macros to roff. I'll note that either way, the dates are all > possible of course because the U/L case ASR 37 was introduced 1968 so by > the early 1970's they would have been around the labs. nroff was in v2; troff appeared in v4, which incidentally was typeset in troff. Because of Joe Ossanna's role in designing the model 37, we had 37's in the Labs and even in our homes right from the start of production. But when they went obsolete, they were a chore to get rid of. As Labs property, they had to be returned; and picking them up was nobody's priority. Andy Hall had one on his back porch for a year. Doug

4 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] block operations in editors, was My EuroBSDcon talk

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Doug McIlroy > the absence of multidemensional arrays in C. ?? From the 'C Reference Manual' (no date, but circa 'Typesetter C'), pg. 11: "If the unadorned declarator D would specify an n-dimensional array .. then the declarator D[in+1] yields an (n+1)-dimensional array" I'm not sure if I've _ever_ used one, but they are there. Noel

4 years, 7 months

[tuhs] Computer history preservation

by Nelson H. F. Beebe

A major topic on this list has been the preservation of computer history, through museums that collect and operate old hardware, software emulation of past hardware and software systems, and data recovery from newly discovered, but previously thought to be lost, archives. I came across an article today about another major industry that has been exceedingly careless about preserving its history: Wipe Out: When the BBC Kept Erasing Its Own History https://getpocket.com/explore/item/wipe-out-when-the-bbc-kept-erasing-its-o… It is a must-read for Dr Who fans on this list. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe(a)math.utah.edu - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe(a)acm.org beebe(a)computer.org - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4 years, 7 months

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TUHS September 2019