TUHS May 2025

tuhs@tuhs.org

43 participants
25 discussions

by norman＠oclsc.org

Aharon Robbins: So, before I just refer to them as "classics", can anyone recommend more recent books? Feel free to answer in private. === `Unix security' is not the most-specific of terms. Can you give more context? Norman Wilson Toronto ON

2 weeks, 3 days

Re: Any Interdata war stories?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Clem Cole > Yes, that was one of the RTS compilers for the NU machine. John Romkey > may have done it, as he was the primary person behind PCIP I decided to poke around in the 'MIT-CSR' dump, since that was the machine the PC/IP project started on, to see what I could find. Hoo boy! What an adventure! In the PC/IP area, I found a 'c86' directory - but it was almost empty. It did have a shell file, 'grab', which contained: tftp -g $1 xx "PS:<Wayne>$1" and a 'graball' file which called 'grab' for the list of compiler source files. ('xx' was MIT-XX, the TOPS-20 main time-sharing machint of LCS.) So I did a Web search for Wayne Gramlich (with whom I hadn't communicated in many decades), and he popped right up. (Amazing thing, this Internet thingy. Who'd have ever thought, back in the day, that it would turn into what it did? Well, probably John Brunner, whom I (sadly) never met, who was there before any of us.) I took a chance, and called his number, and he was there, and we had a long chat. He absolutely didn't do it, although he wrote the loader the project used ('l68', the source for which I did find.) He's virtually certain Romkey didn't (which would have been my guess too; Romkey was like a sophmore when the project started). His best (_very_ faded) memory was that they started off with a commercial compiler. (But see below.) That leaves several mysteries. 1) Why would a commercial compiler not come with a linker? 2) Why did people who wanted to work with the PC/IP source need a Bell license? I did some more poking, and the list of files for the 86 compiler, from 'graball': trees.c optim.c pftn.c code.c local.c scan.c xdefs.c table.c reader.c local2.c order.c match.c allo.c comm1.c manifest mfile1 common macdefs mfile2 mac2defs matched the file names from 'pcc', as given in "A Tour Through the Portable C Compiler": https://maibriz.de/unix/ultrix/_root/porttour.pdf (in section "The Source Files"). So whether the 86 compiler was done at MIT (by someone in RTS), or at a company, it was definitely a 'pcc' descendant. (Possibly adding to the confusion, we had some other C compilers for various ISA's in that project [building networking software for various micro-computers], including an 8080 C compiler from Whitesmiths, Ltd, which I have also found. It's possible that Wayne's vague memory of a commercial compiler is of that one?) I really should reach out to Romkey and Bridgham, to see what they remember. Later today. Whether the main motivation for keeping the compiler source on XX was i) because disk space was short on CSR (we had only a hand-me-down pair of CalComp Model 215 drives - capacity 58 Mbytes per drive!); ii) to prevent version skew; or iii) because it was a commercial compiler, and we had to protect the source (e.g. we didn't have the source to the 8080 compiler, only the object modules), I have no idea. > Anyway the MIT RTS folks made hardware and PCC back ends for the 68K, > Z8000 and 8086. I believe that each had separate assemblers, tjt who > sometimes reads this list might know more, as he wrote the 68K assembler. There is an 'a86' directory on CSR, but it too is empty, except for a 'grab' command file. That contains only: tftp -g $1 xx "PS:<novick>$1" I have no memory of who 'novick' might have been. A Web search for 'novick mit lcs' didn' turn anything up. (I wonder if it might have been Carol Novitsky; she was in our group at LCS, and I have a vague memory of her being associated with the networking software for micro-computers project.) Anyway, it probably doesn't matter; the c86 'grab' referred to Wayne, but he didn't write c86; 'novick' might not have written a86. Something else to ask Romkey and Bridgham about. Noel

2 weeks, 3 days

Re: Paragraphs formatted differently depending on previous ones

by Douglas McIlroy

Branden, > The relevant function fits on one screen, if your terminal window is at > least 36 lines high. :) (Much of it is given over to comments.) > https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/src/roff/troff/env.cpp?id=… Actually there's still another function, spread_space that contains the inner R-L and L-R loops. The whole thing has become astonishingly complicated compared to what I remember as a few (carefully crafted) lines of code in the early roff. I admire your intrepid forays into the groff woods, of which this part must be among the less murky. Doug

2 weeks, 4 days

Surviving System V/VME Artifacts?

by segaloco

So part of Western Electric/AT&Ts developer support for the WE32x00 CPU line was the WE321SB VME-bus single-board computer. The official operating system for this was UNIX System V/VME. This version is referenced in several document catalogues and literature surrounding this VME module. I was curious if anyone on list happens to know of any surviving System V/VME artifacts floating around out there. All I've been able to find are references to the system in other WE32x00 and UNIX documentation. Thanks for any info! - Matt G.

2 weeks, 5 days

Any Interdata war stories?

by arnold＠skeeve.com

> From: Tom Lyon <pugs78(a)gmail.com> > > I was pleased to learn that the first port of S to UNIX was on the > Interdata 8/32, which I had my part in enabling. I would love to hear more about the Interdata port and what happened with it afterwards. Interdata seems to have disappeared into the dustbin of history. And Unix on it apparently never got out of Bell Labs; I don't think the code for it is in the TUHS archives. Was the Interdata system in use at Bell Labs for actual work once the port was complete? ISTR there was a meeting with Interdata about changes in the architecture that Bell Labs wanted, that Interdata didn't want to make. What was the full story? Any other info would be welcome. Thanks, Arnold

2 weeks, 6 days

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TUHS May 2025