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I've just come across some old Unix Sources

by David Barto

Notably: 32v_usr.tar.gz and sys3.tar.gz. I’ve not unpacked the tar files. If someone would like more detail about the contents I’ll produce a TOC offline for them. David

2 years, 3 months

Earliest UNIX Workstations?

by Paul Ruizendaal

As a result of the recent discussion on this list I’m trying to understand the timeline of graphical computing on Unix, first of all in my preferred time slot ’75 -’85. When it comes to Bell Labs I’m aware of the following: - around 1975 the Labs worked on the Glance-G vector graphics terminal. This was TSS-516 based with no Unix overlap I think. - around the same time the Labs seem to have used the 1973 Dec VT11 vector graphics terminal; at least the surviving LSX Unix source has a driver for it - in 1976 there was the Terak 8510; this ran primarily USCD pascal, but it also ran LSX and/or MX (but maybe only much later) - then it seems to jump 1981 and to the Blit. - in 1984 there was MGR that was done at Bellcore Outside of the labs (but on Unix), I have: - I am not sure what graphics software ran on the SUN-1, but it must have been something - Clem just mentioned the 1981 Tektronix Magnolia system - Wikipedia says that X1 was 1984 and X11 was 1987; I’m not sure when it became Unix centered - Sun’s NeWS arrived only in 1989, I think? Outside of Unix, in the microcomputer world there was a lot of cheap(er) graphics hardware. Lot’s of stuff at 256 x 192 resolution, but up to 512 x 512 at the higher end. John Walker writes that the breakout product for Autodesk was Interact (the precursor to AutoCAD). Initially developed for S-100 bus systems it quickly moved to the PC. There was a lot of demand for CAD at a 5K price point that did not exist at a 50K price point.

2 years, 3 months

Re: Setting up an X Development Environment for Mac OS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff > It's my understanding it was started by Bob Scheifler of the CLU group. Yes, that's correct. (Bob's office was right around the corner from me - although I had very little knowledge of what his group was up to; I was too busy with other things.) I have this vague memory that his version was actually written in CLU? Can that be correct? It would make sense, since that group was so focused on CLU - but maybe not, see below. X must have been done after LCS got the 750 farm (on which we ran 4.1c, to start with) - although I don't know what kind of terminals they were using to run X on - we didn't have any bit-mapped displays on them, I'm pretty sure. Although maybe it was later, once Micro-Vaxes appeared? I have this vague memory that it was based (perhaps only in design, not code re-use) on a window system done at Stanford {looks}; yes, W (hence 'X'): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Window_System The X paper listed there: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/22949.24053 doesn't say anything about the implementation, so maybe that vague memory/assumption that I had that it was originally written in CLU is wrong. Liskov's 'History of CLU' paper, which lists things done in CLU, doesn't mention it, so I must have been confused? Do any of the really early versions of X (and W) still exist? Noel

2 years, 3 months

[off-topic] Anyone still using USENET?

by arnold＠skeeve.com

Hi. I've been using trn for decades to read a very few USENET groups. Until recently I've been using aioe.org as my NNTP server but it seems to have gone dark. Before that I used eternal-september.org, but when I try that I now get: | $ NNTPSERVER=news.eternal-september.org trn | Connecting to news.eternal-september.org...Done. | | Invalid (bogus) newsgroup found: comp.sys.3b1 | | Invalid (bogus) newsgroup found: comp.sources.bugs | | Invalid (bogus) newsgroup found: comp.misc | | Invalid (bogus) newsgroup found: comp.compilers | .... And those all are (or were!) valid groups. If anyone has suggestions for a good free NNTP server, please let me know. Privately is fine. I'm at a bit of a loss otherwise. Thanks, Arnold

2 years, 3 months

reading historic magnetic tapes

by Steve Simon

i worked for some years on video and film archive restoration. baking old, badly stored magnetic tapes prior to reading them is a common practice. my favourite was a story of a rock band (i think the stones) who wanted to play an old 24 track master tape but discovered it seemed to be stuck together. there is a nasty affliction of mag tapes called sticky vinegar syndrome, so they did the right thing and sent a section of tape for analysis. the results came back: the tape had suffered impregnation with “vodka and coke”. some things never change. -Steve

2 years, 3 months

tesseract has gotten so much better

by Will Senn

Hi All, I just wanted to let y'all know that tesseract ocr has significantly improved and is much easier to use that it used to be. I have been using it with my workflow for a bit and it's crazy how much better it is than it was back when I tried it last (admittedly 5-6 years ago). For those of you doing your own scans, or those of you finding sad little pdfs without ocr, the process is fairly simple. Let's say you find "The Master Manual of Fortran.pdf" out there in the wild (or scan it). Here's how to turn it into a glorious ocr'd version: Export your pdf as a multi-image tiff - it'll be ginormous, but you can delete it later (on Mac, this is just export from preview and select tiff, but gs will do it to, if I remember correctly) and then: tesseract The\ Master\ Manual\ of\ Fortran.tiff out -l eng PDF et voila, I nice, if large pdf, called out.pdf or somesuch will appear with ocr text that actually matches your scan (it seems to have caught up to adobe's ocr, or is quite close in my view, ymmv). I speak English, so I installed tesseract and tesseract-eng, but it supports a bunch of other languages if you need them. Apparently google's been supporting and developing it for while now and if my results are any indicator, it's paying off (boy do I remember all the gobbledegook it used to produce). tesseract will import from different image types, multiple images, etc. I just like the simplicity of tiff->pdf. Anyhow, thought y'all might like to know as many of you live off the scans :). Will

2 years, 3 months

C port of Ken Thompson's Space Travel

by Lars Brinkhoff

If you don't want to play Space Travel on PDP-7 Unix, you can now do it more easily running this C port. The controls are--so far--just as quirky as the original. https://github.com/mohd-akram/st

2 years, 3 months

Re: Earliest UNIX Workstations?

by John Foust

At 01:20 AM 1/26/2023, John Cowan wrote: >WP says the Terak 8510/a was the first graphical workstation; it came out in 1976-77 and ran the UCSD p-System.Â I had never heard of it before. I have a dozen or so Teraks (a PDP-11/03 based system) as well as many floppies and other inherited items and notebooks from one of the Terak founders. This may seem like a lot but there's another guy who might still have a larger collection. Mini-Unix is described here: http://www.tavi.co.uk/unixhistory/mini-unix.html Sixth edition, no MMU. The Bell memo there is dated January 1977. There was a Mini-Unix for the Terak described here in May 1979 but I don't think I have a copy. See page 14... https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/159028/UCC_Special%20_Is… Terak floppies are described here: http://www.60bits.net/msu/mycomp/terak/termedia.htm A memo there says they got their copy in April 1980. There's no indication that this Mini-Unix can *use* the Terak's mono bitmapped display, short of writing your own routines. Pinning "first" on computers is always a tricky process. - John

2 years, 3 months

Re: Earliest UNIX Workstations?

by Paul Ruizendaal

>> * What do I really mean by workstation? Ex.gr. If an installation had a >> PDP-11 with a single terminal and operator, is it not a workstation? Is >> it the integration of display into the system that differentiates? > > I remember people calling something a workstation, > if it has the four "M" > > at least 1 MByte memory > at least 1 megapixel display > at least 1 mbit/s network > can't remember the fourth(was there a fourth?) I remember it as: at least 1 MByte memory at least 1 megapixel display at least 1 MIPS cost at most 1 mega penny (10K, maybe 35K in today’s money) That matches with Wikipedia, for whatever that is worth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M_computer but note that it talks about 3M not 4M. With hindsight, not adding in networking speed looks strange -- but maybe the world had already settled on LAN speeds above 1Mb/s by 1980 (Ethernet, ARCNet)

2 years, 3 months

Fwd: How did Bell Labs start to work on Project MAC?

by Dan Cross

[Bcc: to TUHS as it's not strictly Unix related, but relevant to the pre-history] This came from USENET, specifically, alt.os.multics. Since it's unlikely anyone in a position to answer is going to see it there, I'm reposting here: From Acceptable Name <metta.crawler(a)gmail.com>: >Did Bell Labs approach MIT or was it the other way around? >Did participating in Project MAC come from researchers requesting >management at Bell Labs/MIT or did management make the >decision due to dealing with other managers in each of the two >organizations? Did it grow out of an informal arrangement into >a format one?" These are interesting questions. Perhaps Doug may be in the know? - Dan C.

2 years, 3 months

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