8 Jun
2023
8 Jun
'23
9:53 p.m.
Thanks to Unix document recovery work by some TUHS list members that
has been recently added to the archives at minnie.tuhs.org, a large
Bell Labs bibliography about Unix has been uncovered and is now
available online. I have spent time this week converting the 59-page
PDF file to a somewhat searchable OCR'ed PDF, and from a text
conversion of that file, to relatively clean BibTeX entries in
https://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/unix.bib
[change .bib to .html for similar view with hypertext links].
The bibliography recorded in entry Scheiderman:1980:UB, with a long
remark field, has 457 entries, from the years 1972 to 1980, but due to
splitting into subject-specific sections, there are some duplications:
448 remain after data merger.
Much work remains to be done, including locating electronic copies of
those reports, correcting truncated data, and getting suitable URLs
retrofitted into their BibTeX entries. However, I prefer a
release-early-and-often approach to bibliographic data distribution,
whence this announcement to the TUHS list and others.
For searching convenience, I have created an SQLite3 portable
database file at
https://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/unix.db
There is a tutorial on SQL searching of BibTeX data in a paper and
talk slides at
BibTeX meets relational databases
https://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/talks/#2009
and further documentation about BibTeX itself at
BibTeX Information and Tutorial
https://www.math.utah.edu/pub/bibnet/bibtex-info.html
Below are some samples of searches to find the earliest mention of
selected topics in the Bell Labs technical memoranda. Even if you have
never used SQL queries, they should be fairly understandable, and the
new entries all carry identical bibtimestamp values to make their
identification and selection easy.
% sqlite3 unix.db
.headers on
.mode table
-- Find the earliest entries
select label, year, author from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
order by year, label
limit 10;
+--------------------+------+-------------------------------------+
| label | year | author |
+--------------------+------+-------------------------------------+
| McIlroy:1972:MTC | 1972 | M. Douglas McIlroy |
| Ritchie:1972:UAR | 1972 | Dennis M. Ritchie |
| McIlroy:1973:SES | 1973 | M. Douglas McIlroy |
| Olsson:1973:GCC | 1973 | S. B. Olsson |
| Remde:1973:CCS | 1973 | J. R. Remde |
| Kernighan:1974:PCT | 1974 | Brian W. Kernighan |
| Lycklama:1974:ILC | 1974 | Heinz Lycklama |
| Morris:1974:CDT | 1974 | Robert Morris and Lorinda L. Cherry |
| Morris:1974:WSH | 1974 | Robert Morris and Ken Thompson |
| Swanson:1974:GFC | 1974 | G. K. Swanson |
+--------------------+------+-------------------------------------+
-- Find earliest mentions of IBM mainframes
select label, year, title from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and (title like '%ibm%')
order by year, label;
------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| label | year | title
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Roberts:1975:UIU | 1975 | UNIXLIST --- An IBM / 370 Utility Program to List a UNIX Fil
|
| | | e Stored on a 9-Track Magnetic Tape.
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bach:1979:PAD | 1979 | Porting the ADAPT Data Translation System to the IBM 370
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Grampp:1979:SCI | 1979 | Support for C on IBM Computers
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Huber:1979:ULD | 1979 | UNIX Line Discipline for IBM 2740-1 Protocol
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
-- Find earliest mention of porting work to Intel 808x family
select label, year, title from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and ((title like '%intel %') or (title like '%z80%'))
order by year, label
limit 5;
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| label | year | title
|
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Molinelli:1977:UAI | 1977 | UNIX Assembler For The Intel 8080 Microprocessor
|
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bradley:1978:EMS | 1978 | Evaluation of Microprocessors Supporting the C Language: LSI
|
| | | -11, MAC-8, Z80
|
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Farrell:1978:UGS | 1978 | User's Guide to the SMAL2 Language for the Zilog Z80
Micropr |
| | | ocessor
|
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Vogel:1978:ZAR | 1978 | 8080 / Z80 Assembler Reference Manual
|
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Blumer:1979:UUI | 1979 | UNIX / 86: UNIX on the Intel 8086
|
+--------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
-- Find earliest mentions of port to Interdata machines [note the full
-- text search of entry, rather than just of the title]
select label, year, title from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and (entry like '%interdata%')
order by year, label
limit 5;
+------------------+------+---------------------------------+
| label | year | title |
+------------------+------+---------------------------------+
| Johnson:1977:CLC | 1977 | The C Language Calling Sequence |
+------------------+------+---------------------------------+
-- Find earliest mentions of 36-bit Univac Unix
select label, year, author from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and (title like '%univac%')
order by year, label;
+----------------+------+---------------------------------+
| label | year | author |
+----------------+------+---------------------------------+
| Lyons:1976:GUR | 1976 | T. G. Lyons |
| Graaf:1979:PPE | 1979 | D. A. De Graaf and Jerome Feder |
+----------------+------+---------------------------------+
-- Find authors of earliest mentions of Programmer's Workbench (PWB)
select label, year, author from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and ((title like '%PWB%') or (title like '%workbench%'))
order by year, label
limit 5;
+------------------+------+-------------------------------+
| label | year | author |
+------------------+------+-------------------------------+
| Dolotta:1975:PWP | 1975 | T. A. Dolotta and others |
| Dolotta:1976:PWP | 1976 | T. A. Dolotta and others |
| Lyons:1976:GUR | 1976 | T. G. Lyons |
| Smith:1976:NTF | 1976 | D. W. Smith |
| Dolotta:1977:PUV | 1977 | T. A. Dolotta and D. W. Smith |
+------------------+------+-------------------------------+
-- Find titles of earliest mentions of Programmer's Workbench (PWB)
select label, year, title from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and ((title like '%PWB%') or (title like '%workbench%'))
order by year, label
limit 5;
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| label | year | title
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dolotta:1975:PWP | 1975 | Programmer's Workbench Papers From The Second
International |
| | | Conference On Software Engineering (G.4)
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dolotta:1976:PWP | 1976 | Programmer's Workbench Papers From The Second
International |
| | | Conference on Software Engineering. (G.4)
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Lyons:1976:GUR | 1976 | Guide to UNIVAC Remote Job Entry for Programmer's
Workbench |
| | | Users
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Smith:1976:NTF | 1976 | NROFF / TROFF Formatting Codes For Departmental Organization
|
| | | Directories On PWB / UNIX
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dolotta:1977:PUV | 1977 | PWB / UNIX View Graph and Slide Macros (T.9)
|
+------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
-- Find earliest mentions of nroff and troff
select label, year, title from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and (title like '%roff%')
order by year, label
limit 5;
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| label | year | title
|
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Smith:1976:NTF | 1976 | NROFF / TROFF Formatting Codes For Departmental
Organization |
| | | Directories On PWB / UNIX
|
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Cummingham:1977:NPG | 1977 | NROFF For Producing Generic Program Documentation
|
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kernighan:1978:TT | 1978 | A TROFF Tutorial
|
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Lesk:1978:TDU | 1978 | Typing Documents on the UNIX System: Using the tt -ms
Macros |
| | | with Troff and Nroff
|
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ossanna:1979:NTU | 1979 | NROFF / TROFF User's Manual
|
+---------------------+------+--------------------------------------------------------------+
-- Find earliest mentions of typesetting
select label, year, title from bibtab
where (filename = 'unix.bib')
and (bibtimestamp like '2023.06.06%')
and (title like '%typeset%')
order by year, label
limit 5;
+--------------------+------+-------------------------------------------------------+
| label | year | title |
+--------------------+------+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Lesk:1976:CTTa | 1976 | Computer Typesetting of Technical Journals on UNIX |
| Edelson:1977:TAA | 1977 | Typesetting ACS and APS Meeting Abstracts --- Issue 2 |
| Vogel:1977:EPV | 1977 | Easy Phototypeset View Graphs on UNIX |
| Kernighan:1978:TMU | 1978 | Typesetting Mathematics --- User's Guide
|
| Kernighan:1979:STM | 1979 | A System for Typesetting Mathematics |
+--------------------+------+-------------------------------------------------------+
As always, comments on, corrections for, and addenda to, unix.bib are
most welcome: just send me e-mail.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 -
- University of Utah -
- 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/ -
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