I tried an ngram search on google, and came up with the following:

Richard L. Gauthier. October 1981. Using the Unix System, Reston Publishing Co.  ISBN 978-0835981644.

That seems to precede the Bourne book.

Available at amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Using-Unix-System-Richard-Gauthier/dp/0835981649

Michael


On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 5:28 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
Two thoughts ...

1.) Lion's was not a general book.  It really was more of a kernel 'here-is-how-the-magic-happens.'   It's still the best I know for that.  BTW:  it did not leak.  It was purchasable from WE.   But the cost was high and it was hard to get (you had a price you had a license and could not buy/order it at any book store - I don't think it had an ISBN or a library congress number originally).

I know a couple of the schools (like CMU) wanted to use it for the OS course, but there was some hang-up associated with it in the mid-70s, which I don't remember - we did have a couple of sections passed out for a few lecture.  But because of how it was bound (and short), it was photocopied s others have pointed out. 

I think Michigan managed to use the whole thing for their OS course, as I seem to remember that both Ted Kowalski and Bill Joy got copies there (although my memory is that they both had photocopies not the original Orange and Red bindings).  Ted brought it to CMU, which is how I first saw it (and I think my original copy was a duplicate of his). And I remember seeing a photocopy in wnj's office at UCB.  The first time I saw the official Red/Orange bound version was when I ordered it at Tektronix from WE a few years later, but I had to leave it there when I went back to grad school.


2.) The question asked about general 'Unix' text -- my favorite is still Rob and Brian's and I still recommend it (particularly to learn how to >>use<< UNIX/Linux today by doing the exercises), but it was not first.   Steve's certainly was early and I thought it was a good explanation and until Rob and Brian became available was what I suggested when people asked.  In fact, early Masscomp system's shipped Bourne's text, until Tim wrote the original 'UNIX In a Nutshell' that started his empire.    That said, I do seem to remember there was another book around the same time (79-80 ish) that had a light blue cover that came from one 'PC-press' publishers.   I wish I could remember the author and the name.  I remember looking at a copy in Powell's in Portland when it came out and not being impressed.

On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:08 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
Do the Bell Labs technical journals count?  I have a collection of Unix
papers that were puled out and published together in two volumes.  That
stuff was a gold mine of information in the 80's.

On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> The Lions book wasn???t really published back in the day.   It was only targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
>
> The manuals aren???t really a book (and again, they weren???t really published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form of articles than an entire book.

--
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Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm


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Michael Usher
Senior Wireless Network Engineer
University of California, Santa Cruz
musher@ucsc.edu        831-459-3697