On Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 10:08:41PM +0200, Josh Good wrote: I disagree with both of these assertions; I was weary of the repeated personal attacks and misinformation, and I am grateful that Warren is preserving the focus of TUHS. khm

On 2017 Apr 6, 23:23, Aram H??v??rneanu wrote: I am grateful to Warren too, for a mailing list needs to be curated, and he is putting a lot of valuable time and wise effort into that job! However, I chimed in just to note that the decision, however legitimate and based on the list owner's best criterion, is not an "unanimous feeling". I hope I can be in disagreement while respecting Warren's decision. -- Josh Good

Well, this is a fascinating place. So many pioneers, including Warren's endless contributions can be found here. I would feel awful if I were kicked out without any kind of due process. I mean 100 years from now, this place will live on and continue to be a primary source. Perhaps, it would be better for Warren to create a policy, if it does not already exist, and then show how that policy was violated. Next, there should also be a panel of at least three arbiters that could be used for the subject to appeal any decision. Also, having a policy in place would allow for progressive discipline to be implemented: first a warning, then privileges suspended and finally privileges revoked. Truly, Bill Corcoran

On Fri, Apr 07, 2017 at 08:20:06AM -0400, William Corcoran wrote: But that is what happened. khm

I agree with Warren's decision, but I think out of respect for Joerg this discussion ought to be taken off list. On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 8:23 AM Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote:

Thanks for bringing that up, Ron. Warren, thank you for maintaining this list. Ian

On Fri, 7 Apr 2017, Warren Toomey wrote: The problem is that some of them are still alive :-) -- Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

On 7 April 2017 at 00:09, Warren Toomey <wkt(a)tuhs.org> wrote: So: you're looking for European geeks? I think I know where to find some... Hello, my name is Alec, and I have been a Unix addict for around 30 years now. :-) I'm based in the UK, specifically near Farnborough; formerly University of Aberystwyth (3yr), then Sun Microsystems (17yr), various, then Facebook (3yr). First encounter with Unix: as an undergrad in 1987 using 4.2BSD on the Sun 3/50 and 3/160, and first job was porting them to "SunOS". Story to add to the collective zeitgeist? I have all the versions of Crack - because I wrote it - but it also led to an interesting tale, told at length in a video*, but which I can recap as "I was appointed 'cryptographic moderator' of comp.sources.misc because Kent Landfield, the actual moderator, was dragged into a USG attempt to prosecute Phil Zimmerman for publishing PGP, and US-based moderation of crypto publication became an issue." If I have anything to contribute it's likely paper-based or war-stories; I'm pretty sure I have old MACRO-11 manuals, and maybe a few copies of the old unix programmer docs, but there was too much to keep the whole thing. If anyone is interested in multi-user games, I have the original source of AberMUD, printed on fanfold, implemented in B for GCOS3 on a Honeywell L-66 (a machine which was literally advertised as being able to withstand grenade detonations within N feet) Unixes I have hacked on: 4.1-4.3 BSD on Vaxes and Suns Gould UTX/32 on a "NP-1" - a bizarre machine which used 2 Coherent PCs, one as a sort of bootloader (?) and the other as a master console which was so deeply integrated into the system that simply pressing "Return" on the console was enough to time-out all X.25 Ethernet sessions on the machine Dynix/PTX on a Sequent; odd, but fun. MIPS/Ultrix on DEC 5820, later 5830 when the performance was underwhelming; then we found that the DECStation5000/200 which served as an ops-console was at least as performant as the servers, and we put _that_ into user-service, too.; various DESstations Mostly every SunOS/Solaris from 1987-2009 $modern_stuff. Loving having a farm of Raspberry Pi at home. One of them is now labelled "vaxa" and running an 11/780 SIMH with 4.2BSD on it, though I would love to upgrade that to Tahoe/Reno and get it talking to the net via NAT. I've found the source of the DEC ethernet driver and am racking my brains trying to remember how to rebuild the kernel... - alec * video: https://video.adm.ntnu.no/pres/5494065ba6b9f -- http://dropsafe.crypticide.com/aboutalecm

On 7 April 2017 at 10:32, Robert Swierczek <rmswierczek(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's a few inches thick, I'll dig it out and post sample code photos from it, somewhere. -a -- http://dropsafe.crypticide.com/aboutalecm

On 7 April 2017 at 11:24, Alec Muffett <alec.muffett(a)gmail.com> wrote: I've posted a few images at https://dropsafe.crypticide.com/article/12714 Username "iy7" spattered around the text, was Alan Cox. I suppose the most notable thing is use of asterisk, where C coders would expect backslash? And the lack of types. -a -- http://dropsafe.crypticide.com/aboutalecm

On 9 April 2017 at 07:34, Random832 <random832(a)fastmail.com> wrote: I honestly can't remember; I think it was the Aberystwyth sysadmin (Rob Ash) who write a B prettifier (the cited BTIDY) but I can't remember whether B as a language used/ignored line numbers, or if this was just a prettyprint thing. There are mentions of line numbers in https://www.bell-labs.com/ usr/dmr/www/btut.pdf so perhaps they are a compiler convenience for diagnostics? -a -- http://dropsafe.crypticide.com/aboutalecm

On Sun, Apr 9, 2017, at 12:57, Toby Thain wrote: The fact that they're not on every line and increment by 10 is what made me think of BASIC.

My memory is clearly that B did not use line numbers.   However, it did report line numbers for errors.  The 'ed' command had an 'n' command that would number the lines of the file -- I think this was a result of an early customer for Unix being the patent department -- at the time, patents had to have exactly 50 lines on each page with no blanks and the lines had to be numbered...   When writing about a program, it was handy to include line numbers so the document could refer more easily to lines in the program, but they weren't fed to the compiler. Steve (Funny how this conversation makes me feel like one of a few surviving members of a tribe speaking a soon to be dead language...)   ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alec Muffett" <alec.muffett(a)gmail.com> To: "Random832" <random832(a)fastmail.com> Cc: <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org> Sent: Sun, 9 Apr 2017 12:03:13 +0100 Subject: Re: [TUHS] Non-US Unix Activities On 9 April 2017 at 07:34, Random832 <random832(a)fastmail.com [1]> wrote: https://dropsafe.crypticide.com/article/12714 [2] would Are those BASIC-style line numbers? I honestly can't remember; I think it was the Aberystwyth sysadmin (Rob Ash) who write a B prettifier (the cited BTIDY) but I can't remember whether B as a language used/ignored line numbers, or if this was just a prettyprint thing. There are mentions of line numbers in https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/btut.pdf [3] so perhaps they are a compiler convenience for diagnostics?     -a -- http://dropsafe.crypticide.com/aboutalecm [4] Links: ------ [1] mailto:random832@fastmail.com [2] https://dropsafe.crypticide.com/article/12714 [3] https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/btut.pdf [4] http://dropsafe.crypticide.com/aboutalecm

On 10 Apr 2017, at 06:40, Robert Swierczek <rmswierczek(a)gmail.com> wrote: It's not: it's further. Languages like BCPL and B were fine for word-addressed machines which had really one type in the hardware, but modern machines are a seething mass of types: four or more integral types, two or more float types, at least.

On 2017-04-07 1:57 PM, Robert Swierczek wrote: Yes, a full duplex ADF scanner, like the Fujitsu fi-4530 I own, can do it, but you would need to guillotine off the perforations (take it around to your local printer, who has the right guillotine). --Toby

On 2017-04-07 4:23 PM, Robert Swierczek wrote: Yes, there's always SOME way to avoid it, but obviously significantly more work. Just depends what the priorities are... Preserving fanfold seems like a strange priority, wouldn't it be more practical bound book-like anyway? Or, similar to your suggestion, load it into a compatible printer (so that it can be sprocket fed), with some kind of takeup spool, then form feed pages through, snapping each one between feeds. --T

At AT&T, the evolution from B to C was quite smooth, as was the evolution of C itself.   Most B programs were converted to "nb" (the first C incarnation) by hacking on the character strings and putting in some types where needed.   It wasn't a big deal.  So I'd be surprised if there were substantial B programs that survived. One lesson learned that I've never forgotten is how smooth it is to evolve a language using the following process: * Announce that the change is coming and explain why * Change the compiler to accept both the old and new syntax * Produce a simple warning message when the old syntax was used, but make it still work * Produce a more complicated, verbose message, but still make it work * Produce a message that says "After date xxxx, the old stuff won't work any more" * On the date, change the warning to fatal, but keep recognizing the old syntax and emit "Error: You used the old xxx, change to the new one" * Eventually, stop recognizing the old syntax and remove the message. Dennis was a master at this strategy, so things like the otherwise painful evolution of changing =+ to += went well. Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Swierczek" &lt;rmswierczek(a)gmail.com&gt; To:"Toby Thain" &lt;toby(a)telegraphics.com.au&gt; Cc:<tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> Sent:Fri, 7 Apr 2017 17:51:03 -0400 Subject:Re: [TUHS] Non-US Unix Activities significantly more seems like anyway? (so that feed Fully agree! If there is anything I can do to help get that online (in whatever form) let me know. Are there any other surviving examples of B code from that era in this ballpark of complexity?

Before we get all complicated, I will go ask some people if they have the source. :-) I was the first person to die on AberMUD, and that particular story is told here: https://dropsafe.crypticide.com/alecm/abermud/README_HISTORY.HTML ...along with a walk-through of the room descriptions from that era, respun as simple navigation through clickable room descriptions. I didn't go into the topic of this because it seemed a little far off the topic of "Unix", but if Warren will permit me a brief digression, some of which many of you will be completely aware, but this is for posterity: Over here in Europe the Internet was not king; instead the UK universities were linked by X.25 networks, the hostnames were bigendian, and the services often literally chargeable. The UK academia network was JANET (Joint Academic NETwork) and - since systems could not communicate with each other unless a godlike "Network Manager" waved dead chickens over them in arcane ceremonies - the students wrote, and then advertised, samizdat style, the addresses and login credentials for various "Bulletin Boards" which they would log into and share messages. Onesuch was University College London (UCL) "Bullet", run by myself, Rob Newsom, and Steve Usher, at UCL. Steve keeps a copy of Bullet running even today, the history and details are at: https://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~steve/bullet.html At Aberystwyth - where I got a job after graduation, having hacked it quietly but extensively - was Honeyboard, running on the previously mentioned L66 under GCOS-3. Authors: Alan Cox (of Linux fame) Both Bullet & Honeyboard had "message boards" (cf: single-host USENET) and "talkers" (group chat & private messaging) - the irony was that Bullet was meant to be a MUD but turned into a Bulletin board, whereas Honeyboard was a bulletin board which turned into a MUD - AberMUD. In the latter case: "descriptions" (flat files, named by channel number) were added as augmentation to numbered "talker channels", and the files were given annotations ("#DEATH" - kills people on entry, logs them out) in rooms with special features; then a basic action parser was hacked into the chat system; the rest of *that* story is in the README_HISTORY.HTML link, above. Honeyboard became AberMUD, got enhanced with a lot of cleanup, then got shared, and - this is where I get hazy - Rich $alz got a copy, reworked a bunch of code (ported to C at this point? Or maybe earlier) and it got posted to USENET... and the rest is more well-known history. I'll send this now, and then forward the e-mail around some friends to see if the source is extant. - alec * footnote: we shared addresses of BBSes samizdat style amongst friends; one very popular place to do that was Essex MUD, the source code for which is upstream. A TOPS-10 system, it permitted access to players from (IIRC) 2am until 7am on weekdays, plus extensions on weekends. I lost a lot of sleep that way.

Robert Swierczek &lt;rmswierczek(a)gmail.com&gt; writes: There is also the very first MUD written in Essex BCPL. The Essex compiler was recently unearthed. https://github.com/PDP-10/MUD1 https://github.com/PDP-10/essex-bcpl

That’s too bad all the old Sun kit was lost, without even imaging it. I’ve been playing with TME, and going through some motions on getting SunOS 2.0 running. SunOS 1.0 would have been interesting as well, and or anything from the SUN-100 days. From: Tim Bradshaw Sent: Friday, 7 April 2017 8:09 PM To: Warren Toomey Cc: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org Subject: Re: [TUHS] Non-US Unix Activities On 7 Apr 2017, at 00:09, Warren Toomey &lt;wkt(a)tuhs.org&gt; wrote: We certainly have some EUUG / UKUUG stuff, on paper though, and I'm not sure where they are and it is probably very partial. While going through papers recently we found what was I am reasonably sure the quote for the first Sun sold in Scotland which might be of some interest (inevitably I now don't know where it is, although we did not throw it away). We're not sure whether it is for that machine, but we are sure that my wife (who isn't on the list) ran it (a 2/120 we think). It started out with SunOS 1 (or perhaps before). Unfortunately we have thrown a lot of stuff away as we just didn't have room, including lots of SunOS & other distributions. We both have the usual anecdotes about doing what seems now like unreasonably heroic things to fix broken systems: nothing that almost everyone who ran machines in the 1980s did not do, I think. It's strange to think that when we first seriously encountered Unix it was about 14 or 15, while now it is 47: we've used Unix for the great majority of its life while not in any way feeling like 'old unix people': the systems we started with had huge address spaces, virtual memory and IP stacks and almost had things like NFS, and were just clearly almost unrecognisably advanced over what had existed in the early history which seemed so long ago but actually was not. --tim

(I'm from the Computer Science side of things. We (CS), AI and CogSci were joined together to form Informatics not very long before the fire, so I was often in the building but only familiar with parts of it. I got to know Forrest Hill *much* better.) My understanding is that it wasn't the lift shaft's fault. There were other vertical shafts through the building, and it was one of those which spread the fire. Apparently the fireman who opened it up got quite a surprise. Yes, that was a real shame. That's a pretty reasonable summary, and we were indeed, mostly. And the firesafe was at the other end of the building from the worst of the fire. There were a few people, though, who were taking personal backups and keeping them safely locked up in their desk drawers. We learned a lot from that experience! (Now we don't even consider Appleton Tower and the Informatics Forum, just across the street from each other, to be sufficiently far apart, so we mirror everything off-site to KB a couple of miles up the road.) Incidentally, <http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/> has a rather unstructured collection of historical Edinburgh computing stuff, though it is a bit skewed by where the contributors were originally based. The CAAD people were into UNIX quite early IIRC, but we don't have much from that side. Dragging us back onto list-topic, we were pretty much entirely a Sun site at that point. We (CS) used to do our own thing hardware- and systems-wise, but eventually UNIX boxes of various kinds started to appear. Initially it was a VAX 11/750 running 4.2BSD, which I mostly managed, then a Pyramid, a Gould (shared with AI and EE), then lots of Suns. It was economies of scale, really: they could sell us stuff cheaper than we could build it ourselves. Now we're mostly Linux on PCs, though with a motley collection of other odds and ends hung off. So I'm mostly an interested listener on this list! -- George D M Ross MSc PhD CEng MBCS CITP, University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9AB Mail: gdmr(a)inf.ed.ac.uk Voice: 0131 650 5147 Fax: 0131 650 6899 PGP: 1024D/AD758CC5 B91E D430 1E0D 5883 EF6A 426C B676 5C2B AD75 8CC5 The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.