9 Jun
2021
9 Jun
'21
7:37 p.m.
So I've seen a number of places that talk about Unix TS 3.0 -> 4.0 -> 5.0
progression and how System III was released and System V was released and
System IV was internal only.
What I've not seen is the "why" part of this. Why was it internal only?
Warner
9 Jun
9 Jun
8:03 p.m.
There was never a System IV and System III was purely marketing, look at
the docs it's PWB 3.0 but the few AT&T marketing/branding folks around
didn't want to use the term 'Programmer' when it tried to compete with IBM
(which was Charlie Brown - AT&T CEO - dream in those days). As I
understand it, the issue was that said folks wanted to sell to commercial
sites (and in particular the 3B20S), and naming the software to drive with
a term like 'programmer' would be a turn-off for less technical
(traditional big blue) customers.
As for why PWB 4.0 never got released I believe that was there was a lag
between what Summit (NJ) did as the 'UNIX Support Group' and what was being
released as 'product' (NC). Remember this is all part of the post-Judge
Green world @ AT&T and things were not really smooth. >>>my
impression<<
(and like you would love to know more), was that the release of PWB 3.0 was
part of the pre-consent decree SW release rules, and by the time of System
V, it was full steam ahead. PWB 4.0 was finished up during that funny
period between the two.
ᐧ
ᐧ
On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 3:38 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
So I've seen a number of places that talk about
Unix TS 3.0 -> 4.0 -> 5.0
progression and how System III was released and System V was released and
System IV was internal only.
What I've not seen is the "why" part of this. Why was it internal only?
Warner
10 Jun
10 Jun
7:58 a.m.
Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
So I've seen a number of places that talk about
Unix TS 3.0 -> 4.0 -> 5.0
progression and how System III was released and System V was released and
System IV was internal only.
What I've not seen is the "why" part of this. Why was it internal only?
Warner
I did some contract programming at Southern Bell (one of the operating
companies) for a while, starting in the summer of 1982. We used
USG Unix 4.0 on a PDP-11/70. There were also vaxen.
It was no longer being called PWB by then. In fact, I think that PWB
was V6 based and an ancestor of System III.
System III had been released to the world. When I asked why AT&T
hadn't released Unix 4.0, I was told that the policy was to release
one version behind what was being run internally.
After the Bell System break up (1/1/1984), AT&T decided to just
release what was current, thus the jump to System V, with "System IV"
never having gotten outside the Bell System.
When I was doing the contract work, although we were on Unix 4.0,
we used documentation from Unix 3.0; they didn't bother reprinting /
updating the manuals since the primary changes were apparently
performance improvements in the kernel. (For example, they moved
to hash tables for many things instead of simple linked lists.)
I still have the reference manual and the photocopies I made of all
the other documentation. :-)
There was also a screen editor, named 'se' (NOT related to the Georgia
Tech 'se' editor) which they'd managed to shoehorn onto the '11.
It was kinda cool. I used both it and 'ed'. vi was also available but
I found the modal stuff weird and didn't end up learning it until a year
or two later. :-)
Hope this is of interest.
Arnold
8:04 a.m.
One other thing that was cool was that the doc defined UNIX as "an
operating system for the DEC PDP-11, DEC Vax, and the IBM System/370". :-)
arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
So I've seen a number of places that talk
about Unix TS 3.0 -> 4.0 -> 5.0
progression and how System III was released and System V was released and
System IV was internal only.
What I've not seen is the "why" part of this. Why was it internal only?
Warner
I did some contract programming at Southern Bell (one of the operating
companies) for a while, starting in the summer of 1982. We used
USG Unix 4.0 on a PDP-11/70. There were also vaxen.
It was no longer being called PWB by then. In fact, I think that PWB
was V6 based and an ancestor of System III.
System III had been released to the world. When I asked why AT&T
hadn't released Unix 4.0, I was told that the policy was to release
one version behind what was being run internally.
After the Bell System break up (1/1/1984), AT&T decided to just
release what was current, thus the jump to System V, with "System IV"
never having gotten outside the Bell System.
When I was doing the contract work, although we were on Unix 4.0,
we used documentation from Unix 3.0; they didn't bother reprinting /
updating the manuals since the primary changes were apparently
performance improvements in the kernel. (For example, they moved
to hash tables for many things instead of simple linked lists.)
I still have the reference manual and the photocopies I made of all
the other documentation. :-)
There was also a screen editor, named 'se' (NOT related to the Georgia
Tech 'se' editor) which they'd managed to shoehorn onto the '11.
It was kinda cool. I used both it and 'ed'. vi was also available but
I found the modal stuff weird and didn't end up learning it until a year
or two later. :-)
Hope this is of interest.
Arnold
4:05 p.m.
On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 3:59 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
System III had been released to the world. When I
asked why AT&T
hadn't released Unix 4.0, I was told that the policy was to release
one version behind what was being run internally.
I was under that impression - I had referred to it in my message as the
'pre-Judge Green release rules.'
After the Bell System break up (1/1/1984), AT&T decided to just
release what was current, thus the jump to System V,
with "System IV"
never having gotten outside the Bell System.
Right.
There was also a screen editor, named 'se'
(NOT related to the Georgia
Tech 'se' editor) which they'd managed to shoehorn onto the '11.
It was kinda cool. I used both it and 'ed'. vi was also available but
I found the modal stuff weird and didn't end up learning it until a year
or two later. :-)
I remember seeing se -- Brian Redman showed it to me IIRC. I never tried
using it myself. I remember that he was not happy that it was not vi. If
I recall the argument in USG was many of the BSD tools were not better or
even as good as what USG had already created. But the USG folks did
eventually add some of them to their stream because so many internal sites
were already using them. In particular, v, csh and col -- but there were
others too and the argument was we have those tools covered already i.e. pg
vs. more or se vs. vi
Hope this is of interest.
Definitely -- thank you.
Clem
ᐧ
ᐧ
4:08 p.m.
i will simply observe that when i joined bell labs in 1981, i was on the System III team.
we certainly did internal releases under that name..
On Jun 10, 2021, at 9:05 AM, Clem Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 3:59 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com
<mailto:arnold@skeeve.com>> wrote:
System III had been released to the world. When I asked why AT&T
hadn't released Unix 4.0, I was told that the policy was to release
one version behind what was being run internally.
I was under that impression - I had referred to it in my message as the 'pre-Judge
Green release rules.'
After the Bell System break up (1/1/1984), AT&T decided to just
release what was current, thus the jump to System V, with "System IV"
never having gotten outside the Bell System.
Right.
There was also a screen editor, named 'se' (NOT related to the Georgia
Tech 'se' editor) which they'd managed to shoehorn onto the '11.
It was kinda cool. I used both it and 'ed'. vi was also available but
I found the modal stuff weird and didn't end up learning it until a year
or two later. :-)
I remember seeing se -- Brian Redman showed it to me IIRC. I never tried using it
myself. I remember that he was not happy that it was not vi. If I recall the argument
in USG was many of the BSD tools were not better or even as good as what USG had already
created. But the USG folks did eventually add some of them to their stream because so
many internal sites were already using them. In particular, v, csh and col -- but there
were others too and the argument was we have those tools covered already i.e. pg vs. more
or se vs. vi
Hope this is of interest.
Definitely -- thank you.
Clem
ᐧ
ᐧ
5:36 p.m.
Andrew Hume <andrew(a)humeweb.com> wrote:
> > On Jun 10, 2021, at 9:05 AM, Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 3:59 AM <arnold(a)skeeve.com
<mailto:arnold@skeeve.com>> wrote:
> > System III had been released to the world. When I asked why AT&T
> > hadn't released Unix 4.0, I was told that the policy was to release
> > one version behind what was being run internally.
> > I was under that impression - I had referred to it in my message as the
'pre-Judge Green release rules.'
> >
> > After the Bell System break up (1/1/1984), AT&T decided to just
> > release what was current, thus the jump to System V, with "System IV"
> > never having gotten outside the Bell System.
> > Right.
> >
> > There was also a screen editor, named 'se' (NOT related to the
Georgia
> > Tech 'se' editor) which they'd managed to shoehorn onto the
'11.
> > It was kinda cool. I used both it and 'ed'. vi was also available but
> > I found the modal stuff weird and didn't end up learning it until a year
> > or two later. :-)
> > I remember seeing se -- Brian Redman showed it to me IIRC. I never tried using
it myself. I remember that he was not happy that it was not vi. If I recall the
argument in USG was many of the BSD tools were not better or even as good as what USG had
already created. But the USG folks did eventually add some of them to their stream
because so many internal sites were already using them. In particular, v, csh and col --
but there were others too and the argument was we have those tools covered already i.e. pg
vs. more or se vs. vi
> >
> >
> >
> > Hope this is of interest.
> > Definitely -- thank you.
> >
> > Clem
> > ᐧ
> > ᐧ
i will simply observe that when i joined bell labs in
1981, i was on
the System III team. we certainly did internal releases under that name..
I assume you mean under the name "PWB". I stand corrected. At Southern
Bell I'm pretty sure the doc did not use that name though. However, it's
been close to 40 years and I don't feel like digging out the manuals
to check. :-)
Thanks,
Arnold
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6 comments
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participants (4)
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Andrew Hume -
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Clem Cole -
Warner Losh