12 May
2018
12 May
'18
11:01 a.m.
From: Nemo
I have read that one of the first groups in AT&T
to use early Unix was
the legal dep't, specifically to use *roff to write patent applications.
Can anyone elaborate on this or supply references?
Are you familiar with the description in Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of
the Unix Time-sharing System":
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.htm
(in the section "The first PDP-11 system")? Not a great deal of detail, but...
It would also be interesting to learn how the writers
were taught *roff,
what editors were used
I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only editor available at that point.
Noel
12 May
12 May
11:38 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
Right and it was ASR37 (paper) if I’m not mistaken. Which were upper and lower case. I
also believe that is why that’s the default terminal that original roff and nroff assumes
it has.
This is before glass tty’s where popular
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite.
On May 12, 2018, at 7:01 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
From: Nemo
I have read that one of the first groups in
AT&T to use early Unix was
the legal dep't, specifically to use *roff to write patent applications.
Can anyone elaborate on this or supply references?
Are you familiar with the description in Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of
the Unix Time-sharing System":
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.htm
(in the section "The first PDP-11 system")? Not a great deal of detail, but...
It would also be interesting to learn how the
writers were taught *roff,
what editors were used
I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only editor available at that point.
Noel
6:56 p.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On 05/12/2018 05:01 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
Are you familiar with the description in Dennis M.
Ritchie, "The Evolution
of the Unix Time-sharing System":
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.htm
That link seems to be missing a final "l".
Link - The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System
- https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.html
Now where did I put my coffee?
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
13 May
13 May
1:52 p.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On 12/05/2018, Noel Chiappa <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
Yes -- that was (is) the source that I read. I was hoping for anecdotes
and the such from someone who was there.
"Ed, man!" #6-)
N.
From: Nemo
I have read that one of the first groups in
AT&T to use early Unix was
the legal dep't, specifically to use *roff to write patent applications.
Can anyone elaborate on this or supply references?
Are you familiar with the description in Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of
the Unix Time-sharing System":
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.htm
(in the section "The first PDP-11 system")? Not a great deal of detail,
but... It would also
be interesting to learn how the writers were taught *roff,
what editors were used
I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only editor available at that point.
Noel
15 May
15 May
1:21 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On Sat, 12 May 2018, Noel Chiappa wrote:
I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only
editor available at that point.
I boss I used to work for insisted that we all learn "ed", because one day
it might be the only editor available to you; well, one day he was right,
when /usr on a client's box got creamed after a head crash...
-- Dave
1:32 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On May 14, 2018, at 6:21 PM, Dave Horsfall
<dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
I boss I used to work for insisted that we all learn "ed", because one day it
might be the only editor available to you; well, one day he was right, when /usr on a
client's box got creamed after a head crash...
What I always find odd is the bunch moaning about ed(1) being obsolete, obtuse, and hard
to learn, tend to have a healthy stock of sed(1) scripts they ran hourly if not more
often.
2:06 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On Tue, 15 May 2018 11:21:22 +1000 Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
Dave Horsfall writes:
On Sat, 12 May 2018, Noel Chiappa wrote:
Your boss must've been an optimist.
I once had to rescue a system where the root dir block was
lost. No ed. Luckily our bootrom had commands for peek/poke
& disk block IO. The v7 filesystem layout was simple enough
and I remembered enough of it that I was able to patch it
enough to bring it up and run fsck.
I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only
editor available at that point.
I boss I used to work for insisted that we all learn "ed", because one day
it might be the only editor available to you; well, one day he was right,
when /usr on a client's box got creamed after a head crash... 
2:22 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
Bakul Shah writes:
On Tue, 15 May 2018 11:21:22 +1000 Dave Horsfall
<dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
Dave Horsfall writes:
If we're gonna get into "when I was young" stories we need to get
back to repairing filesystems from the front panel switches.
On Sat, 12 May 2018, Noel Chiappa wrote:
Your boss must've been an optimist.
I once had to rescue a system where the root dir block was
lost. No ed. Luckily our bootrom had commands for peek/poke
& disk block IO. The v7 filesystem layout was simple enough
and I remembered enough of it that I was able to patch it
enough to bring it up and run fsck. I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only
editor available at that point.
I boss I used to work for insisted that we all learn "ed", because one day
it might be the only editor available to you; well, one day he was right,
when /usr on a client's box got creamed after a head crash... 
2:45 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On Mon, May 14, 2018 at 07:27:26PM -0700, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
I watched Neil Lincoln do that on an ETA-10. Really did, though it wasn't
fsck, it was just the boot sequence.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
On May 14, 2018, at 7:22 PM, Jon Steinhart
<jon(a)fourwinds.com> wrote:
If we're gonna get into "when I was young" stories we need to get
back to repairing filesystems from the front panel switches.
s/repairing/entering/ 
10:28 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On May 15, 2018, at 3:27, Lyndon Nerenberg
<lyndon(a)orthanc.ca> wrote:
Early unixes had dsw: Delete by SWitch register.
jaap
On May 14, 2018, at 7:22 PM, Jon Steinhart
<jon(a)fourwinds.com> wrote:
If we're gonna get into "when I was young" stories we need to get
back to repairing filesystems from the front panel switches.
s/repairing/entering/
16 May
16 May
12:43 a.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On Tue, 15 May 2018, Jaap Akkerhuis wrote:
Early unixes had dsw: Delete by SWitch register.
Needed because the file system was then so !@#›%-up that "rm" wouldn't
work, so the i-number had to be keyed in.
It was also known as Delete Sh*t Work :-)
I think that "clri" was written shortly thereafterwards; I have a paper on
its use somewhere in the archives, from around the 70-80s.
-- Dave
15 May
15 May
8:49 p.m.
New subject: Who used *ROFF?
On Mon, 14 May 2018 19:22:58 -0700 Jon Steinhart <jon(a)fourwinds.com> wrote:
Jon Steinhart writes:
Bakul Shah writes:
:-)
My point was when Murphy's Law strikes, you can't rely having
even "ed". And it did strike us at a bad time -- 24 hours
before our flight to Las Vegas (for Comdex) where we wanted to
show off our *only* working prototype computer.
As for entering stuff from the front panel switches, my first
boss in Silicon Valley had told me that as a postdoc he had
entered an experimental *compiler* through the front panel
switches on a Minsk-2! I never got around to asking him for
the details though.
[Minsk-2 was a discrete transistor Russian computer, with 4K
of 37 bit words. I/O via paper tape.]
On Tue, 15 May 2018 11:21:22 +1000 Dave Horsfall
<dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
Dave Horsfall writes:
If we're gonna get into "when I was young" stories we need to get
back to repairing filesystems from the front panel switches. On Sat, 12 May 2018, Noel Chiappa wrote:
Your boss must've been an optimist.
I once had to rescue a system where the root dir block was
lost. No ed. Luckily our bootrom had commands for peek/poke
& disk block IO. The v7 filesystem layout was simple enough
and I remembered enough of it that I was able to patch it
enough to bring it up and run fsck. I'm pretty sure 'ed' was the only
editor available at that point.
I boss I used to work for insisted that we all learn "ed", because one day
it might be the only editor available to you; well, one day he was right,
when /usr on a client's box got creamed after a head crash...
2173
days inactive
2177
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13 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
Bakul Shah -
Clem cole -
Dave Horsfall -
Grant Taylor -
Jaap Akkerhuis -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
Jon Steinhart -
Larry McVoy -
Lyndon Nerenberg -
Nemo