9 Nov
2015
9 Nov
'15
1:39 a.m.
> I thought PWB (makers of "make") came
from Harvard?
PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure about all
the
applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
Doug
9 Nov
9 Nov
1:48 a.m.
Doug McIlroy scripsit:
PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in
research.
Which is why, according to Google folklore, the desktop he
was set up with on the first day did not have a TAB key.
PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
find and eval.
The Mashey shell, obviously, and -mm. Wikipedia claims that
cpio, expr, xargs, yacc, and lex first appeared outside
the Bell Labs boundary in the PWB release, though at least
the last two were certainly not PWB-specific.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
If you understand, things are just as they are.
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
2:12 a.m.
Doug
Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB when he came as a grad student. It was
based on functionality from ITS that he as used to having at MIT. Summit wrote a similar
program with the same called page(1) and I'm fairly sure it was few years after
Eric's program. Btw page(1) which did not have the same functionality (no termcap or
in there case terminfo yet). Less(1) would show up a few years later and replace them
both.
Clem
Sent from my iPad
On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> I thought
PWB (makers of "make") came from Harvard?
PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure
about all the
applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
Doug
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs 
2:54 a.m.
Clem,
In trying to check on some memories of mine, I came across your answer on
Quora about "What is the difference between less and cat command?”, in which
you mention that Wikipedia had it wrong about Dan Halbert writing more(1).
What Dan did tell me many years ago is that he wrote a program called “less”
when he was at Berkeley as a near-parody on more(1). Its notable feature was
that it went backwards through the file, displaying in the opposite direction.
This, of course, had nothing to do with what we now know as less(1), and that code
is probably lost to history.
- Win
On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:12 PM, Clement T. Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Doug
Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB when he came as a grad student. It was
based on functionality from ITS that he as used to having at MIT. Summit wrote a similar
program with the same called page(1) and I'm fairly sure it was few years after
Eric's program. Btw page(1) which did not have the same functionality (no termcap or
in there case terminfo yet). Less(1) would show up a few years later and replace them
both.
Clem
Sent from my iPad
On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> I
thought PWB (makers of "make") came from Harvard?
PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure
about all the
applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
Doug
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
2:58 a.m.
Of course, as soon as I sent that, I found Dan Halbert’s version of things
at http://www.danhalbert.org/more.html
For what that’s worth.
- Win
On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:54 PM, Win Treese
<treese(a)acm.org> wrote:
Clem,
In trying to check on some memories of mine, I came across your answer on
Quora about "What is the difference between less and cat command?”, in which
you mention that Wikipedia had it wrong about Dan Halbert writing more(1).
What Dan did tell me many years ago is that he wrote a program called “less”
when he was at Berkeley as a near-parody on more(1). Its notable feature was
that it went backwards through the file, displaying in the opposite direction.
This, of course, had nothing to do with what we now know as less(1), and that code
is probably lost to history.
- Win
On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:12 PM, Clement T. Cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Doug
Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB when he came as a grad student. It was
based on functionality from ITS that he as used to having at MIT. Summit wrote a similar
program with the same called page(1) and I'm fairly sure it was few years after
Eric's program. Btw page(1) which did not have the same functionality (no termcap or
in there case terminfo yet). Less(1) would show up a few years later and replace them
both.
Clem
Sent from my iPad
On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> I
thought PWB (makers of "make") came from Harvard?
PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure
about all the
applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
Doug
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
3:36 a.m.
Interesting. If I run Into Eric any time soon I'll have to ask him. As I recall I
don't remember Dan's version but I do remember Eric's. Nor do I remember
Geoff hacking on it. Plus if you look at the CSRG db from Kirk, the DB shows Eric as the
creator. What's more Dan's name is not in the man page - Eric's is.
I wonder if this is a case where Dan wrote something specific for the ADM's and the
11s and Eric did something similar more general around the sametime. FWIW: Eric had
always claimed to me that he wrote it and it is my memory that I got the sources from him
for our systems in the CAD group in Cory hall (and have never had a reason to doubt him in
that claim).
I do remember more(1) was was one of the first programs that used Hortons termcap library
that he had pulled out of joy's vi and greatly enhanced. Mike Arnold then took it
and created curses (for Rogue actually).
Btw Because of using termcap it forced a lot of us to put the termcap strings in the
environment to speed up program start.
Dans memory of the undergrad PDP 11 had being over loaded does line up with my memory. A
couple of us were teaching CS-40 (the intro undergrad course) around that time and
undergrads used the Cory 70s. I avoided them as much as possible.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:58 PM, Win Treese
<treese(a)acm.org> wrote:
Of course, as soon as I sent that, I found Dan Halbert’s version of things
at http://www.danhalbert.org/more.html
For what that’s worth.
- Win
On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:54 PM, Win Treese
<treese(a)acm.org> wrote:
Clem,
In trying to check on some memories of mine, I came across your answer on
Quora about "What is the difference between less and cat command?”, in which
you mention that Wikipedia had it wrong about Dan Halbert writing more(1).
What Dan did tell me many years ago is that he wrote a program called “less”
when he was at Berkeley as a near-parody on more(1). Its notable feature was
that it went backwards through the file, displaying in the opposite direction.
This, of course, had nothing to do with what we now know as less(1), and that code
is probably lost to history.
- Win
> On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:12 PM, Clement T. Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
>
> Doug
>
> Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB when he came as a grad student. It
was based on functionality from ITS that he as used to having at MIT. Summit wrote a
similar program with the same called page(1) and I'm fairly sure it was few years
after Eric's program. Btw page(1) which did not have the same functionality (no
termcap or in there case terminfo yet). Less(1) would show up a few years later and
replace them both.
>
> Clem
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
>>>> I thought PWB (makers of "make") came from Harvard?
>>
>>> PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure about all the
>>> applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
>>
>> PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
>> PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
>> find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
>> separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
>>
>> Doug
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
3:51 a.m.
I should add - I certainly remember the ITS behavior from my old accounts there. I also
know Eric came to UCB after MIT. Dan may have also but I can not verify that and I have
no reason to not believe his story other than what Eric had said to me over the years and
my own memories of the time.
Basically the two programs I remember were Eric's more(1) and later Summit's
pager which was a poor cousin to Eric's program and having to put Eric's program
on AT&T based flavors so my own Finger ROMs could type comfortably.
Clem
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 8, 2015, at 10:36 PM, Clem cole
<clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Interesting. If I run Into Eric any time soon I'll have to ask him. As I recall I
don't remember Dan's version but I do remember Eric's. Nor do I remember
Geoff hacking on it. Plus if you look at the CSRG db from Kirk, the DB shows Eric as the
creator. What's more Dan's name is not in the man page - Eric's is.
I wonder if this is a case where Dan wrote something specific for the ADM's and the
11s and Eric did something similar more general around the sametime. FWIW: Eric had
always claimed to me that he wrote it and it is my memory that I got the sources from him
for our systems in the CAD group in Cory hall (and have never had a reason to doubt him in
that claim).
I do remember more(1) was was one of the first programs that used Hortons termcap library
that he had pulled out of joy's vi and greatly enhanced. Mike Arnold then took it
and created curses (for Rogue actually).
Btw Because of using termcap it forced a lot of us to put the termcap strings in the
environment to speed up program start.
Dans memory of the undergrad PDP 11 had being over loaded does line up with my memory. A
couple of us were teaching CS-40 (the intro undergrad course) around that time and
undergrads used the Cory 70s. I avoided them as much as possible.
Sent from my iPhone
> On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:58 PM, Win Treese <treese(a)acm.org> wrote:
>
>
> Of course, as soon as I sent that, I found Dan Halbert’s version of things
> at http://www.danhalbert.org/more.html
>
> For what that’s worth.
>
> - Win
>
>> On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:54 PM, Win Treese <treese(a)acm.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Clem,
>>
>> In trying to check on some memories of mine, I came across your answer on
>> Quora about "What is the difference between less and cat command?”, in
which
>> you mention that Wikipedia had it wrong about Dan Halbert writing more(1).
>>
>> What Dan did tell me many years ago is that he wrote a program called “less”
>> when he was at Berkeley as a near-parody on more(1). Its notable feature was
>> that it went backwards through the file, displaying in the opposite direction.
>>
>> This, of course, had nothing to do with what we now know as less(1), and that
code
>> is probably lost to history.
>>
>> - Win
>>
>>> On Nov 8, 2015, at 9:12 PM, Clement T. Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Doug
>>>
>>> Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB when he came as a grad
student. It was based on functionality from ITS that he as used to having at MIT.
Summit wrote a similar program with the same called page(1) and I'm fairly sure it
was few years after Eric's program. Btw page(1) which did not have the same
functionality (no termcap or in there case terminfo yet). Less(1) would show up a few
years later and replace them both.
>>>
>>> Clem
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:39 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu>
wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> I thought PWB (makers of "make") came from Harvard?
>>>>
>>>>> PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure about all the
>>>>> applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
>>>>
>>>> PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
>>>> PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
>>>> find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
>>>> separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
>>>>
>>>> Doug
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> TUHS mailing list
>>>> TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
>>>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> TUHS mailing list
>>> TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
>>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
3:40 p.m.
On Sun, 8 Nov 2015, Clem cole wrote:
I do remember more(1) was was one of the first
programs that used
Hortons termcap library that he had pulled out of joy's vi and greatly
enhanced. Mike Arnold then took it and created curses (for Rogue
actually).
Wouldn't that be Ken Arnold? Clearly I remember the message "You are as
smart as Ken Arnold in dungeon %d" when quaffing a certain potion.
Ah, many days I spent playing Rogue, when I should've been working, and
coming to grips with all its versions.
Who remembers Rog-o-matic? I vaguely remember that it actually walked off
with the Amulet of Yendor.
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."
3:54 p.m.
Sorry - typo/brain f*rt -- Ken Arnold
On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Sun, 8 Nov 2015, Clem cole wrote:
I do remember more(1) was was one of the first
programs that used
Hortons termcap library that he had pulled out of joy's vi and greatly
enhanced. Mike Arnold then took it and created curses (for Rogue
actually).
Wouldn't that be Ken Arnold? Clearly I remember the message "You are as
smart as Ken Arnold in dungeon %d" when quaffing a certain potion.
Ah, many days I spent playing Rogue, when I should've been working, and
coming to grips with all its versions.
Who remembers Rog-o-matic? I vaguely remember that it actually walked off
with the Amulet of Yendor.
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
10:12 p.m.
My recollection matches Clem's - I was there and I thought Eric wrote
"more".
Dan was definitely there and he might have done the first version, but
I don't recall that. I do recall the story about MIT, and I sure that
ITS was the inspiration. And I recall Eric noting the space bar was
the "next page" key (as opposed to Return which other programs
expected) because it's the biggest key on the keyboard.
I can't take credit for pulling libtermcap (originally libtermlib) out
of vi, Bill Joy had already done that before I took on vi and termcap.
Mary Ann
Quoting Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com>om>:
Interesting. If I run Into Eric any time soon
I'll have to ask him.
As I recall I don't remember Dan's version but I do remember Eric's.
Nor do I remember Geoff hacking on it. Plus if you look at the CSRG
db from Kirk, the DB shows Eric as the creator. What's more Dan's
name is not in the man page - Eric's is.
I wonder if this is a case where Dan wrote something specific for
the ADM's and the 11s and Eric did something similar more general
around the sametime. FWIW: Eric had always claimed to me that he
wrote it and it is my memory that I got the sources from him for our
systems in the CAD group in Cory hall (and have never had a reason
to doubt him in that claim).
I do remember more(1) was was one of the first programs that used
Hortons termcap library that he had pulled out of joy's vi and
greatly enhanced. (Ken) Arnold then took it and created curses (for
Rogue actually).
3:38 a.m.
Win Treese <treese(a)acm.org> writes:
Of course, as soon as I sent that, I found Dan
Halbert’s version of things
at http://www.danhalbert.org/more.html
From that page:
I named the program more. This was a daring move at the time, since it
was such a long name for a UNIX command, and was also a real English
word.
That makes me wonder... where does pg(1) fit into this history? There's
a version of it in the 32V tree in the TUHS archive, but nowhere else,
yet it surfaces in modern Unixes such as Solaris and there's a clone in
the "util-linux" package. It also shows up in SuSv2 (marked LEGACY, and
absent from later versions). Was it part of System III/V?
4:50 a.m.
The Summit folks created pg(1). It was definitely in System V. But I think Doug's
memory of it being there much earlier coincides with my memory. As I mentioned more(1)
was part of the source kit I carried with me to non-BSD systems that I needed so I could
type comfortably.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 8, 2015, at 10:38 PM, Random832
<random832(a)fastmail.com> wrote:
Win Treese <treese(a)acm.org> writes:
Of course, as soon as I sent that, I found Dan
Halbert’s version of things
at http://www.danhalbert.org/more.html
From that page:
I named the program more. This was a daring move
at the time, since it
was such a long name for a UNIX command, and was also a real English
word.
That makes me wonder... where does pg(1) fit into this history? There's
a version of it in the 32V tree in the TUHS archive, but nowhere else,
yet it surfaces in modern Unixes such as Solaris and there's a clone in
the "util-linux" package. It also shows up in SuSv2 (marked LEGACY, and
absent from later versions). Was it part of System III/V?
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
1:58 p.m.
Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB
Amusing result of ambiguity. I had written
PWB did make SCCS. I believe it also originated cico,
find and eval. Probably more, too, but I can't reliably
separate PWB's other contributions from USG's.
The intended meaning was, "Probably more things, too",
things like "cut" and "paste", whose exact provenance
I can't recall. And I got 2 out of 3 wrong in the list
"cico, find and eval", which should have been "cpio,
find and expr".
Less(1) would show up a few years later and replace
[page and more].
And to set a world benchmark for software bloat. For a good time try
less --help | wc
Doug
2:44 p.m.
Doug McIlroy scripsit:
And to set a world benchmark for software bloat. For a
good time try
less --help | wc
I disagree entirely: it's a matter of how you see less. For me it is
roughly comparable to ed (and indeed the primary documentation is about
the same size). Both have the function of letting you inspect, in ways
not predictable in advance, the contents of a file. Ed also allows
you to modify the file, whereas less has a more convenient interface
for dealing with pipeline output, and has single-keystroke convenience
commands, notably space.
(IWBNI ed had a switch to make it read stdin into the buffer and then
read commands from /dev/tty. Obviously a wrapper script could achieve
this easily.)
Disclaimer: I actually use ex, not ed: I'm willing to trade off a
litttle less standardosity for a little more convenience. That also
of a minimal subset of vi commands when dealing with code that contains
highly repetitive strings, notably Lisp parentheses.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
"Repeat this until 'update-mounts -v' shows no updates.
You may well have to log in to particular machines, hunt down
people who still have processes running, and kill them."
10 Nov
10 Nov
8:26 p.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1) (was: PWB contributions)
[2015-11-09 08:58] Doug McIlroy <doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu>
things like "cut" and "paste", whose exact provenance
I can't recall.
Thanks for reminding me that I wanted to share my portrait of
cut(1) with you. (I sent some questions to this list, a few
months ago, remember?) Now, here it is:
http://marmaro.de/docs/freiesmagazin/cut/cut.en.pdf
Hope you like it.
meillo
10:10 p.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1) (was: PWB contributions)
On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 3:26 PM, markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
Fascinating - thanks for sharing.
Clem
11:10 p.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1) (was: PWB contributions)
On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 9:26 PM, markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
[2015-11-09 08:58] Doug McIlroy
<doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu>
Great read. I always liked cut(1).
--Andy
things like "cut" and "paste", whose exact provenance
I can't recall.
Thanks for reminding me that I wanted to share my portrait of
cut(1) with you. (I sent some questions to this list, a few
months ago, remember?) Now, here it is:
http://marmaro.de/docs/freiesmagazin/cut/cut.en.pdf
Hope you like it.
11:12 p.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1) (was: PWB contributions)
Andy Kosela scripsit:
Great read. I always liked cut(1).
The fact that it refuses to reorder fields is kinda annoying, though.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
You annoy me, Rattray! You disgust me! You irritate me unspeakably!
Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable temper, or I should scarcely be able
to contain myself before your mocking visage. --Stalky imitating Macrea
11:39 p.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1) (was: PWB contributions)
Larry McVoy scripsit:
cut .... | awk '{print $2,$1}'
I didn't say there was no workaround. But obviously "cut -f 3,2,1"
expresses a particular intention which (by design) cut will not satisfy.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Pour moi, les villes du Silmarillion ont plus de realite que Babylone.
--Christopher Tolkien, as interviewed by Le Monde
11 Nov
11 Nov
12:16 a.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1)
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> writes:
[2015-11-09 08:58] Doug McIlroy
<doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu>
Did you happen to find out what GWRL stands for, in the the comments at
the top of early versions of cut.c and paste.c?
/* cut : cut and paste columns of a table (projection of a relation) (GWRL) */
/* Release 1.5; handles single backspaces as produced by nroff */
/* paste: concatenate corresponding lines of each file in parallel. Release 1.4 (GWRL) */
/* (-s option: serial concatenation like old (127's) paste command */
For that matter, what's the "old (127's) paste command" it refers to?
things like "cut" and
"paste", whose exact provenance
I can't recall.
Thanks for reminding me that I wanted to share my portrait of
cut(1) with you. (I sent some questions to this list, a few
months ago, remember?) Now, here it is:
http://marmaro.de/docs/freiesmagazin/cut/cut.en.pdf
12:23 p.m.
New subject: A portrait of cut(1)
[2015-11-10 19:16] Random832 <random832(a)fastmail.com>
Did you happen to find out what GWRL stands for, in the the comments at
the top of early versions of cut.c and paste.c?
/* cut : cut and paste columns of a table (projection of a relation) (GWRL) *
/
/* Release 1.5; handles single backspaces as produced by nroff */
/* paste: concatenate corresponding lines of each file in parallel. Release 1.4 (GWRL)
*/
/* (-s option: serial concatenation like old (127's) paste command */
For that matter, what's the "old (127's) paste command" it refers to?
Unfortunately I have no clue, for neither of them.
To resolve ``GWRL'', insider knowledge seems to be needed. (Or a cool
party with creative buddies, of course! (Today's the opening of the
carnival season in Germany ... that could be an opportunity. :-D ))
``127'', whatever system that might be, it surely predates UNIX.
Background knowledge from the time back then will be necessary.
I can provide neither of them ... and searching for such stuff is
difficult because the terms and their context are too generic.
(``cut and paste'' is by no means a valuable context if you try
to search for it. ;-) )
Maybe someone older or more inside has some ideas ...
meillo
9 Nov
9 Nov
10:23 p.m.
On Sun, 8 Nov 2015, Clement T. Cole wrote:
Doug
Eric Shienbrood originally wrote more(1) at UCB when he came as a grad
student. It was based on functionality from ITS that he as used to
having at MIT. Summit wrote a similar program with the same called
page(1) and I'm fairly sure it was few years after Eric's program. Btw
page(1) which did not have the same functionality (no termcap or in
there case terminfo yet). Less(1) would show up a few years later and
replace them both.
From my book in progress ...
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Many students were writing various pieces of software not in the context of
some larger purpose, but for their benefit. They were then included when
Joy
% and company
collected up the existing software and distributed it.\cite{halbert1}
In the Berkeley terminal rooms, the dumb terminals beeped
incessantly so most of the bell speakers had been disconnected.
Their \emph{cr3} pager tool rang the terminal bell and waited for a carriage
return after every 24 lines.
The terminals also rang the bell when the cursor advanced near the
right margin on output or keyboard input (like a typewriter
bell).\cite{halbert-jchac1-4}
% TODO: mention cr3 stty mode?
% archives/1970s/2bsd/src/cr3.c says 22 lines and no mention of sound
So Dan Halbert\index{Halbert, Dan}.
who arrived in 1978 as a first-year graduate student,
wrote a pager called \emph{more} that printed ``--More--''
instead of ringing the bell and accepted the space
instead of carriage return to continue. Plus it could take multiple
filenames and print a line of colons around the filenames.
This was inspired by his use of the ITS timesharing systems as an
undergraduate at MIT that put a ``--MORE--'' prompt at the bottom
of the screen when displaying files.\cite{halbert-jchac1-4}
His friends and fellow graduate students, Geoff
Peck\index{Peck, Geoff} and Eric Shienbrood\index{Shienbrood, Eric},
greatly expanded it, adding various
options -- and \emph{more} was added into the next distribution.\cite{halbert1}
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Date: 17 Jun 2010
@MISC{halbert1,
author = {Dan Halbert},
howpublished = "Personal correspondence",
year = 2010,
month = jun
}
@ARTICLE{halbert-jchac1-4,
author = "Dan Halbert",
title = "{THE "MORE" COMMAND IN UNIX}",
journal = "Journal of the Computer History Association of California",
year = 1994,
month = "April-June",
volume = "1",
number = "4" }
Prior to that Chuck Haley had a pager called cr3. Then Bill Joy
simulated that with a filter "stopping output after each page (22
lines) to wait for a carriage return, sending 22 more lines, or a EOF,
sending 10 more lines." (That quote is from the source.)
By the way, I don't have experience with the CR3 control register, and
don't really understand what it means from the hardware perspective.
10 Nov
10 Nov
4:11 a.m.
"Jeremy C. Reed" <reed(a)reedmedia.net> writes:
By the way, I don't have experience with the CR3
control register, and
don't really understand what it means from the hardware perspective.
If I understand correctly, it's not hardware, it's part of the kernel
tty driver. There's a two bit field in the stty flags, for selecting a
delay mode. The purpose of the delay was to allow the terminal time to
process it (i.e. to physically move the carriage, for a printing
terminal) - the kernel would wait before sending more characters.
As can be seen in tty.c (link below), CR1 caused a delay of 5 units, and
CR2 a delay of 10 units. CR3 had no meaning in the standard kernel, and
so some custom version of the kernel could have interpreted it to have
some other meaning.
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/sys/dev/tty.c
It's not clear where this was actually done. The 3BSD kernel used
CR3 to indicate that (if I read it correctly) a number of padding
characters depending on the column position should be inserted.
P.S. Somewhat confusingly, searching for "CR3" finds a page about
"control registers" of the _intel 386_, of which CR3 has something to do
with "paging" in the virtual memory sense of the word. This has nothing
to do with the topic under discussion.
9 Nov
9 Nov
4:44 a.m.
On Sun, Nov 08, 2015 at 08:39:12PM -0500, Doug McIlroy wrote:
Marc Rochkind did SCCS, right? Wikipedia said he did it at Bell Labs.
Does anyone on the list remember him? I'd love to hear some stories
about how SCCS was created.
Warning: source management rant coming.
SCCS got a bad rap from Walter Tichy when he created RCS, I can't remember
his dislike but it's completely wrong. RCS is diff based, you have a file
and a series of patches. For the tip of the trunk, that's the file, going
backwards in history they are reverse patches. OK, not so crazy. But now
think about a branch. You do reverse patches back to the branch point and
forward patches down to the tip of the branch. Anyone living on a branch
hated RCS.
SCCS has interleaved deltas. It's a brilliant design that has far far
better performance than anything else out there. I'll explain that if
anyone cares but I'd love to know if anyone talked to Marc while he was
building SCCS. Love to learn how he came up with that.
The reason I know so much about SCCS is that BitKeeper is sort of SCCS
on steroids, we took the file format, fixed a bunch of stuff, and made
the first distributed version control system with it. Git, Mercurial,
all the others, are copies of what we did.
I wish Marc was on this list, be fun to chat.
--lm
> I thought
PWB (makers of "make") came from Harvard?
PWB ... came straight out of Bell. Not sure
about all the
applications (well, SCCS came from Bell).
PWB did not create make; Stu Feldman did it in research.
PWB did make SCCS.
4:51 a.m.
Larry McVoy scripsit:
I wish Marc was on this list, be fun to chat.
rochkind(a)basepath.com. I don't know him, but those who do, or who
have more chutzpah than I, may want to tell him about us.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Dream projects long deferred usually bite the wax tadpole.
--James Lileks
5:07 a.m.
Doing it now.
On Sun, Nov 08, 2015 at 11:51:08PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
Larry McVoy scripsit:
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
I wish Marc was on this list, be fun to chat.
rochkind(a)basepath.com. I don't know him, but those who do, or who
have more chutzpah than I, may want to tell him about us.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Dream projects long deferred usually bite the wax tadpole.
--James Lileks
5:09 a.m.
Um, can someone tell me how to tell Marc how he signs up if he is interested?
On Sun, Nov 08, 2015 at 09:07:50PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
Doing it now.
On Sun, Nov 08, 2015 at 11:51:08PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
Larry McVoy scripsit:
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm I wish Marc was on this list, be fun to chat.
rochkind(a)basepath.com. I don't know him, but those who do, or who
have more chutzpah than I, may want to tell him about us.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
Dream projects long deferred usually bite the wax tadpole.
--James Lileks
5:16 a.m.
Larry McVoy scripsit:
Um, can someone tell me how to tell Marc how he signs
up if he is interested?
Per the Mailman page: he find Warren Toomey's email at tuhs.org and asks
him. If he can't figure out how to get that email, he's lost to the
Dark Side of the Force.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan(a)ccil.org
If a traveler were informed that such a man [as Lord John Russell] was
leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the
Egyptians worshiped an insect. --Benjamin Disraeli
3092
days inactive
3094
days old
30 comments
15 participants
participants (15)
-
Andy Kosela -
Clem cole -
Clem Cole
-
Clement T. Cole
-
Dave Horsfall -
Doug McIlroy -
Jeremy C. Reed -
John Cowan -
Larry McVoy -
Leonardo Taccari -
markus schnalke -
Mary Ann Horton -
Random832 -
Ronald Natalie -
Win Treese