[TUHS] /usr/bin/bs on HPUX?

Andrzej Popielewicz vasco at icpnet.pl
Fri Jan 9 20:51:38 AEST 2009


John Cowan pisze:
> Lord Doomicus scripsit:
>
>   
>> I was poking around an HP UX system at work today, and noticed a  
>> command I've never noticed before ... /usr/bin/bs.
>>
>> I'm sure it's been there for a long time, even though I've been an  
>> HPUX admin for more than a decade, sometimes I'm just blind ... but  
>> anyway ....
>>
>> I tried to search on google ... it looks like only HPUX, AIX, and  
>> Maybe AU/X has it.  Seems to be some kind of pseudo BASIC like  
>> interpreter.
>>     
>
> That's just what it is.  Here are the things I now know about it.
>
> 0.  The string "bs" gets an awful lot of false Google hits, no matter
> how hard you try.
>
> 1.  "bs" was written at AT&T, probably at the Labs, at some time between
> the release of 32V and System III.  It was part of both System III and
> at least some System V releases.
>
> 2.  It was probably meant as a replacement for "bas", which was a more
> conventional GW-Basic-style interpreter written in PDP-11 assembly
> language.  (32V still had the PDP-11 source, which of course didn't work.)
>
> 3.  At one time System III source code was available on the net,
> including bs.c and bs.1, but apparently it no longer is.  I downloaded
> it then but don't have it any more.
>
> 4.  I was able to compile it under several Unixes, but it wouldn't run:
> I think there must have been some kind of dependency on memory layout,
> but never found out exactly what.
>
> 5. I remember from the man page that it had regular expressions, and
> two commands "compile" and "execute" that switched modes to storing
> expressions and executing them on the spot, respectively.  That eliminated
> the need for line numbers.
>
> 6. It was apparently never part of Solaris.
>
> 7. It was never part of any BSD release, on which "bs" was the battleships
> game.
>
> 8. I can't find the man page on line anywhere either.
>
> 9. The man page said it had some Snobol features.  I think that meant
> the ability to return failure -- I vaguely remember an "freturn" command.
>
> 10.  99 Bottles of Beer has a sample bs program at
> http://www2.99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-bs-103.html .
>
> 11. If someone sends me a man page, I'll consider reimplementing it as
> Open Source.
>
>   
You will find public domain basic interpreter in Coherent archive mwcbbs

at

lynx gopher://rachael.dyndns.org/1

It is for pdp11, vax, coherent , motorola etc.

Andrzej



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