[TUHS] Illumos )

[scj at yaccman.com]

My memories are somewhat fuzzy on this issue, but I vividly remember the
file corruptions.  The earliest Unix systems had a file format that
limited the size of a file to a size that proved to be too small.  So Ken
put in a "large file" format as well.  All files started out as small, but
as they grew they had to be rejiggered to become large files.  If the
system crashed while this rejiggering was going on, the file was toast.

The saving grace was that most of us were using model 33 or 37 teletypes,
so we had our edit history on paper.  When the system crashed, I picked up
a highlighter I kept next to the terminal, reeled in the paper that had
piled up behind the terminal, and highlighted the lines that would need to
be entered again.

One memorable day, I was working at home and the system crashed right
before lunch.  It was several hours before I could get back to the
terminal, and I discovered to my horror that our cat had mistaken the pile
of paper behind the terminal for her litter box.  Yes, I really did pick
up a highlighter and followed the usual plan, but I had to get another
color since the yellow didn't show up very well...

A later revision of the file system eliminated the small/large file
distinction, and disc corruptions became a rare event...

> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 8:53 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> Somewhere, deep in Minnie's bowels, is the article I wrote, explaining
>> exactly how to use icheck/ncheck/dcheck/clri etc.
>>
>
> ​Shows I am old - it would fun to read that again.  I never saw the
> article, I learned from doing it (wrong probably) a few times ;-)
> Then Ted gives us fsck  . . .
>
> Clem
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